2 Corinthians 3:12-17

Butler's Commentary

SECTION 3

It Divests People of Freedom (2 Corinthians 3:12-17)

12 Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, 13not like Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not see the end of the fading splendor. 14But their minds were hardened; for to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. 15Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their minds; 16but when a man turns to the Lord the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

2 Corinthians 3:12-13 Conceals: Moses put a veil over his face after he finished speaking with the Israelites (Exodus 34:33-34) and removed the veil when he went in to speak with Jehovah in the tabernacle. But Moses always put the veil on when he came into the presence of the Israelites. Paul states that Moses put the veil on his face so the Israelites would not see the end of the glory that was fading away (2 Corinthians 3:13). Paul states the veil was because Moses did not have enough hope in the fading away revelation to be bold enough to let Israel see the fading glory. Moses certainly did not veil his face because the Israelites were not allowed to see the glow, or because it was so bright it blinded them, for Moses talked to them before putting on the veil. The apostle used the fading glory of Moses-' face as a symbol or type (which is prophetic) of the fading glory of the Old covenant (the law). That covenant passed away, like the glow of Moses-' face. Even though the Old Testament predicts in a number of places that the old covenant was to be done away (e.g. Jeremiah 3:15; Jeremiah 31:31-34; Daniel 9:24-27; Isaiah 66:1-24; etc.), most Jews refused to accept that doctrine then and Jews do not accept it now! The Israelite people to whom Moses ministered were certainly not spiritually mature enough to be reminded over and over of the fading glory of Moses-' relationship to Godthat is why Moses covered his face. The Jews killed the prophets for predicting the fulfillment of the old dispensation with the Messianic age; they killed Christ for that; and they authored the deaths of a number of the apostles for preaching that doctrine.

Legalism veils the freedom (so did the Law of Moses) God intended to give believers in Christ. The prophets hinted at the freedom that would come to man when the Messiah came (see especially Isaiah 61:1-4 as fulfilled in Luke 4:18-19). But that freedom was concealed and obscured in the Law. Any form of legalism certainly hides the freedom which God reveals in the New Testament of Christ Jesus.

2 Corinthians 3:14-15 Calluses: Legalism hardens the mind against grace. The veil over Moses-' face was also a symbol of the hardening of the minds of the Israelites in rejecting Christ. Fourteen centuries after Moses, the Jewish mind was still hardened in Paul's day whenever the Law of Moses was read in a Jewish synagoguea veil lay upon the hearts of the Jews and they became satisfied with a system of justification by legalism. Twenty centuries after Paul, that hardness is still like concrete over the Jewish mind. Paul told the brethren of Thessalonica that they had suffered the same things from their own countrymen as the Christians of Judea did from the Jews, who (the Jews) killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us (apostles) out, and displease God and oppose all men by hindering us (the apostles) from speaking to the Gentiles that they may be savedso as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But God's wrath has come upon them (the Jews) to completion (Gr. eis telos, unto perfection), see 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16. That same kind of callused opposition to Christ and his church continues to go on in modern Israel and among modern Jews.

Jewish legalism is not the only legalism which opposes the gospel. All forms of legalism are set against grace! There is an inveterate legalism within the Christian Church which takes an obscurantist and obdurate stand in opposition to Christian grace and freedom in Christ. The human arrogance that is proud of its pseudo-righteousness through legalistic justification makes war on the humility which rejoices in its freedom through grace alone.

2 Corinthians 3:16-17 Constrains: Paul says plainly that when a person turns to the Lord the veil is removed. Men are free only in the Lord. The obverse truth is that men are enslaved in Law and legalism. The apostle states it much clearer in Galatians. He specifically uses the words, consigned under and confined under. restraint in Galatians 3:21-25. In Galatians 4:1-7 he uses the word slave to describe those under the Law (see also Galatians 4:21-31 for the allegorical picture of those under the Law as children for slavery). Jesus told those who committed themselves to him that they were no longer slaves (John 15:15). He told the Jews that if they would continue in his word, they would be his disciples and they would know the truth and the truth would make them free (see John 8:31-38).

Legalism is even more enslaving than the Law, for legalism cannot do what the Law was sent to doto bring people to an acknowledgment of their sinfulness and lead them to Christ for mercy. Legalism will have none of mercy for it does not acknowledge its need for mercy.