2 Corinthians 3:17

Now the Lord is that Spirit. (1.) The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not body but spirit. Spirit in this explanation is taken essentially for what is common to the Three Persons. So S. Ambrose. (2.) Spirit here way stand for the Holy Spirit: the Greek MSS. have the definite article, and Roman Bibles and others spell it with a capital; for the Jews acknowledge one Lord and God, but deny that there is a plurality of Persons, and that the Holy Spirit is God. When the Jews shall have the veil taken away and shall be converted to the Lord and to belief in the Blessed Trinity then will they serve the Lord their God, not in the letter, with dumb corporeal ceremonies, but in the spirit. The God to whom they shall be converted is Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will give them the law of the Spirit of liberty, that with the eyes of their spirit they may see Christ veiled, under the law, and may worship Him in spirit and in truth. Cf. S. John iv. 23. S. Augustine (ad Serapion) thus explains this last passage: " We must worship the Father in truth, i.e., in the Son and Holy Spirit. We must worship the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." But this is the mystical meaning.

Literally, Christ said this against the Samaritans and Jews, for the Samaritans worshipped God with worship that was false and devised by themselves, and so worshipped God together with idols; consequently the God of their worship was not the true God, but a created god of their imaginations, and the companion of idols. The Jews worshipped the true God indeed, but under fixed corporeal signs, which were shadows of things to come. To both of these Christ opposes Christians, who worship God in spirit and not in corporeal signs, and in truth instead of in shadows, falsehood, and ignorance. God is an incorporeal and pure Spirit. Spirit, therefore, in this passage denotes the spiritual worship of faith, hope, charity, and other virtues, by which God is worshipped in truth, i.e., most truly, rightly, and properly, and not by shadows. Wherefore the sacraments and ceremonies of the New Law, since they are not shadows of the Old Law, but ornaments and helps of the Spirit, belong to the Spirit. Theophylact, Theodoret, Chrysostom thus explain the passage, and prove from it against Macedonius that the Holy Spirit is God.

It may be said that the same Spirit is afterwards called "the Spirit of the Lord." How, then, is He the Lord? The answer is: He is "the Lord" because He is God; He is "of the Lord" because He proceeds from the Father and the Son.

And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Liberty denotes a spontaneous, frank, free, and clearly illuminated will. Now that the veil of Moses has been taken away, we can, with clear and spontaneous will, walk according to the law of God. So Theophylact.

Notice that liberty is not here opposed to the obligation of law, Divine or human, as heretics think, but both to the veil of Moses, or the obscurity of the Old Law, and to the letter, or to the servile compulsion, fear, and deadness of the law. This liberty, therefore, is twofold. See notes to ver. 6.

1. Liberty is, says Chrysostom, an understanding, and clear knowledge of the mystery of the Trinity, of the incarnation, and other things that are obscure to the Jews. It is also a knowledge of true religion and of Divine worship, which the Jews supposed to consist in the sacrifice of bulls and goats, though God wills to be worshipped in spirit and in truth. Just as heaviness, dulness, perplexity, and ignorance of the understanding, which hold the mind as it were fast bound in chains, are rightly called slavery, so on the other hand illumination of the intellect and clear knowledge are rightly called liberty, because the mind, set free from ignorance, error, and crass conceptions, is able to freely devote itself to truth, to God, to things spiritual and Divine. Hence Aristotle, Plutarch, Seneca, and others used to say that the wise man alone was free.

2. Liberty, as S. Augustine says, is to be found in the affections and in the love of righteousness, in freedom from fear of punishment, in the spontaneous fulfilling of the law from love of virtue, and not from fear of punishment. This free spirit of Christian love is contrasted with the slavery of Jewish fear. This is evident from the context. The Begardi, three hundred years ago, and the Suencfeldiani and Libertines of the present day, are therefore as impious, as ignorant, and foolish (a) in rejecting, on the supposed authority of ver. 6, the written word of God, as though it were a sun that had set, and in holding that the light within is sufficient for our guidance; (b) in teaching that a holy and perfect man is set free from the law and does not sin, even if he commit fornication. (c) They are followed by many others, who deduce the invalidity of all human laws. Cf. Bellarmine (de Justific. lib. iv. c. 3 and 4), and Belliolanus, in the fifteen books he wrote on Christian Liberty. S. Augustine (de Continentia, c. iii.) says excellently: " We are not under a law which orders good and does not give it, but we are under grace, which makes us love what the law orders, and which can, therefore, give orders to free men." Cf. the same Father (de Spirit. et Lit. c. x., and de Natura et Grat. c. 57).