2 Corinthians 3:6

who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant; not of the letter, but of the spirit [i. e., not a minister of the old, legal dispensation, but of the new, spiritual dispensation]: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. [And I have such bold assurance through Christ that God will thus consider you to be my epistle. Not that I am sufficient of myself to account myself as having truly done any part of that which makes you an epistle, save as I have received the power from God. The truth which, written in your hearts, has thus transformed you, is wholly of God; so that our ability or sufficiency to write such an epistle as ye are, is all from God, who made us thus sufficient by calling us to be ministers of that new covenant which performs such wonders of regeneration, instead of calling us to be (as my Judaizing opponents ever seek to coerce me to be) a minister of the old covenant. This old covenant was given in letters graven on stone, and hence was a law of letters governing us wholly from without. But the new covenant, though also committed to writing, and hence in a sense external to us, is a code of principles governing us from within, through the power of the Holy Spirit. This law of letters without could only bring upon us condemnation and death (Romans 7:7-11; 1 Corinthians 15:56); but this law of the spirit within us (2 Corinthians 3:2) gives us life (Romans 2:27-29; Romans 6:4; Romans 6:11; Romans 8:2; Romans 8:10-11; 1 Corinthians 15:45; Galatians 5:18). The contrast in 2 Corinthians 3:6 is not between the outward and inward sense of Scripture, but between the outward and inward power of those two great dispensations, Jewish and Christian. That perversion of the passage which gave it the former meaning, has been used to countenance those baneful allegorical interpretations of Scripture which have been the pest of the church from the days of Origen to the present time. Having shown that the minister of the new covenant had a power not enjoyed by that of the old, Paul proceeds to show that he likewise has a glory (and Paul's enemies were criticizing him for glorying) not enjoyed by any minister of the old dispensation; no, not even by Moses himself.]