The Glorious Covenant
2 Corinthians 3by Ray Aldred
2 Corinthians 3:1-4:6
Focus: Paul is a minister of a new covenant of the Spirit that leads to life and not death. The spirit transforms us as this life oozes out of us, by the spirit. Our suffering reflects the glory of Christ who revealed the glory of God in his face, so we reveal the glory of Christ, so people may find life and freedom.
This is the second of a three part series adopted from talks given at an InterVarsity staff conference, October 2004. The other two talks are available here (1) and here (3). Read it and engage with it in the urbana.org discussion area (requires free login).
We have been looking at the letter of 2 Corinthians, thinking about how this letter fits into the story of Creator and his creation. We also are in this letter: we are part of covenant community of Jesus Christ. We are not just observers of someone else, but we are participants in this gospel story. For when we receive the Word that was with God and was God, we are taken into this unfolding story of Creator and his creation.
We’re taking a step backwards after last night’s look at chapters five and six, when we discussed the ongoing work of reconciliation. That reconciliation is a ministry and is important for mission. We must learn to listen, speak the truth and work to restore the relationships between God and people but also between one another, person to person. To open up our hearts to one another and live out of weakness and dependence, not independence. Coming together, working through the hard things through Jesus, who is the only mediator.
We looked at chapters 4 and 5 and talked about the treasure that is in jars of mud. We are called to live on the level of human suffering, to find Christ there and to bring Christ there. That all we really have to do is to receive the love of God and to love. For we love because he first loved us, so writes John in 1 John.
One more time I ask you open your heart and I will open mine. For you see you have been given a ministry of freedom and life, don’t cover it up.
Read 2 Corinthians 3:1-4:6 (links offsite to NIV)
3:1-6 Ministry of Life: Competency comes from god, not from letters
You will be tempted to cover up the ministry of freedom and life by putting man made measurements on people and on yourself. Be who you are, and who God made you; don’t try to be something the world calls a success, be someone who is successful in God’s eyes.
The Corinthians think they have arrived and as we read Acts we know that they began as kind of cast offs from the Synagogue. They began and God shows up in power in their humble circumstance and now they are being tempted to add legitimacy to their ministry by becoming more main stream. Paul alludes to this when he says surely we don’t need letters of recommendation to you and from you, do we? So often Christian organization move from the organization being a tool for the people, to the people being tools for the organization. The Corinthians are being tempted to become more conservative in what they are doing. They are beginning to add things to their requirements to what is involved to ministry. Paul says, we don’t need it, we are competent by God’s Spirit.
He then does this wonderful play on the idea of letters. He says you are our letters, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human heart.
In the Western world we have created a whole educational system to try and create competence and thereby to improve our society, but sometimes we have just ended up cutting people off and only a small group of experts control everything.
In the Western Church it is the same when we make ministry and theology something only done by professionals. Paul was not a professional, he made tents and he preached and taught. His skill came by suffering, giving up the power and position so that he could know Christ. He set of from Jerusalem with letters of recommendations from the Chief Priest but on the way he met Christ, and the light of Jesus shone down and gave him a welding flash and permanently impaired his vision, and on that day Paul become competent for ministry. Christ revealed himself and Paul saw the letters of the Chief priest giving him the right to kill and imprison as being a waste of time. Paul was an expert, but now, he is just a minister. With no letter carved on stone, an allusion to the Ten Commandments, but with letters carved on the flesh of his heart.
You have been given a ministry of life and freedom; don’t cover it up by being an expert, get skill in living the story in the middle of the chaos of life.
3:7-11 Ministry of Justification, not Condemnation
The Corinthians are probably having some super apostles come from Jerusalem. They are the Judiazers, the people who want to add a few things to the gospel. You know back in those days real old was popular and this new movement Paul was preaching just didn’t go with the antique armoire and vase. So there was a big temptation to just add a few things and make Christianity, you know more respectable. The Judaizers wanted to add circumcision and keeping certain dietary laws. They taught that this would complete their faith, make it more respectable. Paul is writing to them because they seem to have forgotten the freedom and liberty of the gospel.
The preoccupation with image will cover up the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You know that will always be a temptation. You will be tempted to become respectable by having what everyone else has. It just covers up the freedom of the Spirit.
Paul then contrasts the glory that shone in Moses face when the law was given to the glory of the gospel. This is a story taken from Exodus, when the Israelites had sinned against God with the golden calf. God says, I will send angles before you and give you the land but I will not go with you, for I will surely destroy this people on the way. But the people repent, Moses pleads for this people and goes back up the mountain and his face shines with the glory of God but the people are all afraid. The old covenant only produces condemnation. The Corinthians are attracted to is because legalism is safe, it makes us feel like we are in control. Paul urges them to not get so focused on just words, but to realize they have a ministry of justification, of life. Justification here is not a legal term, but a term that talks about the restoration of relationship and there being a wholeness again, a soundness.
It was a preoccupation with image and words that caused many of the priests who knew that Jesus was the messiah to not confess him. John writes they loved the glory of men more than the glory that god gives. Religion is preoccupied with outward appearance that will somehow keep harmony in the universe. People out there are trapped in legalistic religion that tries to control their salvation and everyone else.
If you want to minister freedom and life, then don’t get caught up in image and trying to have a respectable religion. Jesus has revealed the glory of God. This glory is in you. Bring life into the places that you minister. Don’t let the system squeeze the life out of you, live out of the centre of who you are, out of the midst of the pain.
It seems to me that today many times legalism creeps into faith. I remember there used to be a saying that people usually used when talking about new kinds of things coming into the Church. “I would rather be to conservative than to liberal.” Why, they are both wrong. Being to conservative is as deadly as saying that the grace of God gives us license to sin all we want. We need to let people be free and entrust them to god, otherwise we will try to be hang on to some glory of some past program that is passing away. People are meant to live forever, not countries, institutions, or programs.
You have been given a ministry of freedom and life. Don’t cover it up.
3:12-18 Transformed by glory to reveal glory: Suffering produces the glory
You see God has given us this ministry of life and freedom because he wants us to live free.
Paul then turns in verse 12 to talk about the veil that was over Moses face and the hardness of heart that come on the people of Israel. The veil that hid the glory of God from them. Many in the Ancient near East thought Judism had become respectable. Reading of Moses was an okay thing to do. In fact the Jews in Corinth had chased Paul out of the city because he was getting people to worship in new ways. The Corinthians after Paul leaves are being tempted to make their faith more respectable by obeying all the rule. Paul wants the Corinthians to understand that this legalism continues to blind people. If they go back and try to make those other people happy, they will be covering up the glory that is in their hearts, put there by Jesus. Paul says these other people read the word of God and they just don’t see because they have not turned to the Lord. But when they turn the veil is removed. Could be an allusion to the veil in the temple being ripped in two.
The old covenant had become just folk religion. Folk religion is what people use to control society. The Scribes and Pharisees crucified Jesus because he threatened their position with the Roman government. The Romans allowed Jewish religion to exist as long as it kept everyone in line, the Pharisees and Scribes thought Jesus was just going mess everything up. I wonder if the Corinthians thought that Paul and his call for socialistic wealth redistribution was just going to mess up their nice little capitalistic world. Now I am just kidding, no capitalism back there. But you see Judiasm had moved from being a radical faith to one of conservatism. No healing on the Sabbath. No jumping up of mats, just because your healed. We will have no leaping and praising god in here, we will keep things respectful. It had become a Folk religion Folk religion usually has at is core an appeal to be more pious and better behaved. This is not what Christ brought. The Pharisees and scribes had reduced following God to a set of rules and regulations. Jesus challenged this. He said you need a heart change, you need to be completely new. Give up your rules and tradition for tradition sake. That old glory is passing away. A new glory is coming.
In North America today, the glory of Christ has been veiled from people because we have become respectable. In most of our churches the call to radical conversion, to suffer and die for the sake of the gospel has been reduced to call to be more pious and better behaved. Don’t let that kind of Christianity suck you in. Embrace God’s call to be free to suffer for Christ. Be free to love your enemy in Christ. Be free, that is what you were made for.
We have access to god, we no longer stand condemned by the stone tablets but by the spirit we see the glory of god in Jesus. When was the glory of the Lord revealed? When did the Roman governor recognize that Jesus was the king of the Jews? When did the solders say, hail, king of the Jews? When did the soldier say, surely this was the king of the Jews. Jesus reveals the glory of God on the cross. He died on the cross to reveal what god was like. Don’t cover up the ministry of life and freedom by thinking success in human terms of respectability. Embrace the sufferings of Christ and when you find him there in the midst of the pain, you are transformed. From glory to glory, from suffering to suffering that are producing a weight of glory. Don’t cover up the ministry of life and freedom by thinking in human terms of a respectful religion call people to radical freedom, think about the eternal, not the temporary.
4:1-6 From God to the face of Christ to our hearts to the world
Our ministry is a result of the mercy of God. God want to extend his mercy to us and through us by empowering us to live free in this world. In this time of the now but not yet. So don’t veil your ministry by moving to manage your pain, instead, keep opening your heart. The Corinthians had some powerful personal experiences with God, but they were tempted to start to put on a mask, that everything is okay. They wanted to continue to seek unique personal experience, but they did not want to embrace the mundane, the pain and stuff of life.
The desire to manage uncomfortable ness will take away the life and freedom of your ministry. Intimacy and solidarity are not created by small places, or by comfortable surroundings. Intimacy and solidarity are created by loving one another through Christ.
In this passage Paul is trying to get the Corinthians to think in terms of the New Covenant of life, the new ministry of life, the covenant of the Spirit, freedom. Christ came to earth and he saw exactly what we were like, he embraced us anyway, he knows us intimately.
Paul wants the Corinthians to not stay cloistered away in some safe place, but embrace life. Bring it all out into the open. We have renounced all the shameful things that one hides, we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s truth. We will continue to preach Jesus crucified. Paul calls the Corinthians to embrace him and the suffering Church, remember chapters 5/6 to live in solidarity with Christ and with Christ’s people.
The Corinthians just wanted to feel cosy and safe and wait for the end of the world. That is not intimacy, that is just being clingy. That kind of intimate faith just veils the gospel and hides it glory. You want to reveal God’s glory?
Open your hearts to the light of the gospel, those that are perishing miss the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. Paul says, if we live in a love relationship with Christ and with one another, then the glory of the gospel is revealed. Intimacy becomes solidarity or unity when we open our hearts to one another, and together move toward Christ. This happens on the level of human suffering, remember chapters 4/5. Share out of your weakness as one on a journey. Don’t let things and people take your life, lay it down.
You have a ministry of freedom and life, don’t hide. If you fail, confess it, deal with it. If you are stuck in some habits that you are having trouble overcoming, live your life in the light, the light brings healing.
Open your hearts, so the light of Christ can shine in and can shine out. A picture of intimacy, God who created light on the first day v4.6 shone in our hearts, allusion to a new creation, but now it can shine out. You have been given a ministry of freedom and life, don’t cover it up by just coping with life, by just managing life. Live in a trust relationship Christ and expose your heart. It will hurt, it will not always be pleasant but there will be this sense of being okay, despite all that is going on around. Live in a trust relationship with Christ and with one another.
You have been given a ministry of light and freedom, don’t cover it up. Open your heart, live on the level of human suffering. Tell people the gospel story.
Conclusion
It is time to go, travel light, keep your powder dry and watch your top knot. Those are all things that my dad used to say as we went on our way. In Cree the say ek’say, it means “there.” There is no word for good-bye, in the Church they say, “until we meet again, God willing.” We don’t say good bye, we say there, it is enough, for now. Then we shake hands, hug. The children all cry and cry. Henri Nouwen, writing about intimacy says that the intimacy and solidarity are the same concept. There is a feeling that I have from my people, that we are together even though we are apart. In Jesus we have that same thing. Paul alludes to it in his Corinthian correspondence that even though I am absent in body, I am there in Spirit. There is one body, one Spirit, one Lord. We are all related, that is a reality. So I say to you all my relatives, ek’say, there it is enough.
Darkness
December 5, 1995
I wrote this story while on the plane flying to Ottawa. It was near sunset when we left Regina and the plane was not crowded. I had a whole row to myself on the plane. We were probably somewhere over Brandon when I wrote these recollections.
I look out the window and see darkness except for the different towns here and there. Maybe the odd yard light for a farm. It is dark though. You have to look out the window for a while before your eyes focus and you can see the lights below.
Darkness: I don't think we were made to live in the dark. I mean we sleep in the dark; we sort of shut down for awhile; come very close to almost sort of dying. Sometimes my wife says that I stop breathing for a moment, when I sleep. She waits, just for a brief second, and I always start again. I think they have a name for that; they call it sleep apnea - a scientific term - but maybe we are just not made for the dark.
Darkness envelopes the plane. It reminds me when I used to go hunting with my dad. Sometimes he used to take a short walk and I would wait in the truck. I can't remember why I waited behind, but I would see him going down a cut-line. I remember he wore a orange-red hunting coat, made out of some kind of heavy material. He walked with his toes pointed out and long strides. He was tall and had wide shoulders and he used to make me feel so safe when he was around. But, I would see him walk into the spreading dusk and then the trees would close behind him or he would go over a hill and then I was alone in the truck.
It was still warm because the engine had just been running. But as the sun went down and the darkness crept in, it seemed as if the cold came from the dark and it slowly crept in, even through the locked doors. The doors were locked because all of a sudden, the dark seemed like it might hide something. It seemed to take away my courage. So I would sit and watch for my dad. I would wonder why he was taking so long.
It probably wasn't that long, but it seemed long to me. What if something happened? What if he didn't come back? All the crazy thoughts that go through your mind; when your kid; alone; in the dark. "When would he get back? What's taking so long? I kept thinking.
It was cooler now and the windows had a layer of mist that would add ever so slightly to the spreading gloom. The darkness seemed to envelop everything; it seemed stifling. Not like the dark in my parents' wardrobe at home. We used to go inside and close the door and sit in the dark, but you knew that it was light just outside that little hiding place, But this dark was everywhere, it seeped into every corner.
My eyes would move back to the place my dad had disappeared, looking hoping he was there. Then my heart would race, for you could just see a movement; not like the wind or a shaking of branches, but a movement a spot where the darkness had moved out of the way. First, the top of his head; then his face; then his shoulders; my heart leapt for joy. I wanted to get out of the truck and run and throw my arms around him and say, "Dad!" But, I just waited grinning; relieved. then he would stand beside the truck; scanning the four directions one last time. I was impatient now. I wanted to yell, "Get in the truck before the darkness gets in!" But, he was never afraid; the darkness was nothing to him.
He would open the door and haul his 6'6" frame into the truck. Turn the key and the truck would roar to life. Pull out the light switch on the dash and the light would stream glorious brilliant light into the darkness and we would move on. The darkness had to move; it was no match for my dad and me.
"The people in darkness have seen a great light." I don't think people were made to live in the dark.
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