The Unfading Glory of the New Covenant

Transcript

GR 1798
02/15/2015
The Unfading Glory of the New Covenant
2 Corinthians 3:12-18
Gil Rugh

You can turn in your Bibles, if you would, to 2 Corinthians 3. In 2 Corinthians Paul is dealing with an issue of the place of the Mosaic Law in the plan of God. Some in the church at Corinth were being influenced by teachers who were trying to draw them back into the rituals of the Law and so on. Sometimes it seems like we don't deal with those same issues today, particularly Jews who are promoting and trying to get us as a church to keep the Mosaic Law. But the principles being dealt with carry over. At least the Jews who were professing faith in Christ but were requiring in addition keeping the Mosaic Law had a revelation God had given, twisted as they were in their understanding. But there is that constant draw, even to us as believers today, to something tangible and physical. And the church at Corinth was dealing with that.

I was reminded of it with the article in the paper this weekend, Understanding Ash Wednesday. Some of you probably saw it. It was a large article and someone's picture there getting his forehead all dirty with ashes. And you read this and wonder, what's the point? The writer of the article, and it's an interesting article, makes the point that it doesn't have any biblical foundation. Here we have people who are going to mark this day and get ashes, and you can get them in a variety of ways now. They are going to be coming to coffee shops, you can drive through and wind down the window and get it on the forehead and on the run. What's the point? The idea that there is something here tangible, spiritual, it must be beneficial. And the article notes the background. Comes out of Roman Catholicism, in fact one Presbyterian minister from California said he always thought Ash Wednesday was a Catholic thing until he became the pastor of a California Presbyterian church that practiced it. But the background for this coming from the Catholic on-line explanations—ashes are a symbol of penance. They help us develop a spirit of humility and sacrifice. The distribution of ashes dates centuries back when Christians who committed grave faults performed forty days of public penance by wearing hair shirts, sackcloth. And they had ashes sprinkled on their heads. Then they were turned out of the church because of their sins, just like Adam was put out of the Garden when he sinned. These penitents did not enter the church again until Maundy Thursday, after having won reconciliation by the toil of forty days' penance and sacramental absolution. What does that have to do with the Presbyterian Church? Or we have other churches in town, one church has even developed a curriculum for the lenten season, beginning with Ash Wednesday, based on the Disney hit movie, Frozen.

Where does this come from? People want something concrete, something that makes them feel like they are doing something spiritual. This is what Paul is dealing with in writing to the Corinthians. These Judaizing teachers come in and say it's wonderful, you've trusted Christ, but the activities of the Mosaic Law are necessary to complete what God wants to accomplish in your life. And so it was making an impact. Just like we have Christians today who sometimes have an adjustment to recognize that it is not a matter of ritual and form. Some of you come from more liturgical backgrounds, Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, Episcopalian. And over the years I've had different ones say, it was a difficult adjustment to feel like I was worshiping when I came here and not doing the things. And we create cathedrals and all this.

But we have our own ritual here. I had a professor many years ago and he says if you want to upset your church a little bit, some Sunday just rearrange the order. Get up and preach your sermon first, then take the offering, then sing the songs and see what people say. You know, we get our own ritual. We think, this is the way you worship. And if we change that, what would our first reaction be? Why did they do it that way? I don't think that was a good change to make. And we begin to think that doing this routine in this way….so we do battle that.

Paul is battling something very serious and something we have to be clear on. If we are clear on what Paul is saying, it will keep our focus clear in our ministry today. It won't be everything that comes in will be well, maybe there is something to that. You know, they talk about this was forty days of penance. Do you know where Roman Catholics got the doctrine of penance? An earlier translation of a Roman Catholic Bible mistranslated the Greek work repentance, the English word we have from the Greek word. They translated it do penance. Now there is no Roman Catholic scholar today who thinks the Greek word should be translated do penance. So out of that mistranslation of a Greek word you develop a whole doctrine of doing penance. When they realized that that was not a proper translation of the word, they didn't change anything. They already had the practice in place and just continued to do it. These kinds of things develop and people think maybe there is something to it.

So Paul is explaining the difference between the Mosaic Covenant, Mosaic Law and the new covenant and the finality of what has been accomplished in Christ. And there is no particular ritual and form associated with that. He'll culminate this chapter by focusing on the spiritual ministry of the Holy Spirit in bringing about transformation in our lives. The Corinthian church was confused and I fear sometimes the church of Jesus Christ is confused on how we grow as well. We pick up things called like spiritual formation, contemplative prayer. These kinds of things, if we do certain rituals and go through certain activities, they will help us spiritually. It's not a help, it's a hindrance. That's what Paul's point is here. You can't go back to the Mosaic Law. You can't wed the Mosaic Law to the truth of what Christ has accomplished and the establishing of the new covenant.

He has drawn a contrast between the old covenant and the new covenant in 2 Corinthians 3:7-11. That's a contrast between Exodus 34, Jeremiah 31. Other passages as well like Ezekiel 36 that talk about the new covenant. The key word in verses 7-11, remember, was the word glory. It appears ten times in verses 7-11. He draws the contrast because the old covenant did have glory and these Judaizing teachers could come in and say, you don't have a complete salvation. Remember the glory that accompanied the giving of the Mosaic Law to Moses. What Paul does show is there was glory associated with that old covenant and its establishing. But there is a much greater glory in the new covenant, so great that it completely overwhelms and supersedes the glory of the old covenant.

There are three comparisons in verses 7-11, if you remember. The first one is “is” verse 7, they are, in the context, but if this is true, much more this is true. So verse 7, “But if the ministry of death” and so on; verse 8, “even more the ministry of the Spirit will be with glory.” But if this was true of the glory of the old covenant, even more glory is associated with the new covenant. Verse 9, “For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness overflow in glory.” That's the old covenant had glory, the glory of the new covenant is much greater. Verse 11 is the third comparison, “if that which fades away,” we're going to talk about this fading glory associated with the old covenant that was talked about at the end of verse 7, “fading as it was, the glory of the old covenant.” In verse 11, “for if that which fades away was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory.” The overwhelming greatness of the glory of the new covenant which centers in the finality of the work that Jesus Christ accomplished, His death and resurrection, has totally brought an end to the old covenant and any glory associated with it.

He's going to continue the contrast, developing out of these preceding verses. You'll note verse 12 begins with the word “therefore.” Therefore in light of what I've said in verses 7-11 and the contrast between the old covenant and the new covenant and particularly that last contrast, the fading glory of the Mosaic Covenant and the remaining, enduring, permanent glory of the new covenant. “Therefore having such a hope.” What hope? Well, the hope of what he has talked about with the glory of the new covenant and particularly verse 11, “the glory which remains, the enduring glory of the new covenant.” Having that as our hope we use great boldness in speech. We sometimes wonder, where does the boldness of some people come from? Where did Paul get his boldness? Did you ever think, if only I could be as bold with the Gospel? You get frustrated with yourself, why am I not bolder? Well, Paul tells you where his boldness comes from—having such a hope of the glory of the enduring glory of the new covenant, we use great boldness, much boldness. There is a fearlessness in our speech. There is no secret, it's not a personality thing. He is so overwhelmingly convinced and settled and sure that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true and it's only through faith in Him that we are transformed and made new, partakers of the glory promised that there is salvation. Every time a new doctrine comes down some Christians say, we don't want to be closed. Maybe there is something to what they have to say. We don't have to always be the only ones right. They get carried about with every wind of doctrine, every new thing that comes down. There are books written, there are churches established and this is the new way to do it.

Paul says my great boldness comes from the hope I have that the glory associated with the new covenant is enduring. It is unchanging. It is permanent. So the Judaizers are coming in. Paul is not shaken, he is planted for the defense of the Gospel. Well, maybe there is something to incorporating the Mosaic Law and that ritual gives something to tie things to. And we always like something concrete we can see and we can feel. Still goes on I guess, creating the mood. Back to the ancient ways, let's have candles. Let's turn down the lights, let's create a mood of worship. What is that? Where does that come from in the Scripture? Well, we want something more than just the Word of God, something I can touch. Well, this is the truth.

“Having such a hope we use great boldness.” Come back to Romans 8, I want to see the connection. Verse 18, and in talking about the work of the Spirit in Romans 8 and its contrast coming out of Romans 7 was the Mosaic Law. That's an ongoing problem in the churches, even in Gentile churches like at Rome, like at Corinth, this corruption come in. So Romans 8 shows the ministry of the Spirit is a greater ministry. Verse 14 said, “For all who are being led by the Spirit, these are the sons of God.” Verse 16, “The Spirit Himself testified with out Spirit that we are children of God.” Then verse 18, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” And here he is talking about the future dimension of our glory. The glory in the new covenant is a permanent glory, an eternal glory and the fullness of that glory is yet to be experienced in glorification of the body. So Paul puts the sufferings of this present time in the context of the glory promised in the new covenant. And sufferings of this present time, they are nothing. Why? I'm focused on the glory that is promised in Christ, those who believe in Him.

You come down to verse 24, note the hope. And he said in the portion we are in in Corinthians, “therefore having such a hope we use great boldness in our speech.” Here he talked about the glory. Then you come down to verse 24, “For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we eagerly wait for it.” The problem with the church today is we don't have a consuming passion focused on the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's just something we sprinkle into our lives, it doesn't consume us. We don't get passionate over it.

The same pages that had this article on Ash Wednesday had an article on the concert we had here in Lincoln. And I'm not speaking pro or con to the concert, but I noted the people at that concert. They said 13,000 people attended and they were passionate. I mean, it said they were singing along at the top of their voices. The guy who wrote it said about as loud as the music, which is saying something. Christians go along—yes, I went to church today, get on with the week, a lot of things going. Passionate about Christ, consumed with Him, the sufferings, the difficulties, the trials that come to my life. They are nothing. I'm anticipating the fullness of the glory that God has promised me in Christ.

You come down to verse 33, “Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the One who justifies. Who is the One who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died. He was raised, He is at the right hand of the Father who intercedes for us.” Verse 38 “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, principalities, things present, things to come, powers, height, depth, any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.” That's my hope, that's my anticipation of future glory.

So verses 35, 36, 37 need to be put in context. Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, sword, being slaughtered for the Lord. Put it all in context, I'm going to glory. It gave Paul a consuming boldness, a fearlessness in his preaching. Where do we get timid Christianity? Well, if I say anything I don't know what they'll think, and what will they say. Do we have our hope focused on the glory that is promised in Christ? That they think they are passionate about what they are involved in. Let me tell you what passion is. I'm consumed with this. I live for this. I'm willing to die for this. And we see perverted forms of it going on in certain religions of the world in these days. We have the reality. We have a Savior. What we have in Him is true and truth.

Come back to 2 Corinthians 3. He goes on in verse 13, “We are not like Moses.” There is a contrast, passion and consuming zeal that we have. We are not like Moses. “He used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the end of what was fading away.” He is going to draw a contrast with Moses. And I can't help but think as I work through a passage like this, the Corinthian church is a Greek church, it's in a Greek city. Now it's being influenced by Jewish teachers. But you know to understand Paul's argument here, you have to have some knowledge of the Mosaic Law. And you know they didn't have their own copies of the Bible. They had Paul's letter here and somebody standing there reading them this letter and this argument. And they are supposed to follow along and understand its importance? The expectation of having developed the knowledge of Scripture and the ability to think through Scripture, and Paul is not approaching it—I know most of you don't have a clue of what I'm talking about because we're talking about something from the book of Exodus and would be of little interest to you. Paul's view is you better be interested, you better understand this or you will be confused by the false teachers who tell you what is in Exodus ought to be shaping the way you serve the Lord today. Biblical ignorance opens us up to all kinds of foolish things.

So we're going back to Exodus 34 and you do have a Bible. And I know you probably have it memorized, but we'll look at it anyway. Exodus 34, and this is Moses being given the tablets of stone on Mt. Sinai,. It's the second set of tablets because he broke the first set, but the point we want to make is at the end of the chapter. Verse 29, I want you to see the process, now follow along. “It came about when Moses was coming down from Mt. Sinai and the two tables of the testimony were in Moses' hand.” He was coming down from the mountain with the two tablets. You have the ten words, the Ten Commandments, summarizing the Mosaic Law. Note this “Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because of his speaking with Him.” Because Moses had been in the presence of God, speaking with God, the glory of God enveloped him. And when he comes out his face is shining. The word will be used of coming out like rays, like horns. And I believe it was Michaelangelo who did a statue of Moses and you see Moses with horns. And you wonder why Moses has horns. Because it was picked up from the expression of radiating like horns. And so it reflected the glory.

At any rate Moses' face is shining. “So when Aaron,” verse 30, “and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone. They were afraid to come near him. Then Moses called them, Aaron and all the rulers and the congregation returned to him. Afterward,” verse 32, “all the sons of Israel came near.” At the end of verse 31, he spoke to them; at the end of verse 32, “he commanded them to do everything that the Lord had spoken to him on Mt. Sinai. When Moses had finished speaking with Him, he put a veil over his face. But when Moses went in before the Lord to speak, he would take the veil off.” Whenever he would go in and speak to the Lord, remove the veil. He came out, and when he came out, now follow this, middle of verse 34, “And whenever he came out and spoke to the sons of Israel what He had commanded, the sons of Israel would see the fact of Moses, that the skin of Moses shone. And Moses would replace the veil over his face until he went in to speak with God again.”

Now I want you to follow the procedure. Moses went in before the Lord and he has no veil on his face. He comes out to address Israel, the nation. At first they are afraid but then they come before him and he tells them what God has said. He still has not put the veil over his face. What happens here is reinforced for the people of Israel. The words that Moses is speaking are not the words of Moses. They are the words of God being communicated through Moses. So the glory of God on the face of Moses is a testimony that this isn't something Moses thought up as a good sermon, this is the Word of God. But when he is done speaking to the children of Israel, he puts a veil over his face and he leaves that veil on his face until the next time he goes in to talk to the Lord. Then he takes the veil off. Then the process is repeated. He comes out from the Lord and he talks to the children of Israel, no veil. After he is done telling them what God says, he puts the veil on, leaves the veil on until the next time. So you see the procedure, that's what is being unfolded in the pattern back in 2 Corinthians.

Come back now to 2 Corinthians. And we're told in verse 13, “not like Moses who used to put a veil over his face so the sons of Israel would not look intently at the end of what was fading away.” This fading becomes key through this section. It was used at the end of verse 7, “the glory of the Mosaic covenant fading as it was.” Verse 11, “the glory fades away of the Mosaic Law.” Now here the reason he put the veil over his face is so they wouldn't see the end of the glory. It testified to something, though, it would be done away with. As soon as the veil is put over his face, the glory is done, the manifestation of the glory is done. “So they wouldn't look at the end of what was fading away,” katargeo, the verb to be abrogated, to be nullified, done away with, fading away. So they wouldn't see the end of the glory, but they are told. They don't watch it diminish, but the veil is put over. Do you know what that is supposed to remind them of and tell them of? The glory of this covenant is temporary, it will end.

Note how verse 14 begins, “But their minds were hardened.” They didn't understand the truth of what was being conveyed. They should have perceived from the beginning what God was communicating. Here is something, it will be of temporary duration, but it is to guide you in your living. It never was a way of salvation. Five hundred years earlier the father of the Jewish people, Abraham, had believed God and his faith was credited to him as righteousness. There is no excuse for confusion here. It is hardened, sinful hearts that prevented them from seeing and understanding what was taking place here. Their hearts were hardened.

And then you'll note the application that Paul makes. “Their hearts were hardened for until this very day,” right down to here when I am writing you this letter, “at the reading of the old covenant, the same veil remains unlifted because it is removed in Christ.” So the glory of that old covenant, its purpose, its ministry, they still don't understand it. You'll note from the beginning of the Mosaic Law, it was intended to be temporary. The veil indicates closing off of the glory, an ending of the glory. It also indicated and showed the hardness of their hearts, they couldn't understand what was going on. And they quickly turned the Mosaic Law into a way of salvation, by their works they would do. That's why the prophets come on and have to tell Israel, you need a circumcised heart. You are concentrating on physical circumcision, you need spiritual circumcision. That's why Isaiah had to start his prophecy and say, God says “quit bringing your sacrifices. It's a sacrilege, you are trampling My courts.” Why? Because they had no changed hearts. It became the ritual, going through certain religious activities, and supposedly this makes me more acceptable to God. That's where most people are today, we're doing this and God should be pleased, He has to be pleased. If you say, that's not what pleases Him, they are very upset because they'll tell God what pleases Him. My religious activity pleases Him. We're doing ashes. They start the article saying there is no biblical support for it, but somebody started it. I can get those quickly, just drive through the parking lot or go to the coffee shop and you can get your ashes on your forehead. Where do we get this stuff? Hardened hearts don't perceive.

For the Jews reading the Old Testament until this very day, Paul says, and that would be true down until today. The veil remains unlifted. How do you get it lifted? You believe in the Christ who is the culmination of all the Old Testament sacrifices that were to prepare Israel by reminding them constantly, the penalty for sin is death, without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

I shared with you I had a Jewish boss when I worked in New Jersey. We would talk about the Gospel. He had succeeded the Roman Catholic boss that I had previously, and we had delightful times talking about the Gospel and I would go to lunch with Mitch. And he was a devout Jew, tried to observe Passover and the different observances. And I'd keep coming back, Mitch, how are you going to have forgiveness of sins with no sacrifice? Your Old Testament requires a sacrifice. And he would say, Gil, I don't have an answer for that. Well, Mitch, don't you think you better get one? There is an answer. No matter how much they read the Old Testament, they can't understand the message. This isn't the solution, it points you to a solution. There is a need for a Savior, the Law was a tutor, a school master, Paul wrote to the Galatians, to guide Israel and prepare them for the coming of the Messiah. It wasn't a way of salvation. Now that Christ has come, it has served its purpose. Just blindness.

Come back to John 5, Jesus addresses it, and He is addressing the Jews of His day. Pick up with verse 39, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. It is these that testify about Me and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.” Jump down to verse 46, “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?” They are guilty from the beginning. That's what He said in verse 45, “Do you think I will accuse you before the Father? The one who accuses you is Moses, the one in whom you have set your hope,” because you've rejected what Moses says. Your hardened heart won't allow you to see and believe the truth that he wrote about. That was true from the beginning, from the early days. They didn't understand what was going on. When Moses came down and spoke to them, put the veil over, I don't know. It's striking. It says their heart was hardened, didn't understand, continues down to today.

Come back to 2 Corinthians 3. What is said here is true of the Jews, and we don't have time to go into all the other Scripture, but it is true of people generally. People come here and sit, they can sit here for endless years and they never do grasp the meaning of the message, the heart of it. It's not until you turn to Christ and place your faith in Him that this truth is opened up and you see the glory of it, the wonder of it, and it becomes the passion of a life. And if that's not true, you need to back up and say, has this truth ever been opened to my eyes in such a way that it's become the passion of my life. Or was I just raised in this, and I've been in this church ever since I was born or whatever and I assume I'm a Christian, I do what everybody else does. Is it the passion of your heart? Do you understand the importance of this? Is this a reality to you? Or are we just going through a religious activity like the Jews did? They all said they heard Moses, they watched, they started to do some of the things he said to do. It never did penetrate their hearts, they never really did understand.

That's what Paul is writing about here. He talks about his boldness, his passion. What's wrong? Do you understand the glory of what is provided in Christ? He really is saying these Judaizing teachers are reading the Old Testament with a veil over their eyes. They can't understand the spiritual truth. So verse 15, “But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart.” That's true down to today. On our first couple trips to Israel many years ago we had a dear guide and we had opportunity to share the Gospel with him. And he knew the Old Testament better than I did. He could quote the Bible, it was embarrassing. But to sit down with him, we were at the Holocaust Museum the second time, he didn't go in and I didn't go in. I sat and talked with him about the Gospel. All that he knew, he just couldn't put it together. He sat and heard testimonies of our people, I think he was impressed with them, but it didn't get through. To this day there is a veil over the hearts of the Jews. They can be experts in the Old Testament, but they can't understand this message which is in an application way true of people who aren't believers today. They can sit and hear and study, never gets hold of their hearts. They do the things like the Jews did, these Jews are working on keeping the Law, telling people how important it is to keep the Law. They don't understand the truth, it hasn't penetrated their heart.

“Whenever Moses is read a veil like over their heart.” So you see how he is using this picture from the old covenant to help them see the truth. They are blind to the truth. “But whenever a person turns to the Lord the veil is taken away.” That repeats what he says at the end of verse 14, “the veil is removed in Christ.” Whenever a person turns to the Lord the veil is taken away.

Come over to Romans 10. Paul is talking about Israel and their condition and he says in verse 1, “Brethren, my heart's desire, my prayer to God for them is for their salvation. I testify about them, they have a zeal for God but not in accordance with knowledge. Not knowing about God's righteousness, seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.” And that's true of every religious person, even religious people that attend here. They go about trying to establish their own righteousness. That's what the Jews were doing. They remain ignorant of God's righteousness. Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone who believes. The Law never was a way of righteousness. The point is when you come to recognize who Christ is and place your faith in Him, you realize the real purpose of the Law. It never was to provide righteousness. If the Law could have provided righteousness, then Christ would have died in vain. It wasn't it's purpose. People were never saved by keeping the Law. We are always saved by God's grace through faith in the revelation God gave. That was the point of Romans 4. “Abraham” the father of the Jews, Genesis 15:6, “believed God and God credited it to him for righteousness.” That makes clear how God saves people—by faith in the truth that He has given.

You can't be saved because, verse 5, “Moses said that a man who practices righteousness which is based on the Law shall live by that righteousness. But the righteousness based on faith says this.” And you don't go searching—if only we had a message from heaven, if only someone would come back from the dead. I see the child we had who said he died and got all this revelation from heaven, now is saying he just made that all up. I mean, the stupid ones, those who claim to be believers and think you go to the dead, it's absurd. Did they ever read Romans 10? What does it say? Verse 8, “The Word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, the word of faith which we are preaching. If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. With the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness; with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. And whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed. And whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” These are quotes, verses 11 and verse 13, from the Old Testament.

Then verse 14, “How will they call on Him whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? How will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent?” Then from Isaiah 52, the beautiful feet of those who bring the Gospel to people. Today we might call them beautiful cars. But the point is these feet, they walked and traveled to carry the Gospel, like Paul traveling through the different places in the Roman Empire to carry the Gospel to those people. How beautiful to be a messenger of the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ. So verse 17, “Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ.” That's God's plan.

Come back to 2 Corinthians. The veil is lifted when a person turns to Christ. That's it. I remember talking to a person who had professed to be a believer for many years, and they said I was going through the book of Romans, listening to teaching on it. All of a sudden it's like the book of Romans came alive. I saw things there that I never saw before. It was like it's true, it's real. He said, do you think I just got saved? Could have happened. Up until then he was a very religious Christian, but not a saved Christian, if I can use current terminology. Has the Word of God ever come alive to you? You thought this is rich, it is true, it is real. He died for me. I'm trusting Him. He is my Savior. Everything is new. Everything is different. I have a hope in this life that goes beyond this life. Everything now is lived in light of that. Has that ever been your experience? Has it ever happened? Or is it just I grew up with it, it's been my life. Just like a Catholic, Lutheran or anybody else, it's what you grow up with. It's not what saves you, it is only faith that saves you in the finished work of Christ.

“Now where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.” And you have that connection, verse 17, “the Lord is the Spirit. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.” And we have to be careful, we have three persons comprising the one true and living God—the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. So a person turns to the Lord, verse 16, then in verse 17 we're told, “The Lord is the Spirit.” Because all three persons of the triune God are involved in our salvation. It is the work of the Spirit to carry the truth of the Gospel to the hearts of those who hear so they might turn from their sin and place their faith in the Savior. So the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, because the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, He is the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Spirit is Lord. And the new covenant ministry focused on the finished work of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is key in carrying that message of the Gospel to the hearts of those who hear. Remember what Jesus said? We're not going to take the time to go back, but in His last evening with the disciples after the meal He gave them instruction. He told them it's important that I return to heaven so that I can send the Holy Spirit to you. Because if I don't go, He won't come. It would take the finished work of Christ on the cross and His resurrection to bring about the provisions of the new covenant. “This is the new covenant in My blood,” Jesus said. And the Spirit would come to convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. And through the Spirit's ministry of taking the Gospel, and you and I are just mediators carrying the truth that God has given concerning His son to those we come in contact with, the Spirit of God takes it from there and drives it into the heart. Salvation occurs as a person places his faith in Christ.

“Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.” And that Spirit is connected with the new covenant. We won't go back, Ezekiel 36 in the context of the new covenant. “I will put My Spirit in your hearts.” It's a transforming work of God with the Spirit.

Jesus talks about this, come back to John 8 and note verse 31. Jesus is talking to those Jews who had believed in Him, but had they been saved? Note the context, “If you continue in My word, you are truly disciples of Mine.” You are not saved by trying to live a certain kind of life, but when you are truly transformed by the power of God, your life is never the same. It is a transformed life. “You will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” Same basic word translated liberty, “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,” in our passage in 2 Corinthians 3. Liberty, there is liberty, there is freedom. John 8:32, “You will know the truth, the truth will make you free.” Verse 36, “So if the Son makes you free you will be free indeed.” So when you hear the truth about the Son and you believe in Him, you are made free. How does that happen? The Spirit of God takes the truth of God and penetrates the heart and mind. And the light comes on. We'll see this when we get down into 2 Corinthians 4 and Paul talks about it in that context. Free, free. Free from slavery to sin, free from the hopeless attempts to be righteous by your works, free from the futility of trying to be saved by keeping the Law and Ten Commandments which were never given by God to be a way of salvation. Free. That's why he said to these Jews who believed in Him do you really understand what it means to believe in Me? These Judaizers that were infiltrating the church at Corinth didn't because they were still trying to carry on the Mosaic Law and say, yes, you trust in Christ but you must be obedient to the Law. Like people trying to say they got saved but they continue in Roman Catholicism. That's an oxymoron, it's not a possibility. I'm not being mean and nasty and who are you to judge? I'm not, I'm just telling you what the Judge of all men has said. Then if you can't, it's not necessary to keep the Mosaic Law which was given with glory and came from the very mouth of God, what makes you think that trying to follow the religious teachings of men has somehow now become necessary to make you acceptable before God. Why do people get confused on this? Because they have never become clear on the gospel and what it means to trust Christ in a saving way. I believe in Christ, I believe He died for me, I believe in His death and resurrection. You can say that and not be saved. Now you are making me doubt my salvation.

I had someone leave the church one time and they said, every time I come there you make me doubt my salvation. Good. Not good they left. Paul didn't doubt his salvation and I don't want to be falsely self-confident. Where is your confidence? Paul says I am sure because my faith is totally, unshakably settled in the finished work of Christ alone. I don't have to go back and say, maybe we ought to mix some of the Law in here. It can't be bad if God gave it. Anytime you mix anything with God's grace, you have nullified grace. If it's of grace, it can't be of works; if it's of works, it's not of grace. Paul made that clear to the Romans, too. This idea that we mix it together and maybe we have the best of both worlds. No.

Come back to 1 Corinthians 2:10. He is saying here a similar thing we are talking about. We speak wisdom. The world's wisdom and God's wisdom never mesh. So Paul is talking about the Greeks want wisdom, we preach Christ crucified in 1 Corinthians 1. 1 Corinthians 2:6, “We speak wisdom among those who are mature, a wisdom not of this age nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away. We speak God's wisdom in a mystery.” It's a mystery because it can only be understood by revelation, what God has revealed. “The wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood. If they had understood it, they wouldn't have crucified the Lord of glory.” You can't find this out just on human wisdom. Get the greatest minds together, they will search it out and they'll come up to an answer. Forget it, it's not by eye and ear. “For to us God revealed them through the Spirit.” Why did you come to trust Christ? You heard the same message that someone a lot more intelligent than you heard, and they didn't. The Spirit of God penetrated that hardened heart, opened the blinded eyes of your mind and you placed your faith in Christ.

Verse 12, “We have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God.” Without the Spirit you are in a world of darkness. “The natural man,” verse 14, the soulish man, the sukikos man “does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. They are foolishness to him, he cannot understand them, they are spiritually discerned.” You can't reason and argue someone into faith in Christ. Tell them the Gospel, tell them the truth. Without the Spirit I can't help you, but I can tell you the message that if you will believe it, the Spirit uses it. And it is tied in there, human responsibility and divine activity, they work together. And I can tell you that you have to believe the Gospel and you will not apart from that work of the Spirit. But you are here, hearing it, God has graciously brought you under the sound of the Gospel. You better believe it.

Come back to 1 Corinthians 3, we'll summarize verse 18. “But we all,” all of us, it's the universal experience of genuine believers, “with unveiled face,” nothing preventing us from seeing the fullness of the glory of what God has made known, “beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed.” The word metamorphosis comes from this, we just carry it over into English. That inner change comes from the inside. You don't make a butterfly from a caterpillar by just sticking wings on. It's in their very nature. Peter says we have become partakers of the divine nature. We haven't become gods but His character now has been produced within us and “we are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.” Not like Moses where it was a fading, a temporary glory. We are going from glory to glory, it only gets better. That should be the testimony of your life. It's much better walking with the Lord today than it was ten years ago. I had ten years to grow, to be in the Word, to have the Spirit take the truths of the Word and do what only He can do in my heart and life. Have more peace, more joy as a result of His work in my life.

“From glory to glory, just as from the Lord the Spirit.” Why do we come and pour ourselves into the Word of God and try to analyze and sort through these details? Because they are precious to us. We saw earlier the Word of God, more precious to us than gold. This is the true treasure. If you have this and the truth of this, the message of Christ which is at the heart of all that God has revealed, you have everything. You have a treasure that the richest man in the world has nothing compared to. The riches I have in Christ will endure eternally. It's a glory that will only grow, and only have been regenerated by faith in Christ, I am now being sanctified, going from glory to glory as I grow, brought more into conformity with Christ. Someday I will be glorified in the fullness of the glory provided for me in this new covenant and the finished work of Christ will come to a fullness that I have yet to experience. That's what we have. Is this something that is the passion of your heart? We can grow dull and we can grow listless and things come in and we get all caught up in so much. And we just sort of lose our heart.

One who attended here for so many years and they quit attending. Someone asked why. He said I just found it easier to get up in the morning and read the paper on Sunday. That's all it means? Our hearts grow cold, as Christ warned the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2. We need to stir up the gift that is in us. I need to analyze, God, do I really know you? If I do, I need to be more passionate, more in love with you, more consumed by the wonder of the truth that you have brought to my heart. It has caused me to be born again and made new and now continues to develop and mature me, to prepare me for glory beyond compare.

Let's pray together. Thank You, Lord, for the riches of Your Word. Thank You for the way this truth grips our hearts when Your Spirit touches our hearts and minds. We hear the truth and it's alive, it's powerful, it's real. As we take hold of it by faith, the wonder of it thrills us. Lord that is to be a growing experience as we go from glory to glory. Lord, may that be true of us individually and as a church. I pray for any here who don't know You, that the wonder of Your salvation still has not gripped their heart, that they might see that today is a day of salvation. We pray in Christ's name, amen.