A Glory Transformed
3: 6b-11
A glory transformed DIG: What does Paul mean when he says, “the text brings death, but the Spirit gives life?” How does the written text bring death? In what four ways is the Torah an instrument of death? What distinction is being made here between the Torah and the Spirit? Is the Torah itself fading away and gone? How was its glory transformed?
REFLECT: Where does Paul say we can find the power to live as ADONAI expects? What have you been taught concerning the Torah? Is it “old and obsolete?” Only for Jews? Confusing? When was the last time your pastor taught through a book of the Torah? In what sense is the Torah still relevant? How is it a blueprint for living in your life?
The distinction Paul is making is between the Torah without the Spirit, and the Torah with the Spirit.
In these verses Paul is comparing and contrasting the Torah, which is a ministry of death (3:7) and declared people guilty (3:9a) to the ministry of the Spirit (3:8), which works to declare people innocent (3:9b). He pictures two different ministries, or modes of operation, as they involve the Torah of ADONAI in the life of an unredeemed person or a redeemed person. The Good News is to be personally received in a person’s life, which will result in forgiveness. But without the indwelling of the Spirit, then people are subject to their old sin nature which results in spiritual death and condemnation.
For the written text brings death, but the Spirit gives life (3:6b). This passage is often understood to teach that the B’rit Chadashah is more important than the Torah, implicitly giving the impression that the Torah in particular, and the TaNaKh in general are “old” and irrelevant. However, the Greek word for “law” or “Torah” or “nomos” is not used at all here or anywhere in Second Corinthians; so that if one is going to make such a statement about the Torah on the basis of this passage, one must limit the meaning of Torah to the elements given in the passage. And here Paul talks only about a written text which was engraved on stone tablets, a perversion of the Torah, or legalism, which is a ministry of death, declared people guilty, and came with temporary brightness that was already fading away.
To illustrate the Torah’s glory, Paul turned to a familiar event in Isra’el’s history – Moses receiving the Torah on Mount Sinai. Now if the perversion of the Torah, which is a ministry of death, by means of a written text engraved on stone tablets, following only legalism, came with glory – such glory that the people of Isra’el could not stand to look at Moshe’s face because of its brightness, even though that brightness was already fading away (3:7). It is clear that Paul found no fault with the Torah (Romans 7:12), but he knew from his own experience that without the power of the Spirit, the written text of the Torah provided no way to attain righteousness. The trouble lay with the old sin nature (see the commentary on Romans, to see link click Cc – The Reality of the Inner Conflict), which can turn the Torah into a ministry of death.98
Dear Heavenly Father, Praise You for being so wise and wonderful. Praise You that our old sin nature is no match for You. You are so gracious to give Your holy righteousness to those who love You, then they are able to enter into Your holy heaven because of Your holiness.. He made the One who knew no sin to become a sin offering on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (Second Corinthians 5:21). I praise and thank You for living within me to help and strengthen me to have the power to live for You. Yeshua answered and said to him: If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him (John 14:23). What a joy it is to know that Your Holy Rauch lives within me and is always available to guide the situation and to show me how to respond in all situations. You and Your kingdom are a treasure – a very valuable pearl worth more than all else (Matthew 13:45-46). In Your holy Yeshua’s name and power of His resurrection. Amen
It is this written text that Paul contrasts with the B’rit Chadashah, which is accompanied by the Spirit, who writes on human hearts. The B’rit Chadashah spoken of here is that of Jeremiah (see the commentary on Jeremiah Eo – I Will Make a New Covenant with the People of Isra’el), and the distinction Paul makes is exactly the same that Jeremiah makes when he says that the B’rit Chadashah would not be like the Covenant which God made with their fathers when He took them out of Egypt, but ADONAI would put His Torah within them and write it on their hearts (Matthew 26:28; Hebrews 8:6-13). Therefore, Paul cannot be saying that the B’rit Chadashah is more glorious than the Torah, because the B’rit Chadashah includes the Torah which God puts within them and writes on their hearts. According to Hebrews 8:6, the B’rit Chadashah itself has been made Torah (Greek: nomotheteo, meaning to make law, to ordain by law). Paul speaks of the Torah as upheld by Messiah (literally, the Torah of Messiah) in Galatians 6:2, and makes a similar allusion in First Corinthians 9:21; therefore, the Torah is still relevant to us today because it has been written on our hearts. The distinction Paul is making is between the Torah without the Spirit and the Torah with the Spirit.
Nevertheless, what Paul does say is startling enough. Now if that which is a ministry of death, by means of a written text engraved on stone tablets, came with glory – such glory that the people of Isra’el could not stand to look at Moshe’s face because of its brightness, even though that brightness was already fading away (3:7). How is it that the Torah is a ministry of death? Since Paul himself calls the Torah holy (Romans 7:12), how can he say that it kills? He does not answer this question here, but assumes the Corinthians are already knowledgeable on the subject (First Corinthians 9:19-23 and 15:56). But elsewhere, he explains that the Torah can be said to be a ministry of death in at least four different reasons:
1. It demands death as the penalty for sin (Romans 5:12-21).
2. In defining transgressions it increases sin (Galatians 3:21-23), which leads to death.
3. It provides an opportunity for sinful people to pervert God’s holy Torah into legalism, that is, a dead system of rules intended to earn God’s favor even when followed without faith (Romans 3:19-31, 7:1-25, 9:30 to 10:10).
4 It does not have in itself, by the fact that it is written on stone tablets, the life-giving power of the Spirit which alone can make people righteous (Romans 8:1-11; Acts 13:38-39).
One must understand the shock a non-Messianic Jew must experience in hearing the Torah called a ministry of death, since in Jewish understanding the Torah is an instrument of life. In the Midrash Rabbah Rabbi L’vi is cited as saying, “God sat on high, engraving for them tablets which would give them life (Exodus Rabbah 41:1). The prayer recited every time the Torah scroll is returned to the ark after being read in the synagogues all over the world quotes Proverbs 3:18, “It is a tree of life for those who take hold of it.” Proverbs is speaking about wisdom; but since the Torah contains God’s wisdom, the Siddur applies those words to the Torah itself.
Here is Paul’s explanation of how the Torah, which is a ministry of death, can at the same time be a tree of life. But the Spirit, the Ruach Ha’Kodesh, the Holy Spirit of God, who lives in believers (see the commentary on Romans Ch – The Indwelling of the Ruach) gives life (3:6b) to sinners who are dead in their trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1 KJV). But for non-Messianic Jews it is critical to understand that only the Spirit of God gives life to the Torah itself, that is, to the written text. Or, more precisely, it is when the unredeemed are filled with the Ruach Ha’Kodesh given by Yeshua Messiah that the Torah becomes to them a tree of life and not a ministry of death.
Won’t the working of the Spirit be accompanied by even greater glory (3:8)? In these verses Paul defends his office as an apostle. He claims that as an apostle of Messiah, his ministry is more glorious than that of Moshe – and not only that, but more glorious than at the very moment of Moshe’s greatest glory, when his face shone so brightly as he descended from Mount Sinai (Exodus 34:29-30; compare to Matthew 17:2) after seeing God’s glory (Exodus 33:18 to 34:8), that he put a veil over his face (Exodus 34:33 and 35). However, if one acknowledges that the B’rit Chadashah has come, bringing with it the Messiah Himself and the very Ruach Ha’Kodesh, whose glory obviously exceeds that of stone tablets, then one should see that the ministry of its workers has greater glory than that of Moshe’s ministry.99 Unlike the written text carved in letters on stone, which could not enable a person to fulfill its own demands, the Spirit, given according to the B’rit Chadashah, actually enables people to walk in the way of God’s mitzvot.
For if there was glory in what worked to declare people guilty, how much more must the glory abound in the ministry that brings righteousness (3:9)! The Torah was never given for the purpose of salvation, for there is no salvation through works of righteousness. The Torah produces condemnation and is a mirror that reveals how dirty our faces really are. But we cannot wash our faces without the mirror. The ministry of the B’rit Chadashah produces righteousness and changes lives to the glory of God. Mankind’s greatest need is righteousness, and God’s greatest gift is righteousness through faith in Yeshua Messiah. For if the way in which one attains righteousness is through legalism, then Messiah’s death was pointless (Galatians 2:21b). The person who tries to live only by the written text of the Torah will find himself feeling more and more guilty, and this can produce a feeling of hopelessness. It is when we trust in Messiah, and live by faith in God’s grace, that we experience acceptance and joy.100 Paul’s comparison of his ministry with Moses is mainly positive. His argument, in essence, is that one good thing was simply eclipsed by something better.
Given the transformative power of the working of the Spirit (3:8) or the works of righteousness (3:9), which supplies permanent atonement for and permanent forgiveness from sins, it is not a surprise for a figure like Paul to conclude: for even what was glorious is not glorious when compared to the glory that surpasses it (3:10 TLV). Ultimately, in view of what the B’rit Chadashah provides in terms of reconciliation, and the Spirit writing God’s Torah into a transformed person – there is no glory in seeing people condemned to death and ultimately exiled from the presence of YHVH, unless they are repentant.
The B’rit Chadashah, of which Paul was a minister, is something which has a permanence to it, which the previous ministry of condemnation does not have. For if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which is eternal (3:11 BSB). The Torah and its ministry belonged to a vanishing order that began to fade immediately after its inception, as was typified by the Divine glory on the face of Moses – a glory that began to fade away as soon as he left the Divine Presence. On the other hand, the B’rit Chadashah and its ministry will always be glorious because it constitutes God’s final word to mankind.
While it is entirely proper to acknowledge how Yeshua’s sacrifice for sinful humans has nullified the ministry of condemnation . . . He has canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross (Colossians 2:14 NLT), inaugurating the B’rit Chadashah with its permanent atonement and forgiveness. But too frequently what is overlooked here is what Paul actually describes as being brought to an end (ESV), in contrast to that which is permanent (ESV), is the ministry of death or condemnation apart from the indwelling of the Spirit. The standard of God’s holiness in the Torah is still with us.
To that end, it is important to recognize that Paul did not imply that the Torah itself was fading away. Torah as an expression of the will of YHVH for human conduct is still valid. It is our blueprint for living. It is the written text that Paul contrasts with the B’rit Chadashah, which is accompanied with the Spirit, who writes on human hearts, who gives life, who works to declare people innocent, and who lasts. A year later, Paul would write to the believers in Rome: Thus, my brothers, you have been made dead with regard to the Torah through the Messiah’s body, so that you may belong to someone else, namely, the One who has been raised from the dead, in order for us to bear fruit for God. For when we were living according to our old nature, the passions connected with sins worked through the Torah in our various parts, with the result that we bore fruit for death. But now we have been released from this aspect of the Torah, because we have died to that which had us in its clutches, so that we are serving in the new way provided by the Spirit and not in the old way of outwardly following the perversion of the Torah, or legalism (Romans 7:4-6). Therefore, Paul says the purpose of God in bringing the B’rit Chadashah of the Spirit was precisely that the righteous demands of the Torah might be fulfilled in those who walk by the Spirit (see the commentary on Romans Cg – The Walk with the Ruach).101
Leave A Comment