His life and ministry is not legal, but spiritual and glorious
2 Cor: 3:7-11 · Randy Peterman · Mar 26, 2017
2 Corinthians (2017), No. 12
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261726513639

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So this morning we're going to continue on in Paul's tremendous diatribe. I'm going to say diatribe, that's a strong word, but I don't mean it in a sort of a negative way. But Paul is not mincing any words in his argument that the law is massively in contrast to the New Testament doctrine of grace, but there is grace in the Old Testament as well. Let's go ahead and we'll read starting in verse 7 all the way through 11, we'll read the whole passage. Recognize though that it is in continuity so we have the things that he's built up in verses 1 through 6 and he's going to continue on into 18 and beyond with this explanation of their ministry and why it's so important in dealing with the issue of legalism.

Starting in 70 he says, But if the ministry of death in letters engraved on stones came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face fading as it was, how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory? For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory. For indeed what had glory, in this case, has no glory because of the glory that surpasses it. For if that which fades away was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory." All right. So we have this continuation of this idea of the law being done away with.

And so we have this new ministry of the Spirit in contrast to the letter of the law. The first question that I've got here, since Paul's being long-winded about this, is why does Paul want the Corinthians to understand this doctrinal distinction? And I know that maybe that seems like an obvious question, but we need to ask that going in here. Why does he want them to understand? The difference between law and grace is a tremendous difference.

That's our background. What happens if you muddy the waters? You can't do that. There are opposites like oil and water. The illustration I've always heard is how much arsenic would you want in your water? You just want a little bit? How many drops in a bottle of water? I think you just opened it, so I don't think there's any arsenic in there. If I had arsenic to put in there, how much would we want? None, right?

So we really want to have those. And the other half of that is he doesn't want people to be looking for loopholes. He doesn't want to have people saying, ah, I figured out how we can have a law here. I've got it all worked out. This is how we can do it. We can wedge some law in here. So Paul is basically covering, as he did so well in Galatians, he's covering here tersely but with a similar intent to do away with the legalism. Alright, so I'm going to do something out of order here.

We're going to take a look at this first section, the ministry of death and the ministry of condemnation. If you recall when we read there, he talks about the ministry of death. He makes some statements and then he says the ministry of condemnation. We're going to look at those together.

Please bear with me. I'm not trying to rewrite scripture. I'm just going to say let's take a look at why he is describing the law using both of those descriptors. And we're going to take a bigger look at what the New Testament describes the law as, as a whole. Because Paul is not only describing the law this way. here, he actually has other places where he describes it in what I'm going to be honest is kind of a negative light. But he doesn't only describe it negatively.

When we look at here, we need to ask first, what's the purpose of the law in the Old Testament? And we've talked about the sum in the past, but we need to be intentional about mentioning it each time, I think. What's the purpose of the law in the Old Testament? So a teacher to bring them to what he wanted them to do. Okay, a teacher, a schoolmaster, and the Old Testament. So those are all New Testament descriptions you're using, so I'm going to call you out on that. What's the purpose of the law in the Old Testament?

To show how sinful... Okay, that's important, to show how sinful things are? To spell out the righteousness of God. It spells out the righteousness of God, and that's an important detail there. One of the primary purposes for the law in the Old Testament was to set Israel as a nation aside unto God.

There are food restrictions that were... I'm going to be careful. If I use the word unnecessary, will you understand that I'm not saying that God was dumb? They were unnecessary as far as risk, maybe, but that the Gentile cultures were participating in eating those foods. And so if you couldn't do that, that would separate you. There were clothing restrictions and shaving and facial hair restrictions. I would be a terrible Jew with my current facial hair. And Roger also with a mustache that's not going to cut it. Aaron's got a good beard though, so that's good. Sorry, Aaron just walked in. He's like, wow, I got called out.

But under the law, the laws were specifically designed to call Israel out from the Gentiles and to set the nation sanctified, okay, we'll use that word sanctified, set them aside unto God. How does God describe Israel? What are some of the words he uses to describe Israel and his relationship with them?

At least in the beginning. My people. Apple of my eye. Apple of my eye. Those are familiar vocabulary. It's like God's bride or God's people. He's trying to treat them. Later on when they walk in sin he says you've engaged in harlotry. So he's got this familiar intent for the law. It's to draw Israel unto himself and to separate them from the Gentile nations. Now it's worth noting that when we talk about these things, I'm not just making that up. We can actually go into the scriptures and find that.

So let's take a look at Jeremiah 7.23. It's when you have to do the Bible verse lookup and you have to find it in the text.

I have to say it with computers being what they are anymore, I'm slow, but I can get to Jeremiah 7.23.

Alright, okay, Jeremiah 7.23.

But this is what I commanded them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you will be my people, and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be well with you. You're going to walk in the commands, the commandments, the law, and that will make you my people. And what will the other nations observe as a result of that? One would certainly hope that, that they would see that, but there would be a differentiation, a distinction. Why has God called you out? Why are you eating that way? Why do you dress that way? Why is your hair that way? Why are your clothes always of a single fiber type? The nuance, the details, why is that the case?

The law sanctified the nation, but it did not save the individuals. The law set them aside, but nobody got saved by the law. At Holly Hills, that's common kind of a theme that you'll hear, that nobody's saved by the law, but that's not always known by everybody that goes to other churches. I think for us, when we interact with people who are being ensnared by the tendrils of legalism, we have to remember that often they have misunderstood that the law does not save. We're going to take a look here in just a second at what the law does, and it does certainly not save. It condemns but it doesn't save. I also want to call out one important thing in the Old Testament. Last week, my dad taught in the main service about the importance of evangelism.

That was part of the message of salvation and how we talk about that. In the Old Testament, that is accounted for. In the Old Testament, if you look at Exodus 12 verses 48 and 49, it explicitly says, if there's a stranger amongst you, He and his household, if they circumcised themselves, can be treated like natives of the land. They were given the promised land and they can be treated as though they are part of Israel. So I want to point out the purpose of the law in the Old Testament did not exclude Gentiles, it did specifically include the opportunity for Gentiles to become circumcised and to show an outward sign of their inward faith.

We talked about this last week, but just because I want to make sure we're thorough, I want to go over this acronym C.O.M.E. It's worth memorizing. I'm going to repeat it because for me it was important in my ability to articulate this with other people that I've come in contact with. So we have content, object, means, and basis. And the content of what believers had been given changed throughout progressive revelation of scriptures. They could not have faith in what had not yet been revealed.

So in the Old Testament, when they had the law, or before they had the law, when we look at Abraham, what did he believe? What did Abraham believe? We'll start there. And then what did Moses believe? And what did Israel believe? What says he believed?

God. He believed God. OK. That's awesome. That's because I think that helps solidify our acronym here, our mnemonic for memorizing this. He had faith in what God revealed. God said, go. I'm going to take you into this promised land that you're going to walk, but I'm not going to give it to you yet. And Abraham said, OK. He believed. counted to him as righteousness. But he didn't have the doctrine of Christ's death, burial, resurrection, ascension and seating and the idea that he would be identified with him. Abraham didn't know that.

So that's called progressive revelation. But the content of what they believed throughout time was limited to only what was revealed at that time. We have the full Bible So the content of our faith is in the fullness of what God has revealed, specifically for us, that Christ died on the cross and was buried in Rose again and ascended and seated and we're identified with him.

The object of our faith is always God. The object, as we just pointed out for Abraham, was God. The object of Israel's belief was God. It's always God. The object of our faith is always God throughout all of the scriptures. They sin, they fall, they're in the garden, and God says, alright, I made you some designer clothing, nobody else has it, it's a one-off just for you. And they have to believe Him. For salvation. The object of their faith is always that. The means of salvation, so the M in comb, is always by faith. It means that their salvation is always by faith.

And the basis of their salvation is always, or is and was, always Christ's work on the cross. Even if they didn't understand the fullness of who the Messiah was, the first thing God reveals at the fall, not the first thing He reveals, but one of the things He reveals early, early on, so this is the first of time, is that a Messiah is coming. And they believe that God is going to send salvation. So even if they didn't know who the Messiah was, they knew he was coming.

And as we look at the progressive revelation and the nature of what's revealed in the scripture, that basis is just reaffirmed over time. So in the acronym COME, what is the only thing that changes throughout the scriptures for salvation? This should be easy. The content, OK? The content is changing, but the object, and the means, and the basis are stable and consistent all the way throughout the text of the Scripture.

All right, so let's talk about the purpose and description of the law in the New Testament. Since Paul is doing this comparison and contrast, and he's calling it out explicitly. He has, of course, called it the Ministry of Death here, and the Ministry of Condemnation in verse 9. In the New Testament, the law was used as a standard of God's righteousness, still.

And we said that it was obvious that that was the case in the Old Testament, but it is still consistent when we're doing evangelism and people say, oh, I'm good enough. I'm good enough to go to heaven. Now, I've run into a lot of people who just don't want to admit they sin. That way they're good enough. But when we look at the law, the law says this is God's righteousness. This is what it looks like. This is what is expected.

And we can, and I'm going to be careful how I do this, if we discard 603 of the laws, and we just go with the Ten Commandments, the top ten, right, as someone sarcastically called it, do we still live up to just the Ten Commandments? We don't. The covening issue is a really big problem. How about thou shalt have no other god besides me? That seems like, well, you're already denying God. You're saying you're a magnostic or an atheist. You've already denied that. So you failed at first. We haven't even gotten to the covening business. We haven't even gotten to any of the other stuff.

There's no absolutes. Sure. Right there you're sinning. Yeah, no absolutes morally and ethically is a problem, right? Because they don't believe in God. They can say, I justify it through my moral relativism and disbelief. Randy, don't you think too that a lot of people don't even know what sin is? I mean, they think sin is some, you know, I'm not an adulteress, I didn't kill anybody, I didn't steal anything. Yeah, so I don't really, I don't sin. They don't understand what sin is. Their measurement for how big missing the mark is, they've widened the circle real good so that they're okay. Grading on the scale. Yeah, grading on the scale is a good way to put that.

So when we look at the law as a ministry of death and a ministry of condemnation, we're not going to read every single verse that's here, but let's take a look through this list and observe some of the things that Paul has said and other authors in the New Testament have reiterated some of these principles, like Lucian James and whoever the author of Hebrews was. We see here that and this is important and worth observing, the law is something that could never liberate you to freedom. Roger has verse 17 that he gets to teach and that is going to talk about where the spirit is, there is liberty. And that's a foreign concept.

Can you imagine being raised in an Old Testament Jewish household and somebody comes in preaching the gospel and you're like, well, the Messiah was promised and I want to believe that. But then you can imagine some of these people might have felt almost tricked. And I don't mean that like Paul was deceptive, but they might be a little freaked out when they hear about this idea of liberty because their whole life they've been taught legalism. Their whole life they've been taught the do's and don'ts of the law.

Wasn't it kind of ironic that people were speaking and enjoying the joy of the Holy Spirit at the instant start up of the Law and the Prophets as presented by Moses and so Joshua said Lord restrain them And he said, words to the effect, that everybody ought to have this. We wish we all could do this. Yeah, we have.

And I think there's a big contrast there that we can see in the Old Testament. There's a very small subset of people that have certain, well I'll say intense spiritual interactions with the Lord. And a lot of folks walk by faith. their interactions may have been just ceremonial for the most part, maybe not a fullness of that experience side of things. And of course, as believers, we know now our faith is in the facts, not just feelings, right? But there's something there. So the liberty principle is definitely unique. between the law and this life in the spirit.

The second one here is the law is the standard of righteousness that makes us appear to be hypocrites. In Romans 2, 17-24, Paul describes to these people who would have been familiar with the Pharisees that the Pharisees were pushing the law on various individuals and then not living up to that law. And so they look like liars. So the law by its very nature causes people to look like hypocrites.

Wow, that's quite a thing. Well, can't you see today, even in today's culture, people that say they're so focused on the Ten Commandments, they can't keep them. So actually, that's a negative testimony to unbelievers out there. Well, they proclaim these Ten Commandments, but can they keep those Ten Commandments? They can't. They can't.

And what's interesting, I've found over the years, is there are a subset of Non-believers out there who, when they hear you're a Christian, they go, oh no. Because they're just waiting for you to come put the burden on them of legalism and then not live it out. But when you come in and you say, oh actually, I believe in grace, and I believe that the Holy Spirit moves in us, and you start to describe it, they go, I've never heard this before. I'm still waiting for my Canadian friend who said, I've never heard this before.

I think I want to come down and visit you in Denver and learn more about this. He's never come and visited me, but I pray that the Lord will get his honey on an airplane and put him in a layover here in Denver. And I'll be like, you know what I'm doing for the next five hours? I'm going to DIA, my favorite place on the planet. You know, let's go talk. So the law is the standard that proves hypocrisy. The next one here, those under the law are under a curse.

Let's read it because I think it's worth getting, maybe memorize this address, Galatians 3.10. If you're a good memorizer, that'll be no problem for me. I always need a little extra help on these things. When you get there, whoever gets there first, go ahead and read it out loud.

For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse, for it is written, Cursed is everyone and continuous not all things which are written in the book of the law. All right. There you go. The law is a curse. All right. And I don't, you know, I have dear friends that believe they're still under the law and it kills my heart. It makes it just ache for them because I think about, oh man, do you not see? It's a curse and just saying we're under grace now but we still need to obey the law doesn't cut it. We're going to see here in a minute that the law has ceased to operate. but we're not there yet in this list here.

Actually, when I used that word schoolmaster, it was the corruption of King James when he said on the wall is my study guide to let you know that it ain't gonna work without God at work. Yeah. Well, in the next one here is the laws of Tudor to lead us to Christ.

Galatians 3.24, and that's right down the page here. So we just read 3.10, so here's 3.24 out of Galatians. Therefore the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ so that we may be justified by faith. And there's the comb again, right? We're justified by faith. Faith is the thing that saves us. So the tutor is to lead us to Christ.

Actually, a better word would be study buddy. Study buddy, sure. Well, except for that a tutor one would hope is not dominating you. A study buddy is not dominating you, but a tutor here is definitely someone who's maybe even a slave in the Roman context to just enforce, with a dominating fashion, your education. So in this case, study buddy would be kinder than I'd like to emphasize.

But I understand what you're saying there. The law shows no man can be justified by works. So if we go back, we'll just stay in Galatians right here. It's easy. Turn on left to 216. Galatians 2.16 says, Nevertheless, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law, since by the works of the law no flesh will be justified.

Just one last snippet. I know that was probably an overemphasis on friendship over getting into the content. I also know that a true friend is willing to tell the truth in love, speak the truth of love. Even if it's a complicated calculus equation, you'll say, here's how it all comes apart. It's not as tough as it looks.

Yeah, well the principle behind Tudor here is he's not saying that in a cultural context that is what you're describing today. The cultural context would have been with great intensity. Tudor was basically not likely to be your buddy. Right, except for that that's not culturally what would have been the context. So that's what we want to emphasize there. So justified by works just doesn't happen. Nobody's justified by works. The law imputes, or puts on account, or reckons sin.

If we go to Romans 5.13, and we're going to spend some time in Romans, so you might as well turn there if you've got your Bible.

So Romans 5.13, the law imputes, and that word imputes is one of those theology words. It's not one that we use a whole lot. But it means to add to an account or to reckon something.

Romans 5.13, whoever gets there first, go ahead and read that out loud. Alright, so the law imputes sin to your account. Now here's an important question, and this is a theological debate. I'm not going to have a debate with you, but I want to ask this important question. Does grace impute righteousness to your account? Tom? If you're a new creation, it goes way beyond imputation.

Right. And that right there is the key. I've heard it said in seminary, I went to seminary and they said, Christ's righteousness is imputed to you. I think whoever was teaching didn't understand identification because We died. It's not like we're still in the flesh and we're still an atom, but they just got a different checking account. The me that is going into eternity has been crucified with Christ already.

So it's not just merely imputed, although the law does impute. It is beyond that. So that's a rabbit trail, but it's cool. little theological nugget there, hold on to that one. The law increases sinning. Yeah, now there is one that I hate. So just a few verses there, 520. The law came in so that the transgression would Increase.

Man, hold on, he's not done. Let's let Paul finish. He says, but where sin increase, grace abounded all the more. All right, so go ahead, Tom. So jump on that Pina Boulevard at the time of the AM rush, and you'll know that basically all under sin are you getting a car wreck. Yeah. Because they don't want to pass you and cause a jam. Yeah. And they're speeding, which is against the law, and they broke the law, and they're sinners. We have this idea here that the law increases sinning. That's a number right there. The law increases sinning. As an adult, I think you understand this in a different way than you would as a child.

Like as a child, if your mom put candy out, or your grandma, because let's face it, mom never puts candy out. April has pictures, she's like the exception. But my mom never put candy. But my grandma would. My grandma would put candy out and say, alright. But we'd walk in the house and my mom would say, don't touch that.

That was the worst. It was right there. But that law, the legalism of just that restriction, even if she said, you're going to have it later. It's the worst. It's the worst, worst, worst. Right to the law, any type of restriction. As an adult, you experience that differently. It's maybe the same principle. You ever go on a diet? Carbohydrates show up in weird places as soon as I go on a diet. It's an attractive nuisance, really. Yeah, it's an attractive nuisance. That's a good way to say that.

But the law increases sinning as soon as we're told we can't do something or we must do something. Our reaction is to want to do the opposite. You know, for me, if I would never be a good Jew, I like bacon, not just a little bit. And you know, when you think about All of the places in the law, those things were supposed to set you aside unto God, but if you're not looking to God and you're looking to the flesh, if you're looking to your own strength, you're going to come up short. I think Job is a phenomenal exception in the sense of he tried to live out righteousness. He's before the law, so I want to call that out.

But he tried to live out righteousness, and he knew that he should offer sacrifices for his own sins. And he even offered sacrifices for his children. And then God still put him through the ringer, right? Just so that he could use him as an example. But even though he didn't have the fullness of the law, he knew that the sacrifices were there. He knew what he needed to do. And then his friends told him, go ahead and sin. Just bring God's wrath down in mass, right?

So the law increases sinning. The next one, the law binds us until death. And I think that's really, really important. The law binds us until death. If you're in a contract there, especially with marriage, that was the general sense in the illustration there, the law binds us until death. And so Paul says we died with Christ. We had to die because we needed to have that bondage, that binding agreement taken care of. The law is not sin.

Romans 7.7 tells us that the law itself is not sin. It is righteousness. Randy, you almost added that. The law is holy and righteous and just. It's holy and righteous, and that's basically the next one there. The law is righteous and holy and just. The law is good.

Romans 7.16. The law is good.

Then Romans 7.23. The law is a prison. There we go. So, it's good, but it's a prison. It's a ministry of condemnation. It's a ministry of death. It's a curse. You're noticing that Paul doesn't say that the law itself is sin. The law itself doesn't make us sin by its commandments. It makes us sin because of the flesh. The law was weak through the flesh.

The law demands life or blood for transgression in Hebrews 9.22. That's why Christ's full life had to be paid. The law shows no partiality and therefore condemns us.

The no partiality thing, that's the one that most of the legalists kind of forget. It's impartial. Oh yeah, so if you want to squiggle out that W, you can do that. There we go. Christ fulfilled the requirements of the law in his flesh. The law was not negated just by God saying, and we're done with that. He could have said, this is the end of this period. The law is done away with. Except, that the purpose of the law was to draw attention to our need for redemption, our need for a savior. So he had to do away with it in a specific way.

And so Christ fulfilled the requirements of the law in his flesh. That doesn't mean that he was without flesh, does it? How many of the cults have taught that Jesus was just spirit and he wasn't flesh? Well, this says he was flesh. Christ is the end of the law for those who believe because we're identified with him. That's not a shocker here, Holly Hills. And the last one here, if we are led by the Spirit, we are not under the law, 518. And who's led by the Spirit in the church?

What percentage? 100%. That's not supposed to be a trick question, but some people are like, oh no. I need to know the answer to that. It's 100% it's easy. They may not understand it, but that doesn't make it not true. We don't want to walk away from this list with the impression that the law is evil. As Paul said, it's good, it is not sin. It is the righteousness of God. But we need to understand that in the New Testament context, its purpose is solely to point us to the cross and Jesus' work on it. To add to that, the law through the sacrifices were never meant, or do not forgive sins, but they remind of sin. They remind us of our sin and they are representative of Christ's work on the cross. They themselves did not cover the sins.

So 10.3 says, but in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year after year. There is never a once and for all that is just continual.

Yep, that's Romans 10.3?

No, that's Hebrews 10.3. Alright. I was like, that doesn't remind me of Romans, but that's okay. It's because it isn't.

It's Hebrews 10.3. Alright. So, how should the New Testament saint handle the law? And this is an important question. I want us to have an answer to this for everybody to understand. How should the New Testament saint handle the law?

I think it's important to understand it. To understand it so you know the basis of how it leads into grace. So we should learn the concepts that are in the law, not for implementation, but for understanding. Just for the background, because everything in the book of Hebrews points back to the Old Testament. It points back to what happened in the law and the sacrifices, the tabernacle, all that stuff. I'm learning it for the first time in depth and it's eye-opening to see Christ as a high priest that I didn't fully understand and appreciate in the past.

So how else should the believer handle the law? We should understand it. Respect it. Well, we understand that we've died to the law. And we understand our death to the law, and I think that's important. So we can look at it, we can understand it, we can use it in evangelism, but not in our own walk. And the reason for the law being used for evangelism is because it points to the cross. It points to what sin is. We can define sin if we understand what it is.

Any other questions on this? We spent some time on it here, but I thought it was worthwhile exploring that together and making sure we had an understanding. points to the sin and then allows people to understand, wow, I do need a savior. I do need a savior. And so it's a ministry of death. It's what will, the wages of sin are death, right? It's what will bring those things together.

So let's read verse 7 again because we're finally moving into the next section of it, but let's get back into the context of it. But if the ministry of death and letters engraved on stone came with glory so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was. And we're going to stop there even though it's mid-sentence.

Let's talk about glory. The Old Testament law came with glory, the radiant essence of God's being, because God interacted with Moses. In Exodus 24, 16, and 17, Moses communes with God, and God's glory shows. Later on in Exodus 34, verses 29 through 30, his skin is glowing with the glory of the Lord, and it scares the Israelites. I'm going to go ahead and turn back and read there. If you've got your Bibles, you're welcome to join me. Exodus 34, 29 through 30. I think it's one of my favorite things, and we're going to go into this more in depth next week. 29 and 30.

It came about when Moses was coming down from Mount Sinai and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses hand as he was coming down from the mountain that Moses did not know the skin of his face shown because of his speaking with him. So when Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses behold the skin of his face shown and they were afraid to come near him. Let's just say that nobody had any makeup that would give you that glow face like Moses had after talking with God.

Now he's been up with God for 40 days. Actually he's been up for 40 days plus the time before that because he came down and they had the calf and so he broke the tablets, right? So he's been up with God for 40 days and God sustains him. He has no bread, he has no water, and God sustains him.

The radiant essence of God's being penetrated into Moses. It had a biological and a physiological impact and I can't explain that. The closest thing we have today is radiation and that kills you. So we can't explain the radiant essence of God's being beaming out of Moses scientifically. We don't have trapped radiant essence of God's being that we can do experiments with and put it on you.

When the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies, it had to be literally smoky in there so they could not see the radiance of God. Well, I don't think the smoke would stop it, but it might have dimmed it a bit, right? It was definitely to where they could not see the radiance. Yeah, and it was not like we talked about last week. It wasn't the seeing of God himself. It was just his glory showing.

So we're going to look in the next passage at this in more depth, so I want to not belabor it too much. That way you don't get the same lesson two weeks in a row. But why is the radiant glory of God difficult for us to conceive of today culturally? I put the word culturally in there on purpose. Tom? We've seen reruns of atomic bombs to God's glory and it sure doesn't glorify Him. Okay, so we have reruns of atomic bombs. What else? What else? Culturally, we've been told over and over again that this doesn't fit into repeatable scientific history.

And so we just kind of scratch our heads and go, that's cool and weird, right? But culturally, we don't think about God's glory with experience. We don't think of what that is and so we're very experiential and we like to think that when we're not experiential we're scientific. And so culturally for us, especially in the United States, this can be a little weird for folks.

But we have this contrast from Paul where he talks about this glory that Moses had that was fading versus the glory of the Spirit here. And so let's keep moving forward here. The glory radiating from Moses was second-hand glory. And as I was thinking about that, second-hand glory is kind of a weird... I don't mean to turn a phrase or anything with that, but I couldn't think of a better way to describe it. It was second-hand glory.

Moses spent time with God up on the mountain and God sustained Moses and it changed him with some temporary supernatural physiological change, but it faded. And not only did it fade, but it was one point in time. Ka-chunk. There's Moses. There's Moses coming off the mountain. There's Moses coming off the mountain with glory. There's Israel freaking out. The glory fades and the law remains. So Paul is contrasting that because the glory that he's describing here is not a one point in time kind of glory. And that's really important to understand. Does the Holy Spirit have the glory of God? Does the Holy Spirit indwell you? Those are key doctrines and key things to understand. The Holy Spirit is eternally bonded in the Trinity as a source of glory. And He indwells us.

Roger, you were going to say something. I'm going to cover that next week too. It's important that when we think of glory, two parts of this light I see. One is, there's obviously a physical part, right? As Moses, he's physically shown, God's physically shown glory, and the mental transfiguration, there's a physical brightness. But it goes beyond that, because it tells us of the character of God, the character of Christ. That's what the Holy Spirit is. is doing in our lives.

He's not causing us to shine. Otherwise, we'd all be walking around. We'd be really easy to identify Christians. We're not the shining ones walking around, right? It's the character of Christ in us. I think that's what is helpful when you think of glory. Even though we're talking, the analogy is with the skin showing.

Every time I talk about the Spirit, it has to be Christ's life living through us in our character and our walk and how we interact with people. And that's God's very character. righteous, and all his characteristics that we have in Christ. It's the second half of the radiant essence of God's being. It's of God's being, and it's easy to get distracted by the radiant half and not the of God's being half.

That's a good point. So the question I've got here, and I think we've covered most of what I want to cover, but the question I've got here is will we manifest the glory of God physically? And the cool answer, I've got the hint there, is that Romans 8.17 tells us, yes, we will come back glorified with Him and we will represent that glory. So then Paul contrasts here in his letter the ministry of righteousness. In verse 9, the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory. So the ministry of righteousness In contrast, the Ministry of Condemnation demands we ask ourselves how the New Testament Church, as a new institution, sets us up for righteousness. So how does the New Testament doctrine and the fullness of what's revealed from the New Testament set us up for righteousness?

Jack? There's a term that I've been using for quite a while. But righteousness and life are the same thing. Okay. For a Christian, righteousness and life are the same thing. That's a really, I like that. That's a good statement. Moses came down from the mountain. He had what we're going to look like. He will be righteous to God. He was. He radiated the righteousness of God.

So the question that I've got here in this next question after we asked that the one way is, if the law came with a rigid demand on Israel's time, Israel's energy and its faculties, what are the demands of the ministry of righteousness on the New Testament saints? What are the demands on us as Christians?

Just to believe. Just to believe. To rest. To walk in faith. To abide. That word abide is one that I want to, I am challenging this Sunday school class to use the word abide more often in fellowship. We need to be reminding each other of this need to abide more often.

My kids said, Dad, I don't hear the word abiding as often outside of our home. And I said, well, that's because other people just need to be encouraged to use it and understand it. So I'm encouraging you to use it and understand it, because abiding is actually one of the key things in verse 11. Or you could use a slang version of that, just to hang out. To hang out with the Lord. So, continuing on, just because the second bell is going to get me.

The Holy Spirit's indwelling not only means we are empowered, but we are also directed with confidence by His will. That's why there can be liberty. We know that He's going to direct our steps. We know from Ephesians that He has prepared good works for us if we're just abiding.

Ephesians 1.6 declares that God bestowed His glory on the church. It's declared. It's not inferred. It's declared. God's glory is on the church. We get it. He bestowed it upon us abundantly.

So when we talk about comparative glory here, as Paul does in verse 10, the old glory doesn't look like glory at all compared to how big and awesome and infinite the new glory is. One was fading. this new glory never fades. And lastly, verse 11 here, he says, for if that which fades away was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory.

And I'm going to tell you that the translators need to have translated this differently. I'll be gentle in how I say that. Don't cross out your Bibles necessarily, but maybe make some liner notes. Verse 11, if I had my druthers, would say this, for if that which has been done away with was with glory, because fades, that's not fades, that which has been rendered inoperative came with glory, much more that which abides is in glory. Not just remains, but abides. So don't be upset at the translators, but I just think that they could have been more emphatic.

We'll just say it that way. So that which fades away was with glory, but it's done away with. It's been rendered inoperative. So if it's been rendered inoperative, should we still be trying to have the law in the life of the believer? It's been rendered inoperative. No. No, it should not be in the life of the believer.

What abides is the Holy Spirit. The thing that we dwell in is walking by the Holy Spirit. He dwells in us and we dwell in Him. So, we're over time. Any thoughts, questions, things I should have said, shouldn't have said? Alright, well let's close in prayer. Get up to the main service.

Heavenly Father, we come before you with gratitude for the truth of your word, that your Holy Spirit indwells us, that we dwell in him, that we can understand the fullness of the doctrine of the law in the New Testament so that we can rest in who we are in you and not wrestle with it. We just pray for your work in our lives to be manifested in a way that people would still scratch their head and say, it looks a lot like the glory of God and ask us questions. We thank you in Jesus name. Amen.