The life and ministry of Christ is not legal, but spiritual and...
2 Cor: 3:7-11T · Mike Doyle · Jan 9, 2022
Letters to the Corinthians, No. 90
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261925331530

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

So today we're going to talk about glory. Interesting verses because they They represent things that God has done at different time periods. And because God has done them, they have some glory. So to start with, I think what I'm gonna do is start back in Exodus 24 to talk about the law and why it was glorious. And I'll read I'll read some passages from there.

Now the Lord said to Moses, come up to me on the mountain and remain there. and I will give to you the stone tablets with the law and the commandment which I have written for their instruction. So Moses arose with Joshua's servant and Moses went up to the mountain of God. But to the elders he said, wait here for us until we return to you. And behold, Aaron and Hur are with you. Whoever has a legal matter, let them approach him, them.

Then Moses went up to the mountain and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai and the cloud covered it for six days. And on the seventh day, he called to Moses from the midst of the cloud and the eyes of the sons of Israel. The appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain. Moses entered the midst of the cloud as he went up to the mountain and Moses was on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights.

So what I want to point out here is that there were actually two meetings when Moses went up to get the law. This is the first one. Some of the unique characteristics of this one is that God wrote the tablets and gave them to Moses. He had him in the cloud with him for 40 days, talking to him and teaching him about what he wanted the Israelites to do.

But by the end of that visit, while Moses is gone, the people are down making the golden calf. 40 days seemed to be too long for them to wait. And Moses entreats the Lord, not to destroy the Jewish people. Why? Because Moses goes down there and they're partying with the golden calf and Moses breaks the tablets.

Well, that took care of the first covenant. It was over. I've always thought in my mind until I got to studying this that, wait a minute, I always thought Moses made one trip up there, got the log, came down, and that was it. No, it was over, and God was gonna destroy the nation of Israel and gonna start over with Moses. And Moses talked him out of it, it seems like. But he said, look, you're not the kind of God that would do this. You've said you would do some things, and you need to stick to your word, God. That's what he was saying. You know what's interesting about this whole first visit?

No facial glory. There wasn't any. When Moses took those tablets down the first time, his face didn't glow. No glory at all. So when he smashed the first tablets, now God and he are gonna establish a second covenant. with Israel and interesting about this covenant is that there's gonna be a little element of grace and mercy in it that wasn't in the first one.

So I think it's important for us to notice what Paul is doing here. It's not a question, it's a question not of law pure and simple, when God's voice shakes the earth with the sight of the terror which caused even Moses to be trembling, but of law when given the second time, accomplished by mercy, which not only covered sin, but accepted mediation. The first covenant was not gonna cover sin, and it was not gonna be, you couldn't mediate the sin problem. So the second now, which is when he comes down, when his face is glowing, has some grace mixed in with it, because there's a whole system set up whereby There's a ministry of covering of sins. There's the ministry of God is gonna send an angel out in front of the Jews to protect them, which he wasn't gonna do in the first covenant.

But notice something very interesting about this. The law comes from God and his glory. However, It's designated a ministry of death. And in our day and age, to understand that the Mosaic law, all 600 plus elements of it, is a ministry of death. And it was engraved on stones. The second stones were engraved by Moses, not by God. So last week, Roger talked about in verse six, I wanted to put six and seven together so we could look at this.

So the second time, not the first, the law was introduced with glory and then the second time and not before, there was any difficulty for the sons of Israel steadily glazing at the face of Moses. Then the first time they saw him, they could look right in his face because he didn't have any glow. Only then we're told that the skin on the second occasion, that Moses' skin shone, and that the Israelites were afraid to come near him. That's interesting that they were afraid to come near him. It was the glory of Jehovah which caused his face to shine, an effect entirely peculiar to only the second occasion.

Nevertheless, the law is still called a ministry of death. In verse six, that Roger covered last week, towards the end of it, it says, but for this letter kills, but the spirit gives life. The letter written on stone kills. Verse seven, which we'll get to in a second, but if the ministry of death in letters engraved on stone came with glory. It's the ministry of death. I think it's important for us as believers to keep in our minds that the law is a ministry of death. And all of these reformed people that want us to be under a law system have to understand that it's very clearly stated in a lot of places that the law is a ministry of death. This slide is, and I know you can't read it very well because it was, I took it out of something Constable did and I couldn't make it any bigger without messing it all up. So Constable says all was not the same the second time.

The narrative shows that there was now a growing distance between God and Israel that hadn't been there before. Each of the following sections of the narrative demonstrates specifically the changes that have occurred in God's relationship to Israel. Some of the comparisons and contrasts, that's what this chart's about. Between the narrative of the original giving of the covenant and this narrative that describes the renewal of the covenant, because what the Jews really lived under was the renewed covenant, not the first one.

On the left-hand side is the giving of the covenant in Exodus 20 through 31, and it talks about All the people were to be priests, or more specifically, the head of every household was to be a priest. Moses ascended to Mount Sinai and God spoke to him while the people waited below in 1920. God sent his angel to destroy Israel's enemies. which in the first one, the tabernacle in the center of the camp, I don't know if you study in Exodus, the tabernacle was right in the middle of the camp, and it was the place of the tent of meeting, the Holy of Holies was the tent of meeting where the Jews and God would get together and they would meet, and God would meet with the people, and that's Exodus 25. 28 and 29. The new restored covenant created the priesthood. Only the Levites were gonna be the priests now, not the head of every house. Moses did ascend to Sinai and God spoke with him there while the people waited below. It's the same. God sent an angel lest God would destroy Israel. In another tent meeting, Outside the camp was where God met with Moses and Joshua. So it wasn't in the center anymore. It was outside the camp.

So this represents a change in Israel's relationship with God in Sinai, in the Sinai covenant. And it does another thing. The second, or the restoring of the covenant, introduces the whole idea of God's glory as related to the law. So it came to, I'm gonna read from Exodus 34 now. And it came to pass when Moses was coming down from Mount Sinai, and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses' hand, he was coming down from the mountain. This is the second time.

Then Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he was speaking with him. So when Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near. Then Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke to them. Afterwards, all the sons of Israel came near, and he commanded them to do everything that the Lord had spoken to him on Mount Sinai. When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put the veil over his face. But whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would take off the veil until he came out. And whenever he came out and spoke to the sons of Israel, what he had been commanded, the sons of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone. So Moses would replace the veil over his face until he went up to speak with God again. I want you to notice a couple things here. In returning to the second time now, to Israel, the two tables of stone, Moses didn't realize that his face was shining. How would you? There aren't any mirrors.

There was a reflection of the glory of the Lord in his face. But you can say this is not the full manifestation of God's glory, it's just a reflective one. The fullness of the glory of God is seen only in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because his face, it says in the Mount of Transfiguration, that his face shone like the sun. Only the skin of Moses' face was shining, and it was a shining that was exterior to Moses himself. Something acted upon him. But in the Mount of Transfiguration, the Lord Jesus' brightness and shining came from within him. It wasn't a reflection because he was God. He is God.

Second Corinthians 4.6 says that for God who said, light shall shine out of the darkness, is the one who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. So still, glory is reflected in giving the law. One of the differences between the glory that is seen in the legal system and the glory that we now have is that it's reflective. The law system is reflective. And that's what these verses really tell us about. It gives us a faint picture, I think, of the fact that a far greater glory was to be revealed in the person of the Lord Jesus.

Aaron and the children of Israel were afraid to come near Moses when they saw the reflected brightness so that it was necessary for Moses to put a covering over his face when he talked to them. When he went in to speak with the Lord, he removed the veil.

Even this reflected glory was too much for the people to endure. Why? Because it represented only a partial manifestation of God's glory as seen in the giving of the law, which man has proven he was totally unable to keep it. That's what made him afraid. They knew.

Only in Christ now revealed in grace is the veil removed. Israel, because they have refused Christ, still has this veil on their hearts, which we'll see when we get to verse 14 and 15 next week. When I was working on this, I was thinking, ah, this is the first mask mandate. So verse seven, but if the ministry of death, the law is 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. Look up some verses on the ministry of death.

Romans 4.15 says the law brings about wrath. Not life, wrath.

Romans 5.20, the law came in, for what reason? Why did the law come in? So that the transgressions would increase, not decrease.

Romans 7.5 says that while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law, We're at work in our members of our body to bear fruit unto death.

Galatians 3.10, for as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse, for it is written. It's really interesting. Cursed is everyone. who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to perform them.

So if you wanna be in the law, help yourself. It doesn't sound like a good deal to me, but you gotta do them all. You can't just say, I'll pick the six and let these go. You can't do it. Deuteronomy 27 said, cursed is he who does not confirm the words of the law by doing them. and all the people shall say amen.

Galatians 3.21, is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Great question.

May it never be, for if the law had been given, which was able to impart life, the assumption is it didn't, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law instead of grace. Now, notice something about this if you've read through the chapter, that between this verse, seven, and verse 16th is a parenthesis. And the parenthesis is striking, what it does is it contrasts the ministry of the law with the new covenant that Roger talked about. The new covenant is developed, and the point is particularly made that the glory connected with the latter, with the new covenant, Far outshines the glory connected with the former, the law. Both of them had glory, but there were degrees. From the glory that came from glory under a law system came the demand for righteousness.

Wow, you must be righteous. But there was none to be had, because man wasn't righteous to start with. Romans 3.10 says there is none righteous, no, not a single one. There never was, and you know, you would have thought that the Mosaic system would have brought an upheaval, a moral upheaval, a change in the way that man behaved, but it didn't. The law came from glory, claiming and demanding righteousness, but there wasn't any to give.

Then God sent his son. the perfect righteous one to bear the judgment due to me and you. Now I look up and I see not the seraphim administering the law, but I see the savior. Instead of the glory being a thing to terrify me, it is the very opposite. It's the thing that attracts me. Under the law it would terrify me because I could not meet the demands of it. But now I'm not demanded of anything. It's a free gift. I'm given righteousness. The law required righteousness.

Man being a sinner couldn't produce it. So you have to come to the conclusion that the law necessarily is a ministry of death. And the more brightly God's goodness shines, the worse it is for sinners. For he is only the more proved worthless and guilty. J.B. Stoney said on this point, I don't know how to illustrate this. You can't find such a thing in this world.

But suppose a number of tenants, I like this because it's a real estate question, A number of tenants and their landlord came up to them and demanded from them his rent. And they have nothing to pay, now what is to be done? Well, he says, I'll pay it myself. And he pays for them all around, everybody. So God was demanding righteousness, but now he has paid the demand. And there is no more demand. He ministers righteousness, the very opposite to demanding it, and now to place I'm most feared, the place I'm most feared, I can look up without any fear at all.

People say, but I'm not up to it. Well, I can say, all I can say is, you will be up to it in one day, and a pity, you should not enjoy it now. should not enjoy your righteousness now. For if I look up to the glory, there is support there for my glory. Now, did I go backwards? Oh.

Again here in verse six, we're told, he who also made us adequate as servants of the new covenant, not the letter, but of the spirit, the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. And we'd get the expression the letter twice in verse six, and the same word in a slightly different form in verse seven, where it's translated written or letters engraved, same word.

Some translate it, a ministry of death, in letters engraved in stones, which shows that in this passage, the term letter refers to the law. That's what it refers to. The law kills, it's a ministry of death, but the spirit gives life. First we see the law. was but a ministry of death. So for then, the gospel is a ministry of the life-giving spirit. The contrast here is just so stark, I don't think you can miss it. In verse six, we also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit. For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. Yet there's a glory connected with the law.

So great that the children of Israel couldn't look at Moses' face, nor could they look at the reflection of any kind of God's glory. The glory of the law was to be done away with though. For soon it faded from the face of Moses. The time came when the signs of the divine presence left Sinai. and the glory left Moses' face.

Verse eight, how will the ministry of the Spirit be even more with glory? Or in another translation, how shall that not rather the ministry of the Spirit will be in glory? What's interesting here is that I focused for a second on this, is it with glory or is it in glory? It's interesting that the law system began with glory, not merely that it was glorious, it began with glory, but it didn't continue. It means that the law was introduced in and with glory rather than it existed in glory. Now comes this question.

How shall not rather the ministry of the spirit be in glory? The glory of the law began, but soon it was quenched in the ministry of death to all who came under it. When the ministry of the quickening spirit comes in, it abides in glory. See if I can make this point.

The ministry of the Holy Spirit, the giving of righteousness, is in glory where God is now, and that's where he's placed us. So it isn't a matter of bringing the glory out so that we would have some. We were taken in. We're in the glory. And the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to minister from that glory to us.

The law was what demanded righteousness from man because he had none of it. It's utterly condemned him. The Spirit brings righteousness. and ministers it to man by what means? By means of faith. You could say without a question a ministry which confers righteousness and consequently enables sinful men to stand in the presence of God greatly exceeds any glory, a ministry which demanded righteousness. where none existed. William Kelly says it, the Holy Spirit, as he sealed Christ in the righteous one without blood when on earth, now seals us when washed from our sins in his blood and rests on us as the spirit of glory and of God. We are put, therefore, in association with Christ on high, and we await his coming from there. For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness superabound in glory. In verse seven through 11, We're living in the age of the Holy Spirit. There is so much more glory under this new covenant.

Paul has a teaching method here that's kind of interesting. The first thing he's doing is he's taking verses seven through nine and he's comparing them with Exodus 34, 29 through 35. If you put those side by side and read them, you'll see what he's doing is comparing them. and he's given a commentary. I didn't know Paul wrote commentaries, but he did.

He wrote a commentary on Exodus 34, and when the Old Covenant came in, it was a very glorious thing, which faded away, had lots of glory, but then faded away, and he explains why. The greater the glory in the New Covenant, the law came in with glory, but it brought death.

Both the law, and righteousness came from God. In the old system, Moses was the mediator. In the new, Christ is the mediator. The results of the old brought death. The new brings life and came with superabounding glory. It is a glory, both systems are glorious because they came from God. The glory of the new, however, is so much brighter than the old.

Would you ever ask the question, is this glory ever gonna be able to fade like Moses' face did? I don't think so, because it's based in and resonant in the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. So, comparison, Hebrews 12, 18. In Hebrews 12, we're talking about the writer of Hebrews, which most people think is Paul, is comparing the same thing, the old and the new.

And he says to those who are believers, you have not come to a mountain that can be touched into a blazing fire, into darkness and gloom and whirlwind. This was Mount Sinai originally. And to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words, which sound as much that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them. When God spoke from Sinai to the people, they said, don't talk to us anymore, we can't take it. For they could not bear the command. If even a beast touches the mountain, it would be stoned. And so terrible was the sight that Moses said, I am full of fear and trembling.

Now verse 22 changes now and starts talking about a believer. And there's some really important points here. But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the myriad of angels. Who's the you there? It's us. to the general assembly and the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven and to God the judge of all and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect. And this is the line I want you to pay close attention to. And to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkling of blood which speaks better than the blood of Abel. Now, this verse does not say that you and I have been brought to the covenant. We've been brought to the mediator of the covenant.

What's the mediator's job? What does he do? His job is to make sure that all the tenants of the covenant are carried out. Now, in this case, the Lord Jesus is one of the parties of the new covenant. but we haven't been brought to that side of it. We've been brought to the person who's the mediator, the one who's gonna make sure that all the elements of grace and righteousness are carried out. You want a job? You got one. This is what the being brought to the mediator brings every believer into this realm of activity. We are all brought to assist in the mediating of this covenant of righteousness.

Romans 3.21 says, but now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe, every single one of us.

So a lot of times, those who say, well, we are under a covenant, well, we're not really. We've been brought to the mediator of that covenant. We're in him. And in the sense that we were placed in him at the time that he died, on his death, burial, and resurrection, in that sense, we're involved in the covenant. But we've been brought to him. It's not the covenant. The Jews were brought to a system, we've been brought to a person, and the person is the glorified Christ, who is the mediator of this new covenant. He's the one that makes guarantees that it gets carried out.

For if the ministry of the condemnation was glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory. Notice he uses the word ministry. Ministry. You could say the mediator has a ministry. He ministers this new covenant. So he says, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory.

The presence of the Holy Spirit, righteousness is being established. The law claimed righteousness, couldn't give it. I now have established righteousness given to me. I have it. A righteousness being established, the Holy Spirit can come and minister to me in righteousness, which in turn I can to others.

In Galatians, it's characterized by the Spirit. He that ministers to you is the Spirit. The whole blessing is now stamped with the presence of the Holy Spirit. It is what characterizes the thing, the ministry of the gospel and established. It is the presence of the spirit who brings divine righteousness instead of condemnation and death.

Again, the law required righteousness. You couldn't even desire under the law system. It must be death to a man because of his natural condition. When the law came, sin revived and I died. The old covenant was confined to the law. John Darby says, then we have another contrast. Death and condemnation characterize the law in contrast to the gospel, which is the ministration of righteousness and of the spirit. We've been brought to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant.

For indeed, what had glory in this case has no glory because of the glory that surpassed it. I was gonna show, I brought my little pointer thing. It has a really bright light and a really small light, and I was gonna show it, but I thought, gee, it doesn't even show a bright light well enough. Anyway, the glory is now so great that it eclipses the old. We could say it this way.

An example would be, I'm out watching a beautiful night with a full moon and all the stars. We were watching the stars in September in Florida and there were no human lights around so when it got dark it was just glorious outside. But guess what happened when the sun came up? The moon disappeared and so did the stars. Why? Because the glory of the sun was so much greater, you couldn't see the other one.

So that's a really good example. Nighttime would represent the law. Daytime would represent righteousness. The glory of God came upon Moses. The glory of Christ is in Christ. Oh, and I'm in him too. As God's grace in Christ completely dims by access the brightness of the glory of the law, as indeed it should, inasmuch as it flows from and expresses the will of God.

While the law can only condemn and execute sentence of an evil of a man already fallen in disobedience. For that which fades away was with glory much more than that which remains is in glory. Really interesting thing, you know in Romans 6 that we talk about identification truths, that my old man was crucified so that the body of sin might be put out of business, taken offline?

That's that word katergeho. It means to be done away with or annulled. It's exactly the same word as in this verse. It says that, The law system and glory is, and its glory is done away with or annulled in Christ. There's something better. The glory introduced by Christ will abide forever. There has been introduced by the Lord Jesus that which remains for eternity. And the glory of that is so surpassing that it completely eclipses any glory which existed in connection with the law. which verse 10 points out. Okay, in closing. The light which shines from Christ glorified, the light which shines from Christ glorified speaks of an effectiveness of his sacrifice. The brighter the light, the clearer the proof that our every sin is cleansed and put away by his blood.

There is no allusion here to the coming glory. Paul points out emphatically that what the Spirit is doing now, right now, is ministering that glory. How different is that which the Spirit now ministers in a dead and risen and glorified Christ? The reflection of glory in Moses' case was but a passing fact.

It was neither intrinsic nor permanent, but to be done away with, not so in Christ. Here, all is the fruit of his own work, it abides. It has everlasting value. It is not a question of letter, nor of engraving on stones, but of a divine savior who is yet a man, who has glorified God atoningly as to sin, not in living obedience only, but up to death, the death of the cross, and is thereon glorified in heaven, yes, in God himself, and gives the believer once a wretched, guilty, and lost sinner, now washed, sanctified, and justified, a righteous title to stand in perfect grace, to be with him in glory, one with him even now by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven.

This is the gospel, this is the ministry of the Spirit which abides and is assuredly abundant in glory. Let's close. Father, how we thank you. How we thank you for the glory of your dear son, the Lord Jesus, and what he has done. And as we celebrate the Lord's table today, we recognize that the glory from him will never fade. And we thank you, Father. We pray in your son's precious name. Amen.