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The Apostle Paul's Second
Epistle to the Corinthians |
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Chapter 3 |
A Covenant Defined:
A Biblical covenant is binding agreement made
between God and a second party. Each covenant
promises provisions from God and expectations
from the second party.
The Biblical Covenants Reviewed:
The Covenant with Noah – Genesis 9:8-17
God promises to never destroy the earth again
via a flood.
Mankind is obligated to keep the basic laws
given
in
Genesis 9:1-7.
The Covenant with Abraham – Genesis 12:1-3
God promises to give Abraham the Land,
to
make him
a great nation, to give him a great name and
to be the source of universal blessing.
Abraham was obligated to have faith in God and
to be faithful to His ways.
The Covenant with Israel at Sinai - Exodus
19:5-8, Deuteronomy 28
God promises to bless
Israel for their faith and obedience and to
punish them for their faithlessness and
disobedience.
Israel is obligated to do everything the LORD
commanded in the Torah.
The Covenant with David – 2 Samuel 7:8-17
God promises to give David and his sons a kingly
dynasty, peace in the Land and blessing.
David and his sons are to be faithful to God
through their obedience.
Which of these covenants is the old covenant?
The traditional Christian answer would be that
the covenant at Sinai is the Old Covenant.
While this is not exactly accurate, there are
a couple of verses in the Bible that allude to
the covenant at Sinai as being the Old
Covenant.
Not like the covenant which I made with
their fathers in the day I took them by the
hand to bring them out of the
land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke,
although I was a husband to them," declares
the LORD. (Jeremiah 31:32)
But their minds were hardened; for until this
very day at the reading of the old covenant
the same veil remains unlifted, because it is
removed in Messiah. (2 Corinthians 3:14)
A Covenant for the World to Come:
Has the New Covenant replaced the previous
covenants, specifically the covenant at Sinai?
Let's take a look at two very important passages
in the Tanakh regarding the New Covenant.
31"Behold, days
are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will
make a new covenant with the house of Israel and
with the house of Judah, 32not like the covenant
which I made with their fathers in the day I
took them by the hand to bring them out of the
land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke,
although I was a husband to them," declares the
LORD. 33"But this is the covenant which I will
make with the house of Israel after those days,"
declares the LORD, "I will put My law within
them and on their heart I will write it; and I
will be their God, and they shall be My people.
34"They will not teach again, each man his
neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know
the LORD,' for they will all know Me, from the
least of them to the greatest of them," declares
the LORD, "for I will forgive their iniquity,
and their sin I will remember no more." 35Thus
says the LORD, Who gives the sun for light by
day and the fixed order of the moon and the
stars for light by night, Who stirs up the sea
so that its waves roar; The LORD of hosts is His
name: 36"If this fixed order departs From before
Me," declares the LORD, "Then the offspring of
Israel also will cease From being a nation
before Me forever." 37Thus says the LORD, "If
the heavens above can be measured And the
foundations of the earth searched out below,
Then I will also cast off all the offspring of
Israel For all that they have done," declares
the LORD. (Jeremiah 31:31-37)
24"For I will take you from the nations, gather
you from all the lands and bring you into your
own land. 25"Then I will sprinkle clean water on
you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you
from all your filthiness and from all your
idols. 26"Moreover, I will give you a new heart
and put a new spirit within you; and I will
remove the heart of stone from your flesh and
give you a heart of flesh. 27"I will put My
Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My
statutes, and you will be careful to observe My
ordinances. 28"You will live in the land that I
gave to your forefathers; so you will be My
people, and I will be your God. (Ezekiel
36:24-28)
The New Covenant Promises
Torah written on the hearts of the whole
nation of
Israel.
God and
Israel will enjoy a unique, intimate
relationship.
Every person
in
Israel will have intimate relationship with God.
God will forgive the sins of the entire nation
of
Israel.
Israel will forever be God’s covenant people.
God will gather
Israel to the Land.
God will spiritually cleanse the entire nation
of
Israel.
God will give
all
of
Israel a new heart to live for God.
God will put His Spirit within the entire nation
of
Israel.
The entire nation of
Israel will be completely faithful to the
covenant of Torah (originally made at Sinai).
Notice that these promises have not yet been
fulfilled in their fullness. Beyond that,
what's the point of a New Covenant in the
first place? What's wrong with the first
covenant, the covenant God made with Israel at
Sinai?
The Need for a New Covenant
For if that first covenant had been
faultless, there would have been no occasion
sought for a second. (Hebrews 8:7)
Remember that the covenant at Sinai is an
agreement on the part of God's people to obey
the commandments of the Torah, with God
responding with blessing. The flip-side, of
course, is that when God's people disobey the
commandments of the Torah, God will respond
with punishment and curses. That's it; there's
no inherent promise that God will do any
spiritual work in the hearts of sinful men to
enable them to keep the commandments of the
Torah. Without the work of the Spirit,
applying the blood of the Messiah, the
covenant of Sinai is a covenant of death, a
ministry of condemnation. The participants of
this covenant will forever fail, always
falling short of this covenant's high
expectations and receive the curses due them.
This is the fault of the first covenant but
the fault does not lie with the Torah or even
the covenant itself. There's nothing wrong
with the Torah; in fact,
the Torah is holy, righteous
and good (cf. Romans
7:12).
There's nothing wrong with the covenant at
Sinai because it's a simple black and white
agreement; God would bless His people if they
obeyed the commandments of the Torah. The
fault lies with the people themselves because
we are fallen and sinful, so we will forever
break the Torah and the covenant of the Torah.
That is, unless God supernaturally changes our
hearts and gives us His Spirit to be able to
obey the Torah. This is the purpose of the New
Covenant because the New Covenant does promise
us a new heart, a heart with the Torah written
on it, which refers to
having the ability
to obey the commandments. In fact, Ezekiel
36:26-27 spells out that the New Covenant
is a promise to change the spiritual state of
Israel so that they can keep the commandments
of the Torah.
"Moreover, I will give you a new heart and
put a new spirit within you; and I will remove
the heart of stone from your flesh and give
you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit
within you and cause you to walk in My
statutes, and you will be careful to observe
My ordinances." (Ezekiel 36:26-27)
What would happen if suddenly God's people had
the ability to be sinless and always obey the
Torah? They would forever receive the
blessings of the covenant at Sinai!
But now
he has obtained a more excellent
ministry, by as much as
heis also the
mediator of a better covenant, which has been
enacted on better promises. (Hebrews 8:6)
This is why the writer to the Hebrews says
that the New Covenant is a better covenant and
has been enacted on better promises, not
because it is a replacement of the Sinai
covenant but because the New Covenant promises
to enable Israel to keep the Sinai covenant!
But, again, these New Covenant promises have
not yet been fulfilled in their fullness. This
is because the New Covenant is a covenant for
the Messianic era and the
Age to Come. These
promises will be fulfilled when the Messiah
returns and
God raises the dead, transforming us
into the immortal state where we will not
be able
to sin anymore. This means that while we are
in This
Age and in these mortal bodies, we
will still have to deal with sin and the
ramifications of being breakers of the
covenant at Sinai. This is why
Israel is in exile, the Temple is still
destroyed and the Messiah has not yet returned
to bring world peace.
That doesn't mean that God has left us to
ourselves in this life. Rather, God has given
us His Spirit as foretaste and a pledge,
assuring us that we will one day enjoy the New
Covenant reality. God has graciously given us
the ability to begin to live out the kingdom
in this life before it happens for real. The
first coming of the Messiah,
his death,
resurrection, ascension and intercession is
assurance that the rest of God's promises will
be fulfilled. The blood of the Messiah Yeshua,
symbolized in the cup of the Passover seder,
is assurance that the New Covenant will be
fulfilled (cf. Luke
22:20).
For believers, the Torah is not a source of
condemnation but a source of blessed
instruction from God on how to live a holy
life. In every generation there have been an
elect group of believers within Israel and
from among the nations who have been given the
gift of salvation, a taste of New Covenant
life. Believers after the coming of the
Messiah are in the same blessed position as
believers previous to the coming of the
Messiah.
Though this is a reality for the believers in
every generation, likewise within every
generation, there are many within the visible
people of God who, though they claim to be
believers, do not actually have a regenerated
heart and do not have
God's Spirit working
within them. For them, the Torah remains a
source of condemnation, showing them where
they have failed. Especially in a
Jewish context, where everyone is a
participant in the covenant at Sinai, there
exists within the same synagogue some who by
the Spirit have hope of the New Covenant
promises and some who have not yet experienced
the regenerative work of the Spirit and are
therefore subject to the curses of the Torah,
since whatever parts of that they do observe,
it is not out of a heart of faith and is
therefore unacceptable to God. For the latter
group, the reading of the Torah is like
reading out a death sentence. For these people
the Torah certainly has value in regards to
this life but
with regard to life in the
Age
to Come, it will simply condemn them before
God. Keeping these things in mind, let us look
at 2 Corinthians chapter 3 to see how Paul
used the term "old covenant."
2 Corinthians 3:
1Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or
do we need, as some, letters of commendation to
you or from you? 2You are our letter, written in
our hearts, known and read by all men; 3being
manifested that you are a letter of Messiah,
cared for by us, written not with ink but with
the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of
stone but on tablets of human hearts.
False teachers infiltrated the Corinthian
believing community, apparently proclaiming
“another Yeshua” and a “different gospel,” who
were even going so far as to claim to be
apostles (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:4, 13). We
can’t be dogmatic in assuming what their false
message was but if it was anything like the
false message of the Influencers of Galatia,
it’s possible they were proclaiming that one
must first become legally Jewish in order to be
accepted by God. The thinking behind this
misguided message was that salvation was
predicated upon
a legal connection to
the covenant at
Sinai. However, basing salvation upon
a legal
association with the covenant at Sinai, becoming
legally Jewish, is problematic, for, as we
looked at earlier, the covenant at Sinai is an
agreement to obey the Torah and to be judged
based upon that obedience. If one could keep the
commandments perfectly, there would be no fear
of the punishment of God. Of course, this is
impossible without the life-giving work of the
Spirit. For Paul, however, since the false
message did not place faith in the finished work
of the Messiah to secure forgiveness of sins,
there can be no hope of spiritual regeneration.
To illustrate this vital point, Paul first
defended himself and his ministry. Paul brought
up the fact that he already ministered among
them by rhetorically asking if there was a need
to commend himself again. In other words, would
there be a need for him to introduce himself
with letters of commendation? The answer was to
be obvious since, again, Paul had already
ministered among them and the Spirit had already
changed their lives. The Corinthian believers
were living letters or, as Paul put it,
“[letters] of Messiah.” In other words, the
manifested work of the Spirit in the lives of
the believers was the letters of commendation
that Paul could use to prove he was a genuine
teacher. Mere letters on tablets do not
necessarily prove the work of the Spirit, but a
changed life is certainly proof that the Spirit
of God has been active. Building off this
initial illustration and contrast between things
merely written down with ink and things written
on human hearts, Paul begins to describe the
difference between the “old covenant” and the
New Covenant.
4Such confidence we have through Messiah toward
God. 5Not that we are adequate in ourselves to
consider anything as coming from ourselves, but
our adequacy is from God, 6who 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.
Paul and his colleagues were confident that the
lives of the Corinthians were commendation
enough in order to be accepted as legitimate
teachers but not because they were confident in
themselves. That they should have been accepted
as adequate was not based upon anything inherent
in them but rather in God, whose power was
demonstrated through their ministry. Paul then
explained that their ministry was as a result of
God making them servants of a new covenant. He
additionally explained that their ministry in
service of this new covenant was not of the
letter but of the Spirit because the letter
would kill but the Spirit gives life.
Firstly, we should remember that the New
Covenant is an as of yet unfulfilled reality
that believers only begin to experience in
this age. Nevertheless, by proclaiming the
gospel
and the
one who ratified the New Covenant with
his blood, Paul can be rightly called a servant
of the New Covenant. The New Covenant reality
was initiated in the lives of each believer that
accepted the gospel through Paul's ministry.
To show the difference between the ministry of
the false teachers that plagued the Corinthians
and his own ministry, Paul contrasted "the
letter" with "the Spirit." This contrast is
between the inevitable result of the covenant at
Sinai for those who trust in Jewish status for
salvation and the inevitable result for those
who trust in Messiah for salvation and have been
given the taste of the New Covenant. This is
what Paul meant when he said that the letter
kills and the Spirit gives life.
The letter
= association with the Torah via the covenant at
Sinai only
The
Spirit = association with the Torah via the New
Covenant; the Torah written upon the heart
The letter kills
= without the work of the Spirit, eternally
speaking, the Torah can only bring condemnation
The Spirit gives
life = the Spirit applies the blood of the
Messiah to the sinner, regenerates the heart and
gives the ability to keep the Torah, securing
the blessing of the covenant at Sinai.
7But 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, 8how will the ministry of the
Spirit fail to be even more with glory? 9For if
the ministry of condemnation has glory, much
more does the ministry of righteousness abound
in glory.
Paul now further developed the contrast between
"the letter that kills" and "the Spirit that
gives life" by midrashically comparing
and contrasting the ministry of Moses with his
own ministry. By "midrashically" I mean
that Paul is simply using Moses and the story of
the glory on his face being veiled from
Exodus 34 as a metaphor for what was
happening in Corinth with the false teachers.
Again, while we can't be dogmatic about what the
false teachers in Corinth were teaching, if
there was any hint of the influential teachings
common in the first century that only those with
legal
Jewish status had a place in Israel and in the
Age
to Come, it could be that Paul was using
this as an opportunity to show the superiority
of his message as opposed to the false teachers.
In other words, the teachings of this chapter
are a perhaps subtle polemic against those who
taught that salvation was based upon a legal
Jewish status within Israel. This, of course,
was in opposition to Paul's message that
salvation was a free gift to both Jews and
Gentiles.
Firstly, Paul noted that the "ministry of
death," again which midrashically
referred to the ministry of Moses, consisted of
letters engraved on stones and that this
ministry came with glory. That this ministry
came with glory is evident in the abundance of
epiphanies and, more specifically, the shining
of Moses' face after he met with God. In fact,
the glory which was on Moses' face was as such
that the children of Israel could not look
intently at it. The NASB added the phrase
"fading as it was," which is their translation
of the Greek word "katargeo." The word
katargeo means "to render idle, unemployed,
inactivate, inoperative" or "to cause to cease,
put an end to, do away with, annul, abolish" and
is always used to refer
to
something being
abolished, nullified or rendered ineffective. In
fact, in the 25 times this word is used in
Paul's letters, only three times does the NASB
translate it as "fade away" and all three
instances are in this passage. That this is a
bad translation is evident in that there is
absolutely no mention of the glory of Moses face
fading away in the Torah. Let's read the story
in Exodus 34:29-35:
29It 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
that the skin of his face shone because of his
speaking with Him. 30So when Aaron and all the
sons of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of
his face shone, and they were afraid to come
near him. 31Then Moses called to them, and Aaron
and all the rulers in the congregation returned
to him; and Moses spoke to them. 32Afterward all
the sons of Israel came near, and he commanded
them to do everything that the Lord
had spoken to him on Mount Sinai. 33When Moses
had finished speaking with them, he put a veil
over his face. 34But 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, 35the 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 in to speak with Him.
Again, there is no mention that the glory that
was on Moses' face was fading away! The passage
does mention that, at first, Aaron and the
children of Israel were afraid.
However,
as soon as Moses called them out, they returned
to him and listened to him. Importantly, though,
we should note that Moses would put a veil over
his face, which would of course dim the shine of
the glory that was on his face. Perhaps more
importantly, Moses made sure to remove the veil
when he went to meet with HaShem.
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So, how should we understand the use of the word
katargeo in reference to the glory on
Moses' face? It should be stated that the phrase
"rendered ineffective" is a more appropriate and
fitting translation for katargeo in this
passage. The glory of Moses' face was to point
towards something but since there was a veil on
his face, the purpose of the glory, in pointing
to something, was rendered ineffective.
because of the glory of his face, [katargeo]
because of the glory of his face, [rendered
ineffective]
In contrast to the "ministry of death" is the
"ministry of the Spirit," which Paul stated
would come with even more glory. This is, of
course, a kal v'chomer argument, pointing
out that if a ministry of death would be
glorious, how much more so would a ministry of
the Spirit be even more glorious? Paul then used
two parallel phrases for these ministries and
simply reiterates the kal v'chomer
argument. The parallel terms of "ministry of
condemnation" and "ministry of righteousness"
indicate to us that Paul was not just speaking
of temporal death and life, respectively, but
eternal death and life. Why did Moses ministry,
though glorious, result in death and
condemnation? The ministry of Moses was glorious
because it was the revelation of God Himself
but, for the purposes of Paul's midrash,
Moses' ministry was a ministry of death and
condemnation because the people associated with
that ministry did not have faith and did not
have the accompanying work of the Spirit.
Without the active work of the Spirit of God,
the Torah can only show us where we have sinned
and will bring condemnation upon us. Why was
Paul's even more glorious ministry a ministry
that was by the Spirit resulting in life and
righteousness? Again for the purposes of his
midrash, Paul's message included the active
work of the Spirit, showing people God's true
way of salvation, which results in
righteousness.
ministry of death/condemnation
= The call to the Torah without the work of the
Spirit, which results in condemnation
ministry of the Spirit/righteousness
= The call to the Torah with the work of the
Spirit, resulting in salvation, which results in
righteousness
10For indeed what had glory, in this case has
no glory because of the glory that surpasses it.
11For if that which fades away was with glory,
much more that which remains is in glory.
Building off the previous kal v'chomer
argument, Paul pointed out that the former
ministry, though it had glory, its glory was
made nought in comparison to the glory of the
latter ministry. The thought is reiterated by
another kal v'chomer argument, this time
contrasting the word "katargeo" with "meno,"
translated here as "that which remains." Again,
taking into account that the word katargeo
does not mean "fades away" but is more
accurately understood as "render ineffective" or
"nullify," we could translate this verse this
way:
For if that which [katargeo] was with
glory, much more
that which remains is in glory
For if that which [was rendered ineffective] was
with glory, much more that which remains is in
glory
As we'll see in verse 13, that which was
rendered ineffective was the goal at which the
glory of Moses face pointed towards, something
that only happens within the confines of a
ministry of death, resulting in condemnation.
Within the ministry of the Spirit, which
produces righteousness, the goal behind the
glory of Moses is not hidden behind a veil but
remains, seen by those with faith.
that which was rendered ineffective
= the glory was veiled and was rendered
ineffective because it could not point to the
Messiah
that which remains
= the glory is not rendered ineffective and
remains to be seen because there is no veil,
allowing the glory to point to the Messiah
12Therefore having such a hope, we use great
boldness in our speech, 13and are not like
Moses, who 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.
Since Paul knew that the message he proclaimed
resulted in righteousness because of the work of
the Spirit, he and his associates used great
boldness in their presentation. Paul seemingly
contrasted himself and his ministry with Moses
and his ministry, pointing out that his message
was not veiled. Is Paul, however, really saying
that his message was different than Moses? No,
Paul's message was not a different message of
salvation than what was presented in the Torah.
Indeed, Paul's favourite verse to prove that
salvation was by faith was from the Torah (Genesis
15:6; cf. Romans 4:3,
Galatians 3:6).
Again, as noted previously, this passage is
perhaps a subtle polemic against the false
teachers that plagued Corinth and the rest of
the believing world. It was their ministry that
was a ministry of death and condemnation because
their message had the people place their hope in
association with the Torah through a legal
Jewish status. To Paul, such a message obscured
the very glory of the Torah, which is the
Messiah. With that in mind, Paul used the story
of Moses putting a veil over his face as a
midrash to contrast his message with that of
the false teachers.
Since this is a midrash, Paul's reference
to Moses is a metaphor to the Torah and how it
was being used by the false teachers of his day.
In the story of Exodus 34, Moses did indeed
eventually put a veil on his face, which would
have dimmed the shining light of the glory that
was on his face. To Paul, the manifested reality
of God's glory is the Messiah, so the point of
the glory was to point to the Messiah. The NASB
translated the Greek word "telos" as
"end" but like in Romans 10:4, this word
does not mean "end" in the sense of termination
but in these sense of "end-point," that is, a
"goal" or a "purpose." In Romans 10:4,
the NASB has:
For Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
who believes.
A more accurate translation would be as follows:
For [Messiah]
is the [goal] of the [Torah] for righteousness
to everyone
who believes.
Likewise, here in verse 13, the word "telos"
should also be translated with the word "goal"
rather than "end." Also, we have the third
instance of the Greek word "katargeo"
being translated as "fade away," when it should
be translated as "render ineffective.” Here is
how this verse should be translated:
veil over his face so that the sons of
Israel would not look intently at the [telos]
of what [katargeo]
veil over his face so that the sons of
Israel would not look intently at the [goal] of
what [was rendered ineffective]
What was "rendered ineffective" was the glory
shining of Moses' face because the veil
prevented the people from seeing the "goal" or
purpose of the glory itself. Since the words
"Moses" and "Torah" can be used interchangeably,
Paul saw a correlation between the faithlessness
of the people who rejected Moses and the glory
that was on Moses' face and the possibility of
the faithlessness of the people who would
espouse the teachings of the false teachers in
Paul's day. In other words, Paul wasn't so much
thinking about the exact situation of the story
in Exodus 34 but, rather, he saw that how
in his day, those influenced by the false
teachers could not see God's true way of
salvation, Yeshua the Messiah, in the Torah
because the goal or purpose behind the glory of
the Torah was rendered ineffective by a
spiritual veil.
14But their minds were hardened; for until this
very day at the reading of the old covenant the
same veil remains unlifted, because it is
removed in Messiah. 15But to this day whenever
Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart;
Paul then connected the story of Exodus 34
directly to the situation in his day, showing
the relationship between a hardened mind and the
veil that lies over the Torah. In the ideal
situation, Moses should be unveiled, with the
glory of God shining, leading people to the
one
who is the manifestation of that glory, Yeshua
the Messiah. For those with a hardened mind,
meaning they have not experienced the
regenerative work of the Spirit in their lives
and therefore have no faith, the Torah is veiled
and the shining light of the Messiah cannot be
seen. The goal when reading the Torah is to
understand God's way of salvation; if the Torah
is misused and people read the Torah thinking
that their salvation lies in the Jewish identity
or any such false notion, the purpose of the
glory of the Torah is covered and cannot be
seen. It is in this situation and this situation
only that the Torah can be called "the old
covenant." Though the Torah itself is not the
covenant of Sinai, since the covenant at Sinai
is an agreement on the part of Israel to obey
God, the Torah can be understood as "the book of
the covenant." Therefore the term "covenant" can
refer to the Torah. Why then the addition of the
word "old?" Paul used the word "old" 5 other
times in his epistles and each time it is used
to refer a lack of faith or a lack of the work
of the Spirit. Here are a couple of examples:
That, in reference to your former manner of
life, you lay aside the old self, which is being
corrupted in accordance with the lusts of
deceit, (Ephesians 4:22)
Knowing this, that our old self was crucified
with Him, in order that our body of sin might be
done away with, so that we would no longer be
slaves to sin; (Romans 6:6)
The "old self" refers to believers before coming
to faith in the Messiah. The "old" covenant,
therefore, is the covenant of Sinai espoused by
an unbeliever. To put it another way, especially
for Jewish people, if the Torah is espoused but
there is no genuine faith, no actual work of the
Spirit to regenerate the heart, there can never
be assurance of the New Covenant promises. For
that person, the Torah will remain as the "old"
covenant for them;
the Sinai covenant without
the New Covenant is a covenant that can only
condemn because fallen, sinful human beings will
always break the covenant of Sinai. Unless there
is genuine faith and repentance, a result of the
Spirit's work, a veil will remain over the
Torah, which in turns veils the heart.
In that situation,
there
will always be a barricade between the glory of
the Torah and the heart of the person.
16but whenever a person turns to the Lord,
the veil is taken away.
The hope is that the veil can be taken way,
which happens when a person turns to the Lord.
Just as Moses would remove the veil when he
would meet with HaShem, whenever anyone turns to
HaShem in faith and repentance, the veil that
lies over the Torah is removed. Without the
veil, the person can espouse the Torah without
any fear of condemnation for he sees within the
Torah God's ways of salvation. According to the
Torah, salvation is not a matter of Jewish
identity but a matter of faith, which Paul fully
explained in Romans 4. We would do well
to notice that the Torah is not taken out of the
picture! The Torah is not removed because there
was nothing wrong with the Torah in the first
place. The issue was with the heart of man but
God, in salvation, supernaturally recreates the
heart, something which will be the reality for
the entire nation of Israel in the New Covenant.
The Torah remains an absolutely vital part of
the believer's life because it contains God's
instructions about how to live a holy life.
In
Romans
3:31,
Paul declared that saving faith
does not nullify (literally
"katargeo,"
in the Greek) the Torah, it establishes it.
17Now the
Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit
of the
Lord is, there is liberty. 18But we all,
with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the
glory of the Lord,
are being transformed into the same image from
glory to glory, just as from the Lord,
the Spirit.
We should reiterate that it is not the Torah
that is removed but the veil that lied over the
Torah, preventing the person from seeing God's
true way of salvation. Paul was not contrasting
Torah observance with a kind of Torah-less faith
but rather Spirit-less Torah observance with
Spirit-filled Torah observance. For example,
when Kind David stated that "the Torah of the
LORD is perfect, restoring the soul" and "the
commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening
the eyes," we should understand that to mean
that, by the work of the Spirit, God writes the
Torah on the heart of a person, which restores
the soul and enlightens the eyes (cf. Psalm
19:7-8). This is why Paul said that where
the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty
because without the work of the Spirit, a person
cannot be free from the bondage of sin and death
that God's perfect Torah enjoins upon people.
The difference between unbelievers and believers
is the work of the Spirit. Only when God's
Spirit is present can there be freedom from the
veil that blinds us to the truth of God's
salvation. A person's faith and repentant action
make it evident that the Spirit of God has
transformed their heart and that they have
espoused God's way of salvation.
Believers have the privilege of viewing the
glory of the Lord without any veil but even with
an unveiled face we only see the glory of the
Lord as in a mirror. This echoes Paul's words in
1 Corinthians 13:12:
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face
to face; now I know in part, but then I will
know fully just as I also have been fully known.
This confirms our understanding that we have not
yet fully experienced the reality of the New
Covenant but have only been given a taste. With
that said, the life of the believer is a life of
continual transformation, with the ultimate goal
of becoming like the Messiah. This process of
conformity to the image of the Messiah has many
different stages or, as Paul put it, it goes
"from glory to glory." Through the continuing
work of the Spirit in our lives, God brings us
to new places in our understanding and in our
obedience. Each new level of glory has the view
towards ultimate glorification in the Messianic
age when we are given immortality and complete
freedom from sin.
Conclusions:
It has been too long that Christians have
relegated some of the commandments of the Torah
as relics of a by-gone era, the era of the Old
Covenant. We've even come up with a tradition
that the books of the Hebrew Scriptures are the
Old Covenant (Testament) and the writings of the
Apostles are the New Covenant (Testament). As
we've seen, however, the "old covenant" does not
refer to an era of time or a section of the
Bible, per se. The "old covenant," as Paul used
it (the only time it appears in the Bible),
refers to the revelation of God veiled. It was
logical for Paul to primarily refer to the Torah
as veiled since it was read in the synagogues
each week and was vitally connected to the false
message that one must be legally Jewish in order
to be counted as righteous. Continuing on in 2
Corinthians, however, demonstrates that the
principle of God's revelation being veiled can
apply to the Gospel as well. It says in 2
Corinthians 4:3-4:
3And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled
to those who are perishing, 4in whose case the
god of this world has blinded the minds of the
unbelieving so that they might not see the light
of the gospel of the glory of Messiah, who is
the image of God.
Yes, the Torah can be veiled and even the gospel
can be veiled but the key is that these things
are veiled to those who are perishing because
Satan has blinded them, preventing them from
seeing the true way of salvation. If we were to
call the gospel the "old gospel," that would
refer to the fact that the hearer of the gospel
was spiritually deaf and blind and could not
espouse God's salvation by faith. In either
case, when one turns to the Lord in faith, it is
neither the Torah nor the gospel that is taken
away; it is the veil that lies over their heart
that is taken away. For believers, the covenant
of Sinai, and the Torah which is a part of that
covenant, is not "old" and this is because we
are in the Messiah, who has removed the veil.
The Torah is not a source of condemnation for
believers because we have assurance of the New
Covenant promises. It is not correct for
believers to call any part of the Scripture
"old" because, to us, it is "new." The so-called
Old Covenant refers to being a part of the
covenant at Sinai without the work of the
Spirit. This was, to Paul, what the false
teachers' message was: participation in Israel
and connection to the Torah without the work of
the Spirit. To put it another way, if one seeks
out ritual conversion as their ticket into
Israel, that person is participating in the
covenant of Sinai without the promises of the
New Covenant and therefore, because the Spirit
has not applied the blood of Messiah and
regenerated the heart, they are guaranteed the
condemnation that comes from breaking the Torah.
Though Christian tradition views the Sinai
covenant as the Old Covenant, it is not an old
covenant for believers.
The New Covenant of Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36
are in contrast to the covenant at Sinai but
only in the area of obedience.
The Sinai covenant has no guarantee of a changed
heart; the New Covenant does guarantee a new
heart.
The purpose of a New Covenant is to ensure that
the Sinai covenant is kept; making sure that
Israel will receive the blessings of that
covenant.
The New Covenant reality will not reach its
fulfillment until the Messiah returns and
God
raises
the dead. Every generation has had an elect
group who has enjoyed a foretaste of this New
Covenant reality.
Participation in the Sinai covenant without the
work of the Spirit, the promise of the New
Covenant, will only result in death and
condemnation.
Genuine believers participate in the Sinai
covenant with the work of the Spirit and the
hope of the New Covenant.
Reading the Torah without the work of the Spirit
means you will be unable to see God’s true way
of salvation, a salvation that comes through the
Messiah; the Torah is veiled to unbelievers due
to the hardness of their minds.
The same could be said about the Gospel, so, for
unbelievers, the Gospel could be called the “old
gospel.” For believers, neither the Torah nor
the Gospel is “old,” all of it has been written
on our heart, so we can live it out.
Believers should accept all of God’s revelation
as relevant for holy living, just as 2 Timothy
3:16-17 teaches:
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for
teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in
righteousness, so
that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped
for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
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