WWUTT 1658 The Letter Kills but the Spirit Gives Life (2 Corinthians 3:4-11)

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You know, it was certainly a glorious sight when the children of Israel witnessed

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God speaking to them from Mount Sinai, but did you know that we have something even more glorious than what they had?

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The Holy Spirit dwelling within us when we understand the text. You are listening to When We Understand the

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Text, an online Bible ministry so that we may know all the riches freely given to us by God.

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For questions and comments, send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of the book of 2

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Corinthians. Picking up where we left off yesterday, but I'm going to start reading here in chapter 3, verse 1, and go through verse 11 out of the

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Legacy Standard Bible. This is the word of the Lord through the Apostle Paul writing to the church in Corinth.

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Are we beginning to commend ourselves again, or do we need as some letters of commendation to you or from you?

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You are our letter, having been written in our hearts, known and read by all men, being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, ministered to by us, having been written not with ink, but with the

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Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of hearts of flesh, and such confidence we have through Christ toward God, not that we are sufficient in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the

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Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. But if the ministry of death, in letters having been 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, which was being brought to an end, how will the ministry of the

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Spirit not be even more in glory? For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory.

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For indeed, what had been glorious, in this case has no glory, because of the glory that surpasses it.

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For if that which was being brought to an end was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory.

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So yesterday, looking at verses 1 through 3, where Paul says, are we beginning to commend ourselves again, or do we need as some letters of commendation to you or from you?

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You are our letter, having been written in our hearts, known and read by all men, being manifested that you are a letter of Christ.

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What is the word that we see coming up repeatedly in these verses that we're looking at here?

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If you were to take a pen and you were to underline those words that are coming up most frequently, what would you see?

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You would see the word letter is coming up a lot, right? Do we need as some letters of commendation to you or from you?

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So as I had mentioned yesterday, the super apostles, these fake apostles are coming into Corinth with these letters of commendation.

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Look how authentic we are. We even have these certificates that show that we're super apostles.

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So Paul is saying, is that what we need? That's what we need to be convinced by you that we're the genuine article.

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We need to have letters of commendation. Do we need to present them to you? Do we need to receive them from you in order to show that we are authentically who we are?

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So Paul says in verse 2, you are our letter. What is our authenticity as apostles?

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Well, the apostles having been given the word of God to go out into all the world, sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come into Corinth and they preach

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Christ crucified for our sins. Jesus who died on a cross, who rose again from the grave, ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

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They come preaching that message and saying, whoever will turn from sin and believe in Jesus Christ, you repent and put your faith in Jesus.

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You will be forgiven your sins and you will have resurrection of the dead. You will have everlasting life.

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They come with that message. The Corinthians believe it. They even saw the signs of apostleship that were performed among them.

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Paul says that later on in chapter 12, verse 12. So they saw that this message was authentically from God by the miraculous signs that were performed by these apostles.

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And what did the Corinthians do? They believe they turn from sin. They turn from the idols that they worshiped.

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They even gave up a lot of social prestige that many of them had.

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And we read about this when Paul was in Corinth, when we read in the book of Acts, there were even some men in high social standing there in the city of Corinth that ended up following Paul and believing the gospel that he proclaimed.

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These men are going to give up the achievements that they have made, you know, ascending, whatever you might call the corporate ladder or gaining political advancement.

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These men are basically seen as fools by the Greeks now because they believe in the resurrection of the dead.

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And yet they're absolutely convinced by it. I can believe all these other false gods. They're empty pieces of rock.

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There's nothing in them whatsoever that can possibly save my soul. But I've come to believe that I've sinned against God and my sins are forgiven by faith in Jesus Christ.

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And now in Jesus, I know that I have reconciliation with God, fellowship with God, and I have the promise of eternal life.

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So that this has happened among the Corinthians, it demonstrates the genuineness of the message that Paul came proclaiming.

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You are our letters of recommendation. What is the proof that what they are saying is genuine and authentic?

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You guys, you are our letter. Having been written in our hearts, known and read by all men.

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Again, Paul's affections for the Corinthians. It wasn't just a one and done deal. He didn't just come in there proclaiming something to the

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Corinthians, building up his cult and then going on to another place. That wasn't what Paul did. I mean, for Paul to leave

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Corinth and go somewhere else spreading this message, he doesn't benefit by the Corinthians. The Corinthians continue to grow.

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They share the gospel in Corinth. That church expands. Where Paul is at, continuing to spread the gospel and plant churches there, he's not benefiting from what's happened by the

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Corinthians. But what has happened there has been a testimony to everybody.

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Paul had talked about that in the previous letter in 1 Corinthians, that it's a testimony throughout

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Achaia and Macedonia, what has happened with you, that you've turned from sin to worship the true and living

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God. You are our letter, having been written in our hearts, known and read by all men, being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, ministered to by us, having been written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living

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God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of hearts of flesh.

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So it's not on tablets. There's nothing written down on a tablet that proves and authenticates that you're

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Christians and we're apostles. It is because the spirit of the living God has come into your heart, has convicted you of sin and shown to you that Jesus is the

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Christ. Being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, ministered to by us when the apostles came and proclaimed to the

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Corinthians, having been written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of hearts of flesh.

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Now that line in particular, well, that goes back to Jeremiah 31, 33, where God says,

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I will put my law within them and on their heart, I will write it and I will be their

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God and they will be my people. Something we see repeated later in the book of Revelation as well.

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So those who have come to believe in God, and as God also said through Ezekiel, Ezekiel 36,

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I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will sprinkle clean water on you and put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

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So all of these things have happened, not because of tablets of stone, not because of letters with ink, but because of the spirit of the living

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God that has been written on tablets of hearts of flesh. Verse four, and such confidence we have through Christ toward God.

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We are confident in God that these things have happened. We're not under some kind of delusion.

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We haven't experienced goosebumps or some sort of religious feeling that brings us to where we are.

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Our confidence is through Christ toward God. We have faith because we have known and seen and believed all those things that have been witnessed by the eyewitnesses, by the apostles themselves who were with Christ.

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The apostle Paul witnessed those things with his own eyes, not in the earthly ministry of Jesus, but Jesus having appeared to him on the road to Damascus.

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And then, as he says in Galatians, he spent three years with Jesus in Arabia learning from him there.

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So and then later on, even in Second Corinthians, it's in chapter 12 where he talks about being caught up into the third heaven.

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He saw many things which no eye has seen. And no one can repeat those things that that Paul had witnessed being caught up into the third heaven.

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So he's seen some incredible things. He's witnessed those things and testifies to the things that he has witnessed.

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So such confidence we have not in ourselves, not in some feeling or experience we had, but we have confidence through Christ toward God.

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Our confidence is in what Christ has accomplished by God who sent him to do his will.

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Verse five, not that we are sufficient in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit.

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For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. There we have reference to letter again. And in fact, in verse seven, but if the ministry of death in letters, having been engraved on stones, came with glory so that the sons of Israel might not look intently on the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, which was being brought to an end.

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Okay. Then we're kind of jumping ahead, but just to show you all of the mentions of letter that we have coming up here and our letters of commendation have nothing to do with what is written on paper or what is written on stone.

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The authenticity of the faith that we have is Christ. It's the fact that the

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Holy Spirit is in our hearts. It's the fact that we can endure the suffering and the pain and the struggles that we go through in life and yet continue to hold fast to Christ because it is

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Christ who is holding fast to us. Our confidence is not in anything that we have done, but what in Christ is done.

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Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.

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This even goes back to what Paul had mentioned at the first chapter in second Corinthians one, eight and nine, where he talks about the struggles that they went through, the persecutions that they endured in Asia.

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This was to teach us to rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.

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Our sufficiency is from God. Verse six, who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, a mention of that new covenant again, same thing that was mentioned in Jeremiah 31.

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We are ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit.

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So it's not ministers of the law, but of the gospel for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.

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The law does not give life. The law has no power to save us because we cannot keep the law.

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Paul talks about this in Romans as well. So when we attempt to keep the law, all it brings about in us is death.

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Since we are sinful in our hearts, we cannot keep the law in such a way that actually makes us righteous before God.

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Instead, it is, it is through the law that we, that we break the law, sin comes into our members.

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And then we, and then of course death, because as it says in Romans 6, 23, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our

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Lord. So we have the gospel and by faith in the gospel, we are forgiven our sins.

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A law is written upon our hearts. The desire to obey God is certainly there, but the salvation is not the law.

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The salvation is Christ. We are saved by faith in Christ. Our sufficiency is from God and we have a new covenant.

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And Paul and you know, his fellow brethren, his fellow apostles saying we are ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter.

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We're not going out proclaiming law. We're going out proclaiming the gospel and those who believe the gospel filled with the

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Holy Spirit for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. The law cannot save, but the

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Holy Spirit does raising us from death to life. Verse seven.

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But if the ministry of death in letters, having been engraved on stones came with glory, okay, so we're, we're talking about the law being given to Israel back in Exodus 19 and 20,

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God speaking from Mount Sinai, giving the 10 commandments, the, that law being written upon tablets that was glorious.

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God descending upon the mountain and the mountain being described as burning like a furnace smoke going up into the air, loud peals of thunder.

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There's lightning flashes, a blast that sounds like trumpets and it terrified the children of Israel. It was certainly a glorious site, but a terrifying site on top of that.

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So the law coming in glory and notice that Paul calls it, he calls the giving of the law, the ministry of death.

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That's in verse seven. But if the ministry of death in letters, having been engraved on stones came with glory, the glory of God that came upon Mount Sinai and proclaim these things to the children of Israel.

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This was a ministry of death for, as it says in a Romans eight to the law of the spirit of life in Christ.

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Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. And Paul had said to the

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Corinthians previously, first Corinthians 1556 now the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law.

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So it's through sin came death and it's through the law came sin and so therefore the law brought forth death.

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We can't keep the law. We have sinned against God. We have transgressed the law and therefore as a result, the wages that we have earned for that is death.

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The law is referred to here as a ministry of death. But if the ministry of death in letters having been engraved on stones came with glory.

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So the law, the law 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, which was being brought to an end.

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Remember Moses goes up on the mountain. He's with God for 40 days on Mount Sinai receiving the law.

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When he comes down, his face is glowing. No one can even look at him. He had to put a shroud over his face because he had been in the presence of God and being in the presence of his glory.

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He comes away from that having a changed appearance. But did Moses face always glow?

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No. After a time that glow faded. So he wasn't always glowing of his face.

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Therefore this was a glory that was being brought to an end. He demonstrates, he shows that he's been in the presence of the glory of God.

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Nobody can even look at the face of Moses because he's reflecting the glory that he had just been in for weeks.

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But that glory was even fading. It wasn't going to last forever. It was coming to an end. But then in verse eight, how will the ministry of the spirit not be even more in glory?

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Because does the spirit come to an end? No. The glory that was in Moses face would certainly fade.

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But the glory that we have in the spirit does not because the spirit is eternal. And if we are sealed by the spirit, we're sealed for the day of redemption.

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No one can take that from us. No one can snatch us out of his hand. So we have something eternal when filled with the spirit of God.

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How will the ministry of the spirit not be even more in glory? Verse nine, for if the ministry of condemnation has glory, then we're talking about the law again and this time a ministry of condemnation because we couldn't keep the law.

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We were condemned by the law. Therefore, if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory because the righteousness of Christ that we're given by faith in him does not come to an end.

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We are clothed in the righteousness of Christ and we will dwell in his holy presence forever when we enter his eternal kingdom.

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Verse 10, for indeed, what had been glorious in this case has no glory because of the glory that surpasses it.

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That which came through the ministry of Moses no longer has a glory because it does not even compare to the glory that we have in the spirit of God who dwells within us.

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All who follow Jesus Christ, we have an even greater glory than what Moses had.

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We are witnesses of a greater glory than the children of Israel there at Mount Sinai because we have looked upon the face of Christ through the

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Bible. We know of Jesus. We know about his life, his death on the cross, his resurrection from the grave, his ascension into heaven.

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We know those things because the Bible tells us. So we see the glory of God in the pages of scripture.

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And what we have here is even more glorious than what the

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Israelites received at Mount Sinai. Isn't that incredible? Moses received the law in the presence of God on Mount Sinai, comes from the mountain with his face glowing, temporary glory for that was going to fade away just as the law was going to fade away, just as the ministry of Moses was going to fade.

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So we have an even greater glory to behold than what the children of Israel did.

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It's right here in the Bible. It is, it is the story of Christ, the gospel of Jesus Christ that has been proclaimed to us in the pages of scripture even better than what

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Moses heard from a burning bush or what Israel saw from a burning mountain. Verse 10, for indeed, what had been glorious in this case has no glory because of the glory that surpasses it.

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And finally, verse 11, where we conclude today, for if that which was being brought to an end was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory.

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That ministry of Moses has come to an end. We who are in the spirit of life continue on.

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And now the the amount of time that the Holy Spirit has been dwelling in the hearts of believers has been longer in the earth than the ministry of Moses was.

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The ministry of Moses started somewhere around what, like 1450 BC. So that was about 1500 years.

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Then the Holy Spirit has come and has been dwelling in the hearts of believers on earth for 2000 years.

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Now I'm not saying that's that's what the verse means. I'm just kind of showing that the ministry of the spirit is already lasted longer in the children of God that are here on this earth.

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But we know that this ministry is eternal because all who are in the spirit of God will dwell with God forever in glory.

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It's a much more glorious glory. Indeed, that's what

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I was trying to say. What we have in Christ Jesus, the law doesn't save, Christ saves.

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So we have our salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. And Paul going back to say, this is this is our letter of commendation.

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This is our authenticity. Going back again to verse two, where he says, you are our letter having been written in our hearts, known and read by all men.

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The point that Paul makes at the beginning of this chapter is very simply this. If we're fake, if we're fake apostles, if we're really not sent by Christ to deliver the gospel of Christ to you, then you're fake.

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If we're fake, you're fake. Because the faith that you have come into is it's fake.

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It's all a ruse. It's not real. There's nothing glorious about it at all. But Paul authenticates his apostleship with the belief, with the faith that the

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Corinthians have. You are genuine believers because we're genuine apostles, because we really were sent by Christ to deliver this message.

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And it is it is so much more glorious than the letter of the law, than anything written on stone, than anything that is proclaimed and testified to on paper.

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It is the letter of the spirit that has been written on our hearts so that all who believe in Jesus Christ will have eternal life.

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Let's finish there. We'll come back to finish chapter three next week. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of your spirit.

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And as we have the spirit written on our hearts, if indeed we have the spirit of God dwelling within us, then we should be living lives in such a way that are according to the spirit, the fruit of the spirit.

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In Galatians chapter five, the ministry of the spirit, testifying to the gospel, growing closer to God in fellowship, growing closer to the people of God in our relationships with one another.

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All of these things happen because of the spirit that dwells within us. We desire sin less and less.

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We desire the righteousness of Christ more and more. And may that be manifested in us as we continue to walk by the spirit in this present age.

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Thank you for the glory of Christ that you have given to us by the gospel that was testified to us.

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It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. For more about our ministry, visit us online at www .utt