Glory of the New Covenant

The Promise of the New Covenant in Jeremiah

Well, if you have your Bibles, please open them with me to 2 Corinthians 3 and find your place at verse 7, 2 Corinthians 3, 7, and we're going to read when we read down to the end of the chapter. Over the past few weeks, we have been looking at what the Bible teaches about the new covenant.

Paul says in chapter 3 of 2 Corinthians, verse 6, that he has been made a minister of this new covenant. And after having said that, he goes into an extended explanation of the comparison between the old covenant and the new covenant.

In your Bibles, your Bibles are divided between what we call the Old Testament and the New.

Testament.

Well, the word testament is simply another word for covenant. So when we're reading the Old Testament scriptures, we are reading the scriptures of the old covenant. And when we get to the New Testament, beginning with the Gospels and through the history of the book of Acts and then through the Pauline epistles and then through the general epistles and even into Revelation, we find ourselves reading the scriptures of the new covenant.

And so this study, this little series within a series, this study of the new covenant that we have been doing is understanding the distinction between the old covenant and the new covenant. And I had a four-point outline that I have been following, and it began a few weeks ago with the promise of the new covenant.

We looked at the fact that the new covenant was promised in the old covenant. The book of Jeremiah tells us very explicitly that God was going to make a new covenant with the house of Judah and with the house of Israel.

And in this new covenant, certain very important changes were going to take place. Not every man would have to tell his brother, know the Lord, for they would all know me. Everyone in this covenant knows the Lord.

And the most powerful and important part of this covenant is that everyone in it has their sins forgiven. What a wonderful and blessed truth that is. Last week, we looked at the inauguration of the new covenant.

We asked the question, when did the new covenant begin? And when Jesus on the night before the crucifixion held up the cup, he says, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, indicating to us that what would inaugurate the new covenant would be the work on the cross.

And then three days after the cross work, he would come out of the tomb, demonstrating that he had power over death, hell, and the grave, and that he was, in fact, the mediator of a new covenant. Well, today, we are going to, in following our outline, look at the exposition of the new covenant.

The Exposition of the New Covenant in 2 Corinthians 3

And what I mean by that is we're actually going to look at what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3, and we're going to follow his line of logic, beginning at verse 7 and going down to verse 18. We may not get it all today because I have a lot to say in only a limited amount of time, but we will look at as much as we can today, and then perhaps next week look at the members of the new covenant.

We'll see how time avails us. But one thing I want to make a point about before we read this, the book of Hebrews is the most elaborate explanation of the new covenant that we have in our Bibles. In fact, John MacArthur, in talking about 2 Corinthians 3, he said it's like as if Paul has taken the book of Hebrews and given it to us in miniature.

Because what he's done in 2 Corinthians 3 is he's taken the truth of the book of Hebrews and he has condensed it down to only a few sentences. Because the truth of the book of Hebrews, the message of the book of Hebrews is Jesus is better, Jesus is greater, the new covenant is better, the new covenant is greater, and the glory of the new covenant should not be left to go back to the old.

And you think about all of those warning passages in Hebrews, the warning of trampling the blood of the covenant underfoot. Well where were they trampling? They were trampling it on their way back to the old.

On their way back to the old covenant. No, the old covenant has been made obsolete according to Hebrews 8 and verse 13. Because that which is greater has come. Greater sacrifice, greater priesthood, greater promise, and it's all come through the Lord Jesus Christ.

So with that being said, let us now read what Paul has to say to us and we will do that while standing as we give honor and reverence to the Word of God. The ESV is the translation I'll be reading from, it will be on the screen if you don't have a Bible, but if you do have a Bible I encourage you to read along with me as we.

Read.

Beginning in verse 7 it says,. Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory?

For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to an end, or excuse me, has come to have no glory at all because of the glory that surpasses it.

For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory. Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to.

An end.

But their minds were hardened, for to this day, when they read the Old Covenant, that same veil remains unlifted. Because only through Christ is it taken away. Yet to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts.

But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord and being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord who.

Is the Spirit.

Father in heaven, I thank you for your word. I pray even now that as we seek to have a better understanding of your word and we look at what many have said is a very difficult text, I pray, Lord, that you would give us eyes to see, that you would give us ears to hear.

More important, Lord, that you would give us a heart to understand your word, clear our minds of the obtrusiveness of the world, and give us a desire to dive into your word even now. I pray, God, in this moment also that you would keep me from error.

For Lord God, you know that I am capable of error, I'm capable of missteps, I'm capable of saying wrong things and doing wrong things, Lord, and in this moment I pray that you would keep me from that for the sake of your people, for the sake of your name, for the sake of my conscience, for the sake of your Son.

And I pray, Lord, that in the preaching of the word that believers would be edified, encouraged, that they would be challenged, and Lord, if need be, that they would be brought to a point where they would repent if repentance is needed.

And Lord, if there are unbelievers here, if there are those who have not yet bowed the knee to Christ, if there are those who are still trying with no possibility to achieve a righteousness of their own, Lord, may they abandon any righteousness that they may seek on their own and cling to the righteousness of Christ, for it is only through his righteousness.

That we will see you.

So we pray, O God, bring that gift of regeneration today to those who are so desperately in need of it. In Jesus' name, amen. It is very clear when you read through the Pauline epistles and you see the interactions that he was having with his most ardent opposers, that one of the most problematic parts of Paul's ministry teaching was his belief that the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, had passed away and that it had been replaced by the New Covenant.

In fact, if you read through, as I've mentioned in the weeks past, if you read through Galatians, you will see that that is at the very heart of the issue there in the churches of Galatia. If you read in the book of Colossians, which I preached through last year, you'll remember in Colossians chapter 2, he warned about those who would go back under the law, who would submit themselves again to the yoke of slavery, who would go and try to have the shadow rather than the substance.

You remember he said all of those things, the feasts and the Sabbaths and all of those things were a shadow of what is to come, but Christ was the substance. You see, this problem that existed in Paul's time was throughout the church and it seems everywhere he went he had to battle this same issue.

The passing of the Old Testament, the passing of the Old Covenant was rejected by Paul's enemies and it is rejected today. There are many churches which try to impose upon the New Covenant church some form of Old Covenant ritualistic keeping, ritual keeping.

There are many churches and some of them are obvious. We see this in churches like the Seventh-day Adventists who enforce the dietary restrictions and the day-keeping restrictions and all of these other ceremonial things of the Old Covenant.

They try to enforce them upon the New Covenant church and then they add on to them the writings of the L. N. G. White and others who try to increase upon them even more restrictions than the Scripture gives.

Why?

Because when you start going down the road of law, it never ends. When you start trying to find your righteousness according to the law, you will find yourself in a battle that never ends. It's like Christian at Law Mountain and there's the, I don't know if you've seen it, the film version of the Pilgrim's Progress.

It's a digital film and in that digital film as Christian is facing Law Mountain, every time he tries to ascend Law Mountain, a new law would hit him in the face and knock him back down and every time he tried to reach up and grab a foothold, another law would knock his hand off the purchase and he could not make it up Law Mountain.

Because if you try to establish your righteousness by the law, you will find yourself an utter failure because the law is a killer. Oh, and by the way, I didn't invent that. Look at verse 6. Notice what Paul says.

He says, for the letter kills, but the Spirit brings life. Now, it's important to note that when Paul says the letter kills, he didn't say the law kills, but what he is saying is this. He is saying those who seek to find their righteousness through the keeping of the law or the letter of the law, those who seek an external righteousness through ceremony, those who seek to try to find their righteousness through any other avenue than Christ, they will find nothing but death.

When it comes to the righteousness of Christ, like the man who once told me, Pastor, you have to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. And I said, Brother, I don't have any boots and I ain't got no straps.

Now when it comes to righteousness, I don't. I ain't got nothing to grab hold of, nothing to hold on to. And therefore, when Paul, in writing this, he says the letter kills. The letter does kill in that regard, the letter of the law, the seeking of trying to find our righteousness through the law kills, but the Spirit gives life.

And so Paul explains to, in just that little short sentence, the distinction between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. You see, you have to understand something, and I don't know if I've made this clear, so I want to make sure I make it clear now.

Old Covenant saints weren't saved by the law either. And that is really confusing to some people. I remember I had a professor once, I was sitting in class. This guy had a degree. And he said, oh yes, the Old Testament saints were saved by the law and the New Testament saints are saved by faith.

And my brain was like that record scratch that you hear in movies, and I'm like, uh,.

No.

In fact, if you want proof, go to Paul's letter to the Romans and go to chapter 4, where he explains Abraham's righteousness, and what did he say was Abraham's righteousness based.

On?

Faith.

He says, Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him as righteousness. In fact, that became Paul's go-to verse to prove the doctrine of justification by faith, as he uses that verse over and over and over to defend the doctrine of justification by using Abraham as the supreme example.

If Abraham was justified by grace alone through faith alone, so too are you justified by grace alone through faith alone. That's the principle of Scripture, even Habakkuk. The just shall live by faith, and you know that's one of the most quoted passages in the New Testament.

Paul quoted, the just shall live by faith, the just shall live by faith, for the righteousness of God through the gospel comes not by works of the law, but through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Old Testament and New Testament.

No one has ever been saved by the law. But that doesn't mean the law didn't have a purpose. Paul tells us in the New Testament that the law did have a purpose. The law was a, the King James says, a schoolmaster.

More modern translations use the word tutor, and the word, it was the disciplinarian word. That was the word. It wasn't just like somebody who teaches you math or somebody who takes care of you, but it was somebody who carried a rod around, and the rod was used to smite you when you got out of line.

And the law is that tutor. The law shows us our desperate need of a savior. That's why I love that verse. That's why we had that banner made. You know, we have two banners, law and grace. What does the verse say?

The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. Now that's the King James version. It's a little different in some other translations, but I like that one because the law does show us our need, and in that it does convert because it shows us to quit looking to the law but to look to Christ.

And therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And understanding the distinction between law and grace, understanding the distinction between law and gospel is essential. Because if we keep going back to the law as our righteousness, if we keep trying to find our righteousness in something we do, we miss the very purpose of the law.

The Judaizers were desperate to do that. That's a term the scholars have used. It's not a biblical term, but it is a term which has become fairly common in the vocabulary of scholarship. The Judaizers were the first century people who would go into these churches and would seek to enforce upon the congregation Jewish ceremonial practice.

They would try to enforce the circumcision. And when they went in to enforce the circumcision, Paul said, no, if any man seeks circumcision as a way to be right with God, let him be cut off. Circumcision means to cut around, circumcise, to cut around.

Paul says, no, let him be cut off. He uses a very vivid image there. He says, if you're trying to find your righteousness through circumcision, let you be cut off. Because that ain't the way it works.

Well, let us find our righteousness through what we eat. Let us find our righteousness in our dietary laws. And then we have that wonderful passage in Acts where Peter sees that sheep brought down with all the different animals.

And what does he say? The Lord says, take, kill, and eat. Nothing unclean has ever entered my body, Lord. And what did God say? Do not call unclean what I've made clean. The book of Mark tells us Jesus said when he was speaking about the food laws, it said he made all foods clean.

People say, no, no, no, if you eat pork, that's unclean because the Old Testament says it's unclean. That is an Old Covenant law that is no longer enforced. It has been made obsolete. Enjoy the pork. I hope that's not all you take away from today, but at least take that.

But what Paul does in this section, as we are now going to begin walking through this text, Paul is showing us in this text the transient nature of the Old Covenant. Transient means it comes and it goes.

It is not permanent. That's the opposite word. The word transient means it comes and it goes. The word permanent means it comes and it stays. And if you're taking notes or if you want to put something in your mind for today's sermon, then this be the thing you take home, it is this.

The Old Covenant was intentionally transient because it was meant to give way to a new covenant, which is permanent. And that's what Paul is going to show us today. But before he does, we have to have a preliminary reading.

If you have your Bibles still open, hold your place in 2 Corinthians because we are going to come back and walk through the text. But I need us to, before we do that, I need to go to Exodus 34. And the reason why is because the way Paul explains the transient nature of the Old Covenant, the way he explains the transient nature is he uses an Old Covenant example.

And the Old Covenant example is in Exodus 34, verses 29 to 35. And this is the story of Moses putting a veil over his face to cover the shining, reflective glory of God, which was on his face after being in the presence of the Lord.

By the way, such a just amazing story. Moses glowed with the glory of God. Is that the right use of the, is that the right, am I getting that verb tense correct?

Glowed?

Is that the word? Okay, alright, just making sure. It didn't sound right. It sounded like I should say another word.

He illuminated.

No, because that's from within.

He reflected.

Ah, I like that one better. He reflected the glory. So this is what it says beginning in verse 29. It says, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.

I have so much I want to say. I'm not preaching this text. This is just the example. But just for a moment, I want to know how he didn't know. Or not all the trees lit up with his face. I mean, as he's coming down, he's glowing.

He's got like a spotlight in between his eyes. It's just all over. But somehow he missed it. Probably because his eyes are still adjusting to the fact that he was just in the presence of God himself. Verse 30.

Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. Makes sense. But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them.

Afterward, all the people of Israel came near, and he commanded them all that the Lord had spoken with him at Mount Sinai. So he gives them what God told him. And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.

Whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would remove the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the people of Israel what he was commanded, the people of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face was shining, and Moses would put the veil over his face again until he went in to speak with him.

All right, so this is the narrative. Moses is in the presence of God, and in the presence of God, the reflected glory of God is shining on his face. He comes out, and he speaks to God's people with a face lit up like a spotlight, and the people see it.

But when he's finished speaking God's word to them, he covers his face with a veil until he's ready to go back into the presence of the Lord, and when he goes back into the presence of the Lord, he removes the veil, receives again the message of God, and the reflection happens again.

He comes back out, he reflects, he speaks, he veils himself, and apparently this was something that happened a few times. Well that background of this very interesting Old Testament story becomes the analogy that Paul is going to use in his message, and Paul's going to give an inspired, expanded application.

He's going to get, I came up with that term, I was pretty, it's an inspired, expanded application because he's going to apply what happens in this story to the transition between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.

He's going to talk about the fact that the Old Covenant had glory. He says if the Old Covenant didn't have glory, then Moses wouldn't have shined, but because Moses' face shined, we see the glory was there and it was shining off of his face.

So the Old Covenant had glory, but that glory was transient glory, because that glow didn't.

Last.

Moses didn't glow forever, and Moses covered his face, which was a picture of the fact that it was going to end. The veil became a picture of the covering of the Old Covenant glory, and so this is the example Paul gives us.

The Ministry of Death and Condemnation

So let's begin now at verse 7 and walk through the text. Beginning at verse 7, it says, Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters of stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory?

So let's stop right there just for a moment, stopping at verses 7 and 8. The first thing we notice in this text in verse 7 is that he calls the Old Covenant a ministry of death. Well this shouldn't surprise us because we looked at verse 6 already, and in verse 6 he says that the letter of the law, the letter kills, and therefore he now calls the Old Covenant a ministry of death.

I just want you to, for a moment, think about how his enemies would have heard that. If you call the Old Covenant a ministry of death, will not the people you know who engage in Old Covenant ceremonies and things, won't they get angry?

This is not death, this is life. But you have to understand the context in which Paul is speaking here. He's comparing the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. He's comparing the law and the gospel, and he's showing that the Old Covenant did not bring life.

In fact, what the Old Covenant did was it brought death. The letter kills. It is important to understand the law is not evil, it's insufficient. Because Paul actually says good things about the law. I mean, we're not going to turn there, but probably many of you are familiar with Romans chapter 7, when he says the law is good and holy and righteous, and I would not have known coveting if it were not for the law.

But when the law came, what did it do? It killed me, because I realized that when I realized coveting was wrong, I found out I covet all the time. And therefore the law became like an anvil around my neck, and I'm in a sea trying to tread water, and all it does is keep pulling me under and under and under, and it's killing.

Me.

The law is an albatross over my neck. Not that it's bad, I'm bad. Not that the law is unrighteous, I'm unrighteous, and the law itself works like a mirror. It shows me my failures. It shows me my sins.

We sing a song. Some people don't like it, and it's okay, you don't have to like everything, but we sing a song called, Lord, I Deserve Thy Deepest Wrath. And when we sing that song, I think, any time we have new people, I always think, Lord, I deserve thy deepest wrath, ungrateful, faithless I have been.

No terrors have your law dissuaded me from my sin. The law shows us our sin, and when we look at the law, what does it do? It shows us that we deserve death. One of the most difficult things in the modern world is men's incessant desire to claim their own righteousness.

We're about to go into another political season, and what are we going to see over and over and over, but people who will get on television and make advertisements about themselves proclaiming the righteousness of their life and position.

When every one of them's a sinner, and they're politicians, so they're twice as bad. We wouldn't it be great if just one of them got up and said, you know what, I'm bad, you're bad, we're all bad, and we all need Jesus.

He'd last 30 minutes, but what a glorious 30 minutes, right?

It'd be great.

Have somebody just tell the truth. You know, the whole reason why our government is set up the way it is is because nobody trusts anybody. We have three branches of government, all with the ability to veto the other or have some power over the other.

Why?

Because nobody, when we put this nation together, thought anybody was able to be trusted with.

It all.

Can't have a king because can't trust him. Can't have anybody who has ultimate power, can't trust him. We got to separate the powers because power does what?

Power corrupts.

No, it don't. Power demonstrates corruption. I've said for years, power corrupts.

It doesn't.

We're already corrupt. It just demonstrates. The more power you get, the more you're able to demonstrate that corruption. So Paul says here that it is a ministry of death, the law, trying to find our salvation in the law.

And by the way, if we wonder what he's talking about, he literally says carved in letters of stone. What's carved in the letters of stone? The Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, right? That's carved in letters.

So he's not in any way being confusing here. He's telling us exactly what he's talking about. He says if the ministry of death, carved in letters of stone, came with glory, and it did, and how do we know that it did?

Because when Moses received it, he glowed, yes, he glowed, and when he came down, he was glowing, and that glory that glowed from him was the glory of being in the presence of God, and it was demonstrating the glory of this covenant.

Paul says the law came in glory. In fact, the radiance of the glory was so great that its reflection was blinding. But it was transient. It didn't last. Notice what it says. He says, if the ministry of death, carved in letters of stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, what's his point?

It has glory. It has true glory. The glory is reflecting on Moses' face. But then he says this, which was, in English, which was in the ESV, which was brought to an end, but the reason why I said the Greek word, katargeto, because some of your translations say it was fading.

I don't think fading is the best word. Some say it came to an end, like the ESV. I think that's closer, but it literally does, katargeto means it stopped. There was an ending point. There was a point at which it went, and it didn't go any further.

There was a point at which it stopped. And so he says, if this glory, which stopped, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even greater glory? Why does the ministry of the Spirit, which is the New Covenant, why is the ministry of the Spirit greater?

Because it doesn't stop. That's the juxtaposition Paul is making here. He's making the juxtaposition between that which is transient and that which is permanent. He's saying one stopped and one doesn't stop.

In fact, there is no stopping the New Covenant. The New Covenant came, and it is forever. There is no new New Covenant. There's no third act. There's not another Jesus coming. And as the Mormons have another testament of Jesus Christ, no you don't.

The word testament means covenant. There's one New Covenant, and it cannot be added to, it cannot be changed, it cannot be taken away, and it doesn't need another covenant, because it is a forever covenant.

And by the way, in verse 8, when he calls the New Covenant the ministry of the Spirit, be reminded why. The Old Covenant. Was the Spirit present in the Old Covenant? Absolutely. The Spirit's present at the creation of the world.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters. The Spirit of God has been present throughout the history of the world.

However, the ministry of the Spirit is different under the Old Covenant than the New Covenant. The ministry of the Old Covenant Spirit, the Spirit would move on people for a purpose and for a time, and we see this in men like Saul, and men like David, and others, but in the New Covenant all believers would be indwelled with the Spirit of God.

It's a new administration of the Covenant, and a new administration of the Spirit. And that's why he calls it the ministry of the Spirit. The ministry of the Spirit is more glorious because it's permanent, and because it is the ministry of the Spirit, not of the letter.

The Ministry of Righteousness and Imputed Righteousness

Now the next three verses, verses 9, 10, and 11, compare the glory of the Old Covenant with the glory of the New Covenant, showing the greater glory. So like I said last week, I think I mentioned this last week in my message, there's comparisons where we compare bad to good.

And then there's comparisons where we compare good to better, and then we can compare the great to the greatest, right? Well this is a comparison of good to better, or great to greater. Paul's not saying the law was bad, but what he is saying is the greatness, the glory of the law is far surpassed by the glory and greatness of the New Covenant.

So let's look again at verse 9. In verse 9 it says,. For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation,. Oh wow, I can't go three sentences without, or three words without saying something. He calls it the ministry of what?

Condemnation.

What did he call it in verse 6? The letter kills, right? He called it a killer. Then and later he calls it the ministry of death. Now he calls it the ministry of condemnation. Paul was not afraid to say what the law was.

He didn't say it was evil, but he said it had a job. And it's job wasn't saving, it's job was condemning. He says, So if the ministry of condemnation, if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory.

That's one.

Okay, that's the sermon. All right, we're going to, all right. This one verse. Because why does he say it's a ministry of condemnation, and then he doesn't say the ministry of the spirit, he doesn't say a ministry of life, but now he uses an entirely new phrase to describe the new covenant.

He calls it the ministry of what? Righteousness. Why does he call it the ministry of righteousness? Because beloved in the new covenant, we learn how righteousness comes to us because the righteousness that comes to us is an alien righteousness.

And I don't mean aliens like out of space aliens. The word alien means something that comes from outside. And the Apostle Paul says this. He says, I have a righteousness that does not come from keeping the law, but a righteousness which comes through faith in Jesus Christ, the righteousness of God, which comes by faith.

I will tell you this, there is huge debates within reformed scholasticism about the doctrine of imputed righteousness, and there are some people who outright reject the doctrine of imputed righteousness.

And they may be intelligent men, men like N .T. Wright, who are not stupid men, who are not foolish men, but who are men who in their writings have denied the imputed righteousness of Christ. Beloved, if you don't have the righteousness of Christ, you don't have any righteousness.

At all.

Think of the parable of the man who went to the wedding feast who was clothed in a garment that wasn't the one that he was supposed to be clothed in. What happened to him? He was sent out into outer darkness.

Why?

Because he did not put on the wedding garment provided to him by the king. That is a picture of the righteousness of Christ that we put on when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are told we put on Christ and we are then justified.