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2Cor.3:1. Should we really get to know you again? Since he said many great things about himself, he says: will someone say: what is this, Paul? By saying this about yourself, you are praising yourself. He dismisses this objection with the following words. Do we really need, like some others, letters of approval to you or from you? He says this with force, making his speech more expressive. He alludes to the false apostles, who, having nothing in their affairs that could make them famous, composed letters of approval, presented them to whomever they wanted, and thus recommended and made themselves famous. His words, expressed with force, have the following meaning: who will really say that we should present you with letters of approval in order to come to your knowledge through them, or present such letters from you to others? Then he adds with feeling. 2Cor.3:2. You are our letter, written in our hearts, recognized and read by all people. What, he says, you would do in letters in which you would approve and glorify us, is what you fulfill with your life according to faith, which everyone sees and hears. And wherever we go, we carry you with us everywhere, because you are written in our hearts, and we proclaim to everyone about your virtue. Thus, since you are for me a letter of approval to others, I do not need other letters from you to become known to those who do not know me. Also, since I have you in my heart, I have no need for others to recommend me to you. Letters of approval are needed to strangers, not to acquaintances; you are so written in my heart that you cannot get out of it. Here he testifies not only to his love for them, but also to their virtuous life, that is, that they were able to prove to all people the dignity of their teacher, for the virtue of the students serves as an adornment for the teacher. 2Cor.3:3. You show that you are a letter of Christ, How? Because the law of Christ and His commandments, like writings, remain and are preserved in you. through our ministry, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of flesh of the heart. Taking the opportunity to compare the law with the Gospel, he makes the following comparison here: As Moses was the minister of the Law, so we are the ministers of your faith in the Gospel, and as he carved on stone tablets, so we are on your hearts; The law was written in ink, but the gospel was written in you by the Spirit. So, just as the Spirit differs from ink and the heart from stone, so different is the New Testament from the Law. Since hardened people have hearts of stone, he called the hearts of believers carnal, because they are receptive to the word. 2Cor.3:4. This is the confidence we have in God through Christ, 2Cor.3:5. not because we ourselves are capable of thinking something from ourselves, as if from ourselves, Since he showed that the New Testament is higher than the Old, and it was natural to conclude that we, the apostles, the ministers of the New Testament, are higher than Moses, who served the Old Testament, but this seemed arrogant, he says: nothing is ours, but our “confidence,” that is, our praise “in God through Christ.” For Christ is the reason that we boast in God, and nothing is ours, not even the smallest thing. This is precisely the thought that is expressed with the words: “we are not able to think of anything from ourselves.” but our ability is from God, 2Cor.3:6. He has given us the ability to be ministers of the New Testament, Our strength, he says, comes from God: He made us “capable,” that is, strengthened us, made us capable of serving this great divine work, the New Testament. And the Old Law is spiritual, that is, given by the Spirit; but he did not give the Spirit, as the New One will give Him. So, the meaning of the words is this: we have been entrusted with communicating not the letter, like Moses, but the Spirit. For the apostles not only taught spiritual and divine things, but also communicated the Spirit through the laying on of hands. because the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. The law, it says, punishes when it notices someone sinning even in the most seemingly small thing, such as gathering wood on the Sabbath (Num. 15:32-36), and the Holy Spirit, accepting those who have committed countless iniquities, justifies them in the bath of baptism and revives those who have died in sin. 2Cor.3:7. If the service of the deadly letters inscribed on the stones was so glorious, Having shown above the difference between the New and Old Testaments, which consists in the fact that the latter is written with ink, and the former with the Spirit, the latter on stones, and the latter on hearts, also that the latter kills, and the former gives life, now he wants to show that the glory of the Gospel is greater. Since the law had a tangible glory, that is, glory in the person of Moses, and the New Testament has a mental glory, which no one sees sensually, it shows the superiority of the gospel glory by means of inference, saying that the law was the minister of death. He did not say: the culprit of death, so as not to give a reason to heretics, but: a servant. For the cause of death was sin, and the law punished it. In addition, the law was only a letter and did not give any help to the ascetic, as baptism gives, but still imposed indelible punishments. For this servant of death was inscribed on the stones. If, therefore, the law, with such a property, was so glorious, then how much more glorious is grace, which incomparably surpasses it? that the children of Israel could not look upon the face of Moses because the glory of his face was passing away, Covertly accuses the Jews. They, he says, were so rude that they could not even look at sensual glory. He did not say that the law and the tablets had glory, but the face of Moses; for Moses was glorified, and not the tablets of the law. But he destroys the very glory of Moses, calling it transitory. Note, however, that he did not call it thin, but having an end and ceasing. 2Cor.3:8. then should not the ministry of the spirit be much more glorious? Since he called the law the ministry of death, it was natural to call the Gospel the ministry of life; but the apostle gave it a higher name - he called it the ministry of the Spirit. For the New Testament has the power to communicate not only life, but - what is much more important - the Spirit Himself who gives life. All the more glorious, then, in comparison with the law. 2 Corinthians 3:9. For if the ministry of condemnation is glorious, much more will the ministry of justification abound in glory. Again presents the same thought in a different form. Explaining his words: “the letter kills,” he calls the law “the ministry of condemnation,” as the punisher of sins, and not the culprit of them. The Gospel calls it “the ministry of justification”; because it not only frees from punishment, but also makes sinners righteous. Therefore, the gospel will have much greater glory. 2Cor.3:10. That which is glorified does not even turn out to be glorious from this side, because of the predominant glory of what follows. What am I saying, comparing the Old and New Testaments with each other? The superiority of the New Testament is such “from this side,” that is, when compared, that the glorified, that is, the Old Testament, appears to have no glory at all, due to the extraordinary glory of the New. For although the law was glorious in itself, because of the superiority of the gospel glory it is inglorious. Notice that the Old Testament approves of this too; for usually similar things are compared. 2 Corinthians 3:11. For if that which passes away is glorious, much more is that which endures glorious. Gives another conclusion. If in glory a law was given that ceases and is subject to abolition, then much more will there be in glory an unshakable and eternal law - the New Testament. 2 Corinthians 3:12. Having this hope, we act with great boldness, Since he attributed extraordinary glory to the New Testament, he says to those who, having heard this, would like to see its glory sensually, that we have such hope. Which one? The fact that all of us believers have been worthy of more than Moses, and therefore we use great boldness towards those who teach us, not hiding anything or omitting anything, and we do not hide our faces from you, as Moses covered his face from the Jews. For you are not as weak as they are, but Moses, when he received the tablets another time and came down from the mountain, had such a shining face that the Jews could neither approach him nor speak to him until he covered his face with a veil. Paul refers to the history of this event when he says the following. 2Cor.3:13. and not like Moses, who put a veil over his face, so that the children of Israel would not look at the end of the passing. That is, we do not need to cover ourselves like Moses. For you can look at the glory that we have, I mean the glory of the Gospel, although it is much more brilliant than that of Moses. That is, you can understand the mysteries of God, namely the Gospel, and we do not need to cover them from you with obscurity, like a veil. The Israelites, being carnal, could not see that the law had an end and that it would be abolished; for the veil signifies their carnal mind, as you will learn below. Some understood it this way: the very fact that they could not look at the face of Moses showed that this glory had an end. For, as soon as glory was not seen, it did not exist, and this showed that it was short-lived, therefore it did not manifest itself as glory. 2 Corinthians 3:14. But their minds are blinded: for the same veil remains untaken to this day when reading the Old Testament, because it is removed by Christ. Their minds are blinded, he says, and therefore neither those who lived then saw, nor those who live now see, like those who were blinded and had the same veil on the face of Moses during the superficial reading of the law. For Christ calls the law Moses, as in the following place: “they have Moses and the prophets” (Luke 16:29). And it is not revealed to them, it is not known to them that Christ had to abolish the Old Testament. So, their delusion is a delusion of the mind, because blindness is a sin of the mind. Do not be surprised, he says, that the Jews cannot see the glory, the glory of the law. If they had seen the glory of the law, they would have seen the glory of Christ. For the glory of the law is turning to Christ. Where is it said that the law will be abolished by Christ? Where it says: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet; listen to Him” (Deut. 18:15). So, when it is commanded to listen to Him, and He abolished the Sabbath, circumcision and everything else, it turns out that the law itself gave the command for this abolition. Besides this, by the fact that sacrifices were ordered to be made in one church, and Christ destroyed it, are not the sacrifices completely abolished? And: “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (Ps. 109:4), also: “You did not desire sacrifices and offerings” (Ps. 39:7), - all this constitutes the abolition of the law. 2 Corinthians 3:15. To this day, when they read Moses, a veil lies over their hearts, Since I said above that a veil lies in the reading of the Old Testament, then, lest anyone think that he is calling the obscurity of the law a veil, he says: no, I call the blindness and coarseness of the heart of the Jews a veil. For even on the face of Moses it lay not for him, but because of the rudeness and weak eyesight of the Jews. 2 Corinthians 3:16. but when they turn to the Lord, then this veil is removed. 2Cor.3:17. The Lord is the Spirit Now he talks about a way for the Israelis to improve. “When they turn to the Lord,” he says, that is, when they leave the law and approach the spiritual Gospel, then the veil will be removed. For Moses, as the story tells, when he turned to the Lord, took off his veil. And this foreshadowed what was to come later, namely, when someone turns to the Spirit (for He is the Lord), then he will see the open face of the lawgiver, and even more so, he himself will be along with Moses and will enjoy glory that surpasses, as it is said, the glory of the law. For the Spirit, as the Lord and Almighty, will give it. and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. In the law there was yoke and slavery, but in the law of the Spirit and in the gospel there was freedom, so that the glory of the Lord is beheld unhindered and free. 2 Corinthians 3:18. But we all, with open face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. We enjoy, he says, such freedom and nobility that we are all faithful, not like Moses alone, “with an open face” (for believers have no veil), “looking at the glory of the Lord, we are transformed into the same image from glory to glory,” that is, we receive the same glory, and, like a mirror, receiving the shine, we reflect it. Just as silver lying opposite the sun itself emits some rays under the influence of the sun, so we, purified by the Spirit in baptism and illuminated by His rays, reflect a certain spiritual brilliance and are transformed in the same image from the glory of the Spirit into our own glory, and, moreover, into the kind that is characteristic of one who is enlightened by the Spirit of the Lord, not subject to anyone. For, being Lord, He also has sovereign lights. For all believers through baptism are filled with the Holy Spirit and their soul is enlightened, and Moses, seeing the divine glory, was himself transformed into it, that is, he himself received shine, and his face was illuminated, prefiguring us. You might be interested in: