Welcome to our program. Now today
I'm going to be preaching from the book of 2nd Corinthians in
the New Testament, the Epistle of Paul to the Church of Corinth,
the second one. So 2nd Corinthians, and I'll
be dealing with some verses in chapter 3 if you'd like to follow
along in your Bible. The title of the message is The
Gospel Ministry. The Gospel Ministry. Now, one
of the things that the book of 2 Corinthians really sets forth,
as the Apostle Paul writing to this church as he was inspired
by the Holy Spirit, is the glory and the power of the gospel ministry,
specifically the New Testament or the New Covenant ministry.
We refer to the books of the Bible as the Old Testament and
the New Testament. The Old Testament being Genesis
to Malachi, the New Testament being Matthew to Revelation.
And when I say the New Testament here, I'm not specifically referring
to the written scriptures, but I'm referring to the New Covenant.
When the Lord Jesus Christ gathered his disciples at the Last Supper
in the upper room before he was to be taken and arrested and
tortured and tried unjustly and then gone to the cross. He instituted
the Lord's Supper. And there were two elements to
that supper. It was a, this was the communion
supper. And the Lord's Supper is an ordinance
of the church. It's not, some people refer to
the ordinance as two ordinances. One is baptism, believers baptism. which is the initial ordinance
of confession. It's not salvation. Water baptism
doesn't save anyone. Water baptism is a confession
of those who have already been saved by the grace of God through
Christ. And then the second one is the
Lord's Supper. And one of the things that the Lord said when
he instituted the Lord's Supper and commanded the disciples and
thus the church to take that supper, when he handed them the
wine, and that was wine that he gave them, And he said, this
is the New Covenant, the New Testament in my blood, which
is referring to his death. And so Paul is dealing with the
gospel of the New Covenant. Now, the gospel of the New Covenant
is not a different gospel as compared to the Old Covenant.
It's the same gospel. You see, this is the gospel ministry,
but salvation. Salvation has always, in essence,
been a gospel ministry, and I'll explain that to you in just a
moment in these few scriptures that we're going to deal with.
But as you know, the word gospel means good news. That's what
it means. That's what the term gospel means.
It's the good news that God has for sinners. A free salvation
by His grace and mercy. totally conditioned on and fulfilled
by the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God incarnate, the God-man,
who came to this earth and stood in the place of his people, known
as the elect of God, known as the church, known as the sheep
of Christ, his people, and he obeyed for them under the law
unto death. He went to the cross of Calvary
to die for the sins of his people. And he satisfied the justice
of God against their sins. He took the punishment that we
deserve. And he drank damnation dry. He
fulfilled it completely. He didn't leave one drop to be
done. And he fulfilled it all. And
he was buried. The scripture says he died and
he was buried. And then he arose again the third
day because of the justification of his people. He died for our
sins charged to him. And in exchange, He gives all
of His people righteousness charged to them. And they will all come
to believe in Him. That's why the command of the
Gospel is, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be
saved. So this is good news for a sinner.
This is good news. This is better news than if...
I often use the analogy of a sickness or an illness, a terminal illness.
This is better news for a sinner than if he found out he had a
dreaded, deadly disease and the doctor came to his house and
announced the cure. This is the finished work of
Christ. Now, salvation in the Old Testament
and in the New Testament and today, which is the New Testament
day, has always been and will always be by grace, not by works. You see, some people have the
mistaken idea that God saves sinners in the Old Testament
in a different way, by their works under the law. And now
that Jesus Christ has come, God saves sinners by grace. Some people even call this the
Age of Grace. Well, that is a terrible, terrible
heresy. It's a denial of the Good News. For example, if anyone was commanded
to be saved to seek salvation in the Old Testament by their
works, that wouldn't be good news. That would doom them forever.
When Adam fell and brought the whole human race into sin and
death, deserving of the wrath of God, right after that God
made the promise. He published the promise of the
coming of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, in Genesis 3.15,
the woman's seed. And right after that, He slew
an animal. I believe it was a lamb. And
he killed that animal, shedding blood, and he made coats of skin
to replace the fig leaf apron of Adam and Eve. The fig leaf
apron represented man's attempts to hide himself and to cover
his shame. It would represent man trying
to be saved by his works. The shedding of the blood of
the lamb represents God's way of salvation preached out in
the gospel. You see, the soul that sinneth
must die. That's the justice of God. That's
not just God being mean, or God being angry, or God being vindictive. It's God's holy law and justice. The wages of sin is death. And when God slew that animal,
when he killed that animal, he was picturing the promise that
he'd already made of sending Christ, the Lamb of God, to shed
his own blood as the full and complete payment of all the sins
of all his people, Old Testament and New. The coats of skin that
he made for Adam and Eve and put on them represents the righteousness
of God revealed in the Gospel. Romans 117. And that righteousness
is the entire merit and value of the obedience and death of
Christ for the salvation of His people. So that Christ went to
the cross based on sins that He had no part in committing.
It was the sins of His people imputed or accounted or charged
to Him. and in exchange his people receive
his righteousness, which we have no part in producing." That's
grace. Grace reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord, the apostle Paul wrote
in Romans 5.21. Now that's the way it was in
the Old Testament, and that's the way it is in the New Testament.
Salvation by grace, not of works, lest any man should boast. Now,
here in 2 Corinthians chapter 3, Paul talks about the law.
Now, the law is the law of Moses. That is the old covenant. When
God called Israel out of Egypt and brought them out by his power
through Moses, he sent Moses up to Mount Sinai and he gave
him the law, the moral law, the Ten Commandments. He gave him
the ceremonial law, the civil law for that nation Israel. And
at that time the nation was brought under the Old Covenant. Now that
Old Covenant, that Old Covenant was not a way in and of itself
for sinners to be saved by their keeping of the law. There were
several reasons that God gave that Old Covenant to Israel.
One of the reasons was to keep them together as a nation. It was through that law that
God kept them together by his power and by his revelation,
because God had purpose to bring the Messiah through that nation,
specifically through the seed of Abraham, even more specifically
through the tribe of Judah. The scepter shall not depart
from Judah until Shiloh come. That was predicted back in Genesis
49. So God would keep them together.
And that nation, that Old Covenant law, was an earthly covenant
that was imposed upon a rebellious people. They did not keep it,
they could not keep it. But God, because of His providential
power and His purpose to bring salvation through that nation,
He kept them together under that law. Now as to that nation and
their relationship to God under the Old Covenant law, There was
absolutely no salvation for them in the law. The law couldn't
save them. The book of Hebrews tells us
about that. In other words, it said the blood of bulls and of
goats cannot take away sin. What is it referring to, the
blood of bulls and goats? Well, that refers to the sacrifices
that were required of Israel under the Old Covenant. The Bible
says in Hebrews that the earthly priesthood could never take away
sin, could not cleanse the conscience, else these sacrifices and that
priesthood would have ceased. So why was it given? Well, it
was also given, as I said, to keep the nation together as a
nation, specifically the tribe of Judah. But it was also given
to remind them continually of condemnation and death under
the law. That sin demands death. And in that sense, it was called
administration of condemnation, administration of death. Now
that law, those elements of the law, they had the moral code,
the Ten Commandments, to show them their sin. Paul wrote in
Romans chapter 5, he said, the law entered because of sin. In other words, that sin might
abound. The law was a code, it was a standard. by which sinners
who were honest, made honest by God, could look at it and
say, well, by deeds of law shall no flesh be justified. And God
was continually showing them through the revelation of that
old covenant law that their physical connection with Abraham could
not save them, their circumcision could not save them, and their
obedience to the sacrifices could not save them. But listen to
this. In those sacrifices, the blood
of bulls and goats, in that earthly priesthood, there was a lesson. And it was a glorious lesson.
It was, those things were types and pictures and prophecies and
foreshadowings of something much greater, much better to come. And that was the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Messiah, who would come in time. He is the great High Priest.
He's the end of all High Priests because He's the summation of
them all. And it was not by the blood of animals that sin was
born away, it was by the blood of the Son of God incarnate.
Peter said that. We're not redeemed with corruptible
things of silver and gold received by tradition of men, but we're
redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. What the blood of
bulls and goats could not do, the blood of Christ has done.
What the earthly priesthood could not accomplish, Christ, our Great
High Priest, has accomplished. Hebrews 4 says that He passed
through into the heaven. That is, He went into the very
holiest of all for His people as our Great High Priest. Now
that old covenant has ceased. It's been abolished. Not because
it wasn't good for what God gave it, but because it accomplishes
purpose, and now Christ has come. It was abolished by way of fulfillment. Now that Christ has come, we
don't have an earthly priesthood to represent us in an earthly
tabernacle. Christ is our high priest. Christ
is our tabernacle. And because Christ has come,
we don't offer up the blood of animals now, like they did under
the Old Covenant for nearly 1,500 years. Christ is our sacrifice. In that old covenant, they kept
a seventh Sabbath day. That was a picture of Christ,
and we rest in His finished work. Christ is our Sabbath. Now that's
exactly what Paul is teaching the Corinthians here. What had
happened, and this was common throughout the churches in the
beginning of the New Covenant, many of the Jews who had claimed
to become Christians They wanted to hold on to the old covenant
law, and they wanted to reintroduce it and put it upon the shoulders,
so to speak, of Gentile believers. They wanted to put the burden
of the law on people. They would say something like
this, well yes, salvation is by grace, and we do believe in
Jesus Christ as our Savior, but you must keep the law. They would
say you must be circumcised, the male. And you must keep this
day and that day, and you must keep the law, at least part of
it, in order to really be saved, to be holy, or to stay saved.
And that was a denial of the gospel. Paul dealt with that
in Galatians. Now that's exactly the way Paul's dealing with it
here in 2 Corinthians 1. These false preachers, these
Judaizers, if you will, who tried to reintroduce the law and bring
the people under bondage, they were trying to discredit Paul.
And that's why Paul started out in verse 1, he says, Do we begin
again to commend ourselves? Or need we, as some others, epistles
or letters of commendation to you, or letters of commendation
from you? He said, You are our epistle,
written in our hearts, known and read of all men. I dealt
with that last time, how they are the living letters of Christ.
Their conversion is a testimony to the power and grace of God
in the new birth, and the power of Christ to bring about life.
He says in verse 3, for as much as you are manifestly declared
to be the epistle or letter of Christ, ministered by us, not
written with ink, in other words, it's not rules and regulations
written on paper, but it's written with the Spirit of the living
God. This is the spiritual power of
God by His Spirit to write His principles of grace and His love. Where? Where does he write it
now? He says, not in tables of stone like the Ten Commandments,
not just an outward law that's imposed upon a rebellious people,
but in fleshy tables of the heart, the law written on the heart,
the law of liberty, James called it, the law of grace, the law
of love, so that those who are resting in Christ, those who
trust Him, For all of salvation, those who know that they are
the undeserving recipients of the grace and glory of God in
Christ, they can follow Christ. They can seek to be like Him. They can look to Him, not because
of an imposition of law, not because of a whip that's going
to be laid across their back called the law, not because of
fear of punishment, and not because of the promise of earning a reward. That's a mercenary. But they
can love him, follow him, rest in him, seek to know him, seek
to grow because of grace and gratitude and love. Now that's
the difference. And that's what the gospel ministry
is all about. It's not trying to get rebellious
people to do what they don't want to do by the imposition
of law. God will kill you if you don't,
or God will send you to hell. And if you do, it's not like
dangling a carrot in front of God will give you your reward. No, sir. And this is what Paul
is talking about here. And look at verse 4. He says,
In such trust have we through Christ to God. This is the work
of God. This is not the work of the law
itself. It's the work of God. And he
says in verse 5, Not that we are sufficient ourselves to think
anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God. I'm
not sufficient to save myself or you, but our sufficiency is
of God. I'm not sufficient to be a minister
of the gospel, but my sufficiency is of God. And look at verse
6. He says, God, who also hath made us able ministers of the
New Testament, the New Covenant. Now, what is the New Covenant?
Well, one old writer put it this way. He said, the New Covenant
is the fulfillment in time of the everlasting covenant of grace
made before time. In other words, it's referring
to the time since Christ has actually come into the world
and done his great and marvelous work for his people. He's already
come. The whole Old Testament was a
testimony that Christ is coming. He will come. He will put away
the sins of his people. He will make an end of sin. He
will finish the transgression. He will establish righteousness,
everlasting righteousness, for his people. What the law could
not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God's Son accomplished
for his people. The law came by Moses, but grace
and truth came by Jesus Christ. Now somebody asked me one time,
well does that mean there were no saved sinners, true believers,
under the law? Oh yes, there were. There was
always a remnant. But they weren't looking for
their salvation in the law. They were looking for their salvation
above the law. not getting around the law, not
denying the law, but above the law in the sense they were looking
to Christ. Paul wrote in Galatians chapter
3, I believe it's in verse 24, he said, the law was our schoolmaster
to lead us unto Christ. And we can go even back before
the law. Think about Abel. Abel brought
the lamb, the blood of the lamb, as his sacrifice. Abel was not
seeking salvation in the blood of an earthly animal. What Abel
was doing, it was a testimony of Abel, of his faith in the
promised Messiah, the Lamb of God who would shed his blood.
You see, Abel looked beyond the lamb that he put on the altar,
to the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. His faith was in
Christ, not in the blood of bulls and goats. And the New Testament,
Here is the coming of Christ, the finished work of Christ.
This is the gospel of the New Testament. You see, the gospel
ministry today is the gospel of the New Testament. We're not
to bring back the law now, and it's imposition. We're to preach
Christ and Him crucified. He says in verse 6, God, who
also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament, or New
Covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter
killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. The law was a continual
reminder of death that sinners deserve because of sin. And that's
why it says the letter killeth. All the law can do in and of
itself is bring a sinner in guilty and deserving of death. That's
why Paul wrote in Romans chapter 3 that the law stops the mouths
of guilty sinners. And it shows that no flesh can
be justified by deeds of law. So the letter here refers to
the Old Covenant law as it was imposed on a rebellious nation.
But it's the Spirit that gives life. The Scripture says that
this body is dead because of sin, this physical body. But
the Spirit is life because of righteousness. You see, the law
could tell you what God requires in the way of righteousness.
The law can tell you what you should be, but the law cannot
give you righteousness. The law cannot make you righteous.
The law cannot make you what you should be. There's only one
way that a sinner can have righteousness. There's only one way a sinner
can be made righteous. There's only one way that a sinner
can be what he should be, and that's by the grace of God in
and by the person and finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the Spirit is the one who gives the new heart to see that
and to look to that. You see, the Spirit takes the
law and He slays us. What does that mean? He actually
kills us in one sense. He slays us from any notion or
any idea or any hope of ever being saved or ever being made
righteous based upon our works of the law. He shows that all
we deserve, based upon our best works, is death and hell. But the Spirit's ministry doesn't
stop there. You see, the Spirit giveth life. That's what he says here. The
Spirit drives the sinner who's been slain by the law to Christ
for life. He drives the sinner who's been
killed off by the law, brought in guilty, to Christ for righteousness. He drives us to Christ for redemption,
for forgiveness, for pardon, for all blessings that God gives
by his grace. And he says in verse 7, he says,
but if the ministration of death, that's the old covenant law given
to that rebellious people, written and engraven in stones, was glorious
so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold
the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which glory
was to be done away How shall not the ministration of the Spirit
be rather glorious?" If that old covenant through Moses was
glorious, and it was, and I'm going to talk a little bit about
that next week, the glory of it, it had a glory. But if that
was glorious, that ministration of death that continually reminded
them of their sin, of their guilt, If that was glorious, then how
much more glorious, and that glory was to be done away, how
much more glorious is the ministration of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit?
You remember when Moses got the law of Mount Sinai and he came
down from that mount, there was a physical glory, a light that
shone from his face so bright that the children of Israel couldn't
look upon it and they had to put a veil over his face. And
you see, that was a glorious time. It was a glorious manifestation
of the Law. But it still was given to a rebellious
people. You see, the Law could not change
their heart. The Law could neither make them
righteous before God, and the Law could not give them life,
change the heart. It's only Christ who can make
a sinner righteous and give life by His Spirit. So that that Law
was glorious, but it had no glory. when compared to the ministration
of the Spirit. You see, in the power of God,
who comes by His Spirit to give life, to regenerate a sinner,
to convert a sinner, that's the new birth. The majority of the
nation of Israel under the Old Covenant never came to see the
glory of Christ. They refused and rejected Him.
And their hearts remained hard. That's why they couldn't enter
into the Promised Land. They hardened their hearts in
unbelief. My friend, don't be like that. Don't harden your
heart against the gospel of Christ. This is a gospel ministry. It
is a ministration of the Spirit when, when the Holy Spirit comes
and gives you life, gives you ears to hear and eyes to see,
hearts and mind to know and love and understand the things of
the Spirit of God. What is the work of the Holy
Spirit? It is to convince us of sin and drive us to Christ. And that's what the gospel ministry
is all about. Well, I hope this message has
been helpful for you. And if you'd like to receive
a copy of this message, listen to the announcer and he'll give
you the details. The title of the message is The Gospel Ministry. And I hope you'll join us next
week for another message from God's Word.