Alright, let's go back to 2 Corinthians
chapter 3. Lord willing, Sunday we'll be
looking at Moses as he comes down out of the mount and he's
got the tables of stone and the law and he finds them dancing
around the golden calf and he throws the stones down and breaks
them. As I was looking at that, I got to thinking about this
2 Corinthians chapter 3 And I think this will help us for when we
get to that message on Sunday. I have some brethren I've been
speaking with that who have been confronted lately with folks
who keep insisting that the believer is under the law. And I think
this will help us. Let's go here now. I want to
show you here that the law that God writes on the heart of His
child He speaks about writing the law in our heart. The law
he writes on the heart of his child is not the old covenant
law of works. It's not the Ten Commandments. It's the new covenant of grace. It's the new covenant of grace
that he writes on the heart. That's the law. He turns us from
the glory of the old covenant to the glory of the new covenant.
I've titled this From Glory to Glory. It hit me as I was studying
this this week that whenever Paul talks down there in verse
18 and he says, we all with open face beholding as in a glass
the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory
to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. And folks want to
say that means from one degree of holiness to another degree
of holiness. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking
about the glory of the old covenant and the glory of the new covenant.
He turns us from the glory of that old covenant to the glory
of the new covenant. And the glory of the new covenant
is Christ. God said, I give thee for a covenant
of the people. He is himself the covenant. He
fulfilled it. He brings us out from under the
old. He brings us under the new. He's the mediator of the new
covenant. He is the covenant. All the promises of God in him
are yes and in him amen to the praise of the glory of God's
grace. He is the glory that he brings us to. So I want to show
you this and it's contrasted here. He contrasts the Old Covenant
with the New Covenant. And I want to show you three
ways he contrasts it. He shows that the New Covenant
excels the Old Covenant. First of all, in the way each
were written. We'll see that. And then secondly,
the new covenant excels the old covenant in what each covenant
ministers to us. And then thirdly, in the duration
of each covenant, how long each covenant lasts, the new excels
the old. Now first of all, look at verse
three. The new covenant law of grace. And it is a law. The new covenant
is the new testament. It's the new law. It's the law
of grace. It excels the old covenant law of works by the way they're
written. Look at this contrast, verse
3. He says of the believers, you are manifestly declared to
be the epistle of Christ. You're the epistle of Christ.
Ministered by us, we preach the gospel to you, but you're the
epistle of Christ, written not with ink. but with the spirit
of the living God. Not in tables of stone, but in
fleshly tables of the heart. The old covenant law, we've seen
this in Exodus 32, it was written, well in Exodus 24, it was written
by Moses in ink in a book. He came down out of the mount,
he wrote the whole law in a book and told them what it said. So
it was written with ink in a book. And then God wrote the law on
tablets of stone. We're talking about the whole
law of God. The moral law, the ceremonial
law, the civil law, the whole law of God. It was all against
us. You know, people will say, well,
we're talking about the ceremonial, not the moral. Well, the law
was against us. Which part was against us? All
of it. All of it was against us. And
then that was written on in ink, in a book, and on a stone. Look at this, the new covenant
of grace is written by Christ. Not by Moses, by Christ. And
it's written by the Spirit of the living God. And it's written
in fleshly tables of the heart. He creates a new heart. He gives
a new spirit. And he writes this new covenant
law in the new heart. He writes it in the new heart.
It's the everlasting covenant of grace. Go to Hebrews 8 and
listen to this. I'll show you that we're talking
about Christ here. He's talking all about Christ
being our high priest, how much better he is than the law. And
then he says here in verse 6, it says in Hebrews 8, 6, now
he hath obtained a more excellent ministry. His ministry's more
excellent than that old covenant ministry. By how much also he's
the mediator of a better covenant. That's this law of grace, this
law of the everlasting case, a better covenant. Established
upon better promises. They're all fulfilled. They're
not any of them left for us to fulfill, that's why they're better.
For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no
place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with
them, he said, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord. He's quoting
from Jeremiah. He said, The days come when I'll
make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the
house of Judah, not according to that covenant that I made
with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they continued
not in my covenant. We saw that Sunday. He's not
even got down out of the mountain yet, and they're dancing around
a golden ox. worshiping it. They didn't continue
in the covenant. He says here, And I regarded
them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that
I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith
the Lord. I will put my laws into their mind. Not on tables
of stone. and I'll write them in their
hearts, and I'll be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.
And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man
his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know me from
the least to the greatest. That means from the newest believer
to the oldest believer. When he gives you the Holy Spirit,
you have the unction, and you know the gospel. You know the
gospel. That's what it means. You know
the gospel. You might not know all things
there are to know in scripture. You're going to die not knowing
all things there are to know in scripture. But you know Christ
is all, and that's all. You know all if you know him.
So look here. For I'll be merciful to their
unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember
no more. In that he said the new covenant, he made the first
old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth
old is ready to vanish away. At the time of this writing,
that old covenant, he had fulfilled it, Christ had fulfilled it,
and now it's getting ready to vanish away. It's done away with. So the New Covenant, this New
Covenant law of grace, it excels the Old Covenant in that Christ
writes it. He writes it by the Spirit of
God and he writes it in our heart. He writes it in our heart. Now
secondly, let's go back to 2 Corinthians 3. This New Covenant law of grace
excels the Old Covenant by what it ministers. What does he minister
when he ministers this covenant? Verse six. He says there in verse
six, he said, he's made us able ministers of the New Testament. His preachers preach the new
covenant. We preach the covenant of grace.
We don't preach law, we preach grace. Preach the gospel. He
made us able ministers of the New Testament. Now what? Not of the letter, but of the
spirit. For the letter killeth, but the
Spirit giveth life. Now look down at verse 7. He
calls it the ministration of death written and engraven in
stones. People want to say that's the
rule of life. No, that's the ministration of
death. That's what the purpose was,
to minister death. Written and engraved in stones,
it was glorious so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly
behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance.
But now look down here at verse eight. He calls it there the
ministration of the spirit. It's the ministration of the
spirit. The first was the ministration
of death. This is the ministration of quickening.
That's what it means, the ministration of life. In verse nine, He says
it's the ministration of condemnation. It was given to condemn us. That's
it, it was given to condemn us. But then verse, in that same
verse he calls the new covenant the ministration of righteousness. It ministers righteousness to
us. So this old covenant, this old
covenant law was given in letter only. We've seen that. Moses comes down with the letter.
That's what he had, the letter of the law. That's what it is,
the letter of the law. And he said the letter kills.
It kills. He says there it ministered condemnation
and it ministered death. That's what the scriptures tells
us the law was given for. It was given to declare us guilty. It was given to shut our mouths.
It was given to kill us. That's what it was given for,
to show us To kill us. It said, this do and live. That's what it said. It's not
of faith. No faith's involved in the letter.
It says, this do and live. It says, don't do it, die. It's
that cut and dry. Do it and you'll live. All of
it. Thought, word, and deed. Don't do it, you die. It kills
and it condemns in three ways. One, a natural man's already
dead when he gets it. If a man comes under the law,
he hears the law for the first time, the law of God, and he
begins to look into it, he's dead before he hears it. He's
guilty before he ever hears it, because we died in Adam. We broke
the law in Adam. That law is to make that offense
abound, to show us how badly we were condemned in Adam. So
we already broke it. Two, a natural man is spiritually
dead so that he doesn't hear the law. When he goes to the
letter of the law, he doesn't hear it. He doesn't hear that
it reaches to the thoughts and intents of his heart. He doesn't
hear that it declares that his whole entire nature is nothing
but sin. It can't produce anything but
sin. He thinks he keeps the old covenant
law. He thinks he's really keeping
it because he's just doing it outwardly. And he thinks he has
life by it when in fact he's dead. doing it. He's hanging on to a lie. It
kills him in that regard. If he meets God in that state,
remember Paul said, I was alive without the law once. He was
trying to come to God in the law, but he couldn't hear the
law. That's what sense he was without the law. He couldn't
hear what it said to him. And he thought he was alive.
That's death. That's what Christ meant when
he said, if the light that is in thee be darkness, how great
is that darkness? And three, the letter of the
law is used of men to kill those around them. It kills a man because he's dead
already. It kills him because he thinks
he has life by it. If he meets God in that state,
he's going to be condemned and cast into the second death. And
three, men use the law to kill others with it. If they only have it in the letter.
He hears the letter say, you're condemned if you don't keep it. And when he sees somebody else
not measure up to what the letter said, he gonna use that letter
to kill him. Natural man doesn't have faith,
he doesn't have love, he doesn't have mercy, he doesn't have long
suffering. It's a religion of accusing others
and excusing self. Always harder on others and more
lenient on self. Natural religion uses the new
covenant the same way. The natural religion will go
to the New Testament, and if it's just in the letter, if a
natural man, just in the letter, he'll use this New Testament
just the same way as the old. Men can read the letter and see,
do this, don't do that, and he'll use the new just like a dead
man will use the old. But look what the Spirit does.
The Spirit gives life. The Spirit ministers righteousness. The New Covenant administers
the Spirit, that is, it quickens. This New Covenant quickens and
it ministers righteousness to us. When the Gospel is preached,
Christ said He gives life. He said in John 6.63, it's the
Spirit that quickeneth. The spirit that quickeneth. That's
the same word there as giveth life. It's the spirit that quickeneth. He said the flesh profits nothing. We can't gain anything by our
flesh. Nothing. The flesh is the nature. It's the sin nature. It's how
we are naturally. We can gain nothing by that.
It doesn't aid in this. It's not a part of this, what
we're talking about. And it has no part in it. The
words that I speak unto you, Christ said, their spirit and
their life. Now you think about that. You
know how you first was quickened? You know how you were quickened
and made to hear this gospel? It wasn't by a man's preaching.
It was by Christ speaking and giving you life. That's how come
one day you were reading it, and you didn't have any interest
in it, and then next thing you know, you find yourself reading
this book, and all of a sudden, you see what it means. You hear
it, and you start to believe what you read. What happened?
Christ spoke the words. And this is always the case,
brethren. If you and I as believers, if
we become dull, and we're not hearing the gospel, what's gonna
bring us out of that? I can't bring you out of that.
I could do every kind of trick a preacher could do, and I can't
bring you out of that. What's it going to take? Christ
is going to have to speak into your heart, and He's going to
have to quicken. He's going to have to renew you. We're renewed continually. We're
renewed in the knowledge of Him that created us. He gives life
by giving discernment to hear the old covenant law. Now just
think about this when he quickens. First thing that's going to happen
when he gives you life, he's going to kill you. There's a
self-righteous man in me and you that's got to be killed first.
That man's got to be put down. So here you have Paul, he thought
he was alive. He thought he had kept the law
and he was going to kill God's people. And Christ spoke to him
on the road to Emmaus, and when he did, he fell in the dust. And when he fell in the dust,
and Christ blinded him, he said, when the commandment came, sin
revived. Sin became alive to me. And I
realized I'd never kept the law a day in my life. And that old
self-righteous Saul died that day. Paul saw he couldn't depend
on his works, he couldn't depend on his righteousness at all.
But when he gives that life, he gives you faith to behold
Christ is the righteousness I need. He ministers the life, he quickens
you, and he gives you righteousness through this. He makes you behold
Christ is the righteousness God will receive. He's the righteousness
I need. He's the righteousness I don't
have. He makes you see Christ, this
whole law that we're talking about, Christ came and he came
down from glory and this innocent, spotless one, he walked under
that law and never broke it. It's not like he had to strain
to keep it. It's not like he had to check
it off and make sure he was doing everything right. It just was
his nature to keep it. It was his nature not to break
it. And then he went to Calvary, and this was the true love of
the law. At Calvary, he loved God perfectly
by magnifying and honoring his law. He saved his people. He loved his people perfectly
by giving himself to bear our sin and the wrath of God in our
room instead. That's the love required to keep
the law. He did that by justifying us
from our sin. And He makes you see this, and
when He does this, Scripture says, you know, Hebrews says,
He takes away the first that He may establish the second.
He did that when He walked this earth, but then He does it in
our heart. He takes away that first covenant. He takes away
that law and all our works and everything we thought we could
do, and He establishes that new covenant of grace in our heart.
He writes this new covenant on our heart. We see that He kept
the law. He called it the New Testament
written in my blood. That means everything that's
needed to fulfill the law, He fulfilled it by shedding His
blood unto death. He did it. And when you are given
mercy, and you see what a wretched, wretched, horrible sinner you
are, and you see He's your righteousness freely, freely, by mercy He saved. You become a mercy lover. You love mercy. You love it. It's not the old covenant law
that God writes on the heart. It's the new covenant law of
grace. It's not the law of sin and death
that He writes on the heart. It's the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus that He writes on the heart. He said,
I'll give them one heart. All these people have the same
law written on our heart. We have one heart. He said, I'll
give them one way. We all have one way. Christ the
way. That they may fear me forever
for the good of them and for their children after them. I'll
make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn
away from them to do them good. I'll put my fear in their hearts. This was, none of this was included
in the letter. None of this, Moses didn't come
down and put the fear, this quickened them to life and give them righteousness
and give them mercy and give them long suffering and put the
fear of God in their heart. Moses didn't do any of that when
he came down from the mount. He just came down with a letter.
But this is what Christ does. When this new covenant has statutes,
I've heard people say, You know, when he said that in Jeremiah,
he said, I'll write my law in your heart and you'll keep my
statutes and you'll do them. Well, the new covenant has statutes.
Christ said, he that loves me is going to keep my commandments.
It has commandments. He writes the law of faith on
your heart. By grace and by his power, we keep that statute.
We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is all our righteousness. We believe that he's the end
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. We
believe on him. We believe he's the end. We believe
he redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse
for us. We're freed from it now. We're freed from the law. We
believe him. We believe it'll never change. We believe him when he says,
your sins and iniquities, I'll remember no more. We believe
him. So that whole old covenant law that was such a monster to
us, that was so impossible for us to keep, this is why Christ
says my yoke is light and easy. He gives you the gift of faith.
He writes the law of faith on your heart, making you where
you want to do nothing but trust him. And you can't do anything
but trust him. You can't stop trusting him. And that's so much lighter and
so much easier than trying to keep that whole law. We've kept
the whole law. We've established it better than
anybody could have ever, the best person in this world had
ever so-called kept the law. Never gave it what Christ gave
it. He kept it. He fully kept it and honored
it. And then he also writes the law of love on our heart. He
says, He says, by this all men should know you're my disciples.
You'll love one another. He puts that in our heart. God
is love, and when Christ is formed in our heart, he makes us love.
That's also called the law of Christ. He puts love in the heart. The fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance,
and against such there is no law. That didn't come by the
letter. That came by Christ ministering
this new covenant. Faith which works by love is
a superior rule to law. It's a superior rule. It's walking
in newness of spirit rather than the oldness of the letter. Newness
of spirit rather than the oldness of a letter. It makes us deal
with one another in these two statutes, by these two statutes
of faith and love. You think about this. What better way to make us walk
by faith, which worketh by love, than putting us together and
leaving us in these bodies of death so that we all sin and
mess up? What better way to exercise this
newness of spirit in us and make us walk by faith and by love? By faith, Paul says that because
he's experienced this, what he's saying is because I've experienced
this, because I've received mercy this way, because I believe sufficiencies
of the Lord and not of myself. He says, I speak boldly. I preach
plainly. I don't try to use deceit. I'm not trying to mix words.
I'm not trying to do things by force of hand. I preach the word
and I wait on Christ. That's faith. That's faith. I'm waiting on Christ to deal
with my brethren. He believes Christ is the prophet,
priest, and king of his people. He believes Christ is the head
of his church. He believes Christ is going to work in the hearts
of his people through the gospel. And so he preaches the gospel.
He waits on him to grant a new spirit, waits on him to grant
repentance, waits on him to chasten, waits on him to work in the hearts
of his children, just like he worked in your heart in the first
hour. You and I can create an outward
form of obedience just like Will Work's religion does. But only
he can grant you true faith in the heart and true repentance
in the heart and this is how he says he does it. So we have
to believe him. And then it makes you love your
brethren the same way. Newness of spirit uses spiritual
discernment. The letter tells me what's lawful
and what's unlawful. And the letter says, if somebody
breaks it, kill them. Condemn them. Newness of spirit
discerns if one's chastened, if one's broken, if Christ is
dealing with them. He preaches the word, he waits,
and he discerns if Christ is dealing with them. Let me give
you an example. I'm going to try to preach on
newness of spirit soon, but let me give you an example. Take
the woman caught in adultery. The letter of the law said, the
law says stoner. What do you say? That's the letter
of the law. That's the spirit of the letter
of the law. Law says killer. Newness of spirit said, he saw
this woman, can you imagine her standing there naked, ashamed,
her heart broke, head down, And Christ, after he stood between
her and her accusers, and they all walked away. This is what
Nunus of Spirit said. Does no man condemn you? Neither
do I. Now go. Don't do this again. Don't sin again. Don't get into
this again. Go. I don't condemn you. Remember that counsel in Jerusalem
concerning the Gentiles? they came back from that council
and they said this is what we're going to tell the Gentiles. No
Gentile believer has to be circumcised. They don't come back under the
law. Now, if Paul had just had that in the letter, or if Timothy
had just had that in the letter, they would have said, well, we're
not circumcising Timothy. We're going to go in here and
preach to these Gentiles because the letter says we ought to do
this. This is what we ought to do. So we're going to go preach
to these Jews with this uncircumcised half-Gentile and we don't care
what happens. Let the chips fall where they
may." That's the letter. Newness of spirit said, well,
I know it says that, but what's best for this situation? Timothy,
let's circumcise you before we go. That way it won't even be
a distraction. We can preach the gospel and
it won't even be an issue. That's newness of spirit. Paul
showed the difference in this letter. He said to them, you
know, the Corinthians had not, it was one of the wealthiest
places there was, and they didn't support Paul financially. And the letter of the law, he
quoted the letter of the law to them. Thou shalt not muzzle
the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn, even so hath the
Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live
of the gospel. Now that was the letter. And if Paul was walking
by the letter, he'd enforce that. He'd have whipped them, he'd
have shamed them, he'd have said, you've got to pay me. But here's
what newness of spirit said, but I've used none of these things. Neither have I written these
things that it should be so done unto me. That's newness of spirit. You get the point. The letter
just looks at what the word says and says, well, the law says
do this. And men will do this with the new covenant. They can
look at the words of the new testament. Well, the law says
do this. This is what we need to do. But the letter doesn't
take into hand the circumstances. It doesn't show mercy. It doesn't
show love. It doesn't show forgiveness.
It just shows justice and leaves no room for mercy. But newness
of spirit has one touchstone. Now listen to me, this has been
the touchstone for 13 years for me, preaching here. If I were
the priest in the letter, I'd a long time ago threw my hands
up and said, I'll go fishing. I promise you. But this is the
touchstone right here. Christ has justified my brethren. He put away their sin. This brother
is a justified saint that Christ has robed in His righteousness.
He is perfect in Christ. And noon as the Spirit looks
at each circumstance and says, what's going to bring the most
glory to Christ? What's going to manifest that
I trust Christ is my sufficiency? He's the head. He's ruling. He's able and not me. What's going to best show that?
And newness of spirit says, what's going to keep all the eyes on
Christ? What's going to keep all eyes
on Him? What's going to keep us rejoicing
in the Spirit? What's going to keep us not putting
confidence in the flesh? That's newness of spirit. You
want your brethren in love, in faith in Christ, trust in Christ,
and love for your brethren. You want them to see Christ.
You want them to rest in Christ and not be turned back to the
law and to the letter and to the biting and the devouring
and the division and all that. You want them to see Christ.
Now let me show you this last thing, I'll be real quick. It
excels the old in duration. The new excels the old in duration.
And now as I read this, pay attention to the word glory. He's talking
about the glory of the old and the glory of the new. And he
says the old is gone and the new remains. Look at verse seven.
But if the ministration of death written in graven and stones
was glorious, and it was, the children of Israel couldn't 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? For if the ministration of condemnation
be glory, much more does the ministration of righteousness
exceed in glory. For even that which was made
glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory
that excelleth. For if that which is done away
was glorious, see he's showing the duration of that was only
for a time. It's done away. The glory of
that was done away. much more that which remaineth
is glorious. Seeing then that we have this
hope, knowing Christ is our covenant, knowing Christ is the one who's
going to write this in the hearts of his people, we use great plainness
of speech, great boldness of speech. Not as Moses who put
a veil over his face that the children of Israel couldn't steadfastly
look to the end of that which is abolished. But their minds
were blinded, for to this day remains the same veil untaken
away in the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done
away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses
is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it
shall turn to the Lord, when their hearts turn to the Lord,
that veil will be taken away. Now watch, the Lord's that spirit. He's the one that does this.
And where the spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty. Liberty
from what? That old covenant. Liberty from
that law, liberty from the flesh. We all with open face beholding
as in a glass the glory of the Lord. Now he's not talking about
the glory of a covenant. Now he says, I'm talking about
the glory of the Lord himself. We're changed into the same image
from that old covenant glory, that old covenant law, to the
glory of this new covenant, this new redeemer. It's done by the
Spirit of the Lord. Look at chapter four, verse six. Here's how that happens. For
God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has
shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. When he shines,
You see, He is the covenant. He is the promise. He is the
fulfiller. He is the one who is righteousness. He is life. Everything I need,
He is. He is. And so we preach not ourselves,
Paul said. He goes on there in chapter one
of verse four. He said, we've experienced this
mercy. We received this ministry by
this very mercy, by this very power. And for that reason, we
don't faint. We don't start using dishonesty
and trying to veil it. We just preach boldly. We just
preach plainly. And so when the Lord has done
this, look over at chapter four in verse 17. Here's what he says,
he says, I'm sorry, chapter 5 and verse 17, he says, therefore
if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things are
passed away. All the old covenant law and
all of that, the letter and the way we, the spirit we walked
under and the, and the way that everything was just cut and dry,
kill or live, either way, but you break it, you die. Well,
that's gone now. And behold, all things are become
new. We have a new master, we have
a new heart, we have a new spirit, new love, new mercy, new kindness,
new tenderheartedness, and all things are of God, every bit
of it, who reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and gave us the
ministry of reconciliation. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Lord, we ask you to be our sufficiency
now and truly speak this word quicken. We ask you to get glory
to your name by writing this word on our heart by renewing
those that believe by writing it on the heart of some lost
sheep for the first time. Lord, remind us and show us continually
how that you save by love and mercy and how that you turn us from our own disappointing,
our being disappointed, and turn us to Christ. Make us trust him. Make us make
us love as you've loved us. Make us rejoice and rest in the
righteousness we have in you. Lord, help us. Help us to see. Help us to walk. Help us to flee from everything
that would dishonor you. And help us truly, truly love
as you've loved. Make us in your image. Conform us to your image. Lord, only you can work this
work. And we ask you, Lord, now, come. Work your will in our hearts. Work that which is your good
pleasure. And forgive us, Lord, for looking to ourselves. Forgive
us for the unbelief where then we look to the letter, walk in
the letter, and make us walk in newness of spirit. We thank
you, Father, for free forgiveness. Thank you for free grace. In
Christ's name we pray, amen.