Welcome to our program. Now today
I'm going to be preaching from the book of 2 Corinthians chapter
3. 2 Corinthians 3 if you'd like
to follow along in your Bibles. The title of the message is the
Epistle of Christ. The Epistle of Christ. Now you
know what an epistle is, that's a letter. The New Testament is
mainly the epistles that God has written by His Spirit through
various men, mainly the Apostle Paul who was used of God to write
over half of the New Testament. We read of the epistle or the
letter to the Romans. Here we have the epistles to
the Corinthians, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, then it goes on
Galatians, Ephesians. These are all letters. And they
are epistles that were written to the churches or to individuals.
Now, technically speaking, all the epistles, all the letters
of the Bible, are the epistles of Christ. Because, you see,
even though men were used to write the Scriptures, these words,
the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, it's the Word of God. And so
we must understand and respect it as such. In other words, when
I read in 2 Corinthians chapter 3, I need to understand that
I'm not just reading a letter from a sinful human being. like
Paul, even a preacher of the gospel. I'm to see this as the
Word of God through Paul. Paul was just the instrument.
And that's what the Bible teaches. But now here in 2 Corinthians
3, he mentions another epistle. And he's using this word epistle
here, or letter here, symbolically for believers. And I'll show
you that here in just a minute. But let me show you what's bringing
about the words here that God wrote through Paul. God the Holy
Spirit wrote through Paul to the Corinthians. This was a church
with many problems and Paul dealt with a lot of those problems
in 1st Corinthians. He's dealing with a lot of the
problems here in 2nd Corinthians. But one of the main problems
that the church had was the invasion of false preachers. Now that's
nothing new because that's been a problem of the church down
through the ages. Even in the Old Testament there
were false prophets. who claim to be prophets of God,
and one of the main tools that false prophets always use is
that they attack the character and the methods and the motives
and sometimes even the message of God's true prophets. Well,
it's the same in the New Testament. It's the same today. Here in
Corinth, false preachers had crept into the church subtly. These were wolves in sheep's
clothing. And the main issue that Paul's dealing with, and
these false preachers, that they were preaching the law. They
were trying to bring believers back under the law. Many of them
were Jews who claimed to be Christian, but they had not yet come to
repentance of their dead works under the law. They wanted to
bring back the law and put believers under the law as a legal system.
And they would say something like this. They would say, well,
Christ is our Savior, God's grace is the way God saves sinners,
but, and there's where it comes, but you must be circumcised,
or you must keep the law of Moses, or you must keep the Sabbath
day, or you must stop eating this and not drink this in order
to be holy, or to be more saved, or to be truly saved. And that's
legalism. You see, legalism is any notion
of salvation. at any stage, to any degree,
conditioned on the sinner's deeds or deeds of law. The Bible teaches
us plainly that by deeds of law shall no flesh be justified,
declared not guilty and righteous before God in God's sight. Paul had to deal with this in
the churches of Galatia. And he said this in Galatians
chapter 5 and verse 1, he says, Stand fast in the liberty wherewith
Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the
yoke of bondage, the law. For if you be circumcised, Christ
will profit you nothing. You see, if you do anything,
circumcision, whatever you do, keeping a day, whatever you do,
if you do it in order to be saved, or in order to be kept saved,
then you deny Christ. You may claim to be a believer,
but in your legalism, you're denying Christ. And that's what
happened here in Corinth. He deals with them really in
detail in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, when he talks about the false
apostles who disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness.
But here's what Paul's doing in 2 Corinthians 3. He's showing
the greater glory of the gospel of God's grace in the New Testament
showing how it is the ministration of righteousness, ministration
of the Spirit, ministration of life. But he begins chapter 3
with an unusual way of dealing with things. It was unusual for
Paul. He has to defend himself. Now
remember what I said, many of these false preachers, one thing
they would always do is they would attack God's preacher.
They would question his character, his motives, and his message.
And that's what Paul is doing here in the first part of 2 Corinthians
3. Also, they would question his
authority. What is your authority to preach or to say what you're
saying? Well, listen to what Paul says
in verse 1. He says, now, do we begin again
to commend ourselves? It's almost like Paul's saying,
do I need to reintroduce myself to you? Don't you know who I
am? As I've said before, Paul was used in a mighty way as an
instrument to lay the foundation work of this church. He was the
first one who came into this city of Corinth. Corinth was
a great city. It was a merchant city, mercantile. It was a trade city, all kinds
of cultures, all kinds of languages, a big city. But it was also a
very, very sinful place. But Paul had been directed to
go there by the Holy Spirit who told him there was much people
in that city. God had some sheep there and
he went in there and he was the first one to preach the gospel
and God blessed that work and raised up this church and Paul
was used mightily in there not only in their foundation and
in the groundwork but also in their growth. He wrote letters
to them. He returned to Corinth. He had intention to return again.
And so he's saying here now and now here these false preachers
come in and they start to discredit Paul. They start to attack his
character and Paul is saying, do we begin again to commend
ourselves? Don't you know me? Haven't I dealt honestly with
you? I've not held back anything. Do I need to bring a, do I need
to commend myself to you? And Paul says, I shouldn't have
to do that. That's his point. This is a rhetorical question.
He said, I shouldn't have to do that. I preach the gospel
to you. I preach the sovereign grace
of God in Christ to you. That's proof of my love for you.
and my concern for you then he goes on he says in verse 1 read
it again 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 now what he's saying is do I need
to commend myself or do I as some others I believe he's referring
there to the false preacher do I need letters of commendation
to you or from you to prove my apostleship, to prove my authority,
to prove my love, to prove my message. It was common back then
that ministers would go around and they would, if you went to
a congregation that didn't know you, you'd bring a letter of
commendation from other people, from another church or from a
preacher. Many times that was not a requirement
of God that a preacher do that because that could be forged.
These letters were many times forged. Paul mentioned that in
another place. He said these false preachers
come in and they deceive you as though they had letters from
us, letters from Peter and James and Paul and the other apostles.
And that was a very, very suspicious practice to do that. People today
want credentials, they want letters, they want diplomas, they want
to know who recommends you, who does this. Now let me tell you
something here. Here is what should recommend any preacher
to any gospel-believing congregation. And this is it. Does that person
preach Christ? And that's what Paul's saying.
I don't need letters of comm... They do. These false preachers,
they need letters of commendation. They need them to you and from
you. Paul's saying, I don't need that. I preach the gospel. Back up in 2 Corinthians chapter
2, he said that. Talking about the sweet savor
of Christ. We preach Christ and Him crucified. We preach the gospel of God's
grace in Him. And that's our authority. Does
a man preach this word? Now, any preacher also should
be a living example of grace in his life and that goes along
with it. But here's the main issue that
we need to be concerned with. Does he preach the grace of God
or does he preach works? Does he commend the flesh or
exalt the flesh? Does he preach the righteousness
of God in Christ or the righteousness of men? You see what I'm saying?
Does he preach the salvation that God freely gives? Paul mentioned that in 1 Corinthians
chapter 2. We receive the things of the
Spirit of God when we receive the things that God freely gives,
unconditionally. In other words, Paul's saying,
I preach a gospel to you that you don't deserve, I don't deserve
it, and you cannot earn it, and I cannot earn it. At any stage,
it's a free gift of God's grace. that comes to a sinner totally
upon the grounds of the obedience unto death of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He earned it. And that's our
authority. Over in 2 Corinthians chapter
5 he's going to speak of that, about the word of reconciliation. How God has reconciled the sinners
and how sinners are reconciled to God and come together in peace
and in salvation and in mercy. How does that happen? By the
word of reconciliation which is the gospel for God made Christ
to be sin. Christ who knew no sin. For us
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. So that it is
only upon the ground of the shed blood and the imputed righteousness
of Christ, His righteousness credited and accounted to His
people that God has reconciled the sinners and sinners are reconciled
to God and that's the gospel that's the heart of it so Paul
says I don't need letters of commendation but now here's the
main point that I want to make today now look at verse 2 and
listen to what he says here this is important he said you are
our epistle written in our hearts known and read of all men and
then verse 3 forasmuch as you are manifestly declared to be
the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink,
but with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone,
but in fleshy tables of the heart." Now here's what he's saying here.
He said, I don't need letters of commendation. My gospel is
enough to commend me on the... I point you to Christ. I tell
the truth about your sin. But you yourselves, these believers
in this church at Corinth, he says, you are our epistle. You are a living letter. That's
what he's saying. He's using the word epistle and
letter here as a symbol. You are a living letter written
in our hearts. That is written in Paul's heart.
In other words, he loved them. That's what he's saying there.
Written in our hearts means that I have you on my heart. I have
only your safety and your salvation and your peace and your comfort
and your growth in mind. Whatever I say to you, whatever
I write to you, I'm not trying to lord it over you. I'm not
trying to beat you down. I'm not trying to gain things
for myself. I'm not trying to commend myself. I'm not trying to get you to
follow me. He's simply saying, I have you on my heart. I want
you to follow Christ. and you are our epistle, and
you're known and read of all men. They see you and they hear
you. That's what he means by that. The Bible teaches that,
that our lives and our testimony is important. Don't ever think
that it's not. Christ said in the Sermon on
the Mount, he said, let your light so shine before men that
they may see your good works. and glorify your Father which
is in heaven. Now a lot of people take that
verse, that's Matthew 5.16 and they abuse it badly. For example,
let me just say this because this is exactly what I'm talking
about in the epistle of Christ. If I'm an epistle of Christ,
I've got to let my light so shine that men may see my good works
and glorify my Father which is in heaven. Now first of all,
what is the light? than I'm to let shine. Now a
lot of people will tell you that they believe that the light is
their acts of morality, sincerity, charity, love and obedience and
that is absolutely not true. If you look in the scripture
what is light? Well Christ Himself is the light
of the world and the glory of God in Him is life. And the gospel
message itself is light. It's truth as it is in Christ. The light that I'm to let shine
before men is the gospel of how God saves a wretched sinner like
me by the Lord Jesus Christ. Over in 2 Corinthians 4 and verse
6, he says, For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,
the God of creation, hath shined in our hearts to give unto us
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. I let my light shine as I tell
sinners who Christ is and what he accomplished and what he is
to me. He's my Savior. He's my wisdom.
He's my righteousness. He's my holiness. He's my redemption. He's all and in all, the scripture
says. He's not just part of my life.
He is my life. I want to point you to Christ.
I want to show you who He is and what He's done for His people.
I want you to believe in and follow Him. That's the life,
you see, not my works. Not even the good works that
God does through me is my life. Christ is my life. Christ and
Him crucified. So let your light shine, so shine
before men, that they may see your good works." Now, good works. How do you know a good work?
Well, first of all, good works do not come from men. They come
from God. Ephesians chapter 2 and verse
10 says, for we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto
good works. Not because of good works, but
unto good works which God hath before ordained. that we should
walk in them. Christ taught in John chapter
15, He's the vine, we're the branches, the branches bear fruit.
That's the good works, that's the fruit of grace. We don't
create fruit, we're not the source of the fruit, we just bear the
fruit. And so the good works, they are
what God by His power and grace does in us and through us, but
they're only good as they are seen in Christ. And so therefore
when men see us do something that they consider good, What
do we want them to know? Well, we want our light to shine.
We want to be the epistle of Christ. We want to tell them,
look, my works, even the good works God does through me, is
not my righteousness before God. Christ is. My good works do not
make me holy or righteous. They do not save me. They don't
even earn my reward. Christ is my reward. You see
what I'm saying? and therefore pointing to God,
the glory of God. Well, that's what Paul's saying.
In verse 3 of 2 Corinthians 3, he says, for as much as you are
manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ. Now, here
are the people of Corinth, and he's speaking to the believers,
and he's saying, you are the epistle of Christ. You are a
living letter written by the hand of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now he says, you were ministered by us. Paul was the instrument
that God used to write these living letters. It's almost like
this, if I'm going to write a letter, I'm the one who writes it, but
I'm going to use a pen or a pencil to write it. It's almost like
Paul saying, I'm the pen, I'm the pencil. God is the writer.
Christ is the one who wrote this letter. you are the product,
what he's saying here is that a believer is not the product
of the preacher a believer is the product of Christ by the
power of his spirit and Christ is the one who, in other words
he's saying this I can preach the gospel to you but I cannot
change your heart I can't do that, I can't even change my
own heart I can't save you I can desire your salvation I can pray
for your salvation, and I should do both of those. Oh, I want
all to be saved. And I pray that you hear this
and believe it unto salvation. But I can't make it so. Only
Christ can do that. I'm just the pen. I'm just the
signpost. I use that analogy all the time,
especially when I talk about John the Baptist. You know, John
the Baptist in his ministry, what was he doing? He was pointing,
he pointed out the sinfulness of men, and pointed to the glory
of God's grace in Christ. He said, Behold, the Lamb of
God, which taketh away the sin of the world. He said, I'm not
the Messiah. Christ is. He is. He said, I'm
not even worthy to stoop down and untie shoelaces. He said,
He, Christ, must increase. I must decrease. And all John
the Baptist was, he said, I'm a voice crying in the wilderness.
God is the Savior. I'm just the voice. I'm just
the one who's speaking the words. I'm like the pen or the pencil
who writes the letter. And so John the Baptist pointed
men to Christ. Well, that's what a preacher
is. A true preacher is a signpost. Just like you're driving along
a road and you're wanting to get to a particular destination,
a particular city, for example, Ashland, Kentucky, and you drive
on the road and you see a sign. And it says Ashland, Kentucky,
100 miles. You don't stop at the sign and
make your home there at the sign, do you? No, the sign is only
pointing you to your destination. And that's what Paul's saying
here when he says, ministered by us. I'm not your destination.
I'm not your savior. I'm pointing you to Christ. I'm
just the signpost. But he says, written not with
ink, but with the spirit of the living God. Now he said, do I
need letters of condemnation? It should be condemnation, but
commendation? No. Written down on paper with
ink? No. You're our letter. You're
a sinner saved by the grace of God. God has done a marvelous,
miraculous, sovereign work in your heart, not written with
ink. It's not just on paper. They
can give you a Sunday school certificate or a baptismal certificate
or a Sunday school pen. That has nothing to do with salvation. This is written with the Spirit
of the living God. This is the work of the Holy
Spirit to bring a sinner to be convinced of sin and of righteousness
and of judgment. This is the work of the Spirit
to bring a sinner to faith in Christ. and repentance of dead
works. This is the work of the Holy
Spirit within a sinner to shed abroad in that sinner's heart
the love of God in Christ. This is the new birth. You've
been born again by the Spirit of God. You've been brought to
Christ. And it's not written with paper. It's written on your
heart by the Spirit of the living God. Not in tables of stone.
It's not of the law. The law can reform you outwardly,
it can make you scared and run away, but it cannot change your
heart. The Pharisees, they cleansed
the outside of the cup, but not the inside. Only Christ can change
the heart, you say. The mind, the affections, the
will, the inner man, the entire being that motivates you and
drives you. the thoughts and intents of the
heart, only Christ can do that and he implants the Word of God
in the heart by the Spirit of God. Ezekiel over in Ezekiel
36 spoke of this when he's talking about salvation in Christ and
he says in verse 26, a new heart also will I give you and a new
spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony
heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh and
I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes
and you shall keep my judgments and do them." What's he talking
about there? He's not talking about God's
going to enable you to keep the law perfectly because you're
still a sinner. Even these living epistles were still sinners,
but they were sinners saved by the grace of God in Christ, washed
in his blood, clothed in his righteousness, and listen, They
were sinners who had been raised from the dead spiritually. Christ
said that to Nicodemus. He said, you must be born again
or you cannot see the kingdom of heaven. You must be born again
or you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. This is the new birth.
This is regeneration and conversion. We were ruined by the fall. but
we were redeemed by the blood of Christ and we must be regenerated
by the Spirit. Now, this work of the Spirit
in us, in the heart, is the fruit and the result of what Christ
accomplished at Calvary in redeeming us from our sins. Christ put
away the sins of his sheep and he established righteousness
for them and righteousness demands that they be born again. Now,
this new birth is no part of the righteousness that Christ
accomplished at Calvary. It's the fruit and result of
the righteousness Christ accomplished at Calvary. This new birth is
not the completion of what Christ started and didn't finish at
Calvary. This new birth is the result
of the completed work of Christ on Calvary. The Holy Spirit convinces
us of sin and drives us to Christ and sets our eyes and our minds
and our ears and our hearts and our affections upon Him. And
this is written on fleshy tables of the heart. You see, before
the Holy Spirit gives us this new heart, all we have is that
stony heart that Ezekiel described, that hard heart. The Lord spoke
of that when He spoke in parables. And the disciples said, why do
you speak in parables? And he said, I'm doing it to
conceal it from those who have hardened their hearts. Their
hearts, he said in Matthew 13, have been waxed gross. That means
grown hard. But he said, blessed are your
eyes for they see. Blessed are your ears for they
hear. You are a living epistle of Christ. That's what he's saying. You not only heard the doctrine
of the gospel, the good news of grace, but the Holy Spirit
has used that doctrine, that gospel, to be unto you the power
of God unto salvation, because you believe. In other words,
it's not only changed your mind, it's changed your whole being.
It's changed your heart. There's an inward change. The
law can't do that. Paper and ink can't do that.
Tablets of stone cannot do that. But Christ does it by His Spirit
through the Word. And he says in verse 4, and such
trust have we through Christ to God. We rest in Him and believe
in Him. Well, I hope that message has
been helpful to your understanding of the scripture. If you would
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and he'll give you the details. The title is The Epistle of Christ. And I hope and pray that you
will join us again for another message from God's Word.