Welcome to our program. Now today
I'm going to be preaching from the book of 2 Corinthians chapter
3 and the title of the message is A More Excellent Glory. A More Excellent Glory. Now what
the Apostle Paul is doing here in 2 Corinthians 3, he is showing
the greater glory of the new covenant as opposed or as compared
with or contrasted with the old covenant that was given by God
through Moses to the nation Israel. The Old Covenant refers to that
system, that system of government and religion that God placed
the nation Israel under on the earth for over 1,500 years. That Old Covenant consisted of
the Ten Commandments, tablets of stone, that's what Paul refers
to here in 2 Corinthians 3, that's the Ten Commandments, But it
also consisted of the ceremonial law that had to do with the priesthood,
the tabernacle, and later on the temple, the sacrifices, the
altar, and all the elements that went for that. And then it had
the civil law, the dietary laws. These were all laws that were
imposed upon the nation Israel. It was an earthly law, an earthly
covenant imposed upon a rebellious people as a nation. Now there
were believers, true believers, even during that time. But their
salvation was not in the law and their salvation was not by
works of the law. Their salvation was the same
as the salvation of us today. It has to do with looking to
and resting in the glorious person and the finished work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's why Paul said in Galatians
chapter 3 that the law was a schoolmaster to lead sinners unto Christ.
You see, Israel was always forbidden by God to look to their physical
connection with Abraham, to look to their circumcision, or their
keeping of the law as forming any part of their salvation or
the ground of it. They were commanded by God to
look to his promise of the coming Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ,
who was pictured in the law. The law was given to keep them
together as a nation. The law was given to remind them
of their deservedness of sin and death. That's why it's called
the ministration of death and condemnation. And the law was
given in picture and type to drive them to Christ, that priesthood,
the high priest. He was a picture of Christ, the
one and only, great and final high priest. The blood of bulls
and goats, the blood of lambs was a picture of the blood of
the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the tabernacle, the
Sabbath day, the feast days, they were all pictures of sinners
being saved by the grace of God in Christ. Salvation always has
been and always is by grace and not of works. That was true for
Old Covenant believers and for New Covenant believers. Now the
New Covenant refers to the time since Christ has already come
and finished his work here on earth. And he was buried, rose
again the third day, ascended unto the Father, and we're now
waiting his return. The New Covenant, as one old
writer said, was the establishment in time of the everlasting covenant
of grace made before time. And what Paul is saying here
is that the Old Covenant is finished. Many of the Jews of that day
who claimed to be Christian, tried to reintroduce the law
into the church, the old covenant law, the law of circumcision,
the law of days, the law of priesthood, into the New Testament church.
But Paul said to do that was a denial of the gospel. So he
begins to compare them and contrast them. And here's what he's saying
here in these verses we're going to study today. The old covenant
law had a glory, but That glory that the Old Covenant law had
is nothing compared to the glory of the New Covenant in Christ.
And this is how he says it. He talks about being made in
verse 6, able ministers of the New Covenant, not of the letter,
but of the Spirit, for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth
life. You see, the law could not make a sinner righteous.
The law could show what a sinner should be and what righteousness
is, but the law couldn't make you righteous. But here's another
thing. The law could tell you what to do, but it could not
give you a desire to do it. The law could not give you life.
Only the Spirit giveth life. Now under that old covenant,
the majority of the nation remained unconverted and unbelief. There was always a small remnant
of true believers saved by the grace of God. by the power of
the Holy Spirit they've been born again but the majority of
the nation remained in unbelief so the letter killeth anybody
who seeks salvation by their works of the law the letter killeth
but only the Holy Spirit gives life and he gives life from Christ
now in verse 7 listen to what he says he says but if the ministration
that's a ministry of death, that's the Old Covenant law, because
it continually reminded them that in and of itself there was
no life there, no righteousness, if the ministration of death
written and engraven in stones, now that proves what he's talking
about, the Ten Commandments, the Old Covenant law, which represented
the whole law, if that 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, that glory
was going to fade away, it wasn't an everlasting, eternal glory. Verse 8, How shall not the ministration
of the Spirit be rather glorious? Now here's what he's saying.
Here's these people, these false preachers, claiming to believe
in Christ, and they're trying to put you under the law. And
Paul's saying, don't you remember, don't you recall that that was
an administration of death? So what about the ministration
of Christ, the new covenant? That's a ministration of the
Spirit. The Spirit gives life in the
new birth because Christ established righteousness on the cross. The
law didn't make you righteous. The law cannot give you life.
Christ has made us righteous and Christ gives us life through
His Spirit. But did you notice there he talked
about the glory of Moses, the glory of Moses' face. You know,
back in the Old Testament, you see a lot of glorious things.
And you can even before the Old Covenant, you think about the
flood of Noah. Think about the destruction of
the cities of the plains, Sodom and Gomorrah. Think about the
destruction of the Tower of Babel. We could go right on down the
line. And then when Moses comes, think about all that took place
through Joseph. And then through the Hebrew children
in Egypt, the 10 plagues, Moses who received his commission from
God and came back in the 10 plagues, and how he led the children of
Israel out of the bondage of Egypt, which was a grand picture
of Christ, the eternal Deliverer. The God-man leading all his people
out of the bondage of sin and Satan and the curse of the law.
Remember what it was based on? Based on blood. Remember the
Passover lamb? When I see the blood, I'll pass
over you. God says when he sees the blood
of his son, he'll pass over us. And that's what he's talking
about. And then when they went to the Red Sea and how God gloriously,
miraculously, powerfully split that sea apart and the children
of Israel walked across on dry land, and it consumed Pharaoh
and his army, that's a great picture of how the way into the
holiest of all, eternally salvation, is by the Red Sea of the blood
of Christ. And those who reject the blood
of Christ, like Pharaoh and his army, they'll be drowned in the
Red Sea of his blood. It will stand against them in
judgment. And then how God took care of
them in the wilderness. He gave them the Ten Commandments.
Remember the golden calf, how he destroyed that? How he took
care of them as they journeyed through the wilderness by giving
them manna, bread from heaven, the rock that Moses struck and
water. These were all glorious things.
Think about the ministry of the prophets. Oh, what a glory it
had. But here's what Paul is saying
here in 2 Corinthians 3. As glorious as all that was,
you can put it all together, all the glory of it, and when
you compare it to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and His
person, God and man in one person, the God-man, and His finished
work on Calvary, and what He accomplished for the salvation
of His people and which comes as the fruit of that, the result
of that, the ministry of the Spirit to give us life and indwell
us and keep us. When you think about that glory,
the glory of the Old Covenant, the glory that was in the Old
Testament is not even to be compared. This is the glory that exceeds. It's the glory that excels. That's why I titled that a glory
that excels, a more excellent glory. That's the issue here. And he says here in verse 9,
he says, for if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much
more does the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. A glory that excels, a glory
that exceeds, Now, he calls the old covenant here the ministration
of condemnation. Why? Because under that nation,
as it was opposed upon that nation of rebels who did not believe
God and who rebelled against God and who broke that covenant,
all it could do was pronounce condemnation and death. But you see, that's not the way
it's going to be under the new covenant. And that's what he's
saying here. If that ministration of condemnation
had a glory and it did, Much more, he says, the ministration
of righteousness exceeding glory. What righteousness is he talking
about here? He's talking about the righteousness of Christ.
You see, he couldn't be talking about the righteousness of men.
If he were talking about the righteousness of men, then we
would have to say that we're saved today because we're better
people than the ones who were under the old covenant. But the
fact is, we're not better people than they are. We're all sinners
who deserve nothing but condemnation and wrath within ourselves. Paul
wrote that in Romans chapter 3. He said, the scripture hath
concluded all under sin, all Jews, all Gentiles, all men born
of Adam in the Old Testament, all men born of Adam in the New
Testament. He says there's none righteous,
no not one. There's none that doeth good
do not want. There's none who can be saved
by their works under the law. So when he calls it administration
of righteousness, what's he talking about? He's talking about the
righteousness of Christ. Christ brought in righteousness.
The law didn't bring in righteousness. The Bible says in John chapter
1, I believe it's verse 17, that the law came by Moses, but grace
and truth come by Jesus Christ. And grace reigns through righteousness.
It's the righteousness of God. You see, when we preach the glory
that excels, the ministration of righteousness, the good news
of the gospel, we're preaching not that men must make themselves
righteous in order to be saved, but we're preaching that God
has brought in His righteousness which He gives to all who believe
in Him. That's the ministration of it.
Now back under the Old Covenant, the majority of the nation didn't
receive that and didn't believe it. Jeremiah speaks of that in
the book of Jeremiah chapter 31 beginning at verse 31. He's
talking about the comparison or the contrast between the Old
Covenant and the New Covenant. And here he gives a prophecy
of the coming of Christ and the new covenant. He says in verse
31 of Jeremiah 31, he says, Behold the days come, saith the Lord,
that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and
with the house of Judah. Now the house of Israel and the
house of Judah there are a way of referring not to the nation
Israel on earth, but it's a way of identifying the spiritual
people of God known as spiritual Israel. Paul identifies them
in Romans 2, in Romans 9, in Galatians 3, and in other places.
And in Galatians 6, it's the Israel of God, spiritual Israel. And the reason that we know that
is here, when he talks about the house of Israel and the house
of Judah, that's the divided kingdom. You know, after Solomon,
when his sons took over the kingdom, they divided it. There's problems. came to be the Northern Kingdom,
which was known as Israel, and the Southern Kingdom, which was
known as Judah. Years and years after that, the
Northern Kingdom, which mainly consisted of ten tribes, was
totally wiped out by the Assyrian Empire. The Southern Kingdom
remained intact, even though they were attacked by different
groups, the Assyrians, and they were conquered and taken to Babylon
for a long time, but they were restored under Ezra and Nehemiah
and Zerubbabel. and they rebuilt the temple,
the Temple of Zerubbabel, and then they lasted on into the
New Testament up until A.D. 70 after the Lord had come, and
he destroyed that nation. And that's where they were, so
it was a divided kingdom. Well, in the New Covenant, it's
not going to be an earthly nation. It's a spiritual nation. It's
not going to be a divided nation. It's going to be one nation,
and it's spiritual Israel. Now, who are they? Well, he says
in verse 32, it's not according to the covenant that I made with
their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring
them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they break,
although I was a husband unto them, saith the Lord." In other
words, the new covenant, this glory that excels, this greater
glory, you see, that he's speaking of in 2 Corinthians 3, this new
covenant is not going to be like that old covenant. They broke
the old covenant, those who were under it, that nation. It was
imposed upon a rebellious people. But in the new covenant, the
subjects of that covenant, they're not going to break it. You see,
they'll be in that covenant by virtue of one person, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who kept all the conditions and requirements of
it. And he says in verse 33, now listen to this, this is what
he means when he talks about the ministration of death that
kills, the letter that kills, as contrasted with the greater
glory of the ministration of the Spirit and the ministration
of righteousness. He says in verse 33, but this
shall be the covenant that I will make with those with the house
of Israel. He says, after those days, saith
the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts. That is,
in their mind, in their affections, in their will. God's going to
write the law on their hearts. You see, it's not going to be
just a system of rules and regulations on tablets of stone or written
with ink on paper that's imposed upon them outwardly, but there's
no inward desire, no inward love for it. He said, I'm going to
put it in their mind, in their affections, in their will. He
said, I'll write it in their hearts, the very inner being. He's going to give them a desire
here, he says. And he says, and I will be their God, and they
shall be my people. They're going to have a special
relationship with the Father through Christ. And he says,
and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every
man his brother, saying, Know the Lord. One of the biggest
indictments that God brought against the nation under the
Old Covenant. He said, they don't know me. They don't know me.
They had the law. They had the sacrifices. They
had the tabernacle. They had the priesthood. They
had the prophets. But they did not want to know God. That's
what we are by nature, and they remain so. But under the new
covenant, God's going to teach His people who He is. And He
says, "...for they shall all know Me, from the least of them
unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord, for I will forgive
their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." All their
sins will be taken away. What a glory that is! And this
is what He's talking about. Well, that ministration of righteousness
and of the Spirit and of life is much more glorious in Christ
than the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant was a picture.
Someone used the illustration, it's like a wife whose husband
has gone overseas and he's in a war somewhere and she's sitting
at home thinking of him and she has a picture of him. And she
looks at that picture constantly. She can hardly put it down. That
picture just continually reminds her and points her to her husband
whom she loves. But then one day the war's over
and she's sitting there looking at the picture of the husband
who she loves. And there comes through the door,
walks through the door of her house, here he comes in person,
the husband. Now listen to him. What do you
think she's going to do? Is she going to hang on to that
picture and hold that picture to her breast? Is she going to
just gaze at the picture? No, she's going to put that picture
down and she's going to embrace the husband that she loves. He's
here. And that's the difference, you
see. That old covenant was a picture of one who is to come. Well,
listen to me, he's come. Now put the picture down. It's
okay to keep it and to look at it, but the one who's here, we're
not under that now. You see, we're not under that
old covenant now. We're not going to impose that
upon people now like some preachers are trying to do. We're looking
to Christ and Him crucified. We're looking unto Jesus, the
author and finisher of our faith. And that's what he's saying.
Look at verse 10. For even that which was made glorious had no
glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excels. The glory that excels. You see,
that's what it's about. What is that glory that excels?
It's the glory of Christ who has already come and finished
His work. It's the glory of the cross. The glory of the cross
was the abolishment of the Old Covenant and the establishment
of the new. It's the glory of the cross in
the sense that our sins were put away totally by what Christ
accomplished on the cross. Now when you compare the glory
of Christ with the glory of the Old Covenant That glory of the
Old Covenant just fades away. It had no glory at all compared
to what Christ is. For if that which is done away,
verse 11, was glorious much more, that which remaineth is glorious. That which remains is glorious.
And Paul goes on, he says in verse 12 now, he says, seeing
then that we have such hope, we use great boldness or plainness
of speech. What a hope we have. Anyone who
hopes in their works of the law, they have no hope. But we have
such a glorious hope. It's the hope of Christ. It's
the certain expectation of eternal life and glory in the person
and work of Christ. And therefore, we shouldn't hold
back, Paul says. We should be plain, simple, and
bold in our speech, in our message. In verse 13, he said, And not
as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of
Israel could not steadfastly look to the end thereof of that
which was abolished. You see, that glory of Moses,
that physical manifestation of the fact that he had been with
God, that was so bright that they had to put a veil over it.
But you see, we don't veil the gospel. We don't veil the gospel
in anything. We don't set it behind, we don't
try to darken it. We don't try to weaken it. We
don't try to water it down. We just preach it out in bold,
plain speech. Christ and Him crucified. Salvation
by the grace of God totally, sovereignly, mercifully in Christ. And we just let it go. The glory
of it will shine where the Spirit opens the eyes to see and the
ears to hear and gives the heart to understand and know. We don't
try to veil it with stories and emotionalisms and jokes. We don't
try to veil it with the eloquence of men's words or the wisdom
of men. We don't try to veil it with
the rationalizations of religion or psychology or philosophy.
We don't try to veil it with the works of man. In other words,
we don't preach Christ plus your works. It's Christ alone. Christ's righteousness alone,
not his righteousness plus yours. We don't try to veil it with
denominationalism. We don't try to veil it with
questions. We simply preach the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ. And that old covenant's abolished,
he said. Look at verse 13 again. Not as
Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of
Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which
is abolished. But look at verse 14. Now this
is important. He says, But their minds were
blinded, for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in
the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ. Now did you hear what that verse
said? He says when they read the Old Testament in his day,
now Paul's talking about his day, but we could just as well
talk about our day. You think about the Jews who
don't know Christ. Think about the Gentiles who
don't know Christ, but have a Bible. And they read that Old Testament.
They open the book of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy,
and go right on through the Old Testament, the prophets, the
Psalms, the wisdom books. And if they don't see Christ
and the glory of Christ and salvation by the grace of God in Christ,
you know what the problem is? There's a veil. And that veil
is over their minds. He says in verse 14, their minds
were blinded. Now who blinds the minds? Well,
over in chapter 4 we're going to see it's Satan. Satan blinds
the mind. And what does he seek to blind
your mind from? The glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. You see, people read the Old
Testament, they can't understand it. There's a veil, there's a
darkness, there's a blindness. It's the darkness of unbelief.
It's the darkness of self-righteousness. The darkness of free will works
religion. The darkness of their own experience. And the only way that that veil,
when they read the Old Testament, the only way that that veil is
going to be taken away and they understand the glory of God there,
is to turn to Christ. Look at verse 15. He says, But
even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their
heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil
shall be taken away. Christ told the Pharisees in
John chapter 5, He says, You do indeed search the Scriptures,
for in them you think you have eternal life. He said, For they
are they which testify of me. He told them, He says, You invoke
Moses as your support. But He said, Moses will be your
downfall, for Moses wrote of me. He said, Abraham rejoiced
to see my day and he saw it and was glad. He told his disciples
that all the law and all the Psalms and all the prophets concern
him, Christ, and him crucified in the glory that he would establish
on earth in the salvation of his people. He says in verse
17, now the Lord is that spirit and where the spirit of the Lord
is there's liberty, there's freedom, freedom from sin, from Satan,
from the curse of the law. In verse 18 he says, But we all,
with open face, not veiled face, beholding as in a glass, as in
a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image,
from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. What
he means by that is we're given by the Holy Spirit the eyes to
see the glory of the Lord, and we see that we're in Christ,
and we're described to be like Him, but listen, we're righteous
in Him, and were to strive to follow Him as motivated by grace."
Well, I certainly hope that that message has helped you to understand
the Scriptures. And if you'd like to receive
a copy of this message, listen to the announcers. He gives you
the details. The title of the message is, The Glory That Excels. The Glory That Excels. And I
hope that you'll join us next week for another message from
God's Word.