Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. I'd like to welcome you to our
program today. I'm glad you could join us. Now,
if you'd like to follow in your Bibles, follow along with the
message, I'm going to begin in 2 Corinthians chapter 3, the
New Testament book of 2 Corinthians. The Apostle Paul was inspired
by the Holy Spirit to write this letter. Some scholars believe
this is actually the third letter that Paul wrote to this church.
He wrote 1 Corinthians, but then the second letter was not an
inspired letter. Book to go into the scriptures,
but the third letter was and it's called second because it's
it appears after first Corinthians But that's of no matter This
is the Word of God the Bible. Yeah, that's what I believe and
that's the way I preach it but I'll be looking at 2nd Corinthians
chapter 3 and I have several messages that I'm going to go
through this chapter and The subject that I'm going to be
dealing with is this the New Testament And that's the title. This is part one. I don't know
how many parts it'll take for me to get through this, but the
New Testament in 2 Corinthians chapter three. Now, you know,
when you think of the Old Testament and the New Testament, what we
think of is the literary terms that identify the Bible as we
know it. The Old Testament being the books
of Genesis to Malachi and the New Testament being the books
of Matthew to Revelation. And that's true when we refer
to these as literary terms. the Old Testament and the New
Testament, books of the Old Testament and the books of the New Testament.
But that's not what I'm going to talk about in this series
of messages. What I'm going to talk about
is the word testament, meaning a covenant. And so I want to
talk to you about the New Covenant. And there's a lot in this, but
one of the things that Paul did in the book of 2 Corinthians,
and especially here in chapter three, he explained by contrast
the vast difference between the Old Covenant, or the Old Testament,
not the books of the Old Testament, but the covenant that God made
with Israel from Mount Sinai, called the Old Testament, the
Old Covenant, and the New Testament or the New Covenant, which is
what we are under today. If we're believers, if we're
truly Christians, we are New Covenant, New Testament Christians. And that refers to the time that
we live, but it's more than that. And one of the things that I
think confuses people about the Bible is when they confuse these
terms and don't know what they mean. So let's begin reading
in 2 Corinthians chapter three here. The apostle Paul wrote
these letters to the Corinthian church, the church that had so
many problems. But one of the problems that
they had was a common problem among the churches in the first
century, the beginning churches. especially some of these Gentile
churches. Corinth was a Gentile city. And
the problem that they had was there would be Jewish people,
Jewish scholars, you might say, or preachers, who claimed to
be Christian, but who, as the New Testament tells us, crept
in to these Gentile churches and tried to get Gentiles back
under, or it's not back under because Gentiles were never under
it, but tried to bring Gentiles under the laws and the precepts
of the Old Covenant, the Old Covenant law. And often you would
have them try to, they would come into Gentile churches and
they would say, all the males have to be circumcised. Now circumcision
was a right, R-I-T-E, that God gave to Abraham even before the
old covenant was established. But as I've told you, the Jewish
unbelievers, claimed or had confidence in their salvation and in claiming
a right relationship with God based basically on three things
that they would boast in. And they were wrong. I mean,
these were three things that they should never have boasted
in, but one was their physical connection with Abraham. They
would constantly tell the Lord, as you remember in the gospels,
we be Abraham's seed. So we're not infidels, we're
not idolaters, we're not unbelievers, we're physically descended from
Abraham, and of course the Lord told him, and the apostles told
him, that means absolutely nothing. My friend, you may be a physical
Jew by pedigree, but that does not mean you are one of God's
elect. That does not mean that you are
saved. That does not mean that you're
a child of God and in a right relationship with God. And that's
why Christ made statements like that in the Sermon on the Mount,
Matthew 520. He said, except your righteousness exceed the
righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall
in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. Paul wrote in Romans
9, in verse 31, talking about the Jews who sought righteousness
by works of the law, but they didn't find it because they sought
it by their works and not by faith in Christ. You see, the
gospel is the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace in Christ
Jesus based upon the doing and the dying of Christ, based upon
His righteousness. the merits of His obedience unto
death as the surety, the substitute, and the redeemer of His people,
the perfection of righteousness which God requires for salvation,
and a right relationship with Him. can only be found in Christ. We are sinners and salvation,
we fell in Adam and we're born spiritually dead in trespasses
and sin and we cannot produce the righteousness that God requires
because we are sinners. And even at our best we fall
short. Our best efforts to keep the law will not save us. And
just because a person is a physical descendant of Abraham will not
save them either. You know, if you can trace your
blood back to Abraham or your DNA, as they say, I don't think
you can, but if you could, what would that mean as far as salvation? What would that mean as far as
being forgiven of your sins? What would that mean as far as
being justified, declared righteous in God's sight? Absolutely nothing. You understand that? And so secondly,
they would They would claim that their circumcision, which connected
them with Abraham, obviously, and the males representing the
whole families, that their circumcision, we be circumcised, they would
say. We're not like those uncircumcised Gentiles. In fact, that was so
important to the unbelieving Jews that they were known, a
lot of times, they were known in the New Testament books as
the circumcision. Remember when Paul wrote in Philippians
chapter three, he says, we are the circumcision. We worship
God in the spirit. We rejoice in Christ Jesus. And
we have no confidence in the flesh. What he was doing there
is he was showing that the Jewish unbelievers who sought to get
Gentile men circumcised were actually lost themselves. And he says we are the circumcision.
But Paul wasn't talking about physical circumcision. There
in Philippians 3, verse 3, he was talking about spiritual circumcision
of the heart. And that's the work of the Holy
Spirit in the new birth to bring us center, to see our sinfulness,
and drive us to Christ for salvation, for righteousness. And so that's
what he said in Galatians 6, 14, for example. He said, God
forbid that I should glory save in the cross of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the finished work of Christ, the merits of his blood. What can wash away my sins? Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. And that's his righteousness.
My righteousness that I have before God, which God has imputed,
charged, accounted to me, was established at the cross. It
wasn't established by me or in me. It was done for me by the
Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Lord my righteousness. And so circumcision, Paul said,
God forbid, in Galatians 6, 14, God forbid that I should glory,
boast, have confidence, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto
the world. See, I'm not of the world. And
then in verse 15, he said, for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision
nor uncircumcision availeth anything but a new creature, a new creation.
See, so whether you're Jew or Gentile means nothing as far
as salvation goes. And then the third thing that
the Jewish unbelievers would boast in is they claim to have
kept the law of Moses. And now that's where we're going
to here in chapter three of 2 Corinthians. They say, we keep the law, we
obey, we're of Moses. Well, first of all, they did
not keep the law. They just imagined they did.
And many times they had what the Bible calls the traditions
of men. And what those traditions were,
they were things that they added to the law that sort of made
up for their shortcomings so that they could claim that they
kept the law, but they didn't keep the law. The Bible says
in Galatians chapter, well, I can't remember the chapter, Galatians
chapter two, I believe it is, or chapter three, yes, in verse
10, he says, they that are under the law are under the curse.
Those that be of the works of the law are under the curse,
for cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. Paul told the Galatians,
do you not hear the law? The law requires perfection and
you can't make that. Well, what was the law given
for? To drive us to Christ for perfection. Now that's the whole
issue. Now in Corinth, some of these
Jewish unbelievers who claimed to be Christian had crept into
the church. And one of the things that they
had to do was to discredit the apostle Paul. Now Paul had preached
you this, but he doesn't know what he's talking about, that
kind of thing. And they brought letters of commendation, which
they had forged. Now you say, well, why would
people do that? Well, people do all kinds of
things. Sometimes, Paul talked about
how they had brought letters of commendation as written by
us. He mentioned that in 2 Thessalonians.
In other words, they would forge a letter and say, well, now this
is by the Apostle Peter, and he recommends me, and here they
bring it in, and it was a lie. And so listen to how Paul starts
out in 2 Corinthians 3 here. He says, do we begin, this is
verse one, do we begin again to commend ourselves? Do I have
to commend myself to you? Or need we, as some others, epistles
or letters of commendation to you, or letters of commendation
from you? This thing of the ministry, this
thing of salvation in the gospel, is it a matter of men and women
recommending other men and women? Is it a matter of who you know,
who you're with, who you're associated with? Or is it totally, completely,
exclusively based on the Word of God? I've had people come
to me and they will bring up a point of disagreement and they
will invoke some famous or popular past, present preacher. And they'll say, well now, he
didn't believe this, he didn't believe that, so what? Is he
the Word of God? No, go back to the Bible. And that's what we need to understand.
And so Paul says this in verse two. He says, you are our epistle,
written in our hearts, known and read of all men. Now what
he's talking about is the true believers in Corinth. We're the
proof of his ministry. You are my letter. That's all
I need. I preach the gospel. And as a
result of that, God by His power, not by mine, through the Holy
Spirit in Christ has brought a sinner to believe the gospel. That's all the letter I need.
Here he's brought a sinner to repentance of dead works and
former idolatry. I don't need the letters from
men saying this is a good guy or this is somebody I recommend.
He says you're known and read of all men, you're a testimony.
in the gospel. In verse 3, he says, for as much
as you are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ,
ministered by us, I was an instrument in your salvation, but Christ
is the Savior. You're a letter. You're a walking,
talking miracle of God's grace in Christ Jesus. And you're a
letter written, verse 3, not with ink, but with the Spirit
of the living God. Again, who's he talking? He's
talking about a sinner saved by grace, justified before God,
based upon the righteousness of Christ, freely imputed and
received by God-given faith. And it's the spirit of the living
God. You have spiritual life. Now look what he says here, not
in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. Now, when
you think of tables of stone, what do you think of? Well, obviously,
you think of the 10 Commandments, which God gave to Israel through
Moses on Mount Sinai, written on tablets of stone. Now, you
remember what happened. You remember Moses got those
tablets of stone that had the 10 Commandments on them. The
10 Commandments was the heart of the old covenant law. And
he brought those tablets down. And you know what happened to
Israel? The people were having a, they were in idolatry. They
had fashioned a golden calf. Moses in anger, threw the stones
down and broke them. But we know that God gave him
two more stones. But anyway, that's the 10 commandments. And that's the heart and the
foundation of the covenant that God made with Israel. And this
is what Paul is talking about. Now let's read a little bit more
and I'll talk about the Ten Commandments in just a moment. And he said,
so in other words, this power of salvation did not come from
the Ten Commandments, you keeping the Ten Commandments, but it
came from the Spirit of the living God giving you a new heart. that enabled you to believe,
to understand and to see and believe the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ. It wasn't righteousness by the
law, by your law keeping. It was righteousness by Christ
whom you rest in. And that's what he's talking
about. So it's written in the heart. And that's when the law
was written in the heart. Paul spoke of that. And not just
an outward law imposed upon you without any desire to keep it. And he says in verse four, he
says, in such trust have we through Christ to Godward. In other words,
When I see a person, and I'll have people say that they first
heard the gospel from me and the Lord used that to bring them
to faith, they're not putting their trust in me. And I don't
want them to. I wanna be like John the Baptist.
I want them to hear me preach, but I want them to follow Christ.
I want them to worship Christ. I don't want them to use me as
their text proof. or their proof text rather, I
want them to go to the Bible, listen to what I say and test
it with the word of God. That's the only right way. I
don't want anybody ever to say they believe it because Bill
Parker preached it or believed it. I don't want that. Because
I'm studying the Scriptures, what I'm preaching to you, I
extract from the Scriptures, and I want you to go to the Scriptures.
Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth
not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. That's why
I wrote the book that we offer free of charge, called Rightly
Dividing the Word. It's rules of interpretation
of Scripture. It's so that people can read
the Bible, prayerfully and apply the rules of interpretation,
the right rules. So he says, such trust have we
through Christ to God. A believing sinner is the work
of God through Christ. And so he says in verse five,
he says, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything
of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God. What a statement.
Paul said in another place, by the grace of God, I am what I
am. If God is pleased to use this
ministry, this program, any of our messages, by any of our elders,
any of the men, to bring a sinner to salvation, we don't have any
room to boast in ourselves. Our sufficiency is of God. That
sinner saved by grace is the work of God. And it says in verse
six, who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament. Now there's that first, there's
that term, the New Testament. It's what we're going to be talking
about. The new covenant. Not of the letter. And he says,
but of the spirit. Now, one of the arguments of
interpretation, or one of the debates, is when you see the
word spirit. Should it be capitalized or should
it be a small s? Now if it's capitalized, who's
it talking about? The Holy Spirit, the third person
of the Trinity, the great, powerful, invincible applicator of truth
in the new birth. The invincible call of the Holy
Spirit. And then if it's a small letter,
spirit, it's talking about the spiritual life that is given
to a person by the Holy Spirit that brings them to see and understand
and believe the gospel, to believe in Christ. You see, by nature,
we're spiritually dead. We have a spirit, but it's a
spirit of death. It's the spirit of man fallen
in Adam, born dead. But when the Holy Spirit gives
life in the new birth, we're quickened, made spiritually alive
as evidenced by the knowledge of and faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ and the gospel, salvation. Well, in this passage, if you
have the King James Version, which I use and I love, it says
here, It's not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter
killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. The word Spirit there should
be capitalized. Now, the King James translators
didn't do that. I don't know why. But the Spirit
giveth life. Well, who gives life? The Holy
Spirit gives life to dead sinners from Christ. The Spirit of man
doesn't give himself the Spirit of life. He can't do that. We
can't birth ourselves again. You say, it takes a work of Christ
through the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, the Holy Spirit applies
the resurrection life of Christ, and he imparts it into the minds,
the affections, the wills, the hearts of his people. It gives
us a new heart, the scripture says. And so what we should read
it is this. We are made able ministers of
the New Testament, the new covenant, Not of the letter. Now the letter
refers to the Old Covenant, that which was written in tablets
of stone and written elsewhere by ink, with ink. That's what Moses, he wrote the
first five books of the Old Testament books of the Bible. But the Old
Covenant, you see that Old Covenant that was given to Moses on Mount
Sinai was more than just the Ten Commandments. Now that's
the heart and the foundation of the Ten Commandments. But
there was more revealed to Moses. There was the Ten Commandments. There was the ceremonial law,
the priesthood and the sacrifices, the tabernacle. There were the
civil laws, the dietary laws. All of those laws were revealed
to Moses. Now, were they all revealed right
there on Mount Sinai at that time? I don't know, probably
not, but it doesn't matter. God still revealed these things
to Moses and he wrote them down. There was All kinds of laws. One old scholar counted 600 and
some laws added to the Ten Commandments
that the nation Israel had to live under as a nation from Mount
Sinai on to the cross. And so the letter there refers
to the written law, the old covenant. And he says the letter killeth. Now, what does that mean? Well,
first of all, the old covenant was a covenant of condemnation
for sinners to show sinners that they could not be saved and could
not have life, spiritual life, eternal life by their law keeping. And that's how the letter kills.
That's what the scripture says. Why was the law given? Romans
chapter five tells us it was given because of sin. It was like a mirror to show
man himself that I'm a sinner. It was given to those people
at Mount Sinai through Moses to show them the impossibility
of salvation, of being made righteous, of having a right relationship
with God based upon their law keeping. For example, if anybody
looked at the Ten Commandments and said, well, now I'm gonna
do my best to keep those in order to be saved, in order to be blessed,
in order to be right with God. That law was a death nail. Condemnation. It was like a capital
punishment. because it meant death. Salvation
is not by works of the law. For by the deeds of the law shall
no flesh be justified. That's why that law was given.
But that's not the only reason. It was given to drive sinners
away from that law and to Christ, the promised Messiah. And you
know, in the old covenant law, the ceremonial law, the law of
the priesthood, there were all kinds of pictures of Christ.
And I'm going to talk about that as we go down through there.
The blood of the lambs and the rams that was shed for the atonement. The people had to come one time
a year on the day of atonement. and the blood was shed. That
was all ceremonial and typical because it was teaching in types
and pictures that salvation was by grace, not by law. Grace, which reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. I hope you'll join
us next week for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
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at 1-1-0-2-3. Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia
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today and may the Lord be with you.