2Corinthians 3 & 4

Spiritual Words & Concepts In 2Co 3&4

Seeing a thing: To look on a thing is to believe in that thing. To look on Jesus is to believe in Jesus [Joh 3:14-15].
Inability to see: To be unable to see means that one is unable to understand a thing. The inability to see is either the result of a veil or of blindness. [Mat 13:13-16; Mar 8:17]
Veil: A veil is anything that completely or partially hinders one from seeing light. Therefore, every spiritual influence that limits one from seeing is a veil.
Blindness: To be blind is to be unable to see.
Letters: Paul refers to the Law, i.e., the Old Covenant, as “letters” (he is not referring to the entire scriptures). This reference is because while the Old Covenant was written on physical media—inscribed on stone and written with ink on paper, God promises to write his laws on our hearts under the New Covenant [Heb 8:10].
1. The 10 Commandments were literally written on Two Stone Tablets [Exo 34:1,4,28]. Paul refers to these as “Letters inscribed on stone”.
2. Other commandments of the Old Covenant were written with ink on scrolls or in books [Exo 24:4,7; Deut 31:11; Heb 9:19 cf., 2Co 3:3]

Competence and Ministers of the Old and New Covenants

Paul starts with a claim that he and his co-labourers were competent (and that the Corinthians were proof of this) [2Co 3:1-5].
He then quickly points out that their competence or not did not depend on them but on the covenant they were under. He states that their competence was not because of any personal reason but because they were ministers of the New Covenant [2Co 3:5-6].
Now, at the same time, in making the point that the ministers of the New Covenant are competent he clearly implies that the ministers of the Old Covenant were not.

Question 1

What competence (or ability or sufficiency) was Paul speaking of?

What were they supposed to do which the ministers of the Old Covenant couldn’t but the ministers of the New Covenant could?

The Reason for Competence Under the New Covenant

In giving the reason for their competence, Paul states that the reason for the competence of the ministers of the New Covenant is because the New Covenant is of “the Spirit” which “gives life” and not of “the letter” which “kills” [2Co 3:6].
Therefore, the competence of the New Covenant minister is the result of the fact that the New Covenant gives life. There is something the New Covenant is able to achieve because it gives ‘life’ which the Old Covenant is unable to because, instead of life, it brought ‘death’.
It must be noted, however, that giving life, though desirable, is not in itself what the competence of the New Covenant minister was all about. Rather the giving of life is the reason why they are competent. Or, in other words, the giving of life is the means to the end and not the end in itself.
Paul immediately goes on to speaking about glory, the greater glory that the New Covenant guaranteed.

Glory and the Old and New Covenants

Paul basically states that the fact that the New Covenant brings life means that the New Covenant would bring lasting and greater glory. He points out that both covenants came with glory but one, the New Covenant, was sure to be more glorious.
1. This guarantee results in boldness to
Paul states by implication and later plainly confirms it that there is a veil covering everyone from seeing the truth of the gospel. This veil has always been there. Under the Old Covenant, this veil remains in place, but under the New Covenant it is taken away.
Paul illustrates his point with the veil over Moses’ face which prevented the people from seeing the radiance of his face. Paul points this out as an apt representation of the state of things under the Old Covenant. So, just as a veil covered the face of Moses, so too,
1. On the one hand, a veil spiritually/figuratively covers the face of the ministers of the Old Covenant. This means that the message of God regarding His glory, though present, is not clear to the people through their ministry.
2. On the other hand, the veil also represents a spiritually/figuratively covering over the faces of the people so that the people are unable to see the light of the gospel.
Under the New Covenant, the veil is taken away
1. So that for the ministers of the New Covenant, their message is clearer and more accessible. Paul describes this as boldness—“we are very bold” [2Co 3:12].
2. And for the people under the New Covenant, they are able to behold the glory with unveiled faces, i.e., they are able to consider the message, read the Scriptures, and understand it.
This is the incompetence that Paul is speaking of, the inability of the ministers of the Old Covenant to communicate their message clearly. Under the New Covenant, however, the message is accessible. There is a message that has to do with the glory of God in the Old Covenant but it is not accessible.
Only in Christ is the veil taken away [2Co 3:14].

Answer to Question 1

The competence that Paul was speaking of had to do with the ability or inability of the ministers of the Covenants in communicating their message clearly to their people.

The message could not be and was not clearly communicated to the people under the Old Covenant, therefore, its ministers are regarded as unable. This had nothing to do with them but with the covenant they were under.

Under the New Covenant, however, the message is accessible.

Question 2

But what is this message really? One thing is clear enough and that is that it has to do with God’s glory, but what is it?

Implications

Before moving on, let us consider some implications:

The message of the Old and New Covenants is the same message, the difference is the clarity of the message under each covenant.
1. The Old and New Covenants have the Same Message. The message of the New Covenant is the same as the message of the Old Covenant. We can see this from the fact that
  1. The veil is over the Old Covenant and so they cannot see, i.e., understand its message, when they read it [2Co 3:14-15]. Now, note that it is this same veil that is taken away in Christ by the Spirit so that we see with unveiled faces and reflect the same glory. This means that it is the same message. It is veiled under the Old Covenant but unveiled under the New Covenant.
  2. Other scriptures confirm this as well
    1. The gospel that was preached to us was the same gospel preached to those in the Jews in the wilderness under the Old Covenant [Heb 4:2]
    2. The Law is an embodiment of Knowledge and Truth [Rom 2:20] and the gospel is the Truth [Eph 1:13; 2Ti 2:15; Jas 1:18]
  3. The Difference Between the Two Covenants with Regard to the Message is Clarity. With regard to their message, the difference between the Old and New Covenants is not so much their message but its clarity—while it is veiled under the Old Covenant it is unveiled, that is understandable, or clearer under New Covenant. This really is a major point in this passages [2Co 3; 2Co 4]
The ministers of the Old Covenant who had the message were in Christ.
1. The fact that the veil is only taken away in Christ [2Co 3:14] means that anyone who knew the message, whatever the age he was living in—before the Law, under the Law, or now under the New Covenant—was under Christ.
2. This implies that even the minister of the Old Covenant who saw the glory were under Christ for
  1. How else could they have reflected the glory if they had not seen it?
  2. And how could they have seen it if there was a veil covering their faces from seeing it?
  3. And how could the veil have been removed if they were not in Christ since only in Christ is the veil removed?
  4. Evidently then, they were in Christ.
3. In this regard it must be noted that Paul states that the veil under the Old Covenant hindered the people from seeing the glory. As for the ministers, however, the effect of the veil was not stopping them from seeing the glory but from showing the glory. For the ministers, the veil was the inability, the incompetence, the insufficiency, to show the glory they had seen. That the ministers had glory to show, whether or not they succeeded in showing it, means that they had seen the glory.

The Message of Glory, the Message of the Gospel

So what is this message that was veiled and not clear under the Old Covenant but unveiled and accessible under the New Covenant?

Thus far we have seen that it has to do with glory but what is it?

Paul writes,

“And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. ₄The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. ₅For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. ₆For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” [2Co 4:3-4]

According to these words, the gospel is about the glory of Christ, who is the eikōn,e., the image of God

Idolatry is the worship of other eikōn [Rom 1:23; Rev 13:14-15; 14:9], but Christ is the image of God [2Co 4:4; Col 1:15]
We were predestined by God to be conformed to the eikōn of Jesus Chris the Son of God [Rom 8:29]
The eikōn we presently bear is that of Adam, the earthly man, but we will at the First Resurrection be given the eikōn of Christ, the man from heaven [1Co 15:49]
Man is the eikōn and glory of God while woman is the glory of man [1Co 11:7].
Christ as God’s image does not simply speak of his physical outline but of the attributes of his bodily nature. God’s condemnation of idols as being unable to speak and hear shows that an image is not simply a physical 2D or 3D representation of a thing but includes attributes and abilities.

Answer to Question 2

The message veiled under the Old Covenant and unveiled under the New Covenant is about

Our change from this present eikōn into the glorious eikōn of Christ [2Co 3:18]. In this very passage, Paul speaks about our being changed into the very same eikōn of Christ from beholding his glory with unveiled faces [2Co 3:18].
1. In fact, Paul states in his first letter to the Corinthians that the secret wisdom of God, this message that was veiled to the world, was destined for our glory [1Co 2:7].
2. Paul in this letter to the Corinthians states that the very purpose for which we were made was for the glory of God [2Co 5:1-5]. That is we were made purposely to be glorified, to be changed into the glorious eikōn of Christ.
This change into the glorious eikōn of God or Christ can only come from Christ, it can only come from looking at him [2Co 3:18]. This means that without believing in Christ and submitting to him, no one will be changed into the glorious eikōn of God and Christ.

Question 3

Who were the people before the New Covenant—those under the Law and even before the Law—to look to be changed?

Was it Christ?

Was it Christ that Moses saw?

Christ and the Covenants

Now, under the New Covenant, the eikōn of God that we are to look on is Christ [2Co 4:4]. Was this different under the Old Covenant? So then, let us consider the One whose back Moses saw on Mount Sinai which resulted in the radiance of his face.

The One Moses Saw

We must note here that the radiance of Moses’ face came about because he saw the Lord in his glory, he saw the “glory of the Lord” [Exo 34:28-29; 33:18-23; 34:5-8].
From the plain statement of the Apostle John that no one has ever seen God [Joh 1:18] we can be quite certain, however, that the One whose back Moses saw on Mount Sinai was not God the Father So, who did Moses see?
Whoever Moses saw, though not God the Father, was God. In other words, the One Moses saw was God’s image, eikōn. The fact that Moses was not allowed to see this person’s face confirms that though he was not God the Father in very person, yet he was, nevertheless, really God.
1. His name was “the Lord” (following the Septuagint as is mostly quoted in the New Testament e.g., Rom 10:) or “Yahweh” as in the Hebrew.
2. Seeing him is equal to seeing God and his glory is the glory of God for that is what Moses asked to see [Exo 33:18] and that is what he was promised [Exo 33:19-23].
Paul, refers to Christ as the Lord, the source of the glory we are to see, he implies that Christ is the Lord Moses saw [2Co 3:18].
In any case, since the One Moses saw is not God the Father himself, then, if it is not Christ that Moses saw, it means that there is more than One eikōn of God, at least two them—Christ and the One Moses saw. Christ is, however, ‘THE’ eikōn of God and not ‘AN’ eikōn of God and Scriptures present as such, as having no equal but being unique and the only one of his kind [g., Col 1:15; Heb 1:3].
1. With regard to the idea of there being two or more images of God let us point out that this would mean that Moses and, in fact, all the saints before the humanity of Christ, believed in the other eikōn of God and not in Christ. This is, however, absurd in view of the fact that we are told that
  1. It was Christ that Moses spoke and wrote of [Joh 1:45; 5:46-47; Luk 24:27].
  2. Also, it was the glory of Christ that Isaiah saw an that it was Christ he wrote about [Joh 12:38-41]. In fact, all the prophets wrote about Christ [Luk 24:27].
  3. In fact, Jesus plainly stated that he had met with Abraham and that Abraham believed in him [Joh 8:56-58 cf., Gen 18].
The One Moses saw is called the Glory of Yahweh and was seen the Pillar of Cloud and Fire accompanying Israel through the wilderness [Exo 16:10; Num 14:10; 16:42]. Moses was the only Israelite of that generation to have seen the Glory of Yahweh outside the Pillar of Cloud.

Answer to Question 3

Since

It is from looking at God’s Image (gr. eikōn) that anyone can and will be changed (in fact, the radiance of Moses’ face was because he had seen someone on Mount Sinai), and since
Christ is the only true image (gr. eikōn) of God

Then it means that even before the New Covenant, the one people were to look to was Christ.

Since there was no other Image (gr. eikōn) of God that Moses could have seen on the Mount, it means that Christ was the One whose back Moses saw on Mount Sinai.

John writes that “…we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” [1Jo 3:2]

An Implication of the Same Message

An implication of the fact that the message of the Old and New Covenant is the same is that if the message of the New Covenant is to look to Christ the Image (gr. eikōn) of God, the message of the Old Covenant is the same, “Look to Christ the Image (gr. eikōn) of God”.

Since the message of the New Covenant is “Christ is Lord” [2Co 4:5], then the message of the Old Covenant is no different but is also “Christ is Lord”.

Quick/Basic Facts

Satan, the god of this age, is responsible for the inability of men to see the light of the gospel [2Co 4:4 cf., Mat 13:19]
The curse death upon the whole world is what is primarily responsible for the blindness of people [2Co 3:7-9 cf., Mat 4:16] and Satan is the one who holds the power of death [Heb 2:14]. This is why Paul is absolutely certain that greater glory is guaranteed for us since the Spirit brings life. In other words, if any measure of glory could be reflected and seen under the regime of death which causes darkness, how much greater glory will be seen under the regime of life? So, very much greater [2Co 3:6,7-9].
The message of the Old and New Covenants is the same, the difference is the clarity of the message under each covenant [2Co 3:14-16]. In fact the message of the gospel is from the writings of the prophets, that is the scriptures which includes the Law of Moses [Rom 16:25-27] and we are to pay attention to them [2Pe 1:19].
The message is about becoming glorified, being changed into the glorious image of Christ who himself is the image of God [2Co 3:18; 4:4].
There is a new priesthood being installed, this New Covenant priesthood. This priesthood will be glorious with the glory of Christ the Image (gr. eikōn) of God. It will surpass the glory of the ministers of the Old Covenant.