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Summary

2 Corinthians 3:1–3 – Living Letters

What happens: Paul asks if he needs letters of recommendation. He says the Corinthians themselves are Christ’s letter, written not with ink but with the Spirit on hearts of flesh.

What it means: Changed lives are the best commendation of gospel ministry. God writes by His Spirit, showing His power and grace. The church displays the new covenant work of God.

2 Corinthians 3:4–6 – Sufficiency from God

What happens: Paul’s confidence is through Christ toward God. He is not sufficient in himself, but God makes him sufficient as a minister of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

What it means: Ministry depends on God’s enabling, not human ability. The Spirit brings life and righteousness, revealing God’s mercy and power. The new covenant fulfills God’s promise to give new hearts.

2 Corinthians 3:7–11 – Greater Glory of the New Covenant

What happens: Paul contrasts the old covenant, which came with glory yet brought condemnation, with the new covenant, which has surpassing glory and brings righteousness. What was glorious has no glory compared to the greater glory of Christ’s covenant.

What it means: God’s unfolding plan moves from lesser to greater glory in Christ. The law exposes sin, but the gospel grants righteousness. God’s holiness and grace meet at the cross and in the Spirit’s work.

2 Corinthians 3:12–18 – Unveiled Faces and Transformation

What happens: With hope, Paul speaks boldly. A veil lies over many when Moses is read, but it is removed when one turns to the Lord. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Believers behold the Lord’s glory with unveiled face and are transformed from one degree of glory to another.

What it means: Christ removes spiritual blindness and grants freedom to know God. Transformation is a Spirit-driven process as we behold Christ. God’s purpose is to conform His people to the image of His Son, displaying His glory.

Application

  • Measure ministry by Spirit-changed lives, not human endorsements.
  • Depend on God’s sufficiency and seek the Spirit’s life-giving work.
  • Read Scripture through Christ and ask Him to remove veils from the heart.
  • Behold the Lord daily and expect steady transformation into Christ’s likeness.

Bible

1Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?

2Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:

3Forasmuch as ye 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.

4And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward:

5Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;

6Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

7But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:

8How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?

9For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.

10For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.

11For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.

12Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:

13And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:

14But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.

15But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.

16Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.

17Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

18But 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.

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