Sermon on 2 Corinthians 3:6–18: The New Covenant's surpassing glory
A sermon from Latimer Church on how the New Covenant in Jesus surpasses the Old Covenant, and why understanding this matters for Christian boldness and transformation.
Summary
This is a sermon by a pastor at Latimer Church working through 2 Corinthians 3:6–18. The speaker argues that the New Covenant in Jesus is not a replacement of the Old Covenant but its completion — a two-act drama in which the Old Covenant's letter, death, and temporary nature give way to the New Covenant's life, hope, freedom, and Spirit. A central claim is that no one comes to understand the New Covenant through their own intelligence or moral effort; rather, a veil covers every person's mind until God removes it. The sermon closes with an encouragement drawn from verse 18: that Christian transformation happens not through rule-keeping but through contemplating the glory of Jesus, by the power of the Spirit.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction: Keeping the Bible open
Preacher: It'd be helpful if you keep your Bibles open so that you can see those words as we work our way through them, and you can check that what I say is what God's Word says. So I encourage you to keep your Bibles open.
I've got here in my pocket one of these. Do you want to recognise what this is? If you're over 20, come on. The old iPod. This is like a 2007 release. Coldplay's one of my favourites, so I had to put that up. I remember getting this in 2007 — it had only just kind of come out. Apple obviously released them and they were glorious in their day, because for the first time you could download heaps and heaps of music that you'd bought online onto this device and then listen to it as much as you wanted to on a little portable thing. They kind of replaced some smaller versions earlier, and actually they were replacing the old CDs — the old Discman. I'm old enough to have had one of them. But this was a welcome change.
However, the little iPods only lasted on the market really for a couple of years, because they were quickly superseded by streaming services like Spotify and smartphones and iPhones. And so nowadays this thing — I don't know, it's probably worth a little bit less than I paid for it. Not much, right? It was glorious in its day, but it's lost its glory because it's been replaced by something else.
The two covenants: an overview
And that kind of argument — of something being replaced by something better — is really the argument that we have in front of us in 2 Corinthians. Paul says in chapter 3 verse 6, if you have a look there, that he is the minister of a new covenant. And all the way through his argument is that this new covenant is better than the old covenant.
Now, a covenant is just a deep promise. So when a man marries a woman he makes a covenant — he makes a deep promise in which he commits himself to her. And the God of the Bible is a God who makes covenants. I don't know if you've ever thought about God in that way, but he's a God who makes deep promises to his people, and he's done that throughout history.
The old covenant — the old promise that God made with his people — is what we have written in our Bibles and know as the Old Testament. Testament and covenant are basically the same kind of word. And so the first half of your Bible is this old covenant, where God makes a great promise to his people: that if they obey his law he will bless them, but if they disobey it he will curse them.
The new covenant then starts with Jesus and is in the New Testament — the second half of the Bible. And God's promise in the new covenant is to forgive anyone who turns to his Son Jesus and trusts him. The new covenant calls on people to accept the sacrifice that the man Jesus made on the cross as the only way in which we might be friends with the God we are naturally enemies with. The new covenant is the message of Jesus and him crucified, and that is the message that Paul proclaims. So he is a minister of this new covenant.
And the new covenant, as we will see tonight, is far better than the old one. It replaces the old one — but not as something completely different. Rather, as something which was incomplete and has now been made complete. And that's vitally important for us to get right, because if we get that wrong, what we tend to do is take our Bibles and cut them in half. So we think, the Old Testament — well, that's all about law and we don't really relate to God like that anymore. And then you get through all of the Old Testament, you get through Malachi, you get to Matthew and you come to Jesus, and you think, oh great, the New Testament is all about grace. The Old Testament is all about law and command and an angry God. The New Testament is all about grace and a God of love and a God who forgives. And we separate the two like that.
When in actual fact, both covenants are of grace. They're all of grace from beginning to end. The grace of God in the law, so that we might actually know God and understand our true predicament — alienated from him. And the grace of God in the gift of his Son, providing the solution to the problem we find ourselves confronted with.
So the Bible is, if you like, a two-act play. And if you stick around for the first part and then slip out at half-time, you're left going, I don't know what happens. It doesn't make sense. Or if you ignore the first act and come in partway through the second act — the New Testament, when you get to Jesus — you're really annoying to the person beside you, because as you read it you're saying, who's that? What does that mean? Why do they say that? I don't understand. What's that idea? Why are they sacrificed? You don't understand it, because it's a play where the two acts fit together. And so we need to read the Bible from beginning to end in order to understand the whole. The new covenant is a completion of the old covenant. It's not something entirely new.
Now I suspect that some of you are already starting to fall asleep and go, I could have been watching some sport or prepping my dinner or getting an early night. Why on earth do I care about covenants? I take it that if you're a follower of Jesus — which I know many of you are — you are part of the new covenant. You are part of God's deep promises. And if we don't understand how good the new covenant is, then we are in danger of drifting away from it.
I'm like that with exercise. I know exercise is good for me. I quite enjoy exercise when I get out and do it. I enjoy a little bit of running. And every time I go for a run I think, gosh, I should do that more, because it's really good — I feel clearer in my mind, I feel less sluggish, it's good for me both physically and mentally. I know it's good. But I quickly forget that when I'm watching television or lying in bed. And so I don't run.
Well, we can do the same thing with the message of Jesus — the new covenant. We just get too familiar with it, we forget how good it is, and then we start to drift away from it. And that is what had happened in the church of Corinth. They'd heard the message of Jesus, they'd believed it, they thought it was awesome. But then as time went on they started to drift away from it to things that in their minds seemed a little bit more flashy, a little bit more interesting, a little bit more appealing. They lost sight of how good the new covenant of Jesus is, and they became complacent Christians.
And so Paul writes this letter to correct them. He wants them — and he wants us tonight — to understand just how good it is to follow Jesus, so that we don't drift but follow him boldly and wholeheartedly.
I take it that understanding how good the message of Jesus is was the point of Jesus' one-sentence parable in Matthew 13 verse 44. I don't know if you know this one-sentence parable, where Jesus says, "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had, and bought that field." In other words, when you understand how good Jesus is — how good the new covenant is — it's like finding a treasure, and then you sell everything to get the field it's buried in.
Sometimes the best things in life become ordinary to us simply because they're familiar. And for many of us, the message of Jesus is very familiar. And so it is in danger of becoming very ordinary. I prayed this evening that we would see how good it is, so that we would joyfully stick with Jesus whatever the cost.
Column one: The Old Covenant
The way that Paul helps us see how good it is to know Jesus is by comparing it to the old covenant. And so let's have a look at it. I want you to imagine that there are two columns. In one column we write the words "Old Covenant," and on the top of the second column we write the words "New Covenant." And then as we look through, we see words that describe the Old Covenant and words that describe the New Covenant, and they show us how much better the New Covenant is.
Let's start with column one, the Old Covenant, and three words that describe it.
The first word is letter — the letter of the law. Have a look at chapter 3 verse 6. "God has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant," says Paul, "not of the letter but of the Spirit." Or verse 7, he says, "Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory..." and then he goes on.
So the Old Covenant is marked by the letter of God's law. If you know your Bibles, you'll recall how God gave ten commandments — perhaps you remember this from Sunday school or kids' church growing up — at the top of Mount Sinai. Moses goes up the mountain and God gives him these ten striking statements that capture his law, and he engraves them on stone. And at the heart of the covenant is this promise: if you want to be right with me, says God, you must obey these ten laws. They're not suggestions, they're laws. It's not multi-choice — oh, I did alright, four out of ten. No. You can't only keep some of them, you have to obey all of them, says God.
And so the relationship between God and his people depended largely on their obedience to the law written in letter. It was a list of rules — much like you get a list of rules to join a tennis club, or a list of rules at home to keep the peace with your parents, or a list of rules on the roads to stay on the right side of the law. So the Israelites, God's people, had to obey a set of rules in order to be on the right side of God. They couldn't just change the law to suit themselves; they had to change themselves in order to fit the law.
But they couldn't do it. The nation of Israel could not obey the Ten Commandments any more than you and I could obey the Ten Commandments. As soon as you read the list of ten, if you're an honest person, you will recognise that if the only way for us as human beings to be right with God is by perfectly obeying the laws, then none of us can possibly be right with God.
Do not lie. Ever told a lie? I have. Do not steal. Ever stolen anything? I have. Do not covet. Ever been jealous of what someone else has, wishing you were in their place? I have. Honour your father and mother. Have you ever failed to do that? Yep, failed. We cannot be right with God on the grounds of having obeyed the law God gave us.
So that's the Old Covenant: letter. The second word is death. Verse 7 again: "Now if the ministry that brought death..." It was a ministry that brought death because when we fail to obey the law of God — as all of us have done — there is a punishment, and the punishment is death. That's quite the punishment, isn't it? Which is why the law itself included the sacrifice of animals, because either the people died for their disobedience or an animal must die on their behalf.
Death is one of the greatest enemies we face as human beings. It just kind of looms over us. It's always there. We never know when it's coming, but we know it is. I read this week of the house fire in Māoriho, as I'm sure many of you did. It's just awful. The headline this morning on the Stuff website said, "Two funerals, grieving grandchildren and no home — Christchurch house fire leaves family devastated." It's just awful. Totally unexpected, and the people we love gone. And in the face of death we have no hope, no answer, only despair. The world is a despairing place.
Now perhaps you've heard the story of the young man who was so despairing of life that he decided he was going to jump off the top of a building. He was up there thinking about it and a police officer comes along and says, "Don't do it, don't do it." And the young man says, "I'm sorry, I've made up my mind. I've got no hope, nothing left, I'm jumping." And the police officer said, "Look, just give me 20 minutes. You give me 10 minutes to tell me why you're despairing of life, and I'll give you 10 minutes to persuade you that there is hope so that you don't jump." And so they discussed it for 20 minutes — and then they both jumped. Because the young man had given such a bleak and yet real portrayal of the world that the officer realised there is no hope. There is only despair.
Suicide is no joke. It is an awful tragedy. And yet the reality is that death is the only way we can possibly escape this life. Each of us is going to leave this world in a box. Death causes such pain. And the old covenant gave no solution to it. Because no one can obey the letter of the law, the letter of the law in verse 9 condemns us — leaving us guilty of breaking God's law and deserving of death for our disobedience.
Which then leads to the third word under Old Covenant: temporary. Verse 11, Paul says, "And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts." Because the Old Covenant was actually unable to bring us into a right relationship with God — because of our disobedience, because it was unable to solve the problem of death and separation from God — it was only ever a temporary covenant.
However, God did not give his law as some sort of impossible obstacle course so that we could not obtain eternal life. It wasn't like some trap that God set for us — here you go, do that, good luck, you'll never do it. It wasn't like that. He gave his law because his law perfectly reveals and reflects his character. It reveals God's integrity and his justice and his love and his order and his grace and his perfection. And because that's what God is like, he's concerned that his creatures would be the same — that his creatures would not have covetous hearts, not be jealous of one another, wouldn't lie to each other, wouldn't cheat and steal from each other, wouldn't worship silly idols, but would worship the living God.
God gave his law in order to help us see God and know God and see our need for a new and better covenant. God always had a plan to save his people in a new and better way — a way that did not depend on law-keeping. God's plan is that the covenant made with Moses would give way to a new covenant at some point in the future. And so you can see the new covenant is not something entirely new, but it is a fulfilment, a completion of the old.
So here's the Old Covenant: letter of the law leads to death because we can't obey it, but it's temporary because God has a better solution in mind. As you read that list you kind of think, well, it's not that great, is it? It's a bit bleak. And yet Paul says that this old covenant was actually a glorious covenant. It was a covenant which revealed the living God to us. It was so glorious that when Moses came down from the mountain having spoken to God and hearing God give him the law, his face shone, and it was so bright that no one could look at it. He'd seen God, and his face glowed as a result.
Did you notice that in verse 7? "The Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was." He came down from the mountain having seen God in all of his greatness, and it was so glorious that his face shone, and the people couldn't even look at him because it was too bright. And so Moses had to put a veil over his face to cover himself — we're told in verse 13 — because the people could not look at God in all of his glory.
You see, even though it was a covenant written in letter, and even though it was a covenant that brought death, and even though it was a temporary covenant, yet it was still glorious. It was a covenant that revealed the very character of the living God. It was a covenant that showed us our need for a better solution — to be right with a God of such glory.
The old covenant was glorious. But Paul's argument all the way through is: how much more glorious is the new covenant?
Column two: The New Covenant
And so let's move to our second column, New Covenant, and consider some words that describe it.
Our first word is life. Verse 6: "He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit, for the letter kills but the Spirit gives life." How much would you pay to escape death? Imagine curing death — not just curing cancer, but curing death. That'd be good, wouldn't it? And yet here Paul says the covenant of which he is a minister, this new covenant, it's a covenant of life. It brings life — real life, eternal life. The old covenant brought death, but the new covenant brings life.
I recall one person telling me how they became a Christian. It happened for them when they were only quite young. They went to, I think it was a Christian conference, and the speaker said to the crowd, "Do you have to be perfect to enter heaven?" People kind of think, well, not really, because no one's perfect, and I'm sure as long as you kind of try your best — that's how we tend to think. But the speaker went on and said, "Of course you do. You have to be perfect to enter heaven." Because God is perfect. If you're not perfect you cannot enter. And that's right, isn't it? Because God said that if you want to be one of his people you must obey all of his laws all of the time. Death is God's punishment for those who break the law. And so in order for us to have life, we must have a standard of perfection. For there to be life, there must be righteousness.
And friends, in Jesus that is what God offers to each of us. Jesus obeyed God's law perfectly — he's the only human who's ever done it. And then he gives us his righteous, perfect life and attributes it to us. And then he takes our law-breaking life on himself and he dies for it, taking the punishment that was ours on our behalf. And this gift of perfection — this gift of removing our guilt from us so that we can have life — is given by God freely to anyone who believes and trusts in Jesus. It's what the Bible term "justification" means. It's the fancy word for it. God justifies us — no longer deserving death because Jesus died for us, but instead deserving life.
Have you ever thought about that? You actually deserve life because Jesus has given you his righteous, holy, perfect life. So the man or woman who trusts in Jesus has life. Death is not the end. Condemnation has been replaced with righteousness.
The second word is hope. Verse 12: Paul says, "Therefore, since we have such a hope..." You see, until a person becomes a Christian, they do not know God and they have no hope. Religion and law-keeping cannot help such a person — as though religion was some kind of ladder which if you climb you can reach God. No, all religion and law-keeping does is expose our shortcoming. But in Jesus we have hope.
The hope of the resurrection. The hope that just as Jesus died on that cross and then three days later rose from the dead, so those who trust him — even though we die — one day we will be raised from the dead. The hope that comes from knowing that we are no longer enemies of God but his friends. The hope that comes from knowing that the God of the universe is our Father in heaven. The hope that comes from knowing that all of our sins have been forgiven. The hope of knowing that all of our guilt and shame has been removed from us. The hope that comes from knowing one day we will see God face to face.
And it's not just a wishy-washy kind of hope — I really hope it's going to be true. It's not like that. No, it is a certain hope. We know it will happen. So that even in all of the hardship of life — the tragedy, the grief, the suffering, the despair — we have hope, a hope that nothing and no one can take from us, because it is a hope that is found in the sure and certain death and resurrection of Jesus and the sure and certain promises of God. That is an everlasting hope. The old covenant was temporary, but the new covenant is permanent and eternal, because God's love for his people will never be turned away. Our relationship with the God of the universe has been restored forever. And so hope replaces despair.
Death turned to life. Despair turned to hope. And the third word under our column New Covenant: freedom. Verse 17, Paul says, "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."
Freedom is an illusion in our culture. We want to be free — free from the pressures of society, free from despair, free from people-pleasing, free from the shackles of religion, free to be your true self. And our culture promises us freedom, but it never delivers. Come down here, then you'll be free. Follow your heart, then you'll be free. Create your own identity, then you'll be free. But it's all a lie. We look back and we find ourselves still entrapped by death and despair, still in bondage to our own desires, still enslaved by the habits of our hearts and bodies.
But in Jesus we have freedom — true freedom. Many of you have heard my illustration before about the goldfish, so apologies for that. You remember the goldfish swimming around in his bowl happily in a bowl of water, and longing to be free. He looks out through the fishbowl and he sees these humans just coming and going as they please. When they get hungry, they go and help themselves to something to eat and a cup of tea. And he's swimming around, stuck in his bowl. "I just want to be free." And so one day he decides to free himself. He jumps out of the bowl and sails over the edge and says, "I'm free!" And then he lands on the carpet, flops around, and dies.
You see, true freedom for the goldfish is found in the water, right? Because that's where he's going to thrive, that's where he's going to live. And according to the Bible, just like the fish was made for the environment of water, we people — human beings, men and women — are made for the environment of living in God's love. Loving him and being loved by him. And we think we're free if we can get rid of God, and it only leads to death. True freedom is found in Jesus, who restores us to the God we were made to love.
The veil over the mind
And so you see these two columns. The old covenant defined by the letter of the law, by death, by its temporary nature. The new covenant in contrast defined by life and hope and freedom.
Now I wonder which column do you most align yourself with? There will be some people in the room tonight who still align themselves with column one. They still feel like they're despairing of life, trapped by death. And when you hear us talk about the life and hope and freedom of Jesus, you just don't get it. It doesn't make any sense to you — it's nonsense.
Friends, that is a common experience. One person will hear the message of Jesus, they'll understand the new covenant, they'll receive God's free gift of life and hope and freedom, and they'll rejoice. And then the person beside them doesn't get it. They think they're crazy. And the two people can't understand it. One person says, "Can you see how good Jesus is?" And the other person says, "No, you're nuts, you Jesus freak." One person thinks it's awesome and the other person thinks it's just a load of rubbish. And it's as though one person just cannot see what the other person has seen — like there's some kind of veil over them, some secret about Jesus that is hidden from them.
And Paul tells us, yes, that's exactly right. There is a veil. So just like Moses had to put a veil over his face after seeing God and his glory so that the people were not blinded by the brightness, so Paul says that actually there remains a veil over us that stops us seeing and understanding the message of Jesus. Not a physical veil, but a veil of the mind.
Notice that in verse 14 he says, "But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away." So even as the Israelite people in Paul's day read the Old Covenant, they couldn't see how it pointed them to their need for Jesus. It didn't make sense to them. All they could see were laws, death, despair and bondage. Paul says there is a veil over them. Their minds have been made dull.
And that is what we're all like. As a result of our rejection of God, a veil has been placed over us so that we cannot, on our own, find God or understand God. You see, the story of Christianity is not the story of man searching for God. It is not Adam and Eve in the garden calling out, "God, where are you?" It's quite the opposite. God comes into the garden and calls out to man, "Where are you?" God is the one who comes searching for us, and yet we will not see it without his help.
No one here is a Christian because we are especially clever or intelligent, as though you worked it out. No one here is a Christian because we are really good moral people who found God. No, if anyone here is a Christian, it is only because God has removed the veil from our eyes and minds.
So if you relate to column one, will you ask God to take the veil away from your eyes so that you can see clearly, so that the message of Jesus makes sense to you? Because there's no intellectual way to God. You can't argue yourself to God. You can't reason your way into heaven. But here is the promise — verse 16: "Whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away."
That's a fabulous promise. To turn to the Lord means you take your eyes off yourself. You stop looking at all of the things that you've done — which lead either to pride, because you think, well, I'm a pretty good person, I don't really need Jesus; or to despair, because you look at your life and you think, oh my goodness, I really have done an awful job of living my life, and I'm full of shame and regret. To turn to the Lord means you stop looking at yourself and instead you look at Jesus, and you see him hanging on a cross for you. His arms open wide, inviting you to accept his death in your place, offering to forgive you and offering to give you life, hope and freedom. And you pray, "God, help me to see it clearly."
Because notice that the veil is removed by the Spirit of God in verse 17. The New Covenant is the ministry of the Spirit in verse 8. And it is the Spirit who gives life in verse 6. And so now we can actually add a fourth word to our New Covenant column: the word Spirit. Because it is the Spirit of the living God in the New Covenant that replaces the letter of the law in the Old Covenant.
You see, the letter of the law was unable to change the people of God. They tried with all their might to obey it, but they failed over and over again. But the New Covenant comes with the power of God's Spirit, who is able to change us from the inside out, who is able to change our desires and our affections — God's Spirit who is able to help us see God for who he is and love him.
Boldness and transformation
So do you see how good the New Covenant is? It's a really simple message — the message of Jesus' death and resurrection, a simple call to repent and believe in this message. And for the person who does that, a simple decision to trust Jesus, the person who does it receives life, hope, freedom and the Spirit of God. So that as they look at Jesus they see the glory of God. They're no longer veiled, they're no longer hidden, but God is on display as they look at Jesus. The love of God, the justice of God, the holiness of God, the compassion of God, the power of God — all seen in the man Jesus.
The old covenant was glorious, but how much more the new covenant? And because Paul is so utterly convinced that this is true, and that the new covenant is awesome, he says in verse 12, "Therefore we are very bold." Next week we'll see what that means, so do come back next week. It means that he is not ashamed of the message he proclaims. He's not tempted to somehow change the message about Jesus. He's not tempted to remain quiet about the message of Jesus. He's not tempted to back down in his zeal about Jesus. He's very bold. He lives for Jesus wholeheartedly. He's willing to look weak and foolish and stupid to the world in order to live for Jesus. He's willing to deny his own desires in order to live for Jesus, because he sees in Jesus the very glory of God.
You know, as I finish, compared to Paul, I feel very much inferior. And I wonder if you do as well. We saw last week all of the things that Paul suffered for the sake of Jesus. 2 Corinthians chapter 11 — you can go home and read it. He was beaten, he often went without food, water, sleepless nights, he was thrown into prison. He nearly died countless times for the sake of Jesus. And compared to the Apostle Paul, I feel so inferior. Who lives like that for Jesus?
I wonder if you feel that — struggling to be very bold for Jesus in small decisions as well as big decisions. And so the thought of moving cities or countries in order to proclaim Jesus somewhere else just seems so hard. The thought of choosing a harder path in order to be holy instead of an easy path of sin. The thought of changing jobs because our current job makes living for Jesus impossible. Or the thought of ending an unhelpful relationship which is dragging us away from Jesus. Or the thought of giving away our hard-earned money to support the work of proclaiming Jesus. Those decisions just seem so hard. I wish I was more like Paul, and I wish as a church we were more like Paul — very bold, because we realise how good the covenant is.
And friends, that's why verse 18 is such a comfort and help for us. I want to finish here, verse 18: "And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
You see, friends, the Christian life is not one of perfection, but one of transformation. When you put your trust in Jesus, you do not become perfect like Jesus. Sin remains with us. But we do start a journey of change — a journey in which we become more and more like Jesus. And even the great Apostle Paul was still being transformed into the likeness of Jesus.
And it happens — this change happens — we're told, as we contemplate the glory of Jesus. Notice that. So the more we think about Jesus and dwell on him and fill our minds with him, the more like him we become. And it happens by the power of the Spirit. Just as the Spirit first removed the veil, so he continues to reveal more and more of Jesus to us and continues to change us from the inside out to make us more like Jesus.
If you read the Bible like a book of rules and you just try harder to be better in your own strength to obey it, you'll never succeed. Because the letter of the law brings death. But if instead we see how all of the commands of this book — this two-act drama — are all about Jesus, and we see his glory, then that changes us.
I wonder what fills your mind usually. What do you contemplate during the week? Maybe your worries and anxieties fill your mind. Maybe your work fills your mind. Maybe it's relationships. Maybe it's whatever you're watching on TV at the moment. Well, the more we fill our minds with Jesus, the more like Jesus we'll become. Think about the patience of Jesus — you'll become more patient. Think about the forgiveness of Jesus and you'll become a more forgiving person. Think about the generosity of Jesus and you'll become more generous. Think about the compassion of Jesus and you'll become more compassionate. Think about the suffering of Jesus and you'll become more willing to suffer with him. Because the more we contemplate the glory of Jesus, the more like Jesus we become. And the more and more bold we will be in our living for him. Isn't that good? It happens by the power of the Spirit.