Law and Grace - With Glory In Glory

Good morning. Before we get started in the passage here, just the electives. I know a number of you have already signed up, and thank you for that. We have the three electives starting next month. and next year, which is only weeks away, Person and Work of the Holy Spirit.

And then we're making a slight addition to, instead of just the book of James, it'll be the books of James and Jude. Those were both half-brothers of Christ and have some similarities between them. So anyway, both of those would be included. And then the Gospel of John. So sign-up sheets are on the bulletin board in the lobby here.

We're going to continue in our study of 2 Corinthians 3. Last week we started with verses 1-6, and we'll continue with the verses that Wayne just read for us here, 7-11 here today. But first, as we do so, just some things to make note. In 2 Corinthians 3, the law is portrayed, and I mean the whole chapter, the law is portrayed by Moses on Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments. And we're going to find that's really an important thing to recognize here.

And I've got a section in the middle of this passage in Deuteronomy 4, and here's Moses telling them, You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the very heart of the heavens. Darkness clouded and thick gloomed. Then the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire, and you heard the sound of the words that you saw no form, only a voice. So he declared to you his covenant, this is the law covenant with Israel, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments, he wrote them on two tablets of stone."

That's specifically what's being referred to in this passage, and so it's about Moses on Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments in this passage, and keep that in mind as we go through that. You have also, in the last couple of pages, I think it's the third page of your handout, some further indication that it's referring to the two tablets, the Ten Commandments. And also, the last page, you have an expanded and explained for the whole chapter. So at any rate, I'll let you take advantage of that on your own time. This is about the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses.

There were flashes of lightning, peals of thunder, and other than Moses who was allowed to go up on the mountain, everyone else was told to stay off and stay away. We're going to see how that's significant here shortly. We have this ability to show it here in this dynamic form, and that's on purpose. I think it's important to get the understanding that the giving of the Ten Commandments came along with this frightening display of lightning flashes and fire and thunder. And we're going to see shortly here why that's significant. The Jews could see from a distance, but boy, from a distance is where they'd better stay.

Now, so verse 3 to verse 17, we'll be looking at 7 through 11 here today, the third chapter of this letter of the Corinthians presents the laws begun by the Ten Commandments. So the Ten Commandments is not the whole law, it is simply kind of the down payment, the first deposit. The Law of Moses includes 613 laws given to Moses on Mount Sinai, which is in the southern end of the Sinai Peninsula. There are some who teach that we in the church are still under the Ten Commandments. And that's important for us to look at and recognize here today. We'll see is that actually the case.

Or you will also hear that the Spirit enables us to live out the law and that's basically taking Israel's new covenant. There are about a dozen passages in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel that spell out Israel's new covenant when in the coming millennial kingdom all the Jews will all be empowered by the indwelling Holy Spirit to know, without a teacher, to know all 613 laws and to live them out. Therefore because they know and live out the law by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit They will all be blessed earthly as was promised to Israel in Deuteronomy 28 1 through 14 However, that's not us. Okay, that's not us We are the church and not Israel nonetheless some will teach this and you'll encounter that okay, then God's Word does not say these things. That's one of the things we want to make clear here, and I'm not just speaking off the top of my head.

If you look at Romans 7.4, it says we were made to die to the law, and as we explained when we went through that passage, to die in relationship to the law.

The law didn't die, but we died in relationship to the law. That's in order for what? We did that through the body of Christ. As Christ died for our sins, he also separated us from the law. We died in relationship to the law so that we might be joined to another. Who is another? Christ, the one who was raised from the dead. The passage is very clear.

Galatians 2.19, though through the law I died to the law, Paul writes, so that I might live to God. We died in relationship to the law in order that we might live to God. If we say we're still under the law, are we living to God?

No. We were made to die to the law, Romans 7.4, in order to be joined to Christ.

We were made to die to the law, Galatians 2.19, so that we might live to God. If we still put ourselves under law, we're denying both those things, that we were joined to Christ and that we're living to God. If you live under the law, you're not living to God.

That's big. Let's take a closer look at that one. So, verse 3 made reference to tablets of stone. Verse 7 makes reference to letters on the stone. That's how the Ten Commandments came about and that's what it's describing specifically. The Greek words tablets and stone that Paul used in this passage are both taken from the Greek version of the Old Testament. oftentimes called the Septuagint, with the account of God with Moses on Mount Sinai in Exodus there. So that's specifically what he's referring to, the letters engraved on stones, the tablets, the ones that were engraved by God's own finger. The tablets were the tablets on which God himself engraved the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments.

Now you have in the middle of the first page in your handout, this table, and we'll be kind of walking our way through it. It is a way of making comparisons that help us to understand what this passage is saying. There are some explicit comparisons, and the first thing is to understand that there is a reigning principle for the law.

Israel, by Moses and the law, the reigning principle, that is, a principle is either a fundamental truth or the way things work, or both. The way things work and the fundamental truths conveyed under Moses is law. Law, law, law. Everything is described by the law. For us in the church, and by Christ, the reigning principle is grace.

Some people try to mix law and grace and say that's what the Bible represents. The law of Moses is already gracious. It says a half-dozen times in the law of Moses that God's gracious. But when you get into the New Testament, what you find is we've been made to die to the law. So mixing law and grace, we've already had that. That's the law of Moses. That's a mixture of law and grace.

What we are under, the principle we are under in the church, is pure, absolute, total grace, not one law. So that's what we'll be looking at. The principle of law, that is the operating system, and us in the church under the principle, the operating system, that is entirely gracious.

Now, one of the things that we see here, how was it conveyed? The law was given, these first ten commandments, on stone, engraved by the finger of God, given to Moses as he came down off Mount Sinai. It was a physical giving of the law. What is described in the New Testament, and what is used here in this passage, is what was given to us as spiritual. spiritual, not physical, even though it was written by the Apostle Paul in the way he writes here.

The next thing that comes is the means. The means is tablets of stone, whereas what we are given in the church, the means is the Holy Spirit. That's how this passage identifies God's means of giving us the truth, is by the Holy Spirit. The next thing that we see there is what are the results? And what we see in this passage here is the law, the Ten Commandments specifically, is a ministry of death. It is a ministry of condemnation. And so what does death do? Death separates. Death separates. And for us in the church, under grace, life is a life of union. Death separates joining, being joined to Christ is life.

The next thing that comes across here is the degree of glory and you see that in this passage and we'll continue to see it into next week's passage where we go through verse 12 through 18. Is there a glory of the law? Yes there is and this passage says so. It's a fading glory. It was even fading as Moses came down off the mountain. It was a fading glory. Does the law have glory? Yes, but it's a fading glory. On the other hand, grace, the reigning principle for the church, has an abounding and greater and growing glory, as we'll see from glory to glory. Growing glory. So the law, a fading glory. Grace, a growing and abounding glory. Which one do you pick? Right? Which one do you pick?

Now, God's expression under the principle of law is condemnation. That comes out clearly in this passage, verses 7-11. Condemnation is the ministry of the law. The ministry of the law is the ministry of death, a ministry of condemnation. That is why the Apostle Paul could write at the beginning of Romans chapter 8, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Why? Because they're not under the law. No condemnation. However, in this passage, what we see is the ministry that we have is a ministry of righteousness, not a ministry of condemnation.

The next thing that comes up is the question, how are we blessed? How are we blessed? Under law, Deuteronomy 28, verse 14, spells out, you're blessed if you obey. And by the way, you'd better obey all of them. And you're blessed in the land, and that's to the Jews in the land of Israel. Jews in the land of Israel will be blessed if they obey. Did they? No. So Jews will be blessed if they obey, they will be cursed if they disobey. And those are spelled out and that list of curses is actually much longer than the list of blessings. But it's earthly in the land. For us in the church, under grace, our blessings are unconditional and they are heavenly in Christ.

Ephesians 1.3 Bless be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. By the way, that bless be the God, that's straight out of the Old Testament. Bless be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every, how many? Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Every single one.

Later on, Paul pushes it off to chapter four. He says, okay, now that we've talked about all these great things and how you're blessed, now let's talk about your stealing and lying problem. But I want to tell you first off that we're blessed with every spiritual blessing unconditionally. We can talk about your moral issues later. The next thing is the duration, when it focuses on that which fades and that which remains. Under the law, the duration of the law, it faded. But for us in the church, under grace, it remains. It remains. It's there. It's present.

And finally, the motivation under the law is, boy, I better do this because I want to be blessed. and I most certainly want to avoid being cursed. That's why you do the law. That was the motivation. You do it in order to be blessed, you want to avoid being cursed, and certainly want to avoid studying rocks up close, and everybody helping you study rocks up close.

Then, in the church, the motivation is because you're already blessed, you're already forgiven. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, as he's talking to Jews who are under the law, tells them, you must forgive, because if you don't forgive, your Heavenly Father will not forgive you. That's law.

Paul writes in Ephesians 4.32, he writes, forgive one another, because God in Christ has forgiven you already. See the difference? You're not doing it in order to be forgiven, you do it because you're already forgiven. Entirely different motivation. Okay, now here are the poetic patterns in the passage that Wayne read for us here.

You have them on the slide on the handout. But if the ministry of death, and what you find is here's ministry of death, below that ministry of the spirit, ministry of condemnation, ministry of righteousness. So he alternates under law, under grace, under law and under grace with those ministries here. After the initial, you know, but if, the next sections begin with for.

And so anyway, here's the kind of the poetic pattern in the way Paul wrote this particular section of the passage here. One of the things you'll notice, and it is a constant theme in this passage, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory. Big issue here. Glory. And we need to say something here. What is glory? Aside from if the Broncos win the Super Bowl. What's glory? Glory is the radiant essence of who God is. The radiant essence of who God is. That's glory. Moses had that radiant essence of who God is when he came down off the mountain.

His face was so bright that he put a veil over his face so that they could stand to see him. But the brightness faded and eventually, as we'll see in next week's passage, as he came down off the mountain, he kept the veil on so that they wouldn't see that the glory was fading. Ah, big secret here. The veil stayed on so that they couldn't see the fading glory that was on his face, that was leaving even as he came down the mountain.

The other thing to note is that the Apostle Paul asks a question here. How will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even with more glory? One of the things we say, what kind of ministry? The Law of Moses, as Paul portrays in the Ten Commandments, is a ministry of, and we know of death. It is a ministry of condemnation.

Any volunteers for the job? Got anybody that likes that? Hey, let's have ministry! Right? Death and condemnation. You like that? I don't see any hands going up. Okay, alright. The other thing to point out is it actually THE death and THE condemnation. It's specific. It is in the original language, not just death and condemnation. It's THE ministry of THE death and THE ministry of THE condemnation. It's specific. It is THE death. It is THE condemnation from the law.

The grace of Christ, as Paul characterizes it here in this passage, He characterizes his own ministry because he talks about the ministry we have. Ministry of the Spirit and ministry of righteousness. And it is the Spirit and the righteousness as well. That's something that isn't always brought across in our English translations. Both of these have the definite article here just like the death and condemnation did.

Paul drew principles from the law by which we in the church are to live also telling us that we're not under law but under grace. This is where people get confused. We can learn something from the law without being under it. And that's something that he used repeatedly, and we went through and we studied 1 Corinthians chapter 9 and 1 Corinthians chapter 10. We can learn something about the law, we can learn something from the law that applies to us under grace without being under the law ourselves, which is quite often why the law is quoted in the New Testament. Not so that you'll live by the law, but that you'll learn from it.

Here is, for example, 1 Corinthians 5, 7-8, where he wrote to them, Clean out the old leaven, as the Jews would do in the Passover, so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Did he mean, you guys need to do the Passover, you're going to break the law? No. He said, in here, let's learn from the law. Let's learn from the law. This is an example. We went through 1 Corinthians 10, the last couple of Sundays in November, to learn from the law. Exactly that situation. Romans 6, 14 and 15. For sin shall not be, and it's the sin nature, shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we're not under law, but under grace? We learn from the law, but we're not under it.

Something else, and this surprises people when I tell people this, the law of Moses never saved anybody. You didn't get saved by living by the law. What the law did is you got to live. If you obeyed it, you got to live. But aside from that, the law also determines blessings and curses. It does not save anybody. Nobody got saved by living out the law.

Now, it is possible for a person, under the Old Testament law, you could have somebody who was saved eternally by faith and yet die under the law. They trusted God for salvation and were saved, but they had a momentary lapse and picked up a piece of firewood on the Sabbath, and then they died. But they're going to heaven.

Here's Genesis 15.6. Then he believed the Lord and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. Belief, back in Genesis, was the basis for salvation. For by grace you have been saved through faith, that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not a result of work, so that no one may boast. The law will not save anyone. It never could. It never did. It never saved an Israelite.

The law's sacrificial system even pointed to faith in God's own sacrifice, Christ. Here is John the Baptist, Jesus comes down by the Jordan River, and what does John the Baptist say? Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. God's Lamb. The whole sacrificial system is pointing to this Lamb, God's Lamb, Christ. The law was given to determine blessings and curses on this earth for Israel in the land. Even the blessings and curses list the land as the place where that takes place, the place where that happens. Blessings and curses in the land of Israel for the people of Israel.

Deuteronomy 28.2, all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the Lord your God. You'll get the blessings. That's what the law is about. It's about blessings and curses, not about getting saved.

Deuteronomy 28.15, but if it shall come about if you do not obey the Lord your God, you to observe to do all. This doesn't mean pick and choose. It's not mix and match laws.

All. His commandments, all 613, and His statutes with which I charge you today that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you and for dozens and dozens of verses it goes on with the curses. Lots of them. The law was about blessings and curses and you had to obey every single one. Every single one you could not forget one you could not go oops.

There was one guy that was caught During you know the time they're out there in the desert one guy was caught picking up firewood on the Sabbath. They killed him Okay, that's what the law does it's a ministry of death Here in Ephesians 1 3 However, we quoted before, we in the church from Acts 2 to the time when the Lord comes to take us to be with Him, called the Rapture, are blessed already heavenly. We're blessed already heavenly, unconditionally. It's not if we fulfill the law. It's not if we obey this and that. We're blessed already heavenly.

If you believe, you're already blessed in the heavenly places in Christ, Ephesians 1.3. So the law determines blessings and curses for Israel in the land, conditionally blessed if they obey, all of them, and cursed if they disobey, even some of them, even one of them. Even one. This is beyond the ten. Now, glory. Verses 1-6 carry the theme of letters. Verses 7-11 carry a theme of glory. As we pointed out, verses 12-8 that we'll take a look at next week carry the theme of Moses' veil. So we'll talk about Moses' veil some more then.

So what's a thing called glory? Glory is the radiant essence of who God is. That's what glory is. declares and reveals His glory, He shares His glory with us so that He is glorified. The glory isn't a static quality of God. It's both given and shared by God, who in turn is glorified. So it isn't just something that sits there, give me two pounds of glory. No. This is something that is a dynamic quality of God that he shares and declares and reveals so that in the end he is glorified.

Now, we must say Moses did have a tough assignment. God assigned Moses with carrying out a ministry of death in the people of Israel. You can imagine, this is why Moses, when he was first given this task, hey, I want you to take the people of Israel out of Egypt, and I want you to have them lead them out in the desert, and I'm going to give you a whole list of laws, 613 of them. Are you ready? And he said, I don't want to do this. And well, you will do it. It was a tough assignment.

It was begun by the letters engraved on the stone tablets there on top of Mount Sinai, now called the Ten Commandments, given to Israel for Israel, not us. And that giving of the law through Moses did have a glory of its own, a glory so bright the people of Israel couldn't look on Moses' shining face. It was like, wow, this is painful, burning my eyes out, like looking at the sun. But it was a fading glory, and as we'll see in next week's passage, it was a glory fading so badly that eventually the veil wasn't to keep them from seeing how bright his face was, but to keep them from seeing how fast it was fading. The fading in these verses means made to fade. It wasn't that it just sort of lost something, it was actually made to fade. Made to fade, and that's very important. The law was intentionally given as a made to fade set of ordinances. This verse literally says, and I'm referring to verse 9, in the Greek, the ministry of the condemnation. It's a specific condemnation. It's the condemnation of the law. It's the condemnation that will kill you. That one. That ministry. THE ministry of THE righteousness.

Why is it specifically THE righteousness, not some vague righteousness? It's because THE righteousness centers on THE righteousness of Jesus Christ, who is a specific person, and it is HIS righteousness that's being referred to. Condemnation and righteousness are specific and emphatic. Specific and emphatic.

But the glory that goes along with the ministry of righteousness is much more. Did you see that? It's much more in its magnitude, and it's also abounding. So instead of this made-to-fade glory of the law, grace, in sharp contrast, has an abounding glory. An abounding glory.

And what is glory? The radiant essence of who God is grows and increases in its expression under grace. The radiant essence of who God is grows and increases under grace. Why would I want to have anything to do with the law when I can have grace with abounding and growing and increasing glory? That's just a whole lot better, isn't it? Now, this is in sharp contrast to the fading glory of Moses. Here's something else. How many people in Israel had this fading glory? How many? One. For us in the church, how many have an abounding and growing glory?

Everyone who is a believer. Everyone who is a believer. So that is also a great contrast here. The ministry of the Spirit, which is the ministry under the reigning principle of grace, through whom the Apostle Paul ministered, and by whom we all minister here in one body of Christ, is even more glorious, far more. And it's reflected in every single one of us. It's an abounding and growing glory, the radiant essence of who God is. We minister here among the local body of Christ by means of the many ministries of the Holy Spirit. who indwells each and every person who is a believer here today.

The Israelites didn't get that. We do. Did we earn it? Nope. Not at all. It's entirely by grace, the reigning principle. The Spirit's ministry has a sustained greater glory. It's intentional. The glory of the Law of Moses was made to fade. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is a sustained, greater, and growing glory, an abounding glory. So the glory of the ministry of the Spirit and the ministry of righteousness is so much greater than the glory of the ministry of death and condemnation, as if Moses' ministry had no glory at all. It's as if Moses' ministry had no glory at all because of the huge difference.

Now, I'm going to tell you a story. In fall of 85, Nancy and I took a trip to Germany, and we stayed at a millhouse. This isn't it, but it's near there. A millhouse right on the river. In fact, we could look out the window, and there's water level above our floor level. So here's this millhouse.

Nancy and I need to make a three-hour trip from Bomberg to Frankfurt, driving about 80 miles an hour on the Autobahn. Now, we're sleeping, and all of a sudden I hear, oh no, out of Nancy. And we look over. We didn't have three hours. We had two. We get in the car and Nancy lays her seat back and she says, I think I'm going to sleep.

I said, that's real good because you don't want to see how fast they're going to have to drive. And so here I am in a Volkswagen Rabbit. driving 120 and 130 miles an hour in a Volkswagen Rabbit, and just flooring it, I'm scaring myself to death. But at any rate, and I'm really glad Nancy's not watching, because she wouldn't want to see this. Anyway, as fast as I was going in that Rabbit, 120 and 130 miles an hour, there were cars passing me up on the Autobahn that were going so much faster than me, it was as if I was going backwards.

And that's the point of comparison here. Did Moses have a glory on his face? Yeah, it was there. But the glory of grace is so much greater, so fantastically greater, that it is as if Moses had no glory at all. And that's not my point, that's the point of the passage here. It's as if Moses' glory was not even there. The glory of the ministry of the Spirit and the ministry of righteousness has a surpassing glory. And that word surpassing means overthrown. That's why I showed this baseball next to the airplane wing. The Greek word for surpassing means to throw something way beyond the mark. Something way beyond the mark.

So compared to the glory of Moses, the glory of ministry under grace, the ministry of the Spirit, and the ministry of the righteousness, that glory is way, way over the top grater. So the great glory of the Law of Moses, though it was very bright and the Israelites had a tough time looking at him initially, was fading even as Moses was coming down off of Mount Sinai, and it was made to fade. It was made to fade.

But the ministry of the Spirit and righteousness has a sustaining glory, much more abounding and a remaining glory among all of us, every single one. And as we'll see again in next week's passage, that's particularly relevant. It isn't just Moses who gets the glory and it fades, but every single one of us has a growing from glory to glory as God's design and intent. And He does that by transforming us.

This is the glory that comes from God, it's not me. It's not because I got a real shiny forehead here because my hair grew way back. Anyway, it's shared with us who believe. God's glory is shared with us who believe. It is turned back so as to glorify God forever. We are given God's glory. We share His glory in order to glorify Him. In order to glorify Him.

The law was not such as to invite a person to draw near. Thunder and lightning, and man this is scary, and fire, and don't you get close to that. Even if an animal gets close to this mountain, kill it. Don't you dare draw near. Only Moses is coming up here, and the rest of you stay back. Stay away. Do not come close. You do not want to get close to God under the law.

That's one scary thing to think about. Grace invites us to draw near and to behold the glory of the Lord. Radical different. Radical different. Under the law, scary, noisy, loud, brightness beyond what you can handle. Stay away. You're going to die if you get close. Stay away from God under the law.

Under grace, come close. Hebrews 10, 22, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith. Draw near. Draw near. Here's John 15, 15. Jesus says, I have called you friends. For all things that I have heard from my father, I have made known to you. Draw near. Come close. You're friends. Let's pray.

Lord, as we look at this passage, we do see a huge contrast between the ministry of death and condemnation and the ministry of the spirit and righteousness under grace. And Lord, particularly as we see here at the end of this series of slides, we see that invitation to draw near, to come close. even as the Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians, to call you Abba, Papa, and to draw near to you, to come close, to stay close, to walk closely with you. And we ask that our hearts would be drawn to do exactly that, to walk with you in fellowship and in intimacy. We do give you thanks for the marvelous and amazing things that you have accomplished, and especially this amazing thing called grace. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.