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INJ
2 Corinthians 3:4-11
'The Ministry of Righteousness'
Matins
The12th Sunday after Trinity Sunday | August 26, 2007
Dear Saints,
This morning we will consider together the Epistle lesson from St Paul's second letter to the church in Corinth, chapter 3 verses 4-11. Paul is contrasting two different ministries, the ministry of the Spirit versus the ministry of death, the ministry of condemnation versus the ministry of righteousness. Hear again the lesson:
4 And we have such trust through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new testament, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 7 But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, 8 how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? 9 For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. 10 For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels. 11 For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious.
To get at the text we first must understand what Paul is talking about when he talks about Moses and not looking at his face. After the Lord rescued His people from the hard-hearted Pharaoh, He brought them through the Red Sea and then to Mt Sinai. The Lord there gave the Ten Commandments.
29 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. 30 Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. 31 But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them. 32 Afterward all the people of Israel came near, and he commanded them all that the LORD had spoken with him in Mount Sinai. 33 And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face. 34 Whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with him, he would remove the veil, until he came out. And when he came out and told the people of Israel what he was commanded, 35 the people of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face was shining. And Moses would put the veil over his face again, until he went in to speak with Him. [Exodus 34:29-35]
This is the ministry of the law, what St Paul calls the ministry of death, written on stone. But why are the Ten Commandments called the ministry of death? The law tells us God's will, what the Lord desires of us, how we are to be righteous and holy. How is it that the law kills us? Because, dear friends, the law always accuses, it always show us that we have come up short, it is like a mirror, one of those mirrors that magnifies things, so that every flaw and shortcoming is obvious. The law is like the brutally honest doctor that tells us how it is, “You're sick. You're dying.”
The tablets of the Ten Commandments were light enough that Moses could carry them off the mountain, but heavy enough that they crush all humanity. You know the weight of the law, don't you? The constant accusations, the guilt of failure. The law stands, for each of us, as a testament of our own failure, handed down from the heaven of God. That we are not, no matter how hard we try (and look, we really aren't even trying that hard, are we? This, too, stands against us.), no matter how hard we try we don't even begin to keep the Lord's commandments.
So the law is a ministry of death, it kills us, brings us to the end of ourselves, to despair of our own abilities, it unveils and reveals or own original sin and all its fruits in our lives.
This ministry, says St Paul, has a fading glory. When Moses can from the face of God his face was shining, and the people were afraid. But Moses had to cover that face, that the people wouldn't be afraid, and the glory of the law which was fading would be covered up.
But there is another ministry, different from the ministry of the law, the ministry of the Spirit, of life, of righteousness. This is the ministry of the Gospel. The Law comes to show forth our sin, the Gospel comes to forgive that sin. The ministry of the law is fading, passing, only for a time, but the ministry of righteousness, of the Spirit, is eternal, it never fades, it lasts forever.
9 For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. 10 For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels. 11 For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious.
And what does the ministry of righteousness look like? What is her glory? If we see the ministry of death in the shining face of Moses, then we see the ministry of life in the face of Jesus. But His face does not shine with a radiant glory, it is thorns that cover His head. His face is not covered with a veil, but with blood and tears and the lines of deep suffering, deeper than we could ever know. This is the glory of the ministry of the Spirit, the glory of the ministry of righteousness: the suffering and dying of Jesus. That is how we have righteousness.
This word 'righteousness' is one of the most important words in the Bible, and understanding it is vital to understanding the Gospel. Remember (we've talked about this many times before, and we must cover this about once a month in Bible Class) that there are two types of righteousness. First, there is active righteousness, those things which we do, our good works and keeping of the Commandments. This is the righteousness of the law. But there is a second type of righteousness, what we call passive righteousness, that righteousness which is given to you in the forgiveness of all of your sins. This is the righteousness of the Gospel, and it is what St Paul is preaching to us.
A confusion of these two types of righteousness destroys the church, but think of how often this confusion occurs. I've been thinking a bit lately about the accusation that is often leveled against the church, that “They're all hypocrites.” The people that say that are often marred by a history of a Christian that acted in a sinful manner, and we pray that the Lord would keep us from this hypocrisy, and that would demonstrate the love of Christ to people who have been sinned against by the church.
But there is something else underneath this accusation, and it the assumption that Christianity is supposed to make you into a good person, that the number one thing about being a Christian is that you are good. The trouble is that this assumption is right about every world religion except Christianity. Every major world religion (even atheism) is about being a good person, except Christianity, which begins with us being bad.
Christianity begins with the badness of man, the sinfulness of man. We come in hear before the Lord's altar not to hear how good we are, and not even to hear how we ought to do more and be better, we come hear and hear the ministry of the law, the ministry of death, and we know that we are poor miserable sinners. We are brought low, humbled, and we confess this together that we are no good, that we need in always the Lord's goodness for us. Christianity is not about us being good, it is about us being forgiven. And we really play the hypocrites when we act as if we have no sin, when we put on a show of our own righteousness, when we parade around as if we need no forgiveness. Lord, keep us from this.
You are righteous not because of your activity or your works, not because of your striving or desiring, you are righteous because of Jesus' activity and work, because of His striving and desiring, because of His suffering and dying, and because He gives all of this to you.
In two chapters St Paul will again write about this righteousness:
21 For He (God the Father) made Him (our Lord Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. [2 Corinthians 5:21]
The Lord does not keep His righteousness to Himself, but He imputed it to us, lays it over our sin, up our guilt and our shame with the white robes of His perfection. He gives us the surpassing glory of the forgiveness of all our sins. This is the ministry of life, the ministry of the Spirit, the ministry of the Lord's Church, the reason that we are here, week after week, to hear of the Lord's riches and His goodness to us, to be comforted with the Lord's smile and His forgiveness, and to be given, by the Holy Spirit, the certainty of faith which knows that no one and nothing can snatch us out of the Lord's hands.
This is the Lord's ministry of righteousness. May it continue among us, and at last bring us to the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting in the kingdom of our Jesus. Amen/
And the peace of God which is far more than we can understand, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller
Hope Lutheran Church | Aurora, CO
