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July 20/21, 2013
Jason Meyer | 2 Corinthians 3:1-3
Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.—2 Corinthians 3:1–3
Introduction
A Core Conviction
I have been greatly encouraged by the emails that testify to what the Lord is doing to move people to share the gospel. The Lord has been at work. My own sense of conviction has not subsided at all—in fact, it has sunk down deeper into my soul. This week I tried to meditate a little bit on this depth of conviction and try to put it into words a little more. As I mused, I realized that one of the underlying reasons why I am so convicted is already found in the word itself: “convicted.” To be convicted means you have hit upon a conviction. Convictions have a convincing quality—they carry a lot of weight. Therefore, when they land on you, they feel heavy. They feel even heavier when you are struck by the dissonance between how heavy the conviction should be and how light it has actually been.
I seem to have rediscovered a connection that should have carried more weight in my life. Witnessing must be a core quality of a church because of its connection to the core: the gospel. When something touches upon the gospel, it touches upon the very core of our convictions as a Christian. That is when you feel it—when it feels like a core issue, not optional or extra. There is nothing optional about whether a true church will be a gospel church.
Therefore, my heart was a bit like a tinderbox this week as I came upon a quotation that immediately lit a fire in me. The quote is from Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans-God’s Sovereign Purpose):
A church which is not actively propagating the truth, witnessing to it and concerned about the lost, is unworthy of the name of the church of Jesus Christ.
The quote did more than arrest my attention. It went deeper and arrested my affections. In other words, inwardly I said, "That is right," but not in an arm-twisting way. It did not make me want to cry “uncle”; it made me want to cry “Hallelujah.” It is right. If we savor our Savior, then it should be the most natural thing in the world to share the Savior that we so savor. In other words, the rightness of this conviction is found in feeling the awesome alignment that exists between savoring the gospel and sharing the gospel.
So I spent a little more time examining the remaining reasons for resistance I feel as I try to dethrone my comfort zone. What is the disconnect that causes a gap between savoring and sharing? For me, I believe that I have an inward flinch to the thought of sticking out like a sore thumb. Being different makes you feel weak. You have to step away from the security of fitting in and not standing out. You do not get odd looks when you do what everyone else does. Sameness does not draw any negative attention to itself. So closing the gap between savoring and sharing will involve overcoming the hurdle of our dislike of sticking out or being different.
The way to overcome this feeling of weakness is to embrace the weakness and make it our strength. Being different is one of the greatest weapons that a Christian has in his or her arsenal. Think about it. We do not win the world by becoming worldly and offering it more of the same of what it already has. We can win the world only when we are different. We have a different King than the world has. And the fact that he is far better should make us want to share him even when people do not want him. We have something that is not just different, but better. Something I read by Lloyd-Jones captured what I was thinking this week (Murray, Iain H. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years 1899-1939, pp. 141–142):
Our Christianity has the appearance of being an adjunct or an appendix to the rest of our lives instead of being the main theme and the moving force in our existence. . . . We seem to have a real horror of being different. Hence all our attempts and endeavors to popularise the church and make it appeal to people.
The world expects the Christian to be different and looks to him for something different, and therein it often shows an insight into life that regular church-goers often lack. The churches organize [all sorts of things] to attract people. We are becoming almost as wily as the devil himself, but we are really very bad at it; all our attempts are hopeless failures and the world laughs at us. Now, when the world persecutes the church, she is performing her real mission, but when the world laughs at her she has lost her soul. And the world today is laughing at the church, laughing at her attempts to be nice and to make people feel at home. My friends, if you feel at home in any church without believing in Christ as your personal Savior, then that church is no church at all, but a place of entertainment or a social club. For the truth of Christianity and the preaching of the gospel should make a church intolerable and uncomfortable to all except those who believe, and even they should go away felling chastened and humbled
Because we are different and offer a fundamentally different message for the world, we are realistic about rejection. I even said that we should expect it. But even though we are realistic about rejection, I also said that we expect conversions. How can we have it both ways? Here is the way that I would say it: we are realistic about rejection, but we are not cynical about conversions. Why? We know the hardness of sin (realistic), but we know how much more powerful the grace of God is to overcome resistance (keeps us from cynicism). How can anyone who has personally experienced the power of the gospel to save be cynical about whether it is powerful enough to save others?
This week we will set our sights on this power with greater focus. How does conversion happen? What undergirds our conviction that dead people can respond to the gospel? We get to re-evaluate our views on that very question. I pray that re-evaluation will lead to celebration.
The text contains a relational triangle consisting of the Corinthians, Paul, and Christ. Paul draws these three participants involved in the drama of redemption into a metaphor for the Corinthians to ponder: the letter of recommendation. First, the Corinthians are the letter of recommendation. Second, Paul is the letter courier. Third, Christ is the letter writer.
Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all.
The obvious place to begin is with the question: what is a letter of recommendation? It is not a difficult concept to understand because we have something of a modern equivalent. In fact, just this week, I was asked to write a letter of recommendation for one of my former students. The purpose of such a letter is to introduce someone that you know well to someone that does not know the person well. The commendation of the letter writer is supposed to establish the credibility of the person. If the person is being considered for a job, the letter would say, “I know this person, and I think that you should hire them because they would do a great job.”
In the ancient world, the letter of recommendation was an important tool for an itinerate speaker. If you wanted to speak to a group of people that did not know you, it was important to have someone that the group trusted commend you to them. Apparently, the false apostles carried letters like these with them that commended their ministry. Have you noticed that Paul’s case for his apostleship is always a thinly veiled accusation against the false apostles? He keeps inserting little parenthetical statements that contrast him and them. Last week it was the phrase, “For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word” (2:17). This week it is “Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you?” (3:1). Apparently it was not Paul’s practice to carry these letters with him. Why not? Would no one commend him? Did he have to resort to commending himself?
Paul said that he did not need letters of recommendation for the Corinthians or from the Corinthians because his letters were the Corinthians. “You yourselves are our letter” (3:1). He refers to them twice for emphasis so that they cannot miss it (“you yourselves”), and he puts himself into the picture with the pronoun “our.” “You yourselves are our letter.” The conversion of the Corinthians was the most eloquent commendation for his ministry imaginable. What other proof could they possibly seek? You were converted under my ministry! This is an irrefutable fact, and he says that it is an open commendation of his ministry that others can read as well. The Corinthians are living letters that testify to the validity of Paul’s apostleship. We have now entered into the territory of our second point. Do you see the genius of Paul’s defense of his argument?
You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
Paul’s argument runs like this: if you want to doubt my apostleship, then you have to doubt your conversion because it happened through my ministry. If you question the legitimacy of my apostleship, you are questioning the legitimacy of your salvation.
Let us look at the way Paul shows up in these verses. He shows up three times, twice in verse two and once in verse three. We have already touched on the first one: "you yourselves are our letter" (3:2). He basically says, “We are in this boat together.” We are joined together—YOU are OUR letter. Earlier he told them that their future was a shared future ("On the day of the Lord Jesus, you will boast of us as we will boast of you"—1:14). Now he shows them their shared past—"You were converted through my apostleship."
The second reference to Paul comes in verse two with the phrase “written on our hearts.” This phrase has always been slightly troubling to me. I spent almost a year studying 2 Corinthians 3-4 as part of my dissertation. This was one of the phrases that puzzled me. It looks like Paul mixes up the metaphor because verse three refers to the hearts of the Corinthians, while it looks like verse two talks about the heart of Paul. In fact, the manuscript tradition of the original language shows that some of the scribes struggled with it too. I am convinced that the original reading is “our heart,” but some scribes inserted “your heart” in order to make the reference to the heart of the Corinthians in both verses. But preaching through 2 Corinthians 1–2 made this verse jump out to me and finally sync with everything that he said before. Here is his point: I don’t carry this letter around as a duty, as if it is far from my heart. As if the Corinthians just represent some apostolic duty. “The Corinthians, O yeah, I know them, I guess. God had me minister to them.” No, they are on his heart. That was the reason for the intensity of his anxiety. His heart was bound up with them because they are on his heart.
The third reference to Paul comes in verse three: “delivered by us.” Paul’s ministry became the occasion that Christ came and changed the Corinthians. Christ authored the letter, but Paul has the privilege of serving as the letter carrier. Paul carries the “aroma of Christ” with him, and he also has the privilege of serving as a catalyst for the moment when Christ confronts the Corinthians and changes them forever. But Paul is careful to give credit to Christ. He will not be guilty of plagiarism. Christ is the author, not Paul. We are about to see why this letter is such a miracle.
And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
Notice that there is nothing natural about this letter. Prepare to be stunned with three shots from Paul’s stun gun. There is nothing natural about this letter because (1) of who wrote it (Christ), (2) what he wrote with (the Holy Spirit) and (3) what he wrote on (the human heart).
Shot #1: Christ is the author. There is nothing natural about this letter because this no mere human author. The second person of the Trinity is the author. Talk about a defense for Paul’s ministry. Paul, in effect, says, “I don’t care who you have signing your silly recommendation letters. The one I have comes from Christ. Beat that! You are the letter and Christ authored your conversion." That is true of every conversion. Conversion is not the work of man; it is a divine work. Christ must author it or it will never happen. I will say more on this point when we get to further application.
Shot #2: The Holy Spirit is the instrument of writing. Did you hear that? Christ does not use a pen and ink—the Third Person of the Trinity is the instrument of writing! The Holy Spirit gives life to living letters just like he gives life to dead bones.
Shot #3: The human heart is the object of writing. We expect the contrast to be between paper and the heart. Why does he change the imagery to stone tablets? Paul introduces a contrast between the old covenant and the new covenant. Paul provides tremendous help here in piecing together the pieces of the biblical story to show us the different ways that God intervenes in the story in our behalf.
Two Types of God’s Intervention
The language that Paul uses in what I have called shots two and three draws upon the language and imagery of three key Old Testament texts. It is fascinating to watch Paul put them together like a puzzle that fits Exodus, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel together.
Let us look at little closer first at 2 Corinthians 3:3. Paul denies something and then affirms something.
| Types of Parallel | 2 Corinthians 3:3e (Negated) | 2 Corinthians 3:3f (Affirmed) |
| Actor | Christ | Christ |
| Aciton | Wrote | Wrote |
| Place of Action | Not Upon Stone Tablets | But Upon Flesh-Heart Tablets |
The contrast between a stone tablet and a heart tablet invariably points to the imagery of Sinai. Exodus 31:8 says that the very finger of God “wrote” (same word for written as our text) on “stone tablets” (same word for stone tablets). God also writes something in the new covenant. In fact, he writes the same thing in both (the Law), but he writes in different places. This contrast is not something that Paul has invented; it is something that he read in the Old Testament. These differences reflect the Old Testament contrast between the Sinai covenant and the new covenant of Jeremiah.
| Type of Parallel | Sina Covenant [Deuteronomy 4:14] | New Covenant [Jeremiah 31:33 (38:3 LXX)] |
| Actor | [God] | [God] |
| Action | Wrote | Wrote |
| Direct Object | Them = The Ten Words | Them = My Law |
| Place of Action | Upon Two Tablets of Stone | Upon Your Hearts |
Therefore, Paul is not denigrating the Old Testament when he contrasts the old and the new covenant—the Old Testament itself emphasizes this contrast. Furthermore, the contrast does not mean that Paul has committed a theological slur against the Law. His point is not to denigrate the divine origin of the Law. Quite the opposite. He knows that the very finger of God wrote the Law upon stone tablets. He is not trying to denigrate the old covenant; he is trying to elevate the ministry of the new covenant.
Here is another way to say it. Both covenants involve inscription. God’s act of inscription is an intervention, but he intervenes in different ways. The old covenant inscription is an external intervention, but the new covenant inscription is an internal intervention. Whereas the place of God’s inscribing action focused upon “stone tablets” (external) in the old covenant, the object of inscription shifts in the new covenant to “flesh heart tablets” (internal). God granted a great gift to Israel when he intervened in human history and provided a written expression of his will. However, this gracious gift remained external to Israel because they never internalized it. God grants a greater gift under the new covenant because God provides an internal intervention. God’s will becomes internalized in the new covenant because he overcomes the resistance that comes from the inner core of the covenantal member.
The old covenant work of inscription produces prescription. Prescription focuses on what man must do. The new covenant work of inscription produces not prescription, but creation. Creation focuses on what God has already done. God intervenes in the heart in the new covenant. He gives spiritual life (2 Corinthians 3:6) and creates spiritual light (2 Corinthians 4:6) under the new covenant.
This creation is exactly what Jeremiah stresses in his promise of the new covenant. Jeremiah 31:22 says, "How long will you waver, O faithless daughter? For the LORD has created a new thing on the earth: a woman encircles a man.” Someone might read that and say, "What is new about that? A woman hugs a man? They have been doing that from the beginning." But who is the woman? The woman is “faithless” Israel. The man is God. God has been faithful in the relationship (Jeremiah 31:32—”My covenant that they broke, though I was a husband to them”) and his people have been “faithless.” But no more. God will create a new thing. He will create a people that draws near and stays near to him.
This same note sounds again in the description of the new covenant in Jeremiah 31:31-34. Yahweh will create Israel’s obedience by changing Israel’s heart (i.e., "putting my law within them and writing it on their hearts") in 31:32. The “everlasting covenant” in Jeremiah 32:38–40 includes a similar description of what God will do ("give the people one heart and one way, not turn away from them to do them good, put the fear of me within them") and what will result from it (Israel will fear me always and not turn away from me). God will not turn away from them, which will result in their not turning away from him. The “new” thing in 31:22 and 31:31 is that God will ensure the fidelity of his covenant partner, which 31:18 and 32:38–40 also reinforce.
Paul also draws upon the prophet Ezekiel to depict the differences between the covenants. Some translations obscure Paul’s textual strategy with the rendering “tablets of human hearts” (e.g., NIV). Paul uses the seemingly awkward adjective “flesh” for heart because he alludes to the Ezekiel’s description of the new heart as one of “flesh.”
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey all my rules.—Ezekiel 36:26–27
God gives the heart of flesh only after removing the heart of stone. This is spiritual heart surgery performed through the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ is the great surgeon.
Sometimes people talk about having an intervention. It means that things are going so badly for someone that that person’s friends need to get together and lovingly help the person see that their life is out of control. These can be powerful moments of tender and loving confrontation. But it does not always work. It does not guarantee change. How much greater is the internal intervention of God!
Application: Prescription and Creation
I stated earlier that conversion is not the work of man; it is a divine work. Let me state it even more strongly: conversion is a divine work because it requires a new creation; condemnation is a human work because condemnation is always the end result of our failure to follow God’s prescription. You can see both of these statements with crystal clarity in Romans 6:23: “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life."
This verse and our text help us see why eternal life has to be a divine gift, not a human work. Because we are dead in our transgressions and sin, condemnation is our natural state—it is what our works deserve as the wage of our sin (Romans 6:23). This assessment is so hard for some to swallow that they choke on the gospel. They wrongly think that they are basically good and that they can fix the remaining problems in their life. If you think of yourself as a house, many people think that the house in not in perfect shape, but it is still basically good and liveable. Sure, you could find things wrong with it. The shingles may need to be replaced, or maybe it needs to be painted. Sure, it could use some tender loving care, but it can still be restored by their efforts, and they are working on it.
But this is not true at all. In our natural state, we are like a building that is so ruined by sin that the city of Minneapolis placards it with a sign that says “Condemned.” It fact, the entire building is on fire. It cannot be salvaged or restored. It needs to be torn down and something new built in its place.
Or change the image. Most people would say that if they are a car, then they would admit that they are not in mint condition. They would probably say that they are in basically good condition. Maybe there are a few dings on the body, and it could use a good car wash and max. Sure, it could benefit from a tune up, and the inside probably needs to be vacuumed or maybe even needs some reupholstering.
But it is far more serious. We are like a car that was in an accident that left the car totaled. We do not need a spiritual tune up. We do not need reupholstering! We are totally and irreparably ruined by sin. We need to be created again—a new creation—we need to be born again. This is impossible for the natural man as mere flesh.
For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.—Romans 5:7–8
Who wants to hear that kind of diagnosis? It is devastating to hear that you are in a state of hostility to God. In man’s natural state, he cannot please God. Nothing about unbelievers is pleasing to God.
Therefore, let us return to the introduction. What do people need the church to be? How are we different? The world preaches a message of prescription. Here is what man must do to change man for the good of the world. If we just stop doing this or start doing that, then we can have the future we want.
What a different message the church preaches! We preach the power of grace to internally intervene. Even God talk in other religions amounts to prescriptions for bad people to become better. Christianity is all about dead people coming alive. The world keeps offering prescriptions of what we need. The Bible says that what we need is to be born again.
How sad that the church even has prescriptions when it comes to how to reach a lost world. Some people think that what the world needs is basically a shock collar. We just need to get their attention. What will grab their attention? Lloyd-Jones talked about playing whist (a kind of card game). We have gone further in our day: motocross, modern music, Starbucks in the pew. Churches begin trusting in these things and stop trusting in the gospel as the power of God for salvation. But when we trust in these things and use them to put our best foot forward, we forget the time-tested principle that what you win people with is what you win them to. The gospel is the power that will draw. We want to win them with Christ and thus win them to Christ. Only the power of the Holy Spirit can win someone to Christ.
Some try that for a while and discover that others find Jesus boring. They then try other things. It should come as no surprise that dead hearts are bored with Jesus. But they come alive by the power of the Spirit to see his beauty so that they start boasting in him alone. Salvation is owing to a miracle, not marketing.
Conclusion
The Trayvon Martin Case
The Trayvon Martin case has provoked many people to produce many different prescriptions for how to fix our world. Many of these prescriptions call for external interventions. The church can stand up and remind everyone that racism has many external features, but at its core, racism is a matter of the heart. Heart change must precede social change to bring lasting change. How can anyone hope to reach into the heart and heal the racist impulse? The racist impulse in the heart looks at others that are different and uses those differences to say that those who are the same as them are better than those who are different than them. Only the gospel can heal that impulse that says differences make people better or worse. The gospel says that there is no ethnic distinctive that makes any of us acceptable to God. The only thing that makes us acceptable to God is what Christ did in our behalf. The gospel eradicates racism by eliminating any ethnic basis of boasting. We stop boasting in ethnic differences, and we start boasting only in the cross that reconciled us to God.
Eliminating racism will not lead to salvation. Being saved leads to eliminating racism. The greatest sin is not racism. The greatest sin is refusing to see your need for Christ.
There is no greater sin than not to see your need of Christ. There is nothing more abhorrent to God than that men and women should think that anything about them is sufficient to commend them to God. There is no greater sin than to refuse the Son of God and his sacrificial atoning death. (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans—Saving Faith)
Closing Song: "Jesus Paid It All (O Praise the One)"