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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - 2 Corinthians 3:7 - 3:7
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Our apostle in this and the following verses, goes on with his comparison betwixt the law and the gospel, and shows the transcendency of the latter above the former.
Where note, 1. He calls the law again a killing law, or a ministration of death; because it condemns men for the breach of it to temporal and eternal death, without opening to them any door of hope.
Note, 2. This law (he speaks of it by way of diminution) was only written upon and engraven in stone; whereas the gospel is written in the fleshly tables of men's heart's.
Note, 3. How the apostle declares that this ministration of the law was glorious; glorious in the minister of it, Moses, who had such a lustre upon his face, that the children of Israel could not bear the sight of it: and glorious in the manner of giving it; there was a great deal of the glory and majesty of God attended the giving of the law to Moses; the ministration of the law was glorious.
Note, 4. The comparison which the apostle makes between the law and the gospel, and the preference which he gives to the one above the other.
1. As the glory of Moses's face ceased after a while, so the glory of the law ceased at the coming of the gospel.
2. The law was delivered by angels to Moses, but the gospel was delivered to the apostles by the Son of God, who is the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person.
3. Whereas the glory of Moses did more and more decrease; the glory put upon the apostles, and derived from Christ, was still more and more increasing upon them.
But, 4. The chief glory of the gospel which the apostle here insists upon, is the ministration of the Spirit, in the large effusions of it under the gospel dispensation, giving spiritual and eternal life to believers, instead of death spiritual and eternal coming by the law. Well therefore might our apostle here say, the ministration of the Spirit, or the gospel, is much more glorious; and consequently a greater reverence and honour is due to it, and to the ministers of it.