FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

Scripture References: 2 Corinthians 3:18

The Nature of This Spiritual Discernment

A. New Testament Versus Old Testament Believers

The nature of the spiritual discernment of which Paul speaks appears first and foremost in the fact that it is the direct fruit of the liberating work of the Holy Spirit. “We all” says our English translation. That brings out at once the contrast with the Jews of the old dispensation. Still there is a more immediate connection of our verse with the verse just preceding. It is because the Holy Spirit has made us free that we now see with an unveiled or open face. Those who don’t have that Spirit are still in darkness. They retain the veil upon their faces. The Spirit has lifted this veil from the face of those that believe. That has made them free.

The liberty here intended, is the glorious liberty of the children of God (Romans 8:21). It is the liberty for which Christ has made us free (Galatians 5:1). It includes freedom from the obligation to fulfill the law as a condition of salvation. Therefore, it includes also freedom from a legal, subservient spirit. “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15). It includes freedom from the dominion of sin and from the power of Satan (Hebrews 2:14). It includes freedom from the bondage of corruption, not only as to the soul but also as to the body. (see Romans 8:21, 23). Incidental to this liberty is freedom from all ignorance and all subjection to the authority of ungodly men, except so far as it represents the authority of Christ.

The Old Testament saints did not enjoy the fulness of this liberty. We must however, distinguish carefully here. There were true believers in the Old Testament times; and there were those who could not enter because of unbelief. The contrast of our text is primarily concerned between believers in the old and believers in the new dispensation. The believers in the old dispensation did have a portion of the Spirit. If they had not had this they would not be believers. They “all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:3-4). Yet it was not until Pentecost that the Holy Spirit came to dwell with His people in the fulness of His power. Then the sons and daughters began to prophesy, the young men saw visions and the old men dreamed dreams (see Joel 2:28).

But Paul also contrasts the New Testament believers with those who don’t have the Spirit at all. Even after Christ had come there were Jews who refused to see in Him the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. In Corinth the Jews blasphemed. They were therefore in principle no different from the Greeks. Plato spoke deeper than he knew when he gave us his analogy of men in the cave. “Men are prisoners,” Plato said, “They sit in a cave with their faces toward darkness. Their heads are chained. They cannot behold a single ray of the sun. At best they see shadows of things upon the wall of the cave.”

To these Jews and Greeks alike, enchained in dark prisons, Paul preaches Christ as the power of God and the wisdom of God. Those who were called, both of Jews and of Greeks, had been set free. These were the ones who now could see. No longer did they sit in the darkness of a cave. They saw the light of the sun. Paul rejoices greatly in the fact that they do now see.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, ESV © 2016 by Crossway Bibles.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture References: 2 Corinthians 3:18

The Apostle Paul determined to know nothing among them except Jesus Christ and Him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2). He did not request a place for his God in the Greek Parthenon; in essence, he was demanding the destruction of the Parthenon as not necessary. His God had made the world; their gods were but idols made by the hands of men. He did not offer Jesus as a teacher of equal rank with Socrates; he required that they bow at the foot of the cross. He had used great plainness of speech by challenging the wise men of the world.

And the secret of it all? Paul believed in the God whose face confronted him everywhere. He believed in that God in whose hands the hearts of kings are as watercourses. Paul believed in Christ. He believed in that Christ who stopped him on the way to Damascus to change him from a persecutor into an apostle. Paul believed in the Holy Spirit. “My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (1 Corinthians 2:4).

The Holy Spirit has blessed his ministry. There is a church at Corinth. There are those who have believed what eye has not seen nor ear heard nor that which has entered into the heart of man. There are those who “have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God” (1 Corinthians 2:12). That which was impossible with men has proved to be possible with God.

But again the Jews blasphemed and the Greeks ignored or ridiculed. Who did this Paul think he was? Did he know more than all the wise men of the past? Again the temptation comes to compromise. Again Paul resists the temptation. They ridicule his claim to special knowledge from God. He does not condescend to justify himself by appealing to their own standards.

“Are we beginning to commend ourselves again” (2 Corinthians 3:1), when we say that “we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing?” (2 Corinthians 2:15). Those that think themselves so wise, are so foolish. You know that what Paul has spoken is the truth. You know that we all once thought this truth was nothing but foolishness and fanaticism. Each of us is manifestly declared to be the “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 3:3). Paul will continue to speak plainly. He will continue to challenge the false assumptions of men. He knows “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14), but he also knows that the Holy Spirit of the sovereign God freely gives the spiritual discernment they need. Thus when he tells the Corinthians that he has used great plainness of speech he suddenly turns aside to the elevation of the dispensation of the Spirit. In the midst of a discourse that speaks of his own ministry as an apostle of Christ he turns to a tribute and testimonial on the dispensation of the Spirit in general. In it Paul glories in the spiritual discernment of New Testament believers.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, ESV © 2016 by Crossway Bibles.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture References: 2 Corinthians 3:18

“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

If ever the Apostle Paul was tempted to compromise the gospel it was when he first came to Corinth. The Corinthians were Greeks. The Greeks boasted of the wise men of their past: of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. These wise men had searched the universe out for the bottom of reality. Some of them said that man is related to the gods; others said he is not. All of them were uncertain. A general agnosticism prevailed.

This agnosticism produced a great “tolerance” on religious matters. After all no one could know for certain what was true. The opinion of one would be as good as the opinion of another, but not necessarily better.

Wouldn’t Paul do well, under these circumstances, to offer the gospel as a new hypothesis for the explanation of religious experience? How else could he get a hearing with these “scientifically minded” people? Would they even listen to him if he claimed to know the truth. Wouldn’t he be ignored as a fanatic? Would he gain any converts if he spoke to them in straight-forward fashion of the living God manifest in the world and of Christ the redeemer of men?

However, Paul wouldn’t compromise the gospel. For months he labored with the Corinthians. The Jews blasphemed; the Greeks turned aside. Very few converts were made. “Paul, perhaps you are wrong after all. Your gospel antagonizes men. Sugar coat it just a little. That will find you an entrance.”

And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people” (Acts 18:9-10).

Encouraged by this heavenly vision, Paul challenged the wisdom of the Greeks. In his first epistle to the Corinthians he writes:

“Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe” (1 Corinthians 1:20-21).

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, ESV © 2016 by Crossway Bibles.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.