In the Bible one often finds the statement that God is spirit. The apostle connects freedom with this undoubted fact, as if affirming that God, being spirit, is the God of freedom and not of enslavement, even when the matter is enslavement to one or another form of religiosity. At first glance...
In the Bible one often finds the statement that God is spirit. The apostle connects freedom with this undoubted fact, as if affirming that God, being spirit, is the God of freedom and not of enslavement, even when the matter is enslavement to one or another form of religiosity.
At first glance, the connection between these two statements is not visible. But if one thinks about it, it is not hard to see that this connection does exist, though it is not noticed at once. Indeed, every spirit, whether God Himself or any spiritual being created by Him, differs from nature, in all its possible forms, perhaps even forms still unknown to us today, precisely by complete and absolute freedom. God has no nature. He is pure will and pure self-consciousness.
It is no accident that, unlike theologians, the Bible tells us nothing about the nature of God, while it speaks constantly about His will and His personal qualities. Will is the foundation of every spirit and its primary manifestation, and it is no accident that will forms the basis of every spiritual life, including human spiritual life. Self-consciousness is derived from will; in the normal case it is conditioned only by will and depends only on it.
Practically, this means that spirit in the true sense of the word depends only on itself and never on anything or anyone else. Any relations between spiritual beings will always be free and deeply personal, while any limitation of the manifestation of will means a limitation of freedom, which in the end leads to a diminishment of the fullness of spiritual life in the one whose will is limited. Nature is different: it never determines its own being, since it is always dependent on something, and in the final analysis on someone, else. If spirit is by definition free, so that the diminishment of its freedom lowers its spiritual potential, then nature is just as much by definition unfree.
Of course, every spirit can interact with nature without losing its freedom, just as God created the whole natural world without in any way diminishing Himself or constraining His freedom thereby. His self-emptying and self-limitation turned out to be connected not with nature, but with the spiritual beings He created, with whom He is bound by relations of love. Such self-emptying and self-limitation can, of course, formally also be considered a limitation of freedom, but since the matter is an absolutely voluntary choice, such a limitation ceases to be external and becomes for God an organic form of His own existence.
And in the Kingdom all forms are determined in the same way, proceeding from relations of mutual love, which presuppose mutual self-limitation as a consequence of taking into account the existence of those who are nearby. There are no external boundaries here, only the form of one's own being voluntarily accepted by each person, taking into account relations with God, with Christ, and with one's neighbor. In the untransformed world, by contrast, all limitations are connected first of all with the natural component of man, which after the fall gained the upper hand, subordinating to itself the breath of life that every person receives at birth. It is no wonder that they bind and fetter a person's spiritual freedom.
And religion is no exception here: besides its spiritual component, it contains much that is natural, connected with the psyche and behavioral patterns of fallen man. The apostle, of course, could not fail to know this. That is why he calls his correspondents to freedom. To the freedom of the Kingdom, without which real, full relations with God are impossible. And that means salvation is impossible too.
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3:1 Do we begin again to recommend ourselves - Is it needful? Have I nothing but my own word to recommend me?St. Paul chiefly here intends himself; though not excluding Timotheus, Titus, and Silvanus. Unless we need - As if he had said, Do I indeed want such recommendation?
3:2 Ye are our recommendatory letter - More convincing than bare words could be. Written on our hearts - Deeply engraven there, and plainly legible to all around us.
3:3 Manifestly declared to be the letter of Christ - Which he has formed and published to the world. Ministered by us - Whom he has used herein as his instruments, therefore ye are our letter also. Written not in tables of stone - Like the ten commandments.But in the tender, living tables of their hearts - God having taken away the hearts of stone and given them hearts of flesh.
3:4 Such trust have we in God - That is, we trust in God that this is so.
3:5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves - So much as to think one good thought; much less, to convert sinners.
3:6 Who also hath made us able ministers of the new covenant - Of the new, evangelical dispensation. Not of the law, fitlycalled the letter, from God's literally writing it on the two tables. But of the Spirit - Of the gospel dispensation, which is written on the tables of our hearts by the Spirit. For the letter - The law, the Mosaic dispensation. Killeth - Seals in death thosewho still cleave to it. But the Spirit - The gospel, conveying the Spirit to those who receive it. Giveth life - Both spiritual and eternal: yea, if we adhere to the literal sense even of the moral law, if we regard only the precept and the sanction as they stand in themselves, not as they lead us to Christ, they are doubtless a killing ordinance, and bind us down under the sentence of death.
3:7 And if the ministration of death - That is, the Mosaic dispensation, which proves such to those who prefer it to the gospel, the most considerable part of which was engraven on those two stones, was attended with so great glory.
3:8 The ministration of the Spirit - That is, the Christian dispensation.
3:9 The ministration of condemnation - Such the Mosaic dispensation proved to all the Jews who rejected the gospel whereas through the gospel (hence called the ministration of righteousness) God both imputed and imparted righteousness to all believers. But how can the moral law (which alone was engraven on stone) be the ministration of condemnation, if it requires no more than a sincere obedience, such as is proportioned to our infirm state? If this is sufficient to justify us, then the law ceases to be a ministration of condemnation. It becomes (flatly contrary to the apostle's doctrine) the ministration of righteousness.
3:10 It hath no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excelleth - That is, none in comparison of this more excellent glory. The greater light swallows up the less.
3:11 That which remaineth - That dispensation which remains to the end of the world; that spirit and life which remain for ever.
3:12 Having therefore this hope - Being fully persuaded of this.
3:13 And we do not act as Moses did, who put a veil over his face - Which is to be understood with regard to his writings also. So that the children of Israel could not look steadfastly to the end of that dispensation which is now abolished - The end of this was Christ. The whole Mosaic dispensation tended to, and terminated in, him; but the Israelites had only a dim, wavering sight of him, of whom Moses spake in an obscure, covert manner.
3:14 The same veil remaineth on their understanding unremoved - Not so much as folded back, (so the word implies,) so as to admit a little, glimmering light. On the public reading of the Old Testament - The veil is not now on the face of Moses or of his writings, but on the reading of them, and on the heart of them that believe not. Which is taken away in Christ - That is, from the heart of them that truly believe on him.
3:16 When it - Their heart. Shall turn to the Lord - To Christ, by living faith. The veil is taken away - That very moment; and they see, with the utmost clearness, how all the types and prophecies of the law are fully accomplished in him.
3:17 Now the Lord - Christ is that Spirit of the law whereof I speak, to which the letter was intended to lead. And where the Spirit of the Lord, Christ, is, there is liberty - Not the veil, the emblem of slavery. There is liberty from servile fear, liberty from the guilt and from the power of sin, liberty to behold with open face the glory of the Lord.
3:18 And, accordingly, all we that believe in him, beholding as in a glass - In the mirror of the gospel. The glory of the Lord - His glorious love. Are transformed into the same image - Into the same love. From one degree of this glory to another, in a manner worthy of his almighty Spirit. What a beautiful contrast is here! Moses saw the glory of theLord, and it rendered his face so bright, that he covered it with a veil; Israel not being able to bear the reflected light.We behold his glory in the glass of his word, and our faces shine too; yet we veil them not, but diffuse the lustre which is continually increasing, as we fix the eye of our mind more and more steadfastly on his glory displayed in the gospel.