3:7 Paul begins an extended comparison and contrast between the two great history-defining eras of God’s dealings with his people. The first Paul calls the “ministry of death” (v. 7), the “ministry of condemnation” (v. 9), and the “old covenant” (v. 14). In verses 7–11 the controlling idea is glory, while in verses 12–18 it is veiling. What ties the two paragraphs together is the notion that the former era has come to an end (vv. 7, 10, 11, 13).

Here in verse 7 Paul picks up on the idea that the gramma (“letter”) “kills” (v. 6) by speaking of the old age as the “ministry of death” engraved in letters (using gramma again) of stone (Gk. lithos, related to “tablets of stone [lithinos]” in v. 3). What is new here is the notion of glory. Despite being an age that could render only death, given its merely external demands, the old was an age of glory. Throughout this paragraph Paul will never deny that the old age had glory but will insist that the new age has a far surpassing glory. To demonstrate the glory of the old age he draws on the radiance of Moses’ face as he descended from Sinai with the Ten Commandments (Ex. 34:29–35 LXX uses the same Greek root as “glory” in 2 Cor. 3:7–11, 18 to speak of Moses’ face “shining”). Moses had been speaking with the Lord to such a degree that his face shone, yet even Moses was not allowed to look God in the face but had to be put in a cleft of the rock as God’s glory passed by (Ex. 33:21–23). Yet, as Paul will go on to assert in 2 Corinthians 3:18, all God’s people now look directly at the face of God in Christ (cf. 4:6).

Yet, despite the undeniable glory of the old age evidenced in Moses’ shining face—glory so great that the Israelites had to avert their gaze—this was a glory that, like a great and proud civilization, was doomed finally to come crashing down (cf. comment on 3:13). A single verb lies behind “was being brought to an end” (Gk. katargeō). This significant verb means to nullify or abolish or bring to naught. Paul uses the verb to indicate an end not simply in general terms but specifically the end of the old age; it is an eschatologically charged word. Paul uses the verb twenty-five times, four of these in 2 Corinthians (3:7, 11, 13, 14), and often in eschatological ways to speak of what has happened to the old age (e.g., 1 Cor. 13:8, 10, 11; Eph. 2:15; 2 Tim. 1:10) or what will happen to the present evil age upon Christ’s return (e.g., 1 Cor. 15:24, 26; 2 Thess. 2:8).

3:8 Paul continues the sentence into verse 8. Here is the second component of a literary pattern he uses three times throughout this paragraph to argue from the lesser to the greater with an “if . . . then how much more . . .” logic (table 3.3).

TABLE 3.3: If-Then Pattern in 2 Corinthians 3:7–11

Verse 8 is thus the second half of the first pair. The “ministry of death” is contrasted with the “ministry of the Spirit,” encouraging us to understand the Spirit in terms of resurrection life—precisely what Paul has already made explicit in verse 6 in speaking of the life-giving Spirit (developed at greater length in Romans 8:1–30). Romans 8:10–11 is particularly illuminating in understanding the connection between the Spirit and resurrection life:

If Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

In the theology of the apostle Paul, the descent and democratization of the Spirit into and throughout God’s people signals the dawning new creation and is the inauguration of the life of the age to come. Our physical bodies will still run down and eventually perish, for the old age remains. But it is even more deeply and wonderfully real that those united to Christ and thus indwelt by the Spirit are guaranteed final resurrection life. Indeed, this life has already begun (Eph. 2:5–6; Col. 3:1). In 2 Corinthians 3:8 Paul thus brings together the closely associated notions of the Spirit, resurrection, and glory in speaking of the dawning new age.

3:9 Continuing to sustain the idea of eschatological glory in the new age, Paul raises a second “how much more.” Having contrasted the “ministry of death” (v. 7) with the “ministry of the Spirit” (v. 8), he now contrasts the “ministry of condemnation” with the “ministry of righteousness.” Once again, the former had glory, but the latter even more. (The verb Paul uses, rendered “must far exceed it” [Gk. perisseuō], means to abound or overflow and is an escalation from the more prosaic “will be” of the first pair in v. 8.)

“Righteousness” is a notoriously tricky concept to pin down in Paul due to its loaded theological heritage and the semantic flexibility with which Paul uses it. We are helped by considering what Paul sets up as its photonegative: condemnation. By righteousness (Gk. dikaiosynē, occurring seven times in this letter) Paul cannot mean moral goodness or transformation (as he does in 6:7 or 9:10), because condemnation (katakrisis) is unambiguously a legal and declarative matter, meaning a “judicial verdict involving a penalty” (BDAG).22 Righteousness should be understood accordingly as the legal act of acquittal and right standing understood in the Reformation doctrine of justification (so NRSV). This interpretation also accords with the next instance of the word in 5:21.

Once again we must be attuned to the eschatological significance of what Paul is saying. “Righteousness” is often in the OT a divine promise of that which God will bring to pass in the latter days. Given the eschatologically charged atmosphere of 2 Corinthians 3, the pairing with “condemnation,” and the previous pair of “death” and “the Spirit,” “righteousness” here should be understood as another signal from Paul that the happy End has broken in on this fallen world. Those united to Christ have received already—because of Christ’s atoning work in the middle of history—the end-time acquittal (justification) anticipated for the end of history.

3:10 Paul pauses between the first two pairs and the third to drive home the point he has been making regarding the glory of the old age and the glory of the new.

The old age was indeed glorious. Old Testament saints would not have been mistaken in considering their place in redemptive history to be filled with privilege and blessing. They had been delivered from slavery in Egypt, cared for at every point by the Lord, and led by Moses, who spoke with God and whose face shone with accordant resplendence. They had been given the law. They had been, in short, God’s own “treasured possession among all peoples” (Ex. 19:5). But when in Christ and the Spirit the new arrives, the escalation is so decisive and fundamental that it is as if the old age had no glory whatsoever. The glory of the new “surpasses” it—the same verb Paul uses to speak of the “love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” (Eph. 3:19; also 2 Cor. 9:14).

3:11 Paul gives one more reason for this superlative glory of the new age. Not only is this a “ministry of the Spirit” that has supplanted “the ministry of death” and thus a matter of resurrection life (vv. 7–8). And not only is this a “ministry of righteousness” that has superseded the “ministry of condemnation” and thus brought an era of restored relationship with God (v. 9). This in-breaking eschatological glory is also distinct from the old in its length. It abides forever. This is a transient-versus-eternal contrast, a contrast to which Paul will circle back in 4:18 when he remarks, “The things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” Here as there, the category is time.

Paul picks up the Greek verb katargeō (cf. 3:7 and comment) and repeats it (note the translation “which/what was being brought to an end” in both texts, which translates this single word). Its opposite, the trait belonging to the new-age glory, is “permanent.” The word is menō, a common word throughout the NT (118 times) and the verb behind the beloved Johannine concept of “abiding” in Christ and he in us (e.g., John 15:4; 1 John 3:6).23 Just as in John’s writings abiding is closely associated with the eternal life that has dawned in the inaugurated eschaton, so here in 2 Corinthians 3 “what is permanent” (that which abides) is endless because it is an eschatological reality. If the transient had glory, then, how much more that which abides forever?

The old order was unsustainable. It could not last, dependent as it was on the letter devoid of the Spirit.24

3:12 As Paul moves into the next paragraph he continues to contrast the two great eras of redemptive history—the old age and the new age, the old covenant and the new covenant, the anticipation of God’s fulfilled eschatological promises and the realization of those promises. Here, however, he shifts from contrasting these two ages via the category of “glory” to using that of “veiling.” “Glory” language appears ten times in verses 7–11; “veil” language appears four times in verses 12–17. Then in verse 18 Paul brings both ideas together in his astonishing conclusion. A key element in the shift from verses 7–11 to verses 12–18 is that while Paul has been speaking in general terms of two ministries or economies in verses 7–11, he now speaks of the actual people under these ministries—Moses, the Israelites then and now, and new-age believers. The abstract becomes humanly concrete.

The text of verse 12 opens, literally, “Having therefore such a hope . . .” This will be paralleled in 4:1 (“Having therefore this ministry . . .”). Paul never offers theological reflection for its own sake. In 3:12 the point is boldness. In 4:1 it is not losing heart. True theology, for Paul, must explicitly funnel down into heart traction with God and deeper Christian fruitfulness.

What is this “hope”? Here is the only use of the word (Gk. elpis) in the context.25 Paul is speaking of the in-breaking new age, quiet in its outward manifestation yet invincible and eternal for those who are by mercy swept into it. Biblical “hope,” we remember, is not a pining for the future but an utter confidence in future realities based on present foretastes. Because the “ministry of the Spirit” (3:8) and the “ministry of righteousness” (v. 9) have flooded down into this world, decisively beginning end-time realities, we now have hope for the final consummation of these realities and boldness in the meantime. Our cause—though it proceeds, as 2 Corinthians makes clearer than does any other NT book, only through pain and weakness—cannot lose.

3:13 Our transparent, frank boldness is the opposite of the experience of those under the old age—supremely Moses, and also those whom he led. Theirs was a concealed, hidden glory. Ours is open and free (cf. v. 18).

Paul introduces now for the first time a narratival detail of the events of Exodus 34, a detail out of which he draws significant theological import: Moses’ veil (Gk. kalymma). It is worth placing the full event from Exodus 34 before us:

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. 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. But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them. Afterward all the people of Israel came near, and he commanded them all that the Lord had spoken with him in Mount Sinai. And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.

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, 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. (Ex. 34:29–35)

The word for “veil” in the LXX translation of this account is the same term Paul uses in 2 Corinthians 3 (and the verb for “shone” in Ex. 34:29, 30, 35 is the verb form of “glory” used in 2 Corinthians 3). The key point is that Moses would speak to God face to face26 but when speaking to the people he would wear a veil, except when mediating God’s commands to them (Ex. 34:33). Under normal circumstances, the people of God could not look God in the face and live (Ex. 33:20).

But why the veil? “So that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end.” Here we must put the text in parallel with what Paul has already said in 2 Corinthians 3:7, with shared elements underlined (table 3.4).

TABLE 3.4: Parallels between 2 Corinthians 3:7 and 3:13

Putting the two texts together, we see that Paul is saying that Moses wore a veil lest the Israelites mistook which era of redemptive history they lived in. What can easily get missed in considering the English of the two texts is an added element in verse 13 not present in verse 7: “the end” (Gk. to telos), a notion similar to what is meant by the verb katargeō in both texts but explicitly stated in verse 13. Telos has a rich eschatological significance in Paul, generally denoting the end or goal of redemptive history (e.g., 1 Cor. 10:11; Rom. 10:4). The idea is that if the Israelites were allowed to “gaze” (with intent, sustained viewing) on Moses’ face in wonder, they would have mistaken their present moment for the high point of all God’s promises. But God did not want their minds to be drawn down from the greatness of his promises, of which Moses’ shining face was the merest foretaste. God’s people themselves would, in the course of time, enjoy shining, glorified faces as they beheld God in his Son, Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 3:18; 4:6).

3:14 This verse is a bridge from the exodus narrative to the new covenant age in which Paul finds himself.

Paul has just spoken of the purpose of Moses’ veil—that the Israelites might not gaze at the outer manifestation of a period in redemptive history that was already powering down. Now he moves from the purpose to the result of the veil episodes: “their minds were hardened.” “Minds” here (Gk. noēma, from which we get our word noetic) is the same word used in 2:11 of Satan’s “designs.” In fact, all the other uses of this word in 2 Corinthians are likewise associated with spiritual warfare masterminded by the Devil (4:4; 10:5; 11:3). The hardening of minds is similar to the hardening of hearts, but with a stronger cognitive/intellectual connotation. And yet a hardened mind is not merely cognitive. It is a morally culpable resistance that comes from the entire person. “Hardened” is a common biblical metaphor, in both the OT and NT, for spiritual recalcitrance, stubbornness, foolish deflecting of the truth (cf. Deut. 29:4; 1 Sam. 6:6; Isa. 9:1–10:34; 29:9–10). Pharaoh famously refused to let Israel go because of a hardened heart (Exodus 4–14), but Paul identifies Christ-resisting Israelites as being in the same position. Its opposite is the Corinthians’ “fleshly hearts” in 2 Corinthians 3:3—soft, spiritually permeable, receptive, open.

Paul now turns and speaks of the Israelites of old and right up to the present time (not just Moses) as wearing a veil. This is not a physical veil covering a face, however, but a spiritual veil covering hearts. The point of continuity between the two is hindered perception of the Lord. The idea is this: Moses would lift the veil when he saw the Lord face to face, but the Israelites then and now who resist Christ are similarly functioning with an “unlifted” veil. They think they are seeing the Lord when they read the OT (“the old covenant”). In some sense they are. It is, after all, God’s revelation and, as Paul has already made clear, possesses a certain “glory” (vv. 7–11). But the veil is lifted not by extensive knowledge of the Scripture or by obeying it scrupulously or in any other way but “only through Christ.” That is, only by union with Christ do the scales fall from one’s eyes and one sees the deepest intent and inescapable terminus of the OT: God’s gracious insistence on saving sinners out of his own resources, fulfilling all his promises in Jesus Christ’s atoning work on behalf of, not in cooperation with, sinners (cf. 1:20).

The Greek verb translated “is it taken away” is (once again) katargeō, an eschatologically charged word throughout the context, translated “brought to an end” in 3:13. Through solidarity with Christ the veil is lifted and the old age vanishes, swallowed up as one is lifted into the “new covenant” (v. 6), the “new creation” (5:17).

3:15 Paul drives home a point he has just made in verse 14:

verse 14: “to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted”

verse 15: “to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts”

What is new in verse 15 is the explicit mention of unbelieving Israelite “hearts” (Gk. kardia). He refers to their “minds” (Gk. noēma) in verse 14, and we remember the clear semantic overlap between heart and mind in NT thought (as opposed to some contemporary thought that takes the “mind” as exclusively cognitive and the “heart” as exclusively emotional).

To make sense of the flow of Paul’s argument we must understand that Paul views unbelievers in the Christian age as belonging most decisively to the old age. It is a little like a group of millionaires standing in line for food stamps amid a booming economy, or an Eskimo winning a vacation to a tropical location and wearing all his furs on the beach, or a grown man eating baby food. All cases force the question: Do you not realize what has happened and what time you live in? Do you not recognize your surroundings? Do you not know what is yours, if you would simply open your eyes to it? Unbelievers in Christ fail to see the new order that has dawned. As a result, their basic identity remains in the old, even though they now live in the time of the new. The veil remains. Conversely, Moses in a sense was drawn forward proleptically into the new age despite living amid the old.27 Thus Paul views every human across redemptive history as belonging fundamentally to either the old age or the new, whether he or she actually lives during that respective age or not. Historical locatedness does not determine eschatological locatedness. The oddity, wrestled with here in 2 Corinthians 3, is why so many of Paul’s contemporary Jews failed to embrace the new despite its arrival on the scene of human history.

3:16 This verse parallels the last clause of verse 14 (in the same way that the earlier portion of v. 14 paralleled v. 15, noted above):

verse 14: only through Christ is [the veil] taken away

verse 16: when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed

Two observations about verse 16 are worth noting. First, Moses is said to have removed his own veil in Exodus 34:34–35. But here the veil “is removed”—the passive tense leaves open the question of who is doing the removing. Because the text has just spoken of turning to the Lord, it is likely that Paul means the reader to infer that the Lord himself does this removing.

Second, who is “the Lord”? In the flow of this passage the reader will naturally take this as a reference to Yahweh, the God interacting with Moses in the Exodus passage that forms the backdrop of this passage in 2 Corinthians 3. But Paul is probably beginning to transition at this point toward Christ, and an association of “the Lord” with Christ is surely what Paul is encouraging. Here the parallel with verse 14 helps us. It is explicit that Christ is the one through whom (agency, not source) the veil is removed, so this is likely Paul’s meaning in verse 16 (note also “Jesus Christ as Lord” in 4:5). God the Father removes the veil through a sinner’s union with Christ.

Paul thus speaks of turning to Christ in 3:16, which would simply be another way to describe coming into union with Christ. And yet in the next verse Paul will say that “the Lord is the Spirit.” We note the rich Trinitarian framework out of which Paul is clearly working. The Father removes the veil as we are united to Christ by the Spirit. We now see God—in Christ—face to face (cf. v. 18). The veil has been cast aside forever.28 Paul speaks from personal experience (cf. Acts 9:18 and context).

3:17 This tightly packed verse immediately throws up questions that need answering. Who is “the Lord”? In what sense is the Lord to be equated with the Spirit? What is the nature of this “freedom”? We will take these three questions in order.

First, we have already noted the parallel between “Christ” and “the Lord” in verses 14 and 16, respectively. When we also consider that Paul will go on to speak of “beholding the glory of the Lord” (v. 18) and then “seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (4:4), we find further support for identifying “the Lord” throughout this passage as the risen Christ.

Second, Paul cannot mean a flat equivalency between Christ and the Spirit, for the simple reason that he speaks of both. If I say, “Bob is the donor,” I mean that Bob is the source of the donation, but not that there is nothing more to “Bob” than is expressed by “donor.” In a similar way—mindful that we must always tread cautiously when using analogies to speak of the Godhead—Christ is the Spirit in the sense that Christ is the source of the Spirit, though without in any way temporally preceding the Spirit (remember 1 Cor. 15:45: “the last Adam [Christ] became a life-giving Spirit”29). Paul is insisting that the risen Christ and the Holy Spirit cannot be thought of independently from one another, for they are the two most fundamental gifts of the dawning eschaton. Or, to put it differently, the veil is removed from our hearts only through union with Christ—but who actually does the uniting with Christ? The Spirit.30

Third, the freedom mentioned should be understood in broad, open-ended terms. The second half of 2 Corinthians 3:17 lacks a verb in the Greek and reads simply: “and where the Spirit of the Lord—freedom.” The point is that the gift of the Spirit is so deeply a matter of freedom that wherever the Spirit goes, there one finds the freedom of the gospel—in short, freedom from the “letter” (v. 6). Drawing on the context, this freedom is manifested in an enjoyed right standing with God (v. 9), eternal glory (v. 11), hope and boldness (v. 12), and gazing at the glories of a new age that has launched instead of gazing at an old age that has powered down (vv. 7, 13–16).

3:18 We come to Paul’s triumphant conclusion and one of the most important texts in the NT for understanding what it means to be a Christian. All that Paul has said in the previous several verses funnels down into this grand declaration, and what follows flows from it.

Paul gathers up all of the major themes from verses 7–17—veiling/unveiling, glory, Christ the Lord, the Spirit—and creates one tightly packed pronouncement of what he and the Corinthians and all new-age believers experience. Note first the democratization of the experience of having the veil lifted: “we all.” We all what? We all see the Lord face to face, as Moses did, and like him experience a radiant transformation (cf. 1 John 3:2). But this is not simply “the Lord” generally speaking—Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel. More specifically this is the Lord Christ; as noted above, “Lord” in this passage refers to Christ. This is reinforced by the language of “image” (Gk. eikon) introduced for the first time in the letter. A few verses later Paul will speak explicitly of “Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4). Believers are “being transformed” (present passive) into the very image of Christ. United to him, we look like him as we gaze at him. As Paul puts it in Romans 8, we are destined “to be conformed to the image [eikon] of his Son,” to which Paul again ties the notion of “glory” (Rom. 8:29–30), as he does in 2 Corinthians 3:18.31

But this is not a false superspirituality in which we all become “nicer” and increasingly bland and look more and more like each other. It is a regaining of our lost humanity, our fallen dignity. “Image” is a fundamental biblical category that draws the reader all the way back to Eden, where man was made in God’s image (Gen. 1:26–28). To behold the glory of Christ is to be given back our true selves. This may be hinted at in the verb for “beholding” (Gk. katoptrizō, occurring only here in the NT), which has the sense of “in a mirror”—that is, looking at oneself. We look at the beauty of Christ as we look at a mirror, seeing Christ but also seeing, and becoming, our true selves.32

But what does “from glory to glory” mean? Perhaps, as some translations make explicit, the meaning is a gradual glorification. But it is more likely, given the context, that Paul means we are being gradually transformed from the glory of the old age into the glory of the new age.33 Paul has just been contrasting two eras of “glory,” so it makes sense that he now declares that those in Christ have been lifted out of the old Mosaic glory and placed graciously into the new covenant glory. This is in line with Paul’s theology of glorification more generally, which, like all other aspects of salvation, is framed in an already/not yet manner (e.g., Rom. 8:30).34

And how does all of this happen? “This comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” Paul has just closely associated Christ and the Spirit in the previous verse (“the Lord is the Spirit”). He now reiterates the point. No one can experience this transformation with only one or the other. We look at Christ; we look by the Spirit. We are united to Christ, but it is the inner working of the Spirit that unites us. We need a Savior as our representative head (Christ); we need someone to get us into him (the Spirit).