Original Meaning

IN 2:12–3:3, PAUL POINTED to his ministry of suffering and the Spirit as two arguments for his sufficiency as an apostle. This evidence, however, was not the source of his ministry or the basis of his sufficiency, as if Paul’s adequacy ultimately derived from his own experiences. Rather, in 2:16b, Paul grounded the legitimacy of his ministry in his calling to be an apostle by picturing his sufficiency in terms of the call of Moses. Like Moses, Paul too was called by God. Hence, Paul’s suffering and sincerity derive from the fact that he speaks “in Christ,” “before God,” and “from God” (2:17). But Paul is an apostle of Christ, not a prophet of the old covenant. Hence, in 3:3, Paul also contrasted his calling to that of Moses by stressing that his ministry of the Spirit is part of the new covenant promised by the prophets.

In 3:4–6, Paul returns to the theme of his “Mosaic” calling introduced earlier in 2:16b–17 in order to make explicit that the origin and foundation of his ministry is God himself. In doing so, Paul completes his self-defense by reminding the Corinthians that the genuine results of his ministry (3:1–3) make up his “confidence” as an apostle (3:4) precisely because his ministry, and hence its results, are based on his prior call to be an apostle (3:5). Paul’s suffering and the presence of the Spirit are twin supports of his sufficiency since they are also evidence that God is the one who has “made [him] sufficient” (NIV “competent,” 3:6a). For Paul, therefore, his confidence concerning his competence (2:16b; 3:4),as evidenced by the work of the Spirit in and through his apostolic suffering (3:2–3; 3:6b), is based on the call of God in his life (2:17b; 3:5–6a).

Paul’s Confidence As a Minister (3:4–6a)

SECOND CORINTHIANS 3:4 marks a transition in Paul’s argument by summarizing his previous affirmation that Paul’s suffering (2:14–17) was the vehicle through which God was pouring out his Spirit (3:1–3). This, in a word, is the “confidence” Paul has “through Christ before God.”¹ Paul’s “confidence” is the subjective assurance he possesses because of the objective content of what God is doing through his life as an apostle (cf. 10:18). Paul wants to make it clear that although he is confident he is sufficient for the ministry (2:16b; 3:4), his sufficiency (NIV competence) comes from God, not himself (3:5), since God is the one who made him sufficient as a minister of the new covenant (3:6a).

This qualification is all-important. Just as Paul was careful in 2:17 to emphasize that his sufficiency to preach the word of God came about as a result of his call “from God,” now too he stresses in 3:5 that he is not sufficient to consider this aspect of his ministry or anything else as originating from himself (note again the use of the apostolic plural in 3:1–6 to emphasize that Paul represents the apostolic office).

To underscore this point, Paul alludes again to the call of Moses (cf. 2:16b), now presented in a way that also evokes the call of the prophets. Beginning with Moses’ own call in Exodus 4:10 (cf. Ex. 3:1–4:17), the ensuing calls of Gideon (Judg. 6:11–24), Isaiah (Isa. 6:1–8), Jeremiah (Jer. 1:4–10), and Ezekiel (Ezek. 1:1–3:11) all reflect the same pattern: The prophet is not sufficient (competent) in himself (because of an obstacle to be overcome), but is nevertheless made sufficient by God’s grace.

From a canonical perspective, the fact that these prophetic “call narratives” all parallel the call of the prophet Moses carries with it an implied apologetic force. Since the prophet is called like Moses, he can claim the same “sufficiency-in-spite-of-insufficiency-by-the grace of God” that Moses had. If Yahweh called and used Moses in spite of his speech defect, no one can point to the military insignificance of Gideon, the sin of Isaiah, the youth of Jeremiah, or the timidity of Ezekiel as reasons to doubt the validity of their respective calls. In spite of their insufficiency, God made them sufficient. Indeed, the call of Moses demonstrates that these very obstacles are an essential part of the call itself, illustrating clearly that God’s grace, not the prophet’s strength, is the source of his sufficiency.

When Paul says God “made us competent as ministers of a new covenant” (3:6a), he is therefore referring to his Moses-like call on the road to Damascus as a legitimizing principle. Like Moses and the Old Testament prophets after him, Paul too was made “sufficient in spite of insufficiency by the grace of God.” Rather than calling his ministry into question, Paul’s insufficiency thus provides the counterpart to God’s elective grace. Such a strategy was not without precedent. This use of Moses in order to legitimize one’s own authority was a common move in the Judaism of Paul’s day. That Paul has this motif in mind is confirmed by Galatians 1:15–16, where he portrays his call in “Mosaic” terms as they were crystallized in the call of Jeremiah.²

Nevertheless, although Paul has been called in the pattern of Moses like a prophet, he is not a prophet, but an apostle of Jesus Christ. In the words of 3:6a, Paul has been made sufficient to be a “minister [or servant; Gk. diakonos] of a new covenant.” In presenting himself as a minister of the new covenant rather than as a prophet under the old, Paul declares that his ministry fulfills the Old Testament office of prophet. Phenomenologically, Paul’s ministry is like that of a prophet, while eschatologically he is an apostle of Christ Jesus (1:1).³

Yet here Paul does not refer to himself as an apostle, but as a “minister.” A survey of Pauline usage makes clear that the emphasis in the term diakonos is not on an office,⁴ but on the function or act of mediation and representation assigned by God in regard to a particular work of service (diakonia).⁵ In using this designation here, Paul is not pulling rank, but is calling attention to the way in which his ministry actually works as evidence for his authority. Because he is an apostle (i.e., his office, cf. 1:1), he is a minister of the new covenant (i.e., his function). As a minister, he mediates the Spirit in establishing the church (cf. the use of the corresponding verb “to minister” [diakoneo] in 3:3 and the reference to Paul’s “ministry” [diakonia] of the Spirit in 3:8). This ministry, as the outworking of his office, is his confidence “through Christ before God.” In other words, Christ is the one who has made Paul’s confidence possible, and God is the one before whose judgment Paul ministers (cf. 2:17).

Paul’s Ministry of the New Covenant (3:6b)

THE CONTENT OF Paul’s activity as a minister is the “new covenant” (3:6a). As is well known, the only explicit use of the expression “new covenant” in the Old Testament is found in Jeremiah 31:31.⁶ The conclusion that Paul is alluding to this background here, though disputed by some, is accepted by most. The framework for understanding Paul’s conception of the church is his conviction that she constitutes the community of the new covenant. His only other explicit reference to the “new covenant” (1 Cor. 11:25) occurs in relationship to the death of Christ as the foundation of the church, a tradition deriving from Jesus himself.

Paul’s reference to the tradition of the church in 1 Corinthians 11:23 and 15:1–3, together with his introduction of the new covenant terminology without explanation in 3:6, indicates that the Corinthians were well aware of the significance of the new covenant. Specifically, they understood that Jesus’ death had inaugurated the new covenant and that, as believers, they were members of it (cf. 1 Cor. 1:2, 17–18, 23–24, 26–31; 2:2; 3:16; 6:19; 7:23; 12:13, 27; 2 Cor. 6:14–7:1). As William Lane has observed, “Paul’s pastoral response to the disruptive situation at Corinth” entailed “an appeal to the New Covenant and the administration of its provisions.” Like an Old Testament prophet, called to be a “messenger of the covenant lawsuit of God,” Paul was called to proclaim the “divine complaint against the rebellious Corinthians and to call them back to the stipulations of the covenant.”⁷

This is confirmed by Paul’s portrayal of his ministry in 2 Corinthians 10:8 and 13:10 (cf. Gal. 2:18) in terms of the covenantal tasks of “building up” and “tearing down” (see Jer. 1:10; 31:28). How we understand Paul’s self-understanding as a minister of the “new covenant” (2 Cor. 3:6) will therefore primarily be informed by our understanding of the meaning of the new covenant itself as found in Jeremiah 31:31–34 (see Bridging Contexts section).

The Ministry of the Spirit, Not the Letter (3:6c)

IF PAUL’S AUTHORITY as an apostle is based in part on the parallel between his sufficiency and the sufficiency of Moses (3:4–6a), it is equally supported by the contrast between his “ministry” (diakonia) and the “ministry” (diakonia) of Moses (3:6, as unpacked in 3:7–18). Paul is called like Moses, but with a distinctively different function. In the end, then, the character of Paul’s ministry as an apostle, compared and contrasted to the ministry of Moses, becomes the key to understanding Paul’s self-conception and defense. The heart of this comparison and contrast is the famous letter/Spirit contrast of 3:6.

The use of the “letter/Spirit” contrast as a proof text for a literal (= “letter”) versus allegorical (= “Spirit”) reading of the Scriptures has a long history in the church, going back as far as Origen (d. 254). It has even survived in modern times as an idiom for considering the “spirit” of a law more important than its “letter.” Since the Reformation, however, interpreters have recognized that the letter/Spirit contrast does not signify two different ways of reading the Scriptures (with the church herself determining the “spiritual” meaning of the text). Rather, it refers to the distinction between the law and the gospel, either as two manners of relating to God or as two epochs within redemptive history.

Under the influence of the law/gospel contrast so central to Reformation thinking, the letter/Spirit contrast is often taken to refer to the law (= “letter”) and the gospel (= “Spirit”) themselves. Read in this way, the law is said to “kill” because of its demand for sinless perfection as a means of works righteousness and its corresponding condemnation of all those who fail to keep it perfectly (which is everybody!). All is not lost, however, for the law forces the sinner to despair under its demands and judgment, thereby driving a person to the life-giving promise of forgiveness and power found in the gospel. The “letter” (= law) kills in order that the “Spirit” (= gospel) might make alive. The unity of God’s message in the Bible is found by virtue of the fact that the demand for works righteousness leads, through our failure, to the promise of the gospel.

Yet many students of the Bible have become uncomfortable with attributing such a negative function to the law itself, realizing that within the covenant structure of the Old Testament the law was an expression of the election and salvation of Israel, not a precondition for it. As a response to God’s acts of deliverance and commitment to provide for his people, obedience to his commands became an outward expression of trust in his promises. Keeping the covenant stipulations is the way God’s people demonstrate that they belong to him, not a way to become his people. Moreover, the Old Testament law itself provided for forgiveness, since its call for obedience is clearly given within the provisions of the sacrificial system. That is, the law itself recognizes that given our sinful nature, a key component of our obedience is repentance.

Consequently, many today argue that the “letter” does not refer to the law as such, but to its later perversion into legalism by the Judaism of the postexilic period. It is not the law that kills, but legalism. Others maintain that the “letter” terminology is Paul’s reference to some smaller subset of the law, such as purity regulations, food laws, the calendar, or circumcision. Read in this way, it was not the law as a whole, but an inappropriate emphasis on some aspect of the law (usually in order to maintain a Jewish separatism or self-reliance) that killed, while the Spirit, given to both Jew and Gentile alike, gives life. In both cases the Spirit brings one back to a proper understanding of the true intent of the law.

But this interpretation is not entirely satisfying either, since it is hard to demonstrate that Paul has such a subset or perversion of the law in view in his letters, while others note that Judaism itself was not always as legalistic as many assume. The law, for Paul, is a whole, and in the end the issue is the relationship between God’s work in Christ and his saving work under the Sinai covenant, not what this or that Jewish community may have thought.

The key to the meaning of the letter/Spirit contrast, therefore, is its immediate context. In 3:3b, Paul had established a contrast between God’s work in the past under the old covenant, in which he engraved his covenant document on stone tablets, and his present work under the new covenant, in which he engraves his “letter of Christ” on the “tablets of human hearts.” Moreover, God’s present work by means of the Spirit was seen to be fulfillment of Ezekiel 11:19 and 36:26–27. Against this backdrop, Paul’s concern is not with two distinct messages, but with the two materials on which God wrote, corresponding to the two basic ages within the history of salvation. If anything is to be assumed as implicit in Paul’s contrast in regard to the law, it is that those who have received the Spirit are now keeping the law, just as Ezekiel prophesied.

The flow of Paul’s argument from 3:3 to 3:6 demonstrates that Paul understood the coming of the Spirit as promised by Ezekiel to be equated with the promise of the new covenant from Jeremiah. Paul’s allusion to Ezekiel 11:19 and 36:26–27 in 2 Corinthians 3:3b, whose main point is that God will pour out the Spirit on those whose hearts were previously made of stone so that he might cause them to observe his statutes and ordinances, calls attention to the corresponding new covenant promise from Jeremiah 31:31–34 in 2 Corinthians 3:6a. The “law written on the heart” from Jeremiah 31:33 is equivalent to the obedience to God’s statutes that, according to Ezekiel, the Spirit will bring about at the time of the final restoration of God’s people. As was true for Jeremiah, for Ezekiel too this promise of a new heart, with its Spirit-caused obedience to the law, is a reversal of the hard-heartedness that characterized Israel since the Exodus (cf. the stone heart imagery in Ezek. 11:19b; 36:26b with Ezek. 2:1–8; 20:1–31). Finally, for Ezekiel, like Jeremiah, this new relationship to God’s law will be made possible only by a divine act of redemption and forgiveness, which for Ezekiel is pictured in the priestly terms of God’s cleansing his people from their uncleanness and idolatry (Ezek. 36:25, 29).

Once Ezekiel 36:25–26 and Jeremiah 31:31–34 are seen to be the keys to Paul’s thinking in 2 Corinthians 3:6, the meaning of the letter/Spirit contrast becomes readily apparent. The passages from Ezekiel supply Paul’s references to the work of the Spirit in 3:3b, while the Jeremiah passage provides the focus on the new obedience to the law in 3:6. Within the framework created by these two texts, Paul’s role as a servant of the new covenant involves mediating the Spirit, which in turn brings about the transformation of the “heart” that makes obedience to the law possible.

For this reason, Paul is careful in 3:6 not to establish a contrast between the law itself and the Spirit. Nor is the Spirit to be read as a code-word for the gospel, so that the letter/Spirit contrast is transformed into a law/gospel contrast. The problem with the Sinai covenant was not with the law itself, but, as Ezekiel and Jeremiah testify, with the people whose hearts remained hardened under it. The law remains for Paul, as it did for the Jewish traditions of his day, the holy, just, and good expression of God’s covenantal will (Rom. 7:12). Indeed, Paul characterizes the law itself as “spiritual” (7:14). As the expression of God’s abiding will, it is not the law per se that kills, or any aspect or perversion of it, but the law without the Spirit, that is, the law as “letter.” Devoid of God’s Spirit, the law remains to those who encounter it merely a rejected declaration of God’s saving purposes and promises, including its corresponding calls for repentance and the obedience of faith. Although the law declares God’s will, it is powerless to enable people to keep it. Only the Spirit “gives life” by changing the human heart. In this regard, Paul can say that the gospel too kills when it encounters those who are perishing (cf. 2:16)!

The “letter/Spirit” contrast encapsulates this distinction between the role of the law within the Sinai covenant, in which it effects and pronounces judgment on Israel, and its new role within the new covenant in Christ, in which it is kept by the power of the Spirit. The contrast here is not between the law and the Spirit, as if the Spirit now replaces this expression of God’s will, but between the law as letter and the Spirit. By choosing the designation “letter” (gramma) Paul brings out the nuance of the law under the old covenant (cf. 3:14) as that which remained expressed merely in writing, acknowledged as God’s Word but not kept, rather than being obeyed from the heart by the power of the Spirit. The law without the Spirit remains merely a lifeless “letter.”

Under the old covenant, Israel as a whole received the law, but only the remnant received the Spirit (see comments on 3:7–18). In accordance with the establishment of the new covenant, the pouring out of God’s Spirit on all those within the covenant community reverses this state of affairs. In Christ it is no longer possible to be a member of the covenant people ethnically or corporately, but not spiritually. Those who are members of the new covenant community are so only by virtue of having been made alive by the Spirit. Hence, the letter/Spirit contrast is a contrast between the law itself without the Spirit, as it was and still is experienced by the majority of Israelites under the Sinai covenant (cf. 3:14–15), and the law with the Spirit, as it is now being experienced by those under the new covenant in Christ. At the center of this contrast is the determinative role played by the Spirit as the mark of the new covenant reality.

Accordingly, Paul’s assertion in 3:6b that God made him sufficient to be a servant of the Spirit, in contrast to serving the letter, points to his assumption that just as Moses was called to be the mediator between God and Israel, Paul has been called to be an apostle of Christ to the church. Accordingly, the function of their ministries is radically different. Moses was called to mediate the law to a stiff-necked people who could not obey it, whereas Paul is called to mediate the Spirit to a transformed people who are being empowered to keep the law as appropriated under the new covenant. The startling implication of the letter/Spirit contrast, therefore, is that Israel’s promised restoration is now beginning to take place in and through Paul’s new covenant ministry within the church.

Bridging Contexts

THE NATURE OF the covenant. Our exposition of this passage makes clear that how one understands Jeremiah 31:31–34 will determine to a great degree how one reads and hence applies this passage. For all are agreed that our expectations and self-understanding as people of the new covenant must be derived from the scriptural contours of that covenant relationship. The decisive question is what those contours actually are. In approaching this question it is important to make clear that the operating assumption of this commentary is that Paul did not rip scriptural passages out of their original contexts in order to use them as isolated proof texts for his own theology in service to his own polemical ends. Rather, Paul derived his thought and self-understanding from the Scriptures themselves, read soberly in their own literary and canonical contexts. Thus, to bridge contexts we cannot merely read Paul’s letters in isolation from that canonical context. Instead, we must return to the biblical sources of Paul’s own theology. To understand and apply Paul’s calling to be an apostle of the “new covenant” in our own context thus necessitates understanding the new covenant within its own original setting.

What, then, are the contours of Jeremiah 31:31–34? It may be outlined in four main points. (1) The new covenant is the divinely promised answer to the perennial problem of Israel’s hard-hearted rebellion against Yahweh, which, apart from the remnant, continues to characterize the people as a whole.⁸ What is needed is nothing less than a new beginning, a new (or renewed) covenant, in which Israel’s relationship with God will be decisively changed.

(2) The nature of this new covenant is described in Jeremiah 31:32–33 by contrasting it to the Mosaic/Sinai covenant (cf. 11:1–11; cf. 22:9–10), a covenant that both the fathers (11:7) and the Israel and Judah of Jeremiah’s own day (11:9–10; cf. 22:9–10) had broken in “the stubbornness of their evil hearts” (11:8). Hence, according to 31:32, the essential difference between the Sinai covenant and the new covenant is that the latter will not be broken (though, of course, God had remained faithful to his covenant commitments under the Sinai covenant; the problem was with the people; cf. 2:5–8). The new covenant is an “everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten” (50:5). Jeremiah 31:33 gives the reason for this confidence: In this new covenant God will place his law (LXX reads the plural, “laws”) within them (“in their minds”) and “write it on their hearts.”

In doing so, God will bring about a reversal of the present situation in which, instead of the law, “Judah’s sin is engraved with an iron tool, inscribed with a flint point, on the tablets of their hearts” (Jer. 17:1). In view of Jeremiah’s emphasis on Israel’s stubborn rebellion, beginning from the Exodus, this reversal of what is written on the heart implies that in the new covenant Israel’s rebellious nature will be fundamentally transformed. As a result, her disobedience will be replaced by an open compliance with God’s covenant stipulations in his law. In describing the law as written “on their hearts,” Jeremiah is picturing a people who accept God’s law as their own and obey it willingly, rather than merely paying lip service to it, obeying it begrudgingly, or spurning it altogether (cf. Deut. 6:4–5; 10:16; 11:18; Ps. 40:8; Isa. 51:7). In the words of the covenant formula, Yahweh “will be their God, and they will be [his] people” (Jer. 31:33c).

(3) The movement of thought from Jeremiah 31:32 to 31:33 reveals that the covenant relationship between God and his people, whether under the Sinai covenant or the new covenant to come, is maintained by keeping the law in response to God’s prior act of redemption. It must be emphasized that this is no truer of the new covenant than it was of the Sinai covenant before it (cf. Deut. 6:20–25). Rather than suggesting that the law is somehow negated or replaced in the new covenant, Jeremiah 31:31–33 emphasizes that it is the ability to keep the law as a result of having a transformed nature, not its removal, that distinguishes the new covenant from the covenant at Sinai. The contrast between the two covenants remains a contrast between two different conditions of the people and their correspondingly different responses to the same law. The Israelites broke the Sinai covenant, being unable to keep it because of their stubborn, evil hearts; the people of the new covenant will keep God’s law because of their transformed nature.

(4) Jeremiah 31:34 depicts the result of the transformation of God’s people promised under the new covenant and its ultimate ground. As a result of having God’s law written on their hearts, the people of the new covenant will all know him directly. Unlike the role played by the prophets and remnant within Israel, there will no longer be any need to admonish others to “know the LORD.” The call to repentance will no longer need to be issued within the community, but will go out instead from the covenant community to the world.

Against the backdrop of the Sinai covenant, this also points to a time when the role of Moses as the mediator of the will, knowledge, and presence of God will no longer be necessary. In the new covenant, God will renew the people’s ability to encounter him directly, whereas under the Sinai covenant, beginning with the sin of the golden calf, the presence of God had to be kept completely separated from the people in order to protect them from destruction because of their “stiff-necked” state (cf. Jer. 7:26; 19:15 with Ex. 32–34 [esp. 33:3, 5]; Deut. 9:6, 13). It indicates as well that under the new covenant there will no longer be a distinction between those within the community who have a transformed heart and those who do not. By definition, all those who belong to the new covenant community do so by virtue of their transformed nature.

The people of the new covenant, in other words, are an extension of the faithful remnant within Israel who knew the Lord, not a continuation of the “mixed multitude” that constituted Israel’s life as a nation and ethnic people (cf. Rom. 11:1–24). All of this is based on the fact that, despite Israel’s past rebellion, God will “remember their sins no more” (Jer. 31:34). The changed condition of God’s people and their resultant obedience to the covenant, together with their renewed access to the knowledge of God, are based on the divine forgiveness that makes the new covenant possible.

Consequently, in moving from Paul’s day to our own, it is crucial to keep in view the covenant structure and promise of Jeremiah 31:31–34, both of which informed Paul’s understanding of the gospel: The foundation of the covenant is forgiveness; the provision of the covenant is the Spirit; the consequence of the covenant is obedience; the promise of the covenant is to be in God’s presence forever as his faithful people:

I will make an everlasting covenant with them; I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. (Jer. 32:40)

Contemporary Significance

GOD AS THE source and supply of our lives. The contemporary significance of our passage revolves around one central, all-determining point: God is the source and supply of our lives, as demonstrated by his calling and equipping his people for service in a covenant relationship with him. The call of God takes place in Christ; the service takes place by means of the Spirit. This is true whether one is an apostle called to be a minister of the new covenant in the first century or a believer called to be faithful in service to others in the twenty-first. Though inherently offensive to the self-reliance and self-glorification that are so much a part of modern culture (and every culture since the Fall), Paul’s stark reminder is that we cannot claim anything as coming from ourselves (cf. Rom. 11:36; Eph. 2:8–10). All things come from God (cf. 1 Cor. 8:6; 2 Cor. 1:21). Nothing we have is earned; everything is a gift (1 Cor. 4:7).

This fundamental reality is embedded in the nature of the covenant relationship that has always existed between God and his people. In referring to his own identity as a minister of the new covenant, Paul is bringing to bear on his self-understanding the history of God’s covenant relationship with his people. In the same way, as called by God and sealed by the Spirit, this covenant relationship becomes determinative for our lives as well. “In Christ,” we are people of the new covenant.

It is imperative for our relationship with God, therefore, that we keep in view that the “new covenant” (kaine diatheke) referred to in 3:6 is not an “agreement” or “treaty” (syntheke) that is mutually initiated, arranged, or disposed. We are not, as it were, God’s junior partners, who are called to make our contributions to his plans. There is no synergism in the covenant in which God contributes his part and we do ours in order to accomplish something together that is greater than either of us. God is not looking for help. Rather, Paul’s emphasis on the priority of the cross in salvation and on the work of the Spirit in justification and sanctification makes it evident that the initiative, inauguration, and sustenance of the new covenant, like the Sinai covenant before it, is due solely to the unilateral and merciful work of God on behalf of his people (cf. 1 Cor. 1:17–31; 2:1–5; 15:3–4; 2 Cor. 1:19–20; 3:5–6; 4:1–3; 5:18–9).

It is the Spirit, in bringing one to Christ for the forgiveness of sins, who brings into being the new life of the “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17; cf. 1 Cor. 2:6–16 in light of the wisdom of God in the cross; 12:13 in light of baptism into the body of Christ by the Spirit; and 15:17 in light of the Spirit’s testimony to the lordship of Christ). One can swear allegiance to Christ and remain faithful to him only by the power of this same Spirit (cf. 1 Cor. 2:9–13; 6:11; 12:3, 13; 2 Cor. 3:3, 17–18; 4:13–14). Our covenant relationship with God is, from beginning to end, based on God’s previous act of redemption and continuing acts of provision, whether they are anchored in the Exodus from slavery in Egypt or in the “second exodus” from our slavery to sin. This is the great indicative reality of the gospel.

Faith-generated obedience. At the same time, Paul’s reminder that we are people of the new covenant drives home the absolute necessity of living in obedience to God’s commands as the expression of our faith in his promises. Keeping God’s commands is what trusting in God as the source and supply of our lives looks like in everyday life. In response to God’s gracious act of deliverance, both parties are obligated to remain faithful to their covenant commitments. For his part, God will continue to glorify himself by delivering and preserving and providing for his people (cf. 4:13–5:10). The Giver receives the glory. Having freely committed himself to his people, God cannot break his covenant promises without dishonoring his character. God’s commitment to his own glory thus gives his people the confidence needed to persevere in the midst of adversity (1 Cor. 1:8–9; 10:13; 2 Cor. 1:7; 6:16; cf. Phil. 1:6; 4:10–19; 1 Thess. 5:9).

For their part, the Corinthians must keep the covenant stipulations as the natural expression of their continuing dependence on God (cf. 1 Cor. 3:1–3; 6:9–11; 2 Cor. 5:10; 13:5). In the new covenant, “what counts” is not ethnic identity (i.e., whether one is physically circumcised), but “keeping God’s commands” (1 Cor. 7:19; i.e., whether one has experienced the spiritual circumcision of the heart; cf. Lev. 26:41; Deut. 10:16; 30:6; Jer. 4:4; 9:23–26). From Paul’s perspective, given God’s justifying and sanctifying work in the lives of his people as guaranteed and brought about by the presence and power of the Spirit, there is no excuse for habitually failing to trust God’s gracious provisions and promises in Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 1:20; 5:7; 6:11, 19–20; 10:13; 13:1–3; 2 Cor. 1:22). Faith that trusts God to meet one’s needs invariably “expresses itself through love” as the fulfillment of the law (Gal. 5:6, 14; cf. Rom. 13:10).

The indicatives of what God has done, is doing, and will do for his people are therefore inextricably linked to the imperatives that flow from them. For example, God commands his people not to steal because he has committed himself to meet their needs. To steal is to disbelieve God’s promise in this regard. God commands his people not to covet because he has already promised to satisfy their deepest longings, ultimately in himself (note Paul’s equation of idolatry with covetousness in Eph. 5:5; Col. 3:5). To say, “All I need to be happy is Jesus and something my neighbor has” is to commit idolatry by failing to trust God’s covenant commitment that he will be enough for us. Idolatry is looking to something or someone other than God as the source of our happiness and contentment for the future.

In the same way, God commands his people not to retaliate against evil because he will vindicate the righteous and seek their vengeance. God commands his people to love others because he first loves them. In short, God commands the Corinthians to flee the life of sin described in 1 Corinthians 6:9–11 because they have been “washed … sanctified … justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (v. 11). In short, God calls us in all areas of our lives simply to trust in him as our God, the source and supply of all things.

The fundamental point concerning our covenant relationship with God in this regard is that every command from him is a call to trust in his promises and provisions, culminating in his greatest provision, namely, the purification and profound delight that come from enjoying his presence.⁹ For this reason, although God’s provisions and promises are all undeserved as unconditional gifts of grace, they are at the same time conditional upon the “obedience that comes from faith” (Rom. 1:5; cf. 15:18; 16:26).

Paul’s job description as an apostle of the new covenant was to bring about this life of faith-generated obedience. For as he warned the Corinthians, “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God?” (1 Cor. 6:9). We are saved “by grace … through faith” as the “gift of God,” a gift that includes being re-created in Christ Jesus in order that we might do “good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:8–10). The necessity of obedience to God’s commands, as the expression of faith in God’s promises, is therefore not works righteousness, since both the promises of God and the power to trust them are gifts of God’s unmerited, saving grace. God gives what he demands, and what he demands is the obedience that flows from faith (Rom. 1:5; 16:26). The threefold covenant structure may thus be outlined as follows:

God’s unconditional act of redemption to establish the covenantrelationship (the indicative provisions and promises of thecovenant, given as an act of grace in the past)which leads tothe covenant stipulations or “conditions”upon which the covenant relationship is maintained(the imperatives of the covenantto be kept in the present)which leads tothe fulfillment of the covenant promises of the covenant(the consummation of the covenant promises or curses,to be imparted in the future)

In the new covenant, as in the Sinai covenant before it, obedience to God’s will is the inextricable manifestation of trusting in God’s promises. Paul’s ethical admonitions are grounded both in the past indicative of justification and in the future indicative of eschatological judgment and vindication, which, rather than being in conflict, flow inextricably from one another (cf. 2 Cor. 5:11–16). God judges according to our works because the expression of our having been forgiven, justified, and sealed in the Spirit (1:22) is the growing life of the obedience of faith that flows from the presence and power of the Spirit in our lives. Our obedience demonstrates publicly the validity of God’s justifying act and saving actions on our behalf. All of this is from God. The fruit in our lives is the fruit of the Spirit.

This is why the Corinthians, if they persist in their unfaithfulness, will suffer God’s ultimate judgment. Persistent disobedience, without concern for repentance, is the life of unbelief. God’s wrath is meted out on all who dishonor God by a hardened refusal to acknowledge his provisions and trust in his promises (cf. Rom. 1:18–21), which shows itself in an inability to obey and callousness toward his commandments (cf. 1 Cor. 4:7, 19–21; 5:9–13; 6:9–11; 11:27, 30–32; 15:1–2; 16:22; 2 Cor. 5:10–11; 6:1–3; 12:19–21; 13:2–10). Conversely, as “the righteous Judge,” God will reward those who “fight the good fight” with the “crown of righteousness,” promised to all who “long for [the Lord’s] appearing” and who trust God to bring them “safely to his heavenly kingdom” (2 Tim. 4:7–8, 18). In either case, for God not to judge the wicked or vindicate the righteous would be to denigrate his own glory as the sovereign Creator and Redeemer.

The church in Corinth was consequently well aware of the inextricable link in the new covenant between the redemptive work of Christ on the cross and the ethical admonitions of the gospel. They also understood that the driving assumption of the new covenant is that those who possess the Spirit as their “seal” and “guarantee” of salvation (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5; cf. Rom. 8:23) will grow in faith from being “mere infants in Christ” to becoming “spiritual” people (1 Cor. 3:1; cf. 6:20; 9:24; 10:7–10, 14; 15:58; 16:13–14; 2 Cor. 7:1; 8:7–8; 9:13). For Paul, to speak about the saving power of the new covenant is to speak about the Spirit. Viewed from this covenant perspective, Paul’s admonitions throughout 2 Corinthians are examples of the essential unity that exists between justification by faith (the indicative of the gospel) and an eschatological judgment on the basis of works (the imperative of the gospel). For Paul consistently argues throughout his letters from the evidence of the Spirit to the legitimacy of one’s faith.¹⁰

The contemporary significance of this passage is therefore as straightforward as it is troubling. Have we downsized the indicative realities of the new covenant into abstract notions about God’s activities in the past, or do we recognize God’s sufficiency to supply all our needs, from forgiveness from sins to deliverance from death? Have we traded in the work of the Spirit under the new covenant for our own best efforts and feeble attempts to do the right thing for God? Do we break the link between faith and obedience in our daily lives, as if God’s commands no longer apply to us as long as we “believe” in Jesus? Do we pray for the power of the Spirit to change our lives more and more, or are we content with our current spiritual plateau? Do we offer ourselves cheap grace when we sin, or do we fight the fight of faith in rooting out sin in our lives by serious grief and repentance over our unbelief? What evidence do we have that we belong to Christ as a member of the new covenant community?