2 Coríntios 3

¹ Doe we begin to praise our selues againe? or neede we as some other, epistles of recommendation vnto you, or letters of recommendation from you?

² Yee are our epistle, written in our hearts, which is vnderstand, and read of all men,

³ [Forasmuch as ye are]The apostle says this wisely, that by little and little he may come from the commendation of the person to the matter itself.manifestly declared to be the epistle of ChristWhich I took pains to write as it were.ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of theAlong the way he sets the power of God against the ink with which epistles are commonly written, to show that it was accomplished by God.living God;He alludes along the way to the comparison of the outward ministry of the priesthood of Levi with the ministry of the Gospel, and the apostolical ministry, which he handles afterward more fully.not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.

⁴ And suchThis boldness we show, and thus may we boast gloriously of the worthiness and fruit of our ministry.trust have we through Christ to God-ward:

⁵ Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but ourIn that we are proper and able to make other men partakers of so great a grace.sufficiency [is] of God;

⁶ He amplifies his ministry and his fellows: that is to say, the ministry of the Gospel comparing it with the ministry of the Law, which he considers in the person of Moses, by whom the Law was given: against whom he sets Christ the author of the Gospel. Now this comparison is taken from the very substance of the ministry. The Law is as it were a writing in itself, dead, and without efficacy: but the Gospel, and new Covenant, as it were the very power of God itself, in renewing, justifying, and saving men. The Law offers death, accusing all men of unrighteousness: the Gospel offers and gives righteousness and life. The administration of the Law served for a time to the promise: the Gospel remains to the end of the world. Therefore what is the glory of the Law in comparison of the majesty of the Gospel?Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of theNot of the Law but of the Gospel.letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

⁷ But if the ministration of death, writtenImprinted and engraved: so that by this place we may plainly perceive that the apostle speaks not of the ceremonies of the Law, but of the ten commandments.[and] engraven in stones, wasThis word «glorious» indicates a brightness, and a majesty which was in Moses physically, but in Christ spiritually.glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which [glory] was to be done away:

⁸ How shall not theBy which God offers, indeed, and gives the Spirit, not as a dead thing, but a living Spirit, working life.ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?

⁹ For if the ministration of condemnation [be] glory, much more doth the ministration ofThat is, of Christ. And since he is imputed to us as our own, we are not condemned, and what is more we are also crowned as righteous.righteousness exceed in glory.

¹⁰ For euen that which was glorified, was not glorified in this point, that is, as touching the exceeding glorie.

¹¹ For if that which isThe Law, indeed, and the ten commandments themselves, together with Moses, are all abolished, if we consider the ministry of Moses apart by itself.done away [was] glorious, much more that which remaineth [is] glorious.

¹² He shows what this glory of the preaching of the Gospel consists in: that is, in that it sets forth plainly and evidently that which the Law showed darkly, for it sent those that heard it to be healed by Christ, who was to come, after it had wounded them.Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:

¹³ He expounds along the way the allegory of Moses' covering, which was a token of the darkness and weakness that is in men, who were rather dulled by the bright shining of the Law then given. And this covering was taken away by the coming of Christ, who enlightens the hearts, and turns them to the Lord, that we may be brought from the slavery of this blindness, and set in the liberty of the light by the power of Christ's Spirit.And not as Moses, [which] put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to theInto the very bottom of Moses' ministry.end of that which is abolished:

¹⁴ Therefore their mindes are hardened: for vntill this day remaineth the same couering vntaken away in the reading of the olde Testament, which vaile in Christ is put away.

¹⁵ But euen vnto this day, whe Moses is read, the vaile is laid ouer their hearts.

¹⁶ Neuertheles when their heart shall be turned to the Lord, the vaile shalbe taken away.

¹⁷ Now theChrist is that Spirit who takes away that covering, by working in our hearts, to which also the Law itself called us, though in vain, because it speaks to dead men, until the Spirit makes us alive.Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord [is], there [is] liberty.

¹⁸ Continuing in the allegory of the covering, he compares the Gospel to a glass, which although it is most bright and sparkling, yet it does not dazzle their eyes who look in it, as the Law does, but instead transforms them with its beams, so that they also are partakers of the glory and shining of it, to enlighten others: as Christ said unto his own, «You are the light of the world», whereas he himself alone is the light. We are also commanded in another place to shine as candles before the world, because we are partakers of God's Spirit. But Paul speaks here properly of the ministers of the Gospel, as it appears both by that which goes before, and that which comes after, and in that he sets before them his own example and that of his fellows.But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, [even] as by the Spirit of the Lord.