This is a figurative way of expressing the idea that the con- version of the Corinthians was a divine, supernatural work, and therefore an irrefi-agable proof that Paul, by whose in- strumentality the work was etfected, was the minister of Christ. Tliis was a letter, therefore, infinitely above any or- dinary letter written with ink. Secondly, it was not an out- ward, but an inward, spiritual work. The decalogue, written on tables of stone by the finger of God, was indeed a divine work, and proved the divine mission of Moses; but what was that to writing the law upon the fleshly tables of the heart ! The work of regeneration and sanctification is always represented in the Scripture as a much higher manifestation of divine power and grace than any mere external miracle. In predicting the new dispensation in contrast with the old, God says, " Behold the days come when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel — not according to the cove- nant that I made with their fathers, — but I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts," Jeremiah 31, 31-33. To this the apostle evidently refers to show that the evidence of his mission was of a higher character than that of Moses, and that his ministry was far more exalted and glorious.
Instead of the genitive, Kap8ta§, the great body of ancient MSS. have the dative, KapSiats ; on tables tohic/i are hearts of fleshy instead of fleshly tables of the heart. The majority of editors adhere to the common text on the authority of the Greek fathers. The sense is the same.
4. And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward.
This confidence in the divinity and glory of his mission, and in his sufliciency for the apostleship he had from Christ and in the presence of God. It was a confidence so strong (and yet so humble) that it did not quail even under the eye of God; much less therefore under the scrutiny of the bleared eyes of his opponents. Such confidence., not merely confi- dence in the fact that the Corinthians were to him a letter of commendation, but the confidence expressed in the whole context, and especially in 2, 15-17. This confidence he had through Christ. It was not self confidence. It was not the consciousness of superior excellence ; but a conviction of tlie truth of the gosi^el and of the reality of that vocation which