The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Corinthians — Section 67

Vers. 7-:-11.-Ministry of the Old Testament compared with that of the New, and tlie superiority oj the latter shown. He speaks now of the "ministration of death " not of it as the ministry of the letter; and yet it was " glorious." Compared with th; reve- lation made to Enoch, Abraham, Jacob, it was "glorious." Whether witnessing to the unity of God or to his providence over an elect race, it was an illumination, or splendour, unequalled in the centuries before Christ. Tribes were organized as a nation, bondmen transformed into free men; and, despite their proclivity to heathenish idolatry, they came :finally to hold and defend the doctrine of one God, their Jehovah, their Lord of hosts, their Benefactor and Friend, as the doctrine underlying all their hopes and aspirations. The sanctity of human life which the great lawgiver made the foundation of his system, tbe rights of persons and property, the obligations of brotherhood among themselves, duties to the poor and the stranger, duties to their nation, reverence for the sabbath and its worship, obedience to God in the minut.est things, were taught them with a precision and a force that largely succeeded in producing the only phenomenon of its kind in history -a nation educated in the sense of God, of his presence in their midst, and of his pro- vidence as an unceasing and omnipotent agency in their homes and business. What a "glory" there was in their literature we all know. No psalmody is given in the New Testament; none was wanted ; inspired poetry reached its full measure of excellence in King David and his poetic successors; and the Christian heart, whether in prayer or praise, :finds much of its deepest and most devout utterance in .these ancient Ju~n hymns. Reproduction is the test of enduring greatnees. In thiH respect the genius and piety of David stand unrivalled. Whenever men worship Goel, he is the " chief singer" yet; nor have we any better standard by which to try the merit of our religious poetry and music than the similarity of their effect upon us to that produced by the Psalms of David. Last of all in the order of time, first in its importance, what a " glory " in him born of the Virgin Mary I On this system St. Paul made no war. What he antagonized was the misunderstanding and abuse of the system in the hands of Pharisees and Sadducees, and, especially in the shape it assumed among the Jndaizers .at Corinth and in Galatia. He calls the old covenant "glorious," a word he never uses but in his exalted moods of thought. 'l'rue, it wa.~ "written and engraven in stones," but by whose hand? Even "the face of ·Moses~• was more than the Israelites could bear, "for the glory of his countenance." Tho 1,plendour irradiating Moses was transient-" which. glory was to be done away;" but it did what it was intended to do by demonstrating where he had been and on what mission. Yet-the glory acknowledged-it was "the .ministration of death." All the sublimity was that of terror, none that of beauty, when Sinai became the shrouded pavilion_.Pf Jehovah. "Whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death." 'l'his ex~rnal characterization was a symbol of its condemning power. "When the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.'' It was not in the language of the Law that David prayed, " Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me; " nor in sympathy with the Law that Isaiah spoke of the Anointed One, " The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me;" but in contemplation of grace beyond Law, and therefore extra to the ordinary workings of the Moeaio economy. A provision existed for these spiritual anticipations, and it was a part of its excellence, the highest part, that it had on a few minds this prcvenient influence. Still, the diBtinctive feature stands, "a ministration of death;" and to the hour when J erusnlem and her temple fell, Sinai was the mount that could not be touched without death. It had a glory, a derived and subordinate glory, and the glory itself was to die. Certain qualities of Hebrew mind under the system, methods of thought, poetic modes of looking at nature, cultivated instincts of providence, yearnings for spirituality, were to survive and attain their completeness; but the systelll was to cud by tho law of OH. w. 1-18.] •';!.'HE SECOND EPIS'l'LE '1'0 THE CORIN'l'HIANS. 61