The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Corinthians — Section 77

have our foolish insertions entirely altered the meaning of what the Divine fin"ers were tracing! What chaos, confusion, disaster, have come into the epistle of our lif~ because it bas been largely of ourselves and not of God I How poor bas been the influence of the life-letter because it has not been inspired of the Holy Ghost I 1!· OUR LIV~S WILL THE:N TESTU'! OF CHRIST. 'l'his m'!'st be our supreme aim if we desire to be epistles of Chnst. He ts to be the one conspicuous feature in our life and being. Epistles we are to be, which, when men read, they shall find that they are reading of <.}hrist. Many professing Christians are anything but epistles of Christ. There are some very great epistles of doubt, read and known of many men, tellina us that they do not claim apostolical succession, and proving this with conclusivene~ by being anything but fully persuaded in their own minds; epistles of dismalness, epistles of idleness, epistles of delay, epistles of change, epistles offrivolity, epistles of self, epistles of quarrelsomeness, and others who seem to be epistles of nothingness. In contrast to the true consistent believer-Christ manifested in his actions, Christ breathed forth in his influence, Christ the utterance of his life. To him "to live is Ohrist." If we are the epistles of Christ: 1. We must al,low men to read us. We must not be too reserved. We must not bide our light. 2. We should not be too forward. Much talk: ofour attain- ments and graces will convince most men that we have not any. A book is not instructive which bas the most of the printing outside. 8. Men will. be willing to read us when very unwilling to read the llpistles '!f' the Sc1·iptures. There are two things which men are very fond of reading-their newspaper .and each other. 'l'he true epistle of Christ is likely to have wide circulation e.nd large usefulness.-H. Ver. 6.-The new covenant. I. A COVEN.A.NT OF. THE SPIRIT. The old covenant, the Law which came by Moses, we.s the" letter "-precepts laid down to be literally obeyed, fixed and rigid, external and ritual. The new covenant, the gospel, is the coveuant of love, of spiritual obedience. The Jew, under the old covenant, could not be exempted by any piety of spirit from the letter of the legal ordinance ; but under the new covenant the spirit of the observance is chief. 'l'be old covenant did riot supply the inward power producing obedience-it was. something outside of man, imposed upon him. But the new covenant has for an essential feature the power of God operating in the heart, leading to newness of life. The old covenant approached man from without, the new covenant works from within. One is " letter "--external; the other is "spirit "-internal. II. A covEIUNT OF LIFE. In the old covenant there was the holy Law nnd the command to fully obey it: "The Law is not of faith; but, The man that doeth them shall live in them" (Gal. iii. 12). The old covenant demanded perfect obedience: "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the Law to do them" (Gal. iii. 10). Thus the old covennnt tended to condemnation and death, because fallen human nature failed to keep the perfect Law of God. 'l'he "letter" of unswerving righteousness convicted man of sin, and then "killed" him. Not that the Law was evil, but that it showed the evil in man. "The wages of sin is death." The Law, by discovering sin, showed that the wages were due. The old covennnt thus left man condemned, and, if man was to be justified and restored, there was urgent need of a new covenant. We find, thus, that the old covenant is ever pointing to the new, and that the design of the former was to lead to the latter: "The Le.w was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ" (Gal. iii. 24). Moreover, the Jew possessed the new covenant as well as the old, though not so fully unfolded as we have it. Men condemned by the old covenant lived the life of faith upon the Son of God who WI\S to come, and thus participated in the life-giving principle of the new covenant. This new covenant is a covenant of life: 1. Because Christ has perfectly fulfilled the Lnw of God on man's behalf, and to man this perfect obedience is imputed. Uondemnntion is tlnrn avoided. Life is secured for mnn by man's Substitute. 2. Mnn's personal trans- gressions nre atoned for by the sacrifice of Christ. 3. The Holy Ghost is given to kinJlo spiritual life in man, to sanctify his nature, to bring him at le.st ioto full accord with the perfect Law of God. Ill. A COVENANT NOT TRANSITORY. The old covcnnnt bo.s passed away. The new coverwut puts men in a position with rcl11.tio11 to God which is an everlasting one, Death and the next world will not c11ll for the abrogation of this covennnt, nor any cu. m. 1-18.) THE SECOND EPISTLE TI) THE CORINTHIANS. 77