09/07/2025

12th Sunday after Trinity

Text: 2 Cor. 3:4-11

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. 

Moses and Jesus, Sinai and Calvary, the letter and the spirit, death and life—you don’t need to be a bible scholar to know that there’re important differences between the Old and New Testament. To be sure, from Genesis to Revelation a common theme rings clear—God reconciles sinners to Himself through the death of His Son. From the opening pages of Scriptures to their close, the coming Christ is proclaimed. In the Old Testament, God’s people waited for the Christ to come; now we confess that the Christ is come and will come again. But there are still differences between how God covenanted with His people in time past and how He covenants with His people today.

In our Epistle, St Paul gets to the heart of the differences between the Old Covenant given by Moses on Sinai and the New Testament sealed with the shedding of Christ’s blood at Calvary. On the basis of St Paul’s words this morning, we will consider the important differences between the old and new covenants 1) in regard to their purpose, and 2) with respect to their glory.

Let us pray: Heavenly Father, we give you thanks that you have made a covenant with your people and secured for us your mercy in the forgiveness of our sins. Your Son has sealed your promised mercy to us with His own blood and so made it certain and sure. Grant us your Holy Spirit as we meditate upon this glorious covenant, that we might rejoice to be partakers of it now and always. In the Name of our mediator and high priest Jesus Christ, Amen.

I

Paul contrasts the Old Covenant with the New in our epistle. When Paul speaks of the Old Covenant, he doesn’t mean the entire Old Testament Scripture. We call the books of Scripture before Christ’s birth the Old Testament, and the Scriptures written after His birth the New. But when Paul uses Old Covenant here, He means God’s covenant with Israel on Mount Sinai when God gave the Ten Commandments.

In our epistle, St Paul says that God has made him a minister, or servant, of “The new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

To put it another way, the letter, the commands, of the Old Covenant kill, but the Spirit given in the New Covenant gives life. In verse seven, Paul calls the old covenant the “Ministry of death” written and engraved on stone. The ministry of death contrasts with the ministry of life worked by the Spirit. The contents of both covenants are different, and so the purpose of each is different. The old ministers, or works, death; the new, life.

The Old Covenant was founded when the Law was given. The Ten Commandments are the heart of the Law. In the Ten Commandments God revealed His holy will to Israel. The Ten Commandments revealed what righteousness before God looks like. The first three commandments demand that we serve the Lord, the others that we love our neighbor. All the other aspects of the Old Covenant Law flesh out the ten commandments. They have to do with the right worship of God or with serving the neighbor.

The conditions of the Old Covenant on Sinai were thus: God said that He had brought Israel out of Egypt to glorify His name, and He gave them the Law to serve Him with. If they served faithfully, He would bless them greatly. If they were unfaithful, He would curse them. The constant refrain in the Old Covenant is “Be careful to do and observe these statues which I am giving you today.” If not, then God’s judgement would be upon them.

But Israel could not fulfill the Old Covenant. That’s because the Israelites, like all of us, were sinners incapable of doing God’s will. The Old Covenant had a promise—”Do this, and you will live”. But no one can keep the Ten Commandments perfectly and serve God faithfully. A highway sign might tell you how many miles to the next city, but a sign doesn’t put gas in the tank. Similarly, the Ten Commandments written in stone reveal what true righteousness before God looks like, but they don’t give our hearts the power or desire to carry them out. In fact, they judge and condemn our hearts. And that is God’s intention.

In Galatians and Romans, Paul tells us why God bound His people to the Old Covenant. He did so to imprison everything under sin, to make everyone guilty, and to increase the trespass. The Law is good, but its goodness reveals that our hearts are sinful. The Law’s demand for perfection condemns and makes us guilty. And the Law even increases the trespass. Telling your child to clean his room when he’s in a bad mood will make him angrier. When you come back and scold him for a half-hearted attempt and give him a list of everything to do to clean his room, he’ll become even angrier.

That’s how the Law increases trespass. The demands of the commandments accuse our conscience and make us defensive. Their demands of complete perfection reveal sin after sin within us. The letter condemns and damns. We cannot keep the Law and so we are condemned before God to suffer the just punishment of death. That is its work, its ministry, that God intends. It works death. God gave the Ten Commandments and all the surrounding laws to expose and condemn sin, that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. The Law shows that we cannot by our works please God.

God enacted the Old Covenant with His people to prepare the way for the new. The ministry, or work, of the New Covenant does not condemn but works life. The Gospel proclaims that what we cannot do God did by sending His Son. The people of Israel could not keep the Law because they were sinners. But Jesus, the Son of God, is sinless. He keeps the Law perfectly. He is the one man who stands blameless before it. And He does so for us, to win us a perfect righteousness. He takes our place under the Law’s curse and dies for us. He fulfills the Law. By His death its demands are fulfilled and its punishment suffered. The law’s demands and punishments are no longer in force for God’s people.

Through His death that ended the Old Covenant, the Lord Jesus establishes the New Covenant. In this covenant, there is no condition “If you are careful to do this, you will live. If you are righteous, God will receive you.” But the Gospel proclaims that we are reconciled to God through Christ’s death and resurrection, and says, “Believe!” The life-giving Spirit of God works through the proclamation of the Gospel to grant us faith. Through the message of Christ crucified, He converts our hearts from unbelieving to believing. The healing of the deaf-mute in our Gospel illustrates this. When Jesus said to him, “Ephphatha!”, his ears were opened and his tongue loosed. In the same way, when the words of Jesus which are Spirit and Life are preached to us, they work faith. They demand belief and create belief, and from that faith love and a desire to do God’s will.  

And unlike the Law the call of the Gospel is without condition. There’s no, “If you are careful to do this, you will live.” Only the call, “Believe!” There’re no threats attached, either. Certainly, if you reject the Gospel, you don’t enjoy the benefits the New Covenant seals to you—the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. But no where in the New Testament does it say, “Believe and be baptized, or else!” “This do in remembrance of me, or else!” The character of the New Covenant is entirely different. The commands to believe, to take eat, to be baptized are not setting up conditions, but are calls of the Spirit for us to receive life in Jesus’ Name. As a host says, “Sit down and eat!” so too the Spirit cries out “Believe in the Gospel” and works faith in our hearts.

II

The content and purpose of the New Covenant is far more precious and wonderful, because grace is certain is sure. And thus the glory of New Testament exceeds the glory of the Old.

That’s the second important difference between the Old and New Covenant. Both are glorious, but the New Testament’s glory is greater by far.

Paul says, “If the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels. For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious.”

Just because the Old Testament passed away doesn’t mean it’s unimportant. The ministry of death was important, exalted, glorious, because it was from the Lord Himself. God revealed Himself to Moses on Mount Sinai in the midst of the cloud. His glory, the bright presence of His holiness and majesty, shined forth. Moses even shone with it when he went down from the mountain with the Law. The Law itself as the revelation of God’s holiness was glorious. Its just condemnation of sin was glorious and worthy of praise. God’s judgement of sin redounds to His glory. By punishing what is evil He shows His divine justice and glorifies His holy name.

But Paul says that the glory of the ministry of condemnation was temporary and passing away. Just as the brightness of Moses’ face would dim after leaving the mountain, so also the glory of the Law to rebuke sin would pass when the ministry of righteousness came. The glory of the Old Covenant was to reveal God’s justice. But the glory of the new covenant is to reveal that God is both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Jesus dies and suffers the just punishment for all sin. But He dies in our place, and God raises Jesus from the dead. In the cross and resurrection God reveals the glories of divine justice and mercy to the full. The destruction of sin and the saving of sinners abounds to the glory of God and is worthy of unending praise. Likewise, the powerful word of the Gospel preached to convert sinners glorifies God. In the New Covenant, the power and sufficiency of the message, of the preacher, of the believer, is of God—and by that He is glorified.

The glory of the old covenant was temporary. But the glory of the new is eternal. The proclamation of the New, that a sinner is declared righteous for Christ’s sake, will never end. God’s covenant with His people, sealed in Christ’s blood, remains forever. The glory of the Law also terrified. The people were frightened by God’s glory on Mt Sinai and fled from the shining face of Moses.

But in the New Covenant, we share in God’s glory. It abounds to God’s glory that sinners are not driven away from the holy God but through the preaching of the Gospel are brought near to Him. We are declared free from sin in this life and will be glorified in the next. We are made alive by the Spirit now, and on the last day the same Spirit will give us life eternal in glorified bodies free from sin. The mortal will put on the immortal, and the corruptible the incorruptible. As our Lord says, “The righteous will shine like sun.” As our Lord stood glorious on the Mount of Transfiguration, even so we shall stand holy before the holy God on the last day because we were partakers of the New Covenant and were washed with the blood of cleansing.

The two covenants are different. The Law demands, but the Gospel gives. The old passes away, but the new abides. The old was glorious, but its glory terrified. The new exceeds in glory and men are made partakers of its glory. These important differences are illustrated well by our Gospel lesson. The law can only kill. Its words are heavy in our ears, and its condemnation stops our mouth. But the man sees Jesus before him, and by a powerful word, the Lord Jesus opens ears and mouth of the deaf-mute and all praise Him. Even so, in the Gospel we behold the face of Jesus Christ. Through the power of the Spirit, He opens our ears to hear and believe, and He looses our tongues to praise. Now we know Christ by faith. We know Him in the word and so we see dimly, as through a glass. But the day will come when we will be glorified and then we will see Him as He is, face to face.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.