If that singing doesn't bless you, your blesser
is broke.
Wednesday night, every year at the conference, can't
wait to sing It Is Well.
There's a rumor going around that at some
point during my sermon this evening, Marlene Theobald
will go, Ha!
And Donna's preaching on marriage, and we will
learn a lot about that home.
I need to say something about Jim Eliff.
When we asked him to come speak this
year, we asked him to speak on the
subject of evangelism.
He came back and said, OK, let's name
it the aggressive Holy Spirit.
This afternoon I said, Jim, remind me, when
I asked you to speak, he said, yeah,
evangelism, right?
And we called it the aggressive Holy Spirit.
Yeah.
He said, well, it was the aggressive Holy
Spirit that led me to preach on church
discipline instead.
Which is fine, except that in the last
message, he strayed deep into my territory for
this evening.
But not too far.
I'm sure it will work all right.
Second Corinthians, Chapter 3.
The glory of the new covenant.
Second Corinthians, Chapter 3.
And then when you have that, if you
will, please just put your finger there or
something and hold it, and we'll look back
first to Jeremiah, Chapter 31.
Jeremiah, Chapter 31.
I want to thank
all of you for coming this year again.
It's been a blessed time.
I've heard it from several and I've mentioned
it myself to several people that the Lord
has done it again.
It seems each year we meet together and
we recognize that the Lord has met with
us as well.
And there's just not an experience anything like
sitting and hearing the ministry of the Word
of God.
And there's Him.
And there's me.
And you just are very aware of a
third party ministering the Word to your soul
and building you up.
And that's been happening this week.
And we thank God for it.
We thank you for coming.
We enjoy your fellowship.
The frustrating thing is, of course, that we
never have time to spend with each person
individually and we say hello and we have
brief chats and we never quite finish.
We need to thank Linda Connor as well,
my very favorite conference pianist.
She's just marvelous.
And the dear saints from Word of Life
Baptist Church in Pottsville.
We couldn't do this without them.
They put in so much work for us.
You folks are blessed.
Jeremiah 31, beginning with verse 31.
The time is coming, declares the Lord, when
I will make a new covenant with the
house of Israel and with the house of
Judah.
It will not be like the covenant I
made with their forefathers when I took them
by the hand to lead them out of
Egypt, because they broke my covenant though I
was a husband to them, declares the Lord.
This is the covenant I will make with
the house of Israel after that time, declares
the Lord.
I will put my law in their minds.
I will write it on their hearts.
I will be their God.
They will be my people.
No longer will a man teach his neighbor
or a man his brother, saying, Know the
Lord, because they will all know me from
the least of them to the greatest, declares
the Lord.
For I will forgive their wickedness and will
remember their sins no more.
2 Corinthians chapter 3.
I'll begin with verse 1.
Are we beginning to commend ourselves again, or
do we need, like some people, letters of
recommendation to you or from you?
You yourselves are our letter, written on our
hearts, known and read by everyone.
You show that you are a letter from
Christ, the results of our ministry, written not
with ink, but with the spirit of the
living God, not on tables of stone, but
on tables of human hearts.
Such confidence as this is ours through Christ
before God, not that we are competent in
ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our
competence comes from God.
He has made us competent as ministers of
a new covenant, not of the letter, but
of the spirit.
For the letter kills, but the spirit gives
life.
Now, if the ministry that brought death, which
was engraved in letters on stone, came with
glory so that the Israelites could not look
steadily at the face of Moses because of
its glory, fading though it was, will not
the ministry of the spirit be even more
glorious?
If the ministry that condemns men is glorious,
how much more glorious is the ministry that
brings righteousness?
For what was glorious has no glory now
in comparison with the surpassing glory.
And if what was fading away came with
glory, how much greater is the glory of
that which lasts?
Therefore, since we have such a hope, we
are very bold.
We are not like Moses who would put
a veil over his face to keep the
Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance
was fading away.
But their minds were made dull.
For to this day, the same veil remains
when the old covenant is read.
It has not been removed because only in
Christ is it taken away.
Even to this day, when Moses is read,
a veil covers their hearts.
But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the
veil is taken away.
Now the Lord is the spirit, and where
the spirit of the Lord is, there is
freedom.
And we who with unveiled faces, all reflecting
the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his
likeness with ever increasing glory, which comes from
the Lord who is the spirit.
Anyone who has been a Christian in a
church for more than five minutes or so
has noticed that the Bible has two major
sections to it, Old Testament and New Testament.
And they immediately somehow become aware that this
is a literary division.
And of course it is that.
But what is this Testament language?
That's something that remarkably few of our church
folk have been instructed on, and somehow it
gets passed over.
Actually, as you know, Old Testament and New
Testament would be better rendered.
Old Covenant, New Covenant, the two major covenants
of Scripture.
The covenant made at Sinai with Moses, the
covenant that was cut at the cross in
the sacrifice of Christ.
And we have then the Old Testament and
the New Testament.
And we use that language to speak of
the literature that is associated with each covenant.
The Old Testament is the literature written during
the time in which the Old Covenant was
in force, reflecting the terms of the Old
Covenant.
The New Testament is that literature written after
this new covenant became in force and reflecting
its terms.
An Old Covenant age and a New Covenant
age.
That's a very simplistic overview, but it's extremely
important and it's basic to our understanding of
the Bible.
Paul refers to those two covenants here in
2 Corinthians 3, and he compares them.
It's important for him to mention that he
is a minister of the New Covenant.
It's important for him to mention that, not
because of some kind of party spirit.
It's important for him to mention because of
the vast superiority of the New Covenant over
the Old.
And the superiority of the New Covenant bound
up with it is the gospel itself.
Moreover, he tells us, verse 11, the Old
Covenant is passing away, obsolete.
The New Covenant remains.
And the reason for that is that the
provisions, the comparative provisions of the two covenants.
The Old Covenant made at Sinai was, in
a very real sense, summarized in the Ten
Commandments.
And of course there are many dimensions to
that law as it was fleshed out as
God gave that law to Moses.
There are various aspects of it.
We like to refer to them in handy
little terms like there were moral demands that
were given, there were dietary demands that were
given, there were regulations concerning the clothing in
your vegetable gardens and the structure of society,
regulations concerning the ceremonial religion and worship of
Israel and so on.
And that covenant was not a bad covenant.
In fact, Paul tells us here it was
glorious.
He tells us in Romans it was holy
and just and good.
Here he tells us it was a glorious
covenant.
And such was the glory that it made
Moses' face shine with the reflecting glory when
the covenant was given to him.
But while that covenant was not bad, it
was lacking in one very important respect.
And that is it could not bring about
what it demanded.
It could command, but it had nothing in
its terms to bring about efficaciously what it
commanded.
And the reason for that is it was
a covenant that was written merely on stones.
You write it up on a sign and
it doesn't do much for you.
There's nothing inward making you obey.
I thought of an illustration of this several
months ago when I was riding in the
truck with my son.
I don't recommend that.
Jimmy was turning a corner and about 50
yards from the corner there was a stop
sign.
He didn't see it.
Ran right through the stop sign.
Jim, you just ran a stop sign.
He looks back at the stop sign.
They need to get a new sign.
That one doesn't work very well.
He doesn't get it.
The problem wasn't with the sign.
But in a sense that was the problem
of the old covenant.
All it could do was make the demands.
And there's something about us that just doesn't
grab hold of that and comply.
In fact it's worse than that.
Paul expounds on that at length in Romans
chapter 7.
The law is given and it actually promotes
sin.
It's an amazing thing.
A law that is holy and just and
good promotes sin.
And you know how that works.
You see the speed limit sign on the
freeway and it says 55.
And you're not content unless you can do
65.
And it's not that you want to go
65 because if the speed limit changes to
65 you want to do 75.
Isn't that right?
There's something about us that's just rebellious.
And it's the same in relation to the
law of God.
God says thou shalt not and we shall
do or bust.
And there's something about us that just rebels
against the law of God.
And God gives his law objectively, writes it
in stone so we can read it, and
it makes no difference.
There's nothing in the stone tablets to bring
about what those words demand.
Given all of that, glorious as the old
covenant was, all it could do was condemn.
That's the net effect.
It demands.
We don't keep the demands.
It condemns.
That's what Paul tells us in verse 6,
the letter kills.
Verse 7, the letter or the old covenant
brought death.
Verse 9, it is a ministry that condemns.
That's all it could do by the nature
of it.
There's no provision for sinners except it provides
for sinners' condemnation.
That's it.
And it's the nature of the case.
Law cannot provide forgiveness.
Law issues demands.
Law issues commands.
And when those commands are violated, the law
condemns.
Glorious as that old law was, the net
effect, all it could do is condemn.
And this is the failure of the old
covenant.
It just couldn't bring about what it demanded.
It couldn't help those who heard it to
obey it, and it certainly couldn't provide anything
for those who had violated it.
And so Jeremiah comes along, and God speaks
to Jeremiah, and he says, announce that I
will make a new covenant.
And it won't be like that old covenant.
The old covenant issued demands.
They broke those commands.
And so I'll issue a new covenant.
And in this new covenant, I'll provide for
what I require.
And in this new covenant, I will give
forgiveness of sins.
In this new covenant, I'll write my law
on their hearts.
I'll put it on their minds.
I'll give them the knowledge of me.
They will be my people.
I will be their God.
And all that I require of them, I
will provide for them in grace.
Notice the contrast in verse 9.
The ministry that condemns, the ministry that brings
righteousness.
The ministry that condemns, and the ministry that
brings righteousness.
The old covenant brought condemnation.
The new covenant brings justification, righteousness.
This is what Jeremiah said.
I will forgive their wickedness, and I'll remember
their sins no more.
But God doesn't forgive the sins just by
divine fiat.
He doesn't just declare it's okay.
What he does is provides for his sinful
people a substitute who in their place will
bear the condemnation of their sin so that
they will go free.
And that's what Jesus tells us in effect
when he institutes the Lord's Supper in commemoration
of this new covenant.
This cup is the blood of the new
covenant which is shed for many for the
remission of sins.
In this covenant, it is not a provision
of condemnation.
It is a provision of forgiveness.
And my people, what I require of them,
I will give them.
The righteousness demanded, I will give them in
the Lord Jesus.
His righteousness will be theirs.
The condemnation that they deserve will be borne
by him in their place.
This is the message of the gospel.
This is the new covenant ministry that the
apostle says here that he preaches.
This covenant makes provision for sinners.
It gives what it demands.
Paul notes here that the new covenant provides
more than simply legal provision for our sinfulness.
It provides more than justification, as if that
weren't enough.
Notice the contrast in verse 6.
At the end of the verse, the letter
kills, but the spirit gives life.
It has overtones of not simply life in
a judicial sense, justification, but life in a
sense of enablement.
It has echoes, doesn't it, of Jeremiah?
I'll put my law in their minds.
I'll write it on their hearts.
It has echoes of enablement.
Of course, the whole problem with God's law,
so far as we are concerned, is we
have no ability to do what it requires.
But the new covenant gives life.
Jeremiah says, I will write my law on
their hearts.
I'll put it in their minds.
In Ezekiel, the language is, I'll take out
their stony heart and give them a heart
of flesh, make them responsive to me.
This is the kind of thing we find
very often through the New Testament.
For instance, in Romans 6 and onwards in
Romans, sin's powerful grip on us is broken,
and we're freed, freed to follow God according
to His commands.
And it seems to me that in verse
9 that's involved as well when he says
this is the ministry that brings righteousness.
Certainly that's speaking in terms of justification.
But it seems in this context, with what
goes before and what comes after, as we
will see, that he's speaking here not only
in terms of justification, but bringing righteousness in
terms of worked out righteousness in the life
of the new covenant believer.
And Paul tells us here this is a
great glory of the new covenant, and this
is a part of its newness.
God the Holy Spirit, powerfully at work, transforming
the new covenant believer and making him to
be what God requires him to be.
Working in us powerfully, freeing us from sin,
producing in us the righteousness that He requires
of us.
David Morris has a saying in his preaching,
when God saves a man, He well saves
him.
That's the idea here.
When God saves a man, it's not simply
a ticket to get out of hell free.
He transforms the man, top to bottom, inside
out.
He transforms him into the image of Christ.
And ultimately, at the beginning of this chapter,
this is the vindication of the Apostle's own
ministry.
As you know, in 2 Corinthians, there were
those in the church at Corinth who had
opposed the Apostle calling into question even his
very apostleship.
And Paul writes in these first verses of
this chapter, what do I need a letter
of commendation from someone with authority to you?
I don't need that.
Look at yourselves.
Your lives have been transformed from the inside
out.
You are our letter of commendation.
Your very lives prove the effectiveness of this
new covenant ministry.
It has transformed you and changed you from
the inside out.
This is the joy and the privilege, Paul
says, of the new covenant ministry.
And his point here is that this is
what God does for all of His new
covenant people.
This is His new covenant promise.
But notice how he says it in verse
18.
We who with unveiled faces all reflect the
Lord's glory are being transformed into His likeness.
A reflection of Christ.
Every new covenant believer a reflector of the
glory of Christ.
Conformity to Him.
A striking resemblance to Jesus.
This is that whole New Testament theme of
Christ likeness on the part of His people.
Now that's not something that you or I
are very good at.
Looking like Jesus.
We can't.
We have stony hearts.
But that's the basic difference, he says, between
the old covenant and the new covenant.
The one is in letter only.
The other, the spirit which gives life and
brings about by the powerful workings of the
spirit all that it demands.
But I think this in verse 18 is
fascinating language.
Reflecting the Lord's glory.
Reflecting Christ's glory.
Like in a mirror.
That's an odd kind of mirror.
I look in the mirror and I see
myself.
And the Bible uses that kind of imagery
with the mirror as well.
I look into the mirror of the Word
and I see just how ugly I am
with all of my sins.
And that's reflected back at me.
But here it's a different kind of mirror.
I look into the Word and I see
the glorious image of Christ.
And somehow or other that image comes back
on me.
And I begin to reflect the glory of
the Lord that I see in the pages
of Scripture.
It's a fascinating concept.
And he gives a contrast, of course, to
Moses at the giving of the old covenant.
And the reference is back to Exodus chapter
34 that you're all familiar with.
When Moses descended from Mount Sinai with the
two tablets of stone, his face began to
shine with the glory of the presence of
God.
And the people saw it shining so brightly
that they were afraid.
They didn't dare look on it.
And so there was a veil put in
front of his face.
And Paul draws the analogy.
Just as Israel could not see the glory
on the face of Moses, so also today,
he says, Israel still today is unable to
see Christ in their old covenant.
There's still a blindness.
It's as though that curtain is still there.
When they read their Scriptures, they're somehow amazingly
unable to see the obvious.
But this is precisely what the Holy Spirit
does for us under the terms of the
new covenant.
He opens our eyes to see the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Paul tells us about that in terms of
his own testimony into chapter 4 again and
chapter 5.
I used to view Christ, he says, according
to the flesh.
I viewed him like anyone else would view
him.
And in fact, I hated him for what
I saw.
And it's not that I didn't understand his
claims.
I understood them well.
And that's why I hated him.
I saw him.
And I saw his claims and heard them
and understood them and hated him for it.
But suddenly, this God who made the light
shine out of darkness, I wish Dr. Moo
were here.
I'd tell him, see, I have read Genesis
1 and 2.
This same God who made the light to
shine in the darkness, this God who said,
Let there be light.
And there was light in the whole world.
He has shined in our hearts and made
us to see the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ.
Suddenly, there's a new perception of Christ entirely.
Isn't that exactly your testimony?
That's mine.
I remember I was saved at a very
young age.
I was only six years old.
I'm almost embarrassed to say it because it's
so uncommon.
Nobody believes it.
But I remember it so well.
I had the privilege, as most of you
know, of being born in a Christian home.
My father preached the gospel.
I heard him preaching every Sunday morning, every
Sunday night, every Wednesday night.
From before, I could understand words.
Sunday after Sunday after Sunday after Sunday.
Sermon after sermon after sermon.
And finally, one Sunday morning.
It's 1964.
I heard him for the first time.
I had no plans for that that morning.
But God invaded my heart.
And the lights went on.
And all of a sudden, I saw Christ
as I had never seen Him before.
And there He was in all of His
loveliness and His beauty and His attractiveness and
His glory.
And I found Him irresistible.
But what we find here in chapter 3
is that's just the beginning.
Somehow, as the Spirit of God opens our
eyes to see the image of Christ in
Scripture, mysteriously, He begins to transform us into
that same image.
So that now, He says, we reflect His
glory.
It's really an amazing thing.
He takes ugly, rebel sinners and so impresses
them with Christ that they begin to look
like Him.
Radically changed.
Morally transformed inside and out.
With His law written on our hearts.
Put in our minds.
Loving God with all of our heart and
soul and mind.
There is this pursuit of God.
A pursuit of Christ.
A pursuit of His law.
And a longing to comply with all that
He demands.
We begin to look like Jesus.
This great change is the experience of every
New Covenant believer.
It's illustrated in various ways in the New
Testament.
It's spoken of in terms of a change
of clothing.
Put off those old, dirty shirts and put
on a clean one.
It's spoken of in terms of a new
creation.
It's spoken of in terms of being made
holy.
It's spoken of in graphic terms of the
forming of Christ in us.
The indwelling of Christ in us by His
Spirit.
It's spoken of in terms of growing in
grace and in the knowledge of the Lord
Jesus.
Here, it's spoken of in terms of reflecting
Christ's glory.
Not outwardly as though we have a face
that shines like Moses did, but inwardly with
the image of Christ stamped on our character
so that we are transformed from the inside
out.
This is the great New Covenant promise.
The New Testament describes the Old Covenant as
a harsh taskmaster, commanding, commanding, commanding, commanding, commanding,
rebuking, rebuking, rebuking, condemning, condemning, condemning, beating us
up, killing us.
But the New Covenant is a covenant of
grace.
I say it so often at church, cornerstone
where I am, that I've begun to hear
it back from the people themselves, and I
love it, that God provides for us all
that He requires of us.
God provides for us in grace all that
He requires of us.
God provides for us all that He requires
of us.
You're familiar, of course, with the prayer of
Augustine.
Give what you command.
Give what you command and command what you
will.
Of course, he got into trouble with that
with Pelagius.
How can you talk like that?
Our responsibility is grounded in our ability.
And Augustine recognized the power of grace, and
he recognized the sinfulness of the human heart,
and he prayed very rightly, give what you
command and command what you will.
There's an old hymn that speaks like that.
Run, run and work the law demands, but
finds me neither feet nor hands.
But sweeter news the gospel brings.
It bids me fly and lends me wings.
This is why, in turn, in the New
Testament, practical godliness is held up as a
test of the genuineness of saving faith.
New Covenant faith.
Issues in New Covenant behavior.
There is a great change.
Next, notice that this reflecting of Christ's glory
is not a once and done event.
It's ever increasing.
Did you notice that in verse 18?
We who with unveiled faces all reflect the
Lord's glory are being transformed into His likeness
with ever increasing glory which comes from the
Lord who is the Spirit.
The experience of the Christian is not a
stagnant one.
But it's always this upward progression.
It's one that grows continuously from one level
of glory to the next, to the next,
and to the next.
Reflecting the Lord's glory in increasing degree.
One of the things I have pressed frequently
on the minds and the conscience of our
elders at church, and I've said it publicly
to our people as well, that they ought
to be able to expect this of us.
And that is in 1 Timothy 4.
The Apostle tells Timothy that he is to
grow in his knowledge of God, increase in
piety, increase in godliness, and all of these
things.
And he says, that your progress may be
evident to all.
That is, they are not only to grow
and increase, but to grow and increase in
such a way that is noticeable to those
who watch them.
But what's interesting is that Paul can give
that command to the elders because it's precisely
what is expected of every believer.
Every one of us is to be reflecting
the glory of Christ in increasing degree, from
one glory to glory to glory to glory.
That is to say, this coming December, it
ought to be true of me that my
experience in grace in 2006 ran deeper than
it did in 2005.
It ought to be that my communion with
Christ, my practical godliness, my love, my faithfulness,
my patience, all of this, must be in
higher degree than it was last year.
Or in the language of this verse, I
ought to look more like Jesus this year
than I did last, reflect more of his
glory.
As the Spirit of God acquaints us further
with the glory of Christ, mysteriously, he transforms
us into that same image.
Amazing, isn't it?
And as our acquaintance with Christ deepens, somehow
correspondingly, we are made to look more like
him.
This is the value of the increased exposure
to the Word of God.
I would like to spend some time here,
but I'll just mention it in passing, that
it is our increasing acquaintance with Christ, gospel
truth, that results in increased reflecting glory.
Tom mentioned in one of his messages this
emphasis in the New Testament of be what
you are.
This is the whole foundation of that.
God promises in the New Covenant to bring
about in us what he requires of us.
Therefore, be what you are.
You find that over and over and over
again through the New Testament.
In fact, let's take a moment.
We'll be back here in a minute, but
look at Philippians chapter 2.
A familiar passage, but I want you to
make sure you see something in it.
Philippians chapter 2, verse 12.
Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always
obeyed, not only in my presence, but now
much more in my absence, continue to work
out your salvation with fear and trembling.
Now notice, by the way, he doesn't say
work in your salvation.
He doesn't say work it up.
And he doesn't say work for it.
He says work it out.
Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
And notice the first word of verse 13.
4.
He doesn't say and.
Work out your salvation because it is God
who works in you, both to will and
to do of his good pleasure.
That is, our responsibility rests on his initiative
already at work in us.
Precisely because God has covenanted with us to
bring about in us what he requires of
us.
We are responsible then to work out our
salvation and to reflect in increasing degree the
glory of Christ.
And what is more exciting still is that
this progressive work in us will continue until
it is complete.
Paul tells us in Philippians he will transform
our lowly bodies to be made like his
glorious body.
John tells us we don't know what we'll
be.
But we do know that when he shall
appear, we shall be like him.
Did you know that the New Testament teaches
entire sanctification?
May the God of peace himself sanctify you
through and through.
May your whole body, soul, and spirit be
kept blameless at the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ.
Faithful is he who calls you who also
will do it.
My whole problem, my whole problem in life
is that I don't look yet enough like
Jesus.
If you don't mind my saying so, your
whole problem, you don't look enough like Jesus.
Every year at the conference we enjoy fellowship
with each other in various dimensions and one
of those dimensions is we share with one
another in terms of the burdens of ministry
and what not and seek encouragement and sometimes
counsel from one another.
And often those discussions lead to the church
problems.
The whole problem, the whole problem is that
neither we nor our people look enough like
Jesus.
Ah, but one day, one day God will
finish this work that he has begun in
us and we will be like him.
Then we shall be where we would be.
Then we shall be what we should be.
Things that are not now nor could be
soon shall be our own.
Changed from glory into glory till in heaven
we take our place.
This is the privileged experience of every New
Covenant believer, radically transformed into the glorious image
of Christ progressively and continuously until finally we
are with him and share in his glory
and are made like him.
Amen.