This is a key passage on
understanding the relationship between the first part of the Bible (the Old
Testament/Covenant) and the second part of the Bible (the New Testament/Covenant). A covenant was a solemn agreement. The Old Covenant was given to a man called
Moses at Mount Sinai after God had rescued His people from slavery in
Egypt. The New Covenant centres on the
death and resurrection of Jesus. This is
also a key passage on how we can become more like Jesus, which is one of the
great blessings of the New Covenant.
I have three simple
points: God can change you, only God can change you and God changes you as you
look at Jesus.
1.
God
can change you (7-11)
Believing you are beyond
hope is not an act of humility, it is an act of unbelief. We must not limit the power of the Holy
Spirit to break old habits and produce new graces in us.
The apostle Paul planted
a church in the city of Corinth, which is in modern Greece. After he and his team moved on, a group of
false teachers came to town and began to contradict what he said. Paul had said that the new Christians were
free from having to obey the law of the Old Covenant, these false teachers said
you had to obey the law.
Paul brings his readers
back to the second book of the Bible, Exodus, and to the events surrounding the
giving of the old law. While Moses was
up the mountain speaking with God the people showed their unwillingness to obey
God by making a golden calf and worshipping it.
Moses was so angry that he broke the stone tablets on which God had
inscribed the law. Moses had to go back
up the mountain and get the law from God again.
When Moses came back down his face shone because he had been face-to-face
with God. The people were afraid because
they were afraid of the glory of God, and so after he had spoken to them he put
a veil over his face. Paul says that
this illustrates the difference between what he was teaching and the false
teachers were teaching.
The ‘ministry of death
carved on letters of stone’, as Paul calls the law was glorious because it was
given by God and reflected His character, but the good news about Jesus is more
glorious. It’s more glorious because
while the law was given for a time, the good news of Jesus is for ever. It’s more glorious because the law was unable
to change people, but Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit to change us from the
inside out. The law had sacrifices for
sin that had to be repeated again and again, Jesus’ death was the perfect
sacrifice for sin that never needs to be repeated. Under the law the people were scared of the
glory of God, the good news of Jesus can remove all such fear.
All this is great news
for us. He says his ministry brings
righteousness. There is no amount of
evil in us that Jesus is not willing to forgive. His ministry is that of the Spirit. The Spirit can free us from the most
enslaving patterns of sinful behaviour. Believing you are beyond hope is not an act of humility,
it is an act of unbelief,
2.
Only
God can change you (12-16)
On Monday, Sam organised
street outreach. Alan is particularly
gifted in this. At one stage Alan
offered a man a tract and the man replied, ‘I am not interested.’ Alan then said, ‘you need to become
interested.’ So, the man replied, ‘talk
to the wife.’ We were left a little
confused! By nature, people are not
responsive to the idea of being changed by Christ.
Again, the apostle Paul
uses the picture of the veil that covered Moses face. The veil stopped the people of Moses’ day
seeing the glory of that covenant. It
also stopped them seeing that the glory reflected on Moses’ face was
fading. The old covenant was fading
away.
In Moses’ day the people
refused to obey God’s covenant because ‘their minds were hardened’. The majority of the people simply refused to
accept what God was saying. In the
apostle Paul’s day when the old covenant was read the majority of Jews refused
to believe that it actually pointed to Jesus.
That was because a veil lay over their hearts.
It’s not just the people
of Moses’ day whose minds are hardened, or the Jews of Paul’s day that have a
veil over hearts, in the next part of this letter Paul will tell us that the
devil has ‘blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them seeing the light
of the gospel of the glory of Christ.’ (4:4).
‘But when one turns to the Lord the veil is removed’ (16).
When someone becomes a
Christian, it is a work of God. The
Spirit of God takes the good news of Jesus and brings life. It’s the Holy Spirit who has softens their
hearts and it’s Christ who enables them to see the truth. Therefore, if we want to be effective in
sharing the good news about Jesus we will be praying for people and we will
want to be very clear in telling them about what Jesus has achieved through His
cross and resurrection.
One of the reasons I know
that I am a Christian is that I am willing to accept that the cross of Jesus is
the only way of being made right with God and, although I am very far from
perfect, I want to become like Jesus.
These things are a gift of God.
But how does the Holy Spirit make us more like Jesus? That brings us to our final point.
3.
God
changes you as you look at Jesus (17-18)
The Apostle Paul calls
the New Covenant made through Jesus ‘the ministry of the Spirit’. Now the
Lord is Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (17). This freedom includes the freedom from
condemnation, the freedom from the fear of death, the freedom of the fear of
God’s glory, the freedom from having to obey all the regulations of the Law given
to Moses, and the freedom that gives access to the loving presence of God.
And
we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being
transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another
(18). We are being transformed from one
degree of glory to another. We are not
yet perfect. We are a work in progress. To paraphrase the hymn-writer, John Newton,
‘I am may not be what I ought to be. I
am not be what I want to be. I am not
what I will be when we see Jesus face-to-face.
But by the grace of God I am different than I used to be.’
How do we change? We change as we behold the glory of the
Lord. Beholding is becoming. This is why Paul’s message was greater than
that of the false-teachers. They could
talk about laws, but they could not show you how to change. The apostle Paul shows us that as we fix our
gaze upon him He makes us like himself.
The key to transformation
is to grow more and more in love with Jesus.
When you sin be quick to acknowledge His forgiveness. Preach the cross to yourself. Trust His promises. Be with His people when we gather He is with
us in a special way. Read the Bible as a
love story and not just a text book.
Remember that He wants to see your face and that he delights to hear
your voice.
Conclusion
Do you realise, that if
you are a true follower of Jesus, then one day you will stand before God and
the angels in heaven will marvel at how like Him you are? Yes, on that day you will be perfect. You will perfectly display the fruit of the
Spirit. You will no longer be able to
sin. Your heart will be filled with
love. But, even now, as we look forward
to that day we are becoming more like Him.
God can change you. Only God can change you. He changes you as you look at Jesus.
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