The Letter

2 Corinthians 3:1-6 (NIV)
¹ Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you?
² You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody.
³ You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
⁴ Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God.
⁵ Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.
⁶ 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.

The old covenant served to point men to God, but it was not able to save for who could be perfect in keeping the law? That is why the letter kills. It exposes our weakness and sin. Once exposed, we are then subject to the judgment of our failure. The resulting judgment is death.

The new covenant of the Spirit is released to free us from the confines of the bondage to our nature. In a sense, the old covenant was like an envelope which contained the message of the Spirit inside. That is why Jesus said He came to fulfill the law. He opened the envelope, making God’s salvation and mercy available for all. The envelope became His Incarnation as one of us, yet containing the exact image of the living God. It was opened on the cross and made known through His resurrection. Out of that came the Spirit that gives life.

His Word is His written letter to us.

Our lives are living letters, “known and read by everybody.”

What we do with the letter will mean life or death.