“Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some, letters of commendation to you or from you? You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men; being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”
It’s funny how light and shadow work together to bring about understanding. If we didn’t have evil we wouldn’t know what good was. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.”
Then there are varieties of light and shadow, seemingly grey areas until they are illumined over time. That is why we must have the Spirit. “Although I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil because Your rod and Your staff they comfort me.” The rod and the staff are significant and throughout all of the scriptures. It’s like the vibrating of a bell. It shakes back and forth under the influence of the vibrations. That’s how the Spirit works. He takes the letter of the law and describes it to our hearts personally. Otherwise we would be going back and forth not really coming to the understanding of it. But that takes time and often times the pendulum must swing but we must continue to stand firm. “There I will meet with you; and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak to you about all that I will give you in commandment for the sons of Israel.” (Exodus:25;22)
“Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2Corinthians:3;4-6)
This is why we must come together as the Body of Christ. We must also reconcile with our brother whom is in the world so that we can save him. This can only be done through compassion and mercy and understanding. Take the time to listen to others instead of telling them what you think is correct. “First take the beam out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to be able to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
“But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was, how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory? For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory. For indeed what had glory, in this case has no glory because of the glory that surpasses it. For if that which fades away was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory.”
How could Moses be at one point essentially the apex of God’s eternal law and then eventually fade? Does God’s Word come back void? Defiantly not! Moses’s ministry was designed this way. That is why he used the veil. That was a prophecy and God winking at us that there is still yet more to come regarding God’s eternal law. For example the sabbath was only one day for the Israelites. Now we get to live the sabbath daily. And not only that but it’s no longer steeped in extensive rituals and partitions so we really get to enjoy it with all liberty!
“Therefore having such a hope, we use great boldness in our speech, and are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the end of what was fading away. But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart; but whenever a person 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 liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”
We mustn’t resort to old forms. Even in Moses’s time they had to keep reaching for higher and higher ground as they came out of faded glories from ancient Egypt proceeding from glory to glory.
christdeciples 