The "Ministry Of Death"

Perhaps it is just me but it seems that quite a few people appear to have a disregard for the Law of God. Any positive mention of God's righteous Law, provokes a tangent of wild allegations concerning "binding the conscious of saints" or "placing a yoke on believers" and some go so far a to charge "heresy." In the midst of the discussion 2 Corinthians 3:7 often comes up. Now, I'm perplexed to how it is used by individuals that deny (at least that seems to be the case) the third use (the Law acts as a rule and guide for the believer) of the Law. They tend to emphasize that the Law is a "ministry of death" but are they asserting that the Law is bad or that it is no longer to be used, in this case as the guide for the believer, for the Christian? Perhaps, for them, it is both? In either case an affirmative answer is wrong.

Before we actually get to the text in 2 Corinthians it is wise to state the difference between Law and Gospel since there seems to be some confusion that to teach or believe in the third use of Law is to teach a works based Gospel. Since my position is not a novel one, permit me to quote from John Colquhoun's book  A Treatise On The Law And The Gospel: "By 'the law' here is meant the moral law as a covenant of works, and by 'the gospel' is meant in its strict and proper sense. To know the difference so as to be able to distinguish aright between the law and gospel is of the utmost importance to the faith, holiness, and comfort of every true Christian. It will be impossible otherwise for a man so to believe as to be 'filled with joy and peace in believing.' If he does not know the the difference between law and the gospel he will be apt, especially in the affair of justification, to confound the one with the other. The consequence will be that in his painful experience, bondage will be mixed with liberty of spirit, fear with hope, sorrow with joy, and death with life. If he cannot distinguish the gospel from the law  as to expect all his salvation from grace  of the gospel, and nothing of it from the works of the law; he will easily be induced to connect his own works with the righteousness of Christ in the affair of his justification...To mingle, then, the law with the gospel, or to teach men to join the works of the law as the ground of the sinner's title to justification in the sight of God, is, according to our apostle, to preach another gospel" (p. 141-142). To this we say a very loud- Amen! Especially, since, in our day many are trying to collapse the Law and Gospel distinction or remove it altogether, while others swing in the opposite direction and believe in absolute discontinuity of God' holy Law. One borders on legalism, while the other on antinomian-ism.

Now to the text at hand: "Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be 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 of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory" (2 Co 3:4–11). The obvious thing to point out is Paul is emphasizing the superiority of the New Covenant, of which he was a minister, with the Old Covenant. He is comparing the two and highlighting that one was passing and the other permanent. But notice what Paul says in 3:7. He calls the Old Covenant the "ministry of death" but states that it came with glory. If Paul were trying to paint the Old Covenant (which includes the Law) as something "wrong" or "bad" he could hardly say that it came with glory! Something he points out two other times (v. 9,11). Why then does he call it a "ministry of death?" For the same reason he said that it came with glory. The Decalogue is pure, it is God's holy Law and reflects His holiness. It is perfect and good- so good that when people failed to keep it it brought death. It incurs the wrath of God when broken. It reveals and condemns people for what we are- sinners (3:9). In fact if you go back and read the account in Exodus 32 of the giving of the first set of tablets. You find the people already breaking the Law, while Moses conversing with God, worshiping the golden calf and for breaking the Law 3000 thousand died. Again, the Law is holy, break it and die. Ask the Israelites.

Next Paul speaks of the glory of the New Covenant surpassing that of the Old. The Old Covenant brought death while the New brings life (please to do not come charging at me with accusations that I'm asserting the Gospel was not present in the Old Covenant. The Gospel has been around since Genesis). The apostle's main point is the superiority of the New Covenant over the Old. Pleas note that he does not, here, speak ill of the Law but it's inferiority in giving life. The problem is not with the Law, for it serves its purpose, but with man. Look at how he points this out in v. 14: "But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away." Notice the problem comes from the hardening of the human mind. The fault lies not with the Law but man. However, Paul's main thrust is pointing out the permanence of the glorious New Covenant. Because of Christ Jesus it gives life. He alone fulfills the Law in perfection and gives life to all that are in union with Him.

We also find mention of the Spirit (v. 17-18). Does this sound familiar in connection with the New Covenant? It should: "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules" (Eze 36:26–27). When Paul speaks of freedom in relation to the New Covenant and the Holy Spirit, he is not talking about freedom from obeying the Law. He is talking about freedom from the bondage to the Law (Christ has kept perfectly it for us), freedom for it's curse, freedom from bondage to sin and freedom to obey the Law because it has gone from external to internal something he mentions in v.3 and is a clear allusion to Jeremiah 31:33: "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people."


No sir, Paul was no antinomian. Granted his main point in 2 Corinthians was not bout the third use of the Law but it can definitely be found in his other writings as well in other place in the New Testament. For a better explanation of the perpetuity of the moral Law, see this article, written by one of my fellow bloggers, found here.

It is possible to speak of freedom from the Law as Louis Berkhof writes: "It is possible to say that in some respects the Christian is free from the law of God. The Bible does not always speak of the law in the same sense. Sometimes it contemplates this as the immutable expression of the nature and will of God, which applies at all times and under all conditions. But it also refers to it as it functions in the covenant of works, in which the gift of eternal life was conditioned on its fulfilment. Man failed to meet the condition, thereby also losing the ability to meet it, and is now by nature under a sentence of condemnation. When Paul draws a contrast between the law and the gospel, he is thinking of this aspect of the law, the broken law of the covenant of works, which can no more justify, but can only condemn the sinner. From the law in this particular sense, both as a means for obtaining eternal life and as a condemning power, believers are set free in Christ, since He became a curse for them and also met the demands of the covenant of works in their behalf. The law in that particular sense and the gospel of free grace are mutually exclusive" (Systematic theology p.613–614).


It is also possible to speak of the Christian being "bound" to the Law. Now, I personally do not like the term "bound," since it conveys too much of the Old  Covenant administration. However, I recognize what my fellow Christians are communicating when they use the terms "bound' and "binding." Again, I defer to Berkhof to better communicate this concept: "There is another sense, however, in which the Christian is not free from the law. The situation is quite different when we think of the law as the expression of man’s natural obligations to his God, the law as it is applied to man even apart from the covenant of works. It is impossible to imagine any condition in which man might be able to claim freedom from the law in that sense. It is pure Antinomianism to maintain that Christ kept the law as a rule of life for His people, so that they need not worry about this any more. The law lays claim, and justly so, on the entire life of man in all its aspects, including his relation to the gospel of Jesus Christ. When God offers man the gospel, the law demands that the latter shall accept this. Some would speak of this as the law in the gospel, but this is hardly correct. The gospel itself consists of promises and is no law; yet there is a demand of the law in connection with the gospel. The law not only demands that we accept the gospel and believe in Jesus Christ, but also that we lead a life of gratitude in harmony with its requirements" (Systematic Theology p.614).

We are neither legalists, nor, Marcion antinomians. The "minstry of death" leads to the ministry of life and does, indeed, include the use of the Law as the rule of life for the Christian. We heartily affirm all three uses of the Law. Soli Deo Gloria!

For His Glory,
Fernando