Timbits 7

2CO 3:5-18. A. Paul compares the temporary glory of Moses’s shining countenance with the temporary glory of the Law. B. Moses’s face shone and was vailed as he gave the Law to Israel. EXO 34:29-35. C. Once the Law was given, we read no more of Moses’s shining face and his vail. D. Accordingly, the Law itself was a temporary glory. 1. It was added until Christ. GAL 3:19. 2. It was a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ, not a taskmaster to keep men in bondage to unbearable burdens. GAL 3:24 c/w ACT 15:10 c/w MAT 11:28-30. 3. God-pleasing life is a bearable burden without impossible “do and live” righteousness or the many rituals and scruples of the Jewish Law. 1JO 5:1-3. 4. The schoolmaster’s service is temporary, like Moses’s vail and the Law. GAL 3:25. E. Moses read the Law with a vail on his face “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (v. 18). 1. The Law which condemned men still does so without the Spirit of the New Testament. 2. The converted Christian can read the Law and see its end in Christ. ROM 10:4. 3. Moses’s vail is long gone but not the vail of unbelief on the heart. vs. 14-16; 2CO 4:3-4. 4. Even the most zealous Jew will not experience the change noted in v. 18 without the ministration of the Spirit. c/w PHIL 3:6-9. 5. Sin makes men hide their faces from Christ. ISA 53:3. 6. Grace empowers men to behold Him with open face: reading of His salvation of sinners and His power to help them overcome sin to be more like Him. 7. This change is facilitated by great plainness of speech (v. 12) which declares sins forgiven, death’s conquest, a heavenly inheritance and available grace to overcome by faith: a better testament indeed (HEB 8:6) by a Mediator Whose glorious countenance is revealed in the Word.a. This more excellent glory remaineth (v. 11). It is not temporary but permanent.b. It is the everlasting gospel. REV 14:6.c. The apostles were specially fitted for the good news. 2CO 4:5-6.

2CO 11:6. A. rude: Uneducated, unlearned; ignorant; lacking in knowledge or book-learning. B. “Rude” here translates the Gr. idiotes (SRN G2399): a private person, an ignoramus. C. Paul was not rude in speech because he was an ignoramus (“...yet not in knowledge...”). It was rather because he did not want wisdom of words to diminish the cross of Christ. 1CO 1:17. 1. This bothered the Greek mind which magnified human wisdom. 1CO 1:22. 2. He was a babbler to their esteemed philosophers. ACT 17:18. D. Paul did not rely on: 1. excellency of speech or of wisdom. 1CO 2:1. 2. enticing words of man’s wisdom. 1CO 2:4. 3. good words and fair speeches. ROM 16:18.4. great swelling words of vanity. 2PE 2:18. E. Paul instead used great plainness of speech (2CO 3:12), for the facts of sin and the power of the cross need not the embellishment of human wisdom and in fact oppose that. 1CO 1:21-24. F. Paul’s speech was contemptible (despicable). 2CO 10:10. 1. It was not so to the humble but to the sages that made much of education and human wisdom. 2. This was not a uniquely Greek issue. The Jewish elite had done likewise and had taken away the key of knowledge from the common man. LUK 11:52 c/w ACT 4:13. 3. Christ spoke plainly “...and the common people heard him gladly” (MAR 12:37). 4. Beware the elitist who muddies the obvious with his “superior” learning. 5. “There are notions so foolish that only an intellectual will believe them.” (George Orwell) G. The same Greek word, idiotes, is translated “unlearned” in 1CO 14:16, 23-24. 1. This is not a slam on new converts / babes in Christ unless they be willingly ignorant. HEB 5:12-14. 2. The just should be all on the same path: some breaking trail for others. PRO 4:18 c/w EPH 4:12-13. 2CO 12:1-4. A. Paul seems to have momentarily been in God’s presence in paradise. B. There he “...heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter” (v. 4). C. unspeakable: Incapable of being expressed in words; inexpressible, indescribable, ineffable. 2. Incapable of being spoken or uttered; that may not be spoken. D. Whatever these words were, or by whom they were spoken is not here explained. But there is obviously a convention of language in the heavenly state. E. If this was speech in the tongues of angels (1CO 13:1), it is a risky proposition to speak in angels’ tongues as charismatics claim to do, since they may speak what is not lawful for a man to utter. F. God has given us languages to use and hone for our development in all things, including spiritual things. But human languages are all under the bondage of corruption and fall short of perfect expression of divine truth. 1. The best of human language (Canadian ;-) ) is unable to fully express Christ. 2CO 9:15. 2. The joy of Christ is itself unspeakable (1PE 1:8). It transcends language. 3. But thank God that He made it known to us in our language!