2 Corinthians 3:3 Commentary and Bible Study

Then in this third verse it is put so carefully. Christ is the author; he is the one who dictated the epistle which the Corinthian converts have now become. He is the one who gave the gospel, so it is his message that has been written, etched in their hearts, it is the message of Christ. It is a message ‘ministered by us’, says Paul. You could say, delivered by us, the apostles and the preachers. Christ wrote it, we delivered it, and the Holy Spirit actually wrote it on your hearts. So, it is as if, Christ dictated the gospel, we distributed it, and the Holy Spirit wrote it deeply in the Corinthians’ hearts at conversion, that is the full illustration.Now there is the introduction to what follows. The apostle is going to be speaking about how the law, the Ten Commandments, the moral law of God, were written in tables of stone. That is in the past, but now the Holy Spirit, with the clear revelation of Christ, is writing the message of the gospel in the fleshy tables of the hearts of those who are converted and this is, of course, exactly what Jeremiah 31.31-34: ‘Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant [that is what Paul will speak of] with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:  Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord [he is speaking of the days of Christ], I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.  And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them.’So Jeremiah is given to prophesy that a time is coming when the church will be so different. It won’t be like the Old Testament church, where saints and sinners were mixed together in the same church, where most of the people were unconverted, which was a great trial and burden to those who truly loved the Lord. But the day is coming when God in a widespread way is going to write his law on the hearts of people and the churches. Of course, they will preach to the outsiders, ‘Know the Lord’, but in their church they shouldn’t need to say it to their fellow members because they will have a regenerate membership. Things will be different, it won’t be like the old order at all.