3:17 This is an important Trinitarian text emphasizing the close relationship between the Son and the Spirit. In Rm 8:9 “the Spirit of God” and “the Spirit of Christ” appear to be interchangeable.[1]
3:17 “The Lord is the Spirit” is not an attempt at a definition of the relationship of the Son to the Spirit. It is an assertion that one cannot turn to the Lord (v. 16) without coming to know the ministry of the Spirit at the same time. The statement is functional and descriptive and should be joined to the last phrase of v. 18, “from the Lord, the Spirit” (see note in center column). Within this framing, Paul affirms that where the Spirit ministers there is: (1) “liberty” (v. 17), (2) “unveiled faces” (v. 18), (3) transformation (metamorphoōg, Gk.), and ever-increasing “glory” (v. 18).[2]
3:17 the Lord is the Spirit. Here Paul stresses the close relationship between Christ and the Holy Spirit. By virtue of His resurrection and ascension, Christ and the life-giving Spirit are closely identified in function (1 Cor. 15:45). It is also possible to translate this phrase, “Now the Spirit is the Lord.” The Holy Spirit is truly God; like the Father and the Son, He is the One who is known simply as “the Lord” in the Old Testament. Such a translation gives a natural sense to the word “is.”
there is freedom. The bondage was to death, sin, and hopeless effort to obey the law by our own power.[3]
3:17 the Lord is the Spirit Paul may be identifying Christ with the Spirit—particularly in terms of their roles—while also distinguishing between them. Jesus and the Spirit are elsewhere identified with each other (e.g., Rom 8:9; Phil 1:19; 1 Pet 1:10–11). It also is possible that 2 Cor 3:17 clarifies v. 16, where “the Lord” refers to God the Father. In this case, Paul’s point is that the Lord of the ot narrative mentioned in v. 16 (Exod 34:34) is the Spirit of God (2 Cor 3:3, 6, 8). Either way, the Spirit’s role in lifting the veil is central to Paul’s message.
freedom The ministry of the Spirit (v. 8) brings freedom from the power of sin and death—those things that the law could not free people from. See v. 6 and note.[4]
3:17 the Lord is the Spirit. Different explanations have been offered for this difficult and compressed statement: Paul may be saying that Christ and the Spirit function together in the Christian’s experience—i.e., that the Lord (Christ) comes to us through the ministry of the Spirit (though they are still two distinct persons). Another view (based on the reference in v. 16 to Ex. 34:34, “Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him”) is that the “Lord” here refers to Yahweh (“the Lord”) in the OT (that is, God in his whole being without specifying Father, Son, or Spirit). In this case, Paul is saying that Yahweh in the OT is not just Father and Son, he is also Spirit. In either case, Paul’s primary point seems to be that the Christian’s experience of the ministry of the Spirit under the new covenant (2 Cor. 3:3–8) is parallel to Moses’ experience of the Lord under the old covenant—i.e., that the Spirit (under the new covenant) sets one free from the veil of hard-heartedness (vv. 12–15). Paul regularly distinguishes Christ from the Holy Spirit in his writings, and that is surely the case even here, since later in this verse he speaks of the Spirit of the Lord. Moreover, it should not be supposed that Paul is teaching that any of the members of the Trinity (the Father, the Son, or the Spirit) are the same person, which would be the heresy of modalism; instead Paul is stressing the gracious unity of purpose among the three persons of the Trinity. There is freedom, though unspecified in the context, most likely refers to the many kinds of freedom that come with salvation in Christ and with the presence of the Holy Spirit: that is, freedom from condemnation, guilt, sin, death, the old covenant, and blindness to the gospel, as well as freedom that gives access to the loving presence of God.[5]
3:17 the Lord is the Spirit. Yahweh of the OT is the same Lord who is saving people in the New Covenant through the agency of the Holy Spirit. The same God is the minister of both the Old and New Covenants. there is liberty. Freedom from sin and the futile attempt to keep the demands of the law as a means of earning righteousness (cf. Jn 8:32–36; Ro 3:19, 20). The believer is no longer in bondage to the law’s condemnation and Satan’s dominion.[6]
3:17 — Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
When Jesus comes into a human heart by faith, through the Spirit He sets that person free from the bondage of sin, the chains of death, and the futile attempt of trying to become righteous through self-effort.[7]
3:17 the Lord is Spirit: The Holy Spirit is God Himself, like the Father and like the Son. liberty: The Spirit gives us freedom from sin, death, and the condemnation of the law (vv. 7–12).[8]
3:17. Now the Lord, who is mentioned in v 16 and who has been identified as Christ to whom the OT points (v 13), is the Spirit. Paul is not confusing the Spirit with Jesus. However, the Lord and Spirit are one, much like the relationship between Jesus and God the Father (John 10:30). The Lord Christ, who is God Himself, can transform people into His image because the work of the Spirit, who is God Himself, indwells them. And where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. The Spirit offers freedom from the Law (Gal 5:18), from fear (Rom 8:5), and from sin (Rom 7:6).[9]
3:17 Paul has been emphasizing that Christ is the key to the OT. Here he re-emphasizes that truth by saying, Now the Lord is the Spirit. Most versions, including NKJV, capitalize Spirit, interpreting it as the Holy Spirit. But the context suggests that the Lord is the spirit of the OT just as “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev. 19:10). All the types and shadows of the OT find their fulfillment in Christ. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty means that wherever Jesus Christ is recognized as Lord or Jehovah, there is liberty, that is, freedom from the bondage of the law, freedom from obscurity in reading the Scriptures, and freedom to gaze upon His face without a veil between.[10]
3:17. In the Old Covenant when Moses entered the Lord’s presence he removed his veil (Ex. 34:34). In the New Covenant it is the Spirit who removes the veil. The Holy Spirit is the personal “Agent” of Christ; He is the Spirit of the Lord (cf. Rom. 8:9). The Two are One in purpose (John 15:26; 16:6–15) and in result (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 5:1). Paul’s words the Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17; cf. v. 18) do not confuse these two Persons of the Godhead. Instead, they affirm the Holy Spirit’s deity.
A major result of the New Covenant is freedom. Elsewhere Paul compared those under the Old Covenant to children of slavery and those under the New to children of freedom (Gal. 4:24–31). This freedom is possible because Christ has redeemed from the penalty of the Law those who believe so that they become children of God (Gal. 4:5–7). This freedom as children is confirmed by the Spirit, who enables Christians to call God Father (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6).[11]
3:17. By saying the Lord is the Spirit, Paul was not equating the Father and the Spirit as one person. He was explaining the significance of Ex 34:34 to NT believers. Moses uniquely turned to the Lord (Yahweh) in the tent of meeting; but now NT believers turn to the Spirit in their conversion. The liberty that results is not an independence to do whatever one pleases, but rather is liberation from hardheartedness.[12]
3:17. Continuing to draw attention to the change that had taken place in Christ, Paul stated, Now the Lord is the Spirit. This sentence is difficult to interpret because it appears to assert an identity between Christ and the Holy Spirit. Such an identification would contradict the doctrine of the Trinity which states that God is one substance, but three persons. The persons of the Trinity are not identical to one another.
The context indicates that Paul used the term Lord here and in 3:16 to refer to Christ and that he spoke figuratively about the relationship between Christ and the Holy Spirit. He did not intend to describe an identity between Christ and the Holy Spirit. As the immediate context makes clear, Paul did not always speak literally. In the preceding three verses, he had described the related realities of Moses’ veil and contemporary Jewish dullness by identifying one with the other. Thus, it is likely that when he identified Christ with the Spirit, he used a figure of speech (cf. Phil. 1:21).
He really meant something like “the Lord is the one who sent the Spirit” or “the Spirit is of the Lord.” This is evident from 3:17b, which refers to the Spirit of the Lord. This second half of the verse assumes that the first half does not equate the Lord with the Spirit, but asserts a close connection between them. Paul had already drawn this connection between Christ and the Spirit a number of times in this context.
Paul explained how those who turned to Christ had the veil removed by declaring that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Paul had not yet touched on the theme of freedom in this context, but elsewhere in his epistles this idea is clear enough. Those who seek salvation through obedience to the Law of Moses (as many Jews did in Paul’s day) are in bondage to the law and death (Rom. 6:6–22; Gal. 2:4; cf. Heb. 2:15). Those in Christ, however, are free from the dominion of sin and death (Rom. 7:6). In Christ believers are set free from sin’s guilt and influence. Believers are no longer slaves to sin, incapable of resisting its influence over their behavior. Instead, they become free to withstand sin and to do good instead of evil. Freedom stood as one of those words that Paul used to summarize the experience of salvation in Christ.
Paul did not mean that believers were free from all obligation to obey God. Rather, for Paul freedom in Christ was only freedom from sin—it was not also freedom from righteousness. In fact, freedom from sin was slavery to righteousness. Only this slavery to righteousness enabled a person to serve “in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code” (Rom. 7:6). It is easier to understand Paul’s perspective and vocabulary when one considers that he probably drew the image of freedom not from slaves and freemen in the Roman empire, but from Israel’s freedom from their slavery in Egypt. Thus, he did not contrast slavery to another’s control with freedom to be autonomous. Instead, he contrasted slavery to a sinful power that prevented proper worship with the freedom to be ruled by God—to obey him and to worship him.[13]
3:17 “Now the Lord is the Spirit” The ministry of Jesus and the Spirit are inseparably linked (cf. vv. 17–18). The ministry of the Spirit is to magnify Jesus. It is described in John 16:8–14.
In context it is possible that Paul is not commenting on the connection between Jesus and the Spirit, but defining the word “Lord” in v. 16, which in the context of Exod. 34:34, refers to YHWH, but Paul is using it in the sense of the REB translation, “Now the Lord of whom this passage speaks is the Spirit.” If this is accurate then the entire section is not referring to Jesus by the term “Lord,” but to the Spirit (cf. Gen. 1:2). It is a contrast between the OT law code and the then unwritten gospel (written versus living).[14]
17. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
a. “Now the Lord is the Spirit.” The clauses are short and the words are uncomplicated, but the meaning of this relatively short verse is profound. Identifying the Lord with the Holy Spirit touches the doctrine of the Trinity. Is Paul referring to God the Father or to Christ? The answers to this question are numerous and varied. Nearly all the studies on verse 17a can be placed in two categories: those that present God as the Lord, and those that understand Christ to be the Lord. The close link that this verse has with the preceding one (v. 16) and its interpretation determines to a large extent the choice for the exegete. That is, one’s interpretation of verse 16 has an unavoidable bearing on verse 17.
If we interpret verse 16 to suggest strictly its Old Testament setting at the time of Moses, the word Lord means God. Whenever Moses turned to the Lord God, he removed the veil (Exod. 34:34). One translation explains verse 17 in a paraphrase, “Now the Lord of whom this passage speaks is the Spirit” (REB). God, then, is the Spirit and the word Lord in verse 18, as an expansion of verse 16, points to God.
If we take the term Lord in verses 16–18 as a reference to Christ (see v. 14), we interpret the passage to mean that Paul was addressing his Jewish contemporaries. As Moses approached God, so the Jew of Paul’s day is invited to turn to Christ. If the Jew responds affirmatively to this invitation, the veil that covers his heart is removed. Throughout this passage (vv. 16–18), Paul does not use the word God in connection with “the Lord.” Next, the purpose of verse 18a appears to focus attention on Christ: “And all of us with uncovered face are reflecting the glory of the Lord” (compare 4:4, 6). It is Paul’s intention to point his readers to Jesus Christ. And last, the flow of verses 16–18 calls for the identification of Christ with the Lord.
Let us briefly retrace some of Paul’s emphases in chapter 3. One of these is the work of the Holy Spirit. Paul mentioned the life-giving Spirit who works in people’s hearts in a ministry of glory that surpassed that of Moses (vv. 3, 6, 8). Next, in a following section he considered the difference between the old and the new covenants. Third, he does so in terms of a veil that either remained or was removed in Christ (vv. 13–15). Whenever Paul’s fellow Jews turn to Christ, the veil is lifted and they are able to accept the new covenant. Now Paul has to complete his earlier discussion on the Holy Spirit. He accentuates the nuance of the Spirit who in Christ takes away the veil from the reading of the old covenant.
The Holy Spirit works in the heart of all believers who are in Christ, for only in Christ is the veil removed (v. 14b). Without identifying the Lord and the Spirit, Paul sees the Holy Spirit at work in all the people who are in Christ. The Spirit is breathing life into the words of the new covenant. Without the veil that covered the old covenant, believers meet the Christ of the Scriptures. Paul views the Lord to be the Spirit at work in giving the believers the correct understanding of God’s revelation. Through the Word, the Spirit changes a person’s heart, fosters life, and leads a believer to freedom in Christ. In slightly different wording Paul utters the same thought at another place:
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. [Rom. 8:1–2]
b. “And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” With the second clause in verse 17, Paul makes it plain that he does not identify the Lord with the Spirit. This second clause clarifies the first, for the phrases Spirit of the Lord, of Jesus, of Christ, and of Jesus Christ occur many times in the New Testament. Paul notes a close correlation between Christ and the Holy Spirit when he writes, “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
Some scholars attempt to revise this part of the text, but their emendations are unconvincing. Conjectures are considered viable only when a reading makes no sense at all. This is not the case here. Nevertheless, some scholars wish to change the reading of the text. For example, Jean Héring seeks perfect parallelism and with conjectures contrives the following lines:
There where the Lord is, is the Spirit.
There where the Spirit is, is the liberty of the Lord.
He admits that for the reading of the first line, textual support is entirely lacking. Without this evidence, we must reject his emendation. And we question his proposed reading of the second line for its lack of textual witnesses. Early and old Latin versions, Syriac and Coptic translations, and manuscripts of the Western text stress the word there in the reading: “However, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” With respect to Héring’s second line, the evidence is wanting. His proposal is speculative, and we do well to stay with the biblical formula the Spirit of the Lord.
What is the meaning of “freedom”? The context suggests that Jews bound to the old covenant cannot fully understand God’s revelation. The hardness of their heart is a veil that prevents them from understanding the Scriptures. But when they turn to the Lord, the Spirit removes that veil. Through the Spirit of the Lord believers enjoy freedom within the setting of the new covenant, because God has written his law on their hearts and minds (Jer. 31:33). In Christ, they have been set free from the bondage to the law (Rom. 7:3–6; 8:3; Gal. 5:1), from the enslavement of sin that leads to death (Rom. 6:18–23), and from their old nature (Rom. 6:6: Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9). Believers are able to lead a joyful life, for the Spirit of God lives within them (1 Cor. 3:16).[15]
Ver. 17. Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.—
Christ the Spirit of Christianity:—
I. Note the great principles in the text. 1. Christianity is a spirit. (1) There is a “letter” and a “spirit” in everything. These two things are quite distinct. The letter may be changed, the spirit may be unchangeable. The same spirit may require for its expression to different minds different letters. The spirit may not only cease to be represented, but may be positively misrepresented, by its form. Christ, e.g., enjoined the washing of one another’s feet where washing the feet was a common service; but we smile at the professed obedience to this precept every year of his holiness of Rome. (2) The Old Testament was a letter in which there was a spirit. The very idea of a letter supposes that something is written. And, further, that spirit, so far as it went, was the same as in the gospel; the law represented the same ideas and sentiments as the gospel, but in a different way, and with different results, so as to justify the calling of one a “letter” and the other a “spirit.” The first, though not without spirit, had more letter in it; and the second, though not without letter, has more spirit in it. Christianity is like a book for men, which assumes many things that children must have in most explicit statement. It is more suggestive than explanatory, trusts more to conscience than to argument, and appeals more to reason than to rule. Its doctrines are principles, not propositions; its institutions are grand outcomes, not precise ceremonies; its laws are moral sentiments, not minute directions. 2. Christ is the Spirit of Christianity. (1) The fact of there being a revelation at all is owing to Christ. But for Him the beginning of sin would have been the end of humanity. But God had, in anticipation of the fall, devised a plan of redemption. Forfeited life was continued because of Christ. Whatever was done was for Him. The great events of past times were preparatory to Him. Prophets spoke of Him, kings ruled for Him, priests typified Him. According to Christ’s contemplated work men were treated. But if the law was through Christ as its grand reason, how much more is the gospel! For now He is not the secret but the revealed agent of God’s providence. What was done before was done because of Him, what is done now is done directly by Him. He realised the conceptions expressed by Judaism, made its figures facts, its predictions history. (2) Christ is the Spirit of Christianity, as He is the personal representation of its truths. The gospel is Christ. It shines in Him as in a mirror, it lives in Him as in a body. Is God the prime idea of all religion? “He that has seen Me has seen the Father.” Is the moral character of God as important as His existence? Behold “the image of the invisible God” as “He goes about doing good.” Is reunion with God the great need of humanity? It is consummated in the Incarnation. Do we want law? “Walk even as He walked.” Do we die? “Christ, the firstfruits of them that slept.” Are we sighing for immortality? “This is the eternal life.” (3) The Holy Spirit, by whom spiritual blessings are conveyed, is emphatically the Spirit of Christ. This Spirit, the closest and most quickening contact of God with our souls, is the fruit of the reconciliation with God effected by Christ. That effected, Christ went to heaven that He might give us this “other Comforter, even the Spirit of truth.” 3. Christ, as the Spirit of Christianity, is the Spirit of liberty.” The genius of a spiritual life is to be free. “The law was not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient.” The more spiritual men are, the less do they require external regulations; and one of the most striking features of Christianity is its comparative freedom from such. It is a “law of liberty,” in the sense of leaving us at liberty upon many points; moral excellence is its requirement, not ceremonial exactness. Its law is summed up by love to God and man. You do not need to fetter a loving child with the rules you lay upon a hireling. The gospel is spiritual in its form, because it is spiritual in its power. In the following verse a sublime truth is set before us. The liberty of the gospel is holiness. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death”: only the Spirit can do this. The letter may keep sin down, but the spirit turns it out. The letter may make us afraid to do it, the spirit makes us dislike to have it. And is not that liberty, when we are free to serve God in the gospel of His Son, free to have access to Him with the spirit of adoption, free to run the way of His commandments, because “enlarged in heart”? He is the slave whose will is in fetters; and nothing but the Spirit, the Lord, can set that free.
II. The subject is fruitful in reflections and admonitions. 1. The text is one of a large class which intimate and require the divinity of Christ. The place assigned to Christ in the scheme and providence of God is such that only on the supposition of His Divine nature can it be understood and explained. Destroy Him, take Him away, and you do not merely violate the language, but annihilate the very life of God’s covenant. If Christianity be what we are accustomed to regard it, He who is its Spirit, in the way and for the reasons which itself explains, can be no other than the “true God and eternal life.” 2. We see the greatness of the privileges with which, as Christians, we have been favoured, and the source of their derivation. The apostles do employ language severely depreciating in its tone, when contrasting previous economies with our own. “Darkness,” “flesh,” “letter,” “bondage,” “the world,” are set against “light,” “spirit,” “grace,” “liberty,” and “the kingdom of God” and “of heaven.” And the reason of our being so blessed is to be found in Christ. Shall we not be grateful? And shall not gratitude express itself in holiness? “Ye are not under the law, but under grace,” and the great worth of this position is in the facilities for sanctification which it affords. 3. Let us give to the personal element in Christianity its proper place and power. In the apostles’ writings there was an indestructible connection of every principle of the gospel with the personal Christ. Everything was “in Him.” Christ was Christianity. He is “the Truth,” “the Way,” “the Life,” the “peace,” “hope,” and “resurrection” of men; He is their “wisdom,” “righteousness,” “sanctification,” and “redemption.” Religion is not merely a contemplation of truth, or a doing of morality; it is fellowship with God and with His Son. We are to love Christ, not spiritual beauty; to believe in Christ, not spiritual truth; to live to Christ, not spiritual excellence. 4. Our subject instructs and encourages us in connection with the diffusion of our religion through the earth. The gospel is a spirit. Well, indeed, might we despond, when contemplating the powers of darkness, if we could not associate with our religion the attributes of spirit. But, said Christ, “the words that I speak unto you are spirit and life.” And our subject also teaches charity. Can there be any heart unaffected when the promise of “liberty,” in its highest state and completest measure, is before us? Can you dwell upon the hard bondage of the souls of men, both in civilised and uncivilised conditions, and not long to “preach deliverance to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound”? (A. J. Morris.)
Liberty of the spiritual life:—The heavenly life imparted is liberty and truth and peace; it is the removal of bondage and darkness and pain. So far from being a mechanical constraint, as some would represent, it is the removal of the iron chain with which guilt had bound the sinner. It acts like an army of liberation to a down-trodden country, like the warm breath of spring to the frost-fettered tree. For the entrance of true life or living truth into man’s soul must be liberty, not bondage. (A. Bonar.)
The spirit of liberty:—1. It is remarkable that, when our Lord expounded in the synagogue of Nazareth, He chose a passage of which two-fifths related to “liberty.” Between that passage and my text there is a singular connection. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” &c. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
I. We are all of us so constituted that there must be a certain sense of freedom to make a play of the affections. 1. Satan knew this quite well when he destroyed the loving allegiance of our first parents by introducing first into their minds the thought of bondage. “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not cat of every tree of the garden?” And so the poison had worked. “You are not free.” In catching at a fictitious freedom the first Adam lost the true. The second Adam made Himself a “servant of servants,” that He might restore to us a greater freedom than Adam lost. 2. But still the same enemy is always trying to spoil our paradises by making us deny our freedom. He has two ways of doing this. Sometimes he gives us a sense of bondage, which keeps us back from peace, and therefore holiness. Sometimes he gives us an idea of imaginary “liberty,” of which the real effect is that it leaves us the slave of a sentiment or of a passion. 3. Some persons are afraid of “liberty,” lest it should run into “licentiousness.” But I do not find in the whole Bible that we are warned against too much “liberty.” In fact, it is almost always those who have felt themselves too shut up who break out into lawlessness of conduct. Just as the stopped river, bursting its barrier, runs into the more violent stream.
II. That you should “stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ makes His people free,” understand what your real “liberty” is. 1. “By and by,” somebody says, “when I have believed and prayed a little more, and lived a little more religiously, then I hope God will forgive me.” So every night he has to consider whether he is yet good enough to justify the hope that he is a child of God; and the consequence is that man prays with no “liberty.” But, all the while, what is the fact? God does love him. All he wants is to take facts as facts. It needs but one act of realisation, and every promise of the Bible belongs to that man. This done, see the difference. He feels himself a child of God through God’s own grace, and his “liberated” mind leaps to the God who has loved him. Now the right spring is put into the machinery of his breast. He works in the freedom of a certainty. And from that date that man’s real sanctification begins. 2. There are many whose minds are continually recurring to old sins. They have prayed over them again and again, but still they cannot take their thoughts off them. But the freeman of the Lord knows the meaning of those words—“He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit.” All he feels he has to do is to bring his daily sins to that Fountain where he has washed all the sins of his former life. And do not you see that that man will go with a lightened feeling? 3. See the nature of that man’s forgiveness. To obey the command of any one we love is pleasant, but to obey because it will please him, though he has not commanded it, is much happier. The spirit of the law is always better than the law. Deuteronomy is better than Leviticus. Now this is the exact state of a Christian. He has studied the commands till he has reached to the spirit of the commands. He has gathered “the mind of God,” and he follows that. A command prescribes, and whatever prescribes circumscribes, and is so far painful. But the will of God is an unlimited thing, and therefore it is unlimiting. (1) And when man, free because “the Son has made him free,” goes to read his Bible, like a man who has got the free range of all its pastures, to cull flowers wherever he likes, he is free to all the promises that are there, for he has “the mind of Christ.” (2) Or hear him in prayer. How close it is! How boldly he puts in his claim! (3) The fear of death never hurts that man. Why? Because his death is over. (4) And, because he is so very free, you will find there is a large-heartedness and a very charitable judgment in that man. He lives above party. (J. Vaughan, M.A.)
The liberty of the Spirit:—How much is made of earthly liberty—the shadow of true freedom. How true it is that, whilst many men “profess to give liberty to others, they themselves are the slaves of corruption.” Men are content to be slaves within who would be very indignant at any attempt to make them slaves without. The apostle, speaking of the bondage of the law, said that, when the heart of the Jew shall turn to the Lord, then, and not till then, shall they come to the true freedom. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is—
I. Liberty from condemnation. If a man is under sentence of death he cannot find liberty. He may forget his imprisonment in mirth and feasting, but it is not the less real because he forgets it. The morning will come when he will be dragged off to his fearful doom. We are under the sentence of God’s broken law. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” How beautiful, then, the language of the apostle! (Rom. 8:1).
II. Liberty from law. The law knows nothing of mercy and forgiveness, nor does it afford the least help to holiness. Its command is, “Do this, and live; break this in the least, and die.” Therefore, “by the deeds of the law” shall no man have peace with God. But “what the law could not do,” &c. (Rom. 8:2–4).
III. Liberty to obey. Many think they are free, and that they will do as they like; but they do not like to do what they ought to like, and therefore they are slaves after all. The way in which a man may convince himself of his slavery is to try to be what he ought to be. He can do nothing of himself, and he must be brought to feel that he can do no good thing without God. But what the flesh cannot do the Spirit will enable him to do. “It is God which worketh in us, both to will and to do of His good pleasure”; therefore “work out your own salvation,” &c.
IV. Liberty to fight the good fight of faith. A man can do battle with his corrupt nature, he can win the victory over the principalities and powers of darkness, and his sword is a sword of liberty. The drunkard becomes sober, the impure chaste, the vindictive forgiving, by the power of the Spirit of God.
V. Liberty of access to God. The one true and living way is open, but it cannot be discerned except a man has it revealed to him by the Spirit of God. Through Christ we have access by one Spirit unto the Father.
VI. Liberty of holy boldness and fortitude in the service of God. (H. Stowell, M.A.)
The freedom of the Spirit:—1. To possess the Lord Jesus Christ is to possess the Holy Ghost, who is the minister and guardian of Christ’s presence in the soul. The apostle’s conclusion is that those who are converted to Jesus have escaped from the veil which darkened the spiritual intelligence of Israel. The converting Spirit is the source of positive illumination; but, before He enlightens thus, He must give freedom from the veil of prejudice which denies to Jewish thought the exercise of any real insight into the deeper sense of Scripture. That sense is seized by the Christian student of the ancient law, because in the Church of Christ he possesses the Spirit; and “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” 2. The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ because He is sent by Christ, and for the purpose of endowing us with Christ’s nature and mind. His presence does not supersede that of Christ: He co-operates in, He does not work apart from, the mediatorial work Of Christ. To possess the Holy Spirit is to possess Christ; to have lost the one is to have lost the other. Accordingly our Lord speaks of the gift of Pentecost as if it were His own second coming (John 14:18). And, after telling the Romans that “if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His,” St. Paul adds, “Now if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin.” Here Christ’s “being in” the Christian, and the Christian’s “having the Spirit of Christ,” are equivalent terms. 3. Freedom is not an occasional largess of the Divine Spirit; it is not merely a reward for high services or conspicuous devotion. It is the very atmosphere of His presence. Wherever He really is, there is also freedom. He does not merely strike off the fetters of some narrow national prejudice, or of some antiquated ceremonialism. His mission is not to bestow an external, political, social freedom. For no political or social emancipation can give real liberty to an enslaved soul. And no tyranny of the state or of society can enslave a soul that has been really freed. At His bidding the inmost soul of man has free play. He gives freedom from error for the reason, freedom from constraint for the affections, freedom for the will from the tyranny of sinful and human wills. 4. The natural images which are used to set forth the presence and working of the Holy Spirit are suggestive of this freedom. The Dove, which pictures His gentle movement on the soul and in the Church, suggests also the power of rising at will above the dead level of the soil into a higher region where it is at rest. The “cloven tongue like as of fire” is at once light and heat; and light and heat imply ideas of the most unrestricted freedom. “The wind” blowing “where it listeth”; the well of water in the soul, springing up, like a perpetual fountain, unto everlasting life—such are our Lord’s own chosen symbols of the Pentecostal gift. All these figures prepare us for the language of the apostles when they are tracing the results of the great Pentecostal gift. With St. James, the Christian, no less than the Jew, has to obey a law, but the Christian law is “a law of library.” With St. Paul, the Church is the Jerusalem which is “free”; in contrast with the bondwoman the Christian is to stand fast in a liberty with which Christ has freed him; he is “made free from sin, and become the servant of righteousness.” St. Paul compares “the glorious liberty of the children of God” with the “bondage of corruption”; he contrasts the “law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” which gives us Christians our freedom, with the enslaving “law of sin and death.” According to St. Paul, the Christian slave is essentially free, even while he still wears his chain (1 Cor. 7:22). Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is—
I. Mental liberty. 1. From the first God has consecrated liberty of thought by withdrawing thought from the control of society. Society protects our persons and goods, and passes judgment upon our words and actions; but it cannot force the sanctuary of our thought. And the Spirit comes not to suspend, but to recognise, to carry forward, to expand, and to fertilise almost indefinitely the thought of man. He has vindicated for human thought the liberty of its expression against imperial tyranny and official superstition. The blood of the martyrs witnessed to the truth that, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is mental liberty. 2. In the judgment of an influential school dogma is the enemy of religious freedom. But what is dogma? The term belongs to the language of civilians; it is applied to the imperial edicts. It also finds a home in the language of philosophy; and the philosophers who denounce the dogmatic statements of the gospel are hardly consistent when they are elaborating their own theories. Dogma is essential Christian truth thrown by authority into a form which admits of its permanently passing into the understanding and being treasured by the heart of the people. For dogma is an active protest against those sentimental theories which empty revelation of all positive value. Dogma proclaims that revelation does mean something, and what. Accordingly dogma is to be found no less truly in the volume of the New Testament than in Fathers and Councils. It is specially embodied in our Lord’s later discourses, in the sermons of His apostles, in the epistles of St. Paul. The Divine Spirit, speaking through the clear utterances of Scripture, is the real author of essential dogma; and we know that “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” 3. But is not dogma, as a matter of fact, a restraint upon thought? Unquestionably. But there is a notion of liberty which is impossible. Surely a being is free when he moves without difficulty in the sphere which is assigned to him by his natural constitution. If he can only travel beyond his sphere with the certainty of destroying himself, it is not an unreasonable tax upon his liberty whereby he is confined within the barrier that secures his safety. Now truth is originally the native element of human thought; and Christian dogma prescribes the direction and limits of truth concerning God and His relations to man. (1) Certainly the physical world does not teach us that obedience to law is fatal to freedom. The heavens would cease to “declare the glory of God” if the astronomers were to destroy those invariable forces which confine the movement of the swiftest stars to their fixed orbits. And when man himself proceeds to claim that empire which God has given him over the world of nature, he finds his energies bounded and controlled by law in every direction. We men can transport ourselves to and fro on the surface of this earth. But if in an attempt to reach the skies we should succeed in mounting to a region where animal life is impossible, we know that death would be the result of our success. Meanwhile our aeronauts, and even our Alpine climbers, do not “complain of the tyranny of the air.” (2) So it is in the world of thought. Look at those axioms which form the basis of the freest and most exact science known to the human mind. We cannot demonstrate them, we cannot reject them; but the submissive glance by which reason accepts them is no unworthy figure of the action of faith. Faith also submits, it is true; but her submission to dogma is the guarantee at once of her rightful freedom and of her enduring power. (3) So submission to revealed truth involves a certain limitation of intellectual licence. To believe the dogma that God exists is inconsistent with a liberty to deny His existence. But such liberty is, in the judgment of faith, parallel to that of denying the existence of the sun or of the atmosphere. To complain of the Creed as an interference with liberty is to imitate the savage who had to walk across London at night, and who remarked that the lamp-posts were an obstruction to traffic. 4. They only can suppose that Christian dogma is the antagonist of intellectual freedom whose misery it is to disbelieve. For dogma stimulates and provokes thought—sustains it at an elevation which, without it, is impossible. It is a scaffolding by which we climb into a higher atmosphere. It leaves us free to hold converse with God, to learn to know Him. We can speakof Him and to Him, freely and affectionately, within the ample limits of a dogmatic definition. Besides this, dogma sheds, from its home in the heart of revelation, an interest on all surrounding branches of knowledge. God is everywhere, and to have a fixed belief in Him is to have a perpetual interest in all that reflects Him. What composition can be more dogmatic than the Te Deum? Yet it stimulates unbounded spiritual movement. The soul finds that the sublime truths which it adores do not for one moment fetter the freedom of its movement.
II. Moral liberty. 1. There is no such thing as freedom from moral slavery, except for the soul which has laid hold on a fixed objective truth. But when, at the breath of the Divine Spirit upon the soul, heaven is opened to the eye of faith, and man looks up from his misery and his weakness to the everlasting Christ upon His throne; when that glorious series of truths, which begins with the Incarnation, and which ends with the perpetual intercession, is really grasped by the soul as certain—then assuredly freedom is possible. It is possible, for the Son has taken flesh, and died, and risen again, and interceded with the Father, and given us His Spirit and His sacraments, expressly that we might enjoy it. 2. But, then, we are to be enfranchised on the condition of submission. Submission! you say—is not this slavery? No; obedience is the school of freedom. In obeying God you escape all the tyrannies which would fain rob you of your liberty. In obeying God you are emancipated from the cruel yet petty despotisms which enslave, sooner or later, all rebel wills. As in the material world all expansion is proportioned to the compression which precedes it, so in the moral world the will acts with a force which is measured by its power of self-control. 3. As loyal citizens of that kingdom of the Spirit which is also the kingdom of the Incarnation, you may be really free. “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” Political liberty is a blessing; liberty of thought is a blessing. But the greatest blessing is liberty of the conscience and the will. It is freedom from a sense of sin when all is known to have been pardoned through the atoning blood; freedom from a slavish fear of our Father in heaven when conscience is offered to His unerring eye by that penitent love which fixes its eye upon the Crucified; freedom from current prejudice and false human opinion when the soul gazes by intuitive faith upon the actual truth; freedom from the depressing yoke of weak health or narrow circumstances, since the soul cannot be crushed which rests consciously upon the everlasting arms; freedom from that haunting fear of death which holds those who think really upon death at all, “all their lifetime subject to bondage,” unless they are His true friends and clients who by the sharpness of His own death has led the way and “opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.” It is freedom in time, but also, and beyond, freedom in eternity. In that blessed world, in the unclouded presence of the emancipator, the brand of slavery is inconceivable. In that world there is indeed a perpetual service; yet, since it is the service of love made perfect, it is only and by necessity the service of the free. (Canon Liddon.)
Spiritual liberty:—Liberty is the birthright of every man. But where do you find liberty unaccompanied by religion? This land is the home of liberty, not so much because of our institutions as because the Spirit of the Lord is here—the spirit of true and hearty religion. But the liberty of the text is an infinitely greater and better one, and one which Christian men alone enjoy. He is the free man whom the truth makes free. Without the Spirit of the Lord, in a free country, ye may still be bondsmen; and where there are no serfs in body, ye may be slaves in soul. Note—
I. What we are freed from. 1. The bondage of sin. Of all slavery there is none more horrible than this. “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me” from it? But the Christian is free. 2. The penalty of sin—eternal death. 3. The guilt of sin. 4. The dominion of sin. Profane men glory in free living and free thinking. Free living! Let the slave hold up his fetters and jingle them, and say, “This is music, and I am free.” A sinner without grace attempting to reform himself is like Sisiphus rolling the stone up hill, which always comes down with greater force. A man without grace attempting to save himself is engaged in as hopeless a task as the daughters of Danaus, when they attempted to fill a vast vessel with bottomless buckets. He has a bow without a string, a sword without a blade, a gun without powder. 5. Slavish fear of law. Many people are honest because they are afraid of the policeman. Many are sober because they are afraid of the eye of the public. If a man be destitute of the grace of God, his works are only works of slavery; he feels forced to do them. But now, Christian, “Love makes your willing feet in swift obedience move.” We are free from the law that we may obey it better. 6. The fear of death. I recollect a good old woman, who said, “Afraid to die, sir! I have dipped my foot in Jordan every morning before breakfast for the last fifty years, and do you think I am afraid to die now?” A good Welsh lady, when she lay a-dying, was visited by her minister, who said to her, “Sister, are you sinking?” But, rising a little in the bed, she said, “Sinking! Sinking! Did you ever know a sinner sink through a rock? If I had been standing on the sand I might sink; but, thank God! I am on the Rock of Ages, and there is no sinking there.”
II. What we are free to. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,” and that liberty gives us certain rights and privileges. 1. To heaven’s charter. Heaven’s Magna Charta is the Bible, and you are free to it—to all its doctrines, promises, &c. You are free to all that is in the Bible. It is the bank of heaven: you may draw from it as much as you please without let or hindrance. 2. To the throne of grace. It is the privilege of Englishmen that they can always send a petition to Parliament; and it is the privilege of a believer that he can always send a petition to the throne of God. It signifies nothing what, where, or under what circumstances I am. 3. To enter into the city. I am not a freeman of London, which is doubtless a great privilege, but I am a freeman of a better city. Now some of you have obtained the freedom of the city, but you won’t take it up. Don’t remain outside the Church any longer, for you have a right to come in. 4. To heaven. When a Christian dies he knows the password that can make the gates wide open fly; he has the white stone whereby he shall be known as a ransomed one, and that shall pass him at the barrier. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Signs of spiritual liberty:—Wheresoever the Spirit of God is, there is—
I. A liberty of holiness, to free us from the dominion of sin (Luke 1:75). As children can give a bird leave to fly so it be in a string to pull it back again, so Satan hath men in a string if they live in sin. The beast that runs away with a cord about him is catched by the cord again; so, having Satan’s cords about us, he can pull us in when he lists. From this we are freed by the Spirit.
II. A blessed freedom and an enlargement of heart to duties. God’s people are a voluntary people. Those that are under grace are “anointed by the Spirit” (Psa. 89:20), and that spiritual anointment makes them nimble. Otherwise spiritual duties are as opposite to flesh and blood as fire and water. When we are drawn, therefore, to duties, as a bear to a stake, for fear, or out of custom, with extrinsical motives, and not from a new nature, this is not from the Spirit. For the liberty of the Spirit is when actions come off naturally, without any extrinsical motive. A child needs not extrinsical motives to please his father. So there is a new nature in those that have the Spirit of God to stir them up to duty, though God’s motives may help as the sweet encouragements and rewards. But the principle is to do things naturally. Artificial things move from a principle without them, therefore they are artificial. Clocks and such things have weights that stir all the wheels they go by, and that move them; so it is with an artificial Christian. He moves with weights without him; he hath not an inward principle of the Spirit to make things natural to him.
III. Courage against all opposition whatsoever, joined with light and strength of faith, breaking through all oppositions. Opposition to a spiritual man adds but courage and strength to him to resist. In Acts 4:23, seq., when they had the Spirit of God, they encountered opposition; and the more they were opposed, the more they grew. They were cast in prison, and rejoiced; and the more they were imprisoned, the more courageous they were still. There is no setting against this wind, no quenching of this fire, by any human power. See how the Spirit triumphed in the martyrs. The Spirit of God is a victorious Spirit (Rom. 8:33, 34; Acts 6:10; Acts 6:15).
IV. Boldness with God himself, otherwise a “consuming fire.” For the Spirit of Christ goes through the mediation of Christ to God. That familiar boldness whereby we cry, “Abba, Father,” comes from sons. This comes from the Spirit. If we be sons, then we have the Spirit, whereby we cry, “Abba, Father.” (R. Sibbes, D.D.)[16]
17. Now the Lord is the Spirit. These words have given rise to much debate. If the Lord is taken to refer to Christ, then it may be asked whether Christ is equated with the Spirit—with all the implications such an identification would have for the doctrine of the Trinity. However, the meaning of the statement can be determined only by seeing it in the wider context of Paul’s argument in this chapter.
It needs to be remembered that Paul’s main concern in chapter 3 is to highlight the greater glory of the new covenant of the Spirit (cf. vv. 3, 6, 8, 18), which he contrasts with the lesser glory of the old covenant of the law. Paul’s Jewish contemporaries related to God through the law, but believers relate to God through the Spirit. Further, it must be recalled that in verse 16 ‘the Lord’ refers to God, not Christ, and therefore in verse 17 it is to be understood in the same way. The thrust of the two verses, then, is that when people turn to God, the veil over their minds is removed, and they realize that the time of the old covenant of the law has come to an end and that of the new covenant of the Spirit has begun. So, when under the new covenant they turn to the Lord, they experience him as the Spirit. The expression the Lord is the Spirit is not a one-to-one identification, but rather a way of saying that under the new covenant we experience the Lord as the Holy Spirit.
And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. It is significant that Paul refers to the Spirit as the Spirit of the Lord (pneuma kyriou), an expression found only here in his letters, but twenty-two times in the lxx, where, for the most part, it refers to the Spirit of God (Yahweh), confirming that when Paul says, the Lord is the Spirit, he is referring to God, not Christ, in this context.
This statement, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, must be understood within the overall context of chapter 3, where the new covenant of the Spirit is contrasted with the old covenant of the law. Under the new covenant, where the Spirit is the operative power, there is freedom. Under the old covenant, where the law reigns, there is bondage. Probably the best commentary on this freedom is Galatians 3:23–25, where the apostle describes the Jewish people as those ‘held in custody under the law’, the law being their ‘guardian until Christ came’. But once they come to faith in Christ, they are no longer under the law’s guardianship, and in this freedom Paul says they must ‘stand firm’ and not allow themselves to ‘be burdened again by a yoke of slavery’ (Gal. 5:1).[17]
17. The Lord is the Spirit. This passage, also, has been misinterpreted, as if Paul had meant to say, that Christ is of a spiritual essence, for they connect it with that statement in John 4:24, God is a Spirit. The statement before us, however, has nothing to do with Christ’s essence, but simply points out his office, for it is connected with what goes before, where we found it stated, that the doctrine of the law is literal, and not merely dead, but even an occasion of death. He now, on the other hand, calls Christ its spirit, meaning by this, that it will be living and life-giving, only if it is breathed into by Christ. Let the soul be connected with the body, and then there is a living man, endowed with intelligence and perception, fit for all vital functions.6 Let the soul be removed from the body, and there will remain nothing but a useless carcase, totally devoid of feeling.
The passage is deserving of particular notice, as teaching us, in what way we are to reconcile those encomiums which David pronounces upon the law—(Psalm 19:7, 8)—“the law of the Lord converteth souls, enlighteneth the eyes, imparteth wisdom to babes,” and passages of a like nature, with those statements of Paul, which at first view are at variance with them—that it is the ministry of sin and death—the letter that does nothing but kill. (2 Cor. 3:6, 7.) For when it is animated by Christ, those things that David makes mention of are justly applicable to it. If Christ is taken away, it is altogether such as Paul describes. Hence Christ is the life of the law.3
Where the Spirit of the Lord. He now describes the manner, in which Christ gives life to the law—by giving us his Spirit. The term Spirit here has a different signification from what it had in the preceding verse. There, it denoted the soul, and was ascribed metaphorically to Christ. Here, on the other hand, it means the Holy Spirit, that Christ himself confers upon his people. Christ, however, by regenerating us, gives life to the law, and shows himself to be the fountain of life, as all vital functions proceed from man’s soul. Christ, then, is to all (so to speak) the universal soul, not in respect of essence, but in respect of grace. Or, if you prefer it, Christ is the Spirit, because he quickens us by the life-giving influence of his Spirit.
He makes mention, also, of the blessing that we obtain from that source. “There,” says he, “is liberty.” By the term liberty I do not understand merely emancipation from the servitude of sin, and of the flesh, but also that confidence, which we acquire from His bearing witness as to our adoption. For it is in accordance with that statement—We have not again received the spirit of bondage, to fear, &c. (Rom. 8:15.) In that passage, the Apostle makes mention of two things—bondage, said fear. The opposites of these are liberty and confidence. Thus I acknowledge, that the inference drawn from this passage by Augustine is correct—that we are by nature the slaves of sin, and are made free by the grace of regeneration. For, where there is nothing but the bare letter of the law, there will be only the dominion of sin, but the term Liberty, as I have said, I take in a more extensive sense. The grace of the Spirit might, also, be restricted more particularly to ministers, so as to make this statement correspond with the commencement of the chapter, for ministers require to have another grace of the Spirit, and another liberty from what others have. The former signification, however, pleases me better, though at the same time I have no objection, that this should be applied to every one according to the measure of his gift. It is enough, if we observe, that Paul here points out the efficacy of the Spirit, which we experience for our salvation—as many of us, as have been regenerated by his grace.[18]
Ver. 17.—Now the Lord is that Spirit. The “but” (Authorized Version, “now”) introduces an explanation. To whom shall they turn? To the Lord. “But the Lord is the Spirit.” The word “spirit” could not be introduced thus abruptly and vaguely; it must refer to something already said, and therefore to the last mention of the word “spirit” in ver. 8. The Lord is the Spirit, who giveth life and freedom, in antithesis to the spirit of death and legal bondage (see ver. 6; and comp. 1 Cor. 15:45). The best comment on the verse is Rom. 8:2, “For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” All life and all religion had become to St. Paul a vision of all things in Christ. He has just said that the spirit giveth life, and, after the digression about the moral blindness which prevented the Jews from being emancipated from the bondage of the letter, it was quite natural for him to add, “Now the Lord is the Spirit to which I alluded.” The connection in which the verse stands excludes a host of untenable meanings which have been attached to it. There is liberty. The liberty of confidence (ver. 4), and of frank speech (ver. 12), and of sonship (Gal. 4:6, 7), and of freedom from guilt (John 8:36); so that the Law itself, obeyed no longer in the mere letter but also in the spirit, becomes a royal law of liberty, and not a yoke which gendereth to bondage (Jas. 1:25; 2:12)—a service, indeed, but one which is perfect freedom (Rom. 5:1–21; 1 Pet. 2:16).[19]
3:17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. The consensus of recent scholarship understands this sentence as an explanation of the previous verse, applying it to the setting of his readers: “Now, this ‘Lord’ of the Exodus story means for us the Spirit.” The life-giving (3:6), new covenant Spirit (3:7–8) who brings righteousness (3:9) and unsurpassed glory (3:10–11) also brings “freedom” and transformation (3:17–18). Paul does not explain what type of freedom the Spirit brings, and it is possible that in not qualifying the expression he may intend it quite broadly. The immediate context, however, suggests that Paul may have in mind freedom from the written code of the old covenant (3:6–10, 14), freedom from death and condemnation (3:7–9), or freedom to approach the Lord with unveiled boldness (3:12–17). Verses 17 and 18 provide the grounds for the assertion of verse 12: we are very bold (v. 12) because the Spirit gives us freedom (v. 17) and is transforming us into God’s image (v. 18)[20]
3:17 / Paul proceeds to explain (Now, de) the removal of the veil as providing access to the presence of the Lord through the Spirit. This extremely obscure and controversial statement seems to equate the Lord with the Spirit (cf. John 4:24). As we have seen, Lord can refer either to God or to Christ in Paul’s writings, for they act together or interchangeably. Hence, the Spirit is closely identified with both God and Christ (cf. 13:14). On the one hand, it is called “the Spirit of God” (Rom. 8:9, 14; 1 Cor. 2:11, 14; 3:16; 6:11; 7:40; 12:3; Phil. 3:3), “the Spirit of the living God” (2 Cor. 3:3), or “the Spirit which is from God” (1 Cor. 2:12); and on the other hand, it is called “the Spirit of (Jesus) Christ” (Rom. 8:9; Phil. 1:19) or “the Spirit of his Son” (Gal. 4:6; cf. Rom. 8:14). In fact, Romans 8:9 uses “the Spirit of God” interchangeably with “the Spirit of Christ.” The fact that 2 Corinthians 3:17a refers to the same close identification of the Spirit with God and/or Christ is signaled by the expression the Spirit of the Lord in verse 17b. In emphasizing the identification between the Lord and the Spirit, Paul shows the historical continuity between Moses’ encounter with the Lord in the tent of meeting and believers’ experience of the presence of the Lord through the Spirit of God.
The presence of the Spirit of the Lord spells freedom as a result of the new covenant situation in Christ. Upon returning to the Lord and receiving a new heart through the Spirit of the Lord, those who have been enslaved in exile receive freedom. The proclamation of liberty to captives is at the very core of the ot’s “good news” for Israel (cf. Isa. 52:2–10; 61:1–2). Of particular interest is Isaiah 61:1, where the “Spirit of the Lord” (pneuma kyriou) who comes upon the prophet, sends him “to preach good news” (euangelisasthai) to the poor and to proclaim “release” (aphesin; mt, derôr, “liberty, freedom”) to the captives. We find the same idea developed elsewhere in Paul (cf., e.g., Gal. 3:10–14; 4:1–7, 21–31; Rom. 8:14–16, 21).[21]
17 In this verse Paul says who is the “Lord” of the previous verse to whom one “turns.” That verse was Paul’s reformulation of his OT text (Exod 34:34). His opening words, “Now the Lord …,” which pick up a keyword from the OT citation, signal that an interpretation of that keyword now follows. The verse is stated in two sentences: (1) “The Lord”—to whom one “turns” (v. 16)—“is the Spirit,” and (2) “where the Spirit of the Lord is, [there is] freedom.”
Earlier references are repeated here: (1) “Spirit” from an earlier passage about the new covenant (vv. 3–7), (2) “Lord” from the previous verse, and (3) “freedom” (probably) from “boldness”/“openness” (v. 12). On the other hand, key concepts—“Lord” and “Spirit”—reappear in the climactic next verse (as “the Lord who is the Spirit”), along with, in all probability, “freedom,” expressed as “with unveiled face.” Verse 17, therefore, forms an important transition from the earlier passages of the chapter to its finale, v. 18.
The difficult phrase “the Lord is the Spirit” has been understood in several ways, including: (1) the pneumatological, which neatly identifies “Lord” = “the Spirit,” and (2) the associational,21 in which “the Spirit” identifies the “Lord” to whom one turns under the new covenant as “Spirit,” or “spiritual.”
On the face of it, the former understanding appears to be correct: one turns to the Lord; the Lord is the Spirit; therefore, one turns to the Spirit. This seems to be consistent with vv. 3 and 6, where the Spirit is “the essential characteristic of the transforming power of the new covenant.” However, there are a number of problems with this view. One is that, in the echoes we hear of apostolic preaching in the NT, it is the Lord Jesus Christ to whom the hearer “turns” (see on v. 16, where “[anyone] turns to” the Lord [Jesus Christ]). Moreover, the NT teaches that Christ is the Spirit-giver (e.g., John 4:14; 7:37–39; 15:26; 16:7; 19:30; Acts 2:33) and that the Spirit is given in consequence of hearing a message centered on Christ (e.g., Acts 10:44; 19:2; Gal 3:1–5; Eph 1:13). To be sure, the believer is not to grieve the Spirit once he has been given (see Eph 4:30; but cf. Eph 1:13), but the notion of “conversion to the Spirit” (Thrall’s phrase—1.274) is alien to the thought of the NT.
The latter option, the associational, is to be preferred because, (a) for Paul, Christ is “the last Adam … a life-giving Spirit” (1 Cor 15:45), (b) the covenant in which Jesus is Lord (4:5) is that new covenant in which, according to prophecy, the Spirit of God comes (3:3, 6, 8), (c) “the Spirit” comes in consequence of the hearing of the gospel (4:5; 8:5) and turning to the Lord Jesus (1:19–22; 3:16), and (d) the Spirit is associated with that “righteousness” imputed to those who are “in” the sinless one who was “made sin” for them (5:21; cf. 3:8–9).
So understood, Paul’s words continue, as from v. 17, his gloss on the original passage (Exod 34:34). Thus restated, the “Lord” in that passage (Yahweh) is to be understood as “the Lord Christ” (cf. v. 14), and that Lord “is the Spirit,” that is, the Lord of the “new covenant … of the Spirit” (v. 3; cf. vv. 6, 8). Had Paul simply reproduced the words “turn[s] to the Lord,” “Lord” could have been taken to refer to the “Lord” (= Yahweh) of the old covenant, suggesting that that covenant still applied. To assert that “the Lord is the Spirit,” however, points to the Spirit’s coming as the fulfillment of the promises of God (1:20–22; 6:2; cf. Ezek 36:27; Jer 31:33). This is an eschatological affirmation that the age of the Spirit has come, the evidence for which is the changed hearts and converted lives of the Corinthians (see on v. 3).
Closely connected is the probability that, as from 2:17, Paul has been responding to the countertheology of his Jewish opponents. It seems likely that they are affirming that there is no new covenant, only the one covenant, which is still in force, in which Jesus as an observant Jew was a member (cf. on 11:4). As one who belonged to the “now” time of this the “day” of God’s salvation, as part of the “new creation” (5:15–17; 6:2), Paul did not “know Christ according to the flesh,” but—by inference—according to the Spirit. But these Jewish missionaries know Christ only “according to the flesh,” as if still belonging to the old covenant. Based on this reconstruction of their understanding, they would have had no interpreted conviction about the coming of the Spirit as the fulfillment of the promises and the inauguration of the new covenant (see on vv. 3, 6; 1:20–22; 6:2). On this interpretation, Paul’s reference to the Lord as “the Spirit” is quite pointed.
The phrase “the Lord is the Spirit” does not equate that “Lord” with “the Spirit,” as is clear from the expression in the second sentence, “the Spirit of the Lord.” “The Lord” to whom one “turns” and “the Spirit of the Lord” are separate “persons.” Since “the Lord” to whom one “turns” is “the Lord Jesus Christ,” it must mean that “the Spirit of the Lord” is his “Spirit,” who must in turn be identified with “the Spirit of the living God” referred to earlier in the chapter (v. 3). The Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of God (see Rom 8:9, 10).
References to the Spirit are eschatological, pointing both to the now-realized fulfillment of prophecy and onward to the end time. The earlier references to the Spirit in this chapter (vv. 3, 6) indicate that the “new covenant” prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel have now come to pass (see on those verses). At the same time it is clear that Paul regards the Spirit as anticipatory of the future glory of God. Thus Paul declares, with reference to the future, that “God … anointed us (lit. “christed us”), sealed us [and] gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee” (1:22; cf. 5:5). The Spirit must be linked with eschatology, whether in relationship to the present fulfillment of past prophecy as seen in the changed lives of the new covenant people (v. 2), or in their enjoyment of the blessings of present relationships with God in anticipation of the full realization of those blessings.
What, then, is meant by “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom”? What is this “freedom”? Since “freedom” and related vocabulary do not appear elsewhere within 2 Corinthians, our most likely source of understanding lies in references to the Spirit earlier in this chapter.29 In our view it is a “freedom” from “the letter”; “letter” is the antithesis of “the Spirit” (v. 6). “The letter … inscribed in stones”—the dispensation of law—is “a ministry of death” that “kills” the people bound by covenant to it because it is “a ministry of condemnation” (vv. 3, 6, 7, 9). The new covenant—“a ministry of the Spirit … and of righteousness” (vv. 8, 9)—brings “life” in place of “death” and “condemnation” (vv. 6, 7, 9). On this basis “freedom” is, in the first instance, from the implied metaphorical “slavery” under God’s just condemnation of a people who break his covenant, a freedom achieved by the righteousness of God in the death of the righteous One who “became sin” for his people (5:21). As a consequence, this spells “freedom” from the obligation to observe the covenantal “letter” as the means of righteous acceptance with God.
Nonetheless, this “freedom” is not to be understood as moral or spiritual permissiveness (Gal 5:13–14; 1 Cor 8:9). It is “freedom” from the “condemnation” arising from inability through “the flesh” to keep the Law of God (cf. Rom 7:7–12). Furthermore, it is a Spirit-empowered freedom, arising from the “righteousness” of those dedicated to God “in Christ” (1 Cor 6:11; 2 Cor 3:8; 5:21) to fulfill the “righteous” requirement of the Law (Rom 8:4). The new covenant as promised by the prophets was not a covenant of lawlessness, but a covenant under which the people would be moved by the Spirit to “follow [God’s] decrees and be careful to keep [his] laws” (Ezek 36:27), to have “[his] law in their minds … [written] in their hearts” (Jer 31:33). Jesus, followed by Paul, however, did not interpret the “fulfillment” of the Law under a new covenant as characterized by legalism—as in the legalism of the Judaism of that epoch. Rather, he understood it as observing the true intention of the Law (Matt 5:17–20), in particular, the obligation to love—to love God and neighbor and to forgive one’s enemies (Mark 12:29–31; Matt 5:43–48; Rom 12:9–21; 13:8–10; Gal 5:14). This is the “law of Christ” (Gal 6:2), the “royal law … the law of liberty” (Jas 2:8, 12). Thus Paul can speak of “not being without law toward God but under the law of Christ” (1 Cor 9:21, RSV).33[22]
17 Outside of its context this verse might suggest that Paul is identifying the risen Christ with the Spirit (as W. Bousset and others have held). But v. 17 explains v. 16. “The Lord” referred to in the quotation from Exodus 34:34, to whom the Jew must now turn for the removal of the veil, is in the present era none other than the life-giving Spirit of the living God (cf. vv. 3, 6, 8). This is an affirmation about the Spirit, not about Christ; it describes his function, not his identity (as though the Spirit were the Lord [= Yahweh] of v. 16).
Another view finds here a functional equivalence between Christ and the Spirit: in v. 14 it is Christ who removes the veil; in v. 16 it is the Spirit. Again, some believe that Christ (ho kyrios, GK 3261) is being identified as “life-giving Spirit” (1 Co 15:45; cf. 2 Co 3:6).
Paul’s point in v. 17b is that though the Spirit is Lord, who has the right to exercise authority, his presence brings liberation, not bondage (cf. Ro 8:15). Not only does he remove the veil of ignorance about Christ and bring freedom of access into God’s presence without fear; he also sets a person free from bondage to sin, to death, and to the law as a means of acquiring righteousness.[23]
The New Covenant Is Energized by the Spirit
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. (3:17)
There was nothing in the old covenant to energize obedience. The Law was a jailer, locking up sinners and condemning them to death and hell. But the new covenant liberates through the power of “the Spirit [who] gives life” (3:6).
Paul’s declaration that the Lord is the Spirit strongly affirms the deity of the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 5:3–4). The same God who gave the old covenant gave the new covenant. The same God who gave the Law is the God who brings salvation under the new covenant. The almighty Yahweh of the Old Testament is the same God who grants liberty in the new covenant from the futile attempts to earn salvation by keeping the Law. It is the Spirit of the Lord who brings the liberty of salvation to repentant sinners of any age—liberty from bondage to the Law (Rom. 7:1–6), Satan (Heb. 2:14–15), fear (Rom. 8:15), sin (Rom. 6:2, 7, 14), and death (Rom. 8:2).
There has been much confusion about the Holy Spirit’s ministry in the Old Testament. Some believe that His ministry in some economies or dispensations was different than in others. But there is a consistency in the Spirit’s ministry throughout redemptive history. The Holy Spirit’s ministry in the Old Testament can be summarized in four categories.
The first ministry of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament was creation. Genesis 1:2 records that “the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving (lit. “hovering”) over the surface of the waters.” In Psalm 104:30 the psalmist wrote of the Holy Spirit’s role in creation, “You send forth Your Spirit, they are created; and You renew the face of the ground.” Isaiah asked rhetorically,
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and marked off the heavens by the span, and calculated the dust of the earth by the measure, and weighed the mountains in a balance and the hills in a pair of scales? Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as His counselor has informed Him? (Isa. 40:12–13)
The Spirit of God was involved in the creation not only of the physical world, but also of man: “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life” (Job 33:4).
The second ministry of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament was empowerment. The Old Testament frequently records that the Spirit of the Lord came upon various individuals (and that He departed from the rebellious King Saul; 1 Sam. 16:14). That, of course, was not referring to the normal relationship of the Holy Spirit to Old Testament believers; all true children of God must have the Holy Spirit (cf. Rom. 8:9), because the divine life imparted in regeneration is not humanly sustainable. The Old Testament references to the Holy Spirit coming upon people describe the Spirit’s empowering specific people to perform special tasks. Four categories of people received the Spirit’s special empowering: judges (Othniel [Judg. 3:9–10], Gideon [Judg. 6:34], Jephthah [Judg. 11:29], Samson [Judg. 14:6, 19; 15:14; cf. 13:25]); craftsmen (Bezalel [Ex. 31:2–3; 35:30–31], Oholiab [Ex. 31:6; 35:34] and others [Ex. 36:1], Hiram [1 Kings 7:13–14]); prophets (Balaam [Num. 24:2], Amasai [1 Chron. 12:18], Jahaziel [2 Chron. 20:14], Zechariah the son of Jehoiada [2 Chron. 24:20], Ezekiel [Ezek. 11:5]); and civic leaders (Moses [Num. 11:17], the seventy elders of Israel [Num. 11:25–26], Joshua [Num. 27:18], Saul [1 Sam. 10:6, 10; 11:6; cf. 1 Sam. 16:14], David [1 Sam. 16:13; cf. Ps. 51:11]).
The third ministry of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament was revelation. He is the divine Author of the Old Testament Scriptures. Zechariah 7:12 laments concerning rebellious Israel, “They made their hearts like flint so that they could not hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets; therefore great wrath came from the Lord of hosts” (cf. Neh. 9:30). The Old Testament was written by “men moved by the Holy Spirit [who] spoke from God” (2 Peter 1:21).
The fourth and most significant ministry of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament was regeneration. Some maintain that regeneration or the new birth is foreign to the Old Testament. But the evidence clearly shows that Old Testament believers were regenerated. The convicting work of the Spirit, which precedes regeneration (cf. John 16:8), is not restricted to the New Testament. In Genesis 6:3 “the Lord said, ‘My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.’ ” The Spirit of God striving with sinful hearts to bring conviction of sin is not unique to the New Testament.
Further, total depravity has defined the human condition since the Fall. In fact, Paul’s classic description of total depravity in Romans 3:10–18 comes entirely from the Old Testament. There is no clearer statement of total depravity anywhere in Scripture than the one found in Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” Since fallen, totally depraved people are incapable of saving themselves, no one in any age could be saved apart from the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.
How could a totally depraved person exclaim, “O how I love Your law!” (Ps. 119:97, 113, 163) apart from regeneration? How could Noah be “a righteous man, blameless in his time” (Gen. 6:9) if he were unregenerate? How can the New Testament hold up Abraham as a model of faith (Rom. 4:1–16; Gal. 3:6–9) unless he was regenerated by the Holy Spirit? How could the Old Testament say that “David did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and [did not turn] aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, except in the case of Uriah the Hittite” (1 Kings 15:5; cf. 3:14; 11:4, 33) if he were not regenerate? How could the Old Testament figures listed in Hebrews 11 have lived such exemplary lives of faith if the Holy Spirit had not regenerated them? The transformed lives of the Old Testament saints testify to their having been regenerated by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus’ conversation with the noted Jewish teacher Nicodemus offers convincing proof that Old Testament believers experienced regeneration. The conversation took place before the ratification of the new covenant with Jesus’ death (Luke 22:20). Yet Jesus declared to Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.… Unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:3, 5). Thus Old Testament conversion involved being “born again,” and being “born of water (cf. the new covenant text of Ezek. 36:24–27) and the Spirit.” Salvation in any age has always been through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.
The difference between the Holy Spirit’s ministry under the old and new covenants is one of degree. Jesus implied that when he told His disciples, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you” (John 14:16–17). As old covenant believers, the disciples already possessed the Holy Spirit, as Jesus’statement, “He abides with you” indicates. Yet there was a fullness of the Spirit’s presence and ministry in their lives that awaited the ratification of the new covenant. Then, Jesus declared to them, the Spirit “will be in you.” He also spoke of that coming fullness in John 7:37–39:
Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’ ” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
There is a degree to which new covenant believers experience the power and the enabling of the Spirit that goes beyond that of old covenant believers. In addition, the Spirit unites believers into one body in the church (1 Cor. 12:13). But the essential work of the Holy Spirit in salvation was the same in the old covenant as in the new.[24]
[1] Easley, K. H. (2017). 2 Corinthians. In E. A. Blum & T. Wax (Eds.), CSB Study Bible: Notes (p. 1843). Holman Bible Publishers.
[2] Criswell, W. A., Patterson, P., Clendenen, E. R., Akin, D. L., Chamberlin, M., Patterson, D. K., & Pogue, J., eds. (1991). Believer’s Study Bible (electronic ed., 2 Co 3:17). Thomas Nelson.
[3] Sproul, R. C., ed. (2005). The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (p. 1676). Ligonier Ministries.
[4] Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., Whitehead, M. M., Grigoni, M. R., & Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible (2 Co 3:17). Lexham Press.
[5] Crossway Bibles. (2008). The ESV Study Bible (p. 2227). Crossway Bibles.
[6] MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2006). The MacArthur study Bible: New American Standard Bible. (2 Co 3:17). Thomas Nelson Publishers.
[7] Stanley, C. F. (2005). The Charles F. Stanley life principles Bible: New King James Version (2 Co 3:17). Nelson Bibles.
[8] Radmacher, E. D., Allen, R. B., & House, H. W. (1999). Nelson’s new illustrated Bible commentary (p. 1498). T. Nelson Publishers.
[9] Hunt, D. L. (2010). The Second Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians. In R. N. Wilkin (Ed.), The Grace New Testament Commentary (p. 780). Grace Evangelical Society.
[10] MacDonald, W. (1995). Believer’s Bible Commentary: Old and New Testaments (A. Farstad, Ed.; p. 1831). Thomas Nelson.
[11] Lowery, D. K. (1985). 2 Corinthians. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, p. 562). Victor Books.
[12] Woodall, D. L. (2014). 2 Corinthians. In M. A. Rydelnik & M. Vanlaningham (Eds.), The moody bible commentary (pp. 1812–1813). Moody Publishers.
[13] Pratt, R. L., Jr. (2000). I & II Corinthians (Vol. 7, pp. 325–326). Broadman & Holman Publishers.
[14] Utley, R. J. (2002). Paul’s Letters to a Troubled Church: I and II Corinthians: Vol. Volume 6 (pp. 224–225). Bible Lessons International.
[15] Kistemaker, S. J., & Hendriksen, W. (1953–2001). Exposition of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (Vol. 19, pp. 124–127). Baker Book House.
[16] Exell, J. S. (n.d.). The Biblical Illustrator: Second Corinthians (pp. 103–109). Fleming H. Revell Company.
[17] Kruse, C. G. (2015). 2 Corinthians: An Introduction and Commentary (E. J. Schnabel, Ed.; Second edition, Vol. 8, pp. 134–135). Inter-Varsity Press.
[18] Calvin, J., & Pringle, J. (2010). Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians (Vol. 2, pp. 184–186). Logos Bible Software.
[19] Spence-Jones, H. D. M., ed. (1909). 2 Corinthians (p. 61). Funk & Wagnalls Company.
[20] Hubbard, M. V. (2017). 2 Corinthians (M. L. Strauss, Ed.; p. 58). Baker Books: A Division of Baker Publishing Group.
[21] Scott, J. M. (2011). 2 Corinthians (p. 81). Baker Books.
[22] Barnett, P. (1997). The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (pp. 199–203). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
[23] Harris, M. J. (2008). 2 Corinthians. In T. Longman III &. Garland, David E. (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Romans–Galatians (Revised Edition) (Vol. 11, p. 464). Zondervan.
[24] MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2003). 2 Corinthians (pp. 113–116). Moody Publishers.
(Victor Davis Hanson – American Greatness) Our national Fourth of July holiday—currently the nation’s 247th since the first in 1776—marks the birth of the United States.
Truth2Freedom's Blog 