Two Splendors

Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?

2 Corinthians 3:7-8

To help the Corinthians (and us) understand what he meant by the old covenant and the new covenant, Paul used two helpful visual aids. They are borrowed from the story of the giving of the law from Mt. Sinai and the subsequent conduct of Moses with the people of Israel. He first calls attention to the glory of Moses' face. The old covenant, which Paul calls a dispensation of death, was aptly symbolized by the shining of Moses' face when he came down from the mountain with the law carved in letters on stone. There was a certain glory or splendor about the law. It attracted people and awakened their admiration and interest. To this day the law retains that attractiveness. All over the world the Ten Commandments are held in high regard, even by those who regularly break them (which includes us all). People pay lip service to them as the ideal of life, even though they may say they are impossible to keep. Everywhere men dream of achieving a dedication which will enable them to fulfill these glorious ideals.

But the point Paul seeks to make is that in the new covenant there is an even greater splendor. It is far more attractive and exciting than the law. Any reliance on the old covenant after we have experienced life in the new is like going back to manure! And just as the glory of the old covenant has its symbol (the shining face of Moses), so the new covenant has its symbol as well. It is given by the apostle a little further on in the passage and is obviously intended to be set in contrast with the face of Moses. He says, For God, who said, Let light shine out of darkness, made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6).

Here, then, are the two splendors — the face of Moses and the face of Jesus Christ. Both are exciting, but one much more than the other. They stand for the two covenants, or arrangements, by which human life is lived. Both have power to attract men, but one is a fading glory and the other is eternal. The unredeemed world lives continually by looking at the face of Moses. The Christian can live by either, but never both at the same time; it is always one or the other at any given moment of a Christian's life. No one can serve two masters, said Jesus. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other (Matthew 6:24). So in the true Christian's life, the activity of each moment derives its value from whether he is, at that moment, symbolically looking at the face of Moses or at the face of Jesus Christ.

Lord, l confess I often have been like Moses, hiding behind a mask, covering up the fading glory of my own efforts. Grant me the grace to simply receive from you the gift of worth. Amen.