Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
able--rather, as the Greek is the same, corresponding to 2 Corinthians 3:5, translate, "sufficient as ministers" (Ephesians 3:7; Colossians 1:23).
the new testament--"the new covenant" as contrasted with the Old Testament or covenant (1 Corinthians 11:25; Galatians 4:24). He reverts here again to the contrast between the law on "tables of stone," and that "written by the Spirit on fleshly tables of the heart" (2 Corinthians 3:3).
not of the letter--joined with "ministers"; ministers not of the mere literal precept, in which the old law, as then understood, consisted; "but of the Spirit," that is, the spiritual holiness which lay under the old law, and which the new covenant brings to light (Mat. 5:17-48) with new motives added, and a new power of obedience imparted, namely, the Holy Spirit (Romans 7:6). Even in writing the letter of the New Testament, Paul and the other sacred writers were ministers not of the letter, but of the spirit. No piety of spirit could exempt a man from the yoke of the letter of each legal ordinance under the Old Testament; for God had appointed this as the way in which He chose a devout Jew to express his state of mind towards God. Christianity, on the other hand, makes the spirit of our outward observances everything, and the letter a secondary consideration (John 4:24). Still the moral law of the ten commandments, being written by the finger of God, is as obligatory now as ever; but put more on the Gospel spirit of "love," than on the letter of a servile obedience, and in a deeper and fuller spirituality (Mat. 5:17-48; Romans 13:9). No literal precepts could fully comprehend the wide range of holiness which LOVE, the work of the Holy Spirit, under the Gospel, suggests to the believer's heart instinctively from the word understood in its deep spirituality.
letter killeth--by bringing home the knowledge of guilt and its punishment, death; 2 Corinthians 3:7, "ministration of death" (Romans 7:9).
spirit giveth life--The spirit of the Gospel when brought home to the heart by the Holy Spirit, gives new spiritual life to a man (Romans 6:4, Romans 6:11). This "spirit of life" is for us in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:2, Romans 8:10), who dwells in the believer as a "quickening" or "life-giving Spirit" (1 Corinthians 15:45). Note, the spiritualism of rationalists is very different. It would admit no "stereotyped revelation," except so much as man's own inner instrument of revelation, the conscience and reason, can approve of: thus making the conscience judge of the written word, whereas the apostles make the written word the judge of the conscience (Acts 17:11; 1 Peter 4:1). True spirituality rests on the whole written word, applied to the soul by the Holy Spirit as the only infallible interpreter of its far-reaching spirituality. The letter is nothing without the spirit, in a subject essentially spiritual. The spirit is nothing without the letter, in a record substantially historical.
Other commentary entries containing this verse:
Isaiah 38:3
Ezekiel 16:60
Ezekiel 33:15
Romans 7:6
2 Corinthians 2:16
2 Corinthians 3:3
2 Corinthians 3:4
2 Corinthians 3:7
2 Corinthians 3:9
2 Corinthians 3:17
2 Corinthians 4:1
2 Corinthians 6:6
Colossians 2:14
Hebrews 8:11
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