Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
It was good news when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments of God, the law. It was good news that God so loved mankind that he would reveal to us the law that would show us what kind of God we serve and how to live to please him. Good news.
But the bad news was that even the holy law that could show mankind what a perfect person might look like (one who completely kept the commandments) was powerless to produce one. It could only show us where we fell short. What it did, it did well; it was never designed to do more.
But when Jesus came, God did through his son what even his holy law was powerless to do. The good news of Christ, the new covenant bought by his blood, the real sacrifice that the blood of a million sacrificial lambs could only foreshadow —now that’s the best news of all.
I wonder why we sometimes have such a hard time believing the good news? I wonder why we so often use religion to run away from the good news of Christ and trade it for a sham?
St. Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 3 warn us about the “bad news” and hold high before us that which is truly good.
There was a time, Paul writes, when God wrote his Law on tablets of stone, but no longer. Since Christ has come, God’s law is written on human hearts.
There was a time when all man knew about was the old covenant based on law, but since Christ has come, Paul says, “God has made us ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (v. 6).
As the amazing chapter unfolds, Paul showcases the contrasts. The law engraved in stone came down in great glory on Mount Sinai. It was so glorious that the Israelites begged Moses to wear a veil after he came down from Sinai because his face glowed so brightly.
Yes, Paul writes, the law came in glory, but the “ministry that brings righteousness” is far more glorious. What was glorious has no glory at all compared to “the surpassing glory” of what has come through Christ and his spirit.
We are not like Moses who veiled his face as the “radiance was fading away.” No, we’re Christ’s children, and the veil has been taken away. God’s spirit lives inside our hearts and with “unveiled faces” we “all reflect the Lord’s glory.”
Even holy stone is dead, but God’s spirit living inside our hearts, giving us life, transforming us “into his likeness with ever-increasing glory” does what the law could never do. Paul praises God for such glory, but he also grieves that “to this day” whenever the law is read, the same veil covers the hearts of people who love law more than they love the Lord and in a sad irony, find slavery (often of a very religious sort) less frightening than real freedom in Christ.
Two choices then. Two choices now. We trust in law, or we trust in a savior. One means slavery; the other, freedom. The letter of the law still kills. The spirit still gives life.
Two approaches. One spends most of its time frantically trying to turn wine back to water. The other sees the delight in the eyes of its Lord who still turns water to wine. Then it laughs with him and dances with unveiled joy in his presence.
Curtis Shelburne is pastor of 16th & Ave. D. Church of Christ in Muleshoe. Contact him at
