Confidence in God through Christ Jesus

In today’s first reading, 2 Cor. 3: 4-11, St. Paul shares the confidence he has through Christ toward God—a confidence each of us has as well.  God has given us the qualities needed to be ministers of a new covenant, the covenant of the spirit.  Moses was qualified by God as a minister of the letter of the law, the old covenant given on Mount Sinai and written in stone.    The “letter brings death,” Paul tells us. The spirit “gives life.”   The law condemns us. The spirit does not.  We have an example of the latter—the law bringing death—in the Pharisees, whom Jesus confronted many times. Paul himself was practicing a law that brought death to people until his conversion on the way to Damascus.

 

Each of us has a choice to be involved in “the ministry of righteousness,”  or of being a minister of the old covenant,  adhering to the  letter of the law, as did the Pharisees, as did Paul until his conversion, using the law to condemn others. In other words, like the Pharisees and like Paul before his conversion, we can choose to stand on a pedestal of self-righteousness, depleting life instead of giving life.   Or, we can acknowledge the Righteous One as our Savior, who alone justifies and glorifies those who walk humbly with their God (cf Micah 6:8) doing what is right in God's eyes, following the law of the Spirit. That is the confidence of which Paul speaks .

What choice are we making?