[January 8th, 1865.]
These words taken by themselves express a general proposition containing a comprehensive truth. By Spirit is meant the Spirit of God. It is not mind as opposed to matter, or life as opposed to form. The truth is not the philosophical dogma that all force, all power of life is a manifestation of Spirit, that the external or material is purely dead and powerless. But the scriptural truth that the Spirit of God is the source of all life. He is the Spirit of life.
- Of the external world. 2. Of the animal world. 3. Of the rational world. 4. Of the spiritual world. In other words he is the source of spiritual life. We are dead. We are quickened by the Spirit. He dwells in us as the source of life, working in us both to will and to do. So that all just thoughts, right feelings, and holy conduct are to be referred to him, as all his gifts.
This is very different from the true meaning of the words in their connection. In other words, that is not the truth which Paul here intends to express. The meaning of the words is to be determined, first, by the drift of the apostolic discourse; secondly, by the explanatory or equivalent phrases which occur in the context.
Paul is here contrasting the law and the gospel, the old covenant and the new covenant. God, he says, had made him a minister of the new covenant. And then he goes on to show the glory of that ministry as contrasted with the ministry of the law. By the Spirit; therefore he must mean the gospel.
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This is plain from the antithesis. Not of the letter but of the Spirit. The letter is explained to be that which was written on stone, i.e., the law; the decalogue, which was the substance of the Mosaic law, or its foundation. As opposed to that the spirit means the gospel.
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The letter is called the ministration of death; the Spirit the ministration of life. The one slays, the other gives life. In saying he was a minister of the Spirit, he says the same thing. So in Gal. 3:3, he says, “having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” i.e., having begun with the gospel, are ye made perfect by the law? The reason why the law is called the letter is plain. The reasons why the gospel is called the Spirit are, 1. Because it is antithetical to the letter. 2. Because the gospel is spiritual as opposed to what is literal, ceremonial and external. 3. Because the gospel is the organ of the Spirit. 4. Because the effusion, presence and power of the Spirit constituted the great characteristic of the Messianic period, or of the New Testament. In saying that he was a minister of the Spirit, the apostle says he was the minister of that covenant in and through which the Spirit, the source of all life, was given.
The sense therefore in which Paul intended us to understand the words, the Spirit giveth life, is determined by the sense in which the letter giveth life.
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The letter or the law kills because it denounces death.
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Because to convince and to condemn is all the law can do.
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Because it awakens the sense of sin and helplessness, and slays all hope.
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Because it excites sin and cannot either justify or sanctify. The Spirit or the gospel giveth life.
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Because it declares the way of life. It reveals a righteousness which delivers us from the law and frees us from the sentence of condemnation.
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Because it is that through which the Spirit is communicated as a source of life. Instead of a mere outward exhibition of truth and duty, it is a law written on the heart. It is a life-giving power.
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Because the state of mind which it produces is life and peace. The Spirit is the source of eternal life.
The effects which this view of the subject produced on Paul were,
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It filled him with a high sense of the dignity and glory of his vocation. It was in his estimation the highest of all works.
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It made him humble under a sense of his insufficiency.
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Yet confident, for God had rendered him able, or sufficient.
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It determined him to use great plainness of speech, not to veil the truth as Moses veiled his face.
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