Who has also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, ministers not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. /… / Therefore since we have such hope, we use much boldness, / And are not like Moses, who put a veil on his face so that the sons of Israel would not gaze at the end of that which was being done away with. (2 Cor. 3:6, 12-13)
Paul writes that God has made us “sufficient as ministers of a new covenant.” But what does serving or ministering in the ministry of this new covenant look like, and what is the end goal for our serving? In 2 Corinthians 3 and 4, Paul refers to this ministry as not of the letter, but of life through the Spirit. He exhorts us to be “confident” in this ministry and to exercise it with “boldness” — without a veil — beholding and reflecting the glory of the Lord through the Spirit.
But even today, in the church era, we must confess that we often continue to be veiled in our ministering, both in our relationships with one another and in our relationship with the Lord. Many times, we live and interact with a veiled condition — one that is shielded from the transforming glory of the Lord. Indeed, although we have received a ministry that should not be “like Moses, who put a veil on his face,” we still miss many intrinsic truths in the Bible, especially reflecting our relationships with one another (2 Cor. 3:13). Only if we’ve gained deep enough churching experiences will we be able to remove the veil and to trace the very detailed New Testament understandings of our serving and living in Moses’ speaking.
Moses was the recipient of God’s speaking of the ten commandments. But he was also the messenger, interpreter, and executor of God’s commandments to the Israelites. He sat before the Israelites from morning to evening (Exo 18:14), interpreted the law, and carried out what was commissioned into his hands to execute God’s work with God’s will unto God’s people faithfully. So the ordinances and statutes Moses spoke to the children of Israel following the ten commandments represent the real consequences in the church when the experience of the commandments is realized in our daily living (18:20, 21:1, 24:3). Moses’ ordinances speak to a profound understanding of God’s “ethic” in our dealing with one another in the church life; if we are truly living and ministering the new covenant, we can see that these seemingly mundane details are given to God’s people not just in an Old Testament context, but with a living and precise application for our churching today. Moses, as a minister of God’s covenant, had a subjective understanding of the law, which guides our churching until today, particularly in the matter of serving one another as New Testament ministers.
The first of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of Jehovah your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk. (Exo. 23:19)
In chapter 23 verse 19 is an ordinance not to boil a kid in its mother’s milk. We may think this is a strangely specific ordinance, but this verse gives us a key to unlocking experiences in our ministering to one another in the church life today. In the original language, the word “boil” here means to “mature” or “ripen.” Boiling a kid in the mother’s milk is akin to serving others with our own riches rather than the Lord’s. It is to hold onto the fleshly or natural attachment in our relationships, and to use it to grow and mature, or ripen, our spiritual children. By her natural tendency, the mother who matures the kid with her own milk matures the kid unto herself rather than the altar. This relationship or service is one that’s mixed, unpure, and without a complete consecration to the Lord. Perhaps we have good intentions to serve and to mature someone. But whatever we do, whatever we say, however we serve — in the end, if we are serving from ourselves as the source, or are not completely given or consecrated to God, our serving doesn’t count. This sort of serving makes that person our son, rather than God’s son. It makes him rich with our milk but not mature unto God for His use. This violates the essential ethic of God in the ten commandments: that He is Jehovah our God, who is the source and origin of our life and our serving.
This principle can be seen throughout the Bible. According to the natural inclination, parents like to raise their kids to themselves. But the Bible says, “No!” When Eve proclaimed “I have acquired a man” upon giving birth to Cain, we see the end result of raising up children unto ourselves (Gen. 4:1). The root of our fallen tendencies comes from the same source: a source apart from God. Another ordinance in Exodus 22:18 points to this source: “You shall not allow a sorceress to live.” Any source apart from God — good or bad, right or wrong — is fornication in the eyes of God. These sources — even so-called wonderful things such as human happiness and human wisdom — bewitch us. But that’s exactly Satan’s strategy to mimic God’s economy, subtly removing us from the tree of life — the true source, our true origin. This ordinance shows us the consequence of this bewitching source, which culminates in the sorcery of the great harlot in Revelation (Rev. 17:1, 18:23). This is the source of all adulterous generations. Parents, we need to repent. When we try to usurp the authority of the ten commandments to ourselves, raising up children from and for ourselves, we become the ones who steal the glory from the Lord.
What, then, is the way that God desires us to raise up children — to serve others — unto Him? A kid’s maturing process is not for the mother or even for itself; it is for God. If we return to Exodus 23:19, we see that the Lord’s view is always that the matured fruit is to be brought into the house of God. In other words, the goal of maturing the firstfruit, the kid, is that it is offered in its entirety to the house of God. We all have natural and fleshly attachments — our physical families are a perfect example. There is nothing wrong with loving our families or loving the saints. Likewise, there is nothing wrong with “milk.” But the Bible doesn’t abide by manmade morality or preference; it gives us God’s ethic — that there should not be any natural, fleshly, selfish attachment in raising, maturing, and ripening the Lord’s children. Even the Lord Jesus Himself went through this process. When Jesus’ mother and brothers sought Him as He was speaking to the crowds, Jesus answered, “Who is My mother, and who are My brothers? And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, Behold, My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father who is in the heavens, he is My brother and sister and mother” (Matt. 12:46-50).
Today, we should learn: as soon as we use our own ways, our own morals, and our own experiences to raise up fruit for the Lord, we are violating the ordinances and boiling our kids in our own milk. This is not really raising kids, but rather stealing them from God. We cannot rely on our “moral” standing or “correct” viewpoint in how we raise or ripen a “kid”; in reality, we all fall short of God’s standard. What we need today — what the Lord is dealing with in His church today — is the redemption of humankind from its selfish, fallen condition. The church life is not a life of keeping the commandments without understanding. The church life is giving us the life of Christ. This life redeems us wholly, from the core, back to the original purpose of our human lives — back to God. When we fully belong to God, when our consecration is acceptable and whole, then the life of Christ makes us fit as God’s ministers, who are made confident, sufficient, and bold to bring the firstfruits into the house of God for His use, and for His enjoyment.
The church is in a very critical time — even a difficult time. But as we see in Moses’ interpreting and executing of God’s commandments to the Israelites in the book of Exodus, our church life — including all of our experiences, struggles, and even failures — is already written in the Bible. Today, we should not be discouraged. We should be full of hope, empowered, and able to serve today’s church life according to the life given to us through the ministry of the Spirit. This can be our season of change — for each one of us to offer ourselves in a whole way to God. God wants an honest heart. God wants a pure being. We don’t need to carry the old letter in ourselves, serving with our natural strength. It’s when we are on the altar with Christ in this truthful way that we become His sufficient ministers; only then are we truly able to be redeemed, unveiled and transformed in the glory of God, serving others unto the Lord’s house with spirit, life, and boldness.
(Above are notes of fellowship taken from gatherings on 5/1/2022 and 5/22/2022, not reviewed by the speaker.)