2 Coríntios 3
Matthew Henry · Citado em PreceptAustin
2 Coríntios 3:12-14
Henry writes that "It is the duty of the ministers of the Gospel to use great plainness or clearness of speech. The Old Testament believers had only cloudy and passing glimpses of that glorious Saviour, and unbelievers looked no further than to the outward institution. But the great precepts of the Gospel (eg, believe, love, obey) are truths stated as clearly as possible. And the whole doctrine of Christ crucified (1Co 1:18, 23 2:2), is made as plain as human language can make it. Those who lived under the law, had a veil upon their hearts. This veil is taken away by the doctrines of the Bible about Christ. SHORT EXCURSUS ON BIBLICAL HOPE Biblical Hope - Ultimately for every believer the best which is yet to come is not a concept but a Person, "the Lord Jesus Christ, our Hope" (1Ti 1:1YLT). Indeed as Paul exhorts, may we each be living..."looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds. (Titus 2:13+, Titus 2:14+) What are you fixing your hope on today? What you are looking (hoping) for will determine what you are living for. Hope as the world typically defines it is a desire for some future occurrence of which one is not assured of attaining. The ancient world did not generally regard hope as a virtue, but merely as a temporary illusion. Historians tell us that a great cloud of hopelessness covered the ancient world. Philosophies were empty; traditions were disappearing; religions were powerless to help men face either life or death. People longed to pierce the veil and get some message of hope from the other side, but there is none outside of Christ. Spurgeon...Oh, what a blessed hope this is, — that, though we fall asleep, we shall surely wake again; and when we awaken, it will be in the likeness of the great Head of the family, and we ourselves shall be heirs of an inheritance in which there will be no sin and no corruption. That inheritance is kept for us, and we are kept for it; so the double keeping makes it doubly sure. Happy are the people to whom these verses apply. (1 Peter 1- Commentary) Gabriel Marcel said, "Hope is for the soul what breathing is for the living organism. A study of German concentration camp survivors found that those prisoners who were able to hold onto their sense of hope (‘things are going to get better’ or ‘we’re going to get out of here one day’) were much more likely to survive. Hope then was not optional but for these prisoners proved to be a matter of life and death.
2 Coríntios 3:15-17
Henry - Where the Spirit of the Lord is, and where He works, as He does under the Gospel-dispensation, there is liberty (2Co 3:17), freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law and from the servitude of corruption (Acts 15:10+ Ga 5:1+ Mt 11:28, 29, 30+); liberty of access to God (Ro 5:1+, Ro 5:2KJV+), and freedom of speech in prayer (He 4:16+, He 10:19-21+, He 10:22-23+). The heart is set at liberty, and enlarged, to run the ways of God’s commandments. Andrew Bonar - Liberty of the spiritual life…- The heavenly life imparted is liberty and truth and peace; it is the removal of bondage and darkness and pain. So far from being a mechanical constraint, as some would represent, it is the removal of the iron chain with which guilt had bound the sinner. It acts like an army of liberation to a down-trodden country, like the warm breath of spring to the frost-fettered tree. For the entrance of true life or living truth into man’s soul must be liberty, not bondage. J H Jowett speaks of the liberty wrought by the Holy Spirit… IN the Holy Spirit I experience a large emancipation. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” I am delivered from all enslaving bondage—from the bondage of legalism, and ritualism. I am not hampered by excessive harness, by multitudinous rules. The harness is fitting and congenial, and I have freedom of movement, and “my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” And I am to use my emancipation of spirit in the ministry of contemplation. I am to “behold, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord.” My thought has been set free from the cramping distractions devised by men, and I am now to feast my gaze upon the holy splendors of my Lord. It is like coming out of a little and belittling tent, to feast upon the sunny amplitude of the open sky! I can “cease from man,” and commune with God. And the contemplation will effect a transformation. “We are changed into the same image from glory to glory.” The serene brightness of the sky gets into our faces. The Lord becomes “the health of our countenance,” and we shine with borrowed glory. (Jowett Daily Meditation) Bob