Christ and the Spirit in Resurrection in 2 Cor 3
(avg. read time: 5–10 mins.)
Based on what we have observed on multiple occasions, including most recently in my post on 1 Cor 15:45, a text of interest to apply these insights is 2 Cor 3:17–18. Here, Paul makes the fascinating statement that “the Lord is the Spirit” (3:17). Even as Christ was identified with the life-giving Spirit in 1 Cor 15:45, here the identification is reflected from the other direction. At the same time, Paul writes of “the Spirit of the Lord” in the next clause. In the next sentence, he also writes of us being transformed into the same image from glory to glory “just as indeed from the Lord, the Spirit” (3:18). This last construction again affirms some manner of identification, as it an appositional statement in which the second noun “Spirit” is in apposition to the first noun “Lord.” As with 1 Cor 15:45, we must examine not only how Christ and the Spirit are related here, but also in how this interrelationship connects with resurrection.
First, it is important to clarify that the texts is, in fact, speaking of an identification of Christ and the Spirit here. Some may wish to posit that “the Lord” refers specifically to God the Father, given Moses’s interaction with God in Exodus that is referenced in the context of these verses. I see no reason to grant this, not least because I am inclined to think that it was the pre-incarnate Son at work here (for only the Son has seen the Father, per John 1:18), but also because it is hardly unheard of for the NT to link texts about YHWH in the OT with Jesus. Nor would I agree that this is simply a case in which the title “Lord” is being applied to the Spirit. There is no other case in which this happens. As a matter of fact, the vast, vast majority of times when the NT refers to the “Lord,” it is primarily a reference to the Son, even as “God” is primarily a reference to the Father (even though in both cases “primarily” does not mean “exclusively”). On the basis of common usage alone, the expectation would be that when Paul uses “Lord,” unless the context clearly indicates otherwise, he is referring to Christ Jesus.
Moreover, the details of the context indicate that the “Lord” here is Christ. We have already noted that the second clause in v. 17 refers to the Spirit as the “Spirit of the Lord,” which indicates that identification is overlapping but not total; Christ does not reduce to the Spirit and vice versa. But in the larger argument of chs. 3 and 4, the simultaneous link and distinguishing make sense. The audience is said to be “the letter of Christ” (3:3) written with the Spirit of the living God. In the comparison and contrast of the old and new covenants, Christ is the comparandum for Moses and the Spirit is the comparandum for the Torah (3:6–16). As Moses communicated the lesser, veiled glory by the letter in anticipation of who was to come, Christ communicates the greater glory by removing the veil and giving the Spirit. The reuse of the imagery of the veil in application of it being removed when one turns to the Lord also makes clear that the Lord is Christ. In 4:4, the glory is said to be the glory of Christ and he is the one who is the image of God, which illuminates v. 18 as being about our being transformed by being conformed to the image of Christ. The identification of Jesus Christ as Lord is explicit in 4:5. Furthermore, befitting the descriptions of Christ to this point, the glory of Christ is presented as the glory of God.
As such, 3:17 is meant as a link between Christ and the Spirit and not only a protracted way of talking about the Spirit. With that in mind, nothing in the argument before or after this necessitates some absolute identification, that the Lord simply is the Spirit without remainder. Now identification statements can be straightforward, of course, but the notion I am arguing against here would simply not make sense in light of anything Paul has said elsewhere about the close connection but also distinction between Christ and the Spirit. Thus, what we learned from 1 Cor 15:45 applies here as well. The identification is not something absolute and total, as if there is zero differentiation between them; it is relational, functional, and, to use a classic theological term, economic in that it is what we experience of the work of God on the plane of history. That is, the Spirit is identified with Christ inasmuch as when one turns to Christ as Lord, one is turning to the Spirit. The Spirit is the one who communicates the life of Christ and who is the presence of Christ in and among believers today, as he is the one who forges the union with Christ, as I have noted elsewhere(besides what I have already linked to see here and here). In the Spirit, we receive what Christ communicates through the Spirit. The statement of identification is also strengthened by the fact that the Spirit’s purpose in his presence and work in and among believers is to conform them to the image of Jesus (Rom 8:29; Phil 2:1–13; Col 3:1–14). It is the Spirit who makes everlasting life concrete in the life of the believer, actualizing the potential of what Jesus has accomplished for the enabling of others to be heirs of everlasting life (Rom 2:7; 5:10, 17–18, 21; 6:4, 22–23; 8:2, 10). The Spirit of Jesus conforms Christians to the pattern of dying and rising to new life, which means participating/sharing in the death and resurrection of Jesus by the same Spirit who was in Jesus and raised him from the dead (Rom 6:1–13; 8:10–15, 23–24; 1 Cor 6:11; 2 Cor 3:6; 4:10–12, 16; 5:5; Gal 2:19–20; 5:22–25; 6:8, 14–15; Col 3:1–4; Titus 3:3–7).
The validity of the identification rests on the foundation of both being God, and thus the Spirit can be properly called both “the Spirit of God” and “the Spirit of Christ/the Lord,” yet precisely because of such phrases as we see in this verse, it is also fitting to distinguish Christ and the Spirit as distinct persons in the one God. They are one and the same God, but they are not one and the same person. And they are inseparable precisely because both are God. Christ can only be (omni)present with believers as he is despite his physical removal to heaven because he is God. The Spirit can only be (omni)present with believers as he is because he is God. And the Spirit can only forge such a union between believers and Christ—as well as God the Father—because he is God.
With this foundation in place, what can we say about the relevance of this link of Christ and the Spirit for resurrection? First, as in 1 Cor 15:45, it is more specifically in connection with the risen Lord that these statements are made about the Lord and the Spirit. In the economic work of the Trinity, the resurrection and ascension of the crucified Jesus establishes a new age of relations between the Creator and his creation, as this was effected by the major gospel events.
Second, one way this is signified is by Paul’s declaration that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (3:17). This is a state that Paul associated with the inaugurated new age (1 Cor 10:29; Gal 2:4; 5:1, 13) and with its consummation in the resurrection, as he writes of “the freedom of the glory of the children of God” that all creation awaits (Rom 8:21). This is what the Spirit effects by virtue of communicating the work of Christ, which he will yet consummate in the time to come. And, as noted, this work is founded upon the Spirit being in triune union with the Son and the Father.
Third, the description of us “beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord” (3:18) is reflective of how “glory” is associated with resurrection. Elsewhere, we have seen Paul’s portrayal of believers as being transformed by being conformed to the image of Christ, sharing in his glory, and thus God’s glory (1 Cor 15:49; Rom 8:29; Phil 3:21). Perhaps precisely because of the term’s association with God, Paul never provides straightforward explanation of what he means by δόξα in his letters, even as he associates it with its typical conceptual constellation of radiance, splendor, honor, praise(worthiness), dignity, magnificence, and majesty. In my analysis of 1 Cor 15:35–41 in my dissertation, I have noted the term’s connection to proper dignity and proper function, and it is crucial to note that “proper” here is defined by the will of God. Perhaps the best simple description of the more theologically driven sense of “glory,” when applied to creatures, is that it is that capacity in which creatures reflect God insofar as they fulfill God’s will for them. Such an understanding is especially applicable to humans in that their “glory” is attached to their capacity to bear the image and likeness of God in representing him, particularly by virtue of their union with Christ (Rom 3:23; 6:4; 8:17–30; 9:4, 23; 1 Cor 2:7; 11:7; 2 Cor 3:7–11, 18; 4:17; Eph 3:16; Col 3:4). It is also important that Paul describes us as beholding the glory as in a mirror, meaning that this is reflected glory. The fact that this is reflected glory brings us to two other points about resurrection here.
Fourth, Paul says we are being transformed into the image we see from glory to glory. This is a progressive transformation by reference to the image of Christ as we are made more and more like him. But, of course, the transformation is not complete until the resurrection, as Paul will illustrate in his subsequent teaching, and as he has illustrated in his teaching in 1 Cor 15, both of which I have reviewed elsewhere. This is transformation by conformation in the work of the Holy Spirit according to the image of Christ, and it will thus not be complete until we are conformed to Jesus’s resurrection as we have been conformed to his life.
Fifth, by the same token, it is important to pay attention to the term “image.” Paul also used this term in his resurrection teaching in 1 Cor 15, particularly in v. 49 to note how in our resurrection we will bear the image of the heavenly man. It also appears in Rom 8:29 to describe God’s purpose of conforming those he foreknew to the image of his Son. This purpose is accomplished by the Holy Spirit in his work of transformation by conformation. He is the bond of union between us and Christ by whom we know Christ and who makes us like Christ. Thus, he is properly called the Spirit of the Lord. But that name is also apropos of the fact that he communicates Christ’s qualities, his resurrection life, and all the pertaining salvific effects, so that we know the Lord and what he has done by virtue of knowing the Spirit. He has communicated the Lord’s work to us thus far and we are guaranteed by his presence that he will yet bring that work to consummation in the resurrection. But we will wait until next time to go over that and more from Paul’s theology of resurrection in 2 Corinthians.