Thursday, August 3, 2023

Scott J. Hafemann, "The Spirit and the Veil (2 Cor 3:17)"

  

The Spirit and the Veil (2 Cor 3:17)

 

The age-old problem of the apparent identification of Jesus and the Spirit in v. 17a for the doctrine of the Trinity can now be seen to be a creation in large measure of the interpretation of this statement apart form, or in contrast to Exod. 34 in 3:16 to which it is directly related. But within the argument of 2 Cor 3:12-18, verse 17a most easily explains the thought of v. 16, where the Lord (kυριος) to whom one turns is the Lord as experienced by Moses in the tent of meeting. There is no indication that in developing the typology of v. 16 in v. 17 Paul has substituted Christ for YHWH. For as Furnish has pointed out, κυριος in Paul “generally means Christ, except when the apostle is quoting Scripture or working closely with a scriptural text.” (II Corinthians, p. 211. Paul’s use of Exod. 34:34 in 3:16 takes precedence for determining its meaning over his proper statement in 3:14d) Although adapted for his purposes, this is certainly the case in Paul’s use of Exod. 34:34 in 3:16, in which in both texts κυριος occurs without the article. Indeed, the logic of Paul’s argument requires that the “Lord” in view in 3:16 be YHWH to make the link between Paul’s ministry and the eschatological promises apparent. Moreover, in Paul’s only use of επιστρεφω in 1 Thess. 1:9, he speaks of returning “to God” (προς τον θεον), so that in v. 16 as a reference to “returning to YHWH” is itself not foreign to Paul’s thought, even as a Christian. Although Paul often uses ο κυριος to refer to Jesus, in this context the article before κυριος in v. 17a is not a sudden, unprepared reference to “the Lord Jesus,” but a natural reference to the Lord of v. 16. For the definite article in reference to Lord or God is “sometimes missing” in the NT, “especially after prepositions,” since the omission of definite articles after prepositions is still common in Koine Greek. Yet, when this is the case, as in 3:16, it is then supplied in the following reference, just as we find in John 3:2.

 

Paul’s use of the article in 3:17 is thus anaphoric. Moreover, as Furnish has pointed out, Paul nowhere else directly identifies Jesus and the Spirit, whereas he often speaks of the “Spirit of God” s found in the LXX and in the second half of 3:17 itself. The “is” (εστιν) of 3:17a is thus better rendered “means” as an indication that Paul is here interpreting Moses’ paradigmatic experience in terms of the experience now being realized in the new covenant of Christ.

 

Paul is not identifying Christ and the Spirit, but making it clear that Moses’ experience of YHWH in the tent of meeting is equivalent to the current experience of the Spirit in Paul’s ministry, even as Paul could refer in 3:3 to the Spirit unleashed in his ministry as the “Spirit of the living God. (Scott J. Hafemann, Paul, Moses, and the History of Israel: The Letter/Spirit Contrast and the Argument from Scripture in 2 Corinthians 3 [Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995], 396-99)

 

The conceptual link between 3:13-17 and 18 is clear. It is the Spirit which removes the “veil” on the “faces” of those within the new covenant, so that, like Moses in Exod. 34:34-35, they too may encounter the glory of God. (Ibid., 409)