Just once in the course of his writings Paul makes the declaration that "the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life" (2 Cor. 3:7); and no remark that he ever made has been applied in a greater number of unlicensed ways. If a man insists upon preserving some ordinance in the very form of its original appointment, such an ordinance as baptism or the Lord's Supper, for example, he is accused of contending for the letter that killeth, while the man who makes the charge, and who changes the ordinance, claims that he is following the spirit that giveth life. All of that large class of writers who make free with the Scriptures while claiming to reverence their authority, employ this device to excuse their departures from the word of God, while those who remonstrate with them for their license are denounced as literalists, or sticklers for the letter that killeth. In all these instances it seems to be claimed that if you stick close to the ordinance as Christ gave it, you will kill somebody. The last example that attracted my attention was in connection with the number of elders that should be appointed in a church. The writer says: "It has been thought to be a greater evil to have a congregation without a plurality of elders than to have an eldership without the requisite qualifications;" and he adds: "This is to do violence to the spirit of the New Testament in an effort to be loyal to its letter." But which, in this case, [160] is the letter, and which is the spirit? To have a plurality of elders is certainly the letter of the New Testament; that is, it is the literal requirement; and the literal requirement also is to have elders of prescribed qualifications. Where, then, is the spirit as distinguished from the letter? Echo answers, Where? The writer was so in the habit of using this favorite expression where he wished to justify a departure from Scripture precedent that he evidently applied it in this instance from pure habit and without thought. The watchful reader will have seen many examples of the kind.

      But what does Paul mean by the statement in question? We have only to glance at the connection in which it occurs to see. He says: "God made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, came with glory, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look upon the face of Moses for the glory of his face, which glory was passing away; how shall not rather the ministration of the Spirit be with glory?" Here it is perfectly clear that by the letter that killeth he means the law of Moses, which, as he had abundantly argued elsewhere, could not give life, but brought under condemnation those that were under it; and that by the Spirit he means the new covenant in Christ, which alone can give life. Men who are teachers in Israel ought to know this, and they ought to govern themselves accordingly. They ought to at once abandon the habit of perverting by misapplication this language of the apostle. [161]

[SEBC 160-161]