2Co 3:3
3:3 [Forasmuch as ye are] {a} manifestly declared to be the
    epistle of Christ {b} ministered by us, written not with
    ink, but with the Spirit of the {c} living God; {1} not in
    tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.

    (a) The apostle says this wisely, that by little and little
        he may come from the commendation of the person to the
        matter itself.
    (b) Which I took pains to write as it were.
    (c) Along the way he sets the power of God against the ink
        with which epistles are commonly written, to show that
        it was accomplished by God.
 (1) He alludes along the way to the comparison of the outward
     ministry of the priesthood of Levi with the ministry of the
     Gospel, and the apostolical ministry, which he handles
     afterward more fully.

2Co 3:4
3:4 And such {d} trust have we through Christ to God-ward:

    (d) This boldness we show, and thus may we boast gloriously
        of the worthiness and fruit of our ministry.

2Co 3:5
3:5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing
    as of ourselves; but our {e} sufficiency [is] of God;

    (e) In that we are proper and able to make other men
        partakers of so great a grace.

2Co 3:6
3:6 {2} Who also hath made us able ministers of the new
    testament; not of the {f} letter, but of the spirit: for the
    letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

 (2) He amplifies his ministry and his fellows: that is to say,
     the ministry of the Gospel comparing it with the ministry
     of the Law, which he considers in the person of Moses, by
     whom the Law was given: against whom he sets Christ the
     author of the Gospel.  Now this comparison is taken from
     the very substance of the ministry.  The Law is as it were
     a writing in itself, dead, and without efficacy: but the
     Gospel, and new Covenant, as it were the very power of God
     itself, in renewing, justifying, and saving men.  The Law
     offers death, accusing all men of unrighteousness: the
     Gospel offers and gives righteousness and life.  The
     administration of the Law served for a time to the promise: the
     Gospel remains to the end of the world.  Therefore what is
     the glory of the Law in comparison of the majesty of the
     Gospel?
     (f) Not of the Law but of the Gospel.

2Co 3:7
3:7 But if the ministration of death, written {g} [and] engraven
    in stones, was {h} glorious, so that the children of Israel
    could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory
    of his countenance; which [glory] was to be done away:

    (g) Imprinted and engraved: so that by this place we may
        plainly perceive that the apostle speaks not of the
        ceremonies of the Law, but of the ten commandments.
    (h) This word "glorious" indicates a brightness, and a
        majesty which was in Moses physically, but in Christ
        spiritually.

2Co 3:8
3:8 How shall not the {i} ministration of the spirit be rather
    glorious?

    (i) By which God offers, indeed, and gives the Spirit, not as a
        dead thing, but a living Spirit, working life.

2Co 3:9
3:9 For if the ministration of condemnation [be] glory, much
    more doth the ministration of {k} righteousness exceed in
    glory.

    (k) That is, of Christ.  And since he is imputed to us as
        our own, we are not condemned, and what is more we are
        also crowned as righteous.

2Co 3:11
3:11 For if that which is {l} done away [was] glorious, much
     more that which remaineth [is] glorious.

     (l) The Law, indeed, and the ten commandments themselves,
         together with Moses, are all abolished, if we consider
         the ministry of Moses apart by itself.

2Co 3:12
3:12 {3} Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great
     plainness of speech:

 (3) He shows what this glory of the preaching of the Gospel
     consists in: that is, in that it sets forth plainly and
     evidently that which the Law showed darkly, for it sent
     those that heard it to be healed by Christ, who was to
     come, after it had wounded them.

2Co 3:13
3:13 {4} And not as Moses, [which] put a vail over his face,
     that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to
     the {m} end of that which is abolished:

 (4) He expounds along the way the allegory of Moses' covering,
     which was a token of the darkness and weakness that is in
     men, who were rather dulled by the bright shining of the
     Law then given.  And this covering was taken away by the
     coming of Christ, who enlightens the hearts, and turns them
     to the Lord, that we may be brought from the slavery of
     this blindness, and set in the liberty of the light by the
     power of Christ's Spirit.
     (m) Into the very bottom of Moses' ministry.

2Co 3:17
3:17 Now the {n} Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of
     the Lord [is], there [is] liberty.

     (n) Christ is that Spirit who takes away that covering, by
         working in our hearts, to which also the Law itself
         called us, though in vain, because it speaks to dead
         men, until the Spirit makes us alive.

2Co 3:18
3:18 {5} But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the
     glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from
     glory to glory, [even] as by the Spirit of the Lord.

 (5) Continuing in the allegory of the covering, he compares
     the Gospel to a glass, which although it is most bright and
     sparkling, yet it does not dazzle their eyes who look in
     it, as the Law does, but instead transforms them with its
     beams, so that they also are partakers of the glory and
     shining of it, to enlighten others: as Christ said unto his
     own, "You are the light of the world", whereas he himself
     alone is the light.  We are also commanded in another place
     to shine as candles before the world, because we are
     partakers of God's Spirit.  But Paul speaks here properly
     of the ministers of the Gospel, as it appears both by that
     which goes before, and that which comes after, and in that
     he sets before them his own example and that of his
     fellows.