LETTER AND SPIRIT

Joe Slater

The New Testament sometimes poses “letter” and “spirit” in contrast to each other. Christians “serve in the newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter” (Romans 7:6). How should we understand this distinction? Newness and oldness should clue us in! This very verse begins, “But now we have been delivered from the law.” Oldness, then, would refer to the Law of Moses in contrast to the newness of the Gospel (New Covenant).

The same distinction occurs in 2 Corinthians 3:6 with an even more obvious application to the Old and New Covenants: “The letter kills, but the spirit gives life.”

Sad to say, many carelessly refer to “letter” as strict compliance with the text of Scripture, as opposed to a more generalized and loose interpretation (spirit). We hear such things as, “We must go by the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law.” No doubt some have gone to unwarranted extremes and missed God’s intent, just as Jesus said the Pharisees did by straining out gnats and swallowing camels (Matthew 23:24). But was this Paul’s subject in the passage quoted above? No, indeed!

The apostle himself makes it crystal clear he is contrasting Old and New Covenants, not strict and loose interpretation! Immediately before saying “the letter kills but the spirit gives life,” Paul stated that God “made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the spirit.” He went on to refer to the Old Covenant as “the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones” (3:7) and a “ministry of condemnation” (3:9).

In these contexts, then, letter and spirit are metaphors for the Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament lacked any provision to make sinners right with God. By contrast, the New Testament has the blood of Jesus which paid the atonement price in full. Glory be to God!