5. Inasmuch as his activity among them is his testimonial, and they
themselves are aware that through his ministerial office he has
constituted them a church, he calls them an epistle written by
himself; not with ink and in paragraphs, not on paper or wood, nor
engraved upon hard rock as the Ten Commandments written upon tables
of stone, which Moses placed before the people, but written by the
Holy Spirit upon fleshly tables--hearts of tender flesh. The Spirit
is the ink or the inscription, yes, even the writer himself; but the
pencil or pen and the hand of the writer is the ministry of Paul.
6. This figure of a written epistle is, however, in accord with
Scripture usage. Moses commands (Deut 6, 6-9; 11, 18) that the
Israelites write the Ten Commandments in all places where they walked
or stood--upon the posts of their houses, and upon their gates, and
ever have them before their eyes and in their hearts. Again (Prov 7,
2-3), Solomon says: "Keep my commandments and ... my law as the apple
of thine eye. Bind them upon thy fingers; write them upon the tablet
of thy heart." He speaks as a father to his child when giving the
child an earnest charge to remember a certain thing--"Dear child,
remember this; forget it not; keep it in thy heart." Likewise, God
says in the book of Jeremiah the prophet (ch. 31, 33), "I will put my
law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it." Here
man's heart is represented as a sheet, or slate, or page, whereon is
written the preached Word; for the heart is to receive and securely
keep the Word. In this sense Paul says: "We have, by our ministry,
written a booklet or letter upon your heart, which witnesses that you
believe in God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost and have the assurance
that through Christ you are redeemed and saved. This testimony is
what is written on your heart. The letters are not characters traced
with ink or crayon, but the living thoughts, the fire and force of
the heart."
7. Note further, that it is his ministry to which Paul ascribes the
preparation of their heart thereon and the inscription which
constitutes them "living epistles of Christ." He contrasts his
ministry with the blind fancies of those fanatics who seek to
receive, and dream of having, the Holy Spirit without the oral word;
who, perchance, creep into a corner and grasp the Spirit through
dreams, directing the people away from the preached Word and visible
ministry. But Paul says that the Spirit, through his preaching, has
wrought in the hearts of his Corinthians, to the end that Christ
lives and is mighty in them. After such statement he bursts into
praise of the ministerial office, comparing the message, or
preaching, of Moses with that of himself and the apostles. He says:
"Such confidence have we through Christ to God-ward: not that we are
sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but
our sufficiency is from God."