Paul, Moses and letters of recommendation
I'd like to propose that Numbers 16-17 is important background to 2 Corinthians 1-2 in particular and to 2 Corinthians in general.
Paul pictures himself led about in the God's triumphant procession. It's clear enough that Paul isn't the triumphant one, but given the image of a Roman general's triumph Paul could see himself as one the serving troops or one of the captives. Since he includes himself as part of those being "led about" it's likely that he sees himself as one of the prizes won by God in the Lord Jesus Christ in his battle with the powers. Paul naturally sees his place in that procession as a matter of thanksgiving.
But what provokes the image at this point? In the context, Paul is not only defending his change of plans, he's defending his change of plans because it's being used against him. The claim is he doesn't love them. If something more pleasing confronts him, he forgets the Corinthians and the promises he made to them. (No doubt that's why he took no money from the Corinthians. Take money from people and you owe them something and Paul didn't want to be under obligation to the Corinthians. So it could be understood.)
He assures them he didn't stick with his plans not because he didn't love them, but because he did (2:1-4). The reason he wouldn't come as promised, the reason he wrote the scathing letter were from the same motivation-he loved them. He takes that point up again in 2:12, explaining that he went to Troas to get assurance from Titus. He left Troas for the very same reason-he couldn't wait to hear how things were at Corinth. When he left Troas he headed for Macedonia. Again, for the very same reason! (In mentioning "Macedonia" he remembers that it was there the roof fell in on him-7:5.)
This dithering, this changing of purposes, these aborted and unplanned moves look more like (wilderness) "wanderings" but love for them was a motivating factor. The hardships and the anxiety involved in them all makes it all look so haphazard, but Paul insists that in and through it all God was making known his own purposes and gaining his own glory.
The mention of aroma and fragrances and incense would naturally connect with the image of a Roman triumphal procession, but it would also connect with Israel's experience in the wilderness under Moses. Psalm 68, with all its difficulties, does speak of God's leading Israel from Egypt to Sinai through the wilderness in triumph and on to Zion where God is enthroned. While it's true that Moses was the one God chose to lead Israel from captivity through the wilderness to home, it was really God who did the leading (Numbers 9:17, 23). Isaiah 63:11-14 makes this very clear. This text also makes it clear that the procession through the wilderness is a manifestation of God's glorious power (63:12) by which God got himself glory
(63:14).
Psalm 68:7-18 is even more martial in tone. These texts should perhaps make us think of the use of thriambeuo by Paul in 2 Corinthians 2:14. The words of 68:24 are vivid. "Your procession has come into view, O God, the procession of my God and King into the sanctuary." From slavery in Egypt through the wilderness wandering into the Zion itself-in all of this God was leading Israel in triumph. See too Psalm 105:37,43. No Roman general demonstrated his power and glory in such a splendid fashion and in such redemptive ways. (Paul's use of the Greek Psalms and Isaiah is extensive in 2 Corinthians.)
Throughout that whole period Moses (who had been captured by God) was the commissioned leader whose authority was forever being misunderstood and undermined. Exodus in various ways defends the commission of Moses by showing us in the early chapters, for example, that he had to be "bullied" into the job by God when he resisted the call. In the concluding chapters it "tediously" repeats that the Tabernacle was built in accordance with the commands God had given Moses (nine times in chapter 39 alone).
The narrative of Numbers reflects the same situation even more clearly. Miriam and Aaron accuse Moses of hogging authority (chapter 12). The Korah incident (chapter 16) is so like the Corinthian situation. He and his group accuse Moses of lording it over the people (16:3,13-compare 2 Corinthians 1:24) and of making promises he didn't keep (16:14) as well as taking it on himself to bring them out of Egypt (16:13,28-at times it seems clear they thought Moses himself had come up with the scheme to depart from Egypt and establish community rules).
The incident as described has numerous terminological connections with 2 Corinthians. For example, there is "separation" and "don't touch", there's being "sent", there's "death" and "life", there's "incense" that burns among the living and the dead and "perishing" and "glory". Beyond the terms there is the whole drift of the section that parallels 2 Corinthians. God's sent men (compare Numbers 16:28 and 2 Corinthians 2:17) are opposed by people who incite the people of God against the true "apostles" and there's the notion that those who oppose the true apostles are opposing God himself. Numbers 16-17 is an especially important section that points out the danger of arrogating authority to oneself and the danger involved in undermining the work of God in a duly commissioned servant. (Number 16:15 might give us some insight into Paul's refusal to take money from the Corinthians.)
It's in this context (if the above has any merit) that Paul goes into speaking about letters that establish authority (2 Corinthians 3). It appears his opponents, in one way or another, have raised the question. Paul had experienced tensions with Jerusalem and Antioch (even with his friend Barnabas) and had no home church to approve of his missionary work. Paul will insist that his letters of recommendation are written on his own heart (following the better attested reading in 3:2) and on the heart of those who were led to Christ by him. These weren't "external" letters.
If Moses was doubted it's no big surprise that Paul would be. Moses was now fully accepted as God's sent one but it wasn't always so even when Moses had his letters of recommendation. Moses' letters were written on stone and were external to the people. When Moses appeared with those letters the people had something else written on their hearts-rebellion instead of acceptance. The result was death. The reason death was the result was precisely because the covenant word brought by Moses remained external to the people who exchanged their Glory for a grass-eating bull (Psalm 106:20). It was also the case that their apostasy involved the rejecting of God's messenger (Exodus 32:1,23). There are plain implications here for those who reject Paul as God's sent man.
The trouble with letters of recommendation is that they're only worth as much as the people who wrote them, the people who carry them and those who can appreciate them when they're shown to them. If the carrier doesn't have in him what the letter has on the paper, the letter is his judge, and speaks death to him. Letters didn't make the minister worthy-he showed the letters to be true. But that also works for those who receive them. If they don't have the heart to appreciate the letters they receive, it's death to them too. If they think them true and reject the messenger they lose. If they think them untrue they lose.
Moses came down the mountain with his own "letters of recommendation" but those letters (which Paul's opponents may have laid special claim to), on tables of stone, were not on the hearts of the people to whom he brought them. And the result? When Moses' external letters met evil hearts the result was death (see Exodus 32). When Paul came in the Spirit of the Lord the result was life because the Spirit of Christ wrote in no other place but on human hearts. The Corinthians should be glad all this is true. Paul's letter of recommendation is the gospel he brought and the Corinthians had rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and received that gospel Paul carried on his heart. This spoke well of the Corinthians as well as Paul.
It's always true that "the letter" works death. When Paul proclaims and lives out the gospel, in that very process, life and death are ministered (2:16). The good news is not simply an invitation for people to "let Jesus into your heart". It is a proclamation that Jesus is Lord. Compare the Priene inscription concerning Augustus.
The "letter" is the will of God when it's external to the heart of the person carrying or receiving it. It's something you can talk about as being "out there". It's something you can "possess" without it possessing you. It may true, of course, but if truth isn't internalised it stands in judgement rather than in approval; it brings (points out) death rather than life. If Paul's "letter" which was written on his own heart had remained external to the Corinthians it would have meant death to them. Since by the Spirit of God it had been internalised it stood as Paul's letter of recommendation and proof of their own incorporation into Christ with consequent life.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.