I think the answer to the first question,
why did you use the word letter instead
of law or commandment,
is because Paul knows it's not just the
law that kills.
He said the letter kills,
the basic building block of words and
phrases and sentences and paragraph
kills. Shakespearean
plays kill. Greek plays
kill. Philosophy treatises kill.
Books about Coronavirus kill.
Sermons preached by apostles kill.
They're all made of letters and they all
killed.
To which you should respond
probably: Whoa!
That's going too far
because you're turning the text right on
its head if you say
that the gospel that the apostles
preached
kills.
What about nine verses earlier
when we read this. We
gospel preaching apostles are the
aroma of Christ to God
among those who are being saved and
among those who are
perishing. To the one a fragrance from
death to death
to the other a fragrance from life to
life. Who is sufficient
for these things. That's 2nd
Corinthians 2
15 and 16. In other words,
some people smell the
aroma of the gospel as a toxic
stumbling block,
obnoxious, foolishness
and they die when they hear it.
The gospel itself becomes for them a
fragrance
from death to death.
It meets a dead heart and leads to death
but where the Holy Spirit does his
life-giving work
then the gospel is fragrance from
life to life. The letter
kills. The letter of the law kills. The
letter of the gospel
kills. But
where the Spirit is there's life.
