The odour of death, etc.... The preaching of the apostle, which by its fragrant odour, brought many to life, was to others, through their own fault, the occasion of death; by their wilfully opposing and resisting that divine call.
2:17. For we are not as many, adulterating the word of God: but with sincerity: but as from God, before God, in Christ we speak.
2 Corinthians Chapter 3
He needs no commendatory letters. The glory of the ministry of the New Testament.
3:1. Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or do we need (as some do) epistles of commendation to you, or from you?
3:2. You are our epistle, written in our hearts, which is known and read by all men:
3:3. Being manifested, that you are the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, and written: not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God: not in tables of stone but in the fleshly tables of the heart.
3:4. And such confidence we have, through Christ, towards God.
3:5. Not that we are sufficient to think any thing of ourselves, as of ourselves: but our sufficiency is from God.
3:6. Who also hath made us fit ministers of the new testament, not in the letter but in the spirit. For the letter killeth: but the spirit quickeneth.