The Letter and the Spirit: A False Dichotomy

It is not unusual to hear someone speak about the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. Here is one memorable example from my past. I climbed into a friend’s old jeep and buckled in. As I clicked in the seatbelt, I noticed that three fourths of the seatbelt was torn just above the buckle. I mentioned that I was buckled in but I wasn’t sure it would do any good with the belt torn as it was. With a chuckle my friend said, “Hey, letter of the law.” You understand the point. While the letter of the law was being followed by using seatbelts, the spirit of the law was being missed because I was hardly any safer through my surface compliance.

Here is the issue I want us to think about. The distinction between the “letter” and the “spirit” of the law we normally encounter in regular conversation is not the distinction being made when the letter and the Spirit are paired or contrasted in Scripture. The Apostle Paul is aiming at something completely different.

This is worth considering because there is a prevailing notion that Old Testament law did not address heart issues. Thus a person could obey the letter of the OT law but miss the spirit of the OT law. Some believe this is confirmed in the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus referenced parts of the law six times in 5:21-48 and seemed to point to a more spiritual way of viewing the law. Quite to the contrary, I believe Jesus upheld the law in 5:17-20 and was simply bringing people back to a correct understanding of how the law addressed the heart. If this is correct, then Paul would not be making a distinction between the letter of the law and the Spirit of the law either. I would like to examine this below.

Paul and the Letter of the Law

The Apostle Paul is the one who speaks about the letter and the spirit. He speaks of them three times in Romans and two times in 2 Corinthians. In each of these places, the letter of the law is just another way to speak of the specifics of all the law says, and the Spirit is not a lower-case spirit that speaks of spirituality and truth, but it is the upper-case Spirit that speaks of the third person of the Trinity and His transforming work.

Romans 2:27 (NASB95) — 27 And he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who though having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a transgressor of the Law?

This is the one verse where, if you ignored context, it might be possible to see a letter/spirit distinction. A person gets circumcised in obedience to the letter of the law, but is still somehow breaking the law. However, this doesn’t work once you look at verse 29.

Romans 2:29 (NASB95) — 29 But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.

Here we see the contrast is not the letter of surface obedience and the spirit of true obedience. Instead it is contrasting what is effectual. Truly becoming a child of God is not accomplished by obeying the law; it is accomplished by the work of the Holy Spirit. The law of Moses calls for heart obedience, but it isn’t able to create heart obedience. Only the Spirit of God can create that and He does so at the moment of regeneration.

Romans 7:6 (NASB95) — 6 But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.

Paul says the same thing in this verse. A person who only has the old covenant consisting of letters, which do demand heart obedience, simply can’t serve as the law demands. A person has the letter; he just doesn’t have the ability. But what is new, since the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, is now a person has a heart that can fulfill the heart-obedience commands of the OT.

2 Corinthians 3:6 (NASB95) — 6 who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

The contrast here between the letter and the Spirit is not surface obedience and true obedience. In fact, the reason the letter kills is because it calls for heart obedience which a person can’t fulfill. The contrast is that the Spirit of God does what the law couldn’t do. The Spirit grants what the law demanded, thus a person can have life.

2 Corinthians 3:7–8 (NASB95) — 7 But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was, 8 how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory?

This is the last place of contrast. And one last time the contrast isn’t between surface law and deep spirit. It is between two glories. The law was glorious. It was right and true and spoke to heart issues. However, the Spirit’s glory is surpassing because He doesn’t just demand, He creates. The Spirit accomplishes what the law only described.

Therefore, let us not degrade the OT law as though it was some inferior “beta” program that was found to be lacking. No, the law is a glorious revelation of God showing the holiness He requires from the heart. The law did exactly what it was supposed to do. It was meant to show us what we were supposed to be, but never were, in order to lead us to the one who always was what we weren’t and would give what we needed to have.