Forasmuch, as ye are manifestly declared. — The metaphor appears to shift its ground from the subjective to the objective. It is not only as written in his heart, but as seen and known by others, that they (the Corinthians) are as a letter of commendation. They are as a letter which Christ had written as with the finger of God. That letter, he adds, was “ministered by us.” He had been, that is, as the amanuensis of that letter, but Christ was the real writer.
Written not with ink. — Letters were usually written on papyrus, with a reed pen and with a black pigment (atramentum) used as ink. (Comp. 2 John 1:12.) In contrast with this process, he speaks of the Epistle of Christ as written with the “Spirit of the living God.” It is noteworthy that the Spirit takes here the place of the older “finger of God” in the history of the two tables of stone in Exodus 31:18. So a like substitution is found in comparing “If I with the finger of God cast out devils,” in Luke 11:20, with “If I by the Spirit of God,” in Matthew 12:28. Traces of the same thought are found in the hymn in the Ordination service, in which the Holy Spirit is addressed as “the finger of God’s hand.”
Not in tables of stone. — The thought of a letter written in the heart by the Spirit of God brings three memorable passages to St. Paul’s memory: — (1) the “heart of flesh” of Ezekiel 11:19; Ezekiel 36:26-27; (2) the promise that the law should be written in the heart, which was to be the special characteristic of the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-33); and (3) the whole history of the circumstances of the first, or older, covenant; and, from this verse to the end of the chapter, thought follows rapidly on thought in manifold application of the images thus suggested.
But in fleshy tables of the heart. — The better MSS. give in tables (or, tablets), which are hearts of flesh, reproducing the words of Ezekiel 11:19. The thought of the letter begins to disappear, and that of a law written on tablets takes its place, as one picture succeeds another in a dissolving view.