[Forasmuch as ye are] (a) manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ (b) ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the (c) living God; (1) not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.
(a) The apostle says this wisely, that by little and little he may come from the commendation of the person to the matter itself.
(b) Which I took pains to write as it were.
(c) Along the way he sets the power of God against the ink with which epistles are commonly written, to show that it was accomplished by God. (1) He alludes along the way to the comparison of the outward ministry of the priesthood of Levi with the ministry of the Gospel, and the apostolical ministry, which he handles afterward more fully.