2 Corinthians 4:1-7

CRITICAL NOTES

2 Corinthians 4:1. This ministry.—Viz. that in 2 Corinthians 3:3; 2 Corinthians 3:6; and more definitely expounded at the end of this long section, in 2 Corinthians 5:18; 2 Corinthians 6:3. Therefore.—Looks back to the substance of chap. 3, and returns, with a new phase of connection, to 2 Corinthians 3:4; 2 Corinthians 3:12. Yet, again a half-parenthetical passage intervenes before “we faint not” is expanded in 2 Corinthians 4:7 sqq. Note the comma in the after “mercy.” See the “mercy” and the “ministry” closely connected in 1 Timothy 1:12, with the same link of thought as here. Faint.—Word peculiar to Paul and his friend Luke, in the New Testament. “Flag, ‘give out.’ ”

2 Corinthians 4:2.—Hidden things (of which it is) shame (to speak or to be guilty). Yet hardly so much as is suggested in Ephesians 5:12. Underhand, insincere, double-minded motives, such as he was accused of. No “veil” on his conduct at all events; cf. “manifest,” 2 Corinthians 4:10. No “veil” upon “the truth,” as he “ministers” it. Handling deceitfully.—Same thought as 2 Corinthians 2:17. Commending ourselves.—True reply to 2 Corinthians 3:1.

2 Corinthians 4:3.—“Hid” is “veiled,” q.d. if there be a veil it is as with Moses and Israel, rather upon “the hearts” of readers and hearers than upon the minister, or than upon the Law or Gospel themselves. Note “are perishing” (R. V.); 2 Corinthians 2:16.

2 Corinthians 4:4. The god of this world.—Not “Rabbinical” teaching, but absolute truth of the revealing Holy Ghost. Christ leads the way with His most definite “prince of this world” (John 12:31; John 14:30). Paul follows in Ephesians 2:2, “the prince of the power of the air,” etc. (2 Corinthians 6:12). “World” is “age”; “minds” may be “thoughts.” [These are “blinded” here; “hardened” in 2 Corinthians 3:14.] Shine.—“Dawn” (R.V.). Note, specially, this word is cognate with “the brightness of His glory” (Hebrews 1:3). Also note the fuller, and exact, and significant “Gospel of the glory of Christ.” [So again, and close to the “ministry” and “mercy” combination, we have the “Gospel of the glory” in 1 Timothy 1:11.]

2 Corinthians 4:5. “Lord.”—, with most moderns, makes this a predicate: “We preach Him as Lord.” In that case, obviously, it could not be appended also to the parallel “ourselves”; unless in reply to the charge of 2 Corinthians 1:24 (cognate word), “we do not propose [proclaim] ourselves to you as masters, but Him as the only Master; ourselves only your slaves [not διάκονοι as throughout chap. 3, in relation to God and the Gospel]; indeed, we do not commend ourselves to your notice or acceptance at all, but Him.” Note the variant reading “through Jesus.”

2 Corinthians 4:6.— Genesis 1:3 is directly quoted (so R.V.). Note how he again contrasts the things of “shame” and this awakening to the “light” in Ephesians 5:11.

2 Corinthians 4:7.—Gold, in a common jar of earthenware. Excellency is “exceeding greatness of the power.” Similar in cognate language, and in thought, to Ephesians 1:19.

HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.— 2 Corinthians 4:1

[Section continued from chap. 3]

III. An open [unveiled] Gospel.—

1. Observe the phrase, “Gospel.”

(1) In regard to the Old Order, and to the New alike, Paul’s phraseology is noteworthy; in its variety of designations for each, and in their practical interchangeableness. Not that the various designations are used at haphazard or for the mere sake of an assonance. There is a propriety in the particular phrase used in each case; yet in use one readily passes over into another.
(2) There is a strangely modern sound about the words, “The reading of the old testament.” It would be going too fast for the development of Paul’s thought and God’s revealing order to print, “The reading of the Old Testament”; yet such a meaning is coming fast into view; a distinct, complete Book, or Literature, which may be called—from its main subject and contents—“The Old Testament.” As yet, however, the Subject—the Old Covenant—is to the forefront in Paul’s mind. To “minister the old testament” and to “minister the new testament” [not yet “New Testament”] are to “minister condemnation” and to “minister righteousness” respectively; these are the issues of the two testaments in their effect upon those who come into testing, decisive relation with them. The characteristic “note” of the one is that it is “a letter,” external, exact, unalterable, formulated into a definite code of rules; of the other, that it is internal to the man, governing not by rules, but by principles; not with the rigidity of half-mechanical, external regulation and control, but the elasticity and freedom of Life within; unfettered, yet not irregular or morally abnormal, because the Life and the Liberty are those of the indwelling Spirit of God.

(3) So here. Moses brought down a Law from Sinai; Paul and his brethren have received “a Gospel.” This is described more fully as “the Gospel of the glory of Christ.” He is its great Subject; His glory in it puts glory upon it. Yet the Gospel which reveals Him reveals Him as Himself a Revealer of God and of His glory. By the help of “the Gospel” we know Christ, and, yet more, we come to know “God’s glory.” And, further, this Gospel of the knowledge of the glory of God is “the truth.” Then is it good tidings to know the truth about God and His glory? It is, seeing that that knowledge comes to men through Christ as its medium. To come into direct contact with the “bare,” unveiled glory of God were death to sinners. Israel saw the glory of God on the face of Moses, absorbed, reflected; we see “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ,” inherent, but, as it were, shining through the humanity.

2. The contents of the Gospel.—

(1) Perfectly true as a “working” statement, that the Gospel reveals the way of salvation, “God’s righteousness” for sinners. But the better, larger, truer, whole, view, is that it reveals God. As a redeeming God, for the race; as a pardoning God, for the penitent sinner. “Have faith in God” is, in the deepest analysis, the true formula for saving faith. “Faith in Christ” is the shape which it naturally and serviceably assumes in the evangelistic work of the Church, and in which it offers itself to the sinner’s most easy apprehension. But underneath the faith in Christ is a faith in God. Christ is the object of faith, truly; but in laying hold of Him the sinner lays hold of God’s promise of a mercy which is by express proclamation attached to the act of believing in Him. Christ is God’s Word—of promise; He is a Promise incarnate; faith which takes hold of Christ, takes hold of God, Who in Christ has expressed Himself and His will and heart.

(2) God reveals Himself, as well as His will and heart, in the Gospel. We have seen “God in the face of Jesus Christ.” In homely phrase, He is the Father “over again.” Whatsoever things the Father doeth [and saith] those things doeth [and saith] the Son likewise [=in similar manner], John 5:19. We hear of God from Christ; we also hear God in the words of Christ. The manner and the principles of the works of God are seen in those of Christ, e.g. such as belong to the matter here in hand. The Son pardons the sins of (say) the paralytic (Mark 2) because the Father pardons sin; the act of Christ is intended to reveal to men a God Who pardons. Study Christ pardoning sin, and see how God pardons sin. The faith of the friends of the paralytic [“their faith,” the man being, no doubt, included] is closely connected with the word of Christ, “Thy sins be forgiven thee.” There is then an efficiency about faith which brings others to God for pardon. The paralytic comes to Christ and finds forgiveness; then men may come to God and find forgiveness. He goes out from the presence of Christ, knowing that his sin is forgiven. Then men may go forth from the presence of God also, knowing that sin is forgiven. Every miracle of Christ is more than an act of benevolence toward suffering or sorrow or need; it is this, but also, and still more, a carefully chosen, deliberately done [and with special authenticity recorded] part of Christ’s whole revelation of God. Works, words, character, motives, principles underlying and governing acts and words,—in them all, as we study them in Christ, we see God.

(3) And this is a revelation of the “glory of God.” The only “glory” belonging to Him which sinners could bear to see. The one “glory” which they need to see. To a sinner the revelation [as to Moses (Exodus 33:18)] of the “goodness,” specially as “showing mercy, pardoning iniquity,” etc., is the revelation of God’s truest “glory” to such as he. The heart which “turns to the Lord” Christ, goes into a sanctuary where it gazes upon a real glory of God. The written Gospel is such a sanctuary. Not every foot treads its floor, even of those who diligently read the evangelical narratives, or even write upon their sacred Topic. In reading this revelation of God, “we have our access, our introduction, unto the Father, through Christ, by the Spirit” (cf. Ephesians 2:22).

3. The veiling of the Gospel.—

(1) Not by its ministers. They “manifest the truth.” (a) They do not obtrude themselves, but “preach Christ Jesus as Lord.” To do otherwise—as perhaps Paul’s rivals at Corinth [or in Galatia] did—would be a most effectual veiling of the Gospel. They would be lamps calling attention to, and arresting it at, their own form and pattern and beauty, instead of to the light which it is their business to exhibit. The perfect lamp lets the light shine, whilst itself inviting the least attention possible. The ministry is for the sake of the light, and for the sake of those on whom it needs to be shed. “Ourselves your servants.” And yet with no slavish subserviency; not as mere creatures of those to whom they bring the illuminating Gospel. “Yours, as being first Christ’s; your servants, as, in so serving you, fulfilling our service to Him and bringing glory to Him. Yours for Jesus’ sake.” The personality of the man is a valuable element in every successful ministry; it must needs stamp itself upon every real man’s “manifestation of the truth.” [The burner will give shape and size to the gas-flame, but it must not affect the quality of the light.] But the moment the ministry becomes an end, and not a means; the man a stopping-point, and not a point of “new departure,” and of assistance, to help men on their way to the knowledge of God in Christ; the minister then becomes a “veil” to the Gospel. (Yet he is himself only a sinner who has “obtained mercy”; the personal mercy of acceptance with God, and the official mercy which has made even him a “minister.”) Moses and his system had thus become a veil instead of a medium; as a popular man or a Church system may come to intervene between the soul and God. “Cannot see God, or hear the Gospel, for the Man.” Only One may thus interpose Himself; Jesus Christ may, did, preach Himself. “I am the Way,” and not a hindrance on the way to God, and to the knowledge of Him and to the vision of His “glory” of grace, (b) They use no veil of reserve, or insincerity, or crafty handling of the Word, in their acts or teaching. Have “renounced” all this, for the Gospel may very effectually in that way be “veiled.” There is no arrière pensée about their proclamation. They have no selfish ends to serve, in the way they teach it. There is no dishonest suppression of any part of the whole Gospel, from a fear that the whole truth might be awkward for a theological system or an ecclesiastical theory. Truth may be made falsehood, not only by positive additions of alleged “truth,”—perhaps by development, but by omitting complementary truth, or by giving exaggerated prominence to what needs balancing by other aspects of the whole Divine revelation. And if this were done for the sake of courting a reputation for being “progressive”; or of shunning the reproach of being a “fossil,” or “retrograde,” or “obscurantist”; or, more unworthily, for the sake of avoiding “the offence of the Cross,” or of winning the good word of the unchanged heart; it would be a real, terrible “veiling” of “the Gospel” and of its “truth.” [A wise ministry, of course, practises a (perfectly honest) “economy” of teaching. The babes must have milk. They do not need more. But this not akin to the (technical) “Reserve.” True and false “development” have been thus discussed: “There is a modern Romish ‘Theory of Development’ of which Newman’s celebrated essay is the classical exposition, and there is a rationalistic theory which is an application of the hypothesis of evolution to the religious ideas of man. According to the former, the process of development is the expansion, under an infallible directing authority, of doctrinal germs and ideas into a variety of new forms and aspects, ‘and the existing belief of the Roman Communion is its mature result.’ According to the other theory, all religious conceptions have their origin in the human mind, and Christian doctrine is but one branch of its general progress, the Scriptures themselves, and all belief arising from them, being the natural outgrowth and product of the mind acted upon by surrounding conditions. These opposing theories have much in common, and this among the rest—that truth is not made the test of dogma. In the one case authority is the sole criterion; in the other there is strictly speaking no criterion at all, seeing that, from the rationalistic point of view, dogma can possess no other kind of truth than a temporary and relative adaptation to the religious consciousness from which it springs. Between these … there is room for a theory of doctrinal development … distinguished by the following ‘notes.’ First, development does not consist in additions to the Revelation contained in Holy Scripture; … it does not call new doctrines into existence [above all, to support or complete any dogmatic system or Church claim]. Second, it is development, not of doctrine in its subject-matter, but in the understanding and apprehension of the Church. Third, neither for the process nor for the results … is infallibility claimed, or anything beyond the general guidance and blessing [of the Church’s great Head], … which … does not preclude the possibility of error in His people.” (F. W. Macdonald.) The personal character of the ministry, too, as well as all their dealings with their fellows, show that they have “renounced,” etc. No denser “veil” to the Gospel than a questionable or damaged reputation in its ministers, in regard to their transparent honesty of speech, their simple directness of motive, their entirely “above-board” action. Many seekers after God and after truth have failed to find both, even in the Gospel, as they have read it or have heard it preached, by reason of the known ill-repute of the minister. If the idolised minister, or system, may become a veil, the discredited or discreditable, man, or system may as certainly be so. The ministers need to be thoroughly transparent in life and character and teaching. (c) The true ministry has but one aim,—so to let “the light shine” upon the path, and into the mind and heart, of the “lost,” as that they may best be brought out of their darkness and into the presence of “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” It originally “shone out of darkness.” The primal fact of the material creation was repeated in the moral. It was the ray of the dawn of a day, ever since shining more and more unto its perfection of noontide light. That dawn sprang forth from the bosom of darkness, flashing into a world dark in ignorance. Now the Sun Himself was arisen. His light had shone into the darkness of the “heart” (and intellect and life) of Paul and his fellow-workers; into and “in,” for it was an abiding day within them. Now they have but one simple, open, unveiled purpose, open to the scrutiny of men and of God—to “manifest the truth,” all unveiled, to every dark mind and heart which could be induced to gaze. They know of no “handling the Word of God” but such as will contribute to this end.

(2) Not by its Divine Author.—He is the God who loves to “make light shine out of,” and upon, “darkness.” A God of light; a God Who is light; Whose attitude is, “If … not so, I would have told you”; Who loves to reveal, rather than to conceal. Silent, He has spoken by His Word; invisible, He has shown Himself in His Image. God is working in and with the soul which craves to see the light.

(3) By the hearers themselves.—(a) The “open” Gospel needs to be met by “open” thoughts and hearts. The “spiritual man” is in thorough rapport with the “spiritual” minister. [“He that knoweth God, heareth us; he that is not of God, heareth not us” (1 John 4:6; where note also the following sentence. A noteworthy claim!) A true minister may borrow the words of a Higher Teacher: “My sheep know My voice; … they know not the voice of strangers.”] The conscience in man leaps [like the unborn Baptist at the approach of the unborn Christ] in response to the truth. Even in the unsaved there is so much of grace that they know, and, at least secretly, honour, even if they do not love, the man who plainly speaks truth. Even in such conscience has from the beginning some power to recognise the truth when it meets with it. It is an eye made for the light. “It is a pleasant thing for this eye to behold this Sun.” The sincere Nathanael is ready to welcome and follow new light. Much more does the enlightened man respond to, and go out towards, the man whose truth commends him to his conscience. The man who is in Christ, and even the sincere inquirer for Christ, knows a true minister of Christ when he meets him and hears him; for him that minister carries letters of “commendation” of unimpeachable, unquestionable validity. The true minister “commends himself” to such. He blamelessly asks their endorsement of his credentials, and their acceptance of himself and his message. He must conciliate the unsaved man if he is to do him good. If he cannot gain his ear, he will not make the light reach his dark “mind.” He appeals thus with hope of success; the “conscience” in “every man” is the preacher’s hope; it is the starting-point of his work. Were it originally absent; let it be blinded or killed; the minister of the Gospel has then nothing to appeal to; “he cometh and hath nothing in” the man. (b) It is actually met with “veiled” minds. The “veiled” heart in the Israelite made the Law a veil, and not a mirror or a medium; the “veiled” mind of “the world,” puts a veil upon the Gospel. Nothing more sadly wonderful to the man who sees, than to find how utterly unable to see what is so clear to him, are the “lost” men and women about him. Nothing, unless it be that himself once did not see what is now so plain. There may be many causes of blindness. Prejudice, whether induced by early educational bias, or—more than a man is always conscious—by subtle love of sin and dislike of holiness. [“Men love darkness rather than light” (John 3:19 sqq.).] Moral indolence, which will not “be bothered” about such things, and turns away, with an indifference that is as weary as it is worldly, from The Truth [Pilate-like, John 18:38]; an indolence which has an uncomfortable misgiving that to listen might involve inquiry, and inquiry compel to action, and that in a direction in which the heart has no desire to look or go. Preoccupation; for the mind and heart need to be kept free from entanglement; too eager, too close, contact with any secular pursuit becomes an entanglement, a bondage, a “veil” to the heart; art, music, business, home, may swallow up a man until he has neither leisure nor desire for “the light.” [The value of the Sabbath to even the “lost,” and to the young, consists not a little in this, that it is a “break” in the engrossing, enslaving round of secular life, enslaving even its noblest types and forms. The Sabbath does something towards preventing the “veil” from becoming too densely impervious to the light.] Idolatry, in its many modern forms; sensuality, and in its varying degrees even the sensuous; any sinful habit indulged; mental pride, which cannot brook “backing down” from a position once openly taken up; worldliness of life and temper, in its widest sense,—all veil the mind and heart. The “man in Christ” sees Christ in Law and Gospel; he understands, too, why the man who is “lost” does not, cannot. And to the man living under the gracious influences of the Spirit of God, there is not infrequently given a revelation—from which he shrinks in horror—of the nearness of a Power of Evil,—a very “god of this world.” That evil Power is behind, and in, all the veiling of the heart, as the good Spirit is analogously behind, and in, all opening of the eyes and all clearness of disclosure and vision. In neither case is man’s personal responsibility destroyed. The veiling is man’s own doing, whilst it is also the work of the great Anti-God, “the god of this world.”

HOMILETIC SUGGESTIONS

2 Corinthians 4:4. “The god of this world.”—[“Grandis et horribilis descriptio Satanæ” (Bengel, in loc.)].

I. His dominion.—Usurped. Extensive. Powerful.

II. His subjects.—The lost. Who believe not.

III. His work.—To blind their minds. By ignorance, error, delusion.

IV. His object.—To hinder the grace of God. To ruin souls.—[J. L.]

2 Corinthians 4:4. “Through Christ to Godward.”

I. Godward.—

1. A Godward look.—Standing with face toward God. Having God in full view in all his life. Everything else then adjusts itself accordingly; everything falls into due, true proportion; truth, man, earthly interests, etc.

2. A Godward hope.—[Cf. 1 John 3:21; different word for “confidence”; thought related.] Hemmed in hopelessly on all sides, but can look and hope upwards. Hated by his Jewish fellow-countrymen; mistrusted, disliked, even hated, by many of his fellow-Christians; only a few understanding and loving him. But One does understand him; he can commit his cause to that One, and go on in hope.

3. A Godward plea.—Looks Godward for inspiration; looks toward Him for help. His look is an appeal. [So Hebrews 12 is really “looking at Jesus,” but leads up to “looking unto Jesus” for help.] His need is an appeal; the very sight of his need will not fail to move God’s heart. [As the blind or crippled street mendicant stands and says nothing, but simply shows himself to the gaze and heart of the benevolent passers-by. To show himself is itself an appeal.]

II. Through Christ.—Can only see God when he gazes upon Him in Christ. Can only see God when he looks in a Christward direction. Down that road also, by that channel, must His help be expected to reach Paul. In John 1:51 all intercourse between heaven and earth is “upon the Son of Man,” the New Testament Jacob’s ladder. All communication between man and God is through the Mediator. His intervention is the middle term supposed in every “transaction” between God and man. Observe how this makes all religious life Christian. All has the Christian tinge; everything—hope included—has taken on a Christian colour.

2 Corinthians 4:5. The Preacher’s—

I. Duty,

II. Qualifications,

III. Triumphs.—[J. L.]