Faith without religion.
Clarity and Transformation in 2nd Corinthians 4:1-4
In a recent teaching, we explored the profound message of 2nd Corinthians 4:1-4, where Paul contrasts his ministry with that of Moses. Paul emphasizes the clarity and simplicity of the Gospel, which stands in stark contrast to the veiled ministry of Moses. He highlights the transformative power of the Gospel, which, when presented simply as “Jesus,” brings peace and trust in Him.
Paul’s ministry, described as “more glorious” than that of Moses, is characterized by the Holy Spirit’s work on the hearts of men, justification by faith, and purity. Paul asserts that he received this ministry through God’s mercy, which empowered him to be courageous in the face of adversity. He renounced dishonesty, craftiness, and deceit, choosing instead to present the truth openly and commend himself to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.
The teaching also delves into the concept of the “god of this world” blinding the minds of unbelievers, preventing them from seeing the light of the Gospel. Paul suggests that this blindness is not due to a lack of clarity in the Gospel but rather the condition of the individual’s conscience. The message challenges us to consider the state of our own consciences and our responsibility in receiving and responding to the truth.
Ultimately, the teaching underscores the enduring power and simplicity of the Good News, which remains relevant and transformative today. It invites us to share this message with others, trusting in its ability to reach and resonate with every conscience.
Teaching Script:
WELCOME
PRAYER
SONG
SILENCE
2nd Corinthians 4.1-4
October 7th 2018
Meat
So, Paul has been talking about the ministry that was given to him that was shared with clarity and simplicity.
This he compared with the ministry of Moses, which by necessity, had to be veiled so as to keep the COI from seeing clearly to the end of the Law – which was Christ Jesus.
He told us last week that his ministry was “more glorious” than that of Moses just as the writer of Hebrews describes it as “better.”
And how much better it is.
Over the past few weeks I have watched as men and women have come forward on social media who have left Christianity and really mock and rail against it.
But when they are questioned as to what the faith really is, I have yet to find one who can articulate the plain simplicity of it.
Instead they hit on what is thought to be Christianity, what is passed around as Christianity – angry God, loving Son, accept the Son of receive the Angry God’s wrath – etc. etc.
But when we are able to take the whole picture into account – from the Fall through to the COI, to Jesus the Savior of the World, and his victory over all things – and present it simply as:
(slow)
“Jesus”
(peacefully)
And everything begins to melt down, flow away, and we are left with peace. Trust in Him with all things, all people, all situations.
So Paul was presenting the differences between the two ministrations in chapter 3. So let’s see where the Apostle to the Gentiles of that Age says next:
2nd Corinthians 4:1 Therefore . . . seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not;
2 But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.
3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
So let’s jump back to verse 1 chapter 4 where Paul now writes:
1. Therefore (as a result of everything I have said in chapter 3) seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not;
Therefore, “dia touto” . . on account of these things I have written, which have been that in comparison to the former ministry of Moses and
“seeing we have this ministry . . .” this Good News ministry, which is so much more glorious than that of Moses for the following reasons:
According to 2nd Corinthians 3:6 it is a ministry where the Holy Spirit acts on the hearts of men
And according to 2nd Corinthians 3:8 is the ministry by which men are justified before God by faith,
And according to 2nd Corinthians 3:9 and on is the ministry pure and unclouded,
Paul adds
“we have received mercy, we faint not . . .”
Now, I am of the opinion, and I am not alone in this, that Paul is again justifying himself as an Apostle here because when he says, “we” here he is speaking of His apostolic ministry where he received mercy and therefore did not faint in what he was called by God to do.
In other words, by the mere mercy and favor of God, Paul is saying that he had been entrusted with the ministry he possesses and it seems that the object of this communication is to help prevent the appearance of arrogance and self-confidence, something he may have been accused of by believers (and non) back in the day.
Additionally, Paul had been a persecutor and blasphemer prior to conversion and he might also be explaining how it was solely the favor of God whereby he had been converted and entrusted with the ministry – which is something he repeats and echoes in 1st Timothy 1:13, saying of himself:
“Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.”
Without going into it, that passage speaks volumes on the freewill of human beings, when we think about it. In any case, because of this mercy, Paul says:
“We faint not.”
The word for faint is EK-KAK-EO and it pretty much means bad or weak, perhaps in this case, it means cowardly.
To add we EKKAKEO not is to say, we “go against ugly cowardice” which is another way to say that, “we have been courageous.”
Putting it all together we might suggest that Paul was saying something like:
“The gloriousness of the Gospel, combined with the straight-up mercy of God, has caused us to be courageous, and to turn from the cowardice that lies in the flesh when faced with such a difficult task as sharing Jesus at the end of this tumultuous age with angry and violent Jews, cynical Greeks and deceptive gnostics – all in a theater of Roman Rule.”
I mean just try and imagine what was on their shoulders and we probably get 5% of it.
As we read deeper into this chapter Paul will mention some of the things he/they faced in that call and age.
But for the time being he continues at verse two and adds that in refusing cowardice he (they, the apostles)
2 . . . have
renounced the hidden things of dishonesty,
not walking in craftiness,
nor handling the word of God deceitfully;
but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.
So he adds that he has
“Renounced the hidden things of dishonesty.”
The word “renounced” comes from apo and eipon and it means to speak out or to refuse or deny; to forbid.
It does not occur anywhere else in the New Testament and to me the idea is that the apostles had such a clear view of the truth of the faith and the glory of the Christ in the whole scheme of things that they were willing and able to discard everything that was “disguised, crafty or of human artifice – everything that was fraudulent or deceitful crafty.
In that day there was a lot of artificial stuff going on around religion – spiritualism, what we would call chants and magic, and superstitions as both heathens and Jews were culpable.
The Greek word for dishonesty best means shame – they have renounced the hidden things of shame, disgraceful things.
Then he adds:
“Not walking in craftiness.”
The Greek is a compound of all and labor, so, “Not walking in any labors (presumably of shame).
They did not adopt a course of carnal wisdom and policy, appealing to the wisdom of men in carnal arts and trickery.
Third, “nor handling the word of God deceitfully.”
First things first, the word handling means to manipulate or ensnare or adulterate.
To me, this means that Paul is talking about manipulating something (in existence) as a means to ensnare others.
Therefore, I suggest that he is not speaking of any Apostolic text but exclusively is calling the Old Testament contents the word of God – and that he is NOT manipulating them as a means to ensnare or trap people.
Not falsifying or deceitfully corrupting or disguising the truth of God.
Instead of being guilty of any of such things, Paul now adds a really important phrase as to what he HAS DONE…
“but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.”
I like how the revised version puts this verse, as it says:
“We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways; we refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.”
I love and appreciate this statement deeply. But let’s cover the last line where he says
“but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.”
In other words, “we state and say things as they are – without messing around with them or mingling them with traditions or philosophy. Just the truth in an unobscured manner.
And through this open unadulterated fashion we commend ourselves to every mans conscience in the sight of God.
Simply said, there is no deceit necessary in the sharing of the Good News –
The Word of God was made flesh, (believe it or not!)
He lived a perfect life and ultimately took on Himself the sin of the world and was put to death on a cross, (believe it or not)
And then he rose from the grave three days later having overcome sin and death for all forevermore. (believe it or not)
That is the Good News.
In between and after these three simple proclamations land all sorts of other ancillary factors that we sort of insert into the mix.
But Paul, in direct contradistinction from Moses, made the truth plain and matter of fact.
Now listen, in His day – which was a day that was looking for a conclusion of the Old Covenant completely (called the Day of the Lord), and was therefore a day when Jesus was coming back with judgment and reward, and a day when every Jew alive would experience the Revelation of Jesus Christ (because if they were faithful they would have been in Jerusalem during passover when the end of the age fell) – in Paul’s day, there were some things that were connected to the preaching of the Good News:
It included that if someone believed and received Jesus they would be saved from destruction and loss.
It included that there were certain expectations of people once they received Christ as a means to protect the Church-Bride.
And there were a number of other ancillary items associated with the Good News.
But the Good News remained the same, summarized by the three points.
I am of the opinion, and I stand before God as an open book, also seeking to teach truth in an unobstructed manner, that in our day, when we take ALL the factors included in the Tanakh and the Apostolic Record, that the Good News has, by biblical definition, become Great News-
And that we live in an age where, since He has come and taken His perfect cleansed bride, all things have been fulfilled, all things have been shaken so the only things that remain cannot be shaken, that every name in heaven, on earth and below the earth will confess Jesus as Lord, and that God, through His only human Son has had the complete and total victory over satan, sin, death, hell and anything else that once stood in the way of God being the consummate victor.
Is the Good News still the Good News? Yes, but the Bible seems to indicate that after that age it would be even better.
In this present age receiving Jesus by faith makes a person a automatic citizen of the Kingdom of the New Jerusalem that Jesus established upon His return some 2000 years ago.
It gives us peace, freedom from sin here and now, and blesses its recipients today with peace that is not of this world. All of these things plus so much more, are the results of receiving the Good News here and now.
Nobody who seeks truth and who wants a relationship with God here and in the future would ever settle for an eternal place outside the Kingdom walls in the New Jerusalem.
That is a place of lesser light, lesser truth, lesser love, lesser joy. By receiving Christ Jesus by faith and having God write His laws upon our human heart is beyond description in terms of value both here and there – I mean the differences are like night and day.
In any case, all of this is to say that the Good News remains not only good but great – so we share it with all who were hear, inviting them to become part of the Body here, so they can continue to be part of it there!
But I love the last like that Paul offers here when he says:
“Commending ourselves to every man’s conscience,”
And once again, we are presented with a concept orbiting around the free-will of man, aren’t we?
Conscience appears to be that faculty of the mind which distinguishes between right and wrong, and which prompts us to choose one thing over another.
From this passage I wonder about a couple of things.
Paul states that he clearly and honestly taught the Gospel and “commending ourselves to every man’s conscience,”
We will read in the next verses that the conscience of a person, their ability to discern truth from error, can be muddied and incapable of knowing truth from error.
We will get to this in a moment.
But for the time being Paul states that through their preaching the truth he commended themselves to every man’s conscience – with no qualifier as to whether the conscience is ready to receive what is delivered or not.
In this I would suggest that when truth is shared with ANYONE on earth it is received into their consciences – but the condition of their respective conscience is what determines whether they will receive the message or not.
Add in the fact that a twisted conscience might only accept, receive and understand a twisted message, and we are left with a number of possibilities when it comes to reaching people with the truth.
From this passage, I suggest the following:
That the Truthful presentation of the Good News OR a falsified presentation of the Good News will both go into the conscience of each individual who hears it.
From this place, consciences that are ready, willing and able – that want light and truth and something from God might, if their consciences are right, receive and believe.
But it seems that those whose consciences are corrupt or bent or uninterested in the light, will 1, reject the truth and 2, could receive an imposter to the truth.
I know this is a radical position but I do wonder if we are all, in the end, responsible for what we ultimately receive as truth.
That being said, we might also wonder what conscience conditions are required so a person can and will hear and receive the truth?
All of this is hard to say, but Paul is clear that the message he shared was “commending itself to every mans conscience,” and because of this, I am under the impression that in the exchange of God calling with His light and truth, and human beings responding, that
People are capable of seeing the truth; and even when they do not love it, they can perceive that it has demonstration that it is from God.
If this is true then we might suggest that this is a system so reasonable; and established, and fortified and even pure that all of us, are in the end, are responsible for our choices barring some sort of genetic or chemical defect or injury.
I am also convinced that the consciences of men stand on the side of bringing in light and truth to their lives. This is a gift God has given to Man made in His image. As a result, it can only be the absence of conscience that Man allows for the truth to be rejected or mocked, never the presence of it.
In other words, the human conscience itself is incapable of loving evil or dark – that would be the result of the conscience being seared, warped, obscured or damaged.
Conscience, or what we might call the “Light that comes to every man in the world,” (John 1:9 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.) only prompts to do right while also serving to condemn us if we do wrong.
We cannot train this light to love dark, any more than we could convince Jesus to do wrong. So we realize that there are external factors and circumstances that can do damage to the gift of conscience.
So while we strive to avoid such damage to the gift, in the end our allowance of them this makes all of us culpable for the condition of the gift of conscience that we have received from God at birth.
Let me give a real case in point. I have dealt with a number of cases of adultery in my life – personally and with several friends and brothers.
I can tell you that once a man allows, of his own free will, for the spell of adultery to enter their lives, the conscience is typically over-run – so much so that some men never recover from the spell they are under.
I am talking about a spell that clouds the conscience so much that it can take a selfless lover of God and Man and make him selfish, myopic and often so different from what he was known to be prior that there is sometimes no recognizing them by their love, ethics, interests and ways.
In such unfortunate cases, where it takes a miracle of the Spirit to bring the person back to their senses, the conscience, once operational and aware, can recover. But the obfuscation is the killer.
So, having said this Paul shares the Good news with the conscience of others and he now adds a new wrinkle to the point, saying:
3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
In other words, “and if the gospel which I preach is not understood – if it’s meaning is obscure or hidden; if its glory is not seen,” it is hid to them that are lost (a word we need to discuss here in a minute).
From this we know that Paul is suggesting that the plain and simple Gospel that Paul has honestly and clearly shared was not received by a number of people – we might suggest by most in his day and age.
It seems that the point Paul is making is that the cause of the message NOT being received was NOT due to the lack of clarity on his part.
Having made this clear he says, and so if, in the face of our sharing the gospel clearly it is not received, it is not understood by those who are lost.
The Greek word, appol am-ahee and meaning they perish or are perishing.
Now, almost every modern Christian believes that this word means destroyed or annihilated, obliterated.
It does not. And there are plenty of instances where the term is used by Jesus and the apostles where it simply means “those who are suffering or experiencing loss.”
Perish does NOT mean disappearance or to be obliviated – this is why Jesus uses the term lost for lost coins, lost sheep, and lost sons.
They are perishing in their ability to remain whole, they are suffering loss, and even that they are in harms way.
In this case Paul is merely saying that “IF his clear message is not understood by others it is not understood by those who are lost – I would add – for the time being.
For me, the state of being lost ALWAYS implies the potential of being found, just as being broken implies being fixed, sick healed, unforgiven, forgiven.
We tend to want to see these terms very darkly – largely because in Jesus day and the apostolic church the potential for suffering loss was great – among the COI and the early church – materially and then spiritually.
I tend to see the faith now as offering a “loss of reward” instead of the infliction of pain which was part of their loss then – but in the end it seems it will all wind up the same.
Anyway, Paul says the clear simple Gospel, if not accepted or understood, is the result of those who reject it being lost.
From this we can assume that:
(1.) the gospel can be hid from people in the human family. This is a matter of simple fact. There are thousands and millions to whom it is preached who see no beauty in it, and who regard it as foolishness.
(2.) therefore we can see that there is a class of people who may be called, the lost with lost being no different than the Prodigal Son, or the lost coin or the lost sheep.
I do not believe for a moment that they are lost because of our failure to reach them – I believe they are lost now, and if they remain lost, will be lost in the future, because they have enjoyed the darkness in their lives more than they have yearned for the light.
I say this because Jesus said this – they love the darkness more than the light.
I personally maintain it is as simple as that and I’m not so sure that God, as a means to remain good, can override this propensity in them unless they concur.
Paul’s point thus far is that this is NOT the fault of the Gospel anymore than the sun is at fault when people shut their eyes to its brilliance, or a running spring is at fault when people choose to not drink.
They like being in the dark and they do not thirst. Yet.
Now at this point, in verse 4, Paul explains the reason they are incapable of receiving and believing the Gospel shared with them, and he says:
4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
So speaking of the lost, in that day, Paul begins verse 4 with, “in whom.”
Meaning, inside the hearts and minds of the lost – in them . . .
“the god of this world.”
Now, In John 12:31, this god is called, “the Prince of this world,” and in Ephesians 2:2 he is called, “the prince of the power of the air.”
Now, I personally want to believe that this being remains in place today – I really do – because his presence is so ready made to fit into the overall explanation of why there is so much evil, and why some still cannot see.
I mean this world is so full of darkness it only makes reasonable sense that there is a god over it all, a ruling king, so to speak.
And without question, when Paul wrote, that is who reigned – Satan, the god of this world, Paul says.
However, there are a couple of factors we must consider if we strive to assign this dark character to our day and age:
First, what made Satan the ruler over the world was the fact that he encouraged our first parents to rebel against the true and living God.
However, lest we forget, Jesus beat his efforts at the cross, and introduced the new Edenic state (spiritually) to the world.
That might make us suggest that Satan is still ruling over the material world, but that position would be in direct opposition to what the Apostolic Record clearly maintains. For example, in describing Satan Ephesians 6 says
Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
But we also read in
Colossians 2:15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
And then Jesus himself, while still on earth and even before the cross, said in
John 12:31 Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.
AND
John 16:11 Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.
Then if we look at Revelation we KNOW that when Jesus came with judgment and reward to His own, that Satan would be cast into the Lake of Fire, which was made for him specifically.
I maintain that is where the God of that world has been since 70AD and that all the evil in the world is the product of Satan’s father – the dark void of nothingness.
Finally, there is even evidence in this very verse that what I am saying holds water.
Let’s read it appealing to the Greek as it reads:
4 In whom the god of this age (not kosmos, world) hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
Truly, Satan was the god of that age. By the very presence of the Law he was the accuser of the brethren in that age.
But that age is over, and the new age is fully engaged – and I would suggest that the dark powers continue to rage against the eternal light, but that Satan, the God of that world, has long departed.
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