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GK Chesterton once observed, “On five occasions in history the church has gone to the dogs, but on each occasion it was the dogs who died”. With the 40million Americans who have stopped attending church over the last twenty-five years, Chesterton may well have included a sixth occasion!
Are you interested in playing a part in a gospel movement today?
Over the last three weeks I have been touching on Bible references that are foundational and inspirational in my ministry. References include Exodus chapter 24 – ‘the God who rescues’; Matthew chapter 28, verses 18-20 – ‘the God who mandates his people to make disciples who make disciples’; Luke chapter 10, verses 1-2 and chapter 11, verses 2-13 – ‘the Lord who calls us to prayer’. Another key reference in my ministry is Second Corinthians chapter 4, verses 1-6.
In the opening lines Paul explains why he is passionately committed to the ministry of the gospel. Despite the obstacles, the disappointments, and the setbacks, he says in verses 1 and 16: We do not lose heart. Bracketed between these two statements he writes in an intensely personal way: ‘Why do I bother with preaching? It’s God’s way of bringing the light of Jesus Christ into the lives of men and women’.
Two themes stand out in verses 3-6: ‘Why people don’t believe’ (4:3-4), and ‘Why people do believe (5-6).
Why people don’t believe. In verses 3-4 we read: And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
The references to veil and glory show that Paul has in mind a contrast he makes in chapter 3, between the old and the new covenants. There he points out that the Jewish people didn’t understand the Bible; they were spiritually blind, with a veil over their hearts and minds.
In chapter 4 he develops this theme to include all men and women. In the same way that unbelieving Jewish people failed to understand the significance of the Old Testament law, so too unbelievers everywhere are blinded from seeing the glory of God in the person of Jesus. The god of this age is blinding their eyes, he says in verse 4.
Much ink has been spilled in explaining these words. Many commentators view the god of this age as a reference to the power of evil – Satan. However, while in the Parable of the Sower (Seeds), Jesus spoke of the devil taking the seed of God’s word from people’s hearts, he also drew attention in the same parable to other reasons the ‘seed’ of God’s Word doesn’t grow. Let’s consider more carefully what Paul is saying.
And to do this is to appreciate the way Paul expresses himself in the original text. To be technical for a moment, the phrase, the god of this age, is appositional: one idea within the phrase explains the other. The meaning of the phrase is ‘the god that consists of this age’. In other words, Paul is saying that people make this age their god. That is what blinds them.
A similar form of phrase is found in verse 6: The light of the knowledge of the glory of God – which means, ‘the light that consists of the knowledge of the glory of God’.
In verse 4 Paul is saying that it is the idolatrous preoccupation with the material things of this world that blinds humanity to spiritual realities. In a materially obsessed world people are blinded to the reality that there is more to life than the material world.
The eyes of people who lightly dismiss the reality and significance of Jesus Christ are so fixed on life now and the pleasures the material world offers, they are blind to the larger realities of our existence. They fail to see that we are much more than the sum of our parts.
To understand the god of this world this way is consistent with the overall teaching of the Bible. Although people who don’t believe are victims of ignorance, the bottom line is that their ignorance is willful. They choose to ignore the evidence.
And because they have chosen to worship what is less than God, he has given them over to a darkened mind, and so yes, the devil finds it so easy to steal the word of God from their hearts. People are perishing because they choose to turn their backs on God.
How then does anyone come to believe? In verses 5-6 we read: For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servant for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
That is how we come to believe: God has made his light shine in our heart. Paul’s reference to God’s utterance bringing about light is imagery drawn from Genesis chapter 1. Turning from unbelief to belief involves an act of divine initiative as awesome and as powerful as the act of creation.
God says to our hearts, ‘Let there be light’ and there is light, and from that moment a new world begins. The implication is thrilling: ‘God is the light’ who has shone in our hearts’. What we see in Jesus is not some magical gift of spiritual insight. It is the miracle of seeing God. It’s so important then, that we introduce people around us to the Jesus of the Gospels.
And this, Paul says, is the focus of his ministry. ‘We don’t preach ourselves,’ he says in verse 5, ‘but Jesus Christ as Lord’. We are Jesus’s servants. It is not my gifts of preaching, my oratory, my charisma, my charm, that wins men and women to faith. Rather, humanly speaking, it is bringing them to a face-to-face encounter with Jesus.
Paul wants us to know that he tells people who Jesus is, what he has done, and why he has done it. He points out that Jesus is not just a great teacher or extraordinary miracle worker, but God walking in our shoes. Jesus is more than a prophet for he is God in the flesh.
Furthermore, throughout his ministry Paul wanted everyone, everywhere to feel the impact of our fatally flawed nature. We are all trapped by self-love rather than love for God. Yet God is not a frowning misery-bags out to get us. He is the Lord, whose nature is always to have mercy. No matter what we have done or not done, he holds out mercy and forgiveness far greater than we ever dreamed.
Furthermore, Paul is saying that as he declares God’s gospel, again and again God by his Spirit takes the veil from blind eyes and hard hearts and enables them to see the glory of God, shining in the face of Jesus Christ.
We see why Paul did not lose heart. He understood that God chooses to work through our words that introduce Jesus and announce God’s mercy. Given the flow of Paul’s thought from the end of Second Corinthians 3 into chapter 4, we see that it is God’s Word and the power of God’s Spirit that opens our eyes to Christ. God’s Spirit turns on the light so that we see Jesus. So, we can liken faithful gospel ministry to opening the curtains in the morning – darkness gives way to daylight.
Because God’s miracle of illumination is such a necessary part in people responding to God’s good news, we surely should be praying. In Jesus’s words we considered last week, “Ask, seek, and knock”. Gospel movements come about because God’s people are praying and looking for opportunities to introduce others to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Have you read The Jesus Story: Seven Signs? It’s available from Amazon using the link below. I’m praying it will be a useful book that you can simply pass on to others who don’t know what to believe.
When they’ve read it, talk with them about TheWord121 (www.theword121.com). It’s a great read through all of John’s Gospel – over coffee or in small groups.
Let’s pray that God in his mercy will awaken his people and bring about a gospel-led regeneration of lives.
Prayer. Merciful God, who created all men and women in your image and who hates nothing you have made, nor would have the death of a sinner, but rather that they should be converted and live; have mercy on all people everywhere and take from them all ignorance and hardness of heart and contempt of your Word; and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to your flock, that they may be saved among the remnant of your ancient people, and be made one fold under one shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
© John G. Mason
