2 CORINTHIANS 4 (FIRST READING)
2 CORINTHIANS 4 (FIRST READING)
CAC There is enough in chapter 3 to keep us from fainting: “Having this ministry ... we faint not”.
A Is that the ministry of the Spirit?
CAC Of the Spirit and righteousness. It is the wonderful system of supply that we have to do with, not a system of demand; everything is supplied; it is the character of new covenant ministry.
T The last verse of chapter 3 has a wonderful effect.
CAC Yes, in contrast to what was of old it gives marvellous elevation to the people of God. The law never proposed to make men like God but new covenant ministry transforms men into the likeness of God. When God comes out in grace it is that He may form a people to [p. 242] show forth His praise; He is working in grace so that His saints may carry the impression of all that He is.
T “God ... who has shone in our hearts for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”.
CAC Yes, it all shone into the heart of the apostle so that it might shine out again and that we might be put into the shining of it. Christians connect the glory with the future but we were seeing last week that the present time is a time of glory. If we are not living in the light of present glory we are not in the light of christianity. There is the glory of God, the glory of Christ and the glory of having the Spirit; the ministry of the new covenant subsists in glory, abounds in glory, and there is the surpassing glory! Glory marks the present time; if glory will not make a person’s face shine, I do not know what will!
T What do you understand by “from glory to glory”?
CAC That the course of the saints is progression; it goes from one step of glory to another; every step is a step in glory, and it is the glory of grace. It is all effected by the Lord and the Spirit.
T The apostle does not leave out mercy.
CAC The vessel is sustained by mercy; it is mercy that keeps us in a sense of glory; we are vessels for glory. Mercy takes account of the need on our side; God never loses sight of it. However blessed the character of the dispensation of grace and glory is, God always takes account of our real needs as described in verses 8 and 9, “every way afflicted, but not straitened; ... persecuted, but not abandoned; cast down, but not destroyed”. All this has to do with the actual circumstances the vessel is in. We always have the sense of the earthen vessel: the more we are filled with the glory of the treasure, the more we shall be conscious of the earthen vessel. We could not touch the glory system unless we have mercy; we are not [p. 243] great enough for glory. It is lovely to see the two things brought together, mercy to support the earthen vessel, and the treasure put into it. Nothing is made of the earthen vessel but everything of the treasure. I heard of an old brother once who got so happy that he had to pray to the Lord to stop pouring in the blessing or else to enlarge the vessel. That is not often our experience. Still, one might feel the vessel could not hold any more; one may have a sense that the blessing is so great that there is not room enough to receive it (Malachi 3: 10). We can sing, ‘Ah, Lord, enlarge our scanty thought, To know the wonders Thou hast wrought’.
We find in verse 2 the exercise of the apostle that whatever was inconsistent with this glory system was to be set aside; he says, “we have rejected the hidden things of shame”; they were not in keeping with the glory. The ways of a servant are to be in keeping with what he ministers; people could never have rejected the teaching of Paul on the ground of inconsistency in the preacher. T. That was the fruit of mercy.
CAC And of being transformed — Paul was a transformed man; he went down to Damascus like a lion and came back like a lamb.
There is nothing veiled on God’s side now; it is the god of this world that does the veiling if there is any now. “If also our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in those that are lost; in whom the god of this world has blinded the thoughts of the unbelieving”. That is an allusion to the veil in the previous chapter. God does not bring in any veil now; there is no barrier to keep a poor sinner at a distance. Man’s heart is so self-sufficient that he will not turn to the Lord, but if he turns the veil is gone. There is not only the power of God, but the power of the god of this world and he brings in a veil now. He does his utmost to hide the gospel, to blind men’s thoughts.
T The apostle speaks of it as our gospel.
CAC Paul had a sense of it all as being his own; that special ministry of glory was given to him. It is the gospel itself that is radiant. There is nothing like it anywhere. It is a radiant gospel; nothing else has such radiancy, such brightness, as the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ. The apostle was leading them on from the thought of new covenant blessing to the thought of new creation, and it is in leading on to this that he brings out “the radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ”. He is coming now to the truth of the Head, “Christ, who is the image of God”. In this He is clearly the anti-type of Adam who was set up as the image of God. Here we come to the last Adam and to the character of things that are to fill God’s universe; everything that does not derive its character from Christ must go out. If a man is preaching the gospel and asks people if they have derived anything from Christ, the sinner would have to say, ‘No’. Well, everything else must go. God has brought in something that will fill His universe with joy and gladness and glory; if people will not be filled with glory they must go out into darkness. Satan tells people they can do without the glory of Christ. It is most important that the radiant gospel should be preached; if you dwell on man’s need it is not radiancy. The radiancy should be more pressed. God has provided such a wonderful Head for man, and if we know something of the blessedness of that Head we can finish with ourselves.
T But there is no start till the need is met.
CAC Yes, that is the first epistle, “Christ died for our sins ... was buried; and ... was raised”. That is not the radiant side.
The thought behind all this is that of new creation, so we have Christ, the image of God, and “God who spoke that out of darkness light should shine”; this takes us [p. 245] back to Genesis 1. The brightness of new creation is the radiancy of the glory of the Christ. It is not the brightness that filled the old creation with light, the material sun, but it is the moral radiancy of the Christ; He is the Sun of new creation.
There is first the glory of the Lord as Mediator of the new covenant. It is the glory of the Lord that He can bring all that God is in grace to a poor sinner, and the grace is so immense that the Spirit and righteousness can be given. Nothing is asked for from us; the measure of that righteousness is Christ Himself, so that we have Christ instead of ourselves. That is the glory of the Lord. The glory of Christ is the thought of Headship. God has brought in One who is sufficient to fill the universe for His pleasure, so everything that has not come out of Christ must disappear. We are led up to new creation by seeing the radiancy of the Christ. He is the glory of God. Everything is filled out of Christ, and everything not derived from Him must disappear, must go out into darkness. Christ is the image of God; there is a perfect shining out of all that God is in this blessed anointed Man.
N Is it the same thought as in Colossians 1: “image of the invisible God”?
CAC Yes, everything is brought in in Colossians to enhance the greatness of the Head. We get a thought of it by contrast. Look at this world — everything came out of Adam, every mental and moral quality. Men boast of physical and mental powers, but everything came out of Adam and it is all corrupt; Adam had fallen before he became head of the race. Now as Adam was the source of all in the old creation, so Christ in the same way is source of all in new creation; everything in God’s world will flow out of Christ, just as everything in this world came out of Adam. It is wonderful that there will not be a single [p. 246] quality in new creation that did not come out of Christ, so that there will be an adequate setting forth of God in the moral universe.
E What is the moral universe?
CAC It is the setting forth of all that God is in the presence of all His intelligent creatures. Angels, principalities and authorities will learn in Christ and the church, and in all the blessed families that God will bring out of this ruined world, the blessedness and excellencies of God himself. It has often been said that the church is the lesson book of angels.
T Has not verse 6 a present application, the light has shone?
CAC It has shone forth in the ministry of the apostle, in Paul’s gospel, “the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”; all the glory of God comes out there. It is not only the glory of a Man. “The radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ” is the glory of a Man who is the image of God, but in verse 6 we have what is greater, the glory of God in the face of a Man.
I have had the thought that the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ involves that He is the crown of all the ways of God. God’s glory came out in His ways; you see it all through the Old Testament, and Christ is the crown of them all. Promise is the first element of all God’s ways and Christ is the crown of that. The second element is sacrifice, and every sacrifice is headed up in Christ. The third element is resurrection and He is the crown of that. Then there is priesthood and rule; Christ is the crown of everything. The creature can only apprehend God’s glory in His ways, and all God’s ways reach their crown in Christ. He is the crown of them all, and the glory of God is in the Person of Christ. It is marvellous that this should be preached as glad tidings, that God should condescend [p. 247] to make His own glory good news to poor wretched man. The setting forth of God and of Christ will do men good; nothing else will. There were special dealings with Paul to make him a vessel of this good news. We could not learn it from any one but Paul. He had something that excelled all that the twelve apostles had; he called it, “my gospel”.
T What a sense of mercy all this gives us!
CAC Yes, we might say that the thought of glory keeps one’s heart up, and that the thought of mercy keeps one’s head down.
N What follows is what God brings in on the vessel so that nothing may obstruct the light.
CAC Yes, “Death works in us”. I remember a brother once saying to me that he believed the apostle could not preach save by divine power! He said, ‘You and I can go out to a street corner and preach, and perhaps it is not in power, but there was such a discipline kept on Paul the vessel, that he could not go on except by divine power’. The Lord did not allow what was natural to come out in Paul, but kept His hand on him, so that all had to be in divine power with him. It meant very severe discipline that the power of God might come out. The apostle speaks here of the fruit of discipline, not only on his part, “bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus”, but “always delivered unto death on account of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested”.
T What is the dying of Jesus?
CAC It was always present to the heart of the apostle that Jesus had died here, so that he was never looking for anything but death in this world, not because of the wickedness and violence of man, but because Jesus had died.
This brings out his great affection for Jesus. It is the personal name, the dying of Jesus. Paul so loved the One that was before his heart that he carried about a sense of [p. 248] His dying, so that the life came out in Paul’s body. The life of Jesus corresponds with the gospel of the glory. T. How wonderful that the life could come out in the body of a man!
CAC The apostles were set “for the last, as appointed to death”: They had become as “the offscouring of the world” (1 Corinthians 4: 9, 13). I think this was so that a life of lowliness, meekness and gentleness might be manifested, the life of One led as a lamb to the slaughter.
T Was “life in you” the effect of death in the apostle?
CAC Is not that the secret of power? Death works in the servant so that life might work in those he serves. Paul’s life was one of constant discipline, “always delivered unto death”. His heart carried about the thought of the dying of Jesus. That was affection but then God delivers him to death; every day he had the constant sense that the next hour might be his last. Death was always brought in on him; on three voyages, the ships were wrecked; if he took a journey, he would perhaps fall among robbers. If he had lived at the present time we should have shaken our heads and thought there must be something wrong! There were perils of robbers, perils from the heathen, perils among false brethren. Five times he received forty stripes save one, thrice he was beaten; he was stoned; there was one form of death after another, and all that the life of Jesus might be manifested. Death must come in on what is natural if what is spiritual is to be seen. Death always came in on Paul. Outwardly his was a life of discipline; he had a messenger of Satan to buffet him; he had that special affliction in his body.
S Is there any difference between body and mortal flesh? Is it to put it in a stronger light?
CAC Yes. Verse 10 is what Paul did, he bore about in the body the dying of Jesus. Then he was delivered to [p. 249] death; the divine intent was that the life of Jesus might come out even in mortal flesh. That is more wonderful than that it might come out in a glorified body. Everything is in view of resurrection, “Knowing that he who has raised the Lord Jesus shall raise us also with Jesus, and shall present us with you”. Paul is not only bound up with the Lord Jesus, but with the saints — it is “with Jesus” and “with you”.
N Paul has resurrection always in view; his trust was in God who raises the dead.
CAC All labour is to be undertaken in view of resurrection. “Abounding always in the work of the Lord” comes in at the end of the resurrection chapter, 1 Corinthians 15.