"The Ministry of the New Covenant" Page 2 of 3 (series: Lessons on 2 Cor.)

by John Lowe
(Woodruff, S.C.)

I read a tremendous analogy the other day: sheep produce sheep. The shepherd cannot produce sheep. He watches over the sheep. It is sheep today who are going to win sheep, because sheep produce sheep. The preacher’s business is to equip the laymen to witness.

By the way, are you doing something to get out the Word of God? That is witnessing. God may have given you the gift of making money. Do you use it to send out the Word of God? Perhaps you are a man or woman of prayer, interceding for those who preach and teach the Word of God. This is something anyone can do! You have contact with some person whom no one else can reach. Many people may read my commentaries, but most people are not interested in reading about God and His Word. Maybe you can reach a person who will not listen to anyone else. God has called you to be a witness, my friend. This is tremendous!

Earlier Paul had spoken of his opponents as “hucksters . . . who preach just to make money (2.17{7]). The implication is that some of the preachers who had visited Corinth had greedy motives. Paul could perceive their hidden motives because of the havoc and confusion these men were causing in Corinth. In this verse, Paul has something to say about his opponents and his slanderers, by implication. Again there is the echo of unhappy things. Behind this we can see that his enemies leveled three charges against him. They had said that he uses underhanded methods, that he exercised unscrupulous cleverness to get his own way, and that he adulterated the message of the gospel. When our motives are misinterpreted, our actions misconstrued and our words twisted out of their real meaning, it’s a comfort to remember that this also happened to Paul.

Paul confidently asserted that the Corinthians knew his motives were pure: “but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.” But because his preaching and motives had been called into question by the Corinthians, he pleaded with them to evaluate his behavior among them to see if he had been devious. Paul was confident that if they fairly judged him, he would be judged innocent of all the charges against him.


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.

“The god of this world” should be translated “the god of this age.” I don’t like to hear Satan called the god of this world. When you step outside your house and look around, it is God’s world that you are looking at. Although sin has marred it, it is still God’s world.

Satan is the god of this age. He is running it. He runs the United Nations; he runs all the amusements; he is running the whole show as far as I can tell. He is the god of this age. By the way, he is very successful in keeping many from coming to Christ by making them to stubbornly refuse to believe in Him and to place their trust in their own abilities and intellect instead, so that they will never understand the truth of the gospel.

He has “blinded the minds of them which believe not.” Have you ever heard someone say, “I don’t understand the gospel? I have heard it all my life, but it doesn’t mean anything to me.” I have heard people say that again and again. What has happened? The devil has blinded them. The light is shining, but the devil has blinded their eyes so they cannot see. Satan has blinded many people. They say, “Why don’t you turn on the light? I don’t see the gospel at all.” That is the blindness that comes from Satan.

There are other people who say, “There are things in the Bible that I cannot believe. I don’t know why, but I just can’t believe them.” But do you know what the problem really is. It’s really not that there are things in the Bible he couldn’t believe. The problem was that there was sin in his life, sin that the Bible condemns. He didn’t want to believe. That is the condition of a lot of people today. The problem is not with the Bible; the problem is with their lives. If you choose to go on indulging your sins, then you can go on doing that. It is your loss. But you can turn to Christ. Don’t tell me you cannot. You can turn to Christ if you want to. The moment a man comes to the place where he sees himself as a sinner and says, “I am ready to renounce my sin; I’m ready to receive Christ as my Savior,” he will be saved. The Word of God is light. Instead of saying you cannot see the light and instead of trying to blame the Bible, why don’t you face your sins before God? Then there will be no difficulty about your believing.

Turn to God in repentance; be prepared to let the Spirit of God reveal His truth to you, and It will be His joy to show the glory of the grace of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ. Why don’t people believe? Because Satan has blinded their eyes, “lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” It is a glorious gospel, but it is glorious because it reveals the glory of Jesus Christ. Apparently, that is what men do not want to see.

It is clear that Paul is speaking of those who have refused to accept the gospel. He insists that he has presented the gospel in such a way that any man with any kind of conscience at all is bound to admit its claim and its appeal. Even in spite of that some are deaf to its appeal and blind to its glory. What about them?

Paul says something very difficult about them. He says that “the god of this world” has blinded their minds so that they cannot believe. All through the Bible the writers are conscious that in the world there is a power of evil. Sometimes that power is called Satan, sometimes the Devil. Three times John records that Jesus spoke of the prince of this world and of his defeat (John 12:31{1]; 14:30{2]; 16:11{3]). Paul in Ephesians 2:2 speaks of the prince of the power of the air, and here he speaks of “the god of this world.” Even in the Lord’s Prayer there is a reference to this malign power, for it is most probable that the correct translation of Matthew 6:13{4] is “Deliver us from the Evil One.” At the back of this idea as it emerges in the New Testament there are certain influences.
1. The Persian faith called Zoroastrianism sees the whole universe as a battle-ground between the god of the light and the god of the dark, between Ormuzd and Ahriman. That which settles a man’s destiny is the side he chooses in this cosmic conflict. When the Jews were subject to the Persians they came into contact with that idea and it undoubtedly colored their thinking.
2. Basic to the Jewish faith is the thought of the two ages, the present age and the age to come. By the time of the Christian era, the Jews had come to think of the present age as incurably bad and destined for total destruction when the age to come dawned. It could fitly be said that the present age was under the power of “the god of this world” and at enmity with the true God.
3. It has to be remembered that this idea of an evil and hostile power is not so much a theological idea, as a fact of experience. If we regard it in a theological way we are up against serious difficulties. Where did that evil power come from in a universe created by God? What is its ultimate end? But if we regard it as a matter of experience, we all know how real the evil of the world is. Robert Louis Stevenson somewhere says, “You know the Caledonian Railway Station in Edinburgh? One cold east windy morning I met Satan there.”

Everyone knows the kind of experience of which Stevenson speaks. However difficult the idea of a power of evil may be theologically or philosophically, it is one which experience understands only too well. Those who cannot accept the good news of Christ are those who have so given themselves over to the evil of the world that they can no longer hear God’s invitation. It is not that God has abandoned them; they by their own conduct have shut themselves off from Him.

Although Paul could see perfectly well, as a young Pharisee he had been blinded to spiritual truth. Naively and zealously, he had persecuted the Christians, vowing to destroy them in any way possible. Unknowingly, Paul had been an instrument of Satan. In one magnificent moment, however, Christ had broken through Satan’s deception and had revealed the truth to Paul. A glorious encounter with Christ had opened Paul’s eyes to the truth.