But if also our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in those that are lost;
Paul has just said that he never tampers with God's word, but sets truth plainly before every conscience. So when people still turn away from his message, where does the block lie?
Older translations say the gospel is "hid." One writer points to the sharper word behind it:
The word "hid" occurs twice in verse 3. It really means "veiled." It is the same word (in a slightly different form) that occurs several times in the latter part of chapter 2. "If also our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in those that are lost." There was no veil on the Gospel, because Paul declared it in its purity and its clarity. But there was a veil on the hearts and minds of the perishing who did not believe.
If the veil is not on Christ and not on Paul's preaching, only one place is left:
He gives out the word of God as purely as he took it in. He did not handle it deceitfully. By showing the truth openly, he commended himself "to every man's conscience in the sight of God." The result is that there is no veil. There is no veil on the face of Jesus Christ, and Paul put no veil on by any unfaithfulness of his own. So if any were lost, it really was not Paul's fault. The veil, if there is one, would be on their own hearts.
So who is to blame when such preaching is refused? One writer names two causes at work together:
With Paul there was no veil — nothing to obscure the testimony — either in the preaching or the preacher. He gave out the truth as purely as he had received it. When people refused the gospel under such a ministry, it was because a veil of unbelief lay on their hearts. Satan, the god of this world, used man's unbelief to blind their minds against the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. For such the result was fatal; it left them in their lost condition. As one has said: "It is not simply that Satan hides it from them. It is their own unbelief that brings them under the power of Satan."
Does "lost" mean a person will one day simply cease to exist? One writer tests the word across Scripture:
Read 2 Corinthians 4:3. There the word certainly means morally condemned, not having ceased to exist. Its meaning here goes further than in the passages just quoted, which say that men were in a ruined state but God could save them. This passage speaks of them as finally condemned. … These passages show that the word does not always, or only, mean "cease to exist," or to make something cease to exist. It can also mean to be ruined while we exist, whether as a present moral condition or as a final and eternal state.
The verse above reads "those who are perishing." The same writer says the phrase marks out a kind of person, not a moment in time:
"Are lost" describes their character. It has nothing to do with time at all. It is "the ones who perish."
Some translations soften the verse into "those who are being lost," pushing the verdict into the future. One writer resists that:
There is no doubt whatever as to the tense of the verb… But it is not difficult to guess that the origin of this translation is unbelief in the fact that man can either be saved or lost before death. Even evangelical Protestantism very unwillingly admits that the sinner is already lost, or that he may know he is saved during his life. It will press very earnestly that he will be lost if he does not believe in Christ. But this is another thing.
Yet a present verdict is not the last word while the hearer still lives:
We read in 2 Corinthians 4:3 that the gospel is hidden to those who are lost. This refers to people who were within the sound of that gospel and could turn a deaf ear to it. They were living men on earth, and yet lost… Let us thank God that you, though lost, are not yet lost beyond recovery, lost for ever. There is still hope for you.
- Veiled, not dim — the word is not "obscure" but "covered." The same word appears earlier in the letter, and here the covering lies on human hearts.
- Not on the message — nothing veils the glory of Christ, and nothing veiled Paul's preaching of it.
- Not on the preacher — Paul gave out the truth as purely as he received it, so no one could blame his method.
- On the heart — unbelief drops the veil, and that unbelief brings a person under the power of the one who blinds minds.
- Lost, but reachable — "lost" means ruined while still alive. So the verse is a warning to the living, not the last word on them.
in whom the god of this world has blinded the thoughts of the unbelieving, so that the radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ, who is [the] image of God, should not shine forth [for them].
Paul has just said that his preaching hides nothing. Verse 4 explains why so many still stay unmoved: the fault is not in the message or the messenger, but in a real enemy who works on minds that will not believe.
The verse gives Satan a title. One commentator traces how he came by it — men chose him over Christ:
The title given to Satan here is the boldest and fullest admission of his present power over man that the Scriptures contain. The Just One had called him the "prince of this world" (John 14:30)… By rejecting the Man approved of God, the world showed itself ready to receive His rival… For the one to whom men yield their wills has the right to be called their god.
Some early Christian writers refused to let "god" here mean the devil at all. They read it as God blinding unbelievers. William Kelly answers them:
Hilary … would not allow Satan to be called god of this age, in case it might count against the deity of Christ; nor would Chrysostom. They failed to see the difference between "God" used on its own, and "god" used with a limiting phrase attached.
Here "world" translates a word that means a period of time. That changes where we look for the blinding:
Notice carefully that the word is not "world" but "age"… He does it by bringing in thoughts that oppose the truth of the gospel, either through this world's teachers or through their books. Take a popular book that claims to deal with spiritual things, yet ignores sin and so ignores the atonement. It would be one of his most successful tools for darkening minds…
Satan does not blind a passive victim. He needs the person's consent, and he has bait ready:
It is Satan, the god of this world, who blinds them. He cannot do it, though, unless they are willing. He uses bait such as the attractions of this world, with its present gain and pleasure. The glitter of these passing vanities blinds men's minds to the infinitely greater gain and pleasure in Christ.
So the order matters. Unbelief is not just the result of the blinding. It is the door:
Satan, the god of this world, used the unbelief of man to blind their minds against the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ… As one has said, "It is not simply that Satan obscures it to them, but it is their own unbelief which brings them under the power of Satan."
Older Bibles read "the glorious gospel." Kelly says that wording misses the point: the glory belongs to Christ Himself, now in heaven:
"The glorious gospel," as in the King James Version, is not only inadequate, but incorrect. The glory is the glory of Christ exalted to God's right hand — not because of His person only, but because of redemption too — so that we who now believe might see Him there, and have our place in Him… The gospel, as Paul preached it, was not about His coming down and His life here only, nor about His death and resurrection, but about His glory in heaven as well.
The verse ends by calling Christ "the image of God." One writer compares Him with the first man:
The Gospel of God's grace tells of the divine resources to meet the need of the sinner, but the Gospel of the glory of Christ sets before us the last Adam, Who is the image of God. The first man was made in God's image to represent Him on earth; but Christ is the perfect representation of God in heavenly glory.
The verse is not the last word. The believer is living proof that the blindness can be lifted:
As the god of this world he has "blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ." But the apostle at once adds, "God… has shone in our hearts"… So the believer is no longer kept under the blinding influence of Satan. God has, in his case, broken through the devil's line of dark defence and let the light in.
- Title. Satan holds the name "god of this world" because men handed him their wills — they obey him, and so he is called their god.
- Age. The word is "age," not "world": he blinds through the books and teachers around us, above all any that drop sin from the account.
- Consent. He cannot blind the unwilling; it is unbelief that puts a person under his power, and the bait is the glitter of present gain.
- Light. What he is shutting out is not a vague brightness but the glory of a Man in heaven — the last Adam, the full representation of God.
- Breach. God shines into hearts and breaks through the enemy's dark defence line — and every believer is the evidence.