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.
For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus Lord, and ourselves your bondmen for Jesus' sake.
Paul states here what he preaches and what he does not. The verse gives the content of true preaching — Jesus Christ as Lord — and the place of the preacher, who becomes the servant of the people he preaches to.
The refusal to preach himself was not a technique Paul adopted. It followed from what he had discovered about himself when the light of the gospel reached him.
Having shown how he preached, and what gospel he preached, the Apostle can truly say, "What we proclaim is not ourselves." When the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ shone into his heart, he learned that he was nothing. He found that, despite all the privileges he had boasted of under the law, he was lost. He found too that, despite all his hatred of Christ and of His people, grace had saved him. After that he could not speak of himself. He could speak only of Jesus Christ as Lord, with himself as the servant. The once proud Pharisee becomes, for Jesus' sake, the servant of the very people he had once persecuted.
The verse carries two different ways of naming the Saviour, and each one shapes half the sentence.
But the One preached is "Jesus Christ as Lord." That is His official title in resurrection, and every knee must bow to Him. The apostles who did the preaching were only "your servants for Jesus' sake." The precious name Jesus, used on its own, reminds us of His lowly path of suffering on earth. In that character they are glad to be linked with Him in their willing service.
The two halves of the verse belong together. Paul serves God's people because he first serves Christ. Older translations put the word more strongly still: he is their "bondman". Any other arrangement harms both sides.
Others might preach themselves; the apostle preached Jesus Christ as Lord. He was content to be the servant of Christ, and for that very reason the servant of God's people, for the sake of Jesus. This alone is true service. Anything else is a trap, both for the one who serves and for those he serves. In that case both alike serve themselves, and so dishonour Him.
The phrase covers more than willingness. It also carries the cost — including bad treatment from the very believers he serves.
This service might well bring suffering of every kind. It could leave him misunderstood, and at times neglected or even opposed by God's own people. Yet for Jesus' sake he endured it all. Personal interest, gain in this life, self-exaltation and the applause of men are all forgotten in the joy of serving for Christ's sake.
This verse shows what true service aims at, so it also exposes the false kind. The test is simple: who does the hearer end up leaning on?
All false ministry aims at tying souls to itself. So it lifts the minister up, shuts God out, and leaves the soul with no divine foundation to rest on. True ministry, as seen in Paul and Moses, has this blessed aim: to tie the soul to God. So the minister gets his true place as simply an instrument, God is exalted, and the soul rests on a sure foundation that nothing can move.
The verse opens with "For." It ties this preaching to the light of the gospel. Once a preacher takes that light in, announcing himself becomes impossible, not just wrong.
Standing in this blessed light and drinking it in, men whose whole character is to preach it could not possibly proclaim themselves. In the knowledge of the new man, "Christ is all, and in all." Christ is Lord, and the ministers of the gospel are only the servants of men for Jesus' sake. It is a glad and willing submission, in love, to the need that is everywhere.
- Light first. The light of the gospel shone into Paul's heart and taught him that he was nothing.
- Then silence about self. Where Christ fills the vision, proclaiming yourself becomes impossible, not just improper.
- Then the title. Paul preaches Jesus Christ as Lord — His official title in resurrection, and every knee must bow to Him.
- Then the service. Paul serves God's people because he serves Christ. Commentators call this the only true service; anything else is a trap for preacher and hearer alike.
- Then the cost, and the test. "For Jesus' sake" absorbs misunderstanding, neglect and even opposition from believers. True ministry leaves souls attached to God, not to the man.
Because [it is] the God who spoke that out of darkness light should shine who has shone in our hearts for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in [the] face of [Jesus] Christ.
The God who first spoke light into the darkness has done the same thing inside human hearts. And what He gives us to see is a face — the face of Jesus Christ.
The verse looks three ways at once: back to creation, back to the road to Damascus, and forward to Paul's ministry.
Verse 6 is very striking. It refers first to God's act in creation, then to His act in Paul's own conversion, and last of all to the ministry God called him to. Long ago God said, "Let there be light," and light shone out of the darkness. That was in the material creation. But now a work of new creation is going on, and something similar happens. Divine light — the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus — shines into dark hearts. It shone into Paul's heart in an outstanding way on the road to Damascus, and the effects were wonderful.
So what was in the heart before that light came?
Once these hearts were a moral chaos. Once they were dark and dead. No light and no love moved there. Hatred towards God walked through the darkness. Sin and evil passions — the activity of moral corruption — swarmed inside… But God shone in. God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. There was a new creation, and it was entirely of God. The Creator brought into these hearts, by His sovereign grace, what was not born there. By His own light He showed what sin was, what self was, and proved by His love the excellence of His light.
So why the face of Jesus, and not the sky overhead?
It was not a demand for man's duty. It was the communication of the knowledge of God's glory. That glory shone in Christ's face as the result of the infinite work of redemption. Through that work God could justify man in free grace instead of judging him for his sins… But that glory of God, so bound up with salvation, is seen not in the heavens, whatever they may declare, but in the face of Jesus Christ.
Can a sinner stand in front of that glory and be at peace?
The place where I see the glory is not Moses' face. Moses said, "I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin." God answered that every man must bear his own sin. "Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book." That is not the case now. The glory of God is in the face of Jesus Christ — of One who does not say "perhaps," but who makes the atonement before He goes up. The glory seen in the face of Jesus Christ is proof that the atonement has been accepted. I am at home in the presence of the glory, happy there. What condemned me before is now peace. As I look at it, I am changed into the same image. Every ray of it is joy and peace to my soul, evidence that there is no question of sin now.
There is a limit built into us: we cannot take God in as He is.
A man cannot stare calmly at the midday sun. Still less can he look at God in His essence and uncreated glory. Yet the believer today can take in all that God is as revealed in Jesus. Not one ray is missing. Yet they all shine with a softness of their own, which brings them within the reach of creatures like us. Redemption, of course, was necessary so that we might stand unashamed before such a revelation. But then, He who was the Revealer was also the Redeemer.
Some translations read "for the shining forth" instead of "to give the light." The light comes in with a purpose beyond the person who receives it.
Now light has shone in "for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." This was God's purpose in sending the light in. He meant it to shine out again. You see, many cannot preach. And this is not the preaching of the gospel. It is "the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." God has shone in, and He shines out. But He can only be known as revealed in Christ.
- Darkness first. Before God shines in, the heart is a moral chaos: dark, dead, hostile. It needs a new creation, not an improvement.
- God shines. The same voice that said "Let there be light" speaks again. The light is entirely of God, not something we achieve.
- One face. We do not read God's glory off the sky. We read it off the face of Jesus Christ, where His glory and the sinner's salvation meet.
- No "perhaps." Moses could only say "perhaps" about atonement. Christ made it before He went up, so what once condemned us is now peace.
- Shining out. The light comes in so that it may shine out — not by preaching, but by God Himself shining out in those He has lit.