《The Biblical Illustrator – 2 Corinthians (Ch.4~5)》(A Compilation)
04 Chapter 4
Verses 1-6
Verse 1
2Corinthians 4:1
Therefore seeing we have received this ministry.
The apostolic ministry
Paul represents this
I. As a ministry of light (2Corinthians 4:4-6).
1. Cf. John 1:5. Nothing could be more different than the minds of Paul and John, and yet both call revelation “light.” According to John, to live in sin was to live in darkness; according to Paul, it was to live in blindness. The gospel threw light--
2. Note three practical deductions.
II. As a reflection of the life of Christ.
1. In word. Cf. verses 2 and 13. We manifest the truth, “commending ourselves to every man’s conscience,” because we speak in strong belief. Observe the difference between this and theological knowledge. It is not a minister’s wisdom, but his conviction, which imparts itself to others. Nothing gives life but life. Real flame alone kindles other flame. We only half believe. In verse 5 Paul says he preaches Christ, and not himself. The minister is to preach, not the Christ of this sect or of that man, but Christ fully--Christ our hope, our pattern, our life.
2. In experience. It might be a matter of surprise that God’s truth should be conveyed through such feeble instruments--“earthen vessels” (verse 7). But this very circumstance, instead of proving that the gospel is not of God, proves that it is. For what was the life of these men but the life of Christ over again--a life victorious in defeat? (verse 8-11). In their sufferings the apostles represented the death of Christ, and in their incredible escapes His resurrection. Figuratively speaking, their escapes were as a resurrection. In different periods of the same life, in different ages of freedom or persecution--as we have known in the depressed Church of the Albigenses and the victorious Church of England--in different persons during the same age, the Cross and the Resurrection alternate and exist together. But in all there is progress--the decay of evil or the birth of good (verse 16). (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
Paul, the model minister
I. His motives.
1. His sense of the glory of his office. “Seeing we have this ministry.” This arose out of iris conception of the glory of the gospel (Romans 11:13). With this view of his office the apostle always strove to rise to the level of its dignity (1Thessalonians 2:4),
2. His sense of his indebtedness to Divine mercy. “As we have received mercy, we faint not.” His whole being was penetrated with a sense of the munificence of God towards him. He never touches upon this theme but his words glow with extraordinary power.
3. The Divine cognition. “In the sight of God” (cf. 2Corinthians 5:11). What an incentive to earnestness and honesty of purpose is this fact of God’s infinite eye being ever upon us! By these motives Paul was sustained, so that he fainted not. His sail was the exalted dignity of his office, his rudder his sense of the Divine eye ever upon him, his ballast the deep-felt gratitude of his heart for the mercy of God. Every Christian minister has need of the same motives--
II. His method.
1. Negative. “But have renounced,” etc. In the discharge of the duties of his exalted office he totally repudiated all methods and practices of which he had reason to be ashamed. He entirely avoided “tricks of the trade.” By his emphatic repudiation he implies--
2. Positive. “By manifestation of the truth.” What does this involve?
III. His power. “Commending ourselves to every man’s conscience”--not to their prejudices, passions, or tastes. It was a power arising, not from the charm of office, but from the charm of truth, earnestness, and holiness. (A. J. Parry.)
Verse 2
2Corinthians 4:2
But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty.
The true minister
Paul here introduces himself as a true minister appointed by God. He is led to this assertion by the insinuations of false teachers. He gives certain marks which characterised his ministry, but which were altogether wanting in that of these false teachers. These were--
I. Purity of motive. “We have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty.” By this he implies that these false teachers used such means to promote their schemes as would need only to be known in order to ruin the cause they were intended to promote. For men see at once that the cause cannot be a good one which requires to promote it such crafty schemes as cannot bear the light of day.
II. Purity of conduct. “Nor walking in craftiness.” The whole life of these false teachers was a crafty attempt to appear what they were not--to appear as if their actions were guided by a changed heart, whereas they really continued to live as they had formerly done, without any change of life or conversation. And what is he now but an impostor who pretends to teach others the road to heaven without himself leading the way?
III. Purity of doctrine “Nor handling the Word of God deceitfully.” There can, of course, only be two reasons for this deceitful handling: either--
1. To arrive at false doctrine, or--
2. To further some selfish end. Men do the first when they try, as some of these early teachers did, to fit Scripture into some system of human philosophy, and to teach as Divine truth the viewswhich they brought to the sacred book. And men do the latter when, instead of preaching Christ, they preach themselves. (J. Clarkson.)
The conditions and character of a true ministry
1. The common forms of opposition to the Christian ministry.
2. The mode and spirit in which such opposition should be met.
3. What the Christian ministry must be if it is to overcome all the opposition that may be brought against it.
I. The conditions of a true ministry in the Church of Christ. These are contained in the first three clauses of the verse.
1. “We have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty.” The word rendered “dishonesty” occurs six times in the New Testament. In every other instance it is translated “shame,” and this is its proper meaning. The expression, “hidden things of shame,” will have a twofold application. It may refer to things “hidden” as opposed to “manifestation”--that is, concealed from men through a feeling of shame; and in that case it would concern the gospel which the apostle had todeclare. Or it may refer to things shameful in themselves, carefully hidden from the eyes of men; and in that case it would concern the apostle himself. Taking both applications, the force of the apostle’s statement seems to be this: “There is nothing in the gospel which I am ashamed to tell men.” “There is nothing in myself which I am ashamed for men to know.” The Christian ministry demands the utmost honesty on the part of those who are found in it. The truths men are most indisposed to hear, and which are most likely to offend, are often the truths which men need most to know. The moment men begin to suspect that there are things in a man’s life which will not bear examination--“hidden things of shame”--his work is over. The first condition of a true ministry is that these shall be renounced.
2. The utter absence of selfish and subtle designs. “Not walking in craftiness.” The word literally means “unscrupulousness.” The idea is that of one who will resort to any artifice to secure his own ends. We are to learn that craftiness is utterly out of place in the ministry of the gospel. Though the end desired may be laudable, we are never justified in adopting crafty measures for attaining it. This has been the error into which, throughout a great portion of her history, the Church of Christ has fallen, and from which, according to some, she is not yet wholly free. The employment of craftiness has not only been wrong and sinful, but a mistake--a failure. It has been so in other domains of life. It has been well Shown by one writer that the policy which thought to govern India by sending out shrewd and unscrupulous men to meet and watch the keen, subtle, treacherous Hindoos, has altogether failed.
3. “Nor handling the Word of God deceitfully.” We are not to tamper with it, as one who defaces, injures, impairs the value of the coin of the realm, We are not to adulterate it, as one who introduces another and inferior element into that which originally was pure and good.
II. The character of a true ministry. “By manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” This is opposed to all reserve and concealment, all that is personal and selfish, all that is crafty and deceitful.
1. All that is obscure, and mystical, and unintelligible in Christian teaching is excluded. “We use great plainness of speech.” To place the truth within the apprehension of all must be the one aim and desire. Not to envelope it in a mysterious symbolism, not to wrap it up in strange and difficult terms, but to hold up the truth, like a torch uncovered, so that no human device shall lessen its brightness.
2. Such a ministry requires the utmost sincerity in those who sustain it. To manifest the truth must be the one object, and nothing in the man himself must be allowed to obscure its manifestation. He must sink himself in the truth he declares. The truth is often obscured by the person who proclaims it.The truth, not himself--the manifestation of the truth, not the presentation of himself--must be the grand object.
3. The evidences of such a ministry will appear in the response it awakens in the consciences of man. “Commending ourselves to every man’s conscience.” There is truth in every man corresponding with the truth in the book. “In the original structure of the soul there is an unwritten revelation which accords with the external revelation of Scripture. Within the depths of the heart there is a silent oracle which needs only to be rightly questioned to elicit from it a response in accordance with that voice which issues from the lively oracles of God.” A Christian minister is the living link between the truth in the Book and the truth in man. His work is so to manifest the truth contained in the Book that the consciences of men shall recognise it and answer to it. This constitutes the great hope and confidence of his ministry. The truth he has to manifest is not something requiring a new sense or a new faculty in man for its reception.
4. The solemnity of the ministry. “In the sight of God.” Self will obtrude itself--pride and vanity will appear--unless a man remembers that all is done “in the sight of God.” (W. Perkins.)
But by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience.--
Conscience a witness to the truth
There are two of these assertions of St. Paul which we wish to select and take as the subject of our discourse. The first is his assertion as to his “not handling the Word of God deceitfully”; the second is his assertion as to his “commending himself, by manifestation of the truth, to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” With regard to handling the Word of God deceitfully, both the promises and the threatenings of the Bible may be handled deceitfully. A not uncommon error is the regarding fear as too base and slavish a thing to be introduced as instrumental to religion. There is many a Christian who is disquieted by the thought that it is only the dread of punishment which withholds him from sin, whereas he feels that he ought to abhor the sin itself, and not merely to hate its consequences. But it is handling the Word of God deceitfully when fear is thus represented as unbecoming a Christian. No doubt the love of God ought to be the governing principle in the genuine believer. Fear ought gradually to give place toa mote generous sentiment; but, nevertheless, fear may be instrumental to the bringing a man to repentance, and it ought not to throw suspicion on the genuineness of repentance that fear has been the agency employed in its production. Now this brings us to the second topic of discourse; and that is, the fact of there being a manifestation of truth to the conscience when perhaps it is not acted on, nor even acknowledged. There is something very expressive in the words, “in the sight of God.” St, Paul was satisfied that the doctrines which he preached, and the motives by which he was actuated, were equally such as approved themselves to God. This assurance of the approval of his Master in heaven must have been more to the apostle than the applause of the world, and might well compensate for its scorn. We will confine ourselves to the alleged manifestation of the truth to the consciences of the hearers. Let us consider how, in preaching of future judgment and a propitiation for sin, a preacher is likely to commend himself to the consciences of those whom he addresses. I shall appeal in evidence to yourselves. The case is one in which you must yourselves pass the verdict, otherwise it will necessarily be devoid of all force. We are now before you simply to announce a judgment to come; and if you will not give us audience out of reverence to Him in whose name we speak, we claim it on the ground that what we have to publish is of an interest so overwhelming that no being with an understanding and a heart; can refuse to give heed. And it is a great source of encouragement to the preacher thus to feel that he has conscience on his side. He knows that the message which he delivers carries with it its own proof. And on this account, then, may we venture to speak of a manifestation to the conscience, as the preacher, after wielding the thunders of the law, sets himself to persuade by the announcements of the gospel. Is there one amongst you who trembles at the thought of appearing as a sinner, with the burden of his iniquities, before the Being who is pledged and armed to pour destruction on every worker of evil? Let that man listen; we seek now to persuade him. “God hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” Oh! does not this vast scheme of mercy commend itself to you? I think it must; I think that its very suitableness must be an evidence with you of its truth; I feel as if I were uttering that which seeks no proof but what it obtains from yourselves. I appeal to no prodigies, I neither quote nor work miracles; but I feel that in proposing deliverance, through the blood and righteousness of Christ, to those who, weighed down by their sins, shrink in terror from the judgment, I am proposing what must approve itself to them, as bearing the trace of a communication from God. (H. Melvill,B. D.)
Truth and the conscience
No change in religious thought is more remarkable than that which recognises that the ultimate appeal is not to authority outside of man, but to the authority inside. I have heard it solemnly argued that if men wereleft to themselves, even though they followed that which was best within them, they would come to as many different conclusions as there are men to think, and, as a result, each would be a law unto himself. Within a quarter of a century emphasis has been placed upon the doctrine of the immanence of God--that is, God is not outside His universe, beyond the stars and spaces, but in the universe, pervading it, controlling it, using it, as the spirit of a man uses his body. With that central thought other truths have come into prominence. If God is within man, even though the Divine may have little, if any, opportunity for manifesting Himself, there is something to which appeal can be made. The apostle made his appeal, as a religious teacher, to the necessary correspondence between truth and conscience. His thought is something as follows: A man may be surrounded by a million of others and see no friendly face. Suddenly a companion of his boyhood appears. The recognition is instant. We are in a strange land. Faces are unfamiliar. The speech is like jargon. The door opens; a friend appears; instantly the eye brightens, and the recognition is complete. In the same way truth is recognised. We have been accustomed to be afraid of conscience--to think that it could not be trusted. But to it the Apostle Paul boldly turns. Two questions arise. What is the truth to which he referred? It was the gospel which he was preaching. What is the conscience? That is a more difficult question. There are many things which we know which we cannot define. The man approving the right and condemning the wrong is perhaps all that can be said concerning conscience. The being never lived who did not realise that he ought to do right and ought not to do wrong. There have been many explanations of this fact. Where did it come from? It is as old as history, It is universal. Opinions differ as to what is right, but not as to its authority. For myself I believe that conscience is the voice of God in every man. To violate conscience is to disobey God. Now the apostle, in his epistle, says that his appeal is made to the correspondence of the gospel that he preaches and this consciousness of right in every man. To realise that there is something within ourselves to which we can bring all questions, and by whose judgment we must stand or fall, makes excuse for wrong-doing an impossibility.