Culmination of Light, Knowledge, and Glory

II Corinthians 4:1–10

“Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ Jesus . But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.”

Ravi Zacharias tells us that the culmination of cultures at the turn of the millennium BC to AD, is represented in Christ: The pursuit of the Hebrews was idealised and symbolized by light. “The LORD is my light and my salvation (Psa 27:1).” “The people that sat in darkness have seen a great light (Isa 9:2).” “This is the light that lighteth everyone that comes into the world (John 1:9).” The pursuit of the Greeks was symbolised by knowledge. That’s why the Biblical writers say, “These things are written that you might know that you have eternal life (John 20:31).” It was about the search for the ‘logos’ in everything that underpinned Greek thought. For the Hebrews, it was light. For the Greeks, it was knowledge.  For the Romans, it was glory.  For the Romans, it was glory, the glory of the city of Rome, the glory of the city that wasn’t built in a day and where all roads lead to. And here we have it. The Apostle Paul, a Hebrew by birth, a citizen of Rome, living in a Greek city, had to give to them the ideal of his ethic.  And he says this: “God, who caused the light to shine out of darkness, has caused His light to shine in our hearts, to give to us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus our LORD (v. 6) For the St. Paul, the ultimate ethic was not an abstraction, not symbolized merely by light, not merely by knowledge, not merely by glory, but in the very face of our LORD. II Corinthians 4:2 helped me a lot in my own search, it was for me a test for authentic ministry, chief of which is not distorting the Word of God (v. 2) which I found in some sects/cults that purport to be Christian (similar to JWs), denying Christ’s divinity and the trinity. Many have asked why God chose that time in history, when Jesus should arrive, there are many theories and one of which is sociological, that around 100BC–100AD, the known world was unified for the first time in one language, Greek, and that there was relative peace for a long time, “pax Romana”. God’s timing is always right, in your life and in mine, and in the world, and so when the Apostle Paul speaks of the trials they faced, he always looks back to the Cross of Jesus Christ which strengthened him and his company and because of this, this band of men and women bound by a miraculous truth of the life, death, and most importantly the resurrection of Christ (I Cor 15:17), transformed the world —at the fullness of time, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, God sent Him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that He could adopt us as His very own children. And because we are favoured children, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." So we are no longer a slave, but favoured children; and since we are favoured, God has made us also an heir (Gal 4:4–7). This is our invaluable treasure in jars of clay.