It Is Veiled Only To Those Who Are Perishing

“And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord…”

God’s Word was of such a nature for the Apostle Paul that he would not countenance changing or tampering with it (2 Cor. 4:2). He would not and could not do this because it is the truth. He defended the truth by declaring the truth, and in so doing commended himself to everyone’s conscience. You always know where you stand with the Apostle Paul. This is what makes him so attractive. The truth makes him real. It’s hard to imagine someone not loving truth, yet the unbeliever who is blinded by Satan hates the truth (2 Cor. 4:4).

The unbeliever’s truth is, therefore, a lie because it comes from the father of lies (John 8:44). Satan has always been a liar. He lied to Eve in the Garden (Gen. 3). He is a deceiver and murderer. There is no truth in him. Satan knows the truth, but totally rejects it and hates it. In fact, he cannot love the truth. He uses the truth as it suits him and for his own purposes, but he always twists it so that sin recognizes the twist and is drawn to it. In Eve’s case, Satan had to blind her to the truth about God and, thus, deceive her. This is why all sinners naturally gravitate to that which is not truth. Paul says that unbelievers are so blinded that they cannot see the truth. The gospel is veiled to those who are perishing. Those who have perished rejected the gospel, and perished.

As Christians we sometimes might wonder why certain people don’t see the message. Some unbelievers are so hardened by sin you can smell their antagonism to the gospel. Others might be kind and gentle people by all appearances, and we wonder why they cannot see the truth. The reality is that they are all blind. Sin blinds them and Satan uses that blindness to keep them in their sins. He will always throw up objections about God and Christ to them as to why they should not believe the gospel that you share with them.

Besides this, we all know that sin has an allure and power that is self-deceiving. This is why the Christian always has to fight sin. The gospel is only veiled to those who are perishing. The word perishing means to be destroyed. The gospel has the power to save. It is the power of God for salvation (Rom. 1:16). When people reject the gospel, their failure to see the gospel for what it really is does not lie in a failure by the gospel to save, but lies rather in their blind and hardened hearts. The veil is over their minds and hearts, not over the gospel. Calvin said that the sun is no less resplendent just because a blind person cannot see it. The gospel is light and very powerful. Paul told the Corinthians that “the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1Cor. 1:18).

So the gospel is veiled and foolish to the unbeliever. He is blind and will not see because his heart is hard. He cannot understand unless the veil over his mind and heart is taken away. The unbeliever is really in a no–win situation. He cannot see because he is blind and Satan keeps him blind. The light of the gospel is so powerful and so bright that Satan must throw a veil of darkness over it. Otherwise it would soften and penetrate hearts and minds. Now you might think at this point, that if this is the case, then no one can be saved. If the gospel can be resisted by the human heart, and if Satan works at blinding the human mind and heart, then how can such a person ever be saved? This is why salvation must never be attributed to man’s power. It is obvious that man has no power to believe the gospel by himself. He must be enabled. The sun can only be seen by a blind person when the surgeon fixes the blindness. When a person who is blind suddenly can see, it is because the light rushes in and dispels the darkness. God the Holy Spirit is the divine Surgeon. He enables us to see the light. And the light that we see, according to Paul, is the light of the gospel. Paul calls this light the glory of Jesus who is the image of God. Unbelievers have a false image of themselves and of God. But when the gospel comes in with its brilliance, Christ is seen with the eye of saving faith. The heart and mind are illumined with the light of the gospel, and the believer sees a new image; namely, Jesus.

Satan is called the “god of this world” (vs. 4). He is called the “prince of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11). The whole world lies in his power (1 John 5:19). This is a reference to the world in darkness. Christians are not in Satan’s kingdom of darkness. We are in the kingdom of Christ, which is the kingdom of light (Eph. 5:8; Col. 1:13; 1 Thess. 5:5; 2 Tim. 1:9, 10; 1 Pet. 2:9). Satan works at keeping unbelievers in the dark, but he is powerless to prevent the work of salvation being done in the heart and life of an individual. Satan’s tools are blindness and hardness. Unbelievers do not have the spiritual capacity to see the light of the gospel. They have to be enlightened.

We are tempted to give up in witnessing because we don’t see results. We need to remember that the results rest with God. Our responsibility is to proclaim and live the truth. This is what Paul says. The reason he refuses to tamper with God’s truth is because his own life had been so radically changed (2 Cor. 1:1, 2). This is the visible proof of salvation—a changed life. So Paul is willing to state the truth and live out the truth—“we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God” (vs. 2). Unlike so many today, when Paul preached, he refused to preach about himself (vs. 5). If Jesus is the image of God, then any preaching of self is idolatry. And the power of the gospel rests in the fact that Jesus is Lord. Paul says in verse 5: “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.” The Lordship of Jesus is vindicated by his resurrection from the dead (Rom. 1:4). Paul is not preaching a competitor of Satan’s. He is preaching Jesus as Lord of all. Satan is no god at all.

The Christian Church is in desperate need of the gospel of Jesus. Ministers of the gospel are not to preach themselves. They are not to tamper with the truth to make it culturally relevant or practical. They are to testify to the truth. They are to bear witness to the truth. The gospel is light. It has the power to overcome the darkness. It is God who has “shone into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). Satan is going to do everything he can to prevent the light from penetrating, but he cannot stop this sovereign work. It is God who has shone into our hearts—the same God who said “let there be light.” Satan works at keeping the heart hard. He seeks to prevent the knowledge of the truth from being known.

But Satan does this to those who are perishing. He veils the gospel. As Christians we are in the light. We see Christ. We know the gospel. These are the truths we love. God has brought us into his kingdom. When we think on how beautiful the gospel is, then we realize how utterly depraved the darkness we once were in is. Those who are perishing don’t know they are perishing. They are blind and are kept in blindness. It is a horrific position to be in. We must have compassion for the lost for they don’t know they are lost. So shine and pray that God would use us in the saving of sinners.