Think Wink.

This is the first of a series that comes from what I preached during Sunday School on February 10, 2008. The “talk” was entitled “The Gospel of the Glory of Christ” take from the text that I spoke from, 2 Corinthians 4:4-6. I had four questions, two were exegetical and two were application questions that made up my points for my forty-five minute sermon. Each post will look at each question so that the posts will be reasonably brief. Let us get the text before us before we look at the first question. Even though I really like the NET, I think they got this text wrong and so I take my text from the ESV (I still like to preach at church with the ESV because the pastor uses it and most people either use the ESV, NASBu, NKJV, KJV, or NIV and the NET is just too different from them to help them identify with the text). Paul writes,

4 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. 5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Now my question is: What does Paul mean by “the gospel of the glory of Christ” in 4:4? This is what I am going to address in this post. I have five steps that I followed to arrive at the answer and step one is also why I ask the question.

1. Paul defines the gospel like this in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” There are three pillars (my pastor argues for four and I am okay with that but this will do) to the gospel in this passage: Christ died for our sins according to Scripture, Christ was buried (the ESV as cited above does not include the καὶ that is included after death, burial, and resurrection to make each of these distinct pillars–shame, shame), and Christ was raised on the third day according to Scripture. If one were to distill the Christian Gospel as far down as possible, this would be it. These three historical events are the backbone of Christianity. And when I first read 2 Corinthians 4:4-6 and saw gospel as the glory of Christ, I wondered how this prior understanding of gospel fit in. But when I came to the text, I made this the foundational meaning of Gospel and whatever Paul means has 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 at its foundational meaning of “gospel.”

2. How can one define the word “glory?” In the Greek it is the word δόξα. How can one understand this term? It refers to splendor, effulgence, magnificence, and manifested beauty. It is the radiance of beauty. But how does one describe beauty, splendor, effulgence? One meaning for beauty in Websters is “excellent quality.” So glory also encompasses excellence as that it defines beauty which defines glory. Glory is abstract. According to Websters, beauty refers to something that gives the senses of the one beholding the beauty pleasure because of the qualities of that which is beautiful. There is really no what to put into words what glory is without pushing the problem back one step with more words that cannot be easily defined. It is like trying to explain a color to a blind person. One good way to explain color is to give a sensation that we associate with that color. So for blue, we could let the blind person feel an ice cube and say that blue is like cold; or for red we can give them something that is hot. I instead would point the one asking to the sunset over the ocean with a clear sky; or the sunrise over the mountains. That is beauty. Then I would tell them that what they are seeing is a glimpse of divine glory. But if I had to try to define glory in 2 Corinthians 4:4, 6 it would be this: the effulgence or radiance of Christ’s beauty, splendor, majesty, excellence, and perfections. John Piper puts it like this,

The ultimate value in the universe is God—the whole panorama of all his perfections. Another name for this is God’s holiness (viewed as the intrinsic and infinite worth of his perfect beauty) or God’s glory (viewed as the out-streaming manifestation
of that beauty).

While I personally find this lacking, it is one of the best attempts I have come across.

3. In the quote above Piper speaks of the glory of God, but my question was about the glory of Christ. How do Christ’s glory and God’s glory relate? In the Greek,τῆς δόξης τοῦ Χριστοῦ and τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ are parallel in 4:4 and 4:6, respectively. But notice how 4:4 ends, “Christ, who is the image of God.” Christ is the εἰκὼν, the image of God. εἰκὼν means image or portrait of something. Christ is the portrait or image of God. The exact same Greek phrase is used in Colossians 1:15 where Paul says ὅς ἐστιν εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ἀοράτου, “He is the image of the invisible God.” What Paul is saying here in 2 Corinthians and Colossians is that Christ is the perfect image of God to humanity in the flesh. He is the divine being incarnated. The verb ἐστιν, which occurs in both texts, should be viewed as a present tense verb that has no time to it. It is a continuous present tense so that Christ is the eternal image of God. There has never been a time when Christ has not been the image of God. Thus Christ’s glory is the eternal image of God’s glory. Hebrews 1:3 says, “He is the radiance of the glory of God.” Or to put it in 2 Corinthians 4:6, God’s glory shines on the face of Christ. Thus when we see the glory of Christ, we are seeing the glory of God. They are not necessarily two different things. They are the same glory in that Christ’s is the image of the Father’s. Paul is not distinguishing them from one another.

4. τοῦ εὐαγγελίου τῆς δόξης τοῦ Χριστοῦ can be very difficult to translate and understand because these three articular terms are all genitives, which is the most exegetically rich case of noun-type words in Greek. There are some thirty ways to translate a genitive. So which is the best for this text. I will come back to what kind of a genitive that τοῦ εὐαγγελίου is because it has to do with its head noun, τὸν φωτισμὸν, which is beyond the scope of my question. The NET translate this Greek phrase as, “the glorious gospel of Christ,” thus making glory an attribute of the gospel. Now I would agree with the NET that the gospel is glorious, but I don’t think that is what Paul has in mind. First, I think that the head noun of τοῦ Χριστοῦ is τῆς δόξης and not τοῦ εὐαγγελίου. Thus glory cannot syntactically be translated as an attribute of gospel. I say this because in 2 Corinthians 3:18, Paul speaks of τὴν δόξαν κυρίου κατοπτριζόμενοι, “reflecting the glory of the Lord.” The head noun of κυρίου is τὴν δόξαν. So that what we are to see is the glory of the Lord, which 2 Corinthians 4:5 identifies Christ as κύριον. I just don’t see glory as an attribute of the gospel. So, how then should we translate this? I think τοῦ εὐαγγελίου τῆς δόξης should be taken as an objective genitive. I’ll briefly explain though I refer all to Dan Wallace’s amazing grammar to explain the genitive better. τοῦ εὐαγγελίου is the genitive noun form of the verb εὐαγγελίζω, which means to proclaim good news. When translating genitives, this verbal idea is used to see how the genitive relates to the noun it modifies. The modified noun has the verbal cognate, like εὐαγγελίζω for τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, then we see how the genitive relates to that verbal idea. So how does τῆς δόξης relate to εὐαγγελίζω? Is it the subject, which would yield the translation of “glory preaches…”? Or is the direct object, which gives the translation, “…preaches glory”? I am arguing it is the direct object, and thus τοῦ εὐαγγελίου τῆς δόξης should be taken to mean “the gospel that proclaims, displays, declares, glory.” I argue that because 1.) Christ possesses glory and thus it is not an attribute to gospel; 2.) it is the glory of Christ that is beheld by the believer us in 2 Corinthians 3:18. Thus I think that this is saying that the glory of God is being seen in the events of the gospel (I really did not get even close to that technical for the kids, the word “genitive” wasn’t in the sermon).

5. Thus I would summarize my answer like this: the gospel reveals God’s infinite value and preciousness as the supreme treasure of and in the universe, and is the only being/thing that can truly and fully and completely satisfy the human soul through the historical events of the gospel. In other words, the expression of God’s infinite beauty, perfections, excellence that our soul so desperately craves is fully seen by our finite minds in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I would almost say that the cross in all of his horror and shame and scandal mediates the sheer awesomeness of God’s glory so that we see all of its attractiveness without being destroyed. Unlike Moses in Exodus 34:5-6 who saw the after effects to highlight God’s name, Yahweh, and his moral character as God’s glory; we have Jesus Christ to radiate God’s glory through the ugliness of the cross. In the most hideous event of humanity, humanity sees perfect glory. And that perfect glory fully, completely, and truly satisfies the soul. It draws the sinner to God and in the sheer delight in God, they accept Christ as Lord and Savior, in all that entails. Taking up one’s cross is not a chore and something to deplore. It is a privilege that is enjoyed because the one who brings you absolute joy has asked you to and to obey him completes that joy for you.

Next post we will look at question #2: How does this gospel of the glory of God in Christ crucified save me, a poor, wretched, ugly, God-hating, wrath-storing sinner like me?

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