Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: 2 Corinthians 4:1-7 | Date: March 20, 2022 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Redemption and the Need of Every Human Being

2 Corinthians chapter 4. We continue today our studies on the doctrine of salvation, and just for regrouping, to put this in context, remember where we have come so far in this rather lengthy series. We began with the broad topic of redemption planned, and we saw that God has determined a people whom he would save and has set out a purpose to save them. We saw next redemption accomplished, and we saw focus there primarily on the work of Christ in his death and resurrection, where he died as a substitute for sinners, satisfied the demands of divine justice in our place, and reconciled us to God. He then was raised from the dead in vindication. God justified him in that sense. He’s been raised for our justification. He’s raised and ascended now to the throne of the universe, seated at the right hand of the Father, whereas the successful mediator, he has earned and achieved the right and the authority of universal salvation, of salvation and judgment, and so now he has asked for and received from the Father, the Spirit of God, whom he in turn pours out upon the world for the accomplishing of his kingdom, both in salvation and in judgment.

When it comes to personal application of that, the first that we experience, we saw last time, is calling. He called us into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ, 1 Corinthians 1:9. Christ has accomplished salvation, he is himself the accomplished Redeemer, and salvation now can only be had in union with Christ the Redeemer. And so what the Spirit of God does for us first is he calls us into fellowship with Christ where, in union with him, we have every saving blessing that he has accomplished. And now we come today to make a fine distinction between calling and the doctrine of regeneration. And we find that, first of all, now we will deal with this again, but this is just part one. And I think 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verses 1 to 7 is a good place to start.

“Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or tamper with God’s word. But by open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only 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, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give us light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”

Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, our hearts have been uplifted as we have considered in such detail the wonderful things you have done for us in your Son. We pray again that you will open our eyes, help us to see what you have for us, and may we glory and revel in it. For your glory, we pray in Jesus’ name.

The twofold problem that every person faces is condemnation and depravity. On the one hand, we’re condemned before God, that is, in a legal or a judicial sense—condemned before him, found guilty, and deserving of judgment. The other problem is that of depravity. Not only are we, in an objective sense, before God guilty and condemned, but also we ourselves are corrupted by sin. There’s something about the human heart that has been distorted by sin, and we have seen this on a number of occasions: that we are not sinners because we sin, but first of all, we sin because we are sinners. There’s something about the human heart that is distorted and corrupted by sin. And these are the two broad categories that constitute the need of every human being. We are both condemned before God, and we ourselves are depraved, corrupted by sin.

And as we’ve seen many times now throughout the series, the twofold promise of the gospel matches that problem. The gospel promises both justification—speaking in broad categories, justification and acceptance—and transformation. The gospel promises that in Christ we will have remedy for all of our problem in both of these broad categories. Our condemnation and our depravity are resolved for us in union with Christ in whom we have justification and transformation. He has been raised. He has died for sin. He’s been raised from the dead in vindication. We share now in his vindication, and the new life that he has come to, the life of the eschaton, the life of the age to come to which he has been raised, is ours now in union with him as well, and we are transformed from the inside out.

The Doctrine of Regeneration

Now, in brief, that’s the whole message for this morning, but we want to look at it with a lens particularly at this doctrine of regeneration. The word regeneration, interestingly, although it’s a word we use very often in theology, is a word that occurs only two times in the New Testament. Once we have it in Titus chapter 3 in verse 5, where Paul writes, “He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” Notice that the regeneration there is spoken of in a broad sense, equated with the word renewal. That’s what regeneration is. It’s a renovating work of God in the Christian. The only other time this word is used is in Matthew chapter 19 verse 28 where Jesus uses this in reference to the world to come in the eschaton. That is, he refers to that world to come as “in the regeneration.” And I think our translation renders it “in the world” or “in the coming age” or something like that. But in the regeneration. That is, there’ll be a renovation of the whole created order. That his saving work entails transformation not just for us, but for the entire created order. So we find in all of that then that this word regeneration has to do with a renovation, a renovating work of God in us. And so the doctrine of regeneration has to do with just that: a renovation of the entire person, making us new, making us a different person.

This is the first experiential aspect of salvation. God has purposed to save us. He has sent his Son to accomplish that redemption. The Son has now sent the Spirit who has come and called us into fellowship with Christ and in union with Christ. What we have, first of all, is a renovation of our entire being, bringing us to be someone new. Now that’s Paul’s point throughout these early chapters of 2 Corinthians. He’s dealing here in these chapters with the character of his New Covenant ministry, and he does it in contrast in chapter 3, in contrast with the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant was given at Sinai through Moses with all of its commanding aspects, and now he says we have a New Covenant, sealed in the blood of Jesus, and that is the covenant that we now work under, and it is the gospel that we proclaim.

And he gives an extended contrast in chapter 3, particularly in verses 4 and following. If you’ll notice, the end of verse… well, at the end of verse 6 he makes the contrast. The letter, that is—let’s back up to verse 4. “Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit.” So there’s the first contrast. The one covenant was a covenant that was written on stone, and that’s it. It had commanding aspects: do this, do this, don’t do the other. But by contrast, the New Covenant is the covenant of the Spirit. And then he explains further, “for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” What’s the point there? That is, the Old Covenant could command, thou shalt, thou shalt, thou shalt, thou shalt not, thou shalt not, and if you violate it, you die. That’s the Old Covenant written and engraved in stones. It’s like the speed limit sign along the highway when you’re hurrying to church and you’re late. It says it, speed limit 70, you don’t go over 70, but it can’t do anything in here to change you and you go 75 and 80 or whatever it is you do. That’s all the Old Covenant could do, is put up the law on a sign, put it up there for you to see. And by contrast, the New Covenant is a covenant of the Spirit. Jeremiah speaks of it, Ezekiel speaks of it, that this new covenant is coming, and it’s not going to be like that old one. He will write his law on your hearts.

And that’s what Paul is talking about here in these verses in chapter 3. Verse 7, he carries on the contrast further. “If the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory?” He’s drawing the contrast. This is a greater covenant. “For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed in glory.” So here we have another contrast. On the one hand you have the covenant that was written on stone, the other’s written in the heart. We have the one who is the ministry of death. All it could say is “do this or die” and then condemn you for not. And then you have this ministry of life which actually gives enablement, writing the law of God on your heart, and gives enablement to believe and to obey God. And then he calls it a ministry of condemnation or a ministry of righteousness. The one provides, in the end, only condemnation. It tells you what to do, shows you what you didn’t do, and you’re condemned. And this one, by contrast, is a ministry of righteousness, which gives us the righteousness that God requires of us in our Savior Jesus Christ.

So this is Paul’s big contrast here between the Old and the New Covenant in its very character. It’s very different. And so he says here that the New Covenant has a superior glory. It’s not a ministry of the letter. It’s not a ministry of death. It’s not a ministry of condemnation. It’s a ministry of the Spirit. It’s a ministry of life. It’s a ministry of righteousness. A superior covenant outstrips in glory the Old Covenant by far. That’s why he says back in chapter 2, verses 14 and following, that this speaks of the power of the gospel, which by the Spirit is a savor of life. It gives life. This is the instrument through which God works to bring life, spiritual life, to men and women.

In chapter 3, verses 1 to 3, I think it’s a fascinating passage. I’ve always thought it’s just a wonderful way to put it. In these first three verses, he speaks of the transformed lives of his opponents. Well, let’s read through it. Verse 1, “Are we beginning to commend ourselves again, or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts to be known and read by all, and you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not just with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not on tables of stone, but on tables of human heart.” So here are his opponents wondering if Paul is qualified for the ministry. Is he really the real deal? What do you think now, that I need a letter of recommendation from you to validate my ministry? And then he points to their own experience in the church at Corinth. You yourselves are our letter. Look at what my gospel has done in your lives. It has transformed lives from the inside and out, and the Spirit of God has written his law in your hearts and made you very different people.

He carries on the same in chapter 3 verse 18, where here he speaks of us being transformed into the image of Christ by the Spirit of God. And he uses the language here of glorification, transformed into his image from glory to glory, the language of glorification, which has already begun because we are united with the Savior who is glorified. And we are transformed into that likeness by the Spirit of God becoming gradually more and more, but nonetheless truly it has begun. We have experienced the superior glory of this New Covenant because we ourselves have been transformed by it. So all of this Paul is saying here is the very experiential aspect of salvation. This is not something just that you are expected to believe. He is speaking here of something that you have experienced yourselves and you know to be true. And our experience of this renovative work of God in us is the whole thrust and the whole atmosphere now of this passage, including chapter 4, verses 1 to 7, that we have read.

The Problem of Human Blindness

Now look at verses one and two again in chapter four. “Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced disgraceful underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.” Now Paul here is speaking in these first two verses of a certain temptation to tweak the gospel, tamper with it just a little bit. We are not of those who do that, but evidently there’s that temptation to or the expectation that he might. We are not of those who tamper with the gospel. We just preach it like it is.

Now why would someone feel tempted or pressured to tamper or tweak the gospel? Well, if you’ve ever witnessed to someone, you’ve felt that pressure, haven’t you? It doesn’t go down quite right, and if you just trim some of the cutting edges of it, it might be more palatable. If you just don’t insist that Jesus is the only Savior. If you just don’t insist that they have to repent of their sins and acknowledge Christ as Lord. If you can just tell them something like, well, try this, see if it works. If you just tweak it a little, it’ll be a lot more palatable. And evidently that’s the pressure that Paul is referring to here. We saw that last time, last week in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, that there’s this innate, this instant tension and sometimes even a hostility when you preach the gospel because the world thinks it’s foolish. The gospel that we preach is foolishness to those who don’t believe. We saw that last time. And this is the point here evidently in the background. They just don’t get the gospel. There’s nothing really inherently offensive about the gospel. Okay, you’re a sinner—that’s offensive—but look, there’s a remedy and it’s free and you may have it freely. Come to Jesus and believe and you’ll have all that God requires of you. There’s nothing offensive about that. That’s good news. The problem is the world just doesn’t get it. They don’t see it that way.

And so verses 3 and 4, he tells us, “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 unbeliever to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” Here he speaks in the metaphorical terminology of gospel being veiled, minds being blinded to keep them from seeing the glory of God in the gospel, the glory of Christ. That’s just the reality that you meet with when you witness to unbelievers. You give them the gospel, you tell them of the glory of Christ. It thrills your heart. It thrills your heart to hear of it, it thrills your heart to speak of it. There’s nothing more glorious. And you give that gospel to an unbeliever, and at best, they’re polite and they yawn, or they might be hostile. And Paul explains that here in terms of human blindness. Their mind is veiled. There’s this curtain in front of them and they just can’t see it. And this, he says, is the condition of every human mind outside of Christ.

Now, we call this in theology natural depravity. Paul speaks of it here in terms of blindness. In fact, it’s a satanically imposed blindness. That’s verse 4. Verse 3, he speaks of it as a veil. A veil in front of their eyes. They just can’t see. And notice verse 4, the end of the verse, just what they can’t see. What they can’t see is “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. So here we have this good news of the glory of Christ in the gospel plain as day, objectively true, and you give it to them and there’s something… they just don’t see it. Blindness.

Other passages in the scriptures explain this in other terms. Ephesians chapter 2—I’ll give you several of them here. In Ephesians chapter 2, it’s spiritual death. We saw that a few weeks ago. In 1 Corinthians 2, it’s the inability to understand. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. They’re foolishness to him and he can’t understand them because they’re spiritually discerned. In Romans chapter 8 and verse 7, Paul adds the notion of hostility to it. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law. Indeed, it cannot. In John 3, verse 19, it’s spoken of in terms of an innate bias. Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. They prefer their sin and don’t want the gospel. In Romans 6, it speaks of it in terms of reigning sin—sin that reigns over the natural mind and keeps it captive in sin. In Ephesians chapters 4 and 5, Paul speaks of it as darkened understanding and walking in darkness. They just can’t see.

And you can see all of these metaphors are amounting to the same thing, that the natural mind is blind to the obvious. And notice what he says again in verse 4 at the end of the verse. What they’re blind to is the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. The good news of the greatest person ever to live. The most glorious person. And they don’t see it. They’re blind to it. The problem you have when you witness, when you’re presenting the gospel, the problem that you have when you witness to people and they are indifferent to your witness, the problem you have is not that Christ is not glorious. The problem is they don’t see it. There he is, the glorious Savior, the Son of God incarnate, the fully accomplished Redeemer. Objectively real. He is glorious. They just can’t see it. They’re blind to it. It’s like a veil is in front of their eyes and they can’t see it. There is every reason in the world to embrace Jesus Christ and be saved. Every reason in the world. He is glorious. He is a fully accomplished Redeemer. There’s no reason not to believe in Jesus and be saved. There’s no reason in the world not to go running to him in faith and in love. He’s glorious. Problem is the lost just don’t see it. It’s like a curtain is in front of their eyes. And that’s your frustration when you witness the gospel to your friends. In its right condition, the human mind would see that Jesus Christ is all-glorious. The problem is the human mind is not in its right condition. It’s fallen in sin, blinded, Paul says, by Satan himself.

I might have mentioned this before: I know of an evangelist that used to say that he could convince any right-minded person to become a Christian. Well, in a sense, that’s nothing. Of course you could. The problem is the natural mind is not in its right condition. It’s not an intellectual deficiency of some kind. It’s a spiritual blindness; the perception of spiritual things is just not there. They don’t see their sin. They don’t see their need of a Savior. They can be told about it. They can be given all the arguments and all of the apologetics. They just don’t see it. They don’t see God in His glory. They don’t see Christ as the glorious Savior. They just don’t get it. Sin has clouded the mind of the unbeliever. And that, because of this, because of the condition of the human heart, Paul says in verses 1 and 2, there might be this pressure to tweak the gospel a little bit.

The Illuminating Work of God

But what Paul tells us in verses 1 to 4 is that the problem is not the gospel. The problem is the human blindness to the gospel. And in verses 5 and 6 now, he wants to tell us that this human blindness is no obstacle to the gospel. The gospel works just fine. Just proclaim it and it works just fine as it is. The gospel is still the instrument by which God saves. We saw that last time in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. We’ve seen that in Romans chapter 1 verse 16. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. There’s no need, no need to change the gospel. Verse 5, “For what we proclaim is not ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord.” There in capsule form is the gospel. “With ourselves as your servant for Jesus’ sake.” Why is it then that the gospel then is not the problem, that the gospel still works? “For God who said, ‘Let the light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

Now you can’t miss here, if you’ve read the Bible at all, you can’t miss the allusion to Genesis chapter 1. God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And we’ve seen in our Sunday school studies in recent months what a display of divine glory that is for God to speak and worlds come into being and says, “Let there be light” and it’s light. What kind of amazing power is that? And Paul’s making allusion to that here. And he says God, working through the gospel, overcomes human blindness by turning the lights on. Another work of creation. Another work of giving light. And notice what he gives light to—the end of verse 6: “To give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” That’s exactly what the lost person is blinded to in the earlier verses. They’re blinded by Satan, verse 4, so that they can’t see the light and the glory of Christ in the gospel. And here God turns on the lights to make them see it.

That’s Paul’s own testimony. We read of it in Acts chapter 9. We read of it several places in Acts where he loves to tell what happened to him. Paul says, in effect, I was so blind. I couldn’t appreciate Christ for what he was. I understood the gospel message. They would tell it to me. I thought it was foolish. I hated it. I hated Christ because of it. And then suddenly, I was walking down the road one day, and God turned the lights on. And I saw for the first time the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Paul speaks of this in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 in terms of his own testimony as well. You know, he says that “from now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh.” From now on we regard no one according to the flesh. That is, from here on we don’t judge people according just to what externals we might have seen. I think there he’s giving his own testimony of how he judged Christ. “Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.” And then verse 17, “Therefore if anyone be in Christ, he’s a new creation. Old things have passed away, all things have become new.” And so Paul uses this creation metaphor. God turned on the lights just like Genesis 1:3. God made us all over again in Christ who has been raised into the new creation. We have become new creatures in him as well, and everything has changed.

And Paul says, that’s my testimony. That is your testimony. That’s my testimony. For the longest time, growing up as a boy in a pastor’s home, hearing the gospel all the time, and because of natural gullibility in a loving home like I was, I’m predisposed to go along with all of this. It’s great. It’s wonderful. This Jesus thing is neat… until that one Sunday morning. It was all different. Eyes are open, the light has shined, become a new creation, and everything is different. That’s your testimony, isn’t it? Whether or not you can remember the day in which this happens, that’s the experience of every one of us. In God’s time and in conjunction with the gospel, the lights are turned on and everything is different.

Several times—I think it’s usually floating around at Facebook or something—I’ve seen a news piece; it’s just one of the most moving things I think I’ve ever seen. Some new technology has come up with these new eyeglasses that you can wear for people who have been colorblind, enabling them now to see colors. It’s just really a moving clip to see. One was, I remember, of a child, and one was a grown man. The family’s all gathered, and they bring these glasses, and the boy puts it on, and the reaction in both is the same. First of all, it’s a gasp. The second one, they just break down in tears, overwhelmed with what they’ve seen. What was the problem? The problem was not that there was no color. The problem was they couldn’t see it. And that’s the problem with every man and woman outside of Christ. The problem is not that he is not glorious. That is objectively true. The problem is they just can’t see it. And here Paul says the wonderful grace of God is that he comes in powerful renovating power, turns on the lights, and we see what before we were blind to altogether.

And all of that then to say that it was God’s powerful renovating work in us that brought us to turn in faith to Jesus Christ. God was interrupting us, intervening, enabling us to see what we couldn’t see before, and that was the hinge that brought us into Christian experience. Making us anew, turning on the lights, enabling us to see. What’s that song we sing? “I know not how the Spirit moves, convincing men of sin, revealing Jesus through the Word, creating faith in him.” I don’t know how he does it, but he does. I’ve experienced it myself. And Paul says that’s been the experience of every one of us.

Well, this then in one metaphor is the doctrine of regeneration. Biblical writers use many different metaphors. I’ll give you a list of them if you would like. In the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy and in Jeremiah in particular, but also Ezekiel, it speaks of the circumcision of the heart or removing the heart of stone and putting in a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36 verse 26, “I’ll give you a new heart, a new spirit I’ll put within you. I’ll remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” Jeremiah 31 speaks in terms of writing God’s law on our hearts, reprogramming, if you will, the inner man, so that now the law of God is not simply out on a signpost for you to see, but it’s written on the inside, changing the desires and the drive. In John chapter 3 and in 1st John, the metaphor is that of new birth, being born again. In Acts chapter 16 and verse 14, it gives a marvelous illustration of Lydia, whose heart the Lord opened—there’s the metaphor there—opened her heart so that she attended to the words of the apostles. In 2nd Corinthians 4 here we have this metaphor of illumination, God turning on the lights as a new creation. In 2nd Corinthians 5 and in Ephesians chapter 2 we have a new creation as well. In Galatians chapter 4 in verse 19 we have this, I think, marvelous expression: Christ being formed in the heart. In Ephesians 2 and in Romans chapter 6, we have the metaphor of resurrection. We’re raised with Christ. Raised together with Christ. Raised together with Christ into this new life to which he has been raised. I mentioned earlier Titus chapter 3 verse 5. The metaphor there is of a washing and renewal by the Holy Spirit. Everywhere in the Apostle Paul we find his terminology of the new man as opposed to the old man.

In Christ we’ve been made anew. In Christ the lights have been turned on. In Christ we’ve been born all over again. In Christ it’s like we’ve been raised from the dead. In Christ it’s like the lights are on. Choose your metaphor. This is the point: that there’s this great renovating work of God in the soul to enable us to see to what before we were blind to altogether. And this is the great change. This is what we call regeneration. It’s the transformation of the entire person. It’s like the lights being turned on. It’s like being made over. It’s like being raised from the dead. It’s like being born all over again. This is not a decision that we make. This is not the result of a decision that we make. This is something prior to all of that. God shined in our hearts. We saw Jesus as we’d never seen him before. And you look back and you think, oh, I could have missed it. There he was all along, glorious Savior. I just didn’t see it. But God gave me new eyes. There’s another metaphor. God raised me from the dead. God made me all over again. There was this marvelous renovating work of who I am and I saw Jesus and I’d never seen him before and things have never been the same since.

Charles Spurgeon refers to this passage and he says, “A man hates God, the Holy Spirit makes him love God. A man is opposed to Christ, he hates his gospel, he does not understand it and will not receive it. The Holy Spirit comes, puts light into his darkened understanding, takes the chain from his bondaged will, gives liberty to his conscience, gives life to his dead soul so that the voice of conscience is heard, and the man becomes a new creature in Christ Jesus. And all this is done by the instantaneous supernatural influence of God the Holy Spirit working as he wills in us.” And that is 2 Corinthians 4 verses 4 to 6 exactly. This renovative work of God in us, restoring us to our created purpose, enabling us to know God.

Last time we looked at the doctrine of divine calling. We saw that that calling is the means by which we are brought into fellowship with Christ and in union with Christ now enjoy all of the benefits of his work for us. Often in theology, these two terms, calling and regeneration, are not distinguished, but here we learn exactly that this call was in fact a life-giving call. And this is where all Christian experience begins. From here on, everything is different because we are different. We see ourselves differently, we see our sin differently, we see God differently, we see Christ as He is, and we go running to Him in faith, and we have new ambitions, we have new affections, and the whole inner man has changed. And this doctrine rings true, I am convinced, rings true in the heart of every redeemed person because it’s our common experience. This is something—this is not just theoretical doctrine—this is the common experience of every believer. In Christ we have not only been accepted, we’ve been transformed. This love for Christ that we have in common here at RBC. This love for God’s Word that we have here in common at RBC. You cannot explain that in terms of anything natural. That’s the work of God in the human heart. And we have every reason to say that each one of us in Christ is a walking miracle. God has been at work making us over again.

So once again then, finally verse 7, we’re reminded that our salvation is designed to show God’s glory. Notice verse 7, “We have this treasure in jars of clay.” Isn’t that a great expression? Can’t say much for the clay jar. But the treasure inside is priceless. We have this treasure in jars of clay. And why is God saving this way? “To show”—here’s the purpose clause—”to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” What we have and what we have become is not explainable in terms of anything natural. We have to say God has done his work. And so Paul says, this is why I don’t tweak the gospel. I don’t need to. This is the instrument through which God the Spirit works, and in the hands of the Spirit, the gospel has this great transformative power. The Spirit of God comes to lost sinners and opens their hearts, turns the lights on, enables us to see, and in the end, we all confess that God has done a marvelous thing. Amen. Let’s pray.