4:3 {2} But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
(2) An objection: many hear the Gospel, and yet are no more enlightened by it than by the preaching of the Law. He answers, The fault is in the men themselves, whose eyes Satan plucks out, who rules in this world. And yet nonetheless he and his associates set forth the most clear light of the Gospel to be seen and beheld, seeing that Christ only whom they preach, is he in whom God will be known, and as it were seen.
4:3 But if our gospel is hid. He has shown that there is no veil in Christ (2Co 3:16), and declared that he preached not things hidden by a veil (2Co 3:2). But the Judaizing opposers replied that his gospel was as much veiled to them as he said that the law was veiled to the Jews.
It is hid to them that are lost. He replies that it is only veiled to the lost, who are blinded by the god of this world. In order to understand the allusions the reader must keep in mind Paul's life-long contest with Judaism in the church. See notes on Ac 15:1 Ga 2:4.
4:3 But if our gospel also - As well as the law of Moses.
4:1-7 The best of men would faint, if they did not receive mercy from God. And that mercy which has helped us out, and helped us on, hitherto, we may rely upon to help us even to the end. The apostles had no base and wicked designs, covered with fair and specious pretences. They did not try to make their ministry serve a turn. Sincerity or uprightness will keep the favourable opinion of wise and good men. Christ by his gospel makes a glorious discovery to the minds of men. But the design of the devil is, to keep men in ignorance; and when he cannot keep the light of the gospel of Christ out of the world, he spares no pains to keep men from the gospel, or to set them against it. The rejection of the gospel is here traced to the wilful blindness and wickedness of the human heart. Self was not the matter or the end of the apostles' preaching; they preached Christ as Jesus, the Saviour and Deliverer, who saves to the uttermost all that come to God through him. Ministers are servants to the souls of men; they must avoid becoming servants to the humours or the lusts of men. It is pleasant to behold the sun in the firmament; but it is more pleasant and profitable for the gospel to shine in the heart. As light was the beginning of the first creation; so, in the new creation, the light of the Spirit is his first work upon the soul. The treasure of gospel light and grace is put into earthen vessels. The ministers of the gospel are subject to the same passions and weaknesses as other men. God could have sent angels to make known the glorious doctrine of the gospel, or could have sent the most admired sons of men to teach the nations, but he chose humbler, weaker vessels, that his power might be more glorified in upholding them, and in the blessed change wrought by their ministry.
