2 Corinthians 4:3
A veiled gospel
- The gospel’s word εὐαγγέλιον euangelion · gospel
Original
Translations
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
and if our good news is also veiled, it is veiled in those perishing,
만일 우리 복음이 가리웠으면 망하는 자들에게 가리운 것이라
만일 우리의 복음이 가려졌다면 그것은 잃어버린 자들에게 가려졌느니라.
Commentaries
Matthew Henry on 2Cor 4:1-7 as a whole
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. …
Read the whole commentary →Wesley 2Cor 4:3
But if our gospel also - As well as the law of Moses.
Read the whole commentary →
Note
Not everyone who hears the gospel understands it. Paul does not hide the fact; he asks where the veil lies. His answer is that it lies not over the gospel but over those who hear it.
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.
2 Corinthians 4:3In chapter 3 Paul has told how Moses covered his face: "We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face" (2 Corinthians 3:13). The same veil, he says, still lies over the hearts of those who read Moses; but "whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away" (2 Corinthians 3:16). Chapter 4 begins with the ministers of the new covenant, who renounce deceit and commend themselves "by open proclamation of the truth" (2 Corinthians 4:2). Yet some still do not receive the message. Perhaps some in Corinth were saying that Paul's gospel was obscure. This verse answers, and the next gives the reason.
"Our gospel" is the that Paul and his companions preach: not a gospel of their making but the one entrusted to them. "Veiled" is , in the perfect passive participle kekalummenon, used twice in this short verse. It shares its root with kalumma, the veil of chapter 3, so that the story of Moses' veil passes straight over to the gospel. The veil is en tois apollumenois, "in" or "among" those who are perishing, a present participle of . Paul has used the same participle before: "the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing" (1 Corinthians 1:18).
The KJV reads "But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost." The BSB's "veiled" keeps the echo of Moses' veil that the Greek intends. The LSV's "veiled in those perishing" holds on to the preposition, which can place the covering in the hearers rather than on the message. The KJV's "lost" points to another place where the same verb stands: "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost" (Luke 19:10). Those to whom the gospel is veiled are the very ones it came to find.
Wesley adds a single phrase, reading "our gospel also" as "As well as the law of Moses" Wesley: chapters 3 and 4 are one argument. Matthew Henry locates the cause in the human heart: "The rejection of the gospel is here traced to the wilful blindness and wickedness of the human heart" Matthew Henry. As for the messengers, "The apostles had no base and wicked designs, covered with fair and specious pretences" Matthew Henry. Nothing was hidden on the side of those who preached; the covering lay over those who heard.
The verse does not treat failing to understand the gospel lightly. But the promise of chapter 3 stands beside it: when anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. To someone for whom the gospel still seems veiled, the verse says that the veil need not remain.