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Second Corinthians 4:4-7 shows that we may experience and enjoy Christ as the image of God and the treasure. The image of God refers to Christ as our outward expression, whereas the treasure refers to Christ as our inward content. We should bear Christ as the image of God without, and we should have Christ as the treasure within. We need to enter into the rich and full enjoyment of this Christ.
In 2 Corinthians 4:4 Paul speaks of “Christ, who is the image of God.” The image of God is a subject that concerns a great many Bible teachers. It is exceedingly difficult to understand and to define the image of God. Twice the New Testament tells us that Christ is the image of God. Aside from the aforementioned verse, Paul refers to Christ as the image of God also in Colossians 1:15. The expression the image of the invisible God implies that although God Himself is invisible, His image is visible. The invisible God has a visible image, and this image is Christ. John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” This means that Christ, the only begotten Son of God, came to man to express what God is. Christ being the image of God means that He is the expression of what God is. Although God is invisible, He is expressed by a living person, that is, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This living person as the expression of God is the image of God.
In 2 Corinthians 4:4 Paul says that “the illumination of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, might not shine on them.” This verse indicates that the terms God, image, Christ, glory, gospel, and illumination are all in apposition to one another; thus, they all refer to the same wonderful person. God is the image, the image is Christ, Christ is the glory, the glory is the gospel, and the gospel is the illumination. First, the expression the image of God shows that the image is in apposition to God. God, who is the source, has an image, and this image is simply God Himself. If we see the image of God, we see God; if God disappears, His image disappears as well. Since in verse 4 the image and God are in apposition to each other, they are one. Therefore, the image of God is nothing less than God Himself.
Second, as we have pointed out, the image of God is Christ. As the image of God, Christ is the expression of the invisible God. Third, Christ is the glory. This is confirmed by Hebrews 1:3, which says that Christ is the effulgence of God’s glory. Fourth, Christ, the glory, is the gospel. Acts tells us that the believers preached Christ Jesus as the gospel (5:42; 8:35; 11:20; 17:18). This shows that the gospel is not something separate from Christ; rather, Christ is the gospel. Today some Christians in their preaching separate the gospel from Christ. But according to the divine revelation in the Bible, the gospel is a living person, Christ. Christ who is the gospel is the image of God, and the image of God is God. Therefore, the gospel is God Himself embodied and expressed in Christ.
Fifth, the gospel is the illumination, the enlightenment. The gospel is the gospel of the glory of Christ, which illuminates, radiates, and shines in the heart of man. When the gospel came to us, it came to us by shining, and this shining brought into us Christ, who is the image of the processed Triune God. As a result, Christ, the living person, was illuminated into our being. Many believers can testify that when they heard Christ as the gospel, a certain impression of Christ entered into them. Although they may try to reject this impression of Christ or erase it from their being, they cannot do it. Once the impression of Christ is illuminated into us, it remains within us forever. This illumination is the gospel, this gospel is the glory, this glory is Christ, Christ is the image of God, and as such, Christ is God. Therefore, what has been illuminated into our being is a living person, the Triune God embodied in Christ, who is the image, the expression, of God.
Furthermore, we need to see that the gospel of the glory of Christ first shines into us, and then it shines out from within us. The more the glory shines within us, the more it penetrates into our being and saturates it. Eventually, the inner glory will consume, swallow up, our entire inward being. Then the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ will shine out through us. Such a shining cannot come by way of teaching; it can come only through the experience of Christ who is Himself the glory of God and the manifestation of God. We praise the Lord that Christ has shone into the depths of our being, that now He is shining within us, and that He will shine throughout our inward being. Therefore, we need to pay attention to the inner shining of Christ as the glory within. The goal of God’s economy is that we all shine forth His glory. As we are under such a shining, Christ saturates us with Himself, and we enjoy the sweetness of Christ living in us to be our life and our person.
Second Corinthians 4:4, speaking of “the illumination of the gospel of the glory of Christ,” refers to four matters: illumination, gospel, glory, and Christ. Verse 6 goes on to say, “The God who said, Out of darkness light shall shine, is the One who shined in our hearts to illuminate the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” God’s shining in our hearts results in the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, that is, in the enlightenment that causes us to know the glory of the gospel of Christ. This illumination, the enlightenment, that makes the glory of Christ’s gospel known to us, issues from the shining of God in our hearts. God’s shining in the universe produced the old creation. His shining in our hearts has made us a new creation, because this shining brings into us, earthen vessels, the marvelous treasure of the Christ of glory.
The shining of God in our hearts is to illumine us that we may know the glory in Christ’s face. The glory of God manifested in the face of Jesus Christ is the God of glory expressed through Jesus Christ, who is the effulgence of the glory of God (Heb. 1:3); to know Him is to know the God of glory. In particular, the illumination in 2 Corinthians 4:6, which refers to the shining of God’s light on others out from those whose hearts have been enlightened by God, corresponds with the manifestation of the truth in verse 2 and is the same as the shining in Matthew 5:16 and Philippians 2:15. God shines in our hearts that we may shine on others so that they may have the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, that is, the knowledge of Christ, who expresses and declares God (John 1:18).
God’s shining in our hearts is in the face of Christ. In order to experience God’s shining, we need to have direct, personal, God to shine in our hearts. God may shine upon us, but if we want Him to shine in us, we need to have direct, intimate contact with Him. This is the reason we call upon the name of the Lord Jesus. By calling on the Lord we are brought into face-to-face contact with Him and experience God’s shining in our heart. Only when we have such direct, personal, and intimate contact with the Lord do we have the inner shining. Whenever we call on the Lord in a dear, intimate way, we are before His face, and the shining of God is in our heart. Then we may shine out what we have received for the shining of the glory of the gospel of Christ.
In our preaching of the gospel there should be an illumination, a shining. We need to preach the gospel in a very illuminating way. This means that while we are preaching, God shines into the hearts of those to whom we are speaking. We also need to help them to call on the name of the Lord Jesus in order that they would be brought to the face of Christ, have personal contact with Him, and experience God’s shining in their hearts. To preach in this way is to present not merely a gospel of certain facts but a gospel of glory. Those who receive the gospel of glory will have Christ as the precious treasure dispensed into them. Then, like us, they will be earthen vessels containing this treasure.
In 2 Corinthians 4:7 Paul says, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not out of us.” God’s shining in our hearts brings into us a treasure, the Christ of glory, who is the embodiment of God to be our life and our everything. Because of the shining in our hearts, we have this treasure, a treasure that is wonderful, precious, and marvelous. The treasure in the weak earthen vessels is the very God in Christ shined into us. But we who contain this treasure are earthen vessels, worthless and fragile. A priceless treasure is contained in worthless vessels! This has made the worthless vessels ministers of the new covenant with a priceless ministry. This has been accomplished by the divine power in resurrection. The excellency of the power is surely of God and not out of us.
The treasure is the glorious Christ, the embodiment of God, becoming our life and everything to us. This treasure, the indwelling Christ, in us, the earthen vessels, is the divine source of the supply for the Christian life. It is by the excellent power of this treasure that the apostles as the ministers of the new covenant were capable of living a crucified life that the resurrection life of Christ, whom they ministered, might be manifested. Thus, they manifested the truth (v. 2) for the shining of the gospel.
The expression this treasure in verse 7 refers to verse 6, where Paul speaks of the face of Jesus Christ. The Greek word translated “face” in verse 6 is the same word translated “person” in 2:10, which refers to the part around the eyes, the look as the index of the inward thoughts and feelings, which shows forth and manifests the whole person. This indicates that unless we have the index of Christ’s face, He cannot be a treasure to us in reality. We will not sense that we have a treasure within us until we see the face of Jesus Christ. On the one hand, we can all declare that we are the earthen vessels and that Christ is the treasure within us. On the other hand, we need to see that it is only when we are living in the presence of Christ, looking at the index of His being, that we will sense that He is a treasure to us. In the whole universe there is nothing that is more precious than beholding the face of Jesus Christ. The more we live in His presence, the more we will sense His presence.
If we learn to forsake our old person and instead take Christ as our person by looking at the index of His eyes and enjoying His presence, we will have a sweet sense of the preciousness of the indwelling Christ. This experience will cause us not only to be happy but also to shine; the glory of Christ will shine out from within us.
The Christ of glory as the excellent treasure is received by the believers through the illumination of the gospel of the glory of Christ. We need to remember that we have within us the treasure, a living person who is more excellent than the world. Christ is the most excellent One in the whole universe; there is nothing that is more excellent than He. Since we have Christ as the treasure, the most excellent One and the most lovely One, we do not love the world. It is not that we should not love the world but that the world is inferior to the treasure, the excellent and lovely Christ. We treasure the Lord more than the world.
The illumination of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of Christ, has shined on us. The gospel of the glory of Christ in 4:4 corresponds with the knowledge of the glory of God in verse 6. We need to note that according to verse 6 the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God is in the face of Jesus Christ. This indicates that the gospel preached by the apostle was not a doctrine, theology, or teaching; rather, it was a lovely person on whose face we can see the glory of God, the image of God. When we experience the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ, this shining brings into us Christ as the image of God. We are attracted to such a Christ.
In 2 Corinthians 4:7 Paul goes on to say “that the excellency of the power may be of God and not out of us.” The Greek word for excellency also means “transcendence, surpassingness, and exceeding greatness.” The fact that we are earthen vessels proves that the excellency of the power is of God and not out of us. In ourselves we are nothing more than earthen vessels; we are sinful, fallen, and low. As such, we do not have the power to manifest the truth and shine forth the glory of the gospel. The excellency of the power is not out of us — it is of God. Although we are worthless earthen vessels, God has shined this precious treasure into us. Now this treasure becomes the source of the power energizing us and enabling us to shine forth God’s glory and to manifest the truth.
We need to see that Christ as the marvelous treasure in earthen vessels empowers and energizes us from within. He supplies us continually with the excelling power through His dispensing, thereby constituting us, the worthless and weak vessels, as ministers of a new covenant (3:6). As believers, we have Christ operating within us as a living and active treasure. This treasure even constrains us to do certain things (5:14). This treasure is the power, the source of strength, for the apostles to behave themselves in such a way as to shine the gospel and manifest the truth.
We are the earthen vessels to contain the Christ of glory as the excellent treasure. These vessels are like today’s camera, into which Christ the figure enters through the flash of God’s shining. The shining reality of Christ is the treasure in us, the earthen vessels. Outwardly we are earthen vessels, but inwardly we have a priceless treasure — Christ as the embodiment of the processed Triune God to be the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit. This treasure has a power, and this power is excellent. Christ as the life-giving Spirit in us is the One who shines and works. This is the treasure we have in us.
Within us, we have Christ as an excellent treasure; outside us, we bear Christ as the image of God, the embodiment and expression of the Triune God. According to Hebrews 1:3, Christ is the effulgence of God’s glory; that is, He is the expression of the image of God. When we believed in the Lord Jesus, we received more than simply a Redeemer; we received the most excellent One, the highest excellence, in the universe. Through the shining of the gospel, Christ was illuminated into our being. Now Christ, the embodiment and expression of the Triune God, is in us. Within us, Christ is the excellent treasure; outside us, He is the image, the expression, of God. Daily we need to experience and enjoy Christ as the treasure within and the image of God without.
