"The gospel of God creates the sense of need for the gospel. Is the gospel hidden to those who are servants already? No, Paul said, “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe . . .” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4)."
"The gospel of God creates the sense of need for the gospel." Absolutely Not!
The veil is the Law, not the gospel, per se. The gospel itself is not veiled, but those who labor under the law, they are blinded, convinced that they must work to achieve what is a gift, (the gift of righteousness, Romans 5:17), which can only be received by faith.
Even Paul's letter in the very verse, which Chambers has quoted, exposes this truth more succinctly:
"In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." (2 Corinthians 4: 4)
"The god of this world" is Satan, not the gospel, so how does the law figure into a veiling of the gospel?
Because the Law, the ordinances against us, is the weapon of choice for the devil. How do we know this? The scriptures declare that Satan has lost the power to wield this weapon against believers:
"And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:
"In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:
"Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
"And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;
"Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
"And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it." (Colossians 2:10-15)
We have been brought from death to life through the death of Jesus Christ (cf John 5:24). Christ has not only died for our sins, however, but he also died as us, and having died as us, he has freed us forever from the curse and demands of the law, "the handwriting of ordinances that was against us".
The law was contrary to us because though the law is holy, it cannot make me holy. Paul explains this painful truth in Romans:
"For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.
"And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.
"For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.
"Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.
"Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful." (Romans 7: 9-13)
Yet the solution is in Jesus Christ -- Romans 8:1!!!!!!
Yet still, what does the law have to do with the weapons that Satan has used against for so long? Look one more time at Colossians 2:14-15)
"Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
"And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it."
Because Jesus Christ has undone once and for all the force of the ordinances against us, he "spoiled principalities and powers."
Here, "spoiled" renders the word "ἀπεκδύομαι apekduomai", which means "strip, divest, renounce -- disarm!"
If Jesus has disarmed these principalities and powers, it points concretely to the truth that the law has been the weapon that Satan has used against us!
In Jesus, we are saved from the curse of the law, for Jesus Christ became the curse, He became the payment, He took upon Himself all the sin, sicknesses, hurts, rejections, curses, everything -- for us!
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