2nd Corinthians – Godly Social Order

The Angel of “Light”

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Godly Social Order

Lesson: 21-25

Genre: Talk

Track: 21

Dictation Name: RR41611B

Location/Venue:

Year: 1998-2000

[Mark Rushdoony] But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

Let us pray. Our most great and glorious God and heavenly Father, we praise you for your wonderful gift to us of salvation, that this time of year when we contemplate the advent of Christ, may we respond with joy at the meaning, the purpose and the hope that your Son has given to us. Help us to feel a personal sense of satisfaction in understanding your plan for our lives, your desire, because we understand that you have given us your word to live by. And help us also to respond by understanding that you have a purpose beyond our personal lives and our personal devotions and our personal sense of eternal security; we thank you that you have given us a direction in life, a work to do, so that we might begin in our own lives but extend it to our families and those beyond us. Encourage us to live for you, both at this time of year when we celebrate Christ’s advent and throughout the coming year. And as men are sometimes consumed with ideas of humanistic grandeur, help us to be focused on the kingdom of your son. We thank you that Christians like ourselves throughout the world gather together on this day, assemble themselves together to worship you and to praise you. We thank you that we have a common bind with them far greater than any cultural or linguistic or racial ties, we thank you that we are the family of our God, and that you are our Father. Help us to respond to you both this day and always with love and obedience. Bless now this time we have together in your word, we ask this in Christ our saviors name, amen.

The Scripture for this morning’s sermon is 2 Corinthians 11:1-15. 2 Corinthians 11:1-15.

“11 Would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me.

2 For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.

3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

4 For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.

5 For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.

6 But though I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge; but we have been throughly made manifest among you in all things.

7 Have I committed an offence in abasing myself that ye might be exalted, because I have preached to you the gospel of God freely?

8 I robbed other churches, taking wages of them, to do you service.

9 And when I was present with you, and wanted, I was chargeable to no man: for that which was lacking to me the brethren which came from Macedonia supplied: and in all things I have kept myself from being burdensome unto you, and so will I keep myself.

10 As the truth of Christ is in me, no man shall stop me of this boasting in the regions of Achaia.

11 Wherefore? because I love you not? God knoweth.

12 But what I do, that I will do, that I may cut off occasion from them which desire occasion; that wherein they glory, they may be found even as we.

13 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.

14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.

15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.”

[R. J. Rushdoony] Our subject this morning is: The Angel of Light. In this chapter Paul returns again to the opposition that confronted him at Corinth. It is important to understand what he had to say about them in previous chapters, here and in the remainder of the letter. They are essential to a point that is at the heart of this passage. First he says, those who oppose him were men from other areas who were intruders in the Corinthian church. This is an important point, because it tells us the opposition to Paul was so thoroughly organized that they decided to choose a particular point where they could exploit the situation to do harm to Paul, to discredit him. And Corinth was their chosen point.

Second, they claimed superior authority to Paul, and this was remarkable. Paul was an apostle. They apparently claimed to be a more superior apostle to him. Now Paul’s Apostleship came directly from Christ. He could not say: ‘I was one of the original twelve.’ His was an unusual apostleship. Apparently these enemies made a like claim: ‘We have direct authority by revelation from Jesus Christ to correct Paul.’ They were Judaizers, and this does not mean fidelity to the Old Testament, but fidelity to a tradition that was non-Biblical.

Fourth, as Paul charges them, they were libertines; and they maintained ungodly relations with believers. Fifth, they were in some sense infected with Gnosticism. Although Paul never uses the word, in a number of passages, 1:12, 10:5, 4:6, 2:4, and 11:6, it is clear that he is referring to Gosticism.

And 6th and finally, they were mercenary in their attitude towards everything. Paul now as he deals with these people uses some irony. In verse 1 he says: “Would to God you could bear with me a little in my folly, and indeed bear with me.” In other words Paul is saying: ‘Alright, so I am foolish. Compared to you and your remarkable wisdom and closeness to God, I am a fool. But bear with me a little, I have something to say.’

“For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.”

And he says: ‘I am concerned about you because I have a desire to convert you if you are converted, to correct you if you are converted and straying, and to present you to Christ as truly holy.’

“But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”

He refers to Satan the serpent, and the conclusion of this passage is one of the most important texts in all the Bible, in that it tells us more about Satan. And people are by and large self-deluded where it comes to knowing something about Satan. They go to the results rather than the roots of what is Satanic. And so they say: ‘Well, drunkenness and fornication and dishonesty of various kinds constitutes Satanism.’ Paul says this can be the result of it, but he will tell us what is the essence of it.

“For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.”

‘Are Peter and John and James the chief apostles? Indeed they were. And Paul says: ‘I am not in the slightest degree behind them.’ In fact, Paul could say: ‘I am ahead of them’ perhaps. But he doesn’t say that.

“But though I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge; but we have been throughly made manifest among you in all things.”

‘I maybe a poor speaker.’ This is a point Paul refers to more than once. Apparently he was criticized as being a poor preacher. We don’t have to accept their word for this, nor Paul’s willingness to admit it. The truth was somewhat different. Paul was a profound preacher. Men had to stretch their minds when they heard him or read him. As a result it was easy for lazy minds to lose the context and the meaning of Paul’s remarks, and therefore to criticize him as being a poor preacher.

“Have I committed an offence in abasing myself that ye might be exalted, because I have preached to you the gospel of God freely?”

Paul now goes on to another point; his great humility when he was among them. He knew they were a problem group, he says he came to them in fear and trembling. He leaned over backwards to avoid the offense of his preaching, namely, convicting them of their sins. So, he had leaned over backwards so much that they could say: ‘When Paul is among us, he is very, very hesitant about being critical; when he writes a letter he blasts us.’

He also makes the point: “I have preached the gospel of God to you freely.” And in the 8th verse he goes on to say:

“I robbed other churches, taking wages of them, to do you service.”

Paul knew he was entitled to be paid by the Corinthians, but knowing there were serious problems there from the day he went there, he took no pay. Instead he wrote to other churches and asked them to help support him.

“And when I was present with you, and wanted,” (Or had need) “I was chargeable to no man: for that which was lacking to me the brethren which came from Macedonia supplied: and in all things I have kept myself from being burdensome unto you, and so will I keep myself.”

‘I asked the other churches in Macedonia to support me. I did not want to be a burden to you, I wanted to be able to speak freely, without being in debt to you in any respect.’

“As the truth of Christ is in me, no man shall stop me of this boasting in the regions of Achaia.”

‘I can boast if I choose, of the fact that I have served you, a problem church, a difficult church, freely. I have done it, and I am ready to let people know. This will convict you even more of ingratitude.’

“Wherefore?” ‘Why do I do this?’ “because I love you not?” ‘On the contrary.’ “God knoweth.” ‘That indeed I love you.’

“But what I do, that I will do, that I may cut off occasion from them which desire occasion; that wherein they glory, they may be found even as we.”

Paul here says: ‘I am trying to cut off any excuse on your part to criticize me; and I have in fact gone overboard to be totally independent of you.’

“For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.”

‘Those who are false apostles,’ and there were apparently many, ‘Pretend to be in particular close to Christ, and therefore they are ready to exploit any church. But I have not done so with you. They transformed themselves into the apostles of Christ, they claimed to be what they are not. They are unfaithful to Jesus, even as they claim to be His true apostles.’ Many heretical groups, seeing the success of the early church, moved in as did the Gnostics, and a number of others over the early centuries. Because here was a very successful group, growing by leaps and bounds. The estimate of scholars is that by the end of the New Testament era there were apparently half a million Christians throughout the Roman Empire. That is remarkable.

Well, you can understand why various heretical groups and even alien groups, having no connection with Judaism or Christianity, tried to infiltrate the church and claim that they were the true apostle, or that like Paul they had a special revelation from God which made them apostles.

“And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.”

Or, ‘Satan himself changes himself into an Angel of Light. He claims himself to be the bearer of the truth, to be the true witness, either of God, or that God is wrong and he has the truth.’

“Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.”

What do these false apostles claim? That they are the ministers of righteousness, that they are the true apostles of God. Now, when we understand what this means, we will understand our times very, very clearly. What was it that very early all these alien groups, Gnostics and other were doing? Well, what a great many people who claimed to be the true bearers of light today, the true Christians. They denied the law.

All these false groups that were trying to infiltrate the church were attacking the law of God. They were attacking the Old Testament. They were putting a new and spiritual interpretation on things. That is why they claimed to be the true apostles of God, because they were the spiritual ones.

We see this trend coming into clear focus of course later on in Marcion, who ruled out the Old Testament, and advocated a New Testament Christianity. And this is what these ‘Ministers of Righteousness’ were doing.

Now, notice what Paul calls them, ministers of righteousness. That is what they saw themselves as being. Well, righteousness means justice. It is an old fashioned word for our modern word justice. Whereby do we have justice? Through the law of God. And they were claiming to be the ministers of true light, and the ministers of righteousness. Paul is here quoting what they were saying. The sad fact of it is that today we have had a major return to these false apostles. We see vast segments of Evangelical churches, treating the law of God with contempt, and seeing themselves as the bearers of the true light, and how spiritual they are. They can get up and testify by the hour.

Well, this is what Paul faced, and he tells us here. And he uses the phrases they used. They see themselves as the ministers of Righteousness or Justice, and as servants of light, and of the angel of light. Well, we can see that we have a problem too as Paul did. We have to face churches like the Corinthian church, where these false apostles downgraded the law of God and saw themselves as servants of the angel of light.

This is the task, which is a great and difficult one. But it is also a task which will result in triumph, because the power of God is with us, not with them. And the Corinthians who held to these ideas are regarded as evil by those who believe the gospel.

You can understand now why the Corinthian letters are neglected, or if they are used it is a hit and miss selection of certain texts, but not confronting the central light. All that Paul says in 1st and 2nd Corinthians comes to a focus in this text: ‘We face people, false evangelists, who see themselves as ministers of righteousness, because they have dropped a vast segment of the Bible.’ This is why Corinthians remains so urgently important a letter. We saw when Paul first dealt with them, that beginning in the sexual sphere they had set aside the law of God. In every sphere they were ready to depart form Gods word, or had departed. Hence the urgency of knowing Paul’s Corinthian letters. Let us pray.

Our Father, we give thanks unto Thee for this Thy word. As we confront again the same problems which confronted Paul, teach us to rely on his word, Thy word, in order to offset the disastrous work of these enemies of Christ. Thou knowest oh Lord they claimed to be the instruments of righteousness, of light, when what they proclaim in Christ’s name is darkness. Give us the victory we beseech Thee, in Christ’s name, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience Member] In verse 3 Paul speaks of the simplicity that is in Christ, the simplicity that had been corrupted by these teachers. Rush, in your view what exactly does that refer to, the simplicity that is in Christ?

[Rushdoony] Yes, all these people have so refined and improved on the Bible that you wouldn’t know their gospel unless you heard them. And it wouldn’t occur to you to reject most of the Old Testament, or much of the New, because there are some who say the Sermon on the Mount, the epistles of Paul and other passages are not applicable, supposedly in the Millennium they may be, but that isn’t stressed too much. Well, there is a simplicity in the gospel: ‘This is it, the word of God.’ It is not hard to understand if you approach it without having your mind clouded with these things. But the clouding is so basic now-a-days. A very fine pastor, now no longer with us, said that he had problems with members who had trouble believing what he was preaching, which was we were no longer under the law, and again and especially, he was preaching the rapture. And what brought him to his senses was when a woman who was a new convert whom he was instructing said: “But pastor, I can’t find anything in the Bible, and I just finished reading it from cover to cover, about the rapture.” And suddenly he realized, as he turned to the pages that were going to prove his point, that he was reading Scofields Notes, not the Bible.

[Audience Member] This verse too I believe , would it not, be one that would indicate that it was Gnostics that Paul was arguing against.

[Rushdoony] Yes. We, fail to understand the New Testament unless we recognize this fact: Its immediate success made every false cult in eh Roman Empire eager to infiltrate and capture these people. That was a great struggle of the early church, to shake off these people. and the sad fact is that their influence still remains, and the influence of Marcion for example, is still in our hands. It was because of him that the Bible was divided into Old and New Testaments, before that it was one Bible, which it still should be in our eyes.

Any other questions or comments? If not, let us conclude in prayer.

Our Father we give thanks unto Thee for Thy word. Thy word is truth, and Thy word gives light unto us upon our way. Teach us to rest in the simplicity of Thy word, to believe and obey.

And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, amen.