NOTES for Co2 4:5-7

These words of the Apostle Paul, continuing what the Gospels say about the Light of Christ, reveal to us the essence and meaning of the New Covenant. This is precisely why it is so new, so unexpected, and so astonishing to people.

The New Covenant is not a secret teaching that only the chosen are permitted to penetrate. Nor is it a closed clan that casts out outsiders. The New Covenant is not a list of requirements that establishes a scale of good and evil based on the depth of humanity’s fall. The New Covenant is not an ideology that shapes the souls and minds of its adherents. It is not even a way of life that offers one set of fruits in exchange for renouncing another.

It is the light that flashed like lightning from one end of the heavens to the other. The light in which everything can be seen: truth and falsehood, good and evil, life and death. The light that shone in the face of Jesus Christ. It is not merely that life in darkness is worse—dark, frightening, and cold. Experience shows that outside this light, life is simply impossible.