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2Co_4:6. Confirmation of the above, and not simply of the concluding words of 2Co_4:5 ( ἑαυτοὺς δὲ δούλους κ . τ . λ .), but of the entire 2Co_4:5. For it is God who has bestowed on us such enlightenment, and for such behoof as is declared in 2Co_4:6; how should we not be far exalted above the preaching of ourselves instead of Christ as the Lord, and how could we proclaim ourselves otherwise than simply in the relation of serviceableness to you, serviceableness for Christ’s sake!—“For God, who bade light shine out of darkness, it is who caused it to shine in our hearts, in order that we should make the knowledge of the divine glory give light in the presence of Christ.” Apart from this figurative clothing, the sense is: For it is God, the creator of light, who bestowed on us the spiritual light communicated to us, not that we might retain it for ourselves without further communication, but that we should convey the knowledge of the divine glory to others in making this knowledge manifest to them in Christ, whom we teach them to know. As to the construction, ὅς is not to be taken as equivalent to οὗτος (Vorstius, Mosheim, Morus, Rosenmüller, Schrader; comp. Theodoret and Luther), nor is ὅς to be deleted (Rückert hesitates between the two), but ἐστί is to be supplied, and supplied before ὃς ἔλαμψεν (so, rightly, most of the commentators[194]), not immediately after ὁ θεός (Valla, Erasmus, Vatablus, Estius, Bengel, Vater, Ewald), because it is only with ὃς ἔλαμψεν that the important idea is introduced, and because Paul has written ὅς and not ὃς καί . On account of the ὃς κ . τ . λ . that follows it is impossible, with Hofmann, to regard the sentence on ὅτι ὁ θεός as far as λάμψαι (“for it is God who … has bidden to shine”) as a complete and perfect sentenc.
ὁ εἰπὼν ἐκ σκότονς φῶς λάμψαι ] qui jussit, etc. Reminiscence of Gen_1:3,[195] in order to prepare for the following Ὃς ἜΛΑΜΨΕΝ Κ . Τ . Λ ., which is meant to appear as analogous to the physical working of God in the creation. “Saepe comparantur beneficia creationis veteris et novae,” Grotius. The emergence of the light of the holy truth in Christ from amid the sinful darkness of untruth (Hofmann) is not as yet spoken of; this spiritual fact only finds its expression in what follows, and has here merely the way prepared for it by the corresponding physical creation of ligh.
ἐκ may doubtless mean immediately after (Emmerling), see Heindorf, ad Prot. p. 463; Jacobs, ad Ael. p. 464; but in the N. T. it does not so occur, and here “forth out of darkness” is far more in keeping with graphic vividness, for such is the position of the matter when what is dark becomes lighted up; comp. LXX. Job_37:15.
ὃς ἔλαμψεν ἐν τ . καρδ . ἡμ .] This Ὅς cannot be referred to Christ, with Hofmann, who compares irrelevantly Heb_5:7 (where Christ is in fact the chief subject of what immediately precedes), but it applies to God. Whether ἔλαμψεν is intransitive (Chrysostom and most expositors): he shone, which would have to be explained from the idea of the indwelling of God by means of the Holy Spirit (Joh_14:23; 1Co_3:16; 1Co_14:25), or whether it is factitive: who made it (namely, φῶς ) shine (Grotius, Bengel, Emmerling, Fritzsche), as ἀνατέλλειν is used in Mat_5:45, and even ΛΆΜΠΕΙΝ in the poets (Eur. Phoen. 226, and the passages in Matthiae, p. 944; Jacobs, ad Anthol. VI. p. 58, VII. p. 378, VIII. p. 199; ad Del. Epigr. p. 62; Lobeck, ad Adj. p. 94, ed. 2), is decided from the context by the preceding physical analogy, which makes the factitive sense in keeping with the εἰπὼν λάμψαι most probable. If the progress of thought had been: “who himself shone” (Chrysostom, Theodoret), the text must have run, ὃς αὐτὸς ἔλαμψεν . God has wrought in the hearts of the apostolic teachers, spiritually creating light, just as physically as at the creation He called light out of the darkness. Hofmann, in consequence of his referring Ὅς to Christ, wrongly explains it: “within them has been repeated that which took place in the world when Christ appeared in it.” On the point itself in reference to Paul, see Gal_1:16.
πρὸς φωτισμὸν κ . τ . λ .] for the purpose of lighting (2Co_4:4), etc., equivalent to πρὸς τὸ φωτίζειν τὴν γνῶσιν κ . τ . λ ., in order that there may lighten, etc., by which is set forth the thought: “in order that the knowledge of the divine glory may be conveyed and diffused from us to others through the preaching of Christ.” For if the knowledge remains undiffused, it has not the nature of a thing that lightens, whose light is received by the eyes of me.
ἐν προσώπῳ Χριστοῦ ] belongs to ΠΡῸς ΦΩΤΙΣΜΌΝ , but cannot be explained in persona Christi, i.e. in nomine Christi, as Estius explains it after the Latin Fathers, but it specifies where the knowledge of the divine glory is to lighten: in the presence of Christ. For Christ is εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ , and Christians see unveiled the glory of Christ, 2Co_3:18. He, therefore, who converts others to Christ makes the knowledge of the divine glory become clear-shining to them, and that in the countenance of the Lord, which is beheld in the gospel as the reflection of the divine glory, so that in this seen countenance that clear-shining knowledge has the source of its light (as it were, its focus). Probably there is in ἐν προσώπῳ Χριστοῦ a reminiscence of 2Co_3:7. The connection of ἘΝ ΠΡΟΣΏΠῼ ΧΡ . with ΠΡῸς ΦΩΤΙΣΜΌΝ has been justly recognised by Estius, and established as the only right one by Fritzsche (Dissert. II. p. 170, and ad Rom. I. p. 188), whom Billroth follows, for the usual way of connecting it with τῆς δόξης τ . θεοῦ (comp. also Hofmann: “the glory of God visible in Christ”) would of necessity require τῆς repeated after ΘΕΟῦ , since ΔΌΞΑ is not a verbal substantive like ΦΩΤΙΣΜΌς , and consequently, without repeating the article, Paul would necessarily have written Τῆς ΤΟῦ ΘΕΟῦ ΔΌΞΗς ἘΝ ΠΡΟΣΩΠ . ΧΡ . (see Krüger, §§ 50, 9, 9, and 8). The objection of de Wette against our view—an objection raised substantially by Hofmann also—that the ΓΝῶΣΙς is the subjective possession of the apostle, and cannot therefore become light-giving in the face of Christ, leaves out of consideration the fact that the ΓΝῶΣΙς is objectivised. Conveyed through preaching, the γνῶσις of the divine glory gives light (it would not give light otherwise), and its light-giving has its seat and source of issue on the countenance of Christ, because it is this, the glory of which is brought to view in the mirror of preaching (2Co_3:18).
Note, further, how there is something clumsy but majestic in the entire mode of expression, πρὸς … Χριστοῦ , especially in the accumulation of the four genitives, as in 2Co_4:4.
[194] Comp. also Buttmann, neatest. Gramm. p. 338 [E. T. 395].
[195] Ewald, following the reading λάμψει , supposes an allusion to Isa_60:1, Job_12:22, or to some lost passage.