[Robert Pate]

"But if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.

In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God should shine unto them," 2 Corinthians 4:3, 4.

Satan uses religion to blind those that are lost. They cannot see nor can they understand Paul's glorious Gospel.

Have you noticed that all the religious can talk about is their religion. Their religion is their Christ. All that the Pharisees could talk about was the Torah. They said that the Torah was the way, the truth and the life and that it was the light that lightens every man. Jesus took what they said about the Torah and applied it to himself, John 14:6.

What religion is to Catholics and Calvinist, Christ and the Gospel is to the Christian. Just as what the Torah was to the Pharisees, Christ is to the New Testament Christian. Catholics and other religions worship their religion. They worship the pope, they worship the sacraments, they worship Mary, they worship the Catholic religion. It is their Christ.

Paul refered to the Gospel as "The Glorious Gospel." The Gospel is glorious because it is our only means of salvation. "It is the power of God unto salvation," Romans 1:16. In the Gospel Jesus comes into the world for the sole purpose of reconciling lost humanity to God his Father, 2 Corinthians 5:18, 19. He does this by doing for us that which we cannot do for ourselves. By his sinless life he offers to God the Father a life of total obedience to his Holy Law. By his death on the cross he atones for our sins and the sins of the whole world, 1 John 4:14.

It is His life and His death that justifies us, Romans 3:26. All that Jesus has done, he did in our name and on our behalf. Our salvation is secure because it is at the right hand of God in heaven, Hebrews 7:25, 26.