2 Corinthians 4:17

From 2 Corinthians 2:14 onward Paul is explaining his ministry to a church where some questioned his authority and his sincerity. Corinth prized eloquence and a strong presence, and a weak, suffering apostle could look like a man God had passed over. Chapter 4 opens with Paul saying that he received this ministry by God’s mercy and that he sets out the truth openly, preaching Christ Jesus the Lord (2 Corinthians 4:1–5, 4:2–5). The God “who commanded the light to shine out of darkness” has shined in our hearts “to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

Then comes the picture behind this whole passage: “we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (2 Corinthians 4:7). Paul is troubled, perplexed, persecuted and cast down, and in each of these God keeps him from distress, from despair, from being forsaken and from being destroyed (2 Corinthians 4:8–9). He carries about in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus, “that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body” (2 Corinthians 4:10), and the life of Jesus at work in him becomes life for the church (2 Corinthians 4:7–12, 4:10–12). Later in the letter he lists what this has meant: labours, beatings, imprisonments, shipwrecks, hunger and sleepless nights (2 Corinthians 11:23–28). Verses 13 to 18 tell how a man in that condition goes on speaking with courage and hope.

Paul finds the reason for his speaking in Scripture: “according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken.” He is quoting Psalm 116:10 as the Greek translation of the psalms gives it, and in the psalm the next words are “I was greatly afflicted.” The psalmist had been in great distress, near death, and God delivered him. His faith was faith under affliction, and it made him speak of God’s goodness and faithfulness. Paul’s faith has been forged the same way, in suffering and deliverance, and it has the same result: “we also believe, and therefore speak.”

The “therefore” (dió) makes speaking the consequence of believing. The verb for believe, pisteúō, is related to pístis, faith, and it can mean to believe that something is true, to credit what someone says, or to trust and rely on a person. Here Paul both believes the gospel and entrusts himself to the God who raised Jesus, as the next verse says. The verb for speak, laléō, is the general word for talking and uttering words, and what Paul speaks is the gospel itself, a public declaration of loyalty to Christ that was often dangerous in a hostile world.

So faith speaks. Paul writes elsewhere that believing with the heart and confessing with the mouth belong together (Romans 10:9–10), and Peter tells believers to be ready always to give an answer to anyone who asks the reason for the hope that is in them (1 Peter 3:15). Paul’s boldness is the outflow of faith, and God supplies the strength for it, since his strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9–10).

Verse 14 names what Paul believes. “Knowing” translates eídō, a verb that properly means to see and is used figuratively for knowing, and Paul uses it in a form that speaks of knowledge already settled. His hope rests on something God has already done. God, “he which raised up the Lord Jesus,” has done it once, and he “shall raise up us also.” The verb egeírō means to wake, to lift, to raise, and Paul uses it twice, for Christ’s resurrection and for ours, because the same God and the same power are at work in both. He had told the Corinthians this in his first letter: “God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power” (1 Corinthians 6:14).

“By Jesus” makes Christ the one through whom God will do it. Christ is “the firstfruits of them that slept” (1 Corinthians 15:20), and those united with him in his death will share the likeness of his resurrection (Romans 6:5). It is the Father’s will that Jesus should lose none of those the Father has given him and should raise them up at the last day (John 6:39), and the risen Christ holds “the keys of hell and of death” (Revelation 1:18). Paul gives the Thessalonians the same hope, that God will bring with Jesus those who sleep in him (1 Thessalonians 4:14).

This hope is for the body. Christ will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body (Philippians 3:20–21), and “this corruptible must put on incorruption” (1 Corinthians 15:53–54). Many Greeks of Paul’s day met the idea of a bodily resurrection with doubt or ridicule, as some did when Paul preached in Athens (Acts 17:32), and Paul states it plainly all the same.

“For all things are for your sakes.” By “all things” Paul means both his sufferings and the grace that carries him through them, and all of it serves the good of the Corinthians. This answers anyone who thought he was serving himself. His trials and his preaching alike are for their growth and salvation.

The rest of the verse says what that leads to, and its “that” (hína in Greek) opens a statement of purpose. The word behind “abundant”, pleonázō, means to be more, to increase, and by extension to superabound, and here it describes grace growing as it reaches more people. As more receive it, more give thanks. The word for thanksgiving, eucharistía, means gratitude, and especially grateful words spoken to God in worship. Paul returns to this thought when he writes that the collection for the saints “is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God” (2 Corinthians 9:12).

“Redound” translates perisseúō, to overflow, and the overflow goes to “the glory of God.” The word for glory, dóxa, comes from the root of dokéō, to seem or to think, and it means glory as something plainly seen: dignity, honour, praise. In this verse it is God’s own excellence made known and praised. So the grace God gives comes back to him as thanks, which is where it was always headed. Everything comes from God and returns to him, to whom be glory for ever (Romans 11:36). Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound (Romans 5:20–21), and God chose his people “to the praise of the glory of his grace” (Ephesians 1:6). Paul prays that the Philippians will be filled with the fruits of righteousness, “unto the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:9–11).

“For which cause we faint not.” The cause is everything Paul has just said: the life of Jesus at work in his mortal body, the certainty of resurrection in verse 14 and the grace of verse 15. The word for faint, ekkakéō, means to be weak, to fail or lose heart. Under all the pressure he has described, Paul keeps heart.

He is honest about the cost: “though our outward man perish.” The word diaphtheírō literally means to rot thoroughly, and it speaks of decay and ruin, the gradual wearing down of the body through hardship and age and finally death. Paul names this plainly, having just described it. Our bodies decay because we live in a fallen world.

Against that stands “yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” The verb anakainóō means to renovate, to make new again. It is present and passive in Greek, so the renewal goes on continually and is done to the inward man by God, through his Spirit. The verb occurs only once more in the New Testament, in Colossians 3:10, of the new man “which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.” “Day by day” repeats the word for day, hēméra, so the renewal comes as each day’s troubles come. Paul speaks of the same work as the renewing of the mind (Romans 12:2), and he prays that believers will be strengthened by God’s Spirit in the inner man (Ephesians 3:16). The Spirit who does this is the earnest, the down payment, of our full inheritance (Ephesians 1:13–14). The daily renewal is a foretaste of the day when body and spirit alike are redeemed. The new creation has already begun in believers, and its fullness waits for the resurrection.

Verse 17 sets two things on a scale. On one side is “our light affliction, which is but for a moment.” On the other is “a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” Light is weighed against weight, and a moment against eternity.

The word for light, elaphrós, means easy, light to bear, and it occurs only once more in the New Testament, where Jesus says, “my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). The word for affliction, thlîpsis, means pressure, and in the New Testament tribulation, affliction and distress, and Paul uses it often for the real troubles he and other believers faced. “But for a moment” translates parautíka, at the very instant, momentary, a word found only here in the New Testament.

The affliction “worketh for us.” The verb katergázomai means to work fully, to accomplish, to produce. The affliction is producing something on our behalf, with an outcome God has designed, because he uses trials to shape and prepare his people. Paul describes what it produces with a doubled expression in Greek, kath’ hyperbolen eis hyperbolen, excess upon excess, which the KJV gives as “far more exceeding.” The glory is “eternal”, aiṓnios, lasting without limit of time. It also has weight, báros, set against the lightness of the affliction, the substance and worth that outweigh all present pain. The word for glory is dóxa again, here the splendour and honour God gives, in which his people will share.

Paul says the same in Romans: “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). He also writes that we glory in tribulations, because they lead on to hope (Romans 5:3–5), and Peter writes of the trial of believers’ faith in the same hope of glory (1 Peter 1:6–7).

Christ walked this road first. “For the joy that was set before him” he “endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2), and after he humbled himself to death, God highly exalted him (Philippians 2:8–11). The afflictions of believers follow the pattern of his cross, and God means them to conform us to the image of his Son and bring us to glory (Romans 8:29–30).

Verse 18 describes how Paul looks at life while the affliction does its work: “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.” The verb skopéō means to take aim at, to watch closely, and so to regard. It describes a fixed and deliberate gaze, the way one aims at a mark. The things which are seen are the tangible things of this world, our circumstances, sufferings and possessions, everything that changes and decays. The things which are not seen are God himself and his character, his promises, his kingdom, the hope of resurrection and the weight of glory of verse 17.

The reason follows, introduced by “for”, gár: “the things which are seen are temporal.” The word próskairos means for the occasion only, temporary, lasting for a season, and it covers earthly suffering and earthly success alike. The last clause turns on dé, “but”: “the things which are not seen are eternal,” aiṓnios, lasting without limit of time. The same contrast runs into the next chapter, “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7), and Hebrews calls faith “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Paul tells the Colossians to set their affection on things above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God (Colossians 3:1–2).

These verses give us a way to carry trouble. Faith speaks, so when we believe that God raised Jesus, we can say so, even when saying it costs us something. We can face aging, illness and weariness knowing that God renews the inward man each day, and we keep close to the means he uses: prayer, the Scriptures, worship and the fellowship of his people. We can grieve with hope for those who have died in Christ, because we expect to be presented with them. We can thank God for every grace, since our thanks are part of how his glory is made known. What we suffer now is real, and it is passing, and what God is preparing outweighs all of it.