God’s servants; God’s treasure in earthen pots
4
📚Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, since we have received mercy, we do not lose heart.4:1 God’s servants under the new covenant have received a ministry full of glory, greater than the ministry of Moses (2 Cor 3:9). They are not ministers of the law which condemns, but of God’s grace which saves. They have received this ministry through God’s mercy, not through personal merit (1 Cor 15:10; 1 Tim 1:13-14). So, Paul says, he refuses to be discouraged and give up in spite of all the problems, dangers, and difficulties he faced (v 16. Compare 1 Cor 15:58; Luke 18:1).⚜
2 📚But we have renounced hidden, shameful ways, not behaving with craftiness, or handling the word of God deceitfully, but by making the truth clear we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.
4:2 See 2 Cor 1:12; 2:17. Paul kept insisting on his integrity because some at Corinth denied it, and he knew great harm could come to the church if they lost faith in his apostleship.⚜
3 📚But if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are lost.
4:3 See 2 Cor 3:14-16. Here Paul speaks not only of unbelieving Jews but of unbelievers of every nation.⚜
4 📚In their case, the god of this present world 📖 has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that the light of the glorious gospel of Christ 📖, who is the image of God 📖, would not shine into them 📖. 5 📚For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.
4:5 In this letter Paul had to defend his apostleship against attacks and he speaks much about himself. But all that was for their sake not his (notes on 1:12-24). He did not preach himself as a way of salvation. He had not invented the gospel. He did not think he was some great one, only a servant of others for Christ’s sake (1 Cor 3:5-7; 9:19-23). He had someone far greater than himself about whom to preach – Christ. And he declared Him to be the one Lord of heaven and earth. Compare Luke 2:11; Rom 10:9; 1 Cor 8:6; 12:3; Acts 2:36; Phil 2:10-11.⚜
6 📚For 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.
4:6 Paul compares the creation of physical light in the beginning (see Gen 1:1-3) with the spiritual light God makes to shine into the hearts of believers in Christ. God opens the eyes of their understanding so they can receive the knowledge of the truth. Before this their minds, like the minds of everyone else, were in darkness and chaos. Compare Eph 1:18; Acts 26:18; John 8:12; Matt 6:22-23; 11:27; 16:17; 1 Cor 2:11-16.
See what this enlightenment is which God gives. It has nothing to do with the wrong teaching that men can “know” they are God. That teaching is a terrible delusion created by Satan. Men are not God, cannot become God, and have fallen into a very grave error if they think they are God. In true enlightenment God enables individuals to understand that the glory of God is in Christ (Heb 1:3), not in them. Paul had his enlightening experience on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3-9). Most of us do not have experiences so dramatic and so sudden. But every believer has received spiritual sight and light and is a child of the light (John 12:36; Eph 5:8; 1 Thess 5:5).⚜
7 📚But we have this treasure 📖 in earthen vessels 📖, so that the exceedingly great power may be of God, and not of us. 8 📚We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 📚persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 📚We are always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also might be revealed in our body. 11 📚For we who live are always being handed over to death 📖 for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also might be revealed in our mortal body. 12 📚So then death is working in us, but life in you.
4:8-12 In these verses Paul shows the weakness of the “earthen vessels” – “hard pressed”, “perplexed”, “persecuted”, “struck down”, “death”. But he shows also God’s power at work in them – “not crushed”, “not in despair”, etc. If God’s power was not at work in these “earthen vessels”, these clay jars, they would not be able to accomplish anything and would surely be quickly destroyed.⚜
13 📚Since we have the same spirit of faith as what is written, “I believed, and therefore I have spoken”, we also believe and therefore speak, 14 📚knowing that he who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus, and set us with you in his presence.
4:13-14 Ps 116:10. What enabled Paul to go on in Christ’s service in the face of all hardships and dangers? He believed God and so could not remain silent. And he was sure of a blessed future. The future resurrection of believers was the great hope that kept him going (Rom 8:23-25; 1 Cor 15:49-58).⚜
15 📚For everything is for your sake, so that the grace that is spreading to many might overflow to the glory of God through the thanksgiving of many.
4:15 All Paul’s sufferings and experiences were for the good of others. And this is just what he desired – Col 1:24; 1 Cor 10:33; 2 Tim 2:10. What a help this attitude is to any servant of God who has it! And what a blessing to others! See again Paul’s concern that thanksgiving abound to God (not to himself) – 2 Cor 1:11; 9:11-13.⚜
16 📚For this reason we do not lose heart 📖. Even though our outward man is wasting away 📖, yet the inward man is being renewed 📖 day by day.
4:16 A summing up of some of the themes of this chapter.⚜
17 📚For our light affliction 📖, which is but for a moment 📖, is producing for us 📖 an eternal weight of glory that far exceeds it, 18 📚while we look, not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
4:18 This was the reason why Paul could endure all that came to him, why all hardships were light and momentary in his eyes. But how can we fix our eyes on what is unseen? It is by the spiritual understanding God gives (v 6), and it is by faith that the unseen, eternal things of God are real (Heb 11:1). In 2 Cor 5:7 he expresses the same thing in different words. With our physical eyes we see the world and our troubles and difficulties. With the eyes of our faith and our spiritual understanding we can look into the face of Christ (2 Cor 4:6) and into eternity. And living our lives with our eyes fixed on unseen things, on eternal things, will have a profound effect on how we live.⚜