2 Corinthians 4: Unexpected Outcomes

(CSB)

Thank you for listening to First Day.

1 Therefore, since we have this ministry because we were shown mercy, we do not give up.2 Instead, we have renounced secret and shameful things, not acting deceitfully or distorting the word of God, but commending ourselves before God to everyone’s conscience by an open display of the truth.

Paul spends much of chapter four discussing the ministry of the Spirit. In verse six he states that we—himself, the Corinthians, and the Church today—have been made competent ministers of the new covenant through the Spirit. In performing this ministry, the Church becomes “the aroma of the knowledge of Christ” and brings life and was a ministry in which we have no right to participate. Paul states that it is because of God’s mercy that we have become Christ’s credentials to the world. We did not receive the death that we deserved but through Christ have received mercy. And this motivates Paul and should motivate the Corinthian church to continue moving toward the life of Christ. 

Having been entrusted with this ministry, the faithful must cease acting for their own interests and begin only acting for God’s. This same message is repeated from chapter one. We are to live openly and honestly, thus revealing the truth of the gospel. This act is not going to make us rich or powerful or even liked by the world. But it will prove that the kingdom of God is here. The purpose of this ministry is obvious. 

3 But if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 In their case, the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For we are not proclaiming ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’s sake. 6 For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

If the gospel message is not understood by those who are not walking with Christ it is because “the god of this age” prevents them from seeing Christ for who He is. Paul states that Jesus, “is the image of God.” Jesus cannot be understood to be anything else: not only a good, wise, or righteous man—not even an exemplary man—apart from his status as the image of God. This is why Paul can tell the Corinthians as he did in 1 Corinthians that human understanding did not bring them their knowledge of God. The message that Paul proclaims is not concerned with what is possible for humanity if it chose to follow Jesus’ example but rather that the image and glory of God is the Lord and not even the “best” human being. “What is impossible for men is possible for God.”

7 Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us.

“Clay jars,” what a fitting description. Regardless of its size, drop a clay jar from a certain height onto a hard enough surface and…crack! We cannot be lords; we cannot create anything that truly lasts; we cannot even be the heroes of our own stories because of the fragility of our lives. And it is this way intentionally so that we can not boast that by our authority, design, and power we “have overcome the world.” We are what we are so that all people, everywhere, might know that only God’s power can bring complete and lasting transformation. As much as I love Star Trek, we simply don’t have that in us. Perhaps this is why God made us from clay/the dust of the ground and not out of trees. 

 8 We are afflicted in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; 9 we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed. 10 We always carry the death of Jesus in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be displayed in our body.

Consider how Jesus lived and what He experienced. Consider the practices and lives from which Paul told the Corinthians that they should distance themselves: social status, wealth, influence, self-promotion, and elevation. Only when we have nowhere left to turn, nothing of our own to rely upon, can the life of Christ—that which is the only way to make anything that lasts, which can make anything new—be known. Paul says here that only in our impotence and our unimportance can that which matters be revealed. 

11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’s sake, so that Jesus’s life may also be displayed in our mortal flesh. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life in you. 

Paul tells the Corinthians that all the struggles and the afflictions that he has experienced, all of the failures, setbacks, and weaknesses—the stammering and the ineloquence and the imperfections—everything that Greeks and Romans and modern day Westerners and Americans consider undesirable, these he has willingly experienced and lived so that the life of Jesus—the life we are to live—might shine. In his “death” Jesus’ life is working in Corinth. Remember, Titus has brought Paul good news concerning them—probably for the first time ever! This is why they are the proof of his apostolic authority.

13 And since we have the same spirit of faith in keeping with what is written, I believed, therefore I spoke, we also believe, and therefore speak. 14 For we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you. 15 Indeed, everything is for your benefit so that, as grace extends through more and more people, it may cause thanksgiving to increase to the glory of God.

Paul quotes here the LXX’s Psalm 116:10: “I believed, therefore I have spoken. I was greatly afflicted.” Although the following reading of Psalm 116 is from the NRSV, 1989—which uses the Masoretic Texts—the message is the same. It is “A Thanksgiving for Recovery from Illness”:

“I love the LORD, because He has heard my voice and my supplication. Because He inclined His ear to me, therefore I will call on Him as long as I live. The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish. Then I called on the name of the LORD: ‘O LORD, I pray, save my life.’

“Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; our God is merciful. The LORD protects the simple; when I was brought low He saved me. Return, O my soul, to your rest, for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.

“For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. I walk before the LORD in the land of the living. I kept my faith, even when I said, “I am greatly afflicted”; I said in my consternation, ‘Everyone is a liar.’

“What shall I return to the LORD for all His bounty to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD. I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all His people. Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His faithful ones. O LORD, I am Your servant; I am Your servant, the child of Your servant girl. You have loosed my bonds. I will offer You a thanksgiving sacrifice and call on the name of the LORD. I will pa...