2 CORINTHIANS 4:11 12 (niv)
11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
HIS LIFE MINISTRIES vesre @1993
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THE WHOLE CHAPTER FOUR of 2nd CORINTHIANS
2 Corinthians 4 New International Version (NIV)
BELOW is from the STUDYLIGHT COMMENTARY
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WARREN WIERSBE Commentary
on 2 Corinthians 4:7-12
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THE WHOLE CHAPTER FOUR of 2nd CORINTHIANS
2 Corinthians 4 New International Version (NIV)
Present Weakness and Resurrection Life
1Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart.
2 Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.
3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.
4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
5 For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.
6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”[a] made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.
8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;
9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body.
12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
13 It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.”[b] Since we have that same spirit of[c] faith, we also believe and therefore speak,
14 because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself.
15 All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.
16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
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BELOW is from the STUDYLIGHT COMMENTARY
2 Corinthians 4:10-12
Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus.
Bearing about the dying of Christ
The first and literal meaning of these words is that Paul and his friends were in daily peril of such a death as Christ’s was, and that their trials left sorrowful trace upon form and feature. It is not so that we are called to be “conformable to the death” of our Redeemer. The days of martyrdom are gone. There are those who think to exemplify the text by bearing about with them the material representation of the Redeemer’s death--the crucifix. Ah! you may do that, and yet be hundreds of miles away from any compliance with the spirit of the text. Our Lord requires of us the devotion of the heart; it is spiritually that we are to bear about our Saviour’s dying.
I. We may bear about the memory of it.
1. Nothing can be more plain than that we ought never to forget our Redeemer’s death. When some one very near to you died, even after the first shock was past, and you could once more with some measure of calmness set yourself to your common duties again, did you not still feel, in the greater sympathy with the sorrows of others, in the quieter mood, that you had not quite got over your trial, that you were still bearing about with you the dying of the dear one that was gone?
2. The remembrance of our Lord’s death should influence all our views and doings. The kind mother who wore out her life in toiling for her child might well think that the child might sometimes come and stand by her grave, and remember her living kindness and her dying words when she was far away. And oh! when we think what our Saviour Christ has done for us by His dying--when we think that every hope, every blessing, was won for us by that great sacrifice--surely we might well determine that we never shall live as if that death had never been! You hear people say--truly enough, perhaps--that this world has never been the same to them since such a loved one died--that their whole life has been changed since then. It is sad to see a Christian living in such a fashion as to show plainly that he has quite forgot how his Redeemer died!
II. We may show in our daily life its transforming power. Our whole life, changed and affected in its every deed by the fact that Christ died, may be a standing testimony that there is a real power to affect the character in the death of the Saviour; and thus we may, in a very true and solemn sense, be always bearing about with us His death by bearing about with us a soul which is what it is mainly because He died.
1. When in the view of the Cross we see how bitterly and mysteriously evil and ruinous sin is, surely the practical lesson is plain that we should resolutely tread it down, and earnestly seek for deliverance from the curse of that fearful thing which brought such unutterable agony upon our Redeemer, and constantly pray for that blessed Spirit who will breathe new life into every good resolution, and vivify into sunlight clearness every sound and true belief.
2. When sorrow and suffering come, think of them as in the presence of the Redeemer’s death, and you will learn the lesson of practical resignation.
3. And in days of fear and anxiety, when you do not know how it will go with you, look to Jesus on the Cross, and learn the lesson of practical confidence in God’s disposing love and wisdom.
4. And, to sum up all, let us daily bear about His dying by dying to sin and living to holiness. That is the grand conformity which is open to all of us--that is the fashion in which we may be “crucified with Christ.” Conclusion: “Always.” Yes, always bear it; never lay that burden down. Always bear it; not in sourness--not in that hard, severe type of religion which we may see in some mistaken and narrow-hearted believers. Bear it in humility, kindness, charity, hopefulness, and cheerfulness. (A. K. H. Boyd, D. D.)
The Christian’s fellowship in the death of Christ
How do we bear about daily the dying of the Lord Jesus?
I. By cherishing faith in a crucified saviour.
1. The death of Christ is--
2. To cherish faith in this fact, then, is the first duty of man, and by so doing we become partakers of the sufferings of Christ.
II. By a continued remembrance of this great event. That which we believe most assuredly, in which we feel the deepest interest, and to which we give the highest placed will be best remembered by us; and the death of Christ, possessing all those requisites, with a good man will impress itself deeply on his mind. To help us in this great exercise is the most obvious design of the Lord’s Supper. If we forget Jesus who died for us, whom and what shall we rationally and religiously remember?
III. By a progressive improvement of this great event. The decease of our Lord is set forth in the Word of God and in the Lord’s Supper, not merely for contemplation, or for curious inquiry, but for deep meditation and practical improvement. Now, a good man is anxious to improve this death for all the purposes for which it was appointed of God and endured by Christ. Others may gaze upon the Cross; he glories in it. Others may cast a passing glance upon the Divine Sufferer; he hangs upon the Cross--he lives by it.
IV. By imbibing more and more of his spirit. And what was this spirit? It was a spirit--
1. Of holy love. “He loved us with an everlasting love,” and thence “gave Himself for us.”
2. Of holy submission to the Divine appointment. “Lo, I come to do Thy will, O My God”; and He well knew all that that involved.
3. Of determined decision in His great work. “I have a baptism to he, baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!”
4. Of holy purity. He was the Lamb of God, “without blemish and without spot.”
5. Of invincible faith. “My God, My God!” He cried, claiming an interest in Him when the waters overwhelmed His soul.
6. Of entire resignation to God amid the agonies of death and the prospect of dying. “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.” Now, a good man bears about the dying of the Lord Jesus by seeking to drink continually into Christ’s spirit, and by exemplifying it more and more.
V. By a practical illustration of that great decease, of its character and power. Although it was not the only, or even the main, end of His coming in the flesh to exhibit a sublime example of perfect morality, yet doubtless He came to present to us a pattern of all goodness and godliness. Hence we are told that He hath “set us an example that we should follow His steps.”
VI. By a frequent solemn commemoration of him. (J. Mitchell, D. D.)
That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.--
The manifestation of the life of Christ
1. There is something beautifully emphatic in the idea that it is the life of Jesus that is manifested in the Christian. Century after century hath rolled away, and He who won to Himself, by agony and death, the lordship of this lower creation hath not visibly interfered with the administration of its concerns. The time, indeed, will come when sensible proof shall be given, and every eye shall gaze on the Son of Man seated on the clouds and summoning to judgment. But we are free to own that, since under the present dispensation there are no visible exhibitions of the kingship of Christ, it is not easy, if the authority of Scripture be questioned, to bring forward satisfactory proof that Jesus is alive.
2. Yet we are not ready to admit the total absence of direct, positive, practical witness. We thus bring the statement of our text, that there is such a thing as the manifestation of the life of the Redeemer. It was possible enough that the malice of persecutors might wear down to the wreck the body of the apostle; but there were such continued miracles in his being sustained in the battle with principalities and powers that, if challenged to prove that his Lord was alive, he could point to the shattered tabernacle, and answer triumphantly, the life also of Jesus, as well as the death, was made manifest in that his body.
3. The doctrine of Christ’s living for us is every whir as closely bound up with our salvation as that of His having died for us. The resurrection was God’s attestation to the worth of the atonement.
I. The persecutions which the apostles underwent, as well as the proclamations which they uttered, went to the proving that Jesus was alive.
1. The rulers said the body was stolen; the apostles said the body was quickened. Who sees not that, by persecuting the apostles in place of proving them liars, the rulers themselves bore witness to the fact that Jesus was alive? They had no evidence to produce of the truth of their own statement, and they set themselves therefore to get rid by force of the counter-statement. Power was substituted for proof, cruelty for argument. We therefore contend that no stronger attestation could have been given to the fact of Christ’s life than the persecutions to which the apostles were subjected for maintaining that fact.
2. We may yet further argue that by submitting to persecutions the apostles showed their own belief that Jesus was alive. There is a limit which enthusiasm cannot pass. Had not the apostles believed Christ alive they would not have joyfully exposed themselves to peril and death.
II. The grand manifestation of the life of jesus lies in the supports and consolations vouchsafed to the persecuted.
1. When the malice of the ungodly was allowed to do its worst, there was administered so much of supernatural assistance that all but the reprobate must have seen that the power of the Lord was sustaining the martyrs. They went out of the world with gladness in the eye and with triumph on the lip, confident that their Master lived to welcome them, and therefore able to cry out with Stephen, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
2. Now, we maintain that, whenever God directly interposes to preserve an individual while publishing a doctrine, God virtually gives testimony to the truth of that doctrine. If the published doctrine were the reverse of truth He would never mark the publisher with His approval; and thus we have a decisive and vivid manifestation of the life of Christ in the sufferings of the apostles.
3. Whilst Christ sojourned on earth He told His disciples that persecution would be their lot, but also that He would be alive to act as their protector. When, therefore, all occurred as Christ had predicted, when the supports were administered which He had pointed out as the result of His life, what can be fairer than maintaining that the supports were a proof of the life?
III. We would not have you think that the manifestation of the life of the redeemer was confined to the apostles. Take any one who now is walking by faith, and not by sight. He will tell you that his whole conduct is ordered on the supposition that he has a Saviour ever living to intercede in his behalf. He will tell you, further, that never has he found the supposition falsified by experience. He goes to Christ sorrowful, believing that He lives; he comes away comforted, and thus proves that He lives. He carries his burdens to Christ, supposing Him alive; he finds them taken away, and thus demonstrates Him alive. All, in short, that is promised as the result of Christ’s life comes into his possession, and is, therefore, an evidence of Christ’s life. If I am a believer, I look to Christ as living for me; I go and pray to Christ as living for me; and, if I am never disappointed in my reference to Christ as living for me, is there no strong testimony in my own experience that Jesus lives? In short, if the Christian live only by faith in the living Saviour, his life must be the manifestation of the life of the Saviour. If Christ be not alive, how comes it that they who act upon the supposition that He is alive find the supposition perpetually verified and in no instance falsified--verified by the assistance vouchsafed, by the promises fulfilled, by the consolations enjoyed in these mortal bodies, which are the theatres of truceless warfare with a corrupt nature and apostate spirits? Conclusion: What we wish for you is that you might manifest the life of the Redeemer--manifest it in the vigour with which you resist the devil, break loose from the world, and set yourself to the culture of holiness. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
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WARREN WIERSBE Commentary
on 2 Corinthians 4:7-12
We Have a Valuable Treasure (2 Cor. 4:7-12)
From the glory of the new creation, Paul moved to the humility of the clay vessel.
The believer is simply a “jar of clay”; it is the treasure within the vessel that gives the vessel its value. The image of the vessel is a recurring one in Scripture, and from it we can learn many lessons. To begin with, God has made us the way we are so that we can do the work He wants us to do. God said of Paul, “He is a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My name before the Gentiles” (Acts 9:15). No Christian should ever complain to God because of his lack of gifts or abilities, or because of his limitations or handicaps. Psalm 139:13-16 indicates that our very genetic structure is in the hands of God. Each of us must accept himself and be himself. The important thing about a vessel is that it be clean, empty, and available for service. Each of us must seek to become “a vessel unto honor, sanctified [set apart], and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work” (2 Tim. 2:21). We are vessels so that God might use us. We are earthen vessels so that we might depend on God’s power and not our own. We must focus on the treasure and not on the vessel. Paul was not afraid of suffering or trial, because he knew that God would guard the vessel so long as Paul was guarding the treasure (see 1 Tim. 1:11; 6:20). God permits trials, God controls trials, and God uses trials for His own glory. God is glorified through weak vessels. The missionary who opened inland China to the Gospel, J. Hudson Taylor, used to say, “All God’s giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on Him being with them.” Sometimes God permits our vessels to be jarred so that some of the treasure will spill out and enrich others. Suffering reveals not only the weakness of man but also the glory of God. Paul presented a series of paradoxes in this paragraph: earthen vessels—power of God; the dying of Jesus—the life of Jesus; death working—life working. The natural mind cannot understand this kind of spiritual truth and therefore cannot understand why Christians triumph over suffering. Not only must we focus on the treasure and not on the vessel, but we must also focus on the Master and not on the servant.
If we suffer, it is for Jesus’ sake. If we die to self, it is so that the life of Christ might be revealed in us. If we go through trials, it is so that Christ might be glorified.
And all of this is for the sake of others. As we serve Christ, death works in us—but life works in those to whom we minister. Dr. John Henry Jowett said, “Ministry that costs nothing, accomplishes nothing.”
He was right.
A pastor friend and I once heard a young man preach an eloquent sermon, but it lacked something. “There was something missing,” I said to my friend; and he replied, “Yes, and it won’t be there until his heart is broken. After he has suffered awhile, he will have a message worth listening to.” The Judaizers did not suffer. Instead of winning lost souls, they stole converts from Paul’s churches. Instead of sacrificing for the people, they made the people sacrifice for them (2 Cor. 11:20). The false teachers did not have a treasure to share. All they had were some museum pieces from the Old Covenant, faded antiques that could never enrich a person’s life. It has been my experience that many churches are ignorant of the price a pastor pays to be faithful to the Lord in serving His people. This section is one of three sections in 2 Corinthians devoted to a listing of Paul’s sufferings. The other two are 6:1-10 and 11:16-12:10. The test of a true ministry is not stars, but scars. “From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks [brands] of the Lord Jesus” (Gal. 6:17). How can we keep from giving up? By remembering that we are privileged to have the treasure of the Gospel in our vessels of clay!
