As was the case between chapters 1-2, and 2-3, there really is no break of thought between 3-4 either; the chapter breaks might better be placed elsewhere. Paul is still talking about the sovereignty of God in our believing the simple message of the New Covenant gospel contrasted with the foolishness of worldly wisdom and failing to attain perfection through the Old Covenant Law. Let’s take a look.
1) V1-6 – 1Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. 2Rather, 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 every man’s conscience in the sight of God. 3And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness” [Genesis 1:3], made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
Robert Rayburn offers a nice preview of this passage by reviewing what Paul has done since 2 Corinthians 2:14. There, he says, “Paul began by acknowledging that a gospel ministry has, inevitably, a double effect. It is an aroma of life to those who are being saved, an aroma of death to those who will not believe. It is death not only because the unbeliever finds the message of the gospel uninteresting, irrelevant, distasteful, or positively offensive, but also because their refusal to believe the message God is proclaiming to them seals their fate. In chapter 3 Paul went on to elaborate this point by distinguishing between his ministry in Corinth and that of Moses in the wilderness after the exodus. Moses’ was a ministry of death because it fell to him to preach the gospel to an unbelieving generation. Paul’s was a ministry of life because he had the good fortune to preach the gospel to a community in Corinth from which a great many believed and were saved.” Now, though others might interpret chapter 3’s contrast of Paul’s ministry of life and Moses’ ministry of death, especially in terms of the reason for Moses veiling his face, we see that Paul is still on the same topic here.
He’s elaborating on several elements of his ministry: First and foremost, it is of God. Paul glorifies the ministry of God, not himself. He attributes its success to God’s mercy, just as he attributes who he is to God’s grace. God is sovereignty in, over, and through his efforts to bring people to faith (justification) and holy living (sanctification) in Christ. Second, Paul notes the glorious simplicity of his truthful message. Others may try to mystify the gospel (gnosticism), making it depend on some sort of secret knowledge; or maybe, as is likely the case here (v2), false teachers were watering down the gospel in order to win more converts for the sake of gain, either financially or in reputation. Third, Paul is reminding again that there are two simple responses to the simplicity of his message – you either repent and believe and are saved by God’s grace, or you reveal your pride and wickedness in refusing to bow to the Lord Jesus Christ, thanks to “the god of this age” (v4).
Though times are tough on Paul, he never loses hope, because God mercifully works in his ministry by the power of the Holy Spirit. Had he ever relied on himself to persevere, he surely would have failed and fallen in despair. Unlike his opponents, Paul refuses to water-down or manipulate the gospel to try to make it more appealing or more effective or less offensive. Instead, “setting forth the truth plainly” he places Christ before “every man’s conscience,” where a determination must be made “in the sight of God” (v1-2).
Paul returns to the veil image in v3 (3:14-16). Satan, “the god of this age” (v4), keeps unbelievers blinded to the truth, “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ,” unless and/or until God enlightens them (v6; John 3:3; cf. 1 John 5:19). Rayburn says, “Without a doubt, the Bible attributes to Satan a certain authority in this world over the hearts of men. It is a relative authority and its manner of working is never described, but we are taught in this way to take the spiritual issues of life seriously. We have adversaries of great power and cunning.” Calvin notes that this effort of the devil comes only by permission, or even by the command, of God, for elsewhere, God even approves of such activity for the sake of reprobation (1 Kings 22:19-23).
The gospel message, says Paul in v5, has nothing to do with the ego of the messenger, which flew in the face of the arrogant false teachers, and everything to do with the proclamation of “Jesus Christ as Lord.” God is the One who makes the message effectual, not the messenger (v6). And the glory of the message does not depend on its success. Some might argue that widespread unbelief proves the folly of the message, but as Calvin notes, “The sun is no less resplendent because the blind do not perceive its light.” Rayburn concludes, “We live in a world of perishing people and of other people springing up to eternal life. Jesus Christ and He alone makes the difference between them. That in a nutshell, was Paul’s message, as it is the message of the entire Bible and that is why Christians should always be rejoicing in the knowledge of the Lord and which has been given to them when they were blind and why they should be eager to see others come to that same knowledge.”
Paul compares God’s sovereignty in salvation to His creation ex nihilo. Nothing comes from nothing, unless God makes it so by speaking it into existence. That’s exactly what He does in His elect (Romans 4:17). Sam Storms says, “Unbelievers are blinded by Satan. Believers are enlightened by God. Satan takes one from unbelief into total darkness. God takes one from total darkness into the brilliance of Christ’s light!” Don’t miss the truth that combining hearing the gospel with effectual grace equals seeing the glory of Christ! It’s an image of monergistic regeneration, which is exactly what Paul had himself experienced on the road to Damascus. God makes His light shine in our hearts; when we were dead to spiritual truth, God made us alive to grasp it. The glory of God came and went in the Old Testament (3:13), based oftentimes on the variance of people’s attitude toward God; but on this side of the cross, it shines permanently in Jesus Christ (John 1:1-18) and in His people who are indwelled and led by the Holy Spirit. Calvin says, “It is more advantageous for us to behold God, as He appears in His only-begotten Son, than to search out His secret essence.”
2) V7-12 – 7But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that His life may be revealed in our mortal body. 12So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
Having spoken of the glorious New Covenant, Paul now turns to trusting God in the midst of trouble. He speaks first of “this treasure,” referring, according to John Piper, as the glory of God. Other commentators say the treasure is the New Covenant gospel, Paul’s gospel ministry, or the enlightening power of the Holy Spirit. Either way, it is truly a treasure, and perhaps that’s one reason Paul is so disgusted with false teachers who merely “peddle” or, worse, “distort the word of God” (2:17; v2).
The physical body, or human nature, is the jar of clay; it’s weak compared to the spiritual and heavenly and divine, which makes perfect sense, given God’s ways of shaming the worldly wise and strong, humbling the proud, those who exalt themselves. But it is ironic that God would place such a glorious treasure in such a weak vessel! And this would have been especially the case for Paul, as Robert Rayburn explains: “Being a Jew in itself was a terrific disadvantage in the Greco-Roman world. Being a Jew who wasn’t a great public speaker was a double whammy.” He goes on, “If we are the bearers of Christ’s glory in this world, then no wonder that no one sees that glory. It is rather a wonder that anyone ever takes us seriously when we talk about Christ… The Lord doesn’t require you to save people. He doesn’t even require you to impress them. But He is in you and He does require you to get next to those people so that they will find themselves next to Him. You don’t get the credit if they believe; you don’t get the blame if they don’t… No one can stand up to Him if only He chooses to reveal Himself. And, from time to time He will.” In this, God gets the glory both for salvation and for sanctification, rather than the weak and frail messenger.
Storms quotes one commentator, saying, “There could be no contrast more striking than that between the greatness of the divine glory and the frailty and unworthiness of the vessels in which it dwells and through which it is manifested to the world. Paul’s calumniators had contemptuously described his bodily appearance as weak and his speech as of no account (10:10; cf. 10:1; 11:6; 12:7), hoping thereby to discredit his authority. But it is one of the main purposes of this epistle to show that this immense discrepancy between the treasure and the vessel serves simply to attest that human weakness presents no barrier to the purposes of God, indeed, that God’s power is made perfect in weakness (12:9), as the brilliance of a treasure is enhanced and magnified by comparison with a common container in which it is placed… It is precisely the Christian’s utter frailty which lays him open to the experience of the all-sufficiency of God’s grace, so that he is able even to rejoice because of his weakness (Hughes, 135,137).”
In v8-12, Paul reveals how he and his ministry were defeated and driven back, stumped and persecuted, and yet this all goes to prove God’s glory and power as he trusted in Him. Paul’s weaknesses were Christ’s strengths, and it’s a motivation to suffer for the sake of the gospel (2 Corinthians 8:9). The second contrast (v8b), “perplexed, but not in despair,” is a play on words in the Greek that would literally be translated, “at a loss, but not absolutely at a loss.” Sam Storms notes “the paradox of asserting that ‘death’ is ‘at work’ (v12). Death, by definition, is the absence of life and activity. Yet Paul says that the very ‘life’ that has come to the Corinthians is the result of the ‘death’ that works in him! By ‘death’, of course, he has in mind again those sufferings in ministry described in v8-9.” Paul cannot be stopped any more than Jesus was stopped, because the power of Jesus is at work, living in Paul. And we ought to resemble the dead more than the living in this life, for our humility and self-sacrifice for others ought to shock the world!
Philip Hughes again captures Paul’s message: “The Corinthian believers are themselves an assurance to the Apostle that his severe sufferings, his constant ‘dying,’ are not fruitless. Through his endurance the gospel had been brought to them, and by believing its word they had passed from death to life. To see repentant sinners entering into newness of life in Christ makes every affliction borne for Jesus’ sake and in His service a thousand times worth-while. And this is the joy of all Christian witness. It is the unconquerable life of the risen Jesus within that enables His servants willingly and perpetually to be handed over to death for His sake, in order that the same life of Christ may be kindled in the hearts of others, enabling them in turn to win others… The wonder of all this is enhanced by the consideration that it is those who are weak, despised, and persecuted by the world, those who in the eyes of the world are losing their life, who yet are mighty in the Holy Spirit – a reality very evident to the Corinthians in the person of Paul, their Apostle, in whose body death was working as he labored on so that his limitations and afflictions were obvious to all and despised by some, but through whose ministry none the less the life of eternity was working in them” (145).
3) V13-18 – 13It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken” [Psalm 116:10]. With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, 14because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in His presence. 15All 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. 16Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
V13-14 convey the truth that faith is expressed in words revealing confidence in God and His faithfulness. Let the world do its worst to Paul, just as it did to Jesus; the gates of hell cannot prevail against the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God (Matthew 16:18). Yet, it is also as Calvin paraphrases Paul, saying, “Though God spares you, and deals with you more indulgently, while he treats me with somewhat more severity, this diversity, nevertheless, will be no hindrance in the way of the like glorious resurrection awaiting both of us. For where there is oneness of faith (Romans 10:9-10), there will, also, there be one inheritance.”
From v15, we see again that Paul’s motive is God’s glory (2 Corinthians 1:11). Storms says, “The more people who come to know and experience the grace of God through Paul’s gospel, the more numerous will be the thanksgivings that are evoked to the glory of God.” It works like this: God pours out grace, which causes prayers of thanksgiving to rise to Him, which overflow to His glory. God gives in order to get, and though it sounds selfish to say, God is righteously selfish in seeking His own glory!
In v16, Paul repeats v1, summarizing that God works in his ministry. He’ll continue on the emphasis of trusting God in the midst of trouble for the sake of the New Covenant gospel through 5:10, and with the final verses of chapter 4, he is pointing to what Storms says is “the incorruptible glory of heaven.” As our outer nature (both sin and earthly life) dies daily, our inner nature (both Spirit-filled and heavenly life) lives and thrives, renewed daily. Paul makes a famous understatement in v17 (4:8-12; 6:4-10; 11:23-33). God will not forget our obedience in suffering (Romans 8:17-18; 1 Peter 1:6-7). Calvin acknowledges the hardship in this, being that “decay is visible, and the renovation is invisible.” Storms quotes Lenski, saying, “With perfect calmness Paul can watch the destruction of his outer man. What if his enemies hasten the process, yea, bring it to a sudden end by means of a violent death! He loses nothing. The inner man blossoms into new youth, beauty, and strength day by day. This inner renewal is not hindered but only helped by the tribulation that assails the outer man. These ‘bloody roses’ have the sweetest odor. These enemies are only defeating their own end; instead of causing Paul to grow discouraged, his elation is increased.”
Paul’s perspective is amazing; he sees his visible sufferings as light and momentary, for he looks at the unseen glory that they are achieving as heavy and permanent (Romans 8:18,29; Acts 14:22). The “weight of glory” is of eternal significance. Calvin, battling Catholicism in his day, was clear to say, “We do not deny that afflictions are the path by which the heavenly kingdom is arrived at, but we deny that by afflictions we merit the inheritance, which comes to us in no other way than through means of God’s gracious adoption.”
Finally, in v18, we understand that the visible world (less important) is dying away, while the unseen things of God (more important) are eternal and lasting. Therefore, we must focus on those things (Hebrews 11:1) to move and be moved for God – it’s a battle for the mind. Calvin writes: “Note well what it is that will make all the miseries of this world easy to endure; it is that we should transfer our thoughts to the eternity of the kingdom of heaven. If we look around us, a moment can seem a long time, but when we lift up our hearts heavenwards, a thousand years begin to be like a moment.”