What does one do with 2 Cor 4-5? I've realized this weekend that I've highlighted and underlined virtually every verse in these two profound chapters. I almost wrote a blog post at the end of chapter 4, but hesitated since, these two chapters are intimately connected. How could I simply write about half of the picture? But now, with chapter 5 under my belt, I have the opposite problem. How do I highlight or summarize these two chapters? I'm not sure I have a good approach, but I'm going to try.
As I looked back over the verses, one thing that struck me was the images of the two conditions of believers. One condition is summed up in 4:7 "But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us." How true is that? But there is another condition portrayed in 5:4b "so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life." Isn't this the hope that all of us have?
Re-reading these two chapters, I see Paul painting pictures around these two conditions. Our current condition: frail, fallen and broken, yet not ultimately defeated, disowned or destroyed. He never says this is simply our fallen state and that we should despair. Instead he encourages us to see our current circumstances, as bad as they may be, as a testimony to the grace and mercy of God. Because through what we are currently enduring, God is glorified and we look forward to our ultimate deliverance. And that is the second image he paints for us. A glorified, resurrected existence that will be in the very presence of God. He then connects these two conditions by saying we are waiting, some days with groans, in the former condition. But we have the Spirit as a guarantee, a promise that one day soon we will make the trade. We will move from our jar of clay and be swallowed up by life.
To God Alone be the Glory
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