2 Corinthians 4:14-18 Bible Teaching

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2nd Corinthians 4.13-end
October 21st 2018
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Okay folks, we left off with Paul, speaking of himself as an apostle, saying:

8 We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
9 Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;
10 Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
11 For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.
12 So then death worketh in us, but life in you.

And at this point we enter into our text for today where Paul writes:

13 We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak;
14 Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.
15 For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.
16 For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;
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.

Alright, let’s go back to verse 13 where Paul is going to quote a passage from David the Psalmist, and so referring to that passage (yet to be cited) Paul says:

13 We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak.

Here Paul is quoting Psalm 116:10 where David wrote:

Psalm 116:10 I believed, therefore have I spoken: I was greatly afflicted:

Paul says that the very same spirit that is expressed in the quotation was in the apostles with that spirit being first that they too, “believed.” So Paul wrote:

13 We having the same spirit of faith, according (as David) wrote, “I believed, and therefore have I spoken;” (and then referring to themselves as Apostles in that day, adds), “We also believe, and therefore speak.”

When David wrote these words, he was greatly afflicted. We noted last week that Paul was also greatly afflicted, like David had been, like Christ had been, and even as the Church-Bride had been.

In these same circumstances David prayed to God, and expressed confidence in him, and placed all his reliance on him and in so doing, spake to others in the language of faith.

Paul, in quoting this, is likening David’s words to himself.

Interestingly, all who have believed in the past, have subsequently spoken. There is a connection to that in scripture. In fact, I’m not so sure it can be helped.

Jeremiah was fed up with speaking the truth as a man of faith – to the point that he said in Jeremiah 20:9

“Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.”

Psalm 39:3 “My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned: then spake I with my tongue,”

It is a fascinating correlation that exists between faith and speaking. Again, I think that they are directly related and the one will ALWAYS lead to the other – even in those who are most shy and reserved. Not as a demand but as a driver that cannot be quelled.

For this reason, I think Paul wrote in Romans:

Romans 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

Unfortunately, we have taken that passage and have made the confession with the mouth a perfunction instead of realizing that it is a result of faith and not a means of gaining salvation.

It will happen, and cannot be helped from happening in those who believe, and is not demanded in order to be saved.

Getting back to the subject at hand, Paul, like the psalmist, was in circumstances of trial and affliction which were caused by speaking, which was the result of honestly believing.

In other words, the firm confidence that they had resulted in boldly proclaiming their heart felt sentiments and beliefs.

Jesus made the principle clear when he said in Matthew 12:34

“Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.”

Of course we have a reverse truth in that not all who say, LORD LORD will inherit the Kingdom of heaven, but what Paul is talking about here is the fact that anyone who truly has believed WILL speak the contents of their heart, and NOT that all who speak of Jesus believe.

Hope that makes sense.

Staying with his point, what is it about this irrefutable connection between genuine faith in God through Christ and speaking?

(Beat)

Actually, what is the connection between speaking and/or words and the contents of the heart?

First of all, we have to realize that the Lord must have been talking about honest communications when he said that the mouth speaks the contents of the heart – because in dishonest communications, deceptive communications and misleading communications – LIES – do not.

So that’s the given.

Secondly, when we are honestly revealing ourselves from the heart, what our hearts are MOST concerned with, what our hearts are focused on and interested does come out.

Therefore, if someone, from an honest heart, speaks – they will reveal the content of that heart.

David and Paul both say here that because they believed, they spake – and this is connected thereafter to the suffering they endured. So Paul says

13 We (the Apostles) having the same spirit of faith, according (as David) wrote, “I believed, and therefore have I spoken;” (and then referring to themselves as Apostles in that day, adds), “We also believe, and therefore speak.” (Verse 14)
14 Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.

We speak KNOWING that He (God) which raised up the Lord Jesus SHALL RAISE US UP ALSO (by Jesus) AND SHALL PRESENT US (the Apostles) with YOU!

Big verse folks. Why?

Paul says something really important here that is easy to overlook.

He says that he KNEW (was fully confident – had a full assurance) that God (who raised up Jesus) was going to raise them (the Apostles) up.

Now many people think that Paul, when he says, “that God would raise US UP ALSO” that Paul is speaking of all Christians.

I say unto you nay. The “US” Paul mentions here refers to the Apostles who had suffered. This has been the US throughout this epistle as Paul repeatedly makes a distinction between the US and the YOU in these verses.

This view is further substantiated in this verse when he says:

“Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.

“He will raise us up and shall present us with you.”

This apparently refers to when Christ will take His bride, saved from the coming wrath, resurrected in the twinkling of an eye to lifted up to assuming heavenly bodies and will present all of it at the end of the Age.

This deliverance up seems to refer to 1st Corinthians 15 where Paul writes:

1st Corinthians 15:20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
1 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.
24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”

There Jesus will present both the Apostles who have suffered and those who have believed to God – all of the redeemed in the blood.

These will not only be raised up from the dead, but they will be publicly and solemnly presented to God as his, as recovered and reconciled to His Kingdom in the New Jerusalem.

Now, Paul adds at verse 15

15 For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.

Another way to say this might be:

“For we go through all things on account of you, because the greater the number to whom the grace is given, the greater is the praise to the glory of God.”

We are presented with an interesting concept here from Paul. He seems to be suggesting that he and the other apostles who are laboring through all of the things he has mentioned in our verses from last week were on account of

“you,” he says.

Now, we can believe that he is speaking of any and all believers or that he was speaking of believers only in Corinth, or that He was speaking of believers only in that day.

I have a view of this – for whatever it’s worth.

I think that Paul was saying that as an apostle in that age who had endured great suffering (and would receive a tremendous reward or place in the Kingdom thereafter) that the had endured such suffering FIRST

For all true believers in that day and age who would make up the Bride of Christ.

I think that there is a subsequent application of this passage to all believers thereafter or after that age – and therefore His meaning had application in two ways.

Why the primary application to them/then?

Because the Primary Application of living Apostles give to them, in that day and age, as a means to bring them into the Kingdom as the Bride.

To me, there is no better way to understand this contextually.

I then take a step in also believing that this passage also refers to the fact that what the apostles accomplished in and through their labors has direct application to the body of believers ever since, but again, that this is a subtext to the primary point:

The apostles of Jesus Christ were on earth to bring His Church-Bride through the tribulation so that at the end of that age they would be saved and then presented to God, where at that point He became all in all.

2nd Corinthians 1:6 And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.

2nd Timothy 2:10 Therefore I endure all things for the elect’s sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

So here Paul tells the readers at Corintha that all that they have read, all these “things” are for “your sakes,” which to me means that they were all designed to promote their salvation and standing in the Kingdom of God.

This being said, I also wonder if Paul was also saying that such sufferings and things were not primarily for the welfare of those apostles who engaged in these toils and self-denials but that the whole arrangement and execution of the plan of salvation, and all the self-denial evinced by the chosen apostles were to make that plan known in order that they might be benefited. Benefited by what?

The grace of God, or as Paul more succinctly puts it:

“because the greater the number to whom the grace is given, the greater is the praise to the glory of God.”

In other words, as the rich mercy of God abounded to others, because of the labors of the Apostles, more would come to the faith and through (as the King James says, “Through the thanksgiving of many,” meaning through the gratitude and thanks that saved believers give, then “greater is the praise to the Glory of God.”

Now to me this implies a scenario of free will and not one of election because of how Paul writes it, saying:

“Our labors serve to introduce the Good News to more and more of you, and the more of you who receive it and glorify God because of it, the MORE God is glorified!”

The question remains, is God more glorified because He has forced people to to receive Him through the sufferings of the Apostles OR is God more glorified when human beings freely CHOOSE to receive His Grace through the freely delivered sacrificial labors of the Apostles He has called?

I suggest that latter.

And because I suggest the latter I renounce the idea that God is despotically running everything to his own glory and honor; that in the expressions of freewill (which he has given to all human creations) God is most glorified when his creations long and want to have Him as their God and them as their people.

Paul continues now, saying at verse 16

16 For which cause (the cause of bringing more and more glory to God through the fact that people are coming to Him by faith) we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.

Paul admits that his outward man is perishing . . . is slowly but surely being lost, destroyed, by and through the effects of sin, age and the things heaped upon him as a sufferer for Christ.

I am of the opinion that in this verse Paul continues to speak of Apostles themselves but that what he says is applicable to all believers.

So after saying that they continue to work for the cause of bringing more to the glory of God and faint not . . . then he adds:

“But though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”

Another factoid of the Faith – that our outward man is perishing but that our inward man is all along renewed ( as Paul puts it) . . . day by day.

What does that mean that the outward man is perishing but the inward man is being renewed day by day?

Is there a difference between our outer person and our inner person? Aren’t they one and the same? Does the outward person have any power? Personality? Individuation from the inward? They must as one is perishing (according to Paul) and the other is being renewed!

What I am about to teach was hotly debated by a set of Lutheran Pastors a number of years ago – but I maintain my position even till today as I do not believe it is incorrect.

I suggest that we are at birth we are creatures in the flesh and in need of spiritual life – regeneration – to be born-from above and without this occurring we remain carnal creatures – that this is our natural identity and all that we say and do in this state remains or is attributed to this state.

If a person is born, lives, and dies unregenerated, they are citizens of a place outside the New Jerusalem, and have not (yet) been equipped or prepared to thrive in the presence of God through the shed blood of Christ.

It seems that such an equipping is most easily done while we are in this carnal state – it seems – and so now is the day of our redemption.

Those who are born from above, by grace through faith, get a new identity as they become “new creatures” in Christ.

When this occurs, the New Creature cannot sin, cannot rebel against God, will not belong to this world or the things therein.

The old Man, the former man, will – and will always seeks its own will and ways over the Spirit and will of the New Man – but the old man is NOT who a Christian is – they are a new creature in Christ, and have become children of God – entering into that relationship as babes, then maturing into children, and ultimately Sons and Daughters of the True and Living God.

This spiritual progression occurs through what Paul calls the renewal of the inner man here in 2nd Corinthians.

I maintain that in the person of the believer there exists two dual identities – one that is carnal and one that is Spiritual.

They are inextricably linked in human life, but in a Christian one is the real identity and one is an identity that will ultimately die, be placed in the grave, and will never rise again.

Because that carnal identity is, as Paul says, perishing, and the inner man (that which invisible here but what will thrive there and is the real identity of all genuine believers) is being renewed, my contestation is that the true identity of the believer is the inner man, and that the carnal man is NOT how any Christian ought to see themselves as – in the least.

Taking this out to an extreme, I suggest that we can go so far as to say that when we fail to love, it is the result of the carnal man (who is not us) and therefore, because that carnal man will suffer complete destruction at physical death, the inner man is NOT accountable for the acts of what the outer man does.

Now, there is an accountability in that it is spiritual weakness that allows the outer man to thrive – and so spiritual rewards await all who allow themselves to be spiritually renewed daily (as Paul mentions here).

But in terms of sin and failure, those who have been regenerated will shed the person that sins at death, leaving it in the grave to be demolished, while the inner man transfers to its home on high within the New Jerusalem.

It seems that those who are only carnal will, as stated, go to outside the New Jerusalem but what there will be of them (since they were fully carnal in life) remains a mystery to me. And whatever remains of them appears to always be welcome in the New Jerusalem day or night.

The controversial teaching that Christians actually become dual persons at regenerations is touched on by Paul in several places in scripture but is made particularly clear in Romans 7 beginning at verse 14 where he says, again, speaking of HIMSELF:

7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.
15 For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.

What is he talking about when he says this confusing sentence? He is speaking to the duality of his earthly person!

For that which I do” (with the I here being His flesh) “I” (His real identity ) allow not: for what I would (His real identity), that do I not (His flesh); but what I hate, (in His real identity) that do I (in His flesh).

And then at verse 16 he asks:

16 If then I do (in my flesh) that which I would not (want to do in my real identity, my spirit) I consent unto the law that it is good.

Now listen to what he says

17 Now then it is no more I that do it (meaning his real identity), but sin that dwelleth in me. (or in his flesh)
18 For I know that in me (and here he makes the distinction himself) For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
(STILL WITH ME?)
20 Now if I do that what I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
And in the face of all this Paul concludes, relative to himself

21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
22 For I delight in the law of God “after the inward man:”

At this point Paul, who has been speaking of himself here, describes a man that is different from the man people see and touch – he is an inward man. And he says that this inward man delights in the Law of God!

Is that not the case with all who have been born from above and have an inward man? That such a man or woman actually DELIGHTS in the Law of God?!

Of course it is! That is the being or man or woman that knows and loves God, that is devoted to Him and His ways, and laws, and longs to love and do His will.
Right? Now listen as Paul, after admitting that the inward man (the invisible, spiritual renewed man) loves the law of God, says

23 But! I see another law in my members, (members of what? That former old man of flesh. It has members! (parts) And what do those members do? Paul says that they are “warring against the law of my mind,”

Let me stop.

The inner man can be said to exist in the renewed mind of the believer. Prior to regeneration the mind is corrupt and carnal. Upon belief, the mind is changed (which interestingly enough is the Hebraic definition of repentance) and is then renewed by what Paul calls, “the washing of the Word.”

This seems to be the process of teasing the carnal mind apart from the spiritual mind, allowing the inner man to become more and more liberated by the Law of God and therefore free from the carnal mind that wars against the laws of the renewed mind and, as Paul continues

. . . and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

In other words, the warfare appears to be between the dual natures – one of the flesh, carnal which wars against the one of the Spirit, which loves the law of God.

And when that fleshly mind wins, Paul says it brings him into captivity to the LAW of SIN (which abides) in the members of the Former man.

This causes Paul to say

24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

He seems to be screaming here, as a living apostle, over this warfare that exists even in him – between the former carnal man that wars against the Law of God and the new creature in Christ that loves it.

And in response to his own rhetorical question he replies and supplies us with a conclusion, saying:

25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. (meaning, because of Jesus, His grace and blood and finished work, Paul – in this tremendous state of great conflict is safe and able to say)

“So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”

I want to point out that in reference to his real identity here, and in conclusion of all that he has said, Paul uses two references to His real identity here, saying

“So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God; (that I Myself is Paul’s real identity before God. That “I Myself” cannot sin! That “I Myself” loves the Law of God! That “I Myself” always loves, but until his old man of the flesh dies and is placed in the grave, Paul also admits that even though he, in his new identity and in His renewed mind that serves and loves the Law of God, adds

“but with the flesh the law of sin.”

Remember that back in verse 20 Paul said, referring to the fleshly acts of His former man

20 “Now if I do that what I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.”

And on this I counsel believers who get caught up in sin and failure. That it is not them doing it, it is their flesh, their former man – and the focus cannot be on it, but must be on their real identity, which has eternality while the old man will ultimately end up decaying in the grave.

Back to 2nd Corinthians, Paul has written:

“But though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”

First of all, in wrapping this all up today, Paul is affirming that there is a part of regenerated man that is uniquely different from the outer – in so much that the inner man is renewed day by day.

That is an important addition, day by day. I think it means constantly. In this frame of mind Paul says that he dies daily. To what? The outer man who is being put to death by the inner.

Day in, day out.

And after speaking of all that he has endured and experienced in the flesh as a means to bring more souls to truth and therefore more glory to God, he adds a clarification or perspective that is shared frequently in scripture. He says in the last two verses of the chapter:

17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;
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.

And we will pick these up next week before moving on to chapter 5

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Venessa