2 Corinthians4chapter 4

2 Corinthians 4:1-2

Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not: Paul ties the chapter directly to the new covenant ministry chapter three has just described, and names mercy received as the ground of his endurance rather than any confidence in himself. But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully: verse 2 answers the rival teachers by naming what Paul has refused to do, no manipulation and no watering down of the message for effect. By manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God: his defense rests on open preaching before an audience that includes God himself, a standard the bench reads as the whole letter's rule for ministry integrity.

2 Corinthians 4:3

But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: Paul answers an implied objection, if the gospel is so plain and so faithfully preached, why do some still fail to see it. The verse refuses to let the failure fall on the message or the messenger, and the next verse names where the blame actually lies. The bench reads the short verse as a hinge, closing the defense of Paul's own honesty and opening onto the deeper explanation of unbelief that follows.

2 Corinthians 4:4

In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not: Paul names Satan directly as the god of this age, and the commentators across history take the title at face value, a real spiritual adversary rather than a mere personification of evil. Lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them: the blinding has one purpose, keeping sinners from seeing what the gospel actually shows them, Christ himself as the visible image of the invisible God, the same title Colossians 1:15 gives him. The verse names a real spiritual conflict over sight running under the whole passage, and gives unbelief a cause rather than leaving it unexplained.

2 Corinthians 4:5

For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord: Paul states the content of his preaching against every accusation of self-promotion, one sentence that could stand as the whole letter's motto. And ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake: the apostle's true relation to Corinth is servanthood, doulos, not the mastery his rivals apparently claimed, and the servanthood is explicitly for Jesus' sake rather than for the church's approval. The commentators read the verse as the answer to every charge of self-interest the surrounding chapters raise, stated once and plainly before the argument moves on.

2 Corinthians 4:6

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness: Paul reaches back to Genesis 1:3, the first creative word, and reads it as the pattern for what happens whenever a heart moves from unbelief to faith. Hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ: the new creation Paul describes is as real and as sovereign an act as the first, and its content is a face, the glory of God made visible in Jesus Christ rather than an abstract idea about God. The commentators call the verse one of the letter's high points, the whole gospel compressed into a single sentence that answers the blinding of verse 4 with a greater light than any darkness can resist.

2 Corinthians 4:7

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us: the light just described is carried in a container Paul calls deliberately fragile, common clay pottery rather than a vessel of gold, and the mismatch between the treasure and its container is the whole point. The excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us: weakness in the messenger is not an obstacle to the gospel's power but the very thing that displays whose power it actually is, the thread the bench traces forward to the thorn and the grace sufficient for it in chapter twelve. The verse gives the letter's signature theme its clearest single statement, strength perfected in weakness rather than despite it.

2 Corinthians 4:8-9

We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair: the earthen vessel of verse 7 is now shown under actual pressure, four hardships named in pairs, each pressure real and each answered by a limit it cannot cross. Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed: the same pattern continues, and the commentators note the careful balance, Paul never claims immunity from suffering, only that suffering has never yet had the last word. The four pairs together read as a summary of the hardship catalogue chapter eleven will spell out in detail, given here in miniature as the present proof of the treasure carried in a jar of clay.

2 Corinthians 4:10-11

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: Paul names his own sufferings as a continual carrying of Christ's death, nekrosis, and ties the purpose directly to resurrection life becoming visible through him. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake: verse 11 restates the same pattern from a different angle, present tense and unrelenting, life risked daily rather than as a single past event. The commentators read the pair of verses as Paul describing his own body as the stage on which the cross and the resurrection are both still being enacted before the Corinthians' eyes.

2 Corinthians 4:12

So then death worketh in us, but life in you: the short verse states the exchange plainly, Paul's own suffering becomes the very channel through which life reaches Corinth. The commentators note the echo of verse 9 in chapter one and the collection theology of chapters eight and nine, an apostle spent out for the good of a church he serves rather than rules. The verse closes the paragraph's argument before the next section turns from the cost of ministry to the confidence that sustains it.

2 Corinthians 4:13

the same spirit of faith: We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken: Paul quotes Psalm 116:10 directly, joining his own voice to the psalmist's under the same Spirit and the same pattern, faith that speaks because it believes rather than staying silent under pressure. We also believe, and therefore speak: the citation becomes Paul's own confession, and the commentators note the psalm's setting, a man delivered from death giving thanks, matching Paul's own recent brush with death in chapter one. The verse names the source of Paul's boldness through every hardship just listed, an inherited faith that speaks because it cannot do otherwise.

2 Corinthians 4:14-15

Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you: the resurrection Paul has been describing in miniature throughout the chapter, life made manifest in a dying body, now receives its final guarantee, the same power that raised Christ will raise Paul and the Corinthians together. For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God: verse 15 states the purpose behind every hardship named so far, grace multiplying through more thanksgiving as it reaches more people, until the whole chain ends in God's own glory. The commentators read the pair of verses as the chapter's turn from present suffering to the certain future that makes the suffering bearable.

2 Corinthians 4:16

For which cause we faint not: the phrase closes this part of the chapter exactly as it opened in verse 1, framing everything between as the reason the fainting Paul might expect never actually comes. But though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day: the two men age at opposite rates, the body wearing down under the hardships just listed while something else in Paul is being remade daily, and the commentators read the verse as describing ongoing sanctification rather than a single crisis experience. The verse sets up the comparison the chapter's closing verses will make explicit, between what decays and what does not.

2 Corinthians 4:17-18

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory: Paul does not deny the weight of what he has just catalogued, he sets it on a scale against eternal glory and calls it light by comparison, the Greek piling superlative upon superlative in a way no English can fully carry. While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: the secret behind the comparison is named in the final verse, where Paul's gaze is actually fixed, and the commentators call this the discipline behind every claim of the chapter, a settled choice to weigh present suffering against unseen eternity rather than against present comfort. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal: the chapter that opened with mercy and a ministry that does not faint closes on the same confidence, an eternal weight measured against which every earthen vessel's cracks are light indeed.