Here’s a lifegiving idea: in the new testament, suffering and glory seem to go together like the two sides of a coin (see eg Rom 8:17-18, or 2 Cor 4:17, 1 Peter 4:14 or 5:1); meaning that, in the end, they will for any disciple of Jesus. So a letter with plenty to say about pressures should also have plenty to say about glory! If we do a quick survey of 2 Cor 4 and 5, we’ll note at least three striking aspects to this.
First: as we saw last time, the `broken pot process’ that makes Paul’s weakness so obvious also ensures God’s glory, in a very straightforward way. It means that when people think about Paul, they may also be thinking, `But in person he’s unimpressive’ (10:10). It’s an error of judgment; but the process does ensure that, for whatever reason, the glory goes where – yes – Paul would want it, and where – yes – it belongs: to God (4:15; cf 1 Cor 1:28-29).
And this is actually a serious matter. Adulation of the `big names’ was a problem in Corinth (1 Cor 3:18,20-22), and Paul had to rebuke his own “supporters” about it (1 Cor 1:12-13). A glance round the Christian scene today shows how easily the demonstration of spiritual power – a dynamic worship leader, a powerful preacher, a healing ministry – attracts admiration to the human being at its centre. And God’s glory can be stolen. (The dramatic story in Acts 12:20-23 helps us grasp how serious this is.) Paul doesn’t want that. His overwhelming passion, for which he is willing to pay the price, is that glory and thanksgiving go to God! So the goal of what’s happening in 1:11 is that `many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favour given us’; in 4:15 it’s `so that the grace which is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God’; the aim in 9:11-13 is that `your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. This service… is overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God!’ The glorifying of God is (as the Westminster Catechism says) the chief purpose of our existence; and we sense Paul wanting to live so as to stimulate praise and thanksgiving. (Lord, I take this moment to worship you. Give me a heart like Paul’s; please help me encourage others to give you the glory!)
But that’s not all. Secondly, the glorifying of God is bound up with our own growth into glory. We shan’t be breakable clay pots forever. `Therefore we do not lose heart’, repeats Paul, because we hold to faith that `our light and momentary troubles’ are actually `achieving for us an eternal glory, that far outweighs them all’ (4:16-17). Being a clay pot isn’t easy. But the body we have now is the chrysalis of new life, that will one day soar into the heavens. Chrysalises aren’t much more attractive than clay pots, of course, and the butterfly finally soars only when the chrysalis finally breaks; but that’s not the end for what really matters. Again we remember Hebrews 6:19: our hope is our anchor; suffering is borne through our sense of glory to come. (Psychiatrist Larry Crabb applies this helpfully to the times when we’re badly hurt by others. The vital issue, he says, is how far our legitimate disappointment turns into a bitterness that eats us away. But bitterness occurs only when we forget that, ultimately, all that matters is safe in glory, beyond the reach of others’ malice or carelessness. Our hope is our anchor.)
For Paul, then, inward renewal amid the pressures depends on `fixing our eyes’ on heaven, and a deep grasp of what the Word tells us of glory(4:18). (Lord, I believe: please help my lack of faith – before it gets me into trouble!) But what is this `grasp’?
As a teenager, I learnt a lot from a missionary to India. One day she shared with me what meditation meant for her. Over the years, she told me, more and more Scripture gets written into our memories; and that makes possible a fruitful form of meditation where our thoughts roam out from our daily reading to related passages, and then we turn them up with a concordance. (She was assuming a moderately good memory; another route is to keep a file (on computer or paper) in which we note our discoveries, including related passages, about particular Bible books – from our quiet times, from sermons we hear and books we read. Little by little this will come to play a similar part. It does for me.) So here we catch Paul’s vision better as we respond also to Jesus’ words about this `fixing our eyes`: `Store up for yourselves treasure in heaven… for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also’ (Matt 6:20-21). Or to Colossians 3:1-4, again talking about where our `hearts’ are set: `Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is…’
This deliberate grasp, this `fixing our eyes on what is unseen’ (4:18) and `longing for our heavenly dwelling’ (5:2), is highly un-contemporary. But for Paul, it comes close to the core of Christian life. In Romans 5:2, to be `justified by faith’ means to begin to `rejoice in hope of the glory of God’ (Yes, Lord!); in 1 Thess 1:10, Paul presents the longing for the change of worlds at Christ’s appearing as a fundamental aspect of discipleship. (See also Rom 8:23 and Phil 3:20.) Staying hungry for `things above’ is at the heart of `living by faith’: we notice that when Paul uses that key phrase here, it’s clearly tied to his passion for heaven (2 Cor 5:6-8).
So a spirituality that has learned from Paul keeps a deliberate place for longing, dreaming, giving thanks about the glory to come. (Please help me build it in, Lord; walking across the park, or on the bus…) `No ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him’, Paul challenges our imaginations (1 Cor 2:9). It will be `more than we can ask or imagine’! But this we can be sure of: to be totally in the presence of God, face to face, must logically mean experiencing the fullness of his infinite love and joy, his peace and gentleness. Heaven exists because the Lord loves us and wants our company; his longing is that we should be with him, to see all his glory (John 17:24, Eph 2:7)! What we have now isn’t the fullness of what `life’ means. We’ve only ever caught brief and limited glimpses, here on earth, of what undiluted joy or love are like. There, we’re going to taste them fully.
Cartoonists imagine heaven as somehow vaguer, paler, duller than here. Paul’s grasp (`Now we know‘, 5:1) is of a world far more vital than this one, far more exuberantly alive – one might even say far more physical; a world where our mortality is `swallowed up by life’ (5:4). (Please help me grasp that idea, Father…) God cares about our bodies. Our destiny isn’t to be `unclothed’, stripped of physicality (5:3-4), as eastern thought teaches, but rather to be `further clothed’ (Bruce’s translation of 5:4); our `lowly bodies’ will be `transformed’ to `be like Christ’s glorious body’ (Phil 3:21). This bizarre fact can preserve us from ideas of heaven as dull, insubstantial and passionless. Jesus came to bring us `life to the full’ (John 10:10). We shan’t be drifting round as colourless ghosts. Rather, we shall experience the life we were made for, for the very first time!
1 Corinthians 15 explains it at length: our bodies may then be as unimaginably different from what we have now as the full-grown wheat is from the shrivelled seed. Yet, like the wheat’s relation to the seed, what wakes up may be profoundly better, but it will still be us. Perhaps the first moments in heaven will be like that first day of feeling strong and restored after a long illness – that strange sense of flexing our limbs more easily, remembering what it feels like to be healthy. So, probably, after death: we shall stretch out in surprise and know, for the first time, what it means to be fully human, fully whole! Dream about it, long for it; this is what we were made for, says Paul (2 Cor 5:5)! (Thankyou, Lord!)
But – thirdly – there’s more. We’re not just called to desire: the realities of heaven start now. God has made us for heaven, says Paul, `and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come’ (5:5). (`Hope does not disappoint us’, he adds over in Romans 5:5, `because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.’ ) The clay pot that we are is falling apart; but even now, inside us, there is the `treasure’ of the Spirit, a pointer to the future, and a foretaste or deposit of glory…
Often we don’t grasp what a crucial, life-giving idea this is for Paul. But we’ve seen it in Rom 8:23 and Eph 1:14 and 4:30, and this is the second time in 2 Corinthians. In Gal 3:14 he goes so far as to say that the whole purpose of redemption was that we might receive this `promise of the Spirit’. (Cf also Gal 4:4-6 or John 16:7.) And it is the Spirit who is the revelatory channel of glory in 2 Cor 3:18, in Eph 1:17-18 or 1 Cor 2:9-10. Any spirituality for this coming century must take seriously Paul’s vision of the Spirit’s centrality as the gateway of heaven. (Non-charismatics doubtful about other parts of charismatic spirituality still need to think hard how to take this on board!)
So then: the God who ensures that, ultimately, we `stand firm’ is the God who has sealed us with his Spirit as the guarantee of glory far beyond our imaginations (cf 2 Cor 1:21-22)! `Therefore‘, repeats Paul the walking clay pot – when everything’s falling apart, even as it seemed to be around him, even as the pot itself crumbles and this time what’s cracking is us – `therefore we are always confident‘(5:6)… These chapters show us how we can grow that way!!
