2 Corinthians 4:16-18 Study Guide: An Eternal Weight of Glory
Community Group Study Guide — An Eternal Weight of Glory
2 Corinthians 4:16-18
Study Information:
Often we can make it through difficult seasons by putting our hope in a better future. Think about being a child in the middle of February. You’re 6 weeks past Christmas, and have a solid block of time before summer break, but the summer feels so far away. Yet, that hope for the future can get you through 3rd period math class. Paul obviously addressed something more difficult and challenging for us that boredom in school, but the promise that relief will come can help us get through our seasons of pain. How do we make sense of the intensity of pain on this side of eternity as a follower of Christ? Why does God let us experience so much hurt and what gives us a hope for a better future? Paul answers those questions throughout 2 Corinthians as he wrote that God uses it to comfort others, hope in him, depend on him and in this passage, we’re told that God uses our pain to prepare us for eternity. In 2 Corinthians 4:7-15, Paul described how our weakness and frailty highlighted the power of God and helped us to depend on him. Paul continued that thought in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, especially how the resurrection gives us hope in that we’re told that even the most intense pain is temporary and that God uses it to renew us day by day.
Renewed from the Inside Out
2 Corinthians 4:16
Paul began 2 Corinthians 4:16 with “we do not lose heart!” In the face of affliction it is easy to lose heart. Paul earlier referred to not losing heart in 2 Corinthians 4:1 when he wrote about how they were not following evil or deceitful practices but were ministering the gospel as God commanded. He wanted the Corinthians to know that their methods were right even as they were suffering and that gave them encouragement. In 2 Corinthians 4:16, they did not lose heart because they knew that God used their suffering to renew their inner person. This correlates with Paul’s theme about focusing on what we cannot see, but notice that on this side of eternity our outer nature wastes away. So much of Paul’s focus in 2 Corinthians up to this point was on his critics and his reputation, as well as his physical and emotional pain as a minister of the gospel. Paul’s reputation was wasting away in the eyes of the Corinthians and his fragile physical body experienced tremendous amounts of suffering, and like all of us he’d one day die.
Our culture focuses so much on the outer nature whether that be fame, success, beauty or power and we typically hate things like aging. Pair that up with suffering and how suffering impacts our physical bodies. Even if your suffering is “internal” like emotional pain it still impacts your physiology. So verbal persecution, health breakdowns and depression all impact our physical bodies. The hope of this passage is that as those things happen, God is at work to renew us from the inside out. For example, Paul wrote in Romans 5:3-5 that suffering produces character, endurance and hope. You are who you are today because of your outer nature wasting away and you will be who you will be in the future because of how God meets you with his grace in your future pain. Notice the on going aspect of “renewed,” it is happening day by day meaning that God is persistent and active in this work. Again, the pain is real, but so is the fruit and the formation that happens through it.
Our Pain in Perspective
2 Corinthians 4:17
To call our pain temporary is not to dismiss the hardship and difficult of it. Sometimes “light and momentary” means twenty years of chronic back pain, a decade of harassment for your faith at your work place or two years of cancer treatment. Each can feel like an eternity while we’re in it and the hardship of not knowing when it will end is real. But, the truth is that this pain will pass. Pain and suffering has an end because of God’s love and the resurrection. Paul pointed to this in 2 Corinthians 4:14, when he wrote that God will raise up all his people to be with Christ forever in the resurrection where death and sorrow will be no more. Paul called our affiliation “light and momentary” because in the grand scheme of eternity our entire time on this earth will be a breath or vapor in comparison. Notice also that this affliction produces in us a “weight of glory.” What’s interesting here is that the word for “weight” is the same word for hardship or burden, Paul takes the idea of being weighed down or burdened and makes it into a positive image. Rather than being burdened with the pain of this world, the wasting away of our outer nature or suffering, we’ll be weighed down with glory. This connects back to the previous idea in that our pain produces a renewed inner person; God uses our affliction to produce in us a type of glory. That glory is our Christ-likeness. Previously Paul wrote that we carried around the death of Christ in our bodies so that Christ’s life would be manifested in our mortal flesh (2 Cor 4:10-11), here we get a similar idea in that our outer self is waiting away but our inner person, the life of Christ in us, is being built up.
Look to the Things We Cannot See
2 Corinthians 4:18
The action Paul gives us, during our season of affliction, is to look to the things that are unseen. The things that are unseen are eternal, and therefore will last forever. Things that are seen in this context are both our afflictions and things that our world focuses so much on like success, fame, power and beauty. The Corinthians were caught up in chasing after those things and saw Paul’s suffering and affliction as a sign that he was not favored by God. However, Paul wants us to focus on the unseen things that are eternal. Looks fade, money is insecure, our health is not guaranteed; however the character God produces, the treasure we have in heaven and our eternity with God will last forever.
How do we focus on the things that are unseen? First, we can prioritize our character and spiritual growth in our lives. In a world that focuses so much on the outer man, we can take heart in what God does to grow our faith and pursue things that will challenge us to be more Christ like. Second, we can remind ourselves of the temporariness of this world. This is not to say that there isn’t beauty, joy and good in this world, but let’s remember that our time on this earth is short compared with eternity. Treasure the joys you have in this life. Soak up the seasons of life where happiness overflows. And know that this is just a foretaste of what God promises us in Christ. Finally, seek out and develop relationships with other Christians who can point you to heavenly things. It can be so hard to remember and rejoice in the promises of God when we’re in the fog of our pain. We ought to be careful to not dismiss people’s pain or to stuff our own suffering, but we can use encouragement, prayer and the loving presence of others during our seasons of affliction.
Set your eyes on the future and the hope we have in the resurrection. That new kind of outlook will not remove the pain, but it will renew our inner person day by day.
At your community group:
Take 15-20 minutes to share about how God has been at work in your life, prayer concerns and pray for one another.
How did God speak to you through the scripture and the sermon this week?
Discussion Questions:
2 Corinthians 4:16-18
How does Paul describe our time on earth in this passage? Do you notice any repeated words or themes?
What does it mean that our “outer nature is wasting away?” How does our world focus on our “outer natures?”
Read Romans 5:3-5. Do you see similar themes in Romans 5:3-5 as you do in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18? Why do you think suffering and affliction produce character or a “weight of glory beyond all comparison?”
What are some ways you can focus on things that are unseen this week?
