2 Corinthians 4:16-5:8 furnishes us with seven striking contrasts. We acquire much of our knowledge by contrasts, which help us to exercise the power of discrimination. We have to think. One great tragedy of the present time is the refusal of so many men and women seriously to think, and this applies to believers as well as unbelievers. Thought would banish frivolity, but not at all the real joy of life. True thought would put its mark on our character, deportment, and aim.
OUTWARD MAN—INWARD MAN (2 Corinthians 4:16)
The outward man is the physical man, the man that walks, eats, sleeps, performs the ordinary functions of life. The inward man belongs only to the Christian. It bespeaks a gracious work of God in the soul, the start of which is seen in the new birth, the fruit of God’s sovereign act. So we find the wretched man in Romans 7, struggling to find out the enigma of real life, telling us, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man” (Rom. 7:22). He had a new nature with a delight in God, which the flesh never has. Paul prays that the Ephesian saints might “be strengthened with might by God’s Spirit in the inner man” (Eph. 3:16). Colossians 3:10 speaks of having “put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him.”
How good for the believer to realize that by the grace of God he has an inner man, the character of which will come out as we continue our study of these contrasts; an inner man of a new creation order, sinless and stainless. We are not sinless. We do not believe in sinless perfection, but we have a nature that is sinless. We read, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit [practise] sin; for his seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God” (1 John 3:9).
The sinful nature alas! is with us as evil as in the unconverted. Every action of this, is sin, whether in converted or unconverted. But there is, thank God, a sinless nature.
PERISH—RENEWED (2 Corinthians 4:16)
The outward man perishes. We all know this. It needs no explanation. The body is connected with a scene of death, because of sin. The body of the believer need not die for the Lord may come, and change our bodies of humiliation, and fashion them like to His glorious body, since He has met the sentence of death, and freed the believer from its necessity. Apart from the second coming of Christ, the outward man perishes. How short is life! How quickly one generation passes after another!
But the inward man is renewed day by day. It never grows old, age creeps on to the outward man, because the renewal is not equal to the wear and tear. If it were we should never grow old. The full renewal is wanting because of sin. But with the new nature the renewal is perfect and full. New creation knows not the meaning of the word, age. I once heard a trite saying, “There will never be a grey hair on the head of eternal life.” How glorious it is to connect ourselves in thought with our true self, the inner man, the indestructible, the gift of God.
I remember many years ago a gentleman, who had been an army officer, and was the owner of an estate, saying to a business man, “I am 77 years old. I have had an interesting life. I have enjoyed every minute of it. Now I am old, and cannot live much longer, I am not going to grouse about it. You cannot eat your cake, and have it.”
How true it is that you cannot eat your cake and have it. I was a very young Christian then, but I said to myself, “I have been eating the cake of eternal life for some time, and there is not a crumb less, nor ever will be throughout the ages of eternity. I have a cake, which I can eat, and HAVE.” Hallelujah!
AFFLICTION—GLORY (2 Corinthians 4:17)
Affliction—how many endure it! How grievous it is, especially when there is wearying pain night and day! The time seems interminable. But let the mind reflect on “the far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,” and the true proportion is discovered, the divine perspective is ours. What seems so heavy becomes “light affliction.” The contrast is most vivid. “A far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory!” Put the affliction which is for a moment in the scale that it may be weighed against the glory, which is eternal. How light the affliction; how weighty the glory.
A MOMENT—ETERNAL (2 Corinthians 4:17)
What a contrast! A moment no sooner arrives than it is gone. Eternal is something that unending ages make no impression upon. What a glorious prospect the afflicted saint has! We heard of a Christian who was bedridden. Months and years had gone by, and the heart grew weary at the prospect of its continuance. She asked the doctor one day, “Doctor, how long am I to lie here?” He replied, “A day at a time.” But in the light of the glory that day shrinks to a moment. How blessed!
SEEABLE—UNSEEABLE (2 Corinthians 4:18)
Are we looking at the things which are seen, or the things that are unseen? Much will depend upon our standpoint. We have all heard of the old-fashioned prisons of long ago. Situated on the street, often merely a big room with strong iron bars, the prisoners could look into the street, and even put their hands out through the bars of their prison, and beg food and alms of the passers-by. It was said of two prisoners, one looked up, and saw—stars; the other looked down, and saw—mud.
Do we look up, and see the unseeable beyond the stars, or do we look down and see merely the mud of this world of pride and lust? The unconverted can have no vision beyond this life, but faith puts the telescope to the eye of the believer in Christ, and he sees things that are unseeable. What glorious things these are! Did not Stephen at his martyrdom see “the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God”? (Acts 7:55). What a glorious sight, surpassing infinitely anything upon earth! Did the fanatics with the stones in their hands, and hate in their hearts, see what the victim of their anger saw? They were blinded, and saw nothing of the glory that filled the eyes of Stephen.
As a matter of fact the unseeable things are more real than the seeable. If a Christian dropped down dead, in a moment the seeable things, for him are no more. His link with the environments of earth is broken. But are the unseeable things, that faith can apprehend, no more? Nay, the believer has got into the region of the unseeable things, and that for ever. Paul, when caught up to the third heaven heard things which were unlawful to utter on earth. What a change for the believer when these things shall be ours in their fullness. Even now we have the Holy Spirit by which they are revealed; but then we shall know as we are known.
TEMPORAL—ETERNAL (2 Corinthians 4:18)
How this contrast is urged again and again upon our attention. It reminds us of Dr. Thomas Chalmers, that great evangelist of Scotland. He was a man formerly given to hobbies. One was the study of higher mathematics, another of astronomy. As a young minister, alas, he was unconverted; a blind leader of the blind. He wrote a pamphlet urging that ministers should have ample time for their hobbies and particular pleasures. He got converted and his standpoint was completely altered. On one occasion he was urging upon his brethren whole-hearted zeal in the work of the ministry, when a minister present, who remembered his early pamphlet, twitted him publicly with his change of front. Dr. Chalmers rose, and said, “I was fond of mathematics in my young days, but I missed the mark. I had not realized two magnitudes, the littleness of time, and the vastness of eternity.” It is the recognition of these two magnitudes that helps us to make the right choice.
How temporal are the things that are seen; how eternal the things that are unseen.
TABERNACLE—HOUSE (2 Corinthians 5:1)
The “tabernacle” in our Scripture refers to the outward man, the earthly bodies which are our temporary home. The tabernacle in the wilderness was a movable structure, easily taken down and moved from place to place. A few brief years, and the tenure of our bodies is over. What a wonderful solace the words of the inspired writer, “WE KNOW … we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” A building, a house, something in contrast to the tabernacle of our present dwelling, something stable, permanent, yea, eternal, a body of glory like to our Redeemer’s own body of glory. What a prospect! How happy that we can say, “WE KNOW.” Certainty of such a nature is a great happiness; it is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1).
May we learn by these striking. contrasts, and be helped to realize where our true interests lie, and put first things first.