2 CORINTHIANS 4 (SECOND READING)
2 CORINTHIANS 4 (SECOND READING)
CAC Our attention has been called to the wonderful character of God’s ways with us at the present time. He has brought the light of the glory into the hearts of His saints; the treasure in earthen vessels is the gospel of the glory. We have got a ministry that subsists in glory; there was never anything like it; the glory of the Lord, and the glory of Christ, and the glory of God are brought out in it. Now in the portion before us we see the exercises that accompany the glory; we would not have one without the other. If we have glory we must have exercise and discipline.
N Is that because of what we are?
CAC The character of the vessel has always to be made apparent. We need to know that the vessel is an earthen one.
I like to put this chapter beside the burning bush in [p. 250] Exodus 3. It was only a bramble bush, but it was lighted up with the glory of God’s presence; a bramble bush and an earthen vessel might go together! The bush burns with fire and is not consumed.
N Is that a figure of Israel?
CAC I think it is a figure of the fact that God would connect His glory with all the feebleness of man. He did it perfectly in incarnation; He did it in Israel; He did it in His people in the wilderness; glory was there and they were tested by fire, but not consumed. The earthen vessel is tested and manifested at every point, but not consumed.
Rem Moses spoke of the “good will of him that dwelt in the bush”, Deuteronomy 33: 16.
CAC God is pleased to connect His glory with man, with an earthen vessel and a mortal body; we have new creation treasure in an old creation vessel.
Ques Is it the thought of a common vessel?
CAC I think it is the thought of weakness. We have to learn that in connection with such a treasure all the power must be of God.
Rem We may be able to give out a lot we have learnt from books, but it is a different thing to go through it.
CAC Just in proportion as the brightness of the treasure has been known people do go through it. God is faithful to put His saints through pressure and it is manifest that God is the source of power. When we are able to accomplish something it may make us fancy ourselves! That is the very point where we get most humiliation. A man may think he can preach; that is the spot where he will get his bitterest humiliation. But the bush is not consumed; God lets the weakness and frailty of it appear; it is a bramble, and we find it is what we are; but God is there and He makes His power apparent after He has thoroughly convinced us of our weakness.
Fancy a man saying, “Every way afflicted”! If we are afflicted a little bit we think a lot of it, but Paul says, “every way afflicted”; that is the earthen vessel; then he says, “not straitened”; that is the power of God. Paul does not get narrowed up or thrown in on himself by his affliction; that is the power of God. When one is afflicted there is a great tendency to get thrown in on oneself, but the power of God comes in to prevent that. Here is a man afflicted and yet not straitened; he is thinking about the Lord’s work and his heart wells forth thinking of this wonderful character of glory! Every one can see he is not narrowed up. Can anyone see us afflicted and yet not straitened? There is an expanse of glory and Paul has the liberty of glory; all affliction only helps to enlarge him.
The psalmist could say, “In pressure thou hast enlarged me”. The natural effect of pressure is to narrow us up!
This is an exercise that God will insist on carrying us through.
Then he says, “Seeing no apparent issue, but our way not entirely shut up”. What a trying thing we think it to see no way out, to have our way completely closed! How perplexing it is when we see no way through; we are fairly penned in, no way out, nothing but perplexity!
“Seeing no apparent issue”.
N I thought that when we could not see our way through difficulties it showed we were not near the Lord, and that it was time to judge ourselves.
CAC The apostle was near the Lord, and he had the exercise. I think the point is that here is a man in full conscious possession of the treasure and these exercises come in to keep the vessel in place; he is not out of communion, but it is a necessary exercise to keep the vessel in place. When there is no way out of a difficulty, then God comes in just when you do not see your way out, and light is given for one step at a time. It is a great [p. 252] exercise and saints do not seem to know what God is doing with them; He is showing the character of the earthen vessel and setting aside all its power. “Persecuted” — the earthen vessel felt all that — “but not abandoned”; the Lord never forsook him. However great the difficulty the Lord was there.
Ques Is not the dying of Jesus putting to death?
CAC It is actually the working or process of death. We see in verse 10 what Paul did and in verse 11 what God did. “Delivered unto death” was God’s way of discipline to make good what Paul had purposed in his heart. God holds us to our vows; that is the great comfort of making a vow.
B How did the apostle bear about the dying of Jesus practically?
CAC Is it not that the vessel may be a vessel and nothing else? The vessel with an active will would not be any good; it would not be a vessel properly. So far as Paul is concerned he is bearing about the dying of Jesus; that is the death blow to the will of the vessel. The dying of Jesus is that in which He sets forth before the whole universe the reality of His own word, “Not my will, but thine be done”. The only One entitled to have a will is Jesus, and He gave it up. It was always absolutely perfect but He said, “Not my will, but thine be done”, and He went into death. Paul carries about in a practical way the dying of Jesus so that there may be no movement of will in the vessel. If there is none, the body becomes the vessel in which there is full scope for the life of Jesus. The dying of Jesus is the extreme point of weakness. To bear about the dying of Jesus would be that the vessel is maintained in the sense of absolute weakness, so that nothing moves there but the power of God, and the power of God brings into evidence the life of Jesus. The life of Jesus perfectly corresponds with the glory. What [p. 253] Jesus was as a Man in this world is the perfect answer and correspondence to all the glory. There has been a perfect answer in a Man to it.
F The knowledge of being marked out for glory enabled Paul to venture on such a path of suffering.
CAC The light of glory had shone into the heart of the apostle and revolutionised it, and he became a vessel of treasure. It was the treasure that was the wonderful power in his soul. He had the treasure at the start; he saw the glory of the Lord, the glory of Christ and the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; he got the threefold glory all at once. The Lord said, “I will shew to him how much he must suffer for my name”, Acts 9: 16. He is taken up to be a suffering vessel of glory; there was a working of death all along his path and all power was of God; it is not of us.
N Would it help us if we started with the glory? We really shrink from the thought of suffering.
CAC Yes, the glory, the treasure, is first to enable us to bear the suffering.
B We do not get persecution now; easy times prevent our understanding these things.
CAC I think it is the way of God with every one of us that if we have a bit of the treasure we get the exercises that correspond with it. Death comes in on the vessel, and on our natural wills, and on sources of strength in us. We are all very small but principles are the same now as with the apostle. We are not burned at Smithfield, but saints are burned at their own firesides now! You can get a good deal of persecution in a small way. It is more difficult to be burned for forty years, a slow fire that, and it takes a good supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. J.B.S. used to say, ‘It is easier to die a martyr than to live a confessor’. The spirit of faith comes into evidence: “Having the same spirit of faith, according to what is [p. 254] written, I have believed, therefore have I spoken; we also believe, therefore also we speak”. The spirit of faith comes in and lays hold of God’s power, and there is practical deliverance from any natural resources in the vessel. Faith takes account of the power of God that can raise the dead, “He who has raised the Lord Jesus shall raise us also”. When God’s power works and His grace comes in there is nothing left for us to do but to give thanks; it is our happy occupation and that to the glory of God. It is wonderful to go through a pressure and difficulty so that there is a result. What Paul went through was for the good of the saints; his exercises had been endured for the good of others. As we were seeing lately, when people have discipline to go through they first think, ‘What shall I get?’ It is better to start at the other end and say, ‘What will the saints get out of this?’ Every exercise the saints go through is for the good of others.
M Then God gets something too.
CAC Yes, thanksgiving redounds to the glory of God, and thinking of that Paul says, “We faint not”.
B It seems as if affliction would crush Paul.
CAC Yes, he was “cast down, but not destroyed”. Satan was allowed to go to the limit. Paul was like a man whose enemy has cast him to the ground, and there was nothing left but to give him his death blow, but he was kept alive from day to day by the power of God. The outward man was consumed under this pressure, but the inward man was renewed day by day. All connected with the treasure is flourishing, and all connected with the vessel is in consumption!
N How Paul must have been filled with glory when he spoke of light affliction!
CAC Yes, he could not have said that unless he were conscious of the treasure. One covets to prove more of the power of God in sustaining us. God puts us through a [p. 255] variety of discipline, and we learn the weakness and the earthiness of the vessel. It is a great thing if we can come out as vessels of divine power and glory so that there is nothing left but praise to God.
N What is the grace in verse 15; is it to the saints or to Paul?
CAC Grace abounded through the saints. Paul had a blessed sense of being bound up with the saints; he says that God “shall present us with you”. All his suffering was for them with a view to grace abounding through them; it came out through the saints. The result is that thanksgiving abounds to the glory of God. That which is God’s grace in people causes thanksgiving; God is glorified. God took us up that He might be glorified.
N Was this grace looked at as flowing from the saints to Paul?
CAC I think the exercise and discipline of the servant made the ministry effective towards others. The treasure is very wonderful, but then these exercises and suffering and discipline made the ministry effective towards others, and so they got the good of his ministry.
Rem F.E.R. used to say that grace was commensurate with glory.
CAC Grace abounds through the many so the apostle could see the fruit of his exercise and suffering in the blessing of the saints even in the present. All his suffering was having its answer in grace abounding in the saints.
M Paul was a living example, too, of what grace could do.
Rem Grace was abounding; you cannot limit it.
CAC And thanksgiving abounds to the glory of God. They are all praying and grace is given to him; saints get blessing and then they give thanks. They all share in the labour and all in the grace. Paul saw the travail of his soul in the saints.