Revisiting the passage from the previous article, I personally remember verse 17 from time to time, as a source of encouragement.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 NIV
There is something better waiting for us. To be clear, there is affliction on this earth both for those who don’t look to God, and for followers of Jesus. I don’t have to tell you that. And, by human standards, it is sometimes so bad as to be unbearable without God’s help. However, in comparison to living with a glorious, loving God for ever and ever, the scales barely even register the weight of this suffering.
I think of this balance as being like a teeter-totter, when you’re up in the air and the kid on the other end jumps off. The weight on your side is now so dramatically different from the half-slab of wood on their side that you slam to the ground.
Imagine the weight of our troubles on this earth weighing us down as we stand on one side of a cosmic balance scale, as we lug painful experiences around this cursed world with only our limited abilities to carry them (especially when we don’t let God help). It seems overwhelming and feels like there’s no way for us to keep going.
When human beings without Jesus are zoomed in on our side of this scale, and that’s all they see, it seems like nothing could justify the grief that we go through.
However, Paul challenges us to look over to the other side of the scale, where the other weighing pan is bigger than the one we’re standing on – so much bigger than we can’t even see to the other side of it. And, it’s full of so many blessings in eternity (as well as in this mortal life), that the scale is totally pegged and the pan itself is resting on the ground, straining to not be crushed from the good things that we look forward to.
We’re standing on the side that is way up in the air, weighing essentially nothing compared to the other side, but if we hadn’t looked over, we never would have realized that our burden is trivial compared to the blessings. And, if we hadn’t looked away from our own burdens, we might never have realized that Jesus is there to help us through even the burdens of this life.
The verb tense of what is going on here suggests that the weight of glory we are obtaining is not even something that we must wait on eternity to receive [ref. Baker, p.195]. Our troubles are already achieving glory. Keeping the previous metaphor, we might say that this glory is already being piled on the scales; it’s not something we have to wait for.
To see this, though, we must look beyond the physical world. That “cosmic scale” can be hard to spot in the daily grind. However, this world is destined to be replaced, so focusing only on it is short-sighted (at best). There’s more to reality than just what we can see, hear, taste, smell, and touch, and the more that we focus on what will last, the less we need to worry about what is decaying [ref. Baker, p.195].
This larger side of reality is what our testimony shows to a lost world when God keeps us intact under otherwise unbearable persecution. When we get through what only God could get us through, others can see that there must be something beyond the human condition, and if we will share with them our “secret”, they can also view the world of the spiritual and the eternal, giving them perspective about this “cosmic scale”, too.
Maybe you are feeling like a clay pot or beat-up, run-down car. I certainly do some days. We live in bodies that are wearing out, even if we take good care of them. We suffer opposition from evil forces that want to stop the work of the gospel. We hurt because of loss we experience, evil that we see around us, or just the hurt experienced by others we love.
If you are in this situation, I want you to remember the “cosmic scale”. While that’s just a simple metaphor I’ve offered here, Paul doesn’t dismiss suffering. He acknowledges that it exists, and that it is real. Jesus experienced suffering when He became like us in body, so He understands what we’re going through. However, this letter helps us remember that – as bad as things can get in this life – the joy promised by an eternal God who has chosen to spend forever with us is going to make all of this pale in comparison. Let’s all find hope in that fact.
From Sunday School lesson prepared for May 12, 2024
References:
- The Lookout, May 12, 2024, © 2024 Christian Standard Media.
- Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
- The College Press NIV Commentary – 2 Corinthians, by William R. Baker. © 1999 College Press Publishing Co.
Those Who Sin Differently 