Homily 9 — Second Corinthians 4, verses 8 to 18

“We are hard pressed on every side, yet not hemmed in; perplexed, yet not driven to despair; pursued, yet not abandoned.” [a]

He is still dwelling on the proof that the whole work must be credited to the power of God, and he is checking the arrogance of those who boast in themselves. He says: “This is not the only marvel, that we keep this treasure in clay jars. It is also that even while we endure countless hardships and are battered on every side, we still keep it and do not lose it. Even a vessel of diamond would not have been strong enough to carry so vast a treasure, or to hold out against so many plots. Yet as it is, this vessel both carries it and comes to no harm, through God’s grace.”

For “we are hard pressed on every side,” he says, “yet not hemmed in.” What does “on every side” mean? “From our enemies and from our friends, in our necessities and in our other needs, from those who are hostile to us and from those of our own household.” “Yet not hemmed in.” And see how he sets opposites side by side, so that from this too he may show the strength of God. For “we are hard pressed on every side,” he says, “yet not hemmed in; perplexed, yet not driven to despair.” That is: “We do not fall away altogether. We are often wrong in our calculations, it is true, and miss our aim, but not so badly that we fall away from what is set before us. For God allows these things to train us, not to defeat us.”

Verse 9: “Pursued, yet not abandoned; struck down, yet not destroyed.” These trials do indeed come, but not what usually follows from such trials. And this too happens through the power and grace of God. In other places he says that these things were allowed both for their own humility and for the safety of others. “So that I would not be lifted up too much,” he says, “a thorn was given to me” (Second Corinthians 12, verse 7); and again, “so that no one may think more of me than what he sees me to be, or hears from me” (Second Corinthians 12, verse 6); and in another place again, “so that we would not trust in ourselves” (Second Corinthians 1, verse 9). Here, however, he says they were allowed so that the power of God might be shown.

Do you see how great the gain from his trials was? It showed the power of God, and it revealed his grace all the more. For he says, “My grace is sufficient for you” (Second Corinthians 12, verse 9). It also anointed them for humility, prepared them to keep the rest in check, and made them tougher. “For endurance,” he says, “produces proven character, and proven character, hope” (Romans 5, verse 4). Those who had fallen into countless dangers, and had been rescued through the hope they had in God, were taught to hold on to that hope more and more in everything.

Verse 10: “Always carrying around in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be shown in our body.”

And what is this “dying of the Lord Jesus” that they carried around? Their daily deaths, through which the resurrection was also shown. He says: “If anyone does not believe that Jesus died and rose again, let him watch us dying and rising again every day, and from now on believe in the resurrection.” Do you see how he has found yet another reason for the trials? And what is this reason? “So that his life also may be shown in our body.” That is: “By snatching us out of the dangers. So this very thing, which seems a mark of weakness and helplessness, is what proclaims his resurrection. For his power would not have appeared as plainly if we suffered nothing unpleasant as it does now, when we do suffer, but are not overcome.”

Verse 11: “For we who live are also handed over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be shown in us, in our mortal flesh.”

Wherever he has said something obscure, he interprets himself again. He has done so here too, giving a clear interpretation of the words I just quoted. He says: “This is why ‘we are handed over’; in other words, we carry around his dying so that the power of his life may be shown. For he does not let mortal flesh, though it undergoes such great sufferings, be overwhelmed by the snowstorm of these disasters.”

The words can also be taken another way. How? As he says in another place, “If we die with him, we will also live with him” (Second Timothy 2, verse 11). “For as we now endure his dying, and choose while we are alive to die for his sake, so he too will choose, when we are dead, to give us birth into life then. For if we pass from life into death, he too will lead us by the hand from death into life.”

Verse 12: “So then death is at work in us, but life in you.” He is no longer speaking of death in the strict sense, but of trials and of rest. He says: “We are in dangers and trials, but you are at rest, reaping the life that is the fruit of these dangers. We endure what is dangerous, but you enjoy the good things, for you do not undergo such great trials.”

Verse 13: “But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, ‘I believed, and therefore I spoke,’ we also believe, and therefore we also speak; that he who raised up the Lord Jesus will raise us up also through Jesus” (Psalm 116, verse 10). [d]

He has reminded us of a psalm that is full of heavenly wisdom and especially suited to encourage people in danger. That righteous man spoke these words when he was in great dangers, from which there was no other way of recovery than by the help of God. Since, then, circumstances like one’s own are the most effective comfort, he says, “having the same Spirit.” That is: “We are saved by the same help that saved him; we speak by the same Spirit through whom he spoke.”

By this he shows that there is great harmony between the new covenant and the old, and that the same Spirit was at work in both. He shows that we are not the only ones in danger, but all those of old were too; and that we must find our remedy through faith and hope, and not look to be released at once from what is laid on us. Having proved by arguments the resurrection and the life, and that the danger was no mark of helplessness or of being abandoned, he now brings in faith as well, and entrusts the whole matter to it. Yet even for this he supplies a proof, namely the resurrection of Christ, saying, “we also believe, and therefore we also speak.” Believe what? Tell me.

Verses 14 and 15: “That he who raised up Jesus will raise us up also, and will present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, so that the grace, being multiplied through the many, may make the thanksgiving overflow to the glory of God.”

Again he fills them with lofty thoughts, so that they will not consider themselves in debt to men — I mean to the false apostles. For the whole thing comes from God, who wants to give to many, so that the grace may appear the greater. So it was for your sakes that the resurrection and all the rest took place. For he did not do these things for the sake of one person only, but for all.

Verse 16: “So we do not lose heart; though our outward man is decaying, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”

How does it decay? By being flogged, by being persecuted, by suffering countless extremes. “Yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” How is it renewed? By faith, by hope, by an eager will, and finally by facing those extremes boldly. For the more the body suffers countless things, the brighter the soul’s hopes become and the more it shines, like gold refined in the fire again and again. And see how he reduces the sorrows of this present life to nothing.

Verses 17 and 18: “For our light affliction,” he says, “which is for the moment, produces more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen.” He has settled the question by pointing to hope. As he said in his letter to the Romans, “We are saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope” (Romans 8, verse 24), and he is establishing the same point here too. So he sets things present beside things to come, the momentary beside the eternal, the light beside the weighty, the affliction beside the glory. Nor is he content with this; he adds another expression, doubling it: “more and more exceedingly.” Next he also shows how such great afflictions are light. How, then, are they light?

“While we look not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen.” So the present will be light and what is to come will be great, if we withdraw ourselves from the things that are seen. “For the things that are seen are temporary” (verse 18). So the afflictions are temporary too. “But the things that are not seen are eternal.” So the crowns are eternal too. And he did not say, “the afflictions are temporary,” but “the things that are seen” — all of them, whether punishment or rest — so that we would neither be puffed up by the one nor crushed by the other. And so, when he speaks of the things to come, he did not say, “the kingdom is eternal,” but “the things that are not seen are eternal,” whether they are a kingdom or, again, punishment, so as both to alarm us by the one and to encourage us by the other.

Since, then, “the things that are seen are temporary, but the things that are not seen are eternal,” let us look to those. What excuse can we possibly have if we choose the temporary instead of the eternal? Even if the present is pleasant, it does not last, while the misery it brings lasts and is never lifted. What excuse will they have who have been counted worthy of the Spirit and have enjoyed so great a gift, if their minds crawl along the ground and they fall down to the earth? [f]

For I hear many people saying these words, which deserve nothing but scorn: “Give me today, and you can have tomorrow.” And one of them says: “If there really are such things there as you claim, then it is one for one. But if there is nothing of the kind at all, then it is two for nothing.”

What could be more lawless than these words? What could be emptier chatter? We are speaking about heaven and those good things beyond words, and you bring out for us the language of the racetrack, and you are not ashamed, you do not hide your face, while you say things fit for madmen? Do you not blush at being so riveted to the things of the present? Will you not stop being out of your mind and beside yourself, an old man in your dotage while you are still young? If the Greeks talked this way, it would be no wonder. But when believers pour out such senile talk, what forgiveness can there be for it? Do you really hold those immortal hopes under complete suspicion? Do you think these things utterly doubtful? And what pardon do such thoughts deserve?

Someone says: “And who has come back and brought word of what is there?” No human being, it is true; but God, who is more trustworthy than anyone, has declared these things. But you do not see what is there. Neither do you see God. Will you then deny that there is a God because you do not see him? “Why, I firmly believe there is a God.” Then if an unbeliever asked you, “And who came from heaven and brought back word of this?” what would you answer? How do you know that there is a God? “From the things that are seen: from the beautiful order that runs through the whole creation, from its being plain to everyone.” Then accept the teaching about the judgment in the same way. “How?” I will ask you questions, and you answer me. Is this God just, and will he repay each person as he deserves? Or, on the contrary, does he want the wicked to live in happiness and luxury, and the good in the opposite condition? “By no means. Not even a human being would feel that way.” Then where will those who have lived virtuously here enjoy good things, and where will the wicked receive the opposite, unless there is to be a life and a recompense hereafter?

Do you see that as things stand it is one for one, and not two for one? But as I go on, I will show you that it is not even one against one. For the righteous it will be two for nothing, and for sinners and those who live here in wild excess, quite the reverse. For those who have lived in wild excess here have not received even one for one, while those who spend their life in virtue have two for nothing. Who, after all, are at rest: those who have abused this present life, or those who have followed heavenly wisdom? Perhaps you will say the former. But I will prove it of the latter, calling as my witnesses the very men who have enjoyed these present things; and they will not be so shameless as to deny what I am about to say.

Many times they have called down curses on the matchmakers and on the day their bridal chamber was hung with garlands, and have called those who never married happy. Many young people too, even when they could have married, have refused for no other reason than the trouble of it. I say this not to accuse marriage, for it is “honorable” (Hebrews 13, verse 4), but to accuse those who have used it wrongly. Now if those who have lived a married life have often thought their life not worth living, what shall we say of those who have been swept down into the deep pits of prostitutes, and are treated more like slaves and more wretchedly than any captive? What of those who have rotted in luxury and wrapped their bodies in a thousand diseases?

“But it is pleasant to be held in honor.” No — nothing is more bitter than this slavery. The man who seeks empty honor is more servile than any slave, and eager to please everybody; but the man who tramples it underfoot, and does not care for the glory that comes from others, is above everyone. “But owning wealth is desirable.” Yet we have often shown that those who are free of it and have nothing enjoy greater riches and greater rest. “But getting drunk is pleasant.” Who would say that? Surely, then, if being without riches is more pleasant than having them, and not marrying more pleasant than marrying, and not chasing empty glory more pleasant than chasing it, and not living in luxury more pleasant than living in it, then even in this world those who are not riveted to these present things have the advantage.

And I have not yet mentioned that the one, even if he is racked with countless tortures, has that good hope to carry him through, while the other, even if he is enjoying a thousand delights, has the fear of the future troubling and confusing his pleasure. This too is no light kind of punishment, and so the opposite is no light kind of enjoyment and rest. Besides these, there is a third thing. What is it? That the things of worldly delight do not even seem delightful while they are present, since both nature and time expose them; but the other things not only are real but also remain unshaken. Do you see that we will be able to set not two for nothing only, but three, and five, and ten, and twenty, and ten thousand for nothing?

And so that you may learn this same truth from an example as well, take the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16, verse 19, and the verses that follow): the one enjoyed the things of the present, the other the things to come. Does it seem to you one for one, to be punished through all time and to go hungry for a short season? To be sick in a perishable body, and to burn miserably in one that never dies? To be crowned and live in undying delights after that brief sickness, and to be tormented without end after that short enjoyment of one’s goods? Who would say that? What do you want us to compare? The quantity? The quality? The rank? God’s decision about each? How long will you speak the words of beetles forever wallowing in dung? These are not the words of reasoning people: to throw away a soul so precious for nothing, when it takes little labor to receive heaven.

Do you want me to teach you in yet another way that there is a fearful judgment seat there? Open the doors of your conscience, and look at the judge who sits in your heart. Now if you condemn yourself, though you love yourself, and cannot keep from giving a just verdict, will not God far more take great care for what is just, and pass that impartial judgment on everyone? Or will he let everything go on loosely and at random? Who would say that? No one. Both Greeks and barbarians, both poets and philosophers — indeed the whole human race — agree with us in this, though they differ in the details, and affirm that there are courts of judgment of some kind in Hades. So plain and undisputed is the matter.

Someone says: “And why does he not punish here?” So that he may show that patience of his, and offer us the salvation that comes by repentance, and not let our race be swept away, or snatch away, before that salvation, those who could be saved by a noble change. For if he punished at once when sins were committed, and destroyed the sinners, how would Paul have been saved, or Peter, the chief teachers of the world? How would David have reaped the salvation that came by his repentance? How would the Galatians? How would many others? [j]

So for this reason he neither exacts the penalty from everyone here (only from some out of all), nor from everyone there, but from one here and from another there. In this way he may rouse those who are utterly without feeling by means of those he punishes, and make them expect what is to come by means of those he does not punish. Or do you not see many punished here? For example, those who were buried under the ruins of that tower (Luke 13, verse 4); those whose blood Pilate mixed with their sacrifices; those among the Corinthians who died before their time because they shared in the mysteries unworthily (First Corinthians 11, verse 30); Pharaoh; those of the Jews who were slain by the barbarians; and many others, then, and now, and continually. And yet others, though they had sinned in many things, departed without paying the penalty here, like the rich man in the story of Lazarus (Luke 16), and many others.

He does these things both to rouse those who do not believe in the things to come at all, and to make those who believe but are careless more diligent. “For God is a righteous judge, strong and patient, and does not bring on his wrath every day” (Psalm 7, verse 11, in the Greek Old Testament). But if we abuse his patience, a time will come when he will no longer be patient even for a little while, but will inflict the penalty at once.

So let us not, for the sake of living in luxury for a single moment — for that is what this present life is — bring on ourselves punishment through endless ages. Let us toil for a moment, so that we may be crowned forever. Do you not see that even in worldly matters most people act this way? They choose a brief toil for the sake of a long rest, even when the opposite turns out for them. For in this life the toils and the reward come in equal portions; indeed, often, on the contrary, the toil is endless while the fruit is little, or not even a little. But in the case of the kingdom it is the reverse: the labor is little, while the pleasure is great and without limit.

For consider. The farmer wears himself out the whole year through, and often, at the very end of his hopes, misses the fruit of all those toils. The ship’s captain and the soldier, again, are busy with wars and labors into extreme old age; and often each of them has departed this life, the one losing his rich cargoes, the other losing, along with the victory, his very life. Tell me, then, what excuse will we have if in worldly matters we choose what is laborious in order to rest a little, or not even a little (for the hope of it is uncertain), but in spiritual things do the opposite, and bring on ourselves punishment beyond words for a little laziness?

So I beg you all, late as it is, at last to recover from this frenzy. For no one will rescue us on that day — not brother, not father, not child, not friend, not neighbor, not anyone else. If our works fail us, all is over, and we must perish. How many laments that rich man made! How he pleaded with the patriarch, and begged that Lazarus might be sent! But hear what Abraham said to him: “There is a gulf between us and you, so that those who want to go out cannot cross over there” (Luke 16, verse 26). How many petitions those virgins made to their companions for a little oil! But hear what these also say: “Perhaps there will not be enough for you and for us” (Matthew 25, verse 9). And no one was able to bring them into the bridal chamber.

Thinking, then, about these things, let us also take care of our own life. Name whatever toils you like, and add whatever punishment you like: all of them together will be nothing compared with the good things to come. Name, if you will, fire and steel and wild beasts, and anything harsher than these; yet these are not even a shadow compared with those torments. For these things, when applied in excess, become especially light then, because they make the release come quickly, since the body cannot hold out under intensity and long continuance of suffering at once. But there both meet together, length and excess alike, both in the good things and in the painful ones.

While we have time, then, “let us come before his presence with confession” (Psalm 95, verse 2, in the Greek Old Testament), so that on that day we may see him gentle and calm, and may escape altogether those powers that carry threats. Do you not see how the soldiers of this world, who carry out the orders of those in authority, drag people about, how they chain them, how they flog them, how they pierce their sides, how they put torches to their wounds, how they tear them limb from limb? Yet all these things are games and jokes compared with those punishments. For these punishments are temporary, but there “the worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched,” for the body that is then to be raised up will be incorruptible for everyone.

But God grant that we may never learn these things by experience; that these fearful things may never come nearer to us than the mention of them; and that we may not be handed over to those tormentors, but may learn wisdom from what we hear now. How many things we will then say to accuse ourselves! How many laments we will utter! How many groans! But from then on it will be of no use. For neither can sailors be of any service once the ship has broken up and sunk, nor doctors once the patient has died. They will often say, indeed, that this or that ought to have been done; but it is all fruitless and in vain. As long as there is still hope of amendment, one must say and do everything; but when nothing is in our power any longer, and everything is quite ruined, it is no use to say or do anything.

For then even the Jews will say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (Matthew 23, verse 39); but they will gain no advantage from this cry toward escaping their punishment, for when they ought to have said it, they did not. So that this may not be our case where our life is concerned, let us reform now, from this very moment, so that we may stand before the judgment seat of Christ with all boldness. May all of us attain this, through the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom be glory and might to the Father, with the Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.