“Our Light Affliction”

"Our Light Affliction"

(No. 3244)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 1911.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING,
SEPTEMBER 29, 1870.

"Our light affliction." 2 Corinthians 4:17.

PERHAPS someone here thoughtlessly says, "Well, whoever calls
affliction, 'light,' must have been a person who knew very little about
what affliction really is! If he had suffered as I have done, he would
not have written about 'our light affliction.' He must have been in
robust health and known nothing of sickness and pain." "Just so," says
another, "and if he had been as poor as I am and had to work as hard as
I do to maintain a sickly wife, and a large family, he would not have
written about 'our light affliction.' I expect the gentleman who used
that expression lived very much at his ease and had all that his heart
could wish." "Yes," says another, "and if he had stood by an open grave
and had to lament the loss of loved ones, as I have done. And if he had
known what it was to be desolate and forsaken, as I have known it, he
would not have written about 'our light affliction.'"

Now, if you talk like that, you are, all of you, mistaken, for the man
who wrote these words was probably afflicted more than any of us have
ever been! The list of his afflictions that he gives us is perfectly
appalling–"in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in
deaths often. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice
I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; in
journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils
by my own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city,
in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among
false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watching often, in
hunger and thirst, in fasting often, in cold and nakedness." Is there
anyone here who could truthfully make out such a catalog of personal
afflictions as the Apostle Paul endured?

"Well then," says one, "he must have been so hardened that he took no
notice of it, like the Red Indian who will endure terrible torture
without a groan, or like the Stoic philosopher who conceals his inward
feelings beneath an unmoved countenance." No, you are also mistaken. If
you read Paul's letters to his private friends and to the Churches, you
will see that they bear abundant evidences that he was a man of great
tenderness of spirit and of intense emotion–one who could suffer and
who did suffer most acutely. His education and training had fitted him
for a life among the most learned and refined of his countrymen, yet he
had to support himself by laboring as a tent-maker and to journey here
and there in peril and privation. And though he endured all this in
absolute submission to the will of God, yet there was nothing stoical
about his resignation!

"Well then," says another, "he must have been one of those careless,
lighthearted people who never trouble about anything that happens and
whose motto is, 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.'" Oh, no!
The Apostle Paul was not at all that kind of man! He was the most
thoughtful, logical, careful, considerate man of whom I have ever read.
He knew what it was to be joyful, yet there was never any sign of
levity about him. He had a grandly buoyant spirit which lifted him
above waves of sorrow in which most men would have sunk, yet he was
never frivolous! He wrote of "our light affliction" even when he was
heavily afflicted and while he acutely felt that affliction! The sailor
forgets the storm when he is again safely on shore, and we are all apt
to think less of our sickness when we have been restored from it–but
Paul was in the midst of affliction when he called it "light." He felt
the weight of it, and was fully conscious of the pressure of it upon
his spirit, but the elastic spring of faith within his skull was so
vigorously in action that he was enabled at that very time to call it,
"our light affliction."

We must not forget that Paul had afflictions which were peculiarly his
own. There are afflictions which Christians have because they are
Christians and which those who are not Christians do not have. And
Paul, as an Apostle of Jesus Christ, had sufferings which were
peculiarly his because he was an Apostle. Because he was specially
called to be the Apostle of the Gentiles. Because he was chosen to
carry the Gospel to many nations. Because he was called to stand even
before the cruel Emperor Nero–for that very reason–he who was
peculiarly gifted and especially chosen above all others to do most
arduous and onerous work was also called to endure unusual trial. He
had spelt out the word, "AFFLICTION" as perhaps no other mere man had
done–he had seen it written in capital letters across his whole
life–so he could speak, not as a novice, but as one who had graduated
in the school of affliction, and yet he wrote concerning "our light
affliction." Before I have finished my discourse, I hope that most, if
not all here will agree with the Apostle and say, "We also call our
affliction light."

I. I am going to speak, first, especially TO CHRISTIAN WORKERS. And to
them I would say–Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, our affliction
is light compared with the objectives we have in view.

Much of the affliction that the Apostle Paul had to endure came upon
him because he was seeking the conversion of the heathen and the
ingathering of the elect into the Kingdom of Christ. If this is the
objective you also have in view, my dear Friend, and you are made to
suffer through your sedulous and faithful pursuit of it, I think you
may truly call anything you have to endure a light affliction. If you
have ever seen a mother sit up night after night with her sick child,
you must have sometimes wondered that her eyes did not close in
slumber. You were amazed that she did not permit someone else to share
her task, but she seemed to think nothing of the cost to herself if she
might only be the means of saving her little one's life. True love made
her labor light. And he who truly loves the souls of sinners will
willingly bear any affliction for their sakes if he may but bring them
to the Savior! Yes, and he will also patiently endure affliction from
them as he remembers how, in his own willfulness and waywardness, he
caused his Savior to suffer on his behalf. If a man could know that all
through his life he would have to wear a threadbare garment and exist
upon very scanty fare–if he were sure that throughout his life he
would meet with but little kindness from Christians, and with nothing
but persecution from worldlings–and if, at the close of his career, he
could only expect to be devoured by dogs or his body to be cast to the
carrion crows, yet might he think all this to be but a light affliction
if he might but win one soulfrom the unquenchable flame! Such trials as
these are, happily, not necessary–but if they were, we might count
them as nothing in comparison with the bliss of bringing up from the
depths of sin the precious pearls that are forever to adorn the crown
of the Redeemer!

Still speaking to Christian workers, I have next to say that our
affliction is light compared with our great motive. What should be the
great motive of all who seek to spread the Gospel and to win sinners
for Christ? Surely there is no motive comparable to that of seeking to
bring Glory to God by gathering into the Kingdom of Christ those for
whom He shed His precious blood! Always keep in memory, Beloved, what
Jesus has done for us. He left His radiant Throne in Glory and
condescended to take upon Himself our nature, and also our sin–

"Bearing, that we might never bear, His Father's righteous ire."

Saved by His almighty Grace, cleansed by His ever-precious blood,
living because we have been made partners of His life, how can we help
loving Him who has made us what we are? When that sacred passion burns
vehemently within our hearts, we feel that any affliction that we have
to endure in order to glorify Christ is too light to be even worth
mentioning! O you devoted lovers of the Savior, have you not known
hours when you have envied the martyrs and wished that you, too, might
be allowed to wear the ruby crown? When you have read about how they
had to lie for years in cold, damp dungeons, and then at last were
dragged forth to die at the block, the stake, or the scaffold, have you
not felt that your lives were poor and mean compared with theirs and
that you would gladly sacrifice all the comfort you now enjoy if you
might be permitted to die for Christ as they did? I hope that many of
you could truthfully say to your dear Lord and Savior–

"Would not my ardent spirit vie

With angels round the Throne,

To execute Your sacred will,

And make Your Glory known?

Would not my heart pour forth its blood

In honor of Your name,

And challenge the old hand of death

To dampen the immortal flame?"

It was such a spirit as this that must have possessed the Apostle Paul
when he wrote concerning "our light affliction."Let us, also, as
workers for Christ, reckon as light affliction anything we have to
endure by which we may glorify Him who bore such a terrible weight of
suffering and sorrow for us!

II. Now, secondly, I am going to speak TO THOSE WHO COMPLAIN OF THE
WEIGHT OF THEIR AFFLICTION.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, let me remind you that your affliction is
light compared with that of many others. Think of the horrors of a
battlefield and of the armies of the poor wounded men who have to lie
there so long untended. Living in peace in our happy island home, it is
difficult for us to realize the misery and wretchedness that are being
endured in

Paris even while I am preaching to you. [It will be seen, from the date
at the head of the Sermon, that it was preached during the
Franco-Prussian War.] Some

of you complain of shortness of breath, but you have not to suffer the
pangs of hunger as so many of the inhabitants of the French capital are
at this moment suffering. There are some who are vulnerable as soon as
any little ache or pain seizes them, yet their affliction is very light
compared with that of many who never know what it is to be well and
strong. Even if we are called to suffer pain, let us thank God that we
have not been deprived of our reason. If we could go through the wards
of Bethlehem Hospital, not far from us, and see the many forms of
madness represented, I think each one of us would be moved to say, "My
God, I thank You that, however poor or sick I am, You have preserved me
from such mental affliction as many have to bear." How thankful we all
ought to be that we are not in prison! Does it seem improbable that
such good people as we are could ever be numbered among the
law-breakers of the land? You know how Hazael said to Elisha, "Is your
servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?" Yet he did all that
the Prophet foretold–and but for the restraining Grace of God, you and
I, dear Friends, might have been suffering the agony and remorse that
many are tonight enduring in the prisons of this and other lands! I
need not go on multiplying instances of those who are suffering in
various ways in mind or body or estate, but I think I have said enough
to convince you that our affliction, whatever form it may assume, is
light compared with that of many others.

Next, our affliction is light compared with our deserts. We can truly
say with the Psalmist. "He has not dealt with us after our sins, nor
rewarded us according to our iniquities." If the Lord had not dealt
with us in mercy and in His Grace, we might have been at this moment
beyond the reach of hope, like that rich man who in vain begged,
"Father Abraham" to send Lazarus to dip his finger in water to cool his
parched tongue! Yes, ungodly one, you might have been in Hell
to-night–in that outer darkness where there is weeping and wailing and
gnashing of teeth! Let the goodness of God in preserving you alive
until now lead you to repent of your sin and to trust in the Savior!
Thank God you are still out of the Pit–the iron gate has not yet been
opened to admit you–and then been closed upon you forever! Yet
remember that you are, as it were, standing upon a narrow neck of land
between two unbounded seas and that the waves are every moment washing
away the sand from beneath your feet! Rest no longer upon such an
unsafe footing, lest it should give way altogether and you should sink
down into the fathomless abyss! As for any affliction that you ever can
have to endure on earth, it is not merely light, it is absolutely
unworthy of mention in comparison with the eternal woe that is the
portion of the lost! Be thankful that, up to the present moment, this
has not been your portion–and lest it should be–flee at once for
refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before you in the Gospel!

Then next, our affliction is very light compared with that of our Lord.
Do you, dear Friend, murmur at the bitterness of the draft in the cup
which is put into your hand? But what heart can conceive of the
bitterness of that cup of which Jesus drank? Yet He said, "The cup
which My Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?" Is the disciple to
be above his Master, and the servant above his Lord? Did Christ have to
swim through stormy seas and–

"Must you be carried to the skies On flowery beds of ease?"

I think there is no consolation for an afflicted child of God so rich
as that which arises from the contemplation of the sufferings of Jesus.
The remembrance of the agony and bloody sweat of Gethsemane has often
dried up the sweat of terror upon the anguished brow of the Believer.
The stripes of Jesus have often brought healing to his wounded
followers. The thirst, the desertion and the death on Golgotha–all the
incidents of our Savior's suffering and the terrible climax of it

all–have been most helpful in comforting the sorrows of stricken
saints! Brothers and Sisters in Christ, your sufferings are not worth a
moment's thought when compared with the immeasurable agonies of Jesus,
your Redeemer! My soul would prostrate herself at His dear pierced
feet, and say, "I have never seen any other affliction like Your
affliction. I have beheld and seen, but I have never seen any sorrow
like Your sorrow. You are, indeed, the incomparable Monarch of Misery,
the unapproachable King of the whole realm of grief! Of old, You were
the 'Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief,' and no man has ever
been able to rob You of Your peculiar title." I think that such
reflections as these will help us to realize that however heavy our
affliction appears to be to us, it is very light compared with that of
our dear Lord and Master–

"Sons of God, in tribulation, Let your eyes the Savior view, He's the
Rock of our salvation, He was tried and tempted, too– All to succor

Every tempted, burdened son."

And further, Beloved, our affliction is very light compared with the
blessing which we enjoy. Many of us have had our sins forgiven for
Christ's sake–and the blessing of full and free forgiveness must far
outweigh any affliction that we ever have to endure! When we were lying
in the gloomy dungeon of conviction and had not a single ray of hope to
lighten the darkness, we thought that even though we had to be kept in
prison all our days and to be fed only upon bread and water, we could
be quite joyous if we could but be assured that God's righteous anger
was turned away from us and that our sins and iniquities He would
remember against us no more forever! Well, that is just what many of us
have expe-rienced–our transgressions have been forgiven and our sin
has been covered by the great atoning Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, our
Lord and Savior! Then let us rejoice and be glad all our days! But this
is not all the blessing that we have received, for we have been clothed
in the righteousness of Christ and adopted into the family of God! Now
we are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. We even now
share in all the privileges of the children of God and there are still
greater favors and honors reserved for us in the future, as the Apostle
John says, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet
appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear, we
shall be like He, for we shall see Him as He is." We already have a
foretaste of the bliss that is laid up in store for us, for–

"The men of Grace have found

Glory begun below!

Celestial fruits on earthly ground

From faith and hope do grow!" So it is quite true that in comparison
with our blessings and privileges, our affliction is, indeed, light.

And, dear Friends, we specially realize that our affliction is light as
we prove the power of the Lord's sustaining Grace. Some of you have
never personally proved its power, but many of you know by practical
experience what I mean. There are times when through acute physical
pain or great mental anguish, the soul is at first utterly prostrate.
But at last it falls back in sheer helplessness upon the bosom of
Jesus, gives up struggling and resigns itself absolutely to His will.
And then–I speak what I know and testify what I have felt–there comes
into the soul a great calm, a quiet joy so deep and so pure as never is
experienced at any other time! I have sometimes looked back upon nights
of pain–pain so excruciating that it has forced the tears from my
eyes–and I have almost asked to have such suffering repeated if I
might but have a repetition of the seraphic bliss that I have often
enjoyed under such circumstances! I made a mistake when I said,
"seraphic" bliss, for seraphs have not the capacity for suffering that
we have and, therefore, they can never experience that deep, intense,
indescribable bliss that is our portion when, by Grace, we are enabled
to glorify God even in the furnace of affliction!–

"Let me but hear my Savior say, 'Strength shall be equal to your day!'
Then I rejoice in deep distress, Leaning on all-sufficient Grace. I can
do all things, or can bear All sufferings, if my Lord is there– Sweet
pleasures mingle with the pains,

While His left hand my head sustains."

We may well say that no affliction weighs more than a gnat resting upon
an elephant when the Lord's upholding Grace is sweetly manifested to
our soul in times of perplexity, anxiety and pain. It is just then that
Jesus often so graciously reveals Himself to us that we even come to
love the cross that brings Him specially near to us. I can understand
that strange speech of Rutherford, as some have regarded it when he
said that he sometimes feared lest he should make his cross into an
idol by loving affliction too much because of the blessed results that
flowed from it! The bark of the tree of affliction may be bitter as
gall, but if you get to the pith of it, you will find that it is as
sweet as honey!

Once more, affliction–sanctified affliction–becomes very light when
we see to what it leads. Sin is our great curse and anything that can
help to deliver us from the dominion of sin is a blessing to us. It
seems that in the constitution of our nature and in the Divine
discipline under which we are being trained, our growth in Grace is
greatly assisted by affliction and trial. There are certain
propensities to evil that can only be removed in the furnace–as the
dross is burnt away from the pure metal–and surely, Brothers and
Sisters, you who know the exceeding sinfulness of sin would not think
any affliction too severe that should humble your pride, or subdue your
passions, or slay your sloth, or overcome any other sin that so easily
besets you! You will not merely acquiesce in the Lord's dealings with
you, but you will devoutly thank Him for using the sharp knife of
affliction to separate you from your sin! A wise patient will
gratefully thank the surgeon who cuts his flesh and makes it bleed–and
who will not allow it to heal up too quickly. And when God, by His
gracious Spirit's operation, uses the stern surgery of trial to
eradicate the propensity to sin, we do well to kiss the hand that holds
the knife and to say with cheerfulness as well as with resignation,
"The will of the Lord be

done."–

"It needs our hearts be weaned from earth. It needs that we be driven
By loss of every earthly stay, To seek our joys in Heaven."

Now, lastly, our affliction is light compared with the Glory which is
so soon to be revealed to us and in us. Some of us are much nearer to
our heavenly Home than we have ever imaged. Possibly we are reckoning
upon another 20 or even 40 years service, yet the shallows of our
life's day are already lengthening although we are unaware that it is
so. Perhaps we are anticipating long periods of fighting without and
fears within, but those anticipations will never be realized, for the
day of our final victory is close at hand and there doubts and fears
shall never again be able to assail our spirits. In this House,
tonight, there may be some who are sitting on the very banks of the
Jordan–and just across the river lies the land that flows with milk
and honey–the land which is reserved as the inheritance of the true
children of God! Their eyes are so dimmed with tears that they cannot
see–

"Canaan's fair and happy land,

Where their possessions lie."

They even imagine that they are captives by the waters of Babylon and
they hang their harps upon the willows, for they fear there are many
years of banishment still before them. Yet the King's messenger is
already on the way with the summons to bid them to appear before Him
very soon! Even if the call does not come to some of us at once–if the
Master has need of us in this world a little longer–how soon our
mortal life must end! What is our life? "It is even a vapor, that
appears for a little time and then vanishes away." "As for man, his
days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. For the
wind passes over it and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it
no more." But does the brevity of life cause us any anxiety? Oh, no!
"For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were
dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens"! And when once we reach that blest abode of all
the saints and look back upon our earthly experiences, we shall feel
that any affliction we had to endure was light, indeed, compared with
the unutterable bliss that shall then be our eternal portion! We are
pilgrims bound to Zion's city and we necessarily have certain
privations and difficulties–but when our journey is at an end–

"One hour with our God

Will make up for it all."

If we have not this good hope through Divine Grace, we may well say
that our affliction is not light. I cannot imagine how any of you, my
Hearers, can go on living without a Savior –you poor people, you
hard-working people, you

sickly, consumptive people–how can you live without a Savior? I wonder
how those who are rich and who have an abundance of earthly comforts
can live on, year after year, without any hope (except a false one) of
comfort and blessing in the life that is to come? But as for you who
have so few earthly comforts, you whose life is one long struggle for
bare existence, you who scarcely know what it is to have a day without
pain, how can you live without a Savior Remember that "godliness is
profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and
of that which is to some." So, "seek you the Lord while He may be
found, call you upon Him while He is near: let the wicked forsake his
way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the
Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will
abundantly pardon." May the Lord give you the Grace to come to Him this
very moment! And to Him shall be all the Glory forever, for Jesus
Christ's sake. Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 2 CORINTHIANS 4.

Verse 1. Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received
mercy, we faint not–We are sometimes ready to faint, but we cast our
fainting spirits into the arms of God and our strength is again
renewed. At times the very importance of an errand first weighs down
the spirit of the messenger, yet afterwards it seems to impel him to
more than ordinary exertion. So is it here–having been Divinely
entrusted with this ministry and being ready to faint under the
tremendous responsibility that it involves, we are yet awakened to
action by the very pressure which seems to deprive us of the power to
act! And, therefore, "we faint not"–

2. But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in
craftiness, nor handling the Word of God deceitfully; but by
manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's
conscience in the sight of God. Far be it from the teacher of the Truth
of God to ever use words in an unnatural sense, or to dissemble or
equivocate, saying to the ear what he means not in the sense in which
the hearer understands it. Far be it from us to mix with the Word of
God anything of our own as vintners mix various kinds of wine, for such
is the import of the word that the Apostle here uses. Let none of us
ever handle the Word of God deceitfully. There is no deceit in it–it
is all pure unmixed Truth of God. An honest mind is needed for the
understanding of it, and then a truthful tongue for the telling of it
to others. If we preach undiluted, unadulterated Truths of God, we must
not expect that the natural heart of man will commend our honesty. We
are to commend ourselves to every man's conscience, not by cutting and
trimming the Word so as to make it palatable to our hearers–leaving
one Truth out to please this man, and dwelling too long upon another
Truth so as to please some other hearer–but by bringing out the whole
teaching of the Scripture in clear truthfulness that shall command the
approval of the conscience even of those who may not accept the Truth
that we proclaim!

3. But if our Gospel is hid, it is hid to them that are lost [See
Sermon #1663, Volume 28–THE true gospel is no hidden gospel.] It is
not hidden under the flowers of our oratory, not hidden under the
darkness of our speech, not hidden through the fog of our
philosophies–if it is hidden at all, it is hidden "to them that are
lost." If they had any spiritual perception or apprehension at all. If
they were not utterly lost to everything that is spiritual, they would
be able to receive the Gospel that we are bid to preach and which,
therefore, becomes "our Gospel."

4, 5. In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which
believe not [See Sermon #2304, Volume 39–blinded

BY SATAN.] [See Sermon #2077, Volume 35–THE GOSPEL OF THE GLORY OF
CHRIST.] who is the

Image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves–What
a miserable topic we would have if we preached ourselves! But we do not
set up ourselves as "priests" having authority to administer
"sacraments" to a lower order of beings who do not possess priestly
sanctity! We do not claim to belong to a ministerial caste–we regard
ourselves as simply equally with the rest of the Christian brotherhood
and, therefore, "we preach not ourselves"–

5, 6. But Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus'
sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has
shined in our hearts–We cannot, therefore, darken the Gospel, or cover
it up, "for God has shined in our hearts"–

6. 7. To give the light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the
face of Jesus Christ But we have this treasure in earthen vessels The
most earnest and faithful minister of the Gospel must always remember
that humbling Truth of God. He has this precious treasure of the Gospel
entrusted to his charge. He knows he has it and he means to keep it
safely, but still, he is nothing but an earthen vessel, easily broken,
soon marred–a poor depository for such priceless Truths of God! Yet
God has a good reason for putting this treasure into earthen vessels–

7. That the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. If
angels had been commissioned to preach the Gospel, we might have
attributed some of its power to their superior intelligence. And if
only those had been called to preach the Gospel were men of great
intellect and of profound learning, we might have considered that the
talent of man was the essential qualification for a preacher! But when
God selects–as He often does, no, as He alwaysdoes–earthen vessels
and some that seem more manifestly earthen than others, then the
excellency of the power is unquestionably seen to be of God and not of
us! In Paul's case, the earthiness of the vessel appeared in the
trouble which he had to bear.

8. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed–He is not so far
gone as that. He sees the stormy billows raging around outside the ship
everywhere, and the ship is tossed here and there upon the waves, yet
she does not leak, there is no water in the hold and the waves will not
sink the ship as long as she can keep them outside–and trouble will
not distress us as long as we can obey our Lord's injunction, "Let not
your heart be troubled." "We are troubled on every side, yet not
distressed"–

8. We are perplexed, but not in despair– We scarcely know what to do,
but, by His Grace we have not given way to despair. We are perplexed,
but hope has not gone from us. Dum spiro spero, was the old Latin
proverb–"While I live, I hope." But the Christian proverb is a still
better one, Dum expiro spero–"Even while I die I still have hope," for
"the righteous has hope in his death."

9. Persecuted, but not forsaken.For there is One who, when we are
persecuted, is persecuted with us and persecuted in us, who has
promised that we shall not be left desolate! He has said, "I will never
leave you, nor forsake you."–

"Should persecution rage and flame, Still trust in your Redeemer's
name! In fiery trials you shall see That, 'as your day, your strength
shall be.'"

9. Cast down, but not destroyed–Even if the adversary is able to cast
us down, he is not able to destroy us, for "underneath are the
everlasting arms." "Cast down, but not destroyed"–

10. Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that
the life, also, of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.Thus did
these Apostolic saints in a very high sense die daily, and so must we,
when called to suffer for the Truth's sake, bear about in our body the
dying of the Lord Jesus.

11. 12. For we which live are always delivered unto death for
Jesus'sake, that the life, also, of Jesus might be made manifest in our
mortal flesh. So then, death works in us, but life in you. The
disinterestedness of Christian affection is here seen in that Paul was
willing even to be delivered unto death if only the Church in Corinth
and other Christians might receive more of the Divine Life. This is the
motive that actuated our blessed Lord, Himself. He saved others, but in
order to do so, He could not save Himself–and he who would be a
blessing to others must expect that just in proportion to the good that
he is able to impart to them, must be the cost to himself.

13-16. We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written,
I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe and, therefore
speak; knowing that He which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us
also by Jesus, and shall present us with you. For all things are for
your sake, that the abundant Grace might through the thanksgiving of
many redound to the Glory of God. For which cause we faint not; but
though our outward man perishes–As, in the case of most of the
Apostles–it did absolutely and literally perish by martyrdom.

16. Yet the inward man is renewed day by day. As our body, through pain
and disease, is constantly sinking towards the grave, here is our
continual consolation–that our inner man is renewed day by day!

17. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a
far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.This is one of the most
remarkable verses in all Scripture! The contrast here drawn is perfect
and the language is in the highest degree pertinent to the subject.
When the Apostle speaks of affliction, he contrasts it with glory! The
affliction he calls a lightness of affliction, but the glory he calls a
weight of glory–and while he describes the affliction as

momentary, he rightly says that the glory is eternal. And then, as
though he would make the contract still more vivid, he says that this
momentary, light affliction, "works for us a far more exceeding and
eternal weight of glory." He can scarcely find words big enough to
express the contrast between what Believers now have to endure and what
they shall forever enjoy!

18. While we look not at the things which are seen but at the things
which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the
things which are not seen are eternal