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Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 4:16-18
In this message we come to the last three verses of chapter four, verses 16 through 18. These verses are still related to the living of a crucified life for the manifestation of the resurrection life by the excellent power of the treasure in the earthen vessels.
In chapters three and four we see that first the apostles were constituted of God Himself. That constitution was everything in relation to their life and behavior. Every aspect of their living and behavior was based on this constitution. Furthermore, this constitution afforded them the life supply with the power, strength, riches, wisdom, and even the ministry. They ministered with what had been constituted into them.
The apostles did not preach something which they had merely heard or had been taught. What they ministered was not something that had only been revealed in a vision. What they preached, taught, and ministered was altogether what had been constituted into them. The apostles were constituted in a certain way, having become constituted persons. Therefore, what they ministered was their constitution. They ministered what they were, what they had become. This means that their reconstituted being became their ministry.
Paul’s writings are very different from today’s Christian writings. Paul’s writings are a record of his constitution, whereas today’s writings are mainly concerned with theology, doctrines, teachings, expositions, and interpretations. Among the fourteen Epistles written by Paul, chapters three and four of 2 Corinthians are the richest as far as his personal experience of Christ is concerned. In these chapters we have an accurate and precious record of Paul’s spiritual constitution. If we would know what kind of person Paul was as a minister of the new covenant, we need to spend much time in these two chapters, chapters which reveal Paul’s spiritual constitution.
Because ministry requires constitution, Brother Nee told us that we could receive a gift immediately, but we could never have a ministry in a short time. It takes years to become constituted. This involves growth into maturity.
Everything related to this constitution is organic and of life. This life is by the Spirit, the ultimate consummation of the processed God. Paul was a person constituted of God. It is not sufficient to speak of him as a God-man, for he was actually a person constituted of God. Therefore, Paul’s ministry was his being. What he preached and taught was what he was. He ministered his very being to others. As Paul ministered in this way, Christ was imparted into others, for Paul and Christ had become one. Paul was one with Christ and had been constituted of Christ. His ministry was a ministry of the Christ who had been constituted into his being. Without this kind of ministry, there is no way to have the church adequately built up or to have the bride properly adorned.
The Bible indicates that what God initiated at the beginning will be accomplished. Moreover, God is a God of resurrection. As the God of resurrection, His purpose cannot fail, and He Himself cannot be defeated. Rather, all frustrations and distractions prove His unchangeableness, prove that He is the unchanging God. What He has determined, He will accomplish. What He set out to do at the beginning, He will fulfill at the end. In the New Testament God began with a group of ministers. Paul was among them. At the end God will also have a group of the same kind of ministers. Here and there around the world, He must have ministers of the new covenant. My burden is that many among us will become ministers of the new covenant.
I hope that these messages on the ministry and the ministers of the new covenant will remain with you. I hope especially that the leading ones, the co-workers, and all those who have a heart for the Lord’s recovery will aspire to be today’s new covenant ministers. We need to have a heart not only to love the Lord in a general way, but also to become ministers of the New Testament. If we have such a heart, we must be serious with the Lord and dwell on these two chapters of 2 Corinthians, praying over them, having fellowship concerning them, and telling the Lord that we are willing to open ourselves for His working in us. We need to tell Him that we are willing to be broken, ground, and constituted; that we are willing to live a crucified life; that we are willing to renounce ourselves and deny ourselves and be constituted daily with the elements of the processed Triune God; that we are willing to be today’s Paul, not a great person or a famous believer, but a small man, a crucified man, even a Nazarene.
Jesus of Nazareth did not seek to be great or famous. On the contrary, He was a grain of wheat that fell into the ground and died. In this way Jesus became the first minister of the new covenant. We need to follow Him also to become ministers of the new covenant. Concerning this, we must look to the Lord and pray desperately to Him.
In 4:16 Paul says, “Wherefore we do not lose heart, but if indeed our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is being renewed day by day.” In this verse Paul says, as he does in 4:1, “We do not lose heart.” Many things had happened that could have caused Paul and his co-workers to be disappointed or to lose heart. Hardly anything was encouraging. Nevertheless, because they were in resurrection, they did not lose heart. Actually, resurrection requires death, discouragement, and disappointment in order to be manifested. Without death, how could there be the manifestation of resurrection life? Death allows resurrection to be manifested. Therefore, as they passed through death, the apostles did not lose heart. Although many disappointing things happened, they were not discouraged.
In verse 16 Paul says that our outward man is decaying. The outward man is our body and our soul, with the body as its organ and the soul as its life and person. The inward man is our regenerated spirit with our renewed soul. The regenerated spirit is its life and person, and the renewed soul is its organ. The life of the soul must be denied (Matt. 16:24-25), but the functions of the soul, the mind, will, and emotion, must be renewed and uplifted by being subdued (2 Cor. 10:4-5) to be used by the spirit, the person of the inward man.
The Greek word rendered decaying also means being consumed, being wasted away, being worn out. By the continued killing, the working of death, our outward man, that is, our material body with its animating soul (1 Cor. 15:44), is being consumed and worn out.
In verse 16 I prefer the word consumed to the word decayed. Decay implies that something is disintegrating by itself without anything acting upon it. Here Paul does not mean that the apostles were decaying. According to the context, their being put to death was not initiated by them. If they had taken the initiative, then we may say that they were decaying. But since the initiative was taken by the persecutors and by the circumstances and environment, it is better to say that they were being consumed. They were being wasted away. The meaning of the Greek word includes decaying, being consumed, and being wasted away.
The persecutors and the environment were working on the apostles. This was not a work carried out by the apostles on themselves. Grinding is never initiated by the grains. Rather, the grinding work is carried on by the person doing the grinding. The apostles were not the grinders; they were the ones under the grinding. Their outward man was being consumed, destroyed, put to death.
Teachers of the Bible have different interpretations and explanations of the term the outward man. Certain of the so-called inner life people regard the outward man as the soulish man, the natural man, and they consider the spiritual man, one who lives in the spirit, as the inner man. In 1 Corinthians 2 and 3 Paul does speak of the spiritual man, the soulish man, and the fleshly man. A fleshly person is one who lives in the lust of his flesh, whereas a soulish person lives in the soul. Those who are soulish are divisive. In the church life they have their own preferences and choices. The spiritual person, like Paul and the apostles, lives and walks in the spirit. According to some inner life teachers, we may either be soulish ones who live in the outward man, or spiritual ones who live in the inward man.
According to the context of 2 Corinthians 4, the outward man refers mainly to the body in verse 10 and to the mortal flesh in verse 11. These terms are used inter-changeably, for our fallen body has become the mortal flesh. The outward man in verse 16 certainly refers to this fallen body, to this mortal flesh. However, it is not adequate to say that the outward man simply denotes the body. This understanding is not complete, for the body itself cannot be a man, a person. The body is merely an organ. In 1 Corinthians 15:44 Paul speaks of a soulish body, a natural body animated by the soul, a body in which the soul predominates. Therefore, the outward man has the body as its organ and the soul as its life and person. Hence, the outward man comprises both the body and the soul. The body is not the person. The person is the soul, and the body is an organ. Likewise, the body is not the life; the life of the outward man is the soul. The soul is both the person and the life of the outward man. Yes, the body is a major part of the outward man. Nevertheless, it is merely an organ directed, animated, and used by the soul.
The inward man is our regenerated spirit with the soul as its organ. The spirit is the life and person, and the renewed soul is the organ. The life of the soul, the soulish life, must be denied. But the functions of the soul — the mind, the will, and the emotion — must be renewed. In the church life we are experiencing the renewing of the mind and the uplifting of the mind. As our mind is subdued by the Lord, it is renewed. Then it can be used by our spirit, which is the person of the inward man. The outward man is being consumed. It is being worn out and put to death. But the inward man is being renewed day by day. Being consumed implies decreasing, and being renewed implies increasing. Thus, our outward man is decreasing, and our inward man is increasing. Outwardly my body is getting older, but my inward man is getting younger and newer. Outwardly we are all getting older, but inwardly we are becoming newer.
The inward man is renewed by being nourished with the fresh supply of resurrection life. As our mortal body, our outward man, is being consumed by the killing work of death, our inward man, that is, our regenerated spirit with the inward parts of our being (Jer. 31:33; Heb. 8:10; Rom. 7:22, 25), is being metabolically renewed day by day with the supply of resurrection life.
Being renewed is similar to being constituted. In both cases there is the need for a particular element. In order for us to be renewed, some element must be added to us. This renewing element is the treasure hidden within us (v. 7). However, for us to be renewed, it is not adequate simply to have the treasure within. There is also the need for the killing, the destroying, the consuming, the grinding. For this reason, inwardly we have the treasure, and outwardly we have the environment. Through our environment, God sovereignly places us under the grinding stones.
It is impossible for us to escape God’s hand. Are you mature? Have you been broken? You may still use your cleverness to escape the breaking and the grinding. No one is able to deal with you. However, those who try the hardest to escape the breaking eventually suffer the most. It is our destiny to be consumed. Brothers, the Lord will probably use your wives to grind you. Even the best wife is used by Him in this way.
The Lord sovereignly uses our environment to consume us. Do not think that it is because you are wrong that you need to be consumed. Actually, it is because you are right that you need to be consumed. The more right you are, the more you need to be consumed. Paul was very right. This was the reason he needed a great deal of consuming. This does not mean, however, that you should purposely try to do something wrong. If you are wrong, you may be punished.
You may wonder what you should do, since you will be consumed if you are right and punished if you are wrong. The answer is that you should not do anything. Sooner or later, the Lord will put you under the grinding stone.
Because we love the Lord, we are willing to be ground. But this does not mean that we should place ourselves between the grinding stones. That is suicide, not grinding. Let the Lord sovereignly put you under the grinding. There is no need to do anything concerning this; it will happen spontaneously.
Only by the consuming of the outward man can Christ be lived out and ministered to others. This is the Lord’s way. Only in this way can the bride be prepared for Him.
In verse 17 Paul says, “For our momentary lightness of affliction works out for us, more and more surpassingly, an eternal weight of glory.” The affliction here refers to the putting to death, the working of the cross. Literally, more and more surpassingly means excessively unto excess. The eternal weight of glory is in contrast to the momentary lightness of affliction. Glory here is the expression of God as resurrection life and is in contrast to affliction.
The momentary lightness of affliction works out for us an eternal weight of glory. This weight of glory will become the beauty of the adorned bride.
Verse 18 says, “While we do not consider the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” The things seen are of the temporary affliction, but the things not seen are of the eternal glory. Paul did not care for the affliction, the environment, the poverty, the opposition, the persecution, or the grinding. Those things, things which are seen, are temporary. He cared only for eternal things. He knew that while he was in the condition of being ground, the affliction was working out something weighty, beautiful, and eternal. In this way we shall be adorned as the bright and beautiful bride for Christ at His coming back.
In these chapters we see the ministers with the ministry, and we also see the result of the ministry. Here we have a portrait of the ministers of the new covenant with a beautiful and wonderful ministry that builds up the church and beautifies the bride.
