11 Secrets to Endurance
(2 Corinthians 4:16–18)
Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 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. (4:16–18)
Life for Christians in this fallen world is a mixture of joy and sorrow, of blessing and suffering, of triumph and tragedy. For all people, fulfilling relationships, pleasant times, and exhilarating experiences are mitigated by the reality that “man is born for trouble, as sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7). Even Christians are not exempt from normal human trouble. Jesus warned, “In the world you have tribulation” (John 16:33). Paul and Barnabas instructed young believers, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Paul reminded Timothy, “All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12). James wrote, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials” (James 1:2). Disappointment, discontent, pain, grief, loss, disasters of various kinds, unexpected turns, and persecution will mark life’s course.
Those who are able to cope successfully with life’s difficulties are those who learn how to endure. This passage reveals the means for facing life like Paul did, of being “afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Cor. 4:8–9). Those who learn the strength of endurance will experience the paradox of being on the edge of death every moment, yet at the height of life, of “always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh” (4:10–11). They will be able to exult with David, “The steps of a man are established by the Lord, and He delights in his way. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, because the Lord is the One who holds his hand” (Ps. 37:23–24). They will be noted for their “perseverance and faith in the midst of all [their] persecutions and afflictions which [they] endure” (2 Thess. 1:4). They will be “strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 2:1), able to “suffer hardship … as … good soldier[s] of Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 2:3; cf. 4:5).
The apostle Paul understood how to endure the most threatening difficulties of life. And because his suffering was so severe, Scripture has provided him as the best example from which to learn endurance. It is hard to imagine anyone suffering more constant and serious hostility than Paul suffered, so his response can take us as far as we could go in being persecuted—and far beyond where most of us ever will go.
From his conversion on, Paul was a target for opposition and persecution. After his dramatic transformation on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1–19), Paul “immediately … began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the Son of God’” (Acts 9:20). And he “kept increasing in strength and confounding the Jews who lived at Damascus by proving that this Jesus is the Christ” (Acts 9:22). As a result, “the Jews plotted together to do away with him, but their plot became known to Saul. They were also watching the gates day and night so that they might put him to death; but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a large basket” (9:23–25). In Pisidian Antioch “when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began contradicting the things spoken by Paul, and were blaspheming” (13:45). They then “incited the devout women of prominence and the leading men of the city, and instigated a persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district” (13:50). In Iconium “the Jews who disbelieved stirred up the minds of the Gentiles and embittered them against the brethren” (14:2). As a result, “the people of the city were divided; and some sided with the Jews, and some with the apostles. And when an attempt was made by both the Gentiles and the Jews with their rulers, to mistreat and to stone them, they became aware of it and fled to the cities of Lycaonia, Lystra and Derbe, and the surrounding region” (14:4–6). In Lystra “Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having won over the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. But while the disciples stood around him, he got up and entered the city” (14:19–20). In Philippi he was beaten and imprisoned (16:16–24). In Thessalonica his preaching infuriated the Jews, and the ensuing uproar forced the apostle to leave the city for Berea (17:5–10). “But when the Jews of Thessalonica found out that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul in Berea also, they came there as well, agitating and stirring up the crowds” (17:13). In Corinth “Paul began … solemnly testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. But when they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his garments and said to them, ‘Your blood be on your own heads! I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles’” (18:5–6). Later the frustrated Jews hauled Paul before the Roman proconsul Gallio, who summarily dismissed their charges against the apostle (18:12–16). In Ephesus Paul’s fearless preaching brought him into conflict with the craftsmen who profited from the worship of the goddess Artemis. Seeing their trade threatened by the increasing number of converts to Christ Paul was influencing, they provoked a riot by the goddess’s frenzied followers (19:23ff.). On his way back to Palestine, Paul was forced to change his travel plans because of a plot by the Jews to take his life (20:3). In Jerusalem, Paul was recognized in the temple by Jews from Asia Minor. Their false allegations against him stirred up the crowd, and it was only the arrival of a detachment of Roman soldiers that saved Paul from being beaten to death by the angry mob (21:27–32). Even after he was in Roman custody, the Jews still sought to kill Paul. More than forty of them formed a plot to take his life, a plot that was thwarted when Paul’s nephew discovered it and reported it to the Roman commander (23:12–22). After languishing in Roman custody for two years, Paul exercised his right as a Roman citizen to appeal to Caesar. The ensuing voyage to Rome ended in a shipwreck after a harrowing two-week-long storm at sea (Acts 27). Though released from his first Roman imprisonment, Paul was eventually re -arrested. In that last imprisonment the apostle was forsaken by his friends. He wrote sadly to Timothy, “You are aware of the fact that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes. … At my first defense no one supported me, but all deserted me; may it not be counted against them” (2 Tim. 1:15; 4:16).
But despite the relentlessness of those hardships, Paul endured triumphantly and declared at the end of his life, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day” (2 Tim. 4:7–8). He endured to the end of the race; he never went AWOL in the midst of the battle; he remained faithful to his dying breath. And so did his Lord, causing Paul to write out of his own experience
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “For your sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things pres ent, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8:35–39)
All Christians can learn from Paul’s example how to endure the loneliness, disappointment, pain, and persecution they face. It was his vision of God’s glory revealed in the face of Jesus Christ (see the discussion of 3:18–4:6 in chapter 9 of this volume) that radically changed Paul’s perspective on life—including his sufferings. That vision is the foundation for living a triumphant life; because of the astounding realities of all that was his in Christ and the new covenant, Paul could not lose heart. No amount of trouble could make him neglect his calling, privileges, or duty. Based on the reality of God’s glory revealed in Jesus Christ and God’s mighty care in his life, Paul gives three heavenly reasons for earthly endurance in verses 16–18; three principles that enabled him not to lose heart. He exhorts believers to value spiritual strength over physical strength, value the future over the present, and value eternal realities over temporal realities.
VALUE SPIRITUAL STRENGTH OVER PHYSICAL STRENGTH
Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. (4:16)
The phrase but though could be translated “even if,” “even when,” or “since.” It introduces a condition assumed to be true and establishes the first reason Paul endured suffering and did not lose heart. He could endure anything in the physical realm because he was far more concerned about the spiritual realm. Outer man is, like “earthen vessels” (4:7), and “mortal flesh” (4:11), a reference to the physical body, the perishable part of man. From birth to death that body is constantly decaying—a process graphically depicted by Solomon in Ecclesiastes 12:1–7:
Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, “I have no delight in them;” before the sun and the light, the moon and the stars are darkened, and clouds return after the rain; in the day that the watchmen of the house [the arms and hands] tremble, and mighty men [the legs] stoop, the grinding ones [the teeth] stand idle because they are few, and those who look through windows [the eyes] grow dim; and the doors on the street are shut as the sound of the grinding mill is low, and one will arise at the sound of the bird [sleeplessness], and all the daughters of song will sing softly [hearing loss]. Furthermore, men are afraid of a high place and of terrors on the road [because their brittle bones are easily broken]; the almond tree blossoms [the hair turns white], the grasshopper drags himself along [lack of mobility], and the caperberry is ineffective. For man goes to his eternal home while mourners go about in the street. Remember Him before the silver cord [possibly the spinal cord] is broken and the golden bowl [possibly the brain] is crushed, the pitcher by the well is shattered and the wheel at the cistern [possibly the heart and circulatory system] is crushed; then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it [death—the ultimate end of the aging process].
But Paul’s outer man was decaying not only because of the normal aging process but also because of the abnormally arduous life he led. The apostle was old before his time, worn out in the cause of Christ. Nor was it merely hunger, sleeplessness, and illness that took its toll on Paul; it was the battering his body took at the hands of his enemies. Not without reason did Paul write to the Galatians, “I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus” (Gal. 6:17). His body bore the scars of beatings (Acts 16:22; 21:30–32), whippings (2 Cor. 11:24), and even a stoning (Acts 14:19; 2 Cor. 11:25), as well as imprisonments (Acts 16:24).
But in direct correlation to the dying of Paul’s outer man was the growth and maturing of his inner man. The inner man is the heart, the soul that lives forever. It is in salvation reborn, newly created (2 Cor. 5:17), becoming the new self (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10), constantly being renewed by sanctifying grace. Paul prayed for the Ephesians that God would continue this renewing in them “according to the riches of His glory” and defined that sanctifying, renewing work as being “strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man” (Eph. 3:16). As that takes place, the truths of Ephesians 3:17–19 become reality:
So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
The seemingly paradoxical truth is that when believers are physically weak and at the end of their own resources, they are in the place where they can be made spiritually strong: “Therefore,” Paul wrote, “I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10). Isaiah echoed that same truth:
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power. Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary. (Isa 40:28–31)
Life’s trials, troubles, and difficulties serve only to build inner strength, because they drive believers to humbly, prayerfully, hopefully depend on God. Because of what he experienced of God’s power in his suffering, Paul could say, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13). At the end of his life, bereft of human comfort and support, Paul declared, “The Lord stood with me and strengthened me” (2 Tim. 4:17). Peter added, “After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you” (1 Peter 5:10). Suffering energizes spiritual growth.
The decaying outer man will perish, but all believers will one day receive a new, imperishable body (2 Cor. 5:1–5; Rom. 8:22–23; 1 Cor. 15:42–44, 49). Recognizing that motivates believers to value the inner man over the outer man, and that produces spiritual endurance.
VALUE THE FUTURE OVER THE PRESENT
For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, (4:17)
Not only did Paul’s physical suffering make him spiritually strong, it also enriched his eternal reward. The apostle towered over his enemies and his troubles; rather than harming him, they actually secured for him a greater heavenly reward.
Like Paul, suffering and persecuted believers must view earth through heaven’s eyes. When weighed in the balance with believers’ eternal reward in heaven, earthly pain amounts to little. Paul expressed the proper perspective on suffering by describing it as momentary, light affliction. Though Paul’s affliction was constant and intense, he viewed it as momentary and light (easy to bear; insignificant) in view of eternity. He knew that his life was “just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away” (James 4:14), after which “man goes to his eternal home” (Eccl. 12:5). To the Romans he wrote, “We suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:17–18). Peter also wrote of the relationship between suffering and eternal glory. After describing believers’ heavenly inheritance in 1 Peter 1:3–5 he wrote,
In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (vv. 6–7)
The trials, troubles, and difficulties of life have a positive effect, because they are producing for us an eternal weight of glory. Weighed in the balance with the suffering of this life, that weight of glory tips the scales heavily in favor of eternal reward. There is a direct correlation between suffering in this life and glory (capacity to praise and glorify God) in the next. The greatest glory ever given was that given to Jesus for enduring the greatest suffering ever endured. Because “He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross … God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name” (Phil. 2:8–9). Jesus confirmed that principle in an incident recorded in Matthew 20:20–23:
Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her sons, bowing down and making a request of Him. And He said to her, “What do you wish?” She said to Him, “Command that in Your kingdom these two sons of mine may sit one on Your right and one on Your left.” But Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” They said to Him, “We are able.” He said to them, “My cup you shall drink; but to sit on My right and on My left, this is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by My Father.”
In response to their selfish request for the places of prominence in the kingdom, Jesus pointed out that those places are for those who drink the cup of suffering—a reference to His death on the cross (Matt. 26:39). Thus the greater glory in the kingdom is reserved for those who suffer the most in this life. “To the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ,” wrote Peter, “keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation” (1 Peter 4:13).
In fact, the eternal weight of glory believers will experience is so much greater than the suffering of this life that Paul described it as beyond all comparison. The Greek text literally reads huperbol? (from which the English word hyperbole derives) eis huperbol?, forming a double expression for strongest emphasis. The phrase means, “out of all proportion.” The weight of glory awaiting believers exceeds all limits; it is beyond the possibility of overstatement or exaggeration. Paul also used the word huperbol? in 2 Corinthians 1:8 to describe the intensity of his sufferings. Though he suffered more in comparison to others on earth, he would be glorified beyond all proportion or comparison in heaven. (In Hebrew, the word “glory” comes from the same root as a word meaning “heavy,” perhaps influencing Paul’s choice of words here.)
It should be noted that the only suffering that produces the eternal weight of glory is suffering for the sake of Christ, or that honors Him. Whether suffering comes from believers’ faithful, loyal, committed testimony about Jesus Christ, or the patient enduring of life’s normal trials, such as disease, divorce, poverty, and loneliness, if endured with a humble, grateful, God-honoring attitude, it will add to the eternal weight of glory. On the other hand, suffering the consequences of sin does not contribute to our heavenly blessing and could remove some of the reward already gained (2 John 8). Peter wrote, “For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God” (1 Peter 2:20), and
If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; but if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name. (1 Peter 4:14–16)
Through his present tears Paul never lost sight of the future glory that awaited him in heaven.
VALUE THE ETERNAL OVER THE TEMPORAL
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. (4:18)
Recognizing that “the form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:31; cf. 1 John 2:17), Paul kept his focus on eternity. He stressed the importance of having a heavenly perspective when he reminded the Corinthians in verse 14 of this chapter, “He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you.” In 1 Corinthians 2:9 he wrote, “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.” He called the Philippians to focus on the reality that “our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself” (Phil. 3:20–21). He exhorted the Colossians, “Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth” (Col. 3:2).
But such a focus on eternal, heavenly realities is not automatic; it requires effort on believers’ part; it only happens, Paul wrote, while we look. Endurance comes as long as believers look in the right direction, that is not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for, Paul explains, the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Proskairos (temporal) refers to things that are temporary, that do not last, that are destined to perish one day, that belong to time. In short, proskairos encompasses everything that is not eternal—all the material world’s temporal ideas, values, standards, and achievements.
The allurements of the passing world system were of no interest to Paul. He was not interested in amassing a fortune, having a palatial estate, or a prominent career. That attitude made him seem, by worldly standards, a colossal failure. After all, Paul was a highly educated Hellenistic Jew, a student of the most prominent rabbi of his day, Gamaliel (Acts 22:3; cf. 5:34), possibly even a member of the Sanhedrin (Acts 26:10). He might have risen to the pinnacle of Jewish society (cf. Gal. 1:14). Yet he gladly rejected all that to become, as his enemies disdainfully put it, “a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes” (Acts 24:5). Such a worldly evaluation of him was of scant concern to the apostle, because he recognized that “the world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:17).
When Paul called for believers to focus on the things that are eternal he had in mind the triune God and the souls of men. (The other eternal beings are the holy and fallen angels [demons], but they are not in view here.) His devotion to God can be seen in his many outbursts of praise to Him (e.g., Rom. 11:33–36; 16:27; Gal. 1:5; Eph. 3:21; Phil. 4:20; 1 Tim. 1:17; 6:16; 2 Tim. 4:18). His unswerving loyalty to Christ caused him to “prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8; cf. Phil 1:23). The highest goal of his life was be a follower of Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 11:1). And Paul lived in submission to the Spirit’s leading (cf. Acts 16:6–7), ministered in the Spirit’s power (1 Thess. 1:5), and manifested the fruit of the Spirit (cf. Gal. 5:22–23).
Paul was also zealous for the souls of men, so much so that he exclaimed, “I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites” (Rom. 9:1–4). His passion for men’s everlasting souls was the reason he was willing to “endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory” (2 Tim. 2:10). That passion eventually cost Paul his life.
Paul was the supreme example of one who understood the secret of enduring no matter how difficult the trial or painful the circumstances. Those who, like Paul, cultivate spiritual strength in their inner person, do not let the present blind them to the future, and set their hearts on eternal, not temporal, realities will be able to exult with the apostle, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Cor. 4:8–9).