For our momentary [and] light affliction works for us in surpassing measure an eternal weight of glory;
Paul has just described a life of constant pressure. Now he weighs that whole experience against what is coming. How can a man who was beaten, jailed and often near death call his trouble light and brief?
The words land differently once you remember whose mouth they come from. This is not a comfortable man philosophising about pain.
The storm of trial was harsh and pitiless. It kept repeating itself in fresh blows and constant grief. Yet the apostle does not hesitate to call it "the momentary lightness of our affliction." Who ever saw, or even imagined, such suffering, except in the One with whom none can compare? And it is His grace that works this way, and strengthens a man to reckon like this. Lightness of affliction! — in beatings beyond measure, in prison more often, facing death often.
"For a moment" is measured from the other end of the comparison, not by the clock. The writers below quote an older English translation, which reads "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."
The affliction is not only light but also only "for a moment." In Paul's case it started shortly after his conversion, when the Jews of Damascus plotted to kill him. It ran on to the day he died as a martyr. That is a period of thirty years or more. This period is only a moment to him because his mind is set on an eternity of glory. What tremendous contrasts we have here! The coming glory is weighty and not light; it is for eternity and not just for a moment; and it is all this in a "far more exceeding" way. It might have seemed enough to say it was exceeding. To say it is "more exceeding" seems almost unnecessary. But, "far more exceeding!" Paul piles on the words.
This reckoning does not stand on its own. The next verse gives the reason.
Verse 18 is the argument for verse 17. Only while faith looks at things unseen can we count such burdens light, though in themselves they have overwhelming weight. Every creature is nothing next to its Creator. In the same way, what faith looks forward to always shrinks the believer's passing experiences, whether happy or painful. The passage plainly states a positive link between two things: the trouble that is the common calling of God's people while they live in this body, and the glory they are to have.
"Working for us" says the trouble produces something. The suffering is not merely endured until glory arrives; it has a hand in the outcome.
Afflictions work out glory for the true follower of Christ, and that in an inverse ratio. The afflictions (when measured by the heart of faith) are light; the glory is above all weight. The connection of ideas in this memorable contrast is very plain. What Paul suffers, he suffers in the body, with the limited endurance of a man. But he suffers in the name of Jesus and for His sake. So the joyful reward will match that name, and the worthiness of the One who bears it.
Where does such calm come from?
The ups and downs of life are "our present light affliction which is but for a moment." They are not without purpose or empty of blessing. They work "for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." This is not cold, lifeless theology. It is the sure word of God, and we are to take it up in triumphant faith. This calm of soul does not come from human toughness, and even less from an inability to feel suffering. No, it is the divine life in the Christian, strengthened and made glad by the glory of the grace that shines in the face of Jesus.
The verse is meant to be used. Put the two things in the balance.
Affliction — how many endure it! How painful it is, especially when there is wearying pain night and day! The time seems endless. But let the mind think on "the far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory," and the true proportion is discovered, the divine perspective is ours. What seems so heavy becomes "light affliction." Put the affliction, which lasts a moment, in the scale. Weigh it against the glory, which is eternal. How light the affliction; how weighty the glory.
- Weigh — the verse is a scale. Set momentary affliction against eternal glory. Then the true proportion appears: how light the one, how weighty the other.
- Look — the weighing only works while the eye is on what is unseen. There is no other way to call crushing burdens light.
- Work — trouble is not dead time. The suffering of God's people is linked to their coming glory, and it helps produce it.
- Name — Paul suffers as a man, with a man's limited endurance. But he suffers for the sake of Jesus, and the reward matches the worth of that name.
- Life — this calm is not human toughness or numbness. It is the divine life in the Christian, gladdened by the glory shining in the face of Jesus.
while we look not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen; for the things that are seen [are] for a time, but those that are not seen eternal.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
For we know that if our earthly tabernacle house be destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
Paul has just called the body an earthen vessel, and here he tells us what happens when that vessel is destroyed. The verse sets a tent against a building, and the temporary against the eternal.
Paul does not begin with a hope. He begins with knowledge.
What calm and confident knowledge the apostle here credits to Christians, simply as Christians! What a contrast with the dark uncertainty of unbelief, or with its godless boldness! Eternal things are no less sure in hope because they are not seen.
This knowledge is for the hour when death comes close.
Let us look calmly at death; it may soon touch us. How shall we greet the "King of Terrors"? That is the world's name for death. God, speaking to His people, calls it Sleep… "We know!" What assurance is here; and again, the confidence rests on God. The shifting tent gives way to the building of God.
Two things are true of this body at once.
The tent that is our earthly home is the body of the believer, the earthen vessel of the previous chapter. It is called a tent because it is only a temporary lodging. By grace, believers are strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Yet in this earthen vessel, this frail tent, there is a divine indweller, the Holy Spirit.
Paul does not treat death as settled for every believer.
The apostle speaks of our earthly house being destroyed: "if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed." He does not say "when we die." He only states the possibility that the tent may be taken down… "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed" was the mystery revealed through the apostle in his first letter (1 Corinthians 15:51). The change of the believer's body is certain; its destruction is not.
One writer warns against reading extra ideas into the verse.
Let us not make difficulties for ourselves by putting into this verse what is not there. The destruction of the body is in view. The contrast is between the tent that is our earthly home — the most temporary of all dwelling places, easily shifted from one place to another — and a building. And it is a building "of God," not one "made with hands"; eternal in the heavens, instead of temporary and earthly.
Paul writes in the present tense about a house no one has moved into yet.
"We know" is the proper language of Christianity. There is no cause for alarm if this tent is destroyed, for it is only meant to be temporary. We do not have the new house yet, and still the verse says, "We have a building from God." It is as certain as though we were already living in it.
The new house is not a repaired version of the old one. It suits a different world.
The new and glorified body we are destined for will be like a house of God's workmanship. None of the frailties that come from human origin will exist in it. It will be able to sustain all the joys and services of the heavens for eternity. It would in a way be a poor thing if we came into the heavens with Christ, into all the brightness of the Father's house, with bodies that grow tired and weary.
Commentators differ over when this house becomes ours. Some tie it to the Lord's return:
This refers to the resurrection body, which we shall have when the Lord returns. We do not receive it when the tent-house is destroyed… The tent-house is subject to death; the new body is called "eternal."
Another writer rules out one common misreading, and finds more in the verse than the resurrection body alone:
Some will have it that this house not made with hands is heaven itself. But how then could it be called a house "in the heavens"? The house and heaven itself are carefully distinguished. Others, with less error but with an incomplete view of the passage as a whole, think only of the resurrection body. But it does not follow that the passage throws no light on the state of the soul between death and the resurrection.
- Tent — the present body is a traveller's lodging, temporary by design. The Holy Spirit lives in that frail vessel now.
- If — Paul says "if," not "when." The Lord may come first, so the change of the body is certain, but death is not.
- Building — the new house is God's work, not human work; permanent, not passing; heavenly, not earthly.
- Have — Paul speaks of the future body in the present tense: as sure as if we lived in it already.
- Know — certainty, not guesswork, lets a believer face death calmly.