What is the eternal weight of glory (2 Corinthians 4:17)?

A sinner's mercy must not be confounded with a saint's reward, though both are alike by grace; and although the abundance of the latter most assuredly depends upon a due appreciation of the former, God's saints have also experiences, both common and distinctive. As Canaan could be reached by Israel only through the great and terrible wilderness, so is it that through much tribulation all who are of God are brought by the Spirit on their way through this world to their rest. But a common experience develops special and widely different qualities in those who are thus proved. God tries the faith of His elect with varying results. Hence the doctrine of this passage is both general and special; it includes all saints, it contemplates more closely those who in their measure share the single-minded and entire devotedness which so pre-eminently marked the writer of these words. His language is very bold, but in exact conformity with the truth expressed. Afflictions work out glory for the true follower of Christ, and that in an inverse ratio. The afflictions (when estimated by the heart of faith) are light; the glory is above all weight. The connexion of ideas in this memorable contrast is most obvious: what Paul suffers he suffers in the flesh, and with the limited endurance of a man; but he suffers in the name and for the sake of Jesus. According to that name, therefore, and to the worthiness of Him who bears it, will be the joyful recompence of the reward. Thus he reckons, with the calm assurance of one who eyes the race he has to run with a secret consciousness of a strength fully equal to the task proposed, on winning, by the grace of God, the prize of that high calling after which he strove. He is Christ's wholly, and Christ is no less absolutely his. Because of the first he is acquainted here with grief, while for the latter reason he expects a compensating weight of glory which no other name than Christ's could bear.

Verses 17, 18. "For our light affliction," etc. The second of these verses is the argument of the first; for it is only while looking by faith on things unseen that burdens, in themselves of overwhelming weight, can be accounted light. But as all creatures when compared with their Creator are as nothing, so faith's anticipations have ever a diminishing effect on the temporary experiences, whether joyous or grievous, of the believer. We have two things to consider in the passage now before us; first the apostle's doctrine, and secondly the language in which it is expressed. What is here clearly affirmed is the existence of a positive relation between the tribulation which is the common calling of God's saints while in the flesh, and the glory which they are to have. The latter is declared to be a resulting effect of the former; "the light affliction works for us an exceeding and eternal weight of glory." The extremes are here brought into comparison, the intermediate effect of tribulation on the exercised heart of the believer being patience (Rom. 5:3).

And what sustains in all this? It is faith. And faith reckons on God who raiseth the dead. "Knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise us up also with Jesus, and shall present us with you." The faith of the believer and the servant looks forward to the glorious consummation when Christ comes for His saints and the great presentation (Jude 24) takes place. This is the glorious goal when we shall no longer see in the glass darkly, when we shall know as we are known, when we shall see Him as He is and be like Him. Therefore, "we faint not; but if our outward man be consumed, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Faith always looks upon things seen as temporal. Unseen things, the things above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God, are eternal; with these faith is to be occupied. But who is able to say what awaits us there? Who is able to tell out the meaning of that wonderful sentence, "A far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory?" There is a surpassing, an unspeakable, an indescribable, an unfathomable and eternal glory for the Saints of God. In ages to come God will display the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:7).

The affliction is not only light but also only "for a moment." In Paul's case it lasted from the days shortly after his conversion, when the Jews of Damascus took counsel to kill him, to the day when he suffered martyrdom: a period covering 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: for eternity and not merely for a moment: and it is 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 superfluous. But, "far more exceeding!" Paul piles on the words. It is something excessively surpassing! He knew it, for fourteen years before he had been caught up into the third heaven and had glimpses of it. He wishes us to know it too.

THERE IS NO real break between chapters 4 and 5, for he passes on to show that if our outward man does perish, and so our earthly tabernacle house be dissolved, we are to have a house of another order which shall be eternal. The thought of what is eternal links these verses together. Eternal things are brought within the sight of our faith. An eternal weight of glory awaits us. And we shall need a resurrection body, which shall be eternal, in order to sustain that eternal weight of glory without being crushed by it. It is absolutely certain that such a resurrection body shall be ours. "We know," he says. He had established that fact in the fifteenth chapter of his first epistle; so that they knew it as well as he.

This does not mean that he heard mysterious utterances quite unintelligible to him, but that the things he heard, and doubtless understood in some degree, were so exalted as to be beyond us in our present condition. The things spoken about in the third heaven cannot be communicated to us. We have no language in which they can be expressed. And further, if it were possible to convey to us a little of that "eternal weight of glory" it would only crush us in our present condition of weakness. Hence Paul was not allowed to utter the things he heard, even if he could have found words in which to clothe the things revealed. This vision and revelation from the Lord was a special privilege conferred upon him, and for his own illumination and strengthening.

This is so true that the apostle does not hesitate to designate so withering and pitiless a storm of trial, ever repeating itself in fresh blows and continual grief, as "the momentary lightness of our affliction." Yet who ever beheld, yea conceived, such suffering, save in the One with whom none can compare? And His grace it is that so works, and strengthens thus to reckon. Lightness of affliction! in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in death often. But why recite what no reader of feeling can have forgotten? Momentary! in him who scarce knew cessation of unexampled perils, inflictions, and labours. Yet was he full of good cheer. "For the momentary lightness of our affliction works out for us in surpassing measure an eternal weight of glory." (Ver. 17.) To this he looked onward, reaping withal no small return of blessing even now, and thus binding together what was spiritual along the way with the end in the presence of the Lord by-and-by, in words which labour for adequate expression of the truth.

We must not lay unfounded stress on the "while" which introduces the last verse in our tongue. It is not here the expression of time emphatically, as if the blessing were only going on during the soul's regard of the things set before our faith, however important it may be that our regard should go on unbrokenly. The apostle says no more than that such is the due object for our contemplation, our heed paid not to the things that are seen, but to those that are not seen; with the explanation or reason assigned, "for the things that are seen [are] temporary, but those that are not seen [are] eternal." (Ver. 18.) Who does not own, save the basest of sceptics, that deliverance from the present and fleeting is true power? Who feels as he ought the simplicity with which Christ, as now revealed to us, and revealing the unseen and eternal things, makes good this mighty work in those who believe? How ought not the Christian to appreciate the gospel of His glory?

(V. 17). Seeing then that in trials and afflictions the inner man is renewed, the Apostle counts the present afflictions but "light," and only lasting "for a moment," and working for good. These momentary trials will have an eternal answer. The afflictions are temporal, light and humiliating, but they work an "eternal weight of glory."

Verse 1 has shown the ministry of Christ itself gave courage: verse 16 shows that the results of it encourage the servants in not fainting. If the outward man was brought down by opposition to the dust of death, yet there was inward renewal, by means of communion with God, whose miraculous power and grace, day by day, they thereby experienced. And there was future, eternal compensation before them. In view of this, Paul's triumph of faith is precious, in speaking of his present affliction as only "light." And even his abundance of adjectives here, "far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory," does not fully describe the glory that shall be revealed. Things eternal alone are worth our real interest.

Affliction—how many endure it! How grievous it is, especially when there is wearying pain night and day! The time seems interminable. But let the mind reflect 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.” The contrast is most vivid. “A far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory!” Put the affliction which is for a moment in the scale that it may be weighed against the glory, which is eternal. How light the affliction; how weighty the glory.