So You’re a Priest: In Case of Emergency, Break

This is part 9 of a sermon series through 2 Corinthians. For a while Paul has been extolling "the gospel of the glory of Christ" (2 Cor. 4:4) and exhorting the Corinthians to live boldly and confidently in their faith. However, now Paul is going to take a different tack ...

Corinthians 4:7-18

Commentary

Through this whole passage, note how many ideas are repeated, but reworded in different ways. The rewording highlights contrasts (v7: power is from God and not from us), and limitations (v9: struck down, but not destroyed). Overall, these parallel constructions give us a picture of two worlds in opposition: a world of death that we can see clearly, and a world of life that is seen poorly—if at all—but is being made manifest of the Spirit of Jesus.

v7 jars of clay. Our bodies, formed from the dust of the ground, are metaphorical jars of clay. A literal jar of clay is a cheap and fragile container; only a fool would put something precious in such. However, the foolishness of God is to put his Spirit in us, fragile as we are!

v8-9 These verses are a peristasis catalog: i.e. a list of circumstances common to people. This is the first of several such lists in the letter (6:3-10; 11:23-33; 12:9-10). In this list, each circumstance is qualified—limited in its intensity—by the trailing clause. In short, we are broken, but not shattered.

v10-11 body. The NIV muddies the intent by taking two Greek words, soma & sarx, translating them both as body, even though the NIV rightly translates sarx most other places as "sinful nature." The KJV does slightly better, translating the end of v11 as "our mortal flesh."

Paul uses soma when referring to the body of Christ (i.e. the church) and there is a temptation to read v10 as references to the church, but nowhere else in this letter does Paul refer to the body of Christ, whereas he repeatedly refers to our weak human bodies.

revealed. In both v10 and v11 a better translation is "made manifest." What looks like dying from a worldly point of view at the last moment is turned into something else. The power of Jesus is made manifest as we work through physical trials (v10) and as our sinful nature is changed into something new (v11).

v18 temporary. Literally, "for a season."

Application

Looking at other sermons and commentaries on these verses, the temptation is to say that the message is "No pain, no gain," i.e. through our trials we endure, we earn, we work our way to glory.

That would be to trivialize the message.

One would never put valuable treasure, say gold, into a fragile jar of clay if the intent were to keep the treasure safe. One would only put treasure into such a container if the intent were eventually to break open the container, letting the treasure out to be seen, to be enjoyed, to be spent. Think about a piñata full of candy; it is only a enjoyable shell for the prize inside. To get to the prize, considerable violence is going to be inflicted on the shell. Likewise, consider the festive packages you will give or receive at Christmas; although sometimes the packaging is the valuable gift, usually the gift is hidden by layers of ribbons, paper, foil, tissue, cardboard, and tape.

To some extent, the Spirit of God living within you is like that. It is the treasure within you, and at just the right time, you must be broken for it to come out. The piñata and the Christmas gift must be torn open at just the right time—too early or too late, and something is lost. A treasure never revealed is a tragedy. Timing is everything.

In lots of buildings there is a glass box on a wall with the words "In case of emergency, break the glass." Inside is something important: a fire extinguisher, a fire hose, an ax, an AED. Again, timing is everything. Breaking the glass when there is no emergency is vandalism. Failing to break the glass when there is an emergency is a missed opportunity. For the Spirit of Christ to be at work in you during your trials, something in you has to give. For it to be otherwise would be like trying to get to the fire extinguisher without breaking the glass. How often do we try to get through our trials in one piece?

But these analogies don’t tell the whole story. First, we’re not supposed to save God behind glass only for emergencies. But the point isn’t about how to live the Spirit-filled life when everything was going well, but rather what to do when you are hard-pressed, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down. Are you going to have the good sense to let the glass be broken and let the Spirit work?

Second, for the piñata, and the Christmas gift, once the package is opened and the hidden gift away is revealed, usually the packaging is rubbish, an annoying cleanup chore. I wonder if our fears about becoming rubbish in the sight of God don’t drive us in one of two directions. On one hand, we resist being opened up, afraid that what little treasure we have might be lost or frittered away. On the other hand, we fear that maybe the treasure is gone (or worse, was never there) and we are already rubbish. On one hand, we fear losing what little value we might have; on the other, we fear we have already lost whatever value we ever had. But we are never rubbish in the eyes of God; even when we are broken, we are not abandoned (v9); even when we fail God, he will not fail us.

All of these analogies fail, in part, because the treasure is inanimate even as the packing is dead and lifeless. Perhaps the fuller analogy of the package with the treasure hidden within is found in the insect world in the form of a cocoon or a chrysalis. The living larva spins the material for its new casing and, once completed, inside the treasure begins to form. However, for the new creation—e.g. a butterfly—to be revealed, the casing must be broken. Old life in old forms gives way to new life in new forms, and so it is in the world of the Spirit. The old world and its ways, which we see and tend to live by, must give way to a new world being birthed by the Spirit of Christ. We can see this new world only faintly. Like blind men, we tend to grope our way along in this new world by faith and not by sight.

Like the clay jar we have been designed to be broken in order to let the treasure out. However, like the caterpillar, we have been designed to be transformed, old life replaced by new life. We are never broken and discarded like rubbish, but brought into a new way of living that makes the trials—the labor pains of new life being born—a fleeting memory.

Points to Ponder

Where have you tried to get through trials without being broken? Could it be that admitting your need for God and trying a new course of action would have shortened the trials?

Birth is a trial, but it is only for a short time. Even the longest labor is fleeting compared to the promise of life to come.