A VERY different tone comes out in the second Epistle. The apostle now comes in to comfort them, for they are cast down. It is " Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are, comforted of God." The grace of God comes out. Everything has been going wrong, but now I find that, the more diminished I am in myself, the more I receive from God. What a premium there is on smallness! Paul had got comforted in persecutions and deaths, as comes out in chap. 11. God had comforted him in the midst of suffering for His name, and now he was able to comfort the Corinthians when they were cast down because of their failure.
He had been so grieved (chap. 2) at having had to grieve them; but now he rejoices, that he can comfort them because they are cast down and made small. True, I do not deserve to be comforted, since it is my failure that has brought me into this state; but the secret of it is, that, no matter how you have been made small, or self-diminished, you will then be comforted by God.
It was the same with Job. He says, I abhor myself, I am self-diminished; then God comes in and shows that it is then only that he was in a fit state to receive His favor: Practically it is when one is reduced, put out, nothing, that Christ is everything. Many a one talks of Christ being everything to him, who has never yet found himself nothing. I have to take the place of the Syrophenician woman and say, I am not entitled to anything; I am a dog; but yet His grace will reach me.
The first Epistle was man's perverseness; this is man's weakness. The great point is that you are brought to the lowest point: " We-had the sentence of death in ourselves." The apostle himself had been reduced to it by his faithfulness to Christ. He shows too how small he himself was, for he left even an open door, turned his back on everything, because of his feelings about the Corinthians. He owns how small he was. He says, I had no rest in my spirit when I could not find Titus. But God made his servant's weakness the opportunity to show out His own greatness. He says, notwithstanding God always leads me in triumph. It is not that there is any excuse for weakness, but that the great trait of the Epistle is that, when you are self-reduced, God comes in. The purpose of his heart is right, still he is a poor feeble man; but he admits his feebleness, and then God comes in to succor him.
In chap. 3, a very important thing comes out. He draws a contrast, an important one, between the way in which the law had been given and the way in which Christ was given. The law had been written on tables of stone by the finger of God. Now Christ is written on the fleshy tables of my heart by the Spirit of the living God. He puts the two in contrast, and if you do not take in the extent of the contrast you will not take in the purport of it.
Man in flesh could not come before God. The law was written on the tables of stone in glory and taken down to man; and now Christ is written on my heart in glory. It is quite true you have a Savior in heaven, but that is not all; you must have that Savior written on your heart.. Christ must now be written by the Spirit on the fleshy tables of the heart. Verses 4 to 17, is a parenthesis explaining the nature of the contrast. The law came from the glory of God. There was no place for man at all there, and God coming out to man simply from the glory could but have cut him off. The people were afraid to look even on Moses with the reflection of that glory on him. But now, instead of the law coming out from the glory, it is a Savior that is in the glory, and instead of being the -ministration of death, it is the ministration of the Spirit. This writing is not what it will be to Israel in the millennial day; it is not a law written in our heart, but Christ written on it. And to this end He has an unveiled face; there is no veil on His face as there was on that of Moses. " We all as in a glass beholding the glory of the Lord—with unveiled face, are changed into the same image from glory to glory." The word " glass " is rather confused. It is a mirror. I bring a mirror up to an object, and immediately that object is reflected on it. There is no place given to man; Christ only must appear. It is an immense thought, and we do well to weigh it. You may say, I know perfectly well that I have a Savior up there; but it is not that only; it is that that Savior is written on your heart here. You have got the treasure, as he says lower down; but it is not simply that you have a treasure, in heaven, but that you have a treasure in you. Thus does he present Christ to them.
He then passes on, chap. 4, to " the gospel of the glory of Christ," not " the glorious gospel." The knowledge of God has come out from the glory, and this knowledge should shine unto them. This great thing I have received, this wonderful fact, that I have a Savior up there at the right hand of God, and He is written on my heart down here. It is not a question of my being safe merely, but that I am the epistle of Christ.
Souls often lose comfort because not clear as to this. When man was driven out of the garden there was a cherubim and a flaming sword placed there to keep the way of the tree of life. The glory kept man out. After this God came down to take His place among His people on earth, and He came down in glory to the tabernacle and the temple. In process of time man became so wicked that God retired from the earth; but when He so retired, as we find in Ezek. 1, in the brightest spot of the retiring glory was the figure of a man; an earnest that judgment will yet be removed, and man will be in the glory.
All this did not come out at once. Stephen catches the first glimpse of it; he looks up and says, I see a man in the glory. Stephen, as a saint on earth, thus sees Him and goes to Him. And many a soul sees Christ thus inside now, and can say, I have a Savior: in glory, and the judgment is over. But with- Saul of Tarsus it was the opposite way. It is not a saint on earth going to, a Savior in glory, but it is a Savior in glory appearing to a sinner on earth. So he calls it " the gospel of the glory of Christ." I have a Savior in glory, and that, Savior is written on my heart here. I do not now belong to the ruined thing here I have a treasure in my heart as I go through this world.
And now the apostle sets forth his own -practical life. He had reminded them of the truth ministered, and now he turns to the practice flowing from it. " We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." " We are troubled," that is outside; " we are perplexed," that is inside; " persecuted," that is outside; " cast down," that is inside. He gives us two things that affect us outwardly and two that affect us inwardly, but, he says, I bear up against them all. It is always bearing about in my body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in my body. He says, I bring in death on myself here; whatever the cross of Christ has set aside, that I do not allow. It is not only that I know I have Christ, not only that He is written on the fleshy tables of my heart, but that I want that which is written to be expressed. The treasure is in an earthen. vessel. It is like a light enclosed -in an opaque substance: the more I attenuate the substance the more the light shines out through it. How then, is this to be accomplished? Well, it is my purpose that it should be, and I -look to the Lord not to allow a single thing in me that will hinder any showing out the life of Christ. God then comes in to help me. While glory lightens up nay soul with all. the certainty that I belong to another Person and another sphere, certain though I am of all that, yet I have down here in me and around me that which hinders me, so God comes in to help " We which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." He changes the word; it is not our " body " now, but our " mortal flesh." God brings in, in various ways, for any one who has a purpose to go on with Him, that which will break down the flesh. It may be sorrow, it may be bodily sickness, but, whatever- it is, it will be something that will diminish the flesh, because God cannot work until you are made small. If I could diminish myself to a fraction so that God might work I should be only too glad to do it. The hindrance with souls is that there is not enough of self-diminishing.
So it happens that one often sees a saint going on with apparently no trial, but the moment he sets himself to be for God, God brings in wave after wave upon him. Jacob in Syria never had a single death trial that we hear of. I do not mean that he had no kind of trial; his wages were changed ten times; but he had no bereavement;. it was only circumstances. But look when he gets into the land how Rachel dies, and Joseph is taken from him, and he has to give up Benjamin: I cannot explain it for another, but I know for myself how the Lord keeps me not depressed but small. I say I will set' myself to reduce Myself of everything that hinders Christ coming out in me; and then God says, I will reduce you that it may be so; and He rolls in death upon me. Some one says, I will give up this or that worldly thing. Very likely he will lose it the next day. He may think to himself, I meant to have given it up myself; God took him at his word, and took it away from him.
But glory does not kill the flesh; death is the only thing that will silence it. Many think what wonderful sights of the glory they have had, but that will never put out the flesh. It must be the cross. If I am dying, I an gating all the brighter for it outside. " Death worketh in us, but life in you." I am getting smaller one way, but bigger the other. It is what man naturally is reluctant to go through. But "'our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; 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."
He continues the subject in chap. '5. Here we see the importance of not letting the flesh work, but of having the grace of Christ brought out in us. By-and-bye we shall " all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad." Suppose grace be brought out in me to-day, it may be suffering work now, but every bit that comes out in me practically here will be brought before the judgment-seat of Christ to qualify me for my position with Him in the kingdom.
As to ourselves he brings us down to the very lowest point. " If one died for all then were all dead." It is man's thorough weakness: " all dead!' And Christ died for all in that low position, that they who live should live no longer to themselves, but to Him who died for them and rose again. So we now " know no man after the flesh." He who was-the perfect man in the flesh has died out of it, so that we can no longer look at anything on that side. All is to us " a new creation."
It is not " a new creature." A butterfly' is a new creature; it is not a new creation. But the new nature is not an old thing changed or renovated; it is a new creation of God. " All things are, become new, and all of God."
In the following chapter the apostle dwells upon himself as the minister of God. What really makes the minister a very great man is his smallness; so he begins with "much patience," and ends with " having nothing." It is all characteristic; when once you get hold of the idea, the grand vein of the Epistle, the thread running through it all, is smallness. If it even comes to the ministry, the whole point is smallness. God Himself rolls in death upon the servant in some form or other.
Then he turns round to the Corinthians and says to them, " Be enlarged." And how? By being small; come out and be separate, and nothing will make you so small. " Come out and be separate, and I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." You shall have your Father to look after you. This is not adoption; when Scripture speaks of adoption it does not say "sons and daughters." It is the sense of your Father taking care of you. A saint is much tried in his circumstances. It is that he is keeping on with the world. I say, Come out of the world, and you will find ease, and have God for your Father.
Chapter 7, tells out their repentance; how small they had been in their " earnest desire; and mourning, and fervent zeal;" they had been " made sorry after a godly manner," He too had been small, for he had repented, having made them sorry with his letter; he had feared the effect Upon them; had feared losing their affection through it; but now he does not repent; he rejoices at the result of it in their having so thoroughly cleared themselves in the matter.
And now, being in a certain sense set right, he would have them take up service for others; chap. 8. and the argument he uses is a very interesting one. Persons generally turn to those who are wealthy to help others. What the apostle insists on is, that the act of the poor is the great thing. It is often said, " But I am so poor, so small." Then what you give will be the real thing. The poor widow who cast in her two mites to the treasury " cast in more than they all." If I am so poor that I have but a few coppers, that is the very thing for God. The Lord Himself" became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich." It runs counter to all the thoughts of man. It is not a man giving what he can spare, but it is giving when he can say, This is self-reducement. Not that I am to deprive myself of food and warmth, but that my action should be self-diminishing. Whether it be service, or whatever it be, it is the same; again it is being small; it is always the line of self-reduction.
We now pass on to chapter 12. After showing them how they had been deceived by false teachers, whilst he himself had as great title to be great as any of them, he says: I will tell you now something that is worth boasting of. I knew a man in Christ. That is Romans. And what about that man? He was caught up to heaven, and heard unspeakable words which it is not possible to utter. I know not whether it was in the body or out of the body. I can only say that I was intelligently there, that I enjoyed myself there, but that there was no account taken of my body.
Mark what comes out now. The apostle goes into heaven; then he comes down again to earth, and what does he find? That he is worse off than he was before he went up; that he is a smaller man than he was; that he is diminished more than he was; and that, even in a point in which he could not go on as he did before in the Lord's service. Suppose, for instance, that he could not speak with the ability and eloquence that he did before; suppose that he could not tell out the things that he had heard as he would otherwise have done. Satan was no doubt glad enough of the liberty to go and cripple him; he would think, there will be no withstanding the man now, after all that he has seen, if he is let go on and tell it. So it was as he was advanced in the heavenly thing he was made small down here; he was a bigger man before he went up than now. Your mere human powers will not advance because your spiritual powers are greater. It will not be the power of the instrument, it will not be the perfection of your style, it will not be the grandeur of your eloquence, nor the power of your oratory; it will be the power of God.
Paul felt it 'terribly. He prayed to the Lord thrice to take the trial away. But He says to him, " My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness."
It is the theme of the Epistle. If you want to be made strong, be weak. I am able to do nothing as a man. The most impressive language will never bring truth home to a soul. No, says the Lord, it must all be my power. I may seek to make a subject interesting, to make it plain, but the power must be divine.
I need not allude to the end, except to add that the apostle fears that, because they persist in going on in the flesh, he himself may yet be made small in another way through their not being humbled.
But the great theme is, and one that is an immense help to us in our circumstances going through this world, that, if you want power, if, you want help, if you want to be used by God as you go through this scene, be small.
(J. B. S.)