05/07/2024
From Matthew McCullough's book, Remember Death: The Surprising Path to Living Hope pgs 150-155
"Throughout this book I've been making an ironic claim: we need to recognize that our problem is far worse than we've admitted so we can recognize that Jesus is a far greater Savior than we've known...Honesty about death is the only sure path to living hope---hope that can weather the problems of life under the sun, that doesn't depend on lies for its credibility. We must compare our problems with death so we can compare our problems with glory.
Paul calls for this sort of comparison near the end of 2nd Corinthians 4, just before he launches into a beautiful passage on longing for resurrection...
..This passage is full of comparisons. He compares the outer self which is wasting away, with the inner self that is being constantly renewed (2 Cor. 4:16). He compares what is transient (the things that are seen) with what is eternal (the things that are not seen, 4:18). And at the center of this paragraph full of comparisons, Paul draws our attention to affliction, what I'll call the problems of life, and the promise of glory: 'For this light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison' (4:17)...
..Compared with the weight of glory, our affliction is light. Compared with eternity our problems are momentary...
..Because our experience of our problems doesn't feel light or momentary most of the time, we need to be careful not to misunderstand what Paul means. Otherwise we risk dismissing him before we've seen the beauty in what he's saying. Paul is not saying that the problems we face in life aren't real. He's not even saying they shouldn't weigh heavy on us, or be hard to push through. Paul doesn't minimize our suffering. Instead he maximizes glory...
..Paul does not try to explain suffering away like we might. Suffering isn't really his focus. He wants our eyes on glory. He wants our hearts feeling its weight. His point isn't that our problems are light or even momentary. It's that they're light and momentary COMPARED with the eternal weight of glory...
..The Bible never asks us to pretend life isn't hard or that the hard things about life don't really matter...
..The Bible never asks us to lighten up about the problems of life...
..The biblical perspective on life in this world has this balance: the problems we face are real. They do matter. But the problems we focus on aren't our biggest problems. They're derivative. They're symptoms. They're the dark clouds of warning of the storm to come. And we need a vision of the storm to come to put the clouds in perspective.
Paul isn't being unrealistic when he compares our problems with the eternal weight of glory. He's actually being MORE realistic about our problems...
..He knows that everything he can see, good and bad, is passing away. That's why he locks in on the promise of glory he can't see...
...Glory is notoriously difficult for us to imagine...Paul is helping us cut through some of the abstraction. He's helping us see glory as the opposite of what hurts us and holds us back in this world.
Glory as NOT LIKE THAT (cf. Rev.21:3-4). Not transient but eternal. Not vaporous but weighty. Not fragmented and fleeting, but joy fulfilled and forever. Because whatever glory may be like, it is defined by the presence of God himself, apart from whom there is no good thing...God will not let him see decay. Instead, he makes known the path of life. He gives him pleasure that lasts forever, found only at God's right hand. He gives him fullness of joy, the weight of glory, in the only place it may be found---in God's presence, where what he loves most is what he can't possibly lose..."
