THE SECOND PART: A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
The Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians
Message Three—The Excellent Power of the Treasure in the Earthen Vessels
Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 4:7-18
I. Second Corinthians 3 and 4 are an accurate and precious record of Paul’s spiritual constitution: (2003 ST, msg. 7)
A. What the apostles ministered was their constitution; they ministered what they were, what they had become—cf. Phil. 1:20-21a. (2003 ST, msg. 7)
B. This means that their reconstituted being became their ministry—cf. Acts 20:18. (2003 ST, msg. 7)
II. The indwelling Christ as the treasure in us, the earthen vessels, is the divine source of the supply for the Christian life and the excellent power for us to live a crucified life for the manifestation of the resurrection life—2 Cor. 4:7; Phil. 4:13: (2003 ST, msg. 7)
A. Paul said that he and his co-workers “were excessively burdened, beyond our power, so that we despaired even of living…that we should not base our confidence on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead”—2 Cor. 1:8-9. (2003 ST, msg. 7)
B. Actually, resurrection requires death, discouragement, and disappointment in order to be manifested—v. 4; 7:5-6. (2003 ST, msg. 7)
C. The working of the cross terminates our self that we may enjoy the God of resurrection; such experience produces and forms the ministry—1:4-6. (2003 ST, msg. 7)
III. The apostles lived the resurrection life under the killing of the cross, for the carrying out of their ministry—4:10-11, 16: (2003 ST, msg. 7)
A. “Always bearing about in the body the putting to death of Jesus that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body”—4:10: (2003 ST, msg. 7)
1. Jesus, in a positive sense, is always killing all the negative things within us in order to heal and enliven us—Phil 1:19; cf. Exo. 30:23-25. (2003 ST, msg. 7)
2. When we reject ourselves in the morning to receive God into us, we have the sense during the day that a killing process is going on within us—cf. Prov. 4:18. (2003 ST, msg. 7)
B. “For we who are alive are always being delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh”—2 Cor. 4:11: (2003 ST, msg. 7)
1. The killing of the cross results in the manifestation of the resurrection life; this daily killing is for the release of the divine life in resurrection—1 Cor. 15:31; 2 Cor. 4:16. (2003 ST, msg. 7)
2. The title Jesus implies that the apostles lived a life like the one the Lord Jesus lived on earth; the Lord’s life was a life under the killing of the cross for the manifestation of the resurrection life, a life lived in such a way that His person was one with His ministry and His life was His ministry—John 6:14-15; 12:13, 19, 23-24. (2003 ST, msg. 7)
C. “So then death operates in us, but life in you”—2 Cor. 4:12: (2003 ST, msg. 7)
1. When we are under the killing of the Lord’s death, His resurrection life is imparted through us into others—Josh. 3:17. (2003 ST, msg. 7)
2. The way for the church to come into being and to increase is not by human glory; it is by the death of the cross for the release of the f ire of the divine life—Luke 12:49-50; John 2:19; 12:24-26. (2003 ST, msg. 7)
IV. It is by the spirit of faith that the apostles lived a crucified life in resurrection for the carrying out of their ministry—2 Cor. 4:13; 5:7: (2003 ST, msg. 7)
A. We must exercise our mingled spirit, the spirit of faith, to believe and to speak, like the psalmist, the things we have experienced of the Lord, especially His death and resurrection—Psa. 116:10a. (2003 ST, msg. 7)
B. Faith is in our spirit, which is mingled with the Holy Spirit, not in our mind; doubts are in our mind—cf. Heb. 11:6. (2003 ST, msg. 7)
C. Through the exercise of our spirit of faith, we regard the unseen things of eternal glory, not the seen things of temporary affliction—2 Cor. 4:18: (2003 ST, msg. 7)
1. The Christian life is a life of things unseen—Heb. 11:1. (2003 ST, msg. 7)
2. The Lord’s recovery is to recover His church from things seen to things unseen—v. 27; 1 Pet. 1:8. (2003 ST, msg. 7)
V. “Therefore we do not lose heart; but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day”—2 Cor. 4:16: (2003 ST, msg. 7)
A. The outer man consists of the body as its organ with the soul as its life and person; the inner man consists of the regenerated spirit as its life and person with the renewed soul as its organ. (2003 ST, msg. 7)
B. In order to live a crucified life, the life of the soul must be denied, but the functions of the soul—the mind, will, and emotion—must be renewed and uplifted by being subdued so that they can be used by the spirit, the person of the inner man—Matt. 16:24-25; 2 Cor. 10:4-5. (2003 ST, msg. 7)
C. Our outer man is being consumed and worn out, but our inner man is being daily renewed by being nourished with the fresh supply of the resurrection life: (2003 ST, msg. 7)
1. The Christian life is a life of being renewed day by day with the divine element through the process of sufferings—1 Thes. 3:3; Jer. 48:11. (2003 ST, msg. 7)
2. “Our momentary lightness of affliction works out for us, more and more surpassingly, an eternal weight of glory”—2 Cor. 4:17. (2003 ST, msg. 7)