The Great Exchange: A Christian Calculus Text: 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
Introduction: Two Sets of Books
Every man, whether he knows it or not, is an accountant. He keeps a ledger. On one side, he tallies his losses, his pains, his sorrows, and his afflictions. On the other, he records his gains, his pleasures, his joys, and his triumphs. The modern secular man, the materialist, has only one set of books. His ledger contains only what he can see, touch, and measure. For him, a loss is just a loss. Sickness, aging, financial ruin, persecution, these are all entries in the debit column, and there is nothing on the other side of the ledger to balance them out. His is a closed system, and because it is a fallen system, it is a system that is constantly running down. It is a slow, inexorable march into the red. This is why our age is shot through with a frantic desperation, a desperate pursuit of pleasure and a terrified flight from pain. For the materialist, this life is all there is, and so every pain is an ultimate pain, every loss an ultimate loss.
But the Christian is a man who has been let in on a secret. He has been shown another set of books, a heavenly ledger. He understands that there is a divine economy at work, a great exchange that God is orchestrating in the life of every believer. This is what Paul is laying out for us in this passage. He is giving us the principles of a sanctified, spiritual accounting. He is teaching us how to read the bottom line of reality. He tells us that what appears to be a catastrophic loss in the earthly ledger is, in fact, the very transaction that is producing an astronomical gain in the heavenly one. This is not wishful thinking, or positive self-talk, or a pious platitude to make us feel better about getting old and sick. This is the hard-nosed, glorious reality of the gospel. It is a Christian calculus that turns the world's accounting on its head.
Paul is writing to a church in Corinth that was beset by troubles. He himself was a case study in affliction. He was beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, betrayed, and constantly hounded by his enemies. By any worldly standard, his life was a disaster. And yet, he says, "we do not lose heart." Why? Because he was looking at the right set of books. He understood the math of eternity. This passage is a divine corrective to our nearsighted, temporal way of calculating our lives. It teaches us to see our afflictions not as liabilities, but as assets that God is investing for an eternal return.
The Text
Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.
For our momentary, light affliction is working out for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,
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.
(2 Corinthians 4:16-18 LSB)
The Paradox of Decay and Renewal (v. 16)
Paul begins with a bold declaration that flies in the face of all human experience.
"Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day." (2 Corinthians 4:16)
The "therefore" links us back to the preceding verses. Paul has just spoken of the resurrection of the dead (v. 14) and the grace of God abounding to many (v. 15). Because of this grand, objective reality, because Christ is risen and grace is at work, we do not lose heart. Our courage is not based on our circumstances, but on the covenant faithfulness of God.
Then he presents us with the central paradox. There are two men, two realities, coexisting in every believer. There is the "outer man," which is our physical body, our mortal frame. And there is the "inner man," which is our spirit, our soul, the new creation in Christ. And these two men are on opposite trajectories. The outer man is "decaying." This is a process. It is the inescapable reality of living in a fallen world. From the moment we are born, we begin to die. Our bodies get weaker, they get sick, they get old, they break down. No amount of kale, CrossFit, or positive thinking can ultimately stop this process. The wages of sin is death, and our bodies are slowly, but surely, cashing that check.
But while this inexorable decay is happening on the outside, a glorious, countervailing process is happening on the inside. The inner man is being "renewed day by day." This is not a static state; it is a dynamic, daily process of sanctification. While the body is winding down, the spirit is being wound up. While the flesh is fading, the soul is flourishing. The Holy Spirit is at work, conforming us to the image of Christ, strengthening our faith, deepening our hope, and enlarging our love. This is a daily renewal. It is not something that happens in one great flash, but rather through the steady, ordinary means of grace: the Word, prayer, fellowship, the Lord's Supper. God gives us our daily bread, and He gives us our daily renewal.
The world sees only the decay. They see the wrinkles, the gray hair, the failing strength, and they despair. But the Christian knows that this decay is the very soil in which the renewal of the inner man is taking place. The two are not unrelated. God uses the decay of the outer man to facilitate the renewal of the inner man. He uses our physical weakness to teach us spiritual dependence. He uses our suffering to wean us from this world and fix our affections on the next.
The Divine Calculation (v. 17)
In verse 17, Paul gives us the math behind this great exchange. He puts our afflictions on one side of the scale and the glory to come on the other.
"For our momentary, light affliction is working out for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison." (2 Corinthians 4:17 LSB)
Look at how he describes our troubles. He calls them "momentary" and "light." Now, we must remember who is saying this. This is the man who was beaten with thirty-nine lashes five times, beaten with rods three times, stoned and left for dead once. This is not the testimony of a man in an ivory tower. If Paul can call his staggering list of sufferings "light and momentary," then we must recalibrate our own scales.
How can he do this? By comparison. He is comparing time with eternity. Our affliction is "momentary." Even a lifetime of suffering, seventy or eighty years, is but a blink of an eye, a watch in the night, compared to the endless ages of eternity. He is also comparing weight. Our affliction is "light." The Greek word for glory, doxa, has the sense of weightiness, substance, and honor. Our troubles, no matter how heavy they feel to us now, are as a feather on the scales when weighed against the solid gold bars of the "eternal weight of glory."
But notice the verb. Our affliction is "working out for us" this glory. It is productive. It is not a meaningless, random tragedy. God is using it. It is the furnace that is refining the gold. It is the chisel that is shaping us into the image of Christ. It is the pressure that is producing the diamond. Our suffering is not just something we endure until we get to glory; it is the very instrument God is using to prepare us for that glory, and to increase the measure of it that we will enjoy. There is a direct, causal relationship. The affliction produces the glory. As Romans 8:18 says, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us."
The language Paul uses here is almost staggering. He says it is a weight of glory "far beyond all comparison." He is piling up superlatives to try to express the inexpressible. He is telling us that the final outcome is so magnificent, so overwhelmingly glorious, that our present pains will seem, in retrospect, as nothing at all. This is the Christian's hope. It is not that we will be spared from suffering, but that our suffering is being invested by God for a return that will beggar all description.
The Corrective Lens (v. 18)
So how do we live in light of this reality? How do we keep from losing heart when the outer man is decaying and the afflictions are pressing in? Paul tells us in the final verse. It is a matter of focus. It is a matter of where we look.
"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." (2 Corinthians 4:18 LSB)
This is the key to the whole operation. The reason we do not lose heart is because we are deliberately choosing where to fix our gaze. We are looking away from one thing and toward another. We are not looking at "the things which are seen." What are these things? They are our circumstances. They are the doctor's report, the bank statement, the rebellious child, the persecution, the decaying body. These things are real, and Paul is not telling us to pretend they don't exist. He is telling us not to make them the object of our ultimate focus.
Instead, we are to look at "the things which are not seen." This is the walk of faith. As Hebrews says, "faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). We are to look at the unseen realities of the spiritual realm. We look to Christ, seated at the right hand of the Father. We look to the promises of God in His Word. We look to the eternal inheritance that is kept in heaven for us. We look to the new heavens and the new earth, where righteousness dwells. We look to the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.
And Paul gives us the reason for this shift in focus. It is a matter of simple, spiritual logic. "For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." The word for "temporal" here means for a season, temporary, transient. Everything that we can see, everything that seems so solid and permanent to our senses, is fading away. It is all on a countdown to dissolution. But the unseen things, the spiritual realities, are "eternal." They are the permanent things. They are the bedrock of reality.
To fix our hope on the things that are seen is to build our house on the sand. It is to tie our anchor to a ship that is sinking. The wise Christian is the one who lives his life in light of what is eternal. He makes his decisions, he invests his time, he endures his sufferings, all with an eye to the unseen, eternal realities. This is not escapism; it is the highest form of realism. It is learning to see the world as God sees it.
Conclusion: Living by the Unseen
This passage is a manifesto for Christian endurance. It gives us a framework for understanding our lives in this fallen world. We are all living in a state of decay. Our bodies are failing, our world is groaning, and we are beset by afflictions. The temptation is to lose heart, to give in to despair, to believe that the seen things are all that matter.
But God calls us to a different way of seeing. He calls us to look at our lives through the lens of the gospel. He tells us that the very decay of our outer man is the context for the renewal of our inner man. He tells us that our lightest, most momentary afflictions are producing for us a weight of glory that is beyond all comprehension. And He tells us that the key to it all is to fix our eyes not on the fading things of this world, but on the unseen, eternal realities of the world to come.
This is a discipline. It is a fight. We must preach this to ourselves every day. When the pain flares up, when the bad news comes, when the world mocks, we must deliberately turn our gaze. We must look to Christ. We must open the Word and read the promises. We must remind ourselves that we are citizens of a heavenly kingdom, and that our present troubles are but the birth pangs of an eternal glory.
This is the Christian's secret. This is how Paul could sing in prison. This is how the martyrs could go to the flames with joy. They were not looking at the seen things. They were looking at the unseen. They knew that the ledgers of this world were temporary, but the books of heaven were eternal. And they knew that in the final accounting, because of the finished work of Christ, the bottom line would be an infinite, eternal, unimaginable gain.