Seeing the Invisible (2)

 

 

“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 Cor. 4:18).

 

As mentioned in our first reflection, I want to connect 4:18 with 4:6 and with 5:16, having done that we will, the Lord willing, work our way outward into the other sections of 2 Corinthians.

 

“For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).

 

To what is Paul referring in quoting God?

 

Of course he is directing our attention to Genesis 1:3, “Then God said, “Let there be light” and there was light.”

 

Did you notice that Paul’s quotation is slightly different in form than Genesis 1:3? In Genesis 1:3 we read, “Let there be light.” In 2 Corinthians 4:6 it is, “Light shall shine out of darkness.”

 

I don’t know if someone has tracked down another version or a variant to reconcile the two verses, but I don’t think they require reconciliation because while the form of the quotation may be a bit different, the content is the same. Genesis tells us that there was darkness, that God said, “Let there be light,” and that God separated the light from the darkness. Paul’s quotation, “Let light shine out of darkness,” gets to the heart of the matter.

 

We ought to take note of this, for we want to learn to look beyond the outside of the seed, outside its form, and look inside; we want to learn to look beyond appearances and see the heart of the matter.

 

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” (John 6:63).

 

It should not surprise us that Paul writes, “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor. 3:6) and that he does this in 2 Corinthians, in which he writes that we are not to look at what is seen, but what is unseen.

 

Why does Paul direct his readers’ attention to Genesis 1:6? He does so because the Genesis Creation narrative is our narrative in Jesus Christ, it is our story as new creations in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, the Word, created all things, He is the Light of the world – He is the very Light that shines in darkness! “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overpower it” (John 1:1 – 5!).

 

As the earth came out of the waters in Genesis, so you and I come out of the waters of baptism as new creations in Christ Jesus.

 

Note that Paul continues the Creation narrative in 2 Corinthians Chapter 5, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; new things have come” (5:17).

 

In 2 Corinthians 4:2 – 4 we see darkness, in 4:6 we see Light. Is it the Light we expect? That is, are the results of the “Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” what a reasonable person might anticipate?

 

Verse 7 begins with a BUT, and what a BUTit is!

 

Paul immediately reminds us that the treasure of the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ is found in earthen vessels, frail vessels, vessels subject to breaking, shattering, cracking, leakage. What does being a New Creation in Jesus look like?

 

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our body. For we who live [that is, we who have the Light of Christ and the glory of God!] are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you” (2 Cor. 4:8 – 12).

 

Sounds like a good time, doesn’t it?

 

Is this not one of many reasons why Paul writes that he and his friends don’t look at what is seen but rather at what is unseen? To read 4:8 – 12 and not to see beyond the outer cover of the seed being sown, is to despair, to be confused, to even perhaps reject the Cross which we are to daily embrace and to love.

 

We are going to return to this passage in our next reflection in this series, but for now, I hope we will see that when Paul reads Genesis Chapter One, that he sees beyond the outer, beyond the visible, and he sees Jesus Christ; he sees the story of our becoming new creations in Jesus Christ. Paul sees, in Genesis, the process of transformation into the image of Christ which he portrays in 2 Corinthians, for example in 4:7 – 5:15, what we might term sanctification and spiritual formation. (He introduces Eve and the serpent in 2 Cor. 11:3!)

 

When Paul reads and ponders Genesis Chapter One, he sees the invisible.

 

After God said, “Let there be light,” there was still work to be done. After God says, “Let there be Light in Susan, John, Christine, Pete, Martha, and Patrick, there is still work to be done.

 

As we ponder the invisible and as we learn to see it and live in it in Christ, let us recall:

 

“The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17 – 18).

 

What does this transformation look like?

 

It looks, in part, like 2 Corinthians 4:7 – 18.