2 Corinthians 4:7-18

2. Antithesis of apostolic trials and triumphs resulting in glory, | 2 Corinthians 2 Corinthians 4:7 to 2 Corinthians 5:5.

In the divine glow of martyrly enthusiasm of this passage a passage which doubtless did much towards rousing the Christian heroism of the martyr age Paul draws, in a series of antitheses, the sublime contrast between the more than golden treasure and the earthen vessels in which it was contained a contrast meeting in contact in his own person. By the glorifying power of the treasure the vessel could bear unbroken all the raps the world could administer. The striking sentiment of Whitefield runs through the whole, that “a minister is immortal until his work is done;” and then, it may be added, he is doubly immortal. Paul views his preservation as essentially a sort of bodily immortalization. The life, life of Jesus, which conserves and immortalizes his present body amid daily deaths, is the same divine vitality as will produce his resurrection and glorification; and his own very suffering and death are transfigured into a oneness with the divine martyrdom of Jesus, the dying of the Lord.

Through the whole lofty passage the Corinthian opponents entirely sink from view, and do not reappear until 2 Corinthians 10:1.