2 CORINTHIANS CHAPTER 4.
The Gospel-Message of Light and Life. 2 Corinthians 4, 1–18
How the apostle rose above every handicap: V.15. For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God. V.16. For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
All these glories, however, are proclaimed by Paul, as he declares: For all things are for your sakes, that grace, being made abundant, through the greater number of you, may cause the thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.
In all his work the apostle had in mind the blessing and benefit of his readers, the Christians in whose interest he was working; it was all done for their sakes. But the end and aim which he had in mind as the final end was that the grace which had been multiplied to him, which gave him such wonderful strength and endurance, should by the force of their many additional prayers result in the more abundant thanksgiving to the glory of God.
The greater the number of those that partake of the blessings of God’s gifts and offer up the thanksgiving of their lips and hands to Him, the more emphatically would the glory of the Lord stand out before the whole world and beyond the end of the world, into eternity.
In this way “the gratitude of the multitudes which have been converted may keep pace with the blessings which they have received, and abound, as these blessings have abounded.”
Paul now returns to the thought of v.1. Because he is sustained by this glorious hope, he does not give way to faintness, he does not give up: Rather even though our outward man is decaying, yet our inner man is renewed day by day.
The contrast is not between flesh and spirit, but between the gradual decay of the bodily organism and the corresponding growth of the spiritual self. The hidden man of the heart, 1 Pet. 3, 4, receives nourishment and strength from the Word of God day after day, and thus gains continually. At the same time the mortal body, the earthen vessel, is making steady progress toward physical death; the dawn of every new day means one day less until the inevitable end; the final dissolution is always only a matter of time.
But since the emphasis of the apostle’s sentence is on the second part of his statement, the thought is evidently not causing him any distress. His attitude is rather that of every true believer that regards this entire life merely as a preparation for the everlasting life to come.