Apostolic Perception: Eternity Therefore, we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing 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)There is a danger that we will dismiss this as a kind of biblical rhetoric, a kind of fanciful manner of speaking peculiar to Paul, and nod with a kind of acquiescence that it has a sweet sound to it, but completely lose what is being said. The foundation of the apostolic mindset, however, is a true apprehension of the things that are eternal, not in anticipation of a future enjoyment, but of a present appropriation, and that is what makes the church peculiar. We have no idea how important the subject of eternity is. To lose the meaning of this word is to lose everything, and it will condemn the church to being mundane and ordinary, institutional and mechanical, a weariness of the flesh, instead of a joy and a power. In other words, the absence of eternity in the consciousness of the church disfigures and nullifies it as being church. We are going to have to contend for this reality, because the world is not hospitable to it. Paul not only found this eternal dimension, he also dwelt in it, and yet that did not condemn him to irrelevancy. On the contrary, it made him all the more relevant, and so will it make us also.In the above portion of Scripture, we find two references to the word eternal. Eternity was something that had become so powerfully real to Paul that it affected his present considerations, and had practical consequences for his living. "This momentary, light affliction" has got to be a statement of a man who has either tossed every kind of reasonable criterion and rationality to the wind (Paul was a man who had been shipwrecked, beaten with rods, left for dead, stoned, reviled, persecuted and defamed, etc.), or he has some kind of standard and measure of things of which we know nothing. Apostolic seeing perceives things that others do not see, and measures by a measure that others do not understand. It sees redemptive suffering in this lifetime as being merely momentary and light. The church must come to this seeing, for this seeing is apostolic reality and truth. What Paul is, is what the church must be.Paul never did dwell on his sufferings in some kind of morbid way, but dismisses them as being momentary and light, and he can do so only on the basis of one thing, namely, the ability to glimpse the eternal weight of glory. This is not a luxury that we can consider ‘having’ or ‘not having.’ This is an utter, apostolic requirement for anyone who has serious intentions with God. The fact that we have not yet experienced suffering indicates where we have been until now, namely, exercising some lesser kind of faith¾if it is a faith at all¾that has not excited the world’s hatred against us.I am talking about the most practical ‘nuts and bolts’ reality that will keep us as an apostolic people—for surely we are on a collision course with suffering. If we will not see the eternal and the eternal weight of glory, then what is a light affliction shall be for us great. What is momentary shall be long and continuous. Everything depends on our actual knowing of the eternal. We may know that eternity is there, and distant, and something that we will obtain after this life, but we have not brought the eternal dimension into the present now, and for that reason we have grievously erred, and to that degree we are not apostolic.Cont.
