Glorious Treasure in Jars of Clay (4:1–18)

Continuing his discussion of the transforming power of the new covenant ministry of the Spirit, Paul reflects on the paradox of the Christian life: inner renewal in the midst of outer decay and life concealed in death.

We have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception (4:2). The accusation of trickery and deceit was commonly leveled against Sophists and certain philosophers; thus, Paul’s words here may not reflect an accusation leveled against him by his detractors in Corinth. Paul is probably trying to distinguish himself and his colleagues from these other itinerant preachers, because on the surface they looked similar: traveling from city to city, speaking on moral themes, gathering a following, soliciting funds, and so on. Using the same terminology as Paul, Lucian (c. A.D. 120–180) describes this brand of philosophers as those who “sell their lessons as wine merchants … most of them adulterating and cheating and giving false measure.”45 Both Paul and Lucian use the word doloō (to “distort, adulterate, water down”), and the image evoked is of a crafty wine merchant selling a pathetic and diluted concoction.

ISIS

Terracota statue of Isis with Harpocrates and Anubis.

The god of this age (4:4). Canonical and extracanonical literature reveals a wide variety of designations for Satan (devil, Mastema, Azael, Samael, prince of error, angel of light, etc.), though only here is the evil one referred to with the word “god” (Gk. theos). The contrast between this present evil age and the age to come was rooted in the eschatology of the prophets, where phrases such as “in that [coming] day” are commonplace.46 This antithesis became part of the eschatological idiom of Paul’s day and was particularly popular in apocalyptic writings, where the present evil age of foreign domination was contrasted with the day when Israel would throw off the yoke of Gentile oppression and finally “be the head, and not the tail.”47

Has blinded the minds of unbelievers (4:4). Paul’s deep-seated conviction of the power of Satan and his cohorts is echoed throughout Jewish literature of the period, where prayers for protection are common:

• And Abram prayed, “Save me from the hands of evil spirits which rule over the thought of the heart of man.”48

• Strengthen your servant against fiendish spirits so that he can walk in all that you love, and loathe all that you hate.49

• Let not Satan rule over me, nor an evil spirit.50

Yet while Paul was keenly aware of the spiritual battle, he was also confident of the believer’s victory in Christ (Rom. 8:38–39; Col. 1:13), and it is this sober optimism that separates him from many of his contemporaries.

EMPEROR HADRIAN

This emperor, who reigned A.D. 117–138, was often acclaimed to be a “god.”

The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (4:4). In 3:18 Paul spoke of transformation into the “likeness” of the Lord; here he identifies Christ as the “image of God.” This motif is rooted in Genesis, where Adam is said to have been created in God’s image (Gen. 1:26–27). As 1 Corinthians 15:14–49 demonstrates, Paul thought of Christ as a kind of second Adam, rectifying the failure of the first.

Many of Paul’s Jewish contemporaries longed for the eschatological restoration of Adam’s prefall glory, and the scrolls from Qumran document this sect’s intense expectation of inheriting “all the glory of Adam.”51 Paul, however, leaves no room for the veneration of Adam: “In Adam all die … in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22; cf. Rom. 5:12–21). Christ has supplanted Adam in the apostle’s eschatology. Paul does not look back to the garden, but ahead to Christ’s return and the complete conformation of the believer to the image of Christ (Phil. 3:21).

For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord (4:5). Once again Paul is carefully distinguishing himself from many of the popular teachers of his day, whose pretentious oratory served mainly as an exercise in vanity. Dio Chrysostom (c. A.D. 40–120), who also struggled to distance himself from the Sophists, voices the same complaint to the Athenians: “Now the great majority of those styled philosophers proclaim themselves.”52 According to Epictetus (c. A.D. 50–120), the Sophist implores his listeners, “But praise me! … Cry out to me ‘Bravo!’ or ‘Marvelous!’ ”53 Seneca (4 B.C.-A.D. 65) is equally scornful of those orators whose “ostentatious gate” and “desire to show off” rendered their trivial discourses useless for the common good: “But speech that deals with the truth should be unadorned and plain. This popular style has nothing to do with the truth; its aim is to impress the common herd.”54

Your servants for Jesus’ sake (4:5). Paul refers to himself in a variety of ways in 2 Corinthians (apostle, minister/servant, ambassador, coworker with God); the term he uses here, doulos, is better translated “slave” than “servant.” While the duties of Roman slaves ranged from farm laborer to physician, the slave was regarded as the lowest order of the social class, “a tool that speaks” (instrumentum vocale), with none of the rights of citizens or freedmen. Paul’s willingness to wear this label, even metaphorically, is illustrative of his indifference to such distinctions of social rank (1 Cor. 7:20–24; Gal. 3:28) and his readiness to spend and expend himself (2 Cor. 12:15) on behalf of his churches. The qualifying phrase “for Jesus’ sake” delimits the sphere of Paul’s servitude.

For God … made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ (4:6). Most New Testament scholars rightly believe that Paul’s description of a shining light that revealed the glory of God on the face of Christ betrays the apostle’s vivid memory of his encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. In reflecting on his own conversion and applying it to believers generally, Paul strips his story of its nonparadigmatic elements (external light, a voice from heaven, blindness; see Acts 9:3–6; 22:6–18) in order to highlight its most crucial feature: “God … made his light shine in our hearts.” Although the external phenomena associated with Paul’s conversion were indeed striking, he presents the significance of this momentous revelation not in terms of what happened around him, but in terms of what happened within him, which constitutes the true miracle of authentic conversion.

Treasure in jars of clay (4:7). Jars and other kinds of containers were manufactured from a wide variety of materials, though clay was by far the most common. Archaeological digs at ancient sites, including Corinth, unearth vast amounts of pottery fragments, providing a contemporary illustration of Paul’s point: the fragile, ephemeral character of earthenware contrasts sharply with the eternal nature of the treasure within. Also implicit in this word picture is the irony of an inestimable fortune concealed in a common clay jar. Corinth had a widespread reputation for the production of exquisite bronze vessels,55 and this metaphor may have had a special poignancy for the proud makers of famed Corinthian bronze.

“WE HAVE THIS TREASURE IN JARS OF CLAY…”

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed (4:8–9). In Paul’s day this style of argumentation was in vogue among the Stoics and Cynics, and the Corinthians would have certainly recognized this antithetical formulation. Plutarch’s essays on Stoicism contain the following caricature of the Stoic, who, “being mutilated, is not injured, and taking a fall in wrestling, is unconquerable, and under siege, is impregnable, and being sold into slavery by his enemies, is not taken captive.”56 In each instance, the anticipated negative outcome is unexpectedly truncated, and the intent is to create empathy and respect for the one undergoing such trials. Although similar in form, the presuppositions behind Paul’s hardship catalogs are very different from those of the Stoics and Cynics, as 6:3–10 and 11:23–33 will reveal.

We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus…. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body (4:10–11). In other contexts, Paul forcefully emphasizes the past, completed nature of the believer’s death with Christ (Rom. 6:1–11), though here he depicts this event as one that continues to characterize his daily experience. A passage with verbal similarities to 4:10–11 comes from Seneca’s “On Despising Death”:

I remember one day you [Lucilius] were handling the well known commonplace—that we do not suddenly fall on death, but advance towards it by slight degrees; we die every day. For every day a little of our life is taken from us; even when we are growing, our life is on the wane. We lose our childhood, then our boyhood, and then our youth … the final hour when we cease to exist does not of itself bring death; it merely of itself completes the death-process. We reach death at that moment, but we have been a long time on the way.57

Seneca refers to the “commonplace” notion that death is a daily experience of life. Paul, however, far from viewing his temporal pilgrimage and sacrificial ministry as the gradual ebbing of life, believed his apostolic suffering to be the means of experiencing and mediating true life—the life of the risen Jesus—in fullest form. For Paul, dying not only initiates the believer’s new life (Rom. 6:1–11), it also sustains the believer’s new life and has a redemptive effect on the believing community: “So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you” (4:12).

It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” … We also believe and therefore speak (4:13). In this verse Paul offers a profound theological rationale for his spoken proclamation, which was under attack in Corinth (cf. 10:10; 12:19; 13:3). While placing himself in continuity with his Old Testament predecessors, Paul explains that his speech issues from the same Spirit that inspired the psalmist and is rooted in faith. Introduced in 2:17 (“we speak in Christ”), this theme will be taken up in 5:11 (“We persuade people”).

Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day (4:16). The distinction between the “outer person” and the “inner person” (NIV, “outwardly,” “inwardly”) was commonly made in Greco-Roman literature, especially as a means of disparaging humanity’s physical component (see comments on 5:1–5). Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 121–180), for example, describes the body as “this dead thing” and exhorts his readers, “Remember that this which pulls the strings is the thing which is hidden within … this is life, this, if one may so say, is man.”58 While affirming the priority of the inner over the outer (4:16–17) and the eternal over the transitory (4:17), Paul offers no denigration of the decaying physical body. By means of this familiar language, Paul begins the process of reshaping his readers’ anthropology, which will be continued in the verses that follow.