Paul’s Light Afflictions

Charles Henry Mackintosh

‘For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; 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 Cor. 4:17–18).

Some modern prophets exhort us to look at ‘the bright side of things’ so that we may be able to pass comfortably and happily over life’s journey. But if they mean things visible, we may lawfully inquire, ‘Which is the bright side?’ And if they mean things invisible, it is all bright there. In the one case, there is nothing but darkness; in the other, there is no darkness at all. If anyone imagine that he can look at the bright side of things that are seen, he is simply under a miserable delusion. There is not so much as a single ray of true light throughout the wide range of this present evil world, of which Satan is the god and prince. How could there be such light in a scene from which the Son of God has been cast out?

But we hardly think it needful to press this point just now. Thank God, those who are taught by His Spirit are not in much danger of being drawn aside by any popular delusion as to human progress or the improvement of the world. With all who have learned to make the cross of Christ the one standard by which to measure men and things, and self and the world, this question is definitively, because divinely, settled.

It is very evident that the Apostle Paul kept his eye steadily fixed on the unseen things. He lived amid those eternal realities of which the living God is the source, Christ the centre and simple faith the power of realisation. And herein lay the grand secret of what he tells us in the profound and exquisite passage which stands at the head of this paper. It was this that enabled him to regard a long life of unparalleled toil and suffering as ‘light affliction’ and ‘but for a moment’. Nor this only; it enabled him to see and own that the light and temporary affliction worked for him ‘a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory’. How striking the contrast between the light and momentary affliction and the weight of glory!

If the reader would form some idea of what the apostle calls ‘light affliction’, let him turn for a moment to 2 Corinthians 11:23–27, where, to speak after the manner of men, he is reluctantly obliged to allude to his labours and sufferings in order to bring the poor foolish Corinthians to a right sense of things. ‘Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one’ — and this was ‘light affliction’! ‘Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep’ — and all this was ‘light affliction’! ‘In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren’ — and all this was ‘light affliction’! ‘In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness’ — and these too were but ‘light affliction’!

Truly, such a record as this may well make us blush to think, much less to speak, of our little trials and difficulties and sorrows and sufferings. And yet the apostle could not only count them all light but momentary. But how was this? Was he a stoic? Was he insensible or indifferent? No; he felt it all — could not but feel it. It is the most egregious folly for anyone to say we ought not to feel things. They might just as well tell us we ought not to have a head on our shoulders, a heart in our bosom or a system of nerves. We may rest assured our apostle was not one of the visionary school who talk in this way. He was alive to everything, but above it. He felt all, but felt it with God. He was perfectly conscious of the circumstances, but thoroughly superior to them.

But we repeat the question: how was this? What made all that long life of unexampled suffering, toil and conflict to be regarded as light and momentary? Here is the soul-stirring reply: ‘while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen’. Thus it was with Paul, and thus it must be with us. It is this which alone can preserve the balance of the soul while passing through the trials, difficulties, sorrows and conflicts of this present time. If it were not for this, we could never get on. Were we to look at the things which are seen, we should be crushed in spirit and paralysed in action. To be insensible is impossible, and to be indifferent is contemptible — but to be superior is the precious privilege of every Christian. Thus it was with Stephen in that splendid scene at the close of Acts 7. He looked not at the things which were seen. He looked steadfastly up into heaven, and what he saw there rendered him superior to his surroundings; and not only superior to them but a reflector of Christ in them. Thus it must ever be. It is not a miserable selfishness occupied with trials and trying to escape them, but faith occupied with the Man in the glory, and reflecting the beams of His moral glory upon the scene around.

From: Truth and Testimony, 2023