2 Coríntios 4

2 Coríntios 4:16

Barber - The term “inner man” is synonymous with the spiritual heart that every believer has where Christ comes to live in the person of His Holy Spirit. He says in 2 Corinthians 1:22+, “who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit,” that’s the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, “in our hearts as a pledge.” The inner man is also synonymous with our Spirit. Romans 8:16, “The Spirit Himself bears with our Spirit that we are children of God.” It is in the inner man where the Treasure, who is Christ Himself, has come to live. It says in 2 Corinthians 4:7+, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves.” It is in the inner man, in our spirit, in our spiritual heart, where we are strengthened by the Holy Spirit of God. He says in Ephesians 3:16+, “that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man.” So it’s in the inner man where our spiritual heart beats with His heart. This is where we want to do His will. He says in Romans 7:22+, “For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man.” So the inner man is being renewed day by day. This is where God has come to live. This is where the life of Christ is. NIV Application Commentary agrees noting that "The correspondence between 2Co 4:1 and 2Co 4:16 makes it clear that "outer" and "inner" do not refer to a dualistic body/soul dichotomy. Rather, they point to the moral transformation of Paul’s life as a believer (his "inner self") in the midst of his life within the suffering and sin of this present evil age (his "outer self"). In both cases, the "inner" and "outer self" refers to Paul in his entirety as one who lives eschatologically in this "overlapping of the ages." (NIV Application Commentary New Testament - NIVAC) C K Barrett adds that "Inward and outward man are not the elements of a psychological dualism (of which hardly any trace is to be found in Paul’s writing as a whole) but refer to the man of this age and the man of the age to come (cf. the natural body and the spiritual body of 1Co 15:44)…From one aspect, Paul as a whole is the old man… subject to a thousand troubles and under sentence of death; from another aspect, Paul as a whole is the new man, whose very being is Christ (cf. Gal 2:20; Php 1:21), the heavenly man (1Co 15:47). The outward man can only decay (for Paul’s word, diaphtheiretai, cf. 1 Cor. 15:42, 50, 53: phthora, phthartos), not simply because of such attacks as are described in 2Co 4:8f. but because it belongs to a world that is passing away (1Co 7:31). The inward man experiences constant renewal. ‘According to the rabbinic notion, the ethical renewal of man belongs only to the future, which alone can bring the promised new Spirit, or the new heart’ (S. B. iii. 600 f.); that is, the renewal Paul speaks of is an anticipation of eschatology. For the verb to renew (anakainoo) compare Ro 12:2-+ (anakainosis), though here the thought is different. (Black’s New Testament Commentary The Second Epistle to the Corinthians) As Brian Bell says there is "No need to fear the years, for they bring him nearer, not to death, but to God! We are to focus not on the external but the internal. (Ed: Not the temporal but the "eternal") (2 Corinthians 4) The psalmist Asaph says it this way… My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Ps 73:26) Comment: Note the contrast between temporal (flesh fails, either today but always in death) and eternal ("forever") just as in this section of Paul's letter. Note the focus -- not my self and my weakness but God and His strength, which is always the best pattern. Flesh fails, but God does not fail.