2 Corinthians 4:18 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… I. HERE WE HAVE AN AUTHORITATIVE ACCOUNT OF THE CHRISTIAN POINT OF VIEW IN RESPECT OF TWO WORLDS — the seen and the unseen. 1. "The things that are seen" are not simply whatever meets the eye of sense in this present life. Along with the things we see go naturally our associations; we have our impressions, and judgments, and hopes, and fears about them. "The things that are seen" mean the complex life of the society in which we live, the life of a great community, the State of which we are members, the life of our neighbour, the life of our immediate friends, of our family. Now a Christian, St. Paul says, is in the position of a man who is aware of the presence of the visible world, while his gaze is fixed persistently upon the world invisible. He is mentally in the position of a traveller passing through scenery which is interesting, but who is absorbed in a discussion arising out of the scenery which makes him concentrate his thought on something beyond it. 2. "The things which are not seen!" Those truths and virtues which are obscured or crowded out of view in the present life of most of us, but which are nevertheless beautiful and enduring realities; they are justice, charity, truth, sanctity. We do not see God. The King, eternal and immortal, is also the invisible. We do not see the angels. We do not see the souls of the departed. "We look at the things which are not seen." We are citizens, as the apostle says, of heaven; "we walk by faith and not by sight." And what is the reason for this? "The things which are seen are temporal, the things which are not seen are eternal." That which meets the eye of sense is here only for a season; it will pass away. That which meets the eye of the soul illuminated by faith will last for ever. This quality of eternity suffices to outweigh the advantages which at first sight might seem to be on the side of the world of sense. So far as matters of this world are concerned, it has, no doubt, much to say for itself, but it is outweighed by the fact that the world which we hold in our hands is already passing. This present life — it is like one of those acidulated drops which melt in the mouth, even as we enjoy it. In this world, "Change and decay in all around I see." Friends die off, society around us wears every year a new face, our power of body and mind become modified and weaker. And how different our country is to-day from the England of George IV., from the England of Pitt, from the England of Nelson; but Almighty God, tie is exactly what He was at each of those periods, and the great moral virtues and the ever-blessed angels, and the conditions of the unseen world — they are just exactly what they were; and then as now, and now as then, souls who desire to escape from this torrent of change and decomposition around us and to lay strong hold upon the alone unchangeable must, with St. Paul, look not at the things which are seen, but the things that are not seen. And this had been before the teaching of our Lord. The kingdom of heaven which He founded on earth was but the vestibule of that kingdom in heaven. To any who thought that this world would be the main scene of the new kingdom. He addresses that solemn parable of the man who would pull down his barn and build a greater. II. TO THESE CONSIDERATIONS AN OBJECTION HAS OFTEN BEEN MADE WHICH IS WORTH NOTICE. "See how you Christians," it is said, "with your faith in eternity., forget the duties that belong to time." But this is grossly untrue. It is contradicted by the Christian doctrine of judgment, by 2 Thessalonians, and by Christ's example (note particularly John 13.). This truth as to the relative importance of the seen and the unseen, if it be really held, will affect our lives in not a few ways. 1. It will govern our disposal of our income. If we look only at the things which are seen, we shall spend it mainly upon ourselves, reserving, perhaps, some portion for objects of a public character, which it is creditable or popular to support; if we look mainly at the things which are not seen, we shall spend at least one-tenth, probably more, upon some agencies that shall bring the eternal world, and all that prepares men for it, home to our fellow-creatures. It might help some of us to try to think what we shall wish we had done with the means which God has given us, five minutes after our hand has become unable to sign a cheque. 2. It will affect our whole view and practice in the matter of education. If our reason is confined to this life, we educate our children for this life and this life only. If, with the apostle, we look to the things that are not seen, we educate our children primarily for that existence which awaits them beyond the grave, and secondarily for this life, which is but a preface, though a most important preface, to that which will follow it. Conclusion: There used to be in bygone centuries, perhaps there is still, a custom at the enthronisation of a Pope which embodied this truth with vivid effect. When at the most solemn moment of the great occasion the procession of which the new Pontiff was the central figure, was advancing along the nave of the great church, representing, as it did, all that art and worldly splendour could do to enhance the idea of mingled ecclesiastical and civil sway, a master of the ceremonies led a torch which slowly died away until it went out, and as he bore it aloft at the head of the procession he chanted the words, "Pater Sancte, sic transit gloria mundi" — Holy Father, thus does this world's glory pass away. That was a bit of hard truth in a scene where there may well have been much to mislead, to inflate, to overlay spiritual realities by temporal pomp — that was a bit of hard truth that we might do well to remember solemnly at the proudest and brightest moments of life when friends surround us with kind, perhaps flattering words, which self-love might easily weave into a robe that would hide our true selves from our inward gaze. "So passes the glory of this world." No doubt it is a commonplace, but each generation of men forgets the accumulated teaching of experience, and has to learn for itself the old lesson over again. Only when the evening of life is come on, only when the shadows are lengthening do most men who are not deeply influenced by Christianity repeat it with entire sincerity. (Canon Liddon.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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