Renewed while we fade
by Noel Due
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So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16).
Paul writes as one who knows fragility firsthand. His confidence is not theoretical optimism, but faith forged in suffering. The Christian life, as Paul describes it, is lived under a double truth: decay is real, and renewal is real – but they operate on different planes. We must not confuse them.
The outer self – our visible life, our strength, reputation, even our ministry – is wasting away. Paul does not soften this. Here, there is no promise of steady improvement or visible success. This is the theology of the cross speaking plainly: God’s work in us is often hidden beneath weakness, loss and contradiction. To deny this would be to lapse into a theology of glory, measuring God’s favour by external appearances.
Yet precisely here, Paul refuses despair. The inner self is being renewed – not by effort, progress, or spiritual technique, but day by day. This renewal comes through the word that is heard and believed. Earlier, Paul had said, ‘I believed, and so I spoke.’ Faith does not eliminate affliction; it speaks in the midst of it. Renewal comes from outside us, from the promise of Christ crucified and risen, applied anew even as everything visible deteriorates.
Paul presses further. What we see is temporary; what we do not see is eternal. Faith clings not to what can be measured, but to what has been promised. The present affliction, real and painful though it is, is not minimised but put into perspective by resurrection. Death is not denied; it is answered. Chapter five makes this concrete. Our bodies are tents – temporary dwellings – but God himself prepares a permanent house. This is not an escape from creation but its redemption. The Christian hope is not disembodied survival but resurrection, guaranteed by God, not secured by us.
Thus, Paul teaches the church how not to lose heart: not by denying weakness, but by locating life where God has promised it – in Christ, hidden now, revealed in glory. Until then, renewal continues quietly, faithfully, day by day.
Dear Father, this world is not yet heaven, and we cannot make it so. Forgive our feeble attempts to make heaven on earth by securing ourselves and our futures. Root deeply in us the hope of eternal life, seen and guaranteed in the resurrection of Jesus, who has raised us up with him so that where he is, we may be also. Amen.
Noel is a semi-retired Lutheran pastor, writer, teacher and professional supervisor. He is married to Kirsten, a medical doctor, and they have three children and nine grandchildren. They also have two cats.
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