The Temporal and the Eternal
W. R. Davis, D. D. 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… Paul makes an appeal for life as in the presence of these two empires, "the seen and the unseen"; that every day the heart beats in both, and that a man cannot alienate himself from the one and stand solitary in the other. Not a little of our teaching and a large proportion of our practice have been busy with the other theory, that we are simply manipulating those matters that belong to the material side of life, and that after death, in some way, we are to be brought into contact with the unseen principalities. The life that transcends the senses is the real one, not the life that is simply in the senses. The senses make us conscious of our environment. We have five gateways of knowledge to bring us rot, contact with the visible world; but that visible world is a symbol of another. It is not the reality. The life, therefore, that proposes barely to be girt by the seen, to deal only with those facts that can be measured and weighed, is the life that is making the most serious of all blunders. You cannot go very far in experience without realising the sweep of such forces as love and faith and hope, and these at once draw you away from the material. What is love? You cannot see it. What is aspiration? You cannot measure it. And yet these are the powers that are entering into you moment by moment, and are teaching you of other things than those of the seen. We are thinking of the words of a man who was thoroughly tried by the antagonisms of this world's wrong. The closing part of the fourth chapter in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians is a brief diary of St. Paul's career. We follow his path; it is shadowed by storms. His gaze is fixed on the unseen. He steadies his life by the standards of a Divine righteousness. No trap of man's craft set for him can really catch his feet, because he walks with God. Here we have the creed of life — of the life that is to be lived by those who recognise God, and are seeking a more enduring realm than the dominion of the visible. St. Paul says the seen is a temporal thing. It is not worthy of trust, because evanescent, like autumn-leaves on forest boughs. In a little while winter winds will snatch and strew them afar. The true philosophy of life is the philosophy that turns the eye of the soul toward a present eternity. Yes, one answers, it is easy to theorise, but you have not taken into account the fact that we are surrounded perpetually by the visible. The visible will not wait, hunger and thirst are not patient. Why is the world so lovely? Why are we fashioned in this body of mortality? There is a mighty plea for the seen, which is made by very many persons just in that mood. They say of the teacher of truth, "These are fine aspirations, noble aims, but they are too high for the common, work-day world." I avow that it is not the closest thing to him; that the seen is not so near to you as the unseen. Pressing in upon your soul are certain primal facts of which you cannot rid yourself. What are these? Take the fact of God. His Divine personality brings him into immediate contact with your very self. Take the fact of His truth. That truth makes a law of right which you must observe. Take the fact of righteousness, which simply means God and truth wrought together into conduct, turned out into life and made fluent by speech and action. That righteousness ceaselessly throws its fibres round your nature and draws you upward. It is one gravitation against another. The earth would hold you, but righteousness counterworks the earth and wins you Godward. Take the fact of your desire for the nobler being which yet you are not. These are patterns before you evermore, and you cannot swiftly throw them away or break the charm of their dominion over your spirit. The stars may gleam and the forests array their banners in beauty, the grass send up its soft, low music, and the clouds shine like the white thrones of judgment on the sky; but if a great grief is at work on you, if a large joy has entered the chamber of the soul, you do not see the stars or hear the whisper of the grass or note the loveliness of the forest. A closer thing has come; what is it? A thing invisible, a thing that refuses to be tabulated as you can tabulate your accounts in a book. It is a power, nevertheless. Yet you say the invisible is so far off, the unseen is so distant. Believe me, the unseen is at the very core of things; and there would be no significance in the visible but for that other. The doing of the evil that you would not, and leaving undone the good that you would, make you cry for God perpetually. You ask for Him, not as the stern Judge that is to deal with your heart on the simple basis of justice, but as the infinite Father who is to pity and lift you out of difficulty and defeat unto His own strength. This God for whom you long, this Father's compassion for which you yearn, will not report to your mortal eye. He will not consent to press His face out between the constellations even just once. Nevertheless He is real. You are certain of Him. This unseen, invisible God constitutes the verity of yourself. It is the standard of His speech that must decide daily conduct. He demands that you measure your life by that, and not by the foot-rules of your fellow-men. Instead, therefore, of the seen, of the great outer world, being a barrier to the unseen, it is its basis. The unseen is the nearer experience. It would be far more difficult for a man to undertake to live his life utterly denying these great facts of God, truth, honour, and righteousness, than it would be for him to live his physical life outside the girdle of this visible world. But you may respond, "Is it possible to take up this standard, to live by these invisible things, and at the same time do that which is best and wisest in the actual contact of life with the world? I am in business, and my business tasks all my strength and tact. How may I be devoted to these interests that have a lawful claim, and at the same time hold by these spiritual powers?" Why, if you do not hold by the spiritual powers.you cannot rightly weigh the claims of your business. Until you come to recognise the fact that God is a reality to your toil just as much as He is a reality to your faith you will be a stumbler in the world, and will be perpetually falling. You cabinet take up any matter that comes to your everyday struggle, and look at it really with the finest insight until you look at it spiritually — until you look at it righteously and consider it from a religious standpoint. You must expound to yourself this doctrine: "My contract with my fellow-man or pledge with my neighbour is an opportunity to be just and true. I must reverence his rights as well as my own in the work which connects as, in the commerce which brings us together." Do you not see where the large outlook flashes in? It comes on that side where the whole thing is weighed and comprehended, not as a matter that is bound to the earth, but as a matter that can be transfigured with the very light of heaven. But let us turn aside from that and think of other things. There are experiences that are more sacred to you than those of barter and trade. There are emotions that are more hallowed than those that come up on exchange. You have a deeper life than that which can be reckoned by your ledgers. This is the life of the spiritual, which is being trained for a Divine destiny. By that life of the Spirit God often brings to you dispensations of discipline and disappointment. Now, if you think only of that which is visible you will be utterly puzzled. If you take faith away from the world where you stand the eyes of your heart will be smitten with blindness. (W. R. Davis, D. D.) 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. WEB: while we don't look 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.