But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
All Commentaries on 2 Corinthians 4:7 Go To 2 Corinthians 4
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
But we have this treasure. The treasure is the ministry and preaching of the Gospel entrusted to him by God. Cf. ver1and vers5,6.
In earthen vessels. (1.) In a body of dust frail and fragile. Our body is as an earthenware vessel; for as an earthen vessel is nothing but clay baked in the fire, so is our body nothing but earth made solid by the heat of the soul. Take away the soul, and the body returns to the dust whence it came. Cf. Psalm 103:14. Or, (2.) in earthen vessels means in ourselves; for though we are Apostles, still we are men, frail and fashioned from the dust, and, like earthen vessels, are worthless, weak, and contemptible, exposed to injuries at the hands of all. This explanation is favoured by the words that follow: "We are troubled on every side," &c. So in 1 Corinthians 1:27, it was said that God had chosen the Apostles as the foolish, and weak, and base things of the world; and also in 1 Corinthians 2:1, Paul said that he had come to the Corinthians, not with excellency of speech or of Wisdom of Solomon , but in weakness, and fear, and trembling; and again, in 1 Corinthians 4:9, he expresses the same idea.
Origen (Hom. in Numer.) symbolically interprets this treasure as the grace of the Holy Spirit hidden in earthen vessels, i.e, in the rude, unpolished, and unadorned words of the law and the Gospel.
That the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. God wills me to have this treasure in an earthen vessel, in order that the excellency which is in me, and the fruit that I gather in the conversion of the heathen, may not be ascribed to me, but to the power of God and the grace of Christ.
