2 Corinthians 4:12 Commentary and Bible Study

This verse may just mystify you until we see that it is about the Christian’s fruit. ‘So then,’ says the apostle Paul, ‘death worketh in us.’ Maybe throughout a long life of service for the Lord, twenty years from conversion to death, fifty years, sixty years, and finally death. Death is at work all the time. The body is wearing down, you are getting more tired. The impediments come thick and fast. The hostility, maybe, and God is constantly delivering you. Ah, but this is new. Up to now the apostle has been saying, Death works in us so that the life of Christ may be manifested in us. Now he changes slightly – ‘Death worketh in us, but life in you.’ What is he referring to now? Well, this is the true apostolic succession. You have impediments, hostility, difficulties, trials. The Lord delivers you, strengthens you, helps you. He solves the problems proving that his hand is there, and his arm is at work, and he saves souls. So a new generation comes in to the fold, a new group of believers. Why, it is all your sacrifice and their benefit, but in due course, they will take up the torch, and they will be the witnesses and they will suffer the same impediments and difficulties as they witness to the next generation, and so it goes on. And this is the golden chain of the church. It is what is referred to in a famous hymn – ‘We come unto our fathers’ God’ by the poet Thomas Hornblower Gill. Soon it will be death in you, as you take up the torch and life in a new generation.