Monday, 25 May 2015
…who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us, 2 Corinthians 1:10
In the previous verse, Paul spoke of the sentence of death which loomed over him and those he was with. He took this to heart. Knowing this, he said that they “should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead.” Now he continues by telling the Corinthians that it was God “who delivered us from so great a death.” He has taken the extreme possibility of death that he faced and equated it to death itself in order to more effectively communicate the dire situation they faced. It is as if they had actually been resurrected in their deliverance, so sure was the sentence that hung over them.
And not only had they been delivered, but they continued to be delivered as he wrote his letter. The victory was not just in the past but ongoing. And more, he believed that it would continue into the future, stating “in whom we trust that He will still deliver us.”
The word “trust” here is not the same Greek word as was in the previous verse. That word communicated the sense of “to have confidence.” This word, elpizo, conveys the idea of hope. In essence, we are not to have confidence in ourselves, but we are to place our hope in God. No matter what we face, we can only rely on God and His promises for us. If we are to die, we have hope in the resurrection. If we are to live, it can’t be because of our control over whatever the situation is, but only because of God’s hand being in it. As the hand is unseen, it is a hope that we possess.
Life application: Can we honestly say that we will be alive in five minutes? Our heart could stop, our house could be struck by a meteorite, or we might get bitten by an unseen spider. We truly have no control over a single moment in time. Therefore, let us place our souls in the capable hands of the Lord and know that whatever we face, He is tending to it. We shall be delivered in life and through death because of the work of Jesus our Lord.
Lord God, having seen people around me die, I know that it can come at any time and in the most unexpected of ways. I cannot honestly count on being alive five minutes from now. Anything could happen and it would be arrogant of me to believe I had any control over the future at all. But I have a greater hope than this temporary life. I have the surety of the resurrection and the prospect of eternal life safely guarded in my heart. I have Jesus! Amen.