The Eternal Weight of Glory: The Shadow of Our Future Selves

In this short excerpt, the scholar and Anglican clergyman N.T. Wright discusses the famous “weight of glory” passage in 2 Cornthians 4:17: For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. (NIV):

The weight of glory” thus seems to refer to a superabundant expression of that humanness: God’s people will be more truly themselves. We sometimes speak of somebody who has been very sick being “just a shadow of their former self.” But what Paul seems to be saying here is that human beings are just a shadow of their future…