His Grace is All I Need

Scripture

2 Corinthians 12:1–10 KJV 1900

It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. Of such an one will I glory: yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities. For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool; for I will say the truth: but now I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me. And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

CORINTHIANS, SECOND LETTER TO THE Paul’s most personal letter to a congregation. It is emotional and filled with feelings of uncertainty, frustration, sympathy, and relief. This emotional spectrum was due to Paul’s close relationship with the Corinthians. He had planted the church in Corinth, stayed with them for a year and a half (Acts 18:11), visited them a second time, and had written several letters to them prior to 2 Corinthians.

Though it is named 2 Corinthians, this is at least the fourth letter that Paul had written to them. Second Corinthians reflects the tumultuous relationship that Paul had with the church in Corinth. While it is not one of the Pastoral Letters (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus), it has been called the “pastoral letter par excellence” (Harris, “2 Corinthians,” 309).

Many appreciate 2 Corinthians due to its memorable word pictures. Some have been encouraged from Paul’s depiction of “the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God” (1:3b–4 NIV). Others have been inspired by the picture of the triumphal procession in 2:14 in which Paul and others are led in Christ. Still others have quoted Paul’s words in

Matthew Henry once said, “We have no sufficient strength of our own… All our sufficiency is of God… We should stir up ourselves to resist temptations in reliance upon God’s all-sufficiency and the omnipotence of His might.”

Paul’s boasting now moves from apostolic trials to visions and revelations. He recounts, in the third person, an experience in which he felt himself taken up into the third heaven, into paradise, where he heard things not permissible for a person to relate. The latter part of the section tells of the thorn in the flesh given to keep him from becoming too elated. It tells how he sought God in prayer for its removal, but in response was told that God’s grace was sufficient for him. Through this revelation Paul learnt of the simultaneity of weakness and power which is one of the great surprises in God’s way of doing things. Paul’s emphasis upon the coincidence of weakness and power is almost certainly intended to undermine the triumphalist ideas about power and authority held by his opponents, and to support his own claim to apostolic authority, despite imprisonments, persecutions and rejection which may seem to be inconsistent with that claim.

1. I must boast; there is nothing to be gained by it. While the apostle is convinced that there is nothing to be gained by boasting, he probably recognizes that in the present situation there is much to be lost if he does not. His opponents have drawn up the agenda, it has been adopted by his converts, and he must now respond to the next item therein. I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. We are accustomed, perhaps, to the occurrence of visions and revelations in the stories of God’s dealings with people in Old Testament times. It is surprising just how much they are a part of the accounts of God’s dealings with Christians in New Testament times as well. Zechariah received a vision while serving in the temple, and was told that his prayer had been heard and that his wife Elizabeth would bear a son whose name would be John (the Baptist) (Luke 1:8–23). Jesus’ transfiguration is called a vision which was given to Peter, James and John (Matt. 17:9). The women who went to Jesus’ tomb reported that they had seen a vision of angels who said that Jesus was alive (Luke 24:22–24). Stephen, just before his death, saw a vision of ‘the Son of man’ standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:55–56). The Lord spoke to Ananias in a vision when he instructed him to seek out Saul of Tarsus after the latter had been struck blind on the Damascus road (Acts 9:10). Peter was made ready to receive the call to visit Cornelius’ household by a threefold vision of unclean animals descending from heaven in a sheet (Acts 10:17, 19; 11:5). On another occasion when he was released from prison by an angel Peter thought he was seeing a vision (Acts 12:9). The book of Revelation is the description of revelations made to the author on the Isle of Patmos (Rev. 1:1).

Paul himself received many visions and revelations of the Lord. The first and most important was the revelation of Jesus Christ to him on the Damascus road (Acts 22:6–11; 26:12–20; Gal. 1:15–16). Subsequently Paul saw the vision of the man of Macedonia calling him to come over and help (Acts 16:9–10). When he was carrying out the pioneer evangelism in Corinth he received encouragement from the Lord through a vision (Acts 18:9–11). Paul claimed to have received his gospel by revelation (Gal. 1:12), and that his insights into the mystery of the gospel, his access to true wisdom, and his understanding of particular eschatological truths were based upon revelations from God (cf. Eph. 3:3–5; 1 Cor. 2:9–10; 1 Thess. 4:15).

2–4. Of the many visions and revelations he had received Paul now singles out one which had taken place fourteen years ago. This places the experience several years after his conversion and thus it cannot be equated with the revelation of Christ to Paul on the Damascus road. I know a man in Christ. Paul describes the experience in the third person, perhaps as a way of indicating its sacred character for him, or alternatively because he wants to maintain a distinction between the Paul who was granted this superlative experience and the Paul who boasts of weakness (cf. 11:30). In fact the account is so consistently cast in the third person that the reader may even wonder whether the apostle is relating the experience of another person, rather than his own. However, a careful reading and appreciation of the thrust of vv. 1, 5, 7 confirms that Paul is speaking of his own experience. The reference here to a man in Christ can be taken to mean simply Paul as a Christian.

The apostle says he was caught up to the third heaven (v. 2) and a little later that he was caught up into Paradise (v. 3). He used the same verb, ‘to catch up’ (harpazō), in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 when speaking of Christians who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord and who will be ‘caught up’ to meet the Lord in the air.

The identification of the third heaven and Paradise which is made by Paul in the present passage has a parallel in the Apocalypse of Moses 37:5, where God hands Adam over to the archangel Michael and says: ‘Lift him up into Paradise unto the third heaven, and leave him there until that fearful day of my reckoning, which I will make in the world.’

Speaking of his experience of being caught up into the third heaven or Paradise, Paul says twice, whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows (vv. 2–3). If Paul himself did not know the exact mechanism whereby his rapture occurred, there is certainly no way in which we can. However, some effort must be made to understand the two possible means which the apostle mentions, in the body and out of the body. In the Old Testament tradition two men were translated bodily to heaven, Enoch (Gen. 5:24) and Elijah (2 Kgs 2:9–12), but their translations were permanent not temporary. It is also said of Elijah that he was carried off bodily from one place to another by the Spirit of the Lord (1 Kgs 18:12).

And he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. The expression that cannot be told (arrēta) is found only here in the New Testament but is common in ancient inscriptions. It is associated with the mystery religions and describes things too sacred to be divulged. Such secrecy concerning things that had been revealed was a commonplace among devotees of the mystery religions of Paul’s day, but quite unusual in Christian circles. Paul did speak of the ‘mystery’ of the gospel but that was something which, though previously hidden, had now been made known to the apostles and prophets through the Spirit for the express purpose that they should proclaim it to all men (cf. 1 Cor. 2:1 mg.; Eph. 3:1–9; 6:19–20; Col. 1:25–27; 4:3). It is only in the present context that Paul speaks of something revealed to him which he could not utter, presumably because it was so sacred and intended for him alone.

5–6. On behalf of this man I will boast. Although the brief account is finished, Paul continues to speak of the subject of the experience in the third person. He is prepared to boast on behalf of the Paul who fourteen years ago was privileged to receive such an experience from God, but on his own behalf he says, I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. Having felt forced into the futile exercise of boasting about spiritual experience, Paul returns (cf. 11:30) to the one safe ground of boasting—his personal weakness, and this idea he develops in vv. 7–10. However, before he does that he makes a point of saying, Though if I wish to boast, I shall not be a fool, for I shall be speaking the truth. Paul’s meaning seems to be that if he did wish to boast on his own behalf of that experience, he would not, in one sense, be acting foolishly, because all he has said about it is true.

But I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. The apostle’s reason for making less of his past experience than he might is that he wishes people’s evaluation of him to be based upon what they see of him and hear from him now. Both the verbs sees and hears are in the present tense, emphasizing that it is upon present performance that Paul wants to be judged. This stress upon the present lends some support to the suggestion that Paul’s use of the third person in the account of his experience of fourteen years ago was a device to distinguish between the Paul of that past experience and the Paul as people see and hear him now. It is on the latter, and in the light of all his weakness, that he wishes any evaluation of him to be made.

7. And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh. Instead of making capital out of his rapture, as his opponents obviously did out of their spiritual experiences, Paul immediately explains how he was kept from becoming too elated about it. A thorn (skolops) was given him in the flesh. The word skolops, found only here in the New Testament, was used for anything pointed, e.g. a stake, the pointed end of a fish-hook, a splinter or a thorn. The fact that Paul speaks of a thorn in the flesh suggests that the imagery is of a splinter or a thorn, rather than a stake, as some have argued.

In the LXX skolops is used figuratively in Numbers 33:55 (‘But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as pricks [skolopes] in your eyes’), Ezekiel 28:24 (‘And for the house of Israel there shall be no more a brier [skolops] to prick or a thorn to hurt them among all their neighbours who have treated them with contempt’) and Hosea 2:8 (ET, 5:6) (‘Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns [skolopsin]; and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths’). In each case skolops is used to denote something which frustrates and causes trouble in the lives of those afflicted. That Paul’s thorn was a trouble and frustration to him is clear from his thrice-repeated prayer for its removal (v. 8).

The apostle further describes the thorn in his flesh as a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. In the story of Job, Satan is allowed to harass that great hero of faith and endurance, but only within the limits set by God (Job 1–2). In 1 Thessalonians 2:17–18 Paul tells his readers how he longed to revisit them after he was forced to leave Thessalonica (cf. Acts 17:1–10), but could not do so because Satan hindered him. And in the present context Satan is allowed to harass the apostle by means of a thorn in the flesh. It is important to recognize that, in both the Old and New Testaments, Satan has no power other than that allowed him by God. In the Gospels Jesus has complete power over all the forces of darkness. Satan has no power over him (John 14:30–31), and demons must obey his will (Mark 1:21–28; 5:1–13). This power Christ gave to his disciples (Mark 6:7). And yet we see in the case of Paul that Satan is allowed to hinder the apostle’s plans and harass him with a thorn in the flesh. However, it must be said that in both cases the actions of Satan, while in themselves bad things, are made to serve God’s purposes.

Many suggestions have been made concerning the nature of Paul’s ‘thorn in the flesh’. They fall into one of three broad categories:

(a) some form of spiritual harassment, e.g. the limitations of a nature corrupted by sin, the torments of temptation, or oppression by a demon,

(b) persecution, e.g. that instigated by Jewish opposition or by Paul’s Christian opponents,

(c) some physical or mental ailment, e.g. eye trouble, attacks of fever, stammering speech, epilepsy, or a neurological disturbance.

However, the plain fact is that there is simply insufficient data to decide the matter. Most modern interpreters prefer to see it as some sort of physical ailment, and the fact that Paul calls it a thorn in the flesh offers some support for this. Galatians 4:15 is appealed to by those who want to identify it as an eye problem.

15 Where is then the blessedness ye spake of? for I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me.

Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me. Although there is no essential similarity between Paul’s experience and that of Jesus in Gethsemane, nevertheless it is interesting to note that both prayed three times that something be removed, and in both cases the removal requested was not granted. However, just as Jesus was strengthened to face his dreadful and unique ordeal, so encouragement and strength were made available to Paul: but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you’. Paul uses the perfect tense in the expression but he said to me (eirēken), which indicates that the Lord’s response to his prayer, once made, assumed continual applicability for him. In the response itself the use of the present tense is sufficient (arkei) denotes the continual availability of grace.

Closing

Essentially the word of the Lord to Paul was that while the thorn would not be removed, his grace would enable him to cope with it. To this was added the explanation, ‘for my power is made perfect in weakness’. In 1 Corinthians 1:26–31 Paul pointed out to his converts that it was by God’s deliberate choice that not many of them were wise according to worldly standards, nor powerful, nor of noble birth. The reason was that God had chosen the foolish in the world to shame the wise, the weak in the world to shame the strong, and the low and despised in the world to bring to nothing those who were considered somebodies. This he did in order that no human being might boast in his presence, and so that those who do boast might boast of the Lord. So the Lord’s response to Paul’s request for the removal of the harassment was to remind him that his power is manifested in the weak. It also provides, in this context, justification for Paul’s rejection of the type of boasting indulged in by his opponents, and for his own practice of boasting in weakness.

I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Having been taught that Christ’s power is made perfect in weakness, Paul is glad to boast of his weaknesses. This does not mean he enjoys weaknesses as such; what he delights in is the power of Christ that rests upon him in these weaknesses. The verb ‘to rest upon’ (episkēnoō) is quite rare. It is found only here in the New Testament, and not at all in the LXX or the papyri. Before Paul, its only known use is by Polybius the Greek historian (c. 201–120 BC) who used it twice of the billeting of soldiers. It may, therefore, be better to translate the verb as ‘dwell in’ or ‘reside’ rather than rest upon. Either way it is the experience of the power of Christ in Paul’s weakness that enables him to boast gladly.

For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong. Here in v. 10 Paul applies the lesson he learnt from the Lord through the experience of the thorn in the flesh to all the various difficulties he experienced in his apostolic mission.

While Paul’s readers could have gained much by learning of the simultaneity of weakness and power which Paul sets out in vv. 7–10, the apostle’s motive in setting it out was not limited to that. His opponents had criticized his claims to apostleship on the grounds of his weakness (cf. 10:10), and very likely they regarded the many persecutions and insults that Paul experienced as inconsistent with his claim to be an apostle of the exalted Christ. By setting out the divine principle of power manifested through weakness, Paul has at once defended his own claim to apostleship and cut the ground from under the claims of his opponents.

God’s Grace is the Perfect Solution.

Listen God loves us so much that he wants us to know that He can and will provide a solution to our problems and will provide a solution that is solid and long lasting. We might not like the way that he is doing it, but we must trust him. Someone once said that the problems that are over my head are still below the feet of Jesus.

I wish that I could stand up here today and tell you that you would never have any problems, you would never hurt, you would never be depressed. But I’d be lying because that is simply not true. I said it earlier that God desires for us to grow closer to him and for us to be willing to grow closer to him we are going to have to go through difficulties.

In our lives we have to come to the realization that there will be pain and difficulties.

We have to remember to focus as Paul did… focus on Christ and the fact that it is much more important for us to KNOW Him and have His presence than our own personal comfort, for He is the source of all joy and comfort and He will NOT deceive us or mislead us!