2 Corinthians 12

F. D. H.—In harmony with the viewless operations of the Holy Spirit are the subtle and impalpable agencies which Satan now wields. If Christ is concealed by the cloud, so is Satan. He no more appears in visible shape on earth; he no longer permits his spirits to torment the bodies of men. He has withdrawn his oracles, his sorceries, his magic, his outward signs, and tempts those who have laid aside the worship of graven images with the idolatries of the heart and mind—with covetousness and worldliness. Macmillan.—The business of our moral vigilance, and the test of our moral strength, is to penetrate the delusion, to tear off the mask, to recognize Satan even through his transformations. We should know our tempters, as the sure instincts of innocent hearts know hypocrites, “through the disguise they wear.” F. D. H.

23-27. All elements of danger, all details of adventure, all anxieties and toils, seemed summed up in his one person. Europe and Asia are full of him. “From Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum” is but his note of journey made half way. The deserts have seen him struggling with their sand-storms; the rivers have been breasted by his arm; the deep has held him, hour after hour, drifting solitary on its surface. Again and again ocean has cast him shipwrecked to land, and land has yielded him, full of fresh, holy enterprise, to ocean. Disputing in the synagogue, working at the hair-cloth loom, singing at midnight in the prison, kneeling, and mingling his tears with his farewell prayers on the Syrian or Milesian shore, preaching amid the marble temples on Mars’ Hill at Athens, thanking God and taking courage on the broad stones of the Appian Way, clanking his chain as he writes in his hired house at Rome—where, and in what employ, do we not find this strange, fervent man, this vessel of God’s election for the second founding of his Church? Such, then, was he whom the Lord grasped with His own hand, and rescued from the ranks of foes and persecutors for His own service. A.

The five Jewish scourgings, two of the three Roman beatings with rods (one being at Philippi), and the three shipwrecks, are all unrecorded in the Acts. The stoning was at Lystra. What a life of incessant adventure and peril is here disclosed to us! And when we remember that he who endured and dared all this was a man constantly suffering from infirm health, such heroic self-devotion seems almost superhuman. C.

29. Who is offended, and I burn not? If you add innumerable miracles to this, you will say nothing so grand. If he even glories, it is in weaknesses, in outrages, in his intense sympathy with the injured; just as here he also says, “Who is weak, and I am not weak?” These words are greater than dangers; and hence, when increasing the emphasis of his discourse, he places them last of all. Both soul and body did he give up that the men who stoned and beat him might attain a kingdom. “For thus,” says he, “has Christ taught me to love, who left that new commandment of His about love, and himself fulfilled it by his own actions.” Chrys.—Paul does not glory in what he had done, but in what he had borne; he does not speak of his successes, of his converts, of the heresies he had subdued, but he speaks of the manifold trials which he had undergone for Christ. He had “filled up that which was behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for his body’s sake, which is the Church.” This marks all his conduct and sufferings as being in the spirit of the cross, that it was for the sake of others. F. W. R.

1. It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I will come to visions and revelations of the 2 Lord. I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot 3 tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to 4 the third heaven. And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I 5 cannot tell: God knoweth;) how that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeak- 6 able words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. Of such an one will I glory: yet of 7 myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities. For though I would desire to glory, I 8 shall not be a fool; for I will say the truth: but now I forbear, lest any man should think 9 of me above that which he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me. And lest I should 10 be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me 11 a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above 12 measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And 13 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.

11. I am become a fool in glorying; ye have compelled me: for I ought to have been commended of you: for in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing. Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds. For what is it wherein ye were inferior to other churches, except it be that I myself was not burdensome to you? forgive me this wrong. Behold, the third time I am ready to come to you; and I will not be burdensome to you: for I seek not your’s, but you: for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children. And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved. But be it so, I did not burden you: nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with guile. Did I make a gain of you by any of them whom I sent unto you? I desired Titus, and with him I sent a brother. Did Titus make a gain of you? walked we not in the same spirit? walked we not in the same steps? Again, think ye that we excuse ourselves unto you? we speak before God in Christ: but we do all things, dearly beloved, for your edifying. For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not: lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults: and lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed.

TILL the death of Christ, the strong man was the man strong with his sinews and his hands, or, at best, with the cunning and calculation of his brain. Bodily “weakness” was either to be simply deplored as a calamity or despised as a shame. No spiritual illumination, shining through, transfigured the sick face; no submission of faith dignified the poor frame prostrate with pain. The men, and even the women, looked on disease with a kind of dry disgust. Virtue consisted in keeping up the animal vigor as long as possible, and when it failed, all that the most faithful friendship could do was to draw back in helpless embarrassment, just where Christian sympathy is most eager to press forward and reach out its merciful hands. It was imbecility gazing at infirmity in despair. We see the apostle of Christ standing in the presence of such a proud civilization as that, and quietly saying to it, “When I am weak, then am I strong.” The meaning is that, in order to get very near to God, or to let the glorious attractions of almighty love and light lay hold of us and lift us up, we must somehow be impoverished first, belittled, disappointed, baffled, weakened. Obstacles, sicknesses, losses, defeats of our plans, the breakings up of our securities, are God’s opportunities; and he knows how to use them. We watch the course of our lives, and we see that what is best has generally come by self-subjection. And at last our experience answers to this mystical account given of the heroes of the Bible: “Out of weakness they were made strong.” F. D. H.

2. “I knew a man” should be “I know a man.” The apostle is not speaking of one whom he once knew, but of one whom he now knows. Fourteen years ago is the date, not of the knowledge, as our version makes it, but of the vision. The same is the case in verse 3 also. A.

3. Caught up. The Spirit loveth to do what he does in private: that man to whom God intendeth to reveal great things, he taketh him aside from the lumber and cumber of this world, and carrieth him away in the solace and contemplation of the things of another world. Bun.

5. He speaks of a divided experience, of two selves, two Pauls: one Paul in the third heaven, enjoying the beatific vision; another yet on earth, struggling, tempted, tried, and buffeted by Satan. The former he chose rather to regard as the Paul that was to be. He dwelt on the latter as the actual

Paul coming down to the prose of life to find his real self, lest he should be tempted to forget or mistake himself in the midst of the heavenly revelations. F. W. R.

7. A thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan. That this was some permanent infirmity which troubled and hindered the apostle through his subsequent career, seems plain from his expression of resignation to it, after his thrice-repeated prayer for its removal had been answered only by an encouragement to submission. It is best to believe that in this, as in other cases, the silence of Scripture is intentional; to the end that men of natures more ardent than their strength, whose spirit is willing but whose flesh is weak, may learn from Paul’s example to acknowledge and bow beneath the hand of God in those impediments but for which they would become boasters; nay, to rejoice, that the glory of what they can yet do is not their own but God’s. S.—The Bible calls trials evils, recognizes them as messengers from Satan, though often blessed by God—to be got rid of if possible. The Christians rejoiced in tribulation—in God; but that in spite of, not because of, tribulation. And here God does not command Paul to think the throb of his thorn enjoyable. He only bids him bear it, because he says, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” F. W. R.

Paul tells us “there was given him a thorn in the flesh” for this very reason, lest “he should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations.” There was then in his case a danger to be guarded against in the consciousness of what God had wrought in him and for him. The most privileged “experience” is not now more secure in the same direction. O. E. D.—Notwithstanding so many promises made to faith, we are always more or less enfeebled by a remainder of our own strength, as we are always more or less troubled by remains of our own righteousness, which even the most humble bear with them everywhere. This wretched strength of our own, this talent of our own, this eloquence of our own, this knowledge of our own, this influence of our own, forms in us a little cherished sanctuary, which our jealous pride keeps closed against the strength of God, in order to reserve for itself a last retreat. But if we could finally become weak in good earnest, and despair absolutely of ourselves, the strength of God, diffusing itself throughout our entire inward man, would fill us “with all the fullness of God”; and thus the strength of man being exchanged for the strength of God, “nothing would be impossible for us,” because “with God nothing is impossible.” Such is the incalculable service which his weakness confers on Paul, and which no strength could ever have rendered him. Monod.

God takes the most eminent and choicest of his servants for the choicest and most eminent afflictions. They who have received most grace from God are able to bear most afflictions from God. Affliction doth not hit the saints by chance, but by direction. God doth not draw his bow at a venture. Every one of his arrows goes upon a special errand, and touches no breast but that against whom it was sent. It is not only the grace but the glory of a believer when he can stand as a butt-mark and take affliction quietly. Caryl.

8. Paul besought God thrice that the thorn might be removed, when the answer came, not in the removal of the trial, but “my grace is sufficient for thee.” Was this to deny the petition? No! it was to grant it in greater fullness. Here lies the difference between God’s way and man’s: man keeps the word of promise to the ear, but breaks it to the hope; God keeps the promise to the hope, though he may seem to break it to the ear. F. W. R.—Paul’s case teaches us that the precept of our Lord, “Ask, and it shall be given you,” must not be understood as promising a direct answer to every prayer, but as expressing the certainty that He who knows our infirmities before we ask, and our ignorance in asking, will, in the end, supply our needs with all that we require, though not with all that we desire or think that we require. The apostle prayed simply that a great impediment to his usefulness might be removed; and even this was not granted. And, in like manner, a greater than the apostle had “offered up prayer and supplications, with strong crying and tears,” and yet the prayer was not granted. If the prayer of Paul and the prayer of Christ were refused, none need complain or be perplexed. A. P. S.

—When you ask of God what God praises, what God commands, what God promises in the life to come, then ask fearlessly, and put your whole force, as far as you can, into your prayers, that you may obtain. For such things are granted by God in his gracious mercy; such things are bestowed by him, not in anger, but in compassion. But when you are asking for things temporal, ask with qualifications, ask with fear; commit them to him that he may give them if they are profitable, and may not give them if he knows them to be harmful. What is harmful, and what is profitable, the physician knows and not the patient. Aug.

My grace is sufficient for thee. That is, my free love will communicate to thee all that is needful; rest satisfied with it. It is to his own free love that the Lord points the eye of his struggling saint—to this alone, as being all he needs to meet his case. He pledges nothing beyond this; nor administers any comfort, save in connection with his own character as “the God of all grace.” There is but one treasure-house of blessing, one well-spring of strength and gladness; the grace of the infinite Jehovah. God says to us, Here is righteousness, divine and perfect righteousness; use it as if it were your own; come to me with it as if it were your own. Here is strength; use it as if it were your own; use it to its full extent; count upon its availableness for you to the full stretch of its almighty compass. Thus is the grace of Christ so placed within our reach that we may use it just as if all its good things were within us, not without us—as if they were really ours, not his. All this fullness is so at our disposal that we are actually responsible for the use of it all.

My strength is made perfect in weakness. That is, my strength finds its full scope, its proper development, in the weakness of its object. It is just those very things that constitute us helpless, worthless, lost, that make us suitable objects

of this grace. It is those very things that would lead us to despond and turn away and remain aloof from Him that should lead us to be of good courage to arise and betake ourselves at once to God. It is the ignorance of the child that fits it for the teacher’s skill and wisdom; so is it our ignorance that fits us for Him who can have compassion on the ignorant, and who has said, “Learn of me.” It is the infant’s helplessness that fits it for the father’s strong or the mother’s tender arm; so it is our feebleness that fits us for the strength of the mighty Saviour. Bonar.—We hang from hour to hour on God. When we know ourselves aright, we shall feel that we have nothing of our own that is good—that we are strengthless, powerless, and must depend entirely on His all sufficient grace. F. W. R.