2 Corinthians 12

2 Corinthians 12:1-13

Division 7. (2 Corinthians 12:1-21; 2 Corinthians 13:1-14.)The perfecting of ministry. We are thus introduced to what is no doubt the perfecting of ministry, the way in which, on the one hand and on the other, God is found by the soul thus pledged to His service; on the one hand the heights of blessedness to which the Lord is ready to lead His own, the wondrous comfort yielded to those who have need of comfort; while, on the other hand, we see the need of discipline also found in close connection with the comfort itself, and in such an one as Paul the apostle; and if needed by such an one, who is there that shall claim exemption from it? The effect is that to which the last chapter has in measure already brought us, the abasement of the earthen vessel, only that the excellency of the power may be realized to be of God and not of man, His strength perfected in weakness, so that the weakness itself may be gloried in, and in the consciousness of such weakness one may find strength.

1. The apostle comes now to what it is evident he said little of to others, and which was given for the joy and comfort of his own soul alone. The visions and revelations of the Lord of which he speaks were not intended to be communicated, went beyond even the possibility of communication. They were not, therefore, for others, they were for himself; and yet they are intimated here surely for the blessing of others, and that we may realize what in the same condition one may count upon from the same Lord. Paul was in this pre-eminent, as he always is. We may lose, by insisting too much upon this, all the blessing for ourselves. It is plain that the apostle does not speak of himself here as an apostle. That is not how he puts it.

As an apostle, the revelations would, in fact, have been for others. They were not that, but for himself; and he speaks of himself, (for clearly it is of himself that he is speaking,) yet in such terms as would make any Christian his fellow. “I know a man in Christ,” he says; but who is there among Christians who is not a man in Christ? We must be careful to note the way in which Scripture presents things to us, or we shall lose very much of the blessing of them. It is “a man in Christ,” -so simply put that if it were not for what is afterwards said, we might even question whether it were the apostle at all. It is clear that he does not want us to realize these things as simply apostolic. The “man in Christ” is, indeed, in some sense much more than the apostle.

A “man in Christ” is one who is before God in the value and power of what Christ is for God. The apostle knew this indeed as no one else, one may say, has known it; but that which he knew so well, nevertheless, belongs in its blessedness to every Christian, and is open for every Christian to enjoy it.

Let us impute to ourselves what differences there may be, and not escape from the comfort or from the exhortation that there is in it, by making “a man in Christ” really an exception among such men. That cannot be why it is so presented here. If ministry be, as we have seen it is, something which, in one form or another, every member of the body of Christ as such is to exercise; if every member of Christ is needed to fill out that epistle of Christ which the Church is, “read and known of all men,” then assuredly we have our part in all that this epistle of ministry can give us, allowing fully for the pre-eminence of the apostle and for all that was really exceptional in him, but which implied, more than anything else, exceptional devotedness. He speaks then of this man in Christ, -a heavenly man, because Christ is heavenly, -taken up into his own sphere, in heaven, in a marvelous way, of which he can give no account. Whether it was in the body, he knows not. Whether it was out of the body, he knows not. He says this twice, for a purpose doubtless. He would have us not think upon the circumstances so much, upon the exact part that miracle had to do with it; for from the miraculous we naturally seek to withdraw ourselves, (we do not expect miracles,) but he leaves it open. He was caught away to the third heaven, whether in body or in spirit he cannot really tell.

He thought, perhaps, but little of himself, drawn out of himself as he was by the power of what was communicated to him. It was a joy indeed beyond expression, the Paradise of God, which was somehow opened to him, something which had value and power for his soul, which he could not even utter to others. Here is the man to glory in, he says; and he separates this man, as it were, from himself, the man in the flesh, who can glory only in his infirmities. How plainly it seems that he would have us separate what he was himself from this wondrous vision given to him! It seems as if he would designedly have us separate all that was exceptional in him from this which is yet in itself so exceptional to all experiences. But would he not open the door thus to us, as far as he could open it? Would he not say, I a man in Christ, as such, was caught up to the third heaven? “Such an one.” How many of us could except ourselves from this, and say we are not such? We are not Christians at all if that be not true of us.

Such an one as this was caught up to the third heaven. Would not God draw our hearts after such unspeakable blessedness, and would He not satisfy hearts that He had thus taught to long after it? “He satisfieth the longing soul and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.” How good if only we longed with an irrepressible longing for that which God must needs come in to satisfy! But indeed we must not separate the man that Paul was in another sense from the vision which he enjoyed. We may separate the apostle, but we must not separate the man devoted to Christ; the man who, having received Christ Jesus the Lord, walked so really in Him; the man for whom earth was marked by the cross, and to whom therefore, heaven was open. Let us lay all possible emphasis upon such things as this. There is no royal way into the enjoyment of such things by a mere desire to have visions. The way is only by the way Paul really entered. We are right in believing that there was something exceptional about him.

We are wrong in believing that it was a mere official distinction, as one may say; something, therefore, which separates us in kind from the man who enjoyed these things. It was the man who himself, in the joy of what he was in Christ, sought with his whole heart to present every man perfect in that same Christ whom he enjoyed. It was this man whom God caught somehow away into Paradise, and made him hear unspeakable things, the joy of which remained, however too deep for utterance. But we are immediately reminded now, that after all here was a man, upon another side, very like ourselves; a man who, if he looked at himself, could glory only in those infirmities which left him the weak creature that he was, in the hands of a God almighty for him. He does not now want to glorify himself with these revelations. He desires none to think of him above that which he sees him really to be, or hears about him. 2. He discloses to us the other Paul of whom he would not glory. He lets us know, in fact, that it was himself who had received the revelation, only in the same sentence in which he makes known to us a thorn in the flesh which the very revelation itself obtained for him. How absolute a rebuke to everything that men dream of practical perfection in the Christian, to find that one who could be caught up where perhaps no one of us has ever been, unconscious of himself while thus occupied with unutterable things, yet had need when he came out of the vision to have a messenger of Satan himself made a help to him, because of the tendency to pride of heart which the very vision might engender! Let us notice carefully that it is not said that he had been exalted by it. It was for no actual sin of his own that the messenger of Satan had to buffet him.

It was simply because of that which was yet in him, whether exhibited or not, -of tendencies which might be checked, but which needed checking. Thus the thorn in the flesh followed the vision.

It is evident, also, that this implied some bodily weakness, or deformity, which might make him little in the eyes of men, thus lowering him in the very character of a minister of Christ which the vision might be implied to nerve him for the more. It is in this way that he goes to the Lord, that is, to Christ, the Lord of the servant, to seek Him about it. Thrice he beseeches Him that this might depart from him. He is answered, and yet he is not answered. He is answered, not as he expects, but he is answered in a fuller way than he expects. The thorn is not removed, but the sufficiency of divine grace is what is assured him, and that, after all, the power of God requires but this human weakness, and is displayed the more as the weakness itself is displayed.

This is, as we know, but the good of that earthen vessel in which he has already told us the divine treasure is. Here was the light of heaven itself in a vessel manifestly of earth.

He must accept this position. He should find it no loss. Nay, is it not gain when a man can glory in the very infirmities that he would just now have had taken away, as realizing that they do but cause a power greater than his own to rest upon him? Who would exchange the power of Christ for the power of plausible human appearance, an eloquence of human words, or anything, in short, which would be so simply human as these are? Think of the power of Christ making itself manifest in the simplest words, perhaps, that human lips could utter! Think of divine power manifesting itself in one who to man’s eyes was weak almost to contempt! Of course, the infirmities here that he can glory in imply no moral imperfection. In such a thing as this he could not glory. He goes on to tell us directly what it is that he takes pleasure in, “in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in straits for Christ’s sake,” -whatever made him, in fact, manifestly but an earthen vessel, wrote death upon the man Paul, in order that the life of Jesus might exhibit itself in its full divine character. It is a hard lesson to learn, but the very hardness of learning it only shows the more how necessary a lesson it is to learn. Why is it so hard a thing for us to learn it, except just for this tendency to pride of heart in us, to which, as we see, even the great apostle here was not a stranger? How thankful should we be for the discipline, in this way, which makes so little of us, but only to exalt and glorify God through us!

The apostle, at any rate, accepted this thoroughly. To suppose, as people have supposed, that the thorn was taken away finally by the importunity of his request is to do away with the lesson we are meant to learn by it. To take away the thorn would have been to take away the glorying in it. How wonderful to be the one in whom divine glory had thus chosen to manifest itself! and such was not only Paul, but such clearly is every man in Christ. There is no exception in all this, except, alas, the exception made by our own dullness and slowness to receive the blessing which the man in Christ will find from God, just in proportion as he is really out and out that which is implied in it. 3. The apostle returns, for a moment, to exhibit, as it were, once more that folly of his which became something else in the end for which he used it, but for which he was compelled to use it, as he says here. He could not give way, in the presence of those who sought designedly to lower him that they might exalt themselves. He owns that he is nothing yet, as we see, that could not hinder the signs of an apostle being wrought among them through him. They belonged well to one who came amongst the Corinthians with fear and trembling because of the burden of the message that he carried, because of the testimony to Christ His. Saviour which was in it.

With such an one the signs of an apostle were in perfect harmony, wrought among them, as he says, first of all in all patience, giving the moral quality first, but in signs also, wondrous and mighty works. There was nothing, then, in which they had been inferior to other assemblies, except in that independence of them which he might seem to have manifested. If that were a wrong, they must forgive it to him. For him it was the independence only of a parent who sought the welfare of his children, rather than to be ministered to by them. “For the children,” he says, tenderly, “ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children,” and he, how gladly would he spend and be spent for the souls of those he loved, even though the love that he poured out upon them might but deprive him in measure of the love they gave him. 4. The attacks made upon him went further, even, than this. Some were saying, it is evident, that even in thus not burdening them there was an element of deception, -he did not himself burden them, nevertheless it was only in the craft of one who knew how to catch them with guile. It is strange that any can plead such a sentence as being an argument for guile being rightly employed by a Christian. It is the thing that he is charged with that he is speaking of here, and the thing which he immediately repels by the questions following. Had he shown his guile, then, by making a gain of them by means of others sent, that gain which personally he would not make?

Titus had been sent by him and a brother in his company. Had Titus then made a gain of them? Had they not walked in the same spirit and in the same steps also? They were even thinking, some among them, that all this defence of himself was merely excuse made by a conscience that was not at ease. “We speak,” he says, “before God in Christ; and all things, beloved, for your edifying.” But the condition of things even yet made him fear sometimes as to those that he would find in such a condition as would humble him with regard to them and make them suffer from the rod he brought. He feared the presence of “strifes, emulations, wrath, contentions, evil speakings, whisperings,” and that he might have to bewail many who had already sinned, and who had not, as others had, repented with regard to the immorality, the open outbreaks of the flesh which had been manifested amongst them. 5. Now, at last, at any rate, he was coming to them. Everything would be looked at, and in the mouth of two or three witnesses everything be established. Love itself, while it has no limit, yet can be forced to act in a way contrary to its desire. If he came again he would not spare. They were questioning his apostleship, and questioning whether Christ had been speaking in him.

Why did they not look at themselves if they wanted proof of that? Were they not sufficient proof? Had they not indeed evidence of the power of God in that which had been wrought, not merely amongst them, but in them? For they came behind in no gift. Whatever weakness might have been exhibited, it was a Christ crucified he preached, crucified through weakness, yet He lived now by the power of God. So too His ministers might be weak after His pattern, yet the power of God manifested in them through Him by whom they lived before God.

But if they wanted a proof, then, of the apostle’s workmanship, they were his workmanship. Let them examine themselves if they were in the faith. Let them prove themselves instead of him. The want of understanding the long parenthesis here, which is, after all, in the apostle’s manner, has made people think that Paul intended them really to examine themselves if they were in the faith. On the contrary, his argument is based upon the very fact that they need not and could not do it. He turns immediately to them with the question: “Do ye not recognize yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you, except indeed ye be reprobates?” If everything was gone, their profession and all that was implied in it, then indeed his work was gone, and the proof of his apostleship, as far as they were concerned, would be truly wanting. But he himself, at any rate, and those who had labored amongst them, were not reprobates; and they only prayed that His people might do no evil, not that they themselves might appear approved, but that they might do right, even though they might be reprobating their teachers. After all, nothing could be really done against the truth -nothing could prevail against that -but for the truth. We must be on the other side of things, with God, in order to realize how truly this is so; but it is so, and the apostle in his devoted love towards them could rejoice if they were strong indeed, however weak he might be manifested. What he sought and prayed for was their perfecting, and his object now in writing was that he might not have to come amongst them to use a severity which indeed could be justified in the authority which the Lord had given him; an authority, nevertheless, meant for building up and not for pulling down. In all this we see the heart of true ministry, as is manifest, -the self-forgetfulness of a love that poured itself out because it was love; not for any gain, except indeed what love could count gain. Through all, let them rejoice. Joy is what becomes us, whatever the circumstances may be, and even in the very consciousness of failure itself; but the true Christian joy is in the Lord, and that should not fail or vary. Let them rejoice, then, and with that seek in all things perfection. Let them be of good comfort, of one mind, which could only therefore be the mind of Christ, if it were to be the mind of Christians. Let them be at peace; and He who was the God of love and peace would be with them. He bids them salute one another, and sends the salutation of the saints, praying that the grace of the Lord Jesus and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit might be with them all.