2 Corinthians 12:7-12 sits inside this longer paragraph.
1It is doubtless not profitable for me to boast. For I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. 2I know a man in Christ, fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I don’t know, or whether out of the body, I don’t know; God knows), such a one caught up into the third heaven. 3I know such a man (whether in the body, or outside of the body, I don’t know; God knows), 4how he was caught up into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. 5On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except in my weaknesses. 6For if I would desire to boast, I will not be foolish; for I will speak the truth. But I refrain, so that no man may think more of me than that which he sees in me or hears from me. 7By reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations, that I should not be exalted excessively, a thorn in the flesh was given to me: a messenger of Satan to torment me, that I should not be exalted excessively. 8Concerning this thing, I begged the Lord three times that it might depart from me. 9He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me.
10Therefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, and in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong. 11I have become foolish in boasting. You compelled me, for I ought to have been commended by you, for I am in no way inferior to the very best apostles, though I am nothing. 12Truly the signs of an apostle were worked among you in all perseverance, in signs and wonders and mighty works. 13For what is there in which you were made inferior to the rest of the assemblies, unless it is that I myself was not a burden to you? Forgive me this wrong.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv7–12 7. And lest through the superiority of revelations. Here…
7. And lest through the superiority of revelations. Here we have a second reason — that God, designing to repress in him every approach to insolence, subdued him with a rod. That rod he calls a goad, by a metaphor taken from oxen. The word flesh is, in the Greek, in the dative Hence Erasmus has rendered it “by the flesh.” I prefer, however, to understand him as meaning, that the prickings of this goad were in his flesh.
Now it is asked, what this goad was. Those act a ridiculous part, who think that Paul was tempted to lust. We must therefore repudiate that fancy. Some have supposed, that he was harassed with frequent pains in the head. Chrysostom is rather inclined to think, that the reference is to Hymeneus and Alexander, and the like, because, instigated by the devil, they occasioned Paul very much annoyance. My opinion is, that under this term is comprehended every kind of temptation, with which Paul was exercised. For flesh here, in my opinion, denotes — not the body, but that part of the soul which has not yet been regenerated. “There was given to me a goad that my flesh might be spurred up by it, for I am not yet so spiritual, as not to be exposed to temptations according to the flesh.”
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He calls it farther the messenger of Satan on this ground, that as all temptations are sent by Satan, so, whenever they assail us, they warn us that Satan is at hand. Hence, at every apprehension of temptation, it becomes us to arouse ourselves, and arm ourselves with promptitude for repelling Satan’s assaults. It was most profitable for Paul to think of this, because this consideration did not allow him to exult like a man that was off his guard. For the man, who is as yet beset with dangers, and dreads the enemy, is not prepared to celebrate a triumph. “The Lord, says he, has provided me with an admirable remedy, against being unduly elated; for, while I am employed in taking care that Satan may not take advantage of me, I am kept back from pride.”
At the same time, God did not cure him by this means exclusively, but also by humbling him. For he adds, to buffet me; by which expression he elegantly expresses this idea. — that he has been brought under control. For to be buffeted is a severe kind of indignity. Accordingly, if any one has had his face made black and blue, he does not, from a feeling of shame, venture to expose himself openly in the view of men. In like manner, whatever be the infirmity under which we labor, let us bear in mind, that we are, as it were, buffeted by the Lord, with the view of making us ashamed, that we may learn humility. Let this be carefully reflected upon by those, especially, who are otherwise distinguished by illustrious virtues, if they have any mixture of defects, if they are persecuted by any with hatred, if they are assailed by any revilings — that these things are not merely rods of the Heavenly Master, but buffetings, to fill them with shame, and beat down all forwardness. Now let all the pious take notice as to this, that they may see how dangerous a thing the “poison of pride” is, as Augustine speaks in his third sermon “On the words of the Apostle,” inasmuch as it “cannot be cured except by poison.” And unquestionably, as it was the cause of man’s ruin, so it is the last vice with which we have to contend, for other vices have a connection with evil deeds, but this is to be dreaded in connection with the best actions; and farther, it naturally clings to us so obstinately, and is so deeply rooted, that it is extremely difficult to extirpate it.
Let us carefully consider, who it is that here speaks — He had overcome so many dangers, tortures, and other evils — had triumphed over all the enemies of Christ — had driven away the fear of death — had, in fine, renounced the world; and yet he had not altogether subdued pride. Nay more, there awaited him a conflict so doubtful, that he could not overcome without being buffeted. Instructed by his example, let us wage war with other vices in such a way, as to lay out our main efforts for the subduing of this one.
But what does this mean — that Satan, who was a
man-slayer from the beginning, (John 8:44,)
was a physician to Paul, and that too, not merely in the cure of the body, but — what is of greater importance — in the cure of the soul? I answer, that Satan, in accordance with his disposition and custom, had nothing else in view than to kill and to destroy, (John 10:10,) and that the goad, that Paul makes mention of, was dipt in deadly poison; but that it was a special kindness from the Lord, to render medicinal what was in its own nature deadly.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv7–12 Which setteth those lusts on fire.
Which setteth those lusts on fire.
He meaneth concupiscence, that sticketh fast in us, as it were a prick, insomuch that it constrained Paul himself being regenerate, to cry out, I do not that good that I would, etc. And he calleth it a prick, by a borrowed kind of speech taken from thorns, or stumps, which are very dangerous and hurtful for the feet, if a man walks through woods that are cut down.
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An excellent doctrine: why God will have even his best servants to be vexed of Satan and by all kinds of temptations, to wit, lest they should be too much puffed up, and also that they may be made perfect by that continual exercise.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv7–12 7 And lest I should be exalted above measure…
7 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.
Ver. 7. And lest I should be exalted] So lest Ezekiel should be lifted up with his many rare visions he is frequently called "son of man," to put him in mind of his mortal, miserable condition.
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A thorn in the flesh] A corruption edged with a temptation. Satan sent some Delilah to lull Paul asleep in her lap, and bind him with withes of green delights; but his watchful soul, displeased deeply with that flesh-pleasing force, complained thereof, shaked himself, and so found ease.
To buffet me] Perhaps in a proper sense Paul might feel the devil’s fingers; take it metaphorically for temptations, and then they are fitly called buffetings, because they come so thick upon a man’s spirit that he can hardly take breath. He dogs good hearts with foulest lusts sometimes, as of atheism, idolatry, blasphemy, murder. In all or any of which, if the soul be merely passive (as the word butfeting here implies) they are Satan’s sins and our crosses only.
Lest I should be exalted] If Paul had not been buffeted, who knows whither he would have swelled? He might have been carried higher in conceit than before he was in his ecstasy. This "thorn in his flesh" was a means to let out the imposthumated matter of pride out of his heart.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv7–12 The best of God’s people have in them a…
The best of God’s people have in them a root of pride, or a disposition to be
exalted above measure, upon their receipt of favours from God not common to others; of which nature extraordinary revelations are none of the meanest, especially when they are multiplied, as it seems they were here to Paul. To prevent the breaking out of which, the apostle here tells us, that he had
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a thorn in the flesh given him. It is variously guessed what this was; he calleth it a thorn in the flesh; but whether (supposing flesh to be here strictly taken) he meaneth some disease affecting his body with pain and smart, and if so, what that specifical disease was, is no where revealed, and very uncertainly conjectured: or whether (taking flesh in a large sense, for his state in the flesh) he meaneth some motions to sin made to him from the devil; the importunity of which made them very grievous and afflictive to him, being in the flesh: or (as others think) motions to sin from his own lusts; which God suffured to stir in him, withholding such influence of his grace, by which he ordinarily kept them under, and in subjection; is very uncertain. The last mentioned seem to be least probable. For although the devil hath an influence upon our lusts, to excite and educe them into acts, yet it seems not according to the language of holy writ, to call these
messengers of Satan; neither is it probable that St. Paul would have reckoned these amongst the gifts of God unto him: nor was this an infirmity which he would have gloried in, or which would have commended him; nor doth the term
buffet so well agree to this sense. It seems therefore more properly to be interpreted, either of some great bodily affliction, or some diabolical importunate temptation, with which God, after these abundant revelations, suffered this great apostle to be infested; that he might be kept humble, and not lifted up upon this great favour which God had showed him; which, considering the danger of pride, might well be reckoned amongst the gifts of God to this great apostle. And so he here gives another reason why he would not glory in the abundance of his revelations, because God by this providence had let him know, that his will was, that he should walk humbly notwithstanding them; and it had been very improper for him, being immediately upon this favour humbled by such a providence, to have lifted up himself by reason of it.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv7–11 Observe here, The great and special sin which St.…
Observe here, The great and special sin which St. Paul was in danger of, by the abundance of revelations, namely, the sin of spiritual pride.
Learn hence, That heavenly revelations may be matter and occasion of unmeet and sinful exaltation; The holiest Christians, after their most heavenly acquaintance, are not out of danger of spiritual pride, or being too much exalted. Pride is such a sin as the holiest saint is not fully secured from; no, not when he hath been hearing unutterable words, and seeing the heavenly paradise itself; no, not if he came down from the third heaven, newly from converse with angels, yet bringing an imperfect nature with him, is he not out of danger of this sin, much less is he so when he cometh off his knees from prayer, &c.
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Observe, 2. The way and means which the wisdom of God made use of for preventing St. Paul’s falling into this dangerous sin of spiritual pride, and that was, the giving him a thorn in the flesh; a bodily pain, say some; a bitter persecution, say others; something that was very afflictive to the flesh, say all.
Learn thence, That spiritual pride is so dangerous a sin, that it is a mercy to be freed from it, even by bodily pain: God seeth our danger when we see not our own, and will hurt the body, to save the soul of his dearest children.
Oh, how much better is it that the body should smart, than that the soul should be overmuch exalted! It is an happy thorn in the flesh, which lets the pestilent and corrupt blood of spiritual pride out of the soul.
Lord! why do we contend and quarrel with thee for every sickness, bodily pain, or afflictive cross? Can sin be prevented or killed at too dear a rate?
Observe, 3. This thorn in the flesh is called the messenger of Satan, from whence St. Chrysostom concluded that it was some evil angel that was permitted and impowered by God to scourge and buffet him. The sufferings of the best and holiest persons in the flesh, may be the buffetings of a messenger of Satan , and yet be from God. Satan certainly intendeth our hurt, but God over-rules him as an instrument to do us good: It is no proof that a man is not a child of God, because Satan has a permission to torment his flesh. The messenger of Satan was sent to buffet me, says St. Paul, lest I should be exalted.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v11 In these verses the apostle addresses himself to the…
In these verses the apostle addresses himself to the Corinthians two ways: -
I. He blames them for what was faulty in them; namely, that they had not stood up in his defence as they ought to have done, and so made it the more needful for him to insist so much on his own vindication. They in manner compelled him to commend himself, who ought to have been commended of them Co2 12:11. And had they, or some among them, not failed on their part, it would have been less needful for him to have said so much on his own behalf. He tells them further that they in particular had good reason to speak well of him, as being in nothing behind the very chief apostles, because he had given them full proof and evidence of his apostleship; for the signs of an apostle were wrought among them in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds. Note, 1. It is a debt we owe to good men to stand up in the defence of their reputation; and we are under special obligations to those we have received benefit by, especially spiritual benefit, to own them as instruments in God's hand of good to us, and to vindicate them when they are calumniated by others. 2. How much soever we are, or ought to be, esteemed by others, we ought always to think humbly of ourselves. See an example of this in this great apostle, who thought himself to be nothing, though in truth he was not behind the greatest apostles - so far was he from seeking praise from men, though he tells them their duty to vindicate his reputation - so far was he from applauding himself, when he was forced to insist upon his own necessary self-defence.
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II. He gives a large account of his behaviour and kind intentions towards them, in which we may observe the character of a faithful minister of the gospel. 1. He was not willing to be burdensome to them, nor did he seek theirs, but them. He says (Co2 12:13) he had not been burdensome to them, for the time past, and tells them (Co2 12:14) he would not be burdensome to them for the time to come, when he should come to them. He spared their purses, and did not covet their money: I seek not yours but you. He sought not to enrich himself, but to save their souls: he did not desire to make a property of them to himself, but to gain them over to Christ, whose servant he was. Note, Those who aim at clothing themselves with the fleece of the flock, and take no care of the sheep, are hirelings, and not good shepherds. 2. He would gladly spend and be spent for them (Co2 12:15); that is, he was willing to take pains and to suffer loss for their good. He would spend his time, his parts, his strength, his interest, his all, to do them service; nay, so spend as to be spent, and be like a candle, which consumes itself to give light to others. 3. He did not abate in his love to them, notwithstanding their unkindness and ingratitude to him; and therefore was contented and glad to take pains with them, though the more abundantly he loved them the less he was loved, Co2 12:15. This is applicable to other relations: if others be wanting in their duty to us it does not follow therefore that we may neglect our duty to them. 4. He was careful not only that he himself should not be burdensome, but that none he employed should. This seems to be the meaning of what we read, Co2 12:16-18. If it should be objected by any that though he did not himself burden them, yet, being crafty, he caught them with guile, that is, he sent those among them who pillaged them, and afterwards he shared with them in the profit: "This was not so," says the apostle; "I did not make a gain of you myself, nor by any of those whom I sent; nor did Titus, nor any others - We walked by the same spirit and in the same steps." They all agreed in this matter to do them all the good they could, without being burdensome to them, to promote the gospel among them and make it as easy to them as possible. Or, this may be read with an interrogation, as utterly disclaiming any guile in himself and others towards them. 5. He was a man who did all things for edifying, Co2 12:19. This was his great aim and design, to do good, to lay the foundation well, and then with care and diligence to build the superstructure. 6. He would not shrink from his duty for fear of displeasing them, though he was so careful to make himself easy to them. Therefore he was resolved to be faithful in reproving sin, though he was therein found to be such as they would not, Co2 12:20. The apostle here mentions several sins that are too commonly found among professors of religion, and are very reprovable: debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults; and, though those who are guilty of these sins can hardly bear to be reproved for them, yet faithful ministers must not fear offending the guilty by sharp reproofs, as they are needful, in public and in private. 7. He was grieved at the apprehension that he should find scandalous sins among them not duly repented of. This, he tells them, would be the cause of great humiliation and lamentation. Note, (1.) The falls and miscarriages of professors cannot but be a humbling consideration to a good minister; and God sometimes takes this way to humble those who might be under temptation to be lifted up: I fear lest my God will humble me among you. (2.) We have reason to bewail those who sin and do not repent, to bewail many that have sinned, and have not repented, Co2 12:21. If these have not, as yet, grace to mourn and lament their own case, their case is the more lamentable; and those who love God, and love them, should mourn for them.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv7–12 And he said unto me,.... Either by what the…
And he said unto me,.... Either by what the Jews call "Bath Kol", a voice from heaven, an articulate audible one; or by some extraordinary revelation of the Spirit of God; or by a divine impression upon his mind; whereby he was assured of what follows,
my grace is sufficient for thee; the Lord always hears and answers his people sooner or later, in one form or another, though not always in the way and manner they desire; but yet in such a way as is most for his glory and their good: the apostle had not his request granted, that Satan might immediately depart from him, only he is assured of a sufficiency of grace to support him under the exercise, so long as it should last. There seems to be an allusion to the word "Shaddai", an appellation of God, Gen 17:1, and signifies, "which is sufficient": for God is all sufficient, and is a name that belongs to the Messiah. The angel whom God promised to the Israelites, to go before them in the wilderness, Exo 23:23, the Jews say (g) is "Metatron" (which is a corruption of the word "mediator"), whose name is as the name of his master. "Metatron" by gematry is "Shaddai, one that is sufficient": however, certain it is, that the grace of Christ is alone sufficient for all his people, to all saving purposes, in all their times of need. It is alone sufficient, not to the exclusion of the grace of the Father or the Spirit; but in opposition and distinction to anything else, that may be rightly or wrongly called grace; what men generally call common or sufficient grace, which, they say, is given to all men, is a mere chimera; no grace is sufficient but what is effectual, and that is only the grace of Christ: the light of nature is insufficient to any saving purpose; the Gospel, which is called grace, and is the means of grace, is insufficient of itself to salvation, without the powerful and efficacious grace of Christ going along with it; and so are gifts, whether ordinary or extraordinary: nothing short of the grace of Christ is sufficient grace; and this is sufficient for all the elect of God, Jews and Gentiles, Old and New Testament saints, the family in heaven and in earth, the people of God that are already called, and are to be called, and for the worst and vilest of sinners; and it is sufficient to all saving purposes, to the acceptance of their persons before God, to their justification in his sight, to their pardon and cleansing, to their regeneration and sanctification, to the supply of all their wants, and to their perseverance in grace unto glory; and it is sufficient in all their times of need, in times of bodily affliction, of violent persecution, soul desertion, Satan's temptations, and at the hour of death, and in the day of judgment. The reason given to support this answer, and to strengthen the apostle's faith in it, is,
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for my strength is made perfect in weakness; by the "strength" of Christ is meant, not his strength as the mighty God, but that communicative strength which he has, and is in him as Mediator, and which saints look to him for, and receive from him; this is "made perfect in" their "weakness"; not that their weakness can add perfection to his strength, for his strength is perfect in itself, not to say anything of the contradiction such a sense carries in it; but the meaning is, that the strength of Christ is made to appear, is illustrated and shines forth in its perfection and glory, in supplying, supporting, and strengthening his people under all their weakness; and if they were not left to some weaknesses in themselves, his strength would not be so manifest; see Jam 2:22. The answer to the apostle's request, supported with this reason, was wonderfully satisfactory to him; wherefore he concludes,
most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities; in the weaknesses which attended either his body or soul, through the buffetings of the angel Satan, rather than in his visions and revelations; or rather than insist upon his departure from him, he is content things should be as they were, since he had such a promise of a sufficiency of grace to bear him up, under and through whatever was the pleasure of God concerning him; and since the strength of Christ was made illustrious through his weakness, so that Satan was not able to make any advantage over him, he is willing to remain in the same posture and condition:
that the power of Christ, says he,
may rest upon me, or "tabernacle over me"; he considered himself as a poor weak feeble creature, and the power of Christ as a tabernacle over him, as the power of God is represented as a garrison about the believer, Pe1 1:5, sheltering, preserving, and protecting him from the insults of Satan, in every form and shape; see Isa 4:6, where Christ is said to be a tabernacle, for a place of refuge, and for a covert.
(g) Jarchi in Exod. xxiii. 23. Sepher Raya Mehimna in Zohar in Numb. fol. 87. 1.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv7–11 There was given me - By the wise and…
There was given me - By the wise and gracious providence of God. A thorn in the flesh - A visitation more painful than any thorn sticking in the flesh. A messenger or angel of Satan to buffet me - Perhaps both visibly and invisibly; and the word in the original expresses the present, as well as the past, time. All kinds of affliction had befallen the apostle. Yet none of those did he deprecate. But here he speaks of one, as above all the rest, one that macerated him with weakness, and by the pain and ignominy of it prevented his being lifted up mere, or, at least, not less, than the most vehement head ache could have done; which many of the ancients say he laboured under. St. Paul seems to have had a fresh fear of these buffetings every moment, when he so frequently represses himself in his boasting, though it was extorted from him by the utmost necessity.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv7–12 Verse 7. And lest I should be exalted] There…
Verse 7. And lest I should be exalted] There were three evils to be guarded against:
1. The contempt of his gifts and call by his enemies.
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2. The overweening fondness of his friends. And,
3. Self-exultation.
A thorn in the flesh] The word σκολοψ signifies a stake, and ανασκολοπιζεσθαι, to be tied to a stake by way of punishment; and it is used, says Schoettgen, to signify the most oppressive afflictions. Whatever it was, it was τησαρκι, in the flesh, i.e. of an outward kind. It was neither sin nor sinfulness, for this could not be given him to prevent his being exalted above measure; for sin never had and never can have this tendency. What this thorn in the flesh might be has given birth to a multitude of conjectures: Tertullian thought it dolor auriculae, the ear ache; Chrysostom, κεφαλαλγια, the head ache; Cyprian, carnis et corporis multa ac gravia tormenta, many and grievous bodily torments. I believe the apostle to refer simply to the distresses he had endured through the opposition he met with at Corinth; which were as painful and grievous to him as a thorn in his flesh, or his being bound to a stake; for, if he could have devoted himself to destruction, Ro 9:3, for his rebellious and unbelieving countrymen, what must he have suffered on account of an eminent Church being perverted and torn to pieces by a false teacher! God permitted this to keep the apostle humble, and at last completely delivered the Church out of the hands and influence of this deceiver; none, not even the incestuous person, having been turned finally out of the way by the false doctrines there preached.
The messenger of Satan] Another mode of expressing what he calls the thorn in the flesh; and he seems most plainly to refer to the false apostle at Corinth. The apostle himself was, as he styles himself to this Church, αποστολος Ιησου Χριστου, 2Co 1:1, the apostle of Jesus Christ. The person in question is styled here αγγελος σαταν, the apostle or angel of Satan. It is almost impossible to mistake the apostle's meaning and reference. JESUS CHRIST sent Paul to proclaim his truth, and found a Church at Corinth. SATAN, the adversary of God's truth, sent a man to preach lies at the same place, and turn the Church of God into his own synagogue; and by his teaching lies and calumnies the apostle was severely buffeted. We need seek no other sense for these expressions. Many, however, think that the apostle had really some bodily infirmity that rendered him contemptible, and was the means of obstructing the success of his ministry; and that the false apostle availed himself of this to set St. Paul at nought, and to hold him out to ridicule. I have shown this, elsewhere, to be very unlikely.
The best arguments in favour of this opinion may be found in Whitby; but I forbear to transcribe them because I think the meaning given above is more correct. No infirmity of body nor corporeal sufferings can affect and distress a minister of the Gospel, equally to the perversion or scattering of a flock, which were the fruit of innumerable labours, watchings, fastings, prayers, and tears.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 12 2Co 12:7. Lest I should be exalted above measure…
2Co 12:7. Lest I should be exalted above measure — Made to think highly of myself, and to put confidence in myself, and thereby should be exposed to the displeasure of him who resisteth the proud, 1Pe 5:5; through the abundance — Υπερβολη, the transcendency, of the revelations — That is, the number and the extraordinary nature of them; there was given to me — By the wise and gracious providence of God; a thorn in the flesh — A visitation more painful than any thorn sticking in the flesh. Let it be observed, says Whitby, 1st, That this thorn in the flesh was surely some infirmity in the flesh or body of St. Paul. So he himself informs us Gal 4:14, saying, My temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; (the original expressions, ουκ εξουθενησατε, ουδε εξεπτυσατε, properly signify, you did not account me as nothing, nor spit upon or ridicule me;) but received me, notwithstanding, as an angel, or messenger, of God. Whence we may observe, both that this thorn, or temptation, was in his flesh, or in his body, and that it was such as rendered him, in his preaching, obnoxious to great contempt, and made him despicable in the eyes of others. 2d, It is highly probable that this infirmity in the flesh happened to him after these visions and revelations of which he here speaks, for he says it befell him that he might not be exalted through the multitude of his revelations; and therefore must have been given him after he had that temptation to self exaltation. 3d, It is certain it was some infirmity of the flesh, which naturally tended to obstruct the efficacy of his preaching, by rendering it less acceptable to his hearers, and made him subject to reproach and contempt in the discharge of his ministry. This is extremely evident from Gal 4:14, above cited, which Theodoret thus paraphrases; “Though I brought with me great ignominy in my body, you did not reject me;” and also from Christ’s answer to him, that his power was perfected in Paul’s weakness: that is, the greater is thy infirmity in preaching the gospel, the greater is my power in rendering it efficacious. In the same sense Macknight understands the apostle, observing, “I have followed Whitby and others in thinking that the thorn in the apostle’s flesh was some bodily weakness occasioned by his rapture, and which, affecting his looks, and gesture, and speech, rendered his manner of preaching less acceptable, and perhaps exposed the apostle himself to ridicule. Thus we find the revelations made to Daniel occasioned in him a change of countenance, (Dan 7:28,) and sickness, Dan 8:27.”
The messenger of Satan to buffet me — These words, being here put by way of apposition, must signify the same thing with the thorn in the flesh, and he must mean that he was buffeted by Satan, when, by the false apostles and ministers of Satan, (2Co 11:13; 2Co 11:15,) he was contemned and made the subject of their scorn, for this infirmity in his flesh. But it must be observed, that the original words here may be properly rendered, There was given me a thorn in the flesh, that the angel, or messenger, of Satan might buffet me. “Since, then, he calls the false apostles ministers of Satan, it is not to be wondered that he here styles them, or the chief of them, who thus reviled and contemned him for this infirmity, and laboured to take off the affections of the Corinthians from him, an angel of Satan buffeting him.” — Whitby. Lest I should be exalted, &c. — This clause is wanting in some MSS., and in the Vulgate version, being omitted, doubtless, because it occurs in the beginning of the verse. But the repetition of it here is not improper, as it is intended to draw the reader’s attention. The following observations of Baxter are worthy of every reader’s particular attention: “1st, Even the holiest Christians, after their most heavenly acquaintance, [their most intimate communion with God, and largest communications of light and grace from him,] are not out of danger of pride, or of being too much exalted. 2d, This spiritual pride is so dangerous a sin, that it is a mercy to be saved from it, even by bodily pain. 3d, God will hurt the bodies to save the souls, even of his dearest children. 4th, Satan, that intendeth hurt, is oft God’s instrument to do us good. 5th, Bodily pains are oft the messengers of Satan, and yet of God.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv7–12 And lest I should be exalted - Lest I…
And lest I should be exalted - Lest I should be spiritually proud; lest I should become self-confident and vain, and suppose that I was a special favorite of Heaven. If Paul was in danger of spiritual pride, who is not? If it was necessary for God to adopt some special measures to keep him humble, we are not to be surprised that the same thing should occur in other cases. There is abundant reason to believe that Paul was naturally a proud man. He was by nature self-confident; trusting in his own talents and attainments, and eminently ambitious. When he became a Christian, therefore, one of his besetting sins would be pride; and as he had been especially favored in his call to the apostleship; in his success as a preacher; in the standing which he had among the other apostles, and in the revelations imparted to him, there was also special danger that he would become self-confident and proud of his attainments.
There is no danger that more constantly besets Christians, and even eminent Christians, than pride. There is no sin that is more subtile, insinuating, deceptive; none that lurks more constantly around the heart and that finds a more ready entrance, than pride. He who has been characterized by pride before his conversion will be in special danger of it afterward; he who has eminent gifts in prayer, or in conversation, or in preaching, will be in special danger of it; he who is eminently successful will be in danger of it; and he who has any extraordinary spiritual comforts will be in danger of it. Of this sin he who lives nearest to God may be in most special danger; and he who is most eminent in piety should feel that he also occupies a position where the enemy will approach him in a sly and subtile manner, and where he is in special danger of a fall. Possibly the fear that he might be in danger of being made proud by the flattery of his friends may have been one reason why Paul kept this thing concealed for 14 years; and if people wish to keep themselves from the danger of this sin, they should not be forward to speak even of the most favored moments of their communion with God.
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Through the abundance of the revelations - By my being raised thus to heaven, and by being permitted to behold the wonders of the heavenly world, as well as by the numerous communications which God had made to me at other times.
There was given to me - That is, God was pleased to appoint me. The word which Paul uses is worthy of special notice. It is that this “thorn in the flesh” was given to him, implying that it was a favor. He does not complain of it; he does not say it was sent in cruelty; he does not even speak of it as an affliction; he speaks of it as a gift, as any man would of a favor that had been bestowed. Paul had so clear a view of the benefits which resulted from it that he regarded it as a favor, as Christians should every trial.
A thorn in the flesh - The word used here (σκόλοψ skolops) occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It means properly anything pointed or sharp, e. g., a stake or palisade (Xenophon, Anabasis v. 2, 5); or the point of a hook. The word is used in the Septuagint to denote a thorn or prickle, as a translation of סיר cı̂yr, in Hos 2:6, “I will hedge up thy way with thorns;” to denote a pricking briar in Eze 28:24, as a translation of סלון cillôwn, meaning a thorn or prickle, such as is found in the shoots and twigs of the palm-tree; and to denote “pricks in the eyes” Num 33:55, as a translation of שׂכיםsikkim, thorns or prickles. So far as the word used here is concerned, it means a sharp thorn or prickle; and the idea is, that the trial to which he refers was as troublesome and painful as such a thorn would be in the flesh But whether he refers to some infirmity or pain in the flesh or the body is another question, and a question in which interpreters have been greatly divided in opinion.
Every one who has become familiar with commentaries knows that almost every expositor has had his own opinion about this. and also that no one has been able to give any good reason for his own. Most of them have been fanciful; and many of them eminently ridiculous. Even Baxter, who was subject himself to some such disorder, supposes that it might be the stone or gravel; and the usually very judicious Doddridge supposes that the view which he had of the glories of heavenly objects so affected his nerves as to produce a paralytic disorder, and particularly a stammering in his speech, and perhaps also a ridiculous distortion of the countenance. This opinion was suggested by Whitby, and has been adopted also by Benson, Macknight, Slade, and Bloomfield. But though sustained by most respectable names, it would be easy to show that it is mere conjecture, and perhaps quite as improbable as any of the numerous opinions which have been maintained on the subject.
If Paul’s speech had been affected, and his face distorted, and his nerves shattered by such a sight, how could he doubt whether he was in the body or out of it when this occurred? Many of the Latin fathers supposed that some unruly and ungovernable lust was intended. Chrysostom and Jerome suppose that he meant the headache; Tertullian an earache; and Rosenmuller supposes that it was the gout in the head, kopfgicht, and that it was a periodical disorder such as affected him when he was with the Galatians; Gal 4:13. But all conjecture here is vain; and the numerous strange and ridiculous opinions of commentators is a melancholy attestation of their inclination to fanciful conjecture where it is impossible in the nature of the case to ascertain the truth. All that can be known of this is, that it was some infirmity of the flesh, some bodily affliction or calamity, that was like the continual piercing of the flesh with a thorn Gal 4:13; and that it was something that was designed to prevent spiritual pride. It is not indeed an improbable supposition that it was something that could be seen by others, and that thus tended to humble him when with them.
The messenger of Satan - Among the Hebrews it was customary to attribute severe and painful diseases to Satan; compare Job 2:6-7; compare note on Luk 13:16. In the time of the Saviour malignant spirits are known to have taken possession of the body in numerous cases, and to have produced painful bodily diseases, and Paul here says that Satan was permitted to bring this calamity on him.
To buffet me - To buffet, means to smite with the hand; then to maltreat in any way. The meaning is, that the effect and design of this was deeply to afflict him. Doddridge and Clarke suppose that the reference is here to the false teacher whom Satan had sent to Corinth, and who was to him the source of perpetual trouble. But it seems more probable to me that he refers to some bodily infirmity. The general truth taught in this verse is, that God will take care that his people shall not be unduly exalted by the manifestations of his favor, and by the spiritual privileges which he bestows on them. He will take measures to humble them; and a large part of his dealings with his people is designed to accomplish this. Sometimes it will be done, as in the case of Paul, by bodily infirmity or trial, by sickness, or by long and lingering disease; sometimes by great poverty and by an humble condition of life; sometimes by reducing us from a state of affluence where we were in danger of being exalted above measure; sometimes by suffering us to be slandered and calumniated, by suffering foes to rise up against us who shall blacken our character and in such a manner that we cannot meet it; sometimes by persecution; sometimes by lack of success in our enterprises, and if in the ministry, by withholding his Spirit; sometimes by suffering us to fall into sin, and thus greatly humbling us before the world.
Such was the case with David and with Peter; and God often permits us to see in this manner our own weakness, and to bring us to a sense of our dependence and to proper humility by suffering us to perform some act that should be ever afterward a standing source of our humiliation; some act so base, so humiliating, so evincing the deep depravity of our hearts as forever to make and keep us humble. How could David be lifted up with pride after the murder of Uriah? How could Peter after having denied his Lord with a horrid oath? Thus, many a Christian is suffered to fall by the temptation of Satan to show him his weakness and to keep him from pride; many a fall is made the occasion of the permanent benefit of the offender. And perhaps every Christian who has been much favored with elevated spiritual views and comforts can recall something which shall be to him a standing topic of regret and humiliation in his past life. We should be thankful for any calamity that will humble us; and we should remember that clear and elevated views of God and heaven are, after all, more than a compensation for all the sufferings which it may be necessary to endure in order to make us humble.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv7, 11 Stimulus carnis meæ, angelus Satanæ, qui me colaphizet, Greek:…
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
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Stimulus carnis meæ, angelus Satanæ, qui me colaphizet, Greek: skolops te sarki (in carne mea) aggelos Satan, ina me kolaphize. See St. John Chrysostom, Greek: om. ks. where he says, Greek: me genoito. See Tillemont, chap. x. on S. Paul; a Lapide; &c.
A sting of my flesh,[1] an angel, or a messenger of Satan, to buffet me. The Latin word signifies any thing that pricks or stings, the Greek word a sharp stick or pale: he speaks by a metaphor, as also when he says to buffet me; that is, by causing great trouble or pain. Some understand by it a violent headache or pain, or distemper in the body. St. Augustine mentions this opinion, and does not reject it, in Psalm xcviii. tom. 4. p. 1069.; in Psalm cxxx. p. 1465. St. Jerome also speaks of it in chap. iv. ad Galatas, tom. 4. p. 274. Ed. Ben. But St. John Chrysostom, by sting, and the angel of Satan, understands that opposition which St. Paul met with from his enemies, and those of the gospel; as Satan signifies an adversary. Others understand troublesome temptations of the flesh, immodest thoughts, and representations, suggested by the devil, and permitted by Almighty God for his greater good. --- Thrice I besought the Lord. That is, many times, to be freed from it, but received only this answer from God, that his grace was sufficient to preserve me from consenting to sin. And that power and strength in virtue should increase, and be perfected in weakness, and by temptations, when they are resisted. St. Augustine seems to favour this exposition, in Psalm lviii. Conc. 2. p. 573. St. Jerome, in his letters to Eustochium, to Demetrias, and to Rusticus, the monk. And it is the opinion of St. Gregory, lib. 23. moral. tom. 1. p. 747. and of many others. (Witham) --- If there were any danger of pride from his revelations, the base and filthy suggestions of the enemy of souls must cause humiliations, and mke him blush. But these are to be borne with submission to the will of God, for his power is more evident in supporting man under the greatest trials, than in freeing him from the attacks. --- Power is made perfect. The strength and power of God more perfectly shines forth in our weakness and infirmity; as the more weak we are of ourselves, the more illustrious is his grace in supporting us, and giving us the victory under all trials and conflicts. (Challoner) --- When I am weak. The more I suffer for Christ, the more I perceive the effects of his all-powerful grace, which sustains, enlightens, and strengthens me: the more also the glory and power of God appeareth in me. The pagans themselves were not ignorant that calamity was the soil in which virtue usually grows to perfection. Calamitas virtutis occasio est. (Seneca) --- Optimos nos esse dum infirmi sumus. (Plin. vii. ep. 26.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv7–12 exalted above measure--Greek, "overmuch uplifted." How dangerous must self-exaltation…
exalted above measure--Greek, "overmuch uplifted." How dangerous must self-exaltation be, when even the apostle required so much restraint! [BENGEL].
abundance--Greek, "the excess"; exceeding greatness.
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given . . . me--namely, by God (Job 5:6; Phi 1:29).
thorn in the flesh-- (Num 33:55; Eze 28:24). ALFORD thinks it to be the same bodily affliction as in Gal 4:13-14. It certainly was something personal, affecting him individually, and not as an apostle: causing at once acute pain (as "thorn" implies) and shame ("buffet": as slaves are buffeted, Pe1 2:20).
messenger of Satan--who is permitted by God to afflict His saints, as Job (Job 2:7; Luk 13:16).
to buffet me--In Greek, present: to buffet me even now continuously. After experiencing the state of the blissful angels, he is now exposed to the influence of an evil angel. The chastisement from hell follows soon upon the revelation from heaven. As his sight and hearing had been ravished with heavenly "revelations," so his touch is pained with the "thorn in the flesh."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv7–12 7. Abundance of the revelations—A clear intimation that 2Co_12:2-4…
7. Abundance of the revelations—A clear intimation that 2Co_12:2-4 narrate his own experience. The word thorn, in the Greek, signifies any pointed peg, or piece of metal or wood. Hence it was used to designate a strike or pale; especially the pale by which the terrible punishment of impalement was inflicted. Hence Dr. Lightfoot is very positive that it is here used in that sense, and thus as the cross—the instrument of crucifixion—is used to figure any terrible endurance, so the pale—the instrument of impalement— is selected by Paul to figure the infliction he suffered. But the meaning thorn seems equally well supported, and more suitable to the present case. We gather from all the allusions, that, though a source of most poignant irritation, Paul’s thorn was more a mortification and an obstacle than a pain. Nor does the Greek of Gal_4:14, suggest that Paul’s suffering was “loathsome” to the eyes, like the eruption or cancer of King Alfred, but rather provocative of contempt and ridicule, as if he were a failure in oratory. See notes, 2Co_1:8-9; 2Co_10:10.
Messenger of Satan—Job was vexed by Satan himself; St. Paul only by his messenger. This has suggested to some interpreters the idea of a living, troublesome opponent, who was, as we say, “a thorn in the side.” But to a Jew, the “angel of Satan” was an invisible foe, and a spiritual. We are unable to say whether St. Paul believed that it was truly a Satanic work, or only that, like all other ailments, it was the natural result of sin and Satan in general. Given to me, implies that whether Satan was the permitted inflicter or not, the infirmity was a divine, severe gift.
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Buffet—Literally, to box or beat with the hand or fist, and figuratively applied to any maltreatment or hard usage. To our own mind it suggests an epileptic stroke, the result of nervous suffering under severe trial. It particularly negatives the idea of Alford and others, that the thorn was a disease of the eyes. It equally refutes the notion that it was the lust of the flesh. In short, the most excited of all lives, which St. Paul lived, “brought on,” as Bloomfield rightly says, “chronical infirmities of the paralytic sort, such as, especially with diabolical cooperation, might occasion distortion of countenance, defect in utterance, and nervous affections; all which would tend to raise contempt in the minds of the multitude, which, joined with his diminutive form,” would furnish a full solution, meeting the demand of every relevant passage.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv7–12 7–10. The Thorn in the Flesh
7–10. The Thorn in the Flesh
7. And lest I should be exalted above measure] Rather, ‘lest I should be too much exalted.’
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a thorn in the flesh] See Introduction.
the messenger of Satan] Or, an angel of Satan. Cf. Mat_12:45; Mat_25:41; Rev_12:7; Rev_12:9.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv7–12 (7) There was given to me a thorn in…
(7) There was given to me a thorn in the flesh.—The vague mystery with which St. Paul thus surrounds the special form of “infirmity” of which he speaks, has given rise to very different conjectures, which will require to be treated with more or less fulness. It will be well to begin with getting as closely as we can at the idea of the central word. The Greek word for “thorn,” then, might better be translated stake. It is used, e.g., of stakes thrust into the ground to form a palisade round a grave—
“And round about they dug a trench full deep,
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And wide and large, and round it fixed their stakes.”
—Homer, Iliad, vii. 441.
A sharp-pointed stake of this kind was often used as a means of torture in the punishment known as impaling, and the two Greek words for “impaling” and “crucifying” were indeed almost interchangeable (Herod. i. 128; ix. 18). So in Euripides (Iphig. in Tauris. 1430)—
“Say, shall we hurl them down from lofty rock,
Or fix their bodies on the stake?”
It is significant that men like Celsus and Lucian, writing against the faith of Christians, used the term “stake” instead of “cross,” as more ignominious, and spoke of Jesus as having been “impaled” instead of “crucified” (Origen, c. Cels. ii.; Lucian, De morte Peregr., p. 762). So Chrysostom used the word “impaled” of St. Peter’s crucifixion. On the other hand, medical writers, such as Dioscorides and Artemidorus, by whose use of the word, as possibly coming to him through St. Luke, St. Paul was likely to be influenced, apply the term to what we call a “splinter” getting into the flesh and causing acute inflammation (Diosc. ii. 29; iv. 176). Dioscorides, it may be noted, was a native of Anazarba in Cilicia, and probably a contemporary of St. Paul’s. The word used figuratively, therefore, comes to bring with it the sense of some acute form of suffering, something, to use a word of like history and significance, excruciating in its character. So used, it might, as far as the word itself is concerned, be applied to any sharp agony, either of mind or body.
The history of the interpretations which have been given to this mysterious term is not without interest as a psychological study. Men have clearly been influenced, to a large extent, by their subjective tendencies. They have measured the sufferings of St. Paul by their own experience, and thinking that he must have felt as they felt, have seen in his “thorn in the flesh” that which they felt to be their own sharpest trial. Some of these conjectures may be dismissed very briefly. It cannot be, as some have thought, the remembrance of his own guilt in persecuting the disciples of Christ, for that would not have been described as a “thorn in the flesh” nor could he well have prayed that it should depart from him. For a like reason, it could not have been, as some Protestant commentators have imagined, any doubt as to the certainty of his own salvation, or of his being included in God’s pardoning love. We may safely set aside, again, the view that he refers to his struggle with heathen enemies, like Demetrius, or Judaising rivals, for these had been included in his list of sufferings in 2Co_11:22-23, and here he is clearly speaking of something generically new. There remain two hypotheses. (1) That he speaks of the conflict with sensual passion; and (2), that he refers to some chronic infirmity of body that brought with it constantly recurring attacks of acute pain. For each of these a strong case may be made out. In favour of (1) it may be urged that the language of St. Paul in not a few places implies the existence of such a struggle with temptation. He sees a law in his members warring against the law of his mind (Rom_7:23). Sin wrought in him all manner of concupiscence (Rom_7:8). He found it necessary to keep under his body, and bring it into subjection (1Co_9:27). What has been said as to the question, “Who is offended, and I burn not?” suggests a special sympathy with that form of struggle against evil; and in the “fire-tipt darts of the wicked one” of Eph_6:16 (where we have the participle of the same verb), we may, perhaps, trace an allusive reference to impulses of this nature. It is clear that with some temperaments temptations such as this, besides the moral pain which they bring with them, may inflict a bodily suffering little less than excruciating, and the words that speak of the “flesh” as the seat of suffering, and of its being a “messenger of Satan,” at least fall in with the view thus presented. Nor is it enough to say, on the other hand, that St. Paul’s character made such temptations impossible. The long line of patristic, and mediaeval, and modern Romish interpreters who have taken this view, though of little weight as an authority, is, at least, evidence that they knew the bitterness of such temptations, and though their thoughts may have been coloured by the experiences of the monastic life and enforced celibacy, as in the story of the temptations of St. Antony, we may fairly read in their testimony the fact that sensual temptation may assail men who are aiming at a high ascetic standard of holiness. Experience seems, indeed, to show that the ecstatic temperament, with its high-wrought emotional excitement, is more than most others liable to the attacks of this form of evil. So the daily evening hymn of St. Ambrose includes the prayer, “ne polluantur corpora.” So Augustine bewails the recurrence in dreams of the old sensuous temptations to which he had yielded in his youth (Confess. x. 30); and Jerome is not ashamed to tell the history of such temptations, alternating here also with ecstatic visions of divine glories, to the female friend whom he exhorts to persevere in her vow of chastity (Epist. ad Eustochium, c. 7). It may be added that this view falls in with the tone in which St. Paul approaches “the thorn in the flesh” as the crown of all his infirmities. No self-humiliation could go beyond this disclosure of what most men hide. As in the confessions of Augustine and Jerome, just referred to, the last veil is withdrawn, and men are told that the man who has had visions of God is one of like passions with themselves, subject, as they are, to the strongest temptations of his sensuous nature. As in the triumphs of the Emperors of Rome, a slave rode in the same chariot with the conqueror, and bade him ever and anon remember that he also was a man, so here there was a continual reminder that he too might become as others were. If there was any danger of being exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, nothing could more easily bring a man down from that ideal height than the consciousness that this was his besetting temptation.
On the other hand, there are some serious considerations that militate against this theory. There is no trace of any sins of this nature in any of St. Paul’s retrospects (as in Act_22:3; Act_23:1; Act_26:4; Php_3:4; Php_3:6) of his state before his conversion. His tone in Rom_7:25 is that of one who has fought and overcome in the struggle with “the flesh”; and it is clear from the whole context, that with St. Paul the “fleshly mind” does not necessarily involve sensual sin. The language of 1Co_7:7 (“I would that all men were even as I myself”), which is the nearest approach to a direct statement on the subject, is scarcely compatible with the thought that, instead of the calmness of habitual self-control, the man who so spoke was all along fighting against impulses which were so strong us to bring with them actual torment. It may be added, as almost decisive, that St. Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, would use language that they could understand, and that there is not a jot or tittle of evidence that the word for “thorn” was ever used by any Greek writer of the sting of sensuous impulse. It was not likely, indeed, that they, accustomed to a licentious indulgence in this matter, would see in such an impulse any cause of pain and anguish. If the Apostle had meant this it would have been necessary for him to express his meaning far more plainly. On the other hand, there is, as we have seen (Notes on 2Co_1:9; 2Co_4:10-12; 2Co_5:2-4), abundant evidence that St. Paul did suffer from some acute form of bodily disease. The very word “stake,” or “thorn,” or “splinter,” would suggest to the Corinthian readers of the Epistle the idea of corporeal rather than mental suffering. The “large letter” of his signature (Gal_6:11), the characteristic “steadfast gaze” (see Note on Act_13:9), the wish of the Galatians, if it had been possible, to have plucked out their own eyes and given them to him (Gal_4:15), all point to brows and eyes as being the seat of suffering. The very word to “buffet” (see Note on Mat_26:67) suggests the same conclusion. Nor need we be surprised that this infirmity—neuralgia of the head and face, or inflammation of the eyes, perhaps, in some measure, the after consequences of the blindness at Damascus—should be described as “a messenger of Satan.” That was, in fact, the dominant Jewish thought as to the causation of disease. The sores and boils of Job (Job_2:7), the spirit of infirmity of the woman whom Satan had bound (Luke xiii 16), St. Paul’s own reference to Satan as hindering his journeys (1Th_2:18), his delivering men to Satan for the destruction of their flesh and the salvation of their souls (1Co_5:5; 1Ti_1:20), St. Peter’s description of our Lord as healing all that are oppressed of the devil (Act_10:38)—these are enough to prove, that while men referred special forms of suffering of mind and body, chiefly the former, to the agency of demons, they were prepared to recognise the agency of Satan in almost every form of bodily calamity.
On these grounds, then, it is believed the balance turns in favour of the latter of the two hypotheses. A more complete solution of the problem may, perhaps, be found in accepting it as, in some measure, supplemented by the former. I venture to think, however, that all or most of the facts urged on behalf of that view, may legitimately come under the words “lest I should be exalted above measure.” The man who is so exalted is in danger of sensual passions. The ecstatic is on the border-land of the orgiastic. He needs a check of some kind. If this were so with St. Paul, as with Luther and Augustine (and the language of Rom_7:8 must be admitted to point to some past struggles), what more effective check could there be than the sharp pain of body, crucifying the flesh with the affections and lusts (Gal_5:24), with which we have seen reason to identify the “thorn” of which St. Paul speaks? One who thus lived as in “the body of this death” could thank God who, even in this way, gave him the victory over the law of sin (Rom_7:24). His sufferings were to him, as has been well pointed out by Dean Stanley (in a Note on this verse), what the mysterious agony that used at times to seize on Alfred in the midst of feast and revel, had been to the saintly and heroic king, a discipline working for his perfection.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv7–12 Vers. 7-10. The thorn in the flesh.
Vers. 7-10. The thorn in the flesh.
Lest I should be exalted above measure; literally, that I may not be over exalted. It was necessary to show St. Paul that he only held the treasure in an earthen vessel. There was given me. Even God"s afflictions are meant for gifts. A thorn (skolops). The more usual meaning is, as Hesychius says, "a sharp stake" ("Sudes," Tert.). Hence the word skolopizo, I impale or crucify. St. Paul"s agony was an impalement or crucifixion of all sensual impulses and earthly ambitions. In the flesh. There have been endless conjectures as to the exact nature of this painful and most humbling physical affliction. It is only by placing side by side a great many separate passages that we are almost irresistibly led to the conclusion which is now most generally adopted, namely, that it was acute and disfiguring ophthalmia, originating in the blinding glare of the light which flashed round him at Damascus, and accompanied, as that most humiliating disease usually is, by occasional cerebral excitement. It would be impossible here to enter into the whole inquiry, for which! refer to my "Life of St. Paul," 1:214-226. The messenger of Satan; rather, an angel of Satan. By way of comment, see Mat_25:41; Luk_13:16; Job_2:7; Rev_12:7, Rev_12:9. To buffet me. The verb is derived from kolaphos, a slap on the face, and would be suitable to such a disfigurement as ophthalmia. (2Co_10:10)
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Vers. 7-10.
Need of humility add the means appointed to secure it.
If the Lord Jesus passed from the baptism in the Jordan, and the dovelike descent of the Holy Ghost upon him, to the solitude of the wilderness and the assaults of the tempter; if he came down from the mount of transfiguration to witness the failure of the disciples to heal the lunatic boy, and to give expression to his sorrow in the words, "O faithless and perverse generation!" etc. it is not surprising that an apostle should be sorely tried after his exaltation. New endowments must have new tests. New and larger grace must be immediately put off probation, since there are many probations in this one probation that have eternal issues. "Lest I this man in Christ, who fourteen years ago was prepared by special revelation for the toil and trial of his Gentile apostleship I should be exalted above measure;" and what was the danger? "The abundance of the revelations." Against that danger he must be fortified. If new endowments and new graces are instantly put on trial, and the conditions of life"s general probation changed, then, indeed, a new check to guard against abuse of increased gifts must not be lacking. The man is not precisely the same man as before, nor is he in the same world that he previously occupied. Accessions of outward advantages, such as wealth and social position, are full of risks, but accessions of inward power are far more perilous. To preserve St. Paul from self-glorification, there was given him "a thorn in the flesh." First of all, the revelations were as to the fact itself to be kept a secret, and this was a means of humility, but the thorn in the flesh was added. What it was we know not, but it was a bodily infirmity that caused him much suffering. "This is significant. It is of the very nature of thorns to be felt rather than seen, and to appear trifling evils to all but those directly stung by them" (Dr. Bellows). It was "a messenger of Satan," though this does not imply that it was not under God s direction. The idea is that this "angel of Satan" was an impaling stake that produced severe and continued pain, and the reason therefore is twice stated, "lest I should be exalted above measure." So, then, it was not as an apostle, but as the apostle to the Gentiles, that he was specially afflicted. Pain is instinctively resisted as an enemy to the activity, comfort, and pleasure of life. Naturally, therefore, St. Paul felt that it would interfere with his energy and happiness, and, of course, the Satanic side of the torture would be uppermost in his thought.
The evil in pain is what we see first. If this were not realized, it could not be an affliction. Hence he prayed thrice to the Lord that it might depart from him. But his prayer was denied. At the same time, the promise was given a promise worth far more than the removal of the pain grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness." The thorn was to continue a lifelong suffering in addition to his other infirmities was to be fastened upon him, a special and grievous suffering. Yet, while it had to remain a sad memorial, not of his exaltation, but of human frailty in connection with great endowments, there was an assurance direct and specific of sustaining grace. Along with that a most important truth was taught him, namely, that the perfection of strength is attained through the consciousness of our utter weakness. First, then, the evil of pain; next, the good of pain under the agency of God"s grace; this is the method of providence and grace, for the two are one in the Divine purpose. Alas! had the prayer of those sensitive nerves of his been literally answered, what a loser would he and we have been! How much of his power would have vanished with the pain! How many thoughts and emotions that have cheered the afflicted and inspired the weak to be heroic, would have been unknown! Such Epistles as the apostle wrote (to say nothing of his other services to the world) could never have been written under the ordinary experience of the ills of life. All men have thorns in the flesh, for there is no perfect health, no human body free from ailments. But in St. Paul"s case the thorn was a superaddition to existing infirmities. Nor is it difficult for us to see how this particular infirmity, sanctified by the Spirit, was specially adapted to guard him at a most exposed point. Inasmuch as he was the object of a peculiar and violent opposition, he was singularly liable to the temptation of over asserting himself and his merits, the more so as his enemies took delight in taunting him with his personal defects as to manner and appearance. The safeguard was provided where it was most wanted. Such, in fact, was his own view of the matter: "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." "My infirmities," he argues, "instead of being the hindrance they would be if left to themselves, are helpers, since they are the occasions of grace, and this grace rests upon me, i.e. abides continually. The thought is precious; it must be repeated. "Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities," etc.; for the power of Christ had been imparted to him with such fulness as to transform pain into pleasure so far as his spiritual nature was concerned. The body continued to suffer, the humiliations were increased, but his soul was filled with Christ as the Christ of his pains and sorrows, and thus he had the victory, not only over physical misery, but over all pride and vanity that might have sprung up "through the abundance of the revelations." Glorious words are these: "When I am weak, then am I strong." Notice the clear view St. Paul has of the Divine hand in his thorn in the flesh. If he is perfectly assured of the abundance of the revelations, if he can locate the scene in Paradise, if he realizes the sanctity of these disclosures in the "unspeakable words," he is just as certain that the thorn "was given" him. He knew it was a "thorn," and he knew whence it came. He acknowledged God in it, and, in this feeling, prayed thrice for its removal. Christians often fail at this point. They doubt at times whether their afflictions come from God. Some Christians cannot be induced to believe that their sufferings are sent from above, and they see in them nothing more than evil casualties. But if they fail to recognize God in the sorrow, they will not find him in the joy of his blessed promise, "My grace is sufficient for thee." It was not merely the "them" that St. Paul had to endure. This was a source of pain, and it aggravated, doubtless, his other physical infirmities, and, in turn, was augmented by them. But we must not forget the state of mind such an affliction naturally produced the surprise that it should follow such wonderful signs of God"s favour as had been vouchsafed in the "abundance of the revelations," the temptation to a rebellious spirit and the occasion for unbelief it would furnish. A literal answer to his prayer was refused; a spiritual answer was granted. The "grace" bestowed was "sufficient," not only to bear the pain as a peculiar addition to his "infirmities" already existing, but to enable him to "glory" in it; and the providence of it was specially manifested in the power it had given him to be patient, forbearing, humble, in the late trouble with the Corinthians. O Christians, who are called to a lifelong discipline in the school of suffering, think of the measure implied in the sufficient grace! Sufficient for what? Sufficient, not only to glory in pain and infirmity, but to glory "most gladly. L.
The thorn in the flesh.
I WHAT WAS IT?
1. In itself. There have been almost infinite conjectures. As to the figure: some prefer a "goad for the flesh," a sharpened stake; others, a rankling thorn; others, a stake on which offenders were impaled or the cross to which they were fastened. As to the reality: evil suggestions; fiery darts of Satan; some prominent adversary; some painful bodily affection, weak eyesight, defective speech, carnal cravings; whilst a bold imaginationist has had the temerity to suggest a termagant wife! Possibly the precise nature of the affliction is concealed that no one may say, "Ah, that is not my trouble." It was very grievous to the apostle whatever its precise nature.
1. As Satan was concerned in it. Paul recognized Satan"s hand (see Job_2:7; Luk_13:16) It was used of Satan to annoy, pain, depress, and harass Paul, and with the hope that it would hinder his great work. Satanic malice rejoiced in the anticipation that it might prove the last straw upon the camel"s back. Paul interfered much with the devil"s kingdom; it is no wonder that the devil sought to interfere with him. Satan can afford to leave some people alone; but if we faithfully attack his kingdom and his rule we may expect reprisals. Yet Satan is but a fool after all, and constantly overreaches himself. One has well said, "The devil drives but a poor trade by the persecution of the saints he tears the nest, but the bird escapes; he cracks the shell, but loses the kernel.
2. As allowed by God. God"s hand was in it as well as Satan"s. This is so with all our tribulations; in one aspect they are messengers of Satan, in the other messengers of God. All depends upon which message we listen to. Paul"s thorn in the flesh was God"s teacher of humility. There was danger that the extraordinary revelations made to the apostle might foster pride. Human nature is intensely susceptible to this temptation. Those who enjoy remarkable favours often experience remarkable affliction. The ship in the high wind needs plenty of ballast. When we build high we must also build low the lofty building requires a deep foundation. It is well for us that God is not merely indulgent. God will not allow us to become spoilt children.
II THE APOSTLE"S RESTLESSNESS UNDER THE AFFLICTION. Paul was very human. He would not have been so could he have borne this additional trouble with indifference. Remember his other troubles. If this special affliction seemed likely to hinder his lifework, how keenly would he feel it! "Tis hard to dance in chains. Heavy labour tries the healthy; how exceedingly burdensome to the sick! Yet he did not grumble, or make himself a nuisance, or find fault with God, or sit down in despair. It was said of him once, "Behold, he prayeth;" it may be said of him again.
III HIS PRAYER.
1. In his distress he betook himself to the mercy seat. Like Hezekiah, he spread the matter before the Lord. Affliction should drive us to, not from, God. And we should come to pray, not to complain. The throne of grace is sometimes turned into a bar of judgment, at which men arraign God. When some strange experience comes upon us we should ask concerning it in the audience chamber.
2. He prayed to the Lord Jesus. This seems evident from ver. 9, "that the strength of Christ may rest upon me." The servant"s difficulties may well be submitted to the Master. Christ had directly appointed the apostle; to Christ, therefore, Paul brings his seeming hindrance. Whilst usually we pray to the Father in the Name of Christ, we may at other times pray to Christ himself.
3. He prayed with importunity. There was no mistaking his earnestness. As Christ in Gethsemane prayed "the third time," so thrice did this Christ-like apostle knock at heaven"s gate. He went on knocking until he got a response. Many in prayer want nothing, ask nothing, get nothing. Some are so polite that they dread lest they should disturb God, and knock so lightly and daintily that it would require a microphone to make the sound audible. Others ring and run away. The apostle stood at the gate till he was answered. Such holy boldness delights God instead of affronting him.
4. He prayed definitely.
(1) For "this thing." Some pray foreverything in general, and therefore get nothing in particular.
(2) That it might depart. Here, perhaps, he went too far. If our troubles were sent away, our best friends might be sent away. The counterpart of "a thorn in the flesh" may be "grace in the spirit." It is a good thing that it does not rest with us to send away or to retain; we should often send away the good and draw to ourselves the injurious and evil.
IV THE ANSWER.
1. A true answer, yet not what was looked for. (Ver. 9.) Such a prayer, offered in such a manner, was certain of a response, but not of the response anticipated. God often answers our prayers by not answering them. We get what we want, not what we wish. We dictate our prayer; God dictates the answer. Generally we do not ask enough the apostle did not; to take away the thorn was small compared with sanctifying its presence. To eject the devil"s messenger was poor compared with transforming it into a ministering spirit.
2. A lesson of faith. Paul"s faith must transcend his feeling. He must lay hold of Christ with more tenacious grasp; he must believe that Christ can use this trouble for high purposes. Perhaps as he looked to Christ with stronger faith he could realize that, as great purposes were accomplished by the many thorns in the flesh of Christ (he was crowned with thorns), so the one thorn in his flesh should not prove unfruitful. Grapes might be gathered from this thorn.
3. A definite assurance. There was a basis for the faith demanded, as there always is. "My grace is sufficient for thee" (ver. 9). Christ engages to bear him through; can he believe this? The Lord"s resources are boundless; they are our resources when strong faith binds us to their possessor. My "grace" may mean my "love," which secures all things needful for my servants; or the aid of the Holy Spirit, which will prove sufficient forevery exigency.
4. In intimation of purpose. There was no mistake, in sending or allowing the" thorn in the flesh." Prayer becomes blasphemous when it proceeds upon the assumption that God has made a blunder! The thorn in the flesh was the stem upon which the flower of the Divine glory was to blossom. The "messenger of Satan" would be made a herald proclaiming the power of Christ. The apostle"s flesh was to be a battle field on which Christ would triumph.
V THE ISSUE. A new thought has been given to Paul Christ"s glory will be enhanced. At once he begins to glory in this infirmity, "Most gladly" (ver. 9), or most sweetly; it became a delight of the highest kind. What he wanted to lose he now wants to keep. With the thorn in the flesh he can become, as he could not without it, the dwelling place of the power of Christ. It is enough if through his humiliation Christ may be exalted, if through his suffering Christ may be glorified. Many are more than content with being resigned under suffering; to submit they think is a mark of highest grace. But the apostle is far beyond this. He can "take pleasure" (ver. 10) in troubles, because through his troubles the power of Christ is more strikingly and impressively exhibited. H.
Vers. 7-9.
An instructive experience.
Like all true saints, Paul was modest about his own experience. He did not write down his heavenly rapture and what followed it, till fourteen years had passed, and then he wrote it only because he felt compelled to prove to the Corinthians that even "in visions and revelations of the Lord" he surpassed the false apostles as much as in labours and sufferings for Christ. Never did Christian tell an experience more useful and strengthening to the Church.
I AFFLICTION THE ANTIDOTE TO PRIDE. We do not speak so much of the natural pride of men over personal advantages of body or mind, over rank or riches, as of that subtle pride which is apt to creep into the heart after a great influx of spiritual light and joy. One may be exalted overmuch on account of the clearer vision of heavenly things or the near access to the Lord which he has enjoyed. But there comes a timely affliction or rebuke, not merely to correct pride if it is indulged, but to anticipate and prevent its rising. "Lest I should be exalted." The wise man accepts this as a kindness from God. "There was given to me a thorn in the flesh.
II PRAYER THE ANTIDOTE TO DESPONDENCY. "I besought the Lord thrice." When one is cast down, worldly wise friends can only bid him cheer up, cast off dull care, etc. But the resource of the Christian is to pray to the God of his life. And prayer must be repeated. The Saviour prayed thrice before the angel from heaven appeared to strengthen him. Paul prayed thrice before the answer of grace and peace fell upon his fainting soul.
III CHRIST"S GRACE THAT SWEETENS ALL. He knows well the piercing of thorns, the fiery darts, and the "blast of the terrible ones," and he can have compassion. He did not, indeed, see fit to relieve his servant Paul at once of his distress, but assured him of compensative grace and sustaining strength; and so the apparent evil was turned into a blessing, the pain and sorrow into joy. Be of good comfort, O believers! Against your own felt weakness set Christ"s strength; and against all malice of Satan and his messengers set Christ"s sufficient grace. F.
Satan"s messenger; or, the thorn in the flesh.
It would be a grave mistake to make this description of St. Paul"s affliction the basis of any argument for the personality or agency of Satan. He does but use the familiar Jewish figure of speech, which may or may not embody for him any doctrine concerning Satan The figure is most strikingly used in the introduction to the Book of Job; but the following other passages illustrate how familiar it was to the Jewish mind: Luk_13:16; Act_10:38; 1Co_5:5; 1Th_2:18; 1Ti_1:20. "These are enough to prove that, while men referred special forms of suffering of mind and body, chiefly the former, to the agency of demons, they were prepared to recognize the agency of Satan in almost every form of bodily calamity." No single description of Satan can cover the entire Scripture representation of him, but one aspect presented by it has not been duly considered. He is sometimes regarded as the agent, or executor, of the Divine purpose in physical calamity, and even in moral testings through temptation. We may think of an angel of temptation as well as of an angel of death. We may not even think of Satan as m any sense acting independently. He, too, comes fully within the Divine rulings and overrulings. What the nature of the apostle"s affliction or temptation was cannot be certainly known from his descriptions of it. Many explanations have been suggested. Lightfoot summarizes them thus:
(1) a bodily ailment of some kind:
(2) some opposition encountered from his enemies, or suffering endured;
(3) carnal longings;
(4) spiritual trials, doubtings, etc.
Archdeacon Farrar thinks the "thorn" must have been some physical malady, and suggests epilepsy, of which he says, "It is painful; it is recurrent; it opposes an immense difficulty to all exertion; it may at any time cause a temporary suspension of work; it is intensely humiliating to the person who suffers from it; it exercises a repellent effect on those who witness its distressing manifestations." But he adds that there can be no doubt that St. Paul also suffered from ophthalmia, and that this disease fulfils in every particular the conditions of the problem. Dean Plumptre favours the idea of corporeal rather than mental suffering, and says, "Nor need we be surprised that this infirmity neuralgia of the head and face or inflammation of the eyes, perhaps in some measure the after consequences of the blindness at Damascus should be described as "a messenger of Satan. Another suggestion has been made which is fresh and interesting, and worthy of very patient consideration. Professor Lias writes, "Our last alternative must be some defect of character, calculated to interfere with St. Paul"s success as a minister of Jesus Christ. And the defect which falls in best with what we know of St. Paul is an infirmity of temper. There seems little doubt that he gave way to an outbreak of this kind when before the Sanhedrim, though he set himself right at once by a prompt apology. (Act_23:2-5) A similar idea is suggested by St. Paul"s unwillingness to go to Corinth until the points in dispute between him and a considerable portion of the Corinthian Church were in a fair way of being settled. In fact, his conduct was precisely the reverse of that of a person who felt himself endowed with great tact, persuasiveness, and command of temper. Such a man would trust little to messages and letters, much to his own presence and personal influence. St. Paul, on the contrary, feared to visit Corinth until there was a reasonable prospect of avoiding all altercation. In fact, he could not trust himself there. He "feared that God would humble him among them". (2Co_12:21) He desired above all things to avoid the necessity of "using sharpness," very possibly because he feared that, when once compelled to assume a tone of severity, his language might exceed the bounds of Christian love. The supposition falls in with what we know of the apostle before his conversion. (Act_7:58 Act_9:1) It is confirmed by his stern language to Elymas the sorcerer, (Act_13:10) with which we may compare the much milder language used by St. Peter on a far more awful occasion. (Act_5:3, Act_5:9) The quarrel between St. Paul and St. Barnabas makes the supposition infinitely more probable. The passage, Gal_4:13, Gal_4:14, may be interpreted of the deep personal affection which the apostle felt he had inspired in spite of his occasional irritability of manner. The expression, (Gal_4:20) that he "desired to be present with them, and to change his voice," would seem to point in the same direction. And if we add to these considerations the fact, which the experience of God"s saints in all ages has conclusively established, of the difficulty of subduing an infirmity of temper, as well as the pain, remorse, and humiliation such an infirmity is wont to cause to those who groan under it, we may be inclined to believe that not the least probable hypothesis concerning the "thorn," or "stake," in the flesh is, that the loving heart of the apostle bewailed as his sorest trial the misfortune that by impatience in word he had often wounded those for whom he would willingly have given his life." What. ever the form of the trial may have been, we note
I ST. PAUL"S THOUGHTS ABOUT IT. These may be unfolded and illustrated generally, in relation
(1) to Christian culture;
(2) to Christian work, and especially
(3) in relation to peril of spiritual pride.
St. Paul saw clearly that the humiliation came "through the abundance of the revelations;" and "lest he should be puffed up beyond measure.
II ST. PAUL"S LESSON LEARNED FROM IT. It was mainly this that the mission of suffering may be continuous through life. It may be the point of God"s dealing with us that he does not sanctify us by sudden, occasional, and severe afflictions, but by calling us to bear a lifelong burden of disability or frailty. Troubles of this kind cannot be removed in response to prayer, because to remove them would be to check the sanctifying process. God, in sending a temporary affliction, may have a temporary end in view, and so, when that end is duly reached, the affliction may be removed. But if the work of our sanctification is, in the Divine wisdom, to be wrought by a continuous life pressure, then the response to our prayer can only be this: "My grace is sufficient for thee." Dean Stanley points out that "St. Paul"s sufferings were to him what the mysterious agony that used at times to seize on Alfred, in the midst of feast and revel, had been to the saintly and heroic king, a discipline working for his perfection. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 10, 11, 12 And lest I should be exalted above measure ……
2Co_12:7-11
And lest I should be exalted above measure … there was given me a thorn in the flesh.
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St. Pauls thorn in the flesh
I. These verses treat of Christian trials under the figure of a thorn in the flesh. We should inquire not what the thorn was, but why it was sent. Some trials are evidently not of the nature of a thorn.
1. A thorn is a small, invisible cause of suffering; some secret trouble.
2. St. Pauls thorn was something evil, for he calls it a messenger of Satan. Pain can be blessed to us, but it is not in itself a blessed thing. Now the Bible calls these things evils, to be got rid of if possible. God does not command St. Paul to think the throb of his thorn enjoyable.
3. A thorn causes unvarying, incessant pain: to forget it is impossible. It seems perversely to come in contact with every obstacle. And some sorrows are for ever smarting; some blot on our birth, or some domestic incongruity which the man may forget at his labour; but the time comes when he must go home, and there is the thorn awaiting him.
II. The spiritual uses of this experience.
1. To make us humble. Lest I should be exalted above measure. It is strange that pride is felt for those things over which we have the least control, and to which we have the least right. In the school the vain boy is not he who has amassed knowledge by hard toil, but he whose genius is often made an excuse for idleness. Hereditary rank, over which we have no control, and which demands that we should be more noble than other men, is often the cause of pride. He is not usually proud of wealth who has toiled for it, but rather he who has won it by a lucky speculation. The real hard worker is seldom proud; he has known so much of his ignorance, his weakness, in the hard work of acquiring. So in things spiritual. The proud man is he who dreams and lives in the third heaven, and is too grand to have to do with this low earth, and who substitutes his frames and fine feelings for good works. Now to bring all this down God sends thorns. Bitter penury will guard a man from extravagance; and great reverses from reckless speculation will often bring to experience the meanness of debt. There is no better humiliator than constant physical pain. By the constitution of our planet there are peculiar trials to our physical frame; in the temperate zone, biting frosts and cold; in the warmer climate, the serpent and the constant fever; everywhere there is the thorn in the flesh.
2. To teach us spiritual dependence. Liberty is one thing--independence another; a man is free, politically, whose rightful energies are not cramped by the selfish, unjust claims of another. A man is independent, politically, when he is free from every tie that binds man to man. One is national blessedness, the other is national anarchy. Liberty makes you loyal to the grand law, I ought; independence subjects you to the evil law, I will. So also religious freedom emancipates a man from every hindrance which prevents his right action. Every Christian ought to be a free man, but no Christian is or ought to be independent. Look not every man on his own things, but on the things of others. Bear ye one anothers burdens. All things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient, etc. Is that independence? There is no independence on earth; we are all dependent on the breath of God. Trial soon forces us to feel this. As well might the clouds that surround the setting sun, tinged with gold and vermilion, boast that they shine by their own light. So when we know ourselves aright we shall feel that we are strengthless and must depend entirely on His all-sufficient grace. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
The thorn in the flesh
I. The apostles trial. There was given to me, says he, a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me.
1. Observe, he traces the dispensation to its appointment, There was given to me. Affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground. I was dumb, says David, and opened not my mouth, because Thou didst it. It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good.
2. Observe further, that although St. Paul looks upon his trial as proceeding from God, he still denominates it the messenger of Satan. Does this appear strange? The bitter draught was only administered by Satan; it was prescribed by God. God appointed the evil, and Satan, by His permission, inflicted it. This is all that the devil can do.
II. But let us inquire into the design of the apostles affliction. As our heavenly Father gives every trial, so He has some object in view in giving them. He doth not, says the prophet Jeremiah, afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. The Physician frequently, however, sends trials not to heal our spiritual maladies but to prevent them. O Lord, Thou hast searched me and known me; Thou understandest my thoughts afar off. God does not, therefore, require that sin should manifest itself in the outward conduct in order to attract His notice; He beholds its secret risings in the heart; and often before the storm arises He drives us to a place of refuge.
III. The apostles conduct under his trial. He did not give way to fretfulness or become sullen and dejected; he did not begin to quarrel with God, to charge Him foolishly, to murmur at His dealings, or to insinuate that the same end might have been attained by less severe means. Three things are deserving of notice in this prayer of the apostle.
1. The subject of it. He prayed that his affliction might be removed. To be patient and submissive under afflictive dispensations is plainly a Christian duty. But prayer for the removal of our trials is not inconsistent with submission under them.
2. And observe how he prayed--
(1) Earnestly. I besought the Lord. His was not a cold and lifeless prayer, the prayer of the formalist who is indifferent about its success.
(2) Perseveringly. He besought the Lord thrice. He humbly resolved, like Jacob, to wrestle till he prevailed. He continued to knock till the door was opened.
3. Observe, further, to whom the apostle prayed. It was to Jesus Christ. This is evident, for St. Paul distinctly regards the answer as having come from the Saviour: Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. And to whom should we fly in the hour of trial but to the same almighty Saviour, who took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses? He can enter into all the trials of His people. We have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
IV. The next point for our consideration is, the answer received by the apostle. And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for My strength is made perfect in weakness. As our prayers are not always answered when we expect, so neither are they at all times answered in the way that we look for. Was it not the same thing to him whether his burden were removed or whether strength were given to sustain him under it? Nay, was it not infinitely better for him that the gold should remain in the furnace since it was promised that the fire should not destroy or injure but only refine it?
V. Notice in the last place his pious resolution: Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Earnestly as he had before desired the removal of his trial he desires it no longer. (W. Cardall, B. A.)
The thorn in the flesh, or soul schooling
These words teach us--
I. That the exercise of spiritual discipline is expedient for the best of men. Paul required it. Lest I should be exalted, etc.
1. Pride is a great spiritual evil.
(1) Most inimical to soul-progress. Pride goeth before destruction, etc.
(2) Most offensive to God. He resisteth the proud, etc.
2. Good men have sometimes great temptations to pride.
II. That the mode of spiritual discipline is sometimes very painful. Paul was visited with a thorn in the flesh. What the thorn was is a question for speculation; the idea is plain. Note--
1. That suffering stands connected with Satan. The great original sinner is the father of suffering.
2. That both suffering and Satan are under the direction of God. He makes them subserve the discipline of His people, the good of the universe, and the glory of His name.
III. That the means of spiritual discipline are sometimes misunderstood. Paul prays to be delivered from that which was sent for his good. Note--
1. The ignorance which sometimes marks our prayers. We often, it is to be feared, pray against our own interests like a patient seeking the removal of a medicine which alone could restore him. Do you pray for the recovery of a child? Should that child grow up to manhood he might perhaps break your heart; spread vice and misery through the entire circle of his life. There are some blessings which are positively promised by God, such as pardon, etc., for which we may pray not only thrice, but incessantly; and there are others which we may esteem desirable, but which are not promised. These we must seek in submission to His will.
2. The kindness of God in not always answering our prayers. He knows what is best. He deals with us as a wise and merciful Father.
IV. That the supports under spiritual discipline are abundant. My grace is sufficient for thee, etc. Observe--
1. The nature of this support. What matters the weight of the burden if the strength is equal to bear it with ease! As thy day so shall thy strength be.
2. The principle of the support--Grace. It comes not from merit.
3. The influence of this support. Most gladly therefore, etc. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
The thorn in the flesh
I. Discipline (verse 7).
1. It was painful in its nature.
2. It was Satanic in its agency--The messenger of Satan sent to buffet me. The devil has been the opponent of the good in all ages. Adam. David. Peter. Good out of evil.
3. It was counteracting in its influence--Lest I should be exalted above measure. Counteraction a great principle in the economy of God. In the moral realm--goodness and severity of God. Man is prone to the excesses of despair and pride. Pauls old sin was self. The besetting sin before conversion threatens to reassume its old power after conversion. The balloon requires the weight of sandbags. Paul learnt the lesson of humility. He speaks of himself as one not worthy to be called an apostle; less than the least of all saints; the chief of sinners. Only two safe places for the believer, says an old preacher, the dust and heaven, and of the two, the dust is the safer; for the angels fell from heaven, but no one was ever known to fall from the dust. One way from the valley of humility--upward, and that ends in eternal honour.
II. Prayer (verse 8).
1. The prayer was Divine in its object--the Lord. Throne of grace the best resort in trouble. Men are foolish to attempt to carry their own burdens.
2. The prayer was earnest in its spirit--I besought the Lord thrice.
3. It was ignorant in its request--That it might depart from me. The thorn was not pleasant, but it was profitable. Trials are blessings in disguise. Zigzag is often better than straight--though not so easy. Trials bring triumph, and losses gain. A forest in Germany was consumed by fire, but underneath a precious vein of silver was discovered.
III. Support (verse 9).
1. Its nature--My strength. Conscious weakness is Gods instrumentality. Thus there is not the shadow of a doubt who the real worker is. God, not man, to have the glory. Moses rod used to divide the Red Sea. A cannon in itself is a lifeless piece of iron; but when loaded with ball and powder and the spark applied, the ball becomes a thunderbolt, and the powder a flash of lightning, then the fortress comes crashing in ruins to the ground.
2. Its principle--My grace. Trials of grace are supports of grace.
3. Its effect (verse 10).Rejoice in tribulation. Tunnel leads to the terminus. Why should we complain and despair? Let us remember the Master, whose brow was pierced with a crown of thorns. (B. D. Johns.)
St. Pauls thorn in the flesh
I. Signal manifestations of Divine favour are apt to beget spiritual pride. It was after he had been signally honoured that Haman began to boast. In like manner, it was after Paul had witnessed the glory of heaven that he was in danger of being elevated above measure.
II. Affliction is intended to prevent as well as to recover--Lest I should be, etc. The prophet Hosea, when speaking of the infatuated inclination of Israel to wander from the Lord, tells us that God determined to hedge her way with thorns, and make a wall about her, that she shall not find her paths. And in this is the goodness of God, as well as His severity, made manifest.
III. God overrules the immediate actions of Satan for His own glory and good of His people. Our text tells us of Satan casting out Satan. St. Paul was preserved from spiritual pride by a messenger of Satan.
IV. Pride is an object of Gods utter aversion. (J. F. S. Gordon, M. A.)
Pauls thorn in the flesh
1. We have an apostle in danger.
2. We have Christ using means to protect His servant.
3. We have the wonderful effect of the means which Christ used.
The danger was a real one. This thorn in the flesh was no needless pain. Given by God, it could never have come without necessity. It was a real spiritual danger which confronted St. Paul. But how? St. Paul tells us that the danger was lest he should be exalted above measure, lest his spiritual joy at the revelations should pass into spiritual pride. It is undoubtedly strange that revelations from God should expose His servants to such danger. Some say that it is impossible that it should be so; that spiritual light could never be a danger, or at least not in the case of such a man as St. Paul. St. Paul knew better; he knew that whatever lifts a man above his fellows is in danger of lifting him too far, exalting him above measure. The lesson here is that even Gods best gifts may expose to danger. Illustrations of this may be seen every day in modern life, and the preacher cited the case of a man who had been Gods instrument in the salvation of many souls whose own soul was damaged by it. He learned to boast of his power and fell, and died an awful death. St. Paul knew his peril, and, what is more, he acknowledged it. The means employed to protect St. Paul was a gift from God, though a messenger of Satan. We see that it came from God by reason of the aim for which it was sent. Here, then, we have the wary eye of the Great Shepherd on the watch for the good of His servant. This thorn in the flesh was an abiding pain. Three times had the apostle prayed for its removal. At the same time it was something which could be removed, or why the prayer? St. Paul obtains a completely new view of life. The one thorn has explained to him all forms of suffering, and now he takes pleasure in them. Though some of his afflictions came by bad men, he recognises them as a gift of God; and this thorn, a messenger of Satan to buffet him, is transformed into a minister of heaven. Many seem handicapped in their life-work by pain and suffering in themselves and others. Take the case of a young man whose sick mother seemed to be a burden to his every effort. In the light of the text we see that that sickness may be, instead of a burden, the very ballast the young man needs to ensure his safety. (J. A. Beet, D. D.)
The temptation of St. Paul
I. The temptation of Paul.
1. This was probably some physical infirmity, and if it did not obstruct him in his ministerial labours, it rendered them difficult and distressing. He was like a workman whose hand was smarting from a festering wound, or like a traveller with a foot lacerated and lamed. And his affliction was aggravated by the advantage Satan took of it. The Lord put in the thorn, and for gracious purposes; but Satan endeavoured to defeat those purposes by turning the thorn into a temptation. And so Satan may make our afflictions as well as our blessings snares to us or poisons, instead of medicines and blessings. And the apostle represents it as striking and bruising him, and thus felt disgraced.
2. And how many of us can feelingly place ourselves in St. Pauls situation! We have had thorns in our flesh, shameful marks which the world has seen. Sometimes we are ready to say when suffering under any of these, Were we really the servants of Christ, it would not be thus with us, and a scoffing world may say the same; but here is one of the most beloved, honoured, of all the Lords servants in the same situation as we. And the Bible and Church history show that it has been the lot of the holiest men.
II. Its design. Lest I should be exalted. These words show us--
1. That the Lord foresees any spiritual danger that is coming on us.
2. That the Lord often graciously guards against the danger He foresees. He sends us affliction sometimes, not to chasten us for having fallen into sin, or to recover us out of it, but to keep us out of it.
3. That the Lord sometimes keeps off evil from us by Satans efforts to bring us into evil; He overrules temptation by temptation. We shall never know how much we are indebted to Satan till we are safe in heaven, and look back there on all the perilous way which has led us to it.
4. How offensive sin is in the sight of God! He will afflict the servant He loves, rather than allow him to fall into it.
5. What a load of suffering the mere tendency to pride within our souls may bring on us!
6. What danger we are all in of yielding to this hateful and tormenting sin.
III. Pauls conduct under it (verse 8). One end why the Lord sends us temptation is to quicken us to prayer. When all is smooth the spirit of prayer too often declines. Here, too, is a practical carrying out of the truth on which this apostle is so often dwelling--the ability and willingness of Christ to sympathise with us when suffering and to help us.
IV. The result.
1. A virtual denial of his request. Twice he prays--no answer comes. Here then was a deathblow to all Pauls hopes of relief. It was like telling him that he must carry his thorn down to the grave. But this is the way in which the Lord often answers His praying people. We know not what to pray for as we ought. We give way to sense and feeling. But though we may not know what to ask, the Lord well knows what to give. Hence He sifts our prayers before He answers them, sees whether they correspond with our necessities and His purposes. Instead of giving us relief He gives us strength; He leaves the burden on us heavy as ever, but He places His everlasting arm underneath us, and causes it so to bear us up, that we hardly feel our burden.
2. A complete change in the view he took of his affliction. Before he regarded it as an evil to be, if possible, got rid of; but now, observe, he has learnt to glory in it and take pleasure in it. My infirmities bring glory to Christ, then let me keep them. (C. Bradley, M. A.)
The thorn in the flesh
Apply this to--
I. Temporal circumstances.
1. If we examine closely the lot even of those who seem the most signally favoured of fortune, we shall perceive that their happiness is not full-orbed. Something is wanting. He is rich, but a stranger, it may be, shall inherit all that he has. He is famous in the world, but has no joy at his domestic hearth. A noble career opens to him, but health fails. Fortune seems to give everything, but yet in a strange irony withholds the one thing which would make all the rest to have any true value. This, of course, is still more observable with the many who are not so favoured; everywhere there is some good thing withheld or some sad thing added, some thorn in the flesh. It is sometimes evident to all the world, in other cases only the sufferer himself knows.
2. How easy it is to grow impatient under a discipline such as this--at first to ask that it might be removed, and then if, as it seems, we are not heard, to fret and murmur. Very often a man is the more irritated because there is nothing romantic or heroic about it. Alas! we do not know that such messengers as these to humble us are a most important part of the discipline of our lives. It takes very little to puff up these vain hearts of ours. The thorn in the flesh, that is the appointed means to keep us low.
II. Spiritual life. There is perhaps nothing which so much disappoints the young and earnest Christian as the slow progress which he makes in holiness, and his exposure to temptations of the lowest, the meanest kind. He had hoped that he was to travel on from one height of Christian attainment to another without hindrance. He, too, having been in his third heaven, counts that he shall never come down from it, or at any rate does not expect that henceforth he shall be liable to the everyday vulgar temptations which he sees to be besetting so many round him. Soon, however, he learns his mistake. God has provided some better thing, not release from temptation, but victory in and over temptation. (Abp. Trench.)
The thorn in the flesh
Many desire to gaze on the secret lives of eminent personages. For once we are able to gratify curiosity, and yet minister to edification. We are plainly taught how mistaken we are when we set eminent saints upon a platform by themselves, as though they were a class of superhuman beings. Paul enjoyed more revelations than we have, but then he had a corresponding thorn in the flesh. He was a good man, but he was only a man. Note--
I. A danger to which the apostle was exposed ... Lest I should be exalted above measure.
1. It was natural that he should stand in danger of this. When God lifts us up we may lift up ourselves, and then we fall into serious mischief. How many among us could bear to receive such revelations as Paul had? Now, if Paul was in this danger, so holy, humble, wise, and experienced; if so massive a pillar trembles, what peril surrounds poor reeds shaken of the wind! Observe that in Pauls case the temptation was not one which operates in the common, coarse way. It was that he should say within his own soul, I have seen as others have not. I am the favourite of heaven.
2. Now, although in Pauls particular form of it, this temptation may not be common, yet in some shape it waylays the best of Christians.
(1) Every man loves the commendation of his fellow-men. It is vain for us to boast of not caring about it; we do care about it, and our duty is to keep that propensity in check.
(2) There are some men in whom self-consciousness is so strong, that it will come up in the form of being very easily annoyed because they are overlooked, or in being easily irritated because they fancy that somebody is opposing them.
(3) Others who, because they have more real spiritual knowledge, and a deeper inward experience when they hear the prattle of young beginners, or the blunders of saints, cannot help saying to themselves, Thank God, I do know better than that. They have probably also been successful in sacred work, a legitimate source of rejoicing, but a temptation to boastfulness. Among the flowers of gratitude will grow the hemlock of pride.
3. None of the things we have spoken of are justifiable grounds for boasting. What if a believer should have received more Divine illuminations than his fellow? Did not the Lord give them to him? There are two beggars in the street; I give one a shilling and the other a penny; shall the man who obtains the shilling be proud, and glory over his companion? Generally the loudest boasting is excited by accidental circumstances.
4. It is dangerous for a Christian to be exalted above measure, for if he be--
(1) He will rob God of His glory, and this is a high crime and misdemeanour.
(2) It is equally evil to the Church. Had Paul been lifted up he would have become the leader of a sect; the rival rather than the servant of Jesus.
(3) It would have been bad for ungodly sinners, for proud preachers win not mens hearts. He who is exalted in himself will never exalt the Saviour.
(4) It would have been worst of all for the apostle himself, for pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
II. The preventative.
1. Note every word here.
(1) There was given to me. He reckoned his great trial to be a gift. You have not one single article that is a better token of Divine love to you than your daily cross.
(2) A thorn. A thorn is--
(a) But a little thing, and indicates a painful but not a killing trial.
(b) Yet it is almost a secret thing, not very apparent to any one but the sufferer.
(c) A commonplace thing, such as might grow in any field and fall to any mans lot--nothing to make a man remarkable.
(d) One of the most wretched intruders that can molest our foot or hand. Those pains which are despised because they are seldom fatal, are frequently the source of the most intense anguish--toothache, headache, earache, what greater miseries are known to mortals?
(3) In the flesh. The evil had an intimate connection with his body. Each expositor seems to have selected that particular thorn which had pierced his own bosom. The apostle did not tell us what it was, perhaps that we may every one feel that he had sympathy with us--that ours is no new grief.
(4) The messenger of Satan. Not Satan, but one of Satans errand boys. An encounter with Satan might not have humbled him. It is a grand thing to fight Satan face to face and foot to foot; but to be beset by a mere lackey of hell, to be tormented by so mean an adversary, this was galling to the last degree, and therefore all the better for the purpose for which it was sent.
(5) To buffet, i.e., to cuff him. Not to fight with him with the sword; that is manly, soldierly work; but to buffet him as pedagogues box the ears of boys.
2. This preventative was well adapted to work out its design, for assuredly it would recall the apostle from ecstacies. He said once, Whether in the body, or whether out of the body, I cannot tell; but the thorn in the flesh settled that question. He had dreamed, perhaps, that he was growing very angelic, but now he feels intensely human. This made him feel that he was--
(1) A weak man, for he had to do battle with base temptations that seemed not worth fighting with.
(2) A man in danger, and needed to fly to God for refuge.
3. From all this I gather--
(1) That the worst trial may be the best possession; that the messenger of Satan may be as good as a guardian angel.
(2) That the worst and deepest experience may only be the needful complement of the highest and the noblest; it may be necessary that if we are lifted up we should be cast down.
(3) That we must never envy other saints. If we meet with a brother whom God blesses, let us not conclude that his pathway is all smooth. His roses have their thorns, his bees their stings.
III. The immediate effect of this thorn upon Paul.
1. It drove him to his knees. Anything is a blessing which makes us pray.
2. In this way Paul was kept from being proud. The revelation now seemed forgotten. A man does not want to tell pretty stories when sharp pains are goading him.
3. Paul continued to pray, till at last he received for an answer, not the removal of the thorn, but the assurance, My grace is sufficient for thee. God will always honour our prayers, and sometimes it is a golden answer to deny us our request, and give us the very opposite of what we seek.
4. The result was that the grace given him enabled him to bear the thorn, and to glory that he was permitted so to suffer. Wish not to change your estate. Your heavenly Father knoweth best.
IV. The permanent result.
1. It kept him humble always. Fourteen years rolled away, and the apostle never told anybody that he had been caught up into the third heaven. When he did tell it, it was dragged out of him.
2. It is no small matter when God sends a thorn in the flesh and it answers its end, for in some cases it does not. We have known some whom poverty has made envious, whom sickness has rendered petulant, whom personal infirmity has rendered rebellious against God. Let us labour against this, and if God has been pleased to put a fetter upon us in any shape, let us ask Him not to allow us to make this the occasion for fresh folly, but, on the contrary, to bear the rod and learn its lessons.
Conclusion:
1. What a happy people Gods people ought to be, when a curse becomes to them a blessing! If the thorn be a blessing, what must the blessing itself be?
2. What a sad thing it must be not to be a believer in Christ, because thorns we shall have if we are not in Christ, but those thorns will not be blessings to us. I understand drinking bitter medicine, if it is to make me well; but who would drink wormwood and gall with no good result to follow?
3. Remember that he who sent Paul thorns for his good once wore a thorn-crown Himself for the salvation of sinners; and if you will trust Him you shall be saved from the thorn of unforgiven sin, the fear of the wrath to come. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The thorn in the flesh
The attempt to determine the exact nature of Pauls trial is like the attempt to ascertain the species of the lily Christ alluded to in the Sermon on the Mount. Scientific determination of the plant may be interesting to the botanist, but the lesson of trust in Providence can be learnt equally well from the daisy or violet. So here, many of the ills that flesh is heir to, can effect the same moral discipline produced by Pauls special affliction, if borne in the same spirit. There are, however, two figures applied to it in this passage, which partially characterise it. It was a thorn in the flesh. Not a crushing stroke, but a protracted trouble, that seemed like a thorn that had buried itself below the skin, and caused a constant sense of irritation. It is also termed a messenger of Satan sent to buffet him. This expression recognises the frequent connection there is between suffering and moral evil. What is of more importance than a knowledge of the specific nature of the thorn, is that Paul felt it was designed to produce spiritual results in his character. That Paul was a man of high spirit we gather from several incidents in his history; we also know that he was a man of fine sensibilities, and the combination of these two qualities form a temperament very apt to run into pride. It was not excessive self-esteem of the ordinary sort that constituted his special danger, but self-esteem in its most dangerous form of spiritual pride; exaltation above measure on account of the abundance of the revelations. Religious ecstacy is a gift rather than an acquirement, and those whose temperament leads to it are liable to plume themselves on this account on a supposed superiority to their fellow-Christians. As he could soar, while others had to remain on the level, he might be tempted to underestimate them and to overestimate himself. Whenever such feelings arose, there was the sharp pang of the thorn to recall him to himself, and remind him that he shared the infirmities of humanity. For just such a purpose does God frequently send a permanent trial. An excessive valuation of self is brought down by repeated failures in life, which remind us how narrow are the limits of human power. It was not at first that Paul comprehended the real meaning of his thorn in the flesh. His first impulse was to get rid of it, and he prayed to the Lord for its removal. Christianity never teaches us to value pain for its own sake, never represents it as good in itself. That is the idea of Indian fakirs or medieval monks. Dont press the thorn into the flesh; extract and throw it away if it is possible; but if all efforts are unavailing, then submit to it as to the will of God. (W. Bird.)
The thorn in the flesh
Note--
I. Pauls danger. Lest I should be exalted, etc. He was in danger of being raised too high--
1. For his usefulness as a minister. Paul had to do with poor mortals upon earth--what was the language of paradise to them? But when he spoke to them of thorns, and prayer, and sustaining grace, he was on their level.
2. For his present condition as a Christian. Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration exclaimed, Master, it is good for us to be here, etc.; but he knew not what he said. What would have become of his wife and family? As the Saviour does not pray that His followers should be taken out of the world by death, so neither does He draw them out of it by religion.
3. As a favourite of Heaven. Christians are not like the Holy One of God. Owing to the sin that dwelleth in us, we are in danger from everything around us; and therefore must walk circumspectly, and watch and pray.
II. His preservation. There was given to me a thorn, etc. All creatures are in the Lords hand, and under His control; He gave Joseph favour in the sight of the jailer; brought Elijah food by ravens; and sent Paul safety by Satan himself! Paul does not say, Because I was exalted above measure, but lest I should be. Affliction is designed to prevent as well as to recover. You were not vain and worldly--but God saw a train of circumstances which would flatter you into self-importance. He therefore determined to prevent the evil; and it is commonly said, Prevention is better than cure.
III. His prayer. Prayer is the refuge of the afflicted, and cannot be offered in vain; its very exercise brings succour. How does your affliction operate? Does it lead you to quarrel with instruments, or to commit your cause unto God? A man under sanctified affliction will continue instant in prayer. Thus Paul besought the Lord thrice. The prayer of faith is always heard, but not always immediately answered. The reason is not that God is wanting in kindness, but that He exercises His kindness wisely. We are like children; we wish to gather the fruit while it is yet unripe. But He pulls back our impatient hand. The time of delay is often peculiarly trying. But he that believeth maketh not haste.
IV. His answer.
1. The answer does not apparently correspond with the petition. Paul prayed to have the thorn removed: to this God says nothing, but assures him of something unspeakably better. With regard to temporal things we cannot be too general in our prayers, or refer ourselves too much to the pleasure of God. For our prayers, like ourselves, are imperfect; nature sometimes speaks, without our being aware of it, in the tone of grace. Hence God sometimes denies a request entirely; at other times He separates the good from the evil, and grants us a part; while frequently He answers by way of exchange. If a child was to ask of a father a fish, and he should give him a serpent, we should be shocked. But suppose the child, by reason of his ignorance, should ask for a serpent instead of a fish; we should then admire the father if he refused what he asked and gave him what he did not ask. Our Heavenly Father always gives according to what we ought to ask.
2. The answer is yet blessed and glorious. My grace is sufficient for thee! Sufficient for what? Write all thy wants underneath. Sufficient for--
(1) Thy work, which often discourages thee. As thy day, so shall thy strength be.
(2) Thy warfare, which often alarms thee. But more are they that are for thee than they that are against thee.
(3) Thy affliction, which often depresses thee. But When thou passeth through the waters, I will be with thee. It is sufficient
(a) To sanctify your afflictions.
(b) To render them supportable; yea, to enable you to glory in tribulation also. (W. Jay.)
The thorn in the flesh
This has been a thorn in the pulpit expositions of all the Christian ages. By carefully concealing it Paul has made all that want to be wise above what is written uneasy to find it out. But it cannot be of much use to us to know what it was, since the man who suffered from it did not care to tell us, and if we could know that it was a defect in his eyes, or his speech, or a pain in his head, or the want of a foot to his stature, that particular thorn would fasten us down to a particular experience, and we should lose the great general lesson. Note--
I. The thorn in the flesh of our common humanity.
1. We cannot fail to see it in the greatest and noblest lives. It may be a mean thing, like Byrons club-foot, or as great a thing as Dantes worship of Beatrice, or a great vice, like that which held Coleridge and De Quincey, or only like the dyspepsia that darkened the vision of Carlyle. In David it was a great sin; in Peter it was the memory of that morning, when he turned his back on the noblest friend that ever a man had; in Luther it was a blackness of darkness, defying both physicians and philosophy; in Wesley it was a home without love, and a wife insane with jealousy, with an old love that was never permitted to bloom. We need not be anxious about Pauls mystery; some of these things hurt him, and made the poor manhood of him quiver, I was talking with a gentleman who knows intimately one of our greatest living Americans; and I said he must be one of the happiest of men. There is that in his life, my friend said, you do not see, and very few are aware of. I knew him a long time before I guessed it: it is a pain that he carries about with him like his shadow; not a bodily, but a mental pain, which he will carry with him to his grave.
2. And what the thorn is to these men in their great estate it may be to us in ours.
(1) We feel the pain of personal defect, and very naturally, because the standard of physical beauty and perfection can no more be altered than the standard of geometry. We admire physical perfection. We notice and pity defects. To those who endure them they are a thorn in the flesh, bringing keen suffering and morbid brooding. I never blamed Byron for feeling as he did about his foot. The blame lay in his never summoning to the maimed part the strength that is made perfect in weakness.
(2) Pauls thorn may have been a defect in his utterance. What a thorn it is to many that they can never adequately express their thought! You will find him to be a great lumbering waggon, loaded with ingots of gold, Robert Hall said of John Foster in recommending him to a church, and I hope you know gold when you see it, or else he will never do for you. They called him, and he failed, as he had failed elsewhere.
(3) Nothing but Pauls saintliness has saved him from the guess that his thorn was some bad passion or appetite. Very sore is this pain, and very common. Children are sometimes born with appetites fatally strong. Old Dr. Mason used to say, as much grace as would make John a saint, would barely keep Peter from knocking a man down. I heard a man say once, that for eight-and-twenty years the soul within him had to stand, like an unsleeping sentinel, guarding his appetite for strong drink.
II. What can we do about it? We can make the best of it, or the worst of it. If I find myself, e.g., in early life in the possession of a passion that is rapidly growing into a curse, I can submit to its dictate without a struggle, or I can stand up and fight it. There may be manliness where there is little grace. I can be so manly in bearing my burden that my silence shall be golden. Did I break down? was I unmanned? a great man said when the thorn in the flesh had hurt him so terribly that he lost his consciousness. He felt he must be a man even then.
III. What can come of the thorn if we find out Pauls way of dealing with it. He bore his trouble man fashion, as well as he could; but then found himself unable to win much of a victory. The pain was there still, and he felt as if he would have to give way at last, and go down. So, in the simple old fashion, he took the matter into the Supreme Court, and said, I want this thorn removed; I can bear it no longer. But the Judge said, No, it must stay. To take it away would be to destroy the grace to which it points. I will not take the bane, but I will give you another blessing. Lately, when I crossed Suspension Bridge, I got talking with a gentleman about the crystallisation of iron. We agreed that every train which crossed the bridge did something to disintegrate the iron particles and break the bridge down, and that if this process could go on long enough, there would be a last train, which would shoot right down into the gulf. But long before this could come to pass all these strands and cables would be made over again in the fire and under the hammer, and come out as strong and good as ever. To take them out and then let them lie at rest on the banks would be no sort of use. The iron-masters would say, That would make the strands eternally unfit for their purpose; the hammer and fire can make them better and stronger than ever. Is not this also the law of life, that the fineness and strength essential to our best being, and to make us do our best work, come by the thorn in the flesh, which may act in us as the fire acts in the iron, welding the fibre afresh, and creating the whole anew (as the apostle would say) unto good works? (R. Collyer, D. D.)
Rejoicing at the misfortunes of others
We have all known people who had no greater enjoyment than to see an acquaintance taken down. The misfortune of a neighbour was a real blessing to these miserable creatures, and I have not the least doubt but that among people who knew St. Paul there would be a man here and there envious of the great apostles gifts and usefulness, who would chuckle over the thorn in the flesh, who in his heart would rejoice at the suffering it caused the apostle. Yet who would not venture to express his secret exultation, but would go about saying, Oh, that Saul of Tarsus needs it all. Very conceited man; do him a great deal of good. It will take him down; teach him sense; and he needs very much to be taught that! Cannot you imagine how the envious, malicious, tattling gossips at Corinth would go about from house to house saying that kind of thing? Now, let none of us here give way to this wicked and contemptible fashion of thinking and talking (A. K. H. Boyd, D. D.)
Lest I should be exalted above measure.--
Pride and its antidote
I. The danger to which the apostle felt himself exposed, is that of being exalted overmuch, or lifted up by pride. In one aspect of the case it seems that of all mere men St. Paul was the least likely to fall into this snare of the devil. He was not accustomed to boast of things without measure (2Co_10:12-13). I have learned, in whatsoever estate I am, therewith to be content, etc. (Php_4:11-13). The life he lived, the suffering he bore, and the shame and reproach that were cast upon him, are not the things which generally cause men to be puffed up. But, in another aspect, it is easy to discover in the apostle a disposition to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. His spirit, though patient, serene, and humble, when under the influence of Gods grace, was naturally proud and ambitious. His training, too, had fostered this spirit. His educational attainments were in no way despicable. And further, if we think of the manner in which some churches received him--as an angel from heaven; the profound respect in which he was held by some of his fellow-Christians, so that if it had been possible, they would have plucked out their very eyes, and given them to him; his equality with the chiefest of the apostles, and his almost unparalleled success in preaching the gospel, we shall have little difficulty in conceiving how Paul would be liable to regard himself as superior to most men of his day. This danger arose not from either of the things we have already named, as likely to produce self-glory, but from the abundance of the revelations God had given to him. And is it not so with ourselves? Our greatest successes are our greatest temptations. Failure humbles us.
II. Gods design in giving Paul a thorn in the flesh was to teach him a lesson of humility. Humility is the antithesis of pride, and it is also its antidote. It is a grace of the gospel of the choicest quality, and its cultivation is obligatory on all Christians. And yet humility is so repugnant to human nature, is a virtue so difficult of practice, that it seldom occupies its proper place, even in the heart of renewed man. Hence God has to humble us oftentimes by some painful trial. (T. Turner.)
Affliction an antidote to temptation
I. The design of the temptation. The design of this temptation was to subdue the risings of spiritual pride, to which the apostle, from his peculiar circumstances, was peculiarly liable. No one will understand me as saying that this was the design of the tempter. Respecting him, as of Sennacherib of old, it might be remarked, Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off. There is no recorded incident which conveys such a significant intimation of the utter depravity of the heart of man as the one under consideration. Here was a servant and apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ made a new creature in Christ Jesus, and living under the constant operation of the indwelling Spirit; yet with so much of remaining corruption, that an extraordinary measure of Divine favour would have provoked the pride and naughtiness of his heart but for the gracious provision made to counteract the danger. It teaches us that human nature, fallen nature, is the same under all circumstances. Subject it to what process you choose--put it into what alembic you may--translate it, if you will, in a chariot of fire into the third heaven--yet until that wondrous hour arrives, when we shall all be changed, and this corruptible shall put on incorruption, it will remain corrupt to the last. Let it not be supposed that it requires an equal amount of attainment and privilege to incur an equal liability to the suggestions of the evil one. Alas! which of us does not know that it needs no elevation into the third heaven to exalt us above measure? A little knowledge soon puffeth up.
II. To investigate its nature.
1. A thorn;
2. The messenger of Satan; and--
3. Designed and calculated to buffet the apostles spirit.
In the text he characterises this temptation as a messenger of Satan. And here the remark seems extorted, How few there are who realise the active agency of the prince of the power of the air in the same sense and to the same extent as did Christ and His apostles--now sowing tares in the Church--now sifting the apostles--now entering into Judas--now assaulting the Son of God Himself! But this is not the particular feature in his work of evil which the text suggests. He is represented as interfering (doubtless by sufferance of the Most High) with the daily providences, and outward circumstances, and bodily condition of our life.
III. What was his resource in this time of need? See wherein consists the real benefit of sanctified affliction. It sends you to your knees.
IV. Let us now notice the answer given to the apostles prayer.
V. Such was the apostles case, and his after-estimate of the whole dispensation was to that effect. Blessed thorn which occasions the power of Christ to rest upon me! Infinite strength sheltering perfect weakness. How grand, how comforting, how transporting the idea! God protecting a worm of the earth; nay, and strengthening it with might. Let me suggest this brief exhortation in conclusion.
1. Adore the gracious providence and consummate skill of the Most High in thus from seeming evil still educing good. Thus the Lord leads captivity captive, and Satan himself is in a manner transformed into an angel of light.
2. Lastly, learn to form a proper estimate of your afflictions, and to believe that, painful as it may be, the thorn which mortifies your pride, sends you to the throne of grace, and issues in praise, must be an unspeakable blessing. (C. F. Childe, M. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v11 Chapter 27
Chapter 27
NOT YOURS, BUT YOU.- 2Co_12:11-21 (R.V)
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EXPOSITORS differ widely in characterising the three or four brief paragraphs into which this passage may be divided:
(1) 2Co_12:11-13;
(2) 2Co_12:14-15, and 2Co_12:16-18;
(3) 2Co_12:19-21.
What is clear is, that we feel in it the ground-swell of the storm that has raged through the last two chapters, and that it is not till the beginning of 2Co_13:1-14. that the Apostle finally escapes from this, and takes up an authoritative and decisive attitude to the Corinthians. When he does reach Corinth, it will not be to explain and justify his own conduct, either against rivals or those whom rivals have misled, but to take prompt and vigorous action against disorders in the life of the Church.
(1) A review of what he has just written leads to a burst of indignant remonstrance. "I have become foolish." The emphasis is on the verb, not on the adjective; it is the painful fact that the eleventh chapter of Second Corinthians is a thing that no wise man would have written if he had been left to himself and his wisdom. Paul, who was a wise man, felt this, and it stung him. He resented the compulsion which was put upon him by the ingratitude and faithlessness of the Corinthians. The situation ought to have been exactly reversed. When he was defamed by strangers, then they, who knew him, instead of hearkening to the calumniators, ought to have stood up in his defense. But they basely left him to defend himself, to plead his own cause, to become a fool by "glorying." This kind of compulsion should never be put upon a good man, especially a man to whom, under God, we ourselves have been deeply indebted. The services he has rendered constitute a claim on our loyalty, and it is a duty of affection to guard his character against disparagement and malice.
Paul, in his deep consciousness of being wronged, presses home the charge against the Corinthians. They had every reason, he tells them, to act as his advocates. When he was among them, he was in nothing inferior to the "superlative" Apostles-this is his last flout at the Judaist interlopers-nothing though he was. The signs that prove a man to be an apostle were wrought among them (the passive expression keeps his agency in the background) in all patience, by signs and wonders and mighty deeds. Their suspicions of him, their willingness to listen to insinuations against him, after such an experience, were unpardonable. He can only think of one "sign of the apostle" which was not wrought among them by his means, of one point in which he had made them inferior to the other Churches: he had not burdened them with his support. They were the spoilt children of the apostolic family; and he begs them, with bitter irony, to forgive him this wrong. If they had only been converted by a man who stood upon his rights!
"The signs of an apostle" are frequently, referred to in Pauls Epistles, and are of various kinds. By far the most important, and the most frequently insisted on, is success in evangelistic work. He who converts men and founds Churches has the supreme and final attestation of apostleship, as Paul conceives it. It is to this he appeals in 1Co_9:2 & 2Co_3:1-3. In the passage before us Calvin makes "patience" a sign - primum signum nominat patientiam. Patience is certainly a characteristic Christian virtue, and it is magnificently exercised in the apostolic life; but it is not peculiarly apostolic. Patience in the passage before us, "every kind of patience," rather brings before our minds the conditions under which Paul did his apostolic work. Discouragements of every description, bad health, suspicion, dislike, contempt, moral apathy and moral license-the weight of all these pressed upon him heavily, but he bore up under them, and did not suffer them to break his spirit or to arrest his labors. His endurance was a match for them all, and the power of Christ that was in him broke forth in spite of them in apostolic signs. There were conversions, in the first place; but there were also what he calls here "signs [in a narrower sense], and wonders, and mighty deeds." This is an express claim, like that made in Act_15:12, Rom_15:19, to have wrought what we call miracles. The three words represent miracles under three different aspects: they are "signs" (σημεῖα), as addressed to mans intelligence, and conveying a spiritual meaning; they are "wonders" (τέρατα), as giving a shock to feeling, and moving nature in those depths which sleep through common experience, and they are "mighty works" or "powers" (δυνάμεις), as arguing in him who works them a more than human efficiencyd. But no doubt the main character they bore in the Apostles mind was that of χαρίσματα, or gifts of grace, which God ministered to the Church by His Spirit. It is natural for an unbeliever to misunderstand even New Testament miracles, because he wishes to conceive them, as it were, in vacuo, or in relation to the laws of nature; in the New Testament itself they are conceived in relation to the Holy Ghost. Even Jesus is said in the Gospels to have cast out devils by the Spirit of God; and when Paul wrought "signs and wonders and powers," it was in carrying out his apostolic work graced by the same Spirit. What things he had done in Corinth we have no means of knowing, but the Corinthians knew; and they knew that these things had no arbitrary or accidental character, but were the tokens of a Christian and an apostle.
(2) In the second paragraph Paul turns abruptly (ιδου) ("behold!") from the past to the future. "This is the third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not burden you." The first clause has the same ambiguity in Greek as in English; it is impossible to tell from the words alone whether he had been already twice, or only once, in Corinth. Other considerations decide, I think, that he had been twice; but of course these cannot affect the construction of this verse: for the third time he is in a state of readiness-this is all the words will yield. But when he makes the new visit, whether it be his third or only his second, one thing he has decided: he will act on the same principle as before, and decline to be a burden to them. He does not speak of it boastfully now, as in 2Co_11:10, for his adversaries have passed out of view, but in one of the most movingly tender passages in the whole Bible. "I will not lie on you like a benumbing weight, for I seek not yours, but you." It is not his own interest which brings him to Corinth again, but theirs; it is not avarice which impels him, but love. In a sense, indeed, love makes the greater claim of the two; it is far more to demand the heart than to ask for money. Yet the greater claim is the less selfish, indeed is the purely unselfish one; for it can only be really made by one who gives all that he demands. Pauls own heart was pledged to the Corinthians; and when he said "I seek you," he did not mean that he sought to make a party of them, or a faction, in the interest of his own ambition, but that the one thing he cared for was the good of their souls. Nor in saying so does he claim to be doing anything unusual or extraordinary. It is only what becomes him as their father in Christ. {1Co_4:15} "I seek you; for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children." Filial duty, of course, is not denied here; Paul is simply bringing himself as the spiritual father of the Corinthians under the general rule of nature that "love descends rather than ascends." If this seems a hard saying to a childs heart, it is at least true that it descends before it ascends. It all begins from God: in a family, it all begins from the parents. The primary duty of love is parental care; and nothing is more unnatural, though at a certain level it is common enough, than the desire of parents to make money out of their children as quickly and as plentifully as possible, without considering the ulterior interests of the children themselves. This kind of selfishness is very transparent, and is very naturally avenged by ingratitude, and the Apostle for his part renounces it. "I," he exclaims, with all the emphasis in his power-"I have more than a natural fathers love for you. I will with all gladness spend, yes, and be spent to the uttermost, for your souls! I will give what I have, yes, and all that I am, that you may be profited." And then he checks that rush of affection, and dams up the overflowing passion of his heart in the abrupt poignant question: "If I love you more abundantly, am I loved less?"
This is not the first passage in the Epistle, nor, near as we are to the end, is it the last, in which Paul shows us the true spirit of the Christian pastor. "Not yours, but you," is the motto of every minister who has learned of Christ; and the noble words of 2Co_12:15, "I will very gladly spend and be spent to the last for your souls," recall more nearly than any other words in Scripture the law by which our Lord Himself lived-not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many. Here, surely, is a sign of apostleship-an unmistakable mark of the man who is specially called to continue Christs work. That work cannot be done at all except in the spirit of Him who inaugurated it, and though love like Pauls, and love like Christs, may be mocked and trampled on, it is the only power which has the right to speak in Christs name. The joy of sacrifice thrills through the Apostles words, and it is joy in the Holy Ghost; it is a fellowship with Christ in the very life of His life that lifts Paul, for the moment, to the heavenly places. This is the spirit in which wrong is to be met, and suspicion, calumny, and contempt; it is in this, if at all, that we can be more than conquerors. Nature says, "Stand upon your rights; vindicate your position; insist on having all that you conceive to be your due"; but love says, "Spend and be spent, and spare not till all is gone; life itself is not too much to give that love may triumph over wrong."
It is not possible to write long as Paul writes in these two verses (2Co_12:14-15). The tension is too great both for him and for his readers. With εστω δε-"But be it so"-he descends from this height. He writes in the first person, but he is plainly repeating what he assumes others will say. "Very well, then, let that pass," is the answer of his enemies to his friends when that passionate protestation is read. "He did not himself prove burdensome to us, but being crafty he brought us into his net by guile. He exploited the Church in his own interest by means of his agents." This charge the Apostle meets with a downright denial; he can appeal to the knowledge which the Corinthians themselves possess of the manner in which his agents have conducted themselves. He had no doubt had occasion, far oftener than we know, to communicate with so important and restless a Church; and he challenges the Corinthians to say that a single one of those whom he had sent had taken advantage of them. He instances-perhaps as the last of his deputies, who had but just returned from Corinth when he wrote this letter; perhaps as the one on whom scandal had chosen to fasten - his "partner" and "fellow-laborer toward them," Titus; and he refers to an unknown brother who had accompanied him. They cannot mean to say (μητι) that Titus took advantage of them? "Walked we not in the same Spirit?" A modern reader naturally makes "spirit" subjective, and takes it as equivalent to "the same moral temper or principle"; an early Christian reader would more probably think of the Holy Spirit as that which ruled in Paul and Titus alike. In any case the same Spirit led to the same conduct; they walked in the same self-denying path, and scrupulously abstained from burdening the Corinthians for their support.
(3) We feel the meanness of all this, and are glad when the Apostle finally turns his back on it. It is an indignity to be compelled even to allude to such things. And the worst is, that no care a man can take will prevent people from misunderstanding his indignant protest, and from assuming that he is really on his trial before them, and not improbably compromised. Pauls mind is made up to leave the Corinthians no excuse for such misunderstanding and presumption. In 2Co_12:19 he reads their ignoble thought: "Ye have long been thinking"-i.e., all through the last two chapters, and, indeed, more or less all through the Epistle; see 2Co_3:1 -"that we are making our defense at your bar. Far from it: at Gods bar we speak in Christ." He will not endure, with his visit to Corinth close at hand, that there should be any misapprehension as to their relations. His responsibility as a Christian man is not to them, but to God; He is the Master to whom he stands or falls; it is He alone to whom he has to vindicate his life. The Corinthians had been seating themselves in imagination on the tribunal, and they are summarily set on the floor. But Paul does not wish to be rude or unkind. "You are not my judges, certainly" he seems to say, "but all I have said and done, beloved, all I say and do, is for your building up in Christian life. My heart is with you in it all, and I sincerely intend your good." We cannot sufficiently admire the combination in the Apostle, or rather the swift alternation, of all those intellectual and emotional qualities that balance each other in a strong living character. He can be at once trenchant and tender; inexorable in the maintenance of a principle, and infinitely sympathetic and considerate in his treatment of persons. We see all his qualities illustrated here.
Their edification is the governing thought on which the last verses of the chapter turn, and on which eventually the whole Epistle rests. {see 2Co_13:10} It is because he is interested in their edification that he thinks with misgivings of the journey in prospect. "I fear lest by any means when I come to find you not such as I would, and on my part be found of you not such as ye would." What these two fears imply is unfolded in due order in the remainder of the letter. The Corinthians, such as Paul would not have them, are depicted in 2Co_12:20-21; Paul, in a character in which the Corinthians would prefer not to see him, comes forward in 2Co_13:1-10. It is with the first only of these two fears, the bad condition of the Corinthian Church, that we are here concerned. This first fear has two grounds. The first is the prevalence of sins which may perhaps be summarized as sins of self-will. Strife, jealousy, passions, factions and low factious arts, back-bitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults: such is the catalogue. It illustrates what has been well described as "the carnality of religious contention." Almost all the sins here enumerated are directly connected with the existence of parties and party feeling in the Church. They are of a kind which has disgraced the Church all through its history, and the exceeding sinfulness of which is not yet recognized by the great mass of professing Christians. People do not consider that the Church, as a visible society, more or less naturalized in the world, is as capable as any other society of offering a career to ambition, or of furnishing a theatre for the talents and the energies of self-seeking men; and they have a vague idea that the willfulness, the intriguing and factious arts, the jealousy and conceit of men, are better things when put to the service of the Church than when employed in mere selfishness. But they are not. They are the very same, and they are peculiarly odious when enlisted in His service who was meek and lowly in heart, and who gave Himself for men. Pauls first list of sins is only too life like, and the fear grounded on it is one which many a modern minister can share. The second list is made up of what might be called, in contrast with sins of self-will, sins of self-indulgence-"uncleanness, fornication, and lasciviousness that they wrought." Both together make up what the Apostle calls the works of the flesh. Both together are the direct opposite of those fruits of the spirit in which the true life of the Church consists. Paul writes as if he were more alarmed about the sins of the latter class. He puts μη ("lest") instead of μηπως ("lest by any means": 2Co_12:20), marking thus the climax, and something like the, certainty, of his sad apprehension. I fear, he says, "lest when I come again my God should humble me before you"-or, perhaps "in connection with you." Nothing could more bow down a true and loving heart like Pauls than to see a Church that he had regarded as the seal of his apostleship-a congregation of men "washed, sanctified, and justified"-wallowing again in the mire of sensual sins. He had been proud of them, had boasted of them, had given thanks to God on their behalf: how it must have crushed him to think that his labor on them had come to this! Yet he writes instinctively "my God." This humiliation does not come to him without his Father; there is a divine dispensation in it, as far as he is concerned, and he submits to it as such. He dare not think of it as a personal insult; he dare not think of the sinners as if they had offended against him. He fears he will have to mourn over numbers of those who have before sinned, and who will not have repented of these sensualities before he reaches Corinth. In 2Co_5:2 of the First Epistle he sums up his condemnation of the moral laxity of the Church in the presence of such evils in the words: "Ye did not mourn." He himself will not be able to avoid mourning: his heart grows heavy within him as he thinks of what he must see before long. This, again, is the spirit of the true pastor. Selfish anger has nothing healing in it, nor has wounded pride; it is not for any man, however good or devoted, to feel that he is entitled to resent it, as a personal wrong, when men fall into sin. He is not entitled to resent it, no matter how much he may have spent, or how freely he may have spent himself, upon them; but he is bound to bewail it. He is bound to recognize in it, so far as he himself is free from responsibility, a dispensation of God intended to make him humble; and in all humility and love he is bound to plead with the lapsed, not his own cause, but Gods. This is the spirit in which Paul confronts the sad duties awaiting him at Corinth, and in this again we see "the signs of the apostle." The two catalogues of sins with which this chapter closes remind us, by way of contrast, of the two characteristic graces of Christianity: self-will or party spirit, in all its forms, is opposed to brotherly love, and self-indulgence, in all its forms, to personal purity. There is much in this Epistle which would be called by some people theological and transcendent; but no one knew better than Paul that, though Christianity must be capable of an intellectual construction, it is not an intellectual system in essence, but a new moral life. He was deeply concerned, as we have repeatedly seen, that the Corinthians should think right thoughts about Christ and the Gospel; but he was more than concerned, he was filled with grief, fear, and shame, when he thought of the vices of temper and of sensuality that prevailed among them. These went to the root of Christianity, and if they could not be destroyed it must perish. Let us turn our eyes from them to the purity and love that they obscure, and lift up our hearts to these as the best things to which God has called us in the fellowship of His Son.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv7–12 7. Lest I should be exalted, etc. This verse…
7. Lest I should be exalted, etc. This verse shows that verse 2 refers to himself. There was given me a thorn in the flesh. Generally supposed to be some painful physical infirmity. See Gal. 4:13, 14. A messenger of Satan. All physical evils are due to sin and hence are ascribed to Satan. This thorn was (1) in the flesh; (2) it buffeted or assailed him; (3) it was permitted to prevent undue exaltation, hence must have been humiliating.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v8 2 Corinthians
2 Corinthians
STRENGTH IN WEAKNESS
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2Co 12:8-9
This very remarkable page in the autobiography of the Apostle shows us that he, too, belonged to the great army of martyrs who, with hearts bleeding and pierced through and through with a dart, yet did their work for God. It is of little consequence what his thorn in the flesh may have been. The original word suggests very much heavier sorrow than the metaphor of ‘a thorn’ might imply. It really seems to mean not a tiny bit of thorn that might lie half concealed in the finger tip, but one of those hideous stakes on which the cruel punishment of impalement used to be inflicted. And Paul’s thought is, not that he has a little, trivial trouble to bear, but that he is, as it were, forced quivering upon that tremendous torture.
Unquestionably, what he means is some bodily ailment or other. The hypothesis that the ‘thorn in the flesh’ was the sting of the animal nature inciting him to evil is altogether untenable, because such a thorn could never have been left when the prayer for its removal was earnestly presented; nor could it ever have been, when left, an occasion for glorifying. Manifestly it was no weakness removable by his own effort, no incapacity for service which in any manner approximated to being a fault, but purely and simply some infliction from God’s hand {though likewise capable of being regarded as a ‘messenger of Satan’} which hindered him in his work, and took down any proud flesh and danger of spiritual exaltation in consequence of the largeness of his religious privileges.
Our text sets before us three most instructive windings, as it were, of the stream of thoughts that passed through the Apostle’s mind, in reference to this burden that he had to carry, and may afford wholesome contemplation for us to-day. There is, first, the instinctive shrinking which took refuge in prayer. Then there is the insight won by prayer into the sustaining strength for, and the purposes of, the thorn that was not to be plucked out. And then, finally, there is the peace of acquiescence, and a will that accepts--not the inevitable, but the loving.
I. First of all we see the instinctive shrinking from that which tortured the flesh, which takes refuge in prayer.
There is a wonderful, a beautiful, and, I suppose, an intentional parallel between the prayers of the servant and of the Master. Paul’s petitions are the echo of Gethsemane. There, under the quivering olives, in the broken light of the Paschal moon, Jesus ‘thrice’ prayed that the cup might pass from Him. And here the servant, emboldened and instructed by the example of the Master, ‘thrice’ reiterates his human and natural desire for the removal of the pain, whatever it was, which seemed to him so to hinder the efficiency and the fulness, as it certainly did the joy, of his service.
But He who prayed in Gethsemane was He to whom Paul addressed his prayer. For, as is almost always the case in the New Testament, ‘the Lord’ here evidently means Christ, as is obvious from the connection of the answer to the petition with the Apostle’s final confidence and acquiescence. For the answer was, ‘My strength is made perfect in weakness’; and the Apostle’s conclusion is, ‘Most gladly will I glorify in infirmity,’ that the strength or ‘power _of Christ_ may rest upon me.’ Therefore the prayer with which we have to deal here is a prayer offered to Jesus, who prayed in Gethsemane, and to whom we can bring our petitions and our desires.
Notice how this thought of prayer directed to the Master Himself helps to lead us deep into the sacredest and most blessed characteristics of prayer. It is only telling Christ what is in our hearts. Oh, if we lived in the true understanding of what prayer really is--the emptying out of our inmost desire and thoughts before our Brother, who is likewise our Lord--questions as to what it was permissible to pray for, and what it was not permissible to pray for, would be irrelevant, and drop away of themselves. If we had a less formal notion of prayer, and realised more thoroughly what it was--the speech of a confiding heart to a sympathising Lord--then everything that fills our hearts would be seen to be a fitting object of prayer. If anything is large enough to interest me, it is not too small to be spoken about to Him.
So the question, which is often settled upon very abstract and deep grounds that have little to do with the matter--the question as to whether prayer for outward blessings is permissible--falls away of itself. If I am to talk to Jesus Christ about everything that concerns me, am I to keep my thumb upon all that great department and be silent about it? One reason why our prayers are often so unreal is, because they do not fit our real wants, nor correspond to the thoughts that are busy in our minds at the moment of praying. Our hearts are full of some small matter of daily interest, and when we kneel down not a word about it comes to our lips. Can that be right?
The difference between the different objects of prayer is not to be found in the rejection of all temporal and external, but in remembering that there are two sets of things to be prayed about, and over one set must ever be written ‘If it be Thy will,’ and over the other it need not be written, because we are sure that the granting of our wishes _is_ His will. We know about the one that ‘if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us.’ That may seem to be a very poor and shrunken kind of hope to give a man, that if his prayer is in conformity with the previous determination of the divine will, it will be answered. But it availed for the joyful confidence of that Apostle who saw deepest into the conditions and the blessedness of the harmony of the will of God and of man. But about the other set we can only say, ‘Not my will, but Thine be done.’ With that sentence, not as a formula upon our lips but deep in our hearts, let us take everything into His presence--thorns and stakes, pinpricks and wounds out of which the life-blood is ebbing--let us take them all to Him, and be sure that we shall take none of them in vain.
So then we have the Person to whom the prayer is addressed, the subjects with which it is occupied, and the purpose to which it is directed. ‘Take away the burden’ was the Apostle’s petition; but it was a mistaken petition and, therefore, unanswered.
II. That brings me to the second of the windings, as I have ventured to call them, of this stream--viz. the insight into the source of strength for, and the purpose of, the thorn that could not be taken away. The Lord said unto me, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee. For My strength’ {where the word ‘My’ is a supplement, but a necessary one} ‘is made perfect in weakness.’
The answer is, in form and in substance, a gentle refusal of the form of the petition, but it is a more than granting of its essence. For the best answer to such a prayer, and the answer which a true man means when he asks, ‘Take away the burden,’ need not be the external removal of the pressure of the sorrow, but the infusing of power to sustain it. There are two ways of lightening a burden, one is diminishing its actual weight, the other is increasing the strength of the shoulder that bears it. And the latter is God’s way, is Christ’s way, of dealing with us.
Now mark that the answer which this faithful prayer receives is no communication of anything fresh, but it is the opening of the man’s eyes to see that already he has all that he needs. The reply is not, ‘I _will_ give thee grace sufficient,’ but ‘My grace’ {which thou hast now} ‘is sufficient for thee.’ That grace is given and possessed by the sorrowing heart at the moment when it prays. Open your eyes to see what you have, and you will not ask for the load to be taken away. Is not that always true? Many a heart is carrying some heavy weight; perhaps some have an incurable sorrow, some are stricken by disease that they know can never be healed, some are aware that the shipwreck has been total, and that the sorrow that they carry to-day will lie down with them in the dust. Be it so! ‘My grace {not shall be, but} _is_ sufficient for thee.’ And what thou hast already in thy possession is enough for all that comes storming against thee of disease, disappointment, loss, and misery. Set on the one side all possible as well as all actual weaknesses, burdens, pains, and set on the other these two words--’My grace,’ and all these dwindle into nothingness and disappear. If troubled Christian men would learn what they have, and would use what they already possess, they would less often beseech Him with vain petitions to take away their blessings which are in the thorns in the flesh. ‘My grace is sufficient.’
How modestly the Master speaks about what He gives! ‘Sufficient’? Is not there a margin? Is there not more than is wanted? The overplus is ‘exceeding abundant,’ not only ‘above what we ask or think,’ but far more than our need. ‘Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not _sufficient_ that every one may take a little,’ says Sense. Omnipotence says, ‘Bring the few small loaves and fishes unto Me’; and Faith dispensed them amongst the crowd; and Experience ‘gathered up of the fragments that remained’ more than there had been when the multiplication began. So the grace utilised increases; the gift grows as it is employed. ‘Unto him that hath shall be given.’ And the ‘sufficiency’ is not a bare adequacy, just covering the extent of the need, with no overlapping margin, but is large beyond expectation, desire, or necessity; so leading onwards to high hopes and a wider opening of the open mouths of our need that the blessing may pour in.
The other part of this great answer, that the Christ from Heaven spoke in or to the praying spirit of this not disappointed, though refused, Apostle, unveiled the purpose of the sorrow, even as the former part had disclosed the strength to bear it. For, says He, laying down therein the great law of His kingdom in all departments and in all ways, ‘My strength is made perfect’--that is, of course, perfect in its manifestation or operations, for it is perfect in itself already. ‘My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ It works in and through man’s weakness.
God works with broken reeds. If a man conceits himself to be an iron pillar, God can do nothing with or by him. All the self-conceit and confidence have to be taken out of him first. He has to be brought low before the Father can use him for His purposes. The lowlands hold the water, and, if only the sluice is open, the gravitation of His grace does all the rest and carries the flood into the depths of the lowly heart.
His strength loves to work in weakness, only the weakness must be conscious, and the conscious weakness must have passed into conscious dependence. There, then, you get the law for the Church, for the works of Christianity on the widest scale, and in individual lives. Strength that conceits itself to be such is weakness; weakness that knows itself to be such is strength. The only true source of Power, both for Christian work and in all other respects, is God Himself; and our strength is ours but by derivation from Him. And the only way to secure that derivation is through humble dependence, which we call faith in Jesus Christ. And the only way by which that faith in Jesus Christ can ever be kindled in a man’s soul is through the sense of his need and emptiness. So when we know ourselves weak, we have taken the first step to strength; just as, when we know ourselves sinners, we have taken the first step to righteousness; just as in all regions the recognition of the doleful fact of our human necessity is the beginning of the joyful confidence in the glad, triumphant fact of the divine fulness. All our hollownesses, if I may so say, are met with His fulness that fits into them. It only needs that a man be aware of that which he is, and then turn himself to Him who is all that he is not, and then into his empty being will flow rejoicing the whole fulness of God. ‘My strength is made perfect in weakness.’
III. Lastly, mark the calm final acquiescence in the loving necessity of continued sorrow.
‘Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmity that the power of Christ may rest upon me.’ The will is entirely harmonised with Christ’s. The Apostle begins with instinctive shrinking, he passes onwards to a perception of the purpose of his trial and of the sustaining grace; and he comes now to acquiescence which is not passivity, but glad triumph. He is more than submissive, he gladly glories in his infirmity in order that the power of Christ may ‘spread a tabernacle over’ him. ‘It is good for me that I have been afflicted,’ said the old prophet. Paul says, in a yet higher note of concord with God’s will, ‘I am glad that I sorrow. I rejoice in weakness, because it makes it easier for me to cling, and, clinging, I am strong, and conquer evil.’ Far better is it that the sting of our sorrow should be taken away, by our having learned what it is for, and having bowed to it, than that it should be taken away by the external removal which we sometimes long for. A grief, a trial, an incapacity, a limitation, a weakness, which we use as a means of deepening our sense of dependence upon Him, is a blessing, and not a sorrow. And if we would only go out into the world trying to interpret its events in the spirit of this great text, we should less frequently wonder and weep over what sometimes seem to us the insoluble mysteries of the sorrows of ourselves and of other men. They are all intended to make it more easy for us to realise our utter hanging upon Him, and so to open our hearts to receive more fully the quickening influences of His omnipotent and self-sufficing grace.
Here, then, is a lesson for those who have to carry some cross and know they must carry it throughout life. It will be wreathed with flowers if you accept it. Here is a lesson for all Christian workers. Ministers of the Gospel especially should banish all thoughts of their own cleverness, intellectual ability, culture, sufficiency for their work, and learn that only when they are emptied can they be filled, and only when they know themselves to be nothing are they ready for God to work through them. And here is a lesson for all who stand apart from the grace and power of Jesus Christ as if they needed it not. Whether you know it or not, you are a broken reed; and the only way of your ever being bound up and made strong is that you shall recognise your sinfulness, your necessity, your abject poverty, your utter emptiness, and come to Him who is righteousness, riches, fulness, and say, ‘Because I am weak, be Thou my strength.’ The secret of all noble, heroic, useful, happy life lies in the paradox, ‘When I am weak, then am I strong,’ and the secret of all failures, miseries, hopeless losses, lies in its converse, ‘When I am strong, then am I weak.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv7–12 And by reason of the exceeding greatness of the…
And by reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations, that I should not be exalted overmuch, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, that I should not be exalted overmuch . [From the earliest ages down men have indulged in wild speculation as to what Paul meant by his thorn in the flesh. See comment on 1:10. The most plausible theory is that it was disfiguring and acute ophthalmia. Suffice it to say that it was some bodily infirmity which acted as a balance to Paul's mind, drawing his thoughts and attention to his earthly state, lest they should dwell too constantly in meditation upon the things which had been revealed to him.]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv7, 9 It has been conjectured that Paul’s "thorn in the…
thorn
It has been conjectured that Paul’s "thorn in the flesh" was chronic ophthalmia, inducing bodily weakness, and a repulsive appearance Gal 4:15; 1Co 2:3; 1Co 2:4; 2Co 10:10. This cannot be positively known, and the reserve of Scripture is as sure a mark of inspiration as its revelations. Paul’s particular "thorn" is not described that his consolations may avail for all to who any thorn is given.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v11 What Paul Expects of the Corinthians.
What Paul Expects of the Corinthians.
Their love should have commended him in his love for them:
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v. 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.
v. 12. Truly, the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds.
v. 13. 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!
v. 14. Behold, the third time I am ready to come to you; and I will not be burdensome to you; for I seek not yours; but you; for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children.
v. 15. And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved.
v. 16. But be it so, I did not burden you; nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with guile.
Paul here turns the fact of his boasting against the Corinthians, to their reproach, saying that his becoming foolish in that way, in a manner which he personally considers scandalous, was occasioned by their having omitted commendation of him: For I should have been commended, praised, of you; for in nothing do I fall behind those superfine, those very superior, apostles to whom you have yielded obedience so readily,—that is, the Judaizing teachers, the false prophets who had disturbed the Corinthians. And this in spite of the fact that, in the low estimate which he places upon himself, he is nothing, just as he calls himself the least of the apostles, 1Co 15:9. He realized fully that he was nothing, that nothing depended upon his person, upon his ability, upon his talents, that he was not indispensable to the work, that he was merely an instrument of grace in the hands of his Lord, that Christ was all in all.
But so far as the false apostles are concerned, against whom the present passage is directed, he will not for one moment admit their superiority: The signs of an apostle indeed were wrought among you in all patience, by signs as well as by wonders and powers. The special indications of his apostolic authority, the signs which marked him at once as an apostle of the Lord, the miracles and powers which had been given to the Lord’s servants as a seal of their calling, Mar 16:17-18, had been wrought in Corinth through his agency. What greater proof did they desire? Why did they withhold from him the proper acknowledgment?
Paul refers also to that moot question as to his supporting himself while preaching in Corinth: For what is it wherein you were inferior to the other congregations, except that I myself did not burden you? Had they reached such a point in their critical attitude that they felt insulted and set back because he had insisted upon earning his own means of subsistence, and had saved them the money which they really owed him? If this was really their attitude, then, as he ironically adds, they should forgive him that wrong; he humbly craves their pardon for having slighted them. But instead of changing his method, he expressly declares: Behold, this is the third time that I am ready to come to you, and I shall not be a burden. His first visit was that related in Act 18:1-28; of his second we have no account, although he refers to it, chap. 13:1-2; 2:1. In carrying out his intention of visiting them, he has decided to abide by his practice and not to demand money for his support from them: For I seek not yours, but you. No one should be able to make the charge against him that he is seeking their money, their goods. His only motive is to gain them for Christ and keep them in fellowship with Christ. In support of this principle he quotes a proverbial saying: For the children are not bound to gather treasures for the parents, but the parents for the children. See Pro 29:14. He was their spiritual father, and as such he was concerned about gathering spiritual treasures for them, making them the heirs of the wonderful spiritual gifts which had been entrusted to him for their benefit.
In this spirit his attitude toward them is: But I very gladly will spend, and be wholly spent, for your souls. Such is the apostle’s love for the Corinthians that not only was every thought of gain for himself excluded, but he was also ready, with a hearty good will, to give up all that he had in the world for them, yea, to sacrifice his life, if he could thereby promote their spiritual welfare. It is the same unselfish devotion which he exhibited also at other times, 1Th 2:8; Php 2:17; 2Ti 2:10. But he is obliged to add, with melancholy sadness: If I loved you more abundantly, am I loved the less? or: Although the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved. He was willing to go to the utmost in overcoming their prejudice and hostility, but he was not meeting with success in proportion, rather in inverse ratio, a fact which he felt very keenly. Yet his love is able to make even this sacrifice: But be it so! He at least has the satisfaction that he has not burdened them with his maintenance, and this the Corinthians must concede. Now, however, his opponents made another insinuation: But being crafty, I caught you with guile. They insinuated that he was keen enough to take care of his own advantage, that he did not accept any means of support directly, but that he was not above suspicion in the matter of the collection alleged to be for the poor in Judea. This matter he now takes up, in the last part of the chapter.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv8, 11 Three times
Three times
Paul put these words at the beginning of the sentence to emphasize that he had prayed many times about his "thorn" (2 Corinthians 12:7).
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Lord about this
"Lord about this thorn in the flesh," or "Lord about this affliction"
My grace is enough for you
"I will be kind to you, and that is all you need"
for power is made perfect in weakness
"for my power works best when you are weak"
the power of Christ might reside on me
Paul speaks of Christ's power as if it were a tent built over him. Possible meanings are 1) "people might see that I have the power of Christ" or 2) "I might truly have the power of Christ." (See: Metaphor)
I am content for Christ's sake in weaknesses, in insults, in troubles, in persecutions and distressing situations
Possible meanings are 1) "I am content in weakness, insults, troubles, persecutions, and distressing situations if these things come because I belong to Christ" or 2) "I am content in weakness ... if these things cause more people to know Christ."
in weaknesses
"when I am weak"
in insults
"when people try to make me angry by saying that I am a bad person"
in troubles
"when I am suffering"
distressing situations
"when there is trouble"
For whenever I am weak, then I am strong
Paul is saying that when he is no longer strong enough to do what needs to be done, Christ, who is more powerful than Paul could ever be, will work through Paul to do what needs to be done. However, it would be best to translate these words literally, if your language allows.
translationWords
lord
grace
power
perfect
boast
Christ
trouble
persecute
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv7, 11, 12 12:7b-10 We do not know what the thorn in…
12:7b-10 We do not know what the thorn in Paul’s flesh was (cp. Num 33:55; Ezek 28:24; Hos 2:6); we only know that its purpose was to keep him from becoming proud, to prick the bubble of pride. • It was a messenger from Satan—that is, something or someone evil—so Paul prayed to the Lord to take it away. The Lord answered each petition the same way: “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” Paul’s human weakness was an opportunity for the power of Christ to work through him by God’s grace. Paul accepted his suffering because Christ’s strength showed itself through his weakness.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.