Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
A Preacher in Paradise
(2 Corinthians 12:1–10)
This section is the climax of Paul’s defense of his apostleship and his love for the believers at Corinth. He was reticent to write about these personal experiences, but there was no other way to solve the problem. In fact, to avoid exalting himself, Paul described his experience in the third person rather than the first person. He shared with his readers three experiences from God.
1. GLORY: GOD HONORED HIM (12:1–6)
The Judaizers were anxious to receive honors, and they boasted about their “letters of commendation” (2 Cor. 3:1ff.). But Paul did not look for honor from men; he let God honor him, for that alone is the honor that really counts.
First, God honored Paul by giving him visions and revelations. Paul saw the glorified Christ on the very day he was converted (Acts 9:3ff.; 22:6). He saw a vision of Ananias coming to minister to him (Acts 9:12), and he also had a vision from God when he was called to minister to the Gentiles (Acts 22:17ff.).
During his ministry, he had visions from God to guide him and encourage him. It was by a vision that he was called to Macedonia (Acts 16:9). When the ministry was difficult in Corinth, God encouraged Paul by a vision (Acts 18:9–10). After his arrest in Jerusalem, Paul was again encouraged by a vision from God (Acts 23:11). An angel appeared to him in the midst of the storm and assured him that he and the passengers would be saved (Acts 27:23).
Along with these special visions that related to his call and ministry, spiritual revelations of divine truth were also communicated to Paul (see Eph. 3:1–6). God gave him a profound understanding of the plan of God for this present age. Certainly Paul understood the mysteries of God.
God also honored Paul by taking him to heaven and then sending him back to the earth again. This marvelous experience had taken place fourteen years before the writing of this letter, which would place the experience in about the year AD 43. This would be the period in Paul’s life between his departure for Tarsus (Acts 9:30) and his visit from Barnabas (Acts 11:25–26). There is no record of the details of this event, and it is useless for us to speculate.
Jewish rabbis were accustomed to speaking about themselves in the third person, and Paul adopted that approach as he unfolded this experience to his friends (and enemies) at Corinth. So wonderful was this experience that Paul was not quite sure whether God had taken him bodily to heaven, or whether his spirit had left his body. (There is quite a contrast between being “let down” in a basket and being “caught up” to the third heaven!) Paul affirmed here the reality of heaven and the ability of God to take people there. The third heaven is the same as “paradise,” the heaven of heavens where God dwells in glory. Thanks to modern science, men today have visited the heaven of the clouds (we fly above the clouds) and the heaven of the planets (men have walked on the moon), but man cannot get to God’s heaven without God’s help.
The interesting thing is that Paul kept quiet about this experience for fourteen years! During those years, he was buffeted by his “thorn in the flesh,” and perhaps people wondered why he had such a burdensome affliction. The Judaizers may have adopted the views of Job’s comforters and said, “This affliction is a punishment from God.” (Actually, it was a gift from God.) Some of Paul’s good friends may have tried to encourage him by saying, “Cheer up, Paul. One day you’ll be in heaven!” Paul could have replied, “That’s why I have this thorn—I went to heaven!”
God honored Paul by granting him visions and revelations, and by taking him to heaven; but He honored him further by permitting him to hear “unspeakable words” while he was in heaven. He overheard the divine secrets that are shared only in heaven. These things could be spoken by God and by beings in heaven, but they could not be spoken by men.
Could the Judaizers relate any experiences that were like this one? Even Moses, who was intimate with God, met the Lord on the mountaintop; but Paul met the Lord in paradise. Paul had exercised great spiritual discipline during those fourteen years, for he had told this experience to no one. There is no doubt that this vision of God’s glory was one of the sustaining powers in Paul’s life and ministry. No matter where he was—in prison, in the deep, in dangerous travels—he knew that God was with him and that all was well.
You and I are not going to heaven until we die or until our Lord returns. But we have a marvelous encouragement in the fact that we are today seated with Christ in the heavenly places (Eph. 2:6). We have a position of authority and victory “far above all” (Eph. 1:21–22). While we have not seen God’s glory as Paul did, we do share God’s glory now (John 17:22), and one day we shall enter into heaven and behold the glory of Christ (John 17:24).
Such an honor as this would have made most people very proud. Instead of keeping quiet for fourteen years, they would have immediately told the world and become famous. But Paul did not become proud. He simply told the truth—it was not empty boasting—and let the facts speak for themselves. His great concern was that nobody rob God of the glory and give it to Paul. He wanted others to have an honest estimate of him and his work (see Rom. 12:3).
How could Paul have such a great experience and still remain humble? Because of the second experience that God brought to his life.
2. GOODNESS: GOD HUMBLED HIM (12:7–8)
The Lord knows how to balance our lives. If we have only blessings, we may become proud; so He permits us to have burdens as well. Paul’s great experience in heaven could have ruined his ministry on earth; so God, in His goodness, permitted Satan to buffet Paul in order to keep him from becoming proud.
The mystery of human suffering will not be solved completely in this life. Sometimes we suffer simply because we are human. Our bodies change as we grow older, and we are susceptible to the normal problems of life. The same body that can bring us pleasures can also bring us pains. The same family members and friends who delight us can also break our hearts. This is a part of the “human comedy,” and the only way to escape it is to be less than human. But nobody wants to take that route.
Sometimes we suffer because we are foolish and disobedient to the Lord. Our own rebellion may afflict us, or the Lord may see fit to chasten us in His love (Heb. 12:3ff.). King David suffered greatly because of his sin; the consequences were painful and so was the discipline of God (see 2 Sam. 12:1–22; Ps. 51). In His grace, God forgives our sins; but in His government, He must permit us to reap what we sow.
Suffering also is a tool God uses for building godly character (Rom. 5:1–5). Certainly Paul was a man of rich Christian character because he permitted God to mold and make him in the painful experiences of his life. When you walk along the shore of the ocean, you notice that the rocks are sharp in the quiet coves, but polished in those places where the waves beat against them. God can use the “waves and billows” of life to polish us, if we will let Him.
Paul’s thorn in the flesh was given to him to keep him from sinning. Exciting spiritual experiences—like going to heaven and back—have a way of inflating the human ego; and pride leads to a multitude of temptations to sin. Had Paul’s heart been filled with pride, those next fourteen years would have been filled with failure instead of success.
We do not know what Paul’s thorn in the flesh was. The word translated “thorn” means “a sharp stake used for torturing or impaling someone.” It was a physical affliction of some kind that brought pain and distress to Paul. Some Bible students think that Paul had an eye affliction (see Gal. 6:11); but we cannot know for sure. It is a good thing that we do not know, because no matter what our sufferings may be, we are able to apply the lessons Paul learned and get encouragement.
God permitted Satan to afflict Paul, just as He permitted Satan to afflict Job (see Job 1—2). While we do not fully understand the origin of evil in this universe, or all the purposes God had in mind when He permitted evil to come, we do know that God controls evil and can use it even for His own glory. Satan cannot work against a believer without the permission of God. Everything that the enemy did to Job and Paul was permitted by the will of God.
Satan was permitted to buffet Paul. The word means “to beat, to strike with the fist.” The tense of the verb indicates that this pain was either constant or recurring. When you stop to think that Paul had letters to write, trips to take, sermons to preach, churches to visit, and dangers to face as he ministered, you can understand that this was a serious matter. No wonder he prayed three times (as his Lord had done in the Garden, Mark 14:32–41) that the affliction might be removed from him (2 Cor. 12:8).
When God permits suffering to come to our lives, there are several ways we can deal with it. Some people become bitter and blame God for robbing them of freedom and pleasure. Others just give up and fail to get any blessing out of the experience because they will not put any courage into the experience. Still others grit their teeth and put on a brave front, determined to endure to the very end. While this is a courageous response, it usually drains them of the strength needed for daily living; and after a time, they may collapse.
Was Paul sinning when he prayed to be delivered from Satan’s buffeting? I don’t think so. It is certainly a normal thing for a Christian to ask God for deliverance from sickness and pain. God has not obligated Himself to heal every believer whenever he prays; but He has encouraged us to bring our burdens and needs to Him. Paul did not know whether this “thorn in the flesh” was a temporary testing from God, or a permanent experience he would have to learn to live with.
There are those who want us to believe that an afflicted Christian is a disgrace to God. “If you are obeying the Lord and claiming all that you have in Christ,” they say, “then you will never be sick.” I have never found that teaching in the Bible. It is true that God promised the Jews special blessing and protection under the old covenant (Deut. 7:12ff.), but He never promised the New Testament believers freedom from sickness or suffering. If Paul had access to instant healing because of his relationship to Christ, then why didn’t he make use of it for himself and for others, such as Epaphroditus (Phil. 2:25ff.)?
What a contrast between Paul’s two experiences! Paul went from paradise to pain, from glory to suffering. He tasted the blessing of God in heaven and then felt the buffeting of Satan on earth. He went from ecstasy to agony, and yet the two experiences belong together. His one experience of glory prepared him for the constant experience of suffering, for he knew that God was able to meet his need. Paul had gone to heaven—but then he learned that heaven could come to him.
3. GRACE: GOD HELPED HIM (12:9–10)
Two messages were involved in this painful experience. The thorn in the flesh was Satan’s message to Paul, but God had another message for him, a message of grace. The tense of the verb in 2 Corinthians 12:9 is important: “And He said unto me.” God gave Paul a message that stayed with him. The words Paul heard while in heaven, he was not permitted to share with us; but he did share the words God gave him on earth—and what an encouragement they are.
It was a message of grace. What is grace? It is God’s provision for our every need when we need it. It has well been said that God in His grace gives us what we do not deserve, and in His mercy He does not give us what we do deserve. Someone has made an acrostic of the word grace: God’s Riches Available at Christ’s Expense. “And of his [Christ’s] fullness have all we received, and grace for grace” (John 1:16).
It was a message of sufficient grace. There is never a shortage of grace. God is sufficient for our spiritual ministries (2 Cor. 3:4–6) and our material needs (2 Cor. 9:8) as well as our physical needs (2 Cor. 12:9). If God’s grace is sufficient to save us, surely it is sufficient to keep us and strengthen us in our times of suffering.
It was a message of strengthening grace. God permits us to become weak so that we might receive His strength. This is a continuous process: “My power is [being] made perfect in [your] weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9 NIV). Strength that knows itself to be strength is actually weakness, but weakness that knows itself to be weakness is actually strength.
In the Christian life, we get many of our blessings through transformation, not substitution. When Paul prayed three times for the removal of his pain, he was asking God for a substitution: “Give me health instead of sickness, deliverance instead of pain and weakness.” Sometimes God does meet the need by substitution; but other times He meets the need by transformation. He does not remove the affliction, but He gives us His grace so that the affliction works for us and not against us.
As Paul prayed about his problem, God gave him a deeper insight into what He was doing. Paul learned that his thorn in the flesh was a gift from God. What a strange gift! There was only one thing for Paul to do: accept the gift from God and allow God to accomplish His purposes. God wanted to keep Paul from being “exalted above measure,” and this was His way of accomplishing it.
When Paul accepted his affliction as the gift of God, this made it possible for God’s grace to go to work in his life. It was then that God spoke to Paul and gave him the assurance of His grace. Whenever you are going through suffering, spend extra time in the Word of God; and you can be sure God will speak to you. He always has a special message for His children when they are afflicted.
God did not give Paul any explanations; instead, He gave him a promise: “My grace is sufficient for thee.” We do not live on explanations; we live on promises. Our feelings change, but God’s promises never change. Promises generate faith, and faith strengthens hope.
Paul claimed God’s promise and drew on the grace that was offered to him; this turned seeming tragedy into triumph. God did not change the situation by removing the affliction; He changed it by adding a new ingredient: grace. Our God is “the God of all grace” (1 Peter 5:10), and His throne is a “throne of grace” (Heb. 4:16). The Word of God is “the word of his grace” (Acts 20:32), and the promise is that “he giveth more grace” (James 4:6). No matter how we look at it, God is adequate for every need that we have.
But God does not give us His grace simply that we might “endure” our sufferings. Even unconverted people can manifest great endurance. God’s grace should enable us to rise above our circumstances and feelings and cause our afflictions to work for us in accomplishing positive good. God wants to build our character so that we are more like our Savior. God’s grace enabled Paul not only to accept his afflictions, but also to glory in them. His suffering was not a tyrant that controlled him but a servant that worked for him.
What benefits did Paul receive because of his suffering? For one thing, he experienced the power of Christ in his life. God transformed Paul’s weakness into strength. The word translated “rest” means “to spread a tent over.” Paul saw his body as a frail tent (2 Cor. 5:1ff.), but the glory of God had come into that tent and transformed it into a holy tabernacle.
Something else happened to Paul: he was able to glory in his infirmities. This does not mean that he preferred pain to health, but rather that he knew how to turn his infirmities into assets. What made the difference? The grace of God and the glory of God. He “took pleasure” in these trials and problems, not because he was psychologically unbalanced and enjoyed pain, but because he was suffering for the sake of Jesus Christ. He was glorifying God by the way he accepted and handled the difficult experiences of life.
“It is a greater thing to pray for pain’s conversion than for its removal,” wrote P. T. Forsyth, and this is true. Paul won the victory, not by substitution, but by transformation. He discovered the sufficiency of the grace of God.
From Paul’s experience, we learn six practical lessons.
1. The spiritual is far more important to the dedicated believer than the physical. This is not to suggest that we ignore the physical, because our bodies are the temples of the Spirit of God. But it does mean that we try not to make our bodies an end in themselves. They are God’s tools for accomplishing His work in this world. What God does in developing our Christian character is far more valuable than physical healing without character.
2. God knows how to balance burdens and blessings, suffering and glory. Life is something like a prescription: the individual ingredients might hurt us, but when properly blended, they help us.
3. Not all sickness is caused by sin. The argument of Job’s comforters was that Job had sinned, and that was why he was suffering. But their argument was wrong in Job’s case, as well as in Paul’s case. There are times when God permits Satan to afflict us so that God might accomplish a great purpose in our lives.
4. There is something worse than sickness, and that is sin; and the worst sin of all is pride. The healthy person who is rebelling against God is in worse shape than the suffering person who is submitting to God and enjoying God’s grace. It is a paradox—and an evidence of the sovereignty of God—that God used Satan, the proudest of all beings, to help keep Paul humble.
5. Physical affliction need not be a barrier to effective Christian service. Today’s saints are too prone to pamper themselves and use every little ache or pain as an excuse to stay home from church or refuse to accept opportunities for service. Paul did not permit his thorn in the flesh to become a stumbling block. In fact, he let God turn that thorn into a stepping-stone.
6. We can always rest in God’s Word. He always has a message of encouragement for us in times of trial and suffering.
The great French mystic, Madame Guyon, once wrote to a suffering friend, “Ah, if you knew what power there is in an accepted sorrow!”
Paul knew about that power, because he trusted the will of God and depended on the grace of God.
That same power can be yours today.
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL REFLECTION
OR GROUP DISCUSSION
1. Why did Paul tell the Corinthians of his heavenly vision? Why did he tell it in third person?
2. How might this vision have affected Paul’s life and ministry?
3. Why was Paul given a “thorn in the flesh”?
4. How might others have interpreted Paul’s affliction?
5. How does it affect you to think that God allows Satan to afflict even those whom God loves?
6. What are some positive and negative responses to suffering?
7. In the Lord’s encouragement to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you,” what grace is He referring to?
8. When believers suffer, what benefits do they receive as they look to the Lord?
9. How can God’s power be perfected in weakness?
10. Of the six practical lessons that Wiersbe lists, which is most helpful to you? Why?