2 Corinthians 12:1 - Homilies By R. Tuck

"I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord." The apostle had been dwelling on his personal experiences. He had been compelled by the evil things that were said of him to refer to his own life, conduct, and sufferings for Christ's sake, in self-vindication. He would, however, not have spoken one word about these things if the honour of Christ had not been bound up with his claim to apostleship. He had now said everything that needed to be said about himself; and it was every way pleasanter and healthier to turn away from his own doings and sufferings, and to fix his heart and his thoughts upon what God had done for him. Upon the Divine visions and revelations given to him he in great part rested his apostolic claim. To him an apostle was, just what a prophet of the olden time had been, a man who had direct and personal communications with the Lord Jesus, and received instructions immediately from him. For such instances in St. Paul's career, see Acts 9:4-6 ; Acts 16:9 ; Acts 18:9 ; Acts 22:18 ; Acts 23:1-35 . 11; Acts 27:23 ; Galatians 2:2 ; and the scenes recorded in the chapter now before us. This claim to direct revelation the enemies of St. Paul denied, and laughed to scorn his pretensions as the indications of insanity. Dean Plumptre tells us that "in the Clementine Homilie's—a kind of controversial romance representing the later views of the Ebionite or Judaizing party, in which most recent critics have recognized a thinly veiled attempt to present the characteristic features of St. Paul under the pretence of an attack on Simon Magus, just as the writer of a political novel in modern times might draw the portraits of his rivals under fictitious names—we find stress laid on the alleged claims of Simon to have had communications from the Lord through visions and dreams and outward revelations; and this claim is contrasted with that of Peter, who had personally followed Christ during his ministry on earth. What was said then, in the form of this elaborate attack, may well have been said before by the more malignant advocates of the same party. The charge of insanity was one easy to make, and of all charges, perhaps, the most difficult to refute by one who gloried in the facts which were alleged as its foundation—who did see visions and did 'speak with tongues' in the ecstasy of adoring rapture." Compare the expression, "whether we be beside ourselves," in 2 Corinthians 5:13 . When the particular visions came to which reference is made in the passage before us cannot certainly be known. St. Paul only aids us by referring to the time as "about fourteen years ago." The suggestion we prefer is that they were granted during the time of his fainting after the stoning at Lystra, and were the Divine comfortings of that hour of sorest peril and distress ( Acts 14:19 ).

I. VISIONS AND REVELATIONS ARE AGENCIES WHICH GOD HAS ALWAYS USED . They do not belong to any one age. We have no right to say that they are limited to ancient times. There have always been the true and the counterfeit; but the true should not be missed or denied because the false have been found out. There are good gold coins, or men would not trouble to make spurious sovereigns. Fanaticism deludes its victims into imaginary visions, but souls that are kin with God, and open to him, can receive communications from him. Illustrate from all ages, e . g . Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Samuel, David, Isaiah, Joseph, aged Simeon, Zacharias, etc. So in the Christian age we find visions granted to Cornelius, Philip, Peter, and John, as well as Paul, and traces of prophets, such as Agabus, and even of prophetesses. St. Paul's visions were probably of the nature of a trance; the mind being absorbed in contemplation may be prepared to receive Divine revealings. It is right to subject all claims to visions to careful scrutiny, and the things communicated to men at such times must be tested by their harmony with the written revelation; but we need not refuse to recognize the truth that God has direct relations to souls now as certainly as in past ages. Both truth and duty may still be directly revealed.

II. THEY COME TO CERTAIN PREPARED INDIVIDUALS . Not to masses, not to Churches, not to meetings. The vision is for individuals, who are thus made agents in the communication to men of the Divine thought and will. F.W. Robertson says, "To comprehend the visions we must comprehend the man. For God gives visions at his own will, and according to certain and fixed laws. He does not inspire every one. He does not reveal his mysteries to men of selfish, or hard, or phlegmatic temperaments. He gives preternatural communications to those whom he prepares beforehand by a peculiar spiritual sensitiveness. There are, physically, certain sensitivenesses to sound and colour that qualify men to become gifted musicians and painters; so, spiritually, there are certain strong original susceptibilities (I say original, as derived from God, the origin of all), and on these God bestows strange gifts and sights, deep feelings not to be uttered in human language, and immeasurable by the ordinary standard. Such a man was St. Paul—a very wondrous nature, the Jewish nature in all its strength. We know that the Jewish temperament fitted men to be the organs of a revelation. Its fervour, its moral sense, its veneration, its indomitable will, all adapted the highest sons of the nation for receiving hidden truths and communicating them to others."

III. THEY COME ON PARTICULAR OCCASIONS . By the law of Divine economy, only when they are the precise thing demanded, the only agency that will efficiently meet the case.

IV. THEY COME IN GRACIOUSLY ADAPTED FORMS . Heard voices sometimes, at other times dreams, ocular visions, symbols, trances, and mental panoramas. Close by showing that, because the modern mode is direct to souls, immediate to the shaping of men's thoughts, and not through symbols, or dreams, or visions, we need not lose the conviction that, upon due occasions still, God gives to some amongst us insight and revelation of his truth.—R.T.

2 Corinthians 12:7 - 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: Luke 13:16 ; Acts 10:38 ; 1 Corinthians 5:5 ; 1 Thessalonians 2:18 ; 1 Timothy 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:

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 ( Acts 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' ( 2 Corinthians 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 ( Acts 7:58 ; Acts 9:1 ). It is confirmed by his stern language to Elymas the sorcerer ( Acts 13:10 ), with which we may compare the much milder language used by St. Peter on a far more awful occasion ( Acts 5:3 , Acts 5:9 ). The quarrel between St. Paul and St. Barnabas makes the supposition infinitely more probable. The passage, Galatians 4:13 , Galatians 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 ( Galatians 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

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.

2 Corinthians 12:9 - Sufficient grace.

The following incident from John Bunyan's experience may serve to introduce this subject. One evening, as Bunyan was in a meeting of Christian people, full of sadness and terror, suddenly there "brake in" upon him with great power, and three times together, the words, "My grace is sufficient for thee; my grace is sufficient for thee; my grace is sufficient for thee." And "Oh, methought," says he, "that every word was a mighty word unto me; as 'my,' and 'grace,' and 'sufficient,' and 'for thee,' they were then, and sometimes are still, far bigger than others be." The great practical question for us, in our endeavour to live the godly life, is not—What have we to bear? but—What strength have we for the bearing? God's hell) never comes first to a man in his circumstances, but always first in him. The grace given is grace helping him in the circumstances. So the Christian often knows that he is helped when those around him can see no signs of the helping. God's promise from the olden time is this, "As thy day so shall thy strength be." In all our relations with human trouble, our attention is directed to the removal of the trouble itself or the change of the circumstances which occasioned the trouble. We move the pain wearied sufferer into a position of greater ease. We soften and smoothe the pillow for the aching head. We offer temporary help to the man distressed in business. But God does not promise any man that he will alter his circumstances or altogether relieve him from his trouble. The economy of life is arranged, in the Divine wisdom, for the greatest good of the greatest number, and consequently some of those circumstances which bring trouble to Christian hearts cannot be altered without involving injury to others. God "strengthens with strength in the soul." To him body and circumstance are secondary things; souls are of the first importance, and bodies and circumstances gain their importance by their influence on souls. Inward strength to bear is a far higher provision than any mere mastery of the ills and troubles of the life. A man is never lost until he has lost heart. But if God supplies inward strength we never shall lose heart, and so we never shall be lost. Outwardly a man may be tossed about, worn, wearied, lost, wounded, almost broken, and yet inwardly he may be kept in perfect peace; his mind may be stayed on God; he may be "strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might." We may say of this "sufficient grace" that it is—

I. ADAPTED . We are to conceive of the grace of God, not as a great mass, a quantity of which is duly measured out to meet our need, but rather as a treasury of various kinds and various colours, from which may be obtained just those threads that will match our circumstances and repair the disasters into which we have fallen.

II. TIMELY . Here we require to distinguish between what we think to be timely and what God thinks to be timely, remembering that God never delays, but is never hurried. He waits for the moment of extremity. "When the tale of bricks is doubled, then comes Moses." And it should also be shown that we may not look for some particular grace and help today, which God knows will only be required tomorrow. The very charm of "sufficient grace" is that it is precisely the thing "for the occasion." Those who are looking for kinds of grace for which they have no immediate and pressing needs will be in danger of missing the gracious provisions which their Lord is ever making for them. The way between earth and heaven is a ladder—Jacob saw it—and the angels came up and down it. We cannot reach the top by looking up; only by putting our feet up one round after another. And God is willing to be ever close beside us, holding us with his hand and strengthening us for each uplifted step.

III. ABUNDANT . That is assured in the fact that it is the grace of God, who is able to do exceedingly abundantly for us above all that we ask or think. The man with "sufficient grace" is efficient to all work, whether it be bearing or doing. He is nowhere alone; grace is with him.—R.T.

2 Corinthians 12:9 - Glorying in infirmities.

In introduction should be given some high and noble instances of triumph over disease, pain, or disability, in doing philanthropic and Christian work; e.g. Baxter, Robert Hall, H. Martyn, C. Pattison, F.W. Robertson, etc. Show that, while bodily strength may be consecrated to God's service, it is also true that physical weakness may serve him, and a man's very frailty glorify his Lord. This may be further opened out by showing how—

I. IT BEARS UPON HUMILITY . The grace which is the necessary completion and final adornment of Christian character. The grace which puts on Christian fruitage all the bloom. Humility is won by the pressure of God's hand upon us.

II. IT NOURISHES DEPENDENCE ON GOD . "When I am weak, then am I strong." This is the Christian paradox. Such dependence is not easy; it is one of the things to which experience of failure and frailty alone can bring us. He is fitted for life and for heaven who from his deep heart says, "I cannot, but God can."

III. IT CULTIVATES CHARACTER . We know that physical weakness bears directly and continuously upon temper, disposition, and virtue. Afflictions never test us, never bear upon the whole culture of character, as does continuous pain or frailty. "As the outward man perishes, the inward man is renewed day by day."

IV. IT KEEPS A MAN OPEN TO GOD . By its constant reminder of the need of God. The frail man proves the preciousness of prayer. F.W. Robertson most forcibly says of prayer, "The true value of prayer is not this—to bend the eternal will to ours, but this—to bend our wills to it." Frail, ever-suffering Paul laboured "more abundantly than they all," and astonishing still is the soul-work that can be gotten out of feeble men and women—with God's grace.—R.T.

2 Corinthians 12:16 - Caught with guile.

"Nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with guile? This expression occasions serious difficulty to the exegete. It may be that St. Paul is referring to the accusation made against him that, being a crafty man, he had caught the Corinthians with guile. He repudiates altogether such a charge, and pleads, as o, sufficient proof of his guilelessness, that no man could say he had ever used his official position to make personal gains. Archdeacon Farrar says, "Being confessedly one who strove for peace and unity, who endeavoured to meet all men half way, who was ready to be all things to all men if by any means he might save some, he has more than once to vindicate his character from those charges of insincerity, craftiness, dishonesty, guile, man pleasing, and flattery which are, perhaps, summed up in the general depreciation which he so indignantly rebuts, that 'he walked according to the flesh,' or in other words, that his motives were not spiritual, but low and selfish." He paraphrases the sentence taken as our text thus: "But stop! though I did not burden you, yet 'being a cunning person, I caught you with guile.' Under the pretext of a collection I got money out of you by my confederates! I ask you, is that a fact?" A possible insinuation of the Corinthians is hereby anticipated and refuted; and we need not treat the statement of the text as any acknowledgment by St. Paul that he had adopted any guileful schemes. No man could have been more thoroughly genuine, more honorably straightforward. The subject for our consideration may be treated under three divisions.

I. THE IDEA OF " CAUGHT WITH GUILE " THAT IS INADMISSIBLE IN CHRISTIAN WORK .

1 . Anything approaching to "doing evil that good may come" is inadmissible.

2 . So is any altering or qualifying the fundamental truths, claims, and duties of the gospel.

3 . So is any kind of action that is immoral, or of which the morality is even doubtful. Illustrate by some of the guileful principles enunciated by the Jesuit fathers, and so mercilessly exposed by Pascal in the 'Provincial Letters.' Sincerity and simplicity are first virtues in Christian workers; both the man and his labours must be such as can be searched through and through. Guile, as the world understands the term, must not be once known among us, as becometh saints.

II. THE IDEA OF " CAUGHT WITH GUILE " THAT IS ADMISSIBLE IN CHRISTIAN WORK . In the sense of adaptation to capacity it is an essential feature of Christian service. This may sometimes appear to the onlooker as guile. In teaching children or uneducated people, truth has to be simplified, to be set in figure and parable, and broken up into parts and pieces, and such guilefulness St. Paul recognizes as valuable. He fed the people with "milk" when he knew that they were unlit to receive "strong meat" of truth. Our Lord himself was guileful in this good sense, for at the close of his intercourse with his disciples he said, "I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." It may also be shown that there is a "quick wittedness" and skilful seizing of opportunities, which are gifts finding honourable spheres in the Christian Church.

III. THE IDEA OF " CAUGHT WITH GUILE " THAT NOBLE - MINDED MEN SHRINK FROM EMPLOYING . Such are the various sensational devices of modern revivalism. The masses are to be caught with the guile of trumpet, and drum, and dress, and excited meetings. We need not say that such things are inadmissible, because they are not morally wrong. But where there is a full sympathy with the Divine Lord, who "did not strive, nor cry, nor cause his voice to be heard in the streets," all such guilefulnesses cannot but be painful. Anything approaching to an advertising of the gospel or the preachers of the gospel grieves the sensitive feeling of all who know that the gospel needs no such introductions, but is itself God's power unto salvation to every one that believes. Our "yea" had better be simple "yea;" with no blast of trumpet or roll of drum let us tell men of the life there is for all in Christ our living Saviour; and let our only guile be adaptation.— R.T.

2 Corinthians 12:21 - The humbling of God's ministers.

"I fear… lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you." "There is something almost plaintive in the tone in which the apostle speaks of the sin of his disciples as the only real humiliation, which he has to fear." The following points will be readily worked out and illustrated according to the experiences of the preacher:—

I. SUCH HUMBLINGS COME FROM SEEMING FAILURES . Compare our Lord's distressful reproach of Capernaum and other towns on the shores of the lake of Galilee. See also St. Paul's trouble over the failure of the Galatians from their primitive faith: "O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?" etc.

II. SUCH HUMBLINGS COME FROM STRIFE AND DIVISIONS . As illustrated in the Corinthian Church (see 1 Corinthians it.). Such strife may arise from

III. SUCH HUMBLINGS COME FROM INDIVIDUAL BACKSLIDINGS . There is no sadder phase of experience for Christian ministers than the spiritual and moral failure of their converts, and of those whom they have most fully trusted in Christian life and work. So often men fall into temptation and are overcome in their middle life. When ministers look for the ripest fruitage, then there is blight and death; wealth, pleasure, vice, smite and kill the soul, and the pastor weeps over the toil of life that seems to have been all in vain. St. Paul spoke of the Corinthians as "his glory and joy;" and the things which he goes on to mention in this verse put shame on his work, for the gospel call is "not unto uncleanness, but unto holiness." And ministers spend their strength for nought if those who believe are not "careful to maintain good works."—R.T.