Paul refers to two letters that have not survived. He wrote his fourth letter to Corinth, II Corinthians 1-9, from Philippi in the summer of 55 AD.
II Corinthians 4:5-12 (Year B May 29-June 4) opens by completing remarks Paul us making regarding apostolic boldness as he continues the defense of his ministry. The controversy he faces drives him back to the positions he has taken in his life. The stress of controversy can stimulate us to review our language, imagery, and actions. It can cause us to review that for which we stand. It can cause us to clarify. While controversy can make us defensive, it can start us on a journey of creativity. His opposition may have suggested that Paul and his team preached about themselves, but he affirms that they proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord, which was the simple confession of faith in the church of the first century, and thus, they are slaves for the sake of Jesus. The result of responding to the gospel is to become a slave for them for the sake of Jesus. The gift and task of apostolic ministry was to live his life as their slave. This diminishes his social standing among them. He contrasts the God of Jewish faith with the false gods of various polytheistic contemporary approaches to religion, identifying this God as the one who spoke so that light would shine out of darkness (Gen 1:3), bringing light into the hearts of Paul and his team so that they can offer the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Paul offers a reflection on his personal experience of conversion and calling to apostleship. [1] Such a notion has firm Old Testament roots. People who lived a deep darkness have the experience of light shining upon them (Isaiah 9:2). The people of God can have their light rise in the darkness if they feed the hungry and minister to the afflicted (Isaiah 58:10). When the prophet sits in darkness, the Lord will be a light to him (Micah 7:8). The gospel of Jesus is an unveiling. God has removed a barrier between God and humanity in the gospel. Light shines into darkness. God grants access to the divine to those whose rebellion forbade it. Paul then continues by beginning a segment on the hardship and hopes of apostleship. Some of his opponents believe the suffering of Paul and his associates is reason to invalidate his apostleship. His hardships suggest to some that his ministry is failing. Paul turns the accusation around to say that his hardship is a sign of continuing the ministry of Jesus. Paul is reminding them that a life of faith is not always a life of ease or comfort. He offers a list of hardships (verses 7-12). He refers to the treasure that has come into their hearts and brought light to them as being clay jars, which are not of lasting value and therefore expendable, as are the mass-produced containers we use every day. In an analogous way, this mortal existence is subject to time, adversity, and decay, but it makes clear to others the extraordinary power that belongs to God and does not come from them. He will list the hardships they have experienced (I Cor 6:4c-5, 11:23b-29, 12:10, Rom 8:35). Whatever difficulty he encountered, God sustained and rescued Paul so he could continue to share the treasure God had given to him. Nevertheless, here, their weakness discloses God’s power. This teaching has some similarity to Stoic doctrine, yet Paul’s presuppositions are different. For Epictetus, the difficulties reveal what is inside people. For Paul, they reveal God’s power. Thus, their affliction does not crush them, their perplexity does not drive them to despair, the persecution they experience does not mean God forsakes them, life striking them down does not mean they are destroyed. What is happening in their ministry is they carry in their bodies the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also become visible in their bodies. He testifies that the new eschatological life is life in the full sense, in comparison with which earthly life is life only with reservations.[2] The weakness of his apostolic teem relate to the weakness of Christ, through which the power of God would be shown. He grants that the circumstances of their lives give them up to death for the sake of Jesus, but through their mortal flesh the life of Jesus becomes visible. Suffering is a continuing aspect of apostleship, for apostolic service means participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Such suffering is a working out of the suffering of Jesus in their ministry. He grants that while death is at work in his team, life is at work in therm. Paul is granting that he is a dying man. To be sure, some may suppose that Paul’s afflicted, perplexing, persecuted and battered ministry indicates God’s disapproval and its impending demise. Despite appearances, though, the irony is that God reveals the glory of the risen Lord through the ministrations of these fragile “clay jars” – persons in whose mortal bodies “death is at work” to offer “life” to all whom God calls. Paul can write dramatically of his vulnerability, weakness, and abandonment as an apostle and Christian. Here, Paul defines the “earthen vessel” as one that is troubled, perplexed, persecuted, and cast down. He is referring to external pressures that oppress him, inwardly approp“iating th” –ternal pressure, so that he can describe the totality of it as a repetition in his own person of the dying of Jesus.[3] In this sense, death for the believer is not ahead of us, but behind us, as we bear the marks of the death of Jesus.[4] We see here that hope of eternal life is a consequence of fellowship with Jesus Christ in general, but especially with his death.[5]
II Corinthians 4:13-5:1 (Year B June 5-11) expresses the hope that allows to endure suffering in this life. He shows that the suffering endured by the apostle is part of the ministry of the gospel. The text may endow apostolic ministry with a sacramental character. He refers to the spirit of faith, a unique phrase in the literature we have from Paul, that is in accord with the faith spoken of in the Old Testament (Ps 116:10, 115:1 LXX), reaffirming what he said in verse 8a, that his team experiences affliction, but it does not crush them. He applies the text to his situation. The promises of God to Israel allowed the psalmist to have such confidence and expectation for the future.[6] He makes a similar point in 3:6 and 4:5, where they faithfully proclaim Christ despite fierce opposition. His point is that they proclaim Jesus Christ because of their convictions. Their faith rests upon knowledge that the one who raised the Lord Jesus, the God to whom the psalmist prayed, will also raise his team and the believers in Corinth with the risen Jesus into the presence of God. For Jesus, the focus of faith was the God of Israel and zealous adherence to the first commandment, on which he based his summons to the kingdom. In Paul, the faith of Christians in the future salvation that fellowship with Christ guarantees rests on knowledge of the incorruptibility of the risen Lord.[7] The specific hope of life beyond death rests on fellowship with Christ, which places it on the right basis.[8] He insists that everything happens for the sake of the glory of God. He then emphasizes the theme of the unseen and the eternal. They persist in preaching the gospel. Our physical days are numbered, imperceptibly moving toward their inevitable end. We see the hardships and troubles this life, but they are only momentary and transitory. Yet, they serve a timeless, eternal purpose, for the inner nature, the Christ-filled center of our lives, hidden from the world, is what is of significance. The renewal of the inner nature is by repeated acts of faith, so they receive the life of Jesus repeatedly, making discouragement impossible. Death is the destiny of us all. God will not abandon us. Paul is addressing a basic human concern. Human beings do not want to be treated as strangers in this world. We long for acknowledgement. The acknowledgment of our having lived at death is a sign by those who remain alive that our lives have mattered to them. For most of us, we want to believe that our lives have mattered to some larger purpose. The contrast between the finite and infinite, the temporal and the eternal, is a way of expressing that longing. The body decays and we die, but we still have a home, a heavenly body, eternal in the heavens. He approaches aging and approaching death that in a way that embraces the fullness of a human life. This “home” is a new form of the community we experience here and now, but which comes from God. We move toward the pulling down of this visible house, which is our bodies, but which is also the community of faith in Christ here and now. We wait fearfully for the moment when the first house will have gone and the second does not yet surround and protect us. [9] The promise of glory refers to good rapport with God and acceptance from God. It refers to a welcome that comes from the heart of things. We have been moving toward the door of Eternity all our lives. We knock on that door. It will finally open and reveal the weight of glory that we have sensed all along.[10]
II Corinthians 5:6-17 (Year B June 12-18) expresses both confidence in the hope of Christians (verses 6-10) and in the commission from God of the ministry of reconciliation (verses 11-17).
The hope enables him to endure repeated hardships, and this certainty of future resurrection propels him to continue his mission with boldness. Though he is facing opposition from some in the Corinthian community, the apostle does not shy away from revealing the persecution that has accompanied his preaching of the gospel and uses the severity of his affliction to exemplify the sincerity of his motives to bring the Corinthians life in Christ. Paul is raising the question of whether death is the most powerful force in the universe. His answer is a resounding No. For Paul, Jesus has come along; his resurrection affirming that life is the most powerful force in the universe. He grants that while the body is his present home, he knows that the resurrection of Jesus means he has an eternal home with Jesus. This life is an important parenthesis, living with the tension of the present duty of sharing the gospel with others, and the suffering it will mean, but knowing that leaving this home in the body will bring him to his eternal home with Jesus. His hope derives from his faith. Hope reaches beyond what is present to something not yet visible. [11] He contrasts faith with sight. We naturally have confidence in what we can see. Yet, there are processes off the mind, the will, and the emotions that are internal, and thus not available to the five senses. In this invisible arena of interior life is our way of processing our experience of the world. Such processes have a weakness when contrasted with what we can measure, but they are vital to the way we approach our lives. Unwillingness to recognize that faith operates in this internal and invisible realm will weaken Christian life, for we will always looking for the external and visible to do something they cannot do.[12] The true home of one who has such faith is with the Lord. He suggests that some form of resurrection occurs at death, so that body and soul do not experience separation.[13] The point and objective of his life is to please God, so his desire to reside in eternity with the risen Lord is relative to the primary task of his life. [14] Ever before Paul is the knowledge that Christ will return and will judge, which Paul affirms because he has equated Jesus with the coming Son of Man in Jewish apocalyptic. [15] The point here is that the judgment of God will bring to light who are righteous and who are sinners.[16]Paul was convinced that those who relate to Jesus Christ by faith and baptism already have assurance of participation in the new life that has broken in with the resurrection of Christ. Yet, he still expected that we must appear before the judgment seat of Christ to receive what is due for things done in this life, whether good or bad.[17]
The discussion of the ministry of reconciliation occurs in the context of Paul defending his ministry. He summarizes the meaning of Christian ministry. The role of Christ as judge of all stimulates Paul and his team to persuade others to live as those whose primary task in life is to please God. He appeals to the knowledge God has of his team and to their consciences to stress the purity of his motives, which some in Corinth have questioned. What they see is outward appearance, some of whom would have something to boast about in contrast to the hardship and suffering endured by the apostolic ministry of Paul, but do not have anything to boast about in the realm of the heart. His hardship demonstrates the sincerity of his message. The core of the gospel message is that one has died, and therefore, all have died. Liberal Protestant theology, having its origin in Schleiermacher and the Enlightenment, did not give a sufficient account of the significance of the death of Christ for the Pauline thought of the reconciling of the world by God.[18] Isaiah 53:12 stresses the expiatory efficacy of the death of the Servant, but Paul stresses the universal scope of the efficacy of that death. [19] The historical singularity of this event changes the human situation before God. In the torture, crucifixion, and death of this one Jew we do not deal with just any suffering, but with the suffering of God. In Christ, humanity becomes the friend of God, rather than an enemy of God. Christ becomes the human partner of God in a new covenant. In Christ, God has ended humanity as sinners by taking sin within God.[20] God turns toward humanity and determines to be in fellowship with humanity. [21] The death of Christ includes the death of each human being in such a way as to change its character to that of hope.[22] When we subjectively live with this faith, we live sacrificially. The expiatory nature of the death of Jesus is present in that his death preserves people for eternal life in the judgment of God. All believers experience this freedom through anticipation and participation in the future of eternal life. This thought leads from the exclusive sense of dying in the place of another to the inclusive thought of the meaning of the death of Jesus “for us.”[23] Because of the expiatory death of Jesus that has changed the character of our death, we look at the world different. Our present is different because of the cross. As the song “Glorious Day” (2017) puts it, I was in the tomb of my shame, but then the call of the risen Lord came, and I ran out of that tomb, out of darkness and into the glorious day of the Lord, as the Lord makes the old new. We do not look at Jesus as simply a Jewish rabbi of the Second Temple period, who founded a Jewish movement that embraced a sense of the universality of the teaching of Judaism, thereby setting aside significant portions of the Torah, but embracing its Shema and uniting it with the love of neighbor, rejecting the path of violence while living under the political authority of Rome. To know Jesus in this way is not to know Christ at all. [24] Paul is testifying to his personal experience, the transition of his knowledge of Jesus from his pre and post conversion knowledge of Jesus as the Christ. By accepting the death of his existence, Jesus made room for that of others. Others in their individual particularity can share in the filial relation to God and the inheritance of the reign of God only through the death of Jesus and through acceptance of their own death for the sake of God and the reign of God.[25] One who is lives with intimately knowing Christ in this way is already a new creation, no longer looking at themselves or each other from simply a human point of view. They have removed the old things and replaced them with the new things that have taken place in Christ, finding fulfillment in the vocation of the ministry of reconciliation. [26]
II Corinthians 6:1-13 (Year B June 19-25) defends the ministry of Paul and his team. They cooperate with God in being ambassadors for Christ. He does not want his efforts in speaking and their efforts in listening to be in vain. Their failure in standing with Paul will lead to loss of reconciliation with God. He refers to Is 49:8-9, one of the servant songs in Isaiah finding its fulfillment at this moment. Paul is encouraging his readers to decide and to act. He supports this appeal by offering his credentials. He and his team are servants of God. He reiterates a list of hardships as his way of defending his ministry. Suffering comes upon him because he is a servant of God. This catalogue of blessings, battles, virtues and afflictions is Paul’s resumé or curriculum vitae. The embattled apostle is establishing that no one has suffered so much, for so long, for so few and with so little appreciation. Reading this list in the light of church history and of the suffering church throughout the world today, many faithful servants have had these experiences. Paul and his team comment themselves through the practice of endurance of general suffering, suffering at the hands of their opponents, and the suffering involved in self-discipline. They commend themselves with good characteristics and tools they seek to cultivate and display during their ministry: purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God, with weapons of righteousness. They commend themselves in the paradoxical nature of suffering for God, the judgment of people overturned by God, as people view them in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and in good repute. People accuse them of being impostors, but they are true, of being unknown, yet they are well known, as spreading rumors of his death, and yet they are alive, punished, but not killed, as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, as poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing, and yet possessing everything. All these difficulties and challenges could defeat or destroy anyone, but they do not destroy the Paul and his team. Life is difficult, and faithfulness in discipleship does not make it easier. Paul and his team will not give up. They are bent by the difficulties of life, but not broken. Here is a reminder that in every culture, faithfulness in discipleship can end careers and halt advancements. To identify oneself with Christ can lead to disgrace, shame, and dishonor in the eyes of others. He concludes gently, urging an improvement in their relationship, saying that while Paul and his team have opened their mouths to speak to them, they have also opened their hearts to them, having no restriction in their affections. The only restriction has been in them, so he urges them to open their hearts to Paul and his team. Here I a reminder that among the greatest challenges of any leader in the church are the good people in the churches. Yes, life can be difficult as a Christian in this world, but churches from the beginning have been all too good at shooting their wounded workers.
II Corinthians 8:7-15 (Year B June 26-July 2) finds Paul encouraging the church at Corinth to fulfill a pledge they had previously made concerning a collection for the church in Jerusalem. It raises the question of our financial generosity. In doing so, the text is consistent with other troubling parts of the Bible. I say troubling because most of us can hold onto our bank accounts quite well as soon as someone talks about generosity.
“God loves a cheerful giver” (II Corinthians 9:7).
“In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’” (Acts 20:35).
Here are a few texts from Proverbs about generosity:
Proverbs 3:9-10: Honor the Lord with your substance and with the first fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.
Proverbs 11: 24-26: Some give freely, yet grow all the richer; others withhold what is due, and only suffer want. A generous person will be enriched, and one who gives water will get water. The people curse those who hold back grain, but a blessing is on the head of those who sell it.
Proverbs 13:7: Some pretend to be rich, yet have nothing; others pretend to be poor, yet have great wealth.
Proverbs 14:20-21: The poor are disliked even by their neighbors, but the rich have many friends. Those who despise their neighbors are sinners, but happy are those who are kind to the poor.
Proverbs 19:17: Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and will be repaid in full.
Proverbs 22:9: Those who are generous are blessed, for they share their bread with the poor.
Proverbs 25:21: If your enemies are hungry, give them bread to eat; and if they are thirsty, give them water to drink; for you will heap coals of fire on their heads, and the Lord will reward you.
Proverbs 28:27: Whoever gives to the poor will lack nothing, but one who turns a blind eye will get many a curse.
And from Ecclesiastes 11:1: Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days. (KJV)
He uses guilt to encourage the Corinthians in their giving. Paul’s confidence that the Corinthians will come through is because he sees in them evidence of these spiritual gifts. Yes, they excel in their faith. Here, he refers to wonder-working faith that some Christians have, rather than the faith in Christ that all Christians have. They excel in speech, such as tongues and prophecy (I Corinthians 12:10. 28). They excel in knowledge in the sense of spiritual insight.They excel in eagerness. They excel in the love Paul has for them. Therefore, he wants them to excel in generosity. As he said in I Cor 13, love is greater than all spiritual gifts. The measure of generosity begins with the sacrificial love of Christ.Paul is basing his statement on Christological affirmations like Philippians 2:6-11, where Christ did not hold on to equality with God, but humbled himself and became a servant. If the argument from spiritual gifts does not work, Paul then reminds them that the earnestness of others resulted from the generosity of Christ. The point is not to emulate what Christ did, but “Do what is appropriate to your status as those who have been enriched by the grace of Christ.” He reminds them of their debt of service in Christ. Everyone in the community of faith should have enough, referring to Ex 16:18. Just as God provided manna for the Israelites in their wilderness wanderings, so God has provided for the Corinthians. He is urging them to give as an earnest sign of their faith in this gospel and as a sincere symbol of their partnership — their koinonia — with the Jerusalem church. This concern for equality echoes back to his explicit statement in Romans 15 of the Gentiles’ spiritual debt and resonates with his use of koinonia to describe this collection (Romans 15:26; II Corinthians 8:4; 9:13). This collection is representative of a partnership in Christ. Because the churches he is now dealing with are part of the Gentile world, it is Paul’s job — while not insisting that they convert to Judaism before becoming Christians — nevertheless to introduce them to a Jewish style of social ethic. There should be no poor in the people of God because all should realize that wealth belongs to God and one of the responsibilities is to share it among all God’s people (Deuteronomy 8 and 15). Even the land on which the Israelites lived was not their own land, really. It belonged to God (Joshua 12-21). In this way all Israelites had an economic safety net in a wide variety of laws that required that they look out for each other as an extended kin group, and that they acknowledge that their wealth was not their own, but God’s. Just as the Corinthians shared today with the Jerusalemites, Paul argued, these Christian brothers and sisters might one day save them in their own hour of need. Beyond the mere sharing of economic resources, however, was the issue of membership in the Christian community. If the Gentiles were to be a true part of the Christian community, they had to be encouraged to hold onto community ties to the original Jewish Christian community.
John Wesley confronted the complications that attend Christians’ work in the world. He noted that religion produces both demanding work and simplicity of material circumstances. Such Christian virtue or character will produce some wealth. For some, it will produce much wealth. Yet, riches have the tendency to increase our pride, anger, and love of the things this world can provide. People will often maintain the outward form of religion. Yet, the inward and spiritual dynamic of religion will vanish. The way out of this dilemma is for Christians to encourage each other to gain all they can, save all they can, and give all they can. Such generosity of heart and life will enable one to grow in grace.[27]
Wesley raises the importance of developing Christian character. Developing character involves an inner confrontation. Character is a set of dispositions, desires, and habits that one slowly engraves into our lives as we struggle against our weaknesses. We become disciplined, considerate, loving, and generous, through a thousand small acts of self-control, sharing, service, friendship, and refined enjoyment. As we make disciplined, caring choices, we slowly engrave certain tendencies into our minds and hearts.[28]
A spirit of generosity is an important spirit to cultivate. Our first obligation is toward spouse and family. If we are generous to those outside of that circle, and make those within that circle suffer, we have abandoned our first moral obligation. Having a generous spirit is about more than money. If we have knowledge that would be helpful to others, we are greedy if we do not share it with others. We can give only what we possess and only on condition of not having our possessions own us. Generosity elevates us toward others, and toward ourselves as beings freed from the pettiness that is the self.
II Corinthians 10-13 is another letter Paul wrote while he was at Boera or Thessalonica in the spring or summer of 56 AD. Paul received disturbing news from Titus. Paul was aware of the presence of his opponents earlier, and makes some reference to them, but they have gained in influence. The letter is a strong polemic against a group within the church that questioned Paul’s apostolic authority. They are an identifiable group. In 10:2, he identifies them as a group he must oppose when he comes. In verse 12, he refers to those who commend themselves. In 11:12-13, he refers to those who make themselves equal to Paul, making themselves to be false apostles, deceitful works, and disguising themselves as apostles. In 11:15, they disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness. In 11:18, they boast by human standards. They boast, of course, in 11:19-21b. He asks the rhetorical question, whether “they” are ministers of Christ. Yet, Paul does not provide a systematic description of their background, their claims, their methods of operation, or their teachings. In addition to the above, he also refers to them as “super-apostles” in 11:5 and 12:11. He does not become any more definite than referring to them with words like “some,” “certain ones,” “they,” and “them.” They were swaying the early Christians as they wondered what Paul’s true status and worth were. Paul has been accused of lacking any special relationship with Christ. They accuse him of being inferior in religious knowledge. He seems accused of being ineffectual in making public speeches. He does not carry out the apostolic claims he makes in his letters, because his personal presence is not as authoritative as his letters, in 10:10-11 and 11:5-6. He was accused of conducting himself by worldly standards in 10:2. Further, Paul views his opponents as intruders that have seduced the congregation from its devotion to Christ by accepting a different gospel “quickly enough” in 11:3-4. They are outsiders who, by means of commendatory letters from elsewhere, have sought to establish themselves as apostolic authorities in territory evangelized by Paul. They had probably not arrived in Corinth when Paul wrote I Corinthians in the fall of 54 AD, but they had become active by the time of II Corinthians 1-9, the fall of 55 AD.
They claimed a relationship with Christ and an apostolic authority superior to that of Paul. They sought, with some success, to win the Corinthian Christians over to their version of the gospel and to assume leadership of the congregation. They had letters of recommendation. They also made extravagant self-recommendation, boasting of their Jewish stock and about special signs of their apostleship, such as their rhetorical eloquence and impressive personal bearing, their boldness, their missionary achievements, their ecstatic experiences, their special religious knowledge derived from extraordinary visions and revelations, and their ability to perform miracles. With all the things in which they boasted, Paul came across as being weak and ineffectual, especially in his speech and physical appearance. His sufferings and hardships depleted his energies. He demeaned himself by refusing financial support from the Corinthians and instead remained active in his craft. They questioned his integrity in dealing with the congregation. From the perspective of Paul, they are intruders and deceivers. They have inserted themselves into a church he has founded and for which he alone should have apostolic responsibility. They are deceivers who misrepresent themselves, preaching a different gospel. They have seduced the Corinthians from the faith.
II Corinthians 12: 2-10 (Year B July 3-9) is in the context of the speech of a fool, relating this to visions and revelations. Although Paul will describe a vision, he does not want to draw attention to it. He does not see in it any basis for teaching. As much as people seem to assign such mystical experiences immense importance, Paul views it as secondary. From the beginning of his ministry in Corinth, Paul had chosen to focus his preaching to the Corinthians not on the glories of the Son of God but upon “Christ crucified” (I Corinthians 2:1-5; cf. 1:18, 22-25). Paul is fooling no one in saying he refers to a person in Christ. He is avoiding self-praise as a tool of rhetoric, avoiding the praise of oneself directly, in line with the advice of Plutarch in On Praising Oneself Inoffensively. The experience occurred 14 years ago, or around 42 AD, well after his conversion in 33-36 AD, dating the experience in a way consistent with the prophetic tradition in Israel. he was caught up to the third heaven. In the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 10:14, I Kings 8:27, Nehemiah 9:8, and II Chronicles, 2:6, 6:18, make formal distinction between heaven and the heaven of heavens. It could refer to the firmament, the heavenly ocean, and then heaven proper. Paul has something like this in mind. This idea differs from the traditional rabbinic view of Paul’s day that envisioned the existence of seven heavenly levels. In Hebrews 4:14 Jesus passes through the heavens to get to God. Even evil powers are also part of the heavenly realm (Ephesians 6:12).Throughout his ministry, Paul was concerned about preaching Christ crucified and building up the church, and he only spoke of his own personal spiritual journey insofar as it advanced his mission. The experience is remarkable in that it brought him into the direct heavenly presence of God. The fact that it was so real and tangible made Paul unable to distinguish between whether it was a spiritual vision or an actual transport of this body into another realm, another sign of how remarkable this experience was. The experience may have been more like rapture than a vision. Paradise, the highest heaven, identical with the third heaven, a remarkable elevation into the presence of God. Paul is not so concerned about what he sees there, but about what hears there. Yet, he cannot repeat it. To do so would make him the center of attention, and that is not what he wants. He thinks of it as a revelation, used here in a middle position between the provisional disclosure of secrets that will not gain greater clarity until the end and experiences of revelation in the broader sense.[29]Extraordinary spiritual experiences cannot legitimate his apostleship. He could boast truly of other powerful experiences, but he chooses not to do so. As such, we learn that the Spirit was not regulative for Paul.[30] For Paul, there must be a consistency between himself and his message. He then shifts the discussion to his weaknesses and the use God makes of them to divine advantage. Thus, his only ground for boasting is his weakness. His weakness does not allow him to boast in the revelation he received. The thorn he has received teaches him a lesson on humility while also being a messenger of Satan to torment him. It refers to a physical infirmity. The beatings and stoning he received (11:25) may have damaged his physical eyesight, which might explain his mention of the distinctiveness of his oversized handwriting (Galatians 6:11). I might note a form of poetic symmetry in this suggestion. The constant blurriness of his natural vision was a reminder not to overemphasize the importance of spiritual visions. In the end, however, we cannot know its exact nature. He addressed his prayer to the Lord, clearly referring to the exalted Christ, one of the means through which the church would reflect upon and develop its notion of the Trinity.[31] The Lord told him that the grace the Lord gives him is sufficient, for divine power is made perfect in weakness. The prayer of Paul remains unanswered. God is operative through the weakness of Paul. For Paul the more important event is not the experience of ecstasy but the reality of the humbling “thorn in the flesh” that Paul has inextricably tied to this spiritual event of vision or revelation. Paul has been through it all, and yet neither the personal highs nor the lows mean that much. He realizes that an authentic person of Christ is not one who boasts, but who trusts the sufficient grace of Christ in any circumstance. Consistent with what he wrote in Romans 8:28, God turned this torment toward a beneficial purpose. Regardless of its painful and debilitating elements, it was not life threatening or capable of curtailing his ministry. The grace of God was sufficient. In fact, Paul will get nothing more than grace and he needs nothing more than grace.[32] Newton wrote of this grace as well.
Through many dangers, toil, and fears
we have already come;
’Twas grace that brought us safe thus far,
and grace will lead us home.
Whatever Paul perceived as a torment, it certainly gave him a depth of wisdom in his experience and helped him focus on the reality of the Lord’s sufficient grace. Thus, the Lord did speak to him, but not in the ecstasy of his vision or rapture, but in his unanswered prayer. He will boast in his weakness so that what people would see in him would be the result of a divine work. This basic principle holds true for any “weakness.” The power of Christ has entered or taken up residence in Paul. The power of Christ dwells in Paul at his points of greatest weakness, and we can have the same assurance.[33] In a sense, Paul does not want to frighten away this thorn. God receives glory through the weakness and the gospel advances through the weakness.[34] A hint of what the thorn in the flesh is comes when he refers to his weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities, since they are for the sake of Christ. Facing the weakness allows him to rely fully upon God, rather than being self-sufficient. The weakness that characterizes his apostleship represents the effective working of the power of the crucified Christ in his ministry. In a sense, his ministry shared the weakness of Jesus of Nazareth. We can see this as the passion piety of Paul, referring to the way in which the sufferings of Paul are an expression of his identification with Christ.[35] Such a fellowship of suffering is not simply an historical relationship of follower and master, but a bond that takes place in faith. We should not think of this fellowship as one artificially induced imitation of Christ. In fact, this passage means that all suffering has such a connection to the sufferings of Jesus. We learn the nature of suffering beneath the cross, learning that suffering becomes things of which we can boast.[36] The proof of God’s activity in Paul’s life, and in the lives of the Corinthian and all Christians, is not magnificent spiritual visions or miraculous physical healings. The proof of God’s activity is the grace that sustains us even in our weakness, for it is in those moments that we recognize the power is not our own but must come from God. Boasting in our own power is foolishness and accomplishes nothing; boasting in our weakness may just remind us that “the power of Christ” also resides within us.
The Christian community will need to speak openly of its weakness. The strength of Jesus Christ is so in supreme weakness. The church can expect that the world will find no room for it. In this sense, the church must share Christ in His weakness. Christ had no abiding place, and so, neither does the church. The church is at home nowhere in the world. It can only camp here and there as the pilgrim people of God. It does receive any rights of settled citizenship. The institutions of the world recognize at some level the alien character of the church. The world is aware of what might be involved by incorporating this stranger into itself. The world knows that it cannot really trust it. At best, it offers respectful but cautious toleration, taking diligent care not to become too deeply implicated. In practice, it recognizes that the church does not really belong. Yet, in this weakness stirs its strength or ability.[37]
[1] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 354.
[2] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 347.
[3] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.3 [71.5] 633.
[4] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.2 [47.5] 621-2.
[5] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 211.
[6] Walter Brueggemann [The Old Testament] "voices the oldest, deepest, most resilient grounding of hope in all of human history, a hope that has been claimed by both Jews and Christians ... The hope articulated in ancient Israel is not a vague optimism or a generic good idea about the future but a precise and concrete confidence in and expectation for the future that is rooted explicitly in [God's] promises to Israel."
[7] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 138.
[8] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 534.
[9] Church Dogmatics IV.2 [67.1] 628-9, III.2 [47.1] 494.
[10] ("The Weight of Glory," in C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses [New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975; First Touchstone Edition, 1996], 34-36.)
[11] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 174.
[12] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.1 [25.2] 53, IV.1 [62.3] 728. I am interacting with Barth here.
[13] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 578.
[14] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.2 [47.5] 640.
[15] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 613.
[16] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 209.
[17] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 568.
[18] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 407.
[19] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 425.
[20] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1 [59.2] 244-56.
[21] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1 [59.3] 293-5.
[22] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 429-30.
[23] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 420.
[24] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.3 [69.3] 200.
[25] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 433-4.
[26] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.3 [71.3] 530, 661.
[27] (John Wesley, Quoted in The Christian Century, October 15, 1997.)
[28] David Brooks, The Road to Character, (2015) p. 263.
[29] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, 209)
[30] W. D. Davies (Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 1948, p 198).
[31] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology, Volume 1, 265)
[32] Conzelmann (TDNT, Volume IX, 395)
[33] Rudolph Bultmann (Theology of the New Testament, Volume I, 1951, p 351)
[34] Karl Barth (Church Dogmatics, I.2 [17], 332)
[35] Bertram (TDNT, Volume VII, 608)
[36] Bultmann (Theology of the New Testament, Volume I, 1951, 351) Bultmann thinks it mistaken to speak of passion mysticism here. The fellowship or sharing does not take place in absorbed meditation on the passion or in the soulful appropriation of the suffering of Christ in mystical experience.
[37] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (IV.3 [72.1], 742)
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