“And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” ~2 Corinthians 12:9
Paul, the apostle and author of this epistle, was a man who was certainly not unfamiliar with affliction and suffering. The Lord Jesus Himself even told Ananias so many years before, “For I must shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake” (Acts 9:16).
Too often, and by too many people, there is a mistaken idea of what Christianity is all about, and what it includes in and by and through its purpose. What is Christianity about? It is about the glory of God. It’s as simple as that— no more, no less. Soli Deo Gloria, “To God alone be glory,” was one of the chief cries of the Reformers.
And to that end, to that ultimate goal, to God’s glory alone, will our Christianity align with the Word of God; and it is in His Word worked in and through, and then worked out of our lives that God’s great glory is made manifest in us and expressed by us, in word and deed. One of the most prevalent truths from scripture is the revelation that the Christian life is not one of ease and leisure. Instead, holy writ reveals that the Christian life is one of discipline (2 Timothy 2:3), required for spiritual warfare (Ephesians 6:12). It is a life that the Bible promises will include hatred from the world (John 15:19), tribulation in the world (John 16:33), and persecution from its citizens because of the Christian’s growth in godliness by God’s grace (2 Timothy 3:12). Further, the Christian is commanded to mortify the flesh (Colossians 3:5), to deny self, and to take up his cross and follow Christ whole-heartedly, with unwavering devotion and without compromise (Matthew 16:24; Luke 14:26, 27). The Christian life is one filled with sorrows, difficulties, and afflictions (2 Corinthians 4:8-10).
At the end of his second letter to the Corinthians, the apostle, through a very intimate and revealing expression of his personal affliction, relates the answer to his prayers for God to remove his affliction (2 Corinthians 12:8). Paul gives a hopeful answer to his prayers from the Lord Jesus Himself, which is placed in this letter to bring hope, encouragement, and even provocation to increasing good works to the believers at Corinth, and to every believer as well. And although it is not an exhaustive answer to the sufferings of men until Christ returns, this passage provides three very important truths that we’ll consider very briefly: (1) God’s grace in Christ is all-sufficient; (2) Christ’s strength is perfected in our weakness; and (3) Christ’s power abiding upon us.
1. His Grace is Sufficient. To simply say, “God’s grace is sufficient,” is not to merely say that His grace through Christ Jesus is enough because it meets some minimum requirement of ours. These are the Words of Christ Himself when He declares to Paul, with the thorn still in Paul’s flesh, “My grace is sufficient for you.” This is the Lord Christ who speaks; the incarnate Son; the Second Person of the Trinity, who took upon Himself the form of a servant, whose righteous obedience was manifested through an entire life on earth, all the way to His obedience to death upon that wooden cross (Philippians 2:5-8). This is that same Jesus whose crucified, dead body was laid in a tomb three days only to rise again in that very same, crucified body; that same Jesus who ascended into heaven to be seated at the right hand of Majesty on high (Ephesians 1:20, 21). He is that Jesus that lives and reigns forever more. He is very God, though also very man. Therefore, as very God is decree of sufficient grace is an eternal decree of grace; its sufficiency, therefore, is all-sufficient, and not only meets Paul’s infirmities and ours with satisfaction, but exceeds them unto peace that surpasses understanding (Philippians 4:7), love that surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:19), and joy unspeakable, which glorifies God (1 Peter 1:8).
2. His Strength Perfected in Weakness. The great power in Christ’s sufficient, substitutionary atonement to redeem men, with that same great power exhibited when He raised in Himself from the dead, and with that same great power displayed in His ascension upon the Mount of Olives, as well as that same great power to rule and reign far above all principalities and powers as He is seated at God’s own right hand in heavenly places, is expressed most gloriously in Christ through redeemed souls saved by grace. This is a hard truth for most of us to reconcile. Because the condition of our humanity has been affected by the fall of Adam, and since we all fall short of the glory of God in every single situation, circumstance, thing, and thought apart from the grace of God found in Christ Jesus alone, we don’t want to be weak, we typically don’t see ourselves as weak, and will do all that is in our scant strength found in fallen flesh to prove we’re not weak. Nevertheless, in the providence of God, He reveals to us by His grace that the very best of our efforts are stained with sin, requiring Christ’s perfect strength. Interestingly, the most common means used of God to reveal this wretched lack in us is through affliction, infirmity, imprisonment, persecution, trial, tribulation, suffering, sorrow, etc. When our own self-sufficiency is arrested through dearth and difficulty, when the focus of our spiritual eye is removed from what I can do, we see more clearly than ever before, the all-sufficient goodness of God’s grace.
3. Christ’s Abiding Power. Affliction, suffering, calamity, weakness, suffering, tribulation, etc. alone will not allow us to see the perfect strength and all-sufficient grace of Christ; neither can we walk powerfully as spiritual Christians merely by a recognition of His grace and a revelation of His power. Many people are afflicted, yet they are still weak in spiritual things because they still rest in their own power rather than submitting to the truth of His power. Upon the poor in spirit, in their affliction they have Christ’s power resting, abiding, and dwelling upon their infirmed souls. First, that power helps them to continue to recognize the blessed revelation of Christ’s strength transcends their paltry weakness. That same power that reveals to men that the Word became flesh (John 1:14) is the same power that enables an infirmed soul to further surrender to Christ’s all-sufficient grace and perfected strength. That same power of God to condescend to become flesh and dwell among men, and that very same power that made an open display of God’s wisdom, justice, mercy, love, power, etc. in the death of His only Son at Calvary, defeated sin, death, and the grave in Christ’s resurrection after three days, is the same power spoken of by the apostle when he says, “that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” That power rests, that is, it abides— it dwells, just as Christ walked among His disciples, full of grace and truth, so also does the power of His Spirit, and even more so, because His grace is all-sufficient, and Christ has pitched the tabernacle of His Spirit upon those who abide in His all-sufficient grace, surrendering to His perfect strength.
This blog exists to bring joy and encouragement to all soldiers of the cross of Christ. Please know, dear saint, that regardless of your affliction, it is light and momentary (2 Corinthians 4:17). The glory of God is a mighty and majestic thing; and to bring Him glory in our weaknesses, and to one day see His glory in its exalted and infinite greatness, places our affliction in view of Christ’s light, and allows us to see how terribly light, how truly minor and miniscule, our affliction is.
