(2) I told you before, and foretell you, as if I were present, the second time; and being absent now I write to them which heretofore have sinned, and to all other, that, if I come again, I will not spare: (3) Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, which to you-ward is not weak, but is mighty in you. (4) For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you.
I pause at this last verse, for it is a most interesting one, to consider for a moment how blessedly the Holy Ghost speaks of Christ's being crucified through weakness. Paul very likely meant it in allusion, to-himself; that as Christ, in the days of his flesh; appeared in all the poverty and humbleness with which his character was marked, and was, nevertheless, in the moment so appearing, just as much as ever God's dear Son; so Paul meant to tell the Corinthians, that his poverty and outward appearance ought not to have lessened him in their esteem, for he had fully proved the Holy Ghost's authority in their hearts, in sending him to them, to preach the Gospel. But I shall beg to call the Reader's attention to what Paul hath here said in relation to Christ's being crucified in weakness, to a much higher consideration, than in accommodating it to Paul's history.
It is in my view a beautiful portion of God the Spirit's gift to the Church, in teaching the Lord's people to behold immense blessings, held forth under slender appearances. Christ crucified through weakness is a comprehensive expression, alluding to the human nature of the Lord Jesus. In all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren. The very nature he came to redeem, he must take into union with his Godhead. He must be made like unto sinful flesh. Like unto it. That is, sin only excepted, he must be the very same. Weak, and subject to all the frailties and infirmities his sinless nature could be the subject of, capable of sustaining sufferings and death. Hence, in that weakness he was crucified and died. But to demonstrate at the same time, that though Jesus endured those sufferings and death, for his body the Church, it was all voluntary, and as the Surety of his Church, for his divine power brake out through the vail of his body, in many acts which demonstrated his Godhead, both in the wonders of his cross, and his triumph over death in rising again. For, saith the Holy Ghost by Paul concerning him, he was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by his resurrection from the dead, Romans 1:4. Reader! are not these sweet views of Jesus? Is it not blessed, by the way, here; and there interspersed in the Apostle's writings, to find such blessed, testimonies, as God the Holy Ghost gives, of the precious union or God and man, in the Person of Christ?