A Special Revelation and its Sequel. By an account of a great spiritual experience which he had enjoyed, Paul explains the reason why he has been called on to suffer, and the Divine interpretation of the suffering, in the light of which he can ever rejoice in this weakness and in all similar experiences. An expression of his proud confidence is wrung from him, however he may doubt its expediency. He recalls memorable experiences of visions and revelations of the Lord, and one in particular, fourteen years before, when, under conditions that he could not explain; he found himself in the third heaven, in Paradise. Here he employs language drawn from late Jewish speculation, imagining a series of heavens one above another, and means the highest heaven. A man who has had such experiences has a right to a proud self-confidence, and may express it without incurring a charge of folly. But still Paul shrinks from doing so, lest men should be overawed by the excessive glory of such privileges. His desire still, as always, is to be judged by what he says and what he does. In this shrinking from putting forward the marvellous as a ground on which to claim allegiance of others, we may find a striking parallel to an important element in the Synoptic portrait of Jesus.
2 Corinthians 12:7. The first clause should be connected with what precedes, and the whole may be paraphrased thus: That no one may be led even by the vast number of revelations I have enjoyed to appraise my work otherwise than by what he has seen me do and heard me say. The thorn in the flesh was plainly some kind of torturing pain (? epilepsy, malaria) by which the apostle was frequently attacked (p. 769). Probably it produced temporary or permanent disfigurement of some kind, and so made him less acceptable as a preacher of the gospel, and gave his opponents an excuse for belittling his authority. Not once, but thrice, he had prayed to Christ for its removal. The answer had been heard in the assurance that Divine grace is directly proportioned to human need; the great weakness of the apostle is balanced by the manifestation of God's power on his behalf, so that we reach the paradox of Christian experienceWhen I am weak, then am I strong.