January 2nd is one of the most dreaded days in a given calendar year. We stay up late, party regularly, and spend lots of money, act nicer -- and what do we get for it? The month of January takes its name from the Roman god Janus -- a two-faced being, with each visage facing the opposite direction. Janus/January is a hinge time -- a vantage point from which we can still see back in the past year and look forward to the coming year.
The apostle Paul in his second letter to the Church of Corinth chapter 12 verses 1-7 is in a situation of pivoting away from those impressed by the “super-apostles” those who thought small. He responds to their accusations of him for not boasting on himself but rather in the “visions” refers to things seen: “revelations,” to things heard (compare 1 Sa 9:15) or revealed in any way. Found in verses 2–4 Paul says that his vision was a source of revelation, though he coyly says that he is not permitted to convey its contents. Probably his opponents were claiming such experiences as a means of credentialing themselves. From 1 Corinthians it is apparent how interested the Corinthians were in things ecstatic. Paul puts the story of this revelation in the third person, following the rhetorical conventions regarding inoffensive self-praise. He is a bit ashamed to be forced into having to do this, so he removes himself a step from this particular boast. This event happened some fourteen years before the writing of this letter, which puts it somewhere about 40 and 44 A.D. This occurred before his conversion in the Damascus episode in 11:31–33, and well before arriving in Corinth. Like his revelation in 1 Corinthians 14 that he spoke in glossolalia more than all of them, the news of this experience may have come as a shock to the Corinthians. Why does Paul go back so far to dredge up this example?
Paul says twice that he does not know whether he was in or out of the body when he was “caught up.” He says he got as far as “the third heaven,” which he also calls “paradise,” a term from the Eden story that had come to be synonymous with what we call “heaven.”85 He is probably not suggesting there were any levels above the third heaven, for if he or his opponents or the Corinthians thought such a thing, this would not amount to much of a boast. In fact, in early Jewish literature, there was an impressive variety of opinions on the number of heavenly levels. Paul’s point may be that he got all the way to the third heaven. This was an unexpected escalation that took him by surprise.
Because Paul revealed this revelation, he was to be seen as an extraordinary person, taken up by God to a particular place, and given inside information. Therefore the Corinthians have severely underestimated him. But still, they should not be enamored with such experiences, since they are not the most important criteria by which apostleship are to be measured. Paul does not want them to overestimate him just because of an “excess” of revelations (v. 6).90 This is an implicit criticism against his opponents, who seem to have made some grandiose claims. Paul’s preference is to boast in weaknesses and speak the truth (v. 5).
Verse 7 makes it clear that there was something else that God allowed to happen to Paul along with this heady experience. God sent Paul a “thorn” or “stake” in the flesh, a “messenger of Satan,” to prevent Paul from becoming too elated over such revelations. In other words, it brought him right back down to earth.
But it was not just that the thorn was sent to Paul. The Lord also told him that his grace was enough for Paul (v. 9). This grace was obviously strength to endure, not healing grace. Paradoxically enough, Christ’s power is completed or comes to fullness in the midst of human weakness. When it is evident that Paul is weak, it will be equally apparent that the power and miracles and conversions could not become a human source but from Christ working in and through Paul. This weakness makes Paul most translucent so that one can see the source of the real power and light. He concludes when he is weak, it is then that he is strong, because then he must rely entirely on the Lord.
As we look in two directions on this day, let us pattern our descriptions of visions and revelations to the experience of Christ.
Christ faced a cross, Paul a stake or thorn;
Christ prayed three times for the suffering to pass, and so did Paul;
Jesus prayed “not my will but yours” while Paul received a revelation that God’s grace would be sufficient in his weakness; and
the cross and the thorn had to be not only faced but endured.
Jesus was a suffering Messiah, so it is no wonder that his agent was a suffering apostle.
Paul hopes by the material in the Fool’s Discourse to bring about a transvaluation of the Corinthians’ values and their criteria for apostles. This required him to use irony, parody, insult, and paradox to make clear to his converts this message: Things are not as they seem!
It is January 2. The profligate party is over. But the coming year promises more than just dieting and dues-paying. Let us use this January 2 to begin creating a future built on hope. It is the first day of living a faith that looks backward to the evidence of God's great gift to us in Jesus Christ and forwards to the day when God's plan "to gather up all things in him" will become a reality. We have been given another New Year. Let us use it wisely, to the glory of God.
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