2 Corinthians 13:4 For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him… This is a very characteristic view of the crucifixion of our Lord, St. Paul never dwelt upon it complacently, as we do. There is no trace of his having ever elaborately described it, or endeavoured to move the feelings of his hearers or readers by the persuasions of his Lord's dying distresses. The Crucifixion was a painful subject to him. It was Christ's time of weakness. The apostle always seems to hasten away from that theme to what he can glory in, even Christ, the risen One, the living One, who now can save. Dean Plumptre explains the expression taken as our text thus: "For even he was crucified. St. Paul seems to see in Christ the highest representative instance of the axiomatic law by which he himself had been ccmforted, that strength is perfected in infirmities. For he too lived encom passed with the infirmities of man's nature, and the possibility of the Crucifixion flowed from that fact as a natural sequel." Professor Lias says, "Our Lord assumed our human nature with all its infirmities (Hebrews 2:10-18; Hebrews 4:15; Hebrews 5:2, 3), and although they were the result of sin. He bore all those infirmities, death itself included. And then he shook them all off forever when he rose again 'by the power of God.'" I. CHRIST WAS BODILY WEAK. We may fairly assume that our Lord had a healthy body; but it was subject to ordinary human infirmities. He felt fatigue, hunger, thirst, need of sleep; and spiritual work exhausted his nervous system as it does ours. We may even assume that his must have been a nervously sensitive body, since this is found to be the characteristic of all highly intellectual and all highly spiritual men and women. It will be easy to show how St. Paul would feel a special sympathy with the Lord Jesus in all this, since his too was a frail, sensitively organized body. Those who are easily depressed, readily affected by outward circumstances, and conscious of physical frailty, seldom realize how near to them in sympathetic experience comes the Lord Jesus Christ, and, after him, the great apostle of the Gentiles. II. CHRIST WAS SOUL STRONG. And therefore he could go through all the lot which God appointed for him, even though that included the bitter and terrible experiences of the Crucifixion. The soul strength St. Paul thought of as Christ living in the very midst of his weakness and suffering. His idea may be thus expressed: "We too are weak; we have our share in infirmities and sufferings, which are ennobled by the thought that they are ours because they are his; but we know that we shall live in the highest sense, in the activities of the spiritual life, which also we share with him, and which comes to us by the power of God; and this life will be manifested in the exercise of our spiritual power towards you and for your good." Reference is to the present ministry and not to the hereafter time. If Christ's weakness was, like St. Paul's, frailty of belly, he might rejoice that Christ's strength was soul strength, and, like his, the strength of God made perfect in weakness. - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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