When The Lord Says No
Whatever Paul's thorn in the flesh was it was causing severe distress. It was "to buffet" him and the word doesn't suggest anything like "inconvenience". The very reading of the text suggests that the distress and pain is enduring and in light of God's response it was to last even longer.
Paul tells us he prayed to God about it and asked him three times to remove it. Three times might be literal and it might also reflect his imaging out of the Christ's experience in Gethsemane. Imaging it not in any slavish artificial way. And since he models his own life on that of Moses we will remember that Moses spoke to God more than once, asking God to let him in to the promised land. We'll recall that God told Moses the burden wouldn't be lifted and that he was not to mention the matter again (Deuteronomy 3:23-27).
In any case, Paul prayed fervently and asked for relief. In saying he asked he used an aorist verb in the indicative. This suggests that his days of asking were decisively in the past; he did it back then and was done with it. The reason he was done with it is because the Lord (in this text probably the Lord Jesus) who knew all about having a request denied, denied his request but gave him a glorious assurance.
When he tells us about the Lord's response Paul uses a verb in the perfect tense. And if we allow it to function as a perfect tense verb then Paul hears the word of the Lord ringing in his ears (Plummer) even as he writes to the Corinthians. Back then Paul used to ask for relief but he put a stop to it. And he stopped it because the Lord said something to him that is even now ringing in his ears.
Before we read what it was that the Lord said we need to note that for Paul it was decisive and satisfying. We need to note also that the man who was begging for relief was God's faithful servant who was on the rack. Instead of rushing over that truth to get to another we need to feel for the depths of that one.
This was such a person we might have thought should get a "yes" to the plea for relief. We sort of feel that he "earned" it. This was the sort of person
we would be especially eager to relieve and if the Lord has any compassion about him--the kind of "compassion" that means something to us in particular--surely Paul's hurt was a strong appeal. But though all that might be true, this was such a person that in some ways made it easy for the Lord to say "no".
Paul's desire for ease was real and urgent because the pain was prolonged and severe. But down below his strong desire for relief was something profoundly stronger--his hunger to serve God's redeeming purposes. The situation here was such that relief would not have served God's gracious purposes best and that more than he wanted relief Paul wanted God's glory and our redemption in Christ.
Here's a section of scripture that urges us to believe that pain and loss and satanic cruelty serve the glorious purposes of God. Here is a section that urges us to believe that God looks at some among us and is enabled by their devotion to him and to the world to say "no" to their fervent pleas. It's to their everlasting credit that God says no!
But there's nothing Stoic about Paul's capacity to exult in God's "no". Nor does it come down simply to the fineness of his character. Paul was helped in this matter because of his theology. He actually believed that in his suffering God's reconciling of the world in Christ was constantly rehearsed before the eys of a watching world. The "dying" or "killing" (Barrett) of Christ was acted out again in Paul (as part of Christ's body the church) and in this way the gospel was getting out. If that's what was happening, Paul taught, then he would embrace his vulnerability and pain with joy. Maybe a richer theology of suffering would help some poor souls bear their awful burdens more easily.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.