Will you please turn to 2 Corinthians?
2 Corinthians 1, verse 9:
But we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves,
that we should not trust in ourselves,
but in God who raiseth the dead.
Verse 12:
For our glorying is this, the testimony of our conscience,
that in holiness and sincerity of God,
not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God,
we have behaved ourselves in the world,
and more abundantly toward you-ward.
Now turn to 2 Corinthians 12, verses 9 and 10:
And He hath said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee:
for My power is made perfect in weakness.
Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses,
that the power of Christ may rest upon me.Wherefore I take pleasure in weaknesses,
in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake:
for when I am weak, then am I strong.
Let us have a word of prayer.
Dear Lord, our hearts are most grateful to Thee that Thou shalt remind us once again how much Thou dost love us. Thou lovest us to the uttermost.
We do praise and thank Thee that we are Thine, and Thou art ours. We thank Thee for this opportunity of coming before Thee and waiting upon Thee to open Thy Word to us, that we may hear Thy voice.
May not only our hearts burn, but may our eyes be opened to see Thee and to receive Thee into us in a fuller way. Lord, how we do desire that Thou be all to us. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
Last night, we shared together on 1 Corinthians. This morning, we would like to share together on 2 Corinthians.
Now, spiritually speaking, the Bible classifies mankind into three groups: the natural, the carnal, and the spiritual. You will find that in 1 Corinthians 2:14-15 and 1 Corinthians 3:3.
The natural are those who are not saved. They are in Adam. Their spirit was dead through sins and transgressions, so they are as if they have no spirit.
They have soul—their own thinking, their own emotion, their own will. They have their body, their passions and lusts, but the spirit is dead. And, of course, the Holy Spirit is not within them. So they are the natural.
People who do not know the Lord all belong to this class. As the Bible tells us, the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for these are folly to him. And he not only does not receive them, but he cannot know the things of the Spirit, because the things of the Spirit have to be discerned by the spirit.
That is the natural man. He is a man of the world. He is the man that we see everywhere.
And then the Bible says there are the spiritual. Now, who are the spiritual? The spiritual are those who are born again.
Not only has our old spirit, which was dead in sins and transgressions, been quickened into life and cleansed into new life—a new spirit—but in our new spirit the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, dwells.
And because the Spirit of God dwells in our spirit to guide and lead us, and to bring the life of Christ into us, therefore those who have received the Lord Jesus are supposed to be the spiritual.
That is to say, they have the Spirit of God in their spirit, and they are supposed to be led by the Spirit of God, to walk according to the Spirit, to live in the Spirit, and therefore they are the spiritual.
The spiritual discerns all things, because the Spirit of God who indwells them knows the depths of God. It is the spiritual who know God and the things of God.
Now, every believer, every born-again person, has the spirit and the indwelling Holy Spirit, and is supposed to be spiritual.
The spiritual is not for a few. Every born-again Christian is supposed to be spiritual. That is the will of God.
But unfortunately, we find that even though we have the Spirit of God in us, somehow we are still walking according to the flesh.
And because of this, you will find we remain as babes in Christ. As Paul mentioned in 1 Corinthians, in the beginning he treated them as babes, and he fed them with milk—predigested food—because their spiritual organs and faculties had not yet been exercised to receive solid food.
But after a few years, Paul said, “Well, you are still carnal. You are still fleshly. You have not grown.” That ought not to be, because even though you are the Lord’s, you still act according to man and not according to God.
And the Bible says that the mind of the flesh is not subject to the law of God. Not only is it not subject to God’s law, but it cannot obey God’s law, because flesh can never please God.
So here you find, in the middle between the natural and the spiritual, you have the carnal. In 1 Corinthians, we find that the Corinthian believers belonged to this class.
The Apostle Paul said, “You are yet carnal.” Even though you are the Lord’s, judging by the way you live, you are just like the natural man. The only difference is that the life of Christ is in you, but it is being imprisoned and is not released.
We mentioned last night that because they were carnal, they lived according to the flesh. Therefore, all the symptoms of the flesh, of the natural, came out. Sins became a problem to them.
The reason is that, after they had received the Lord as their Savior, they had not really committed and submitted themselves to Jesus as their Lord, nor allowed the cross of our Lord Jesus to work in their lives. That is the reason why they became carnal.
Now, when you turn to 2 Corinthians, it is an entirely different picture. In 1 Corinthians, you see what carnality is; but in 2 Corinthians, you see what spirituality is.
In the life of Paul, and in those who have received the cross working in their lives, the result is spirituality. That is, the spiritual man manifests Christ in his life.
I believe that this is what God wants all of us to be, and this is what we desire to be.
Paul said, “The spiritual discerneth all things, and he himself is judged of no man.” So, in a sense, you find that the spiritual person is a mystery.
Now, who are the spiritual? Yes, they are those people who are led by the Spirit of God. They are those people who walk according to the Spirit. They are those who are filled with the Spirit. These are the spiritual.
But who are they really? How can you discern that this is spiritual and that it is not carnal?
So I believe that in 2 Corinthians we have a number of signs telling us who are the spiritual. As a matter of fact, you find that the spiritual life is a paradox. Second Corinthians is full of paradoxes, and it is through these paradoxes that you realize what spirituality is.
So this morning we would like to fellowship together on a few of these paradoxes.
The first one is in 2 Corinthians 1:9. The Apostle Paul said, “We have the sentence of death in ourselves,” so that we cannot depend upon ourselves, but upon God who raises the dead.
Now, that is the first paradox: the sentence of death versus God who raises the dead.
Of course, when Paul mentioned this, he referred to something that happened to him, and perhaps to Timothy, when they were in Asia. We are not told what really happened to Paul when he was in Asia.
The only thing you find in Acts 19 is that, while he was in Asia, there was at one time a riot, and because of this Paul had to leave Ephesus. He was there for three years, and all Asia heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. God did a marvelous work there.
So we really do not know what actually happened to Paul. He used the pronoun “we,” so it may include Timothy. What really happened there, we do not know.
But something very terrible must have happened, because Paul said, “We despaired even of life.” The sentence of death was upon us. We could not depend upon man’s wisdom to try to solve our problem anymore. We came to our end, and the only One to whom we could look was the God who raises the dead.
He said, “In all sincerity, we can say we do not live by man’s wisdom, but we live by God’s grace.” This is our testimony.
Now, even though we may not experience physically the same thing that the Apostle Paul experienced in Asia, spiritually speaking, this is something that we have to experience in order to be spiritual.
We have to be brought to a place where the sentence of death is in us—that is, in our flesh.
You know, so far as God is concerned, when our Lord Jesus was crucified, the sentence of death was upon Him. It was not just some suffering; it was not just some pain and wounds. The sentence of death was upon our Lord.
And in this sentence of death, God sentenced all who are in Adam to death. So, in one sense, brothers and sisters, we were all—we are all—under the sentence of death.
God has already sentenced our flesh, ourselves. We are crucified with Christ. This sentence of death is upon all flesh, because God says there is no good in the flesh. It deserves death and nothing else. God did it in Christ Jesus for all of us.
But unfortunately, we do not accept it.
You know, brothers and sisters, when we are convicted of our sins, we acknowledge that we are sinners. We have sinned, and we need our Lord Jesus as our substitute. We accept His blood for the cleansing of our conscience, that we may be justified before God and that the mouth of our accuser may be stopped. Thank God for this wonderful salvation.
But strangely, when it comes to this matter that God has sentenced us to death, we do not agree.
Now, we do acknowledge that there are a lot of bad things in the flesh, and that these need to be rid of. But to say that there is no good in us—that is, in our flesh—seems to us too much. We do not agree with the Lord.
Even the Apostle Paul did not agree in the beginning. If you read Romans 7, you will find that in Romans 6 he had already heard the message. He knew that our old man was crucified with Christ.
But this mental knowledge is important, yet you need something more than this. In Romans 7, you find that he did not agree with God.
He said, “I want to serve God. I am able to keep His commandments. Now I belong to God. It is different now. I can do it.”
He had full confidence in himself. He rejected the sentence of death upon him, and he began to serve God and to keep God’s commandments.
But strangely, among the Ten Commandments, there is one commandment that has to do with inward things. “Thou shalt not kill” concerns an outward action, but among the Ten Commandments there is one that says, “Thou shalt not covet.”
“Thou shalt not be greedy.” Now, this has something to do with our inward feelings. Paul was very confident that he was not a greedy person. He was an ambitious person, but not a greedy person.
So when the commandment came, “Do not be greedy,” he was quite sure that he had never been greedy and that he would not be greedy.
But when he heard that commandment, somehow something stirred within him. That greediness began to come forward.
Before the law, he was perfect; but when the law came, he found that sin began to stir up within him. So he tried to deal with the situation. He tried to press it down and overcome it, but he found that it came up again.
This happened again and again until he said, “Well, this is not something I want to do. But I do what I do not want to do, and I do not do what I want to do, because I am bound by the law of sin and death.”
So after trying again and again, with strong determination—for Saul was a very strong-willed person—finally he discovered, “In me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.”
It was not until that point that he accepted the sentence of death that God had sentenced upon him. And when he accepted the sentence of death, immediately he cried, “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” And immediately, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ.”
In other words, he found God who raises the dead.
So, brothers and sisters, you find that in our spiritual pursuit, how can we come out from this stage of carnality and into the stage of the spiritual?
The first thing we need to do is, by the grace of God, come into a very real sense of this. This is not something that can merely be told to us. We have been told many times, but it is something that the Spirit of God has to lead us into experiencing.
You will not accept this sentence of death until you are brought into that dealing and discover that it is very true. God knows you much better than you know yourself.
Until you capitulate and say, “Lord, this is what I am. In me, that is, in my flesh, there is no good. As long as my flesh is in charge, I will fall into sin. I will violate Your law. I will offend You. There is no hope in me—that is, in my flesh.”
“I agree and say that Your sentence of death is justified. I accept it.”
When you accept this sentence of death, that is to say, you accept your co-death with Christ on the cross. When He died, you died in Him, and you take that position by faith.
Then resurrection life begins to come forth. In other words, the life of Christ in you is resurrection life. It is imprisoned by your flesh. So when you accept the sentence of death, the life of Christ—the resurrection life of Christ within you—is released.
You are now beginning to walk in newness of life, and this brings us into spirituality.
This is the first paradox that you find in 2 Corinthians. The second one is in 2 Corinthians 2:13-14.
The Apostle Paul wrote a very strong letter to the church in Corinth. You know, after the first letter to the Corinthians, evidently Paul made a short trip to Corinth. This was not recorded in the book of Acts.
But from 2 Corinthians you find that he said, “I am coming to you the third time.” Now, where was the second time? It was not mentioned in the book of Acts.
So evidently, after he wrote the first letter to the Corinthians, things were not improved. As a matter of fact, they got worse. Paul evidently made a hurried trip to try to help them, but it was a great disappointment to him. He was not accepted.
As he returned, he wrote another letter, a strong letter to them. He wrote the letter with many tears.
When we read 1 and 2 Corinthians, we really cannot see a letter written with many tears. So evidently he wrote a very strong letter. It touched him so deeply that he cried, shed tears, and was really in travail.
Most likely, he sent this letter to the church in Corinth by Titus. He made an arrangement with Titus to meet him at Troas, to hear what happened after the Corinthians received that letter.
Then he began to travel, and at a certain point he came to Troas. He was ready to see Titus there, to bring him news about the result of this strong letter—whether the Corinthians had received that letter and repented, or whether they were still strongly against him.
But when he came to Troas, in 2 Corinthians 2 you find that the Lord had opened a door for the gospel there. Yet he had no rest in his spirit because he could not find Titus there.
He was so worried and grieved about the situation in Corinth that, even though the door was wide open for him to preach the gospel, he had no heart to preach the gospel. He had no rest, and therefore he left.
By all appearances, he failed. The Lord opened a door for the gospel. How could he leave? Because he had no rest in himself. He was a failure.
But strangely, immediately after he said that he had no rest and therefore left, he said, “Thanks be unto God, who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ.”
Defeat and victory at the same time—another paradox.
You know, brothers and sisters, in our concept, the spiritual is a person who is always above his circumstances. He is never overwhelmed. He is a superman, always in control of his situations. That is a spiritual man.
In other words, in our concept, a spiritual man is not a man.
But the Bible tells us that a spiritual man is still a man. He is not a man of wood or a man of iron, with no feeling and no weakness of any kind. No, he is still a man.
There can be restlessness under certain situations, and it can be so overwhelming that he is not able to fulfill his duty.
But thank God, he does not remain there. Because he is still a man, he will have to go through all these things; yet you find that he bounces out of it quickly.
Think of our Lord Jesus. Think of the scene in Gethsemane. We would think that our Lord came for that purpose and knew it all along.
Yet when He got into that garden, He was so oppressed in His spirit, so troubled that His soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto death. He asked His three disciples to watch with Him, to help Him.
He even prayed, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from Me.” Did He not know that this was for Him?
He was a perfect man. His self was shrinking; His flesh recoiled. You see this.
Yet, being a man, He had to deny Himself. Even though He was God, He had to struggle for it. He had to pray. And when He prayed, He sweat, and His sweat became as blood. Such agony.
If the angel had not come and strengthened Him, He might have died in the garden.
Yet after three times, He said, “Thy will, Father, be done.” Now this is spirituality.
So, dear brothers and sisters, do not think that the spiritual person is not a man. You have emotion. You have feeling. You can be hurt—deeply hurt.
You can agonize. You can have restlessness. You can have weakness, even to the point of neglecting your duty.
Yet the life of Christ within you is so ascendant that you come back in no time.
Wherever you go, you still spread the fragrance of Christ, because it is not you; it is Christ in you.
I think that is the second paradox you find in 2 Corinthians.
The third one is in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 7:
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God,
and not from ourselves.
The Apostle Paul said, “We are earthen vessels.” We are made of earth, so naturally we are earthen vessels—cheap, opaque, easily broken, common. That is what we are.
But the strangest thing is that God put a treasure in earthen vessels. We would never do that. If we had a treasure, where would we put that treasure? In a gold box, embroidered and beautifully prepared. That seems fitting.
But God does the most wonderful thing: He puts the treasure in earthen vessels. Nobody would do that.
Of course, we know that the treasure is our Lord Jesus. That is the gospel.
It is not because the treasure is in us that we are no longer earthen vessels. We are still earthen vessels—cheap, common, fragile. We are still earthen vessels.
But thank God, this treasure is not.
What is the point of having the treasure in the earthen vessel? Why is it in that little vessel? God’s purpose is that the radiance of that treasure may be manifested.
Now, if you want the light of the treasure to be manifested, you would not put it in an opaque vessel. Without the earthen vessel, the treasure would really shine. Christ without us would shine.
But strangely, God puts Christ in us to shine. That is the mystery.
Because of this, in order that the radiance of the treasure may be manifested, and that the power may be of God and not of man, this earthen vessel has to be broken.
There must be breaking. God, by the Holy Spirit, arranges our circumstances to bring us to breaking.
So Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9:
We are pressed on every side, yet not straitened;
perplexed, yet not unto despair;
pursued, yet not forsaken;
smitten down, yet not destroyed.
I have read several versions of this, and I like something like this: “At our wits’ end, but not at our life’s end”; and, “Knocked down, but not knocked out.” I like that very much.
You know, brothers and sisters, why is it that God allows us to be brought to our wits’ end? Oftentimes we find ourselves at a point where we do not know what to do now. That is the end of it. Why?
Why is it that we have been knocked down so often? Is there something the Lord is trying to tell us?
We all like to keep our integrity. We all like to keep ourselves intact, to hold on to ourselves. Because of this, Christ is imprisoned. His radiance cannot come forth. His power cannot be manifested.
The only way is for God to do His breaking work. But thank God, we are finished, but Christ shines.
We bear in our body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be manifested not only in us, but also toward others. That is the way God works.
So again, you find that it is a paradox: brokenness and release.
That is the third one. There is a fourth one. Paul mentioned it in 2 Corinthians 12.
You know, in chapters 11 and 12, Paul opened himself, as it were, to the Corinthians because of their misunderstanding of him. He had to act like a fool and open himself.
Ordinarily, he would try to hide himself, because he was to preach Jesus Christ and not himself. But he was forced to act foolishly, and he began to tell us of himself.
When you read chapters 11 and 12, you find what sufferings this man had gone through for Christ’s sake. It is almost beyond our imagination. He suffered much more than most people will ever suffer.
Not only that, but what revelation he received. He was caught up to the third heaven. He was caught away to paradise and heard things that could not be uttered. What a man in Christ he was.
Because of the greatness of his revelations, God allowed Satan to attack him and put a thorn into his life.
Now, we do not know what that thorn was. Some people think it was physical, because Paul traveled in areas full of malaria. Evidently, he caught malaria.
With malaria, when an attack comes, you shake and tremble. Paul said that he was with them “in fear, and in much trembling.” Malaria can also hurt your eyesight, and Paul said his eyesight was so bad that he had to write in large letters.
Malaria makes one weak. Being a messenger of God, traveling among the Gentiles, he felt that he had to be strong physically. Otherwise, people would say, “You preach the gospel of salvation, and look at yourself—such a poor specimen.”
For the glory of God, he prayed and asked the Lord to take away that thorn, to take away his weakness. He wanted to be strong—strong for the Lord—and that is what it should be.
So he prayed and prayed and prayed. After three times, the Lord told him, “My grace is sufficient for thee. I am not going to remove your thorn. I am not going to make you strong in yourself.”
“I will allow the enemy to attack you and allow you to remain in weakness, but My grace is sufficient for you. In your weakness, I am going to manifest My power.”
Now, are you able to accept that?
Now, brothers and sisters, when we are weakened, what is our prayer? “Make me strong.”
We have good reason—not just for ourselves, but for the Lord’s sake. People look at you and say, “That is a poor specimen of the power of the gospel. How can you preach the gospel with such weakness?”
But God’s way is always higher than our way. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. He knows better.
Are you willing to be kept in weakness, that the power of God may be made perfect in you?
We cry. We weep over our weakness. But Paul said, “I boast of my weaknesses.”
When you begin to boast of your weakness, you experience the power of Christ. So it is a paradox.
Brothers and sisters, God has no intention of making you strong, but He has every purpose that the power of Christ may be made perfect in your weakness.
Are we willing to accept weaknesses? Paul said, “I boast of weaknesses, of sufferings, of tribulations, of all these things, because when I am weak, then I am strong.” The Lord Himself is released.
So, as you read through the second letter to the Corinthians, you find that, in a sense, Paul is revealing his secret to us. How can we be spiritual as we should be?
It is a paradox. The flesh has to come to death so that the Christ-life in us may be manifested.
This is the secret of spirituality. Shall we pray?
Dear Lord, we want to thank Thee for revealing Thy secret to us. We do pray that we may really understand and be open for it.
How we praise and thank Thee that it is Thy will to glorify Thy Son in us. And Lord, we want to offer ourselves to Thee and say, “Lord, may Thy will be done.”
We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.