2 Corinthians 12:1-6 The Apostle’s Visions WC
McCarter
Introduction
In an age
when America has been labeled “post-Christian” and there is a mass exodus from
the church, folks are not necessarily running to atheism. For the most part, people still have a need
to check their “religious duty” off of the weekly to-do-list. What is it that people most often claim to be
now? They claimed to be “spiritual,” as
if they have progressed beyond Christianity.
They are no longer archaic, legalistic Bible-people. They have ascended to a new plane. They remain moralistic. They like for their “religion” to make them
feel good about themselves and are thus therapeutic in nature. They like God, but only at a distance. They will call on Him only when they
absolutely need Him. The religious folks
of today are what sociologist Christian Smith has called, “Moralistic
Therapeutic Deists.” Now that is . . .
“spiritual” (I mean that sarcastically, of course).
With this
kind of worldview, it is easy for folks to become stirred by emotions and only
interested in the miraculous. In fact,
media covering such things (whether books, television, or movies) are great
sellers. Evangelical church buildings
sit at only half capacity on Sunday mornings, but people flood the theaters to
see the latest, “I had a vision of heaven” documentary. Well, let me bring you to another man who had
a vision of heaven. I think it is
appropriate for Christians to take this man as a great example of how to manage
these sorts of things. Why do I think we
should take his experience and witness as our example and deny what the popular
culture believes? This man was an
apostle, the apostle Paul. He had a
great vision, but he did not make a movie out of it. He did not even write a book about the
experience. He only mentions the fact
that it happened with no elaboration.
Let’s take a
look at what the apostle said about his visions of heaven to see what we can
learn from his experience. I invite you
to read with me from II Corinthians 12:1-6.
This is the Word of God. READ
Scripture.
Visions and Revelations (1)
This passage
is the first of a two part series. Next
week we will look at verses seven through ten about The Apostle’s Thorn. The first of these is verses one through six
which declares The Apostle’s Visions.
The apostle Paul had an experience unlike any other. Of all the folks that claim to have seen a
great, white light, or were ushered into heaven by angels, or saw God sitting
on His throne–of all those people–I trust what the apostle Paul says and how he
handled it. Notice the humility that he
exhibits.
In the
apostle’s spiritual battle with the “super-apostles,” he must repeatedly
explain to the Corinthians (and also to his opponents) why it is that he
endures so much hardship and humiliation.
It would have been effortless for his opponents to simply state that
Paul was not blessed by God. All they
had to do was point to all of the trouble and sufferings that Paul had to
constantly undergo. We can almost hear
those false teachers say, Surely God is
not blessing Paul’s ministry. Clearly
Paul is not preaching and teaching God’s will.
Just look at his sorrows. Don’t
you see how weak he is? Those experiences are not that of an apostle
of God, a preacher of the truth. Follow
us, we will teach you the ways of God.
How can the
apostle respond to this? It seems to be
a strong argument by his opponents. What
is Paul’s claim to divine authority?
Will he really rest on the fact that he had faced persecution and
trouble almost everywhere he went? What
is the explanation? Well, Paul has been
hesitant to even respond to this matter, but he begins to reply in verses one
through ten. He even states in verse one
that he knows that it is not profitable for his sake to boast of his successes
and unique relationship with the Lord Jesus, but it is necessary to bring it up
at this point in time. He even uses the
third person to tell of his glorious experiences with God. We know that he is referring to himself
because he later returns to the first person.
He is backed into a corner and begins to respond to the claim that his
sufferings represent God’s disapproval of him.
He says, “I
will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.” Like many of the Old Testament prophets and
people of God before him, Paul could speak of visions and revelations of the
Lord. Notice that there are two terms
used and both are plural. These divine
and wonderful things may not have happened often (notice that he refers back to
an event 14 years before), but it happened on more than one occasion. Since there are two different terms used, we
can assume that Paul received messages from God and experienced God in more
than one way. As one commentator has
said, “. . . the difference is that a vision is always seen, whereas a
revelation may be either seen or perceived in some other way. . . .”
A Particular Incident (2-6)
While the
apostle evidently had several visions and revelations, he only speaks of one
incident here that happened 14 years earlier.
Why he chose this one particular time, I do not know; and he does not
give us much information about it because he was not permitted to do so. Even though Paul does not relay to us many
specific details of this exact revelation, there are still many interesting
details surrounding the event.
First, Paul
does not know whether this happened in the body or out of the body. Of course, he states that God does know and
is the only one who does know. Maybe due
to the overwhelming nature of the event Paul lost all awareness of the
physical. He honestly did not know if
this was something his soul experienced or his soul and body. What an amazing thought of being in the
presence of God!
Second, he
says that he was caught up to the third heaven.
Many people in Paul’s day claimed to have extraordinary experiences of
heaven and stated that it happened in the highest heaven. Some would say that they traveled to the
365th heaven, some the seventh, but most often the reference was to the third
heaven. The idea most common was that
the first heaven was the sky that we see with the clouds and the birds; the
second heaven referred to outer space with the sun, moon, and stars; while the
third heaven was the place where God resides.
Paul calls this third heaven, “Paradise.”
The third
interesting detail surrounding this revelation is how Paul says that he was
“caught up” to God’s heaven. It was as
if God unexpectedly reached down from heaven, abruptly grabbed Paul, and
suddenly snatched the man up to where God was in Paradise. This doesn’t happen to just everybody.
Thus, we
know a little bit about how this experience came to happen, but we know only
two things about the content: one, Paul heard inexpressible words and two, Paul
was not allowed to explain those words.
Now, we know those two things, but that information tells us absolutely
nothing about the actual content of the revelation. Paul says that he heard inexpressible
words. What can this mean? Apparently what Paul heard (and possibly saw)
was something that could not be expressed in human language. It would have been impossible for Paul to
explain to the Corinthians, to us, or to anyone what he had heard while in the
heavenly presence of God. So, why was he
not permitted to utter these things?
What Paul probably means here is that although it would be impossible to
relay in human language what he heard in heaven that would not necessarily keep
Paul from attempting to relay those wonderful things on earth. Therefore, he was not even permitted to try
to explain to content of the revelation.
As many
scholars have shown, it was Jewish tradition (and even widespread in Greek
culture) to use a rhetorical device of picturing one’s own experiences as
happening to someone else in order to indirectly brag on those
experiences. Paul does not want to
directly boast in himself as verse five indicates, so he has relayed this
majestic experience as though it happened to some other man. Another rhetorical device that Paul is using
here is to assert that he could boast, but then to not actually do so, and in
essence Paul outdoes the boasting of his opponents “while maintaining the foolishness
of their boasting.” The opponents liked
to boast and thought Paul couldn’t.
The apostle
could continue to boast. From a human,
worldly perspective Paul had every reason to go on boasting in his heavenly and
unique experiences. Yet, the only
boasting he will do is in his infirmities, which the opponents were undoubtedly
using for the complete opposite reason.
Paul, without the use of rhetorical devices, says candidly that boasting
in such things is foolish. He does not
want to be hypocritical and make himself out to be someone that he is not. He does not want the Corinthians to think too
highly of him than they should. Of
course, the opponents, the false teachers, the “super-apostles” were doing
exactly what Paul said he would not do.
Conclusion and Christian Application
What a
wonderful grace it was for God to provide the Apostle to the Gentiles with such
amazing visions and revelations. Paul
did not deserve those experiences. He had
not earned the right to visit Paradise.
That is grace, Paul received something from God that he did not
deserve. By way of conclusion, notice
several things from the passage that I think are relevant to discerning
heavenly reports today.
#1 Paul was
an Apostle.
#2 Paul was
hesitant to boast.
#3 Paul
cannot remember some of the particulars.
#4 What Paul
heard was inexpressible.
#5 Paul was
not permitted to report what he experienced.
#6 It is
foolish to boast in such things.
Now, if we
take those things and compare them with some of the things that we hear and see
today, do they line up with Scripture?
The point of
this sermon is to mainly direct us into next week’s sermon. I hope that you will be here to see where all
of this is heading. We will pick up
where Paul leaves off at the end of verse five when he says, “. . . yet of
myself I will not boast, except in my infirmities.”