What does it mean that when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:10)?

Thus he who felt as soberly and profoundly as any man ever did can say, "Most gladly therefore will I rather boast in my weakness, that the power of Christ may spread its tabernacle over me." This is incalculably more than vanquishing mighty foes by faith and patience. It is taking pleasure in what is most trying and overwhelming to nature that Christ's strength may be manifested. Where flesh might rise, it is put down. In such dealing with us is the life of the Spirit; but Christ makes the bitter sweet, and His power can make its dwelling in us when we acquiesce in our nothingness and rejoice in it if it be but to His praise and glory. Practically there is nothing so profitable for the soul; and the apostle was ministering in the most effectual way while thus drawing forth from his own deep experience the true glorying of the saint as he knew it in his life before God and His ways with him day by day. What did they know of it, who were boasting of themselves or their leaders at Corinth and depreciating the true path of Christ to which the apostle clave faithfully? They would willingly have persuaded themselves into the idea that such devotedness and suffering were but the eccentricities of an ill-balanced mind, and a prejudice to the gospel rather than a true and acceptable testimony to Christ. But, bear or forbear, he will tell them and us undauntedly what it is to live Christ. "Wherefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in insults, in necessities, in persecutions, in straits for Christ; for when I am weak, then am I strong." Practical Christianity is as truly of faith as deliverance. All is of grace, though the ways differ. In every respect Christ is all. Only in redemption He suffered for us; in the path of faith we suffer with and it may be for Him. And blessed are those who thus suffer now, whether for righteousness' sake or for His name.

But was not the apostle speaking of himself, of what grace had given him to suffer? Was it not talking of what he calls weaknesses, insults, necessities, persecutions and straits for Christ, but on his own part?

Satan was glad to be allowed to cripple Paul, and Paul was distressed on account of it, but neither Paul nor Satan had known that the power of Christ was perfected in the weakness of the servant. It took place at a very early period of his christian life. He speaks of it here as fourteen years ago. It was necessary that he should learn at the commencement of his labours in whose power the work was to be done. It was a great revelation to him that his ability for service lay in his weakness, but every lesson that he learned only weaned him more and more from all trust in his natural capabilities. "My grace is sufficient for thee" caused him to lift himself up in the power of another and to feel that in his fancied strength he was weaker than water; but in his weakness he was invincible, for the power of Christ rested upon him. The blessed Lord, whom he served with a true heart, gives him to understand he was not waging this warfare with the powers of darkness at his own charges, but that He who sent him into the conflict would be both the power and the munition to bring the battle to a successful issue. He says as it were to His servant, The weaker you are the better for me. It is only the weak I can use. My power is made perfect in weakness. "Most gladly therefore," Paul says, "will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong."

All the strength of nature was taken out of him. Everything now must be in the power of God. Christ Himself was crucified through weakness, but He lives now by the power of God. Death is man's hour of weakness, as I have already quoted, "No man has power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither has he power in the day of death." (Ecc. 8:8.) Weakness characterises that day, but that is God's opportunity; He comes in in the power of resurrection. Hence everything on the resurrection platform stands in the power of God, and God is placing everything upon that platform. So the apostle in the next chapter speaks about being weak in Christ, but living by the power of God in his service toward the saints. The weaker you and I are in our own estimation the better. We trust a great deal too much in our own strength. What we need to get more before our souls is that new order of things in resurrection which is maintained by divine power, so that all our boast might be in Christ, and all our strength also in Him.

Reckon yourselves to be dead, because Christ has died. When you go down to this world, the only possible dealing with the flesh is making nothing of you. This is not power, but it is the way God deals with us to give power, whether to an apostle or to the giver of a cup of cold water. If you are in Christ, one wants nothing but Christ from you. The thorn is not power in itself, but preparation for power. Suppose Paul despicable in his ministry: well, there never was such a work done before. Then there must be something besides Paul here; Christ must be here. Ah! says Paul, "I glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me." His strength is made perfect in weakness. He cannot make it perfect in our strength! I am as weak as water — a poor weak thing: God has chosen that no flesh may glory in His presence. Where a person is nothing, "my grace is sufficient." Where is His strength made perfect? In a person who has no strength at all: then it must be Christ. When I am made nothing of, "I glory in my infirmities." There is what the Christian is.

As the "small" Paul looked on the largeness of that grace, which alone could support, empower, and employ him, he cast his weakness, indeed himself with all his deficiencies, at the feet of His all-sufficient Lord, crying, "most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. therefore I take pleasure in infirmities … for Christ's sake; for when I am weak," consciously so, and looking for nothing in himself the vessel, "then am I strong." Strong in the strength which Christ supplies!

This being so, the Apostle had learned to take pleasure in these various forms of adversity. In Romans 5 he tells us how he boasted in tribulations because he knew what they were designed to effect in the sphere of Christian character. Here he takes pleasure in tribulations because he had discovered them to be the way by which the power of Christ became operative through him in service. The very weakness into which he was plunged made him a suitable medium for the outflow of that power.

Bear in mind, however, that we must not expect consciousness of power. It is on this point that so many stumble. They want to feel the power, and failing to do so, they conclude that they are in the wrong condition of soul for its exercise. No mistake could be greater. On the other hand, the Lord, as in the case of Paul, as given in 2 Corinthians 12, has to break down His servants, send them thorns in the flesh, bring death in upon them in every shape and form (see, 2 Cor. 4), in order to reduce them to the sense of their own utter impotence, that they may learn the lesson that His strength is made perfect in weakness. Hence, it is that when we are weak we are strong, because realized weakness leads to and is the condition of dependence, and it is only as we are dependent that we are strong with the strength of Him on whom we rest.

Though thrice he prayed for its removal it still remained, but it became the occasion for a fresh assurance of an abundant supply of inward grace in those immortal words, "My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness." It is not only grace, but MY grace, not only strength, but MY strength. The immensity of the grace and. the strength can only be measured by the divine and eternal fulness of the One whose grace and strength it is. In the presence of this greatness how small was Paul, who was indicated by the "thee," — and we are even smaller than Paul. There is an infinitude of grace and strength with our Lord. It carried Paul to the finish, and enabled him to triumph with martyrdom just before him, as we see in 1 Timothy 4:6-8.

All the glory he was in belonged to another and not to himself at all; but the I of Paul's old nature could turn even that into corruption. Paul prays three times, and gets no answer till the third time, and then it is a point-blank refusal. Have you ever considered what this must have been to Paul? Like a child lifting up the foot to step a little higher, saying, "Now I know I shall get it." So he did, but what was it? "My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness." Christ not speaking of Paul's ability to meet the trial, but of His own heart with him in it, to brighten everything, saying, "You want the removal of the thorn, but I shall leave it, because it will be something to make you lean on my arm. Do not you know that I went to the cross and went into the glory, for you? and I am coming again to take you there; but whilst you are down in the wilderness, I must be continually giving you something to guide and help you; my grace, my strength, are for you. I want you to see what a living grace mine is which you have to rest your heart upon. I shall leave the thorn just to make you feel what you have got in. me, you will learn it as did poor Jacob every time the shrunken sinew told him that he was lame."

293 Before we come to power, the question of righteousness has been settled by Christ being at the right hand of God; it is a settled thing. It is practically learned when I am saved; then I have a title to the third heaven; and strength is made perfect in weakness. The Lord never gives us intrinsic strength, He makes us feel our dependence. I am made to feel my weakness when I see how my flesh would even pervert the blessings that are mine in Christ. Therefore will I rather glory in infirmities (not sin, but infirmities - for example, distresses, persecutions, etc.). The Spirit kept him from that which would have given him a bad conscience.

Finally, observe that the humiliation needed to reduce the rebellious flesh to its nothingness is used by Christ to display His power in it. Thus humbled, we learn our dependence. All that is of us, all that constitutes self, is a hindrance; the infirmity is that in which it is put down, laid low, in which weakness is realised. The power of Christ is perfected in it. It is a general principle; humanly speaking, the cross was weakness. Death is the opposite of the strength of man. Nevertheless it is in it that the strength of Christ revealed itself. In it He accomplished His glorious work of salvation.

It is not sin in the flesh that is the subject here when infirmity is spoken of, but what is contrary to the strength of man. Christ never leant on human strength for a moment; He lived by the Father, who had sent Him. The power of the Holy Ghost alone was displayed in Him. Paul needed to have the flesh reduced to weakness, in order that there might not be in it the motion of sin which was natural to it. When the flesh was reduced to its true nothingness as far as good is concerned, and in a manifest way, then Christ could display His strength in it. That strength had its true character. Remark it well: that is always its character — strength made perfect in infirmity. The blessed apostle could glory in a man in Christ above, enjoying all this beatitude, these marvellous things which shut out self, so much were they above all we are. While enjoying them, he was not conscious of the existence of his body. When he was again conscious of it, that which he had heard could not be translated into those communications which had the body for their instrument, and human ears as the means of intelligence. He gloried in that man in Christ above. Here below he only gloried in Christ Himself, and in that infirmity which gave occasion for the power of Christ to rest on him, and which was the demonstration that this power was that of Christ, that Christ made him the vessel of its manifestation. But this nevertheless was realised by painful experiences. The first was the man in Christ, the second the power of Christ resting on the man. For the first the man as to flesh is nothing; as to the second it is judged and put down — turned to weakness, that we may learn, and Christ's power may be manifested. There is an impulse, an ineffable source of ministry on high. Strength comes in, on the humiliation of man as he is in this world, when the man is reduced to nothingness — his true value in divine things — and Christ unfolds in him that strength which could not associate itself with the strength of man, nor depend on it in any way whatsoever. If the instrument was weak, as they alleged, the power which had wrought must have been — not its power, but that of Christ.