The Thorn in the
Flesh and
by
Dr. Ken Matto
{7}
And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the
revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of
Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. {8} For this
thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. {9} And he
said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made
perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in
my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians
12:7-9)
Verse 7 has been one of the most misinterpreted passages of Scripture. It
seems the majority of pastors and theologians attribute Paul’s thorn in the
flesh to some type of eye disease based on the following text.
Ye
see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand.
(Galatians 6:11)
So
taking this passage out of context, the theologians once again take two
passages of unrelated Scripture and force a meaning on it. They base their
conclusions on the two highlighted words in verse 9, "infirmities" and
"weakness." Both of these are from the same root Greek word "astheneo" which
means "one who is without strength." So instantly it must interpreted as a
sickness. Wrong! The same word is found in James 5:14:
Is
any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them
pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: (James 5:14)
Now
if a person is sick, why call for the elders of the church? Why not call for
a physician? We call for the elders of the church because this passage
reveals a person who is spiritually weak not one who is physically weak. The
elders deal with spiritual problems in the church not physical healing.
Now
that is what the theologians say, let us see what the Scriptures reveal
about the thorn in the flesh. First, it must be noted that in 2 Cor. 12:7,
the thorn in the flesh is described as a messenger of Satan. Right at the
outset, we see that it cannot be speaking of a disease since diseases are
not messengers. Messengers are someone who brings a message from someone to
someone.
What
would a messenger of Satan bring? Why would he bring a disease if Paul
states that he will glory in his infirmities? Satan is not going to bring
anything to God’s people which will give glory to God. Satan is the outright
enemy of God and His true church. What then will Satan bring to the church
or the true believer? We can find the answer to that in the following
passages:
{13}
For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into
the apostles of Christ. {14} And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed
into an angel of light. {15} Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers
also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be
according to their works. (2 Corinthians 11:13-15)
Satan brings deceit into the church when he transforms himself and his
ministers as true believers. Now we saw in 2 Corinthians 12:8 that Paul had
sought the Lord 3 times that this thorn would be removed. Yet, the Lord’s
answer was that His grace was sufficient for Paul. Now let us search the
Bible at this point to see if we can gain some insight as to what a thorn in
the flesh is.
{50}
And the LORD spake unto Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho,
saying, {51} Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye
are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan; {52} Then ye shall drive out
all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their
pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all
their high places: {53} And ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land,
and dwell therein: for I have given you the land to possess it. {54} And ye
shall divide the land by lot for an inheritance among your families: and to
the more ye shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer ye shall give
the less inheritance: every man's inheritance shall be in the place where
his lot falleth; according to the tribes of your fathers ye shall inherit.
{55} But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before
you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them
shall be pricks in your eyes, and
thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye
dwell. (Numbers 33:50-55)
Here
we see the Israelites were ready to pass over to the promised land but once
they were there, they were commanded by God to drive out the Canaanites
because they would infect Israel with false gods and false religion and thus
pervert the whole nation. Unfortunately, Israel did not drive out the
inhabitants completely and they became "thorns in their sides" for many
years to come. They finally, infected the Israelites with their false
religion and finally God had to send judgments on the nation of Israel to
bring them back to Him.
{8}
But cleave unto the LORD your God, as ye have done unto this day. {9} For
the LORD hath driven out from before you great nations and strong: but as
for you, no man hath been able to stand before you unto this day. {10} One
man of you shall chase a thousand: for the LORD your God, he it is that
fighteth for you, as he hath promised you. {11} Take good heed therefore
unto yourselves, that ye love the LORD your God. {12} Else if ye do in any
wise go back, and cleave unto the remnant of these nations, even these that
remain among you, and shall make marriages with them, and go in unto them,
and they to you: {13} Know for a certainty that the LORD your God will no
more drive out any of these nations from before you; but they shall be
snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides,
and thorns in your eyes,
until ye perish from off this good land which the LORD your God hath given
you. (Joshua 23:8-13)
Here
God gives Joshua a strict warning that they must drive out the inhabitants
and if they choose to mingle with them, then God will allow them to become
thorns in their eyes. God will not drive them out and they will become a
snare and trap to the people of God by means of their false religions.
{1}
And an angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you
to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto
your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you. {2} And
ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land; ye shall throw
down their altars: but ye have not obeyed my voice: why have ye done this?
{3} Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you; but
they shall be as thorns in your
sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you. (Judges 2:1-3)
Here
is another warning which God gave to Israel not to mingle with the false
religions and their false gods. Since Israel chose to be disobedient, God
did not drive out the false inhabitants and therefore they became thorns in
the side of Israel to the point that God carried them away in judgment.
{5}
Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath made with me an
everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my
salvation, and all my desire, although he make it not to grow. {6} But the sons of Belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust
away, because they cannot be taken with hands: (2 Samuel 23:5-6)
These are verses from the last words of David and here he tells us that the
Sons of Belial, the unbelievers, will be as thorns which are thrust away.
We
have seen in quite a number of verses where God uses thorns as a symbol of
the unbeliever as we saw that God called the unbelieving Canaanites thorns
in the sides of Israel. Now armed with this understanding, can we apply this
same principle to the Apostle Paul and his ministry? The answer is a
resounding yes. Who were the ones that were causing Paul the most problems?
Let us look at a few passages of Scripture which will help us in the
understanding of Paul’s thorn in the flesh.
{1}
O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the
truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth,
crucified among you? {2} This only would I learn of you, Received ye the
Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? {3} Are ye so
foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the
flesh? {4} Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain.
{5} He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles
among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
(Galatians 3:1-5)
For
neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law; but desire to have
you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh. (Galatians 6:13)
We
may see clearly that the Thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan were
those who were pursuing Paul and trying to pervert the grace of God by
adding works to it. The messengers of Satan followed Paul and tried to undo
all the work he accomplished in the churches by means of getting the early
believers to go back under the bondage of the law.
In 2
Corinthians 12, Paul was not complaining about some disease which he had.
Here is a man who suffered much for the sake of Christ. All one has to do is
read Paul’s tribulations in 2 Corinthians 11 and see what he suffered for
the sake of Christ. Why then would he ask the Lord to remove a disease from
him when adversity was his way of life? Not only does the disease
interpretation fall short of good exegesis it makes no logical sense knowing
the life Paul led after salvation. It would be like someone having a
terminal disease, then catching a cold and asking the Lord to remove the
cold.
THE
MODERN THORNS
God
went through much in the Bible to teach us the symbol of thorns. Thorns then
are the unbelievers who pursue the true gospel to pervert it to their way of
thinking. We saw this in both the Old and New Testament.
Now in the times we live in there are
two major modern thorns which have attacked Grace and the modern believer.
The
First Modern Thorn
So
as we approach the end of the world, is there a modern equivalent to the
thorns in the flesh in the modern church? The answer is a resounding yes!
Well, then what is it? The first one is the Charismatics!
Have
you ever gone to a church where there is not at least one in the church who
brings in the poison of tongues? There are many churches out there who are
not officially charismatic, yet there are small groups of people in those
churches who believe in this false gospel and begin to propagate the false
teachings to other Christians in the church.
Toleration of this movement is the biggest mistake church leaders make. When
we looked at the thorns in the Old Testament, did God say to the Israelites,
well we must be tolerant of their religious beliefs and we don’t want to
hurt their feelings? No, God strictly commanded them to drive them out of
the new land and have nothing to do with their teachings or religion. The
modern church must follow this same command. If you are not a charismatic
church and someone comes into your assembly who believes in this false
movement, you must "drive them out." It only takes a little poison to start
infecting the rest of the congregation. If you do not stop it when it is
small, then Satan will send in another and then another and pretty soon you
will have your own thorn in the flesh. They add to the word, they speak
lying prophecies, they bring in false teachings about health and wealth,
etc. I once heard Creflo Dollar, one
of their "anointed preachers" say on his TV program that we can command
angels. Doesn’t Creflo know that God is the Lord of Hosts and not him?
A
Charismatic in a regular church will be like the Judaizers were to Paul, as
they perverted the true Gospel of grace with their keeping of the law, the
Charismatics pervert the Gospel of Grace with their signs, wonders, and
tongues and they always seem to gain ascendancy in all the churches they
infect. Once they become entrenched in your church, it is too late. Heed the
warnings now, or you may be on the outside looking in, sooner than you
think. The Charismatic movement is the underlying element of the world wide
ecumenical movement. It is just plain spiritual poison. Drive it out from
your church as soon as it is discovered.
The
Second Thorn
The
second major thorn which has infected the church is the very same one that
plagued the Apostle Paul and that is Christian Zionism.
It is Christians who erroneously accept modern Israel as a rebirth of
ancient Israel when there is no ancestral or DNA connection between the two.
What the Christians are endorsing is the false religion of Judaism
and making an attempt to bring the church back under the law.
When Christ went to the cross in 33 A.D. upon his death the veil in
the temple was torn from top to bottom which meant the end of the Mosaic law
and no one was required to keep any tenets of the ceremonial law any longer.
A person obtained salvation through the merits of Christ without
keeping any aspect of the law.
You can tell who the Judaizers are.
They have Israeli flags with the star of Moloch on them in front of
the church plus they are always using terms like “Yeshua” or “Yahweh” for
the Father which is the name of a false deity known as Jupiter.
Then they are always proclaiming “I
stand with Israel.” Christians who attempt to overlay the Old Testament on
the New Testament are showing themselves to be no better than the Pharisees
who plotted against Christ.
Judaism is a false religion and has no place next to the doctrine of grace
whereby salvation is attained.
They
always claim that Christianity has its roots in the Old Testament.
The two are antithetical and no amount of keeping the law will ever
gain salvation for anyone. In
reality, true Christianity does not have Hebrew roots because Christ came
from Heaven to die for his people.
But when the fulness of the
time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
(Galatians 4:4) Christ came from
Heaven and came through Judah to go to the cross and then he went back to
Heaven. So true Christianity has
Heavenly roots, not earthly ones!
Christians who Judaize a church are no better than those who bring in
false gospels. God did away with
the ceremonial law of Moses and for any Christian to cling to it is acting
diametrically opposed to the Scriptures and is a false teacher.
Any admixture of any kind of law with grace makes it a works gospel
and places the Christian under what Christ has freed us from.
Stand fast therefore in the
liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with
the yoke of bondage. (Galatians 5:1)
Paul referred to the law as a “yoke of bondage” but refers to what
Christ did as “making us free.”
Judaism is a false religion on par with Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Roman
Catholicism, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses and others because they all have
one thing in common, they all reject Christ as the sole way of salvation.
Therefore, there is no such thing as Judeo-Christian anything because
they are antithetical to each other.
So if you are a Christian Zionist, you need to come out of that
mindset and stop glorifying people of a false religion who do not belong in
the exalted position the church has placed them.
I
am the LORD: that
is my name: and my glory
will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. (Isaiah
42:8)
The bottom line is that those who try to get Christians back under the law and those who try to get them to accept the sign gifts of the charismatic movements are messengers of Satan as the Apostle Paul called them. So you need to seriously examine whom you serve, either you serve the Lord Jesus Christ or you serve two false systems which are against Christ. Choose you this day whom you will serve!