In order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’  

(2 Corinthians 12:7-9) 

What Jesus tells Paul appears contradictory, and indeed it is baffling.  Yet scripture is not given by God to obscure, rather it is revelatory.

How can ‘any power be made perfect in weakness?’  This is not in self-handbooks, let alone the leadership playbook beloved of chief executives, politicians; those with presidential aspiration or any the would-be despots seek power and hold through strength and domination.

Yet, Jesus would have Paul (and all who will read his epistle) derive truth and wisdom from this.  So first, the context.  It is stated and recorded in a personal interaction between Paul and his Lord.  Many have speculated that it was an affliction or disability but Paul, who is so brutally honest in his epistles over his own failures and shortcomings, withholds here the nature of his ‘thorn’ – deliberately so; for if the nature of his thorn is personal, God’s discipline through, frustration, trial and suffering is universal.  The author of Hebrews explains, citing the psalter:

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
    and chastises every son whom he receives.  (Hebrews 12:6 quoting Psalm 94:12)

But Paul does disclose the reason why the thorn was given, in order to stem his self-importance.  He is weakened for his own good.

And behind all lies a central teaching of the Gospel, as Jesus explains alluding to his forthcoming death:

‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.   Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.  If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honour him.’  (John 12:24-26)

While Paul was arguably the most successful evangelist of any age, for him to grow spiritually, he must fail in the eyes of the world; more than that, also by his own estimation.

Judged by worldly standards the crucifixion was utter failure.  For the self-righteous among the Sanhedrin, it justified their stance that Jesus was a charlatan.  To all, including even the close disciples, without believing in the resurrection there is little to be derived from the Jesus’ life and death.  He bequeaths nothing to humanity, other than a pitiful tale of self-delusion; indeed, the Sanhedrin are fully vindicated. 

Any benefit from the resurrection is based on faith, but also the attendant realisation that worldly failure is the necessary lot of the authentic disciple.

When Paul says ‘for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God’ (Roman 3:23) it is to prove ‘his’ thesis of justification, that every person begins an enemy of God and that none may reconcile with God by their own work (Romans 5:10) only through faith, and that as a gift of grace.  While the stranglehold of sin is broken when justified for…

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Thus, the pursuit of holiness is a life work. 

the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.  If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.   (1 John 1:7-9)

Another way to view this, that sanctification is a journey of continual failure.  In this, there is a distinction between sin and weakness.  Jesus requires all to reject sin – for the alternative is simply rebellion by giving way to the temptation that Paul tells is always resistible – and that is the activity of repentance; but it does not mean weakness is sin.  

To avail oneself of God’s gift then, is to acknowledge weakness and one’s failings; to accept that ‘falling short’ is the default and the admission of it, the requirement.

It is also means setting aside all the usual measures by which any hold themselves to successful in this life.  For Paul, to be boastfully counting converts and church plants or lauding ‘his’ glorious epistles, would bring him into divine contempt, and he knew it.  How did he know? Because God does not allow Satan to bring affliction, but directs him so to do.

Paul asserts that everyone will have need of a thorn in his or her flesh. Weaknesses exposed, and strength in oneself stripped, Satan can do nothing without God’s license.  Although Satan attempts to thwart God and the godly, he is playing a role that God determines.  Satan would diminish, yet God would bless.

The word translated ‘weakness’ is ἀσθένεια astheneia, a noun deriving from a against, negatory sthenospower, might, strength; therefore frailty, literally, the lack of strength.

This word aptly summarises the incarnational Christ; Jesus understood weakness because he made himself weak.

Firstly, he adopted a lowly position:

who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death –
        even death on a cross!  (Philippians 2:6-8)

Divesting himself of his power (disavowing it – of course,  he could call upon his Father at any point, see Matthew 26:53)

‘What is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    a son of man that you care for him?
You made them a little lower than the angels;
    you crowned them with glory and honour
   and put everything under their feet.’

In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them.  Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them. But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.  (Hebrews 2:6-9)

His model or pattern is weakness and so all his followers have to embrace their weakness, and this is contrary to the wisdom of this world.

For example, Frederick Nietzsche wrote this:

‘What is evil?  Whatever springs from weakness.’ (Der Antichrist)

For Nietzsche, Jesus was the an übermensch, a superior man, who with complete agency transcends his culture and personal circumstances.  The son of Lutheran pastor and a promising theologian, Nietzche came to personally reject the salvatory Christ.  Hence his contradiction of what Jesus tells Paul: what springs from weakness is not ‘evil’ rather that which is Godly and good.

But his conclusion is fatally mistaken.  Nietzsche believer the ‘superman’ to be a human that frees himself from the trammels of tradition and religion, indeed any aspect of culture.  

It is a terrible irony that the man who espoused this died having lost all reason.  Ironic but natural because the flesh is susceptible to illness and decay.  And none escape death, not even Jesus, and all are humbled by it.  Strength avails not the tyrant in the face of mortality.

For a doctor to intervene, the sick must put oneself under them.  It requires the admission that there is something amiss, and, crucially, it is beyond their own agency to put matters right.

Jesus used this very analogy, when the righteous men of the Sanhedrin challenged him over his habit of eating and therefore associating with ‘tax collectors and sinners’:

‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’  (Mark 2:17)

Jesus has nothing to say to the strong because the strong are not listening, just as the doctor has nothing to do with those who consider themselves fit and healthy.

The self-realisation of one’s weakness, including fully acknowledging an inherent propensity to be weak, is the starting point for a relationship with Jesus.  While Paul’s thorn may not have been a specific sinful habit, Jesus’ reassurance that his grace is sufficient is of comfort.  Whatever his affliction, it was given in grace to keep Paul humble, because humility comes with and proceeds weakness.  For the Gospel can only have significance for those who see themselves as weak.  

Jesus’ power then is perfected (τελέω teleó meaning completed or fulfilled) in weakness.  The same verb is used in Jesus’ declaration from the cross.  

‘It is finished’ (John 19:29)

Here the perfect indicative tense, τετέλεσται, telelestai, means all is accomplished, everything fulfilled, and is being perfected.  

Thus, springing from Jesus submitting himself to death on the cross both triumphantly makes a way, but also shows that God in the person of the Son, would share human weakness, albeit to overcome it.

He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness.  (Hebrews 5:2)

Jesus did not merely identify himself with the weak, but took on weakness so as to serve humankind, this is the mystery that has alluded many of the wise, including Nietzsche, it seems, regretfully.