The Truth Never Abused Anyone; Only Pride Without Discipline

2Cor.12:7

“Now an abundance of these revelations was not given to me for self-importance, so a thorn for the flesh, an angel of Satan, was also given to physically remind me that these are not for self-exaltation.” (mast)

2Cor.12:8-10

“Beyond this, I pleaded three times with the Lord that this would depart from me, but He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is accomplished through weakness.’ Therefore, I will pleasure more in the glory of my many weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me, whereby I shall delight in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in troubles, for the purpose of Christ because when I am weak, then I am also strong.” (mast)

Now, the fleshly body is often associated as a body of death and a body of sin, so the messenger (or angel) here is the actual flesh of Paul as a consequence of the Satanic deception of original sin (Rom.7:14; 1Jn.5:16-19). See how Paul relates this to the Romans and earlier to the Corinthians. By referring to his own flesh, Paul calls it a body of death (Rom.7:23-25), and when explaining the law of sin and death in Christ’s victory over this body of deception (2Cor.4:3-6), he refers even to Christ’s earthly body as sinful flesh (Rom.8:3-4).

Therefore “the sinful flesh” is the satanic deceiver because God said he made everything good (Gen.1:31; 3:22-24; Matt.12;33), but now the body is given over to death and is called the likeness of sinful flesh (Jn.3:6; Matt.19:16-17; Jn.6:62-63; Rom.7:18). Therefore the devil makes a liar out of God’s original purpose for the body to dwell under the order of the garden of God according to the original image of that divine order (Gen.1:26-27; 2:15-17), but the power of death was given over through Satan’s deception in judgment of the likeness of Adam’s sin (Rom.5:12-14; 7:14; Heb.2:14-15). Therefore the image is only retained by the likeness of Christ’s resurrection as “that” image descends from above (Ps.17:15; 1Cor.15:29-40, 42-50; Jn.1:14; 3:7, 11-13). Everything that exists outside of the resurrection and the life of Christ is nothing more than Death and Hades reserved for the Lake of Fire (Jn.11:25-26; Rev.20:13-15).

Therefore, the body of death is given to remind us of Christ’s humiliation (1Cor.11:26; Phil.2:5-18). So then, Paul is not pointing to the people coming to him as a satanic source of his suffering but to the real weaknesses in his body that prevent him from bearing up under the responsibility to manage it all by himself. He explains it further by taking pleasure in the insults concerning his physical weaknesses. Look back at 2Cor.10:7 where they were trying to disqualify him for his physical appearance and oratory powers. Paul, however, doesn’t solely put the blame on their spiritual superficiality of judgment but upon his own weaknesses as the source of his strength to lead him into being strong according to the power of the gospel rather than leaning into the power of the flesh to justify himself as they wanted him to do.

Therefore, Paul wasn’t “competing” to have the most prominent position on the center stage, but that the gospel would have the greatest glory in the arena of their purpose in preaching and in the raising up of pastors for the work of the ministry of the Word of Reconciliation (2Cor.13:4-10).