2 CORINTHIANS CHAPTER 12
Paul’s Boast of His Weakness. 2 Cor. 12, 1–10.
Supernatural revelations: V.1. It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. v.2. I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven.
What a disagreeable task the apostle found this matter of glorying to which the attitude of the Corinthians had driven him is here again apparent: I must needs glory, though, indeed, it is not expedient. Not of his own free will, not because he delights in it, does he recount his sufferings and experiences in the work of the Lord, but because of the enmity of the false teachers and the gullibility of the disciples at Corinth. He is fully aware of the fact that there is no personal advantage for him in this boasting of the things he endured and the things which the Lord made known to him, but he now intends to mention some visions and revelations of the Lord which the Lord vouchsafed to him. Compare Acts 2, 17; 10, 10; Revelation 1, 10; 4, 1; Acts 9, 3.
One vision, of which Paul now tells, stands out from the rest on account of its extraordinary character: I know a man in Christ fourteen years ago.
He is sure of the facts which he here relates, since he himself was the Christian to whom the Lord vouchsafed this revelation, his humility not permitting him to name himself in connection with such a wonderful vision. The time had been impressed upon his memory so emphatically that he will not forget the date. It seems that he had the vision before entering upon his ministry proper, perhaps during his sojourn at Tarsus, Acts 9, 30; 11, 25, the intention of the Lord being to give this new instrument of His mercy such evidence of His grace and power, by means of a foretaste of the bliss of heaven, that he would not despair in the midst of the manifold tribulations to which he was to be subjected.
It was an extraordinary, miraculous experience; for Paul twice declares that he does not know whether he was in the body or out of the body; he was not able to say whether he was taken up into heaven bodily and saw all the glories with the eyes of his body, or whether only his spirit, temporarily freed from the confines of the mortal body, had seen the heavenly bliss. Many a time the apostle may have puzzled over the miraculous experience, but he was not able to come to a conclusion, and therefore left the matter to God.