We all have been terminated in the Triune God. And this Triune God has germinated us. But the problem is that we go back to the old person with the old living. So we need the tribulation. In a sense, the Christian life is a life of enjoyment, but in another sense the Christian life is a life of suffering. I have been a Christian for fifty years, and there has not been one year that I did not suffer. I did not expect to suffer, but still the sufferings came. In a sense, they are sent to damage us, because they damage the outward man. But they benefit our inward man. All the circumstances, the situations, the surroundings, the personal things, the family relations, the business, and the church work together for good that we may be conformed to the image of God’s Son (Rom. 8:28-29). We need the tribulation to press us outside of our old nature and into His nature.
This is why Paul gives us such an autobiography. He did not begin this book by telling us how the Lord was so merciful to him and how everything was smooth and comfortable. When someone asks how we are, we always answer, “Fine.” But that is a lie. We are not so fine. However, the Apostle was honest. He didn’t say that he was fine. He opens his autobiography by telling us of the tribulation he had. To experience Christ as our person, we need the tribulation. Otherwise, we are just a raw Christian. All the raw things must be cooked. The cooking is a kind of tribulation and suffering to the cooked items. Praise the Lord that we are all under the cooking!
But we should not consider this just as a kind of suffering. Suffering by itself is nothing. Its only purpose is to help us get to Christ. Suffering presses us out of ourselves and into Christ. He is our life and He is our Person. When I recall the past years, and when I look at the present situation, on one hand I feel like weeping, and on the other hand I feel like shouting praise to the Lord. Without all the sufferings, afflictions, tribulations, and pressures we could never enjoy Christ this much. The Lord told Paul, “Don’t ask Me to take away your sufferings. You need them! But, I assure you, under the suffering My grace is sufficient. Without the suffering you could never taste that My grace is sufficient. You have to thank Me. It is by this suffering that you experience My all-sufficient grace.”
There is no other book that tells of the sufferings of Paul as this book. There are three chapters that make a list of all his sufferings: chapters one, six, and eleven. In all of these chapters we see sufferings after sufferings, sufferings after sufferings. In 1 Corinthians, Paul talks about healings. But in 2 Corinthians, there are no healings, but sufferings. In the first book, he mentions the gifts. But in the second, there are no gifts but grace. And we know that grace is just Christ Himself, taken as our life, our person, and our enjoyment. Every one likes to have healing, but no one likes to have suffering. But if we have healing without suffering, we may have the gift but we can never experience Christ as our grace.
The person who wrote this autobiography told us how he lived. All of the sufferings and tribulations pressed him out of measure and beyond his strength. Eventually he did live by Christ. His meekness was Christ (2 Cor. 10:1). His gentleness was Christ (2 Cor. 10:1). His truth was Christ (2 Cor. 11:10). Whatever he was and did, he was and did in the person of Christ. “For your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ” (2 Cor. 2:10b). The word “person” in this verse means in Greek the part around the eyes of the face which is the index of the inward being. So Paul lived in the index of Christ. And he said that the light of the gospel of glory is in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:4, 6). If we would see the glory of the gospel, we must see the face of Jesus. Without the face of Jesus, which means the presence of Christ, there is no glory. Paul was living in the glory of the gospel by seeing the face of Jesus. He was walking according to the index that he saw on the face of Jesus.
So we see that Paul was a person who not only preached and taught that Christ is our life, our person, and our everything, but he himself really practiced and lived this kind of life. Second Corinthians is really his autobiography telling us how he lived. He did not live by his natural ability, his fleshly wisdom, or merely by the so-called spiritual gifts. He lived by the grace of the Lord, which was the enjoyment of Christ Himself. Christ eventually became his person, his life, his living, his enjoyment, and his everything. So at the close of the book he says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen” (2 Cor. 13:14). This is all that we need.