Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 2 Corinthians · About this commentary
Caught Up into the Third Heaven
2 Corinthians 12:1-6
1 It is doubtless not profitable for me to boast, but I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. · WEB
The one experience that would settle the argument is told in the third person, stripped of its content, and then set aside.
It is doubtless not profitable for me to boast, but I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.
He has the trump card. His rivals traded on impressive spiritual credentials, and he holds one none of them can match — and the way he plays it is the point of the passage.
I know a man in Christ who was caught up into the third heaven fourteen years ago.
Third person. The subject is not identified until verse 7 makes the connection unavoidable, and the interval is given precisely: fourteen years, which means he had been silent about it for fourteen years, including throughout his previous dealings with Corinth.
Then the detail withheld, and withheld twice in nearly the same words: whether in the body, I don't know, or whether out of the body, I don't know; God knows. Verse 3 repeats it. The one question every reader asks is answered with ignorance, stated flatly and without embarrassment.
What he saw is also withheld: he was caught up into Paradise and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. Not that they are too wonderful to describe — that they are not permitted to be repeated. So there is no content to compare with anyone else's revelations, which makes the credential unusable in the contest it was raised for.
Verse 5 then divides the boasting between two people who are the same person: on behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except in my weaknesses. The man in the vision may be boasted about; the man writing the letter may not.
And verse 6 gives the reason for the restraint, which is the ethic of the whole letter in one sentence: I refrain, so that no man may think more of me than that which he sees in me or hears from me.
He deliberately limits others' estimate of him to what they can check. A vision cannot be verified by anyone; his conduct and his speech can. Having conceded that his presence is unimpressive and his speaking despised 2 Corinthians 10:10, he insists on being measured by exactly those things — and declines the one advantage that would have exempted him from the test.
settled What this mark means