XX. POWER AND WEAKNESS
`He hath said unto me, My power is made
perfect in weakness. Therefore will I glory in my weaknesses, that the
strength of Christ may rest upon me. Wherefore I take pleasure in weaknesses:
for when I am weak, then am I strong.' -- 2 Cor. 12:9,10
There is almost no word that is so
imperfectly understood in the Christian life as the word weakness. Sin
and shortcoming, sluggishness and disobedience, are set to the account of our
weakness. With this appeal to weakness, the true feeling of guilt and the
sincere endeavour after progress are impossible. How, pray, can I be guilty,
when I do not do what it is not in my power to do? The Father cannot demand of
His child what He can certainly do independently. That, indeed, was done by
the law under the Old Covenant; but that the Father, under the New Covenant,
does not do. He requires of us nothing more than what He has prepared for us
power to do in His Holy Spirit. The new life is a life in the power of Christ
through the Spirit.
The error of this mode of thinking is that
people estimate their weakness, not too highly, but too meanly. They would
still do something by the exercise of all their powers, and with the help of
God. They know not that they must be nothing before God. (Rom. 4:4,5; 11:6; 1
Cor. 1:27,28) You think that you have still a little strength, and that the
Father must help you by adding something of His own power to your feeble
energy. This thought is wrong. Your weakness appears in the fact that you
can do nothing. It is better to speak of utter inability -- that is
what the Scriptures understand by the word `weakness.' `Apart from me ye can
do nothing.' `In us is no power.' (2 Chron. 16:9; 20:12; John 5:19; 15:5; 2
Cor. 1:9)
Whenever the young Christian acknowledges and
assents to this his weakness, then he learns to understand the secret of the
power of Jesus. He then sees that he is not to wait and pray to become
stronger, to feel stronger. No: in his inability, he is to have the power of
Jesus. By faith he is to receive it; he is to reckon that it is for him, and
that Jesus Himself will work in and by him. (John 15:5; 1 Cor 1:24; 15:10;
Eph. 1:18,19; Col. 1:11) It then becomes clear to him what the Lord means
when He says, `My power is made perfect in your weakness.' He knows to return
the answer, `When I am weak, then am I -- yea, then am I -- strong.' Yea, the
weaker I am, the stronger I become. And he learns to sing with Paul, `I shall
glory in my weaknesses.' `I take pleasure in weaknesses.' `We rejoice when we
are weak.' (2 Cor. 11:30; 12:9,11; 13:4,9)
It is wonderful how glorious that life of faith
becomes for him who is content to have nothing, or feel nothing, in himself,
and always to live on the power of his Lord. He learns to understand what a
joyful thing it is to know God as his strength. `The Lord is my strength and
song.' (Ps. 89:18; 118:14; Jer. 12:2) He lives in what the Psalms so often
express: `I love Thee, O Lord, my strength;' `I will sing of Thy strength:
unto Thee, O my strength, will I sing praises.' (Ps. 18:2; 28:7,8; 31:5; 43:2;
46:2; 59:17,18; 62:8; 81:2) He understands what is meant when a psalm says,
`Give strength to the Lord: the Lord will give strength to His people;' and
when another says, `Give strength to God: the God of Israel, He giveth strength
and power to His people.' (Ps. 29:1,11; 68:35,36) When we give or ascribe all
the power to God, then He gives it to us again.
"I have written unto you, young men, because ye
are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the Evil
One." The Christian is strong in his Lord: (Ps. 71:16; 1 John 2:14) not
sometimes strong and sometimes weak, but always weak, and therefore always
strong. He has merely to know and use his strength trustfully. To be strong
is a command, a behest that must be obeyed. On obedience there comes more
strength. `Be strong ... and He shall strengthen thine heart.' In faith the
Christian must simply obey the command, `Be strong in the Lord, and in the
power of His might.' (Ps. 27:14; 31:25; Isa. 40:31; Eph. 6:10)
The God of the Lord Jesus, the Father of glory give unto us the
spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Jesus, that we may know
what is the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe.
Amen.
1. So long as the Christian thinks of the
service of God or of sanctification as something that is hard and
difficult, he will make no progress in it. He must see that this very
thing is for him impossible. Then he will cease still endeavouring to
do something; he will surrender himself that Christ may work all in him. See
these thoughts set forth in detail in Professor Hofmeyr's book, Out of
Darkness into Light: a Course of Instruction on Conversion, the Surrender of
Faith, and Sanctification * (J.H. Rose, Cape Town), chapter third and
following of the third part.
2. The complaint about weakness is often
nothing else than an apology for our idleness. There is power to be obtained
in Christ for those who will take the pains to have it.
3. `Be strong in the Lord and in the power of
His might.' Mind that. I must abide in the Lord and in the power of
His might, then I become strong. To have His power I must have Himself.
The strength is His, and continues His; the weakness continues mine. He, the
Strong, works in me, the weak; I, the weak, abide by faith in Him, the Strong;
so that I, in the self-same moment, know myself to be weak and strong.
4. Strength is for work. He who would be
strong simply to be pious, will not be so. He who in his weakness begins to
work for the Lord, shall become strong.
* Professor N.J. Hofmeyr is senior professor of
the Theological College of the Dutch Reformed Church, Stellenbosch, Cape
Colony. The volume referred to has been recently published in English under
the title, The Blessed Life: How to Find and Live It (J. Nisbet &
Co.), (vide P. 185). -- Translator