He Provides

Verses like this appear throughout scripture, God will help, He will provide, He will meet our needs, Jehovah Jirah and all that. And it is true, sometimes it is just enough, just in time, sometimes it is super abundant, but the one thing that never fails is that He provides. And the provision is without malice, He provides whether the need was created through our own follies, or by some other actor or cause. He simply provides. This is a fact that we can rest ourselves upon without equivocation.

But what about the sin that causes the need. What is His position on that. What if it is a repeated sin, a thorn int he side as Paul put it, that continues to haunt us with its destructive power and influence in our lives. I think given the above premise I laid out, we can trust that He will provide in this case as well. But what will that provision look like? It will not always be the removal of the struggle, and it may not be what we expect. Paul's experience with his thorn in the flesh gives us a window into how God provides in the face of persistent sin, and His answer may be more profound than simple deliverance.

2 Corinthians 12:7 (NASB 2020)

7 Because of the extraordinary greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself!

The context of this passage is most likely familiar to most readers. Paul was writing to the church at Corinth defending his apostleship against false apostles who were undermining him. In chapter 12, he's just described being caught up to the "third heaven" and receiving extraordinary revelations. The thorn is presented as a divine counterbalance; something to keep him humble in light of those experiences.

The Thorn as Persistent Sin

Throughout the centuries scholars have speculated on what this thorn could be; the most popular being a physical ailment such as poor eyesight (Galatians 4:13–15 and 6:11), recurring persecution, a speech impediment, or a specific adversary. While this is entirely possible, I would offer another alternative that fits more neatly into the context of the passage. What if Paul were dealing with persistent sin? What if he, just like many of us, was plagued with a persistent sin that he could not overcome?

Lets consider the scholarly speculation against that of persistent sin by overlaying it in the context of the passage. While it is true that physical ailments can be a counterbalance to remind us we are human, and this could have been a humbling experience for him, in my estimation, it doesn't rise to the level of humiliation that sinfulness provides as it is the antithesis to the idea of godly superiority and as such a more fitting struggle to be had by Paul to keep him humble. Persistent sin strikes at the very notion of spiritual self-sufficiency as it humbles one before God Himself. It is tough to look down from the third heaven in judgment when you yourself struggle with sin, while a physical ailment is more akin to martyrdom and an impetus for pride, "look what I have done despite my handicap."

To support this claim further, Pauls own language elsewhere supports this idea of deep personal struggle with sin. In Romans 7:15–20, Paul exclaims, I want to do the right thing, but I keep doing the things I don't want to. This passage is debated among scholars as to whether it describes Paul's pre-conversion or post-conversion experience, but many interpreters, particularly within the Reformed tradition, read it as his present-tense struggle as a believer. If that reading is correct, it maps directly onto a thorn that is moral rather than physical; a man at the height of apostolic ministry still wrestling with his own fallenness. In addition his use of the term “messenger of Satan in the study text is telling. While the devil is noted for causing physical affliction, he is shown throughout scripture as more likely to cause sin through temptation and in many cases persistent sin by exploiting the fallenness of our psyche. A persistent sin, something Paul couldn’t shake despite his spiritual maturity, fits the Satanic agency language more naturally than, say, an eye condition. Finally, this position strengthens the idea held in Gods response to Paul; My grace is sufficient for thee. If the thorn is a struggle with sin, then Gods answer isn’t healing, it’s forgiveness and sustaining grace in the midst of ongoing moral failure. That's a profoundly different message than "I'll give you strength to endure your chronic pain." It becomes a statement about justification itself; that Paul's standing before God was never based on his performance.

The Gethsemane Parallel

It is worth noting the parallel between Paul's three-time petition and Christ's prayer in Gethsemane. Both ask for removal of the cup, and both receive a "no" that turns out to be a deeper "yes." In Gethsemane, the Father's refusal to remove the cup was the very means of salvation. In Paul's case, the refusal to remove the thorn was the means of sustaining humility and dependence. The pattern is consistent; God's provision sometimes looks like the persistence of the struggle rather than its resolution.

Simultaneously Righteous and Sinner

This connects to what Luther articulated as simul justus et peccator, simultaneously righteous and sinner. If we take that doctrine seriously, then it is not scandalous but rather expected that someone like Paul would wrestle with persistent sin even at the height of his ministry. To resist this reading is to inadvertently drift toward the very thing Paul is arguing against in Corinthians. The false apostles were promoting a theology of glory; the idea that spiritual advancement is visible, measurable, and progressive in a linear way. Paul's entire rhetorical strategy in 2 Corinthians 10–13 is to subvert that by boasting in weakness. A persistent sin struggle is the ultimate boast in weakness; it is the one thing no one would fabricate to establish their credentials.

Grace as Provision

Returning to the question at hand, what will Gods provision look like in the face of the very sin that causes the need, the destruction, the malignancy? It is grace. It is not, here I will take this away from you, though that is sometimes the answer, but even then it usually comes on the back of enduring a long period of struggle with it. This is relief and a reality check for the believer. It is relief in that we can rest in the reality of our lived sinfulness. We are fallen, and it is not just that God knows our frame, He accepts it as the reality by which we are bound, and therefore has no greater expectation. We can come away with the understanding that this sin may and probably will persist, but we are forgiven and God will provide.