It is not needful that we should know exactly what Paul’s thorn in the flesh was, and the very mist that hangs around it renders it easier for each of us to apply the principle of it to ourselves.

Nevertheless, when we collect all the various allusions to it we can conjecture with some degree of certainty that it was probably the disfigurements and mangled condition of his face and eyes, which he received at the time he was stoned and left for dead at Lystra.

The account of this thorn is given in the twelfth chapter of 2d Corinthians, in which he says the thorn was given him over fourteen years previous to writing that epistle. Paul wrote this epistle A. D. 60. He was stoned at Lystra A. D. 46, which identifies the time of receiving the thorn with the time he was stoned. It is very evident from a close view of the record, that Paul was literally stoned to death, that his head and face were horribly mangled with the rocks. He was dragged out of the city and left as a dead dog by his enemies, at which time his disembodied spirit went to Paradise and he was permitted to have extraordinary revelations of the heavenly world; things so divine that there were no words in human language to express them. (See verse four, margin.)

His spirit was then sent back in the body, and while the disciples were weeping around his dead body, he was restored to life, and sufficiently healed to rise up and walk, and the next day take a long journey and preach. But notwithstanding all this, there were horrible scarifications left about his eyes and features which made his face repulsive to look at, and this was a constant mortification to him.

This will account for so many allusions in his epistles; such as, “His letters, they said, were weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak.” In his epistle to the Galatians, he says that they did not despise his temptation to the flesh, nor reject him with contempt (see Greek), and that if it had been possible they would have plucked out their own eyes and given them to Paul. This proves that the disfigurement was connected with his eyes. Again he says in the same epistle, “You see in how large letters I have written unto you.” Most of his epistles were dictated and only signed by Paul, but as the Galatians had partially backslidden, to more effectually win them back to holiness, he wrote a short autograph letter, and owing to the affliction in his eyes, he had to make the letters very large, which would be a proof to the Galatians that Paul actually wrote it. The common version which says he wrote a large letter is incorrect, and should be, he wrote in large letters.

Again in concluding the Galatian epistle he says, “From henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the brand of the Lord Jesus.” (Greek, stigmata.) This stigmata was the fire brand with which masters branded their slaves. Sometimes slaves would fly from their merciless masters, and take refuge in some heathen temple and sell themselves to the god of the temple; then the priest of the temple would brand with a hot iron such a slave, as the special property of that temple, and his old master could never more trouble him.

Paul uses this to illustrate to the legalized Galatians who had drifted back into the bondage of the ceremonial law that he had fled from his merciless master, the Jewish law, and had fled to Jesus the new Master, and sold himself to Christ, and that Jesus had put on him his brand, and from henceforth his old master, or any old Jewish teacher, should not trouble him. This disfigurement of his face and eyes, which he received or Jesus’s sake, was the brand or stigmata he referred to.

From this account we see that the thorn in the flesh was given to Paul several years after his conversion and sanctification. It only illustrates the vast ignorance among Christian people, when we find persons in every part of the country who affirm that Paul’s thorn was original sin. Paul received this thorn, the messenger of Satan, to buffet him, after reaching the highest states of grace and the deepest insights into glory possible for a mortal man to receive; hence it could have no connection with the “old Man,” or the sin principle.

From all the foregoing we learn that just as long as the human soul is in this world there is an element of danger in it, and that even when all sin is purged away, and the soul filled with heavenly things, that there is an element of danger in the very excesses of grace and the abundance of revelations. The Infinite Searcher of spirits saw a liability in Paul of over exaltation which he was utterly unconscious that he had. He says, “Lest I should be exalted above measure, a thorn was given to buffet me.” There were liabilities in Paul which he himself was not aware of, but God saw the liability, and saw the mortification which was needful to tone him down. In every age this has been true of devoted persons, the most ardent and highly favored saints.

It is a common thing for the holiest of people to manifest in their spirit tendencies to dogmatism, domineering, display of authority, and a dictatorial censorship over others, of which they are unaware, and cannot believe that such is true when it is told them.

The fact is, no human being understands the workings of his own spirit, except as it is revealed by the Holy Ghost. Good people, holy people, absolutely need crosses, and trials, and sorrows, and sometimes a horrible disfigurement to keep them at that high water gospel mark, where self is the minimum and Christ is the maximum.

We learn again from this experience of Paul that there is a something in the three-fold constitution of man, of spirit, soul and body, a nature, or a characteristic, which is neither sin on the one side nor Christ on the other, which needs to be chastened, and corrected, and brought into perfect harmony with Christ.

Paul’s thorn did not eliminate any sin, but it served to grind into a finer flour the natural grain of his make up.

But the greatest lesson we get from this is, that the soul can be so subdued and filled with unspeakable humility that it will actually take delight in thorns and crosses and humiliations.

When Jesus revealed to Paul his design in giving him the bodily disfigurement, with its painful inconvenience, and that Christ’s strength would be made perfect in that very weakness, then Paul got another vision of the blessedness of suffering and exclaimed, “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in mine infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” This is a degree of spiritual victory even beyond the visions of Paradise. Humility in its fullness and all its details of practice toward God and toward our fellows—humility in thought, in purpose, in behavior, in speech, and tone, and gesture—unostentatious, unpretending, unbounded humility, is a thousand times more essential to us in this life than the visions of Paradise.

It is true we need all the heavenly visions and all the bright outlets into God, which his mercy is pleased to grant us. I simply say we need boundless humility more than these. When we can welcome as a treasure those persons, those hard circumstances, those pains and mortifications, those treatments of our fellows, or those sad limitations in our lives, which always humble us into the dust, nay, even rejoice in these things, knowing that they drive us deeper into the sweet mind of Jesus, then indeed we have gotten the victory.

From that time on, our thorn, whatever it may be, like Aaron’s dry almond rod, will blossom and bear sweet almonds, and this rod which blossoms and bears fruit, will be laid up in the ark of the covenant, and preserved through eternal ages, as a memorial of praise to the transforming power of grace.