Strength and Weakness
The heavenly host praise God and say, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” Nothing higher or more astonishing (save the cross) for those who have the mind of heaven. The choir alone see God in it, God manifested in flesh, and praise God in the highest. They rejoice that His delights are “with the sons of men.”
Of old God had displayed Himself in a flame of fire, without consuming the bush, and here, still more marvelously, in the feeblest thing on earth. Infinite thought though despicable to the world!
How hard it is to receive that the work of God and of His Christ is always in weakness! The rulers of the people saw in Peter and John unlearned and ignorant men. Paul’s weakness at Corinth was the trial of his friends, the taunt of his enemies, and the boast of himself. The Lord’s strength is “made perfect in weakness.” The thorn in the flesh made Paul despised, and he conceived it would be better if that were gone. He had need of the lesson: “My grace is sufficient for thee” (2 Cor. 12:99And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)).
It is God’s rule of action, if we may so say, to choose the weak things. Everything must rest on God’s power, otherwise God’s work cannot be done according to His mind. One can hardly believe that one must be feeble to do the work of God, but Christ was crucified in weakness, and the weakness of God is stronger than man. For the work of God, we must be weak, that the strength may be of God, and that work will last when all the earth shall be moved away.
J. N. Darby (excerpted)