16. " For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God.... We also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you." (2 Cor. 13:44For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you. (2 Corinthians 13:4).) Thus, The cross was in Jesus the proof of how He had emptied Himself-" being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."
And two things are taught here. 1st, that the cross told of the weakness of the living-soul life of Christ when He would appear in God's presence-as the sinner's substitute, bearing by imputation our sins-He was crucified through weakness; though that might and did only make manifest the deeper quickening spirit-life. He had as Son of God from before all worlds; by which, and according to the pleasure of God, He rose Himself; and rose for us through the value of the blood just shed. 2ndly, it tells that so likewise weak as the fruits of the testimony of a saint may show him to be, it tells, in them that are converted, by the power of God in them, that the testimony is of one who has life with God. The Corinthians said, "Paul, can you prove you are an apostle, and that Christ has spoken by you?" (Ver. 3.) " Yes," says he (ver. 4, for he had preached the gospel to them, and they had been saved by it), " poor thing, as you think me. If I am not an apostle, I am a liar, and there is no hope for me; but I am not afraid of this, for God gave you the Holy Ghost when you heard me preach, and this chews I have the truth, and shall live... I am therefore an apostle, for otherwise (ver. 5) you cannot be Christians."
Here, as in the first Epistle, he reads in the cross his own nothingness, and that even when in testimony for God.