2 Corinthians 12:11

Verse 2 Corinthians 12:11. I am become a fool in glorying] It is not the part of a wise or gracious man to boast; but ye have compelled me-I have been obliged to do it, in order to vindicate the cause of God.

I ought to have been commended of you] You should have vindicated both myself and my ministry against the detractors that are among you.

The very chiefest apostles] See 2 Corinthians 11:1.

Though I be nothing.] Though I have been thus set at nought by your false apostle; and though, in consequence of what he has said, some of you have been ready to consider me as nothing-what we call good for nothing. This must be the meaning of the apostle, as the following verses prove.

A kind of technical meaning has been imposed on these words, of which many good people seem very fond. I am nothing-I am all sin, defilement, and unworthiness in myself; but Jesus Christ is all in all. This latter clause is an eternal truth; the former may be very true also; the person who uses it may be all sin, defilement, c., but let him not say that the apostle of the Gentiles was so too, because this is not true it is false, and it is injurious to the character of the apostle and to the grace of Christ; besides, it is not the meaning of the text, and the use commonly made of it is abominable, if not wicked.