For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he lives 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.
Read Chapter 13
Ambrosiaster
AD 400
Paul is referring here to the personal experience of the apostles, who were made weak by being treated badly, imprisoned and beaten… Believers are made strong by being weak. Death inflicted by unbelievers is life as far as believers are concerned, for they will rise again to reign with Christ. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
For though He was crucified. Through the weakness of His humanity, yet by the power of His Godhead He rose and lives.
For we also are weak in Him. With Him and for Him we are weak, we suffer, and are afflicted. According to this the for denotes not cause but likeness, and is put for Song of Solomon , by a usual Hebrew usage, which expresses similitude by doubling the conjunction.
We shall live with Him by the power of God toward you. Through Him and with Him we will show the power of Christ, i.e, the spiritual vigour of the Gospel, and in particular the power of punishing the contumacious amongst you (Theophylact). Anselm and Theodoret explain it: We with you shall rise by the power of God to eternal bliss. But the first sense is more in harmony with the context. This is supported by the phrase toward you (not merely in you), as well as by the fact that he is concerned with showing the power of Christ lodged in himself, to punish the contumacious. His argument is: As Christ, though w...
He was crucified through weakness. That is, he took upon him our weak and infirm nature, in which he was made capable of suffering, and of laying down willingly his life for us on the cross. But he liveth again by the power of God, of his divine power.
We also are weak in him, like him liable to sufferings, undergoing sufferings by his example; but we shall live with him by the power of God, of which you have also a share. (Witham)
He suffered shame on earth, while He is higher than all glory and praise in heaven; who, "though He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth by divine power; "
This is a difficult passage which causes problems for many people. What is meant here by “weakness”? In Scripture weakness can refer to bodily illness, and it can also mean not being securely grounded in faith. But there is a third possibility, and that is what we find here. Weakness can mean persecutions, trials, plottings and the like. Christ was not weak in body or in spirit, but he was persecuted and put to death. It was not because of any inherent weakness that he went to the cross; on the contrary, he chose to die in that way in order to give us life in the power of God.
What is, though He was crucified through weakness? 'For though He chose,' he says, 'to endure a thing which seems to carry a notion of weakness, still this in no way breaks in upon His Power. That still remains invincible, and that thing which seems to be of weakness, has nothing harmed it, nay this very thing itself shows His Power most of all, in that He endured even such a thing, and yet His Power was not mutilated.' Let not then the expression weakness disturb you; for elsewhere also he says, The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men; 1 Corinthians 1:55 although in God is nothing either foolish or weak: but he called the Cross so, as setting forth the conception of the unbelieving regarding it. Hear him, at least, interpreting himself. For the preaching of the Cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. 1 Corinthians 1:18 And again; But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblin...
Earlier Paul said that Christ became sin and a curse for us, even though he knew no sin and was not a curse in himself. Likewise here he says that Christ was crucified in weakness, even though this weakness was not his own but rather something which he assumed on our behalf. .
