Honor
If you had asked him, "Paul, what is the meaning of that scar?" he would have told you, perhaps of the day when they beat him so cruelly at Philippi. If you had questioned him further, asking the meaning of another brand upon that worn body of his, he would have told you that he had borne it since the day they had stoned him and left him for dead at Lystra.

Some scars are ornaments. I don't know a more splendid statement in all the epistles of Paul than - "I bear (about) in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus."

"Do you see this?" he asked. "I was stoned there." And then he would pull up his sleeve, and pointing to another deep scar, say, "This is the mark of the scourge. And if you could see my back and body, they, too, bear the marks of the Lord Jesus.

Paul exhibited his scars as some men exhibit their degrees. Scars inflicted while he proclaimed the gospel were Paul's crown. They were to him the beautiful initials of his Lord and Master etched into his flesh.

Paul counted it an honor to have fellowship with his Lord in His suffering. He gloried in the tribulations that overtook him as he preached the gospel. "I carry, like a standard-bearer of an army, who proudly displays his wounds, the scars of my Redeemer," he cries.

Paul rejoiced in bodily weakness - the thorn in the flesh - because it was to him what the fire was to the sweet spice - it gave Christ an opportunity for His power to rest upon him (2 Cor. 12:9-10).

When John Clark of France was for Christ's sake whipped for several days, and afterwards received a mark on his forehead, as the sign of infamy, his mother, instead of being influenced by angry feelings, exclaimed exultantly, "blessed by Christ, and welcome be these prints and marks of Christ" - words which encouraged her son and showed how much that mother gloried in suffering for Christ.

The early Christians rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ. Latimer said, "Suffering for Christ is the greatest promotion that Christ gives in this world." Glover, the martyr, wept for joy at his imprisonment. Bradford said, "God forgive me for my unthankfulness, for His exceeding great mercy, that amongst so many thousands He chooses me to be one in whom He will suffer."

Eusebieus, speaking in the days of Severus of the martyr's release form prison, says, "They seemed to have come out of a perfuming house, rather than a prison. Joyful they were and much cheered that they were so much honored as to suffer for Christ."

After the battle of Marengo, Napolean struck a medal for his soldiers. On one side he put the name of the battle, and on the other, he inscribed the three proud words, "I was there." In this way, Paul gloried, too, that he was in the thick of the battle for the Lord and had gained his scars.

The word stigmata speaks also of :
Ownership
As a slave bore upon his body the branded marks of slavery, proving him to be slave, so Paul gloried in his marks as evidence that he was a bond slave of Christ. Read his letters, and you will see that he thrilled at the thought of being a "doulos," the bond slave of Christ. "God has honored me," he says, "by putting His stamp of ownership upon me. I bear in my body the brand-marks of the Lord Jesus."

Paul had surrendered all to the domination of the Redeemer; he wholly belonged to Christ. "If you have anything against me," he says in effect, "go to my Master. I am responsible to Him. Do you not see in my body the marks of His ownership?"

The believers at Galatia immediately knew the illuminous meaning of the word "slave." All around them were slaves, including some of the believers. A slave was a person who had no power over his own body, no rights of his own. He could not resign; he couldn't give up his master's work just when he felt like it. Paul was sold out completely to his glorious Lord. "Go where I may," he says, "I can't turn traitor, or I shall be a traitor with my Master's stigmata upon me."

Sacrifice
With the slaves under the Roman domination, the marks were those of burning, for their bodies were seared with a hot iron. The procedure was painful, but the results were permanent.

Listen to the heart-breaking account of Paul's sacrifice and sufferings, as found in his second letter to the Corinthians: "…exceeding them in labors, exceeding them in imprisonments, quite surpassing them in floggings, with risk of life many a time. From the Jews I have five times received 40 lashes, all but one. Thrice I have been beaten with rods, once I have been stoned, thrice I have been shipwrecked, a whole night and day I have passed in the deep.

"I have traveled much, amid dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own people, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the desert, dangers by the sea, dangers among false brethren, in labor and toil, with many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, in frequent fastings, in cold and lack of clothing. And apart from all else, there is that which presses on me daily - my anxiety for all the churches." (Weymouth)

Paul might have lived the self-centered life, but he would have had no scars. He never would have been able to say, "At all points we are hard-pressed, yet not hemmed in; perplexed, yet not at our wits end; pursued, yet not forsaken; struck down, yet not destroyed; always carrying about in our bodies the putting-to-death of Jesus, so that in our bodies the life of Jesus also may be manifest. For we, alive though we are, are continually surrendering ourselves to death for the sake of Jesus, so that in our mortal nature, the life of Jesus also may be manifest. Thus death is at work in us, but life in you." (Weymouth)

This is copyrighted material from James Stewart's book Come O Breath!, available from Revival Literature, PO Box 6068, Asheville, NC 28816.