But I determined this for myself, that I would not come to you again in sorrow.
Parallel Translations
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But I determined this for myself, that I would not come to you again in sorrow.
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But I determened this in my silfe that I wolde not come agayne to you in hevines.
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Bvt I determined thus in my selfe, that I would not come againe to you in heauinesse.
Cross-references (12)
Passages linked to 2 Corinthians 2:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 2 Corinthians 1:23 But I call God for a witness to my soul, that I didn’t come to Corinth to spare you.
- 2 Corinthians 13:10 For this cause I write these things while absent, that I may not deal sharply when present, according to the authority which the Lord gave me for building up, and not for tearing down.
- 2 Corinthians 12:20-21 For I am afraid that by any means, when I come, I might find you not the way I want to, and that I might be found by you as you don’t desire, that by any means there would be strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, whisperings, proud thoughts, or riots, that again when I come my God would humble me before you, and I would mourn for many of those who have sinned before now, and not repented of the uncleanness, sexual immorality, and lustfulness which they committed.
- 1 Corinthians 4:21 What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness?
- 2 Corinthians 2:4 For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears, not that you should be made to grieve, but that you might know the love that I have so abundantly for you.
- Acts 11:29 As any of the disciples had plenty, each determined to send relief to the brothers who lived in Judea;
- Acts 15:2 Therefore when Paul and Barnabas had no small discord and discussion with them, they appointed Paul and Barnabas, and some others of them, to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question.
- 1 Corinthians 2:2 For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
- 1 Corinthians 5:3 For I most certainly, as being absent in body but present in spirit, have already, as though I were present, judged him who has done this thing.
- 2 Corinthians 1:15-17 In this confidence, I was determined to come first to you, that you might have a second benefit, and by you to pass into Macedonia, and again from Macedonia to come to you, and to be sent forward by you on my journey to Judea. When I therefore was thus determined, did I show fickleness? Or the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be the “Yes, yes” and the “No, no?”
- 2 Corinthians 7:5-8 For even when we had come into Macedonia, our flesh had no relief, but we were afflicted on every side. Fightings were outside. Fear was inside. Nevertheless, he who comforts the lowly, God, comforted us by the coming of Titus, and not by his coming only, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted in you while he told us of your longing, your mourning, and your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced still more. For though I grieved you with my letter, I do not regret it, though I did regret it. For I see that my letter made you grieve, though just for a while.
- Titus 3:12 When I send Artemas to you, or Tychicus, be diligent to come to me to Nicopolis, for I have determined to winter there.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (28 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 1 But I had determined Whoever it was that…
1 But I had determined Whoever it was that divided the chapters, made here a foolish division. For now at length the Apostle explains, in what manner he had spared them. “I had determined,” says he, “not to come to you any more in sorrow,” or in other words, to occasion you sorrow by my coming. For he had come once by an Epistle, by means of which he had severely pained them. Hence, so long as they had not repented, he was unwilling to come to them, lest he should be constrained to grieve them again, when present with them, for he chose rather to give them longer time for repentance. The word ἔκρινα (I determined) must be rendered in the pluperfect tense, for, when assigning a reason for the delay that had occurred, he explains what had been his intention previously.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Causing grief amongst you, which he should have done…
Causing grief amongst you, which he should have done if he had come to them before they had repented them.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 1 But I determined this with myself, that I…
1 But I determined this with myself, that I would not come again to you in heaviness.
Ver. 1. That I would not come again] Ille dolet quoties cogitur esse ferox. It goes as much against the heart of a good minister as against the hair with his people, if he say or do anything to their grief. It is no pleasure to him to fling daggers, to speak millstones, to preach damnation, &c. But there is a cruel leniency, as was that of Eli to his sons; and evil men must be sharply rebuked, that they may be sound in the faith, Tit 1:13.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain One reason why I put off my formerly intended…
One reason why I put off my formerly intended journey to you, was, that I might give you time to repent, and reform those disorders that were amongst you, that my coming to you might neither cause heaviness in you, seeing me come with a rod, to chide and reprove you; nor yet in myself, who do not delight in censures and chidings, but must myself have been sad to have seen such errors and disorders amongst you, as I must by my paternal and apostolical authority have corrected.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain The occasion of St. Paul’s writing again to the…
The occasion of St. Paul’s writing again to the Corinthians, and deferring for the present to come unto them, is here intimated. There was an incestuous person in the church of Corinth, who had married his father’s wife; if she were his own natural mother, the sin was most prodigious and unnatural, that the child of her womb should be the husband of her bed; if she were his mother-in-law, it was against the law of reverence, and an heinous sin for the son to uncover the father’s nakedness. And it was an aggravation of the sin, that the person committing it was a Christian, a member, and, as some think, a minister of the church of Corinth. St. Paul, in his former epistle, 1Co 5:1 command them to excommunicate this incestuous person, which accordingly they did; and this spiritual physic, applied to the offender, had a good effect upon him; for being punished by the church, he punisheth himself; and being cast out of the church, he casts away his sin.
Happy is it, when the church’s censures are so executed as to bring offenders to a sight and sense of their sins, in order to a deep humiliation and thorough reformation.
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Now, says the apostle, I determined not to come to you in heaviness; that is, one great reason why I put off my coming amongst you might neither occasion sorrow, nor create heaviness, either to you or myself; for I delight not in censuring and chiding, when I can otherwise avoid it: For if I make you sorry, and myself with you, who is it that can make me glad, but he that is made sorry by me? that is, nothing can make me glad but the reformation of the fallen person.
Where note, That nothing adds so much to the joy and comfort of the ministers of Christ, as their recovery of revolted souls from under the empire and dominion of sin and Satan. We joy with them, and rejoice in God for them; we live as we see any of you stand fast in the Lord, we die as we see others stick fast in their sins.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain In these verses, 1. The apostle proceeds in giving…
In these verses, 1. The apostle proceeds in giving an account of the reason why he did not come to Corinth, as was expected; namely, because he was unwilling to grieve them, or be grieved by them, Co2 2:1, Co2 2:2. He had determined not to come to them in heaviness, which yet he would have done had he come and found scandal among them not duly animadverted upon: this would have been cause of grief both to him and them, for their sorrow or joy at meeting would have been mutual. If he had made them sorry, that would have been a sorrow to himself, for there would have been none to have made him glad. But his desire was to have a cheerful meeting with them, and not to have it embittered by any unhappy occasion of disagreeing. 2. He tells them it was to the same intent that he wrote his former epistle, Co2 2:3, Co2 2:4. (1) That he might not have sorrow from those of whom he ought to rejoice; and that he had written to them in confidence of their doing what was requisite, in order to their benefit and his comfort. The particular thing referred to, as appears by the following verses, was the case of the incestuous person about whom he had written in the first epistle, ch. 5. Nor was the apostle disappointed in his expectation. (2.) He assures them that he did not design to grieve them, but to testify his love to them, and that he wrote to them with much anguish and affliction in his own heart, and with great affection to them. He had written with tears, that they might know his abundant love to them. Note, [1.] Even in reproofs, admonitions, and acts of discipline, faithful ministers show their love. [2.] Needful censures, and the exercise of church-discipline towards offenders, are a grief to tender-spirited ministers, and are administered with regret.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain But I determined with myself,.... The apostle having removed…
But I determined with myself,.... The apostle having removed the charge of levity and inconstancy brought against him, goes on to excuse his delay in coming to them, and to soften the severity, which some thought too much, he had used in his former epistle: he determined with himself, he took up a resolution within his own breast some time ago, says he,
that I would not come again to you in heaviness; that he would not come with sorrow and heaviness, bewailing their sins not repented of, and by sharp reproofs and censures, which in such a case would be necessary, be the cause of grief and trouble to them; wherefore he determined to wait their repentance and amendment before he came again. The word "again", may be connected with the phrase "in heaviness"; and the sense be, that in his former epistle, which was a sort of coming to them, he made them heavy and sorry, by sharply rebuking them for some disorders that were among them; and since it has been a settled point with him, that he would not come in heaviness again: or with the word "come"; and then the meaning is, as his first coming among them was to the joy of their souls, so it was a determined case with him, that his second coming should not be with grief, either to them or himself, or both; and this is the true reason why he had deferred it so long.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain In grief - Either on account of the particular…
In grief - Either on account of the particular offender, or of the church in general.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain The apostle farther explains the reasons why he did…
CHAPTER II.
The apostle farther explains the reasons why he did not pay his
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intended visit to the Corinthians, 1.
And why he wrote to them in the manner he did, 2-5.
He exhorts them also to forgive the incestuous person, who had
become a true penitent; and therefore he had forgiven him in
the name of Christ, 6-11.
He mentions the disappointment he felt when he came to Troas in
not meeting with Titus, from whom he expected to have heard an
account of the state of the Corinthian Church, 12, 13.
Gives thanks to God for the great success he had in preaching
the Gospel, so that the influence of the name of Christ was
felt in every place, 14.
Shows that the Gospel is a savour of life to them that believe,
and of death to them that believe not, 15, 16.
And that he and his brethren preached the pure, unadulterated
doctrine of God among the people, 17.
NOTES ON CHAP. II.
Verse 1. But I determined this] The apostle continues to give farther reasons why he did not visit them at the proposed time. Because of the scandals that were among them he could not see them comfortably; and therefore he determined not to see them at all till he had reason to believe that those evils were put away.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain 2Co 2:1-3. But I, &c. — The apostle proceeds…
2Co 2:1-3. But I, &c. — The apostle proceeds with his apology, begun in the preceding chapter, for delaying his visit to the Corinthians, and signifies that he had deferred it because he had determined with himself not to come among them with sorrow, by punishing the guilty, if he could by any means avoid it; and therefore, instead of coming to punish them, he had written to them, that he might have joy from their repentance: and in excuse for the severity of his first letter, he told them that he wrote it in the deepest affliction; not to make them sorry, but to show the greatness of his love to them. I determined this with myself — As if he had said, I will now plainly and faithfully tell you the true reason of that delay of my journey, which has so much surprised many of you, and at which some appear to have taken offence; it was not that I forgot you, or failed in my friendly regards to you; but I resolved, on hearing how things were among you, that if it could by any means be prevented, I would not come again to you with heaviness — Εν λυπη, in grief, either on account of the sin of the particular offender, or of the disorders in the church in general, or in circumstances which must have grieved both myself and you; but that I would wait for those fruits which I hoped would be the effect of my endeavours, in my former epistle, to regulate what had been amiss. For if I make you sorry — If I should be obliged to grieve you still more by my reproofs and censures, and particularly by punishing the disobedient among you; who is he then that maketh me glad — That could give me joy; but the same who is made sorry by me? — That is, I cannot be comforted myself till his grief is removed. The apostle, knowing that the sincere part of the church would be made sorry by his punishing their disobedient brethren, wished, if possible, to avoid doing it. And, added to this, the recovery of offenders would give him more sensible joy than any thing else; considerations which, taken together, abundantly justify the language he here uses. And I wrote this same, τουτο αυτο, this very thing, to you — About reforming what is amiss, particularly to excommunicate the incestuous person, and to shun all contentions, sinful practices, and confusion in your meetings; lest when I came again to Corinth, as I proposed, I should have sorrow from them — Lest I should have occasion to censure and punish any, (to do which would be grievous to me,) of whom — In whose repentance; I ought to rejoice, having confidence in you all that my joy is the joy of you all — That in general you bear the same affection toward me, as I feel in my heart toward you, and are desirous of giving me cause of joy, rather than of sorrow. It seems either the apostle is speaking here of the sincere part of the Christian Church, or the word all must be taken in a qualified sense.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain But I determined this with myself - I made…
But I determined this with myself - I made up my mind on this point; I formed this resolution in regard to my course.
That I would not come again to you in heaviness - In grief (ἐνη λύπ enē lup). “I would not come, if I could avoid it, in circumstances which must have grieved both me and you. I would not come while there existed among you such irregularities as must have pained my heart, and as must have compelled me to resort to such acts of discipline as would be painful to you. I resolved, therefore, to endeavor to remove these evils before I came, that when I did come, my visit might be mutually agreeable to us both. For that reason I changed my purpose about visiting you, when I heard of those disorders, and resolved to send an epistle. If that should be successful, then the way would be open for an agreeable visit to you.” This verse, therefore, contains the statement of the principal reason why he had not come to them as he had at first proposed. It was really from no fickleness, but it was from love to them, and a desire that his visit should be mutually agreeable, compare the notes, 2Co 1:23.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain St. Paul continues to justify his not coming to…
St. Paul continues to justify his not coming to them as he promised. He told them that he did not wish to domineer over their faith, but that his whole design was to contribute to their joy, and that he did not wish to visit them as long as any thing remained worthy of correction, lest his presence should only increase their sorrow. And if in his former epistle he made use of strong expressions, it was not through any design to make them sad, but merely to correct them, by which he manifested his great charity for them. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
John Nelson Darby 1862 · Public Domain 2 Corinthians Chapter 2
2 Corinthians Chapter 2
But had there been any lightness in his decisions, since, as he now informed them, he had intended to visit them on his way to Macedonia (where he was at the moment of writing this letter), and then a second time on his return from that country? In no wise; they were not intentions lightly formed, according to the flesh, and then abandoned. It was his affection, it was to spare them. He could not bear the idea of going with a rod to those whom he loved. Observe in what manner, although shewing his affection and tenderness, he maintains his authority; and they needed the exercise of this authority. And while reminding them of his authority, he displays all his tenderness. They were not Cretans, perhaps, whom it was necessary to rebuke sharply; but there was a laxity of. morals which required delicacy and care lest they should become restive, but also authority and a bridle, lest, in giving them liberty, they should fall into all sorts of bad ways. But he turns immediately to the certainty which was in Christ, the basis of all his own. He would not press too much upon the chord he had touched at the beginning. He lets his authority be known as that which might have been exercised, and he does not employ it. The groundwork of Christianity was needed, in order to put their souls into a condition to judge themselves healthily. They were quite disposed, through the intrigues of false teachers and their habit of schools of philosophy, to separate from the apostle, and, in spirit, from Christ. He brings them back to the foundation, to the sure doctrine that was common to all those that had laboured among them at the beginning. He would give Satan no occasion to detach them from him (see 2 Corinthians2:11).
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He establishes therefore the great principles of Christian joy and assurance. I do not speak of the blood, the only source of peace of conscience before God as a judge, but of the manner in which we are placed by the power of God in His presence, in the position and state into which that power introduces us according to the counsels of His grace. Simple certainty was in Christ, according to that which had been said. It was not first Yea, and then Nay: the yea remained always yea-a principle of immense importance, but for the establishment of which there was needed the power and the firmness and even perfection, and the wisdom, of God; for to assure and make stedfast that which was not wise and perfect would certainly not have been worthy of Him.
It will be seen that the question was, whether Paul had lightly changed his purpose. He says that he had not; but he leaves the thought of that which concerned him personally to speak of that which pre-occupied his thoughts-of Christ; and to him, in fact, to live was Christ. But there was a difficulty to solve, when the immutability of God’s promises was the question. It is that we are not in a state to profit by that which was immutable on account of our weakness and inconstancy. He solves this difficulty by setting forth the mighty operations of God in grace.
There are two points therefore:-the establishment of all the promises in Christ, and the enjoyment, by us, of the effect of these promises. The thing is, as we have seen, not merely to say, to promise, something; but not to change one’s intentions, not to depart from what was said, but to keep one’s word. Now there had been promises. God had made promises, whether to Abraham unconditionally, or to Israel at Sinai under the condition of obedience. But in Christ there was, not promises, but the Amen to God’s promises, the verity and realisation of them. Whatever promises there had been on God’s part, the Yea was in Him, and the Amen in Him. God has established-deposited, so to speak-the fulfilment of all His promises in the Person of Christ. Life, glory, righteousness, pardon, the gift of the Spirit, all is in Him; it is in Him that all is we-Yea and Amen. We cannot have the effect of any promise whatsoever out of Him. But this is not all: we, believers, are the objects of these counsels of God. They are to the glory of God by us.
But, in the first place, the glory of God is that of Him whoever glorifies Himself in His ways of sovereign grace towards us; for it is in these ways that He unfolds and displays what He is. The Yea and Amen therefore of the promises of God, the accomplishment and the realisation of the promises of God, for His glory by us, are in Christ.
But how can we participate in it, if all is Christ and in Christ? It is here that the Holy Ghost presents the second part of the ways of grace. We are in Christ, and we are in Him not according to the instability of the will of man, and the weakness that characterises him in his transitory and changeable works. He who was firmly established us in Christ is God Himself. The accomplishment of all the promises is in Him. Under the law, and under conditions the fulfilment of which depended on the stability of man, the effect of the promise was never attained; the thing promised eluded the pursuit of man, because man needed to be in a state capable of attaining it by righteousness, and he was not in that state; the accomplishment of the promise therefore was always suspended; it would have its effect if-but the “if” was not accomplished, and the Yea and Amen did not come. But all that God has promised is in Christ. The second part is the “by us,” and how far we enjoy it. We are firmly established by God in Christ, in whom all the promises subsist, so that we securely possess in Him all that is promised us. But we do not enjoy it as that which subsists in our own hands.
But, further, God Himself has anointed us. We have by Jesus received the Holy Ghost. God has taken care that we should understand by the Spirit that which is freely given us in Christ. But the Spirit is given to us, according to the counsels of God, for other things than understanding merely His gifts in Christ. He who has received Him is sealed. God has marked him with His seal, even as He marked Christ with His seal when He anointed Him after His baptism by John. Moreover the Spirit becomes the earnest, in our own hearts, of that which we shall fully possess hereafter in Christ. We understand the things that are given us in the glory; we are marked by the seal of God to enjoy them; we have the earnest of them in our hearts-our affections are engaged by them. Established in Christ, we have the Holy Ghost, who seals us when we believe, to bring us into the enjoyment, even while here below, of that which is in Christ.
Having again spoken of the care which manifested his affection for them, he expresses his conviction that that which had pained him had pained them also; and this was demonstrated by the way in which they had treated the transgressor. He exhorts them to receive again and comfort the poor guilty one, who was in danger of being entirely overwhelmed by the discipline that had been exercised towards him by the mass of the Christians; adding, that if the Christians forgave him his fault, he forgave it likewise. He would not that Satan should get any advantage through this case to bring in dissension between himself and the Corinthians; for Paul well knew what the enemy aimed at, the object with which he made use of this affair.
This gives him occasion to shew how much he had them always in his heart. Coming to Troas for the gospel, and a wide door being opened to him, nevertheless he could not remain there, because he had not found Titus; and he left Troas and continued his journey into Macedonia. It will be remembered that, instead of passing by the western shores of the Archipelago, in order to visit Macedonia, taking Corinth on his way, and then returning by the same route, the apostle had sent Titus with his first letter, and had gone by way of Asia Minor, or the eastern coast of the sea, which led him to Troas, where Titus was to meet him. But not finding him at Troas, and being uneasy with regard to the Corinthians, he could not be satisfied with there being a work to be done at Troas, but journeyed on to meet Titus and repaired to Macedonia. There he found him, as we shall see presently. But this thought of having left Troas affected him, for in fact it is a serious thing, and painful to the heart, to miss an opportunity of preaching Christ, and the more so when people are disposed to receive Him, or at least to hear of Him. To have left Troas was indeed a proof of his affection for the Corinthians; and the apostle recalls the circumstance as a strong demonstration of that affection. He comforts himself for having missed this work of evangelisation by the thought that after all God led him as in triumph (not “caused him to triumph”). The gospel which he carried with him, the testimony of Christ, was like the perfume caused by burning aromatic drugs in triumphal processions-a token of death to some of the captives, of life to others. And this perfume of the gospel was pure in his hands. The apostle was not like some who adulterated the wine they furnished; he laboured in Christian integrity before God.
John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain 1But I determined this with [for] myself, that I…
IV.—MORE PARTICULAR EXPLANATIONS OF HIS REASONS FOR NOT VISITING THEM; THAT HE MIGHT SPARE THEM AND HIMSELF NEEDLESS PAIN. DIRECTIONS WITH RESPECT TO THOSE WHO HAD ESPECIALLY CAUSED TROUBLE
2Co_2:1-11
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1But I determined this with [for] myself, that I would not come again to you in heaviness [in sorrow come again to you].1 2For if I make you sorry, who is he then2 that maketh me glad, but the same which is made sorry by me? 3And I wrote this same [om. unto you3], lest when I came I should have sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice; having confidence in you all, that my joy is the joy of you all. 4For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears; not that ye should be grieved [have sorrow], but that ye might know the love which I have more abundantly unto you. 5But if any have caused grief [sorrow], he hath not grieved [caused sorrow to] me, but in part, (that I may not overcharge [him]) you all. 6Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many. 7So that contrariwise ye ought rather [om. rather4] to forgive him and comfort him, 8lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow. Wherefore I beseech you that ye would confirm your love toward him. 9For to this end also did I 10write, that I might know the proof of you, whether5 ye be obedient in all things. To whom ye forgive any thing, I forgive also6: for if I forgave any thing, to whom [whatever] I forgave it [om. it], for your sakes forgave I it, in the person [presence] of Christ; 11lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
2Co_2:1-4. Having given the reason which had prevented his visit to the Corinthians (viz.: that he might spare them, φειδόμενος ὑμῶν, 2Co_1:23), the Apostle now proceeds to inform them that one reason for thus sparing them was for his own sake.—But I determined this for my own sake.—The δέ indicates simply an advance in the course of the argument. Κρίνειν is here used as it is in 1Co_2:2; 1Co_7:37 [in the sense of: to determine, to form a decision]. The meaning of ἐμαυτῷ is not here [as in the Luth. and all the Eng. versions]: with myself, for then the words should have been παῤ ἐμαυτῷ; but it is rather the dat. commodi: for my own sake; “a thoughtful, affectionate turn of expression” Meyer. Τοῦτο is emphatic and anticipates that which immediately follows, and which is epexegetical or explanatory of it (comp. Rom_14:13 et. al.—That I would not again come to you in sorrow).—The πάλιν belongs to the whole phrase: in sorrow come to you, and not merely to the verb to come independently of the words in sorrow. Critics have been led to this violent removal of the word from its natural connection by their unwillingness to concede that the Apostle had made a second journey to Corinth before writing this Epistle (comp. 2Co_1:15). Neander: “Paul intended to say that he would not a second time in sorrow come to them. But when had he been with them the first time in sorrow? Such a phrase could hardly be applicable to his first residence at Corinth. We must therefore believe that Paul had been a second time in that city, and that many sad things had then taken place there. We shall be obliged to accept of Bleek’s explanation, that Paul had made one journey to Corinth not only before the Epistle to the Corinthians, which stands first in our canon, but another before writing our Epistle, which must have been actually first written, but which has been lost.” [Comp. what is said of this second visit in the Introd., § 6]. We must also conclude from what follows, in the second verse, “for if I make you sorrowful”—that the sorrow here referred to must have been a sorrow of the Corinthians and not of the Apostle himself nor one shared by both parties. To come in sorrow, then, was to bring with him that which should cause sorrow (comp. Rom_15:29, and ἐν ῥάβδω ἐλθεῖν, 1Co_4:21).7—Who is he then that maketh me glad but the same who is made sorry by me?—The καί in the beginning of the apodosis or the concluding clause of 2Co_2:2, is remarkable; and the connection of this sentence with the protasis which precedes it is not easy to be determined. Many have therefore concluded that we have here an aposiopesis, and that the Apostle, led off by his strong emotion, suddenly breaks off from his previous sentence and commences here a new interrogative sentence. The sense then would be: he could not think of giving them pain, for that would be ungrateful and unkind, since he would thus give pain to those who were giving him joy. In such a case, however, the expression ought to have been: καὶ τίς ὁ λυπούμενος ἐξ ἐμοῦ, εἰ μὴ ὁ εὐφραίνωνμε: who is he then that is made sorrowful by me, but the one who makes me glad? We not unfrequently meet with καί before the concluding clause (apodosis) of a conditional proposition in the works of the epic poets, in order to indicate that both transactions mentioned take place at precisely the same time (comp. Passow, sub voce καί, p. 1539 a. [Jelf, § 759, 2]). It might be translated [as in our Eng. vers.], then, and the sense would be: there would be then no one to make me glad, etc. He intends to say that both things could not be at the same time, that he could not be making them sad while they were making him glad. The absurdity of expecting that they would then make him joyful is made still more evident by the phrase, εἰ μὴ ὁ λυπούμενος ἐξ ἐμοῦ: “he must be the very one who is made sad by me.” If I, your spiritual father, make you sorrowful, I thus deprive myself of the joy which you, my children, afford me; and I must be destitute of it entirely, for I cannot expect joy from one who has been saddened by me, The singular ὁ λυπόυμενος is rendered necessary not only by the τίς, but by the abstract form in which the matter is put. The reference is not to the case of the incestuous person (1Co_5:1). Ἐγώ is contrasted with ὑμᾶς, but it is not otherwise emphatic, and contains no allusion to some other persons who might be occasioning them sorrow. The ἐκ in ἐξ ἐμοῦ indicates the person who was to be the source of sorrow, and the phrase is equivalent to υπ’ ἐμοῦ.—I put in writing this same thing, etc.—In this verse ἕγραψα refers to the first Epistle, and not to the one he was writing (comp. 2Co_2:4-9). It stands at the commencement of the sentence that it might be emphatic, and it is contrasted with ἐλθών. But is τοῦτο αὐτό equivalent to εἰς τοῦτο αὐτό, as in 2Pe_1:5, and frequently in the classical authors; or is it the objective accusative to ἕγραψα? The first would be the easier interpretation, but such a construction occurs nowhere else in Paul’s writings (in 2Co_2:9 it is εἰς τοῦτο). The τοῦτο αὐτο refers to that which forms the theme and object of this section, μὴ ἐν λύπῃ ἐλθεῖν (2Co_2:7), and respecting which he had already written in 1Co_4:21. (Osiander). The reference to what had been said in 1Co_4:21 does not seem very properly indicated, even if we suppose that the following censures have reference to the incestuous person. On the other hand it seems very natural for him to make this reference to the censures contained in his first Epistle (especially those in chap. 5), as matters in which they had a painful interest and which might grieve them, and to assure them that he now wished to avoid a repetition of this unpleasant experience when he should be present with them, and that his course in that matter had sprung from the confidence he had in them all. He therefore goes on to remind them of the frame of mind in which, and the object with which, he had then written (2Co_2:4). Meyer thus explains it: “This matter (so well known to you that I need not particularize it) I have written and not deferred to speak of until I should be present with you, in order that I might not,” etc.—That when I came I should not receive (suffer) sorrow from those who ought to give me joy.—Ἀφ ὦν is not exactly as if he had written ἀπό τούτων οἶς or ἐφ̓ οἶς, but—from those who ought to be the source of my joy. Ἐδει has reference to the relation of a spiritual father which he sustained toward them.—For I had confidence in you all, that my joy was the joy of you all.—In most other places πεποιθώς is followed by an ἐπί with a dative, but here, as in Mat_27:43, and 2Th_3:4, it is followed by an ἐπί with an accusative, indicating that the confidence extended to them and beyond them. The Apostle would thus make them see that he had written the sharp reproofs contained in his first Epistle not from a disposition distrustfully to draw back from them, but with an assured confidence that they were really and in heart so attached to him that his joy would be the joy of them all. He felt assured that they would, after his written admonition, arrange every difficulty which had troubled him, so that there would be no necessity for any oral reproofs which would be as painful to him as to them. His hove rose entirely above those parties which had apparently become so prominent in the Church, and especially above that portion which had turned away from him; and in the spirit “which believeth all things” (1Co_12:7), he had fastened upon the then latent power of filial affection, which he was satisfied would soon be strong enough to overcome every hinderance in their hearts (comp. Meyer and the admirable remarks of Osiander). Hence the phrases ἐπι πάντας ὑμᾶς and πάντων ὑμῶν [the first expressing his confidence in them, and the latter their confidence in him]. In 2Co_2:4 he mentions first of all the spirit which had actuated him when he wrote to them:—For I wrote unto you under great tribulation and oppression of heart, with many tears.—Καρδίας is dependent upon both the preceding nouns. Ευνοχή is stronger than θλῖψις, and signifies restriction, oppression, anguish, as in Luk_21:25; and συνέχομαι in Luk_12:50. The greatness of the inward suffering is made still more evident in διὰ πολλῶν δακρύων, from which it appears to have broken forth “with many tears.” Neander:—The διά designates the accompanying circumstances (comp. Act_20:19; Act_20:31). Stanley:—Ἐκ and δια, “out of the heart, through tears.” The connection with 2Co_2:3, indicated by the γἀρ, is explained by Meyer and Osiander to be, that the Apostle might present the evidence of the confidence he had reposed in them: for if, in writing that Epistle, I had not had this confidence, the Epistle itself would not have been to me the occasion of so much anxiety and so many tears. It was precisely because he had had this confidence, and yet was under the necessity of writing, that the whole thing was so exceedingly painful; and yet it would probably be simpler to refer the remark primarily to the main sentence in 2Co_2:3. His object in writing to them was, ἵνα μὴ ἐλθὼν λύπην ἔχω (σχῶ), etc. His great anxiety when he wrote was to be spared this affliction when he should visit them. Among the things which had influenced him when writing thus with so much solicitude, he now proceeds more expressly to mention the love which had already been hinted at in πεποίθώς, etc.—Not that ye might be made sorrowful, but that ye might know, etc.—His object had then been not to make them sorrowful, but rather by writing to them to let them see how deep was his affection for them. There is nothing in this οὑχ ἴνα λυπηθῆτε inconsistent with what is said in 2Co_7:8 ff., for even there the λυπεῖν is not presented as the final aim of the Apostle, but simply as a means indispensable to their recovery.—The love which I have more abundantly toward you.—Την ἀγάπην is put at the commencement of the clause that it may be emphatic. Περισσοτέρως is certainly comparative, and yet his love was not compared with his sorrow, as if in consequence of this, or in connection with this, it became proportionably intense, or with his zeal, as if that zeal became more glowing as his love was greater; but his love to the Corinthians was compared with his love to other churches. It was analogous to the special love which parents bear to those children who are objects of peculiar hope and therefore of peculiar care, or who for any reason stand in need of special attention. What he here says of the spirit which had induced him to write to them, does not seem quite applicable to our present Epistle, in which great calmness and perspicuity are predominant. Some have therefore contended that another Epistle must have been meant. Rückert, however, supposes that “the Apostle had deliberately and prudently put such restraints upon his spirit at that time that his style of writing was no true exhibition of his feelings.” We see no necessity for such an expedient, which seems so inconsistent with the Apostle’s general character, for it is the very spirit of holy love to put restraint upon its own action that the object of its affection may receive no detriment. (Comp. Meyer and Osiander).
2Co_2:5-11. Digression with respect to the incestuous person. The expressions he had used respecting the λύπῃ, the λυπεῖν and λυπεῖσθαι, naturally led him to speak of the difficulty which had been the occasion of most of his sorrow, and of the severe censures he had been obliged to inflict, i.e., of the incestuous scandal. Neander, on the other hand, asks: “Why was Paul under any necessity of vindicating himself for his anxiety respecting the incestuous person? The matter wears a very different aspect, if we suppose that in the meantime another case had come up, and that some one had made his appearance, who insolently defied Paul’s Apostolical authority, and was likely in this way to produce a division in the Church. Every thing may be naturally explained if we assume that another Epistle had been sent by Titus, in which such a state of affairs had been the topic of discussion.” Ewald concludes from 2Co_2:5-11; 2Co_7:2; 2Co_7:12; 2Co_3:1; 2Co_1:13; 2Co_1:23, that after a brief and unexpected visit of the Apostle at Corinth, some distinguished individual had made use of every circumstance which could be turned to his disadvantage, and that this calumniator had charged him especially with duplicity in his public discourses and with an attempt to acquire notoriety, power and pecuniary profit among the people. [Comp. Introd. § 6]. The spirit of his address is gentle, in consistency with all the previous proceedings in the case, and the conciliatory strain in which he was writing. As a revocation of the extreme penalty was not excluded by what he had said in 1Co_5:5; 1Co_5:13, provided the offender should be brought to repentance, the Apostolical authority would not be endangered by his restoration. The fifth verse is connected, not with the third (Olshausen), but with the fourth verse, where he had said that it was not his design to grieve them.—But if any (among you) have caused grief, he hath not grieved me (2Co_2:5).—Not only is the offence not specifically named, but the terms used to describe it are of the mildest signification, and the εἴ τις is purposely made indefinite, though without necessarily implying that the persons were unknown. There is no contradiction with 2Co_2:4 when he says: he hath not caused sorrow in me, for by those words he means to say, that it had not been merely a personal (ἐμὲ) grief. He wishes it to be regarded as a calamity to the whole congregation. (οὐκ-αλλά therefore is not equivalent to οὐ μόνον—ἀλλὰ καί). Hence πάντας ὑμᾶς stands in contrast with ἐμέ. The idea of λελύπηκεν πάντας ὑμᾶς is softened still more by the addition of ἀπὸ μέρους: partially, to some extent; an allusion to what he afterwards expresses in 2Co_2:6 by ὑπὸ τῶν πλειόνων, viz.: that although some of them had taken part in the public condemnation of the criminals with too little seriousness, they could not, after all, be unaffected by its unhappy results. The clause: that I may not overcharge, has reference only to the having caused grief; and the relative αὐτον (him) must be understood as its object [i.e., but in part (that I may not overcharge him) you all].—This is a fine turn, for he thus says: in so saying I would impose no intolerable burden upon him, as if he were one who had injured you more than ἀπὸ μέρονς, in full measure. The word ἐπιβαρεῖν has the sense of: to load, to overburden, as in 1Th_2:9; 2Th_3:8; Bengel: ne addam onus gravato; not exactly in the sense of: to say too much, or to express himself harshly. Not only because it violently separates the words you all, but on account of the tone of irony or even of keen reproach implied in it, we regard as altogether unsuitable the interpretation which makes the Apostle say: but partially, that I may not throw the burden on all [i.e., may not accuse or grieve you]. Finally, the interpretation which makes the Apostle say: he hath not grieved me (properly speaking, or alone), only in part (for he has grieved you also), that I may not lay upon you all the burden or reproach, as if you were all equally indifferent to the offence; has against it the fact that the ἐμέ which is there so emphatic has no suitable contrast, and it would have been necessary to say: εἰ μὴ ἀπὸ μέρους. This last objection would also lie against making the words mean: but by way of general participation, ut membrum ecclesiæ, etc. Neander completes the object of this final sentence thus: “that I may not make the matter too important.”8 In accordance with the mild expression in 2Co_2:5, the Apostle explains his views still further in 2Co_2:6 regarding the proceedings against the offending person.—Sufficient unto such a one [one who has such a spirit as this offender now shows] is this very punishment which has been inflicted by the many (2Co_2:6).—The ἱκανόν stands at the head of the sentence for the sake of emphasis, and is designed to say that nothing farther was needed by way of punishment. It is used substantively like ἀρκετόν in Mat_6:34, and means that which is satisfactory. The Catholic interpretation makes it refer to the sufficiently long continuance of the excommunication. Both the context (2Co_2:5, ἀπὸ μέρους, ἵνα μὴ ἐπιβαρῶ and 2Co_2:7 ff.), and the ἱκανόν lead us to suppose that unlike the same words in 1Co_5:5, τῷ τοιούτῳ is designed to intimate that the offender had begun to exhibit some signs of penitence. Ἐπιτιμία signifies, not threatening, but punishment, and in this place at least it implies that this consisted in very decided censures (Sir_2:10, where it means punishment generally). Αὕτη has reference to something well known to the Corinthians. The πλείονες by whom the punishment had been inflicted could not have been the eldership, but the majority of the Church at Corinth. Probably the action had been the more severe, possibly amounting to a withdrawal of fellowship with the offender, in consideration of the fact that an antipauline minority refused to take part in his punishment. The πλείονων shows that the excommunication could not have been complete (1Co_5:3 ff.), and so that ἰκανόν could not have referred merely to the time in which that had continued. But it would be utterly inconsistent with the honesty of Paul’s character to suppose with Rückert and Baur that he was here arresting the proceedings, after they had been commenced, from mere policy, to avoid a rupture with his opponents; and that he was now therefore affecting to be satisfied with the measures which the majority had adopted. The only motive he had for the milder proceeding which he now advises, was simply that which he himself afterwards avowed, viz., that the thorough repentance of the offender had rendered severer measures unnecessary. It would have been altogether unapostolic, not to say unchristian, to drive such a one to despair. The whole object of discipline—that which had been aimed at in the punishment inflicted by the majority—had been attained. (comp. on 1 Corinthians 5 and Osiander and Meyer on our passage). As the result of these proceedings, on the one hand, the large majority had shown their cordial disapproval of the offence, the honor of the Church had been vindicated, and their non-participation in the sin and so their purity had been made evident; and on the other, a penitent spirit had been called forth in the bosom of the sinner himself (comp. 2Co_2:7). These things constitute a sufficient reason for an entire change of proceeding, viz., for his forgiveness.—So that on the contrary ye ought rather to be kind to him and to comfort him (2Co_2:7).—The ὤστε here implies that what he was about to say, was the essential and necessary result of the ἵκανόν, and it includes the idea of an obligation on their part. Still there is no necessity of supplying a δεῖν, as if the Apostle would say: it is sufficient to show on the contrary your favor (to him); or: so that ye may show, on the contrary, kindness. [Winer’s Gr. N. T., § 45, 2d note]. Τοὐναντίον refers to ἐπιτιμία, but χαρίσασθαι does not imply exactly to give up or to remit the punishment, for it means properly to show favor or kindness. In the present case, however, this must, by its own nature, have involved a forgiveness of the injury done to the congregation, as the word is often used by Paul sometimes with (ἀδικίαν, 2Co_12:13; παραπτώματα Col_2:13), and sometimes without (Eph_4:32 and Col_3:13) the mention of the object. Παρακαλέσαι denotes here the friendly intercourse and consolation which would correspond with χαρίσασθαι. This is still further enforced by the Apostle when he points out what would be the consequence if this kind treatment were neglected: lest, perhaps, such a one should be swallowed up with an excess of sorrow.—The περισσοτέρα λύπη expresses the greatly increased sorrow which would be the effect of a continuance or an aggravation of the punishment. Of course it is here presumed that a high degree of punishment had already been inflicted, for otherwise all increase of it would not drive the sufferer to despair. It is to this, the renunciation of all hope of salvation and of all efforts to attain eternal life, and so the utter ruin of the man himself, that the swallowing up has reference, and not directly to his apostacy from the faith (being devoured by the Prince of this world), nor to death by his own hands, and still less to his sickness or death. The sorrow is compared to a wild beast (comp. 1Pe_5:8). By the words: such a one, (ὁ τοιοῦτος), he designates the man as an object of sympathy. As the result of the ἱκανὸν—ὥστε χαρίσασσθαι ὑμᾶς, and the apprehension he had given as a reason for it, the Apostle now urges his exhortation.—Wherefore I exhort you to make good [substantiate by action] your love toward him (2Co_2:8).—Κυροῦν (as in Gal_3:15) signifies to establish in a valid manner and by a formal decision, so that the man might be solemnly restored to the communion of the Church. To suppose that the Apostle was here merely going through the form of approving of a decision which the Church had already made, and which would have been valid without his authority (Rückert); is not necessarily implied in the language, and would imply a worldly policy, of which we have no reason to think him capable. In 2Co_2:9 he probably meets a possible or actual objection against the directions contained in his former Epistle, for he there informs his readers what had been his object in writing so severely.—For to this end I also wrote, that I might know the proof of you.—He means to say that his present request or admonition (2Co_2:8) was not only reasonable, but entirely consistent with what he had before written. In his earlier Epistle his purpose had been to ascertain their δοκιμή, i.e., whether ye are obedient in all things.—It was not, therefore, a main point with him in what he then had
aid, to carry his apostolical authority to its utmost limits. Or more simply: inasmuch as the punishment which the majority had imposed was not very severe, I propose that ye should now bring your love to bear upon him, for the whole object of my former Epistle, which was to find out whether you would be true and obedient, has been attained by the punishment which the majority have inflicted. [In these words it is not meant that the direct object of his writing had been simply to put the matter to the test whether they would obey him, any more than when God sends afflictions on men that the entire object is to prove them and to know all that is in their hearts, but simply that his great and final aim was thus virtually accomplished (Billroth)]. The καί belongs not to εἰς τοῦτο (as if he had written καὶ γάρ); its object is not to indicate that his aim in his former Epistle was the same with that of his present request, but to suggest a contrast between his writing (ἔγραψα), and what he had arranged (orally) by deputies. The effect of the καὶ is thus to give prominence to ἕγραψα. The whole context also shows that ἕγραψα must have reference to the former and not to the present Epistle. His object was to say that he was anxious to prove whether they would cheerfully comply with his directions in all things, the present mild, as well as the former severer requirements. Εἰς πάντα: in relation to all things, even those rigorous measures which might be somewhat difficult of execution. Δοκιμή here as in Rom_5:4, and Php_2:22, means the goodness, or approved quality; i.e. whether they would turn out to be upright Christians, his genuine children in Christ, and obedient to their father in all things (comp. 1Co_11:2; and Col_3:20). [Trench, Synn., 2d Ser. § 24, Ellicott on Php_1:10; Php_2:22].—Having made this reference to his earlier Epistle, the object of which had now been attained in the course of the recent disciplinary proceedings, the Apostle proceeds (δέ of progress) to a further recommendation of the course implied in κυρῶσαι ἀγάπην, by assuring them that he was willing to be united with them in their public act of forgiveness (2Co_2:10). This idea he expresses at first thus briefly.—Now to whom ye forgive anything, I forgive it also.—κἀγώ (sc. χαρίζομαι). He afterwards, however, strengthens the thought in the causal sentence—for if I have forgiven anything, whatever I forgave for your sakes I forgive it in the presence of Christ, lest, etc.—According to the common interpretation, he confirms the Κἀγώ (χαρίζομαι) by saying that whatever he had forgiven, he had forgiven it entirely on their account. Κεχάρισμαι is, on any interpretation, to be supplied in connection with δἰ ὑμᾶς. It is not, however, precisely implied that he was induced to do this at their request, for nothing is said of their actual intercession. He wishes in this way to show them that his love was directed to the highest good of the whole congregation. For after every thing necessary to maintain holy order, and the injured honor of the Church had been accomplished, and all necessity for further severity had been removed by the cordial repentance of the offender, his affection for them prompted him to heal the breach which had troubled them by forgiving the sinner, and to recover a member who had been temporarily sundered from them. Thus the confidence of the Church would be raised, and their former love would be revived etc. By the phrase: If I have forgiven anything: he intimates, that in the present instance he leaves it rather doubtful to what extent he had received any injury (2Co_2:5). He does not say, “if I have anything to forgive,” but simply, “if anything ought to be said in general of my having forgiven any one.” There was no need of repeating the ἐγώ here, for it has been already made sufficiently prominent in the καὶ γὰρ ἐγώ. The addition of ἐν προσώπῳ suggests a still deeper reason why he had delayed his journey. He had been induced to do so in the presence of Christ; from regard to Him who was the Author of all reconciliation to God, to whom he owed his own forgiveness as a sinner, and who had intrusted to him the duty of preaching reconciliation to men (the διακονία δικαιοσύνης opp. κατακρίσεως, comp. 2Co_5:18 ff; 2Co_3:9; Eph_4:32; 1Ti_1:15). This is not a solemn affirmation or oath (for Paul nowhere else swore by Christ), but simply a strong assertion of his uprightness. It merely showed how he had either had Christ and Christ’s cause before his mind in this affair, had acted tanquam inspectore Christo or had virtually done all in the name or in the commission of Christ; though if this had been strictly intended he would probably have used the phrase ἐν ὀνόματι. In the Sept. the phrase here used is employed as a rendering for לִפְנֵי, Pro_8:30. If we take the words in the sense first given, we have conveyed to some extent, the idea which Meyer and Rückert find in ὅ κεχάρισμαι. They take the words in a passive sense: that which has been forgiven to me (a construction analagous to ὅ πεπίστευμαι). We meet with the word in this sense in the classical writers, but in the New Testament, at least in Paul’s writings (Gal_3:18) and in the Acts (Act_27:24) it is always used in the active sense. Δἰ ὑμᾶς would then signify that the pardon which had been bestowed upon him had been for the advantage of the Gentile, and especially the Corinthian Christians, inasmuch as his forgiveness had been the occasion of bringing them to salvation. In this case, when Paul introduced the words ἔν προσώπῳ Χριστοῦ, he wished to remind them not only that Christ was a witness of his forbearance, but that he was himself nothing but a pardoned sinner before God. Εἵ τι κεχάρισμαι would then be an expression of his humble recollection of the great guilt which continually oppressed him and made him a perpetual suitor for pardon (Meyer). In favor of this general interpretation may be urged the καὶ γὰρ ἐγώ, which certainly creates a difficulty in the way of the ordinary explanation, inasmuch as it seems to lay a special emphasis upon the perf: κεχάρισμαι, rather than upon the ἐγώ, which otherwise seems so prominent. Osiander endeavors to remove this difficulty by suggesting that Paul aims to represent his own act of forgiveness (ἐγώ) as something quite distinct from and independent of that which they were to exercise, and that he here passes from their forgiveness, as one which was then in process and incomplete, to his own, which was complete and already certain (ἐν προσώπῳ Χριστοῦ). But is not this rather a concealment than a removal of the difficulty? Having previously taken it for granted that they were disposed to forgive, and having conceded to them the initiative in the affair, in the full confidence that they continued of the same mind, and in order that their act might be complete having given to them his own authorization and consent (κᾁγώ), what call was there for the following sentence as a reason and confirmation of the same thing (καὶ γὰρ ἐγώ)? Then if we take the clause passively, how can we explain the doubt implied in εἴ τι κεχάρισμαι, when everywhere else we find Paul expressing himself so confidently as to his own forgiveness? But if Meyer’s interpretation must therefore be regarded as unsatisfactory, we are still less prepared to regard Paul as here referring to some opponents who had denied his forgiveness through Christ. Even if we allow of his explanation of δἰ ὑμᾶς, and urge nothing further in opposition to ἐν προσώπῳ on the ground that it is a mode of expression altogether unusual with Paul on such a subject (everywhere else the phrase is ἐν Χριστῷ, or διὰ χριστοῦ), we must certainly regard the way in which Meyer endeavors to connect it with ἴνα μὴ πλεονεκτηθῶμεν (2Co_2:11) as altogether too artificial. The idea would then be that it had been God’s will that Paul should be pardoned in the presence of Christ [—“God is said to forgive for Christ’s sake, and Christ is said to forgive, but Christ is never represented as the mere witness or spectator of our forgiveness”—Hodge], simply for the sake of the Corinthians, that they might be aroused to resist the wiles of Satan, i.e., that they might not be tempted to act inconsistently with the design of God and of Christ by refusing to pardon the offender, and so overwhelming him with an excess of sorrow (2Co_2:7). The way in which Rückert connects this clause (ἵνα μὴ πλεονεκτ.) with the first half of 2Co_2:10, i.e., by passing over the whole last part of 2Co_2:10, is even yet more violent. Osiander has probably hit upon the correct explanation, although the train of thought needs to be more particularly developed, when a slight modification of his view will become indispensable. The Corinthians had no reason to doubt that he would unite with them in their act of forgiveness, for he had already forgiven the man for their sake (the remainder as above).9 But that he might present in a clearer light the importance of their granting, or of the man’s possessing, this forgiveness, the Apostle adds (2Co_2:11), lest Satan should get an advantage of us (of you and me)—i.e. lest the great adversary of God’s Church should get an advantage at our expense. Should any person be driven to despair by our long continued severity, not only would they themselves be lost to us and be gained by Satan, but in the Church itself we should be exposed to increased bitterness and alienation on the part of the members, and many would become estranged from an Apostle who seemed inclined to such extreme measures. Neander:—“If the utmost severity should be exercised, it would be used for an occasion for all kinds of evil in the congregation.”—Inasmuch as Paul here speaks throughout not of Divine forgiveness, but only of his own and the Church’s forgiveness; and inasmuch as neither Paul nor the Church could have pardoned an offence like that of incest, Neander has here found an argument for his opinion that some member of the Church had risen up against the Apostle personally (and of course against the whole Church). On this interpretation also the objections which Rückert and Baur have derived from 2Co_2:5-10 against the character of Paul and against a belief in miracles sink into insignificance. The necessity of being on their guard against such overreaching arts is pointed out in the brief causal or final sentence—for we are not ignorant of his devices (thoughts, schemes).—The νοήματα of Satan are those thoughts or plots which he directs to the injury of Christ’s cause, to the recovery of those who had been wrested by grace from his grasp (1Pe_5:8), to the creation of dissensions, etc. [“The personality and agency of the adversary can hardly be recognized in plainer terms than in both these passages.”—Alford.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
It is a mark of admirable wisdom in one who exercises authority in the Church to be able to distinguish clearly between God’s purposes and Satan’s devices, that he may so proceed as to promote the one and give no advantage to the other. God’s thoughts are thoughts of peace, and their aim is to deliver and to cure the souls of men. But the means by which he seeks to accomplish His benevolent designs seem not unfrequently severe, for His medicines are sometimes very bitter. It is often necessary to be harsh, and to decline all ordinary considerations of delicacy. And yet the severity should not be allowed to exceed the proper limits which love prescribes. If the demands of justice are satisfied, if the honor of God and of His Church have been vindicated, if a sense of sin and true repentance have been awakened, if guilt has been openly confessed, and a desire for forgiveness and restoration has been decidedly expressed, it is time to exercise gentleness and to restore the offender, and to open to him a heart of love and to extend toward him the hand of support. In this way the government and discipline of a congregation is directed to the same end with Christ’s own purposes, and are the means of fulfilling His designs. Satan’s arts, on the other hand, are all with a view to thwart God’s plans of mercy, to unsettle the peace of a Church, to destroy faith, hope and love in the hearts of its members, to turn away as many as possible from the Lord and from His grace, and, in a word, to produce general corruption. Every one gives his aid to these arts, who for any reason, from defective zeal, from selfish convenience, the fear of men, or party spirit, takes so little notice of sins and offences, or resists them with so little earnestness, that full opportunity is given to the diffusion of the corrupting leaven. But quite as great advantage is given to Satan’s schemes, when the proper limit of severity is exceeded, when discipline is carried to an extreme, when no forgiveness is exercised, and in order to maintain apparent firmness and consistency, every offence is rigidly dealt with, without regard to consequences. It is always bad policy to allow any occasion for suspecting that we are selfishly maintaining our own authority by recklessly pressing forward to an extreme. By such means the hearts of many will be embittered or driven to despair, and increased division and irritation will be sure to ensue. Satan, too, will thus accomplish what he most wishes. That which had the semblance of prudence and holy earnestness, turns out to be foolishness and a severity very unlike that of heaven. The result is that God’s plans of mercy are dishonored, and the character and influence of those who pursued such a mistaken policy is seriously impaired.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Luther, 2Co_2:7 :—It is much harder to comfort a troubled conscience than to raise the dead.—While, therefore, ministers ought doubtless to reprove and punish with some severity those who have fallen into sin, they ought by all means to comfort and restore those whom they discover to be penitent and anxious to reform; especially when we remember that God spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, and that His mercy had been made to exceed all our sins, that those who have fallen may not be swallowed up by too much sorrow.
Starke, 2Co_2:1 :—A pastor who has the salvation of his people supremely at heart will be careful to show great indulgence to the weak, to avoid every needless occasion for punishment, and to do nothing likely to produce ill-will or injury to any one, without the prospect of a greater ultimate benefit. Eccles. 20:1; 22:6.
2Co_2:3. A true minister of Christ rejoices over nothing so much as the spiritual prosperity of his people, and nothing will trouble him more than their spiritual declension. In like manner, an honest and upright hearer may be known, by the joy which his minister feels and the praises which his minister renders to God, on his account, and by the readiness with which he removes by a speedy amendment all occasion of disquietude which he may have given to the heart of his pastor (Heb_13:17; Rom_16:19). The real motive for carnal zeal in the infliction of punishment is hatred, and we need not be surprised to find those who possess it, restless in disposition and followed by continual opposition. True spiritual zeal, on the other hand, may be equally earnest, but it will be moved and pervaded by love, it will be always calm, and it will remain loving and beloved unto the end.—Hedinger:—How much sorrow and how many tears Paul gave to the case of one offender! how many hast thou bestowed upon the many wandering and lost ones of thy flock? The Lord have mercy on the poor sheep of such a shepherd!
2Co_2:7. Unseasonable comfort is like a new piece of cloth upon an old garment (Mat_9:16), but excessive severity will probably throw the sinner into despair and drive him farther away. Much wisdom is needed to apply both law and Gospel in an appropriate manner.—God alone can forgive sin (Psa_130:4); the Church can only point out the conditions on which God forgives, administer consolation to the penitent, and absolve those who confess their faults in the presence of such as have been scandalized by their offences.
2Co_2:8. Hedinger:—The penitent should be received to full public favor, and never afterward upbraided for his offence. Our Lord Himself never broke a bruised reed nor quenched the smoking flax (Isa_42:3).
2Co_2:11. Satan is exceedingly crafty, and watches every opportunity to do an injury (Eph_6:11). We should therefore be always forecasting how we may deprive him of every such opportunity (Act_20:28).
Berlenb. Bible, 2Co_2:1 :—Our absence on certain occasions may be as important as our presence on others.
2Co_2:4. It ought to touch our hearts to be told: I wrote this unto you with many tears; and we should instantly inquire: Have I really given occasion for this?—We should never hesitate to lay hold of and deliver those who have fallen into error before it is too late, and yet we must not expect that they will readily regard our reproofs as kind and loving acts.
2Co_2:7. Our love to our neighbor should be like our Lord’s, whose long suffering is our salvation. He can hold the balance so accurately that the sinner is allowed to sink neither into despair nor into false security,
2Co_2:8. How seldom do we meet with that loving spirit which shrinks not from the fallen, but goes to them, and seeks to save even the lost. Such a one, however, knows how to lay the iron so gently on the wound that the patient bears even a deep incision.
Rieger, 2Co_2:1-2. Suspicion can sometimes enter the heart so deeply, that it can give off a web of dark thoughts for many years. It is better to crush the heads of such serpents as soon as possible.—Many are too tenacious of their own freedom. They follow simply their own convenience and advantage without reference to the consciences or the suspicions of their brethren; while others freely exercise their right of judgment upon everything they see, and when they find nothing to censure in the outward conduct, they fasten upon some trifling thing to be impeached in the inward spirit. Thus the hearts of men are thrown continually further and further apart, and there can be no such thing in life or death as mutual confidence or assistance. Those who are grieved for the affliction of Joseph (Amo_6:6), will feel disposed to save as much as possible the reputation of a servant of Christ whose character is suffering.—Nothing can more cheer us under the trials of our work, than to find that those afflictions which spring from a man’s own or others’ faults, have become the seed of a saving repentance.
2Co_2:3-4. It is never well when those who watch for souls are compelled to labor in the midst of perpetual sighs and discouragements. On the other hand, when they are cheerful, their joy will be the joy of all, and every plant of grace will be revived.—In the kingdom of Christ truth should never be spoken with a simpering and trifling manner, but an imperious and a lordly style of address is quite as inappropriate. Those discourses, whose object is to reprove others and to bring offenders to repentance, should be the offspring of the preacher’s own sorrow, and be brought forth with much anguish of soul. He must himself know what it is to confess his sins before the Lord with many tears.—Love makes us zealous, and zeal will admonish and reprove our best friends and brethren
2Co_2:5 ff. Precious fruit of the righteousness revealed in the Gospel! While we justify the condemnation of the sin, we sympathize with, and long to save the sinner! When the conscience of a child of God has been awakened, and his heart has been softened by discipline, he should have not only a gradual restoration of individual love, but an assurance of the common fellowship he once enjoyed.—What a difference there is between dealing with a sin which is concealed, justified or praised, and one which is recognized, confessed, and already put away with godly sorrow.
2Co_2:11. Satan has always further trials and temptations for those who have no meekness or tenderness of heart. Ministers must continually take precautions against these.—Lord, how many things are done on our account by our enemies, and by Thee as our Advocate, of which we have no conception! Thy faithfulness alone can save us!
Heubner, 2Co_2:1-4 :—Painful as it may be, we are often bound to grieve others, that we may do them good. We must not always be giving sweet meats.—The highest enjoyments of a minister are those which he feels with reference to his people. Between him and them there should be the most intimate communion.—A faithful pastor should have a very tender heart, and he must know what it is to weep in solitude over his people. Such tears have their source in the spirit of God. None but faithful shepherds know what such distress is; for those corruptions which allow him no peace, make the hireling indifferent and cold.
2Co_2:5. Public scandals are a disgrace which the whole congregation should deeply feel. And yet how little of this public spirit is there in most of our communities.
2Co_2:6. There is great power when many are united to remove offences. The discipline which needs no outward force is the most effective.
2Co_2:7. The moment we perceive that an offender has submitted to his punishment, and become penitent, we should change our conduct toward him.—The discipline of the Church should always be directed to the reformation, and not to the mere punishment of the offender. Whatever makes him worse, is opposed to its true object.
2Co_2:8. The same spirit which once caused sorrow, now comforts.
2Co_2:9. A genuine Christian spirit may always be known from its readiness to comply with Apostolic direction.
2Co_2:10. Ministers should never disregard the united voice of their people. Its utterances are a great consolation when they speak forgiveness to those who have fallen.
2Co_2:11. It is the business of the Wicked One to injure, and, if possible, break up the spiritual association of God’s people (the Church). He therefore tempts them, sometimes, to be slack, but sometimes to be excessively severe in discipline, and thus to drive souls into despair. Force, intolerance and persecution, have been his favorite arts by which to rend and destroy the Church; and unfortunately ecclesiastical history is principally occupied with accounts of them.—The Christian should never forget that this evil spirit knows of no rest, and he should ever be on his guard against Satanic wiles. Those who have been enlightened from above, are not ignorant of these devices, and know well how to thwart such schemes. Only those who are short-sighted and simple will look upon warnings against them as vain fancies, and hence be taken by surprise.
W. F. Besser, 2Co_2:4. A mother’s love will be seen in the most delicate attentions to her invalid child, and no better test of a shepherd’s love can be given than when he hastens with especial earnestness after the sheep which has gone astray.
2Co_2:10. The rock on which all true comfort is founded, when we are absolved from our offences, is the great truth, that whoever the public minister may be, the absolution is not man’s but God’s.
[Here is an example of the difficult duty and right of blame, or of correcting our fellowmen. I. Every one has something of this kind to do. A more than common share of it falls upon ministers and those in public stations, but there are occasions when every one is called to it. Society should not be turned into an arena of distrust, where each one is zealously watching over others’ conduct, nor yet should it be one of cold indifference towards each others’ sufferings and welfare. Where another’s faults are forced upon our attention, it may be our duty to attempt their correction, 1. for the offender’s own sake (2Co_2:6-8); 2. for society’s sake (2Co_2:4); and 3. even for our own sake (2Co_2:1), since we may be misunderstood if we show no interest in the case. II. But much depends upon the way in which it is performed; as, 1. by the right person; 2. at the right time (Paul declined even to be present at one time); 3. by the right means (by a visit or by Epistle); 4. in the right spirit (not from love of censuring, love of dominion, personal pique or jealousy, but from love to the offender and to Christ’s cause.—We have here (2Co_2:6-11): I. The Christian idea of punishment; When it should be inflicted? 1, when the good of the offender demands it, for even if he has forfeited all rights, he has claims upon our benevolence; 2, when society is threatened with injury, and 3, when a righteous indignation at crime calls for an expression. When it should be dispensed with or remitted? When the ends of punishment are secured, 1, by the private sufferings or repentance of the offender, 2, by his partial punishment, which corrects the offender and vindicates public sentiment. II. The Christian idea of absolution: Man’s declaration of God’s forgiveness—man speaking in God’s stead; 1, its use to save from remorse and despair; 2, its representative character (2Co_2:10). After Robertson and Lisco].
Footnotes:
[1]2Co_2:1.—The arrangement of the words, should be, according to the best MSS.: ἐν λύπῃ ἐλθεῖν. The Rec. on less [Meyer: “almost no”] authority has ἐλθεῖν ἐν λύπῃ. The best authorities also put πρὸς ὑμᾶς before ἐλθεῖν. Tisch. still adheres to: ἐν λύπῃ ἐλθεῖν πρὸς ὑμᾶς, and he is sustained by D. E. F. G. the Ital. Vulg. Syr. and Goth. vss., Chrys. and Theophyl. and most of the Lat. fathers. Nearly every recent critic has adopted the order: ἐν λύπη ἐλθεῖν πρὸς ὑμᾶς. [There appears to be no sufficient reason why λύπη and λυπεῖν should not be rendered into English uniformly by the same generic words, as is contended for by Stanley (p. XXI.) and the editors of the Bible Union. In the eight times in which those words occur in our section, our A. V. has the different English words “in heaviness,” “sorrow,” grief, etc.]
[2]2Co_2:2.—The best authorities have no ἐστιν after τίς. It was added by a later hand. [Only Bloomfield, among later critics defends it both on documentary and internal evidence. He contends that the idiom and the interrogative use of καὶ demands a verb or its equivalent.]
[3]2Co_2:3.—The best authorities have also cancelled ὑμῖν after ἔγραψα [but Bloomfield defends it as less likely to have been interpolated where it is found, than to have fallen out where it is wanting.]
[4]2Co_2:7.—In the best MSS. μᾶλλον is wanting, and in others it stands after ὑμᾶς. It is a gloss upon τοὐναντίον. [And yet it is found in C. K. L. and Sinait. the Vulg. the Peschito Syr. Chrys. Theodt. Damasc. Theophyl. Oecum. and other MSS.; and it is inserted by Tisch., Stanley, and Meyer. The latter thinks it was omitted on account of its apparent superfluity.]
[5]2Co_2:9.—Lachmann following A. B. has ἧ instead of εἰ. The εἰ might easily have fallen out before εἰς (both are wanting in one MS. [of the 11th cent.]) and was then supplied in various ways. (One MS. [also of the 11th cent.] has ὡς.)
[6]2Co_2:10.—The best authorities have ὁ κεχάρισμαι, εἴ τι κεχάρισμαι. Rec. has εἴ τι κεχάρισμαι, ᾧ κεχάρισμαι. Meyer thinks that εἴ τι κεχάρ. was left out on account of the occurrence of κεχάρ. twice (in several MSS. it is found wanting), and then that it was reinserted in different positions.
[7][Although our author’s construction of λύπη actively (:causing grief) is sanctioned by a number of ancient (especially Chrysostom) and modern critics, it is certainly not the natural meaning of the word, and is utterly inappropriate in the remainder of this section, and in other parts of Paul’s writings. We much prefer that of the majority of interpreters, which makes the sense of 2Co_2:2-3 to be: “I determined not to come to you again in sorrow; and therefore I refrained from visiting you at a time in which I should have been obliged to inflict on you a chastisement which would have been painful to me. I therefore then wrote an admonition to you. that ye might correct the evil, and that when I should actually come to you I might have joy in you. In this way, though my letter caused some sorrow, it was like the process of healing which finally gives joy to both patient and physician, and did not subject me to a personal intercourse of sorrow. For ye are the only sources of my joy when I come in person to Corinth, and if ye are thrown into permanent sorrow, who will there be to give me any satisfaction ? See our interpretation further defended in Hodge’s Com.].
[8][To understand the author’s criticisms we need to have the several ways in which this passage has been punctuated and rendered distinctly before us. All that are important may be reduced to three: 1. That of Chrysostom, and advocated generally, especially by de Wette, Meyer, Osiander, Bloomfield, Neander, Alford, Stanley and Hodge, viz.: Εί δέ τις λελύπ., οὐκ ἐμἐ λελύπ., ἀλλὰ ἀπὸ μέρους (ἵνα μὴ ἐπιβαρῶ) πάντας ὑμᾶς, i.e., If any have caused grief, he hath grieved not me, but more or less (that I be not too heavy on him) all of you. Theophylact says: the Apostle skilfully brings them all in as partakers of the injury, that he may have them partakers in the absolution.” 2. That of Theodoret, the Vulgate, Luther’s translation, and the A. V., and advocated by Bengel and Wordsworth, viz.: ἀλλ’ ἀπὸ μέρους, (ἵνα μὴ ἐπιβαρῶ πάντας ὑμᾶς), i.e., He hath not grieved me, (i. e., not so much me personally), but in part, (i.e., only as a part of the whole Church, and hence on account of the share I have in your griefs), that I may not lay the load of guilt on all of you. 3. That of Mosheim, Olshausen, Billroth and Conybeare, viz.: ἀλλ’ ἀπὸ μέρους (ἵνα μὴ ἐπιβαρῶ πάντας) ὑμᾶς, i.e., he hath not grieved me, but in part (that I may not accuse all) you. Billroth: “Whether he has caused grief to me is not a matter for present consideration: it is not I that must suffer for him, but you, at least a part of you, for I will not be unjust and charge you all with having been indifferent concerning his offence.”]
[9][Paul, in this case, assumes that man had been sinned against by this offender, and so man might forgive for this offence. He denies that he alone would either feel aggrieved (ἀπὸ μέρόυς) or grant pardon. He refuses to absolve the man until the Church nad acted. He was ready, however, to forgive any one (ᾦ) or any thing (ὅ the better reading), when the Church had forgiven. If they had forgiven (and he speaks of this as if it were past, χαρίζεσθε, open perf.), he had done so (and for their sakes), if they had not forgiven, he had not (he makes his action hypothetical on theirs, εἴ τι κεχάρισμαι, Hodge), and yet he seems to regard his action as equally indispensable to the completeness of theirs. If ἐν προζώπῳ χριςτοῦ be translated “in the name,” or “by the authority of Christ,” the Apostle acted as Christ’s representative; but if, as is more likely, it means “in Christ’s presence, as if Christ were looking on” (Stanley). Paul assumes that he was acting for the Church and himself, so far as each had been sinned against. From this we get the Apostle’s true idea of absolution. First, there was repentance and Divine forgiveness, then confession in some way so as to satisfy the congregation, and finally, the forgiveness and formal announcement (absolution) on the part of the Church or its representatives. Nothing is said of “ecclesiastical satisfactions” in the Roman sense. Comp. W. F. Besser, Bibelstunden; and F. W. Robertson, Ser. V., 3d series, Lect. 37th, 4th series.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 1. But—The break of the chapter division very unfortunately…
1. But—The break of the chapter division very unfortunately interrupts the thought of the paragraph 2Co_1:2 to 2Co_2:4. Overleaping the parenthetic verse, 2Co_1:24, this 2Co_2:1 joins on to 2Co_1:23, as shown by our summary at the beginning of the section. Paul had said that he withheld his visit to spare them; he now continues to say in what respect to spare them.
With myself—Rather for myself; in my own interest as well as for you.
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Again—See note, 2Co_12:14.
Heaviness— The Greek for this word, and for sorry, twice. (2Co_2:2,) sorrow, (2Co_2:3,) grieved, (2Co_2:4,) grief and grieved, (2Co_2:5,) sorrow, (2Co_2:7,) are all radically the same word, and should have been uniformly translated grief, or grieved.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain Ch. 2. St Paul’s only Object the Spiritual Advancement…
Ch. 2. St Paul’s only Object the Spiritual Advancement of his Converts
1. But I determined this with myself] St Paul now further vindicates his consistency. Not only did he stay away from Corinth to spare the Corinthians the sharp rebukes which his immediate presence would have necessitated, but he hoped by means of the Epistle to work so salutary a reformation as to make his visit to Corinth a time of the deepest spiritual joy. The ‘but’ in the English version should be rendered and, thus carrying on the explanation from ch. 2Co_1:23. For ‘with myself recent commentators prefer the rendering for myself,’ i.e. for the better carrying on of the work St Paul had in hand, which however (see 1Co_9:19-22; 1Co_10:33) was not his own profit, but the good of his converts. We may thus paraphrase his words, I decided that the best course for me to pursue was not to come again to you in heaviness.
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that I would not come again to you in heaviness] There seems no need to suppose, with some commentators, that ‘again’ belongs to ‘in heaviness,’ and to explain it of some unrecorded visit which the Apostle paid in trouble of mind. The very contrary seems to be implied. St Paul’s great anxiety was not to visit the Corinthian Church in such a frame of mind. It falls in best with the context to explain ‘I determined that my second visit should not be paid while under the influence of painful feelings.’ Olshausen remarks that the ‘heaviness’ here spoken of belongs as much to the Corinthians as to the Apostle. See next verse.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) But I determined this with myself.—Better, I determined…
II.
(1) But I determined this with myself.—Better, I determined for myself. The chapter division is here obviously wrong, and interrupts the sequence of thought. St. Paul continues his explanation. He did not wish to come again, i.e., to make his second visit to Corinth, in grief, and if he had carried out his first plan that would have been the almost inevitable result. He consulted his own feelings (“for myself”) as well as theirs.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Continuation of his reasons for not coming to them…
Continuation of his reasons for not coming to them direct from Ephesus (vers. 1-4). Their treatment of the incestuous offender (vers. 5-11). His thankfulness at the news which Titus had brought from Corinth (vers. 1217).
But I determined this. The division of chapters is here unfortunate, since this and the next three verses belong to the paragraph which began at 2Co_1:23. The verb means, literally, "I judged," but is rightly rendered "determined," as in 1Co_2:2 1Co_7:37. He is contrasting his final decision with his original desire, mentioned in 2Co_1:15. With myself; rather, for myself; as the best course which I could take. That I would net come again to you in heaviness. The "again" in the true reading is not placed immediately before the verb, but it seems (as Theodoret says) to belong to it, so that the meaning is not "that I would not pay you a second sad visit," but "that my second visit to you should not be a sad one." There have been interminable discussions, founded on this expression and on 2Co_13:1, as to whether St. Paul had up to the time of writing this letter visited Corinth twice or only once. There is no question that only one visit is recorded in the Acts (Act_18:1-18) previous to the one which he paid to this Church after this Epistle had been sent. (Act_20:2, Act_20:3) If he paid them a second brief, sad, and unrecorded visit, it can only have been during his long stay in Ephesus. (Act_19:8, Act_19:10) But the possibility of this does not seem to be recognized in Act_20:31, where he speaks of his work at Ephesus "night and day" during this period. The assumption of such a visit, as we shall see, is not necessitated by 2Co_13:1, but in any case we know nothing whatever about the details of the visit, even if there was one, and the question, being supremely unimportant, is hardly worth the time which has been spent upon it. If he had paid such a visit, it would be almost unaccountable that there should be no reference to it in the First Epistle, and here in 2Co_1:19 he refers only to one occasion on which he had preached Christ in Corinth. Each fresh review of the circumstances convinces me more strongly that the notion of three visits to Corinth, of which one is unrecorded, is a needless and mistaken inference, due to unimaginative literalism in interpreting one or two phrases, and encumbered with difficulties on every side. In heaviness. The expression applies as much to the Corinthians as to himself, he did not wish his second visit to Corinth to be a painful one.
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HOMILETICS.
Vers. 1-11.
The uniting force of Christian love.
I determined this with myself," etc. The subject which these words suggest is the uniting force of Christian love. We see it here uniting all its subjects in a common sympathy, a common punishment, and a common forgiveness. Here is Christian love
I UNITING ALL ITS SUBJECTS IN A COMMON SYMPATHY. "But I determined this with myself, that I would not come again to you in heaviness. For if I make you sorry, who is he then that maketh me glad, but the same which is made sorry by me?" The language of Paul in the first four verses implies that the "heaviness" of one would be the heaviness of all, the sorrow of one the sorrow of all, the grief of one the grief of all, the joy of one the joy of all. And this is what Christian love does in all its subjects, wherever it exists. To whatever Church they belong, it gathers them together in one, it binds them together as attraction binds the material universe into one magnificent and harmonious system. What one feels all feel, all affections are drawn to a common centre, all hearts point to a common home. The pulsations of all throb in harmony and make music in the ear of God.
II UNITING ALL ITS SUBJECTS IN A COMMON PUNISHMENT. "But if any have caused grief, he hath not grieved me, but in part; that I may not overcharge you all. Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many." In the whole passage from vers. 5-10 Paul"s reference is to that incestuous person of whom he wrote in his First Epistle, (1Co_5:1-5) and whose excommunication or "punishment" he secured. The retribution which that man received was not the work of any one of them, but all joined in it. They all sympathetically concurred in it, and thus it was inflicted on many. They all loathed the same wrong and all endured the same punishment. True punishment for wrong is the work of love, not vengeance. Therefore punishment is not for destruction, but for restoration. The punishment that destroys the criminal is Satanic, not saintly; devilish, not Divine. Restoration is the work of love, the work of God. This is here distinctly stated. "So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow." It would seem from the language of the apostle that the punishment they had inflicted on this guilty person had produced a deep penitential sorrow lest he "should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow." His punishment had answered its purpose, therefore restore him and "confirm your love toward him.
III UNITING ALL ITS SUBJECTS IN A COMMON FORGIVENESS. "To whom ye forgive anything, I forgive also," As if Paul had said, "You and I are so united in loving sympathy that those whom you forgive I forgive." Observe here three things.
1. That forgiveness is the prerogative of Christian love. There is no love that has the true spirit of forgiveness but Christian. It is the highest form of love; higher than gratitude, esteem, adoration. It is the new commandment.
2. That in the exercise of forgiveness there is a consciousness of Christ. "For your sakes forgive I it in the person of Christ." He who has Christly love in him has the very consciousness of Christ, feels as he feels, "one in the presence of Christ." How often does Christ urge his genuine disciples to proclaim forgiveness where there is genuine repentance! "Whatsoever is loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
3. That the forgiving spirit thwarts the purposes of the devil. "Lest Satan should get an advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices." Forgiveness is not, then, the prerogative of priests, but the prerogative of Christian love. A truly Christly man represents Christ stands, so to say, in his stead; and "Christ hath power on earth to forgive sins.
HOMILIES BY C. LIPSCOMB Vers. 1-11.
Further explanations and directions touching matters lust discussed.
The most copious writer in the New Testament is the man whose inward constitution and life are most fully brought into view. If the fact itself is noteworthy, the art of its management is even more significant. Didactic treatises would have excluded this method of blending the abstract and the concrete, and therefore the epistolary form which St. Paul adopted. What do we mean by this form? Much more, indeed, than a facile and graceful way of communicating facts and truths. In the Epistle we have the personality of the writer interblended with doctrine, duty, experience; so that in St. Paul"s case we have not merely the gospel as a body of facts and truths, but the gospel in the consciousness of a leading exponent, and, in some respects, the most prominent representative of certain phases of that gospel. Gentile Christianity, as distinguished from the earlier Judaic Christianity, could never have been understood except for this intermingling of Christianity as a system and Christianity as a life in the history of our apostle. Both the conditions met in him as they met in no other apostle. The two things must not be confounded. Many in our day fall into this error and speak of Christianity as if it were only "a life." It is a life, but it is something else besides and something antecedent to life. Now, the epistolary style, and still more its method of thought, allow full play to the wholeness of Christianity. Its dogmas are preserved. Its experimental and practical forces are maintained. Its individuation is provided for. And thus, while seeing the system, we see also its life in the soul. If the psalmist, King David, is the signal representative of formal and spiritual Judaism in the Old Testament, St. Paul is the corresponding figure in the New Testament. At this point we are able to estimate the very great and specific value of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. Beyond any of his writings, this unfolds the author, and does it with such masterly skill and on so comprehensive a scale as to give a twofold insight into his system and life. What an extension of the "Acts"! No St. Luke could have done this. It was the "Acts" in their secret headsprings in the man, and the man only could record what they were. The account of his personal feelings is resumed in this chapter. Not only for their sakes, but for his own, the visit had been postponed, since he was unwilling to come in sorrow. The "rod" would have been painful to him; they were to exercise discipline under the directions of his letter and thus forestall an occasion of grief to him. If he had made them sorry, who but they could give him joy? This was the reason for his writing, the reason too of deferring his visit; and thus the two things had been designed to cooperate in one result. A controversy is like a disease; the mode of treatment must be varied to suit its stages. No doubt personal presence, conversations, direct appeals, are best at some times for adjusting difficulties; at other times, letters are preferable. The discernment of the apostle prompted him to write and then to await the effect; and it was all in the interest of peace and for his and their consolation. Inspired by this confidence, he had written them a severe rebuke. It was a most painful duty; it was a duty, however, of love; and because of this coincidence, conscience and affection being at work in his soul, he had suffered most keenly. "Out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears." The great soul was not afraid of words nor of the critics of words. He had a rare kind of courage. It was the boldness to say how much he thought and how much he felt, and to send forth his words laden with the meanings they had for him, that they might convey exactly those meanings to others. The love was not overstated, for it was a father"s love towards the children of his heart: "More abundantly unto you." Evidently his paramount aim is to assure the Corinthians of his warm affection for them. Other feelings are held in abeyance; no mention now of suspicions, jealousies, backbitings, and other wrongs, by which he had been tortured; only the love, the impassioned love, he cherished for those whose sorrow and joy were his sorrow and joy. How naturally the way is prepared for what follows! "If any have caused grief referring to the incestuous person, he hath not grieved me, but in part, that I may not overcharge you all." The Revised Version," If any hath caused sorrow, he hath caused sorrow, not to me, but in part (that I press not too heavily) to you all." Conybeare and Howson, "As concerns him who has caused the pain, it is not me that he has pained, but some of you (some, I say), that I may not press too harshly upon all." Many commentators read it thus: "If any have caused grief, he hath grieved not me, but more or less (that I be not too heavy on him) all of you." What is the point of interest is the light in which St. Paul now regarded the offender and the punishment inflicted upon him. Punishment had been punishment; it had expressed righteous indignation, upheld official order, vindicated the holy authority of law. It had been effectual in bringing the flagrant sinner to repentance and had proved a warning to others. But were the effects to stop here? A great work had been done and yet other results were possible were most desirable. Precisely here the farsighted wisdom of St. Paul attracts our admiration. Discipline of a mechanical or of a military kind is cheap enough. True reformatory and saving discipline is a costly thing, requiring forethought and afterthought, the looking "before and after," which has won its place among the aphorisms of statesmanship. Much fruit falls and rots just as the ripening season approaches, Special care was needed, so the apostle argued, lest Satan should spoil the wholesome act in the sequel. "Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many.
leads the sentence. And the "many" has its weight, since in nothing is the power of the many so much felt as in condemnation.
There is no creature loves me, And if I die, no soul shall pity me.
This is Gloster perfected in King Richard. St. Paul urges the forgiveness of this gross offender. On the contrary, "Ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow." Make evident your love to him; so he beseeches them. If he is restored to their affection, this would prove that the Church was "obedient in all things." All through he keeps the dignity and authority of the Church in commanding view, and, as he had laid a most solemn duty on its conscience, so now he recognizes its high relationship in the matter of reconciliation. Would the brethren forgive him? So would be, and that too in the most impressive manner the sight of Christ." The reasoning of the apostle at this point ought to make a most profound and lasting impression on Christian thinkers. Sincere motives and upright intentions do not always preserve good men from terrible blunders in administering Church discipline. All unawares, the imagination exaggerates, right feeling becomes jealous of itself, motives are looked at askance, a spurious consistency sets up its tyrannical claims, and, in no long time, law parts company with authority, and equity is crushed by justice. No attitude in which St. Paul appears before us is so finely characteristic of high manhood as when he pleads for extreme thoughtfulness and tender consideration in the use of legitimate power. Who ever suffered from the numberless forms of injustice as he did? Who died daily as he did? The "beasts" at Ephesus were not merely such as do physical violence, but in their utter want of all moral sensibility to truth and right. Yet this was not the worst. Ask a man who has had a large experience in public life what has occasioned him the greatest amount of vexation, and he will tell you that it was the misrepresentation and carping criticism and wilful littleness of spirit pursuing him continually which had most embittered his career. St. Paul was subjected to these annoyances through all the middle period of his apostolic life. And what did he learn from them? To be distrustful of his own heart, to keep an open and vigilant eye on his infirmities, to be specially guarded as to the ambitious uses of power, and to foreclose every avenue to his soul through which an entrance might be effected of a fanatical temper in rebuke, in the management of Church troubles, and in the relation sustained to the other apostles. In the case of the Corinthian offender we see his lofty bearing. Ready to forgive, glad to forgive, yet he waits till he can say to the Church, "If ye forgive anything, I forgive also." And hear his reason, "Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices." Never could he have been St. Paul, apostle of the Gentiles, without this intense conception intensely realized of Satan as an infernal agent of prodigious power and unceasing activity. In his theology, in his way of looking at men and things, in his calculation of the forces to be met in the great conflict, it would have been inexplicably strange had he ignored or depreciated this gigantic spirit of evil. Elsewhere we have his allusions to Satan in other aspects of his character. Here he is the schemer, the wily plotter, the adroit strategist, observant of every movement, and on the alert forevery opportunity. St. Paul was not afraid to acknowledge that in this matter at Corinth Satan might even yet turn things to his advantage. Recall the words, (1Co_5:5) "To deliver such a one unto Satan, for the destruction of the flesh;" and yet they were to labour and intercede "that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." And now, this repentant and forgiven man, should they not save him from the snares of Satan? save themselves, too, from being overreached by the arch-enemy of Christ and all goodness? L.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK Vers. 1-4.
The sorrow of faithful love.
The apostle has still in mind the unfaithful member who had brought so sad a disgrace upon the whole Church. His conduct in the matter, especially in changing his mind when he was fully expected at Corinth, had been misrepresented, and made the occasion of accusations against him as a fickle-minded, self-willed man. He therefore here explains why he did not visit Corinth while it remained uncertain how the offending member would be treated. He had no thought but for the truest well being of the Corinthian Church. He could not leave them to go on in sin. He could not bear to think that those whom he had instructed in Christ were indifferent to sin. Love, feeling sorrow for the sinning member and for the dishonoured Church, cannot be satisfied without earnest warnings about the sin and efforts to remove it. Such efforts carry and express both the sorrow and the love. Illustrate by the patient, gracious pleadings of God with sinning and backsliding Israel, as given in the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Hosea.
I SUCH SORROWING LOVE CAN PERSONALLY SUFFER. Here it led the apostle to act in a way which brought to him the bitterest form of suffering, even the suspicion and mistrust of his very friends. Even that he would bear, if but his desire for the spiritual welfare of the Corinthian Church could be realized. "Men might think that it had cost him little to write sharp words like those which he has in his mind. He remembers well what he felt as he dictated them the intensity of his feelings, pain that such words should be needed, anxiety as to their issue, the very tears which then, as at other times, were the outflow of strong emotion. Those who were indignant at his stem words should remember, or at least learn to believe this, and so to see in them the strongest proof of his abounding love for them." The heart of St. Paul was in this matter as the heart of him who said, "As many as I love I rebuke and chasten." Illustrate what a pressure on personal feeling it is for the parent or teacher to chasten. They often suffer much more than do those whom they feel called to smite. Even the misunderstanding, and even the temporary hatred, of those whom we would benefit, must be borne, in our earnest endeavours to deliver them from the dominion and defilement of their sins.
II SUCH SORROWING LOVE CAN DEAL SEVERELY WITH THE SINNER. It is never love to pass by sin. It is no true love that touches the sin too lightly and gives inefficient and unworthy apprehensions of it. St. Paul seemed to be too severe. He could not be. The case called for an extreme of severity. It was not merely that the offence was an open and scandalous one, but, what was even worse, the Church seemed to be pervaded by a false sentiment concerning it, and manifested no distress in having the guilty member among them. In some way, St. Paul felt, he must arouse them to a sense of their shame. Strong language, refusal to give them a personal visit, anything that would waken a sense of sin, were necessary. It had been the time for sternest rebuke. And still love needs to use severity. For some forms of sin the gentler persuasions are inefficient; men must be roughly shaken out of their self-confidences, and their pride must be humbled and broken. The Church of modem days so gravely fails of her witness and her duty because she has no "discipline," no severe dealings for her grave offenders: She has no love to burn against transgressors.
III SUCH SORROWING LOVE CAN SHOW FINE CONSIDERATION FOR THE FEELINGS OF OTHERS. Paul did not wish to make his second visit to Corinth in grief, and if he had carried out his first plan that would have been the almost inevitable result. He would wait, delaying his visit, so that he might have the chance of seeing them with a smile on his face, after receiving the tidings of their heeding his warning and putting away the sin. "The second reason St. Paul alleges for not coming to Corinth is apparently a selfish one to spare himself pain. And he distinctly says he had written to pain them, in order that he might have joy. Very selfish, as at first it sounds; but if we look closely into it it only sheds a brighter and fresher light upon the exquisite unselfishness and delicacy of St. Paul"s character. He desired to save himself pain because it gave them pain. He desired joy for himself because his joy was theirs. He will not separate himself from them for a moment; he will not be the master and they the school; it is not I and you, but we; " my joy is your joy, as your grief was my grief." "Do we love enough to rebuke and punish those whom we love? R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 1–4. I would not come again to you in…
1–4. I would not come again to you in heaviness. See verse 23 of last chapter. He desired not to come to rebuke, but to rejoice with them. This verse seems to point to a time when he had come in “heaviness.” It is generally admitted now by commentators that he did make such a visit, probably while preaching at Ephesus, running across the sea, a voyage of two or three days, for a short visit. This visit seems to be proved by 2 Cor. 12:14, 21, and 13:1. See Conybeare and Howson, Vol. II, p. 27.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain (N.B.—The paragraph really begins at 2Co_1:23.)
CRITICAL NOTES
(N.B.—The paragraph really begins at 2Co_1:23.)
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2Co_1:1. Determined.—As in 1Co_2:2. For myself.—So R.V., meaning, “For my own sake as well as for yours.” Again.—To be linked with “come” only? (q.d. “To come again, and to have a sorrowful visit”); or with “with sorrow”? (q.d. “a second sorrowful visit,” like a former one). Answer variously given, according as an intermediate visit, unmentioned in the Acts, is not, or is, supposed. Agreed that the visit recorded in Acts 18 was not specially a sorrowful visit. In heaviness.—“With sorrow” (R.V.). Here also external considerations very much decide whether this shall mean, “with sorrow in my heart” or “to inflict sorrow on you.” [See Introduction, more fully.]
2Co_1:2. He that is made sorry.—Probably not the particular offender of these verses; but quite general. Paul can grieve them all; each one of them, thus grieved, must make him glad. 2Co_1:3 confirms this.
2Co_1:3. This very thing.—Viz. 1Co_5:1 sqq. (Waite, in Speaker, however, thinks rather the decision announced in 2Co_1:1.) Paul means, “I wrote, rather than come at once.”
2Co_1:4.—Another concurrent and quite consistent reason, “I wrote with tears, in order that,” etc.
2Co_1:5.—Very difficult to translate with any certainty. Ambiguous for two reasons:
(1) What does “in part” belong to? Answer not certainly clear;
(2) What is the grammatical object of “overcharge,” “overweight”? Answer again not certainly clear.
(2) is answered in opposite ways by the and A.V., the two being typical of many more commentators. So is
(1). The A.V. means, “The grief has not fallen entirely and only upon me, but on you also. Not to think so, would on my part be to charge upon you all the heavy sin of indifference to his sin.” means, “But in part (let me say)—not to make too grave a matter of it against him—he has grieved you all.” Four variants are supported:
“He hath not grieved me
“but in part; that I may not overcharge you all.”
“but in part, that I may not overcharge (him), you all.”
“but in part, that I may not overcharge you, all (of you).”
“but in part, that I may not overcharge all, you.”
2Co_1:6.—Note, “the many” (R.V.). The sentence was the act of a (voting) majority.
2Co_1:7.—Note “His … sorrow.” accurately.
2Co_1:9.—How many, perfectly true, concurrent, motives go to one act.
2Co_1:10.—He concurs in what the majority had, previously to his writing, determined; “concurs” surely is not the spirit of one who “played the Lord” over them (2Co_1:24). Choose between “presence” and “person,” [The homiletics that follow assume “person,” because of Mat_18:20.]
2Co_1:11.—Beet makes more of Satan’s endeavouring to compass some harm, not to the poor penitent offender, but, by means of him, and using him and other evil circumstances of their case, to the Church. Unwise discipline, and tolerated evil within, perhaps equally give an open door to the adversary of souls. [Cf. 1Co_7:5 for the need of wise watchfulness against a real, evil Personality, full of very wise “devices.”] But preferable to understand as of Satan directly seeking opportunity of harming the penitent man.
HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.—Chap. 2Co_1:23 to 2Co_2:11
Paul and the Now Penitent Offender of 1Co_5:1-5.
I. The penitent man is an instructive study.—
1. The interval had been brief since chap. 5 of the former letter was written, and from that brief interval must be deducted the time from writing until it was read at Corinth, and from the time of the man’s manifest repentance until the news of this reached Paul in Ephesus. But in the brief interval, thus narrowed, had occurred a marvellous, a revolutionary, moral change in the man,—from a form of fornication abhorrent even to Corinthian heathen ideas, to repentance so deep, that he who was to have been “delivered to Satan,” might now safely be restored to the Church and to Christ. And not the least remarkable point in the case is that a man living in such sin, apparently with as little sense as had some of his fellow-members, of the shame it brought upon the Church, should, by the very fact of the Church having laid upon him a “sufficient” “punishment” [though (perhaps) one something short of the full penalty prescribed in the former letter; his alarm and repentance may have been so quick and so genuine that the need for this was averted], have been so filled with “sorrow,” that there was danger of a true penitent being driven to despair, and (we may say?) “delivered to Satan” by the very “overmuch” of his grief.
2. The case is not an uncommon one in mission-fields in heathen countries, or even in “home mission” work amongst the lowest or the degraded population of a nominally Christian land; and, as one of the typical, didactic instances by which, rather than by abstract discussions or elaborate theses upon given topics, God has been pleased to reveal His thought, it has many divinely authoritative suggestions. For example, it reminds us how widely the degrees of moral enlightenment and of moral sensitiveness may differ, whilst yet there is equally a relation to Christ which, though gravely imperilled by the sin, is worth caring for and endeavouring to strengthen. In a Christian land, in circles where Christian standards of morality have largely influenced even “society” ethics, such a sin as this of the Corinthian offender is reprobated with the utmost weight of verbal and practical censure; whilst a persistent refusal to forgive a fellow-Christian for a comparatively small offence, is hardly condemned at all. No doubt a practical difficulty occurs in judging of a sin “of spirit” (2Co_7:1); it is not easy to verify the facts, as can be done in (say) a palpable lapse into sensuality; it is not easy to pronounce judgment upon the moral worth of often very complex “feelings”[no virtue, and no sin, is single; all is complex]; whereas a plain act, manifestly incompatible with the most elementary law of God, can be both verified and judged. But this should not so affect our estimate of sin, as to make us forget that for a reclaimed drunkard to fall back grossly into his old sin, or for a man saved from profanity to break out, like Peter, in oaths and imprecations, or for a heathen, half in habit and heedlessness, to be led back into some gross but customary sin of his old life, may argue less of downright evil of heart than for a professedly Christian man persistently to cherish envy or pride, or to indulge in evil-speaking, or to become thoroughly of the world, in principle and spirit, in aims and affections. Remembering the men remembering the history of the men, their opportunities, their surroundings, the worldliness of the one may be a more grievous “fall” than the gross sin of the other. [The one is certainly as little compatible with the perfect law of life in Christ as is the other, the open and gross.] Our relative estimate of sin and of sinners needs continually reviewing in the light of that holiness which condemns sins “of the flesh” and “of the spirit” with at least equal censure. Rebellion in Saul may be more than the witchcraft in some wretched hag of Endor; stubbornness in Saul may be a worse sin than that idolatry which he had prosecuted in others with a Puritan rigour (1Sa_15:23). Sin may not be extenuated. [Certainly, even consummate genius must not excuse sensualism and impurity, in poetry or art, or laxity in morals.] An Ananias and a Sapphira may so deliberately and distinctly “lie unto the Holy Ghost” (Act_5:3), that there is for them no forgiveness, and nothing but excision from the body [query Gal_5:12] is on all accounts possible. Such discipline, sharp and swift, may be the only means of educating a pure public opinion in the Church, and for teaching a man of low type like the fornicator at Corinth to see himself as others see him, and as God sees him and his sin. An objective conscience, thus forcing its decision upon the attention of the wrong-doer, may be the only awakener and educator of his own. But “Father, forgive them, for they know what they do,” is high authority for a tender handling of some whose actual sin is flagrant and open. They needed forgiving, but their ignorance left the door open for forgiveness. Their guilt who actually, and perhaps with some coarse delight in giving pain, drove in the nails, was not so great as that of Caiaphas, who stood by, laying not a finger of his unsoiled hands upon the Sacred Sufferer, yet who in his heart was perhaps more truly than any other one man there present His real murderer. There is more grace in the repentance of a Corinthian fornicator, than in the largely conventional purity of some English or American “Christians.” There is more to love in the repentant prodigal, with all his “riotous living” and the waste of his patrimony, than in the grudging elder brother, whose life is blameless, save for the one lifelong sin of a loveless heart. This Corinthian sinned grossly, but he repented graciously. The sin needed every word of sternest rebuke which Paul had written; the fair name of the Church, and of Christ, must at all costs be kept clear before the world. If there had been no repentance, then the mysterious penalty of “deliverance to Satan” must righteously have been enforced to its uttermost of consequence [though even this contemplated the “saving of the spirit” (1Co_5:5)]. But gross and unexampled as was this man’s sin, there was much grace in a man, and hope for a man, who so promptly and unreservedly, with tears and broken heart, bowed before the censure of his pastor and his brethren, and in whom conscience was so easily awakened and so entirely obeyed. The “bruised reeds” (in Mat_12:14-21) were as helpless as they were evil, in the presence of the power of Jesus; the “smoking flax” of the wick of the lamp of their expiring religious life was as offensive as it was easily to be “quenched.” But if the “reed” is humbled at its weakness and sin, if the “smoking flax” will bear to be rekindled, Paul loves to restore such a one. His sin was a grievous offence; yet such a gross, but easily convinced and deeply penitent offender as this man of Corinth, is not the greatest sinner, nor the hardest to win and keep or recover for Christ. And all this not indistinctly outlines the judgment of God in Christ upon some “chief of sinners.”
II. The “tears of” Paul.—
1. In no letter do we get so near to Paul as in this “Second” to Corinth, or see and hear his very self. And, of all the letter, this is truer of no section more than of 2Co_1:23 to 2Co_2:11. First and foremost stand his “tears.” The Corinthians had imagined “a man lording it over their faith”; and all the while he was weeping over the loss of their love! They imagined, and maligned or decried, a self-seeking man, not above enriching himself and his companions and emissaries out of funds given to the Jerusalem poor (2Co_8:16-23); and all the while this “masterful,” “tyrannical,” “self-seeking” man was toiling at his tentmaking in Ephesus, and instead of arranging for an immediate visit was dictating to his amanuensis a letter [assuming with some that 2Co_1:4 alludes to an intermediate, “lost” letter], because, if he were to come, he must use an Apostolic severity of power such as he was unwilling to inflict upon those whom he had led to Christ, and whom he loved as only a spiritual father loves spiritual children. The unmarried [or widower], childless Paul is as tender as a mother. “I am only happy when I see you happy; I am sure that you are only happy when I am so; I could not bear to think of your making me unhappy by your own sorrow (2Co_1:3); I must have used the ‘rod’ if 1 had come, and I could not bear your tears.” This man, whose words thunder and flash lightnings, has written “out of much affliction and anguish of heart”; [and according to a strongly favoured interpretate of 2Co_1:8-10 was quite prostrated, overburdened, broken-hearted, fit for no work, nearly killed, by the tidings of their wrong-doing and of their factious jealousy against himself]. They thought, or said, that they found a man strong, stern, to the point of hardness; we know a man tender, tearful, perhaps even constitutionally timid [so Howson suggests: Character of St. Paul, lecture ii.; and if so, then naturally drawn to Timothy, around whom he so often in these letters throws the arm of his guaranteeing, guarding, strengthening love], doing all he did with a great and often violent strain upon himself, and all simply in the strength of the grace of God. It is imperfect manhood that cannot weep; and if in our undemonstrative, self-repressed days, tearful eyes be out of fashion for men, a perfect man will have a heart that can weep. Strong men are tender; tender men are strong. Their very tenderness is a helpful strength to many who lean upon them.
2. And, once more, as in the case of the Penitent Wrong-doer, there comes back the lesson to be very cautious in judgment. Naturally it is not easy for one who is smarting under the lash, to think very kind things of him who must needs wield it. The child hardly appreciates at the moment the love or wisdom which blames sharply or punishes severely. But the love is there. Do not sit in Corinth and hastily misread as a hard man Paul weeping at Ephesus. Experience shows, as it accumulates with years, how tender a heart may guide a stern tongue or move a strong hand. [See a tender delicate “weed” springing up from between the flagstones of a courtyard. Under those cold, hard stones its roots have found, and now witness to, soft, moist soil, where it may nourish its strength. So, see a strong, rough-spoken man bending over a fallen child to pick it up, perhaps with an awkward kiss before he carries it to a place of safety. That kiss is the “weed” which tells of the tender heart underneath the stone-cold, stone-hard surface of the manner and the life. That man is not wholly bad. These few verses—even these two, 3, 4—with their “tears,” are precious; they reveal the true Paul to us, as we should not have known him from the Acts, nor from the First Epistle to Corinth. How many a worker must be content to go forward year after year misread, misjudged, and feeling in some degree crippled in his usefulness by the wrong estimate formed of him by those to whom he would be useful!
3. May we not rise higher, with the suggestion of Paul’s “tears” whilst he writes words of sharp rebuke, to help us? From Paul’s tears may we not rise to the tears of Christ, and, yet higher, once more to the heart of God? By no forced or chance analogy. Paul, like every Christian man, of necessity reproduces more or less perfectly his Pattern, because the Spirit of Christ is within him the Life of his life, the Former of his character. And “he that hath seen” Christ “hath seen the Father.” We remember how Christ once at least “looked around” on a gathering in a Capernaum synagogue with a holy “anger” in His eyes (Mar_3:5); but the sentence continues, “being grieved with the hardness of their hearts.” The wail of disappointed love cries, “How often would I have gathered.… Ye would not”; but words of stern, irrevocable doom follow: “Your house is left unto you desolate.” As we see them in the “Son who has revealed Him,” anger and grief are never far apart in God. He has no love for inflicting pain. He has no love for the future punishment of creatures whom He has made. If it must be—if they make it a necessity—it must and will be. Holiness must be vindicated; sin is a peril to the good order, and so to the happiness, of the universe. “He must reign,” even if this must mean “enemies put beneath His feet.” But one can believe that there are tears in the heart of the very Judge, as He sets some “on the left hand” for whom He shed His blood. One may almost venture reverently to imagine Him following them as they “depart,” with His word, “Ye would not, ye would not, come to Me that ye might have life!” [Can we not see in His face the sorrow of the love of Christ, as He follows with His eyes the departing young ruler, so lovable, and yet so unready for “eternal life”? (Luk_18:23-24).] Men say of God, “I know Thee, that Thou art hard, … reaping where,” etc. (Mat_25:34). But they “know” God as little as the Corinthians knew Paul, the man of “many tears.” They do not know Him, as they may see Him, if they will, in Christ.
III. Paul the pastor.—
1. How careful he is that his motives should be understood. “I call God for a record upon my soul,” etc. Quite consistent with all said above (under 2Co_1:17 sqq.), that his personal character, and what they thought of it and of him, were only matters of concern so far as they might be supposed to affect their estimate of the Gospel he preached, or of the Christ Who is the very heart and burden of it. And quite consistent also with the words of the Divine Legislator for “the kingdom of heaven” (Mat_5:37). Paul is not a “yes and no” man; but his word here is not simply, “Yea, yea; nay, nay.” He strengthens it with an affirmation (cf. Rom_1:9) which one could have supposed too serious for “a mere personal matter” like this, his motive in making a change in his itinerary. The Master had said, “Whatsoever is more than these”—the plain “yes” and “no”—“cometh of evil.” In a world of evil, where men are evil, and where sin has put the relations of social intercourse so much out of joint, a strengthened “Yea” or “Nay” may be inevitable. And in this particular instance it is no “merely personal matter.” It is for the Gospel’s sake still. A pastor’s good understanding with his people is to him a power which he can use for their sakes. If they distrust his character, or lose confidence in his word, he will be of little use to them. A transparent simplicity of act and word and motive will give him a hold upon their hearts, if even they question, or differ from, his judgment. But such a protest as this, such a purgation of himself on oath, is a rare thing; Paul’s normal attitude is in 1Co_4:3,—“A small thing with me that I,” etc. Since, however, those words were written, new circumstances had arisen, which wrung from him this protest, for his people’s sake even more than for his own. Says the Great Shepherd: “I know My sheep, and am known of Mine!” Paul wants his flock to know him.
2. Not a lord over faith, but a helper of joy.—
(1) They are believers; even these Corinthians are (2Co_1:24). He is only a believer himself; in Christ, as man and man, every Corinthian and he have the same standing. Their faith is the vital link holding them to Christ; every man believes alone—by and for himself. It is his own unshared act. And the status in Christ is retained by believing; it may be forfeited by sin—sin which is fatal to faith, because grieving to the Spirit by Whose help alone men do, or can, savingly believe. If not, “if we (continue to) walk in the light as He is.… We have fellowship, and the blood … cleanseth,” etc.; with a continuous efficacy it puts a bar between us and our native guilt, and we retain our new status of grace. We are “justified by faith,” and by the same faith “we have our access into grace whereby we stand” (Rom_5:1-2) and “rejoice.” The grafting into Christ, the abiding in Christ, the joy in Christ,—all hinge upon faith. No Paul, nor any other wise pastor, will venture to “lord” it over the life of faith. “One is Master, even Christ; the rest are all brethren” (Mat_23:8).
(2) But it is brotherly in the highest degree to help the “joy” of another. “To add sunshine to daylight,” as Wordsworth says, is no small honour to a successful pastor. To be able so to bring a living, bright, realised Christ near to them, as that fear gives place to rest, and gloom to joy; so to be used to open up Scripture, with its teachings as to the “style” of life possible to, becoming in, provided for, children of God, as that they rise to the higher level, and with a glad and free heart, which has lost everything of merely obligatory and mechanical, all sense of bondage and constraint, in religion, go forward, “glad in the Lord”; by his own testimony and experience, so to be helpful as to clear away difficulties, and to encourage and embolden fearful hearts to hope for more, and to dare more, in the life of godliness;—it may well be an ambition of a worthy pastor, as, when won, it will be a cause of unspeakable thankfulness.
IV. The pastor exercising discipline.—
1. He does it in the spirit just sketched out,—not as a lord, but as a helper. A pure Church is a glad Church. Offences purged away, Achans sought out and put away, then conquests and work proceed apace, and all share the joy of success. If also discipline be exercised upon the individual, it is not for his destruction, or even for his exclusion, but for his recovery from his fall, and his restoration to his place in Christ; and thus is really working towards the joy of even the offender. It might be difficult, without undue straining, to find any analogical suggestion of God or Christ in Paul’s disclaimer of “lordship” over their faith; though when we remember how sacredly the liberty of the will is guarded in all the relations between God and man, and how that most Godlike characteristic of the human personality is (may we say?) so “respected” by God Himself, that all the loving, mighty constraint used by the Spirit of God, when endeavouring to lead a man to Christ, always stops short of compulsion; and when we remember how, assisted though it be by the grace of God, the act of believing is a man’s own, for which he is responsible; we might almost say that God Himself has chosen to refrain from exercising lordship over men’s faith. There would be no morality, no value to Him, in a compelled believing, or in a compulsory creed—a thing which, if accepted at all, must be accepted by a hypocrite or a machine. He would not care for the offering of such a faith. So far as there is surrender to His yoke, it is the surrender of a convinced understanding or of an instructed heart. But it needs no forcing of analogy to see God as the supreme “helper of” His people’s “joy,” even when exercising the discipline of rebuke and sharp chastening. It is the happy paradox of the Christian life: “Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.” “We ‘exult’ in tribulations also, knowing that,” etc. (Jas_1:2; Rom_5:3). If the foundation of the Christian character be right, if the heart be sound toward God, then all His providential discipline of habit and character, all the keen pruning away of excrescences and blemishes, everything which smites, and delivers from, sin,—all work together for a holiness which is, in part, joy. “The happy God” [so literally 1Ti_1:11; 1Ti_6:15] works towards His own happiness in His children. He loves to have them “rejoice evermore”; it is part of His “will in Christ Jesus concerning them” (1Th_5:16-18). “That your joy may be full” is a distinct desire and purpose of that Son, Who in all things has revealed to us the Father, by what Himself is, quite as much as by what He says about the Fattier (Joh_16:24). Cf. also Joh_17:13 : “That they might have My joy fulfilled in themselves.” The pastoral office of the Great Shepherd may not infrequently demand words as sharp, and discipline as severe, as those of Paul the pastor towards his Corinthians; but it aims at their joy. Their religious life can never realise fully how the “fruit of the Spirit is … joy,” if there be, in any degree or form, sin. Yet He would have their life not a restraint, or a series of self-denials, or a round of stern obligations, nor even a hoping and striving forward and upward, without ever being quite satisfied; but, rather, a “joyous” life, full of assurance and buoyancy and victory. Indeed, the “joy” is not only a thing desirable in itself; it is a means to something yet more desirable. “The joy of the Lord is strength” to the Lord’s people, as certainly now as in the days of Nehemiah (Neh_8:10). It is a view of the Heavenly Father as unworthy and untrue as was the Corinthian view of Paul, to imagine Him without care for His people’s happiness. He is not the God to grudge “joy” to His creatures. They should not think of Him as, if anything, predisposed to take away rather than to give; as likely to meet their devotion to Him of themselves and of all they are and have, by a demand for the surrender of something very dear. He cares for their holiness first; if that can be secured, and yet even their natural “joy” be untouched or enhanced, He will assuredly so order it, in His disposition of their life. Holiness is before all; but joy through holiness is certain; and He will always work towards this, with a minimum of discipline and of pain. Did this passage in the letter so reveal the heart of the real Paul to the Corinthian Church that they doubted, or maligned him, no more? “Do believe it, brethren, that in writing as I did, and in all I have done for you, I desired to be a helper of your joy.” If His people will look into the heart of God, as it has been laid bare to them in the words and work, and in the very self, of His Son, they will see in Him also One Who by all His dealings with them heartily desires their joy. And when at last they “enter into the joy of their Lord” (Mat_25:21), the “good and faithful servants” will be realising the fulfilment of all their Divine Master’s purposes and leading in their life.
2. He delays, and is reluctant to exercise discipline at all. “To spare you, I came not as yet,” etc.—Here again is a trait of that God in Christ Whom Paul, as it were, reproduces, as a consequence of the union, the unifying, the real fellowship of life, which are his “in Christ.” Anybody can drive away or cut off a sheep from the flock (Eze_34:4, etc.; Joh_10:12). The “Wolf” can do that admirably; it is his work. “We are not ignorant of his devices.” If he could have picked up this poor Corinthian thrust out of the fold, nothing would have served his turn better than an excessive discipline, carried beyond what the repentance of the offender now had made necessary. Accordingly, Paul would have the Corinthian Church follow the lead of his own action towards them as a whole. “A minimum of discipline, brethren, and that reluctant, and delayed. Take your penitent back again. You have chastened him sufficiently. Your concurrent (2Co_1:6) censure has had its effect. He is in danger of being swallowed up by the very excess of the sorrow of his repentant shame. You have been yourselves put to the test.” [As every case of wrongdoing in a Church does put the members to the test. What is their attitude towards sin? What towards this particular sin? Can it be said by their Lord, “Ye cannot bear them which are evil”? (Rev_2:1, of the very Ephesus from which Paul is writing). Is there that sure sign of health in a body, that it is restless, and cannot suffer a wound to heal up, so long as any diseased bone or foreign body lodged in its tissues is unexpelled?] “I wanted [did not their Lord also desire?] to see whether you felt with me about such sin, and whether, indeed, my word would command your obedience.” [Not “lording it over” them, indeed, yet “having rule,” such rule as a shepherd must needs exercise over a flock (Heb_13:7; Heb_13:17).] “You have stood the test well. Now we must not play the game of Satan, and leave to him a soul for his prey. Restore the man; confirm your love toward him. As little discipline as possible; as little putting away as possible. That was in my heart towards yourselves, when I changed my route, and did not come direct to you. I did not want to be necessitated to visit sharply sin such as I should have found if I had come then, but which you now have put away.” It is wise pastoral policy, it is wise paternal rule in a family, as it is wise political government, to govern as little as possible, to punish as seldom as possible, to aim at recovery and restoration rather than penal infliction or exclusion. It is the wisdom, it is the heart of “a good shepherd;” it is once more the heart of God. Again the analogy needs no forcing, and it is based upon a real unity of purpose and life. As the weeping pastor at Ephesus, so the patient, but often deeply grieved, Father in heaven: “To spare you I came not,” etc. Hear Him speaking of old: “I will not be always wroth, for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made” (Isa_57:16). “The longsuffering of God leadeth thee to repentance” (Rom_2:4). Remembering the holy intensity of God’s necessary antagonism [“hatred”] to sin; remembering the flagrant, and insolent, offence to His holiness which every day goes up to Him from earth; remembering the fearful propagatory power of evil and of the prolonged life of an evil-doer; do not men naturally wonder that the just Judge “bears so long,” not only with His people, to whom all this sin is an offence, a temptation, a trial, and sometimes an acute and oppressive persecution, but with the evildoers themselves? (Luk_18:7). When men have seen some culminating and outrageous piece of cruelty, or treachery, or fraud committed, have they not primâ facie reason to say, as the wrong-doer seems not only to escape penalty, but even to prosper as the fruit of his sin, “Him doth God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?” [Psa_73:11; but note that the question has in that verse a boldly unbelieving turn and tone given to it]. God can afford to wait, and to be silent, however misunderstood and misjudged. [“Patiens, quia æternus” (Augustine).] And His answer to His Church in the day of His own vindication will be: “To spare the sinners, I came not,” etc. It is the appeal of His forbearance to the individual sinner. Why was he not cut off, cast off, the very first time he deliberately, and with clear understanding of his act, refused to obey the will or call of God? Why did not a stroke of judgment make his first sin his last—at any rate, his last on earth? “To spare thee, I came not,” etc. Judgment must come some day. God’s patience is holy, and therefore cannot be infinite. But holy wrath lingers. “The times of this ignorance God winked at, but now,” etc. (Act_17:30). How often has Paul’s turning aside from a visitation, which could have had no room in it for anything but punishment, been reproduced on a scale of Divine enlargement of love and patience, in His turning aside from the sinner, desiring that respite and delay might mean a repentance which should make judgment needless, and mercy and restoration possible to the Divine Love?
V. The pastor’s absolution.—Two Gospel passages underlie, or are well illustrated by, 2Co_1:7; 2Co_10:1. In Mat_18:18 a power of “binding” and “loosing” is made one of the prerogatives of the Church of Christ within its own borders. To whom is such a power to sit in judgment upon their fellow-men to be entrusted? To even “two or three,” if they be “met in [unto] the name” of their Lord; in which case He also is with them “in the midst,” and thus, with Him, two or three—with no restriction to apostles or “official” members—are a quorum which may form an assembly of the Church, valid for discipline whether to bind or loose sentence and penalty. Inherent in the whole body,—for the terms are perfectly general,—it may be from time to time, and from case to case, specially localised in the particular Church, or even in the two or three along with whom is the Fourth, the First, the Lord. [So Joh_20:22-23, spoken, both as to mission and disciplinary power, to a much larger company than “the twelve.”] Accordingly “the many” at Corinth had “inflicted the punishment.” It is “ye forgive”; Paul follows the lead, or adopts the act, of the Church. There is no need to suppose that, even at a date so early, there were not elders, or officers of some sort, at Corinth, who in the disciplinary action would be the mouthpiece of the Church. But convenience and seemly order, not principle, would govern and dictate such a specialisation of function. Their forgiveness would be the forgiveness of the whole Church. The Church has acted, without waiting for Paul, or even for his directions to forgive the man.
2. Mat_17:19-20 is also in his mind. Rather, it is his working theory of discipline in the Church, as was seen in 1Co_5:3-5. The gathering which he there instructed them to arrange for, in regard to this very offender, was to be composed of the Church, plus Paul’s “spirit,” plus the power of the presence of “the Lord Jesus Christ.” Then their discipline became the discipline of Christ; and now that they have forgiven, Paul concurs and forgives, just as if he had been actually with them. But the forgiveness of the Church, met “in that Name,” and the forgiveness of Paul thus exercised to ratify theirs, are neither ecclesiastical nor sacerdotal, but representative; it is, as it were, “in the person of Christ” [to keep to the translation which falls in so perfectly with the passage in the Gospels and that in the preceding Epistle]. As in the original enactment of this power of “binding” and “loosing,” the act is His Who is “in their midst,” answering by His very presence and direction the prayer for guidance, as touching which the little company have “agreed to ask.” Christ is the supreme and sole fount of forgiveness. All human forgiveness is declaratory only. The priest who “cleansed” the leper [Psa_51:2, “cleanse me”; the quasitechnical word for the act of the priest in such a case] could only declare him physically clean, and give official recognition to the fact that ipso facto he had become released from all the restrictions binding on a leper. “Loosing” him meant declaring him “loosed.” It is a pastoral absolution; the forgiveness of a shepherd who cares most that a sheep shall not be thrust into the power of Satan, the master of many “devices,” subtle as of old.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain 2Co 2:1-13.
HE RESOLVES NOT TO COME TO THEM IN SORROW
2Co 2:1-13.
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Paul most sagaciously and successfully maneuvers this whole matter. It would have been a terrible ordeal to him, who had spent eighteen months with them and seen them all born from above, and rejoiced exultantly with his spiritual children, to come among them with the castigatory rod, holding church trials and turning out a big lot of them. So he determines from the start, and arriving at Ephesus from his great Eastern tour, and there bearing all about these irregularities, heresies and disorders, he decides that he will wheel them into line by firing on them at long range.
4. “For out of much grief and anguish of heart I wrote unto you through many tears, not that you may be grieved, but that you may know the Divine love I have toward you exceedingly.” While he had met every issue fairly and squarely, withholding not an iota or flickering, he had baptized his letters with his tears. Timothy and Titus, his noble preachers, had been signally blessed of God in their work among them, corroborating the Pauline epistles by their preaching and bringing about a genuine repentance and radical reform.
5. “But if anyone has grieved you all in part, he did not grieve me but in part, that I may not burthen you.
6. “This punishment from the many is sufficient for such an one.
7. “So, on the contrary, you should rather bless and exhort him, lest he may be swallowed up with excessive grief.
8. “Therefore, I exhort you to stir up your Divine love toward him.” This is that notorious incestuous man who had his father’s wife (the old man still living, ch. 2Co 7:12), though Paul had assured them that this man should be turned over to Satan, i. e., expelled from the church, in case that he did not take heed. But, to the infinite gratitude of Paul, he had not only reformed and made everything right as far as possible, but he was about to grieve himself to death, and the whole church was down in mourning with him and praying for him, not a single one vindicating him, but condemning him, and crying to God to have mercy on him and them. When Titus arrives and tells Paul about the genuine, radical and excessive repentance, and the man even about to grieve himself to death, Paul tells them here that it is enough, and exhorts them to turn the tide and labor to comfort him, all stirring up their Divine love in his behalf, exhorting and blessing him, lest he die of grief.
9. “For unto this indeed I wrote, in order that I may know your approval, if you are obedient in all things.” He had the blessed consolation of realizing that they were obedient in all things. Instead of dividing up into factions, as is customary in case of church discipline, they unanimously accepted the situation and came down in sackcloth and ashes, those who had sinned crying for mercy, and the balance crying along with them that the sin had occurred among them.
10-11. “But in whatsoever you rejoice as to anything, I do also, for indeed I have rejoiced in this, if I have rejoiced in anything, for your sakes in the face of Christ, in order that we may not be gobbled up by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his devices.” If they had broken into divisions over the Pauline discipline, Satan would have made great capital out of it. But as it was, he was utterly defeated and the victory was complete.
12-13. “Having come into Troas unto the gospel of Christ, indeed a door being opened to me in the Lord, I had no rest in my spirit because I did not find Titus my brother, but bidding them adieu I departed into Macedonia.” Troas is over in Asia, the capital of Mysia, the successor of old Troy of Homeric notoriety. Titus was to meet Paul there, and give him the news from Corinth, whither Paul had sent him to preach and to do his utmost to obey his epistles and make everything right. On arrival, he does not find him. Such is his anxiety to hear from Corinth that he does not delay, but hastens away over the sea to Macedonia, where he meets Titus bringing the glorious news of his great revival at Corinth, so ravishing to the longing heart of their spiritual father.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain 2Co 2:11
2Co 2:11
I. Satan endeavours to keep men from Christ, knowing well that the spiritual life will not thrive on anything but Christ; he endeavours to substitute anything else, no matter what, instead of Him, as an object for the soul to fix upon. And when this is done, the spiritual life becomes soon extinct, or wanes back into a miserable, spiritless formality. How many are checked and stunted in growth by this device of the enemy!
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II. He blinds the judgment and spiritual understanding, and so produces a low and inadequate view of the Christian life, so that many of its most imperative requirements are kept in the background, while perhaps, at the same time, others are rigidly insisted on. It is a most important requisite for the Christian to be complete in his self-devotion to God.
III. He weakens our faith. The greatest blessing which any Christian can possess is a simple, unwavering faith in God. And no doubt this would be the direct consequence of the reception of the truth in the love of it, if not hindered and thwarted by the agency of Satan upon our sinful and doubting hearts.
IV. He suggests to the mind evil and hateful thoughts. Frequently such thoughts are thrust in against our wills, evidently not arising from any connection of ideas in our own minds; and this, to those who are given to low and desponding frames of feeling, is a sore trial, believing as they do that such thoughts arise from themselves, and that they betoken a depraved and criminal intention within them. If Christians would believe and recognise more than they do the agency of the tempter within them, they would derive encouragement under such inward struggles from knowing that it is not they themselves, but he against whom they are called on to maintain the good fight, from whom such thoughts arise. The conclusion from what has been said is twofold. (1) Of exhortation—"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." (2) Of encouragement—It is surely a consolation to be able to see and know with whom we have to contend, to be able to feel that—evil as are our hearts by nature, and depraved as are our wills—all our inward temptations and suggestions to evil are not our own, and will not, if in God’s strength resisted, be laid to our own charge.
H. Alford, Sermons, p. 301.
References: 2Co 2:12-17.—Ibid., p. 287. 2Co 2:14.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 259.
2Co 2:14-16
The Absolute Character and Critical Effects of the Ministry of the Gospel.
I. The absolute or real character is seen in what it is to God. The gospel not only displays and embodies, but taxes to the utmost, the resources of the Divine love and wisdom combined. And just as the scattered flowers, fragrant shrubs, and sweet incense breathed forth a perfume of sweet savour before the advancing ranks of the triumphal procession, irrespective of its effects on victor and vanquished; so, irrespective of its consequences in respect to those who hear the gospel, the ministry of its glad tidings is unto God the diffusion of a sweet savour.
II. The critical influence of the gospel is seen in its opposite effects on those to whom it is preached. Paul felt acutely that he could not be the minister of the word of life to men without increasing their responsibility and aggravating the condemnation of those who rejected it. For in proportion to its quickening power of life in those who receive it, does it work death in those who refuse to accept it. The nature of fallen man being susceptible of the application of the divinest means for his recovery, he is, in case of their employment a failure, thereby doomed to a corresponding depth of wretchedness and woe. Let us learn that the character of the purpose of God’s grace and the means for its fulfilment are such as to give Him joy wherever they are proclaimed. What they are to us is determined by our own moral state and character.
W. Pulsford, Trinity Church Sermons, p. 198.
Reference: 2Co 2:14-17.—A. J. Parry, Phases of Christian Truth, p. 194.
2Co 2:15-16
God Glorified in the Preaching of the Gospel.
I. The gospel is a revelation of all which is most illustrious in Godhead and of all that as sinful creatures we are most concerned in ascertaining. We read that when God rested from the work of creation He saw everything that He had made, and He beheld that it was very good. And why should He not hold the same in regard to the gospel? It may well be supposed that God would regard the ambassadors of His Son, those who with their lives in their hands hastened to publish the glad tidings of redemption, as more truly and more emphatically the revealers of Himself, than all those worlds so gorgeously apparelled with which His creative edict had peopled infinite space. Who then can be surprised at the lofty tone assumed by St. Paul when speaking of his own ministrations of the gospel of Christ. He felt that his preaching was a manifestation of the invisible Deity.
II. It was another view of the office of the preacher that extorted from the Apostle the words "Who is sufficient for these things?" Preachers are watchmen, and with all their vigilance may sometimes fail in warning those committed to their care. They are stewards of the mysteries of God; and compassed with infirmities even when they are unwearied in labour, they may occasionally err as interpreters of the word, and place before the people falsehood as well as truth. But it is when they come to view themselves as actually employed in the making men inexcusable, then it is that their office assumes its most fearful aspect. Then it is that, if they have but human hearts and sympathies, they must feel their office a burden too great to be borne, and half long to be allowed to keep back their message, lest it should prove nothing but a savour of death unto death. "Who is sufficient for these things?" It is for the hearers to spare their minister this, and to make the gospel a sweet savour of life unto life, and not a savour of death unto death.
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2181.
References: 2Co 2:15, 2Co 2:16.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. i., No. 26; Homilist, 2nd series, vol. ii., p. 468.
2Co 2:16
The Missionary.
I. Among the qualifications of the true missionary, I do not scruple to put first a love of souls; or, if the expression be thought to have too technical a meaning, let us say rather an earnest longing that other men and women should become true Christians at heart. Here we have the true foundation on which all missionary success must be reared. There is no substitute for it. Heart to heart, soul to soul, man must come with his brother-man, if he is to implant in him any seeds of a spiritual life.
II. A successful missionary must be in the main a hopeful, sanguine man. One of the sorest temptations to missionaries is the temptation to despond. This is a temptation hardly known to any but noble natures. Those who have no high aims, no grand enterprises with which they have intertwined their hearts, cannot tell the miseries of misgiving. But the records of missionaries are essentially records of high aims and gallant enterprises; and so you find a large space filled by their hours of darkness. These are the weak moments of strong natures. They are enough to show one of the characteristic trials of the missionary, and of the need there is that he should be a man naturally cheerful and hopeful.
III. Again, a missionary should be a man of delicate sympathy. The most holy natures are sometimes deficient in at least the finer shades of sympathy. Such persons, if they adopt the missionary calling, will probably find again and again that their success is marred.
IV. A successful missionary must have a very sure and definite hold of the main promises and doctrines of the gospel. His own faith must be strong and simple; if not, he will not be able to speak or act with decision. His tongue will be tied, his arm will be palsied by the fatal consciousness that he has not thoroughly grasped and appropriated the truths which he is professing to impress upon others.
H. M. Butler, Harrow Sermons, 2nd series, p. 80.
I. The difficulties which faced St. Paul were open and tangible. He knew that on one side there was Jewish bigotry, and on the other side Greek speculation; here the charge of apostasy from ancestral sanctities—there of insubordination to existing authorities; here some definite risk of scourging or stoning, of dungeon or sword—there some insidious corruption of gospel simplicity by Judaizing admixture or Alexandrian refinement. From these things he had no rest; his life was a daily sacrifice, wanting but its completion in the drink-offering of his blood. But St. Paul was spared some experiences, belonging to an age not his. That reckless, restless impatience of the old, even when the old is God’s truth; that insolent disdain of Christ’s ordinance of preaching; that choosing and rejecting amongst the plain sayings of Scripture,—these habits of thought and mind have taken the place, in our time, of that scoffing of the scorner which at least warned off the believing: they have passed inside the unguarded door of the Church, and they utter themselves in the very temple of God, as if they were part and parcel of the recognised sentiment of the faithful.
II. There is yet another peculiarity of our time which troubles a thoughtful man as much as any—it is the timidity of the believing, in the face of free thought and scientific discovery. I count it a great evil when true believers betray an uneasiness in the presence of true seekers. Truth and the Truth can never really be at variance. Let not faith think that by hiding its head in the sand it can elude pursuit, or that by a clamorous outcry, "The gospel is in danger," it can breathe either confidence into its troops or panic into its foes. Let us be brave with a courage at once of man and of God. Let us count no affront to the cause of Christ equal to that of His so-called followers who would turn His Church into a clique and His hope into a fear.
C. J. Vaughan, Temple Sermons, p. 1.
References: 2Co 2:16.—Homilist, 2nd series, vol. iv., p. 385; J. Clifford, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxvi., p. 305.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain (b) 2:8-13. The Object and Results of the severe…
(b) 2:8-13. The Object and Results of the severe Letter
The Apostle reminds them that to produce this godly sorrow was the object of the letter he wrote before. He then speaks of one man who has caused him pain, asking them to remit the punishment inflicted already and forgive him, and telling them that he had written also to ascertain the extent of their obedience, and that if they were willing to forgive now, so was he. He then relates his anxious desire to hear what had occurred on their receipt of his letter—a desire so great that he had to push southwards to meet Titus and get the news.
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3, 4. Paraphrase. 'My reason for writing sternly rather than paying another painful visit was that I wished to have happiness and not sorrow when I came. (4) I wrote the severe rebukes and exhortations with suffering and tears, not that I wished wilfully to grieve you, but that I hoped you would realise the love I bear you.'
3. I wrote] i.e. the painful letter of which 2 Corinthians 10-13 of the Second Epistle are probably a portion (see Intro.). In you all] He speaks thus generously now that he has found his confidence not misplaced.
5-9. Paraphrase. 'Now with regard to the person who has been the occasion of this grief, he has grieved not me only, but to some extent (not to be too harsh) the Church. (6) And the sentence pronounced by the majority is quite sufficient punishment for him. (7) Do not inflict any further punishment, but forgive and encourage him, lest he be driven to despair. (8) Show him that you are actuated by Christian love. (9) For the main purpose of my letter has been accomplished now that you have given proof of your readiness to obey me.'
5. Any] A definite person is meant, but now that punishment has brought him to repentance the Apostle merely hints at him. The same person is indicated in 2Co_7:12, where see note.
6. Punishment] probably excommunication: cp. 1Co_5:4-5; (a different case). Of many] i.e. by the majority.
7. Overmuch sorrow] The offender had now realised the heinousness of his offence, and the continuance of punishment would serve no good purpose, and might even do harm.
8. Confirm your love] by restoring him to the Church.
9. The Apostle valued the act of discipline as much for the proof it afforded of the Corinthians' loyalty as for its effect upon the offender.
10-13. Paraphrase. 'I forgive any one whom you forgive; for I have no personal feeling in the matter, and it is only for your sakes that I speak of forgiveness at all, and I forgive in the spirit of Christ. (11) I forgive this man lest he be tempted by Satan to deny the faith, for we know that the adversary seeks to prevail against us. (12) I was so anxious to hear what you had done while I was engaged in successful work for Christ in Troas, (13) that I could not remain there when Titus did not come, but pushed on to Macedonia to meet him.'
10. In the person of Christ] either (1) as in His sight, or (2) as in His place, or (3) as having Christ living in me: cp. 2Co_1:21; 2Co_2:17.
11. Get an advantage] by the man being lost to Christ, or by the estrangement of the Apostle and the Corinthians; perhaps both.
12, 13. St. Paul had gone from Ephesus to Troas on the coast of Asia Minor a short time after dispatching the severe letter to Corinth by Titus. He had expected Titus to meet him there with the news of the condition of the Church and of the way in which his letter had been received; but not finding him he became anxious and hastened on to Macedonia, where, probably at Philippi, he met Titus bringing good news. Troas] for other visits there see Act_16:8-10; Act_20:6-12. A door was opened] the preaching of the gospel found ready acceptance.
(c) 2:14-5:21. The Glory, the Joy, the Comfort, and the Inspiration of his Ministry
(c) 1. 2:14-3:6. The Apostle's True Letter Of Recommendation
The return of Titus with joyful news suggests thanksgiving to God, who has made the Apostle the means of spreading abroad the gospel message. St. Paul and his fellow-workers proclaim the gospel both to those who accept and to those who reject it. To the former it is a message of life; to the latter, of death. And no one can bear such a burden of responsibility unless he preaches with a pure purpose, and under a deep sense of accountability to God.
14. Causeth us to triumph] RV 'leadeth us in triumph.' The language is suggested by the triumphal procession of a Roman general. St. Paul thinks of himself as being a willing captive in Christ's train (cp. 2Co_10:5), and as spreading abroad the knowledge of Him like the pervading scent of the incense scattered as the procession moves onward.
16. The figure of the triumphal procession is continued. 'Some of the conquered enemies were put to death when the procession reached the Capitol; to them the smell of the incense was “an odour of death unto death” to the rest, who were spared, “an odour of life unto life”' (Conybeare and Howson's 'Life of St. Paul'). For the thought suggested in these verses cp. Joh_1:11-12; Joh_9:39; 1Pe_2:7-8; Rev_22:11. Who is sufficient] the great responsibility of the preacher. The answer to the question is suggested in 2Co_2:17.
17. Many] RV 'the many'; i.e. those Judaising preachers of whom they had experience. These men had stirred up strife in the Church at Corinth by denying St. Paul's authority, accusing him of personal interest in the collection, and (what he resented most) impugning his doctrine. They insisted on the observance of the Jewish Law, and as St. Paul preached the gospel to the Gentiles without reference to the Law, they carried on a mission against him in the cities he visited, seeking to gain his converts over to their own narrow views and Jewish prejudices. It was a critical period for the Church both in Corinth and in other places (cp. Gal_1:6-9; Gal_3:1-4). 'The true question was no less than this: whether the Catholic Church should be dwarfed into a Jewish sect; whether the religion of spirit and of truth should be supplanted by the worship of letter and of form' (Conybeare and Howson). Corrupt] Make the gospel a means of personal gain. The opponents of St. Paul seem to have made personal profit out of the Corinthians (2Co_11:20); and at the same time to have charged the Apostle with having a personal interest in the money he was raising for the poor at Jerusalem: cp. 2Co_8:20; 2Co_12:17, 2Co_12:18.
As of God] i.e. as God's true servants. In Christ] i.e. in union with Christ. St. Paul was so entirely submissive to Christ's influence and inspired by His spirit that he spoke of Christ living in him, and of himself as living in Christ: cp. 2Co_1:21 and ref.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain But I determined this for myself, that I would…
But I determined this for myself, that I would not come again to you with sorrow .
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain 3. His Deep Exercise Concerning Them. Yet Overcoming.
3. His Deep Exercise Concerning Them. Yet Overcoming.
CHAPTER 2
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1. The Burden of his Soul. (2Co 2:1-4.)
2. Concerning the Brother who had been Disciplined. (2Co 2:5-11.)
3. Overcoming. (2Co 2:12-17.)
In the previous chapter we read the reason why he had not gone to Corinth. “To spare you I came not to Corinth “ (2Co 1:23). He feared, that on account of their deplorable condition; exercising his God-given apostolic authority, he might appear as dominating over them. He had determined that he would not come again to them with sorrow. He might have hastened to Corinth with a rod (1Co 4:21), but he exercised patience and had waited, no doubt with much prayer to God, for the gracious effect of the first Epistle he had sent unto them. In all these statements so humble, so loving and so patient, we have the love exemplified which is described in the previous epistle (Chapter 13). He was not easily provoked; he hoped all things and endured all things. He also tells them in what state of mind he was in when he wrote his first Epistle. What deep soul exercise the fourth verse reveals! He was so much concerned that he wrote out of much affliction and agony of heart, while his tears flowed freely. But it was not done to grieve them; love for them was the only motive, “that ye might know the love which I have more abundantly towards you.”
The case of the transgressor whose wicked deed had been exposed and rebuked in the first Epistle (1Co 5:1-13), whose discipline had been demanded by the Apostle, is taken up first. What had grieved him had grieved them also. This they had shown by the way in which they had treated this brother. Titus had brought him the information that they had acted and the transgressor had been put away from fellowship. He also must have told Paul of his deep and true repentance. He therefore exhorts them to receive him again and comfort him, who was in grave danger of being swallowed up with much sorrow on account of the discipline from the side of the mass of Christians. He tells them to assure this weak brother, who had been restored, of their own love, and while they had forgiven him, he also forgave. In assuring the disciplined brother of their love they would thereby prove their obedience in all things. They had previously shown their obedience by judging the evil doer for his sin. “Lest Satan should get an advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices.” The brother in question who had been delivered to Satan was in danger of being driven to despair, and in this way Satan might get an advantage over them. This might have resulted in bringing about a division between the Apostle and the Corinthians. The course pursued by the apostle in forgiving love, prevented this.
When the Apostle came to Troas to preach the Gospel of Christ, there was a door opened unto him by the Lord. His great business was to preach the Gospel, and the Lord had manifested His approval by opening a door. Yet Paul was restless. He had expected to meet Titus to receive the anxiously awaited news from Corinth. So he did not enter the door which the Lord opened to preach the Gospel, but he hastened to Macedonia. His own anxiety and restless haste were weaknesses. The door opened for service should have made him tarry at Troas to preach that Gospel, which he loved so well. Then, in due time, the Lord would have led Titus to him. From all this the Corinthians could learn his great love for them and his deep anxiety and concern. And yet his conscience must have been troubled in having lost so great an opportunity to preach the Gospel. Surely he was in a very trying position as a servant of Christ. On the one hand he valued the Gospel and loved to preach it, and on the other hand was his burdened heart for the Saints of God. And therefore he comforts and encourages himself by an outburst of thanksgiving. He knows that God is in it all; not he himself leads, but God always leadeth him in triumph in Christ, (“causes us to triumph” is a faulty translation), “and maketh manifest the odor of His knowledge through us in every place.” It is an allusion to a Roman triumphal procession after the victory. Captives were led in these processions, but the victors were the prominent figures. So Paul declares, “God always leadeth us in triumph in Christ.” He gives us the victory. All his anxiety for the Corinthians ended in triumph. This was always so. In connection with a Roman triumph incense was burned upon every altar. These aromatics pervaded the whole procession. Through the apostle the sweet smell of His knowledge was spread about. But he also applies this to the Gospel. The two classes are mentioned by him, those who are being saved and those who are perishing. Let us also notice the beautiful thought that the preaching of the Gospel is a sweet incense of Christ unto God. Independent of the results of the preaching of the Gospel, whenever that precious name is preached, which is as ointment poured forth (Son 1:3), it delights the heart of God and is a sweet savor unto Him. But as to men, to some it is a savor (or odor) of death unto death and to others a savor of life unto life. (In the Roman triumphal procession were captives to whom the burning incense was a token of death; to others it was a token of life.)
And who is sufficient for these things? What great issues the Gospel ministry involves and how great the responsibility! The question is answered in the next chapter. “Our sufficiency is of God” (2Co 3:5). Upon Him the true minister of the Gospel is solely cast. And because Paul had his sufficiency of God as well as those who were associated with him, he could say, “for we are not as the many, corrupting the Word of God; but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, speak we in Christ.” The word “corrupt” has the meaning of adulterating, trading. It has been strikingly translated “driving a traffic in the Word of God” and with this making merchandise of the Truth of God, the adulterating is closely connected. It began with apostolic days. How much worse is it in our times! Many who lay claim to the name of ministers of the Gospel are men-pleasers, covetous, aiming at their own popularity, seeking their own and not the things of Christ; and therefore they trade in these truths and handle the Word of God deceitfully as well as diluting it. A solemn description of a true servant of Christ is the concluding sentence of this chapter. He is of God, with a God-given message, and he speaks of God in the sight of God.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain Paul’s Apostolic Kindness.
Paul’s Apostolic Kindness.
Paul continues his explanation:
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v. 1. But I determined this with myself, that I would not come again to you in heaviness.
v. 2. For if I make you sorry, who is he, then, that maketh me glad but the same which is made sorry by me?
v. 3. And I wrote this same unto you, lest, when I came, I should have sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice, having confidence in you all, that my joy is the joy of you all.
v. 4. For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears, not that ye should be grieved, but that ye might know the love which I have more abundantly unto you.
Paul had declared that he had reconsidered his intention of visiting them first and changed his plan about coming in order to spare them. And he here adds another point for their consideration: But I decided this for my own sake, not to come to you again in sorrow. His next visit was not to be the painful experience which his last was. It appears, then, that Paul had made a short visit to Corinth during his long stay at Ephesus and had been deeply hurt and grieved by conditions as he found them there. He had been obliged to use severity, to cause them sorrow. 1Co 4:21. And so he asks, in all gentleness: For if I make you sorrowful, who, then, is it that makes me glad, that cheers me, unless it is he that has been made sorrowful by me? His love for the Corinthians had caused him to rebuke their sins and faults, to cause them sorrow, for he had in mind their repentance which would, in turn, gladden his heart. But if he had come at the time he first intended to visit them, the very people upon whom he depended to cheer him, to be a source of satisfaction and joy to him, would have caused him pain once more, since the abuses which he wanted to have removed were at that time still being tolerated by them. In doing his duty as their spiritual father, in inflicting upon them the chastisement which conditions merited, he would be deprived of the joy which the Corinthian Christians, as his children, afforded him. But as matters stood, his letter had indeed caused sorrow, but things had meanwhile been adjusted, and Paul was spared the personal intercourse of sorrow.
This thought is brought out still more fully in the next verse: And I wrote you this very thing, lest in coming I should have sorrow from them from whom I ought to have cheer, firmly persuaded concerning you all that my joy is that of you all. The desire to spare them and to save himself pain had prompted the apostle to send his censure in writing, as he did in the first letter. This course made it easier for both parties: it saved him an unpleasant experience, a factor all the weightier since their relation to him should at all times have been of a nature to cheer him. Just how much that meant for him appears from the fact that he was fully persuaded, that he felt the utmost confidence in them all, that his joy was the joy of them all. He was sure of the bond of sympathy between them; they would want to see him cheerful and happy at all times, and he, considering them all as his friends, would surely be willing to spare them a distressing experience.
The state of mind in which he wrote his first epistle the apostle did not care to experience again: For out of great affliction and anxiety of heart I wrote to you with many tears. Many sections of the first letter might seem harsh and conducive to anything but a feeling of joyfulness; but his very love for the Corinthians made his lamentation about their harm and his fear for their peril all the greater. He had held himself in check purposely, lest his opponents bring the charge of impulsiveness and uncontrolled feeling. But for all that, the accompanying circumstances were such as just stated by the apostle, his purpose in telling of them at this time being: Not that you should be made sorrowful, but that you might know the lore which I so abundantly have toward you. Just as the love of the mother is most tender toward the sickly and weak child, just as the shepherd shows the depth of his love especially in his seeking of the one that is lost, so Paul in his care for all congregations, chap. 11:28, yet had a special love for the Corinthians, because they were most in need of love and caused him the most anxiety. The same pastoral love is today exhibited in thousands of cases with probably as little appreciation on the part of those that are the objects of this loving care.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Because of his great love for them, Paul makes it clear that his rebuke in his first letter to them (the rebuke of their acceptance of the sin of immorality) caused him pain as well as pain to the church people in Corinth and the immoral man.
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I decided for my own part
"I made the decision"
in painful circumstances
"in circumstances that would cause you pain"
If I caused you pain, who could cheer me up but the very one who was hurt by me?
Paul uses this rhetorical question to emphasize that neither he nor they would benefit if his coming to them would cause them pain. AT: "If I caused you pain, the only ones who could cheer me up would be the very ones whom I had hurt" (See: Rhetorical Question)
the very one who was hurt by me
This can be stated in active form. AT: "the very one whom I had hurt" (See: Active or Passive)
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 2:1 Paul’s previous visit had been very painful and…
2:1 Paul’s previous visit had been very painful and had caused him great distress. This visit is not recorded in Acts; it apparently took place during Paul’s three-year ministry in Ephesus (see Acts 19:8-22). During that visit, Paul severely rebuked the church (2 Cor 1:23) and was insulted by an unnamed man (2:5-11).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.