12Now when I came to Troas for the Good News of Christ, and when a door was opened to me in the Lord,13I had no relief for my spirit, because I didn’t find Titus, my brother, but taking my leave of them, I went out into Macedonia.
14Now thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and reveals through us the sweet aroma of his knowledge in every place.15For we are a sweet aroma of Christ to God, in those who are saved and in those who perish:16to the one a stench from death to death, to the other a sweet aroma from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?17For we are not as so many, peddling the word of God. But as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ.
12 Now when I came to Troas for the Good News of Christ, and when a door was opened to me in the Lord,
13 I had no relief for my spirit, because I didn’t find Titus, my brother, but taking my leave of them, I went out into Macedonia.
14 Now thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and reveals through us the sweet aroma of his knowledge in every place.
15 For we are a sweet aroma of Christ to God, in those who are saved and in those who perish:
16 to the one a stench from death to death, to the other a sweet aroma from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?
17 For we are not as so many, peddling the word of God. But as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ.
TYNDALETyndale New Testament (1534)
12 When I was come to Troada for Christes gospels sake (and a great dore was openned vnto me of the Lorde)
13 I had no rest in my sprete because I founde not Titus my brother: but toke my leave of them and went awaye into Macedonia.
14 Thankes be vnto God which alwayes geveth vs the victorie in Christ and openeth the saver of his knowledge by vs in every place.
15 For we are vnto God the swete savoure of Christ both amonge them that are saved and also amonge them which perisshe.
16 To the one parte are we the savoure of deeth vnto deeth. And vnto the other parte are we the savoure of lyfe vnto lyfe. And who is mete vnto these thinges?
17 For we are not as many are which choppe and chaunge with the worde of God: but even oute of purenes and by the power of God and in the sight of God so speake we in Christ.
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GNVGeneva Bible (1599)
12 Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christs Gospell, and a doore was opened vnto me of the Lord,
13 I had no rest in my spirit, because I founde not Titus my brother, but tooke my leaue of them, and went away into Macedonia.
14 Now thankes be vnto God, which alwaies maketh vs to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the sauour of his knowledge by vs in euery place.
15 For wee are vnto God the sweete sauour of Christ, in them that are saued, and in them which perish.
16 To the one we are the sauour of death, vnto death, and to the other the sauour of life, vnto life: and who is sufficient for these things?
17 For wee are not as many, which make marchandise of the woorde of God: but as of sinceritie, but as of God in ye sight of God speake we in Christ.
Ephesians 5:2(vv14–15)Walk in love, even as Christ also loved us and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling fragrance.
Romans 8:37(v14)No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
1 Corinthians 1:18(v15)For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are dying, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
2 Corinthians 4:2(v17)But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by the…
Ezekiel 20:41(v15)I will accept you as a pleasant aroma when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries in which you have been…
Show all 76 cross-references
2 Corinthians 2:15-16(v14)For we are a sweet aroma of Christ to God, in those who are saved and in those who perish: to the one a stench from death to death, to the…
Philippians 4:18(vv14–15)But I have all things and abound. I am filled, having received from Epaphroditus the things that came from you, a sweet-smelling fragrance,…
Romans 6:17(v14)But thanks be to God, that, whereas you were bondservants of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you…
2 Corinthians 3:5-6(v16)not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us…
Genesis 8:21(v15)Yahweh smelled the pleasant aroma. Yahweh said in his heart, “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake because the…
2 Corinthians 1:12(v17)For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of…
Colossians 2:15(v14)Having stripped the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
2 Peter 2:1-3(v17)But false prophets also arose among the people, as false teachers will also be among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies,…
Psalms 106:47(v14)Save us, Yahweh, our God, gather us from among the nations, to give thanks to your holy name, to triumph in your praise!
Song of Solomon 1:3(v14)Your oils have a pleasing fragrance. Your name is oil poured out, therefore the virgins love you.
2 Timothy 4:3-4(v17)For the time will come when they will not listen to the sound doctrine, but having itching ears, will heap up for themselves teachers after…
John 9:39(v16)Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, that those who don’t see may see; and that those who see may become blind.”
1 Timothy 4:1-3(v17)But the Spirit says expressly that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to seducing spirits and doctrines of…
1 Peter 2:7-8(v16)For you who believe therefore is the honor, but for those who are disobedient, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief…
Exodus 29:18(v15)You shall burn the whole ram on the altar: it is a burnt offering to Yahweh; it is a pleasant aroma, an offering made by fire to Yahweh.
Matthew 24:24(v17)For there will arise false christs, and false prophets, and they will show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even…
Acts 16:8(v12)Passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas.
Colossians 1:23(v14)if it is so that you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the Good News which you heard,…
2 Thessalonians 2:10(v15)and with all deception of wickedness for those who are being lost, because they didn’t receive the love of the truth, that they might be…
Jeremiah 5:31(v17)The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and my people love to have it so. What will you do in the end…
Jeremiah 23:27-32(v17)They intend to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they each tell his neighbor, as their fathers forgot my name because…
Luke 2:34(v16)and Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary, his mother, “Behold, this child is set for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and for…
Acts 14:27(v12)When they had arrived, and had gathered the assembly together, they reported all the things that God had done with them, and that he had…
Romans 15:19(v14)in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of God’s Spirit; so that from Jerusalem, and around as far as to Illyricum, I have fully…
1 Corinthians 5:8(v17)Therefore let’s keep the feast, not with old yeast, neither with the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of…
2 Corinthians 1:11(v14)you also helping together on our behalf by your supplication; that, for the gift given to us by means of many, thanks may be given by many…
2 Corinthians 4:3-4(v15)Even if our Good News is veiled, it is veiled in those who are dying, in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the…
Titus 1:11(v17)whose mouths must be stopped: men who overthrow whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for dishonest gain’s sake.
Jude 1:4(v17)For there are certain men who crept in secretly, even those who were long ago written about for this condemnation: ungodly men, turning the…
Revelation 2:14-15(v17)But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to throw a stumbling…
Revelation 2:20(v17)But I have this against you, that you tolerate your woman, Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. She teaches and seduces my servants to…
1 Corinthians 15:10(v16)But by the grace of God I am what I am. His grace which was given to me was not futile, but I worked more than all of them; yet not I, but…
2 Corinthians 7:5-6(v13)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…
2 Corinthians 12:18(v13)I exhorted Titus, and I sent the brother with him. Did Titus take any advantage of you? Didn’t we walk in the same spirit? Didn’t we walk…
Ephesians 5:20(v14)giving thanks always concerning all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God, even the Father;
Colossians 4:3(v12)praying together for us also, that God may open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds,
2 Corinthians 8:16(vv13–14)But thanks be to God, who puts the same earnest care for you into the heart of Titus.
Psalms 148:14(v14)He has lifted up the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints, even of the children of Israel, a people near to him. Praise Yah!
Acts 20:20(v17)how I didn’t shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, teaching you publicly and from house to house,
Colossians 1:6(v14)which has come to you, even as it is in all the world and is bearing fruit and growing, as it does in you also, since the day you heard and…
1 Timothy 1:19-20(v17)holding faith and a good conscience, which some having thrust away made a shipwreck concerning the faith, of whom are Hymenaeus and…
1 John 4:1(v17)Beloved, don’t believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the…
Revelation 7:12(v14)saying, “Amen! Blessing, glory, wisdom, thanksgiving, honor, power, and might, be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
Exodus 29:25(v15)You shall take them from their hands, and burn them on the altar on the burnt offering, for a pleasant aroma before Yahweh: it is an…
Acts 13:45-47(v16)But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with jealousy, and contradicted the things which were spoken by Paul, and…
Acts 20:27(v17)for I didn’t shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.
1 Corinthians 16:9(v12)for a great and effective door has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.
2 Corinthians 8:6(v13)So we urged Titus, that as he had made a beginning before, so he would also complete in you this grace.
2 Corinthians 8:23(v13)As for Titus, he is my partner and fellow worker for you. As for our brothers, they are the apostles of the assemblies, the glory of Christ.
2 Corinthians 11:13-15(v17)For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as Christ’s apostles. And no wonder, for even Satan masquerades as an…
Galatians 2:1(v13)Then after a period of fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus also with me.
Galatians 2:3(v13)But not even Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised.
2 Timothy 4:10(v13)for Demas left me, having loved this present world, and went to Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia; and Titus to Dalmatia.
Titus 1:4(v13)to Titus, my true child according to a common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior.
2 John 1:7-11(v17)For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who don’t confess that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the…
Revelation 3:7-8(v12)“To the angel of the assembly in Philadelphia write: “He who is holy, he who is true, he who has the key of David, he who opens and no one…
Revelation 12:9(v17)The great dragon was thrown down, the old serpent, he who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown…
Revelation 19:20(v17)The beast was taken, and with him the false prophet who worked the signs in his sight, with which he deceived those who had received the…
Acts 20:1-2(v13)After the uproar had ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, took leave of them, and departed to go into Macedonia. When he had gone through…
Acts 20:1-6(v12)After the uproar had ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, took leave of them, and departed to go into Macedonia. When he had gone through…
Acts 20:8(v12)There were many lights in the upper room where we were gathered together.
Acts 20:26-27(v16)Therefore I testify to you today that I am clean from the blood of all men, for I didn’t shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of…
Romans 1:1(v12)Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Good News of God,
1 Corinthians 15:37(v14)That which you sow, you don’t sow the body that will be, but a bare grain, maybe of wheat, or of some other kind.
2 Corinthians 7:13(v13)Therefore we have been comforted. In our comfort we rejoiced the more exceedingly for the joy of Titus, because his spirit has been…
1 Thessalonians 3:9(v14)For what thanksgiving can we render again to God for you, for all the joy with which we rejoice for your sakes before our God,
Hebrews 11:27(v17)By faith, he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.
Isaiah 49:5-6(v15)Now Yahweh, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, says to bring Jacob again to him, and to gather Israel to him, for I am…
2 Corinthians 12:11(v16)I have become foolish in boasting. You compelled me, for I ought to have been commended by you, for I am in no way inferior to the very…
2 Timothy 2:6-18(v17)The farmer who labors must be the first to get a share of the crops. Consider what I say, and may the Lord give you understanding in all…
76 distinct cross-references across this passage (79 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (29 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
John Calvin1540 · Public DomainOn vv12, 14, 15, 16, 1712. When I had come to Troas By now…
12. When I had come to Troas By now mentioning what he had been doing in the mean time, in what places he had been, and what route he had pursued in his journeyings, he more and more confirms what he had said previously as to his coming to the Corinthians. He says that he had come to Troas from Ephesus for the sake of the gospel, for he would not have proceeded in that direction, when going into Achaia, had he not been desirous to pass through Macedonia. As, however, he did not find Titus there, whom he had sent to Corinth, and by whom he ought to have been informed respecting the state of that Church, though he might have done much good there, and though he had an opportunity presented to him, yet, he says, setting everything aside, he came to Macedonia, desirous to see Titus. Here is an evidence of a singular degree of attachment to the Corinthians, that he was so anxious respecting them, that he had no rest anywhere, even when a large prospect of usefulness presented itself, until he had learned the state of their affairs. Hence it appears why it was that he delayed his coming. He did not wish to come to them until he had learned the state of their affairs. Hence it appears, why it was that he delayed his coming. He did not wish to come to them, until he had first had a conversation with Titus. He afterwards learned from the report brought him by Titus, that matters were at that time not yet ripe for his coming to them. Hence it is evident, that Paul loved the Corinthians so much, that he accommodated all his journeyings and long circuits to their welfare, and that he had accordingly come to them later than he had promised — not from having, in forgetfulness of his promise, rashly changed his plan, or from having been carried away by some degree of fickleness, (2 Corinthians 1:17,) but because delay was more profitable for them.
A door also having been opened to me. We have spoken of this metaphor when commenting on the last chapter of the First Epistle. (1 Corinthians 16:9.) Its meaning is, that an opportunity of promoting the gospel had presented itself. For as an opportunity of entering is furnished when the door is opened, so the servants of the Lord make advances when an opportunity is presented. The door is shut, when no prospect of usefulness is held out. Now as, on the door being shut, it becomes us to enter upon a new course, rather than by farther efforts to weary ourselves to no purpose by useless labor, so where an opportunity presents itself of edifying, let us consider that by the hand of God a door is opened to us for introducing Christ there, and let us not withhold compliance with so kind an indication from God.
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It may seem, however, as if Paul had erred in this — that disregarding, or at least leaving unimproved, an opportunity that was placed within his reach, he betook himself to Macedonia. “Ought he not rather to have applied himself to the work that he had in hand, than, after making little more than a commencement, break away all on a sudden in another direction?” We have also observed already, that the opening of a door is an evidence of a divine call, and this is undoubtedly true. I answer, that, as Paul was not by any means restricted to one Church, but was bound to many at the same time, it was not his duty, in consequence of the present aspect of one of them, to leave off concern as to the others. Farther, the more connection he had with the Corinthian Church, it was his duty to be so much the more inclined to aid it; for we must consider it to be reasonable, that a Church, which he had founded by his ministry, should be regarded by him with a singular affection — just as at this day it is our duty, indeed, to promote the welfare of the whole Church, and to be concerned for the entire body of it; and yet, every one has, nevertheless, a closer and holier connection with his own Church, to whose interests he is more particularly devoted. Matters were in an unhappy state at Corinth, so that Paul was in no ordinary degree anxious as to the issue. It is not, therefore, to be wondered, if, under the influence of this motive, he left unimproved an opportunity that in other circumstances was not to be neglected; as it was not in his power to occupy every post of duty at one and the same time. It is not, however, at all likely that he left Troas, till he had first introduced some one in his place to improve the opening that had occurred.
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 translators1599 · Public DomainOn vv12, 14, 15, 16, 17He returneth to the confirmation of his Apostleship, and…
He returneth to the confirmation of his Apostleship, and bringeth forth the testimonies, both of his labor, and also of God’s blessing.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv12–1712 Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach…
12 Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ’s gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord,
Ver. 12. A door was opened] An opportunity offered. Where the master sets up a light, there is some work to be done; where he sends forth his labourers, there is some harvest to be gotten in.
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 Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv12–17This Troas was either the city, or the whole…
This Troas was either the city, or the whole country, called Troy or Ilium, or the lesser Phrygia. We read of Paul’s going thither by sea from Philippi, Act 20:6, and of his having been there, 2Ti 4:13. He tells us, that the business why he went thither, was to preach the gospel; for it was not the apostles’ business to stay, as fixed ministers, in any one place, but to carry the gospel up and down the world to several places; which they did by virtue of their general commission to go, preach, and baptize all nations; though sometimes they had a more special call and commission, as Paul had to go into Macedonia. The
door opened, either signifieth the free liberty he had there to preach, or the great success which God gave him in his work; which he elsewhere calleth an effectual door.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt1703 · Public DomainOn vv12, 15, 17Observe here, 1. The unwearied diligence of this great…
Observe here, 1. The unwearied diligence of this great apostle in traveling from place to place, and carrying the gospel with him from one city and nation to another: I came to Troas, and from thence to Macedonia.
Observe, 2. The success which the holy apostle had in preaching the gospel with unwearied diligence in those places: A door was opened unto him of the Lord.
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This either signifies, 1. The free liberty which he had to preach the gospel in those places; the door of his mouth was not shut by persecutors, the enemies and opposers of the free gospel, but the word of the Lord had a free course in the labours of its ministers.
Or, 2. This opened door may signify and import the great and gracious success which God gave the apostle in his work; as God by his providence opened the apostle’s mouth, to preach and publish the glad tidings of the gospel, so by his Holy Spirit he opened the people’s hearts to receive and entertain the glad tidings of salvation which the gospel brought. The Lord opened Lydia’s heart, that she attended to the words which were spoken of Paul. Act 16:14
Observe, 3. How careful the apostle is to ascribe the entire praise, and to return the whole thanks, to Almighty God, for all the gracious assistance and success which he had received in his ministerial service: Thanks be to God, which causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.
As if the apostle had said, "Blessed be God, although our enemies have been man, and our difficulties great, yet God has given me, and my fellow-apostles, such resolution of mind, that we have not only encountered with them, but triumphed over them, in a powerful conversion of so many from heathenism to Christianity; and has enabled us to spread the sweet odour of the gospel far and near, by our laborious preaching of it from place to place."
Then is the word, and God in the word, glorified, when the sword of the Spirit is taken into the hand of the Spirit; when he gird this sword upon his thigh, as most mighty, and rides on triumphantly, conquering and to conquer, in the hearts of his people, till he has consummated his victories in a glorious triumph over all the powers of hell and darkness: Thanks be to God that causeth us to triumph in Christ.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry1710 · Public DomainOn v12After these directions concerning the excommunicated person the apostle…
After these directions concerning the excommunicated person the apostle makes a long digression, to give the Corinthians an account of his travels and labours for the furtherance of the gospel, and what success he had therein, declaring at the same time how much he was concerned for them in their affairs, how he had no rest in his spirit, when he found not Titus at Troas (Co2 2:13), as he expected, from whom he hoped to have understood more perfectly how it fared with them. And we find afterwards (Co2 7:5-7) that when the apostle had come into Macedonia he was comforted by the coming of Titus, and the information he gave him concerning them. So that we may look upon all that we read from this second chapter, v. 12, to ch. 7:5, as a kind of parenthesis. Observe here,
I. Paul's unwearied labour and diligence in his work, Co2 2:12, Co2 2:13. He travelled from place to place, to preach the gospel. He went to Troas from Philippi by sea (Act 20:6), and thence he went to Macedonia; so that he was prevented from passing by Corinth, as he had designed, Co2 1:16. But, though he was prevented in his design as to the place of working, yet he was unwearied in his work.
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II. His success in his work: A great door was opened to him of the Lord, Co2 2:12. He had a great deal of work to do wherever he came, and had good success in his work; for God made manifest the savour of his knowledge by him in every place where he came. He had an opportunity to open the door of his mouth freely, and God opened the hearts of his hearers, as the heart of Lydia (Act 16:14), and the apostle speaks of this as a matter of thankfulness to God and of rejoicing to his soul: Thanks be to God, who always causeth us to triumph in Christ. Note, 1. A believer's triumphs are all in Christ. In ourselves we are weak, and have neither joy nor victory; but in Christ we may rejoice and triumph. 2. True believers have constant cause of triumph in Christ, for they are more than conquerors through him who hath loved them, Rom 8:37. 3. God causeth them to triumph in Christ. It is God who has given us matter for triumph, and hearts to triumph. To him therefore be the praise and glory of all. 4. The good success of the gospel is a good reason for a Christian's joy and rejoicing.
III. The comfort that the apostle and his companions in labour found, even when the gospel was not successful to the salvation of some who heard it, Co2 2:15-17. Here observe,
1. The different success of the gospel, and its different effects upon several sorts of persons to whom it is preached. The success is different; for some are saved by it, while others perish under it. Nor is this to be wondered at, considering the different effects the gospel has. For, (1.) Unto some it is a savour of death unto death. Those who are willingly ignorant, and wilfully obstinate, disrelish the gospel, as men dislike an ill savour, and therefore they are blinded and hardened by it: it stirs up their corruptions, and exasperates their spirits. They reject the gospel, to their ruin, even to spiritual and eternal death. (2.) Unto others the gospel is a savour of life unto life. To humble and gracious souls the preaching of the word is most delightful and profitable. As it is sweeter than honey to the taste, so it is more grateful than the most precious odours to the senses, and much more profitable; for as it quickened them at first, when they were dead in trespasses and sins, so it makes them more lively, and will end in eternal life.
2. The awful impressions this matter made upon the mind of the apostle, and should also make upon our spirits: Who is sufficient for these things? Co2 2:16. Tis hikanos - who is worthy to be employed in such weighty work, a work of such vast importance, because of so great consequence? Who is able to perform such a difficult work, that requires so much skill and industry? The work is great and our strength is small; yea, of ourselves we have no strength at all; all our sufficiency is of God. Note, If men did seriously consider what great things depend upon the preaching of the gospel, and how difficult the work of the ministry is, they would be very cautious how they enter upon it, and very careful to perform it well.
3. The comfort which the apostle had under this serious consideration, (1.) Because faithful ministers shall be accepted of God, whatever their success be: We are, if faithful, unto God a sweet savour of Christ (Co2 2:15), in those who are saved and in those also who perish. God will accept of sincere intentions, and honest endeavours, though with many they are not successful. Ministers shall be accepted, and recompensed, not according to their success, but according to their fidelity. Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, Isa 49:5. (2.) Because his conscience witnessed to his faithfulness, Co2 2:17. Though many did corrupt the word of God, yet the apostle's conscience witnessed to his fidelity. He did not mix his own notions with the doctrines and institutions of Christ; he durst not add to, nor diminish fRom. the word of God; he was faithful in dispensing the gospel, as he received it from the Lord, and had no secular turn to serve; his aim was to approve himself to God, remembering that his eye was always upon him; he therefore spoke and acted always as in the sight of God, and therefore in sincerity. Note, What we do in religion is not of God, does not come from God, will not reach to God, unless it be done in sincerity, as in the sight of God.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv12–17Furthermore, when I came to Troas,.... The apostle proceeds,…
Furthermore, when I came to Troas,.... The apostle proceeds, in this latter part of the chapter, to take notice of and remove the charge of ostentation and insincerity in preaching the Gospel, and hints at other reasons of his not coming to Corinth; particularly that he took a journey to Troas, expecting to meet with Titus there, who was to give him an account of the affairs of the church at Corinth, which he was desirous of knowing before he went thither; but missing of Titus, is uneasy, and goes for Macedonia; though he was first detained awhile at Troas, having a good opportunity of preaching the Gospel there, with a prospect of success. Troas was a city of the lesser Asia near the Hellespont, formerly called Troy; of Paul's being at this place more than once, see Ti2 4:13, and of this place See Gill on Act 16:8, and of the church there; see Gill on Act 20:7. Hither he came,
to preach Christ's Gospel; that Gospel, of which Christ is both the author and subject; and is no other than the good news and glad tidings of peace, pardon, righteousness, life, and salvation, by a crucified Jesus; this was his work and business; his heart was in it, he took delight in this service, and it was what he pursued in every place wherever he came; and in this place he had much encouragement; for he adds,
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and a door was opened unto me of the Lord; such an one as was opened to him at Ephesus, Co1 16:9; he had a good opportunity of preaching the Gospel to many souls, many were inclined to attend his ministry, from whence he conceived great hopes of doing good; a door of utterance was given to him to preach the Gospel boldly and freely, and a door of entrance for the Gospel to pass into their hearts: all which was not of men, "but of the Lord"; who has the key of David, who opens and no man shuts, shuts and no man opens.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn vv12–17Now when I came to Troas - It seems,…
Now when I came to Troas - It seems, in that passage from Asia to Macedonia, of which a short account is given, Acts xx, 1, 2. Even though a door was opened to me - That is, there was free liberty to speak, and many were willing to hear: yet,
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv12–17Verse 12. When I came to Troas] After having…
Verse 12. When I came to Troas] After having written the former epistle, and not having heard what effect it had produced on your minds; though the Lord had opened me a particular door to preach the Gospel, in which I so especially rejoice and glory;
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn vv12, 14, 15, 172Co 2:12-13. Furthermore — That ye may know my…
2Co 2:12-13. Furthermore — That ye may know my great concern for you; when I came to Troas — After the riot excited by Demetrius. He seems to refer to that passage from Asia to Macedonia, of which a short account is given Act 20:1-2. To preach Christ’s gospel — And found things there so situated; that a door was opened unto me — That is, there was free liberty to speak, and many were willing to hear: yet I had no rest in my spirit — From an earnest desire to know the state of your affairs, and how my letter had been received: because I found not Titus my brother — In his return; whom I had sent to you to bring me the information concerning you which I wished for. Therefore, taking my leave of them — Of the church at Troas. The expression here used, αποταξαμενος αυτοις, is literally, having given them commands. But because persons, who are about to leave their friends for some time, give their commands to them, the phrase is used for taking leave of, or bidding farewell to, one’s friends. I went from thence into Macedonia — Where being much nearer to Corinth, I might more easily be informed concerning you; and where I had the happiness soon of meeting him, and of receiving such an account of you as has given me much pleasure; and in consequence of which I write to you in this comfortable manner. Here the apostle interrupts the thread of his discourse, interposing an admirable digression concerning what he had done and suffered elsewhere, the profit of which he, by this means, derived to the Corinthians also; and this is a prelude to his apology against false apostles. He resumes the subject, however, chap. 2Co 7:2.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv12–17Furthermore - But (δὲ de). This particle is properly…
Furthermore - But (δὲ de). This particle is properly adversative; but frequently denotes transition, and serves to introduce something else, whether opposite to what precedes, or simply continuative or explanatory. Here, it is designed to continue or explain the statement before made of his deep affection for the church, and his interest in its affairs. He therefore tells them that when he came to Troas, and was favored there with great success, and was engaged in a manner most likely of all others to interest his feelings and to give him joy, yet he was deeply distressed because he had not heard, as he expected, from them; but so deep was his anxiety that he left Troas and went into Macedonia.
When I came to Troas - This was a city of Phrygia, or Mysia, on the Hellespont, between Troy on the north, and Assos on the south; see note on Act 16:8. It was on the regular route from Ephesus to Macedonia. Paul took that route because on his journey to Macedonia he had resolved, for the reasons above stated, not to go to Corinth.
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To preach Christ’s gospel - Greek. “For (εἰς eis) the gospel of Christ;” that is, on account of his gospel; or to promote it. Why he selected Troas, or the region of the Troad (note, Act 16:8), as the field of his labors, he does not say. It is probable that he was waiting there to hear from Corinth by Titus, and while there he resolved not to be idle, but to make known as much as possible the gospel.
And a door was opened unto me - see the note, 1Co 16:9. There was an opportunity of doing good, and the people were disposed to hear the gospel. This was a work in which Paul delighted to engage, and in which he usually found his highest comfort. It was of all things the most adapted to promote his happiness.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary1859 · Public DomainOn vv12, 14, 16, 17When I was come to Troas....and a door was…
When I was come to Troas....and a door was opened to me, towards promoting the gospel, which I never neglect, yet I had not rest in my spirit; I remained still in a great concern for you, not meeting with Titus, from whom I expected with impatience to hear how all things went with you at Corinth: I went on, therefore, bidding them farewell at that time, and deferred the good I might do by a longer stay with them till another time. (Witham) --- Troas is the same town as the ancient Troy or Ilium, famous for its ten years’ siege, when it was destroyed by the Greeks in the year 1184, B. Christ [1184 B.C.]. (Estius) --- Here, though there was a great promise of abundant fruit, St. Paul’s solicitude to meet Titus, that he might learn from him the effect of his letter, made him depart from Macedonia, where he had much to suffer. (Bible de Vence)
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).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures1864 · Public DomainOn v12V. AN ADDITIONAL EXPRESSION OF HIS FORMER ANXIETY RESPECTING…
V. AN ADDITIONAL EXPRESSION OF HIS FORMER ANXIETY RESPECTING THEM (2Co_2:12 f.), BUT OF HIS JOYFUL ELEVATION OF MIND WHEN HE HEARD FROM THEM BY TITUS, 2Co_2:14 ff.
2Co_2:12-17
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12Furthermore when I came to Troas [the Troad] to preach Christ’s gospel10, and a door was opened to me of [in] the Lord, 13I had no rest in my spirit because I found11 not Titus my brother; but taking my leave of them, I went from them into Macedonia. 14Now [But] thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place. 15For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved and in them that perish: 16To the one we are the savour of 12death unto death; and to the other the savour of3 life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things? 17For we are not as many,13 which corrupt the word of God; but as of sincerity, but as of God, as in the sight of God14 speak we in Christ.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
2Co_2:12-13. The Apostle’s anxiety for intelligence from Corinth.—But having come to the Troad to preach Christ’s Gospel.—The δέ implies that the former subject is here resumed after the digression. (2Co_2:5-11). That which follows is not to be connected with 2Co_2:11 (οὐ γάρ—ἀγνοοῦμεν) so as to make δὲ equivalent to ἀλλά, for that would not correspond with the tenor of the discourse. Nor is it to be referred back to 2Co_1:16, nor to 2Co_1:23, but to 2Co_2:4. In this latter passage he had spoken of the anguish with which he had written his first Epistle, and he here says that when he was going from Ephesus to Macedonia he could not throw off his anxiety for the Corinthians. [He had not intended to make a direct journey to Corinth, but to make a missionary tour in the interest of Christ’s Gospel (εἰς τὸ εὐαγ.τ. Χριστοῦ), Tyndale: for Christ’s Gospel’s sake]. Though he had doubtless intended to preach the Gospel at Troas, he now lost the opportunity on account of his solicitude for the Corinthians.—[The Troad was the region of the country, of which Troas was the principal city.15 The article, which was generally used in the New Testament with names of countries (Jelf. § 450 5), Stanley thinks may possibly indicate that only the country of the Troad was meant here. It can hardly be possible that Paul did not visit the city. The same expression (εἰς τὴν Τρωάδα) is used in Act_20:6. Paul had been there once before (Act_16:8), and he was there a longer time on his return from Greece to Jerusalem (Act_20:6-13), and once after the close of the Apostolic history, (2Ti_4:13). It was the usual port at which those passing from Greece to Asia landed. A church must have been established there at least on Paul’s second visit, [comp. the word ἀποταξάμενος with Act_20:6 ff.)]. He had tarried there with the express design of preaching the Gospel of salvation. Τοῦ χριστοῦ is the genitive of the object: Neander: “the Gospel which proceeded from Christ.” He intends to say that with such a design he would have felt bound to remain for some time, inasmuch as he found there a fair prospect of an unusual success in his work.—And a door was opened to me in the Lord.—(comp. 1Co_16:9). The καί also is equivalent to καίπερ. Ἐν κυρίῳ has the same meaning as Χριστῷ, and it is added to define more particularly, the sphere or element of activity for which an occasion had then been presented; the department in which a door had been opened for him, and not the Agent by whose power the door had been opened.—I had no rest in my spirit when I found not Titus my brother.—Ἔσχηκα is used here, as in 2Co_1:9, and frequently in an aoristic sense (Meyer: as was the frequent practice of the Greek orators in order to bring the past before the mind with greater vividness). Ἄνεσις (used also in 2Co_7:5; 2Co_8:13) means properly relaxation or relief, and it is here contrasted with the intense strain which had been put upon his feelings, by his solicitude on their account. He could not perform his ordinary duties as in other places, until this anxiety should be removed. The meaning of to τῷ πνεύματι in this connection is: for my mind. (dat. comm.). The expression is more suggestive than τῇ ψυχῇ μου would have been. (comp. Beck, Seelenl. p. 45). The Apostle means to say that it was “one of those violent assaults upon his vital energies which come upon us in certain states of the mind and body when we have been acted upon for a long time by terrors and a want of rest, etc.—those powerful agitations which affect the very seat of life.” In τῷ μὴ εὑρεῖν κ. τ. λ. he gives the reason for οὑκ ἕσχηκα ἄνεσιν. [Winer, Gr. § 45, 5.] He had expected to meet at Troas, or at least in Macedonia, his assistant Titus, to let him know what effect his first Epistle had produced at Corinth. Not finding Titus, his anxiety was so great that he could remain there no longer, but he hastened to Macedonia, where we know Titus soon met him (2Co_7:6 ff.)—But taking leave of them I went forth into Macedonia.—Ἀποτάσσεσθαι τινι is an Alexandrian form of expression for ἀσπάζεσθαι, and occurs also in Luk_9:61, and Act_17:18-21. It signifies to separate one’s self, to take leave of some one. [The expression is peculiar, however, since it is taken from the effort usually made by those taking their departure, to put every thing in order, and to give their last directions. (Osiander)]. Αὐτοῖς has reference to the people, and especially to believers in Troas.16
Vers.14–17. [“All that follows, until the writer returns to his historical statement in 2Co_7:5, is on the subject of the Christian or rather Apostolical ministry as exemplified in Paul’s special relations to the Corinthian Church. This apparent digression is really the main topic of the Epistle. It was the Apostle’s object to set forth and maintain the importance of his office and work and his personal claim to spiritual authority. This object is kept in view throughout, and after the instructions in matters of business which follow the recurrence of the mention of Titus (2Co_7:5), it is continuously and openly pursued to the end of the Epistle.” Webster and Wilkinson.].—But thanks be unto God, who always causes us to triumph in Christ.—By a sudden transition the Apostle now turns aside to render thanks to God, not for the results of his visit at Troas, where he could not have remained long enough to accomplish any thing worthy of being thus mentioned; but either for the accounts brought from Corinth by Titus, of which he makes no express mention until 2Co_7:6; or for the blessing upon his Apostolic labors during his journey, especially in Macedonia (Osiander). The context rather favors the first of these, since thanks seem quite appropriate after his liberation from the distress and uneasiness of which he had given such a picture (Meyer). That he makes no direct mention of this, and expresses himself only in general terms, is accounted for by the fact that he was anxious to make no unpleasant impression by a more obvious allusion to the state of things at Corinth at this point of his discourse. The view which seems best to correspond with both the context and the form of expression, would seem to be, that he had been much delighted with the good account from Corinth, to which he had slightly alluded in 2Co_2:6 (ἐπιτιμία ἡ ὑπὸ τῶν πλειόνων), and he now pours forth his thanks for the triumph of which he always and everywhere was a partaker. The favorable turn of affairs at Corinth and the accomplishment of his main objects there were of course involved in the πάντοτε and the ἐν παντὶ τόπῳ, but they are so concealed in the general expression that nothing offensive would be noticed in his triumphal exultation. It is questionable whether θριαμβεύοντι is to be taken according to the usage of the word in other places (also in Col_2:15), in the sense of triumphat (de nobis), or according to the analogy of βασιλεύειν, 1Sa_8:22; μαθητεύειν, Mat_28:19, and some other words, in the transitive sense of triumphare facit. As the result of the first method, Meyer presents the idea of the passage thus: who never ceases to exhibit us (the Apostolic teachers) in all the world as those whom He has overcome. God had overcome them in their conversion, and He was continually triumphing in the results which they as His servants were accomplishing in His kingdom, and especially in the happy results of his first Epistle at Corinth. With Paul, such an idea would naturally be expressed when he remembered with sorrow his earlier persecution of the Church, and it would accord with his humble desire to give God the honor of all that he had done. Although this explanation is rather artificial, it has better ground for itself than others, which represent this leading about in triumph as fulfilled when they journeyed from place to place according to the good pleasure and will of God (Wetstein); or as a triumphal exhibition of them, not as conquered persons, but as servants taking part in God’s triumph; or as a Divine triumph over Paul by showing the folly of all his cares and anxieties when all things came to a fortunate result; or as a leading him about in triumph in the persecutions he was made to endure. On the whole we feel compelled to decide in favor of the transitive signification of the word, which makes Paul a leader appointed by God to struggle in the spiritual conflict, and by the success of his preaching and the confusion of all his opponents making him a uniform conqueror before the world. (Comp. Osiander).17 Ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ defines the sphere in which the victory and the triumph takes place. This is Christ, in whose service they are employed and whose Gospel they preached with such triumphant success. What is here intended by θριαμβεύειν will be made more evident under the figure of the succeeding metaphor:—and maketh manifest the savour of His knowledge by us in every place.—In this sentence αὐτοῦ has reference, not to God, as has sometimes been concluded on account of 2Co_5:5, but to Christ on account of ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ and ἐυωδία Χριστοῦ in 2Co_2:15. This knowledge of Christ is set forth under the figure of an odor which God diffused in every place by the ministry of the Apostles. Such a figure well illustrates the pungent nature of this knowledge, the facility with which it is usually diffused, and perhaps also the refreshment it affords. Neander: “ὀσμή signifies any thing which has a pungent odor, an essence; it may correspond with the later Jewish סַם which is just as applicable to a refreshing aromatic essence as to a fatal poison.” It is hardly probable that the Apostle was led to use this figure by the idea of a triumph in which the air was filled sometimes with the fragrance of incense (Meyer, comp. Osiander). Still less did he intend to remind us of the custom of anointing with oil. Even the idea of the fragrance given forth in the sacrifices seems inappropriate, since God himself is represented as active in diffusing it (φανεροῦντι). As an illustration of an internal experience the figure of an odor would seem no more appropriate than something presented to the sight. Τῆς γνώσεως is in apposition with τῆς ὀσμῆς. Ἔν παντὶ τόπῳ corresponds with πάντοτε. God is evidently the one who “always caused him and his fellow-laborers to triumph in Christ, and made manifest the savor of his knowledge by them in every place,” for Paul represents them as the instruments by which God acted (δἰ ἡμῶν), and the promulgators of this knowledge. He also describes them as acceptable to God, and so not to be depreciated, though the result of their labors was sometimes the reverse of what they aimed at. This acceptableness in God’s sight is expressed in the words—For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ—in which the figure of a sacrifice (Eph_5:2; Php_4:18; Lev_1:9-17) probably begins to be discernible. Those who possess and diffuse the knowledge of Christ are a sweet savor unto God, not because they are properly prepared or offered to God, but because they are themselves filled by Him and made to diffuse the savor of Christ. For the sake of emphasis Christ is mentioned first, and is represented as the substance of the sacrifice, i. e., a service consecrated to God and pleasing in His sight. Bengel says: “The savor of Christ is made to pervade us as that of aromatics pervade garments.”—In them that are saved and in them that perish, introduces the sphere in which they were moving or the object of their preaching. The correlatives of σωζόμενοι and ἀπολλύμενοι (comp. on 1Co_1:18) are πιστεύοντες and ἄπιστοι. The whole idea became more impressive by this reference to the final destiny of each, when the redeemed shall be saved and the lost shall be cast away. He speaks further of the effect of this ὀσμή upon both these classes in 2Co_2:16. He there commences with those last mentioned.—To the one indeed we are an odour arising from death and tending to death.—(οἶς μὲν—οἶς σὲ, are equivalent to what was in the later usage τοῖς μὲν—τοῖς δέ). The point at which the influence commences, or the source from which it springs, is indicated by ἐκ, and the end toward which it tends, or the effect produced by it, is pointed out by εἰς. It begins in death and must lead to and terminate in death. In like manner the expression—to the other we are the odor arising from life and tending to life.—In the words from death and from life, we have death (θάνατος) and life (ζωή) set forth as the principle or power in which corruption or salvation has its origin, and in the words unto death and unto life (εἰς θάνατον, εἰς ζωήν) we have the corresponding result which each of these powers produces. But neither in ἐκ θανάτου nor in ἐκ ζωὴς is it exactly intended that Christ is in such a sense the efficient agent, that in ἐκ θανάτου He is the direct source of death (Meyer). The idea rather is, that those who presented Christ, or made known His Gospel to their fellow-men, are to one class like those who convey an odor which is deadly in its origin and deadly in its result. The meaning is thus the same with that conveyed by the words, the savor of death and the savor of life (ὀσμῆ θανάτου—ζωής), in the Rec., where both genitives should be taken as genitives of quality. This contrast between the fatal and quickening effects of preaching has an analogy in the physical world. So far as relates to the lost, the result is accidental, i. e., it is not caused by anything in the Gospel itself, but must be ascribed to the peculiar spirit of those who hear it. [“We convey to all the sweet odor of Christ, though all who participate in it do not attain salvation. Thus the light is noxious to diseased eyes, and yet it is not the sun which produces the injury. It is said that vultures avoid the fragrance of myrrh, and yet the myrrh is no less myrrh for being shunned by vultures. Even so the preaching of salvation tends to save those who believe, though it brings perdition to such as believe not.”—Theodoret]. Where the word is pressed upon an unsusceptible and perverse heart, it provokes opposition to the truth, just as in other cases it brings into activity whatever is susceptible of Divine life and engenders faith (comp. Mat_21:42 ff.; Luk_2:34; Job 9:39). The same figure has been used by the Rabbins for illustrating the different effects of the law. This strong contrast between the different effects of evangelical preaching suggests to the Apostle’s mind the various dispositions of those who proclaim the Gospel. No one can produce such an influence upon these two classes of hearers and be acceptable to God whatever may be the result of his preaching, unless he proclaims the Gospel in a right manner and with a right spirit. This idea he introduces in a sudden and striking manner (και) by a question—And who is sufficient for these things?—In this sentence πρὸς ταῦτα is put first because it is emphatic. He meant to say, that among those who acted as teachers, all were by no means sufficiently qualified for such a part, for he was obliged to place himself and his companions, who honestly presented God’s truth, in strong contrast with the many who presented it in an adulterated form. The answer to the Apostle’s question is in 2Co_2:17, and is presupposed in the γάρ. Such are not the ones who adulterate God’s word, but they are myself and those who are like me.—For we are not like the many who adulterate God’s word.—οἱ πολλοί does not mean the majority of all teachers of the Gospel, for this would either exhibit the Apostolic Church in a very unfavorable light, or (with Rückert) would make Paul guilty of a passionate extravagance. The article is demonstrative, and is intended to point to those who were well known. Those Judaizing teachers are meant who had set themselves up against Paul, and whose number must have been considerable at Corinth (comp. 2Co_11:13; Php_3:18). With respect to the reading λοιποί, comp. Osiander, who regards it as more feebly sustained by documentary evidence but as easier to explain, inasmuch as it simply designates a number of persons to whom the Apostle wished to be considered an exception; and he explains οἱ πολλοί by saying that Paul had set up a very high standard for the purity of Christian doctrine.18 The participal sentence commencing with καπηλεύοντες should be connected, not with οἱ πολλοί, although the character of these is indirectly given in it, but with ἐσμέν. The word designates the business of a κάπηλος, a huckster or a trader, but especially of a wine merchant; and it was used with an accusative to signify one who traded by retail or in small articles (more particularly to obtain a living). In accordance with the usual habits of such people, the word finally attained the meaning of practising usury or bartering with anything (as with σοφίαν, μαθήματα). It therefore signifies here—to deal dishonorably and deceitfully with the word of God, adulterating it by mingling together men’s opinions with the Divine word (Chrysostom), [probably with the additional thought of making a trade of the Gospel from mercenary and corrupt motives], as the κάπηλοι were accustomed to mingle water with their wine (com. Isa_1:22). It is implied that the Gospel had been vilified and adulterated by being mingled with Judaistic opinions, and that too with the sordid design of obtaining some personal profit, applause or authority (comp. Rom_16:17 f.; Php_3:19; Gal_6:12 f.; 2Pe_2:1-13). [Comp. Adam Clarke and also Bentley and Trench, Synn. 2d ser. pp. 52 ff.]. In contrast with such impure motives the Apostle says—but as of (from) sincerity, but as of (from) God we speak before God in Christ.—Our discourse is such as might be expected from men who speak from pure motives and under Divine inspiration, i.e., moved by God and inspired by His Spirit [Trench, Synn. 2d ser. p. 72 ff.]. Ὡς is here used as in Joh_1:14, to express conformity. The repetition of ἀλλ’ ὡς forms a powerful climax (comp. 1Co_6:11). He rises, from the hearty sincerity which is in strong contrast with all corrupt and selfish aims, to the Divine Source of Christian truth, with which no mingling of selfish or human elements was conceivable (comp. Osiander). The holy awe which those feel who act under the recollection that God judges and knows all things, and under a consciousness of the Divine presence, is pointed out in the phrase κατέναντι θεοῦ. The words ἐν Χριστῷ denote the element in which the discourse of such a one is supposed to move. Comp. 2Co_12:19. Neander:—“Probably the Apostle intended also to imply by this phrase that he held himself entirely aloof from everything which did not come from Christ.”
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
The word of God, not only in the individual heart (Heb_4:12-13), but in the world, exerts a separating and judicial power. Its influence upon different individuals is not unfrequently very different—for while it enlightens and warms some, gives them a clear, tranquilizing and sanctifying knowledge of divine things, and raises them to a life of true light and love, it blinds and hardens others; just as the sun’s light warms, makes fruitful, and quickens some things, while it blinds and destroys others. This decisive influence which must always accompany the full revelation of God in Christ, may be preceded by many divine announcements and influences, whether internally through the conscience, or externally by means of natural objects, or striking providences; but among those who enjoy a special revelation, it is principally through the presentation of the law and promises of God with all those influences of the Divine Word and dealings, which are usually so administered as to aid and bless, or punish and discipline the children of men. It is by such means that men become more or less receptive of God’s word, and it is by the Gospel, by the presentation of the highest truths of revelation, that this susceptibility for good, or evil will be most rapidly brought to perfection; since Under its power they will speedily surrender themselves to the truth, or they will soon reject that truth and revile the way of salvation. This, however, can be the result only when the truth is presented properly, and in its purity. 1. It must come from a heart thoroughly pervaded by Christ himself, honestly directed to the glory of God, and regardless of personal and temporal advantages. 2. It should hold forth God’s word and nothing but God’s word, mingled with no human speculations. God will recognize as his own, only what flows from a heart which is pure and filled with Christ. But this will always and everywhere be attended with glorious results. Its preachers will soon show that they are the organs of a divine power which can penetrate through all obstacles, and that their proclamations of Christ’s truth and their spirit are acceptable to God, whether those who hear them are saved or lost. But when those who speak are not upright, if they mix up with divine revelations the doctrines and opinions of men, and if they are governed by every kind of selfish and inconsistent ends, the proper influence of the Word will be hindered and enfeebled; men will be undecided and half-hearted; there will be no evidence that God is at work and of course no Divine victories, and old things will not pass away; or, things will sink down into a stupid and lukewarm state, in which none will be disturbed in their spiritual slumbers, or learn with any distinctness the true state and wants of their souls; real peace will be unknown, and no firm support will be found for human confidence. In such a state, men will make all kinds of efforts to satisfy themselves with dead works, and will fondly seek support in the authority of their fellow men. Nothing could be more opposed than such a state of things is, to that manly maturity which is to be found in Christ (Eph_4:13), and that establishment of the heart which true grace affords (Heb_13:9); and it will not be difficult therefore to distinguish between those who are Christ’s true shepherds, and those who are miserable hirelings.
[“In this statement of St. Paul, we have an inspired declaration of the freedom of the human will. As Jerome says (ad Hedib. iv. p. 183): ‘The name of Christ is ever fragrant; but men are left to their own freedom of will.’ So Christ himself was set for the fall of some and for the rising up of others in Israel. Indeed it is a solemn truth that in the Christian scheme nothing that God has done, is indifferent. Everything is as a two-edged sword. All Christian privileges, and all the means of grace are according as they are used, either blessings or banes, either physic or poison. Comp. August. Serm. 4, and Serm. 273.” Wordsworth.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Starke:
2Co_2:12. None but those who are Christ’s, who have been anointed by Him and have fellowship with Him, know what it is to have doors opened to them in the Lord and by the Lord. 2Co_2:13. When the Church is suffering some great affliction, we should each one in our proper place, cheerfully give her our utmost aid, that Satan may not overthrow in a few days what has been built up with the toil of years. 2Co_2:14. It is the mark of a true minister to labor faithfully and with all his might and soul, and then ascribe nothing to himself but everything to God (1Co_15:10). It is one of the mysteries of the cross and of Christ’s kingdom, that those who preach the gospel may have never so much opposition, and yet may always be sure of final triumph.
2Co_2:15-16 : Hedinger: We are a sweet savor of Christ, though our preaching results only in the perdition of our hearers. True, if none are converted to Christ, they must be perverted to Satan; yet such is the natural effect of God’s word; for if the wicked are hardened and the blind become yet more blind, it is God’s righteous judgment upon their own wickedness (Isa_6:9-10). Spener:—When the world is displeased with the word, and those who will not become sincere Christians become worse, and become more opposed to the truth, we may be sure that the word preached is genuine, and like that which the Apostles preached: for men feel its power, and are obliged to receive a fragrance which they abhor. But when wicked men like to hear and praise our sermons, when everything is dull and no one grows in grace under our ministry, it is a sign that what-ever savor we have had has lost its power. The gospel may not convert all who hear it, but it will produce excitement—and wicked men will proportionably hate it. 2Co_2:17. Hedinger:—Take care that you do not corrupt God’s word! Even those who hear, must attend to this. How many thousand streams are daily flowing to refresh and sustain those who are secure in their own vain fancies and in the way of the world. Maxims to keep alive the old Adam are in every one’s mouth. Alas! that so many must repent only when it is too late (1Pe_4:11). Four things at least should ever be on the heart of the true minister: that he speaks, 1, in all purity, with respect to his motives, his doctrine and his manner; 2, as from God, as if anointed and born of God; 3, as in the presence of God, with all reverence and zeal, feeling that God is always present and is the greatest of all his hearers; and 4, as in Christ.
Berlenb. Bible, 2Co_2:14 :—He must be a happy man, with whom everything, even the greatest perils, work for him only a perpetual triumph. Whenever truth and falsehood are most exposed, Christianity has its greatest triumphs; and this usually takes place when she is most severely afflicted. All Christians should diffuse around them wherever they go the fragrance of divine knowledge—and if they are the Lord’s anointed, how can they fail to do so?
2Co_2:15-16. The sweetest words of the Gospel become a savor of death unto death to those who resist the Holy Ghost. Such will have it so; they lay hold on death, and cast eternal life away. If this powerful odor of divine knowledge had not been diffused around them and arrested general attention, they had not had sin; but now they have no one but themselves to blame, for they have only the due reward of their own doings. Not every one who intellectually possesses the truth and has the form of knowledge (Rom_2:20), is prepared to present it profitably to his fellowmen; but only he who has himself put on the Lord Jesus Christ, is familiar with the mysterious cross of self-subjugation, and has obeyed the form of doctrine he has received. The spirit of God alone can prepare us for doing His work. 2Co_2:17.—True repentance, death, and pure truth will seem but trifling matters to hypocritical teachers; a good conscience, repentance, and a knowledge of Jesus Christ may fare as they may, if such men can only retain a hold upon the world’s favor, and have Christ in peace without his cross and with their pleasures. Those who handle God’s word should themselves be holy.
Rieger:
2Co_2:12-14. Even afflictions are sweetened when we are enabled by them to promote the cause of Christ and share in his victories. When God opens such doors for the preaching of the Gospel that all its adversaries are ashamed, and we present such evidence that we have the truth that it sets men free and awakens them to activity, reflection and admiration, it should be looked upon as a triumph to the cause of Christ. Such results commonly take place especially in the place where the word is preached, but sometimes the odor of them extends to a distance, and induces multitudes to inquire after Christ. 2Co_2:15-16.—Our Lord sometimes allows his beloved ones to know that he is about to use them, more especially as the light of the world and the salt of the earth. The Apostle therefore could say that the whole work and calling of himself and his companions, had an influence upon every department of society, and was an honor and a pleasure to God himself. But it was according to the way in which men met the proposals of the Gospel, that it became to them at every step an omen of either salvation or perdition. Those who heard that the way to glory must be through suffering, might assume such an attitude toward it that it might seem to them worse than death—and hence, they might foolishly remain under death. But where the Gospel meets with no such opposition it tends only to life. The very first inclination toward the truth is produced by this savor unto life, and from that moment the course is from life to life, and from one degree of power to another.
Heubner:
2Co_2:12. The Lord only has the key to the heart, and if he does not open it we may rattle around it as we please, it will remain closed against us.
2Co_2:14. The triumphs of the Gospel are unlike every other (Psa_84:7-8), for in them both victor and vanquished rejoice together. When the Apostles preached, the whole infected atmosphere of this world was purified by a balmy fragrance, and an acceptable incense mounted up to heaven. Why is it not always so, when the same Gospel is professedly preached?
2Co_2:16. How can Christianity be a deadly poison? Only by being resisted, until the last spark of spiritual life is quenched in men’s own wickedness. To refuse all direction from the word of the cross, is to harden ourselves against everything else. The same odor or medicine may kill or cure in different cases, and Christianity shows its real power when it arouses the opposition of wicked men.
W. F. Besser:
2Co_2:15-16. When the sweet fragrance of Jesus’ name is shed forth upon all men, without respect of persons, and in its full power, if any are saved, it is because they inhale it by a faith which the fragrance itself produces; and if any are still lost, it is not merely because they fail of receiving it (Act_13:46), but because the fragrance itself becomes fatal, and avenges itself upon those who despise it. The power of God’s word and the accompanying influence of God’s Spirit are demonstrated, when that word leaves no one as it found him; but when its despisers become more wicked, and the indifferent become furious and abusive. God is not responsible for men’s unbelief, but when they fatally injure themselves and sin against the word of life (Pro_8:36), we may regard it as a retributive judgment upon their own malicious and spiteful treatment of his mercy.
Footnotes:
[10][2Co_2:12.—Instead of είς τὸ εὐαγγέλιον the two kindred codd. F. G. and Damasc. have διὰ τὸ εὐαγγ., and the Italic and Vulg. verss. and the Lat. fathers have propter evang. Two other affiliated codd. D. E. have δια τοῦ εὐαγγελὶον. Most of our Old English verss. have “for Christ’s gospel’s sake.”]
[11]2Co_2:13.—In place of τῷ μὴ εὑρεῖν, Sin. has τοῦ μὴ εὑρ. (though the 3d cor. has τῷ μὴ εὑρ.). It also has Μακαιδονίαν (as throughout the New Testament, except 2Co_9:2, and 1Th_4:10)].
[12]2Co_2:16.—Rec. omits ἐκ before both θανάτου and ζωῆς. And yet the word has the best authorities [A. B. C. Sin. et al.] in its favor, and was probably thrown out on account of its difficult construction. [It does not appear in D. E. F. G. K. L., and the omission is confirmed by the Vulg., Syr., Goth, and Aeth. verss., and by very many of the ancient interpreters. All the more recent critics, except Reiche and Wordsworth, insert it.]
[13]2Co_2:17.—The reading λοιποί instead of πολλοὶ has the best authorities [A. B. C. K. Sin. et al.] against it. [Πολλοὶ was probably thought too strong an expression. But Didymus of Alex. (A. D. 370) takes much pains to justify the Apostle in the use of πολλοῖ in this passage. See note on p. 41.]
[14]2Co_2:17.—Rec. has κατενώπιον, and it is strongly sustained by authority; but Lachmann following the best MSS. gives us κατέναντι (without τοῦ). [Alford and Bloomfield think the article was left out to correspond with the previous ἐκ θεοῦ, but that the Apostle’s solemn assertion here needs it. It is however omitted in A. B. C. D. Sin. and 12 cursives.]
[15][The city was called by its original founder, Antigonia Troas, and by Lysimachus, who much improved it, Alexandria Troas, frequently simply Alexandria. It was on the great Roman road, by which it had an extensive trade into the interior and the South. It was a Roman colony, with the jus Italicum, or right of Roman citizenship, and was much favored by the Romans, from a conceit that their ancestors came from Troy, the site of which was close by. Gibbon says that Constantine once thought of making it the seat of his empire. Its modern name, Eski Stamboul (Old Constantinople), seems to commemorate this thought, Conybeare and Howson’s Life of St. Paul, Vol. I. p. 279–81, and Howson in Smith’s Dict.]
[16][Stanley suggests a vivid picture of Paul in this anxious state of mind, “on the wooded shores of that classic region under the heights of Ida.” All associations connected with its ancient history had but “slight effect upon the mind of the Apostle,” which was either upon the open door to preach Christ’s Gospel, or “vainly expecting the white sail of the ship which was to bring back his friend from Corinth.” If the love of Christ had not dispossessed Paul’s heart of every other interest, such scenes would have had a peculiar charm for him. See also Conyb. and Howson, Introduction, Vol. I. p. 16 and p. 362. Such conflicting emotions and changes of purpose are not inconsistent with Paul’s being under the guidance of the Holy Ghost (Webster and Wilkinson), inasmuch as that divine agent works out his own guidance of wisdom by means of, and in consistency with, the purely human feelings of the subject.]
[17][The word θριαμβεύοντι has been explained in: (1), a neuter sense, triumphare de nobis, to triumph over us: (2), a transitive sense, triumphare nos, to lead us in triumph; (3), a causative sense, triumphantes nos facere, to make us triumph. Ancient Greek usage among the classics is probably uniform in favor of the first, and the only other instance in the N. T. where the word is used (Col_2:15) looks in the same direction. But though it is adopted in the Vulgate, and is given as the first definition by several Latin expositors, it seems hard to make good sense with such a meaning in our passage, where the idea certainly is not that of a subdued and captive enemy led about in humiliation and finally to death. Even with this idea eliminated, and remembering that Paul sometimes speaks of himself as a subdued and willing captive to Christ, we never find him thus speaking of himself with others (plural). His object here seems rather to be, to show how he and his companions, and not merely Christ, were triumphing. If this makes us inclined to favor the second signification, with Calvin (in his comments, not in his translation), Bengel, de Wette and Wordsworth, we are met by the fact that neither early nor late Greek usage is in favor of such a construction. Some Greek fathers, indeed, whose opinions on a question of N. T. language or Roman usage is entitled to great consideration, give it this meaning. Though their definitions favor No. 1, they usually interpret it simply of a triumph over afflictions and persecutions, and leading the Apostles about the world in a triumphant victory over every kind of endurance Thus Chrysostom (and after him substantially Theophyl. and Oecum.): τῷ πᾶσι ποιοῦντι περιφανεῖς, “Who maketh us conspicuous to all;” and Theodoret: σοφῶς τὰ καθ’ ἡμᾶς πρυτανεύων, τῆδε κακεῖζε περιάγει, δήλους ἡμᾶς ἅπασιν ἀποφαίνων, “Who manages all our affairs in wisdom, leading us about so as to make us manifest to all;” Damasc: ὁ γαρ θρίαμβος, τοῦτό ἐστι, τὸ πᾶσι γενέσθαι περιφανή, “For evidently he has triumphed, who has been made illustrious and conspicuous to all men.” If, however, we depart from the simple No. 1, we must prefer No. 3, which has some ancient authority in its favor. Thus Jerome (comm.): Deum per Apostolos triumphare in Christo, victores illos facere in fide Christi; and Ambrose: Triumphare facit nos per Christum, vel in nobis ipse triumphat. In Alexandrian usage (Sept. and N. T.) neuter verbs often acquired a causative meaning (see Winer, Idd. § 40, n. 2, and many instances in Alford and Meyer). This gives an idea suitable to the connection. It was adopted by Luther, Beza and Grotius, and is defended by Osiander, Neander and Hodge. The majority of recent commentators (as Meyer, Alford, Conybeare, Ellicott, Stanley) favor the first meaning, but it very easily runs into the second.]
[18][Tischendorf quotes here a remarkable passage from Didymus Alex to prove the genuineness of the reading οἱ πολλοὶ, but which is equally striking as a comment: “Paul calls these deceivers many (πολλοὺς) on account of their abundance. For when instead of naming: them he designates them by this word, he intimates that they were more numerous, as when our Lord uses it instead of τινές: Many (πολλοὶ) shall say unto me in that day, etc. (Mat_7:22). But this word informs us that they are not a few, as when our Lord says, Many (πολλοὶ) are called, but few (ὀλίγοι) are chosen. It is evident that the word sometimes even signifies all, as when the Apostle says in Rom_5:19 : “The many (οἱ πολλοί) were constituted (κατεστάθησαν) sinners,” for it is evident that all men are under sin in consequence of Adam’s disobedience. Clearly then the word signifies a great number, not only in the passage before us but in another, where it is said, “Be not many masters” (Jam_3:1.) Damascene adds in paraphrase: “We are not like those false apostles who claim to be so numerous (τὰ πολλοί). For then we should have to adulterate the Gospel, like some who corrupt or who sell for money the wine they have been employed to distribute freely.”—Migne’s Patrol. Græc. T. xxxix. p. 1691, and xcv. p. 719.]
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Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv12–17Paul expected to meet Titus at Troas, to receive…
Paul expected to meet Titus at Troas, to receive the tidings as to the effect of his first Epistle on the Corinthian Church; but, disappointed in his expectation there, he passed on to Macedonia, where he met him at last (Co2 7:5-7) The history (Acts) does not record his passing through Troas, in going from Ephesus to Macedonia; but it does in coming from that country (Act 20:6); also, that he had disciples there (Act 20:7), which accords with the Epistle (Co2 2:12, "a door was opened unto me of the Lord"). An undesigned coincidence marking genuineness [PALEY, Horæ Paulinæ]. Doubtless Paul had fixed a time with Titus to meet him at Troas; and had desired him, if detained so as not to be able to be at Troas at that time, to proceed at once to Macedonia to Philippi, the next station on his own journey. Hence, though a wide door of Christian usefulness opened to him at Troas, his eagerness to hear from Titus the tidings from Corinth, led him not to stay longer there when the time fixed was past, but he hastened on to Macedonia to meet him there [BIRKS].
to preach--literally, "for the Gospel." He had been at Troas before, but the vision of a man from Macedonia inviting him to come over, prevented his remaining there (Act 16:8-12). On his return to Asia, after the longer visit mentioned here, he stayed seven days (Act 20:6).
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and--that is, though Paul would, under ordinary circumstances, have gladly stayed in Troas.
door . . . opened . . . of the Lord--Greek, "in the Lord," that is, in His work, and by His gracious Providence.
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Daniel D. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn vv12–174. St. Paul’s lingering at Troas and Macedonia to…
4. St. Paul’s lingering at Troas and Macedonia to hear from them before he came, 2Co_2:12-17.
Many commentators consider 2Co_2:5-11 “a digression;” but if we consider the whole section (2Co_1:8 to 2Co_5:21) as a survey of St. Paul’s apostolic relations to the Corinthians, 2Co_2:5-11 is rather a parenthetic incident in the straight line of thought than a digression, and 2Co_2:12 may still be considered as joining on to 2Co_2:4.
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12. When I came to Troas—Literally, But having come to Troas, or, the Troad. The name may imply either the city or its territorial section; but of course Paul was at the city.
It was in the early summer of the year 57 that Paul left Ephesus for Troas, as the commencement of his second tour through Macedonia into Southern Greece. Probably Tychicus and Trophimus were with him. He may have gone by sea, as safer than the land route, with its “perils by robbers.” But a great thoroughfare passed from Ephesus via Smyrna and Pergamos to Troas.
To preach Christ’s gospel—His purpose was to establish Christianity, and he seems to have passed the other great cities, because it was at the seaport of Troas he expected Titus to arrive from Corinth, across the AEgean.
A door was opened—Access was clear for preaching Christ to the people, and founding a Church.
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The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv12–1712. Furthermore, when I came to Troas] Another proof…
12. Furthermore, when I came to Troas] Another proof is now given of the Apostle’s sincere desire for the well-being of his converts, his distress at the non-arrival of Titus at the time expected. In spite of the opportunity afforded him of preaching the gospel at Troas, his anxiety would not suffer him to rest, but he hurried on to Macedonia, where at length he found Titus, and heard from him the tidings for which he had scarcely dared to hope.
to Troas] Rather, to the Troad, the angle of territory to the south of the Hellespont on which Troy was situated. See Act_16:8; Act_16:11; Act_20:5; 2Ti_4:13. “Still, it must have been at the city that the Apostle stayed. It had been built” (upon the ruins of the ancient city, as Dr Schliemann’s discoveries seem to prove) “by Antigonus (Alexander’s lieutenant) under the name of Antigonia Troas, was afterwards called by Lysimachus, another of Alexander’s generals, Alexandria Troas, and was at this time a Roman ‘colonia Juris Italici’ and regarded with great favour by the Roman emperors, as the representative of the ancient Troy, of which it has been supposed to occupy the site.”—Stanley. It must be remembered that the Romans, as Virgil’s Aeneid testifies, were under the belief that they were the descendants of the ancient Trojans. See Act_16:8; Act_20:5-6 also Conybeare and Howson’s St Paul, and Smith’s Dictionary of Geography.
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to preach Christ’s gospel] Literally, unto, i.e. for the furtherance of the good tidings of Christ. The word gospel, as is well known, is derived from the Anglo-Saxon god, good, and spell, history or narrative. Some have supposed it to have been God’s spell or history, but the former derivation accords best with the Greek. Spell is now used only to signify the naming the letters of which a word is composed, or of a magical incantation. But both these are derived from the same Anglo-Saxon root.
and a door was opened unto me of the Lord] Door, in New Testament phraseology, is equivalent to opportunity. See 1Co_16:9; Rev_3:8. St Paul had come to Troas with the special purpose of preaching the Gospel, and not merely as a traveller. Unusual opportunities offered themselves, but his anxiety about the condition of the Corinthian Church caused him to forego them all. Calvin and Estius discuss the propriety of St Paul’s leaving unused the opportunity offered to him at Troas. But he soon (Act_20:6) returned thither, and he evidently had good reason to believe the state of things at Corinth to be the more urgent of the two. It was of more importance to keep those who were called by the name of Christ from disgracing Him, than to bring fresh souls to the knowledge of Him.
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Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv12–17(12) Furthermore, when I came to Troas.—The article, perhaps,…
(12) Furthermore, when I came to Troas.—The article, perhaps, indicates the Troad as a district, rather than the city, just as it does in the case of Saron. (See Note on Act_9:35.) The case of the offender had come in as a parenthesis in 2Co_2:5-8. He returns to the train of thought which it had interrupted, and continues his narrative of what had passed after he had written the First Epistle. (On Troas, see Notes on Act_16:8.) A Church had probably been founded in that city by St. Luke, but St. Paul’s first visit to it had been limited to a few days, and there are no traces of his preaching there. Now he comes “for the gospel’s sake.” That there was a flourishing Christian community some months later, we find from Act_20:6.
A door was opened unto me.—Opportunities for mission-work, as we should call them, are thus described in 1Co_16:9. There is something of the nature of a coincidence in his using it of two different churches, Ephesus and Troas, within a comparatively short interval.
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The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv12–17Vers. 12-17. Outburst of thanksgiving for the news brought…
Vers. 12-17. Outburst of thanksgiving for the news brought by Titus.
Furthermore, when I came to Troas. "Furthermore" is too strong for the "but" of the original. There is an apparently abrupt transition, but the apostle is only resuming the narrative which he broke off at ver. 4 in order that he might finish the topic of the painful circumstance in which his First Epistle had originated. To Troas. Not "the Troas." St. Paul had to do with the city, not with the district. The city (now Eski Stamboul), of which the name had been changed from Antigonia Troas to Alexandria Troas, was at this time a flourishing colony (Colonia Juris Italici), highly favoured by the Romans as representing ancient Troy, and therefore as being the mythological cradle of their race. He visited it on his being driven from Ephesus after the tumult, a little earlier than he would naturally have left it. He had visited Troas in his second missionary journey, (Act_16:8-11) but had left it in consequence of the vision which called him to Macedonia. He now stopped there on his journey through Macedonia to Corinth, which he had announced in 1Co_16:5. And a door was opened unto me of the Lord; literally, and a door had been opened to me in the Lord; i.e. and I found there a marked opportunity (1Co_16:9) for work in Christ. Some commentators, in that spirit of superfluous disquisition and idle letter-worship which is the bane of exegesis, here venture to discuss whether St. Paul was justified in neglecting this opportunity or not. Such discussions are only originated by not observing characteristic modes of expression. St. Paul merely means" circumstances would otherwise have been very favourable for my preaching of Christ; but I was in such a state of miserable anxiety that I lacked the strength to avail myself of them." He was no more responsible for this state of mind, which belonged to his natural temperament, than he would have been responsible for a serious illness. To say that he ought to have had strength of mind enough to get the mastery over his feelings is only to say that Paul ought not to have been Paul. The neglect to use the opportunity was a "hindrance" which might in one sense be assigned to God, and in another to Satan. Moreover, that the opportunity was not wholly lost appears from the fact that St. Paul found a flourishing Christian community at Troas when he visit, d it on his return from this very journey, (Act_20:6, Act_20:7) and that he stayed there at least once again, shortly before his martyrdom. (2Ti_4:13) Indeed, it was probably at Troas that his final arrest took place (see my "Life of St. Paul," 2:569, 576). Of the Lord; rather, in the Lord; i.e. in the sphere of Christian work.
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Vers. 12-16.
The preaching of the gospel.
when I came to Troas," etc. The subject of these verses is the preaching of the gospel. Notice
I THE DIFFICULTIES CONNECTED WITH IT. "Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ"s gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord, I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother: but taking my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia." Just at the time when the apostle was about opening his mission at Troas, and the prospect of usefulness seemed most suitable, he encountered a serious difficulty, and that difficulty was the absence of Titus, whom he fully expected. The disappointment cost him such great anxiety that he resigned his purpose, retired from the scene, and wended his way in another direction. Strange that an inspired man should have met with such a disappointment, and stranger still that a disappointment should have so disheartened him that he relinquishes for a time the grand message with which Heaven had especially entrusted him. Antecedently we might have supposed that a man going forth in a true spirit to preach the gospel would encounter no difficulties, that Heaven would sweep away all obstructions from his path; but not so. Perhaps no class of men encounter more difficulties in their mission than ministers. Many become so baffled, confounded, and depressed that, like Jeremiah, they exclaim, "I will speak no more in thy Name.
II THE TRIUMPHS ACHIEVED BY IT. "Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place? The grandest of all victories is the victory over sin. He who conquers the moral foes of one soul achieves a far grander triumph than he who lays a whole army dead upon the battle plain. There is no grandeur, but infamy, in the latter conquest. It is here taught that these victories were achieved whenever they preached. "Always causeth us to triumph." Wherever they preached, "in every place," and always through God, "thanks be to God." He is the Author of their victory; he constructed the weapon, he instructed the soldiers, he inspired and gave effect to the strokes.
III THE INFLUENCES RESULTING FROM IT. "For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish." Observe:
1. The manward aspect of gospel preaching.
(1) It quickens some. "To the other the savour of life unto life.
(2) It destroys others. "To the one we are the savour of death unto death." These effects occur wherever the gospel is preached.
2. The Godward aspect of gospel preaching. "We are unto God a sweet savour of Christ." Whatever the results of preaching, baneful or beneficial, it is acceptable to God if rightly discharged. Ay, the preaching of the gospel is the cause of immense good and the occasion of great evil. Like the waters of the sea, the light of the firmament, the breeze of the atmosphere, it is the Divine cause of good; but man, through the perversity of his nature, may make it the occasion of his ruin.
IV THE SOLEMNITY CONNECTED WITH IT. Paul felt its solemnity and exclaims, "Who is sufficient for these things?" Who, of himself, is "sufficient" to expound the meaning of the gospel, to exemplify the spirit of the gospel, to inwork into human souls the eternal principles of the gospel? Paul adds in another place, Our sufficiency is of God.
Vers. 12-17.
Coming to Troas; disquietude; defence of his apostleship.
Quite abruptly St. Paul mentions that he came to Troas. Why he left Ephesus he does not say, but we infer it was because of his anxiety to see Titus, and hear from him how his letter to the Corinthians had been received. There was a fine opening at Troas to preach the gospel, and yet he was greatly disquieted as Titus did not meet him. "Taking my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia." Here he met Titus, though, in the excitement of joy, he fails to state it. The sudden outburst of gratitude, "Thanks be unto God," expresses his exultation over the good tidings Titus had brought from Corinth, so that here, as is frequently the case, we get the outward history of events from the biography of the apostle"s heart. All he had expected, and even more, had been realized, and he breaks forth in thanksgiving.
Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk The earth, and stately tread or lowly creep, Witness if I be silent, morn or ev"n, To hill or valley, fountain or fresh shade, Made vocal by my song, and taught his praise.
St. Paul was not a silent man in his happiness. No depth of emotion satisfied him unless it could be imparted to others. On this occasion his soul found utterance in thanking God, "which always causeth us to triumph in Christ." A military triumph rises before him; the victorious general is returning to the capital; the long procession moves before his eye; and, in the train, the captives brought home are conspicuous. Such a captive is the apostle following the chariot of his Lord. "Yet (at the same time, by a characteristic change of metaphor) an incense bearer, scattering incense (which was always done on these occasions), as the procession moves on" (Conybeare and Howson). Christ is the fragrance; "we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ." Whether men are saved or lost, Christ is Christ, and the fragrance cannot perish. There will be a "savour of death unto death" and a "savour of life unto life;" but, in either issue, the glory of God"s government is maintained. For, so far as we can see into the relations of Christ to man and of man to Christ, the fundamental fact in each aspect of the subject is human freedom. Of his own freewill Christ took upon himself our flesh and blood, suffered, and died; and of our own free will, made such by him and acted on as such by the Holy Spirit, we accept his atonement. If we reject the offered mercy, the act of our rejection testifies to the infinitude of the mercy, and the "savour of Christ" is none the less "sweet" in itself, "And who is sufficient for these things?" Here is no one-sided gospel, that accommodates conscience to taste, and allows a compromise between duty and inclination. Here is a gospel that is the "savour of death unto death" and of "life unto life." Who is competent to maintain its stern truthfulness by preaching both these doctrines? The test of a faithful minister lies in the wise and earnest use of each class of facts. Is anything so difficult? Take the natural intellect; take the natural affections; take language as the vehicle of expression; and by what power of culture can a preacher be found who can set forth the gospel in its twofoldness of "death unto death" and "life unto life"? St. Paul, in the seventeenth verse, answers the question as to sufficiency. Now, as always, it is not simply the gospel which is the power and wisdom of God, but his way of preaching it. He declares that "many corrupt the Word of God;" not of this number is he. And where does the danger of corruption exist? In not holding with a balanced mind the "death" and the "life," so as to shun overstatements and understatements in each instance. To preach after St. Paul"s manner, one must have sincerity the truth unmixed with human speculations; he must preach what God has revealed as to his Law and its righteousness, no more, no less; and he must preach it in Christ, himself in Christ, his gospel in Christ, and so preach as to spirit and temper and manner that the fragrance shall breathe in all his words. L.
An open door.
Men are prone to think what doors are open to them to enter, through which they may pass to their own profit, or advancement, or pleasure. Paul"s was an unselfish and benevolent nature. He was a true follower of Christ, who came, not to do his own will, and not to be ministered unto, but to minister. Again and again, in the course of his life, his heart was gladdened by the spectacle of a door of holy service set open before him by God"s providence, inviting him to enter in and in the name of the Lord to take possession.
I THE OPEN DOOR LEADS TO OPPORTUNITIES OF WORK FOR CHRIST. To the true Christian this is more desirable than aught beside. Paul went nowhere but some door opened before him. A synagogue was open; he entered it, and reasoned out of the Law or the prophets. A marketplace thronged with citizens afforded him opportunity for preaching the true God and the eternal life. Even a prison door, when it closed upon him, did not shut him off from human souls. It is well that Christians should think, not so much of their own interests, as of the service of their Master.
II THE OPEN DOOR IS SET OPEN BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE. "Opened of the Lord" is the apostle"s expression. We may not see the hand, but we should not ignore it. When God himself makes a way, his doing so is a command to his people to adopt and to follow it. When he opens, "no man can shut.
III THE OPEN DOOR IS A DOOR OF PROMISE TO THOSE WHO WILL ENTER IN. Why is the door set open? Is there no purpose in this? Surely it is a want of faith to hold back when the Lord himself so manifestly encourages his servants to "go in and possess the land.
IV THE OPEN DOOR WILL BE SHUT AGAINST THOSE WHOSE NEGLIGENCE OR DISOBEDIENCE HINDERS THEM FROM ENTERING IT. As the door of salvation will be closed against those who fail to enter in, so the door of service will be shut to exclude those who turn aside when the hand of God has opened it and has beckoned them to enter, but has beckoned them in vain. T.
Vers. 12, 13.
Providential doors.
Introduce by describing the leading instances of providential deliverance, care, and guidance in the life of the Apostle Paul. Especially dwell on the cases in which his life was preserved from peril and from the plots of his enemies. The reference made in our text is rather to the gracious way in which his missionary journeyings and missionary spheres had been opened before him; and the illustration may be taken from the singular way in which doors were opened and shut, when the Divine will was for the apostle to preach the gospel in Europe. (see Act_16:6-9) For the figure of a "door" for an "opportunity," see 1Co_16:9; Rev_3:8. The truth of the Divine providence ordering our lives is not one that is so familiar to us as it was to our fathers. Possibly our warmer thought of God"s fatherly care has taken the place of the colder conception of an impersonal providence. Still, it may be well to revive the older notion and make it glow with Christian sentiment and feeling.
I THE ORDERING OF PROVIDENCE FOR EVERYBODY. Irrespective of religious state and relations. Illustrations of this are found in all times of danger, disease, or calamity. Some are taken and some are left. We constantly read of remarkable providential escapes.
II THE SPECIALTY OF PROVIDENCE FOR CHRISTIANS. It may in part be that Christians more readily recognize the hand of God in their rescuings and guidances, but we may also believe that God gives a special protection to his own. Such a belief may be a great comfort to us, but it must be kept from becoming exaggerated and extravagant. The Christian cannot always be preserved, because his suffering may be for the good of the whole.
III THE ATTITUDE IN WHICH CHRISTIANS SHOULD STAND TOWARDS THE EVER ACTIVE PROVIDENCE. It may be shown to include
(1) earnest watchings;
(2) patient waitings;
(3) prompt actings;
(4) full and unhesitating obediences; and
(5) thankful rejoicings. 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.
The Biblical Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn vv12, 14, 15, 17Furthermore, when I came to Troas.
2Co_2:12-17
Furthermore, when I came to Troas.
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The effect of the gospel ministry
I. The work which the minister undertakes. I came to Troas to preach Christs gospel; God maketh manifest the savour of His knowledge by us; For we are not as many which corrupt the Word of God. According, then, to the apostle, the ministers work consists in the faithful exposition of that Word which contains the knowledge of Christs gospel. In nature we mark the footprints of the Creator, but Gods Word gives us the marvellous embodiment of His providential and redemptive thoughts.
II. The influence he exerts (2Co_2:15-16). Relationship increases responsibility. Who can define the responsibility of the parent? The teacher also assumes mighty responsibilities.
III. The source of the ministers qualifications for his work. He causeth us to triumph in Christ. (T. Moir, M. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible1887 · Public DomainOn v12Chapter 7
Chapter 7
CHRISTS CAPTIVE.- 2Co_2:12-17 (R.V)
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IN this passage the Apostle returns from what is virtually, if not formally, a digression, to the narrative which begins in 2Co_1:8 f., and is continued in 2Co_1:15 f. At the same time he makes a transition to a new subject, really though not very explicitly connected with what goes before - namely, his independent and divinely granted authority as an apostle. In the last verses of 2Co_2:1-17., and in 2Co_3:1-4, this is treated generally, but with reference in particular to the success of his ministry. He then goes on to contrast the older and the Christian dispensation, and the character of their respective ministries, and terminates the section with a noble statement of the spirit and principles with which he fulfilled his apostolic calling. {2Co_4:1-6}
Before leaving Ephesus, Paul had apparently made an appointment to meet Titus, on his return from Corinth, at Troas. He went thither himself to preach the Gospel, and found an excellent opportunity for doing so; but the non-arrival of his brother kept him in such a state of unrest that he was unable to make that use of it which he would otherwise have done. This seems a singular confession, but there is no reason to suppose that it was made with a bad conscience. Paul was probably grieved that he had not the heart to go in at the door which had been opened to him in the Lord, but he did not feel guilty. It was not selfishness which made him turn away, but the anxiety of a true pastor about other souls which God had committed to his care. "I had no relief for my spirit," he says; and the spirit, in his language, even though it be a constituent of mans nature, is that in him which is akin to the divine, and receptive of it. That very element in the Apostle, in virtue of which he could act for God at all, was already preoccupied, and though the people were there, ready to be evangelized, it was beyond his power to evangelize them. His spirit was absorbed and possessed by hopes and fears and prayers for the Corinthians; and as the human spirit, even when in contact with the divine, is finite, and only capable of so much and no more, he was obliged to let slip an occasion which he would otherwise have gladly seized. He probably felt with all missionaries that it is as important to secure as to win converts; and ii the Corinthians were capable of reflection, they might reflect with shame on the loss which their sin had entailed on the people of Troas. The disorders of their willful community had engrossed the Apostles spirit, and robbed their fellow-men across the sea of an apostolic ministry. They could not but feel how genuine was the Apostles love, when he had made such a sacrifice to it; but such a sacrifice ought never to have been required.
When Paul could bear the suspense no longer, he said good-bye to the people of Troas, crossed the Thracian Sea, and advanced into Macedonia to meet Titus. He did meet him, and heard from him a full report of the state of matters at Corinth; {2Co_7:5 ff.} but here he does not take time to say so. He breaks out into a jubilant thanksgiving, occasioned primarily no doubt by the joyful tidings he had just received, but widening characteristically, and instantaneously, to cover all his apostolic work. It is as though he felt Gods goodness to him to be all of a piece, and could not be sensitive to it in any particular instance without having-the consciousness rise within him that he lived and moved and had his being in it. "Now to God be thanks, who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ."
The peculiar and difficult word in this thanksgiving is θριαμβευοντι. The sense which first strikes one as suitable is that which is given in the Authorized Version: "God which always causeth us to triumph." Practically Paul had been engaged in a conflict with the Corinthians, and for a time it had seemed not improbable that he might be beaten; but God had caused him to triumph in Christ-that is, acting in Christs interests, in matters in which Christs name and honor were at stake, the victory (as always) had remained with him; and for this he thanks God. This interpretation is still maintained by so excellent a scholar as Schmiedel, and the use of θριαμβευειν in this transitive sense is defended by the analogy of μαθητευειν in Mat_28:19.
But appropriate as this interpretation is, there is one apparently fatal objection to it. There is no doubt that θριαμβευειν is here used transitively, but we have not to guess, by analogy, what it must mean when so used; there are other examples which fix this unambiguously. One is found elsewhere in St. Paul himself, {Col_2:15} where θριαμβευσας αυτους indubitably means "having triumphed over them." In accordance with this, which is only one out of many instances, the Revisers have displaced the old rendering here, and substituted for it, "Thanks be to God, which always leadeth us in triumph." The triumph here is Gods, not the Apostles; Paul is not the soldier who wins the battle, and shouts for victory, as he marches in the triumphal procession; he is the captive who is led in the Conquerors train, and in whom men see the trophy of the Conquerors power. When he says that God always leads him in triumph in Christ, the meaning is not perfectly obvious. He may intend to define, as it were, the area over which Gods victory extends. In everything which is covered by the name and authority of Christ, God triumphantly asserts His power over the Apostle. Or, again, the words may signify that it is through Christ that Gods victorious power is put forth. These two meanings, of course, are not inconsistent; and practically they coincide.
It cannot be denied, I think, if this is taken quite rigorously, that there is a certain air of irrelevance about it. It does not seem to be to the purpose of the passage to say that God always triumphs over Paul and those for whom He speaks, or even that He always leads them in triumph. It is this feeling, indeed, which mainly influences those who keep to the rendering of the Authorized Version, and regard Paul as the victor. But the meaning of θριαμβευοντι is not really open to doubt, and the semblance of irrelevance disappears if we remember that we are dealing with a figure, and a figure which the Apostle himself does not press. Of course in an ordinary triumph, such as the triumph of Claudius over Caractacus, of which St. Paul may easily have heard, the captives had no share in the victory; it was not only a victory over them, but a victory against them. But when God wins a victory over man, and leads his captive in triumph, the captive too has an interest in what happens; it is the beginning of all triumphs, in any true sense, for him. If we apply this to the case before us, we shall see that the true meaning is not irrelevant. Paul had once been the enemy of God in Christ; he had fought against Him in his own soul, and in the Church which he persecuted and wasted. The battle had been long and strong; but not far from Damascus it had terminated in a decisive victory for God. There the mighty man fell, and the weapons of his warfare perished. His pride, his self-righteousness, his sense of superiority to others and of competence to attain to the righteousness of God, collapsed for ever, and he rose from the earth to be the slave of Jesus Christ. That was the beginning of Gods triumph over him; from that hour God led him in triumph in Christ. But it was the beginning also of all that made the Apostles life itself a triumph, not a career of hopeless internal strife, such as it had been, but of unbroken Christian victory. This, indeed, is not involved in the mere word θριαμβευοντι, but it is the real thing which was present to the Apostles mind when he used the word. When we recognize this, we see that the charge of irrelevance does not really apply; while nothing could be more characteristic of the Apostle than to hide himself and his success in this way behind Gods triumph over him and through him.
Further, the true meaning of the word, and the true connection of ideas just explained, remind us that the only triumphs we can ever have, deserving the name, must begin with Gods triumph over us. This is the one possible source of joy untroubled. We may be as selfish as we please, and as successful in our selfishness; we may distance all our rivals in the race for the worlds prizes; we may appropriate and engross pleasure, wealth, knowledge, influence; and after all there will be one thing we must do without-the power and the happiness of thanking God. No one will ever be able to thank God because he has succeeded in pleasing himself, be the mode of his self-pleasing as respectable as you will; and he who has not thanked God with a whole heart, without misgiving and without reserve, does not know what joy is. Such thanksgiving and its joy have one condition: they rise up spontaneously in the soul when it allows God to triumph over it. When God appears to us in Jesus Christ, when in the omnipotence of His love and purity and truth He makes war upon our pride and falsehood and lusts, and prevails against them, and brings us low, then we are admitted to the secret of this apparently perplexing passage; we know how natural it is to cry, "Thanks be unto God who in His victory over us giveth us the victory! Thanks be to Him who always leadeth us in triumph!" It is out of an experience like this that Paul speaks; it is the key to his whole life, and it has been illustrated anew by what has just happened at Corinth.
But to return to the Epistle. God is described by the Apostle not only as triumphing over them (i.e., himself and his colleagues) in Christ, but as making manifest through them the savor of His knowledge in every place. It has been questioned whether "His" knowledge is the knowledge of God or of Christ. Grammatically, the question can hardly be answered; but, as we sere from 2Co_4:6, the two things which it proposes to distinguish are really one: what is manifested in the apostolic ministry is the knowledge of God as He is revealed in Christ. But why does Paul use the expression "the savor of His knowledge?" It was suggested probably by the figure of the triumph, which was present to his mind in all the detail of its circumstances. Incense smoked on every altar as the victor passed through the streets of Rome; the fragrant steam floated over the procession, a silent proclamation of victory and joy. But Paul would not have appropriated this feature of the triumph, and applied it to his ministry, unless he had felt that there was a real point of comparison, that the knowledge of Christ which he diffused among men, wherever he went, was in very truth a fragrant thing. True, he was not a free man; he had been subdued by God, and, made the slave of Jesus Christ; as the Lord of glory went forth conquering and to conquer, over Syria and Asia and Macedonia and Greece, He led him as a captive in the triumphal march of His grace; he was the trophy of Christs victory; every one who saw him saw that necessity was laid upon Him; but what a gracious necessity it was! "The love of Christ constraineth us." The captives who were dragged in chains behind a Roman chariot also made manifest the knowledge of their conqueror; they declared to all the spectators his power and his pitilessness; there was nothing in that knowledge to suggest the idea of a fragrance like incense. But as Paul moved through the world, all who had eyes to see saw in him not only the power, but the sweetness of Gods redeeming love. The mighty Victor made manifest through Him, not only His might, but His charm, not only His greatness, but His grace. It was a good thing, men felt, to be subdued and led in triumph like Paul; it was to move in an atmosphere perfumed by the love of Christ, as the air around the Roman triumph was perfumed with incense, The Apostle is so sensible of this that he weaves it into his sentence as an indispensable part of his thought; it is not merely the knowledge of God which is made manifest through him as he is led in triumph, but that knowledge as a fragrant, gracious thing, speaking to every one of victory and goodness and joy.
The very word "savor," in connection with the "knowledge" of God in Christ, is full of meaning. It has its most direct application, of course, to preaching. When we proclaim the Gospel, do we always succeed in manifesting it as a savor? Or is not the savor-the sweetness, the winsomeness, the charm and attractiveness of it-the very thing that is most easily left out? Do we not catch it sometimes in the words of others, and wonder that it eludes our own? We miss what is most characteristic in the knowledge of God if we miss this. We leave out that very element in the Evangel which makes it evangelic, and gives it its power to subdue and enchain the souls of men. But it is not to preachers only that the word "savor" speaks; it is of the widest possible application. Wherever Christ is leading a single soul in triumph, the fragrance of the Gospel should go forth; rather, it does go forth, in proportion as His triumph is complete. There is sure to be that in the life which will reveal the graciousness as well as the omnipotence of the Savior. And it is this virtue which God uses as His main witness, as His chief instrument, to evangelize the world. In every relation of life it should tell. Nothing is so insuppressible, nothing so pervasive, as a fragrance. The lowliest life which Christ is really leading in triumph will speak infallibly and persuasively for Him. In a Christian brother or sister, brothers and sisters will find a new strength and tenderness, something that goes deeper than natural affection, and can stand severer shocks; they will catch the fragrance which declares that the Lord in His triumphant grace is there. And so in all situations, or, as the Apostle has it, "in every place." And if we are conscious that we fail in this matter, and that the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ is something to which our life gives no testimony, let us be sure that the explanation of it is to be found in self-will. There is something in us which has not yet made complete surrender to Him, and not till He leads us unresistingly in triumph will the sweet savor go forth.
At this point the Apostles thought is arrested by the issues of his ministry, though he carries the figure of the fragrance, with a little pressure, through to the end. In Gods sight, he says, or so far as God is concerned, we are a sweet savor of Christ, a perfume redolent of Christ, in which He cannot but take pleasure. In other Words, Christ proclaimed in the Gospel, and the ministries and lives which proclaim Him, are always a joy to God. They are a joy to Him, whatever men may think of them, alike in them that are being saved and in them that are perishing. To those who are being saved, they are a savor "from life to life"; to those who are perishing, a savor "from death to death." Here, as everywhere, St. Paul contemplates these exclusive opposites as the sole is, sues of mans life, and of the Gospel ministry. He makes no attempt to subordinate one to the other, no suggestion that the way of death may ultimately lead to life, much less that it must do so. The whole solemnity of the situation, which is faced in the cry "And who is sufficient for these things?" depends on the finality of the contrast between life and death. These are the goals set before men, and those who are being saved and those who are perishing are respectively on their way to one or the other. Who is sufficient for the calling of the Gospel ministry, when such are the alternatives involved in it? Who is sufficient, in love, in wisdom, in humility, in awful earnestness, for the duties of a calling the issues of which are life or death forever?
There is considerable difficulty in the sixteenth verse, partly dogmatic, partly textual. Commentators so opposite in their bias as Chrysostom and Calvin have pondered and remarked upon the opposite effects here ascribed to the Gospel. It is easy to find analogies to these in nature. The same heat which hardens clay melts iron. The same sunlight which gladdens the healthy eye tortures that which is diseased. The same honey which is sweet to the sound palate is nauseous to the sick; and so on. But such analogies do not explain anything, and one can hardly see what is meant by calling them illustrations. It remains finally inexplicable that the Gospel, which appeals to some with winning irresistible power, subduing and leading them in triumph, should excite in others a passion of antipathy which nothing else could provoke. This remains inexplicable, because it is irrational. Nothing that can be pointed to in the universe is the least like a bad heart closing itself against the love of Christ, like a bad mans will stiffening into absolute rigidity against the will of God. The preaching of the Gospel may be the occasion of such awful results, but it is not their cause. The God whom it proclaims is the God of grace; it is never His will that any should perish-always that all should be saved. But He can save only by subduing; His grace must exercise a sovereign power in us, which through righteousness will lead to life everlasting. {Rom_5:21} And when this exercise of power is resisted, when we match our self-will against the gracious saving will of God, our pride, our passions, our mere sloth, against the soul-constraining love of Christ; when we prevail in the war which Gods mercy wages with our wickedness, -then the Gospel itself may be said to have ministered to our ruin; it was ordained to life, and we have made it a sentence of death. Yet even so, it is the joy and glory of God; it is a sweet savor to Him, fragrant of Christ and His love.
The textual difficulty is in the words εκ θανατου εις θανατον, and εκ ζωης εις ζωην. These words are rendered in the Revised Version "from death to death," and "from life to life." The Authorized Version, following the "Textus Receptus," which omits ejk in both clauses, renders "a savor of death unto death," and "of life unto life." In spite of the inferior MS. support, the "Textus Receptus" is preferred by many modern scholars-e.g., Heinrici, Schmiedel, and Hofmann. They find it impossible to give any precise interpretation to the better attested reading, and an examination of any exposition which accepts it goes far to justify them. Thus Professor Beet comments: "From death for death: {comp. Rom_1:17} a scent proceeding from, and thus revealing the presence of, death; and, like malaria from a putrefying corpse, causing death. Pauls labors among some men revealed the eternal death which day by day cast an ever-deepening shadow upon them [this answers το οσμητου]; and by arousing in them increased opposition to God, promoted the spiritual mortification which had already begun" [this answers to οσμη εκ θανατου]. Surely it is safe to say that nobody in Corinth could ever have guessed this from the words. Yet this is a favorable specimen of the interepretations given. If it were possible to take εκ θανατου εις θανατον and εκ ζωης εις ζωην, as Baur took εκ πιστεως εις πιστον in Rom_1:17, that would be the simplest way out of the difficulty, and quite satisfactory. What the Apostle said would then be this: that the Gospel which he preached, ever good as it was to God, had the most opposite characters and effects among men, -in some it was death from beginning to end, absolutely and unmitigatedly deadly in its nature and workings; in others, again, it was life from beginning to end-life was the uniform sign of its presence, and its invariable issue. This also is the meaning which we get by omitting εκ: the genitives ζωης and θανατου are then adjectival, -a vital fragrance, with life as its element and end; a fatal fragrance, the end of which is death. This has the advantage of being the meaning which occurs to an ordinary reader; and if the critically approved text, with the repeated εκ, cannot bear this interpretation, I think there is a fair case for defending the received text on exegetical grounds. Certainly nothing but the broad impression of the received text will ever enter the general mind.
The question that rises to the Apostles lips as he confronts the solemn situation created by the Gospel is not directly answered. "Who is sufficient for these things? Who? I say. For we are not as the many, who corrupt the Word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ." Paul is conscious as he writes that his awful sense of responsibility as a preacher of the Gospel is not shared by all who exercise the same vocation. To be the bearer and the representative of a power with issues so tremendous ought surely to annihilate every thought of self; to let personal interest intrude is to declare oneself faithless and unworthy. We are startled to hear from Pauls lips what at first sight seems to be a charge of just such base self-seeking laid against the majority of preachers. "We are not as the many, corrupting the Word of God." The expressive word rendered here "corrupting" has the idea of self-interest, and especially of petty gain, at its basis. It means literally to sell in small quantities, to retail for profit. But it was specially applied to tavern-keeping, and extended to cover all the devices by which the wine-sellers in ancient times deceived their customers. Then it was used figuratively, as here; and Lucian, e.g., speaks of philosophers as selling the sciences, and in most cases (οι πολλοι: a curious parallel to St. Paul), like tavern-keepers, "blending, adulterating, and giving bad measure." It is plain that there are two separable ideas here. One is that of men qualifying the Gospel, infiltrating their own ideas into the Word of God, tempering its severity, or perhaps its goodness, veiling its inexorableness, dealing in compromise. The other is that all such proceedings are faithless and dishonest, because some private interest underlies them. It need not be avarice, though it is as likely to be this as anything else. A man corrupts the Word of God, makes it the stock-in-trade of a paltry business of his own, in many other ways than by subordinating it to the need of a livelihood. When he exercises his calling as a minister for the gratification of his vanity, he does so. When he preaches not that awful message in which life and death are bound up, but himself, his cleverness, his learning, his humor, his fine voice even or fine gestures, he does so. He makes the Word minister to him, instead of being a minister of the Word; and that is the essence of the sin. It is the same if ambition be his motive, if he preaches to win disciples to himself, to gain an ascendancy over souls, to become the head of a party which will bear the impress of his mind. There was something of this at Corinth; and not only there, but wherever it is found, such a spirit and such interests will change the character of the Gospel. It will not be preserved in that integrity, in that simple, uncompromising, absolute character which it has as revealed in Christ. Have another interest in it than that of God, and that interest will inevitably color it. You will make it what it was not, and the virtue will depart from it.
In contrast with all such dishonest ministers, the Apostle represents himself and his friends speaking "as of sincerity." They have no mixture of motives in their work as evangelists; they have indeed no independent motives at all: God is leading them in triumph, and proclaiming His grace through them. It is He who prompts every word (ως εκ θεου). Yet their responsibility and their freedom are intact. They feel themselves in His presence as they speak, and in that presence they speak "in Christ." "In Christ" is the Apostles mark. Not in himself apart from Christ, where any mixture of motives, any process of adulteration, would have been possible, but only in that union with Christ which was the very life of his life, did he carry on his, evangelistic work. This was his final security, and it is still the only security, that the Gospel can have fair play in the world.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson1891 · Public DomainOn vv12–1712–17. When I came to Troas to preach Christ's…
12–17. When I came to Troas to preach Christ's gospel. See Acts 16:8 and 20:5–12. In Acts two visits to Troas are named, but the one alluded to here is omitted. Troas was then a large city, situated not far from the site of old Troy, and almost within sight of Europe. There is now a small village there and extensive ruins. See notes in Acts. A door was opened. An opportunity for the gospel. Though he did not tarry now, a little later we find a church there (Acts 20:5).
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 Commentary1892 · Public DomainOn v122Co_2:12. Troas.—Act_20:1-6. Note, “for the Gospel,” literally exact. Door.—Cf.…
CRITICAL NOTES
2Co_2:12. Troas.—Act_20:1-6. Note, “for the Gospel,” literally exact. Door.—Cf. 1Co_16:9, and material there.
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2Co_2:13.—See Homily, “Conqueror; Captives; Incense.” Assumed in the homiletics, with most, that, although festive processions in honour of Bacchus are closely connected with the earliest root of the word “triumph,” yet the word had been borrowed and was in common use for the triumph of a victorious Roman general; which Roman triumph, moreover, alone supplies the figure with the touch of “incense.” [See these points, and nearly all others, dealt with in the various homilies which follow.] Cf. Luk_20:18. “Men must build with the Stone, or be crushed beneath it.” Also Luk_2:24. “This Child is set … for the fall and for the rising again of many.” Men fall, or rise, whenever they come into contact with Christ in a faithful Gospel. [Happily, all who rise have first “fallen.” The “fall” is the first thing. Men may do both; they must, in order to a full salvation.] The triumph of Memmius, a century earlier, after the sack of Corinth, had been a very remarkable and famous triumph, certain to be in the minds of Paul’s readers.
HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.—2Co_2:12-17
(Nearly all the details of interpretation of 2Co_2:14-16 will be found more fully taken up in the detailed Homiletics which follow.)
I. “Paul turning away from ‘an open door’!”—
1. A marvel! This is the man who in his former letter could not leave his work at Ephesus because there was “a great door and effectual” opened to him (1Co_16:9). In this very Troad and its neighbourhood he had on a former journey tried many “doors,” only to find that they were not “open”; closed against him by the “Spirit of Jesus” (Act_16:6-8). Now the door was open, and apparently he did enter and begin his work, and in a brief while with much success; for on the return journey from Corinth he found a little Church in Troas with whom he spent the Sunday (Act_19:5-12). Yet he put his work down, left the open door, and in “restlessness” of spirit, and in anxiety about Corinth, from which there came no tidings, he crossed over into the Macedonian region to meet Titus, as he hoped, the sooner [as he, in fact, did (2Co_7:6)].
2. Such a detail, with its self-revelation, has no small value from the point of view of the historical student. Just such touches as these make it impossible, without a scepticism which puts the sceptic altogether out of court, as not deserving to be listened to, to doubt that we are dealing with a document historically veracious to the last degree, the real letter of a real man, of the date which is professed and claimed; with all the evidential consequences which flow from the genuineness and the contemporary testimony of such a letter from such a competent witness. Such details are important credentials of a revelation which is nothing if not historic.
3. But they are parts of the revelation.—God reveals His mind partly in selected histories and biographies, “stories with a purpose,” those points being brought out in the telling which best help the purpose of the Divine Narrator. Plainly, then, the highest type of worker is not above “moods” and almost uncontrollable emotion; such moods and deep emotion as may unsettle him, and even render it impossible for him to continue his work. “The peace of God which is to guard heart and thoughts” (Php_4:7), standing sentry, as it were, at the heart’s door and preventing the entrance of distressing or mischievous thought, is no such mechanical defence as to produce mere insensibility. There is in perfect service no such mechanical labour, no such mechanical fulfilment of duty, as might be got from a machine wound up to do a set task, and going rigorously through with it, without interest or without feeling. “But, Paul cannot you trust your work at Corinth in the hands of your Master? After all, is it not more His work than yours? You did your part at Corinth whilst you lived there; you have done your part in this unhappy business about the incestuous man, by writing your letter and by sending Titus. Cannot you now leave the issues, and go quietly on with your work? We know, indeed, that your personal stake in the matter is not small, but we know, too, that your reputation has long ago been put into the hands of your Lord. What the Corinthians will have thought and done, when they got your letter, whether they will obey you, or whether this will have inflamed the factious party into fresh opposition, or even have given them a means of bringing over to their side some who have hitherto been ‘of Paul,’—we know how little you regard this for your own sake. Cannot you ‘rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him’? and meanwhile work on, within this open door in the Troad?” There is nothing in such thoughts which is not truth, and the high privilege of the life consecrated so entirely to Christ that everything in it, like the man himself, is Christ’s, not his own. No life was ever more utterly removed from all self-centering thought or work or care than was Paul’s: “to him to live was ‘Christ.’ ” Yet we love him none the worse, nor is he the less valuable a detail of God’s revealed will on such matters, that his very example here checks all unhealthy and exaggerated application of such truths as were just now suggested. There is not the rigid support of, and compliance with, a relentless code which takes no account of human nature. In the illustrative and didactic instance which Paul supplies there is the perfect naturalness and elasticity of simple, real life. No man more certainly than he would subordinate all personal considerations to the interests of the work of Christ. But neither did His Lord expect him not to feel, to feel acutely, to feel with a depth of emotion which was a real disqualification for going on with his work in Troas. We serve a profoundly reasonable Master, Who knows exactly how much to expect from His servants, of submission in days of sorrow, of acquiescence in days of disappointment, of peace and rest as well as trust in days when, naturally, circumstances would keep brain and heart in a whirl of anxiety, or strained to their utmost tension. After all, the work of Christ at Corinth was the main thing at stake. To this, even in Paul’s mind, everything else stood second. We love Paul none the less, nor did his Lord, we may well believe, condemn him, that his distress turned him away from “an open door.”
II. Paul in the train of Christ’s triumph.—
1. Such details as we have been studying are part of God’s Revelation, taken up into it, made the vehicle of a distinct addition to our knowledge of the mind of God, and of His will on such questions of the practical conduct of Christian men. So, similarly, such changes of plan, hingeing on such trivial occasions, are all parts of the progress of the Gospel. They are all contributory to the great plan of campaign, according to which Christ is subduing the world to Himself. They all fall in with the movement of His march to ultimate victory over “things in earth” (Php_2:10). They are small details of a great progress whose goal is the day when it shall be proclaimed that “the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of God’s Christ” (Rev_11:5). It is a progress which seems often retarded. The ground occupied in this very Asia and Troas and Macedonia, is hardly retained for Him to-day. It is often difficult for faith to see any movement at all; more difficult to see any plan at all. The faith which does see the plan, and hold fast to its hope in the triumph, is a grace, the gift of the “Spirit of faith.” It is one subordinate manifestation of the supreme faith, which that Spirit also alone gives, that “Jesus is the Lord” (1Co_12:3). If that truth be grasped, all else is held. “We see not yet all things put under Him. Though the name of Christ rises ever more loudly above the tumult, the day of victory seems far off. But by the Holy Ghost we know that ‘nothing which ought not to be need be.’ We look back and see forms of evil dead—it may be dead for ever. Evil itself lives, and may even seem after some triumph of good to close in more pitilessly than before, but to those who take the large outlook it is clear that progress is being made. To say that the fight is hopeless is to deny the Lordship of Christ.… There is danger unfathomable and unending in admitting that any wrong is inevitable, that anything is too hard for the Lord” (Editorial, British Weekly, October 26th, 1893). Every conversion has this significance and this importance to the history of the very world itself, that one more life which lay athwart, or ran counter to, the line of the movement of the will of God, and the progress of King Jesus to His final and universal victory, is brought into parallelism, and moves with the Divine movement. And then, all the details of that life, all its activities and aims, in proportion as they are pervaded with the spirit of consecrated service and are made a perpetually renewed offering to Christ, for His service and glory, become details in the triumph of the Great Conqueror. In the old phrase, all such turnings away from Troas and crossings over into Macedonia, are “overruled” for the advantage of the work of God. At the least, the “knowledge of Christ and its savour” are thus “made manifest” in a greater number of cities and centres. No man is on that account to indulge “moods” and “feelings”; to pick up this work, or lay down the other, according as he may, or may not, “feel in the spirit of it”; to enter one door “because he is happy in the work” there, and turn aside from another, or quit it, when he has entered it, because “he was not happy.” But Paul’s quick faith triumphs over the record and the memory of his keen distress at Troas. “It is all right! Thank God! The triumph moves on nevertheless. And we with it! Glory be to God!”
2. The triumph sweeps everybody into its course.—There are no mere spectators. Paul was an enemy once. He is a trophy of the Great Imperator now. He is indeed (by a quick transformation) a soldier sharing, in some humble part, the triumph. It is Christ’s triumph, indeed. The Lord is the Centre of the spectacle. But every subaltern and private is the object of somebody’s regard; to them, he is triumphing. To himself, at any rate, he is triumphant. Nobody who comes into contact with Christ remains indifferent. Triumphed over, and that only, and dragged onward “to death”; or triumphed over, and led onward, triumphing also, “to life.” If Christ’s triumph “comes our way,” we must, in one way or another, “fall in.” To Paul himself the “savour,” so far as he knew of it, was once “of death, unto death”; now “the savour” of his living Lord—not lying dead or corrupting in Joseph’s new tomb—was “of life,” as, himself “saved by the Lords life” (Rom_5:10) and diffusing a Gospel “of life” wherever he went, he moved onward “to life,” “to lay hold of the life which is Life indeed” (1Ti_6:19).
III. Paul a genuine man dispensing a genuine Gospel.—
1. Other men might, and did, use an incense whose “savour” was not simply and only “of Christ.” There was in most cases much of Christ in it, or at least something. [Even the men at Rome who were preaching with “by-motives, not sincerely,” and indeed in a spirit “of contention,” were at least so “preaching Christ” that Paul rejoiced at their work, though only with a modified joy and satisfaction (Php_1:18).] Whilst they bade men “Come buy and eat” (Isa_55:1), there was adulteration in their bread, there was admixture in their wine. [The “milk” was not “the sincere milk of the Word” (1Pe_2:2).] Like dishonest hucksters, for their own gain, or at best for some personal satisfaction, they dealt in a “Word of God” which was not “incorrupt” [Tit_2:7; but quite another word and figure from that of the text here]. Jewish admixture everywhere; half-heathen, childish superstition in Colosse; rationalising treatment of fundamental truths at Corinth; “many” dealt deceitfully with the Word they preached. [See Homiletics on “Charity,” 1Co_13:5, “thinketh no evil.”] By-motives in the preaching, even if the truth preached were tolerably pure. “Many!” What a view of “Primitive Christianity”! [Shall the figure be pushed so far as to suggest that some diffusers of the incense try so to compound it that it shall not be a “savour of death,” even to the “natural” man? Try so to flavour the wine that the “natural” palate likes it, or at least makes no great objection to it?]
2. Not so Paul.—He returns to the protest he made in 2Co_1:12, that his whole character and conduct had been at the uttermost remove from any of the self-seeking, the vacillation, or tricky change of purpose with which he was charged at Corinth. But he lifts the whole matter of his personal vindication up to a higher level here than there. Then he protested his “sincerity” as between himself and them; here he protests it in respect of his dealing with “the Word.” Yet even on that lower level it was a “sincerity of God,” which he here also claims; his phrases here analysing that of the earlier verse. He speaks in God’s hearing, conscious of a Listener before Whom he stands, seen through and through, heard through and through. No falsehood of heart but will ring in the voice, to that Ear! No unsoundness, no evil admixture, in his teaching can escape the scrutiny of that Eye. The Great Analyst knows that he does not deal falsely with the Gospel, the “Word of God” put into his mouth to speak. He can “call God to witness upon his soul,” he said (2Co_1:23). He can lay bare his inmost heart and thought, and challenge that scrutiny. He may well do so, for his “sincerity” is a grace, a gift “of God” by His Spirit. Happy that teacher of Divine truth who is sustained under calumny, or in the midst of misunderstanding, by such a confidence! “The Lord God of gods, the Lord God of gods, he knoweth, and Israel he shall know” (Jos_22:22). Happy if he never be betrayed into conduct in his office, if never a word come from his lips, concerning which he needs to falter as he faces his own conscience, and concerning which also, as far as man may, he may not look up into the face of God, and claim even His witness that he has not knowingly dealt falsely with his trust, “the Word” which has been given to him to administer. What a check upon everything but supreme loyalty to God’s Truth! What a defence against temptation to man-pleasing! And against self-pleasing! And against any dishonest retailing of old formulas which, rightly or wrongly, no longer represent a man’s beliefs! Honesty, honesty, before all things honesty, in the man who deals with the honest, genuine “Word of God”! Is any most unprincipled, adulterating tradesman so base as the man who adulterates the Bread by which men Live, the “Word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God”? Let the world have at least that as genuine as the apostle, the prophet, the teacher, can give it. This sincere man deals out a genuine Gospel.
SEPARATE HOMILIES
2Co_2:14-16. The triumph; the Captives; the Incense.—[Probably, if not certainly, imagery derived from a Roman triumph.] One of the grandest spectacles of ancient world. All Rome kept holiday; everybody in the streets. Sometimes the show for three whole days winding its way along up to the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol. All ranks and ages watching the long procession hour after hour, with unflagging interest. The Victorious Army, with the spoil heaped up upon long trains of waggons; piles of gold and silver coin; magnificent dresses and ornaments; statues and pictures, such as Memmius had carried off from plundered Corinth; arms and armour from the battle-field. Then the Captives; of strange garb and look and speech. Then the Conqueror, the man of the Day. Not seldom, in golden fetters, bound to, and walking behind, his chariot, the unhappy general, or king, or queen of the conquered foes; often overwhelmed with ridicule, reproach, abuse, by the merciless, civilised brutality of the spectators. The procession moved along amidst clouds of Incense; many in the procession swung censers; burning braziers of charcoal fed with it along the line of route; a fragrance grateful to all! No, not to all. To some of those captives the fate appointed at the end of the day is Death. To the public eye the end of the spectacle will be the conqueror’s sacrifice in the temple of Jupiter. To the victorious troops, dismissal with rewards, each to become a hero in his little home circle. To the mass of captives, slavery, but life. To the condemned ones, death in the rock-hewn dungeons close by the Capitoline Hill. To these the “grateful” incense smells foul as the breath of a charnel-house. To all besides, “a sweet savour,” a “savour of life,” as they move on towards, at least life, if not liberty. To these “a savour of death,” as they move onwards “unto death.” [Most of these points are used in the passage; with some confusion of metaphor, or rather an intentional change in the use of the illustration, characteristic of Paul.]
I. What a Christian’s life is to himself.—
1. He is being led, by God, from place to place, in the triumphal procession of Christ. Paul is writing from Macedonia. At Troas, just before, he had found “an open door,” but had, strangely, turned away from it and had crossed over into Europe. Such a sudden change and movement was a sample of his life. “Found no rest for his spirit” in Troas; found no rest for his body anywhere! His life was an incessant movement. Antioch one day; Ephesus almost the next; Ephesus to Corinth; Corinth to Jerusalem; Jerusalem to Rome—the other end of the world of that day! Traversing the Roman Empire in journeys which were rather flights than journeys. To us it seems a wearing, restless, anxious life. To him God’s hand was in all such changes. Even a trivial change like this in question is part of God’s will and plan for Paul’s life. He accepted all such incessant change with acquiescence; indeed, with thankfulness and rejoicing. “Thanks be to God” who is thus leading him about from place to place in the train of the triumph of Jesus Christ! He only waits to know where God would have him go next. He follows gladly, since he follows Christ!
2. So for every Christian man. In every change of station, of circumstances, of abode, he should seek and follow the leading of God. Then even the most perplexing, harassing diversion from his own plans will be no matter of chafing discontent and fretful irritation, but of glorying acquiescence in the plan of God.
3. How grand this makes even the humblest life! The procession, the train of Christ’s triumph, is moving onward with majestic march, swelling in numbers as it advances. He is sweeping onward in triumph; the humblest of His people is moving on in triumph with Him—onward to the consummate day of His triumph.
4. From place to place he is being exhibited as one of Christ’s trophies. Grammatically, it may be either, “Maketh us to triumph,” or “Triumpheth over us.” Both are true. He is shown in the triumph; he shares in the triumph. The army and the captives are here one and the same company. Christ has been God’s General, sent to reduce rebellious earth to submission. Began the war single-handed. Every slain enemy becomes a living helper and a soldier. Other conquerors begin with an army, and lessen or lose it as the war proceeds. Our Captain began without an army, and wins and makes one as the war goes on. Has no victorious army but of conquered captives. Every enemy who submits, falls into the ranks of those who obey His command. The marvel of the mercy of the Gospel this. Every soldier has been an enemy. Rebels not only forgiven and allowed to live, but enlisted, and richly rewarded for service. Those over whom Christ triumphs, triumph with Him in His march to heaven. By-and-by, when He enters in glory through the “everlasting doors” the “King of Glory,” they shall appear with Him in, and with Him enter into, glory.
5. The victory of a Christian is the victory of one first vanquished. A soul’s victory begins in Christ’s victory over it. “Thanks to God who triumphs over us in Christ, for in Christ He makes us to triumph with Christ too!”
II. What a Christian’s life is to God.—
1. A grand exhibition of His conquering power, but also of His gracious heart in Christ towards all who submit. His method of advertising, of diffusing “in every place, the knowledge of Christ.” Paul a consummate example of this principle. Did his worst in rebellion against God’s Christ. A pre-eminent persecutor; a zealot of the zealots. Then what a change! Preaches the faith he once destroyed; preaches it, as he persecuted it, “unto strange cities” (Act_26:11). Paul was in himself a fact which was a consummate testimony for Christ. In himself he was text and preacher and sermon. [“A pattern,” 1Ti_1:15-16.] To see Paul was to see what Christ could do. Not only his preaching, but his exhibition in this place and that, a captive chained to the chariot of Christ, was diffusing “the knowledge of Christ in every place.” If God be pleased so to use him, so to lead him hither and thither, he acquiesces, he glories. [Same turn of thought in 2Co_10:5. Read Paul, and see how this Rabbi’s whole system of thought—doctrinal, exegetical, ethical—wears the bonds of Christ. “Every thought led captive.” See Homilies, in loco.]
2. A work for God within the reach of all. Let Christ conquer; put His yoke upon natural pride, anger—“natural” everything; subdue, in business, home, all; then let God exhibit the man, parade him up and down the world, an example of His conquering power, His matchless grace. The great business of life. After some great change in life, involving a new home, perhaps, a new surrounding, a new beginning in everything; thrust, perhaps into an unintended, unexpected, unwelcome destination; after the earliest, inevitable, adjustment to the new conditions in which life to be spent, livelihood to be won, then ask: “Why am I put here? I have been led here in the train of Christ’s triumph, to diffuse here the knowledge of Christ.” A purpose that, to which every other stands second. “To be a savour.” Anybody can swing, can be, a censer! Men see the smoke of the incense. Cannot see the “savour.” Invisible, impalpable, unmistakable! So, how fine to meet these about whose every act, word, movement, hangs something defying analysis, impalpable, intangible, unmistakable, and all Christ! Nothing so much appeals to a non-Christian. [A “sweet savour.” Would that it were always sweet! Religion real, obvious, respected, in some Christians, but not “sweet.”] “Of Christ;” this important. Many lives, lovely, beloved, giving out a sweet savour. What is wanting? The trained “scent” of the spiritual man misses something from the incense! Christ wanting!
III. What a Christian’s life is to others.—
1. Everybody will not like the incense even when its savour is loveliest, perfect. To the captives it made all the difference whether it were the accompaniment of the march “to life,” or the march “to death.”
2. Note the sharp division of mankind into “those that are being saved”; and “those that are [now] perishing.” Here a ready test is provided. When a man comes across the “savour” of the incense, does he like it—or not? To “those who are perishing” the Gospel is loathsome as death. Is full of “death.” A dead (“crucified”) Christ; “dead in sins”; “dead to sin”; “dead with Christ.” A “savour of death” seemed to such to hang about all Paul’s preaching.
3. More than that, the Christian man and his testimony help “to life,” or help “to death.” No man can be neutral in the presence of Christ, or of the Gospel, or of a true Christian. Better—or worse—for knowing even one such. [Like his Lord, every Christian man is “come for judgment” (Joh_9:39). I.e. inevitably forces every man with whom associated, to take up an attitude, for or against, God and Christ; is inevitably a present test of character; necessarily ranges men as either “unto life” or “unto death.”] Well may Paul add, “Who is sufficient?” The issues, the responsibility, of a life full of the savour of Christ are terrible! How much more of one where the testimony is marred by inconsistency, the “savour” mingled with what is not “of Christ”!
2Co_2:16. “Who is sufficient?”
I. The minister of the Gospel speaks in these words, as they stand in the Epistle. But they leap to the lips, they are the sigh of the deepest heart, of many another besides a minister.—There are responsibilities for all. There is no worthy life which has none. The self-sufficient heart that never feels them any burden, that in mere shallow light-heartedness, or slight-heartedness, feels itself at a moment’s notice “equal to anything,” that with the mechanical imperturbability of a Nasmyth steam-hammer is as ready without a misgiving “to forge an anchor as to crack a nut,” has no sense of the meaning of “Life.” The sense of insufficiency with which worthier souls must often go forward to meet and assume responsibilities, is one of the keenest and most daunting pains; none causes more exquisite suffering to a soul filled with a tender conscientiousness. Yet no worthy Man would purchase exemption, at the price of less sensitiveness or a duller conscience. But it makes, not dying but, living the awfully solemn thing. It is easier to die once, and “to die well” and to have done with it, than to live, “once” indeed also, but a “once” which is extended over twenty, forty, eighty years, at every point of which may be danger of failure, at every point responsibility, new burdens gathering as we go, old ones persistently pressing upon our heart, till life is often one long-drawn strain upon the brain and heart, themselves already tense with the sense of responsibility and of inadequacy. The solemnity of life is not that with untarrying pace it is leading to death—death which crowns all with a swift and irreversible “judgment”; nor that it is doing so much to determine what that death and its issues shall be. In the true view of life, it is a continuous thing, beginning here, but stretching on unbroken through the veil of “death,” into the unseen aud eternal. It is a continuous existence, in which dying is a momentary, and not the most important, incident, one of which the most that can be said is that it introduces to, and marks the commencement of, a new section of the new life—“new” because transacted in new conditions and surroundings. To a Christian man dying has been almost emptied of meaning, as well as of dread. It is not only that the “sting” is gone; the thing itself is practically “abolished” (2Ti_1:10). The eternal life has begun, but its real solemnity arises from the responsibilities of living, responsibilities before men and towards God. There are those, e.g.,
II. Of the individual.—
1. Nous mourrons seuls. One might say with equal truth, “We live alone.” “Thou art the man,” is the word of God, in all rebuke of sin, in all calls to duty, in all believing unto salvation, in the day of Christ’s judgment of men. God’s claims, our duties—with them each man has singly to do; for them each one of us must “give account of himself to God” (Rom_14:12). As in creation no two atoms really touch each other, so souls are essentially apart. There are collective duties for which there is a collective responsibility, of co-extensive area of incidence. But even then a personal responsibility accrues for the assuming of one’s own share in the collective work and obligation. In the end, everything comes back to the individual. “When I remember, in view of this, with what unmeasured powers our Creator has endowed us, and that I am not only responsible for what is done by them, but for what they might do if I rightly used them; when I remember that God has an unquestionable right to all my activities, all my thoughts, all my love; and when withal I am conscious of Sin and Satan so often engrossing and mastering me, that I am daily ‘robbing God’ (Mal_3:8) upon His own earth, under His very eye,—in a word, when I think of all that I ought to do, and all that I ought to be, as contrasted with what I really am, I feel that, in the face of every fact concerning my responsibility as an individual merely, I may well exclaim with trembling, ‘Who is sufficient for these things?’ ” Then there are responsibilities arising from—
2. His relationships.—“By connection with our fellow-men none of our old obligations to God are abrogated. There is not one code of morals for the man and another for the merchant, not one law for the individual and another for the statesman, warrior, king. All God’s claims are binding on us always—wrong is wrong, right is right, everywhere. By entering on new relationships we can never free ourselves from the moral laws that are authoritative upon us as individuals; on the contrary, new relationships create new responsibilities. Who can measure the responsibilities of a parent? To the father and mother of that infant are committed most of its preparation for the stern and deadly struggle with sin, which is to decide its eternal destiny. The privilege of training a child for a beautiful and true life here, and for a yet more beautiful and true life hereafter, is the most surpassingly glorious a parent’s heart can desire; the responsibility of having by lip or life ruined a child here, leaving it to wander, lost, homeless, for ever, will be the most crushing a parent’s heart can bear.” No father or mother who remembers how pliable and how delicate a thing is the young character, but will cry out, “Who is sufficient?” A single slip of the seal engraver’s tool, or too deep a cutting, may mar the labour of months. Parents are cutting an image in a most precious gem. A weight or a bond too many may give a warp to the young branch, which shall never be straightened out all life through. A wrong word or a wrong act may make its indelible mark upon the fearfully “spoilable” material, and yet so valuable, entrusted to us to work upon. And who can measure the responsibilities of a preacher? Men talk lightly of the preacher’s life, as if he had “light work, good position, good pay”! There is honour, truly. Every man worthy to be in the ranks of the ministry, understands the privilege of being the confidant and comforter of souls, and their helper in sorrow. It is no mean honour to be in an office where he may speak words welcome to weary hearts as water to the thirsty traveller in an Arabian desert, or words which may send on the hearer into the week of worry and toil with new energy and hope. To send away singing some heart that came sad; to say words which in another heart shall ring on many following days like a trumpet-call to duty; or which in a moment of danger shall recur to another, perhaps to a young man in his hour of temptation, like the gentle voice of a warning friend; to be permited to speak words which shall for many a day feed men and women as with supernatural strength, or which may even awaken some soul that is slumbering on, heedless of its high destiny and its awful progress toward eternity, marking the turning-point of a life,—all this is an honour angels might covet; the dignity of being God’s ambassador yields to none other. But the responsibility of it! If the congregation come and go and no soul be cheered, or fed, or warned; if no lesson be taught, and no impetus given to the good in any life; what then? The man’s “service” is a failure, if no heart is lifted to God, if the sheep turn away hungry still; if the children gather round their elder brother, and he give them the stone of mere lecturing, or the husks of mere brilliance. There is a partial failure if the hearer be only instructed, and not persuaded. The heart may be moved, the intellect satisfied; but, if the will be not moved? “Who is sufficient?” Men understand what it is in business to pay high salaries for trustworthiness and responsibility. Money, life, depend upon one man’s skill and judgment and fidelity, and men pay accordingly. But for how much “pay” will a man intelligently undertake to “watch for souls as one that must give account”? Stand at the great “Day” by a preacher confronted with a man once in his congregation who says, and truly, “I came hungry, or perplexed, or indifferent,—or under deep conviction of sin, and you had no word for me. I passed on; my disappointed heart made me sceptical. I doubted God, or hated Him.” Another, “I passed on, hardening under your powerless word, and now am lost.” Another, “I, too, passed on, and my convictions died away.” Certainly the responsibility of the loss of a soul never lies entirely at a preacher’s door. Every man knows that, at the very heart of the matter, the responsibility is his own, however others may have contributed to the conditions of his life. But if in that Day that minister says: “Ah! that was the day when I had made ‘scamped,’ hasty preparation; when in mere spiritual indolence my closet devotion had been slurred over, when my own tone was low, and I went into the pulpit powerless. It was my opportunity with that man; I was not that day the man to seize it. I am saved here; but he—” As those that must give account of the sermons of a year, of a ministry; and of that incessant ministry of pastoral and personal character. For how much “pay” will a man undertake this? Then, further, are to be added the considerations here specially pressing upon Paul. On the most faithful ministry of the most spiritual man hangs not only life, but death. Some hearers he will certainly not save; as certainly will their heart pervert his ministry into the occasion of “death.” “For judgment Christ came into the world,” etc. (Joh_9:39). “For judgment” is every man come into the world. Every man is a test of character, swift, decisive, inevitable, to every other man with whom he comes into contact. Goodness will reveal and help goodness; but it may awaken and irritate into hatred the evil which it finds. And the minister is a test, and his word is a test, to men and women. The more faithful he is to the ideal and the responsibility of his office, the more surely is he set for “judgment” amongst his fellows. Life and death hang upon mere individual living; who dares live? Life and death depend on parental wisdom and love; who dares train a child? Life and death hang upon the ministry of the Gospel; who dares speak in the name of Christ? “Who is sufficient?” “Brethren, pray for us!”—Slightly suggested by “Homilist,” New Series, iv. 385.
2Co_2:16. “Who is sufficient?”
I. These words express a sense of the greatness of the work undertaken.—The ministry is a work
1. Great in its nature.—There is the exposition of the Bible. In His word He has given us the highest teaching, the divinest doctrine. He has taught us concerning our own past, and the world’s past, our own and the world’s future. Above all, He has given light on our relationship to Himself;—ourselves, Himself, and the Mediator between us. Hence there is here the greatest truth that can possess man’s mind, truth that the angels desire to look into, and which take us an eternity to understand; truth, too, whose distinguishing glory it is to be remedial in its nature, restorative in its aim. Every man is bound to be a student of the Holy Book and a learner for himself at the feet of the Great Teacher; the minister pre-eminently should acquaint himself with its truths, and aid those around him to understand them and feel their power. And all this statement and enforcing of truth must be in Paul’s spirit,—Christ’s. When the study of the preacher is unfaithful, unfilial, and his preaching unloving, unsympathetic, unchristian; when there is medley doctrine, or a forced, unnatural earnestness in its promulgation, the pulpit is weak. Not only does Christ claim that His spirit shall be present in the work of His servants; the very world of “society” demands it, and triumphs if it be absent, or lost. To misrepresent the truth of God, the life of Christ; to be erroneous in teaching and inconsistent in character,—the possibility makes a man cry: “Who is sufficient?”
2. Great in its influence.—To influence and mould deathless souls! To have to do with the understanding, heart, will, of man, with all their outworkings now and for ever! “The preaching is to bless or curse all who listen. It is to save those who receive it, from sin, self, hell; to save them by means of the truth, through the love of Christ, by the Spirit of God. It is to unshackle every undying power of the enslaved soul. It is to heal the diseased, to raise the dead. But those whom it will not bless it will curse; it will harden them in sin. It will add to their privileges and responsibilities new ones which will utter for ever a condemning cry against them. This continual, inevitable, twofold effect make the work awfully responsible, momentously great.”
II. The insufficiency of man to perform the work.—
1. How inadequate is man to expound the Scripture. “Easy work to preach the Gospel; it is so simple!” So they say; but is it? If an intelligent, harmonious representation of truth be given, there is material for the highest thought, scope for every faculty. Every power is challenged to the work, for also, in a true sense, man’s reason must be satisfied; the truth must be so presented as to do homage to the Book and persuade the man.
2. Is it “easy,” again, for feeble man to cherish the spirit essential to the work, a living sympathy with all that is holy and true, and a righteous hatred to all that is corrupt and false, unswerving loyalty to the claims of God, unchangeable love to the souls of men? It is impossible to interpret the Book without a spirit too real for pietism, too earnest for fearfulness, too holy for dalliance with sin; is it easy to retain such a spirit?
3. Who has ever taught even a Sabbath scholar, and, much more, who has tried to win an adult for Christ by direct, personal effort, but has learned this lesson, most quickly and most surely of all—the pitiable powerlessness of human strength to dislodge Satan from the hearts which we would bless? To attempt to guide the judgment or move the will of some wayward youth, or hardened profligate, or utter, though “blameless,” worldling,—it is a child’s attack upon a garrisoned fortress. It is hard to bless; and if the word do not bless “unto life,” it must hurt “unto death.” “Who is sufficient?”
III. The qualification for the work.—The great, primary qualification is this very spirit of conscious inefficiency. “When I am weak, then am I strong.” The old heathen believed that their heroes were strengthened to dare and to do, by becoming possessed of the skill and might of the gods of their special devotion. Their dream may be our reality. Only with them the gods favoured the cunning, the vaunting, the strong; our God “increaseth strength”—for work, as well as for journeying or endurance—“to them that have no might” (Isa_40:29). Depressing want of apparent success may often be needed to crush out egoism, self-sufficiency, pride, until in helplessness the man is at last flung upon God and His might. When men “have toiled all night and have caught nothing,” then are they ready to be helped and guided by their Master to a “catch” whose success is His, not theirs. To succeed, men must work and teach and live in this spirit of conscious insufficiency. “That no flesh should glory in His presence!”—Founded on homily by U. R. Thomas, “Homilist,” New Series, ii. 387 sqq.
HOMILETIC SUGGESTIONS
2Co_2:15-16. Manward and Godward Aspects of the Gospel Ministry.
I. Manward.—It may have a vivifying effect. It may have a deadly influence. Because of three unalterable principles:
1. The greater the mercy abused the greater the condemnation.
2. The susceptibility to good impressions decreases in proportion to the resistance against them.
3. Man’s moral suffering will be increased in proportion to his consciousness that he once had the means of being happy. [“Woe unto thee, Chorazin,” etc.]
II. Godward.—A true ministry is unto God “a sweet savour,” whatever be its effects upon humanity. [Query is this the meaning of “unto God”? and not rather, “for God’s purposes (and glory)?”] It is in itself, therefore, for good, for good exclusively. It may be the occasion of evil, but it is the cause of good. [Cf. a similar, though not parallel, thought in Rom_7:10.] Therefore,
1. It saves by design; it destroys, if at all, in spite of its design.
2. It saves by its inherent tendency; it injures, if at all, in spite of that tendency.
3. It saves by Divine agency; it destroys, if at all, in spite of that agency. [“Ye do resist the Holy Ghost.”]—Extracted with modifications from “Homilist,” New Series, ii. 468.
2Co_2:17. The Word is Corrupted.
I. By introducing error, human philosophy, private opinions, irrelevant matter, by the omission or misrepresentation of important truths, selfish aims.
II. How it ought to be preached—faithfully, sincerely, humbly, earnestly.—[J. L.]
[Or start by inquiring what in common life is “adulteration,” and what are the motives of it.]
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. Godbey1900 · Public DomainOn v1414. “Thanks be unto God, who causeth us to…
THE GOSPEL OMINOUS OF DOOM
14. “Thanks be unto God, who causeth us to triumph in Christ, manifesting the odor of the knowledge of Himself through us in every place.” The apostles are everywhere the heralds of victory in Christ, who causes them to triumph over all of their spiritual foes, their message of truth, testimony of personal Salvation, songs of joy and shouts of victory filling the very atmosphere with the fragrant odors of the knowledge of Christ; i. e., everything they say and do is constantly revelatory of the knowledge of Christ.
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15. “Because we are a sweet savor to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.” So long as we are in this world we are not saved in a final sense, but only being saved, i. e., in process of salvation, ripening for Heaven, justification being primary salvation, sanctification full salvation and glorification final salvation. Meanwhile the wicked are not yet damned, but only condemned, with an opportunity to have the condemnatory sentence rescinded. There is no final issue in either case till we pass out of this probation. The true ministers are a sweet savor to God, because they so proclaim the whole counsel of God as to turn the full responsibility over to the hearers, thus vindicating the Divine justice and magnifying sovereign mercy, whether in the case of salvation or perdition.
16. “To the latter an odor from death unto death, and to the former an odor of life unto life. Who is sufficient for these things?” In the case of the wicked, we are an odor from the spiritual death which now locks them tight unto the eternal death which awaits them. In the case of the righteous, we are an odor from the glorious spiritual life they now enjoy, to the ineffable joys of the eternal life to which they fast hasten, the present state in either case being significantly ominous of the momentous future. No wonder he indulges in the interjection, “Who is equal to these things?” Tremendous are the issues and immeasurable the responsibilities.
17. “For we are not as many, who are in the habit of adulterating the Word of God .” What an awful responsibility! and yet how many are guilty of bending the Word to suit the creed or the congregation. God’s Word is His voice, replete with His awful majesty. In the first place, it is an awful pity a creed was ever made. This is the reason why they corrupt the Word to suit the creed. No one should assume the awful responsibility of handling God’s Word till he is dead to creeds, opinions, and everything but God. “But as from purity, but as from God, we speak before God in Christ.” The “sincerity” in E.V. is eilikrineias, from eilee, a “sunbeam,” and krinoo, judge. Hence it means “judged in a sunbeam,, i. e., God proposes to make your heart so pure that when illuminated by the infallible Sun of Righteousness, His own omniscient eye can see no impurity in it. We are to preach in the constant realization that we are standing in the presence of God.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren1905 · Public DomainOn v142 Corinthians
2 Corinthians
THE TRIUMPHAL PROCESSION
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2Co 2:14
I suppose most of us have some knowledge of what a Roman Triumph was, and can picture to ourselves the long procession, the victorious general in his chariot with its white horses, the laurelled soldiers, the sullen captives, with suppressed hate flashing in their sunken eyes, the wreathing clouds of incense that went up into the blue sky, and the shouting multitude of spectators. That is the picture in the Apostle’s mind here. The Revised Version correctly alters the translation into ‘Thanks unto God which always leadeth us in triumph in Christ.’
Paul thinks of himself and of his coadjutors in Christian work as being conquered captives, made to follow their Conqueror and to swell His triumph. He is thankful to be so overcome. What was deepest degradation is to him supreme honour. Curses in many a strange tongue would break from the lips of the prisoners who had to follow the general’s victorious chariot. But from Paul’s lips comes irrepressible praise; he joins in the shout of acclamation to the Conqueror.
And then he passes on to another of the parts of the ceremonial. As the wreathing incense appealed at once to two senses, and was visible in its curling clouds of smoke, and likewise fragrant to the nostrils, so says Paul, with a singular combination of expression, ‘He maketh manifest,’ that is visible, the savour of His knowledge. From a heart kindled by the flame of the divine love there will go up the odour of a holy life visible and fragrant, sweet and fair.
And thus all Christians, and not Christian workers only in the narrower sense of the word, who may be doing evangelistic work, have set before them in these great words the very ideal and secret of their lives.
There are three things here, on each of which I touch as belonging to the true notion of a Christian life-the conquered captive; that captive partaking in the triumph of his Conqueror; and the conquered captive led as a trophy and a witness to the Conqueror’s power. These three things, I think, explain the Apostle’s thoughts here. Let me deal with them now.
I. First then, let us look at that thought of all Christians being in the truest sense conquered captives, bound to the chariot wheels of One who has overcome them.
The image implies a prior state of hostility and alienation. Now, do not let us exaggerate, let us take Paul’s own experience. He is speaking about himself here; he is not talking doctrine, he is giving us autobiography, and he says, ‘I was an enemy, and I have been conquered.’
What sort of an enemy was he? Well! He says that before he became a Christian he lived a pure, virtuous, respectable life. He was a man ‘as touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.’ Observant of all relative duties, sober, temperate, chaste; no man could say a word against him; he knew nothing against himself. His conscience acquitted him of wrong: ‘I thought I ought to do many things,’ as I did them. And yet, looking back from his present point of view upon a life thus adorned with many virtues, pure from all manifest corruption, to a large extent regulated by conscientious and religious motives of a kind, he says, ‘Notwithstanding all that, I was an enemy.’ Why? Because the retrospect let him see that his life was barren of the deepest faith and the purest love. And so I come to some of my friends here now, and I say to you, ‘Change the name, and the story is true about you,’ respectable people, who are trying to live pure and righteous lives, doing all duties that present themselves to you with a very tolerable measure of completeness and abominating and trying to keep yourselves from the things that your consciences tell you are wrong, yet needing to be conquered, in the deepest recesses of your wills and your hearts, before you become the true subjects of the true King. I do not want to exaggerate, nor to say of the ordinary run of people who listen to us preachers, that they commit manifest sins, ‘gross as a mountain, open, palpable.’ Some of you do, no doubt, for, in every hundred people, there are always some whose lives are foul and whose memories are stained and horrible; but the run of you are not like that. And yet I ask you, has your will been bowed and broken, and your heart overcome and conquered by this mighty Prince, the Prince of Peace, the Prince of Life? Unless it has, for all your righteousness and respectability, for all your outward religion and real religiousness of a sort, you are still hostile and rebellious, in your inmost hearts. That is the basis of the representation of my text.
What else does it suggest? It suggests the wonderful struggle and victory of weaponless love. As was said about the first Christian emperor, so it may be said about the great Emperor in the heavens, ‘In hoc signo vinces!’ By this sign thou shalt conquer. For His only weapon is the Cross of His Son, and He fights only by the manifestation of infinite love, sacrifice, suffering, and pity. He conquers as the sun conquers the thick-ribbed ice by raying down its heat upon it, and melting it into sweet water. So God in Christ fights against the mountains of man’s cold, hard sinfulness and alienation, and by the warmth of His own radiation turns them all into rivers that flow in love and praise. He conquers simply by forbearance and pity and love.
And what more does this first part of my text say to us? It tells us, too, of the true submission of the conquered captive; how we are conquered when we perceive and receive His love; how there is nothing else needed to win us all for Him except only that we shall recognise His great love to us.
This picture of the triumph comes with a solemn appeal and commandment to every one of us professing Christians. Think of these men, dragged at the conqueror’s chariot-wheels, abject, with their weapons broken, with their resistance quelled, chained, yoked, haled away from their own land, dependant for life or death on the caprice of the general who rode before them there. It is a picture of what you Christian men and women are bound to be if you believe that God in Christ has loved you as we have been saying that He does. For abject submission, unconditional surrender, the yielding up of our whole will to Him, the yielding of all our possessions as His vassals-these are the duties that are correspondent to the facts of the case.
If we are thus won by infinite love, and not our own, but bought with a price, no conquered king, dragged at an emperor’s chariot-wheels, was ever half as absolutely and abjectly bound to be his slave, and to live or die by his breath, as you are bound to your Master. You are Christians in the measure in which you are the captives of His spear and of His bow; in the measure in which you hold your territories as vassal kings, in the measure in which you say, stretching out your willing hands for the fetters, ‘Lord! here am I, do with me as Thou wilt.’ ‘I am not mine own; be Thou my will, my Emperor, my Commander, my all.’ Loyola used to say, as the law of his order, that every man that became a member of the Society of Jesus was to be like as a staff in a man’s hand, or like as a corpse. It was a blasphemous and wicked claim, but it is but a poor fragmentary statement of the truth about those of us who enter the real Society of Jesus, and put ourselves in His hands to be wielded as His staff and His rod, and submit ourselves to Him, not as a corpse, but yield yourselves to our Christ ‘as those that are alive from the dead.’
II. Now we have here, as part of the ideal of the Christian life, the conquered captives partaking in the triumph of their general.
Two groups made up the triumphal procession-the one that of the soldiers who had fought for, the other that of the prisoners who had fought against, the leader. And some commentators are inclined to believe that the Apostle is here thinking of himself and his fellows as belonging to the conquering army, and not to the conquered enemy. That seems to me to be less probable and in accordance with the whole image than the explanation which I have adopted. But be that as it may, it suggests to us this thought, that in the deepest reality in that Christian life of which all this metaphor is but the expression, they who are conquered foes become conquering allies. Or, to put it into other words-to be triumphed over by Christ is to triumph with Christ. And the praise which breaks from the Apostle’s lips suggests the same idea. He pours out his thanks for that which he recognises as being no degradation but an honour, and a participation in his Conqueror’s triumph.
We may illustrate that thought, that to be triumphed over by Christ is to triumph with Christ, by such considerations as these. This submission of which I have been speaking, abject and unconditional, extending to life and death, this submission and captivity is but another name for liberty. The man who is absolutely dependent upon Jesus Christ is absolutely independent of everything and everybody besides, himself included. That is to say, to be His slave is to be everybody else’s master, and when we bow ourselves to Him, and take upon us the chains of glad obedience, and life-deep as well as life-long consecration, then He breaks off all other chains from our hands, and will not suffer that any others should have a share with Him in the possession of His servant. If you are His servants you are free from all besides; if you give yourselves up to Jesus Christ, in the measure in which you give yourselves up to Him, you will be set at liberty from the worst of all slaveries, that is the slavery of your own will and your own weakness, and your own tastes and fancies. You will be set at liberty from dependence upon men, from thinking about their opinion. You will be set at liberty from your dependence upon externals, from feeling as if you could not live unless you had this, that, or the other person or thing. You will be emancipated from fears and hopes which torture the men who strike their roots no deeper than this visible film of time which floats upon the surface of the great, invisible abyss of Eternity. If you have Christ for your Master you will be the masters of the world, and of time and sense and men and all besides; and so, being triumphed over by Him, you will share in His triumph.
And again, we may illustrate the same principle in yet another way. Such absolute and entire submission of will and love as I have been speaking about is the highest honour of a man. It was a degradation to be dragged at the chariot-wheels of conquering general, emperor, or consul-it broke the heart of many a barbarian king, and led some of them to suicide rather than face the degradation. It is a degradation to submit ourselves, even as much as many of us do, to the domination of human authorities, or to depend upon men as much as many of us do for our completeness and our satisfaction. But it is the highest ennobling of humanity that it shall lay itself down at Christ’s feet, and let Him put His foot upon its neck. It is the exaltation of human nature to submit to Christ. The true nobility are those that ‘come over with the Conqueror.’ When we yield ourselves to Him, and let Him be our King, then the patent of nobility is given to us, and we are lifted in the scale of being. All our powers and faculties are heightened in their exercise, and made more blessed in their employment, because we have bowed ourselves to His control. And so to be triumphed over by Christ is to triumph with Christ.
And the same thought may be yet further illustrated. That submission which I have been speaking about so unites us to our Lord that we share in all that belongs to Him and thus partake in His triumph. If in will and heart we have yielded ourselves to Him, he that is thus joined to the Lord is one spirit, and all ‘mine is Thine, and all Thine is mine.’ He is the Heir of all things, and all things of which He is the Heir are our possession. ‘All things are yours, and ye are Christ’s.’ Thus His dominion is the dominion of all that love Him, and His heritage is the heritage of all those that have joined themselves to Him; and no sparkle of the glory that falls upon His head but is reflected on the heads of His servants. The ‘many crowns’ that He wears are the crowns with which He crowns His followers.
Thus, my brother, to be overcome by God is to overcome the world, to be triumphed over by Christ is to share in His triumph; and he over whom Incarnate Love wins the victory, like the patriarch of old in his mystical struggle, conquers in the hour of surrender; and to him it is said: ‘As a prince thou hast power with God and hast prevailed.’
III. Lastly, a further picture of the ideal of the Christian life is set before us here in the thought of these conquered captives being led as the trophies and the witnesses of His overcoming power.
That idea is suggested by both halves of our verse. Both the emblem of the Apostle as marching in the triumphal procession, and the emblem of the Apostle as yielding from his burning heart the fragrant visible odour of the ascending incense, convey the same idea, viz. that one great purpose which Jesus Christ has in conquering men for Himself, and binding them to His chariot wheels, is that from them may go forth the witness of His power and the knowledge of His name.
That opens very wide subjects for our consideration which I can only very briefly touch upon. Let me just for an instant dwell upon some of them. First, the fact that Jesus Christ, by His Cross and Passion, is able to conquer men’s wills, and to bind men’s hearts to Him, is the highest proof of His power. It is an entirely unique thing in the history of the world. There is nothing the least like it anywhere else. The passionate attachment which this dead Galilean peasant is able to evoke in the hearts of people all these centuries after His death, is an unheard of and an unparalleled thing. All other teachers ‘serve their generations by the will of God,’ and then their names become speedily less and less powerful, and thicker and thicker mists of oblivion wrap them round until they disappear. But time has no power over Christ’s influence. The bond which binds you and me to Him nineteen centuries after His death is the very same in quality as, and in degree is often far deeper and stronger than, the bond which united to Him the men that had seen Him. It stands as an unique fact in the history of the world, that from Christ of Nazareth there rays out through all the ages the spiritual power which absolutely takes possession of men, dominates them and turns them into His organs and instruments. This generation prides itself upon testing all things by an utilitarian test, and about every system says:-’Well, let us see it working.’ And I do not think that Christianity need shrink from the test. With all its imperfections, the long procession of holy men and women who, for nineteen centuries, have been marching through history, owning Christ as their Conqueror, and ascribing all their goodness to Him, is a witness to His power to sway and to satisfy men, the force of whose testimony it is hard to overthrow. And I would like to ask the simple question: Will any system of belief or of no belief, except the faith in Christ’s atoning sacrifice, do the like for men? He leads through the world the train of His captives, the evidence of His conquests.
And then, further, let me remind you that out of this representation there comes a very stimulating and solemn suggestion of duty for us Christian people. We are bound to live, setting forth whose we are, and what He has done for us. Just as the triumphal procession took its path up the Appian Way and along the side of the Forum to the altar of the Capitol, wreathed about by curling clouds of fragrant incense, so we should march through the world encompassed by the sweet and fragrant odour of His name, witnessing for Him by word, witnessing for Him by character, speaking for Him and living like Him, showing in our life that He rules us, and professing by our words that He does; and so should manifest His power.
Still further, Paul’s thanksgiving teaches us that we should be thankful for all opportunities of doing such work. Christian men and women often grudge their services and grudge their money, and feel as if the necessities for doing Christian work in the world were rather a burden than an honour. This man’s generous heart was so full of love to his Prince that it glowed with thankfulness at the thought that Christ had let him do such things for Him. And He lets you do them if you will.
So, dear friends, it comes to be a very solemn question for us. What part are we playing in that great triumphal procession? We are all of us marching at His chariot wheels, whether we know it or not. But there were two sets of people in the old triumph. There were those who were conquered by force and unconquered in heart, and out of their eyes gleamed unquenchable malice and hatred, though their weapons were broken and their arms fettered. And there were those who, having shared in the commander’s fight, shared in his triumph and rejoiced in his rule. And when the procession reached the gate of the temple, some, at any rate, of the former class were put to death before the gates. I pray you to remember that if we are dragged after Him reluctantly, the word will come: ‘These, mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before Me.’ Whereas, on the other hand, for those who have yielded heart and soul to Him in love and submission born of the reception of His great love, the blessed word will come: ‘He that overcometh shall inherit all things.’ Which of the two parts of the procession do you belong to, my friend? Make your choice where you shall march, and whether you will be His loyal allies and soldiers who share in His triumph, or His enemies, who, overcome by His power, are not melted by His love. The one live, the other perish.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey1914 · Public DomainOn vv12–17Now when I came to Troas for the gospel…
Now when I came to Troas for the gospel of Christ [i. e., intending to preach], and when a door [an opportunity-- 1Co_16:9 and note] was opened unto me in the Lord ,
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.
C. I. Scofield1917 · Public DomainOn v15(See Scofield "Rom 1:16").
saved
(See Scofield "Rom 1:16").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann1924 · Public DomainOn v12Paul’s Triumph in Christ. 2Co 2:12-17
Paul’s Triumph in Christ. 2Co 2:12-17
v. 12. Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ’s Gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord,
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v. 13. I had no rest in my spirit because I found not Titus, my brother; but taking my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia.
v. 14. Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savor of His knowledge by us in every place.
v. 15. For we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish.
v. 16. To the one we are the savor of death unto death, and to the other the savor of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?
v. 17. For we are not as many, which corrupt the Word of God; but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, speak we in Christ.
Paul here returns to the description of his own spiritual condition at the time when he wrote the first epistle, and when he started upon his journey to Macedonia. He had reached the city of Troas in Mysia, on the Aegean Sea, where he, on his second missionary journey, had had the vision calling him over to Europe, Act 16:8-11. But although he had come there for the purposes of the Gospel of Christ, with the intention of preaching the Gospel, and although the door of opportunity was opened to him in the Lord, he would have found sufficient occasion to be active in the sphere which was so dear to him, yet he had no rest in his spirit, he could not shake off the uneasiness which prevented his working. He was laboring under such a strain of anxiety that he could not perform his duties as in other places, the chief reason for this condition being that he did not find Titus in Troas as he had expected. Titus was to bring him the information concerning the situation in Corinth, and he had hoped to meet him in the port. So his increasing restlessness, his worry about the congregation at Corinth, caused him to take his leave of the brethren in Troas, who, in spite of their eagerness to have the beloved apostle in their midst, respected his impatience. Thus he had come to Macedonia, where he was writing this present letter. Note: The fact that Paul, although an inspired apostle of the Lord and teacher of the Christian Church of all times, was yet subject to temptations, to periods of oppression of spirit and despondency, is a comfort to us, urging us to be strong in the midst of similar attacks of weakness.
All the worries of the apostle were dispelled by the information brought by Titus, whom Paul met in Macedonia, as his triumphant words show: But thanks to God who always causes us to triumph in Christ, literally, leads us in a triumphal procession. The emphasis lies upon "always. " No matter what anxiety and distress are besetting the Christians, they always are partakers of the victory of God, even if it be in the role of one of the captives, one of the believers gained for the Lord through the Gospel. And not only does God make use of the apostle in that capacity, but he also makes manifest the odor, the savor, of the knowledge of Christ through the apostle and his companions in every place. The knowledge of Jesus Christ, the Savior, as spread by Paul in the countries from Jerusalem to the Aegean Sea and beyond, is an odor of sacrifice which is well-pleasing to God. See Mal 1:11. Its effect may be hidden before the eyes of man, but the omniscient God is delighted with such a sacrifice, and all those that are spiritually minded take note of its power. "For concerning the presence, operation, and gifts of the Holy Ghost we should not and cannot always judge ex sensu [from feeling], as to how and when they are experienced in the heart; but because they are often covered and occur in great weakness, we should be certain from, and according to, the promise, that the Word of God preached and heard is [truly] an office and work of the Holy Ghost, by which He is certainly efficacious and works in our hearts. His thanks are given to God because he was a minister of the victorious Word, who incidentally offered sacrifice of a sweet-smelling odor to God: For we are a sweet savor of Christ unto God. The knowledge of Christ was an odor which was pleasing to God; but the entire ministry of Paul, in which he was so indefatigable, was also a sweet savor to the Lord, his entire life having the odor of sanctity; the odor of Christ pervaded him and all his doing. All believers, inasmuch as they are filled with the knowledge of Christ and God, share in this wonderful quality: odors of sanctity should at all times be found emanating from their entire life and conduct. But Paul, speaking specifically of himself and his fellow workers, says that they are a sweet savor of Christ in them that are saved and in them that perish, that are engaged in the process of being saved and of perishing; to some indeed a savor out of death unto death, but to others a savor out of life unto life. The glorious odor of the name and of the message of Christ goes forth upon all men with equal sweetness, but there is a great difference in the effect. Those that are saved become partakers of this salvation because they receive life out of the merciful odor which arises wherever the Gospel is preached. But those that perish deliberately take poison out of that same glorious odor which is originally intended for life only. Because they persist in their unbelief and will not accept the truth of redemption, therefore the odor which alone can give life has a deadly effect upon their hearts and minds. Those that are lost are offered the same grace which saves all sinners, but the Gospel in their case succeeds only in working disgust, resistance, contradiction against the holy love of God, the result being that the Word of the Cross is to them foolishness and an offense, 1Co 1:23. Christ is to them a sign to be spoken against, Luk 2:34, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, 1Pe 2:8, and thus they bring upon themselves the condemnation of blindness, Joh 9:39.
No wonder that Paul, who is fully aware of this result of his work, cries out: And for these things, who is sufficient? The answer is partly implied: So one of himself, and certainly at no time such as adulterate God’s Word. But in defense of himself and the other teachers he adds: For we are not as the majority, including the false apostles at Corinth, who adulterate the Word of God, who corrupt the divine message as contained in the Gospel. Then as now there were many that resorted to such tricks for the sake of filthy gain, who took the strength out of the Lam and the beauty and consolation out of the Gospel. With suck Paul did not want to be identified. But as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of Gad, in Christ, we speak. His personal feeling and attitude was one of strict sincerity, his entire ministry being open before the eyes of all men. His commission was of God; he had not desired nor sought the office, but was doing his work as one sent by God. He was ever conscious of the presence of God and of the consequent necessity of walking blameless in His sight. And in Christ he spoke, in fellowship with Him, a lover of truth and an enemy of falsehood; in Christ he had found the precious content of the Gospel, and this treasure he was trying to impart to others by his teaching. Thus he triumphed in Christ and gave all honor to Christ and God, just as should be done by all faithful ministers of Jesus to this day.
Summary
Paul continues his explanation of his change of plans, urges the kind acceptance of the repentant offender, describes the unusual depression which he experienced at Troas, and pictures the knowledge and ministry of Christ as a savor unto life and unto death.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv12, 14, 16Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Paul encourages the believers in Corinth by telling them of the opportunities he has had to preach the gospel in Troas and Macedonia.
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A door was opened to me by the Lord ... to preach the gospel
Paul speaks of his opportunity to preach the gospel as if it were a door through which he was allowed to walk. This can be stated in active form. AT: "The Lord opened a door to me ... to preach the gospel" or "The Lord gave me the opportunity ... to preach the gospel" (See: Metaphor and Active or Passive)
Tyndale Open Study Notes2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv12, 14, 15, 172:12-13 After the riot at Ephesus (Acts 19:1–20:1), Paul…
2:12-13 After the riot at Ephesus (Acts 19:1–20:1), Paul went to the seaport of Troas (Acts 20:5). He was impatient to get news from Titus about the result of the severe but tearful letter (2 Cor 2:4), and he crossed over to Macedonia in northern Greece to find him.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv12, 14, 15, 16, 17 12. When I had come to Troas By now…
12. When I had come to Troas By now mentioning what he had been doing in the mean time, in what places he had been, and what route he had pursued in his journeyings, he more and more confirms what he had said previously as to his coming to the Corinthians. He says that he had come to Troas from Ephesus for the sake of the gospel, for he would not have proceeded in that direction, when going into Achaia, had he not been desirous to pass through Macedonia. As, however, he did not find Titus there, whom he had sent to Corinth, and by whom he ought to have been informed respecting the state of that Church, though he might have done much good there, and though he had an opportunity presented to him, yet, he says, setting everything aside, he came to Macedonia, desirous to see Titus. Here is an evidence of a singular degree of attachment to the Corinthians, that he was so anxious respecting them, that he had no rest anywhere, even when a large prospect of usefulness presented itself, until he had learned the state of their affairs. Hence it appears why it was that he delayed his coming. He did not wish to come to them until he had learned the state of their affairs. Hence it appears, why it was that he delayed his coming. He did not wish to come to them, until he had first had a conversation with Titus. He afterwards learned from the report brought him by Titus, that matters were at that time not yet ripe for his coming to them. Hence it is evident, that Paul loved the Corinthians so much, that he accommodated all his journeyings and long circuits to their welfare, and that he had accordingly come to them later than he had promised — not from having, in forgetfulness of his promise, rashly changed his plan, or from having been carried away by some degree of fickleness, (2 Corinthians 1:17,) but because delay was more profitable for them.
A door also having been opened to me. We have spoken of this metaphor when commenting on the last chapter of the First Epistle. (1 Corinthians 16:9.) Its meaning is, that an opportunity of promoting the gospel had presented itself. For as an opportunity of entering is furnished when the door is opened, so the servants of the Lord make advances when an opportunity is presented. The door is shut, when no prospect of usefulness is held out. Now as, on the door being shut, it becomes us to enter upon a new course, rather than by farther efforts to weary ourselves to no purpose by useless labor, so where an opportunity presents itself of edifying, let us consider that by the hand of God a door is opened to us for introducing Christ there, and let us not withhold compliance with so kind an indication from God.
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It may seem, however, as if Paul had erred in this — that disregarding, or at least leaving unimproved, an opportunity that was placed within his reach, he betook himself to Macedonia. “Ought he not rather to have applied himself to the work that he had in hand, than, after making little more than a commencement, break away all on a sudden in another direction?” We have also observed already, that the opening of a door is an evidence of a divine call, and this is undoubtedly true. I answer, that, as Paul was not by any means restricted to one Church, but was bound to many at the same time, it was not his duty, in consequence of the present aspect of one of them, to leave off concern as to the others. Farther, the more connection he had with the Corinthian Church, it was his duty to be so much the more inclined to aid it; for we must consider it to be reasonable, that a Church, which he had founded by his ministry, should be regarded by him with a singular affection — just as at this day it is our duty, indeed, to promote the welfare of the whole Church, and to be concerned for the entire body of it; and yet, every one has, nevertheless, a closer and holier connection with his own Church, to whose interests he is more particularly devoted. Matters were in an unhappy state at Corinth, so that Paul was in no ordinary degree anxious as to the issue. It is not, therefore, to be wondered, if, under the influence of this motive, he left unimproved an opportunity that in other circumstances was not to be neglected; as it was not in his power to occupy every post of duty at one and the same time. It is not, however, at all likely that he left Troas, till he had first introduced some one in his place to improve the opening that had occurred.
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 On vv12, 14, 15, 16, 17 He returneth to the confirmation of his Apostleship, and…
He returneth to the confirmation of his Apostleship, and bringeth forth the testimonies, both of his labor, and also of God’s blessing.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv12–17 12 Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach…
12 Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ’s gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord,
Ver. 12. A door was opened] An opportunity offered. Where the master sets up a light, there is some work to be done; where he sends forth his labourers, there is some harvest to be gotten in.
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 On vv12–17 This Troas was either the city, or the whole…
This Troas was either the city, or the whole country, called Troy or Ilium, or the lesser Phrygia. We read of Paul’s going thither by sea from Philippi, Act 20:6, and of his having been there, 2Ti 4:13. He tells us, that the business why he went thither, was to preach the gospel; for it was not the apostles’ business to stay, as fixed ministers, in any one place, but to carry the gospel up and down the world to several places; which they did by virtue of their general commission to go, preach, and baptize all nations; though sometimes they had a more special call and commission, as Paul had to go into Macedonia. The
door opened, either signifieth the free liberty he had there to preach, or the great success which God gave him in his work; which he elsewhere calleth an effectual door.
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 On vv12, 15, 17 Observe here, 1. The unwearied diligence of this great…
Observe here, 1. The unwearied diligence of this great apostle in traveling from place to place, and carrying the gospel with him from one city and nation to another: I came to Troas, and from thence to Macedonia.
Observe, 2. The success which the holy apostle had in preaching the gospel with unwearied diligence in those places: A door was opened unto him of the Lord.
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This either signifies, 1. The free liberty which he had to preach the gospel in those places; the door of his mouth was not shut by persecutors, the enemies and opposers of the free gospel, but the word of the Lord had a free course in the labours of its ministers.
Or, 2. This opened door may signify and import the great and gracious success which God gave the apostle in his work; as God by his providence opened the apostle’s mouth, to preach and publish the glad tidings of the gospel, so by his Holy Spirit he opened the people’s hearts to receive and entertain the glad tidings of salvation which the gospel brought. The Lord opened Lydia’s heart, that she attended to the words which were spoken of Paul. Act 16:14
Observe, 3. How careful the apostle is to ascribe the entire praise, and to return the whole thanks, to Almighty God, for all the gracious assistance and success which he had received in his ministerial service: Thanks be to God, which causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.
As if the apostle had said, "Blessed be God, although our enemies have been man, and our difficulties great, yet God has given me, and my fellow-apostles, such resolution of mind, that we have not only encountered with them, but triumphed over them, in a powerful conversion of so many from heathenism to Christianity; and has enabled us to spread the sweet odour of the gospel far and near, by our laborious preaching of it from place to place."
Then is the word, and God in the word, glorified, when the sword of the Spirit is taken into the hand of the Spirit; when he gird this sword upon his thigh, as most mighty, and rides on triumphantly, conquering and to conquer, in the hearts of his people, till he has consummated his victories in a glorious triumph over all the powers of hell and darkness: Thanks be to God that causeth us to triumph in Christ.
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 On v12 After these directions concerning the excommunicated person the apostle…
After these directions concerning the excommunicated person the apostle makes a long digression, to give the Corinthians an account of his travels and labours for the furtherance of the gospel, and what success he had therein, declaring at the same time how much he was concerned for them in their affairs, how he had no rest in his spirit, when he found not Titus at Troas (Co2 2:13), as he expected, from whom he hoped to have understood more perfectly how it fared with them. And we find afterwards (Co2 7:5-7) that when the apostle had come into Macedonia he was comforted by the coming of Titus, and the information he gave him concerning them. So that we may look upon all that we read from this second chapter, v. 12, to ch. 7:5, as a kind of parenthesis. Observe here,
I. Paul's unwearied labour and diligence in his work, Co2 2:12, Co2 2:13. He travelled from place to place, to preach the gospel. He went to Troas from Philippi by sea (Act 20:6), and thence he went to Macedonia; so that he was prevented from passing by Corinth, as he had designed, Co2 1:16. But, though he was prevented in his design as to the place of working, yet he was unwearied in his work.
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II. His success in his work: A great door was opened to him of the Lord, Co2 2:12. He had a great deal of work to do wherever he came, and had good success in his work; for God made manifest the savour of his knowledge by him in every place where he came. He had an opportunity to open the door of his mouth freely, and God opened the hearts of his hearers, as the heart of Lydia (Act 16:14), and the apostle speaks of this as a matter of thankfulness to God and of rejoicing to his soul: Thanks be to God, who always causeth us to triumph in Christ. Note, 1. A believer's triumphs are all in Christ. In ourselves we are weak, and have neither joy nor victory; but in Christ we may rejoice and triumph. 2. True believers have constant cause of triumph in Christ, for they are more than conquerors through him who hath loved them, Rom 8:37. 3. God causeth them to triumph in Christ. It is God who has given us matter for triumph, and hearts to triumph. To him therefore be the praise and glory of all. 4. The good success of the gospel is a good reason for a Christian's joy and rejoicing.
III. The comfort that the apostle and his companions in labour found, even when the gospel was not successful to the salvation of some who heard it, Co2 2:15-17. Here observe,
1. The different success of the gospel, and its different effects upon several sorts of persons to whom it is preached. The success is different; for some are saved by it, while others perish under it. Nor is this to be wondered at, considering the different effects the gospel has. For, (1.) Unto some it is a savour of death unto death. Those who are willingly ignorant, and wilfully obstinate, disrelish the gospel, as men dislike an ill savour, and therefore they are blinded and hardened by it: it stirs up their corruptions, and exasperates their spirits. They reject the gospel, to their ruin, even to spiritual and eternal death. (2.) Unto others the gospel is a savour of life unto life. To humble and gracious souls the preaching of the word is most delightful and profitable. As it is sweeter than honey to the taste, so it is more grateful than the most precious odours to the senses, and much more profitable; for as it quickened them at first, when they were dead in trespasses and sins, so it makes them more lively, and will end in eternal life.
2. The awful impressions this matter made upon the mind of the apostle, and should also make upon our spirits: Who is sufficient for these things? Co2 2:16. Tis hikanos - who is worthy to be employed in such weighty work, a work of such vast importance, because of so great consequence? Who is able to perform such a difficult work, that requires so much skill and industry? The work is great and our strength is small; yea, of ourselves we have no strength at all; all our sufficiency is of God. Note, If men did seriously consider what great things depend upon the preaching of the gospel, and how difficult the work of the ministry is, they would be very cautious how they enter upon it, and very careful to perform it well.
3. The comfort which the apostle had under this serious consideration, (1.) Because faithful ministers shall be accepted of God, whatever their success be: We are, if faithful, unto God a sweet savour of Christ (Co2 2:15), in those who are saved and in those also who perish. God will accept of sincere intentions, and honest endeavours, though with many they are not successful. Ministers shall be accepted, and recompensed, not according to their success, but according to their fidelity. Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, Isa 49:5. (2.) Because his conscience witnessed to his faithfulness, Co2 2:17. Though many did corrupt the word of God, yet the apostle's conscience witnessed to his fidelity. He did not mix his own notions with the doctrines and institutions of Christ; he durst not add to, nor diminish fRom. the word of God; he was faithful in dispensing the gospel, as he received it from the Lord, and had no secular turn to serve; his aim was to approve himself to God, remembering that his eye was always upon him; he therefore spoke and acted always as in the sight of God, and therefore in sincerity. Note, What we do in religion is not of God, does not come from God, will not reach to God, unless it be done in sincerity, as in the sight of God.
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 On vv12–17 Furthermore, when I came to Troas,.... The apostle proceeds,…
Furthermore, when I came to Troas,.... The apostle proceeds, in this latter part of the chapter, to take notice of and remove the charge of ostentation and insincerity in preaching the Gospel, and hints at other reasons of his not coming to Corinth; particularly that he took a journey to Troas, expecting to meet with Titus there, who was to give him an account of the affairs of the church at Corinth, which he was desirous of knowing before he went thither; but missing of Titus, is uneasy, and goes for Macedonia; though he was first detained awhile at Troas, having a good opportunity of preaching the Gospel there, with a prospect of success. Troas was a city of the lesser Asia near the Hellespont, formerly called Troy; of Paul's being at this place more than once, see Ti2 4:13, and of this place See Gill on Act 16:8, and of the church there; see Gill on Act 20:7. Hither he came,
to preach Christ's Gospel; that Gospel, of which Christ is both the author and subject; and is no other than the good news and glad tidings of peace, pardon, righteousness, life, and salvation, by a crucified Jesus; this was his work and business; his heart was in it, he took delight in this service, and it was what he pursued in every place wherever he came; and in this place he had much encouragement; for he adds,
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and a door was opened unto me of the Lord; such an one as was opened to him at Ephesus, Co1 16:9; he had a good opportunity of preaching the Gospel to many souls, many were inclined to attend his ministry, from whence he conceived great hopes of doing good; a door of utterance was given to him to preach the Gospel boldly and freely, and a door of entrance for the Gospel to pass into their hearts: all which was not of men, "but of the Lord"; who has the key of David, who opens and no man shuts, shuts and no man opens.
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 On vv12–17 Now when I came to Troas - It seems,…
Now when I came to Troas - It seems, in that passage from Asia to Macedonia, of which a short account is given, Acts xx, 1, 2. Even though a door was opened to me - That is, there was free liberty to speak, and many were willing to hear: yet,
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv12–17 Verse 12. When I came to Troas] After having…
Verse 12. When I came to Troas] After having written the former epistle, and not having heard what effect it had produced on your minds; though the Lord had opened me a particular door to preach the Gospel, in which I so especially rejoice and glory;
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv12, 14, 15, 17 2Co 2:12-13. Furthermore — That ye may know my…
2Co 2:12-13. Furthermore — That ye may know my great concern for you; when I came to Troas — After the riot excited by Demetrius. He seems to refer to that passage from Asia to Macedonia, of which a short account is given Act 20:1-2. To preach Christ’s gospel — And found things there so situated; that a door was opened unto me — That is, there was free liberty to speak, and many were willing to hear: yet I had no rest in my spirit — From an earnest desire to know the state of your affairs, and how my letter had been received: because I found not Titus my brother — In his return; whom I had sent to you to bring me the information concerning you which I wished for. Therefore, taking my leave of them — Of the church at Troas. The expression here used, αποταξαμενος αυτοις, is literally, having given them commands. But because persons, who are about to leave their friends for some time, give their commands to them, the phrase is used for taking leave of, or bidding farewell to, one’s friends. I went from thence into Macedonia — Where being much nearer to Corinth, I might more easily be informed concerning you; and where I had the happiness soon of meeting him, and of receiving such an account of you as has given me much pleasure; and in consequence of which I write to you in this comfortable manner. Here the apostle interrupts the thread of his discourse, interposing an admirable digression concerning what he had done and suffered elsewhere, the profit of which he, by this means, derived to the Corinthians also; and this is a prelude to his apology against false apostles. He resumes the subject, however, chap. 2Co 7:2.
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 On vv12–17 Furthermore - But (δὲ de). This particle is properly…
Furthermore - But (δὲ de). This particle is properly adversative; but frequently denotes transition, and serves to introduce something else, whether opposite to what precedes, or simply continuative or explanatory. Here, it is designed to continue or explain the statement before made of his deep affection for the church, and his interest in its affairs. He therefore tells them that when he came to Troas, and was favored there with great success, and was engaged in a manner most likely of all others to interest his feelings and to give him joy, yet he was deeply distressed because he had not heard, as he expected, from them; but so deep was his anxiety that he left Troas and went into Macedonia.
When I came to Troas - This was a city of Phrygia, or Mysia, on the Hellespont, between Troy on the north, and Assos on the south; see note on Act 16:8. It was on the regular route from Ephesus to Macedonia. Paul took that route because on his journey to Macedonia he had resolved, for the reasons above stated, not to go to Corinth.
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To preach Christ’s gospel - Greek. “For (εἰς eis) the gospel of Christ;” that is, on account of his gospel; or to promote it. Why he selected Troas, or the region of the Troad (note, Act 16:8), as the field of his labors, he does not say. It is probable that he was waiting there to hear from Corinth by Titus, and while there he resolved not to be idle, but to make known as much as possible the gospel.
And a door was opened unto me - see the note, 1Co 16:9. There was an opportunity of doing good, and the people were disposed to hear the gospel. This was a work in which Paul delighted to engage, and in which he usually found his highest comfort. It was of all things the most adapted to promote his happiness.
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 On vv12, 14, 16, 17 When I was come to Troas....and a door was…
When I was come to Troas....and a door was opened to me, towards promoting the gospel, which I never neglect, yet I had not rest in my spirit; I remained still in a great concern for you, not meeting with Titus, from whom I expected with impatience to hear how all things went with you at Corinth: I went on, therefore, bidding them farewell at that time, and deferred the good I might do by a longer stay with them till another time. (Witham) --- Troas is the same town as the ancient Troy or Ilium, famous for its ten years’ siege, when it was destroyed by the Greeks in the year 1184, B. Christ [1184 B.C.]. (Estius) --- Here, though there was a great promise of abundant fruit, St. Paul’s solicitude to meet Titus, that he might learn from him the effect of his letter, made him depart from Macedonia, where he had much to suffer. (Bible de Vence)
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).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v12 V. AN ADDITIONAL EXPRESSION OF HIS FORMER ANXIETY RESPECTING…
V. AN ADDITIONAL EXPRESSION OF HIS FORMER ANXIETY RESPECTING THEM (2Co_2:12 f.), BUT OF HIS JOYFUL ELEVATION OF MIND WHEN HE HEARD FROM THEM BY TITUS, 2Co_2:14 ff.
2Co_2:12-17
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12Furthermore when I came to Troas [the Troad] to preach Christ’s gospel10, and a door was opened to me of [in] the Lord, 13I had no rest in my spirit because I found11 not Titus my brother; but taking my leave of them, I went from them into Macedonia. 14Now [But] thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place. 15For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved and in them that perish: 16To the one we are the savour of 12death unto death; and to the other the savour of3 life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things? 17For we are not as many,13 which corrupt the word of God; but as of sincerity, but as of God, as in the sight of God14 speak we in Christ.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
2Co_2:12-13. The Apostle’s anxiety for intelligence from Corinth.—But having come to the Troad to preach Christ’s Gospel.—The δέ implies that the former subject is here resumed after the digression. (2Co_2:5-11). That which follows is not to be connected with 2Co_2:11 (οὐ γάρ—ἀγνοοῦμεν) so as to make δὲ equivalent to ἀλλά, for that would not correspond with the tenor of the discourse. Nor is it to be referred back to 2Co_1:16, nor to 2Co_1:23, but to 2Co_2:4. In this latter passage he had spoken of the anguish with which he had written his first Epistle, and he here says that when he was going from Ephesus to Macedonia he could not throw off his anxiety for the Corinthians. [He had not intended to make a direct journey to Corinth, but to make a missionary tour in the interest of Christ’s Gospel (εἰς τὸ εὐαγ.τ. Χριστοῦ), Tyndale: for Christ’s Gospel’s sake]. Though he had doubtless intended to preach the Gospel at Troas, he now lost the opportunity on account of his solicitude for the Corinthians.—[The Troad was the region of the country, of which Troas was the principal city.15 The article, which was generally used in the New Testament with names of countries (Jelf. § 450 5), Stanley thinks may possibly indicate that only the country of the Troad was meant here. It can hardly be possible that Paul did not visit the city. The same expression (εἰς τὴν Τρωάδα) is used in Act_20:6. Paul had been there once before (Act_16:8), and he was there a longer time on his return from Greece to Jerusalem (Act_20:6-13), and once after the close of the Apostolic history, (2Ti_4:13). It was the usual port at which those passing from Greece to Asia landed. A church must have been established there at least on Paul’s second visit, [comp. the word ἀποταξάμενος with Act_20:6 ff.)]. He had tarried there with the express design of preaching the Gospel of salvation. Τοῦ χριστοῦ is the genitive of the object: Neander: “the Gospel which proceeded from Christ.” He intends to say that with such a design he would have felt bound to remain for some time, inasmuch as he found there a fair prospect of an unusual success in his work.—And a door was opened to me in the Lord.—(comp. 1Co_16:9). The καί also is equivalent to καίπερ. Ἐν κυρίῳ has the same meaning as Χριστῷ, and it is added to define more particularly, the sphere or element of activity for which an occasion had then been presented; the department in which a door had been opened for him, and not the Agent by whose power the door had been opened.—I had no rest in my spirit when I found not Titus my brother.—Ἔσχηκα is used here, as in 2Co_1:9, and frequently in an aoristic sense (Meyer: as was the frequent practice of the Greek orators in order to bring the past before the mind with greater vividness). Ἄνεσις (used also in 2Co_7:5; 2Co_8:13) means properly relaxation or relief, and it is here contrasted with the intense strain which had been put upon his feelings, by his solicitude on their account. He could not perform his ordinary duties as in other places, until this anxiety should be removed. The meaning of to τῷ πνεύματι in this connection is: for my mind. (dat. comm.). The expression is more suggestive than τῇ ψυχῇ μου would have been. (comp. Beck, Seelenl. p. 45). The Apostle means to say that it was “one of those violent assaults upon his vital energies which come upon us in certain states of the mind and body when we have been acted upon for a long time by terrors and a want of rest, etc.—those powerful agitations which affect the very seat of life.” In τῷ μὴ εὑρεῖν κ. τ. λ. he gives the reason for οὑκ ἕσχηκα ἄνεσιν. [Winer, Gr. § 45, 5.] He had expected to meet at Troas, or at least in Macedonia, his assistant Titus, to let him know what effect his first Epistle had produced at Corinth. Not finding Titus, his anxiety was so great that he could remain there no longer, but he hastened to Macedonia, where we know Titus soon met him (2Co_7:6 ff.)—But taking leave of them I went forth into Macedonia.—Ἀποτάσσεσθαι τινι is an Alexandrian form of expression for ἀσπάζεσθαι, and occurs also in Luk_9:61, and Act_17:18-21. It signifies to separate one’s self, to take leave of some one. [The expression is peculiar, however, since it is taken from the effort usually made by those taking their departure, to put every thing in order, and to give their last directions. (Osiander)]. Αὐτοῖς has reference to the people, and especially to believers in Troas.16
Vers.14–17. [“All that follows, until the writer returns to his historical statement in 2Co_7:5, is on the subject of the Christian or rather Apostolical ministry as exemplified in Paul’s special relations to the Corinthian Church. This apparent digression is really the main topic of the Epistle. It was the Apostle’s object to set forth and maintain the importance of his office and work and his personal claim to spiritual authority. This object is kept in view throughout, and after the instructions in matters of business which follow the recurrence of the mention of Titus (2Co_7:5), it is continuously and openly pursued to the end of the Epistle.” Webster and Wilkinson.].—But thanks be unto God, who always causes us to triumph in Christ.—By a sudden transition the Apostle now turns aside to render thanks to God, not for the results of his visit at Troas, where he could not have remained long enough to accomplish any thing worthy of being thus mentioned; but either for the accounts brought from Corinth by Titus, of which he makes no express mention until 2Co_7:6; or for the blessing upon his Apostolic labors during his journey, especially in Macedonia (Osiander). The context rather favors the first of these, since thanks seem quite appropriate after his liberation from the distress and uneasiness of which he had given such a picture (Meyer). That he makes no direct mention of this, and expresses himself only in general terms, is accounted for by the fact that he was anxious to make no unpleasant impression by a more obvious allusion to the state of things at Corinth at this point of his discourse. The view which seems best to correspond with both the context and the form of expression, would seem to be, that he had been much delighted with the good account from Corinth, to which he had slightly alluded in 2Co_2:6 (ἐπιτιμία ἡ ὑπὸ τῶν πλειόνων), and he now pours forth his thanks for the triumph of which he always and everywhere was a partaker. The favorable turn of affairs at Corinth and the accomplishment of his main objects there were of course involved in the πάντοτε and the ἐν παντὶ τόπῳ, but they are so concealed in the general expression that nothing offensive would be noticed in his triumphal exultation. It is questionable whether θριαμβεύοντι is to be taken according to the usage of the word in other places (also in Col_2:15), in the sense of triumphat (de nobis), or according to the analogy of βασιλεύειν, 1Sa_8:22; μαθητεύειν, Mat_28:19, and some other words, in the transitive sense of triumphare facit. As the result of the first method, Meyer presents the idea of the passage thus: who never ceases to exhibit us (the Apostolic teachers) in all the world as those whom He has overcome. God had overcome them in their conversion, and He was continually triumphing in the results which they as His servants were accomplishing in His kingdom, and especially in the happy results of his first Epistle at Corinth. With Paul, such an idea would naturally be expressed when he remembered with sorrow his earlier persecution of the Church, and it would accord with his humble desire to give God the honor of all that he had done. Although this explanation is rather artificial, it has better ground for itself than others, which represent this leading about in triumph as fulfilled when they journeyed from place to place according to the good pleasure and will of God (Wetstein); or as a triumphal exhibition of them, not as conquered persons, but as servants taking part in God’s triumph; or as a Divine triumph over Paul by showing the folly of all his cares and anxieties when all things came to a fortunate result; or as a leading him about in triumph in the persecutions he was made to endure. On the whole we feel compelled to decide in favor of the transitive signification of the word, which makes Paul a leader appointed by God to struggle in the spiritual conflict, and by the success of his preaching and the confusion of all his opponents making him a uniform conqueror before the world. (Comp. Osiander).17 Ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ defines the sphere in which the victory and the triumph takes place. This is Christ, in whose service they are employed and whose Gospel they preached with such triumphant success. What is here intended by θριαμβεύειν will be made more evident under the figure of the succeeding metaphor:—and maketh manifest the savour of His knowledge by us in every place.—In this sentence αὐτοῦ has reference, not to God, as has sometimes been concluded on account of 2Co_5:5, but to Christ on account of ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ and ἐυωδία Χριστοῦ in 2Co_2:15. This knowledge of Christ is set forth under the figure of an odor which God diffused in every place by the ministry of the Apostles. Such a figure well illustrates the pungent nature of this knowledge, the facility with which it is usually diffused, and perhaps also the refreshment it affords. Neander: “ὀσμή signifies any thing which has a pungent odor, an essence; it may correspond with the later Jewish סַם which is just as applicable to a refreshing aromatic essence as to a fatal poison.” It is hardly probable that the Apostle was led to use this figure by the idea of a triumph in which the air was filled sometimes with the fragrance of incense (Meyer, comp. Osiander). Still less did he intend to remind us of the custom of anointing with oil. Even the idea of the fragrance given forth in the sacrifices seems inappropriate, since God himself is represented as active in diffusing it (φανεροῦντι). As an illustration of an internal experience the figure of an odor would seem no more appropriate than something presented to the sight. Τῆς γνώσεως is in apposition with τῆς ὀσμῆς. Ἔν παντὶ τόπῳ corresponds with πάντοτε. God is evidently the one who “always caused him and his fellow-laborers to triumph in Christ, and made manifest the savor of his knowledge by them in every place,” for Paul represents them as the instruments by which God acted (δἰ ἡμῶν), and the promulgators of this knowledge. He also describes them as acceptable to God, and so not to be depreciated, though the result of their labors was sometimes the reverse of what they aimed at. This acceptableness in God’s sight is expressed in the words—For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ—in which the figure of a sacrifice (Eph_5:2; Php_4:18; Lev_1:9-17) probably begins to be discernible. Those who possess and diffuse the knowledge of Christ are a sweet savor unto God, not because they are properly prepared or offered to God, but because they are themselves filled by Him and made to diffuse the savor of Christ. For the sake of emphasis Christ is mentioned first, and is represented as the substance of the sacrifice, i. e., a service consecrated to God and pleasing in His sight. Bengel says: “The savor of Christ is made to pervade us as that of aromatics pervade garments.”—In them that are saved and in them that perish, introduces the sphere in which they were moving or the object of their preaching. The correlatives of σωζόμενοι and ἀπολλύμενοι (comp. on 1Co_1:18) are πιστεύοντες and ἄπιστοι. The whole idea became more impressive by this reference to the final destiny of each, when the redeemed shall be saved and the lost shall be cast away. He speaks further of the effect of this ὀσμή upon both these classes in 2Co_2:16. He there commences with those last mentioned.—To the one indeed we are an odour arising from death and tending to death.—(οἶς μὲν—οἶς σὲ, are equivalent to what was in the later usage τοῖς μὲν—τοῖς δέ). The point at which the influence commences, or the source from which it springs, is indicated by ἐκ, and the end toward which it tends, or the effect produced by it, is pointed out by εἰς. It begins in death and must lead to and terminate in death. In like manner the expression—to the other we are the odor arising from life and tending to life.—In the words from death and from life, we have death (θάνατος) and life (ζωή) set forth as the principle or power in which corruption or salvation has its origin, and in the words unto death and unto life (εἰς θάνατον, εἰς ζωήν) we have the corresponding result which each of these powers produces. But neither in ἐκ θανάτου nor in ἐκ ζωὴς is it exactly intended that Christ is in such a sense the efficient agent, that in ἐκ θανάτου He is the direct source of death (Meyer). The idea rather is, that those who presented Christ, or made known His Gospel to their fellow-men, are to one class like those who convey an odor which is deadly in its origin and deadly in its result. The meaning is thus the same with that conveyed by the words, the savor of death and the savor of life (ὀσμῆ θανάτου—ζωής), in the Rec., where both genitives should be taken as genitives of quality. This contrast between the fatal and quickening effects of preaching has an analogy in the physical world. So far as relates to the lost, the result is accidental, i. e., it is not caused by anything in the Gospel itself, but must be ascribed to the peculiar spirit of those who hear it. [“We convey to all the sweet odor of Christ, though all who participate in it do not attain salvation. Thus the light is noxious to diseased eyes, and yet it is not the sun which produces the injury. It is said that vultures avoid the fragrance of myrrh, and yet the myrrh is no less myrrh for being shunned by vultures. Even so the preaching of salvation tends to save those who believe, though it brings perdition to such as believe not.”—Theodoret]. Where the word is pressed upon an unsusceptible and perverse heart, it provokes opposition to the truth, just as in other cases it brings into activity whatever is susceptible of Divine life and engenders faith (comp. Mat_21:42 ff.; Luk_2:34; Job 9:39). The same figure has been used by the Rabbins for illustrating the different effects of the law. This strong contrast between the different effects of evangelical preaching suggests to the Apostle’s mind the various dispositions of those who proclaim the Gospel. No one can produce such an influence upon these two classes of hearers and be acceptable to God whatever may be the result of his preaching, unless he proclaims the Gospel in a right manner and with a right spirit. This idea he introduces in a sudden and striking manner (και) by a question—And who is sufficient for these things?—In this sentence πρὸς ταῦτα is put first because it is emphatic. He meant to say, that among those who acted as teachers, all were by no means sufficiently qualified for such a part, for he was obliged to place himself and his companions, who honestly presented God’s truth, in strong contrast with the many who presented it in an adulterated form. The answer to the Apostle’s question is in 2Co_2:17, and is presupposed in the γάρ. Such are not the ones who adulterate God’s word, but they are myself and those who are like me.—For we are not like the many who adulterate God’s word.—οἱ πολλοί does not mean the majority of all teachers of the Gospel, for this would either exhibit the Apostolic Church in a very unfavorable light, or (with Rückert) would make Paul guilty of a passionate extravagance. The article is demonstrative, and is intended to point to those who were well known. Those Judaizing teachers are meant who had set themselves up against Paul, and whose number must have been considerable at Corinth (comp. 2Co_11:13; Php_3:18). With respect to the reading λοιποί, comp. Osiander, who regards it as more feebly sustained by documentary evidence but as easier to explain, inasmuch as it simply designates a number of persons to whom the Apostle wished to be considered an exception; and he explains οἱ πολλοί by saying that Paul had set up a very high standard for the purity of Christian doctrine.18 The participal sentence commencing with καπηλεύοντες should be connected, not with οἱ πολλοί, although the character of these is indirectly given in it, but with ἐσμέν. The word designates the business of a κάπηλος, a huckster or a trader, but especially of a wine merchant; and it was used with an accusative to signify one who traded by retail or in small articles (more particularly to obtain a living). In accordance with the usual habits of such people, the word finally attained the meaning of practising usury or bartering with anything (as with σοφίαν, μαθήματα). It therefore signifies here—to deal dishonorably and deceitfully with the word of God, adulterating it by mingling together men’s opinions with the Divine word (Chrysostom), [probably with the additional thought of making a trade of the Gospel from mercenary and corrupt motives], as the κάπηλοι were accustomed to mingle water with their wine (com. Isa_1:22). It is implied that the Gospel had been vilified and adulterated by being mingled with Judaistic opinions, and that too with the sordid design of obtaining some personal profit, applause or authority (comp. Rom_16:17 f.; Php_3:19; Gal_6:12 f.; 2Pe_2:1-13). [Comp. Adam Clarke and also Bentley and Trench, Synn. 2d ser. pp. 52 ff.]. In contrast with such impure motives the Apostle says—but as of (from) sincerity, but as of (from) God we speak before God in Christ.—Our discourse is such as might be expected from men who speak from pure motives and under Divine inspiration, i.e., moved by God and inspired by His Spirit [Trench, Synn. 2d ser. p. 72 ff.]. Ὡς is here used as in Joh_1:14, to express conformity. The repetition of ἀλλ’ ὡς forms a powerful climax (comp. 1Co_6:11). He rises, from the hearty sincerity which is in strong contrast with all corrupt and selfish aims, to the Divine Source of Christian truth, with which no mingling of selfish or human elements was conceivable (comp. Osiander). The holy awe which those feel who act under the recollection that God judges and knows all things, and under a consciousness of the Divine presence, is pointed out in the phrase κατέναντι θεοῦ. The words ἐν Χριστῷ denote the element in which the discourse of such a one is supposed to move. Comp. 2Co_12:19. Neander:—“Probably the Apostle intended also to imply by this phrase that he held himself entirely aloof from everything which did not come from Christ.”
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
The word of God, not only in the individual heart (Heb_4:12-13), but in the world, exerts a separating and judicial power. Its influence upon different individuals is not unfrequently very different—for while it enlightens and warms some, gives them a clear, tranquilizing and sanctifying knowledge of divine things, and raises them to a life of true light and love, it blinds and hardens others; just as the sun’s light warms, makes fruitful, and quickens some things, while it blinds and destroys others. This decisive influence which must always accompany the full revelation of God in Christ, may be preceded by many divine announcements and influences, whether internally through the conscience, or externally by means of natural objects, or striking providences; but among those who enjoy a special revelation, it is principally through the presentation of the law and promises of God with all those influences of the Divine Word and dealings, which are usually so administered as to aid and bless, or punish and discipline the children of men. It is by such means that men become more or less receptive of God’s word, and it is by the Gospel, by the presentation of the highest truths of revelation, that this susceptibility for good, or evil will be most rapidly brought to perfection; since Under its power they will speedily surrender themselves to the truth, or they will soon reject that truth and revile the way of salvation. This, however, can be the result only when the truth is presented properly, and in its purity. 1. It must come from a heart thoroughly pervaded by Christ himself, honestly directed to the glory of God, and regardless of personal and temporal advantages. 2. It should hold forth God’s word and nothing but God’s word, mingled with no human speculations. God will recognize as his own, only what flows from a heart which is pure and filled with Christ. But this will always and everywhere be attended with glorious results. Its preachers will soon show that they are the organs of a divine power which can penetrate through all obstacles, and that their proclamations of Christ’s truth and their spirit are acceptable to God, whether those who hear them are saved or lost. But when those who speak are not upright, if they mix up with divine revelations the doctrines and opinions of men, and if they are governed by every kind of selfish and inconsistent ends, the proper influence of the Word will be hindered and enfeebled; men will be undecided and half-hearted; there will be no evidence that God is at work and of course no Divine victories, and old things will not pass away; or, things will sink down into a stupid and lukewarm state, in which none will be disturbed in their spiritual slumbers, or learn with any distinctness the true state and wants of their souls; real peace will be unknown, and no firm support will be found for human confidence. In such a state, men will make all kinds of efforts to satisfy themselves with dead works, and will fondly seek support in the authority of their fellow men. Nothing could be more opposed than such a state of things is, to that manly maturity which is to be found in Christ (Eph_4:13), and that establishment of the heart which true grace affords (Heb_13:9); and it will not be difficult therefore to distinguish between those who are Christ’s true shepherds, and those who are miserable hirelings.
[“In this statement of St. Paul, we have an inspired declaration of the freedom of the human will. As Jerome says (ad Hedib. iv. p. 183): ‘The name of Christ is ever fragrant; but men are left to their own freedom of will.’ So Christ himself was set for the fall of some and for the rising up of others in Israel. Indeed it is a solemn truth that in the Christian scheme nothing that God has done, is indifferent. Everything is as a two-edged sword. All Christian privileges, and all the means of grace are according as they are used, either blessings or banes, either physic or poison. Comp. August. Serm. 4, and Serm. 273.” Wordsworth.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Starke:
2Co_2:12. None but those who are Christ’s, who have been anointed by Him and have fellowship with Him, know what it is to have doors opened to them in the Lord and by the Lord. 2Co_2:13. When the Church is suffering some great affliction, we should each one in our proper place, cheerfully give her our utmost aid, that Satan may not overthrow in a few days what has been built up with the toil of years. 2Co_2:14. It is the mark of a true minister to labor faithfully and with all his might and soul, and then ascribe nothing to himself but everything to God (1Co_15:10). It is one of the mysteries of the cross and of Christ’s kingdom, that those who preach the gospel may have never so much opposition, and yet may always be sure of final triumph.
2Co_2:15-16 : Hedinger: We are a sweet savor of Christ, though our preaching results only in the perdition of our hearers. True, if none are converted to Christ, they must be perverted to Satan; yet such is the natural effect of God’s word; for if the wicked are hardened and the blind become yet more blind, it is God’s righteous judgment upon their own wickedness (Isa_6:9-10). Spener:—When the world is displeased with the word, and those who will not become sincere Christians become worse, and become more opposed to the truth, we may be sure that the word preached is genuine, and like that which the Apostles preached: for men feel its power, and are obliged to receive a fragrance which they abhor. But when wicked men like to hear and praise our sermons, when everything is dull and no one grows in grace under our ministry, it is a sign that what-ever savor we have had has lost its power. The gospel may not convert all who hear it, but it will produce excitement—and wicked men will proportionably hate it. 2Co_2:17. Hedinger:—Take care that you do not corrupt God’s word! Even those who hear, must attend to this. How many thousand streams are daily flowing to refresh and sustain those who are secure in their own vain fancies and in the way of the world. Maxims to keep alive the old Adam are in every one’s mouth. Alas! that so many must repent only when it is too late (1Pe_4:11). Four things at least should ever be on the heart of the true minister: that he speaks, 1, in all purity, with respect to his motives, his doctrine and his manner; 2, as from God, as if anointed and born of God; 3, as in the presence of God, with all reverence and zeal, feeling that God is always present and is the greatest of all his hearers; and 4, as in Christ.
Berlenb. Bible, 2Co_2:14 :—He must be a happy man, with whom everything, even the greatest perils, work for him only a perpetual triumph. Whenever truth and falsehood are most exposed, Christianity has its greatest triumphs; and this usually takes place when she is most severely afflicted. All Christians should diffuse around them wherever they go the fragrance of divine knowledge—and if they are the Lord’s anointed, how can they fail to do so?
2Co_2:15-16. The sweetest words of the Gospel become a savor of death unto death to those who resist the Holy Ghost. Such will have it so; they lay hold on death, and cast eternal life away. If this powerful odor of divine knowledge had not been diffused around them and arrested general attention, they had not had sin; but now they have no one but themselves to blame, for they have only the due reward of their own doings. Not every one who intellectually possesses the truth and has the form of knowledge (Rom_2:20), is prepared to present it profitably to his fellowmen; but only he who has himself put on the Lord Jesus Christ, is familiar with the mysterious cross of self-subjugation, and has obeyed the form of doctrine he has received. The spirit of God alone can prepare us for doing His work. 2Co_2:17.—True repentance, death, and pure truth will seem but trifling matters to hypocritical teachers; a good conscience, repentance, and a knowledge of Jesus Christ may fare as they may, if such men can only retain a hold upon the world’s favor, and have Christ in peace without his cross and with their pleasures. Those who handle God’s word should themselves be holy.
Rieger:
2Co_2:12-14. Even afflictions are sweetened when we are enabled by them to promote the cause of Christ and share in his victories. When God opens such doors for the preaching of the Gospel that all its adversaries are ashamed, and we present such evidence that we have the truth that it sets men free and awakens them to activity, reflection and admiration, it should be looked upon as a triumph to the cause of Christ. Such results commonly take place especially in the place where the word is preached, but sometimes the odor of them extends to a distance, and induces multitudes to inquire after Christ. 2Co_2:15-16.—Our Lord sometimes allows his beloved ones to know that he is about to use them, more especially as the light of the world and the salt of the earth. The Apostle therefore could say that the whole work and calling of himself and his companions, had an influence upon every department of society, and was an honor and a pleasure to God himself. But it was according to the way in which men met the proposals of the Gospel, that it became to them at every step an omen of either salvation or perdition. Those who heard that the way to glory must be through suffering, might assume such an attitude toward it that it might seem to them worse than death—and hence, they might foolishly remain under death. But where the Gospel meets with no such opposition it tends only to life. The very first inclination toward the truth is produced by this savor unto life, and from that moment the course is from life to life, and from one degree of power to another.
Heubner:
2Co_2:12. The Lord only has the key to the heart, and if he does not open it we may rattle around it as we please, it will remain closed against us.
2Co_2:14. The triumphs of the Gospel are unlike every other (Psa_84:7-8), for in them both victor and vanquished rejoice together. When the Apostles preached, the whole infected atmosphere of this world was purified by a balmy fragrance, and an acceptable incense mounted up to heaven. Why is it not always so, when the same Gospel is professedly preached?
2Co_2:16. How can Christianity be a deadly poison? Only by being resisted, until the last spark of spiritual life is quenched in men’s own wickedness. To refuse all direction from the word of the cross, is to harden ourselves against everything else. The same odor or medicine may kill or cure in different cases, and Christianity shows its real power when it arouses the opposition of wicked men.
W. F. Besser:
2Co_2:15-16. When the sweet fragrance of Jesus’ name is shed forth upon all men, without respect of persons, and in its full power, if any are saved, it is because they inhale it by a faith which the fragrance itself produces; and if any are still lost, it is not merely because they fail of receiving it (Act_13:46), but because the fragrance itself becomes fatal, and avenges itself upon those who despise it. The power of God’s word and the accompanying influence of God’s Spirit are demonstrated, when that word leaves no one as it found him; but when its despisers become more wicked, and the indifferent become furious and abusive. God is not responsible for men’s unbelief, but when they fatally injure themselves and sin against the word of life (Pro_8:36), we may regard it as a retributive judgment upon their own malicious and spiteful treatment of his mercy.
Footnotes:
[10][2Co_2:12.—Instead of είς τὸ εὐαγγέλιον the two kindred codd. F. G. and Damasc. have διὰ τὸ εὐαγγ., and the Italic and Vulg. verss. and the Lat. fathers have propter evang. Two other affiliated codd. D. E. have δια τοῦ εὐαγγελὶον. Most of our Old English verss. have “for Christ’s gospel’s sake.”]
[11]2Co_2:13.—In place of τῷ μὴ εὑρεῖν, Sin. has τοῦ μὴ εὑρ. (though the 3d cor. has τῷ μὴ εὑρ.). It also has Μακαιδονίαν (as throughout the New Testament, except 2Co_9:2, and 1Th_4:10)].
[12]2Co_2:16.—Rec. omits ἐκ before both θανάτου and ζωῆς. And yet the word has the best authorities [A. B. C. Sin. et al.] in its favor, and was probably thrown out on account of its difficult construction. [It does not appear in D. E. F. G. K. L., and the omission is confirmed by the Vulg., Syr., Goth, and Aeth. verss., and by very many of the ancient interpreters. All the more recent critics, except Reiche and Wordsworth, insert it.]
[13]2Co_2:17.—The reading λοιποί instead of πολλοὶ has the best authorities [A. B. C. K. Sin. et al.] against it. [Πολλοὶ was probably thought too strong an expression. But Didymus of Alex. (A. D. 370) takes much pains to justify the Apostle in the use of πολλοῖ in this passage. See note on p. 41.]
[14]2Co_2:17.—Rec. has κατενώπιον, and it is strongly sustained by authority; but Lachmann following the best MSS. gives us κατέναντι (without τοῦ). [Alford and Bloomfield think the article was left out to correspond with the previous ἐκ θεοῦ, but that the Apostle’s solemn assertion here needs it. It is however omitted in A. B. C. D. Sin. and 12 cursives.]
[15][The city was called by its original founder, Antigonia Troas, and by Lysimachus, who much improved it, Alexandria Troas, frequently simply Alexandria. It was on the great Roman road, by which it had an extensive trade into the interior and the South. It was a Roman colony, with the jus Italicum, or right of Roman citizenship, and was much favored by the Romans, from a conceit that their ancestors came from Troy, the site of which was close by. Gibbon says that Constantine once thought of making it the seat of his empire. Its modern name, Eski Stamboul (Old Constantinople), seems to commemorate this thought, Conybeare and Howson’s Life of St. Paul, Vol. I. p. 279–81, and Howson in Smith’s Dict.]
[16][Stanley suggests a vivid picture of Paul in this anxious state of mind, “on the wooded shores of that classic region under the heights of Ida.” All associations connected with its ancient history had but “slight effect upon the mind of the Apostle,” which was either upon the open door to preach Christ’s Gospel, or “vainly expecting the white sail of the ship which was to bring back his friend from Corinth.” If the love of Christ had not dispossessed Paul’s heart of every other interest, such scenes would have had a peculiar charm for him. See also Conyb. and Howson, Introduction, Vol. I. p. 16 and p. 362. Such conflicting emotions and changes of purpose are not inconsistent with Paul’s being under the guidance of the Holy Ghost (Webster and Wilkinson), inasmuch as that divine agent works out his own guidance of wisdom by means of, and in consistency with, the purely human feelings of the subject.]
[17][The word θριαμβεύοντι has been explained in: (1), a neuter sense, triumphare de nobis, to triumph over us: (2), a transitive sense, triumphare nos, to lead us in triumph; (3), a causative sense, triumphantes nos facere, to make us triumph. Ancient Greek usage among the classics is probably uniform in favor of the first, and the only other instance in the N. T. where the word is used (Col_2:15) looks in the same direction. But though it is adopted in the Vulgate, and is given as the first definition by several Latin expositors, it seems hard to make good sense with such a meaning in our passage, where the idea certainly is not that of a subdued and captive enemy led about in humiliation and finally to death. Even with this idea eliminated, and remembering that Paul sometimes speaks of himself as a subdued and willing captive to Christ, we never find him thus speaking of himself with others (plural). His object here seems rather to be, to show how he and his companions, and not merely Christ, were triumphing. If this makes us inclined to favor the second signification, with Calvin (in his comments, not in his translation), Bengel, de Wette and Wordsworth, we are met by the fact that neither early nor late Greek usage is in favor of such a construction. Some Greek fathers, indeed, whose opinions on a question of N. T. language or Roman usage is entitled to great consideration, give it this meaning. Though their definitions favor No. 1, they usually interpret it simply of a triumph over afflictions and persecutions, and leading the Apostles about the world in a triumphant victory over every kind of endurance Thus Chrysostom (and after him substantially Theophyl. and Oecum.): τῷ πᾶσι ποιοῦντι περιφανεῖς, “Who maketh us conspicuous to all;” and Theodoret: σοφῶς τὰ καθ’ ἡμᾶς πρυτανεύων, τῆδε κακεῖζε περιάγει, δήλους ἡμᾶς ἅπασιν ἀποφαίνων, “Who manages all our affairs in wisdom, leading us about so as to make us manifest to all;” Damasc: ὁ γαρ θρίαμβος, τοῦτό ἐστι, τὸ πᾶσι γενέσθαι περιφανή, “For evidently he has triumphed, who has been made illustrious and conspicuous to all men.” If, however, we depart from the simple No. 1, we must prefer No. 3, which has some ancient authority in its favor. Thus Jerome (comm.): Deum per Apostolos triumphare in Christo, victores illos facere in fide Christi; and Ambrose: Triumphare facit nos per Christum, vel in nobis ipse triumphat. In Alexandrian usage (Sept. and N. T.) neuter verbs often acquired a causative meaning (see Winer, Idd. § 40, n. 2, and many instances in Alford and Meyer). This gives an idea suitable to the connection. It was adopted by Luther, Beza and Grotius, and is defended by Osiander, Neander and Hodge. The majority of recent commentators (as Meyer, Alford, Conybeare, Ellicott, Stanley) favor the first meaning, but it very easily runs into the second.]
[18][Tischendorf quotes here a remarkable passage from Didymus Alex to prove the genuineness of the reading οἱ πολλοὶ, but which is equally striking as a comment: “Paul calls these deceivers many (πολλοὺς) on account of their abundance. For when instead of naming: them he designates them by this word, he intimates that they were more numerous, as when our Lord uses it instead of τινές: Many (πολλοὶ) shall say unto me in that day, etc. (Mat_7:22). But this word informs us that they are not a few, as when our Lord says, Many (πολλοὶ) are called, but few (ὀλίγοι) are chosen. It is evident that the word sometimes even signifies all, as when the Apostle says in Rom_5:19 : “The many (οἱ πολλοί) were constituted (κατεστάθησαν) sinners,” for it is evident that all men are under sin in consequence of Adam’s disobedience. Clearly then the word signifies a great number, not only in the passage before us but in another, where it is said, “Be not many masters” (Jam_3:1.) Damascene adds in paraphrase: “We are not like those false apostles who claim to be so numerous (τὰ πολλοί). For then we should have to adulterate the Gospel, like some who corrupt or who sell for money the wine they have been employed to distribute freely.”—Migne’s Patrol. Græc. T. xxxix. p. 1691, and xcv. p. 719.]
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.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv12–17 Paul expected to meet Titus at Troas, to receive…
Paul expected to meet Titus at Troas, to receive the tidings as to the effect of his first Epistle on the Corinthian Church; but, disappointed in his expectation there, he passed on to Macedonia, where he met him at last (Co2 7:5-7) The history (Acts) does not record his passing through Troas, in going from Ephesus to Macedonia; but it does in coming from that country (Act 20:6); also, that he had disciples there (Act 20:7), which accords with the Epistle (Co2 2:12, "a door was opened unto me of the Lord"). An undesigned coincidence marking genuineness [PALEY, Horæ Paulinæ]. Doubtless Paul had fixed a time with Titus to meet him at Troas; and had desired him, if detained so as not to be able to be at Troas at that time, to proceed at once to Macedonia to Philippi, the next station on his own journey. Hence, though a wide door of Christian usefulness opened to him at Troas, his eagerness to hear from Titus the tidings from Corinth, led him not to stay longer there when the time fixed was past, but he hastened on to Macedonia to meet him there [BIRKS].
to preach--literally, "for the Gospel." He had been at Troas before, but the vision of a man from Macedonia inviting him to come over, prevented his remaining there (Act 16:8-12). On his return to Asia, after the longer visit mentioned here, he stayed seven days (Act 20:6).
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and--that is, though Paul would, under ordinary circumstances, have gladly stayed in Troas.
door . . . opened . . . of the Lord--Greek, "in the Lord," that is, in His work, and by His gracious Providence.
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Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv12–17 4. St. Paul’s lingering at Troas and Macedonia to…
4. St. Paul’s lingering at Troas and Macedonia to hear from them before he came, 2Co_2:12-17.
Many commentators consider 2Co_2:5-11 “a digression;” but if we consider the whole section (2Co_1:8 to 2Co_5:21) as a survey of St. Paul’s apostolic relations to the Corinthians, 2Co_2:5-11 is rather a parenthetic incident in the straight line of thought than a digression, and 2Co_2:12 may still be considered as joining on to 2Co_2:4.
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12. When I came to Troas—Literally, But having come to Troas, or, the Troad. The name may imply either the city or its territorial section; but of course Paul was at the city.
It was in the early summer of the year 57 that Paul left Ephesus for Troas, as the commencement of his second tour through Macedonia into Southern Greece. Probably Tychicus and Trophimus were with him. He may have gone by sea, as safer than the land route, with its “perils by robbers.” But a great thoroughfare passed from Ephesus via Smyrna and Pergamos to Troas.
To preach Christ’s gospel—His purpose was to establish Christianity, and he seems to have passed the other great cities, because it was at the seaport of Troas he expected Titus to arrive from Corinth, across the AEgean.
A door was opened—Access was clear for preaching Christ to the people, and founding a Church.
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The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv12–17 12. Furthermore, when I came to Troas] Another proof…
12. Furthermore, when I came to Troas] Another proof is now given of the Apostle’s sincere desire for the well-being of his converts, his distress at the non-arrival of Titus at the time expected. In spite of the opportunity afforded him of preaching the gospel at Troas, his anxiety would not suffer him to rest, but he hurried on to Macedonia, where at length he found Titus, and heard from him the tidings for which he had scarcely dared to hope.
to Troas] Rather, to the Troad, the angle of territory to the south of the Hellespont on which Troy was situated. See Act_16:8; Act_16:11; Act_20:5; 2Ti_4:13. “Still, it must have been at the city that the Apostle stayed. It had been built” (upon the ruins of the ancient city, as Dr Schliemann’s discoveries seem to prove) “by Antigonus (Alexander’s lieutenant) under the name of Antigonia Troas, was afterwards called by Lysimachus, another of Alexander’s generals, Alexandria Troas, and was at this time a Roman ‘colonia Juris Italici’ and regarded with great favour by the Roman emperors, as the representative of the ancient Troy, of which it has been supposed to occupy the site.”—Stanley. It must be remembered that the Romans, as Virgil’s Aeneid testifies, were under the belief that they were the descendants of the ancient Trojans. See Act_16:8; Act_20:5-6 also Conybeare and Howson’s St Paul, and Smith’s Dictionary of Geography.
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to preach Christ’s gospel] Literally, unto, i.e. for the furtherance of the good tidings of Christ. The word gospel, as is well known, is derived from the Anglo-Saxon god, good, and spell, history or narrative. Some have supposed it to have been God’s spell or history, but the former derivation accords best with the Greek. Spell is now used only to signify the naming the letters of which a word is composed, or of a magical incantation. But both these are derived from the same Anglo-Saxon root.
and a door was opened unto me of the Lord] Door, in New Testament phraseology, is equivalent to opportunity. See 1Co_16:9; Rev_3:8. St Paul had come to Troas with the special purpose of preaching the Gospel, and not merely as a traveller. Unusual opportunities offered themselves, but his anxiety about the condition of the Corinthian Church caused him to forego them all. Calvin and Estius discuss the propriety of St Paul’s leaving unused the opportunity offered to him at Troas. But he soon (Act_20:6) returned thither, and he evidently had good reason to believe the state of things at Corinth to be the more urgent of the two. It was of more importance to keep those who were called by the name of Christ from disgracing Him, than to bring fresh souls to the knowledge of Him.
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Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv12–17 (12) Furthermore, when I came to Troas.—The article, perhaps,…
(12) Furthermore, when I came to Troas.—The article, perhaps, indicates the Troad as a district, rather than the city, just as it does in the case of Saron. (See Note on Act_9:35.) The case of the offender had come in as a parenthesis in 2Co_2:5-8. He returns to the train of thought which it had interrupted, and continues his narrative of what had passed after he had written the First Epistle. (On Troas, see Notes on Act_16:8.) A Church had probably been founded in that city by St. Luke, but St. Paul’s first visit to it had been limited to a few days, and there are no traces of his preaching there. Now he comes “for the gospel’s sake.” That there was a flourishing Christian community some months later, we find from Act_20:6.
A door was opened unto me.—Opportunities for mission-work, as we should call them, are thus described in 1Co_16:9. There is something of the nature of a coincidence in his using it of two different churches, Ephesus and Troas, within a comparatively short interval.
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The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv12–17 Vers. 12-17. Outburst of thanksgiving for the news brought…
Vers. 12-17. Outburst of thanksgiving for the news brought by Titus.
Furthermore, when I came to Troas. "Furthermore" is too strong for the "but" of the original. There is an apparently abrupt transition, but the apostle is only resuming the narrative which he broke off at ver. 4 in order that he might finish the topic of the painful circumstance in which his First Epistle had originated. To Troas. Not "the Troas." St. Paul had to do with the city, not with the district. The city (now Eski Stamboul), of which the name had been changed from Antigonia Troas to Alexandria Troas, was at this time a flourishing colony (Colonia Juris Italici), highly favoured by the Romans as representing ancient Troy, and therefore as being the mythological cradle of their race. He visited it on his being driven from Ephesus after the tumult, a little earlier than he would naturally have left it. He had visited Troas in his second missionary journey, (Act_16:8-11) but had left it in consequence of the vision which called him to Macedonia. He now stopped there on his journey through Macedonia to Corinth, which he had announced in 1Co_16:5. And a door was opened unto me of the Lord; literally, and a door had been opened to me in the Lord; i.e. and I found there a marked opportunity (1Co_16:9) for work in Christ. Some commentators, in that spirit of superfluous disquisition and idle letter-worship which is the bane of exegesis, here venture to discuss whether St. Paul was justified in neglecting this opportunity or not. Such discussions are only originated by not observing characteristic modes of expression. St. Paul merely means" circumstances would otherwise have been very favourable for my preaching of Christ; but I was in such a state of miserable anxiety that I lacked the strength to avail myself of them." He was no more responsible for this state of mind, which belonged to his natural temperament, than he would have been responsible for a serious illness. To say that he ought to have had strength of mind enough to get the mastery over his feelings is only to say that Paul ought not to have been Paul. The neglect to use the opportunity was a "hindrance" which might in one sense be assigned to God, and in another to Satan. Moreover, that the opportunity was not wholly lost appears from the fact that St. Paul found a flourishing Christian community at Troas when he visit, d it on his return from this very journey, (Act_20:6, Act_20:7) and that he stayed there at least once again, shortly before his martyrdom. (2Ti_4:13) Indeed, it was probably at Troas that his final arrest took place (see my "Life of St. Paul," 2:569, 576). Of the Lord; rather, in the Lord; i.e. in the sphere of Christian work.
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Vers. 12-16.
The preaching of the gospel.
when I came to Troas," etc. The subject of these verses is the preaching of the gospel. Notice
I THE DIFFICULTIES CONNECTED WITH IT. "Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ"s gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord, I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother: but taking my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia." Just at the time when the apostle was about opening his mission at Troas, and the prospect of usefulness seemed most suitable, he encountered a serious difficulty, and that difficulty was the absence of Titus, whom he fully expected. The disappointment cost him such great anxiety that he resigned his purpose, retired from the scene, and wended his way in another direction. Strange that an inspired man should have met with such a disappointment, and stranger still that a disappointment should have so disheartened him that he relinquishes for a time the grand message with which Heaven had especially entrusted him. Antecedently we might have supposed that a man going forth in a true spirit to preach the gospel would encounter no difficulties, that Heaven would sweep away all obstructions from his path; but not so. Perhaps no class of men encounter more difficulties in their mission than ministers. Many become so baffled, confounded, and depressed that, like Jeremiah, they exclaim, "I will speak no more in thy Name.
II THE TRIUMPHS ACHIEVED BY IT. "Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place? The grandest of all victories is the victory over sin. He who conquers the moral foes of one soul achieves a far grander triumph than he who lays a whole army dead upon the battle plain. There is no grandeur, but infamy, in the latter conquest. It is here taught that these victories were achieved whenever they preached. "Always causeth us to triumph." Wherever they preached, "in every place," and always through God, "thanks be to God." He is the Author of their victory; he constructed the weapon, he instructed the soldiers, he inspired and gave effect to the strokes.
III THE INFLUENCES RESULTING FROM IT. "For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish." Observe:
1. The manward aspect of gospel preaching.
(1) It quickens some. "To the other the savour of life unto life.
(2) It destroys others. "To the one we are the savour of death unto death." These effects occur wherever the gospel is preached.
2. The Godward aspect of gospel preaching. "We are unto God a sweet savour of Christ." Whatever the results of preaching, baneful or beneficial, it is acceptable to God if rightly discharged. Ay, the preaching of the gospel is the cause of immense good and the occasion of great evil. Like the waters of the sea, the light of the firmament, the breeze of the atmosphere, it is the Divine cause of good; but man, through the perversity of his nature, may make it the occasion of his ruin.
IV THE SOLEMNITY CONNECTED WITH IT. Paul felt its solemnity and exclaims, "Who is sufficient for these things?" Who, of himself, is "sufficient" to expound the meaning of the gospel, to exemplify the spirit of the gospel, to inwork into human souls the eternal principles of the gospel? Paul adds in another place, Our sufficiency is of God.
Vers. 12-17.
Coming to Troas; disquietude; defence of his apostleship.
Quite abruptly St. Paul mentions that he came to Troas. Why he left Ephesus he does not say, but we infer it was because of his anxiety to see Titus, and hear from him how his letter to the Corinthians had been received. There was a fine opening at Troas to preach the gospel, and yet he was greatly disquieted as Titus did not meet him. "Taking my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia." Here he met Titus, though, in the excitement of joy, he fails to state it. The sudden outburst of gratitude, "Thanks be unto God," expresses his exultation over the good tidings Titus had brought from Corinth, so that here, as is frequently the case, we get the outward history of events from the biography of the apostle"s heart. All he had expected, and even more, had been realized, and he breaks forth in thanksgiving.
Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk The earth, and stately tread or lowly creep, Witness if I be silent, morn or ev"n, To hill or valley, fountain or fresh shade, Made vocal by my song, and taught his praise.
St. Paul was not a silent man in his happiness. No depth of emotion satisfied him unless it could be imparted to others. On this occasion his soul found utterance in thanking God, "which always causeth us to triumph in Christ." A military triumph rises before him; the victorious general is returning to the capital; the long procession moves before his eye; and, in the train, the captives brought home are conspicuous. Such a captive is the apostle following the chariot of his Lord. "Yet (at the same time, by a characteristic change of metaphor) an incense bearer, scattering incense (which was always done on these occasions), as the procession moves on" (Conybeare and Howson). Christ is the fragrance; "we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ." Whether men are saved or lost, Christ is Christ, and the fragrance cannot perish. There will be a "savour of death unto death" and a "savour of life unto life;" but, in either issue, the glory of God"s government is maintained. For, so far as we can see into the relations of Christ to man and of man to Christ, the fundamental fact in each aspect of the subject is human freedom. Of his own freewill Christ took upon himself our flesh and blood, suffered, and died; and of our own free will, made such by him and acted on as such by the Holy Spirit, we accept his atonement. If we reject the offered mercy, the act of our rejection testifies to the infinitude of the mercy, and the "savour of Christ" is none the less "sweet" in itself, "And who is sufficient for these things?" Here is no one-sided gospel, that accommodates conscience to taste, and allows a compromise between duty and inclination. Here is a gospel that is the "savour of death unto death" and of "life unto life." Who is competent to maintain its stern truthfulness by preaching both these doctrines? The test of a faithful minister lies in the wise and earnest use of each class of facts. Is anything so difficult? Take the natural intellect; take the natural affections; take language as the vehicle of expression; and by what power of culture can a preacher be found who can set forth the gospel in its twofoldness of "death unto death" and "life unto life"? St. Paul, in the seventeenth verse, answers the question as to sufficiency. Now, as always, it is not simply the gospel which is the power and wisdom of God, but his way of preaching it. He declares that "many corrupt the Word of God;" not of this number is he. And where does the danger of corruption exist? In not holding with a balanced mind the "death" and the "life," so as to shun overstatements and understatements in each instance. To preach after St. Paul"s manner, one must have sincerity the truth unmixed with human speculations; he must preach what God has revealed as to his Law and its righteousness, no more, no less; and he must preach it in Christ, himself in Christ, his gospel in Christ, and so preach as to spirit and temper and manner that the fragrance shall breathe in all his words. L.
An open door.
Men are prone to think what doors are open to them to enter, through which they may pass to their own profit, or advancement, or pleasure. Paul"s was an unselfish and benevolent nature. He was a true follower of Christ, who came, not to do his own will, and not to be ministered unto, but to minister. Again and again, in the course of his life, his heart was gladdened by the spectacle of a door of holy service set open before him by God"s providence, inviting him to enter in and in the name of the Lord to take possession.
I THE OPEN DOOR LEADS TO OPPORTUNITIES OF WORK FOR CHRIST. To the true Christian this is more desirable than aught beside. Paul went nowhere but some door opened before him. A synagogue was open; he entered it, and reasoned out of the Law or the prophets. A marketplace thronged with citizens afforded him opportunity for preaching the true God and the eternal life. Even a prison door, when it closed upon him, did not shut him off from human souls. It is well that Christians should think, not so much of their own interests, as of the service of their Master.
II THE OPEN DOOR IS SET OPEN BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE. "Opened of the Lord" is the apostle"s expression. We may not see the hand, but we should not ignore it. When God himself makes a way, his doing so is a command to his people to adopt and to follow it. When he opens, "no man can shut.
III THE OPEN DOOR IS A DOOR OF PROMISE TO THOSE WHO WILL ENTER IN. Why is the door set open? Is there no purpose in this? Surely it is a want of faith to hold back when the Lord himself so manifestly encourages his servants to "go in and possess the land.
IV THE OPEN DOOR WILL BE SHUT AGAINST THOSE WHOSE NEGLIGENCE OR DISOBEDIENCE HINDERS THEM FROM ENTERING IT. As the door of salvation will be closed against those who fail to enter in, so the door of service will be shut to exclude those who turn aside when the hand of God has opened it and has beckoned them to enter, but has beckoned them in vain. T.
Vers. 12, 13.
Providential doors.
Introduce by describing the leading instances of providential deliverance, care, and guidance in the life of the Apostle Paul. Especially dwell on the cases in which his life was preserved from peril and from the plots of his enemies. The reference made in our text is rather to the gracious way in which his missionary journeyings and missionary spheres had been opened before him; and the illustration may be taken from the singular way in which doors were opened and shut, when the Divine will was for the apostle to preach the gospel in Europe. (see Act_16:6-9) For the figure of a "door" for an "opportunity," see 1Co_16:9; Rev_3:8. The truth of the Divine providence ordering our lives is not one that is so familiar to us as it was to our fathers. Possibly our warmer thought of God"s fatherly care has taken the place of the colder conception of an impersonal providence. Still, it may be well to revive the older notion and make it glow with Christian sentiment and feeling.
I THE ORDERING OF PROVIDENCE FOR EVERYBODY. Irrespective of religious state and relations. Illustrations of this are found in all times of danger, disease, or calamity. Some are taken and some are left. We constantly read of remarkable providential escapes.
II THE SPECIALTY OF PROVIDENCE FOR CHRISTIANS. It may in part be that Christians more readily recognize the hand of God in their rescuings and guidances, but we may also believe that God gives a special protection to his own. Such a belief may be a great comfort to us, but it must be kept from becoming exaggerated and extravagant. The Christian cannot always be preserved, because his suffering may be for the good of the whole.
III THE ATTITUDE IN WHICH CHRISTIANS SHOULD STAND TOWARDS THE EVER ACTIVE PROVIDENCE. It may be shown to include
(1) earnest watchings;
(2) patient waitings;
(3) prompt actings;
(4) full and unhesitating obediences; and
(5) thankful rejoicings. 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.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv12, 14, 15, 17 Furthermore, when I came to Troas.
2Co_2:12-17
Furthermore, when I came to Troas.
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The effect of the gospel ministry
I. The work which the minister undertakes. I came to Troas to preach Christs gospel; God maketh manifest the savour of His knowledge by us; For we are not as many which corrupt the Word of God. According, then, to the apostle, the ministers work consists in the faithful exposition of that Word which contains the knowledge of Christs gospel. In nature we mark the footprints of the Creator, but Gods Word gives us the marvellous embodiment of His providential and redemptive thoughts.
II. The influence he exerts (2Co_2:15-16). Relationship increases responsibility. Who can define the responsibility of the parent? The teacher also assumes mighty responsibilities.
III. The source of the ministers qualifications for his work. He causeth us to triumph in Christ. (T. Moir, M. A.)
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The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v12 Chapter 7
Chapter 7
CHRISTS CAPTIVE.- 2Co_2:12-17 (R.V)
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IN this passage the Apostle returns from what is virtually, if not formally, a digression, to the narrative which begins in 2Co_1:8 f., and is continued in 2Co_1:15 f. At the same time he makes a transition to a new subject, really though not very explicitly connected with what goes before - namely, his independent and divinely granted authority as an apostle. In the last verses of 2Co_2:1-17., and in 2Co_3:1-4, this is treated generally, but with reference in particular to the success of his ministry. He then goes on to contrast the older and the Christian dispensation, and the character of their respective ministries, and terminates the section with a noble statement of the spirit and principles with which he fulfilled his apostolic calling. {2Co_4:1-6}
Before leaving Ephesus, Paul had apparently made an appointment to meet Titus, on his return from Corinth, at Troas. He went thither himself to preach the Gospel, and found an excellent opportunity for doing so; but the non-arrival of his brother kept him in such a state of unrest that he was unable to make that use of it which he would otherwise have done. This seems a singular confession, but there is no reason to suppose that it was made with a bad conscience. Paul was probably grieved that he had not the heart to go in at the door which had been opened to him in the Lord, but he did not feel guilty. It was not selfishness which made him turn away, but the anxiety of a true pastor about other souls which God had committed to his care. "I had no relief for my spirit," he says; and the spirit, in his language, even though it be a constituent of mans nature, is that in him which is akin to the divine, and receptive of it. That very element in the Apostle, in virtue of which he could act for God at all, was already preoccupied, and though the people were there, ready to be evangelized, it was beyond his power to evangelize them. His spirit was absorbed and possessed by hopes and fears and prayers for the Corinthians; and as the human spirit, even when in contact with the divine, is finite, and only capable of so much and no more, he was obliged to let slip an occasion which he would otherwise have gladly seized. He probably felt with all missionaries that it is as important to secure as to win converts; and ii the Corinthians were capable of reflection, they might reflect with shame on the loss which their sin had entailed on the people of Troas. The disorders of their willful community had engrossed the Apostles spirit, and robbed their fellow-men across the sea of an apostolic ministry. They could not but feel how genuine was the Apostles love, when he had made such a sacrifice to it; but such a sacrifice ought never to have been required.
When Paul could bear the suspense no longer, he said good-bye to the people of Troas, crossed the Thracian Sea, and advanced into Macedonia to meet Titus. He did meet him, and heard from him a full report of the state of matters at Corinth; {2Co_7:5 ff.} but here he does not take time to say so. He breaks out into a jubilant thanksgiving, occasioned primarily no doubt by the joyful tidings he had just received, but widening characteristically, and instantaneously, to cover all his apostolic work. It is as though he felt Gods goodness to him to be all of a piece, and could not be sensitive to it in any particular instance without having-the consciousness rise within him that he lived and moved and had his being in it. "Now to God be thanks, who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ."
The peculiar and difficult word in this thanksgiving is θριαμβευοντι. The sense which first strikes one as suitable is that which is given in the Authorized Version: "God which always causeth us to triumph." Practically Paul had been engaged in a conflict with the Corinthians, and for a time it had seemed not improbable that he might be beaten; but God had caused him to triumph in Christ-that is, acting in Christs interests, in matters in which Christs name and honor were at stake, the victory (as always) had remained with him; and for this he thanks God. This interpretation is still maintained by so excellent a scholar as Schmiedel, and the use of θριαμβευειν in this transitive sense is defended by the analogy of μαθητευειν in Mat_28:19.
But appropriate as this interpretation is, there is one apparently fatal objection to it. There is no doubt that θριαμβευειν is here used transitively, but we have not to guess, by analogy, what it must mean when so used; there are other examples which fix this unambiguously. One is found elsewhere in St. Paul himself, {Col_2:15} where θριαμβευσας αυτους indubitably means "having triumphed over them." In accordance with this, which is only one out of many instances, the Revisers have displaced the old rendering here, and substituted for it, "Thanks be to God, which always leadeth us in triumph." The triumph here is Gods, not the Apostles; Paul is not the soldier who wins the battle, and shouts for victory, as he marches in the triumphal procession; he is the captive who is led in the Conquerors train, and in whom men see the trophy of the Conquerors power. When he says that God always leads him in triumph in Christ, the meaning is not perfectly obvious. He may intend to define, as it were, the area over which Gods victory extends. In everything which is covered by the name and authority of Christ, God triumphantly asserts His power over the Apostle. Or, again, the words may signify that it is through Christ that Gods victorious power is put forth. These two meanings, of course, are not inconsistent; and practically they coincide.
It cannot be denied, I think, if this is taken quite rigorously, that there is a certain air of irrelevance about it. It does not seem to be to the purpose of the passage to say that God always triumphs over Paul and those for whom He speaks, or even that He always leads them in triumph. It is this feeling, indeed, which mainly influences those who keep to the rendering of the Authorized Version, and regard Paul as the victor. But the meaning of θριαμβευοντι is not really open to doubt, and the semblance of irrelevance disappears if we remember that we are dealing with a figure, and a figure which the Apostle himself does not press. Of course in an ordinary triumph, such as the triumph of Claudius over Caractacus, of which St. Paul may easily have heard, the captives had no share in the victory; it was not only a victory over them, but a victory against them. But when God wins a victory over man, and leads his captive in triumph, the captive too has an interest in what happens; it is the beginning of all triumphs, in any true sense, for him. If we apply this to the case before us, we shall see that the true meaning is not irrelevant. Paul had once been the enemy of God in Christ; he had fought against Him in his own soul, and in the Church which he persecuted and wasted. The battle had been long and strong; but not far from Damascus it had terminated in a decisive victory for God. There the mighty man fell, and the weapons of his warfare perished. His pride, his self-righteousness, his sense of superiority to others and of competence to attain to the righteousness of God, collapsed for ever, and he rose from the earth to be the slave of Jesus Christ. That was the beginning of Gods triumph over him; from that hour God led him in triumph in Christ. But it was the beginning also of all that made the Apostles life itself a triumph, not a career of hopeless internal strife, such as it had been, but of unbroken Christian victory. This, indeed, is not involved in the mere word θριαμβευοντι, but it is the real thing which was present to the Apostles mind when he used the word. When we recognize this, we see that the charge of irrelevance does not really apply; while nothing could be more characteristic of the Apostle than to hide himself and his success in this way behind Gods triumph over him and through him.
Further, the true meaning of the word, and the true connection of ideas just explained, remind us that the only triumphs we can ever have, deserving the name, must begin with Gods triumph over us. This is the one possible source of joy untroubled. We may be as selfish as we please, and as successful in our selfishness; we may distance all our rivals in the race for the worlds prizes; we may appropriate and engross pleasure, wealth, knowledge, influence; and after all there will be one thing we must do without-the power and the happiness of thanking God. No one will ever be able to thank God because he has succeeded in pleasing himself, be the mode of his self-pleasing as respectable as you will; and he who has not thanked God with a whole heart, without misgiving and without reserve, does not know what joy is. Such thanksgiving and its joy have one condition: they rise up spontaneously in the soul when it allows God to triumph over it. When God appears to us in Jesus Christ, when in the omnipotence of His love and purity and truth He makes war upon our pride and falsehood and lusts, and prevails against them, and brings us low, then we are admitted to the secret of this apparently perplexing passage; we know how natural it is to cry, "Thanks be unto God who in His victory over us giveth us the victory! Thanks be to Him who always leadeth us in triumph!" It is out of an experience like this that Paul speaks; it is the key to his whole life, and it has been illustrated anew by what has just happened at Corinth.
But to return to the Epistle. God is described by the Apostle not only as triumphing over them (i.e., himself and his colleagues) in Christ, but as making manifest through them the savor of His knowledge in every place. It has been questioned whether "His" knowledge is the knowledge of God or of Christ. Grammatically, the question can hardly be answered; but, as we sere from 2Co_4:6, the two things which it proposes to distinguish are really one: what is manifested in the apostolic ministry is the knowledge of God as He is revealed in Christ. But why does Paul use the expression "the savor of His knowledge?" It was suggested probably by the figure of the triumph, which was present to his mind in all the detail of its circumstances. Incense smoked on every altar as the victor passed through the streets of Rome; the fragrant steam floated over the procession, a silent proclamation of victory and joy. But Paul would not have appropriated this feature of the triumph, and applied it to his ministry, unless he had felt that there was a real point of comparison, that the knowledge of Christ which he diffused among men, wherever he went, was in very truth a fragrant thing. True, he was not a free man; he had been subdued by God, and, made the slave of Jesus Christ; as the Lord of glory went forth conquering and to conquer, over Syria and Asia and Macedonia and Greece, He led him as a captive in the triumphal march of His grace; he was the trophy of Christs victory; every one who saw him saw that necessity was laid upon Him; but what a gracious necessity it was! "The love of Christ constraineth us." The captives who were dragged in chains behind a Roman chariot also made manifest the knowledge of their conqueror; they declared to all the spectators his power and his pitilessness; there was nothing in that knowledge to suggest the idea of a fragrance like incense. But as Paul moved through the world, all who had eyes to see saw in him not only the power, but the sweetness of Gods redeeming love. The mighty Victor made manifest through Him, not only His might, but His charm, not only His greatness, but His grace. It was a good thing, men felt, to be subdued and led in triumph like Paul; it was to move in an atmosphere perfumed by the love of Christ, as the air around the Roman triumph was perfumed with incense, The Apostle is so sensible of this that he weaves it into his sentence as an indispensable part of his thought; it is not merely the knowledge of God which is made manifest through him as he is led in triumph, but that knowledge as a fragrant, gracious thing, speaking to every one of victory and goodness and joy.
The very word "savor," in connection with the "knowledge" of God in Christ, is full of meaning. It has its most direct application, of course, to preaching. When we proclaim the Gospel, do we always succeed in manifesting it as a savor? Or is not the savor-the sweetness, the winsomeness, the charm and attractiveness of it-the very thing that is most easily left out? Do we not catch it sometimes in the words of others, and wonder that it eludes our own? We miss what is most characteristic in the knowledge of God if we miss this. We leave out that very element in the Evangel which makes it evangelic, and gives it its power to subdue and enchain the souls of men. But it is not to preachers only that the word "savor" speaks; it is of the widest possible application. Wherever Christ is leading a single soul in triumph, the fragrance of the Gospel should go forth; rather, it does go forth, in proportion as His triumph is complete. There is sure to be that in the life which will reveal the graciousness as well as the omnipotence of the Savior. And it is this virtue which God uses as His main witness, as His chief instrument, to evangelize the world. In every relation of life it should tell. Nothing is so insuppressible, nothing so pervasive, as a fragrance. The lowliest life which Christ is really leading in triumph will speak infallibly and persuasively for Him. In a Christian brother or sister, brothers and sisters will find a new strength and tenderness, something that goes deeper than natural affection, and can stand severer shocks; they will catch the fragrance which declares that the Lord in His triumphant grace is there. And so in all situations, or, as the Apostle has it, "in every place." And if we are conscious that we fail in this matter, and that the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ is something to which our life gives no testimony, let us be sure that the explanation of it is to be found in self-will. There is something in us which has not yet made complete surrender to Him, and not till He leads us unresistingly in triumph will the sweet savor go forth.
At this point the Apostles thought is arrested by the issues of his ministry, though he carries the figure of the fragrance, with a little pressure, through to the end. In Gods sight, he says, or so far as God is concerned, we are a sweet savor of Christ, a perfume redolent of Christ, in which He cannot but take pleasure. In other Words, Christ proclaimed in the Gospel, and the ministries and lives which proclaim Him, are always a joy to God. They are a joy to Him, whatever men may think of them, alike in them that are being saved and in them that are perishing. To those who are being saved, they are a savor "from life to life"; to those who are perishing, a savor "from death to death." Here, as everywhere, St. Paul contemplates these exclusive opposites as the sole is, sues of mans life, and of the Gospel ministry. He makes no attempt to subordinate one to the other, no suggestion that the way of death may ultimately lead to life, much less that it must do so. The whole solemnity of the situation, which is faced in the cry "And who is sufficient for these things?" depends on the finality of the contrast between life and death. These are the goals set before men, and those who are being saved and those who are perishing are respectively on their way to one or the other. Who is sufficient for the calling of the Gospel ministry, when such are the alternatives involved in it? Who is sufficient, in love, in wisdom, in humility, in awful earnestness, for the duties of a calling the issues of which are life or death forever?
There is considerable difficulty in the sixteenth verse, partly dogmatic, partly textual. Commentators so opposite in their bias as Chrysostom and Calvin have pondered and remarked upon the opposite effects here ascribed to the Gospel. It is easy to find analogies to these in nature. The same heat which hardens clay melts iron. The same sunlight which gladdens the healthy eye tortures that which is diseased. The same honey which is sweet to the sound palate is nauseous to the sick; and so on. But such analogies do not explain anything, and one can hardly see what is meant by calling them illustrations. It remains finally inexplicable that the Gospel, which appeals to some with winning irresistible power, subduing and leading them in triumph, should excite in others a passion of antipathy which nothing else could provoke. This remains inexplicable, because it is irrational. Nothing that can be pointed to in the universe is the least like a bad heart closing itself against the love of Christ, like a bad mans will stiffening into absolute rigidity against the will of God. The preaching of the Gospel may be the occasion of such awful results, but it is not their cause. The God whom it proclaims is the God of grace; it is never His will that any should perish-always that all should be saved. But He can save only by subduing; His grace must exercise a sovereign power in us, which through righteousness will lead to life everlasting. {Rom_5:21} And when this exercise of power is resisted, when we match our self-will against the gracious saving will of God, our pride, our passions, our mere sloth, against the soul-constraining love of Christ; when we prevail in the war which Gods mercy wages with our wickedness, -then the Gospel itself may be said to have ministered to our ruin; it was ordained to life, and we have made it a sentence of death. Yet even so, it is the joy and glory of God; it is a sweet savor to Him, fragrant of Christ and His love.
The textual difficulty is in the words εκ θανατου εις θανατον, and εκ ζωης εις ζωην. These words are rendered in the Revised Version "from death to death," and "from life to life." The Authorized Version, following the "Textus Receptus," which omits ejk in both clauses, renders "a savor of death unto death," and "of life unto life." In spite of the inferior MS. support, the "Textus Receptus" is preferred by many modern scholars-e.g., Heinrici, Schmiedel, and Hofmann. They find it impossible to give any precise interpretation to the better attested reading, and an examination of any exposition which accepts it goes far to justify them. Thus Professor Beet comments: "From death for death: {comp. Rom_1:17} a scent proceeding from, and thus revealing the presence of, death; and, like malaria from a putrefying corpse, causing death. Pauls labors among some men revealed the eternal death which day by day cast an ever-deepening shadow upon them [this answers το οσμητου]; and by arousing in them increased opposition to God, promoted the spiritual mortification which had already begun" [this answers to οσμη εκ θανατου]. Surely it is safe to say that nobody in Corinth could ever have guessed this from the words. Yet this is a favorable specimen of the interepretations given. If it were possible to take εκ θανατου εις θανατον and εκ ζωης εις ζωην, as Baur took εκ πιστεως εις πιστον in Rom_1:17, that would be the simplest way out of the difficulty, and quite satisfactory. What the Apostle said would then be this: that the Gospel which he preached, ever good as it was to God, had the most opposite characters and effects among men, -in some it was death from beginning to end, absolutely and unmitigatedly deadly in its nature and workings; in others, again, it was life from beginning to end-life was the uniform sign of its presence, and its invariable issue. This also is the meaning which we get by omitting εκ: the genitives ζωης and θανατου are then adjectival, -a vital fragrance, with life as its element and end; a fatal fragrance, the end of which is death. This has the advantage of being the meaning which occurs to an ordinary reader; and if the critically approved text, with the repeated εκ, cannot bear this interpretation, I think there is a fair case for defending the received text on exegetical grounds. Certainly nothing but the broad impression of the received text will ever enter the general mind.
The question that rises to the Apostles lips as he confronts the solemn situation created by the Gospel is not directly answered. "Who is sufficient for these things? Who? I say. For we are not as the many, who corrupt the Word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ." Paul is conscious as he writes that his awful sense of responsibility as a preacher of the Gospel is not shared by all who exercise the same vocation. To be the bearer and the representative of a power with issues so tremendous ought surely to annihilate every thought of self; to let personal interest intrude is to declare oneself faithless and unworthy. We are startled to hear from Pauls lips what at first sight seems to be a charge of just such base self-seeking laid against the majority of preachers. "We are not as the many, corrupting the Word of God." The expressive word rendered here "corrupting" has the idea of self-interest, and especially of petty gain, at its basis. It means literally to sell in small quantities, to retail for profit. But it was specially applied to tavern-keeping, and extended to cover all the devices by which the wine-sellers in ancient times deceived their customers. Then it was used figuratively, as here; and Lucian, e.g., speaks of philosophers as selling the sciences, and in most cases (οι πολλοι: a curious parallel to St. Paul), like tavern-keepers, "blending, adulterating, and giving bad measure." It is plain that there are two separable ideas here. One is that of men qualifying the Gospel, infiltrating their own ideas into the Word of God, tempering its severity, or perhaps its goodness, veiling its inexorableness, dealing in compromise. The other is that all such proceedings are faithless and dishonest, because some private interest underlies them. It need not be avarice, though it is as likely to be this as anything else. A man corrupts the Word of God, makes it the stock-in-trade of a paltry business of his own, in many other ways than by subordinating it to the need of a livelihood. When he exercises his calling as a minister for the gratification of his vanity, he does so. When he preaches not that awful message in which life and death are bound up, but himself, his cleverness, his learning, his humor, his fine voice even or fine gestures, he does so. He makes the Word minister to him, instead of being a minister of the Word; and that is the essence of the sin. It is the same if ambition be his motive, if he preaches to win disciples to himself, to gain an ascendancy over souls, to become the head of a party which will bear the impress of his mind. There was something of this at Corinth; and not only there, but wherever it is found, such a spirit and such interests will change the character of the Gospel. It will not be preserved in that integrity, in that simple, uncompromising, absolute character which it has as revealed in Christ. Have another interest in it than that of God, and that interest will inevitably color it. You will make it what it was not, and the virtue will depart from it.
In contrast with all such dishonest ministers, the Apostle represents himself and his friends speaking "as of sincerity." They have no mixture of motives in their work as evangelists; they have indeed no independent motives at all: God is leading them in triumph, and proclaiming His grace through them. It is He who prompts every word (ως εκ θεου). Yet their responsibility and their freedom are intact. They feel themselves in His presence as they speak, and in that presence they speak "in Christ." "In Christ" is the Apostles mark. Not in himself apart from Christ, where any mixture of motives, any process of adulteration, would have been possible, but only in that union with Christ which was the very life of his life, did he carry on his, evangelistic work. This was his final security, and it is still the only security, that the Gospel can have fair play in the world.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv12–17 12–17. When I came to Troas to preach Christ's…
12–17. When I came to Troas to preach Christ's gospel. See Acts 16:8 and 20:5–12. In Acts two visits to Troas are named, but the one alluded to here is omitted. Troas was then a large city, situated not far from the site of old Troy, and almost within sight of Europe. There is now a small village there and extensive ruins. See notes in Acts. A door was opened. An opportunity for the gospel. Though he did not tarry now, a little later we find a church there (Acts 20:5).
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 On v12 2Co_2:12. Troas.—Act_20:1-6. Note, “for the Gospel,” literally exact. Door.—Cf.…
CRITICAL NOTES
2Co_2:12. Troas.—Act_20:1-6. Note, “for the Gospel,” literally exact. Door.—Cf. 1Co_16:9, and material there.
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2Co_2:13.—See Homily, “Conqueror; Captives; Incense.” Assumed in the homiletics, with most, that, although festive processions in honour of Bacchus are closely connected with the earliest root of the word “triumph,” yet the word had been borrowed and was in common use for the triumph of a victorious Roman general; which Roman triumph, moreover, alone supplies the figure with the touch of “incense.” [See these points, and nearly all others, dealt with in the various homilies which follow.] Cf. Luk_20:18. “Men must build with the Stone, or be crushed beneath it.” Also Luk_2:24. “This Child is set … for the fall and for the rising again of many.” Men fall, or rise, whenever they come into contact with Christ in a faithful Gospel. [Happily, all who rise have first “fallen.” The “fall” is the first thing. Men may do both; they must, in order to a full salvation.] The triumph of Memmius, a century earlier, after the sack of Corinth, had been a very remarkable and famous triumph, certain to be in the minds of Paul’s readers.
HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.—2Co_2:12-17
(Nearly all the details of interpretation of 2Co_2:14-16 will be found more fully taken up in the detailed Homiletics which follow.)
I. “Paul turning away from ‘an open door’!”—
1. A marvel! This is the man who in his former letter could not leave his work at Ephesus because there was “a great door and effectual” opened to him (1Co_16:9). In this very Troad and its neighbourhood he had on a former journey tried many “doors,” only to find that they were not “open”; closed against him by the “Spirit of Jesus” (Act_16:6-8). Now the door was open, and apparently he did enter and begin his work, and in a brief while with much success; for on the return journey from Corinth he found a little Church in Troas with whom he spent the Sunday (Act_19:5-12). Yet he put his work down, left the open door, and in “restlessness” of spirit, and in anxiety about Corinth, from which there came no tidings, he crossed over into the Macedonian region to meet Titus, as he hoped, the sooner [as he, in fact, did (2Co_7:6)].
2. Such a detail, with its self-revelation, has no small value from the point of view of the historical student. Just such touches as these make it impossible, without a scepticism which puts the sceptic altogether out of court, as not deserving to be listened to, to doubt that we are dealing with a document historically veracious to the last degree, the real letter of a real man, of the date which is professed and claimed; with all the evidential consequences which flow from the genuineness and the contemporary testimony of such a letter from such a competent witness. Such details are important credentials of a revelation which is nothing if not historic.
3. But they are parts of the revelation.—God reveals His mind partly in selected histories and biographies, “stories with a purpose,” those points being brought out in the telling which best help the purpose of the Divine Narrator. Plainly, then, the highest type of worker is not above “moods” and almost uncontrollable emotion; such moods and deep emotion as may unsettle him, and even render it impossible for him to continue his work. “The peace of God which is to guard heart and thoughts” (Php_4:7), standing sentry, as it were, at the heart’s door and preventing the entrance of distressing or mischievous thought, is no such mechanical defence as to produce mere insensibility. There is in perfect service no such mechanical labour, no such mechanical fulfilment of duty, as might be got from a machine wound up to do a set task, and going rigorously through with it, without interest or without feeling. “But, Paul cannot you trust your work at Corinth in the hands of your Master? After all, is it not more His work than yours? You did your part at Corinth whilst you lived there; you have done your part in this unhappy business about the incestuous man, by writing your letter and by sending Titus. Cannot you now leave the issues, and go quietly on with your work? We know, indeed, that your personal stake in the matter is not small, but we know, too, that your reputation has long ago been put into the hands of your Lord. What the Corinthians will have thought and done, when they got your letter, whether they will obey you, or whether this will have inflamed the factious party into fresh opposition, or even have given them a means of bringing over to their side some who have hitherto been ‘of Paul,’—we know how little you regard this for your own sake. Cannot you ‘rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him’? and meanwhile work on, within this open door in the Troad?” There is nothing in such thoughts which is not truth, and the high privilege of the life consecrated so entirely to Christ that everything in it, like the man himself, is Christ’s, not his own. No life was ever more utterly removed from all self-centering thought or work or care than was Paul’s: “to him to live was ‘Christ.’ ” Yet we love him none the worse, nor is he the less valuable a detail of God’s revealed will on such matters, that his very example here checks all unhealthy and exaggerated application of such truths as were just now suggested. There is not the rigid support of, and compliance with, a relentless code which takes no account of human nature. In the illustrative and didactic instance which Paul supplies there is the perfect naturalness and elasticity of simple, real life. No man more certainly than he would subordinate all personal considerations to the interests of the work of Christ. But neither did His Lord expect him not to feel, to feel acutely, to feel with a depth of emotion which was a real disqualification for going on with his work in Troas. We serve a profoundly reasonable Master, Who knows exactly how much to expect from His servants, of submission in days of sorrow, of acquiescence in days of disappointment, of peace and rest as well as trust in days when, naturally, circumstances would keep brain and heart in a whirl of anxiety, or strained to their utmost tension. After all, the work of Christ at Corinth was the main thing at stake. To this, even in Paul’s mind, everything else stood second. We love Paul none the less, nor did his Lord, we may well believe, condemn him, that his distress turned him away from “an open door.”
II. Paul in the train of Christ’s triumph.—
1. Such details as we have been studying are part of God’s Revelation, taken up into it, made the vehicle of a distinct addition to our knowledge of the mind of God, and of His will on such questions of the practical conduct of Christian men. So, similarly, such changes of plan, hingeing on such trivial occasions, are all parts of the progress of the Gospel. They are all contributory to the great plan of campaign, according to which Christ is subduing the world to Himself. They all fall in with the movement of His march to ultimate victory over “things in earth” (Php_2:10). They are small details of a great progress whose goal is the day when it shall be proclaimed that “the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of God’s Christ” (Rev_11:5). It is a progress which seems often retarded. The ground occupied in this very Asia and Troas and Macedonia, is hardly retained for Him to-day. It is often difficult for faith to see any movement at all; more difficult to see any plan at all. The faith which does see the plan, and hold fast to its hope in the triumph, is a grace, the gift of the “Spirit of faith.” It is one subordinate manifestation of the supreme faith, which that Spirit also alone gives, that “Jesus is the Lord” (1Co_12:3). If that truth be grasped, all else is held. “We see not yet all things put under Him. Though the name of Christ rises ever more loudly above the tumult, the day of victory seems far off. But by the Holy Ghost we know that ‘nothing which ought not to be need be.’ We look back and see forms of evil dead—it may be dead for ever. Evil itself lives, and may even seem after some triumph of good to close in more pitilessly than before, but to those who take the large outlook it is clear that progress is being made. To say that the fight is hopeless is to deny the Lordship of Christ.… There is danger unfathomable and unending in admitting that any wrong is inevitable, that anything is too hard for the Lord” (Editorial, British Weekly, October 26th, 1893). Every conversion has this significance and this importance to the history of the very world itself, that one more life which lay athwart, or ran counter to, the line of the movement of the will of God, and the progress of King Jesus to His final and universal victory, is brought into parallelism, and moves with the Divine movement. And then, all the details of that life, all its activities and aims, in proportion as they are pervaded with the spirit of consecrated service and are made a perpetually renewed offering to Christ, for His service and glory, become details in the triumph of the Great Conqueror. In the old phrase, all such turnings away from Troas and crossings over into Macedonia, are “overruled” for the advantage of the work of God. At the least, the “knowledge of Christ and its savour” are thus “made manifest” in a greater number of cities and centres. No man is on that account to indulge “moods” and “feelings”; to pick up this work, or lay down the other, according as he may, or may not, “feel in the spirit of it”; to enter one door “because he is happy in the work” there, and turn aside from another, or quit it, when he has entered it, because “he was not happy.” But Paul’s quick faith triumphs over the record and the memory of his keen distress at Troas. “It is all right! Thank God! The triumph moves on nevertheless. And we with it! Glory be to God!”
2. The triumph sweeps everybody into its course.—There are no mere spectators. Paul was an enemy once. He is a trophy of the Great Imperator now. He is indeed (by a quick transformation) a soldier sharing, in some humble part, the triumph. It is Christ’s triumph, indeed. The Lord is the Centre of the spectacle. But every subaltern and private is the object of somebody’s regard; to them, he is triumphing. To himself, at any rate, he is triumphant. Nobody who comes into contact with Christ remains indifferent. Triumphed over, and that only, and dragged onward “to death”; or triumphed over, and led onward, triumphing also, “to life.” If Christ’s triumph “comes our way,” we must, in one way or another, “fall in.” To Paul himself the “savour,” so far as he knew of it, was once “of death, unto death”; now “the savour” of his living Lord—not lying dead or corrupting in Joseph’s new tomb—was “of life,” as, himself “saved by the Lords life” (Rom_5:10) and diffusing a Gospel “of life” wherever he went, he moved onward “to life,” “to lay hold of the life which is Life indeed” (1Ti_6:19).
III. Paul a genuine man dispensing a genuine Gospel.—
1. Other men might, and did, use an incense whose “savour” was not simply and only “of Christ.” There was in most cases much of Christ in it, or at least something. [Even the men at Rome who were preaching with “by-motives, not sincerely,” and indeed in a spirit “of contention,” were at least so “preaching Christ” that Paul rejoiced at their work, though only with a modified joy and satisfaction (Php_1:18).] Whilst they bade men “Come buy and eat” (Isa_55:1), there was adulteration in their bread, there was admixture in their wine. [The “milk” was not “the sincere milk of the Word” (1Pe_2:2).] Like dishonest hucksters, for their own gain, or at best for some personal satisfaction, they dealt in a “Word of God” which was not “incorrupt” [Tit_2:7; but quite another word and figure from that of the text here]. Jewish admixture everywhere; half-heathen, childish superstition in Colosse; rationalising treatment of fundamental truths at Corinth; “many” dealt deceitfully with the Word they preached. [See Homiletics on “Charity,” 1Co_13:5, “thinketh no evil.”] By-motives in the preaching, even if the truth preached were tolerably pure. “Many!” What a view of “Primitive Christianity”! [Shall the figure be pushed so far as to suggest that some diffusers of the incense try so to compound it that it shall not be a “savour of death,” even to the “natural” man? Try so to flavour the wine that the “natural” palate likes it, or at least makes no great objection to it?]
2. Not so Paul.—He returns to the protest he made in 2Co_1:12, that his whole character and conduct had been at the uttermost remove from any of the self-seeking, the vacillation, or tricky change of purpose with which he was charged at Corinth. But he lifts the whole matter of his personal vindication up to a higher level here than there. Then he protested his “sincerity” as between himself and them; here he protests it in respect of his dealing with “the Word.” Yet even on that lower level it was a “sincerity of God,” which he here also claims; his phrases here analysing that of the earlier verse. He speaks in God’s hearing, conscious of a Listener before Whom he stands, seen through and through, heard through and through. No falsehood of heart but will ring in the voice, to that Ear! No unsoundness, no evil admixture, in his teaching can escape the scrutiny of that Eye. The Great Analyst knows that he does not deal falsely with the Gospel, the “Word of God” put into his mouth to speak. He can “call God to witness upon his soul,” he said (2Co_1:23). He can lay bare his inmost heart and thought, and challenge that scrutiny. He may well do so, for his “sincerity” is a grace, a gift “of God” by His Spirit. Happy that teacher of Divine truth who is sustained under calumny, or in the midst of misunderstanding, by such a confidence! “The Lord God of gods, the Lord God of gods, he knoweth, and Israel he shall know” (Jos_22:22). Happy if he never be betrayed into conduct in his office, if never a word come from his lips, concerning which he needs to falter as he faces his own conscience, and concerning which also, as far as man may, he may not look up into the face of God, and claim even His witness that he has not knowingly dealt falsely with his trust, “the Word” which has been given to him to administer. What a check upon everything but supreme loyalty to God’s Truth! What a defence against temptation to man-pleasing! And against self-pleasing! And against any dishonest retailing of old formulas which, rightly or wrongly, no longer represent a man’s beliefs! Honesty, honesty, before all things honesty, in the man who deals with the honest, genuine “Word of God”! Is any most unprincipled, adulterating tradesman so base as the man who adulterates the Bread by which men Live, the “Word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God”? Let the world have at least that as genuine as the apostle, the prophet, the teacher, can give it. This sincere man deals out a genuine Gospel.
SEPARATE HOMILIES
2Co_2:14-16. The triumph; the Captives; the Incense.—[Probably, if not certainly, imagery derived from a Roman triumph.] One of the grandest spectacles of ancient world. All Rome kept holiday; everybody in the streets. Sometimes the show for three whole days winding its way along up to the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol. All ranks and ages watching the long procession hour after hour, with unflagging interest. The Victorious Army, with the spoil heaped up upon long trains of waggons; piles of gold and silver coin; magnificent dresses and ornaments; statues and pictures, such as Memmius had carried off from plundered Corinth; arms and armour from the battle-field. Then the Captives; of strange garb and look and speech. Then the Conqueror, the man of the Day. Not seldom, in golden fetters, bound to, and walking behind, his chariot, the unhappy general, or king, or queen of the conquered foes; often overwhelmed with ridicule, reproach, abuse, by the merciless, civilised brutality of the spectators. The procession moved along amidst clouds of Incense; many in the procession swung censers; burning braziers of charcoal fed with it along the line of route; a fragrance grateful to all! No, not to all. To some of those captives the fate appointed at the end of the day is Death. To the public eye the end of the spectacle will be the conqueror’s sacrifice in the temple of Jupiter. To the victorious troops, dismissal with rewards, each to become a hero in his little home circle. To the mass of captives, slavery, but life. To the condemned ones, death in the rock-hewn dungeons close by the Capitoline Hill. To these the “grateful” incense smells foul as the breath of a charnel-house. To all besides, “a sweet savour,” a “savour of life,” as they move on towards, at least life, if not liberty. To these “a savour of death,” as they move onwards “unto death.” [Most of these points are used in the passage; with some confusion of metaphor, or rather an intentional change in the use of the illustration, characteristic of Paul.]
I. What a Christian’s life is to himself.—
1. He is being led, by God, from place to place, in the triumphal procession of Christ. Paul is writing from Macedonia. At Troas, just before, he had found “an open door,” but had, strangely, turned away from it and had crossed over into Europe. Such a sudden change and movement was a sample of his life. “Found no rest for his spirit” in Troas; found no rest for his body anywhere! His life was an incessant movement. Antioch one day; Ephesus almost the next; Ephesus to Corinth; Corinth to Jerusalem; Jerusalem to Rome—the other end of the world of that day! Traversing the Roman Empire in journeys which were rather flights than journeys. To us it seems a wearing, restless, anxious life. To him God’s hand was in all such changes. Even a trivial change like this in question is part of God’s will and plan for Paul’s life. He accepted all such incessant change with acquiescence; indeed, with thankfulness and rejoicing. “Thanks be to God” who is thus leading him about from place to place in the train of the triumph of Jesus Christ! He only waits to know where God would have him go next. He follows gladly, since he follows Christ!
2. So for every Christian man. In every change of station, of circumstances, of abode, he should seek and follow the leading of God. Then even the most perplexing, harassing diversion from his own plans will be no matter of chafing discontent and fretful irritation, but of glorying acquiescence in the plan of God.
3. How grand this makes even the humblest life! The procession, the train of Christ’s triumph, is moving onward with majestic march, swelling in numbers as it advances. He is sweeping onward in triumph; the humblest of His people is moving on in triumph with Him—onward to the consummate day of His triumph.
4. From place to place he is being exhibited as one of Christ’s trophies. Grammatically, it may be either, “Maketh us to triumph,” or “Triumpheth over us.” Both are true. He is shown in the triumph; he shares in the triumph. The army and the captives are here one and the same company. Christ has been God’s General, sent to reduce rebellious earth to submission. Began the war single-handed. Every slain enemy becomes a living helper and a soldier. Other conquerors begin with an army, and lessen or lose it as the war proceeds. Our Captain began without an army, and wins and makes one as the war goes on. Has no victorious army but of conquered captives. Every enemy who submits, falls into the ranks of those who obey His command. The marvel of the mercy of the Gospel this. Every soldier has been an enemy. Rebels not only forgiven and allowed to live, but enlisted, and richly rewarded for service. Those over whom Christ triumphs, triumph with Him in His march to heaven. By-and-by, when He enters in glory through the “everlasting doors” the “King of Glory,” they shall appear with Him in, and with Him enter into, glory.
5. The victory of a Christian is the victory of one first vanquished. A soul’s victory begins in Christ’s victory over it. “Thanks to God who triumphs over us in Christ, for in Christ He makes us to triumph with Christ too!”
II. What a Christian’s life is to God.—
1. A grand exhibition of His conquering power, but also of His gracious heart in Christ towards all who submit. His method of advertising, of diffusing “in every place, the knowledge of Christ.” Paul a consummate example of this principle. Did his worst in rebellion against God’s Christ. A pre-eminent persecutor; a zealot of the zealots. Then what a change! Preaches the faith he once destroyed; preaches it, as he persecuted it, “unto strange cities” (Act_26:11). Paul was in himself a fact which was a consummate testimony for Christ. In himself he was text and preacher and sermon. [“A pattern,” 1Ti_1:15-16.] To see Paul was to see what Christ could do. Not only his preaching, but his exhibition in this place and that, a captive chained to the chariot of Christ, was diffusing “the knowledge of Christ in every place.” If God be pleased so to use him, so to lead him hither and thither, he acquiesces, he glories. [Same turn of thought in 2Co_10:5. Read Paul, and see how this Rabbi’s whole system of thought—doctrinal, exegetical, ethical—wears the bonds of Christ. “Every thought led captive.” See Homilies, in loco.]
2. A work for God within the reach of all. Let Christ conquer; put His yoke upon natural pride, anger—“natural” everything; subdue, in business, home, all; then let God exhibit the man, parade him up and down the world, an example of His conquering power, His matchless grace. The great business of life. After some great change in life, involving a new home, perhaps, a new surrounding, a new beginning in everything; thrust, perhaps into an unintended, unexpected, unwelcome destination; after the earliest, inevitable, adjustment to the new conditions in which life to be spent, livelihood to be won, then ask: “Why am I put here? I have been led here in the train of Christ’s triumph, to diffuse here the knowledge of Christ.” A purpose that, to which every other stands second. “To be a savour.” Anybody can swing, can be, a censer! Men see the smoke of the incense. Cannot see the “savour.” Invisible, impalpable, unmistakable! So, how fine to meet these about whose every act, word, movement, hangs something defying analysis, impalpable, intangible, unmistakable, and all Christ! Nothing so much appeals to a non-Christian. [A “sweet savour.” Would that it were always sweet! Religion real, obvious, respected, in some Christians, but not “sweet.”] “Of Christ;” this important. Many lives, lovely, beloved, giving out a sweet savour. What is wanting? The trained “scent” of the spiritual man misses something from the incense! Christ wanting!
III. What a Christian’s life is to others.—
1. Everybody will not like the incense even when its savour is loveliest, perfect. To the captives it made all the difference whether it were the accompaniment of the march “to life,” or the march “to death.”
2. Note the sharp division of mankind into “those that are being saved”; and “those that are [now] perishing.” Here a ready test is provided. When a man comes across the “savour” of the incense, does he like it—or not? To “those who are perishing” the Gospel is loathsome as death. Is full of “death.” A dead (“crucified”) Christ; “dead in sins”; “dead to sin”; “dead with Christ.” A “savour of death” seemed to such to hang about all Paul’s preaching.
3. More than that, the Christian man and his testimony help “to life,” or help “to death.” No man can be neutral in the presence of Christ, or of the Gospel, or of a true Christian. Better—or worse—for knowing even one such. [Like his Lord, every Christian man is “come for judgment” (Joh_9:39). I.e. inevitably forces every man with whom associated, to take up an attitude, for or against, God and Christ; is inevitably a present test of character; necessarily ranges men as either “unto life” or “unto death.”] Well may Paul add, “Who is sufficient?” The issues, the responsibility, of a life full of the savour of Christ are terrible! How much more of one where the testimony is marred by inconsistency, the “savour” mingled with what is not “of Christ”!
2Co_2:16. “Who is sufficient?”
I. The minister of the Gospel speaks in these words, as they stand in the Epistle. But they leap to the lips, they are the sigh of the deepest heart, of many another besides a minister.—There are responsibilities for all. There is no worthy life which has none. The self-sufficient heart that never feels them any burden, that in mere shallow light-heartedness, or slight-heartedness, feels itself at a moment’s notice “equal to anything,” that with the mechanical imperturbability of a Nasmyth steam-hammer is as ready without a misgiving “to forge an anchor as to crack a nut,” has no sense of the meaning of “Life.” The sense of insufficiency with which worthier souls must often go forward to meet and assume responsibilities, is one of the keenest and most daunting pains; none causes more exquisite suffering to a soul filled with a tender conscientiousness. Yet no worthy Man would purchase exemption, at the price of less sensitiveness or a duller conscience. But it makes, not dying but, living the awfully solemn thing. It is easier to die once, and “to die well” and to have done with it, than to live, “once” indeed also, but a “once” which is extended over twenty, forty, eighty years, at every point of which may be danger of failure, at every point responsibility, new burdens gathering as we go, old ones persistently pressing upon our heart, till life is often one long-drawn strain upon the brain and heart, themselves already tense with the sense of responsibility and of inadequacy. The solemnity of life is not that with untarrying pace it is leading to death—death which crowns all with a swift and irreversible “judgment”; nor that it is doing so much to determine what that death and its issues shall be. In the true view of life, it is a continuous thing, beginning here, but stretching on unbroken through the veil of “death,” into the unseen aud eternal. It is a continuous existence, in which dying is a momentary, and not the most important, incident, one of which the most that can be said is that it introduces to, and marks the commencement of, a new section of the new life—“new” because transacted in new conditions and surroundings. To a Christian man dying has been almost emptied of meaning, as well as of dread. It is not only that the “sting” is gone; the thing itself is practically “abolished” (2Ti_1:10). The eternal life has begun, but its real solemnity arises from the responsibilities of living, responsibilities before men and towards God. There are those, e.g.,
II. Of the individual.—
1. Nous mourrons seuls. One might say with equal truth, “We live alone.” “Thou art the man,” is the word of God, in all rebuke of sin, in all calls to duty, in all believing unto salvation, in the day of Christ’s judgment of men. God’s claims, our duties—with them each man has singly to do; for them each one of us must “give account of himself to God” (Rom_14:12). As in creation no two atoms really touch each other, so souls are essentially apart. There are collective duties for which there is a collective responsibility, of co-extensive area of incidence. But even then a personal responsibility accrues for the assuming of one’s own share in the collective work and obligation. In the end, everything comes back to the individual. “When I remember, in view of this, with what unmeasured powers our Creator has endowed us, and that I am not only responsible for what is done by them, but for what they might do if I rightly used them; when I remember that God has an unquestionable right to all my activities, all my thoughts, all my love; and when withal I am conscious of Sin and Satan so often engrossing and mastering me, that I am daily ‘robbing God’ (Mal_3:8) upon His own earth, under His very eye,—in a word, when I think of all that I ought to do, and all that I ought to be, as contrasted with what I really am, I feel that, in the face of every fact concerning my responsibility as an individual merely, I may well exclaim with trembling, ‘Who is sufficient for these things?’ ” Then there are responsibilities arising from—
2. His relationships.—“By connection with our fellow-men none of our old obligations to God are abrogated. There is not one code of morals for the man and another for the merchant, not one law for the individual and another for the statesman, warrior, king. All God’s claims are binding on us always—wrong is wrong, right is right, everywhere. By entering on new relationships we can never free ourselves from the moral laws that are authoritative upon us as individuals; on the contrary, new relationships create new responsibilities. Who can measure the responsibilities of a parent? To the father and mother of that infant are committed most of its preparation for the stern and deadly struggle with sin, which is to decide its eternal destiny. The privilege of training a child for a beautiful and true life here, and for a yet more beautiful and true life hereafter, is the most surpassingly glorious a parent’s heart can desire; the responsibility of having by lip or life ruined a child here, leaving it to wander, lost, homeless, for ever, will be the most crushing a parent’s heart can bear.” No father or mother who remembers how pliable and how delicate a thing is the young character, but will cry out, “Who is sufficient?” A single slip of the seal engraver’s tool, or too deep a cutting, may mar the labour of months. Parents are cutting an image in a most precious gem. A weight or a bond too many may give a warp to the young branch, which shall never be straightened out all life through. A wrong word or a wrong act may make its indelible mark upon the fearfully “spoilable” material, and yet so valuable, entrusted to us to work upon. And who can measure the responsibilities of a preacher? Men talk lightly of the preacher’s life, as if he had “light work, good position, good pay”! There is honour, truly. Every man worthy to be in the ranks of the ministry, understands the privilege of being the confidant and comforter of souls, and their helper in sorrow. It is no mean honour to be in an office where he may speak words welcome to weary hearts as water to the thirsty traveller in an Arabian desert, or words which may send on the hearer into the week of worry and toil with new energy and hope. To send away singing some heart that came sad; to say words which in another heart shall ring on many following days like a trumpet-call to duty; or which in a moment of danger shall recur to another, perhaps to a young man in his hour of temptation, like the gentle voice of a warning friend; to be permited to speak words which shall for many a day feed men and women as with supernatural strength, or which may even awaken some soul that is slumbering on, heedless of its high destiny and its awful progress toward eternity, marking the turning-point of a life,—all this is an honour angels might covet; the dignity of being God’s ambassador yields to none other. But the responsibility of it! If the congregation come and go and no soul be cheered, or fed, or warned; if no lesson be taught, and no impetus given to the good in any life; what then? The man’s “service” is a failure, if no heart is lifted to God, if the sheep turn away hungry still; if the children gather round their elder brother, and he give them the stone of mere lecturing, or the husks of mere brilliance. There is a partial failure if the hearer be only instructed, and not persuaded. The heart may be moved, the intellect satisfied; but, if the will be not moved? “Who is sufficient?” Men understand what it is in business to pay high salaries for trustworthiness and responsibility. Money, life, depend upon one man’s skill and judgment and fidelity, and men pay accordingly. But for how much “pay” will a man intelligently undertake to “watch for souls as one that must give account”? Stand at the great “Day” by a preacher confronted with a man once in his congregation who says, and truly, “I came hungry, or perplexed, or indifferent,—or under deep conviction of sin, and you had no word for me. I passed on; my disappointed heart made me sceptical. I doubted God, or hated Him.” Another, “I passed on, hardening under your powerless word, and now am lost.” Another, “I, too, passed on, and my convictions died away.” Certainly the responsibility of the loss of a soul never lies entirely at a preacher’s door. Every man knows that, at the very heart of the matter, the responsibility is his own, however others may have contributed to the conditions of his life. But if in that Day that minister says: “Ah! that was the day when I had made ‘scamped,’ hasty preparation; when in mere spiritual indolence my closet devotion had been slurred over, when my own tone was low, and I went into the pulpit powerless. It was my opportunity with that man; I was not that day the man to seize it. I am saved here; but he—” As those that must give account of the sermons of a year, of a ministry; and of that incessant ministry of pastoral and personal character. For how much “pay” will a man undertake this? Then, further, are to be added the considerations here specially pressing upon Paul. On the most faithful ministry of the most spiritual man hangs not only life, but death. Some hearers he will certainly not save; as certainly will their heart pervert his ministry into the occasion of “death.” “For judgment Christ came into the world,” etc. (Joh_9:39). “For judgment” is every man come into the world. Every man is a test of character, swift, decisive, inevitable, to every other man with whom he comes into contact. Goodness will reveal and help goodness; but it may awaken and irritate into hatred the evil which it finds. And the minister is a test, and his word is a test, to men and women. The more faithful he is to the ideal and the responsibility of his office, the more surely is he set for “judgment” amongst his fellows. Life and death hang upon mere individual living; who dares live? Life and death depend on parental wisdom and love; who dares train a child? Life and death hang upon the ministry of the Gospel; who dares speak in the name of Christ? “Who is sufficient?” “Brethren, pray for us!”—Slightly suggested by “Homilist,” New Series, iv. 385.
2Co_2:16. “Who is sufficient?”
I. These words express a sense of the greatness of the work undertaken.—The ministry is a work
1. Great in its nature.—There is the exposition of the Bible. In His word He has given us the highest teaching, the divinest doctrine. He has taught us concerning our own past, and the world’s past, our own and the world’s future. Above all, He has given light on our relationship to Himself;—ourselves, Himself, and the Mediator between us. Hence there is here the greatest truth that can possess man’s mind, truth that the angels desire to look into, and which take us an eternity to understand; truth, too, whose distinguishing glory it is to be remedial in its nature, restorative in its aim. Every man is bound to be a student of the Holy Book and a learner for himself at the feet of the Great Teacher; the minister pre-eminently should acquaint himself with its truths, and aid those around him to understand them and feel their power. And all this statement and enforcing of truth must be in Paul’s spirit,—Christ’s. When the study of the preacher is unfaithful, unfilial, and his preaching unloving, unsympathetic, unchristian; when there is medley doctrine, or a forced, unnatural earnestness in its promulgation, the pulpit is weak. Not only does Christ claim that His spirit shall be present in the work of His servants; the very world of “society” demands it, and triumphs if it be absent, or lost. To misrepresent the truth of God, the life of Christ; to be erroneous in teaching and inconsistent in character,—the possibility makes a man cry: “Who is sufficient?”
2. Great in its influence.—To influence and mould deathless souls! To have to do with the understanding, heart, will, of man, with all their outworkings now and for ever! “The preaching is to bless or curse all who listen. It is to save those who receive it, from sin, self, hell; to save them by means of the truth, through the love of Christ, by the Spirit of God. It is to unshackle every undying power of the enslaved soul. It is to heal the diseased, to raise the dead. But those whom it will not bless it will curse; it will harden them in sin. It will add to their privileges and responsibilities new ones which will utter for ever a condemning cry against them. This continual, inevitable, twofold effect make the work awfully responsible, momentously great.”
II. The insufficiency of man to perform the work.—
1. How inadequate is man to expound the Scripture. “Easy work to preach the Gospel; it is so simple!” So they say; but is it? If an intelligent, harmonious representation of truth be given, there is material for the highest thought, scope for every faculty. Every power is challenged to the work, for also, in a true sense, man’s reason must be satisfied; the truth must be so presented as to do homage to the Book and persuade the man.
2. Is it “easy,” again, for feeble man to cherish the spirit essential to the work, a living sympathy with all that is holy and true, and a righteous hatred to all that is corrupt and false, unswerving loyalty to the claims of God, unchangeable love to the souls of men? It is impossible to interpret the Book without a spirit too real for pietism, too earnest for fearfulness, too holy for dalliance with sin; is it easy to retain such a spirit?
3. Who has ever taught even a Sabbath scholar, and, much more, who has tried to win an adult for Christ by direct, personal effort, but has learned this lesson, most quickly and most surely of all—the pitiable powerlessness of human strength to dislodge Satan from the hearts which we would bless? To attempt to guide the judgment or move the will of some wayward youth, or hardened profligate, or utter, though “blameless,” worldling,—it is a child’s attack upon a garrisoned fortress. It is hard to bless; and if the word do not bless “unto life,” it must hurt “unto death.” “Who is sufficient?”
III. The qualification for the work.—The great, primary qualification is this very spirit of conscious inefficiency. “When I am weak, then am I strong.” The old heathen believed that their heroes were strengthened to dare and to do, by becoming possessed of the skill and might of the gods of their special devotion. Their dream may be our reality. Only with them the gods favoured the cunning, the vaunting, the strong; our God “increaseth strength”—for work, as well as for journeying or endurance—“to them that have no might” (Isa_40:29). Depressing want of apparent success may often be needed to crush out egoism, self-sufficiency, pride, until in helplessness the man is at last flung upon God and His might. When men “have toiled all night and have caught nothing,” then are they ready to be helped and guided by their Master to a “catch” whose success is His, not theirs. To succeed, men must work and teach and live in this spirit of conscious insufficiency. “That no flesh should glory in His presence!”—Founded on homily by U. R. Thomas, “Homilist,” New Series, ii. 387 sqq.
HOMILETIC SUGGESTIONS
2Co_2:15-16. Manward and Godward Aspects of the Gospel Ministry.
I. Manward.—It may have a vivifying effect. It may have a deadly influence. Because of three unalterable principles:
1. The greater the mercy abused the greater the condemnation.
2. The susceptibility to good impressions decreases in proportion to the resistance against them.
3. Man’s moral suffering will be increased in proportion to his consciousness that he once had the means of being happy. [“Woe unto thee, Chorazin,” etc.]
II. Godward.—A true ministry is unto God “a sweet savour,” whatever be its effects upon humanity. [Query is this the meaning of “unto God”? and not rather, “for God’s purposes (and glory)?”] It is in itself, therefore, for good, for good exclusively. It may be the occasion of evil, but it is the cause of good. [Cf. a similar, though not parallel, thought in Rom_7:10.] Therefore,
1. It saves by design; it destroys, if at all, in spite of its design.
2. It saves by its inherent tendency; it injures, if at all, in spite of that tendency.
3. It saves by Divine agency; it destroys, if at all, in spite of that agency. [“Ye do resist the Holy Ghost.”]—Extracted with modifications from “Homilist,” New Series, ii. 468.
2Co_2:17. The Word is Corrupted.
I. By introducing error, human philosophy, private opinions, irrelevant matter, by the omission or misrepresentation of important truths, selfish aims.
II. How it ought to be preached—faithfully, sincerely, humbly, earnestly.—[J. L.]
[Or start by inquiring what in common life is “adulteration,” and what are the motives of it.]
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 On v14 14. “Thanks be unto God, who causeth us to…
THE GOSPEL OMINOUS OF DOOM
14. “Thanks be unto God, who causeth us to triumph in Christ, manifesting the odor of the knowledge of Himself through us in every place.” The apostles are everywhere the heralds of victory in Christ, who causes them to triumph over all of their spiritual foes, their message of truth, testimony of personal Salvation, songs of joy and shouts of victory filling the very atmosphere with the fragrant odors of the knowledge of Christ; i. e., everything they say and do is constantly revelatory of the knowledge of Christ.
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15. “Because we are a sweet savor to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.” So long as we are in this world we are not saved in a final sense, but only being saved, i. e., in process of salvation, ripening for Heaven, justification being primary salvation, sanctification full salvation and glorification final salvation. Meanwhile the wicked are not yet damned, but only condemned, with an opportunity to have the condemnatory sentence rescinded. There is no final issue in either case till we pass out of this probation. The true ministers are a sweet savor to God, because they so proclaim the whole counsel of God as to turn the full responsibility over to the hearers, thus vindicating the Divine justice and magnifying sovereign mercy, whether in the case of salvation or perdition.
16. “To the latter an odor from death unto death, and to the former an odor of life unto life. Who is sufficient for these things?” In the case of the wicked, we are an odor from the spiritual death which now locks them tight unto the eternal death which awaits them. In the case of the righteous, we are an odor from the glorious spiritual life they now enjoy, to the ineffable joys of the eternal life to which they fast hasten, the present state in either case being significantly ominous of the momentous future. No wonder he indulges in the interjection, “Who is equal to these things?” Tremendous are the issues and immeasurable the responsibilities.
17. “For we are not as many, who are in the habit of adulterating the Word of God .” What an awful responsibility! and yet how many are guilty of bending the Word to suit the creed or the congregation. God’s Word is His voice, replete with His awful majesty. In the first place, it is an awful pity a creed was ever made. This is the reason why they corrupt the Word to suit the creed. No one should assume the awful responsibility of handling God’s Word till he is dead to creeds, opinions, and everything but God. “But as from purity, but as from God, we speak before God in Christ.” The “sincerity” in E.V. is eilikrineias, from eilee, a “sunbeam,” and krinoo, judge. Hence it means “judged in a sunbeam,, i. e., God proposes to make your heart so pure that when illuminated by the infallible Sun of Righteousness, His own omniscient eye can see no impurity in it. We are to preach in the constant realization that we are standing in the presence of God.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v14 2 Corinthians
2 Corinthians
THE TRIUMPHAL PROCESSION
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2Co 2:14
I suppose most of us have some knowledge of what a Roman Triumph was, and can picture to ourselves the long procession, the victorious general in his chariot with its white horses, the laurelled soldiers, the sullen captives, with suppressed hate flashing in their sunken eyes, the wreathing clouds of incense that went up into the blue sky, and the shouting multitude of spectators. That is the picture in the Apostle’s mind here. The Revised Version correctly alters the translation into ‘Thanks unto God which always leadeth us in triumph in Christ.’
Paul thinks of himself and of his coadjutors in Christian work as being conquered captives, made to follow their Conqueror and to swell His triumph. He is thankful to be so overcome. What was deepest degradation is to him supreme honour. Curses in many a strange tongue would break from the lips of the prisoners who had to follow the general’s victorious chariot. But from Paul’s lips comes irrepressible praise; he joins in the shout of acclamation to the Conqueror.
And then he passes on to another of the parts of the ceremonial. As the wreathing incense appealed at once to two senses, and was visible in its curling clouds of smoke, and likewise fragrant to the nostrils, so says Paul, with a singular combination of expression, ‘He maketh manifest,’ that is visible, the savour of His knowledge. From a heart kindled by the flame of the divine love there will go up the odour of a holy life visible and fragrant, sweet and fair.
And thus all Christians, and not Christian workers only in the narrower sense of the word, who may be doing evangelistic work, have set before them in these great words the very ideal and secret of their lives.
There are three things here, on each of which I touch as belonging to the true notion of a Christian life-the conquered captive; that captive partaking in the triumph of his Conqueror; and the conquered captive led as a trophy and a witness to the Conqueror’s power. These three things, I think, explain the Apostle’s thoughts here. Let me deal with them now.
I. First then, let us look at that thought of all Christians being in the truest sense conquered captives, bound to the chariot wheels of One who has overcome them.
The image implies a prior state of hostility and alienation. Now, do not let us exaggerate, let us take Paul’s own experience. He is speaking about himself here; he is not talking doctrine, he is giving us autobiography, and he says, ‘I was an enemy, and I have been conquered.’
What sort of an enemy was he? Well! He says that before he became a Christian he lived a pure, virtuous, respectable life. He was a man ‘as touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.’ Observant of all relative duties, sober, temperate, chaste; no man could say a word against him; he knew nothing against himself. His conscience acquitted him of wrong: ‘I thought I ought to do many things,’ as I did them. And yet, looking back from his present point of view upon a life thus adorned with many virtues, pure from all manifest corruption, to a large extent regulated by conscientious and religious motives of a kind, he says, ‘Notwithstanding all that, I was an enemy.’ Why? Because the retrospect let him see that his life was barren of the deepest faith and the purest love. And so I come to some of my friends here now, and I say to you, ‘Change the name, and the story is true about you,’ respectable people, who are trying to live pure and righteous lives, doing all duties that present themselves to you with a very tolerable measure of completeness and abominating and trying to keep yourselves from the things that your consciences tell you are wrong, yet needing to be conquered, in the deepest recesses of your wills and your hearts, before you become the true subjects of the true King. I do not want to exaggerate, nor to say of the ordinary run of people who listen to us preachers, that they commit manifest sins, ‘gross as a mountain, open, palpable.’ Some of you do, no doubt, for, in every hundred people, there are always some whose lives are foul and whose memories are stained and horrible; but the run of you are not like that. And yet I ask you, has your will been bowed and broken, and your heart overcome and conquered by this mighty Prince, the Prince of Peace, the Prince of Life? Unless it has, for all your righteousness and respectability, for all your outward religion and real religiousness of a sort, you are still hostile and rebellious, in your inmost hearts. That is the basis of the representation of my text.
What else does it suggest? It suggests the wonderful struggle and victory of weaponless love. As was said about the first Christian emperor, so it may be said about the great Emperor in the heavens, ‘In hoc signo vinces!’ By this sign thou shalt conquer. For His only weapon is the Cross of His Son, and He fights only by the manifestation of infinite love, sacrifice, suffering, and pity. He conquers as the sun conquers the thick-ribbed ice by raying down its heat upon it, and melting it into sweet water. So God in Christ fights against the mountains of man’s cold, hard sinfulness and alienation, and by the warmth of His own radiation turns them all into rivers that flow in love and praise. He conquers simply by forbearance and pity and love.
And what more does this first part of my text say to us? It tells us, too, of the true submission of the conquered captive; how we are conquered when we perceive and receive His love; how there is nothing else needed to win us all for Him except only that we shall recognise His great love to us.
This picture of the triumph comes with a solemn appeal and commandment to every one of us professing Christians. Think of these men, dragged at the conqueror’s chariot-wheels, abject, with their weapons broken, with their resistance quelled, chained, yoked, haled away from their own land, dependant for life or death on the caprice of the general who rode before them there. It is a picture of what you Christian men and women are bound to be if you believe that God in Christ has loved you as we have been saying that He does. For abject submission, unconditional surrender, the yielding up of our whole will to Him, the yielding of all our possessions as His vassals-these are the duties that are correspondent to the facts of the case.
If we are thus won by infinite love, and not our own, but bought with a price, no conquered king, dragged at an emperor’s chariot-wheels, was ever half as absolutely and abjectly bound to be his slave, and to live or die by his breath, as you are bound to your Master. You are Christians in the measure in which you are the captives of His spear and of His bow; in the measure in which you hold your territories as vassal kings, in the measure in which you say, stretching out your willing hands for the fetters, ‘Lord! here am I, do with me as Thou wilt.’ ‘I am not mine own; be Thou my will, my Emperor, my Commander, my all.’ Loyola used to say, as the law of his order, that every man that became a member of the Society of Jesus was to be like as a staff in a man’s hand, or like as a corpse. It was a blasphemous and wicked claim, but it is but a poor fragmentary statement of the truth about those of us who enter the real Society of Jesus, and put ourselves in His hands to be wielded as His staff and His rod, and submit ourselves to Him, not as a corpse, but yield yourselves to our Christ ‘as those that are alive from the dead.’
II. Now we have here, as part of the ideal of the Christian life, the conquered captives partaking in the triumph of their general.
Two groups made up the triumphal procession-the one that of the soldiers who had fought for, the other that of the prisoners who had fought against, the leader. And some commentators are inclined to believe that the Apostle is here thinking of himself and his fellows as belonging to the conquering army, and not to the conquered enemy. That seems to me to be less probable and in accordance with the whole image than the explanation which I have adopted. But be that as it may, it suggests to us this thought, that in the deepest reality in that Christian life of which all this metaphor is but the expression, they who are conquered foes become conquering allies. Or, to put it into other words-to be triumphed over by Christ is to triumph with Christ. And the praise which breaks from the Apostle’s lips suggests the same idea. He pours out his thanks for that which he recognises as being no degradation but an honour, and a participation in his Conqueror’s triumph.
We may illustrate that thought, that to be triumphed over by Christ is to triumph with Christ, by such considerations as these. This submission of which I have been speaking, abject and unconditional, extending to life and death, this submission and captivity is but another name for liberty. The man who is absolutely dependent upon Jesus Christ is absolutely independent of everything and everybody besides, himself included. That is to say, to be His slave is to be everybody else’s master, and when we bow ourselves to Him, and take upon us the chains of glad obedience, and life-deep as well as life-long consecration, then He breaks off all other chains from our hands, and will not suffer that any others should have a share with Him in the possession of His servant. If you are His servants you are free from all besides; if you give yourselves up to Jesus Christ, in the measure in which you give yourselves up to Him, you will be set at liberty from the worst of all slaveries, that is the slavery of your own will and your own weakness, and your own tastes and fancies. You will be set at liberty from dependence upon men, from thinking about their opinion. You will be set at liberty from your dependence upon externals, from feeling as if you could not live unless you had this, that, or the other person or thing. You will be emancipated from fears and hopes which torture the men who strike their roots no deeper than this visible film of time which floats upon the surface of the great, invisible abyss of Eternity. If you have Christ for your Master you will be the masters of the world, and of time and sense and men and all besides; and so, being triumphed over by Him, you will share in His triumph.
And again, we may illustrate the same principle in yet another way. Such absolute and entire submission of will and love as I have been speaking about is the highest honour of a man. It was a degradation to be dragged at the chariot-wheels of conquering general, emperor, or consul-it broke the heart of many a barbarian king, and led some of them to suicide rather than face the degradation. It is a degradation to submit ourselves, even as much as many of us do, to the domination of human authorities, or to depend upon men as much as many of us do for our completeness and our satisfaction. But it is the highest ennobling of humanity that it shall lay itself down at Christ’s feet, and let Him put His foot upon its neck. It is the exaltation of human nature to submit to Christ. The true nobility are those that ‘come over with the Conqueror.’ When we yield ourselves to Him, and let Him be our King, then the patent of nobility is given to us, and we are lifted in the scale of being. All our powers and faculties are heightened in their exercise, and made more blessed in their employment, because we have bowed ourselves to His control. And so to be triumphed over by Christ is to triumph with Christ.
And the same thought may be yet further illustrated. That submission which I have been speaking about so unites us to our Lord that we share in all that belongs to Him and thus partake in His triumph. If in will and heart we have yielded ourselves to Him, he that is thus joined to the Lord is one spirit, and all ‘mine is Thine, and all Thine is mine.’ He is the Heir of all things, and all things of which He is the Heir are our possession. ‘All things are yours, and ye are Christ’s.’ Thus His dominion is the dominion of all that love Him, and His heritage is the heritage of all those that have joined themselves to Him; and no sparkle of the glory that falls upon His head but is reflected on the heads of His servants. The ‘many crowns’ that He wears are the crowns with which He crowns His followers.
Thus, my brother, to be overcome by God is to overcome the world, to be triumphed over by Christ is to share in His triumph; and he over whom Incarnate Love wins the victory, like the patriarch of old in his mystical struggle, conquers in the hour of surrender; and to him it is said: ‘As a prince thou hast power with God and hast prevailed.’
III. Lastly, a further picture of the ideal of the Christian life is set before us here in the thought of these conquered captives being led as the trophies and the witnesses of His overcoming power.
That idea is suggested by both halves of our verse. Both the emblem of the Apostle as marching in the triumphal procession, and the emblem of the Apostle as yielding from his burning heart the fragrant visible odour of the ascending incense, convey the same idea, viz. that one great purpose which Jesus Christ has in conquering men for Himself, and binding them to His chariot wheels, is that from them may go forth the witness of His power and the knowledge of His name.
That opens very wide subjects for our consideration which I can only very briefly touch upon. Let me just for an instant dwell upon some of them. First, the fact that Jesus Christ, by His Cross and Passion, is able to conquer men’s wills, and to bind men’s hearts to Him, is the highest proof of His power. It is an entirely unique thing in the history of the world. There is nothing the least like it anywhere else. The passionate attachment which this dead Galilean peasant is able to evoke in the hearts of people all these centuries after His death, is an unheard of and an unparalleled thing. All other teachers ‘serve their generations by the will of God,’ and then their names become speedily less and less powerful, and thicker and thicker mists of oblivion wrap them round until they disappear. But time has no power over Christ’s influence. The bond which binds you and me to Him nineteen centuries after His death is the very same in quality as, and in degree is often far deeper and stronger than, the bond which united to Him the men that had seen Him. It stands as an unique fact in the history of the world, that from Christ of Nazareth there rays out through all the ages the spiritual power which absolutely takes possession of men, dominates them and turns them into His organs and instruments. This generation prides itself upon testing all things by an utilitarian test, and about every system says:-’Well, let us see it working.’ And I do not think that Christianity need shrink from the test. With all its imperfections, the long procession of holy men and women who, for nineteen centuries, have been marching through history, owning Christ as their Conqueror, and ascribing all their goodness to Him, is a witness to His power to sway and to satisfy men, the force of whose testimony it is hard to overthrow. And I would like to ask the simple question: Will any system of belief or of no belief, except the faith in Christ’s atoning sacrifice, do the like for men? He leads through the world the train of His captives, the evidence of His conquests.
And then, further, let me remind you that out of this representation there comes a very stimulating and solemn suggestion of duty for us Christian people. We are bound to live, setting forth whose we are, and what He has done for us. Just as the triumphal procession took its path up the Appian Way and along the side of the Forum to the altar of the Capitol, wreathed about by curling clouds of fragrant incense, so we should march through the world encompassed by the sweet and fragrant odour of His name, witnessing for Him by word, witnessing for Him by character, speaking for Him and living like Him, showing in our life that He rules us, and professing by our words that He does; and so should manifest His power.
Still further, Paul’s thanksgiving teaches us that we should be thankful for all opportunities of doing such work. Christian men and women often grudge their services and grudge their money, and feel as if the necessities for doing Christian work in the world were rather a burden than an honour. This man’s generous heart was so full of love to his Prince that it glowed with thankfulness at the thought that Christ had let him do such things for Him. And He lets you do them if you will.
So, dear friends, it comes to be a very solemn question for us. What part are we playing in that great triumphal procession? We are all of us marching at His chariot wheels, whether we know it or not. But there were two sets of people in the old triumph. There were those who were conquered by force and unconquered in heart, and out of their eyes gleamed unquenchable malice and hatred, though their weapons were broken and their arms fettered. And there were those who, having shared in the commander’s fight, shared in his triumph and rejoiced in his rule. And when the procession reached the gate of the temple, some, at any rate, of the former class were put to death before the gates. I pray you to remember that if we are dragged after Him reluctantly, the word will come: ‘These, mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before Me.’ Whereas, on the other hand, for those who have yielded heart and soul to Him in love and submission born of the reception of His great love, the blessed word will come: ‘He that overcometh shall inherit all things.’ Which of the two parts of the procession do you belong to, my friend? Make your choice where you shall march, and whether you will be His loyal allies and soldiers who share in His triumph, or His enemies, who, overcome by His power, are not melted by His love. The one live, the other perish.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv12–17 Now when I came to Troas for the gospel…
Now when I came to Troas for the gospel of Christ [i. e., intending to preach], and when a door [an opportunity-- 1Co_16:9 and note] was opened unto me in the Lord ,
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.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v15 (See Scofield "Rom 1:16").
saved
(See Scofield "Rom 1:16").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v12 Paul’s Triumph in Christ. 2Co 2:12-17
Paul’s Triumph in Christ. 2Co 2:12-17
v. 12. Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ’s Gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord,
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v. 13. I had no rest in my spirit because I found not Titus, my brother; but taking my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia.
v. 14. Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savor of His knowledge by us in every place.
v. 15. For we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish.
v. 16. To the one we are the savor of death unto death, and to the other the savor of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?
v. 17. For we are not as many, which corrupt the Word of God; but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, speak we in Christ.
Paul here returns to the description of his own spiritual condition at the time when he wrote the first epistle, and when he started upon his journey to Macedonia. He had reached the city of Troas in Mysia, on the Aegean Sea, where he, on his second missionary journey, had had the vision calling him over to Europe, Act 16:8-11. But although he had come there for the purposes of the Gospel of Christ, with the intention of preaching the Gospel, and although the door of opportunity was opened to him in the Lord, he would have found sufficient occasion to be active in the sphere which was so dear to him, yet he had no rest in his spirit, he could not shake off the uneasiness which prevented his working. He was laboring under such a strain of anxiety that he could not perform his duties as in other places, the chief reason for this condition being that he did not find Titus in Troas as he had expected. Titus was to bring him the information concerning the situation in Corinth, and he had hoped to meet him in the port. So his increasing restlessness, his worry about the congregation at Corinth, caused him to take his leave of the brethren in Troas, who, in spite of their eagerness to have the beloved apostle in their midst, respected his impatience. Thus he had come to Macedonia, where he was writing this present letter. Note: The fact that Paul, although an inspired apostle of the Lord and teacher of the Christian Church of all times, was yet subject to temptations, to periods of oppression of spirit and despondency, is a comfort to us, urging us to be strong in the midst of similar attacks of weakness.
All the worries of the apostle were dispelled by the information brought by Titus, whom Paul met in Macedonia, as his triumphant words show: But thanks to God who always causes us to triumph in Christ, literally, leads us in a triumphal procession. The emphasis lies upon "always. " No matter what anxiety and distress are besetting the Christians, they always are partakers of the victory of God, even if it be in the role of one of the captives, one of the believers gained for the Lord through the Gospel. And not only does God make use of the apostle in that capacity, but he also makes manifest the odor, the savor, of the knowledge of Christ through the apostle and his companions in every place. The knowledge of Jesus Christ, the Savior, as spread by Paul in the countries from Jerusalem to the Aegean Sea and beyond, is an odor of sacrifice which is well-pleasing to God. See Mal 1:11. Its effect may be hidden before the eyes of man, but the omniscient God is delighted with such a sacrifice, and all those that are spiritually minded take note of its power. "For concerning the presence, operation, and gifts of the Holy Ghost we should not and cannot always judge ex sensu [from feeling], as to how and when they are experienced in the heart; but because they are often covered and occur in great weakness, we should be certain from, and according to, the promise, that the Word of God preached and heard is [truly] an office and work of the Holy Ghost, by which He is certainly efficacious and works in our hearts. His thanks are given to God because he was a minister of the victorious Word, who incidentally offered sacrifice of a sweet-smelling odor to God: For we are a sweet savor of Christ unto God. The knowledge of Christ was an odor which was pleasing to God; but the entire ministry of Paul, in which he was so indefatigable, was also a sweet savor to the Lord, his entire life having the odor of sanctity; the odor of Christ pervaded him and all his doing. All believers, inasmuch as they are filled with the knowledge of Christ and God, share in this wonderful quality: odors of sanctity should at all times be found emanating from their entire life and conduct. But Paul, speaking specifically of himself and his fellow workers, says that they are a sweet savor of Christ in them that are saved and in them that perish, that are engaged in the process of being saved and of perishing; to some indeed a savor out of death unto death, but to others a savor out of life unto life. The glorious odor of the name and of the message of Christ goes forth upon all men with equal sweetness, but there is a great difference in the effect. Those that are saved become partakers of this salvation because they receive life out of the merciful odor which arises wherever the Gospel is preached. But those that perish deliberately take poison out of that same glorious odor which is originally intended for life only. Because they persist in their unbelief and will not accept the truth of redemption, therefore the odor which alone can give life has a deadly effect upon their hearts and minds. Those that are lost are offered the same grace which saves all sinners, but the Gospel in their case succeeds only in working disgust, resistance, contradiction against the holy love of God, the result being that the Word of the Cross is to them foolishness and an offense, 1Co 1:23. Christ is to them a sign to be spoken against, Luk 2:34, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, 1Pe 2:8, and thus they bring upon themselves the condemnation of blindness, Joh 9:39.
No wonder that Paul, who is fully aware of this result of his work, cries out: And for these things, who is sufficient? The answer is partly implied: So one of himself, and certainly at no time such as adulterate God’s Word. But in defense of himself and the other teachers he adds: For we are not as the majority, including the false apostles at Corinth, who adulterate the Word of God, who corrupt the divine message as contained in the Gospel. Then as now there were many that resorted to such tricks for the sake of filthy gain, who took the strength out of the Lam and the beauty and consolation out of the Gospel. With suck Paul did not want to be identified. But as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of Gad, in Christ, we speak. His personal feeling and attitude was one of strict sincerity, his entire ministry being open before the eyes of all men. His commission was of God; he had not desired nor sought the office, but was doing his work as one sent by God. He was ever conscious of the presence of God and of the consequent necessity of walking blameless in His sight. And in Christ he spoke, in fellowship with Him, a lover of truth and an enemy of falsehood; in Christ he had found the precious content of the Gospel, and this treasure he was trying to impart to others by his teaching. Thus he triumphed in Christ and gave all honor to Christ and God, just as should be done by all faithful ministers of Jesus to this day.
Summary
Paul continues his explanation of his change of plans, urges the kind acceptance of the repentant offender, describes the unusual depression which he experienced at Troas, and pictures the knowledge and ministry of Christ as a savor unto life and unto death.
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 On vv12, 14, 16 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Paul encourages the believers in Corinth by telling them of the opportunities he has had to preach the gospel in Troas and Macedonia.
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A door was opened to me by the Lord ... to preach the gospel
Paul speaks of his opportunity to preach the gospel as if it were a door through which he was allowed to walk. This can be stated in active form. AT: "The Lord opened a door to me ... to preach the gospel" or "The Lord gave me the opportunity ... to preach the gospel" (See: Metaphor and Active or Passive)
I had no relief in my spirit
"My mind was troubled" or "I was worried"
my brother Titus
Paul speaks of Titus as his spiritual brother.
So I left them
"So I left the people of Troas"
translationWords
lord
Troas
preach
good news
Christ
peace
brother
Titus
Macedonia
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 On vv12, 14, 15, 17 2:12-13 After the riot at Ephesus (Acts 19:1–20:1), Paul…
2:12-13 After the riot at Ephesus (Acts 19:1–20:1), Paul went to the seaport of Troas (Acts 20:5). He was impatient to get news from Titus about the result of the severe but tearful letter (2 Cor 2:4), and he crossed over to Macedonia in northern Greece to find him.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.