,^fwpmc^ % AUG 7 195P ^' E9G 47 THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE EDITED BY THE REV. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D. Editor of ** The Expositor" tic. THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS JAMES DENNEY, D.D. NEW YORK A. C. ARMSTONG AND SON 51 EAST TENTH STREET 1900 THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE. Crown 8w, cloth, price tv^p each vol. First Series, iSSy-S. Colossians. By the Rev. A. Maclarkn, D.D. St. Mark. By the Right Rev. the Bishop of Derry. Genesis. By Prof. Marcus Dods, D.D. 1 Samuel. By Prof. W. G. Blaikie, D.D. 2 Samuel. By the same Author. Hebrews. By Principal T. C. Edwards, D.D. Second Series, 1888-9. Galatians, By Prof. G. G. Findlay, B.A. The Pastoral Epistles. By the Rev. A. Plummkr, D.D. Isaiah i. — xxxix. By Prof. G. A. Smith, D.D. Vol. 1. The Book of Revelation. By Prof. W. Milligan, D.D. 1 Corinthians. By Prof. Marcus Dods, D.D. The Epistles of St. John. By the Most Rev. the Archbishop uf Armagh. Third Series, 1889-90. Judges and Ruth. By the Rev. R. A. Watson, M.A., D.D. Jeremiah. By the Rev. C. J. Ball, M.A. Isaiah xl. — lxvi. By Prof. G. A. Smith, D.D. Vol. II. St. Matthew. By the Rev. J. Monro Gibson, D.D. Exodus. By the Right Rev. the Bishop of Derry. St. Luke. By the Rev. H. Burton, M.A. Fourth Series, 1890-91. Ecclesiastes. By the Rev. Samuel Cox, D.D. St. James and St. Jude. By the Rev. A. Plummer, D.D. Proverbs. By the Rev. R. F. Horton, D.D. Leviticus. By the Rev. S. H. Kellogg, D.D. The Gospel of St. John. By Prof. M. Dods, D.D. Vol. I. The Acts of the Apostles. By Prof. Stokes, D.D. Vol. I. Fifth Series, 1891-2. The Psalms. By the Rev. A. Maclaren, D.D. V*. 1. 1 and 2 Thessalonians. By Prof. James Dennbv, D.D. The Book of Job. By the Rev. R. A. Watson, M.A., D.D. /Ephesians. By Prof. G. G. Findlav, B.A. The Gospel of St. John. By Prof. M. Dods, D.D. Vol, II. The Acts of the Apostles. By Prof. Stokes. D.D. Vol. II. Sixth Series, 1892-3. 1 Kings. By the Very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury. /Philippians. By Principal Rainy, D.D. Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther. By Prof. W. F. Adenev, M.A. Joshua. By Prof. W. G. Blaikie, D.D. The Psalms. By the Rev. A. Maclaren, D.D. Vol. II. The Epistles of St. Peter. By Prof. Rawson Lumby, D.D. Seventh Series, 1893-4, 2 Kings. By the Very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury. Romans. By Prof. H. C. G. Moule, M.A., D.D. The Books of Chronicles. By Prof. W. H. Bennett, M.A. 2 Corinthians. By Prof. James Dennev, D.D. Numbers. By the Rev. R. A. Watson, M.A., D.D. The Psalms. By the Rev. A. Maclaren, D.D. Vol. III. Eighth Series, 1895-6. Daniel. By the Very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury. The Book of Jeremiah. By Prof. W. H. Bennett, M.A. Deuteronomy. By Prof. Andrew Harper, B.D. The Song of Solomon and Lamentations. By Prof. W. F. Adeney, M.A. Ezekiel. By Prof. John Skinner, M.A. The Book of the Twelve Prophets. By Prof. G. A. Smith, D.D. Two Vols. rHE SECOiND EPISTLE TO CORINTHIANS / BY JAMES DENNEY, D.D. SECOND EDITION NEW YORK A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON 51 EAST TENTH STREET 1900 Printed by Hctzell, Watson, & Viney, London and Aylesbury. England, CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION I I SUFFERING AND CONSOLATION lO II FAITH BORN OF DESPAIR 23 III THE church's ONE FOUNDATION . . . -35 IV CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES 47 V A pastor's HEART 59 VI CHURCH DISCIPLINE 7? vi CONTENTS VII PAGE Christ's captive 84 VIII LIVING EPISTLES 99 IX THE TWO COVENANTS 1 1 :? X THE TRANSFIGURING SPIRIT 127 XI THE GOSPEL DEFINED . . . . . -144 XII THE VICTORY OF FAITH 157 XIII THE CHRISTIAN HOPE I 73 XIV THE MEASURE OF CHRIST's LOVE . . . . 186 XV THE NEW WORLD 198 CONTENTS vii XVI PAGE RECONCILIATION 210 XVII THE SIGNS OF AN APOSTLE 224 XVIII NEW TESTAMENT PURITANISM 237 XIX REPENTANCE UNTO LIFE 248 XX THE GRACE OF LIBERALITY 262 XXI THE FRUirS OF LIBERALITY ..... 274 XXII WAR 289 XXIII COMPARISONS 300 XXiV GODLY JEALOUSY 3 12 CONTENTS XXV PAGE FOOLISH BOASTING 325 XXVI STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS 342 XXVII NOT YOURS, BUT YOU 359 XXVIII CONCLUSION 372 INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION, in the scientific sense, is not part of the expositor's task ; but it is convenient, especially when introduction and exposition have im- portant bearings on each other, that the expositor should indicate his opinion on the questions common to both departments. This is the purpose of the state- ment which follows. (i) The starting-point for every inquiry into the relations between St. Paul and the Corinthians, so far as they concern us here, is to be found in the close connexion between the two Epistles to the Corinthians which we possess. This close connexion is not a hypothesis, of greater or less probability, like so much that figures in Introductions to the Second Epistle ; it is a large and solid fact, which is worth more for our guidance than the most ingenious conjectural combination. Stress has been justly laid on this by Holtzmann,^ who illustrates the general fact by details. Thus 2 Cor. i. 8-10, ii. 12, 13, attach themselves im- mediately to the situation described in i Cor. xvi. 8, 9. Similarly in 2 Cor. i. 12 there seems to be a distinct echo of I Cor. ii. 4-14. More important is the un- questionable reference in 2 Cor. i. 13-17, 2^^ to i Cor. xvi. 5. From a comparison of these two passages it ' Einleitung, 2nd ed., p. 255 f. 2 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS is plain that before Paul wrote either he had had an intention, of which the Corinthians were aware, to visit Corinth in a certain way. He was to leave Ephcsus, sail straight across the sea to Corinth, go from Corinth to Macedonia, and then return, via Corinth, to Asia again. In other words, on this tour he was to visit I Corinth twice. In the last chapter of the First Epistle, he announces a change of plan : he is not going to Corinth direct, but via Macedonia, and the Corinthians are only to see him once. He does not say, in the First Epistle, why he has changed his plan, but the announcement caused great dissatisfaction in Corinth. Some said he was a fickle creature ; some said he was afraid to show face. This is the situation to which the Second Epistle directly addresses itself; the very first thing Paul does in it is to explain and justify the change of plan announced in the First. It was not fickleness, he says, nor cowardice, that made him change his mind, but the desire to spare the Corinth- ians and himself the pain which a visit paid at the moment would certainly inflict. The close connexion between our two Epistles, which on this point is un- questionable, may be further illustrated. Thus, not to point to general resemblances in feeling or temper, the correspondence is at least suggestive between a'yvo^ iv Tft) TTpdy/jLaTL, 2 Cor. vii. 1 1 (cf. the use of irpayfjua in I Thess. iv. 6), and Toiavrr) iropveia in I Cor. v. i ; between ev TrpoacoTro) Xpio-rov, 2 Cor. ii. lo, and iv too ovofMarc rod K. tj/jlwv 'J. X., I Cor. v. 4 ; between the mention of Satan in 2 Cor. ii. 1 1 and i Cor. v. 5 ; between TrevOelv in 2 Cor. xii. 21 and i Cor. v. 2 ; between 7oiovto<; and ra in 2 Cor. ii. 6 t., 2 Cor. ii. 5, and the same words in i Cor. v. 5 and i Cor. v. i. If all these are carefully examined and compared, I think INTRODUCTION it becomes extremely difficult to believe that in 2 Cor. ii. 5 ff. and in 2 Cor. vii. 8 ff. the Apostle is dealing with anything else than the case of the sinner treated in 1 Cor. V. The coincidences in detail would be very striking under any circumstances ; but in combination with the fact that the two Epistles, as has just been shown by the explanation of the change of purpose about the journey, are in the closest connexion with each other, they seem to me to come as nearly as possible to demonstration. (2) If this view is accepted, it is natural and justifi- able to explain the Second Epistle as far as possible out of the First. Thus the letter to which St. Paul refers in 2 Cor. ii. 4 and in 2 Cor. vii. 8, 12, will be our First Epistle to the Corinthians ; the persons referred to in 2 Cor. vii. 12 as ** he who did the wrong " and ''he to whom the WTong was done " will be the son and the father in i Cor. v. i . There are, indeed, many who think that it is absurd to speak of the First Epistle to the Corinthians as written '* out of much afQiction and anguish of heart and with many tears " ; and who cannot imagine that Paul would speak of a great sin and crime, like that of the incestuous person, in such language as he employs in 2 Cor. ii. 5 ff. and 2 Cor. vii. 12. Such language, they argue, suits far better the case of a personal injury, an insult or outrage of which Paul — either in person or in one of his deputies — had been the victim at Corinth. Hence they argue for an intermediate visit of a very painful character, and for an intermediate letter, now lost, dealing with this painful incident. Paul, w^e are to suppose, visited Corinth on the business of 1 Cor. v. (among other things), and there suffered a great humiliation. He was defied by the guilty man and his friends, and had 4 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS to leave the Church without effecting anything. Then he wrote the extremely severe letter to which ii. 4 refers — a letter which was carried by Titus, and which produced the change on which he congratulates him- self in ii. 5 ff. and vii. 8 ff. It is obvious that this whole combination is hypothetical ; and hence, though many have been attracted by it, it appears with an infinite variety of detail. It is obvious also that the grounds on which it rests are subjective ; it is a question on which men will differ to the end of time, whether the language in 2 Cor. ii. 4 is an apt description of the mood in which Paul wrote (at least certain parts of) the First Epistle to the Corinthians, or whether the language in 2 Cor. ii. 5 ff., vii. 8 ff. is becoming language in which to close proceedings like those opened in i Cor. v. If many have believed that it is not, many, on the other hand, have no difficulty in believing that it is ; and those who take the negative not only fail to explain the series of verbal correspondences detailed above, but dissolve the connexion between our two Epistles altogether. Thus Godet allows more than a 3^ear, crowded with events, to come between them. In view of the palpable fact with which we started, I cannot but think this quite incredible : it is far easier to suppose that the proceedings about the incestuous person took a complexion which made Paul's language in the second and seventh chapters natural than to come to any confident conviction about this hypothetical visit and letter. (3) But the visit, it may be said, at all events, is not hypothetical. It is distinctly alluded to in 2 Cor. ii. i, xii. 14, xiii. i. These passages are discussed in the exposition. The two last are certainly not decisive; there are good scholars who hold the same opinion of INTRODUCTION the first. Heinrici, for instance, maintains that Paul had only been once in Corinth when he wrote the Second Epistle ; it was the third time he was starting, but once his intention had been frustrated or deferred, so that when he reached Corinth it would only be his second visit. A case can be stated for this, but in view of chap. ii. i and chap. xiii. 2, I do not see that it can be easily maintained. These passages practically com- pel us to assume that Paul had already visited Corinth a second time, and had had very painful experiences there. But the close connexion of our Epistles equally compels us to assume that this second visit belongs to an earlier date than our first canonical Epistle, We know nothing of it except that it was not pleasant, and that Paul was very willing to save both himself and the Corinthians the repetition of such an experience. It is nothing against this view that the visit in question is not referred to in Acts or in the first letter. Hardly anything in chap. xi. 24 ff. is known to us from Acts, and probably we should never have known of this journey unless in explaining the change of purpose which the first letter announced it had occurred to Paul to say : "I did not wish to come when it could only vex you ; I had enough of that before." (4) As for the letter, which is supposed to be referred to in 2 Cor. ii. 4, it also has been relieved of its hypothetical character by being identified with chaps. X. I — xiii. 10 of our present Second Epistle. In the absence of the faintest external indication that the Epistle ever existed in any other than its present form, it is perhaps superfluous to treat this seriously ; but the comment of Godet seems to me sufficiently to dispose of it. The hypothetical letter in question — in which Godet himself believes — must have had two 6 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS main objects : first, to accredit Titus, who is assumed to have carried it, as the representative of Paul ; and, second, to insist on reparation for the assumed personal outrage of which Paul had been the victim on his recent visit. This second object, at all events, is in- disputable. But chaps. X. I — xiii. lo have no reference whatever to either of these things, and are wholly taken up with what the Apostle means to do, when he comes to Corinth the third time ; they refer not to this (imaginary) insolent person, but to the misbeliev- ing and the immoral in general. (5) Except in the points specified, the interpretation of the Epistle is little affected by the questions raised in Introduction. Even in the points specified it is the historical reference, not the ethical import, which is affected. Whichever view we take of them, we get on the whole substantially the same impression of the spirit of Christ as it lives and works in the soul of the Apostle. It is part of the man's greatness, it is the seal of his inspiration, that in his hands the temporal becomes eternal, the incidental loses its purely in- cidental character, and has significance for all time. It is the expositor's task to deal with the spiritual rather than the historical side, and it will be sufficient here to indicate in outline what I conceive the series of Paul's relations with the Corinthians to have been. (6) His first visit to Corinth was that which is recorded in Acts xviii. ; according to the statement of ver. II it extended over a period of eighteen months. In all probability he had many communications with the Church, through deputies whom he commissioned, in the years during which he was absent ; the form of the question in 2 Cor. xii. 17 (yar; nva wv direaraXKa TTjOO? vfxd^; K.T.X.) implies as much. But it is only after INTRODUCTION his coming to Ephcsus, in the course of his third missionary journey, that personal intercourse with Corinth can have been resumed. To this period I should refer the visit which we are bound to assume on the ground of 2 Cor. ii. i, xiii. 2. What the occa- sion was, or what the circumstances, we cannot tell ; all we know is that it was painful, and perhaps disappointing. Paul had used grave and threatening language on this occasion (2 Cor. xiii. 2), but he had been obliged to tolerate some things which he would rather have seen otherwise. This visit was probably made toward the close of the three years' stay in Ephesus, and the letter referred to in i Cor. v. 9 — the one in which he warned the Corinthians not to associate with fornicators — would most likely be written on his return from it. In this letter he may very naturally have announced that purpose of visiting Corinth twice —once on his way to Macedonia, and again on his way back — to which reference has already been made. This letter, plainly, did not serve its purpose, and not long afterwards Paul received at Ephesus deputies from the Corinthian Church (i Cor. xvi. 17), who apparently brought written instructions with them, in which Paul's judgment was sought -more minutely on a variety of ethical questions (i Cor. vii. i). Before these deputies arrived, or at all events before Paul wrote the letter (our First Epistle) in which he addressed himself to the state of affairs in Corinth which their reports had disclosed, Timothy had left Ephesus on a journey of some interest. Paul meant Corinth to be his destination (i Cor. iv. 17), but he had to go via Macedonia, and the Apostle was not certain that he would get so far (i Cor. xvi. 10: ''But //Timothy come," etc.). In point of fact, he does not seem to have 8 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS gone farther than Macedonia ; and Luke in Acts xix. 22 mentions Macedonia as the place to which he had been sent. That he got no farther is suggested also by the fact that Paul joins his name with his own in the salutation of the Second Epistle, which was written in Macedonia, but never hints that he owed to him any information whatever on the state of the Corinthian Church. All that he knew of this, and of the effect of his first letter, he learned from Titus (2 Cor. ii. 13, vii. 13 f.). But how did Titus happen to be in Corinth representing Paul ? By far the happiest suggestion here is that which makes Titus and the brother of 2 Cor. xii. 1 8 the same as '' the brethren " of i Cor. xvi. 12, whose return from Corinth Paul expected in the company of Timothy. Timothy, as we have seen, did not get so far. Paul's departure from Ephesus was apparently hastened by a great peril ; his anxiety, too, to hear the effect produced by that letter which had cost him so much — our First Epistle — was very great ; he pressed on, past Troas, where a fair field of labour waited for workers, and finally encountered Titus in Macedonia, and heard his report. (7) This is the point at which the Second Epistle to the Corinthians begins. It falls of itself into three clearly marked divisions. The first extends over chaps, i.-vii. In this the Apostle makes his peace, so to speak, with the Corinthians, and does everything in his power to remove any feeling of " soreness " which might linger in their minds over his rigorous treatment of one particular offender. But embedded in this there is a magnificent vindication of the spiritual apostolic ministry, especially in contrast with that of the legalists, and an appeal for love and confidence such as he had always bestowed on the Church, Chaps, viii. and ix. INTRODUCTION form the second part, and are devoted to the collection which was being made in the Gentile Churches for poor Christians in Jerusalem. The third part consists of chaps. X. to xiii. In this Paul confronts the dis- orders which still assert themselves in the Church ; the pretensions of certain Judaists, " superlative apostles " as he calls them, who were assailing his apostolic vocation and subverting his gospel ; and the immoral licence of others, presumably once pagans, who used liberty for a cloak to the flesh. He writes of both with unsparing severity, yet he does not wish to be severe. He parts from the Church with words of un- affected love, and includes them all in his benediction. SUFFERING AND CONSOLATION "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother, unto the Church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints which are in the whole of Achaia : Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort them that are in any affliction, through the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound unto us, even so our comfort also aboundeth through Christ. But whether we be afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation ; or whether we be comforted, it is for your comfort, which worketh in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: and our hope for you is stedfast ; knowing that, as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so also are ye of the comfort." — 2 Cor. i. 1-7 (R.V.). THE greeting with which St. Paul introduces his Epistles is much alike in them all, but it never becomes a mere formality, and ought not to pass unre- garded as such. It describes, as a rule, the character in which he writes, and the character in which his correspondents are addressed. Here he is an apostle of Jesus Christ, divinely commissioned ; and he addresses a Christian community at Corinth, includ- ing in it, for the purposes of his letter, the scattered Christians to be found in the other quarters of Achaia. His letters are occasional, in the sense that some special incident or situation called them forth ; but this 10 i. 1-7.] SUFFERING AND CONSOLATION 11 occasional character does not lessen their value. He addresses liimself to the incident or situation in the consciousness of his apostolic vocation ; he writes to a Church constituted for permanence, or at least for such duration as this transitor}' world can have ; and what we have in his Epistles is not a series o^ obiter dicta, the casual utterances of an irresponsible person ; it is the mind of Christ authoritatively given upon the questions raised. When he includes any other person in the salutation — as in this place " Timothy our brother " — it is rather as a mark of courtesy, than as adding to the Epistle another authority besides his own. Timothy had helped to found the Church at Corinth ; Paul had shown great anxiety about his reception by the Corinthians, when he started to visit that turbulent Church alone (i Cor. xvi. lo f.) ; and in this new letter he honours him in their eyes by uniting his name with his own in the superscription. The Apostle and his affectionate fellow-worker wish the Corinthians, as they wished all the Churches, grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not necessary to expound afresh the meaning and connexion of these > two New Testament ideas : grace is the first and last word of the Gospel ; and peace — perfect spiritual soundness — is the finished work of grace in the soul. The Apostle's greeting is usually followed by a thanksgiving, in which he recalls the conversion of those to whom he is writing, or surveys their progress in the new life, and the improvement of their gifts, gratefully acknowledging God as the author of all. Thus in the First Epistle to the Corinthians he thanks God for the grace given to them in Christ Jesus, and especially for their Christian enrichment in all utterance and in all knowledge. So, too, but with deeper grati- 12 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS tude, he dwells on the virtues of the Thessalonians, remembering their work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope. Here also there is a thanks- giving, but at the first glance of a totally different character. The Apostle blesses God, not for what He has done for the Corinthians, but for what He has done for himself. '' Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation." This departure from the Apostle's usual custom is probably not so selfish as it looks. When his mind travelled down from Philippi to Corinth, it rested on the spiritual aspects of the Church there with anything but unrelieved satisfaction. There w^as much for which he could not possibly be thankful ; and just as the momen- tary apostasy of the Galatians led to his omitting the thanksgiving altogether, so the unsettled mood in which he wrote to the Corinthians gave it this peculiar turn. Nevertheless, when he thanked God for comforting him in all his afflictions, he thanked Him on their behalf It was they who were eventually to have the profit both of his sorrows and his consolations. Pro- bably, too, there is something here which is meant to appeal even to those who disliked him in Corinth. There had been a good deal of friction between the Apostle and some who had once owned him as their father in Christ ; they were blaming him, at this very moment, for not coming to visit them ; and in this thanksgiving, which dilates on the afQictions he has endured, and on the divine consolation he has expe- rienced in them, there is a tacit appeal to the sympathy even of hostile spirits. Do not, he seems to say, deal ungenerously with one who has passed through such terrible experiences, and lays the fruit of them at youi- i. 1-7.] SUFFERING AND CONSOLATION 13 feet. Chrysostom presses this view, as if St. Paul had written his thanksgiving in the character of a subtle diplomatist : to judge by one's feeling, it is true enough to deserve mention.^ The subject of the thanksgiving is the Apostle's sufferings, and his experience of God's mercies under them. He expressly calls them the sufferings of Christ. These sufferings, he says, abound toward us. Christ was the greatest of sufferers : the flood of pain and sorrow went over His head ; all its waves and billows broke upon Him. The Apostle was caught and over- . whelmed b}^ the same stream ; the waters came into his soul. That is the meaning of ra iradi^fiara tov Xptarov Trepiaaevec el^; r)/jLd<^. In abundant measure the disciple was initiated into his Master's stern experience ; he learned, what he prayed to learn, the fellowship of His sufferings. The boldness of the language in which"; a mortal man calls his own afflictions the sufferings ot Christ is far from unexampled in the New Testament. It is repeated by St. Paul in Col. i. 24 : ''I now rejoice in my sufferings on your behalf, and fill up that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body's sake, which is the Church." It is varied in Heb. xiii. 13, where the sacred writer exhorts us to go out to Jesus, without the camp, bearing Ht's reproach. It is anticipated and justified by the words J ' The same view is strongly held by Schmiedel. He infers from chap, vi, 9 that Paul's sufferings had been interpreted at Corinth as a divine chastisement ; in opposition to this the Apostle shows that they are divinely intended to profit the Corinthians. Hence the opening of the letter is not a simple outpouring of his heart, but is delicately calculated to set aside a reproach without naming it. The same purpose rules in the assumption that the Corinthians will intercede and give thanks on his behalf; it takes for granted their reconciliation to him. 14 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS ' of the Lord Himself: '* Ye shall indeed drink of My cup ; and with the baptism with which I am baptised \ shall ye be baptised withal." One lot, and that a cross, awaits all the children of God in this world, from the Only-begotten who came from the bosom of the Father, to the latest-born among His brethren. But let us beware of the hasty assertion that, because the Christian's sufferings can thus be described as of a piece with Christ's, the key to the mystery of Geth- semane and Calvary is to be found in the self-con- sciousness of martyrs and confessors. The very man who speaks of filling up that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ for the Church's sake, and who says that the sufferings of Christ came on him in their fulness, would have been the first to protest against , such an idea. *^ Was Paul crucified for you ? " Christ I suffered alone ; there is, in spite of our fellowship with i His sufferings, a solitary, incommunicable greatness in { His Cross, which the Apostle will expound in another place (chap. v.). Even when Christ's sufferings come upon us there is a difference. At the very lowest, as Vinet has it, we do from gratitude what He did from pure love. We suffer in His company, sustained by His comfort ; He suffered uncomforted and unsustained. We are afQicted, when it so happens, " under the auspices of the divine mercy " ; He was afQicted that there might be mercy for us. Few parts of Bible teaching are more recklessly applied than those about suffering and consolation. If all that men endured was of the character here described, if all their sufferings were sufferings of Christ, which came on them because they were walking in His steps and assailed by the forces which buffeted Him, consolation would be an easy task. The presence 1. 1-7.] SUFFERING AND CONSOLATION 15 of God with the soul would make it almost unnecessary. The answer of a good conscience would take all the bitterness out of pain ; and then, however it tortured, it could not poison the soul. The mere sense that our:' sufferings are the sufferings of Christ — that we are drinking of His cup — is itself a comfort and an inspira- tion beyond words. But much of our suffering, we know very well, is of a different character. It does not , come on us because we are united to Christ, but because we are estranged from Him ; it is the proof and the fruit, not of our righteousness, but of our guilt. It is our sin finding us out, and avenging itself upon us, and in no sense the suffering of Christ. Such suffering, no doubt, has its use and its purpose. It is meant to \ drive the soul in upon itself, to compel it to reflection, to give it no rest till it awakes to penitence, to urge it through despair to God. Those who suffer thus will have cause to thank God afterwards if His discipline leads to their amendment, but they have no title to take to themselves the consolation prepared for those who are partners in the sufferings of Christ. Nor is the minister of Christ at liberty to apply a passage like this to any case of affliction which he encounters in his work. There are sufferings and sufferings; there is a divine intention in them all, if we could only discover it ; but the divine intention and the divinely wrought result are only explained here for one particular kind — those sufferings, namely, which come upon men in virtue of their following Jesus Christ. What, then does the Apostle's experience enable him to say on this hard question ? (i) His sufferings have brought him a new revelation of God, which is expressed in the new name, "The Father of mercies and God of all comfort.'' The name 1 6 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS is wonderful in its tenderness ; we feel as we pronounce it that a new conception of what love can be has been imparted to the Apostle's soul. It is in the sufferings and sorrows of life that we discover what we possess in our human friends. Perhaps one abandons us in our extremity, and another betrays us ; but most of us find ourselves unexpectedly and astonishingly rich. People of whom we have hardly ever had a kind thought show us kindness; the unsuspected, unmerited goodness which comes to our relief makes us ashamed. This is the rule which is illustrated here by the example of God Himself. It is as if the Apostle said : '' I never knew, till the suf- ferings of Christ abounded in me, how near God could come to man ; I never knew how rich His mercies could be, how intimate His sympathy, how inspiriting His comfort." This is an utterance well worth considering. The sufferings of men, and especially the sufferings of the innocent and the good, are often made the ground of hasty charges against God ; nay, they are often turned into arguments for Atheism. But who are they who make such charges ? Not the righteous sufferers, at least in New Testament times. The Apostle here is their representative and spokesman, and he assures us that God never was so much to him as when he was in the sorest straits. The divine love was so far from being doubtful to him that it shone out then in unanticipated brightness ; the very heart of the Father was revealed — all mercy, all encouragement and comfort. If the martyrs have no doubts of their own, is it not very gratuitous for the spectators to become sceptics on their account ? '' The sufferings of Christ " in His people may be an insoluble problem to the disinterested onlooker, but they are no problem to the sufferers. What is a mystery, when viewed from 1.1-7] SUFFERING AND CONSOLATION 17 without; a mystery in which God seems to be con- spicuous by His absence, is, when viewed from within, a new and priceless revelation of God Himself. " The Father of mercies and God of all comfort " is making Himself known now as for want of opportunity He could not be known before. Notice especially that the consolation is said to abound ''tjirqugh Christ." He is the mediator through whom it comes. To partake in His sufferings is to be united to Him ; and to be united to Him is to partake in His life. The Apostle anticipates here a thought on which he enlarges in the fourth chapter : " Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body." In our eagerness to emphasise the nearness and the sympathy of Jesus, it is to be feared that we do less than justice to the New Testament revelation of His glory. He does not suffer now. He is enthroned on high, far above all principality and power and might and dominion. The Spirit which brings His presence to our hearts is the Spirit of the Prince of Life; its function is not to be weak with our weakness, but to help our infirmity, and to strengthen us with all might in the inner man. The Christ who dwells in us through His Spirit is not the Man of Sorrows, wearing the crown of thorns ; it is the King of kings and Lord of lords, making us partakers of His triumph. There is a weak tone in much of the religious literature which deals with suffering, utterly unlike that of the New Testament. It is a degradation of Christ to our level which it teaches, instead of an exaltation of man toward Christ's. But the last is the apostolic ideal : *' More than con- querors through Him that loved us." The comfort of which St. Paul makes so much here is not necessarily 2 i8 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS deliverance from suffering for Christ's sake, still less exemption from it ; it is the strength and courage and immortal hope which rise up, even in the midst of suffering, in the heart in which the Lord of glory dwells. Through Him such comfort abounds; it wells up to match and more than match the rising tide of suffering. (2) But Paul's sufferings have done more than give him a new knowledge of God ; they have given him at the same time a new power to comfort others. He is bold enough to make this ministry of consolation the key to his recent experiences. " He comforteth us in all our afQiction, that we may be able to comfort them that are in any afQiction, through the comfort where- with we ourselves are comforted of God." His sufferings and his consolation together had a purpose that went beyond himself How significant that is for some perplexing aspects of man's life ! We are selfish, and instinctively regard ourselves as the centre of all providences; we naturally seek to explain everything by its bearing on ourselves alone. But God has not made us for selfishness and isolation, and some mysteries would be cleared up if we had love enough to see the ties by which our life is indissolubly linked to others. This, however, is less definite than the Apostle's thought ; what he tells us is that he has gained a new power at a great price. It is a power which almost every Christian man will covet ; but how many are w^illing to pass through the fire to obtain it ? We must ourselves have needed and have found comfort, before we know what it is ; we must ourselves have learned the art of consoling in the school of suffering, before we can practise it for the benefit of others. The most painfully tried, the most proved in suffering, the souls that are best acquainted with grief. i. 1-7.] SUFFERING AND CONSOLATION ig provided their consolation has abounded through Christ, are specially called to this ministry. Their experience is their preparation for it. Nature is something, and age is something ; but far more than nature and age is that discipline of God to which they have been sub- mitted, that initiation into the sufferings of Christ which has made them acquainted with His consolations also, and has taught them to know the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. Are they not among His best gifts to the Church, those whom He has quahfied to console, by consoling them in the fire ? In the sixth verse the Apostle dwells on the interest of the Corinthians in his sufferings and his consolation. It is a practical illustration of the communion of the saints in Christ. "All that befalls m^," says St. Paul, "has your interest in view. If I am afflicted, it is in the interest of your comfort : when you look at me, and see how I bear myself in the sufferings of Christ, you will be encouraged to become imitators of me, even as I am of Him. If, again, I am comforted, this also is in the interest of your comfort ; God enables me to impart to you what He has imparted to me ; and the comfort in question is no impotent thing ; it proves its power in this — that when you have received it, you endure with brave patience the same sufferings which we also suffer." This last is a favourite thought with the Apostle, and connects itself readily with the idea, which may or may not have a right to be expressed in the text, that all this is in furtherance of the salvation of the Corinthians.^ ' The text is incurably perplexed. The variations can be seen in any critical edition. The MS. authority does not justify any con- fident decision, and the happiest suggestion yet made seems to be that of Professor Warfield, who would omit altogether the words 20 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS For if there is one note of the saved more certain than another, it is the brave patience with which they take upon them the sufferings of Christ. 6 he v7ro/jL€iva<; et? Te\o9, ovTo<; (Kodrjaerai, (Matt. x. 22). All that helps men to endure to the end, helps them to salvation. All that tends to break the spirit and to sink men in despondency, or hurry them into impatience or fear, leads in the opposite direction. The great service that a true comforter does is to put the strength and courage into us which enable us to take up our cross, however sharp and heavy, and to bear it to the last step and the last breath. No comfort is worth the name — none is taught of God — which has another efficacy than this. The saved are those whose souls rise to this description, and who recognise their spiritual kindred in such brave and patient sufferers as Paul. The thanksgiving ends appropriately with a cheerful word about the Corinthians. " Our hope for you is stedfast ; knowing that, as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so are ye also of the comfort." These two things go together ; it is the appointed lot of the children of God to become acquainted with both. If the sufferings could come alone, if they could be assigned as the portion of the Church apart from the consolation, Paul could have no hope that the Cor- inthians would endure to the end ; but as it is, he is not afraid. The force of his words is perhaps best felt by us, if instead of saying that the sufferings and the consolation are inseparable, we say that the Kal auTTjpias {and sa/vaiion). The MSS. vary most in regard to these words, inserting, omitting, and transposing them. Hence they are very probably an old gloss, and their omission simplifies both the grammar and the sense. i. 1-7.] SUFFERING AND CONSOLATION 21 consolation depends upon the sufferings. And what is the consolation ? It is the presence of the exalted Saviour in the heart through His Spirit. It is a clear perception, and a firm hold, of the things which are unseen and eternal. It is a conviction of the divine love which cannot be shaken, and of its sovereignty and omnipotence in the Risen Christ. This infinite comfort is contingent upon our partaking of the sufferings of Christ. There is a point, the Apostle seems to say, at which the invisible world and its glories intersect this world in which we live, and become visible, real, and inspiring to men. It is the point at which we suffer with Christ's sufferings. At any other point the vision of this glory is unneeded, and therefore withheld. The worldly, the selfish, the cowardly ; those who shrink from self-denial ; those who evade pain ; those who root themselves in the world that lies around us, and when they move at all move in the line of least resist- ance ; those who have never carried Christ's Cross, — none of these can ever have the triumphant conviction of things unseen and eternal which throbs in every page of the New Testament. None of these can have what the Apostle elsewhere calls *' eternal consolation." It is easy for unbehevers, and for Christians lapsing into unbelief, to mock this faith as faith in '' the trans- cendent "; but would a single line of the New Testament have been written without it ? When we weigh what is here asserted about its connexion with the sufferings of Christ, could a graver charge be brought against any Church than that its faith in this " transcendent " languished or was extinct? Do not let us hearken to the sceptical insinuations which would rob us of all that has been revealed in Christ's resurrection ; and do not let us imagine, on the other hand, that we can 22 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS retain a living faith in this revelation if we decHne to take up our cross. It was only when the sufferings of Christ abounded in him that Paul's consolation was abundant through Christ ; it was only when he laid down his Hfe for His sake that Stephen saw the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. II FAITH BORN OF DESPAIR " For we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning our affliction which befell its in Asia, that we were weighed down exceed- ingly, beyond our power, insomuch that we despaired even of life : yea, we ourselves have had the answer of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead : who delivered us out of so great a death, and will deliver : on whom we have set our hope that He will also still deliver us ; ye also helping together on our behalf by your supplication ; that, for the gift bestowed upon us by means of many, thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf. "For our glorying is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we behaved ourselves in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward. For we write none other things unto you, than what yc read or even acknowledge, and I hope ye will acknowledge unto the end : as also ye did acknowledge us in part, that we are your glory- ing, even as ye also are ours, in the day of our Lord Jesus." — 2 Cor. i. 8-14 (R.V.). PAUL seems to have felt that the thanksgiving with which lie opens this letter to the Corinthians was so peculiar as to require explanation. It was not his way to burst upon his readers thus with his private experiences either of joy or sorrow ; and though he had good reason for what he did — in that abundance of the heart out of which the mouth speaks, in his desire to conciliate the good-will of the Corinthians for a much-tried man, and in his faith in the real com- munion of the saints — he instinctively stops here a 23 24 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS moment to vindicate what he has done. He does not wish them to be ignorant of an experience which has been so much to him, and ought to have the Hveliest interest for them. Evidently they knew that he had been in trouble, but they had no sufficient idea of the extremity to which he had been reduced. We were weighed down, he writes, in excess, beyond our power ; the trial that came upon us was one not measured to man's strength. We despaired even of life. Nay, we have had^ the answer of death in ourselves. When we looked about us, when we faced our circumstances, and asked our- selves whether death or life was to be the end of this, we could only answer, Death. We were like men under sentence ; it was only a question of a little sooner or a little later, when the fatal stroke should fall. The Apostle, who has a divine gift for interpreting experience and reading its lessons, tells us w^hy he and his friends had to pass such a terrible time. It was that they might trust, not in themselves, but in God who raises the dead. It is natural, he implies, for us to trust in ourselves. It is so natural, and so confirmed by the habits of a lifetime, that no ordinary difficulties or perplexities avail to break us of it. It takes all God can do to root up our self-confidence. He must reduce us to despair ; He must bring us to such an extremity that the one voice we have in our hearts, the one voice that cries to us wherever w^e look round for help, is Death, death, death. It is out of this despair that the ' Notice the perfect ecrx'^'fctAiej/. We had this experience, and in its fruit — a newer and deeper faith in God — we have it still. It is a permanent possession in this happy form. The same idea is expressed in the pft. rfKirlKaixev, ver. lO i.8-i4.] FAITH BORN OF DESPAIR 25 superhuman hope is born. It is out of this abject helplessness that the soul learns to look up with new trust to God. It is a melancholy reflection upon human nature that we have, as the Apostle expresses it elsewhere, to be " shut up " to all the mercies of God. If we could evade them, notwithstanding their freeness and their worth, we would. How do most of us attain to any faith in Providence ? Is it not by proving, through numberless experiments, that it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps ? Is it not by coming, again and again, to the limit of our resources, and being compelled to feel that unless there is a wisdom and a love at work on our behalf, immeasurably wiser and more benignant than our own, life is a moral chaos ? How, above all, do we come to any faith in redemp- tion ? to any abiding trust in Jesus Christ as the Saviour of our souls ? Is it not by this same way of despair ? Is it not by the profound consciousness that in ourselves there is no answer to the question, How shall man be just with God ? and that the answer must be sought in Him ? Is it not by failure, by defeat, by deep disappointments, by ominous forebodings harden- ing into the awful certainty that we cannot with our own resources make ourselves good men — is it not by experiences like these that we are led to the Cross ? This principle has many other illustrations in human life, and every one of them is something to our dis- credit. They all mean that only desperation opens our eyes to God's love. We do not heartily own Him as the author of life and health, unless He has raised us from sickness after the doctor had given us up. We do not acknowledge His paternal guidance of our life, unless in some sudden peril, or some impending 26 THE SFCOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS disaster, He provides an unexpected deliverance. We do not confess that salvation is of the Lord, till our very soul has been convinced that in it there dwells no good thing. Happy are those who are taught, even by despair, to set their hope in God ; and who, when they learn this lesson once, learn it, like St. Paul, once for all (see note on iaxw^/^^^ above). Faith and hope like those which burn through this Epistle were well worth purchasing, even at such a price ; they were blessings so valuable that the love of God did not shrink from reducing Paul to despair that he might be compelled to grasp them. Let us believe when such trials come into our lives — when we are weighed down exceedingly, beyond our strength, and are in darkness without light, in a valley of the shadow of death with no outlet — that God is not dealing with us cruelly or at random, but shutting us up to an experience of His love which we have hitherto declined. ''After two days will He revive us ; on the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live before Him." The Apostle describes the God on whom he learned to hope as '* God who raises the dead." He himself had been as good as dead, and his deliverance was as good as a resurrection. The phrase, however, seems to be the Apostle's equivalent for omnipotence : when he thinks of the utmost that God can do, he expresses it thus. Sometimes the application of it is merely physical (e.g., Rom. iv. 17); sometimes it is spiritual as well. Thus in Eph. i. ipfif. the possibihties of the Christian life are measured by this — that that power is at work in believers with which God wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places. Is not that power sufficient to do for the weakest and most i.8-i4.] FAITH BORN OF DESPAIR 27 desperate of men far more than all he needs ? Yet it is his need, somehow, when brought home to him in despair, that opens his eyes to this omnipotent saving power. The text of the words in which Paul tells of his deliverance can hardly be said to be quite certain, but the general meaning is plain. God delivered him from the awful death which was impending over him ; he had his hope now firmly set on Him ; he was sure that He would deliver him in the future also.^ What the danger had been, w^hich had made so powerful an impression on this hardy soul, we cannot now tell. It must have been something which happened after the First Epistle was written, and therefore was not the fighting with wild beasts at Ephesus, whatever that may have been (i Cor. xv. 32). It may have been a serious bodily illness, which had brought him to death's door, and left him so weak, that still, at every step, he felt it was God's mercy that was holding him up. It may have been a plot to make away with him on the part of the many adversaries mentioned in the First Epistle (xvi. 9) — a plot which had failed, as it were, by a miracle, but the malignity of which still dogged his steps, * The doubtful words here are /cat pverai in ver. lO of the Received Text, from D'", E, F, G, K, etc. (" and doth deliver" in the Authorised Version). They are not found in A, D, Syr., Chrys., while the most authoritative MSS., t{, B, C, P, have Kal pvaerai (" and will deliver," of the Revised Version). Most editors take the last reading, as best attested ; but on internal grounds two of the most recent and acute inter- preters, Schmiedel and Heinrici, prefer the Received Text. The present tense {^^ doth deliver") presupposes that the danger to which Paul had been exposed in some form or in some sense continued. If this were the case, of course it could not have been, as Hofmann supposes, the shipwreck in which the Apostle spent a night and a day in the deep. Otherwise this would be a plausible and tempting supposition. 28 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS and was only warded off by the constant presence of God. Both these suggestions require, and would satisfy, the reading, "who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver." If, however, we take the reading of the R.V. — " who delivered us from so great a death, and will deliver ; on whom we have set our hope that He will also still deliver us " — the existence of the danger, at the moment at which Paul writes, is not necessarily involved ; and the danger itself may have been more of what we might call an accidental character. The imminent peril of drowning referred to in chap. xi. 25 would meet the case ; and the confidence expressed by Paul with such emphatic reference to the future will not seem without motive when we consider that he had several sea voyages in prospect — as those from Corinth to Syria, from Syria to Rome, and probably from Rome to Spain. So Hofmann interprets the whole passage : but whether the interpretation be good or bad, it is elsewhere than in its accidental circumstances that the interest of the transaction lies for the writer and for us. To Paul it was not merely a historical but a spiritual experience ; not an incident without meaning, but a divinely ordered discipline ; and it is thus that we must learn to read our own lives if the purpose of God is to be wrought out in them. Notice in this connexion, in the eleventh verse, how simply Paul assumes the spiritual participation of the Corinthians in his fortunes. It is God indeed who delivers him, but the deliverance is wrought while they, as well as other Churches, co-operate in supplica- tion on his behalf In the strained relations existing between himself and the Corinthians, the assumption here made so graciously probably did them more than justice; if there w^ere unsympathetic souls among them, i. 8-14.] FAITH BORN OF DESPAIR 29 they must have felt in it a delicate rebuke. What follows — '' that, for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many, thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf" (R.V.) — simple and intelligible as it looks in English, is one of the passages which justify M. Sabatier's remark that Paul is difficult to under- stand and impossible to translate. The Revisers seem to have construed to et? /;/Ltav 'xaptcrixa Sia iroWcov together, as if it had been to Sta it. e. rj. ')(apLcr^a, the meaning being that the favour bestowed on Paul in his deliverance from this peril had been bestowed at the intercession of man3^ Others get virtually the same meaning b}' construing to et? ?5/Aa9 x^pca/jba with e/c TToWcjv TTpoacoTTcov I thc inversion is supposed to em- phasise these last words ; and as it was, on this view, prayer on the part of many persons that procured his deliverance, Paul is anxious that the deliverance itself should be acknowledged by the thanksgiving of many. It cannot be denied that both these renderings are grammatically violent, and it seems to me preferable to keep TO et? ///xa? ')(upt(7/ia by itself, even though eK TToWwv TrpocrcoTTCDV and Blcl iroXkwv should then reduplicate the same idea with only a slight variation. We should then render : '' in order that, on the part of many persons, the favour shown to us may be grate- fully acknowledged by many on our behalf." The pleonasm thus resulting strikes one rather as charac- teristic of St. Paul's mood in such passages, than as a thing open to objection.^ But grammar apart, what really has to be emphasised here is again the com- ' To render dia iroWCiv prolixe, copiously, is at least precarious; and to take irpoawira as " faces " (" that from many faces upturned in prayer to God "), though lexically admissible, seems on all other grounds out of place. 30 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS munion of the saints. All the Churches pray for St. Paul — at least he takes it for granted that they do ; and when he is rescued from danger, his own thanksgiving is multiplied a thousandfold by the thanksgivings of others on his behalf. This is the ideal of an evan- gelist's life ; in all its incidents and emergencies, in all its perils and salvations, it ought to float in an atmo- sphere of prayer. Every interposition of God on the missionary's behalf is then recognised by him as a gift of grace (xapLo-fjua) — not, be it understood, a private favour, but a blessing and a power capacitating him for further service to the Church. Those who have lived through his straits and his triumphs with him in their prayers know how true that is. At this point (ver. 12) the key in which Paul writes begins to change. We are conscious of a slight dis- cord the instant he speaks about the testimony of his conscience. Yet the transition is as unforced as any such transition can be. I may well take for granted, seems to be the thought in his mind, that you pray for me; I may well ask you to unite with me in thanks to God for my deliverance ; for if there is one thing I am sure of, and proud of, it is that I have been a loyal minister of God in the world, and especially to you. Fleshly wisdom has not been my guide. I have used no worldly policy ; I have sought no selfish ends. In a holiness and sincerity which God bestows, in an element of crystal transparency, I have led my apostolic life. The world has never convicted me of anything dark or underhand ; and in all the world none know better than you, among whom I lived longer than elsewhere, working with my hands, and preaching the Gospel as freely as God offers it, that I have walked in the light as He is in the light. 8-14.] FAITH BORN OF DESPAIR 31 This general defence, which is not without its note of defiance, becomes defined in ver. 13. Plainly charges of insincerity had been made against Paul, particularly affecting his correspondence, and it is to these he addresses himself. It is not easy to be outspoken and conciliatory in the same sentence, to show your in- dignation to the man who charges you with double- dealing, and at the same time take him to your heart ; and the Apostle's effort to do all these things at once has proved embarrassing to himself, and more than embarrassing to his interpreters. He begins, indeed, lucidly enough. *' We write nothing else to you than what you read." He does not mean that he had no correspondence with members of the Church except in his public epistles ; but that in these public epistles his meaning was obvious and on the surface. His style was not, as some had hinted, obscure, tortuous, elaborately ambiguous, full of loop-holes ; he wrote like a plain man to plain men ; he said what he meant, and meant what he said. Then he qualifies this slightly. ^' We write nothing to you but what you read — or in point of fact acknowledge," even apart from our writing. This seems to me the simplest interpreta- tion of the words rj koX iiru'^Lvwa-Kere ; and the simplest construction is then that of Hofmann, who puts a colon at i7nyLva)(TK€T€, and with eXirl^ai he begins what is virtually a separate sentence. " And I hope that to the end ye will acknowledge, as in fact you acknowledged us in part, that we are your boast, as 3^ou also are ours, in the day of the Lord Jesus." Other possi- bilities of punctuation and construction are so numerous that it would be endless to exhibit them ; and in the long-run they do not much affect the sense. What the reader has to seize is that Paul has been accused 32 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS of insincerity, especially in his correspondence, and that he indignantly denies the charge ; that, in spite of such accusations, he can point to at least a partial recognition among the Corinthians of what he and his fellow-workers really are ; and that he hopes their confidence in him will increase and continue to the end. Should this bright hope be gratified, then in the day of the Lord Jesus it will be the boast of the Corinthians that they had the great Apostle Paul as their spiritual father, and the boast of the Apostle that the Corinthians were his spiritual children. A passage like this — and there are many like it in St. Paul — has something in it humiliating. Is it not a disgrace to human nature that a man so open, so truthful, so brave, should be put to his defence on a charge of underhand deahng? Ought not somebody to have been deeply ashamed, for bringing this shame on the Apostle ? Let us be very careful how we lend motives, especially to men whom we kn-ow to be better than ourselves. There is that in all our hearts which is hostile to them, and would not be grieved to see them degraded a little ; and it is that, and nothing else, which supplies bad motives for their good actions, and puts an ambiguous face on their simplest behaviour. *' Deceit," says Solomon, '' is in the heart of them that imagine evil " ; it is our own selves that we condemn most surely when we pass our bad sentence upon others. The immediate result of imputing motives, and putting a sinister interpretation on actions, is that mutual confidence is destroyed ; and mutual confidence is the very element and atmosphere in which any spiritual good can be done. Unless a minister and his congregation recognise each other as in the main i.8-14.] FAITH BORN OF DESPAIR 33 what they profess to be, their relation is destitute of spiritual reality ; it may be an infinite weariness, or an infinite torment ; it can never be a comfort or a delight on one side or the other. What would a family be, without the mutual confidence of husband and wife, of parents and children ? What is a state worth, for any of the ideal ends for which a state exists, if those who represent it to the world have no instinctive sympathy with the general life, and if the collective conscience regards the leaders from a distance with dislike or distrust ? And what is the pastoral relation worth, if, instead of mutual cordiality, openness, readi- ness to believe and to hope the best, instead of mutual intercession and thanksgiving, of mutual rejoicing in each other, there is suspicion, reserve, insinuation, coldness, a grudging recognition of what it is impos- sible to deny, a willingness to shake the head and to make mischief? What an experience of life we see, what a final appreciation of the best thing, in that utterance of St. John in extreme age : '' Beloved, let us love one another." All that is good for us, all glory and joy, is summarily comprehended in that. The last words of the text — " the day of the Lord Jesus " — recall a very similar passage in i Thess. ii. 19 : " What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing — is it not even ye — before our Lord Jesus at His coming?" In both cases our minds are lifted to that great presence in which St. Paul habitually lived ; and as we stand there our disagreements sink into their true proportions ; our judgments of each other are seen in their true colours. No one will rejoice then that he has made evil out of good, that he has cunningly perverted simple actions, that he has dis- covered the infirmities of preachers, or set the saints 3 34 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS at variance ; the joy will be for those who have loved and trusted each other, who have borne each other's faults and laboured for their healing, who have believed all things, hoped all things, endured all things, rather than be parted from each other by any failure of love. The mutual confidence of Christian ministers and Christian people will then, after all its trials, have its exceeding great reward. Ill THE CHURCH'S ONE FOUNDATION " And in this confidence I was minded to come before unto you, that ye might have a second benefit ; and by you to pass into Macedonia, and again from Macedonia to come unto you, and of you to be set forward on my journey unto Judaea, When I therefore was thus minded, did I show fickleness? or the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be the yea yea and the nay nay ? But as God is faithful, our word toward j'ou is not yea and nay. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timothy, was not 3'ea and nay, but in Him is yea. For how many soever be the promises of God, in Him is the yea : wherefore also through Him is the Amen, unto the glory of God through us," — 2 Cor, i. 15-20 (R.V.). THE emphatic words in the first sentence are " in this confidence." All the Apostle's plans for visiting Corinth, both in general and in their details, depended upon the maintenance of a good under- standing between himself and the Church ; and the very prominence here given to this condition is a tacit accusation of those whose conduct had destroyed his confidence. When he intimated his intention of visit- ing them, according to the programme of vv. 15 and 16, he had felt sure of a friendly welcome, and of the cordial recognition of his apostolic authority ; it was only when that assurance was taken away from him by news of what was being said and done at Corinth, that he had changed his plan. He had originally 35 36 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO HE CORINTHIANS intended to go from Ephesus to Corinth, then from Corinth north into Macedonia, then back to Corinth again, and thence, with the assistance of the Corinthians, or their convoy for part of the way, to Jerusalem. Had this purpose been carried out, he would of course have been twice in Corinth, and it is to this that most scholars refer the words " a second benefit," ^ or rather " grace." This reference, indeed, is not quite certain ; and it cannot be proved, though it is made more pro- bable, by using irpoTepov and Sevripav to interpret each other. It remains possible that when Paul said, " I was minded to come before unto you, that ye might have a second benefit," he was thinking of his original visit as the first, and of this purposed one as the second, "grace." This reading of his words has com- mended itself to scholars like Calvin, Bengel, and Heinrici. Whichever of these interpretations be correct, the Apostle had abandoned his purpose of going from Ephesus to Macedonia via Corinth, and had intimated in the First Epistle (chap. xvi. 5) his intention of reaching Corinth via Macedonia. This change of purpose is not sufficient to explain what follows. Unless there had been at Corinth a great deal of bad feeling, it would have passed without remark, as a thing which had no doubt good reasons, though the Corinthians were ignorant of them ; at the very most, it would have called forth expressions of disappointment and regret. They would have been sorry that the benefit (%ap£9), the token of Divine favour which was always bestowed when the Apostle * For X(£pi»', (benefit) J<% B, L, P, have xap^i" (Joy-) Though Westcott and Hort put this in the text, and xaptJ' in the margin, most scholars are agreed that x^P^^ ^s the Apostle's word, and x^P°^ a slip or a correction. i. IS-20.] THE CHUR' VS ONE FOUNDATION 37 came ^'in the fulness of the blessing of Christ," and 'Monging to impart some spiritual gift," had been delayed ; but they would have acquiesced as in any other natural disappointment. But this was not what took place. They used the Apostle's change of purpose to assail his character. They charged him with " light- ness," with worthless levity. They called him a weathercock, a Yes and No man, who said now one thing and now the opposite, who said both at once and with equal emphasis, who had his own interests in view in his fickleness, and whose word, to speak plainly, could never be depended upon. The responsibility for the change of plan has alread}^, in the emphatic ravrr] rf} TreTrotdrjaetf been indirectly transferred to his accusers ; but the Apostle stoops to answer them quite straightforwardly. His answer is indeed a challenge : '' When I cherished that first wish to visit you, luas I — dare you say I was — guilty of the levity with which you charge me ? Or — to enlarge the question, and, seeing that my whole cha- racter is attacked, to bring my character as a whole into the discussion — the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be the yea yea and the nay nay?" Am I, he seems to say, in my character and conduct, like a shifty, unprincipled politician — a man who has no convictions, or no conscience about his convictions — a man who is guided, not by any higher spirit dwelling in him, but solely by considerations of selfish interest ? Do I say things out of mere compliment, not meaning them ? When I make promises, or announce inten- tions, is it always with the tacit reservation that they may be cancelled if they turn out inconvenient ? Do you suppose that I purposely represent myself (Jva /; 38 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS Trap' ifjiol) as a man who affirms and denies, makes promises and breaks them, has Yes yes and No no dweUing side by side in his soul ? ^ You know me far better than to suppose any such thing. All my com- munications with you have been inconsistent with such a view of my character. As God is faithful, our word to you is not Yes and No. It is not incoherent, or equivocal, or self-contradictory. It is entirely truthful and self-consistent. In this eighteenth verse the Apostle's mind is reaching out already to what he is going to make his real defence, ando \6709 rifjLOjv (''our word") therefore carries a double weight. It covers at once whatever he had said to them about the proposed journey, and whatever he had said in his evangelistic ministry at Corinth. It is this latter sense of it that is continued in ver. 19 : " For the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was preached among you by us, by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not Yes and No, but in him Yes has found place. For how many soever are the promises of God, in Him is the Yes." Let us notice first the argumentative force of this. Paul is engaged in vindicating his character, and especially in maintaining his truthfulness and sincerity. How does he do so here ? His unspoken assumption is, that character is determined by the main interest of Hfe ; that the work to which a man * Mention may be made here of another interpretation of ver. 17, modifications of which recur from Chrysostom to Hofmann. In substance it is this: "The things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh (i.e., with the stubborn consistency of a proud man, who disposes as well as proposes), that w4th me (ifioi emphatic : me, as if / were God, always to do what I would like to do) the Yes should be yes, and the No, no — i.e., every promise inviolably kept ? ' This is grammatically quite good, but contextually impossible. i. 15-20.] THE CHURCH'S ONE FOUNDATION 39 gives his soul will react upon the soul, changing it into its own likeness. As the dyer's hand is subdued to the element it works in, so was the whole being of Paul — such is the argument — subdued to the element in which he wrought, conformed to it, impregnated by it. And what was that element ? It was the Gospel concerning God's Son, Jesus Christ. Was there any dubiety about what that was ? any equivocal mixture of Yes and No there ? Far from it. Paul was so certain of what it was that he repeatedly and solemnly anathematised man or angel who should venture to qualify, let alone deny it. There is no mixture of Yes and No in Christ. As the Apostle says elsewhere (Rom. XV, 8), Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision " in the interest of the truth of God^ with a view to the confirmation oj the promises T However many the promises might be, in Him a mighty affirma- tion, a mighty fulfilment, was given of every one. The ministry of the Gospel has this, then, as its very sub- ject, its constant preoccupation, its highest glory — the absolute faithfulness of God. Who would venture to assert that Paul, or that anybody,^ could catch the trick of equivocation in such a service ? Who does not see that such a service must needs create true men? ' According to Schmiedel, in the words 5i' T]ii!hv . . 5t' ifwO Kai "ZLXovavoO Kal Ti/xoOeov we ought to discover an emphatic reference, by way of contrast, to Judaising opponents of Paul in Corinth. These are said to have brought another Jesus (xi. 4), who was noti God's lULos vibs in Paul's sense (Rom. viii. 32), and in whom there was Yea and Nay — namely, the confirmation of the promises to the Jews or those who became Jews to receive them, and the refusal of the promises to the Gentiles as such. It needs a keen scent to discover this, and as the Corinthians read without a commentator it would probably be thrown away upon them. 40 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS To this argument there is, for the natural man, a ready answer. It by no means follows, he will say, that because the Gospel is devoid of ambiguity or inconsistency, equivocation and insincerity must be unknown to its preachers. A man may proclaim the true Gospel and in his other dealings be far from a true man. Experience justifies this reply ; and yet it does not invalidate Paul's argument. That argument is good for the case in which it is applied. It might be repeated by a hypocrite, but no hypocrite could ever have invented it. It bears, indeed, a striking because an unintentional testimony to the height at which Paul habitually lived, and to his unqualified identification of himself with his apostolic calling. If a man has ten interests in life, more or less divergent, he may have as many inconsistencies in his behaviour ; but if he has said with St. Paul, " This one thing I do," and if the one thing which absorbs his very soul is an unceasing testimony to the truth and faithfulness of God, then it is utterly incredible that he should be a false and faith- less man. The work which claims him for its own with this absolute authority will seal him with its own greatness, its own simplicity and truth. He will not use levity. The things which he purposes, he will not purpose according to the flesh. He will not be guided by considerations perpetually varying, except in the point of being all alike selfish. He will not be a Yes and No man, whom nobody can trust. The argumentative force of the passage being admitted, its doctrinal import deserves attention. The Gospel — which is identified with God's Son, Jesus Christ — is j here described as a mighty affirmation. It is not Yes I and No, a message full of inconsistencies, or ambiguities, a proclamation the sense of which no one can ever i. I5-20.] THE CHURCirS ONE FOUNDATION 41 be sure he has grasped. In it (eV avrw means '* in Christ " ) the everlasting Yea has found place. The perfect tense (jiyovev) means that this grand affirmation has come to us, and is with us, for good and all. What it was and continued to be in Paul's time, it is to this day. It is in this positive, definite, unmistakable character that the strength of the Gospel lies. What a man cannot know, cannot seize, cannot tell, he cannot preach. The refutation of popular errors, even in theology, is not gospel ; the criticism of traditional theories, even about Scripture, is not gospel ; the in- tellectual " economy," with which a clever man in a dubious position uses language about the Bible or its doctrines which to the simple means Yes, and to the subtle qualifies the Yes enormously, is not gospel. There is no strength in any of these things. Dealing in them does not make character simple, sincere, massive. Christian. When they stamp themselves on the soul, the result is not one to which we could make the appeal which Paul makes here. If we have any gospel at all, it is because there are things which stand for us above all doubts, truths so sure that we cannot question them, so absolute that we cannot qualify them, so much our life that to tamper with them is to touch our very heart. Nobody has any right to preach who has not mighty affirmations to make concerning God's Son, Jesus Christ — affirmations in which there is no ambiguity, and which no questioning can reach. In the Apostle's mind a particular turn is given to this thought by its connexion with the Old Testament. In Christ, he says, the Yes has been realised ; for how many soever are the promises of God, in Him is the Yes. The mode of expression is rather peculiar, but the meaning is quite plain. Is there a single word of 42 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS good, Paul asks, that God has ever spoken concerning man ? Then that word is reaffirmed, it is confirmed, it is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. It is no longer a word, but an actual gift to men, which they may take hold of and possess. Of course when Paul says ** how many soever are the promises/' he is thinking of the Old Testament. It was there the promises stood in God's name ; and hence he tells us in this passage that Christ is the fulfilment of the Old Testament ; in Him God has kept His word given to the fathers. All that the holy men of old were bidden to hope for, as the Spirit spoke through them in many parts and in many ways, is given to the world at last : he who has God's Son, Jesus Christ, has all God has promised, and all He can give. There are two opposite ways of looking at the Old Testament with which this apostolic teaching is incon- sistent, and which, by anticipation, it condemns. There is the opinion of those who say that God's promises to His people in the Old Testament have not been fulfilled, and never will be. That is the opinion held by many among the modern Jews, who have renounced all that was most characteristic in the religion of their fathers, and attenuated it into the merest deistical film of a creed. It is the opinion also of many who study the Bible as a piece of literary antiquity, but get to no perception of the life which is in it, or of the organic connexion between the Old Testament and the New. What the Apostle says of his countrymen in his own time is true of both these classes — when they read the Scriptures, there is a veil upon their hearts. The Old Testament promises have been ful- filled, every one of them. Let a man be taught what they mean, not as dead letters in an ancient scroll, but i. 15-20.] THE CHURCH'S ONE FOUNDATION 43 as present words of the living God ; and then let him look to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and see whether there is not in Him the mighty, the perpetual con- firmation of them all. We smile sometimes at what seems the whimsical way in which the early Christians, who had not yet a New Testament, found Christ every- where in the Old ; but though it may be possible to err in detail in this pursuit, it is not possible to err on the whole. The Old Testament is gathered up, every living word of it, in Him ; we are misunderstanding it if we take it otherwise. The opinion just described is a species of rationalism. There is another opinion, which, while agreeing with the rationalistic one that many of God's promises in the Old Testament have not yet been fulfilled, believes that their fulfilment is still to be awaited. If one might do so without offence, I should call this a species of fanaticism. It is the error of those who take the Jewish nation as such to be the subject of prophecy, and hope for its restoration to Palestine, for a revived Jerusalem, a new Davidic monarchy, even a reign of Christ over such an earthly kingdom. All this, if we may take the Apostle's word for it, is beside the mark. Equally with rationalism it loses the spirit of God's word in the letter. The promises have been fulfilled already, and we are not to look for another fulfilment. Those who have seen Christ have seen all that God is going to do — and it is quite adequate — to make His word good. He who has welcomed Christ knows that not one good word of all that God has spoken has failed. God has never, by the promises of the Old Testament, or by the instincts of human nature, put a hope or a prayer into man's heart that is not answered and satisfied abundantly in His Son. 44 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS But leaving the reference to the Old Testament on one side, it is well worth while for us to consider the practical meaning of the truth, that all God's promises are Yea in Christ. God's promises are His declarations of what He is willing to do for men ; and in the very nature of the case they are at once the inspiration and the limit of our prayers. We are encouraged to ask all that God promises, and we must stop there. Christ Himself then is the measure of prayer to man ; we can ask all that is in Him ; we dare not ask anything that lies outside of Him. How the consideration of this should expand our prayers in some directions, and contract them in others ! We can ask God to give us Christ's purity, Christ's simplicity, Christ's meekness and gentleness, Christ's faithfulness and obedience, Christ's victory over the world. Have we ever measured these things ? Have we ever put them into our prayers with any glimmering consciousness of their dimensions, any sense of the vastness of our request ? Nay, we can ask Christ's glory. His Resur- rection Life of splendour and incorruption — the image of the heavenly. God has promised us all these things, and far more : but has He always promised what we ask ? Can we fix our eyes on His Son, as He lived our life in this world, and remembering that this, so far as this world is concerned, is the measure of promise, ask without any qualification that our course here may be free from every trouble ? Had Christ no sorrow ? Did He never meet with ingratitude ? Was He never misunderstood ? Was He never hungr}', thirsty, weary ? If all God's promises are summed up in Him — if He is everything that God has to give — can we go boldly to the throne of grace, and pray to be exempted from what He had to bear, or to be richly 1. 15-20.] THE CHURCirS ONE FOUNDATION 45 provided with indulgences which He never knew ? What if all unanswered prayers might be defined as prayers for things not included in the promises — prayers that we might get what Christ did not get, or be spared what He was not spared ? The spirit of this passage, however, does not urge so much the definiteness as the compass and the certainty of the promises of God. They are so many that Paul could never enumerate them, and all of them are sure in Christ. And when our eyes are once opened on Him, does not He Him- self become as it were inevitably the substance of our prayers ? Is not our whole heart's desire. Oh that I might win Him ! Oh that He might live in me, and make me what He is ! Oh that tJiat Man might arise in me, that the man I am may cease to be I Do we not feel that if God would give us His Son, all would be ours that we could take or He could give ? It is in this mood — with the consciousness, I mean, that in Jesus Christ the sure promises of God are inconceivably rich and good — that the Apostle adds : ** wherefore also through Him is the Amen." It is not easy to put a prayer into words, whether of petition or thanksgiving, for men are not much in the habit of speaking to God ; but it is easy to say Amen. That is the part of the Church when God's Son, Jesus Christ, is proclaimed, clothed in His Gospel. Apart from the Gospel, we do not know God, or what He will do, or will not do, for sinful men ; but as we listen to the proclamation of His mercy and His faithfulness, as our eyes are opened to see in His Son all He has promised to do for us, nay, in a sense, all He has alread}^ done, our grateful hearts break forth in one grand responsive Amen ! So let it be ! we cry. Unless God had first prompted us by sending His Son, we could never have 46 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS found it in our hearts to present such requests to Him ; but through Christ we are enabled to present them, though it should be at first with only a look at Him, and an appropriating Amen. It is the very nature of prayer, indeed, to be the answer to promise. Amen is all, at bottom, that God leaves for us to say. The solemn acceptance of a mercy so great — an acceptance as joyful as it is solemn, since the Amen is one rising out of thankful hearts — redounds to the glory of God. This is the final cause of redemption, and however it may be lost sight of in theologies which make man their centre, it is always magnified in the New Testament. The Apostle rejoices that his ministry and that of his friends {hi rjfiwv) contributes to this glory ; and the whole connexion of thought in the passage throws a light on a great Bible word. God's glory is identified here with the recognition and appropriation by men of His goodness and faithfulness in Jesus Christ. He is glorified when it dawns on human souls that He has spoken good concerning them beyond their utmost imaginings, and when that good is seen to be indubitably safe and sure in His Son. The Amen in which such souls welcome His mercy is the equivalent of the Old Testament word, ''Salvation is of the Lord." It is expanded in an apostolic doxology : " Of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things : to Him be glory for ever." IV CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES " Now He that stablisheth us with you in Christ, and anointed us, is God ; who also sealed us, and gave us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts."— 2 Cor. i. 21, 22 (R.V.). IT is not easy to show the precise connexion between these words and those which immediately precede. Possibly it is emotional, rather than logical. The Apostle's heart swells as he contemplates in the Gospel the goodness and faithfulness of God ; and though his argument is complete when he has exhibited the Gospel in that light, his mind dwells upon it in- voluntarily, past the mere point of proof; he lingers over the wonderful experience which Christians have of the rich and sure mercies. Those who try to make out a more precise sequence of thought than this are not very successful. Of course it is apparent that the keynote of the passage is in harmony with that of the previous verses. The ideas of " stablishing," of "sealing," and of an '' earnest," are all of one family; they are all, as it were, variations of the one mighty affirmation which has been made of God's promises in Christ. From this point of view they have an argu- mentative value. They suggest that God, in all sorts of ways, makes believers as sure of the Gospel, and as constant to it, as He has made it sure and certain 47 48 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS to them ; and thus they exclude more decisively than ever the idea that the minister of the Gospel can be a man of Yes and No. But though this is true, it fails to do justice to the word on which the emphasis falls — namely, God. This, according to some interpreters, is done, if we suppose the whole passage to be, in the first instance, a disclaimer of any false inference which might be drawn from the words, *' to the glory of God by Its.'' '^ By us," Paul writes ; for it was through the apostolic preaching that men were led to receive the Gospel, to look at God's promises, confirmed in Christ, , with an appropriating Amen to His glory ; but he hastens to add that it was God Himself whose grace in its various workings was the beginning, middle, and end both of their faith and of their preaching. This seems to me rather artificial, and I do not think more than a connexion in sentiment, rather than in argument, can be insisted upon. But setting this question aside, the interpretation of the two verses is of much interest. They contain some of the most peculiar and characteristic words of the New Testament — words to which, it is to be feared, many readers attach no very distinct idea. The simplest plan is to take the assertions one by one, as if God were the subject. Grammatically this is in- correct, for 6)eo9 is certainly the predicate ; but for the elucidation of the meaning this may be disregarded. (i) First of all, then, God confirms us into Christ. " Us," of course, means St. Paul and the preachers whom he associates with himself, — Silas and Timothy. But when he adds " with you," he includes the Corinthians also, and all believers. He does not claim for himself any stedfastness in Christ, or any trust- worthiness as dependent upon it, which he would on i.2i,22.] CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES 49 principle refuse to others. God, who makes His pro- mises sure to those who receive them, gives those who receive them a firm grasp of the promises. Christ is here, with all the wealth of grace in Him, indubitable, unmistakable ; and what God has done on that side, He does on the other also. He confirms believers into Christ. He makes their attachment to Christ, their possession of Him, a thing indubitable and irreversible. Salvation, to use the words of St. John, is true in Him and in them ; in them, so far as God's purpose and work go, as much as in Him. He who is confirmed into Christ is in principle as trustworthy, as abso- lutely to be depended upon, as Christ Himself. The same character of pure truth is common to them both. Christ's existence as the Saviour, in whom all God's promises are guaranteed, and Paul's existence as a saved man with a sure grasp on all these promises, are ahke proofs that God is faithful ; the truth of God stands behind them both. It is to this that the appeal of vv. 1 5-20 is virtually made ; it is this in the long- run which is called in question when the trustworthi- ness of Paul is impeached. All this, it may be said, is ideal ; but in what sense is it so ? Not in the sense that it is fanciful or unreal ; but in the sense that the divine law of our life, and the divine action upon our life, are represented in it. It is our calling as Christian people to be stedfast in Christ. Such stedfastness God is ever seeking to impart, and in striving to attain to it we can always appeal to Him for help. It is the opposite of instability ; in a special sense it is the opposite of untrustworthincsp. If we are letting God have His way with us in this respect, we are persons who can always be depended upon, and depended upon for conduct in keeping with 4 50 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS the goodness and faithfulness of God, info which we have been confirmed by Him. (2) From this general truth, with its application to all believers, the Apostle passes to another of more limited range. By including the Corinthians with himself in the first clause, he virtually excludes them in the second — '' God anointed us." It is true that the New Testament speaks of an anointing which is common to all believers — *' Ye have an anointing from the Holy One ; ye all know " ( i John ii. 20) : but here, on the contrary, something special is meant. This can only be the consecration of Paul, and of those for whom he speaks, to the apostolic or evangelistic ministry. It is worth noticing that in the New Testament the act of anointing is never ascribed to any one but God. The only unction which qualifies for service in the Christian dispensation, or which confers dignity in the Christian community, is the unction from on high. " God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power," and it is the participation in this great anointing which capacitates any one to work in the Gospel.^ Paul undoubtedly claimed, in virtue of his divine call to apostleship, a peculiar authority in the Church ; but we cannot define any peculiarity in his possession of the Spirit. The great gift which must be held in some sense by all Christians — " for if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His " — was in him intensified, or specialised, for the work he had to do. But it is one Spirit in him and in us, and that is why we do not find the exercise of his authority alien or galling. It is authority divorced ' Observe the play on the words in /3e/3atwj' ei$ X ptar 6v and i.2i,22.] CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES 51 from "unction" — authority without this divine quah'fi- cation — against which the Christian spirit rebels. And though "unction" cannot be defined; though no material guarantee can be given or taken for the possession of the Spirit ; though a merely historical succession is, so far as this spiritual competence and dignity are concerned, a mere irrelevance ; though, as Vinet said, we think of unction rather when it is absent than when it is present, — still, the thing itself is recognisable enough. It bears witness to itself, as light does ; it carries its own authority, its own dignity, with it ; it is the ultima ratio^ the last court of appeal, in the Christian community. It may be that Paul is preparing already, by this reference to his commission, for the bolder assertion of his authority at a later stage. (3) These two actions of God, however — the establish- ing of believers in Christ, which goes on continually {^epatwv), and the consecration of Paul to the apostle- ship, which was accomplished once for all {j(piaa<^) — go back to prior actions, in which, again, all believers have an interest. They have a common basis in the great deeds of grace in which the Christian life began. God, he says, is He who also sealed us, and gave the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. " He also sealed us." It seems strange that so figurative a word should be used without a hint of ex- planation, and we must assume that it was so familiar in the Church that the right application could be taken for granted. The middle voice ((T(f)payi(Td/jL€uo/ of God are sealed on their foreheads, that they may be recognised as His. But what is the seal ? Under 52 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS the Old Testament, the mark which God set upon His people — the covenant sign by which they were identified as His — was circumcision. Under the New Testament, where everything carnal has passed away, and religious materialism is aboUshed, the sign is no longer in the body ; we are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise (Eph. i. 13 f.). But the past tense (''He sealed us"), and its recurrence in Eph. i. 13 ("ye were sealed"), suggest a very definite reference of this word, and beyond doubt it alludes to baptism. In the New Testa- ment, baptism and the giving of the Holy Spirit are regularly connected with each other. Christians are born of water and of the Spirit. " Repent," is the earliest preaching of the Gospel (Acts ii. 38), " and be baptised every one of you, . . . and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." In early Christian writers the use of the word " seal " (acppayls:) as a technical term for baptism is practically universal ; and when we combine this practice with the New Testament usage in question, the inference is inevitable. God puts His seal upon us, He marks us as His own, when we are baptised.^ ' When we consider the New Testament use of this idea (cf. Rom. iv. II ; Rev. vii. 2ff. ; Eph. i. 13 f., and this passage), and remember that Paul and John can have had nothing to do with the Greek mysteries, it will be apparent that to adduce the ecclesiastical use of (r(ppayis as a proof that the conceptions current in these mysteries had a powerful influence from the earliest times on the Christian conception of baptism is beside the mark. One of the earliest examples outside the New Testament is in the Shepherd of Hermas, Simt'l., viii. 6 : oi TriareOcravTes kuI eiXrjtpoTes ttjv cr(ppay7da Kal redXaKores avTTjv Kal fjLT) TtjpTjcravTes vyirj. This figure of breaking the seal, by falling into sin and losing what baptism confers, is common. Some- times it is varied : "Keep the flesh pure, koL ttju acppay^da & legal proceedings could have done that : nothing could have done it but a real and passionate sympathy with the holiness and the love of Christ. Such sympathy is the one subduing, reconciling, redeeming power in our hands ; and Paul might well rejoice, after all his affliction and anguish of heart, when he found it so unmistakably at work in Corinth. Not so much formal as instinctive, though not shrinking on occasion from formal proceedings ; not malignant, yet closing itself inexorably against evil ; not indulgent to badness, but with goodness like Christ's, waiting to be gracious, — this Christian virtue really holds the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and opens and shuts with the authority of Christ Himself. We need it in all our Churches to-day, as much as it was needed in Corinth ; we need it that special acts of discipline may be effective ; we need it ii 5-11.] CHURCH DISCIPLINE 79 still more that they may be unnecessary. Pray for it as for a gift that comprehends every other — the power to represent Christ, and work His work, in the recovery and restoration of the fallen. In vv. 9-1 1, the same subject is continued, but with a slightly different aspect exposed. Paul had obviously taken the initiative in this matter, though the bulk of the Church, at his prompting, had acted in a right spirit. Their conduct was in harmony with his motive in writing to them/ which had really been to make proof of their obedience in all points. But he has already disclaimed either the right or the wish to lord it over them in their liberty as believers ; and here, again, he represents himself rather as following them in their treatment of the offender, than as pointing out the way. '* Now to whom ye forgive anything, I also forgive " — so great is my confidence in you : ''for what I also have forgiven, if I have forgiven any- thing, for your sakes have I forgiven it in the presence of Christ." When he says *' if I have forgiven any- thing," he does not mean that his forgiveness is dubious, or in suspense ; what he does is to deprecate the thought that his forgiveness is the main thing, or that he had been the person principally offended. When he says "/or your sakes have I forgiven it," the words are explained by what follows : to have refused his forgiveness in the circumstances would have been to perpetuate a state of matters which could only have injured the Church. When he adds that his forgiveness is bestowed '' in the presence of Christ," he gives the assurance that it is no com- plaisance or formality, but a real acceptance of the ' This is the force of the koI before (ypa\pa in ver. 9. 8o THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS offender to peace and friendship again.^ And we should not overlook the fact that in this association of Christ, of the Corinthians, and of himself, in the work of forgiveness and restoration, Paul is really encom- passing a desponding soul with all the grace of earth and heaven. Surely he will not let his grief become despair, when all around him and above him there is a present and convincing witness that, though God is intolerant of sin, He is the refuge of the penitent. The gracious and conciliatory tone of these verses seems to me worthy of special admiration ; and I can only express my astonishment that to some they have appeared insincere, a vain attempt to cover a defeat with the semblance of victory, a surrender to the opposition at Corinth, the painfulness of which is ill- disguised by the pretence of agreement with them. The exposition just given renders the refutation of such a view unnecessary. We ought rather to regard with reverence and affection the man who knew how to combine, so strikingly, unflinching principle and the deepest tenderness and consideration for others ; we ought to propose his modesty, his sensitiveness to the feelings even of opponents, his sympathy with those who had no sympathy with him, as examples for our imitation. Paul had been deeply moved by what had ' In spite of the Vulgate, which has in persona Christi; of Luther, who gives an Christi Statt ; and of the EngHsh versions, Authorised and Revised, which both give "in the person of Christ" (though the R,V. Y>'^is presence in the margin), there seems no room to doubt that "in the presence of Christ " is the true meaning. The same words in chap. iv. 6 are admittedly different in import ; and in the only passages where ev Trpoadjirii) occurs with a genitive, it means "in presence of." These are Prov. viii. 30, where eV Trpoau^Trcf avrov is = VJQT' ; and Sir. xxxii. 6, where "Thou shalt not appear before the Lord empty" is h ir. Kvplov. ii. 5-II.] CHURCH DISCIPLINE 8i taken place at Corinth, possibly he had been deeply injured ; but even so his personal interest is kept in the background ; for the obedient loyalty which he wishes to prove is not so much his interest as theirs to whom he writes. He cares only for others. He cares for the poor soul who has forfeited his place in the community ; he cares for the good name of the Church ; he cares for the honour of Jesus Christ ; and he exerts all his power with these interests in view. If it needs rigour, he can be rigorous ; if it needs passion, he can be passionate ; if it needs consideration, graciousness, a conciliatory temper, a willingness to keep out of sight, he can be depended upon for all these virtues. If they were only affected, Paul would deserve the praise of a great diplomatist ; but it is far easier to believe them real, and see in them the signs of a great minister of Christ. The last verse puts the aim of his proceedings in another light : all this, he says, I do, " that no advantage may be gained over us by Satan : for we are not ignorant of his devices." The important words in the last clause are of the same root ; it is as if Paul had said : ** Satan is very knowing, and is always on the alert to get the better of us ; but we are not without know- ledge of his knowing ways." It was the Apostle's acquaintance with the wiles of the devil which made him eager to see the restoration of the penitent sinner duly carried through. This implies one or two practical truths, with which, by way of application, this exposition may close. (i) A scandal in the Church gives the devil an opportunity. When one who has named the name of Jesus, and vowed loyal obedience to Him, falls into open sin, it is a chance offered to the enemy which he 6 82 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS is not slow to improve. He uses it to discredit the very name of Christ : to turn that which ought to be to the world the symbol of the purest goodness into a synonym of hypocrisy. Christ has committed His honour, if not His character, to our keeping ; and every lapse into vice gives Satan an advantage over Him. (2) The devil finds his gain in the incompetence of the Church to deal with evil in the Spirit of Christ. It is a fine thing for him if he can drive the convicted sinner to despair, and persuade him that there is no more forgiveness with God. It is a fine thing if he can prompt those who love little, because they know httle of God's love, to show themselves rigid, implacable, irreconcilable, even to the penitent. If he can deform the likeness of Christ into a morose Pharisaism, what an incalculable gain it is 1 If the disciples of Him who received sinners look askance on those who have lapsed, and chill the hope of restoration with cold suspicion and reserve, there will be joy over it, not in heaven, but in hell. And not only this, but the opposite is a device of the devil, of which we ought not to be ignorant. There is hardly a sin that some one has not an interest in extenuating. Even the incestuous person in Corinth had his defenders : there were some who were puffed up, and gloried in what he had done as an assertion of Christian liberty. The devil takes advantage of the scandals that occur in the Church to bribe and debauch men's consciences ; indulgent words are spoken, which are not the voice of Christ's awful mercy, but of a miserable self-pity ; the strongest and holiest thing in the world, the redeeming love of God, is adulterated and even confounded with the weakest and basest thing, the bad man's immoral forgiveness of himself. And not to mention anything else under ii.5-ii.] CHURCH DISCIPLINE 83 this head, could any one imagine what would please and suit the devil better than the absolutely unfeeling but extremely interesting gossip which resounds over every exposure of sin ? (3) But, lastly, the devil finds his advantage in the dissensions of Christians. What an opportunity he would have had in Corinth, had strained relations continued between the Apostle and the Church ! What opportunities he has everywhere, when tempers are on edge, and every movement means friction, and every proposal rouses suspicion 1 The last prayer Christ prayed for His Church was that they might all be one : to be one in Him is the final security against the devices of Satan. What a frightful commentary the history of the Church is on this prayer ! What fright- ful illustrations it furnishes of the devil's gain out of the saints' quarrels I There are plenty of subjects, of course, even in Church life, on which we may naturally and legitimately differ ; but we ought to know better than to let the differences enter into our souls. At bottom, we should be all one ; it is giving ourselves away to the enemy, if we do not, at all costs, " keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." VII CHRISrS CAPTIVE "Now when I came to Troas for the Gospel of Christ, and when a door was opened unto me in the Lord, I had no relief for my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother-: but taking my leave of tlem, I went forth into Macedonia. But thanks be unto God, which always leadeth us in triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest through us the savour of His knowledge in every place. For we are a sweet savour of Christ unto God, in them that are being saved, and in them that are perishing ; to the one a savour from death unto death ; to the other a savour from life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not as the many, corrupting the Word of God : but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, speak we in Christ."— 2 Cor. ii. 12-17 (R.V.). IN this passage the Apostle returns from what is virtually, if not formally, a digression, to the narra- tive which begins in chap. i. 8 f , and is continued in i. 1 5 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 chap, ii., and in chap. iii. 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 (chap. iv. 1-6). Before leaving Ephesus, Paul had apparently made 84 ii. 12-17.] CHRIST'S CAPTIVE 85 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 con- science. 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 /or my spirit,'^ he says ; and the spirit, in his language, even though it be a constituent of man's 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 evan- gelised, it was beyond his power to evangelise 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 if 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 perfect iffxnuo- seems at first sight out of place, but it is more expressive than the aorist. It suggests the coutinuous expectation of relief, which was always anew disappointed. 86 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS The disorders of their wilful community had engrossed the Apostle's spirit, and robbed their fellow-men across the sea of an apostolic ministry. They could not but feel how genuine was the Apostle's 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 (chap. vii. 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 God's 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 Hved 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 Opiai-ipevovTi. The sense which first strikes one as suitable is that which is given in the Authorised Version : '' God which always caiiseth 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 Christ's interests, in matters in which Christ's name and honour 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 Opia/Jb^evetv in ii. 12-17.] CHRIST'S CAPTIVE 87 this transitive sense is defended by the analogy of fiaOrjreveLv in Matt, xxviii. 19. But appropriate as this interpretation is, there is one apparently fatal objection to it. There is no doubt that dpia/ju^eveiv 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. ii. 15), where 6piafMl3evaa<; avrov^ 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 Icadeth us in triiunphy The triumph here is God's, not the Apostle's ; 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 Conqueror's train, and in whom men see the trophy of the Conqueror's 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 God's 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 God's 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 ' See Grimm's Lexicon s.v., or Lightfoot on Col, ii. 15, 88 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 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 Authorised Version, and regard Paul as the victor. But the meaning of dpia/uL^evovrt, 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 Carac- tacus, 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 God's triumph over him ; from that hour God led him in triumph in Christ. But it was the beginning also of all that made the Apostle's life itself a triumph, not a career of hopeless internal strife, such as it had been, but of unbroken Christian victory. This, indeed, li. 12-17.] CHRIST'S CAPTIVE 89 is not involved i'n tlic mere word Opiafx^evovri, but it is the real thing which was present to the Apostle's mind when he used the word. When we recognise this, we see that the charge of irrelevance does not really apply ; while nothing could be more character- istic of the Apostle than to hide himself and his success in this way behind God's triumph over him and through him. Further, the true meaning of the word, and the ' true connexion of ideas just explained, remind us that the only triumphs we can ever have, deserving the name, must begin with God's triumph over us. This is the one possible source of joy untroubled. We 1 may be as selfish as we please, and as successful in our selfishness ; we may distance all our rivals in the race for the world's 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 ^ 90 THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS be to Him who always leadeth us in triumph 1 " It is out of an experience Hke 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.j himself and his colleagues) in Christ, but as making manifest through them the savour 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 see from chap. iv. 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 expres- sion ^^the savour 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 com- parison, 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 ' In TT)v 6