THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE
EDITED BY THE REV.
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.
_Editor of "The Expositor"_
THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE
CORINTHIANS
BY
JAMES DENNEY, B.D.
=London=
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW
MDCCCXCIV
THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE.
_Crown 8vo, cloth, price 7s. 6d. each vol._
FIRST SERIES, 1887-8.
Colossians.
By A. MACLAREN, D.D.
St. Mark.
By Very Rev. the Dean of Armagh.
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 Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D.
Isaiah I.-XXXIX.
By G. A. SMITH, M.A. Vol. I
The Book of Revelation.
By Prof. W. MILLIGAN, D.D.
1 Corinthians.
By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D.
The Epistles of St. John.
By Rt. Rev. W. ALEXANDER, D.D.
THIRD SERIES, 1889-90.
Judges and Ruth.
By Rev. R. A. WATSON, D.D.
Jeremiah.
By Rev. C. J. BALL, M.A.
Isaiah XL.-LXVI.
By G. A. SMITH, M.A. Vol. II.
St. Matthew.
By Rev. J. MONRO GIBSON, D.D.
Exodus.
By Very Rev. the Dean of Armagh.
St. Luke.
By Rev. H. BURTON, M.A.
FOURTH SERIES, 1890-1.
Ecclesiastes.
By Rev. SAMUEL COX, D.D.
St. James and St. Jude.
By Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D.
Proverbs.
By Rev. R. F. HORTON, M.A.
Leviticus.
By 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 A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. I.
1 and 2 Thessalonians.
By JAMES DENNEY, D.D.
The Book of Job.
By R. A. WATSON, D.D.
Ephesians.
By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, 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 Ven. Archdeacon FARRAR.
Philippians.
By Principal RAINY, D.D.
Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther.
By Prof. W. F. ADENEY, M.A.
Joshua.
By Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D.
The Psalms.
By A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. II.
The Epistles of St. Peter.
By Prof. RAWSON LUMBY, D.D.
SEVENTH SERIES, 1893-4.
2 Kings.
By Ven. Archdeacon FARRAR.
Romans.
By H. C. G. MOULE, M.A.
The Books of Chronicles.
By Prof. W. H. BENNETT, M.A.
2 Corinthians.
By JAMES DENNEY, B.D.
Numbers.
By R. A. WATSON, D.D.
The Psalms.
By A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. III.
THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE
CORINTHIANS
BY
JAMES DENNEY, B.D.
=London=
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW
MDCCCXCIV
_Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
I
SUFFERING AND CONSOLATION 10
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 72
VII
CHRIST'S CAPTIVE 84
VIII
LIVING EPISTLES 99
IX
THE TWO COVENANTS 112
X
THE TRANSFIGURING SPIRIT 127
XI
THE GOSPEL DEFINED 144
XII
THE VICTORY OF FAITH 157
XIII
THE CHRISTIAN HOPE 173
XIV
THE MEASURE OF CHRIST'S LOVE 186
XV
THE NEW WORLD 198
XVI
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 FRUITS OF LIBERALITY 274
XXII
WAR 289
XXIII
COMPARISONS 300
XXIV
GODLY JEALOUSY 312
XXV
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 important bearings on each other, that the expositor
should indicate his opinion on the questions common to both
departments. This is the purpose of the statement which follows.
(1) 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,[1] who illustrates the general fact by details. Thus 2 Cor.
i. 8-10, ii. 12, 13, attach themselves immediately to the situation
described in 1 Cor. xvi. 8, 9. Similarly in 2 Cor. i. 12 there seems
to be a distinct echo of 1 Cor. ii. 4-14. More important is the
unquestionable reference in 2 Cor. i. 13-17, 23, to 1 Cor. xvi. 5.
From a comparison of these two passages it 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 Ephesus,
sail straight across the sea to Corinth, go from Corinth to Macedonia,
and then return, _viâ_ Corinth, to Asia again. In other words, on this
tour he was to visit Corinth twice. In the last chapter of the First
Epistle, he announces a change of plan: he is _not_ going to Corinth
direct, but _viâ_ 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 Corinthians 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 unquestionable, may
be further illustrated. Thus, not to point to general resemblances in
feeling or temper, the correspondence is at least suggestive between
ἁγνὸς ἐν τῷ πράγματι, 2 Cor. vii. 11 (cf. the use of πρᾶγμα in 1
Thess. iv. 6), and τοιαύτη πορνεία in 1 Cor. v. 1; between ἐν προςώπῳ
Χριστῦ, 2 Cor. ii. 10, and ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι τῦ Κ. ἡμῶν Ἰ. Χ., 1 Cor. v.
4; between the mention of Satan in 2 Cor. ii. 11 and 1 Cor. v. 5;
between πενθεῖν in 2 Cor. xii. 21 and 1 Cor. v. 2; between τοιοῦτος
and τις in 2 Cor. ii. 6 f., 2 Cor. ii. 5, and the same words in 1 Cor.
v. 5 and 1 Cor. v. 1. If all these are carefully examined and
compared, I think 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 justifiable 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 wrong was
done" will be the son and the father in 1 Cor. v. 1. There are, indeed,
many who think that it is absurd to speak of the First Epistle to the
Corinthians as written "out of much affliction 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, we 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 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 himself 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 1 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 year, 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. 1, xii. 14, xiii. 1. These
passages are discussed in the exposition. The two last are certainly
not decisive; there are good scholars who hold the same opinion of
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. 1 and
chap. xiii. 2, I do not see that it can be easily maintained. These
passages practically compel 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 fist
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. 1-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 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 an events, is indisputable. But chaps. x. 1-xiii. 10 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
misbelieving 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 incidental
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. 11 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 (μή τινα ὧν ἀπέσταλκα πρὸς ὑμᾶς κ.τ.λ.) implies as much.
But it is only after his coming to Ephesus, 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. 1, xiii. 2. What the
occasion 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 1 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 (1 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 (1 Cor. vii. 1). 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 (1 Cor. iv. 17),
but he had to go _viâ_ Macedonia, and the Apostle was not certain that
he would get so far (1 Cor. xvi. 10: "But _if_ Timothy come," etc.).
In point of fact, he does not seem to have 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. 18 the same as "the brethren" of 1 Cor. xvi. 12, whose
return from Corinth Paul expected in 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. 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 disorders 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 unaffected love, and
includes them all in his benediction.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] _Einleitung_, 2nd ed., p. 255 f.
I
_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 unregarded 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,
including 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 occasional character does not lessen
their value. He addresses himself 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
transitory world can have; and what we have in his Epistles is not a
series of _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 (1 Cor. xvi. 10
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 gratitude,
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 thanksgiving, 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 was much for which he could not
possibly be thankful; and just as the momentary 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. Probably, 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 afflictions he has endured, and on the divine
consolation he has experienced 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 your 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.[2]
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 overwhelmed by the same stream; the waters came
into his soul. That is the meaning of τὰ παθήματα τοῦ Χριστοῦ
περισσεύει εἰς ἡμᾶς. 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 of
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 _His_ reproach. It is anticipated and
justified by the words 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 Gethsemane and Calvary is to be found in the
self-consciousness 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 suffered alone;
there is, in spite of our fellowship with 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 afflicted, when it so happens, "under the auspices of the divine
mercy"; He was afflicted 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 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 inspiration 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?
(1) 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 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
sufferings 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 without, a mystery in which God seems to be
conspicuous 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 "through
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 conquerors through Him that loved us." The comfort
of which St. Paul makes so much here is not necessarily 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 affliction, that
we may be able to comfort them that are in any affliction, through the
comfort wherewith 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 willing 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, 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 submitted, 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 qualified 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 _me_," 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.[3] 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. ὁ δὲ ὑπομείνας εἰς τέλος, οὗτος σωθήσεται (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
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 Corinthians 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 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
resistance; 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 unbelievers, and for Christians lapsing into unbelief, to
mock this faith as faith in "the transcendent"; 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 retain a living faith in this
revelation if we decline 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 life for
His sake that Stephen saw the heavens opened and the Son of Man
standing at the right hand of God.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] 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.
[3] The text is incurably perplexed. The variations can be seen in any
critical edition. The MS. authority does not justify any confident
decision, and the happiest suggestion yet made seems to be that of
Professor Warfield, who would omit altogether the words καὶ σωτηρίας
(_and salvation_). 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.
II
_FAITH BORN OF DESPAIR_
"For we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning our
affliction which befell us in Asia, that we were weighed down
exceedingly, 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 ye 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 glorying, 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 he 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 communion of the
saints--he instinctively stops here a 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 liveliest 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[4] the answer of death in ourselves. When we
looked about us, when we faced our circumstances, and asked ourselves
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 why 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 we look round for help, is Death, death, death. It is out of
this despair that the 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 redemption? 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
hardening 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
discredit. 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 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 ἐσχήκαμεν 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. 19 ff. the possibilities 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 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.