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[19]
that he was unable to make that use of it which he would otherwise have
done. This seems a singular confession, but there is no reason to
suppose that it was made with a bad conscience. Paul was probably
grieved that he had not the heart to go in at the door which had been
opened to him in the Lord, but he did not feel guilty. It was not
selfishness which made him turn away, but the anxiety of a true pastor
about other souls which God had committed to his care. "I had no relief
_for my spirit_," he says; and the spirit, in his language, even though
it be a constituent of 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 evangelised, 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
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 lived and moved and had his being in it. "Now to God be
thanks, who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ."
The peculiar and difficult word in this thanksgiving is θριαμβεύοντι.
The sense which first strikes one as suitable is that which is given
in the Authorised Version: "God which always _causeth us to triumph_."
Practically Paul had been engaged in a conflict with the Corinthians,
and for a time it had seemed not improbable that he might be beaten;
but God had caused him to triumph in Christ--that is, acting in
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 θριαμβεύειν in this transitive
sense is defended by the analogy of μαθητεύειν in Matt. xxviii. 19.
But appropriate as this interpretation is, there is one apparently fatal
objection to it. There is no doubt that θριαμβεύειν 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 θριαμβεύσας
αὐτοὺς indubitably means "having triumphed over them." In accordance
with this, which is only one out of many instances,[20] the Revisers
have displaced the old rendering here, and substituted for it, "Thanks
be to God, which always _leadeth us in triumph_." The triumph here is
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 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 θριαμβεύοντι is not really open to doubt, and
the semblance of irrelevance disappears if we remember that we are
dealing with a figure, and a figure which the Apostle himself does not
press. Of course in an ordinary triumph, such as the triumph of Claudius
over Caractacus, of which St. Paul may easily have heard, the captives
had no share in the victory; it was not only a victory over them, but a
victory against them. But when God wins a victory over man, and leads
his captive in triumph, the captive too has an interest in what happens;
it is the beginning of all triumphs, in any true sense, for him. If we
apply this to the case before us, we shall see that the true meaning is
not irrelevant. Paul had once been the enemy of God in Christ; he had
fought against Him in his own soul, and in the Church which he
persecuted and wasted. The battle had been long and strong; but not far
from Damascus it had terminated in a decisive victory for God. There the
mighty man fell, and the weapons of his warfare perished. His pride, his
self-righteousness, his sense of superiority to others and of competence
to attain to the righteousness of God, collapsed for ever, and he rose
from the earth to be the slave of Jesus Christ. That was the beginning
of 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, is not
involved _in the mere word_ θριαμβεύοντι, 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 characteristic 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 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 be to Him who always leadeth us in
triumph!" It is out of an experience like this that Paul speaks; it is
the key to his whole life, and it has been illustrated anew by what
has just happened at Corinth.
But to return to the Epistle. God is described by the Apostle not only
as triumphing over them (_i.e._, himself and his colleagues) in
Christ, but as making manifest through them the 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 expression "_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
comparison, that the knowledge of Christ which he diffused among men,
wherever he went, was in very truth a fragrant thing.[21] True, he was
not a free man; he had been subdued by God, and made the slave of
Jesus Christ; as the Lord of glory went forth conquering and to
conquer, over Syria and Asia and Macedonia and Greece, He led him as a
captive in the triumphal march of His grace; he was the trophy of
Christ's victory; every one who saw him saw that necessity was laid
upon Him; but what a gracious necessity it was! "The _love_ of Christ
constraineth us." The captives who were dragged in chains behind a
Roman chariot also made manifest the knowledge of their conqueror;
they declared to all the spectators his power and his pitilessness;
there was nothing in that knowledge to suggest the idea of a fragrance
like incense. But as Paul moved through the world, all who had eyes to
see saw in him not only the power but the sweetness of God's redeeming
love. The mighty Victor made manifest through Him, not only His might,
but His charm, not only His greatness, but His grace. It was a good
thing, men felt, to be subdued and led in triumph like Paul; it was to
move in an atmosphere perfumed by the love of Christ, as the air
around the Roman triumph was perfumed with incense. The Apostle is so
sensible of this that he weaves it into his sentence as an
indispensable part of his thought; it is not merely the knowledge of
God which is made manifest through him as he is led in triumph, but
that knowledge as a fragrant, gracious thing, speaking to every one of
victory and goodness and joy.
The very word "savour," in connexion with the "knowledge" of God in
Christ, is full of meaning. It has its most direct application, of
course, to preaching. When we proclaim the Gospel, do we always succeed
in manifesting it as a savour? Or is not the savour--the sweetness, the
winsomeness, the charm and attractiveness of it--the very thing that is
most easily left out? Do we not catch it sometimes in the words of
others, and wonder that it eludes our own? We miss what is most
characteristic in the knowledge of God if we miss this. We leave out
that very element in the Evangel which makes it evangelic, and gives it
its power to subdue and enchain the souls of men. But it is not to
preachers only that the word "savour" speaks; it is of the widest
possible application. Whereever Christ is leading a single soul in
triumph, the fragrance of the Gospel should go forth; rather, it does go
forth, in proportion as His triumph is complete. There is sure to be
that in the life which will reveal the graciousness as well as the
omnipotence of the Saviour. And it is this virtue which God uses as His
main witness, as His chief instrument, to evangelise the world. In every
relation of life it should tell. Nothing is so insuppressible, nothing
so pervasive, as a fragrance. The lowliest life which Christ is really
leading in triumph will speak infallibly and persuasively for Him. In a
Christian brother or sister, brothers and sisters will find a new
strength and tenderness, something that goes deeper than natural
affection, and can stand severer shocks; they will catch the fragrance
which declares that the Lord in His triumphant grace is there. And so in
all situations, or, as the Apostle has it, "in every place." And if we
are conscious that we fall in this matter, and that the fragrance of the
knowledge of Christ is something to which our life gives no testimony,
let us be sure that the explanation of it is to be found in self-will.
There is something in us which has not yet made complete surrender to
Him, and not till He leads us unresistingly in triumph will the sweet
savour go forth.
At this point the Apostle's thought is arrested by the issues of his
ministry, though he carries the figure of the fragrance, with a little
pressure, through to the end. In God's sight, he says, or so far as
God is concerned, we are a sweet savour of Christ, a perfume redolent
of Christ, in which He cannot but take pleasure. In other words,
Christ proclaimed in the Gospel, and the ministries and lives which
proclaim Him, are always a joy to God. They are a joy to Him, whatever
men may think of them, alike in them that are being saved and in them
that are perishing. To those who are being saved, they are a savour
"from life to life"; to those who are perishing, a savour "from death
to death." Here, as everywhere, St. Paul contemplates these exclusive
opposites as the sole issues of man's life, and of the Gospel
ministry. He makes no attempt to subordinate one to the other, no
suggestion that the way of death may ultimately lead to life, much
less that it must do so. The whole solemnity of the situation, which
is faced in the cry "And who is sufficient for these things?" depends
on the finality of the contrast between life and death. These are the
goals set before men, and those who are being saved and those who are
perishing are respectively on their way to one or the other. Who _is_
sufficient for the calling of the Gospel ministry, when such are the
alternatives involved in it? Who is sufficient, in love, in wisdom, in
humility, in awful earnestness, for the duties of a calling the issues
of which are life or death for ever?
There is considerable difficulty in the sixteenth verse, partly
dogmatic, partly textual. Commentators so opposite in their bias as
Chrysostom and Calvin have pondered and remarked upon the opposite
effects here ascribed to the Gospel. It is easy to find analogies to
these in nature. The same heat which hardens clay melts iron. The same
sunlight which gladdens the healthy eye tortures that which is
diseased. The same honey which is sweet to the sound palate is
nauseous to the sick; and so on. But such analogies do not explain
anything, and one can hardly see what is meant by calling them
illustrations. It remains finally inexplicable that the Gospel, which
appeals to some with winning irresistible power, subduing and leading
them in triumph, should excite in others a passion of antipathy which
nothing else could provoke. This remains inexplicable, because it is
irrational. Nothing that can be pointed to in the universe is the
least like a bad heart closing itself against the love of Christ, like
a bad man's will stiffening into absolute rigidity against the will of
God. The preaching of the Gospel may be the occasion of such awful
results, but it is not their cause. The God whom it proclaims is the
God of grace; it is never His will that any should perish--always that
all should be saved. But He can save only by subduing; His grace must
exercise a sovereign power in us, which through righteousness will
lead to life everlasting (Rom. v. 21). And when this exercise of power
is resisted, when we match our self-will against the gracious saving
will of God, our pride, our passions, our mere sloth, against the
soul-constraining love of Christ; when we prevail in the war which
God's mercy wages with our wickedness,--then the Gospel itself may be
said to have ministered to our ruin; it was ordained to life, and we
have made it a sentence of death. Yet even so, it is the joy and glory
of God; it is a sweet savour to Him, fragrant of Christ and His love.
The textual difficulty is in the words ἐκ θανάτου εἰς θάνατον, and ἐκ
ζωῆς εἰς ζωήν. These words are rendered in the Revised Version "_from_
death to death," and "_from_ life to life." The Authorised Version,
following the _Textus Receptus_, which omits ἐκ in both clauses,
renders "a savour _of_ death unto death," and "_of_ life unto life." In
spite of the inferior MS. support, the _Textus Receptus_ is preferred by
many modern scholars--_e.g._, Heinrici, Schmiedel, and Hofmann. They
find it impossible to give any precise interpretation to the better
attested reading, and an examination of any exposition which accepts it
goes far to justify them. Thus Professor Beet comments: "_From death for
death_ (comp. Rom. i. 17): a scent proceeding _from_, and thus revealing
the presence of, _death_; and, like malaria from a putrefying corpse,
causing _death_. Paul's labours among some men revealed the eternal
death which day by day cast an ever-deepening shadow upon them [this
answers to ὀσμὴ ἐκ θανάτου]; and by arousing in them increased
opposition to God, promoted the spiritual mortification which had
already begun" [this answers to εἰς θάνατον]. Surely it is safe to say
that nobody in Corinth could ever have guessed this from the words. Yet
this is a favourable specimen of the interpretations given. If it were
possible to take ἐκ θανάτου εἰς θάνατον, and ἐκ ζωῆς εἰς ζωήν, as Baur
took ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πίστιν in Rom. i. 17, that would be the simplest way
out of the difficulty, and quite satisfactory. What the Apostle said
would then be this: that the Gospel which he preached, ever good as it
was to God, had the most opposite characters and effects among men,--in
some it was death _from beginning to end_, absolutely and unmitigatedly
deadly in its nature and workings; in others, again, it was life from
beginning to end--life was the uniform sign of its presence, and its
invariable issue. This also is the meaning which we get by omitting ἐκ:
the genitives ζωῆς and θανάτου are then adjectival,--a vital fragrance,
with life as its element and end; a fatal fragrance, the end of which
is death. This has the advantage of being the meaning which occurs to an
ordinary reader; and if the critically approved text, with the repeated
ἐκ, cannot bear this interpretation, I think there is a fair case for
defending the received text on exegetical grounds. Certainly nothing but
the broad impression of the received text will ever enter the general
mind.
The question that rises to the Apostle's lips as he confronts the
solemn situation created by the Gospel is not directly answered. "Who
is sufficient for these things? Who? I say. For we are not as the
many,[22] who corrupt the Word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of
God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ." Paul is conscious as he
writes that his awful sense of responsibility as a preacher of the
Gospel is not shared by all who exercise the same vocation. To be the
bearer and the representative of a power with issues so tremendous
ought surely to annihilate every thought of self; to let personal
interest intrude is to declare oneself faithless and unworthy. We are
startled to hear from Paul's lips what at first sight seems to be a
charge of just such base self-seeking laid against the majority of
preachers. "We are not as the many, corrupting the Word of God." The
expressive word rendered here "corrupting" has the idea of
self-interest, and especially of petty gain, at its basis. It means
literally to sell in small quantities, to retail for profit. But it
was specially applied to tavern-keeping, and extended to cover all the
devices by which the wine-sellers in ancient times deceived their
customers. Then it was used figuratively, as here; and Lucian, _e.g._,
speaks of philosophers as selling the sciences, and in most cases (ὁι
πολλοί: a curious parallel to St. Paul), like tavern keepers,
"blending, adulterating, and giving bad measure." It is plain that
there are two separable ideas here. One is that of men qualifying the
Gospel, infiltrating their own ideas into the Word of God, tempering
its severity, or perhaps its goodness, veiling its inexorableness,
dealing in compromise. The other is that all such proceedings are
faithless and dishonest, because some private interest underlies them.
It need not be avarice, though it is as likely to be this as anything
else. A man corrupts the Word of God, makes it the stock-in-trade of a
paltry business of his own, in many other ways than by subordinating
it to the need of a livelihood. When he exercises his calling as a
minister for the gratification of his vanity, he does so. When he
preaches not that awful message in which life and death are bound up,
but himself, his cleverness, his learning, his humour, his fine voice
even or fine gestures, he does so. He makes the Word minister to him,
instead of being a minister of the Word; and that is the essence of
the sin. It is the same if ambition be his motive, if he preaches to
win disciples to himself, to gain an ascendency over souls, to become
the head of a party which will bear the impress of his mind. There was
something of this at Corinth; and not only there, but wherever it is
found, such a spirit and such interests will change the character of
the Gospel. It will not be preserved in that integrity, in that
simple, uncompromising, absolute character which it has as revealed in
Christ. Have another interest in it than that of God, and that
interest will inevitably colour it. You will make it what it was not,
and the virtue will depart from it.
In contrast with all such dishonest ministers, the Apostle represents
himself and his friends speaking "as of sincerity." They have no
mixture of motives in their work as evangelists; they have indeed no
independent motives at all: God is leading them in triumph, and
proclaiming His grace through them. It is He who prompts every word
(ὡς ἐκ Θεοῦ). Yet their responsibility and their freedom are intact.
They feel themselves in His presence as they speak, and in that
presence they speak "in Christ." "In Christ" is the Apostle's mark.
Not in himself apart from Christ, where any mixture of motives, any
process of adulteration, would have been possible, but only in that
union with Christ which was the very life of his life, did he carry on
his evangelistic work. This was his final security, and it is still
the only security, that the Gospel can have fair play in the world.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] The perfect ἔσχηκα seems at first sight out of place, but it is
more expressive than the aorist. It suggests the _continuous_
expectation of relief which was always anew disappointed.
[20] See Grimm's Lexicon _s.v._, or Lightfoot on Col. ii. 15.
[21] In τὴν ὀσμὴν τῆς γνώσεως, γνώσεως is gen. of apposition: the ὀσμὴ
and the γνῶσις are one.
[22] "The many" (ὁι πολλοί) seems to be the true reading. "The rest" (ὁι
λοιποί) would be stronger still in its condemnation. But probably Paul
is not thinking of the Church in general, but of the teachers as a body
who crossed and thwarted him in his chosen field. The transition which
is immediately made to the case of his opponents (τινὲς, iii. 1), and to
the comparison of the old and new covenants, suggests that his Judaistic
adversaries in Corinth (see chap. xi.) are in view.
VIII
_LIVING EPISTLES_
"Are we beginning again to commend ourselves? or need we, as do
some, epistles of commendation to you or from you? Ye are our
epistle, written in our hearts, known and read of all men; being
made manifest that ye are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us,
written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not
in tables of stone, but in tables _that are_ hearts of flesh."--2
COR. iii. 1-3 (R.V.).