other; but it is not his to make a choice, and so he does not express
himself unconditionally. The whole tone of the passage anticipates that
of Phil. i. 21 ff.: "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
But if to live in the flesh,--_if_ this is the fruit of my work, then
what I shall choose I wot not. But I am in a strait betwixt the two,
having the desire to depart and to be with Christ; for it is very far
better: yet to abide in the flesh is more needful for your sake."
Nothing could be less like the Apostle than a monkish, unmanly wish to
die. He exulted in his calling. It was a joy to him above all joys to
speak to men of the love of God in Jesus Christ. But nothing, on the
other hand, could be less like him than to lose sight of the future in
the present, and to forget amid the service of men the glory which is to
be revealed. He stood between two worlds; he felt the whole attraction
of both; in the earnest of the Spirit he knew that he had an inheritance
there as well as here. It is this consciousness of the dimensions of
life that makes him so immensely interesting; he never wrote a dull
word; his soul was stirred incessantly by impulses from earth and from
heaven, swept by breezes from the dark and troubled sea of man's life,
touched by inspirations from the radiant heights where Christ dwelt. We
do not need to be afraid of the reproach of "other worldliness" if we
seek to live in this same spirit; the reproach is as false as it is
threadbare. It would be an incalculable gain if we could recover the
primitive hope in something like its primitive strength. It would not
make us false to our duties in the world, but it would give us the
victory over the world.
In bringing this subject to a close, the Apostle strikes a graver
note. A certain moral, as well as a certain emotional temper, is
evoked by the Christian hope. It fills men with courage, and with
spiritual yearnings; it braces them also to moral earnestness and
vigour. "Wherefore also we make it our aim"--literally, we are
ambitious, the only lawful ambition--"whether at home or absent, to be
well-pleasing unto Him." Modes of being are not of so much
consequence. It may agree with a man's feelings better to live till
Christ comes, or to die before He comes, and go at once to be with
Him; but the main thing is, in whatever mode of being, to be accepted
in His sight. "For we must all be manifested before the judgment-seat
of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body,
according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad." The
Christian hope is not clouded by the judgment-seat of Christ; it is
sustained at the holy height which befits it. We are forbidden to
count upon it lightly. "Every man," we are reminded, "that hath this
hope set on Him purifieth himself even as He is pure." It is not
necessary for us to seek a formal reconciliation of this verse with
Paul's teaching that the faithful are accepted in Christ Jesus; we can
feel that both must be true. And if the doctrine of justification
freely, by God's grace, is that which has to be preached to sinful
men, the doctrine of exact retribution, taught in this passage, has
its main interest and importance for Christians. It is Christians only
who are in view here, and the law of requital is so exact that every
one is said to get back, to carry on for himself, the very things done
in the body. In this world, we have not seen the last of anything. We
shall all be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ; all that
we have hidden shall be revealed. The books are shut now, but they
will be opened then. The things we have done in the body will come
back to us, whether good or bad. Every pious thought, and every
thought of sin; every secret prayer, and every secret curse; every
unknown deed of charity, and every hidden deed of selfishness: we will
see them all again, and though we have not remembered them for years,
and perhaps have forgotten them altogether, we shall have to
acknowledge that they are our own, and take them to ourselves. Is not
that a solemn thing to stand at the end of life? Is it not a true
thing? Even those who can say with the Apostle, "Being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and
rejoice in hope of His glory," know how true it is. Nay, they most of
all know, for they understand better than others the holiness of God,
and they are especially addressed here. The moral consciousness is not
maintained in its vigour and integrity if this doctrine of retribution
disappears; and if we are called by a passage like this to encourage
ourselves in the Lord, and in the hope which He has revealed, we are
warned also that evil cannot dwell with God, and that He will by no
means clear the guilty.
FOOTNOTES:
[43] The true rendering here is that in the margin of the R.V.
[44] This translation is Schmiedel's. For the use of διὰ cf. Rev. xxi.
24: Καὶ περιπατήσουσιν τὰ ἔθνη διὰ τοῦ φωτὸς αὐτης. It cannot mean
"by" faith, in the sense of "according to" faith, or as faith directs.
Nor can it be proved that εῖδος ever means "sight."
XIV
_THE MEASURE OF CHRIST'S LOVE_
"Knowing therefore the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are
made manifest unto God; and I hope that we are made manliest also in
your consciences. We are not again commending ourselves unto you,
but _speak_ as giving you occasion of glorying on our behalf, that
ye may have wherewith to answer them that glory in appearance and
not in heart. For whether we are beside ourselves, it is unto God;
or whether we are of sober mind, it is unto you. For the love of
Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that One died for
all, therefore all died; and He died for all, that they which live
should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him who for their
sakes died and rose again."--2 COR. v. 11-15 (R.V.).
The Christian hope of immortality is elevated and solemnised by the
thought of the judgment-seat of Christ. This is no strange thought to
St. Paul; many a time he has set himself in imagination in that great
presence, and let the awe of it descend upon his heart. This is what
he means when he writes, "Knowing the fear of the Lord." Like the
pastors addressed in the Epistle to the Hebrews, he exercises his
office as one who must render an account. In this spirit, he says, he
persuades men. A motive so high, and so stern in its purifying power,
no minister of Christ can afford to dispense with. We need something
to suppress self-seeking, to keep conscience vigorous, to preserve the
message of reconciliation itself from degenerating into good-natured
indifference, to prohibit immoral compromises and superficial healing
of the soul's hurts. Let us familiarise our minds, by meditation, with
the fear due to Christ the judge, and a new element of power will
enter into our service, making it at once more urgent and more
wholesome than it could otherwise be.
The meaning of the words "we persuade men" is not at once clear.
Interpreters generally find in them a combination of two ideas--we try
to win men for the Gospel, and we try to convince them of our own
purity of motive in our evangelistic work. The word is suitable enough
to express either idea; and though it is straining it to make it carry
both, the first is suggested by the general tenor of the passage, and
the second seems to be demanded by what follows. "We try to convince
men of our disinterestedness, but we do not need to try to convince
God; we have been manifested to Him already;[45] and we trust also
that we have been manifested in your consciences." Paul was well aware
of the hostility with which he was regarded by some of the
Corinthians, but he is confident that, when his appeal is tried in the
proper court, decision must be given in his favour, and he hopes that
this has really been done at Corinth. Often we do not give people in
his position the benefit of a fair trial. It is not in our consciences
they are arraigned--_i.e._, in God's sight, and according to God's
law--but at the bar of our prejudices, our likes and dislikes,
sometimes even our whims and caprices. It is not their _character_
which is taken into account, but something quite irrelevant to
character. Paul did not care for such estimates as these. It was
nothing to him whether his appearance made a favourable impression on
those who heard him--whether they liked his voice, his gestures, his
manners, or even his message. What he did care for was to be able to
appeal to their consciences, as he could appeal to God, to whom all
things were naked and opened, that in the discharge of his functions
as an evangelist he had been absolutely simple and sincere. In
speaking thus, he has no intention of again recommending himself.
Rather, as he says with a touch of irony, it is for their convenience
he writes; he is giving them occasion to boast on his behalf, that
when they encounter people who boast in face and not in heart they may
not be speechless, but may have something to say for themselves--and
for him. It is easy to read between the lines here. The Corinthians
had persons among them--Jewish and Judaising teachers evidently--who
boasted "in face"; in other words, who prided themselves on outward
and visible distinctions, though as Paul asserts, they had nothing
within to be proud of. There are suggestions of these distinctions
elsewhere, and we can imagine the claims men made, the airs they gave
themselves, or at least the recognition they consented to accept, on
the ground of them. Their eloquence, their knowledge of the
Scriptures, their Jewish descent, their acquaintance with the Twelve,
above all acquaintance with Jesus Himself--these were their
credentials, and of these their followers made much. Perhaps even on
their own ground Paul could have met and routed most of them, but
meanwhile he leaves them in undisturbed possession of their
advantages, such as they are. He only sums up these advantages in the
disparaging word "face," or "appearance"; they are all on the outside;
they amount to "a fair show in the flesh," but no more. He would not
like if _his_ disciples could make no better boast of their master,
and all the high things he has written, from chap. ii. 14 on to chap.
v. 10, especially his vindication of the absolute purity of his
motives, furnish them, if they choose to take it so, with grounds of
counter-boasting, far deeper and more spiritual than those of his
adversaries. For _he_ boasts, not "in appearance, but in heart." The
ironical tone in this is unmistakable, yet it is not merely ironical.
From the beginning of Christianity to this day, Churches have gathered
round men, and made their boast in them. Too often it has been a boast
"in face," and not "in heart"--in gifts, accomplishments, and
distinctions, which may have given an outward splendour to the
individual, but which were entirely irrelevant to the possession of
the Christian spirit. Often even the imperfections of the natural man
have been gloried in, simply because they were his; and the Lutheran
and Calvinistic Churches, for example, owe some of their most
distinctive features to an exaggerated appreciation of those very
characteristics of Luther and Calvin which had no Christian value. The
same thing is seen every day, on a smaller scale, in congregations.
People are proud of their minister, not for what he is in heart, but
because he is more learned, more eloquent, more naturally capable,
than other preachers in the same town. It is a pity when ministers
themselves, like the Judaists in Corinth, are content to have it so.
The true evangelist or pastor will choose rather, with St. Paul, to be
taken for what he is as a Christian, and for nothing else; and if he
_must_ be spoken about, he will be spoken of in this character, and in
no other. Nay, if it really comes to glorying "in face," he will glory
in his weaknesses and incapacities; he will magnify the very
earthenness of the earthen vessel, the very coarseness of the clay, as
a foil to the power and life of Christ which dwell in it.
The connexion of ver. 13 with what precedes is very obscure. Perhaps
as fair a paraphrase as any would run thus: "And well may you boast of
our complete sincerity; for whether we are beside ourselves, it is to
God; or whether we are of sober mind, it is unto you; that is, in no
case is self-interest the motive or rule of our conduct." Connexion
apart, there is a further difficulty about εἴτε ἐξέστημεν. The Revised
Version renders it "whether we _are_ beside ourselves," but in the
margin gives "_were_" for "are." It makes a very great difference
which tense we accept. If the proper meaning is given by "are," the
application must be to some constant characteristic of the Apostle s
ministry. His enthusiasm, his absolute superiority to common selfish
considerations such as are ordinarily supreme in human life, his
resolute assertion of truths lying beyond the reach of sense, the
unearthly flame which burned unceasingly in his bosom, and never more
brightly than when he wrote the fourth and fifth chapters of the
Second Epistle to the Corinthians--all these constitute the temper
which is described as being "beside oneself," a kind of sacred
madness. It was in this sense that the accusation of being beside
himself was brought on a memorable occasion against Jesus (Mark iii.
21, ἐξέστη). The disciple and the Master alike seemed to those who did
not understand them to be in an overstrained, too highly wrought
condition of spirit; in the ardour of their devotion they allowed
themselves to be carried beyond all natural limits, and it was not
improper to speak of applying some kindly restraint. At first sight
this interpretation seems very appropriate, and I do not think that
the tense of ἐξέστημεν is decisive against it.[46] Those who think it
is point to the change to the present tense in the next clause, εἴτε
σωφρονοῦμεν, and allege that this would have no motive unless
ἐξέστημεν were a true past. But this may be doubted. On the one hand,
ἐξέστη in Mark iii. 21 can hardly mean anything but "He is beside
Himself"--_i.e._, it is virtually a present; on the other, the
grammatical present ἐξιστάμεθα would not unambiguously convey the idea
of madness, and would therefore be inappropriate here. But assuming
that the change of tense has the effect of making ἐξέστημεν a real
past, and that the proper rendering is "whether we _were_ beside
ourselves," what is the application then? We must suppose that some
definite occasion is before the Apostle and his readers, on which he
had been in an ecstasy (cf. ἐν ἐκστάσει, Acts xi. 5; ἐγένετο ἐπ' αὐτὸν
ἔκστασις, Acts X. 10), and that his opponents availed themselves of
this experience, in which he had passed, for a time, out of his own
control, to whisper the malicious accusation that he had once not been
quite right in his mind, and that this explained much. The Apostle, we
should have to assume, admits the fact alleged, but protests against
the inference drawn from it, and the use made of the inference. "I
_was_ beside myself," he says; "but it was an experience which had
nothing to do with my ministry; it was between God and my solitary
self; and to drag it into my relations with you is a mere
impertinence." That the "ecstasis" in question was his vision of Jesus
on the way to Damascus, and that his adversaries sought to discredit
that, and the apostleship of Paul as grounded on that, is one of the
extravagances of an irresponsible criticism. Of all experiences that
ever befell him, his conversion is the very one which was _not_ solely
his own affair and God's, but the affair of the whole Church; and
whereas he speaks of his ecstasies and visions with evident reluctance
and embarrassment, as in chap. xii. 1 ff., or refuses to speak of them
at all, as here (assuming this interpretation to be the true one), he
makes his conversion and the appearance of the Lord the very
foundation of his preaching, and treats of both with the utmost
frankness. It must be something quite different from this--something
analogous perhaps to me speaking with tongues, in which "the
understanding was unfruitful," but for which Paul was distinguished (1
Cor. xiv. 14-18)--that is intended here. Such rapt conditions are
certainly open to misinterpretation; and as their spiritual value is
merely personal, Paul declines to discuss any allusion to them, as if
it affected his relation to the Corinthians.
The strongest point in favour of this interpretation seems to me not
the tense of ἐξέστημεν, but the use of Θεῷ: "it is unto God." If the
meaning were the one first suggested, and the madness were the holy
enthusiasm of the Evangelist, that would be distinctly a thing which
did concern the Corinthians, and it would not be natural to withdraw
it from their censure as God's affair. Nevertheless, one can conceive
Paul saying that he was answerable for his extravagances, not to them,
but to his Master; and that his sober-mindedness, at all events, had
their interests in view. On a survey of the whole case, and especially
with Mark iii. 21, and the New Testament use of the verb ἐξίσταμαι
before us, I incline to think that the text of the Revised Version is
to be preferred to the margin. The "being beside himself" with which
Paul was charged will not, then, be an isolated incident in his
career--an incident which Jewish teachers, remembering the ecstasies
of Peter and John, could hardly object to--but the spiritual tension
in which he habitually lived and wrought. The language, so far as I
can judge, admits of this interpretation, and it brings the Apostle's
experience into line, not only with that of his Master, but with that
of many who have succeeded him. But how great and rare is the
self-conquest of the man who can say that in his enthusiasm and his
sobriety alike--when he is beside himself, and when his spirit is
wholly subject to him--the one thing which never intrudes, or troubles
his singleness of mind, is the thought of his own private ends.
In the verses which follow, Paul lets us into the secret of this
unselfishness, this freedom from by-ends and ambition: "For the love of
Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that One died for all,
therefore all [of them] died." "Constraineth" is one of the most
expressive words in the New Testament; the love of Christ has hold of
the Apostle on both sides, as it were, and urges him on in a course
which he cannot avoid. It has him in its grasp, and he has no choice,
under its irresistible constraint, but to be what he is, and to do what
he does, whether men think him in his mind or out of his mind. That the
love of Christ means Christ's love to us, and not our love to Him, is
shown by the fact that Paul goes on at once to describe in what it
consists. "It constrains us," he says, "because we have come to this
mind about it: One died for all; so then all died." Here, we may say, is
the content of Christ's love, the essence of it, that which gives it
its soul-subduing and constraining power: He loved us, _and gave Himself
for us_; He died for all, _and in that death of His all died_.
It may seem a hazardous thing to give a definition of love, and
especially to shut up within the boundaries of a human conception that
love of Christ which passes knowledge. But the intelligence must get
hold somehow even of things inconceivably great, and the New Testament
writers, with all their diversity of spiritual gifts, are at one as to
what is essential here. They all find Christ's love concentrated and
focussed in His death. They all find it there inasmuch as that death
was a death _for us_. Perhaps St. Paul and St. John penetrated
further, intellectually, than any of the others into the mystery of
this "for"; but if we cannot give it a natural interpretation, and an
interpretation in which an absolutely irresistible constraint is
hidden for heart and will, we do not know what the Apostles meant when
they spoke of Christ's love. There has been much discussion about the
"for" in this place. It is ὑπέρ, not ἀντί, and many render it simply
"on our behalf," or "for our advantage." That Christ did die for our
advantage is not to be questioned. Neither is it to be questioned that
this is a fair rendering of ὑπέρ. But what _does_ raise question is
whether this interpretation of the "for" supplies sufficient ground
for the immediate inference of the Apostle "so then all died." Is it
logical to say, "One died for the benefit of all: _hence_ all died"?
From that premiss is not the only legitimate conclusion "hence all
remained alive"? Plainly, if _Paul's_ conclusion is to be drawn, the
"for" must reach deeper than this mere suggestion of our advantage: if
we all _died_, in that Christ died _for_ us, there must be a sense in
which that death of His is _ours_; He must be identified with _us_ in
it: there, on the cross, while we stand and gaze at Him, He is not
simply a person doing us a service; He is a person doing us a service
_by filling our place and dying our death_. It is out of this deeper
relation that all services, benefits, and advantages flow; and that
deeper sense of "for," to which Christ in His death is at once the
representative and the substitute of man, is essential to do justice
to the Apostle's thought. Without the ideas involved in these words we
cannot conceive, as he conceived it, the love of Christ. We cannot
understand how that force, which exercised such absolute authority
over his whole life, appealed to his intelligence. We do not mean what
he meant even when we use his words; we gain currency, under cover of
them, for ideas utterly inadequate to the spiritual depth of his.
If this were an exposition of St. Paul's theology, and not of the
Second Epistle to the Corinthians, I should be bound to consider the
connexion between that outward death of Christ in which the death of
all is involved, and the appropriation of that death to themselves by
individual men. But the Apostle does not directly raise this question
here; he only adds in the fifteenth verse a statement of the purpose
for which Christ died, and in doing so suggests that the connecting
link is to be sought, in part at least, in the feeling of gratitude.
"He died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto
themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again." In dying
our death Christ has done something for us so immense in love that we
ought to be His, and only His, for ever. To make us His is the very
object of His death. Before we know Him we are naturally selfish; we
are an end to ourselves, in the bad sense; we are our own. Even the
sacrifices which men make for their families, their country, or their
order, are but qualifications of selfishness; it is not eradicated and
exterminated till we see and feel what is meant by this--that _Christ
died our death_. The life we have after we have apprehended this can
never be our own; nay, we ourselves are not our own; we are bought
with a price; life has been given a ransom for us, and our life is due
to him "who died for us and rose again." I believe the Authorised
Version is right in this rendering, and that it is a mistake to say,
"who for our sakes died and rose again." The Resurrection has
certainly significance in the work of Christ, but not in precisely the
same way as His death; and Paul mentions it here, not to define its
significance, but simply because he could not think of living except
for One who was Himself alive.
One point deserves especial emphasis here--the universality of the
expressions. Paul has been speaking of himself, and of the constraint
which the love of Christ, as he apprehends it, exercises upon him. But
he no sooner begins to define his thought of Christ's love than he
passes over from the first person to the third. The love of Christ was
not to be limited; what it is to the Apostle it is to the world: He
died for all, and so all died. Whatever blessing Christ's death
contained, it contains for all. Whatever doom it exhausts and removes,
it exhausts and removes for all. Whatever power it breaks, it breaks
for all. Whatever ideal it creates, whatever obligation it imposes, it
creates and imposes for all. There is not a soul in the world which is
excluded from an interest in that knowledge-surpassing love which made
our death its own. There is not one which ought not to feel that
omnipotent constraint which enchained and swayed the strong, proud
spirit of Paul. There is not one which ought not to be pouring out its
life for Him who died in its place, and rose to receive its service.
FOOTNOTES:
[45] The φανερωθῆναι of the last judgment, ver. 10, has as good as
taken place--for God.
[46] According to Winer ἐξέστη in Mark iii. 21 has the present sense =
_insanity_; and so it might be with ἐξέστημεν here. The verb occurs
fifteen times in the New Testament, and except in these two passages
has always the sense of being amazed or astonished beyond measure.
XV
_THE NEW WORLD_