exactly St. Paul's view here. There is a kind of sorrow, he intimates,
which issues in repentance, but repentance itself is not so much an
emotional as a spiritual change. The sorrow which ends in it is a
blessed experience; the sorrow which does not end in it is the most
tragical waste of which human nature is capable. The Corinthians, we
are told, were made sorry, or grieved, according to God. Their sorrow
had respect to Him: when the Apostle's letter pricked their hearts,
they became conscious of that which they had forgotten--God's relation
to them, and His judgment on their conduct. It is this element which
makes any sorrow "godly," and without this, sorrow does not look
towards repentance at all. All sins sooner or later bring the sense of
loss with them; but the sense of loss is not repentance. It is not
repentance when we discover that our sin has found us out, and has put
the things we most coveted beyond our reach. It is not repentance when
the man who has sown his wild oats is compelled in bitterness of soul
to reap what he has sown. It is not a sorrow according to God when our
sin is summed up for us in the pain it inflicts upon ourselves--in our
own loss, our own defeat, our own humiliation, our own exposure, our
own unavailing regret. These are not healing, but embittering. The
sorrow according to God is that in which the sinner is conscious of
his sin in relation to the Holy One, and feels that its inmost soul of
pain and guilt is this, that he has fallen away from the grace and
friendship of God. He has wounded a love to which he is dearer than he
is to himself: to know this is really to grieve, and that not with a
self-consuming, but with a healing, hopeful sorrow. It was such a
sorrow to which Paul's letter gave rise at Corinth: it is such a
sorrow which issues in repentance, that complete change of spiritual
attitude which ends in salvation, and need never be regretted.
Anything else--the sorrow, _e.g._, which is bounded by the selfish
interests of the sinner, and is not due to his sinful act, but only to
its painful consequences--is the sorrow of the world. It is such as
men feel in that realm of life in which no account is taken of God; it
is such as weakens and breaks the spirit, or embitters and hardens it,
turning it now to defiance and now to despair, but never to God, and
penitent hope in Him. It is in this way that it works death. If death
is to be defined at all, it must be by contrast with salvation: the
grief which has not God as its rule can only exhaust the soul, wither
up its faculties, blight its hopes, extinguish and deaden all.
St. Paul can point to the experience of the Corinthians themselves as
furnishing a demonstration of these truths. "Consider your own godly
sorrow," he seems to say, "and what blessed fruits it bore. What
earnest care it wrought in you! how eager became your interest in a
situation to which you had once been sinfully indifferent!" But
"earnest care" is not all. On the contrary (ἀλλὰ), Paul expands it
into a whole series of acts or dispositions, all of which are inspired
by that sorrow according to God. When they thought of the infamy which
sin had brought upon the Church, they were eager to clear themselves
of complicity in it (ἀπολογίαν), and angry with themselves that they
had ever allowed such a thing to be (ἀγανάκτησιν); when they thought
of the Apostle, they feared lest he should come to them with a rod
(φόβον), and yet their hearts went out in longing desires to see him
(ἐπιπόθησιν); when they thought of the man whose sin was at the bottom
of all this trouble, they were full of moral earnestness, which made
lax dealing with him impossible (ζῆλον), and compelled them to punish
his offence (ἐκδίκησιν). In every way they made it evident that, in
spite of early appearances, they were really pure in the matter. They
were not, after all, making themselves partakers, by condoning it, of
the bad man's offence.
A popular criticism disparages repentance, and especially the sorrow
which leads to repentance, as a mere waste of moral force. We have
nothing to throw away, the severely practical moralist tells us, in
sighs and tears and feelings: let us be up and doing, to rectify the
wrongs for which we are responsible; that is the only repentance which
is worth the name. This passage, and the experience which it depicts,
are the answer to such precipitate criticism. The descent into our own
hearts, the painful self-scrutiny and self-condemnation, the sorrowing
according to God, are not waste of moral force. Rather are they the only
possible way to accumulate moral force; they apply to the soul the
pressure under which it manifests those potent virtues which St. Paul
here ascribes to the Corinthians. All sorrow, indeed, as he is careful
to tell us, is not repentance; but he who has no sorrow for his sin has
not the force in him to produce earnest care, fear, longing, zeal,
avenging. The fruit, of course, is that for which the tree is
cultivated; but who would magnify the fruit by disparaging the sap? That
is what they do who decry "godly sorrow" to exalt practical amendment.
With this reference to the effect of his letter upon them, the Apostle
virtually completes his reconciliation to the Corinthians. He chooses to
consider the effect of his letter as the purpose for which it was
written, and this enables him to dismiss what had been a very painful
subject with a turn as felicitous as it is affectionate. "So then,
though I did write to you, it was not for his sake who did the wrong
[the sinner of 1 Cor. v.], nor for his who had it done to him [his
father][65]; but that you yourselves might become conscious of your
earnest care of our interests in the sight of God." Awkward as some of
the situations had been, all that remained, so far as the Apostle and
the Corinthians were concerned, was this: they knew better than before
how deeply they were attached to him, and how much they would do for his
sake. He chooses, as I have said, to regard this last result of his
writing as the purpose for which he wrote; and when he ends the twelfth
verse with the words, "For this cause, we have been comforted,"[66] it
is as if he said, "I have got what I wanted now, and am content."
But content is far too weak a word. Paul had heard all this good news
from Titus, and the comfort which it gave him was exalted into abounding
joy when he saw how the visit to Corinth had gladdened and refreshed the
spirit of his friend. Evidently Titus had accepted Paul's commission
with misgivings: possibly Timothy, who had been earlier enlisted for the
same service (1 Cor. xvi. 10), had found his courage fail him, and
withdrawn. At all events, Paul had spoken encouragingly to Titus of the
Corinthians before he started; as he puts it in ver. 14, he had boasted
somewhat to him on their account; and he is delighted that their
reception of Titus has shown that his confidence was justified. He
cannot refrain here from a passing allusion to the charges of
prevarication discussed in the first chapter; he not only tells the
truth _about_ them (as Titus has seen), but he has always told the truth
_to_ them. These verses present the character of Paul in an admirable
light: not only his sympathy with Titus, but his attitude to the
Corinthians, is beautifully Christian. What in most cases of
estrangement makes reconciliation hard is that the estranged have
allowed themselves to speak of each other to outsiders in a way that
cannot be forgotten or got over. But even when the tension between Paul
and the Corinthians was at its height, he boasted of them to Titus. His
love to them was so real that nothing could blind him to their good
qualities. He could say severe things to them, but he would never
disparage or malign them to other people; and if we wish friendships to
last, and to stand the strains to which all human ties are occasionally
subject, we must never forget this rule. "Boast somewhat," even of the
man who has wronged you, if you possibly can. If you have ever loved
him, you certainly can, and it makes reconciliation easy.
The last results of the painful friction between Paul and the
Corinthians were peculiarly happy. The Apostle's confidence in them
was completely restored, and they had completely won the heart of
Titus. "His affections are more abundantly toward you, as he remembers
the obedience of you all, how with fear and trembling ye received
him." "Fear and trembling" is an expression which St. Paul uses
elsewhere, and which is liable to be misunderstood. It does not
suggest panic, but an anxious scrupulous desire not to be wanting to
one's duty, or to do less than one ought to do. "Work out your
salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you,"
does not mean "Do it in a constant state of agitation or alarm," but
"Work on with this resource behind you, in the same spirit with which
a young man of character would work, who was starting in business on
capital advanced by a friend." He would proceed, or ought to proceed,
with fear and trembling, not of the sort which paralyse intelligence
and energy, but of the sort which peremptorily preclude slackness or
failure in duty. This is the meaning here also. The Corinthians were
not frightened for Paul's deputy, but they welcomed him with an
anxious conscientious desire to do the very utmost that duty and love
could require. This, says Calvin, is the true way to receive ministers
of Christ: and it is this only which will gladden a true minister's
heart. Sometimes, with the most innocent intention, the whole
situation is changed, and the minister, though received with the
utmost courtesy and kindness, is not received with fear and trembling
at all. Partly through his own fault, and partly through the fault of
others, he ceases to be the representative of anything that inspires
reverence, or excites to conscientious earnestness of conduct. If,
under these circumstances, he continues to be kindly treated, he is
apt to end in being, not the pastor, but the pet lamb of his flock. In
apostolic times there was no danger of this, but modern ministers and
modern congregations have sometimes thrown away all the possibilities
of good in their mutual relations by disregarding it. The affection
which they ought to have to each other is Christian, not merely
natural; controlled by spiritual ideas and purposes, and not a matter
of ordinary good feeling; and where this is forgotten, all is lost.
FOOTNOTES:
[61] But see on chap. ii. 5-11.
[62] This is, I think, the only possible meaning of πολλή μοι παῤῥησία
πρὸς ὑμᾶς.
[63] So Schmiedel.
[64] It is difficult to fix either the text or the punctuation in ver.
8, and agreement among critics is quite hopeless. Practically they are
at one in omitting the γὰρ of the Received Text after βλέπω: and
Schmiedel agrees with Lachmann and Westcott and Hort that the original
reading was probably βλέπων. The R.V. has the same punctuation as the
A.V., which probably means that the Revisers could not get a
sufficient majority to change it, not that it is quite satisfactory as
it stands. It certainly seems better to connect εἰ καὶ μετεμελόμην
with what follows (νῦν χαίρω) than with what precedes; but the sense
is not affected.
[65] But see on chap. ii. 5-11.
[66] This is the true text. Instead of ἐπὶ τῇ παρακλήσει in ver. 13
all critical editions read ἐπὶ δὲ τῇ π., and make these words begin a
new paragraph.
XX
_THE GRACE OF LIBERALITY_
"Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God which
hath been given in the Churches of Macedonia; how that in much
proof of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep
poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. For
according to their power, I bear witness, yea and beyond their
power, _they gave_ of their own accord, beseeching us with much
intreaty in regard of this grace and the fellowship in the
ministering to the saints: and _this_, not as we had hoped, but
first they gave their own selves to the Lord, and to us by the
will of God. Insomuch that we exhorted Titus, that as he had made
a beginning before, so he would also complete in you this grace
also. But as ye abound in everything, _in_ faith, and utterance,
and knowledge, and _in_ all earnestness, and _in_ your love to us,
_see_ that ye abound in this grace also. I speak not by the way of
commandment, but as proving through the earnestness of others the
sincerity also of your love. For ye know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He
became poor, that ye through His poverty might become rich. And
herein I give _my_ judgment: for this is expedient for you, who
were the first to make a beginning a year ago, not only to do, but
also to will. But now complete the doing also; that as _there was_
the readiness to will, so _there may be_ the completion also out
of your ability. For if the readiness is there, _it is_ acceptable
according as _a man_ hath, not according as _he_ hath not. For _I
say_ not _this_, that others may be eased, _and_ ye distressed:
but by equality; your abundance _being a supply_ at this present
time for their want, that their abundance also may become _a
supply_ for your want; that there may be equality: as it is
written, He that _gathered_ much had nothing over; and he that
_gathered_ little had no lack."--2 COR. viii. 1-15 (R.V.).
With the eighth chapter begins the second of the three great divisions
of this Epistle. It is concerned exclusively with the collection which
the Apostle was raising in all the Gentile Christian communities for
the poor of the Mother Church at Jerusalem. This collection had great
importance in his eyes, for various reasons: it was the fulfilment of
his undertaking, to the original Apostles, to remember the poor (Gal.
ii. 10); and it was a testimony to the saints in Palestine of the love
of the Gentile brethren in Christ. The fact that Paul interested
himself so much in this collection, destined as it was for Jerusalem,
proves that he distinguished broadly between the primitive Church and
its authorities on the one hand, and the Jewish emissaries whom he
treats so unsparingly in chaps. x. and xi. on the other.
Money is usually a delicate topic to handle in the Church, and we may
count ourselves happy in having two chapters from the pen of St. Paul
in which he treats at large of a collection. We see the mind of Christ
applied in them to a subject which is always with us, and sometimes
embarrassing; and if there are traces here and there that
embarrassment was felt even by the Apostle, they only show more
clearly the wonderful wealth of thought and feeling which he could
bring to bear on an ungrateful theme. Consider only the variety of
lights in which he puts it, and all of them ideal. "Money," as such,
has no character, and so he never mentions it. But he calls the thing
which he wants a grace (χάρις), a service (διακονία), a communion in
service (κοινωνία), a munificence (ἁδρότης), a blessing (εὐλογία), a
manifestation of love. The whole resources of Christian imagination
are spent in transfiguring, and lifting into a spiritual atmosphere, a
subject on which even Christian men are apt to be materialistic. We do
not need to be hypocritical when we speak about money in the Church;
but both the charity and the business of the Church must be
transacted as Christian, and not as secular, affairs.
Paul introduces the new topic with his usual felicity. He has got
through some rough water in the first seven chapters, but ends with
expressions of joy and satisfaction. When he goes on in the eighth
chapter, it is in the same cheerful key. It is as though he said to
the Corinthians: "You have made me very happy, and now I must tell you
what a happy experience I have had in Macedonia. The grace of God has
been poured out on the Churches, and they have given with incredible
liberality to the collection for the Jewish poor. It so moved me that
I begged Titus, who had already made some arrangements in connexion
with this matter among you, to return and complete the work."
Speaking broadly, the Apostle invites the Corinthians to look at the
subject through three media: (1) the example of the Macedonians; (2) the
example of the Lord; and (3) the laws by which God estimates liberality.
(1) The liberality of the Macedonians is described as "the grace of
God given in the Churches." This is the aspect of it which conditions
every other; it is not the native growth of the soul, but a divine
gift for which God is to be thanked. Praise Him when hearts are
opened, and generosity shown; for it is His work. In Macedonia this
grace was set off by the circumstances of the people. Their Christian
character was put to the severe proof of a great affliction (see 1
Thess. ii. 14 f.); they were themselves in deep poverty; but their joy
abounded nevertheless (1 Thess. i. 6), and joy and poverty together
poured out a rich stream of liberality.[67] This may sound
paradoxical, but paradox is normal here. Strange to say, it is not
those to whom the Gospel comes easily, and on whom it imposes little,
who are most generous in its cause. On the contrary, it is those who
have suffered for it, those who have lost by it, who are as a rule
most open-handed. Comfort makes men selfish, even though they are
Christian; but if they are Christian, affliction, even to the spoiling
of their goods, teaches them generosity. The first generation of
Methodists in England--the men who in 1843 fought the good fight of
the faith in Scotland--illustrate this law; in much proof of
affliction, it might be said of them also, the abundance of their joy,
and their deep poverty, abounded unto the riches of their liberality.
Paul was almost embarrassed with the liberality of the Macedonians.
When he looked at their poverty, he did not hope for much (ver. 5). He
would not have felt justified in urging people who were themselves in
such distress to do much for the relief of others. But they did not
need urging: it was they who urged him. The Apostle's sentence breaks
down as he tries to convey an adequate impression of their eagerness
(ver. 4), and he has to leave off and begin again (ver. 5). To their
power, he bears witness, yes and beyond their power, they gave of
their own accord. They importuned him to bestow on them also the
favour of sharing in this service to the saints. And when their
request was granted, it was no paltry contribution that they made;
they gave _themselves_ to the Lord, to begin with, and to the
Apostle, as His agent in the transaction, by the will of God. The
last words resume, in effect, those with which St. Paul introduced
this topic: it was God's doing, the working of His will on their
wills, that the Macedonians behaved as they did. I cannot think the
English version is right in the rendering: "And this, not as we had
hoped, but first they gave their own selves to the Lord." This
inevitably suggests that afterwards they gave something else--viz.,
their subscriptions. But this is a false contrast, and gives the word
"first" (πρῶτον) a false emphasis, which it has not in the original.
What St. Paul says is virtually this: "We expected little from people
so poor, but by God's will they literally put _themselves_ at the
service of the Lord, in the first instance, and of us as His
administrators. They said to us, to our amazement and joy, 'We are
Christ's, and yours after Him, to command in this matter.'" This is
one of the finest and most inspiring experiences that a Christian
minister can have, and, God be thanked, it is none of the rarest. Many
a man besides Paul has been startled and ashamed by the liberality of
those from whom he would not have ventured to beg. Many a man has been
importuned to take what he could not have dared to ask. It is a
mistake to refuse such generosity, to decline it as too much; it
gladdens God, and revives the heart of man. It is a mistake to deprive
the poorest of the opportunity of offering this sacrifice of praise;
it is the poorest in whom it has most munificence, and to whom it
brings the deepest joy. Rather ought we to open our hearts to the
impression of it, as to the working of God's grace, and rouse our own
selfishness to do something not less worthy of Christ's love.
This was the application which St. Paul made of the generosity of the
Macedonians. Under the impression of it he exhorted Titus, who on a
previous occasion[68] had made some preliminary arrangements about the
matter in Corinth, to return thither and complete the work. He had
other things also to complete, but "this grace" was to be specially
included (καὶ τὴν χάριν ταύτην). Perhaps one may see a gentle irony in
the tone of ver. 7. "Enough of argument," the Apostle says:[69] "let
Christians distinguished as you are in every respect--in faith and
eloquence and knowledge and all sorts of zeal, and in the love that
comes from you and abides in us--see that they are distinguished in
this grace also." It is a real character that is suggested here by way
of contrast, but not exactly a lovely one: the man who abounds in
spiritual interests, who is fervent, prayerful, affectionate, able to
speak in the Church, but unable to part with money.
(2) This brings the Apostle to his second point, the example of the
Lord. "I do not speak by way of commandment," he says, "in urging you
to be liberal; I am only taking occasion, through the earnestness of
others, to put the sincerity of your love to the proof. If you truly
love the brethren you will not grudge to help them in their distress.
The Macedonians, of course, are no law for you; and though it was from
them I started, I do not need to urge their example; 'for ye know the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your
sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might become rich.'"
This is the one pattern that stands for ever before the eyes of
Christian men, the fountain of an inspiration as strong and pure
to-day as when Paul wrote these words.
Read simply, and by one who has the Christian creed in his mind, the
words do not appear ambiguous. Christ was rich, they tell us; He
became poor for our sakes, and by His poverty we become rich. If a
commentary is needed, it is surely to be sought in the parallel
passage Phil. ii. 5 ff. The rich Christ is the pre-existent One, in
the form of God, in the glory which He had with the Father before the
world was; He became poor when He became man. The poor men are those
whose lot Christ came to share, and in consequence of that
self-impoverishment of His they become heirs of a kingdom. It is not
necessary, indeed it is utterly misleading, to ask curiously _how_
Christ became poor, or what kind of experience it was for Him when He
exchanged heaven for earth, and the form of God for the form of a
servant. As Mr. Gore has well said, it is not the metaphysics of the
Incarnation that St. Paul is concerned with, either here or in
Philippians, but its ethics. We may never have a scientific key to it,
but we have a moral key. If we do not comprehend its method, at least
we comprehend its motive, and it is in its motive that the inspiration
of it lies. We know _the grace_ of our Lord Jesus Christ; and it comes
home to our hearts when the Apostle says, "Let that _mind_--that moral
temper--be in you which was also in Him." Ordinary charity is but the
crumbs from the rich man's table; but if we catch Christ's spirit, it
will carry us far beyond that. He was rich, and gave up all for our
sakes; it is no less than poverty on His part which enriches us.
The older theologians, especially of the Lutheran Church, read this
great text differently, and their opinion is not yet quite extinct.
They referred ἐπτώχευσεν, not to Christ's entrance on the incarnate
state, but to His existence in it;[70] they puzzled themselves to
conceive of Him as rich and poor at the same time; and they quite took
the point from St. Paul's exhortation by making ἐπτώχευσεν πλούσιος ὢν
describe a combination, instead of an interchange, of states. It is a
counsel of despair when a recent commentator (Heinrici), sympathising
with this view, but yielding to the comparison of Phil. ii. 5 ff.,
tries to unite the two interpretations, and to make ἐπτώχευσεν cover
both the coming to earth from heaven and the life in poverty on earth.
No word can mean two different things at the same time: and in this
daring attempt we may fairly see a final surrender of the orthodox
Lutheran interpretation.