expressed in ver. 12, and is the principal point. It is something to
fill up further the measure of a brother's needs by a timely gift, but
how much more it is to change the tune of his spirit, and whereas we
found him cheerless or weak in faith, to leave him gratefully praising
God. True thankfulness to the Heavenly Father is an atmosphere in
which all virtues flourish: and those whose charity bears fruit in
this grateful spirit are benefactors of mankind to an extent which no
money can estimate. It is probably forcing the Apostle's language to
insist that λειτουργία, as a name for the collection, has any priestly
or sacrificial reference;[79] but unfeigned charity is in its very
nature a sacrifice of praise to God--the answer of our love to His;
and it has its best effect when it evokes the thanksgivings to God of
those who receive it. Wherever love is, He must be first and last.
(_b_) The charity of the Corinthians bore another spiritual fruit: in
consequence of it the saints at Jerusalem were won to recognise more
unreservedly the Christian standing of the Gentile brethren. This is
what we read in ver. 13. Taking occasion from the proof of what you are,
which this ministration of yours has given them, they glorify God "for
the obedience of your confession unto the Gospel of Christ, and for the
liberality of your contribution unto them and unto all." The verbal
combinations possible here give free scope to the ingenuity and the
caprice of grammarians; but the kind of thing meant remains plain. Once
the Christians of Jerusalem had had their doubts about the Corinthians,
and the other pagans who were said to have received the Gospel; they had
heard marvellous reports about them certainly, but it remained to be
seen on what these reports rested. They would not commit themselves
hastily to any compromising relation to such outsiders. Now all their
doubts have been swept away; the Gentiles have actually come to the
relief of their poverty, and there is no mistaking what that means. The
language of love is intelligible everywhere, and there is only One who
teaches it in such relations as are involved here--Jesus Christ. Yes,
once they had their doubts of you; but now they will praise God that you
have obediently confessed the Gospel, and frankly owned a fellowship
with them and with all. The last words mean, in effect, that the
Corinthians had liberally shared what they had with them and with all;
but the terms are so chosen as to obliterate, as far as possible, all
but the highest associations. This, then, is another fruit of charity:
it widens the thoughts--it often improves the theology--of those who
receive it. All goodness, men feel instinctively, is of God; and they
cannot condemn as godless, or even as beyond the covenant, those through
whom goodness comes to them.
(_c_) Finally, among the fruits of charity is to be reckoned the
direct response of brotherly love, expressed especially in
intercessory prayer, and in a longing to see those on whom God's grace
rests so abundantly. An unknown and distant benefactor is sometimes
better than one near at hand. He is regarded simply in his character
as a benefactor; we know nothing of him that can possibly discount his
kindness; our mind is compelled to rest upon his virtues and remember
them gratefully before God. One of the meanest experiences of human
nature that we can have--and it is not an imaginary one--is to see
people paying the debt of gratitude, or at least mitigating the sense
of obligation, by thinking over the deficiencies in their benefactor's
character. "He is better off than we are; it is nothing to him; and if
he _is_ kind to the poor, he has need to be. It will take a lot of
charity to cover all he would like to hide." This revolting spirit is
the extreme opposite of the intercessory prayer and brotherly yearning
which St. Paul sees in his mind's eye among the saints at Jerusalem.
Perhaps he saw almost more than was really to be seen. The union of
hearts he aimed at was never more than imperfectly attained. But to
have aimed at it was a great and generous action, and to have brought
so many Gentile Churches to co-operate to this end was a magnificent
service to the kingdom of God.
These "fruits" are not as yet actually borne, but to the Apostle's
loving anticipation they are as good as real. They are the fruits of
"the righteousness" of the Corinthians, the harvest that God has
caused to grow out of their liberality. From the very beginning there
have been two opinions as to what St. Paul means by the exclamation
with which he closes--"Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift."
On the one hand, it is read as if it were a part of what precedes, the
unspeakable gift of God being the numberless blessings that charity
yields, by God's goodness, both to those who give and to those who
receive it. Paul in this case would be thinking, when he wrote, of the
joy with which the Gentiles gave, and of the gratitude, the willing
recognition, and the brotherly prayers and longing, with which the
Jews received, help in the hour of need. These would be the
unspeakable gift. On the other hand, the sentence is read as if it
stood apart, not the continuation of what immediately precedes, but
the overflow of the Apostle's heart in view of the whole situation. It
becomes possible, then, to regard "God's unspeakable gift" as the gift
of redemption in His Son--the great, original, unsearchable gift, in
which everything else is included, and especially all such
manifestations of brotherly love as have just been in view. Sound
feeling, I think, unequivocally supports the last interpretation. The
very word "unspeakable" is one of a class that Paul reserves for this
particular object; the wisdom and love of God as displayed in man's
salvation are unspeakable, unsearchable, passing knowledge; but
nothing else is. It is to this his mind goes back, instinctively, as
he contemplates what has flowed from it in the particular case before
us; but it is the great divine gift, and not its fruits in men's
lives, however rich and various, that it passes the power of words to
characterise. It is for it, and not for its results in Jew or Gentile,
that the Apostle so devoutly thanks God.
FOOTNOTES:
[73] Αὐθαίρετος ἐξῆλθεν: the aorists all through this passage are
virtually epistolary--ἐξῆλθεν = he is going; συνεπέμψαμεν = I am
sending with him.
[74] _Our_ (ἡμῶν), not _your_ (ὑμῶν), is the true reading. The precise
sense is doubtful. It may be as the R.V. gives it, though this
completely upsets the balance of the clauses πρὸς τὴν τοῦ Κυρίου δόξαν
and καὶ προθυμίαν ἡμῶν. The meaning should rather be: "which is
ministered by us, that the Lord may be glorified, and that we may be
made of good heart"; only Paul's spirits seem a small thing side by side
with the Lord's glory. There is something to say for the conjecture that
the καὶ before προθυμίαν should be κατά, even though this could only be
connected with χειροτονηθείς: "elected as we earnestly desired."
[75] The T.R. has ἐνδείξασθε here, and so Westcott and Hort read in
text, with א, C, D**, etc. Most editors read with B, D*, E, F, G,
etc., ἐνδεικνύμενοι. The imperative certainly seems to be a change
made to facilitate the construction. Reading the participle, we must
supply ἐνδείξεσθε, and put a comma after ἐνδεικνύμενοι: "in showing it
to them, [you will show it] before the Churches." This is the same
kind of ellipsis as in ver. 23.
[76] This is the force of τὸ γράφειν.
[77] The R.V. renders πλεονεξία "extortion"--the πλεονέκται being
those who _get_ the money; but it seems to me more natural to render
"avarice," in which case both εὐλογία and πλεονεξία apply to the
Corinthians.
[78] Ἐπ' εὐλογίαις: "so that blessings are associated therewith"
(Winer): the full hand in sowing makes a full hand in reaping.
[79] Λειτουργία: for the general sense of "service," especially
charitable service, quite apart from priestly associations, see Phil.
ii. 25, 30: and Grimm's Lexicon.
XXII
_WAR_
"Now I Paul myself intreat you by the meekness and gentleness of
Christ, I who in your presence am lowly among you, but being
absent am of good courage toward you: yea, I beseech you, that I
may not when present show courage with the confidence wherewith I
count to be bold against some, which count of us as if we walked
according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not
war according to the flesh (for the weapons of our warfare are not
of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strong
holds); casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is
exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought
into captivity to the obedience of Christ; and being in readiness
to avenge all disobedience, when your obedience shall be
fulfilled."--2 COR. x. 1-6 (R.V.).
The last four chapters of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians stand
as manifestly apart as the two about the collection. A great deal too
much has been made of this undeniable fact. If a man has a long letter
to write, in which he wishes to speak of a variety of subjects, we may
expect variations of tone, and more or less looseness of connexion. If
he has something on his mind which it is difficult to speak about, but
which cannot be suppressed, we may expect him to keep it to the end,
and to introduce it, perhaps, with awkward emphasis. The scholars who
have argued, on the ground of the extreme difference of tone, and want
of connexion, that chaps. x.-xiii. of this Epistle were originally a
separate letter, either earlier (Weisse) or later (Semler) than the
first seven chapters, seem to have overlooked these obvious
considerations.[80] If Paul stopped dictating for the day at the end
of chap. ix.--if he even stopped a few moments in doubt how to proceed
to the critical subject he had still to handle--the want of connexion
is sufficiently explained; the tone in which he writes, when we
consider the subject, needs no justification. The mission of Titus had
resulted very satisfactorily, so far as one special incident was
concerned--the treatment of a guilty person by the Church; the tension
of feeling over that case had passed by. But in the general situation
of affairs at Corinth there was much to make the Apostle anxious and
angry. There were Judaists at work, impugning his authority and
corrupting his Gospel; there was at least a minority of the Church
under their influence; there were large numbers living, apparently, in
the grossest sins (chap. xii. 20 f.); there was something, we cannot
but think, approaching spiritual anarchy. The one resource the Apostle
has with which to encounter this situation--his one standing ground
alike against the Church and those who were corrupting it--is his
apostolic authority; and to the vindication of this he first addresses
himself. This, I believe, explains the peculiar emphasis with which he
begins: "Now I myself, I Paul intreat you." Αὐτὸς ἐγὼ Παῦλος is not
only the grammatical subject of the sentence, but if one may say so,
the subject under consideration; it is the very person whose authority
is in dispute who puts himself forward deliberately in this
authoritative way. The δὲ ("now") is merely transitional; the writer
moves on, without indicating any connexion, to another matter.
In the long sentence which makes up the first and second verses,
everything comes out at once--the Apostle's indignation, in that extreme
personal emphasis; his restraint of it, in the appeal to the meekness
and gentleness of Christ; his resentment at the misconstruction of his
conduct by enemies, who called him a coward at hand, and a brave man
only at a safe distance; and his resolve, if the painful necessity is
not spared him, to come with a rod and not spare. It is as if all this
had been dammed up in his heart for long, and to say a single word was
to say everything. The appeal to the meekness and gentleness of Christ
is peculiarly affecting in such a connexion; it is intended to move the
Corinthians, but what we feel is how it has moved Paul. It may be
needful, on occasion, to assert oneself, or at least one's authority;
but it is difficult to do it without sin. It is an exhilarating
sensation to human nature to be in the right, and when we enjoy it we
are apt to enlist our temper in the divine service, forgetting that the
wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God. Paul felt this
danger, and in the very sentence in which he puts himself and his
dignity forward with uncompromising firmness, he recalls to his own and
his readers' hearts the characteristic temper of the Lord. How far He
was, under the most hateful provocation, from violence and passion! How
far from that sinful self-assertion, which cannot consider the case and
claims of others! It is when we are in the right that we must watch our
temper, and, instead of letting anger carry us away, make our appeal for
the right by the meekness and gentleness of Jesus. This, when right is
won, makes it twice blessed. The words, "who in your presence am lowly
among you, but being absent am of good courage toward you," are one of
the sneers current in Corinth at Paul's expense. When he was there, his
enemies said, face to face with them, he was humble enough;[81] it was
only when he left them he became so brave. This mean slander must have
stung the proud soul of the Apostle--the mere quotation of it shows
this; but the meekness and gentleness of Christ have entered into him,
and instead of resenting it he continues in a still milder tone. He
descends from urging or entreating (παρακαλῶ) to beseeching (δέομαι).
The thought of Christ has told already on his heart and on his pen. He
begs them so to order their conduct that he may be spared the pain of
demonstrating the falsehood of that charge. He counts on taking daring
action against some at Corinth who count of him as though he walked
after the flesh; but they can make this face-to-face hardihood needless,
and in the name, not of his own cowardice, but of his Lord's meekness
and considerateness, he appeals to them to do so. Δυσφημούμενοι
παρακαλοῦμεν.
The charge of walking after the flesh is one that needs interpretation.
In a general way it means that Paul was a worldly, and not a spiritual,
man; and that the key to his character and conduct--even in his
relations with Churches--was to be sought in his private and personal
interests. What this would mean in any particular case would depend upon
the circumstances. It might mean that he was actuated by avarice, and,
in spite of pretences to be disinterested, was ruled at bottom by the
idea of what would pay; or it might mean--and in this place probably
does mean--that he had an undue regard for the opinion of others, and
acted with feeble inconsistency in his efforts to please them. A man of
whom either of these things could be truly said would be without
spiritual authority, and it was to discredit the Apostle in the Church
that the vague and damaging charge was made.
He certainly shows no want of courage in meeting it. That he walks
_in_ the flesh, he cannot deny. He is a human being, wearing the weak
nature, and all its maladies are incident to him. As far as that
nature goes, it is as possible that he, as that any man, should be
ruled by its love of ease or popularity; or, on the other hand, should
be overcome by timidity, and shrink from difficult duties. But he
denies that this is his case. He spends his life _in_ this nature,
with all its capacity for unworthy conduct; but in his Christian
warfare he is not ruled by it--he has conquered it, and it has no
power over him at all. "I was with you," he wrote in the First
Epistle, "with weakness and fear and much trembling"; but "my speech
and my preaching were ... with demonstration of the Spirit and of
power." This is practically what he says here, and what must be said
by every _man_ who undertakes to do anything for _God_. No one can be
half so well aware as he, if he is sincere at all, of the immense
contrast between the nature in which he lives and the service to which
he is called. None of his enemies can know so well as he the utter
earthenness of the vessel in which the heavenly treasure is deposited.
But the very meaning of a divine call is that a man is made master of
this weakness, and through whatever pain and self-repression can
disregard it for his work's sake. With some men timidity _is_ the
great trial: for them, it is the flesh. They are afraid to declare
the whole counsel of God; or they are afraid of some class, or of some
particular person: they are brave with a pen perhaps, or in a pulpit,
or surrounded by sympathising spectators; but it is not in them to be
brave alone, and to find in the Spirit a courage and authority which
overbear the weakness of the flesh. From all such timidity, as an
influence affecting his apostolic work, Paul can pronounce himself
free. Like Jeremiah (Jer. i. 6-8) and Ezekiel (Ezek. ii. 6-8), he is
naturally capable, but spiritually incapable of it. He is full of
might by the Spirit of the Lord: and when he takes the field in the
Lord's service, the flesh is as though it were not. Since the
expression ἐν σαρκὶ περιπατοῦντες refers to the whole of the Apostle's
life, it seems natural to take στρατευόμεθα as referring to the whole
of his ministry, and not solely to his present campaign against the
Corinthians. It is of his apostolic labours in general--of course
including that which lay immediately before him--that he says: "The
weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God[82]
to the casting down of strong holds."
Nobody but an evangelist could have written this sentence. Paul knew
from experience that men fortify themselves against God: they try to
find impregnable positions in which they may defy Him, and live their
own life. Human nature, when God is announced to speak, instinctively
puts itself on its guard; and you cannot pass that guard, as Paul was
well aware, with weapons furnished by the flesh. The weapons need to
be divinely strong; mighty in God's sight, for God's service, with
God's own might. There is an answer in this to many of the questions
that are being asked at present about methods of evangelising; where
the divinely powerful weapons are found, such questions give no
trouble. No man who has ever had a direct and unmistakable blessing on
his work as an evangelist has ever enlisted "the flesh" in God's
service. No such man has ever seen, or said, that learning, eloquence,
or art in the preacher; or bribes of any sort to the hearer; or
approaches to the "strong holds," constructed of amusements, lectures,
concerts, and so forth, were of the very slightest value. He who knows
anything about the matter knows that it is a life-and-death interest
which is at stake when the soul comes face to face with the claims and
the mercy of God; and that the preacher who has not the hardihood to
represent it as such will not be listened to, and should not be. Paul
was armed with this tremendous sense of what the Gospel was--the
immensity of grace in it, the awfulness of judgment; and it was this
which gave him his power, and lifted him above the arts, the wisdom,
and the timidity of the flesh. A man will hold his own against
anything but this. He will parley with any weapon flesh can fashion or
wield; this is the only one to which he surrenders.
Perhaps in the fifth verse, which is an expansion of "the casting down
of strong holds," a special reference to the Corinthians begins to be
felt: at all events they might easily apply it to themselves. "Casting
down imaginations," the Apostle says, "and every high thing that is
exalted against the knowledge of God." "Imaginations" is probably a
fair enough rendering of λογισμούς, though the margin has
"reasonings," and the same word in Rom. ii. 15 is rendered
"thoughts." To what it applies is not very obvious. Men do certainly
fortify themselves against the Gospel in their thoughts. The proud
wisdom of the Greek was familiar to the Apostle, and even the obvious
fact that it had not brought the world salvation was not sufficient to
lower its pride. The expression has sometimes been censured as
justifying the _sacrificium intellectus_, or as taking away freedom of
thought in religion. To think of Paul censuring the free exercise of
intelligence in religion is too absurd; but there is no doubt that,
with his firm hold of the great facts on which the Christian faith
depends, he would have dealt very summarily with theories, ancient or
modern, which serve no purpose but to fortify men against the pressure
of these facts. He would not have taken excessive pains to put himself
in the speculator's place, and see the world as he sees it, with the
most stupendous realities left out; he would not have flattered with
any affected admiration that most self-complacent of mortals--the wise
of this world. He would have struck straight at the heart and
conscience with the spiritual weapons of the Gospel; he would have
spoken of sin and judgment, of reconciliation and life in Christ, till
these great realities had asserted their greatness in the mind, and in
doing so had shattered the proud intellectual structures which had
been reared in ignorance or contempt of them. "Thoughts" and
"imaginations" must yield to things, and make room for them: it was on
this principle Paul wrought. And to "thoughts" or "imaginations" he
adds "every high thing [ὕψωμα] that exalts itself against the
knowledge of God." The emphasis is on "every"; the Apostle generalises
the opposition which he has to encounter. It may not be so much in the
"thoughts" of men, as in their tempers, that they fortify themselves.
Pride, which by the instinct of self-preservation sees at once to the
heart of the Gospel, and closes itself against it; which hates equally
the thought of absolute indebtedness to God and the thought of
standing on the same level with others in God's sight,--this pride
raises in every part of our nature its protest against the great
surrender. It is implied in the whole structure of this passage that
"the knowledge of God" against which every high thing in man rises
defiantly is a humbling knowledge. In other words, it is not
speculative merely, but has an ethical significance, which the human
heart is conscious of even at a distance, and makes ready to
acknowledge or to resist. No high thing lifts itself up in us against
a mere theorem--a doctrine of God which is as a doctrine in algebra;
it is the practical import of knowing God which excites the rebellion
of the soul. No doubt, for the Apostle, the knowledge of God was
synonymous with the Gospel: it was the knowledge of His glory in the
face of Jesus Christ; it was concentrated in the Cross and the Throne
of His Son, in the Atonement and the Sovereignty of Christ. The
Apostle had to beat down all the barriers by which men closed their
minds against this supreme revelation; he had to win for these
stupendous facts a place in the consciousness of humanity answering to
their grandeur. _Their_ greatness made _him_ great: he was lifted up
on them; and though he walked in the flesh, in weakness and fear and
much trembling, he could confront undaunted the pride and the wisdom
of the world, and compel them to acknowledge his Lord.