2 Corinthians 1:23

2Co_1:23-24

I call God for a record … that to spare you I came not as yet to Corinth.

Why Paul did not visit Corinth

His reasons were--

I. One of mercy: to spare them pain (2Co_1:23)--to save them from the sharp censure their lax morality would have necessitated. It was no caprice, no fickleness, respecting St. Pauls character that--

1. He was not one of those who love to be censors of the faults of others. There are social faultfinders, who are ever on the watch for error and who yet provide no remedy. Now all this was contrary to the spirit of St. Paul; he had that love which thinketh no evil, etc. It pained him to inflict the censure which would give pain to others.

2. He was not one of those who love to rule.

II. Apparently a selfish one: to spare himself pain (2Co_2:15). But if we look closely into it, it only sheds fresh light upon the unselfishness and delicacy of St. Pauls character. He desired to save himself pain, because it gave them pain. He desired joy for himself, because his joy was theirs. He will not separate himself from them for a moment.

1. It was not to pain them merely that he wrote, but because joy, deep and permanent, was impossible without pain; as the extraction of a thorn by a tender father gives a deeper joy in love to the child.

2. It was not to save himself pain merely that he did not come, but to save them that pain which would have given him pain. Here there is a canon for the difficult duty of blame. To blame is easy enough--with some it is all of a piece with the hardness of their temperament; but to do this delicately--how shall we learn that? I answer, Love! and then say what you will; men will bear anything if love be there. If not, all blame, however just, will miss its mark; and St. Paul showed this in verse 4. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)

A threefold theme

I. The fulfilment of a promise adjourned (2Co_1:24).

II. Authority over the faith of others disclaimed. Not for that we have dominion over your faith.

III. The true work of a gospel minister. He is a helper, not a lord; a helper, not a substitute. A true minister is to help men--

1. To think aright--i.e., on the right subject, in the right way.

2. To feel aright--in relation to self, mankind, the universe, and God.

3. To believe aright. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

Not for that we would have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy.--

Ministerial helpfulness

(Inaugural):--

I. Negatively. Not, etc.

1. This disclaimer, to some of us, is perhaps unexpectedly strong. Paul might well have said the opposite, and for other purposes did so, as an inspired apostle. But he seems to have been always sensible of the individual responsibility of others, which no other should assail or could share. He is grandly intolerant of falsehood and evil living, but none so respectful of individual liberty.

2. After this, is it not passing strange that any should arrogate the very thing which Paul here so anxiously disclaims--authority over human consciences? Every real successor of the apostle will say, My soul, come not thou into their secret. Your souls are your own to-day when I first speak to you; they will be your own when I speak my last.

II. Positively. But, etc. Joy is to be taken here as the happy fruit of all Christian principles and affections, so that to be a helper of joy is to promote the whole moral perfection.

1. There is a great deal of intellectual hindrance to Christian decision and life.

(1) A number of people prove all things without holding fast to that which is good--at least, they stir all things into doubt and difficulty, but cannot work their way to a solution. Here we may help. Great gospel facts are questioned, denied. What then? We who are set for a defence of the gospel go on asserting them as true, because, with unshaken faith, we believe them to be so. And the sight of our unmoved constancy has a reassuring effect. How can the battle be lost when we are seen advancing, well in rank, looking for victory?

(2) The same kind of effect is produced on those who are prejudiced against doctrinal preaching. Hear doctrines explained by those who have really studied them, who put them in their proper relations and draw them out into practical duty, and the prejudice will melt away.

2. Life is to many a busy one, without leisure, ever on the move. From this we may see that Gods day was never more needed or precious, and that the opportunity to both preacher and people is one of the great opportunities of life. Welcome to both should be the hour that brings them into the Divine presence and abates somewhat of the fever and stir of life. And if we can but be helpers during the week in preparing for this service, we shall reach our utmost ambition.

3. Then there is the continual shortcoming of the Christian life making the helpfulness of the ministry necessary and welcome. Go where we will, there is the same tale of infirmity, the failure to realise the ideal, which not seldom engenders despondency or despair. But we are helpers of your joy. We are sent to revive it, and to take means that it shall not die. Whatever dark tales we hear we are to meet and overmatch by the glad tidings. No rums of any life-plan but may yet be built up. The weak may be as David, and David as an angel of the Lord.

4. Wherever we go we find troubles--if we seek for them; and it is worth while putting forth all our skill to find them. There is no scene, however distressful, in which we may not quietly yet confidently appear as helpers of joy. Unlike the apostles of natural law, who command you to bow to the inevitable in the present and dismiss all hope for the future, we tell you that all things work together for them that love God and have fruitage in a blessed immortality.

5. The grave is not the end of all, but to each there is a grave. There can be no fellowship in the article of death, but on the brink we can tell some such things as will rob death of its terrors, and make it no more than a quiet passage into life. (A. Raleigh, D. D.)

Christian ministers helpers of their peoples joy

I. The Christians privilege--joy.

1. Its origin and nature. It is not the offspring of a fervid imagination, but the effect of a well-grounded conviction of the love of God. It has its root in faith: the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. And why? Because faith connects the believer with Jesus, who is all his salvation and all his desire.

2. This is the legitimate state of the Christian. Joy diffuses a beautiful and attractive lustre around every grace which ornaments the believers character; it is the very atmosphere through which he should continually walk, proving that the ways of religion are ways of pleasantness, and that all her paths are peace. I know of nothing that recommends the gospel more than this; I know of no moral proof of its divinity more powerfully convincing than this.

3. Joy fits the believer for comforting and encouraging others. It was a great sin in those who were sent to take a survey of the Promised Land to return with an evil report.

II. The ministers office. Helpers of joy, but not of salvation. Christ is the only Saviour; and He allows not of any helpers. But, though ministers are not helpers in the work of salvation, they are, as instruments, helpers in the application of it. Ministers act as helpers of joy--

1. By unfolding the Word of God. The Bible contains glad tidings, which are calculated to rejoice the heart.

2. By expatiating on the love of Christ. Nothing can fill the soul with so much gladness as this.

3. By giving a just interpretation of present trials.

4. By praying to the Author of every grace and Giver of every privilege (Rom_15:13). (D. Bagot, B. D.)

Helpers of others joy

I. As religious persons we are happy. There are various sources of this joy.

1. God Himself. We joy in God.

2. Gods works.

(1) Their variety, order, beauty, and splendour.

(2) Because they are His--a temple which He has made for Himself to be worshipped in.

(3) On account of the figurative instruction which they convey.

(4) As created and constituted for us to dwell in.

3. His providence. The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice.

(1) It is exercised over nations. By God kings reign and princes decree judgment. We have joy in a nations joy. When pestilence disappears, when there is an ample harvest, when there is reviving commerce, it is by Gods providence, and as religious men we rejoice therein.

(2) It bears personally upon ourselves. We can lie down upon the everlasting arms, and say, The eternal God is my refuge.

4. All things that are common to humanity.

(1) The joy of honourable marriage.

(2) When affliction disappears and God turns for us our mourning into dancing.

(3) In the common conditions of human life. Whatever may be the amount of human suffering, the amount of human happiness immensely preponderates.

5. Christ Jesus and His gospel. He came into the world in joy. The angels sang for joy at His nativity; He opened His ministry in joy--The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, etc.; and He spake very often of His joy. We may have joy--

(1) In the knowledge of Him.

(2) In reconciliation by Him.

(3) In justification through Him.

6. The Holy Ghost. The kingdom of God is righteousness, and peace, and joy, in the Holy Ghost. There is joy in the gifts of the Spirit. Was not the day of Pentecost a day of joy?

7. The ordinances of the gospel. Happy on the Lords day, in the reading of Gods Word, in the preaching of the gospel, in Christian association and alliance.

8. The prospect of the life to come. For the joy set before Christ He endured the Cross, despising the shame; and you and I may have joy set before us in like manner.

II. It is our duty to enhance each others joy. It is clear enough that we can promote each others sin. We may help forward afflictions; we may do a good deal to make one another miserable. How can we augment one anothers joy?

1. By expounding the principles of joy, as our Saviour did. He began His ministry with the beatitudes. Wherever He went there was joy.

2. By removing the causes of infelicity. What makes you unhappy? Is it sin? Go to God in penitence and ask for remission, and you shall have it. Is it anxiety? Be careful for nothing, etc. A sense of weakness and insufficiency? My grace is sufficient for thee; My strength shall be perfected in weakness.

3. By reminding of the fact that our religion is a happy religion (Psa_98:1-9.). The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs.

4. By being examples of this joy. We are contagious, or communicative, beings. He that sympathises with me in my sorrow divides the stream and takes half of it away; he that sympathises with me in my gladness and my joy, lights his lamp from my lamp, takes nothing from me, only kindles a brighter light, only diffuses a wider blaze.

5. By seizing on the occasions and opportunities of joy, such as the Sabbath and the means of grace.

6. By inciting and stirring one another up to it.

7. By adverting often, as Christ and believers do, to that which is to come. (J. Stratten.)

Helpers of your joy

The points considerable in this clause are these:

I. That joy is the state proper to Christians. Either they do rejoice, or they should labour to come to it. God requires it at their hand as a duty (Php_4:4). Consider--

1. The ills they are freed from--sin, the wrath of God, the sting of death, etc.

2. The state that God brings them to by believing (Rom_14:17).

3. Why should they labour to be in that state?

(1) That God, who gives them such matter of joy, may have glory from them. Their life should be a perpetual thanksgiving to God; and how can man be thankful that is not joyful?

(2) It makes him active in good when he is anointed with the oil of gladness (Rom_9:23).

(3) And then for suffering; we have many things to go through in this world. How shall a man suffer those things that are between him and heaven unless he labour to bring himself to this temper of joy?

(4) And then for others--every man should labour to encourage them. We are all fellow-passengers in the way to heaven. Therefore, even to bring on others more cheerfully, we ought to labour to be in a state of joy. And if a Christian do not joy, it is not because he is a Christian, but because he is not a Christian enough.

II. Ministers are helpers of this blessed condition.

1. By acquainting people with the ill estate they are in; for all sound comfort comes from the knowledge of our grief, and freedom from it. For they must plough before they sow, and the law must go before the gospel. The law shows the wound, but the gospel heals the wound.

2. By showing the remedy which is in Christ; then they open the riches of Gods love in Christ, the sweet box of ointment. Thus did St. Peter, after he had brought them to, Men and brethren, what shall we do to be saved? point them to Jesus Christ.

3. By advice in cases of conscience what people should do. So their office is to remove all hindrances of spiritual joy. We know that light is a state of joy. The ministry of the gospel is light. Spiritual freedom makes people joyful. But the end of the ministry is to set people more and more at liberty. Victory is a state of joy. Now the ministers of God teach Gods people how to fight Gods battles, how to answer temptations, and at length how to triumph.

4. By forcing it as a duty upon them (Php_4:4). They are as guides among the rest of the travellers, that encourage them in the way to heaven, Come on, let us go cheerfully.

5. In death itself. The end of the ministry is to help joy, to help them to heaven by a joyful departure, drawing comfort out of the Word for this purpose. But you will say true Christians are ofttimes cast down by the ministry. If so, yet it is that they might joy (2Co_7:8). We say of April that the showers of that month dispose the earth to flowers in the next; so tears and grief wrought in the heart by the ministry frame the soul to a joyful temper after. A physician comes, and he gives sharp and bitter purges; saith the patient, I had thought you had come to make me better, and I am sicker now than I was before. But he bids him be content; all this is for your joyfulness of spirit after; you will be the better for it.

III. Ministers are helpers of joy, and but helpers. They do but propound matter of joy, grounds of joy from the Word of God; but it is the Spirit of God that doth rejoice the heart (Joh_16:5). (R. Sibbes, D. D.)

By faith ye stand.--

The victory of faith

The Scriptures mention three sorts of faith--

1. Simple credence, or bare assent. This is not the faith of the text, for the devils have it (Jam_2:19).

2. Temporary conviction, which carries the soul to some short sallies in the course of godliness, but, having no firm fixation in the heart, comes to nothing.

3. A saving, effectual faith, which takes in both the former kinds and adds its own peculiar perfection. It is a durable, fixed disposition of holiness, immediately infused by God into the soul, whereby the soul is renewed and powerfully inclined to exert itself in the actions of a pious life. This is the faith by which we stand.

I. The thing supposed--a person assaulted by an enemy (cf. 2Co_10:4; Eph_6:12; Heb_12:4)

.Now in every such combat there are to be considered--

1. The persons engaged. Their enmity is almost as old as the world itself (Gen_3:15). The devils hatred of us bears date with our very being, and is directed against us as men, but much more as believers. As soon as we enlist under the Captain of our salvation, He proclaims perpetual war. So a Christians life is not a state of ease, but of incessant conflict with the devil.

2. The thing contended for: to cast them down--

(1) From that sanctity of life which the regenerating Spirit has wrought them up to; for, having lost all holiness himself, the devil abhors it in others. He is a murderer from the beginning, and he chiefly attempts the murder of souls by making them like himself.

(2) From their interest in the Divine favour; and no wonder, since he finds it denied to himself. So he tries to sow enmity between God and the soul, and to embroil the whole creation in a war against heaven.

3. The ways and means by which it is carried on.

(1) The devils own immediate suggestions (Joh_13:27; Act_5:3).

(2) The infidelity of the human heart--a quality which does the devils work most compendiously and effectually.

(3) The alluring vanities of the world (Jam_4:4).

(4) Mans own lusts and corruptions.

II. The thing expressed--Viz., that faith alone can give the victory in this contest. Consider--

1. Mans natural estate void of the grace of faith. That this is deplorable enough is proved by the fact that, were not bare nature insufficient to work out its own recovery, the Divine grace would never have put itself to such an expense for its recovery. What forces can man rally against the workings of his own corruptions?--his imperfect good desires, resolutions, duties? Alas! nature will quickly break through such puny resistances.

2. The advantages and helps of faith.

(1) Union with Christ. Christ, being to the soul like armour, only defends when He is close to it.

(2) The assistance of the Spirit, without whom it is impossible for the soul to do anything in the way of duty, or to oppose sin with success (Rom_8:13; Php_2:13).

3. The title to and power to effectually apply Gods promises. The promises are weapons which the Spirit places in our hands, and faith is the spiritual hand into which they are put. (R. South, D. D.)

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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co 1:23-24. Moreover, I call God to record — As if he had said, That you may believe me in what I am going to affirm, I call God as a witness, upon, or against my soul — If I do not speak the truth. Was not Paul now speaking by the Spirit? And can a more solemn oath be conceived? Who then can imagine that Christ ever designed to forbid swearing? That to spare you — That out of tenderness to you, and to avoid punishing you; I came not as yet to Corinth — That is, I deferred coming, lest I should be obliged to use severity against you. He says elegantly, to Corinth, not to you, when he is intimating his power to punish. Not that we have dominion over your faith — Power to impose upon you articles of faith or rules of practice, which the Lord hath not enjoined, or have any authority to dictate what you should believe or do; this is the prerogative of God alone: nor would we exert the power with which Christ hath endowed us, to any tyrannical or overbearing purposes. But are helpers of your joy — Co- workers with Christ to promote your comfort, by establishing you in that faith from which all comfort springs; for by faith ye stand — Εστηκατε, ye have stood hitherto, and this will be a means of strengthening your faith, by which alone you can continue in the favour of God, and in union with him, and obtain a right and title to eternal life. Here we see the light in which ministers should always consider themselves, and in which they are to be considered by others; not as having dominion over the faith of their people, or having a right to dictate by their own authority what they shall believe, or what they shall do, but as helpers of their joy, by helping them forward in faith and holiness. In this view how amiable does their office appear! and how friendly to the happiness of mankind! How far then are they from true benevolence who would expose it to ridicule and contempt?

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

23. For a record—Literally, as a witness.

Upon my soul—Upon which I invoke the divine penalty in case of falsehood. This is a most solemn adjuration. It expresses the deep intensity of his wish to expel from their minds the notion that his change of plan was from fickleness in him, or slight to them, or any other motive than a desire to spare them a severe visitation. St. Paul repeatedly makes asseveration, in this epistle, since his truth and rectitude stand impeached by his detractors on the most important of all subjects. The sacred loftiness of these formulae raise them above profanity.

To spare you—To avoid meeting you with discipline.

2. Paul’s motive for changing his plan of visit, was a wish not to come to their grief, 2Co_1:23 to 2Co_2:4.

St. Paul most earnestly protests that his not coming, as planned, was to spare them, 2Co_1:23. Not that by the term spare he claims to be lord of their faith; for faith must be free, and by a free faith do they stand; but by severe purifying of their Church he would really aid their joy, 24. But his spare, means, that he determined, even in his own behalf, not to come with an afflicting mission to them. See 2Co_2:1. This in his own behalf, for if he saddened them, his own sole consolers, he abolished the sole source of his own comfort, 2Co_2:2. And he wrote the very severities of his first epistle in order that, the severities being finished in the writing, when he should come he would find a purified Church, and no grief, but a common joy, 2. 3. His writing was, indeed, in tears; but his object in writing was not their grief, but a manifestation of his own love in bringing them to purity and rectitude.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL NOTES

(N.B.—The paragraph really begins at 2Co_1:23.)

2Co_1:1. Determined.—As in 1Co_2:2. For myself.—So R.V., meaning, “For my own sake as well as for yours.” Again.—To be linked with “come” only? (q.d. “To come again, and to have a sorrowful visit”); or with “with sorrow”? (q.d. “a second sorrowful visit,” like a former one). Answer variously given, according as an intermediate visit, unmentioned in the Acts, is not, or is, supposed. Agreed that the visit recorded in Acts 18 was not specially a sorrowful visit. In heaviness.—“With sorrow” (R.V.). Here also external considerations very much decide whether this shall mean, “with sorrow in my heart” or “to inflict sorrow on you.” [See Introduction, more fully.]

2Co_1:2. He that is made sorry.—Probably not the particular offender of these verses; but quite general. Paul can grieve them all; each one of them, thus grieved, must make him glad. 2Co_1:3 confirms this.

2Co_1:3. This very thing.—Viz. 1Co_5:1 sqq. (Waite, in Speaker, however, thinks rather the decision announced in 2Co_1:1.) Paul means, “I wrote, rather than come at once.”

2Co_1:4.—Another concurrent and quite consistent reason, “I wrote with tears, in order that,” etc.

2Co_1:5.—Very difficult to translate with any certainty. Ambiguous for two reasons:

(1) What does “in part” belong to? Answer not certainly clear;

(2) What is the grammatical object of “overcharge,” “overweight”? Answer again not certainly clear.

(2) is answered in opposite ways by the and A.V., the two being typical of many more commentators. So is

(1). The A.V. means, “The grief has not fallen entirely and only upon me, but on you also. Not to think so, would on my part be to charge upon you all the heavy sin of indifference to his sin.” means, “But in part (let me say)—not to make too grave a matter of it against him—he has grieved you all.” Four variants are supported:

“He hath not grieved me

“but in part; that I may not overcharge you all.”

“but in part, that I may not overcharge (him), you all.”

“but in part, that I may not overcharge you, all (of you).”

“but in part, that I may not overcharge all, you.”

2Co_1:6.—Note, “the many” (R.V.). The sentence was the act of a (voting) majority.

2Co_1:7.—Note “His … sorrow.” accurately.

2Co_1:9.—How many, perfectly true, concurrent, motives go to one act.

2Co_1:10.—He concurs in what the majority had, previously to his writing, determined; “concurs” surely is not the spirit of one who “played the Lord” over them (2Co_1:24). Choose between “presence” and “person,” [The homiletics that follow assume “person,” because of Mat_18:20.]

2Co_1:11.—Beet makes more of Satan’s endeavouring to compass some harm, not to the poor penitent offender, but, by means of him, and using him and other evil circumstances of their case, to the Church. Unwise discipline, and tolerated evil within, perhaps equally give an open door to the adversary of souls. [Cf. 1Co_7:5 for the need of wise watchfulness against a real, evil Personality, full of very wise “devices.”] But preferable to understand as of Satan directly seeking opportunity of harming the penitent man.

HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.—Chap. 2Co_1:23 to 2Co_2:11

Paul and the Now Penitent Offender of 1Co_5:1-5.

I. The penitent man is an instructive study.—

1. The interval had been brief since chap. 5 of the former letter was written, and from that brief interval must be deducted the time from writing until it was read at Corinth, and from the time of the man’s manifest repentance until the news of this reached Paul in Ephesus. But in the brief interval, thus narrowed, had occurred a marvellous, a revolutionary, moral change in the man,—from a form of fornication abhorrent even to Corinthian heathen ideas, to repentance so deep, that he who was to have been “delivered to Satan,” might now safely be restored to the Church and to Christ. And not the least remarkable point in the case is that a man living in such sin, apparently with as little sense as had some of his fellow-members, of the shame it brought upon the Church, should, by the very fact of the Church having laid upon him a “sufficient” “punishment” [though (perhaps) one something short of the full penalty prescribed in the former letter; his alarm and repentance may have been so quick and so genuine that the need for this was averted], have been so filled with “sorrow,” that there was danger of a true penitent being driven to despair, and (we may say?) “delivered to Satan” by the very “overmuch” of his grief.

2. The case is not an uncommon one in mission-fields in heathen countries, or even in “home mission” work amongst the lowest or the degraded population of a nominally Christian land; and, as one of the typical, didactic instances by which, rather than by abstract discussions or elaborate theses upon given topics, God has been pleased to reveal His thought, it has many divinely authoritative suggestions. For example, it reminds us how widely the degrees of moral enlightenment and of moral sensitiveness may differ, whilst yet there is equally a relation to Christ which, though gravely imperilled by the sin, is worth caring for and endeavouring to strengthen. In a Christian land, in circles where Christian standards of morality have largely influenced even “society” ethics, such a sin as this of the Corinthian offender is reprobated with the utmost weight of verbal and practical censure; whilst a persistent refusal to forgive a fellow-Christian for a comparatively small offence, is hardly condemned at all. No doubt a practical difficulty occurs in judging of a sin “of spirit” (2Co_7:1); it is not easy to verify the facts, as can be done in (say) a palpable lapse into sensuality; it is not easy to pronounce judgment upon the moral worth of often very complex “feelings”[no virtue, and no sin, is single; all is complex]; whereas a plain act, manifestly incompatible with the most elementary law of God, can be both verified and judged. But this should not so affect our estimate of sin, as to make us forget that for a reclaimed drunkard to fall back grossly into his old sin, or for a man saved from profanity to break out, like Peter, in oaths and imprecations, or for a heathen, half in habit and heedlessness, to be led back into some gross but customary sin of his old life, may argue less of downright evil of heart than for a professedly Christian man persistently to cherish envy or pride, or to indulge in evil-speaking, or to become thoroughly of the world, in principle and spirit, in aims and affections. Remembering the men remembering the history of the men, their opportunities, their surroundings, the worldliness of the one may be a more grievous “fall” than the gross sin of the other. [The one is certainly as little compatible with the perfect law of life in Christ as is the other, the open and gross.] Our relative estimate of sin and of sinners needs continually reviewing in the light of that holiness which condemns sins “of the flesh” and “of the spirit” with at least equal censure. Rebellion in Saul may be more than the witchcraft in some wretched hag of Endor; stubbornness in Saul may be a worse sin than that idolatry which he had prosecuted in others with a Puritan rigour (1Sa_15:23). Sin may not be extenuated. [Certainly, even consummate genius must not excuse sensualism and impurity, in poetry or art, or laxity in morals.] An Ananias and a Sapphira may so deliberately and distinctly “lie unto the Holy Ghost” (Act_5:3), that there is for them no forgiveness, and nothing but excision from the body [query Gal_5:12] is on all accounts possible. Such discipline, sharp and swift, may be the only means of educating a pure public opinion in the Church, and for teaching a man of low type like the fornicator at Corinth to see himself as others see him, and as God sees him and his sin. An objective conscience, thus forcing its decision upon the attention of the wrong-doer, may be the only awakener and educator of his own. But “Father, forgive them, for they know what they do,” is high authority for a tender handling of some whose actual sin is flagrant and open. They needed forgiving, but their ignorance left the door open for forgiveness. Their guilt who actually, and perhaps with some coarse delight in giving pain, drove in the nails, was not so great as that of Caiaphas, who stood by, laying not a finger of his unsoiled hands upon the Sacred Sufferer, yet who in his heart was perhaps more truly than any other one man there present His real murderer. There is more grace in the repentance of a Corinthian fornicator, than in the largely conventional purity of some English or American “Christians.” There is more to love in the repentant prodigal, with all his “riotous living” and the waste of his patrimony, than in the grudging elder brother, whose life is blameless, save for the one lifelong sin of a loveless heart. This Corinthian sinned grossly, but he repented graciously. The sin needed every word of sternest rebuke which Paul had written; the fair name of the Church, and of Christ, must at all costs be kept clear before the world. If there had been no repentance, then the mysterious penalty of “deliverance to Satan” must righteously have been enforced to its uttermost of consequence [though even this contemplated the “saving of the spirit” (1Co_5:5)]. But gross and unexampled as was this man’s sin, there was much grace in a man, and hope for a man, who so promptly and unreservedly, with tears and broken heart, bowed before the censure of his pastor and his brethren, and in whom conscience was so easily awakened and so entirely obeyed. The “bruised reeds” (in Mat_12:14-21) were as helpless as they were evil, in the presence of the power of Jesus; the “smoking flax” of the wick of the lamp of their expiring religious life was as offensive as it was easily to be “quenched.” But if the “reed” is humbled at its weakness and sin, if the “smoking flax” will bear to be rekindled, Paul loves to restore such a one. His sin was a grievous offence; yet such a gross, but easily convinced and deeply penitent offender as this man of Corinth, is not the greatest sinner, nor the hardest to win and keep or recover for Christ. And all this not indistinctly outlines the judgment of God in Christ upon some “chief of sinners.”

II. The “tears of” Paul.—

1. In no letter do we get so near to Paul as in this “Second” to Corinth, or see and hear his very self. And, of all the letter, this is truer of no section more than of 2Co_1:23 to 2Co_2:11. First and foremost stand his “tears.” The Corinthians had imagined “a man lording it over their faith”; and all the while he was weeping over the loss of their love! They imagined, and maligned or decried, a self-seeking man, not above enriching himself and his companions and emissaries out of funds given to the Jerusalem poor (2Co_8:16-23); and all the while this “masterful,” “tyrannical,” “self-seeking” man was toiling at his tentmaking in Ephesus, and instead of arranging for an immediate visit was dictating to his amanuensis a letter [assuming with some that 2Co_1:4 alludes to an intermediate, “lost” letter], because, if he were to come, he must use an Apostolic severity of power such as he was unwilling to inflict upon those whom he had led to Christ, and whom he loved as only a spiritual father loves spiritual children. The unmarried [or widower], childless Paul is as tender as a mother. “I am only happy when I see you happy; I am sure that you are only happy when I am so; I could not bear to think of your making me unhappy by your own sorrow (2Co_1:3); I must have used the ‘rod’ if 1 had come, and I could not bear your tears.” This man, whose words thunder and flash lightnings, has written “out of much affliction and anguish of heart”; [and according to a strongly favoured interpretate of 2Co_1:8-10 was quite prostrated, overburdened, broken-hearted, fit for no work, nearly killed, by the tidings of their wrong-doing and of their factious jealousy against himself]. They thought, or said, that they found a man strong, stern, to the point of hardness; we know a man tender, tearful, perhaps even constitutionally timid [so Howson suggests: Character of St. Paul, lecture ii.; and if so, then naturally drawn to Timothy, around whom he so often in these letters throws the arm of his guaranteeing, guarding, strengthening love], doing all he did with a great and often violent strain upon himself, and all simply in the strength of the grace of God. It is imperfect manhood that cannot weep; and if in our undemonstrative, self-repressed days, tearful eyes be out of fashion for men, a perfect man will have a heart that can weep. Strong men are tender; tender men are strong. Their very tenderness is a helpful strength to many who lean upon them.

2. And, once more, as in the case of the Penitent Wrong-doer, there comes back the lesson to be very cautious in judgment. Naturally it is not easy for one who is smarting under the lash, to think very kind things of him who must needs wield it. The child hardly appreciates at the moment the love or wisdom which blames sharply or punishes severely. But the love is there. Do not sit in Corinth and hastily misread as a hard man Paul weeping at Ephesus. Experience shows, as it accumulates with years, how tender a heart may guide a stern tongue or move a strong hand. [See a tender delicate “weed” springing up from between the flagstones of a courtyard. Under those cold, hard stones its roots have found, and now witness to, soft, moist soil, where it may nourish its strength. So, see a strong, rough-spoken man bending over a fallen child to pick it up, perhaps with an awkward kiss before he carries it to a place of safety. That kiss is the “weed” which tells of the tender heart underneath the stone-cold, stone-hard surface of the manner and the life. That man is not wholly bad. These few verses—even these two, 3, 4—with their “tears,” are precious; they reveal the true Paul to us, as we should not have known him from the Acts, nor from the First Epistle to Corinth. How many a worker must be content to go forward year after year misread, misjudged, and feeling in some degree crippled in his usefulness by the wrong estimate formed of him by those to whom he would be useful!

3. May we not rise higher, with the suggestion of Paul’s “tears” whilst he writes words of sharp rebuke, to help us? From Paul’s tears may we not rise to the tears of Christ, and, yet higher, once more to the heart of God? By no forced or chance analogy. Paul, like every Christian man, of necessity reproduces more or less perfectly his Pattern, because the Spirit of Christ is within him the Life of his life, the Former of his character. And “he that hath seen” Christ “hath seen the Father.” We remember how Christ once at least “looked around” on a gathering in a Capernaum synagogue with a holy “anger” in His eyes (Mar_3:5); but the sentence continues, “being grieved with the hardness of their hearts.” The wail of disappointed love cries, “How often would I have gathered.… Ye would not”; but words of stern, irrevocable doom follow: “Your house is left unto you desolate.” As we see them in the “Son who has revealed Him,” anger and grief are never far apart in God. He has no love for inflicting pain. He has no love for the future punishment of creatures whom He has made. If it must be—if they make it a necessity—it must and will be. Holiness must be vindicated; sin is a peril to the good order, and so to the happiness, of the universe. “He must reign,” even if this must mean “enemies put beneath His feet.” But one can believe that there are tears in the heart of the very Judge, as He sets some “on the left hand” for whom He shed His blood. One may almost venture reverently to imagine Him following them as they “depart,” with His word, “Ye would not, ye would not, come to Me that ye might have life!” [Can we not see in His face the sorrow of the love of Christ, as He follows with His eyes the departing young ruler, so lovable, and yet so unready for “eternal life”? (Luk_18:23-24).] Men say of God, “I know Thee, that Thou art hard, … reaping where,” etc. (Mat_25:34). But they “know” God as little as the Corinthians knew Paul, the man of “many tears.” They do not know Him, as they may see Him, if they will, in Christ.

III. Paul the pastor.—

1. How careful he is that his motives should be understood. “I call God for a record upon my soul,” etc. Quite consistent with all said above (under 2Co_1:17 sqq.), that his personal character, and what they thought of it and of him, were only matters of concern so far as they might be supposed to affect their estimate of the Gospel he preached, or of the Christ Who is the very heart and burden of it. And quite consistent also with the words of the Divine Legislator for “the kingdom of heaven” (Mat_5:37). Paul is not a “yes and no” man; but his word here is not simply, “Yea, yea; nay, nay.” He strengthens it with an affirmation (cf. Rom_1:9) which one could have supposed too serious for “a mere personal matter” like this, his motive in making a change in his itinerary. The Master had said, “Whatsoever is more than these”—the plain “yes” and “no”—“cometh of evil.” In a world of evil, where men are evil, and where sin has put the relations of social intercourse so much out of joint, a strengthened “Yea” or “Nay” may be inevitable. And in this particular instance it is no “merely personal matter.” It is for the Gospel’s sake still. A pastor’s good understanding with his people is to him a power which he can use for their sakes. If they distrust his character, or lose confidence in his word, he will be of little use to them. A transparent simplicity of act and word and motive will give him a hold upon their hearts, if even they question, or differ from, his judgment. But such a protest as this, such a purgation of himself on oath, is a rare thing; Paul’s normal attitude is in 1Co_4:3,—“A small thing with me that I,” etc. Since, however, those words were written, new circumstances had arisen, which wrung from him this protest, for his people’s sake even more than for his own. Says the Great Shepherd: “I know My sheep, and am known of Mine!” Paul wants his flock to know him.

2. Not a lord over faith, but a helper of joy.—

(1) They are believers; even these Corinthians are (2Co_1:24). He is only a believer himself; in Christ, as man and man, every Corinthian and he have the same standing. Their faith is the vital link holding them to Christ; every man believes alone—by and for himself. It is his own unshared act. And the status in Christ is retained by believing; it may be forfeited by sin—sin which is fatal to faith, because grieving to the Spirit by Whose help alone men do, or can, savingly believe. If not, “if we (continue to) walk in the light as He is.… We have fellowship, and the blood … cleanseth,” etc.; with a continuous efficacy it puts a bar between us and our native guilt, and we retain our new status of grace. We are “justified by faith,” and by the same faith “we have our access into grace whereby we stand” (Rom_5:1-2) and “rejoice.” The grafting into Christ, the abiding in Christ, the joy in Christ,—all hinge upon faith. No Paul, nor any other wise pastor, will venture to “lord” it over the life of faith. “One is Master, even Christ; the rest are all brethren” (Mat_23:8).

(2) But it is brotherly in the highest degree to help the “joy” of another. “To add sunshine to daylight,” as Wordsworth says, is no small honour to a successful pastor. To be able so to bring a living, bright, realised Christ near to them, as that fear gives place to rest, and gloom to joy; so to be used to open up Scripture, with its teachings as to the “style” of life possible to, becoming in, provided for, children of God, as that they rise to the higher level, and with a glad and free heart, which has lost everything of merely obligatory and mechanical, all sense of bondage and constraint, in religion, go forward, “glad in the Lord”; by his own testimony and experience, so to be helpful as to clear away difficulties, and to encourage and embolden fearful hearts to hope for more, and to dare more, in the life of godliness;—it may well be an ambition of a worthy pastor, as, when won, it will be a cause of unspeakable thankfulness.

IV. The pastor exercising discipline.—

1. He does it in the spirit just sketched out,—not as a lord, but as a helper. A pure Church is a glad Church. Offences purged away, Achans sought out and put away, then conquests and work proceed apace, and all share the joy of success. If also discipline be exercised upon the individual, it is not for his destruction, or even for his exclusion, but for his recovery from his fall, and his restoration to his place in Christ; and thus is really working towards the joy of even the offender. It might be difficult, without undue straining, to find any analogical suggestion of God or Christ in Paul’s disclaimer of “lordship” over their faith; though when we remember how sacredly the liberty of the will is guarded in all the relations between God and man, and how that most Godlike characteristic of the human personality is (may we say?) so “respected” by God Himself, that all the loving, mighty constraint used by the Spirit of God, when endeavouring to lead a man to Christ, always stops short of compulsion; and when we remember how, assisted though it be by the grace of God, the act of believing is a man’s own, for which he is responsible; we might almost say that God Himself has chosen to refrain from exercising lordship over men’s faith. There would be no morality, no value to Him, in a compelled believing, or in a compulsory creed—a thing which, if accepted at all, must be accepted by a hypocrite or a machine. He would not care for the offering of such a faith. So far as there is surrender to His yoke, it is the surrender of a convinced understanding or of an instructed heart. But it needs no forcing of analogy to see God as the supreme “helper of” His people’s “joy,” even when exercising the discipline of rebuke and sharp chastening. It is the happy paradox of the Christian life: “Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.” “We ‘exult’ in tribulations also, knowing that,” etc. (Jas_1:2; Rom_5:3). If the foundation of the Christian character be right, if the heart be sound toward God, then all His providential discipline of habit and character, all the keen pruning away of excrescences and blemishes, everything which smites, and delivers from, sin,—all work together for a holiness which is, in part, joy. “The happy God” [so literally 1Ti_1:11; 1Ti_6:15] works towards His own happiness in His children. He loves to have them “rejoice evermore”; it is part of His “will in Christ Jesus concerning them” (1Th_5:16-18). “That your joy may be full” is a distinct desire and purpose of that Son, Who in all things has revealed to us the Father, by what Himself is, quite as much as by what He says about the Fattier (Joh_16:24). Cf. also Joh_17:13 : “That they might have My joy fulfilled in themselves.” The pastoral office of the Great Shepherd may not infrequently demand words as sharp, and discipline as severe, as those of Paul the pastor towards his Corinthians; but it aims at their joy. Their religious life can never realise fully how the “fruit of the Spirit is … joy,” if there be, in any degree or form, sin. Yet He would have their life not a restraint, or a series of self-denials, or a round of stern obligations, nor even a hoping and striving forward and upward, without ever being quite satisfied; but, rather, a “joyous” life, full of assurance and buoyancy and victory. Indeed, the “joy” is not only a thing desirable in itself; it is a means to something yet more desirable. “The joy of the Lord is strength” to the Lord’s people, as certainly now as in the days of Nehemiah (Neh_8:10). It is a view of the Heavenly Father as unworthy and untrue as was the Corinthian view of Paul, to imagine Him without care for His people’s happiness. He is not the God to grudge “joy” to His creatures. They should not think of Him as, if anything, predisposed to take away rather than to give; as likely to meet their devotion to Him of themselves and of all they are and have, by a demand for the surrender of something very dear. He cares for their holiness first; if that can be secured, and yet even their natural “joy” be untouched or enhanced, He will assuredly so order it, in His disposition of their life. Holiness is before all; but joy through holiness is certain; and He will always work towards this, with a minimum of discipline and of pain. Did this passage in the letter so reveal the heart of the real Paul to the Corinthian Church that they doubted, or maligned him, no more? “Do believe it, brethren, that in writing as I did, and in all I have done for you, I desired to be a helper of your joy.” If His people will look into the heart of God, as it has been laid bare to them in the words and work, and in the very self, of His Son, they will see in Him also One Who by all His dealings with them heartily desires their joy. And when at last they “enter into the joy of their Lord” (Mat_25:21), the “good and faithful servants” will be realising the fulfilment of all their Divine Master’s purposes and leading in their life.

2. He delays, and is reluctant to exercise discipline at all. “To spare you, I came not as yet,” etc.—Here again is a trait of that God in Christ Whom Paul, as it were, reproduces, as a consequence of the union, the unifying, the real fellowship of life, which are his “in Christ.” Anybody can drive away or cut off a sheep from the flock (Eze_34:4, etc.; Joh_10:12). The “Wolf” can do that admirably; it is his work. “We are not ignorant of his devices.” If he could have picked up this poor Corinthian thrust out of the fold, nothing would have served his turn better than an excessive discipline, carried beyond what the repentance of the offender now had made necessary. Accordingly, Paul would have the Corinthian Church follow the lead of his own action towards them as a whole. “A minimum of discipline, brethren, and that reluctant, and delayed. Take your penitent back again. You have chastened him sufficiently. Your concurrent (2Co_1:6) censure has had its effect. He is in danger of being swallowed up by the very excess of the sorrow of his repentant shame. You have been yourselves put to the test.” [As every case of wrongdoing in a Church does put the members to the test. What is their attitude towards sin? What towards this particular sin? Can it be said by their Lord, “Ye cannot bear them which are evil”? (Rev_2:1, of the very Ephesus from which Paul is writing). Is there that sure sign of health in a body, that it is restless, and cannot suffer a wound to heal up, so long as any diseased bone or foreign body lodged in its tissues is unexpelled?] “I wanted [did not their Lord also desire?] to see whether you felt with me about such sin, and whether, indeed, my word would command your obedience.” [Not “lording it over” them, indeed, yet “having rule,” such rule as a shepherd must needs exercise over a flock (Heb_13:7; Heb_13:17).] “You have stood the test well. Now we must not play the game of Satan, and leave to him a soul for his prey. Restore the man; confirm your love toward him. As little discipline as possible; as little putting away as possible. That was in my heart towards yourselves, when I changed my route, and did not come direct to you. I did not want to be necessitated to visit sharply sin such as I should have found if I had come then, but which you now have put away.” It is wise pastoral policy, it is wise paternal rule in a family, as it is wise political government, to govern as little as possible, to punish as seldom as possible, to aim at recovery and restoration rather than penal infliction or exclusion. It is the wisdom, it is the heart of “a good shepherd;” it is once more the heart of God. Again the analogy needs no forcing, and it is based upon a real unity of purpose and life. As the weeping pastor at Ephesus, so the patient, but often deeply grieved, Father in heaven: “To spare you I came not,” etc. Hear Him speaking of old: “I will not be always wroth, for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made” (Isa_57:16). “The longsuffering of God leadeth thee to repentance” (Rom_2:4). Remembering the holy intensity of God’s necessary antagonism [“hatred”] to sin; remembering the flagrant, and insolent, offence to His holiness which every day goes up to Him from earth; remembering the fearful propagatory power of evil and of the prolonged life of an evil-doer; do not men naturally wonder that the just Judge “bears so long,” not only with His people, to whom all this sin is an offence, a temptation, a trial, and sometimes an acute and oppressive persecution, but with the evildoers themselves? (Luk_18:7). When men have seen some culminating and outrageous piece of cruelty, or treachery, or fraud committed, have they not primâ facie reason to say, as the wrong-doer seems not only to escape penalty, but even to prosper as the fruit of his sin, “Him doth God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?” [Psa_73:11; but note that the question has in that verse a boldly unbelieving turn and tone given to it]. God can afford to wait, and to be silent, however misunderstood and misjudged. [“Patiens, quia æternus” (Augustine).] And His answer to His Church in the day of His own vindication will be: “To spare the sinners, I came not,” etc. It is the appeal of His forbearance to the individual sinner. Why was he not cut off, cast off, the very first time he deliberately, and with clear understanding of his act, refused to obey the will or call of God? Why did not a stroke of judgment make his first sin his last—at any rate, his last on earth? “To spare thee, I came not,” etc. Judgment must come some day. God’s patience is holy, and therefore cannot be infinite. But holy wrath lingers. “The times of this ignorance God winked at, but now,” etc. (Act_17:30). How often has Paul’s turning aside from a visitation, which could have had no room in it for anything but punishment, been reproduced on a scale of Divine enlargement of love and patience, in His turning aside from the sinner, desiring that respite and delay might mean a repentance which should make judgment needless, and mercy and restoration possible to the Divine Love?

V. The pastor’s absolution.—Two Gospel passages underlie, or are well illustrated by, 2Co_1:7; 2Co_10:1. In Mat_18:18 a power of “binding” and “loosing” is made one of the prerogatives of the Church of Christ within its own borders. To whom is such a power to sit in judgment upon their fellow-men to be entrusted? To even “two or three,” if they be “met in [unto] the name” of their Lord; in which case He also is with them “in the midst,” and thus, with Him, two or three—with no restriction to apostles or “official” members—are a quorum which may form an assembly of the Church, valid for discipline whether to bind or loose sentence and penalty. Inherent in the whole body,—for the terms are perfectly general,—it may be from time to time, and from case to case, specially localised in the particular Church, or even in the two or three along with whom is the Fourth, the First, the Lord. [So Joh_20:22-23, spoken, both as to mission and disciplinary power, to a much larger company than “the twelve.”] Accordingly “the many” at Corinth had “inflicted the punishment.” It is “ye forgive”; Paul follows the lead, or adopts the act, of the Church. There is no need to suppose that, even at a date so early, there were not elders, or officers of some sort, at Corinth, who in the disciplinary action would be the mouthpiece of the Church. But convenience and seemly order, not principle, would govern and dictate such a specialisation of function. Their forgiveness would be the forgiveness of the whole Church. The Church has acted, without waiting for Paul, or even for his directions to forgive the man.

2. Mat_17:19-20 is also in his mind. Rather, it is his working theory of discipline in the Church, as was seen in 1Co_5:3-5. The gathering which he there instructed them to arrange for, in regard to this very offender, was to be composed of the Church, plus Paul’s “spirit,” plus the power of the presence of “the Lord Jesus Christ.” Then their discipline became the discipline of Christ; and now that they have forgiven, Paul concurs and forgives, just as if he had been actually with them. But the forgiveness of the Church, met “in that Name,” and the forgiveness of Paul thus exercised to ratify theirs, are neither ecclesiastical nor sacerdotal, but representative; it is, as it were, “in the person of Christ” [to keep to the translation which falls in so perfectly with the passage in the Gospels and that in the preceding Epistle]. As in the original enactment of this power of “binding” and “loosing,” the act is His Who is “in their midst,” answering by His very presence and direction the prayer for guidance, as touching which the little company have “agreed to ask.” Christ is the supreme and sole fount of forgiveness. All human forgiveness is declaratory only. The priest who “cleansed” the leper [Psa_51:2, “cleanse me”; the quasitechnical word for the act of the priest in such a case] could only declare him physically clean, and give official recognition to the fact that ipso facto he had become released from all the restrictions binding on a leper. “Loosing” him meant declaring him “loosed.” It is a pastoral absolution; the forgiveness of a shepherd who cares most that a sheep shall not be thrust into the power of Satan, the master of many “devices,” subtle as of old.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chapter 5

A PASTORS HEART.- 2Co_1:23-24; 2Co_2:1-4 (R.V)

WHEN Paul came to the end of the paragraph in which he defends himself from the charge of levity and untrustworthiness by appealing to the nature of the Gospel which he preached, he seems to have felt that it was hardly sufficient for his purpose. It might be perfectly true that the Gospel was one mighty affirmation, with no dubiety or inconsistency about it; it might be as true that it was a supreme testimony to the faithfulness of God; but bad men, or suspicious men, would not admit that its character covered his. Their own insincerities would keep them from understanding its power to change its loyal ministers into its own likeness, and to stamp them with its own simplicity and truth. The mere invention of the argument in vv. 18-20 {2Co_1:18-20} is of itself the highest possible testimony to the ideal height at which the Apostle lived; no man conscious of duplicity could ever have had it occur to him. But it had the defect of being too good for his purpose; the foolish and the false could see a triumphant reply to it; and he leaves it for a solemn asseveration of the reason which actually kept him from carrying out his first intention. "I call God to witness against my soul, that sparing you I forbore to come to Corinth." The soul is the seat of life; he stakes his life, as it were, in Gods sight, upon the truth of his words. It was not consideration for himself, in any selfish spirit, but consideration for them, which explained his change of purpose. If he had carried out his intention, and gone to Corinth, he would have had to do so, as he says in 1Co_4:21, with a rod, and this would not have been pleasant either for him or for them.

This is very plain-plain even to the dullest; the Apostle has no sooner set it down than he feels it is too plain. "To spare us," he hears the Corinthians say to themselves as they read: "who is he that he should take this tone in speaking to us?" And so he hastens to anticipate and deprecate their touchy criticism: "Not that we lord it over your faith, but we are helpers of your joy; as far as faith is concerned, your position, of course, is secure."

This is a very interesting aside; the digressions in St. Paul, as in Plato, are sometimes more attractive than the arguments. It shows us, for one thing, the freedom of the Christian faith. Those who have received the Gospel have all the responsibilities of mature men; they have come to their majority as spiritual beings; they are not, in their character and standing as Christians, subject to arbitrary and irresponsible interference on the part of others. Paul himself was the great preacher of this spiritual emancipation: he gloried in the liberty with which Christ made men free. For him the days of bondage were over; there was no subjection for the Christian to any custom or tradition of men, no enslavement of his conscience to the judgment or the will of others, no coercion of the spirit except by itself. He had great confidence in this Gospel and in its power to produce generous and beautiful characters. That it was capable of perversion also he knew very well. It was open to the infusion of self-will; in the intoxication of freedom from arbitrary and unspiritual restraint, men might forget that the believer was bound to be a law to himself, that he was free, not in lawless self-will, but only in the Lord. Nevertheless, the principle of freedom was too sacred to be tampered with; it was necessary both for the education of the conscience and for the enrichment of spiritual life with the most various and independent types of goodness; and the Apostle took all the risks, and all the inconveniences even, rather than limit it in the least.

This passage shows us one of the inconveniences. The newly enfranchised are mightily sensible of their freedom, and it is extremely difficult to tell them of their faults. At the very mention of authority all that is bad in them, as well as all that is good, is on the alert; and spiritual independence and the liberty of the Christian people have been represented and defended again and again, not only by an awful sense of responsibility to Christ, which lifts the lowliest lives into supreme greatness, but by pride, bigotry, moral insolence, and every bad passion. What is to be done in such cases as these, where liberty has forgotten the law of Christ? It is certainly not to be denied in principle: Paul, even with the peculiar position of an apostle, and of the spiritual father of those to whom he writes, {1Co_4:15} does not claim such an authority over their faith-that is, over the people themselves in their character of believers as a master has over his slaves. Their position as Christians is secure; it is taken for granted by him as by them; and this being so, no arbitrary ipse dixit can settle anything in dispute between them; he can issue no orders to the Church such as the Roman Emperor could issue to his soldiers. He may appeal to them on spiritual grounds; he may enlighten their consciences by interpreting to them the law of Christ; he may try to reach them by praise or blame; but simple compulsion is not one of his resources. If St. Paul says this, occupying as he does a position which contains in itself a natural authority which most ministers can never have, ought not all official persons and classes in the Church to beware of the claims they make for themselves? A clerical hierarchy, such as has been developed and perfected in the Church of Rome, does lord it over faith; it legislates for the laity, both in faith and practice, without their co-operation, or even their consent; it keeps the cactus fidelium, the mass of believing men, which is the Church, in a perpetual minority. All this, in a so-called apostolic succession, is not only anti-apostolic, but anti-Christian. It is the confiscation of Christian freedom; the keeping of believers in leading-strings all their days, lest in their liberty they should go astray. In the Protestant Churches, on the other hand, the danger on the whole is of the opposite kind. We are too jealous of authority. We are too proud of our own competence. We are too unwilling, individually, to be taught and corrected. We resent, I will not say criticism, but the most serious and loving voice which speaks to us to disapprove. Now liberty, when it does not deepen the sense of responsibility to God and to the brotherhood-and it does not always do so-is an anarchic and disintegrating force. In all the Churches it exists, to some extent, in this degraded form; and it is this which makes Christian education difficult, and Church discipline often impossible. These are serious evils, and we can only overcome them if we cultivate the sense of responsibility at the same time that we maintain the principle of liberty, remembering that it is those only of whom he says, "Ye were bought with a price" (and are therefore Christs slaves), to whom St. Paul also gives the charge: "Be not ye slaves of men."

This passage not only illustrates the freedom of Christian faith, it presents us with an ideal of the Christian ministry. "We are not lords over your faith," says St. Paul, "but we are helpers of your joy." It is implied in this that joy is the very end and element of the Christian life, and that it is the ministers duty to be at war with all that restrains it, and to co-operate in all that leads to it. Here, one would say, is something in which all can agree: all human souls long for joy, however much they may differ about the spheres of law and liberty. But have not most Christian people, and most Christian congregations, something here to accuse themselves of? Do not many of us bear false witness against the Gospel on this very point? Who that came into most churches, and looked at the uninterested faces, and hearkened to the listless singing, would feel that the soul of the religion, so languidly honored, was mere joy-joy unspeakable, if we trust the Apostles, and full of glory? It is ingratitude which makes us forget this. We begin to grow blind to the great things which lie at the basis of our faith; the love of God in Jesus Christ-that love in which He died for us upon the tree-begins to lose its newness and its wonder; we speak of it without apprehension and without feeling; it does not make our hearts burn within us any more; we have no joy in it. Yet we may be sure of this-that we can have no joy without it. And he is our best friend, the truest minister of God to us, who helps us to the place where the love of God is poured out in our hearts in its omnipotence, and we renew our joy in it. In doing so, it may be necessary for the minister to cause pain by the way. There is no joy, nor any possibility of it, where evil is tolerated. There is no joy where sin has been taken under the patronage of those who call themselves by Christs name. There is no joy where pride is in arms in the soul, and is reinforced by suspicion, by obstinacy, even by jealousy and hate, all waiting to dispute the authority of the preacher of repentance. When these evil spirits are overcome, and cast out, which may only be after a painful conflict, joy will have its opportunity again, -joy, whose right it is to reign in the Christian soul and the Christian community. Of all evangelistic forces, this joy is the most potent; and for that, above all other reasons, it should be cherished wherever Christian people wish to work the work of their Lord.

After this little digression on the freedom of the faith, and on joy as the element of the Christian life, Paul returns to his defense. "To spare you I forbore to come; for I made up my own mind on this, not to come to you a second time in sorrow." Why was he so determined about this? He explains in the second verse. It is because all his joy is bound up in the Corinthians, so that if he grieves them he has no one left to gladden him except those whom he has grieved-in other words, he has no joy at all. And he not only made up his mind definitely on this; he wrote also in exactly this sense: he did not wish, when he came, to have sorrow from those from whom he ought to have joy. In that desire to spare himself, as well as them, he counted on their sympathy; he was sure that his own joy was the joy of every one of them, and that they would appreciate his motives in not fulfilling a promise, the fulfillment of which in the circumstances would only have brought grief both to them and him. The delay has given them time to put right what was amiss in their Church, and has ensured a joyful time to them all when his visit is actually accomplished.

There are some grammatical and historical difficulties here which claim attention. The most discussed is that of the first verse: what is the precise meaning of το μη παλιν εν λυπη προς υμας ελθειν? There is no doubt that this is the correct order of the words, and just as little, I think, that the natural meaning is that Paul had once visited Corinth in grief, and was resolved not to repeat such a visit. So the words are taken by Meyer, Hofmann, Schmiedel, and others. The visit in question cannot have been that on occasion of which the Church was founded; and as the connection between this passage and the last chapter of the First Epistle is as close as can be conceived (see the Introduction), it cannot have fallen between the two: the only other supposition is, that it took place before the First Epistle was written. This is the opinion of Lightfoot, Meyer, and Weiss; and it is not fatal to it that no such visit is mentioned elsewhere-e.g., in the book of Acts. Still, the interpretation is not essential; and if we can get over 2Co_13:2, it is quite possible to agree with Heinrici that Paul had only been in Corinth once, and that what he means in ver. 1 here is: "I determined not to carry out my purpose of revisiting you, in sorrow."

There is a difficulty of another sort in ver. 2 {2Co_2:2}. Ones first thought is to read και τις ο ευφραινων με κ.τ.λ., as a real singular, with a reference, intelligible though indefinite, to the notorious but penitent sinner of Corinth. "I vex you, I grant it; but where does my joy come from-the joy without which I am resolved not to visit you-except from one who is vexed by me?" The bad mans repentance had made Paul glad, and there is a worthy considerateness in this indefinite way of designating him. This interpretation has commended itself to so sound a judge as Bengel, and though more recent scholars reject it with practical unanimity, it is difficult to be sure that it is wrong. The alternative is to generalize the τις, and make the question mean: "If I vex you, where can I find joy? All my joy is in you, and to see you grieved leaves me absolutely joyless."

A third difficulty is the reference of εγοαψα τουτο αυτο in ver. 3 {2Co_2:3}. Language very similar is found in ver. 9 (είς τοῦτο γάρ καί ἔγραψα) {2Co_2:9}, and again in (έλύπησα ὑμᾶς έν τῇ επιστολη) 2Co_7:8-12. It is very natural to think here of our First Epistle. It served the purpose contemplated by the letter here described; it told of Pauls change of purpose; it warned the Corinthians to rectify what was amiss, and so to-order their affairs that he might come, not with a rod, but in love and in the spirit of meekness; or, as he says here, not to have sorrow, but, what he was entitled to, joy from his visit. All that is alleged against this is that our First Epistle does not suit the description given of the writing in ver. 4 {2Co_2:4}: "out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears." But when those parts of the First Epistle are read, in which St. Paul is not answering questions submitted to him by the Church, but writing out of his heart upon its spiritual condition, this will appear a dubious assertion. What a pain must have been at his heart, when such passionate words broke from him as these: "Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you?-What is Apollos, and what is Paul?-With me it is a very little thing to be judged by you.-Though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I begot you through the Gospel.-I will know, not the speech of them that are puffed up, but the power." Not to speak of the fifth and sixth chapters, words like these justify us in supposing that the First Epistle may be, and in all probability is; meant.

Putting these details aside, as of mainly historical interest, let us look rather at the spirit of this passage. It reveals, more clearly perhaps than any passage in the New Testament, the essential qualification of the Christian minister-a heart pledged to his brethren in the love of Christ. That is the only possible basis of an authority which can plead its own and its Masters cause against the aberrations of spiritual liberty, and there is always both room and need for it in the Church. Certainly it is the hardest of all authorities to win, and the costliest to maintain, and therefore substitutes for it are innumerable. The poorest are those that are merely official, where a minister appeals to his standing as a member of a separate order, and expects men to reverence that. If this was once possible in Christendom, if it is still possible where men secretly wish to shunt their spiritual responsibilities upon others, it is not possible where emancipation has been grasped either in an anarchic or in a Christian spirit. Let the great idea of liberty, and of all that is cognate with liberty, once dawn upon their souls, and men will never sink again to the recognition of anything as an authority that does not attest itself in a purely spiritual way. "Orders" will mean nothing to them but an arrogant unreality, which in the name of all that is free and Christian they are bound to contemn. It will be the same, too, with any authority which has merely an intellectual basis. A professional education, even in theology, gives no man authority to meddle with another in his character as a Christian. The University and the Divinity Schools can confer no competence here. Nothing that distinguishes a man from his fellows, nothing in virtue of which he takes a place of superiority apart: on the contrary, that love only which makes him entirely one with them in Jesus Christ, can ever entitle him to interpose. If their joy is his joy; if to grieve them, even for their good, is his grief; if the cloud and sunshine of their lives cast their darkness and their light immediately upon him; if he shrinks from the faintest approach to self-assertion, yet would sacrifice anything to perfect their joy in the Lord, -then he is in the true apostolical succession; and whatever authority may rightly be exercised, where the freedom of the spirit is the law, may rightly be exercised by him. What is required of Christian workers in every degree-of ministers and teachers, of parents and friends, of all Christian people with the cause of Christ at heart-is a greater expenditure of soul on their work. Here is a whole paragraph of St. Paul, made up almost entirely of "grief" and "joy"; what depth of feeling lies behind it! If this is alien to us in our work for Christ, we need not wonder that our work does not tell.

And if this is true generally, it is especially true when the work we have to do is that of rebuking sin. There are few things which try men, and show what spirit they are of, more searchingly than this. We like to be on Gods side, and to show our zeal for Him, and we are far too ready to put all our bad passions at His service. But these are a gift which He declines. Our wrath does not work His righteousness-a lesson that even good men, of a kind, are very slow to learn. To denounce sin, and to declaim about it, is the easiest and cheapest thing in the world: one could not do less where sin is concerned, unless he did nothing at all. Yet how common denunciation is. It seems almost to be taken for granted as the natural and praiseworthy mode of dealing with evil. People assail the faults of the community, or even of their brethren in the Church, with violence, with temper, with the One, often, of injured innocence. They think that when they do-so they are doing God service; but surely we should have learned by this time that nothing could be so unlike God, so unfaithful and preposterous as a testimony for Him. God Himself overcomes evil with good; Christ vanquishes the sin of the world by taking the burden of it on Himself; and if we wish to have part in the same work, there is only the same method open to us. Depend upon it, we shall not make others weep for that for which we have not wept; we shall not make that touch the hearts of others which has not first touched our own. That is the law which God has established in the world; He submitted to it Himself in the person of His Son, and He requires us to submit to it. Paul was certainly a very fiery man; he could explode, or flame up, with far more effect than most people; yet it was not there that his great strength lay. It was in the passionate tenderness that checked that vehement temper, and made the once haughty, spirit say what he says here: "Out of much affliction and anguish of heart, I wrote unto you with many tears, not that you might be grieved, but that you might know the love which I have more abundantly toward you." In words like these the very spirit speaks which is Gods power to subdue and save the sinful.

It is worth dwelling upon this, because it is so fundamental, and yet so slowly learned. Even Christian ministers, who ought to know the mind of Christ, almost universally, at least in the beginning of their work, when they preach about evil, lapse into the scolding tone. It is of no use whatever in the pulpit, and of just as little in the Sunday-school class, in the home, or in any relation in which we seek to exercise moral authority. The one basis for that authority is love; and the characteristic of love in the presence of evil is not that it becomes angry, or insolent, or disdainful, but that it takes the burden and the shame of the evil to itself. The hard, proud heart is impotent; the mere official is impotent, whether he call himself priest or pastor; all hope and help lie in those who have learned of the Lamb of God who bore the sin of the world. It is soul-travail like His, attesting love like His, that wins all the victories in which He can rejoice.

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

1:23–2:2 God as my witness: This mild oath indicates that he is telling the truth (see 1 Sam 12:5; 20:12; Job 16:19; cp. Ruth 1:17; 1 Sam 14:44; 2 Sam 3:35; 1 Kgs 2:23; Jer 42:5). The real reason for Paul’s change of travel plans was to spare them from a severe rebuke (2 Cor 1:23) and not inflict another painful visit on them (2:1).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

2Co 1:23. Ἐγὼ δὲ, but I) The particle but forms an antithesis: I was minded to come, but I have not yet come.—τὸν Θεὸν, God) the omniscient.—ἐπικαλοῦμαι, I call upon) The apostle makes oath.—ἐπὶ, upon) a weighty expression.—ψυχὴν, soul) in which I am conscious of all that passes within myself, and which I would not wish to be destroyed.—φειδόμενος, sparing) a term of large meaning; therefore it is presently after explained: He is able to spare, who has dominion; he also spares, who causes joy rather than sorrow. It confirms this force of the [in his] explanation, in that he says, not for that[9] we have dominion: not, seeing that we have not [i.e. because we have not] dominion.—εἰς Κόρινθον, to Corinth) This is elegantly used for to you, in using words showing his power. If face to face with them, he would have had to act with greater sternness:[10] for his presence would have been more severe. Comp. Exo 33:3; Hos 11:9. Therefore the apostle had sent Titus before him.

[9] On the ground that.

[10] 2Co 10:10-11.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co_1:23. After Paul has vindicated himself (2Co_1:16-22) from the suspicion of fickleness and negligence raised against him on account of his changing the plan of his journey, he proceeds in an elevated tone to give, with the assurance of an oath (2Co_11:31; Rom_1:9; Gal_1:20), the reason why he had not come to Corint.

ἐγὼ δέ] Hitherto he has spoken communicativè, not talking of himself exclusively. Now, however, to express his own self-determination, he continues: but I for my own part, etc.

For examples of ἐπικαλεῖσθαι τὸν Θεὸν μάρτυρα, see Wetstein. Comp. Hom. Il. xxii. 254. Θεοὺς ἐπιδώμεθα· τοὶ γὰρ ἄριστοι μάρτυροι ἔσσονται, Plat. Legg. ii p. 664 C.

ἐπὶ τ. ἐμ. ψυχ.] not: against my soul, in which case it would be necessary arbitrarily to supply si fallo (Grotius; comp. Osiander and others, also Ernesti, Urspr. d. Sünde, II. p. 102), but, in reference to (for) my soul, in qua rerum mearum mihi conscius sum, quam perimi nolim, Bengel. It expresses the moral reference of the invocation, and belongs to ἐπικαλ., in which act Paul has in view that he thereby stakes the salvation (Heb_10:39; 1Pe_1:9; Jam_1:21) or ruin of his soul (Rom_2:9). Comp. the second commandmen.

φειδόμενος ὑμ.] exercising forbearance towards you. This was implied in the very fact of his not coming. Had he come, it must have been ἐν ῥαβδῷ, 1Co_4:21. Comp. 2Co_2:1.

οὐκέτι not again, as would have accorded with my former plan, 2Co_1:16. But since this former plan is altered already in 1Co_16:5 f., the ἔτι in οὐκέτι must refer to a visit preceding our first Epistl.

εἰς Κόρινθον] eleganter pro ad vos in sermone potestatem ostendente, Bengel.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co 1:23-24 . THE REAL REASON OF THE POSTPONEMENT OF HIS VISIT TO CORINTH WAS THAT HE DID NOT WISH HIS NEXT VISIT TO BE PAINFUL, AS THE LAST HAD BEEN.

2Co 1:23 . ἐγὼ δὲ μάρτυρα τὸν Θεὸν ἐπικ . κ . τ . λ .: but ( sc. , whatever my opponents may say) I invoke God as a witness against my soul, sc. , if I speak falsely; cf. Rom 1:9 , Gal 1:20 , Phi 1:8 , 1Th 2:5 ; 1Th 2:10 . For ἐπί used in this way cf. εἰς μαρτύριον ἐπʼ αὐτούς (Luk 9:5 ). The A.V. and R.V. “ upon my soul” do not bring out the sense clearly. ὅτι φειδόμενος ὑμῶν κ . τ . λ .: that to spare you I came not again to Corinth, i.e. , “I paid no fresh visit,” “I gave up the thought of coming”. The A.V., “I came not as yet ,” is here quite misleading ( cf. 2Co 13:2 and 1Co 4:21 ).

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

23. Ἐγὼ δέ. With great emphasis. He returns to his own individual case, in which Silvanus and Timothy are not included. Having shown how antecedently improbable it is that a minister of Christ should be guilty of levity and faithlessness, he now tells the Corinthians the actual reason why he changed his plans. It was not out of caprice, nor out of cowardice (13:10; 1Co 4:18, 1Co 4:19), nor simply for his own convenience; it was out of consideration to them. The δέ marks the relation between the Apostle’s attitude and what has just been stated respecting God. ‘He who continually confirms us is the faithful God; but I call Him as a witness, etc.’ These strong appeals (v. 18, 3:1, 4:2, 5:11) are evoked by his opponents’ charges of untrustworthiness and timidity.

μάρτυρα τὸν Θεὸν ἐπικαλοῦμαι ἐπὶ τ. ἐμὴν ψυχήν. ‘I call God for a witness upon my soul’; we might render ‘I call this God, ‘the God whom I have just described.’ ‘He knows every corner of the soul and all its secrets; the most subtle deceit would not escape Him; and I should at once be convicted if I were lying.’ The rendering ‘against my soul’ is possible (see on Luk 9:5, and cf. Act 13:51); in which case the idea is that, if he is lying, his soul, the seat of his physical life (Rom 2:9), will pay the penalty. Vulg. has in animam meam, Aug. super animam meam. In one of his letters (Ep. 157), Augustine says that many people do not know what constitutes swearing. They think that if they do not say ‘Per Deum.’ but use expressions which are found in St Paul, they are quite safe. They say Testis est Deus (Rom 1:9; Php 1:8), Scit Deus (2Co 12:2), Testem invoco Deum super animam meam (1:23), without thinking. There is no sin in swearing to what is true; but swearing falsely is a very grievous sin, and those who swear frequently are likely to fall into it. Non ideo, quid in suis epistolis juravit Apostolus, vir in veritate firmissimus, ludus nobis debet esse juratio.

Calling Heaven to witness is freq. in literature from Homer onwards. Hector proposes to Achilles that each shall offer to the other the witness of his own gods as a guarantee of good faith (Il. xxii. 254);

ἀλλʼ ἄγε δεῦρο θεοὺς ἐπιδώμεθα· τοὶ γὰρ ἄριστοι

μάρτυροι ἔσσονται καὶ ἐπίσκοποι ἁρμονιάων.

Still closer to the present passage we have τόν τε Παιᾶνα, ἐπικαλούμενος μάρτυρα τῶν λεγομένων ἀληθείας πέρι (Plato, Laws, ii. 644 C) ; ἐπικαλεῖσθαι θεοὺς καθορᾶν τὰ γιγνόμενα (Xen. Hell. 11. iii. 55) ; in all which cases the mid. indicates that Heaven is invoked as a witness on one’s own side.* Harveius combines the ideas of ‘upon my soul to search it’ and ‘against my soul to condemn it’; Deum invoco in animam meam, ut ipse inspiciat, si verum dico, et testis mihi sit,—si autem mentiar, puniat.

ψειδόμενος ὑμῶν. Emphatic; ‘it was in order to spare you.’ Levity was not the cause, but consideration for them; he did not wish to come ἐν ῥάβδῳ to punish offenders (see on 1Co 4:21, 1Co 7:28), so he gave them time to come to a better mind. In this he was not shirking a painful duty. If they had not yielded to his severe letter and to Titus, he would have come in all sharpness (13:10). Delay was a gain to both sides, but it was not prompted by timidity or σοφία σαρκική (v. 12).

οὐκέτι ἦλθον εἰς Κόρινθον. ‘I came not any more to Corinth.’ The Greek cannot mean ‘I came not as yet’ (AV), and can hardly mean ‘I forbare to come’ (RV). Comp. οὐκέτι γιγώσκομεν (v. 16), οὐκέτι ὑπὸ παιδαγωγόν ἐσμεν (Gal 3:25), and with past tenses, οὐκ εἶδεν αὐτὸν οὐκέτι (Act 8:39), οὐκέτι αὐτὸ ἑλκύσαι ἴσχυον (Joh 21:6). ‘I came not any more.’ or ‘I came not again,’ harmonizes so well with the theory of a second and painful visit to Corinth, even if it does not actually imply it, that those who reject the theory prefer some other manner of translation, as that in RV. See on 1 Corinthians, pp. 21-24, for arguments in support of the theory, and pp. 31-33 for arguments against it.

The theory that 2 Cor. 10-13: is part of the severe letter written between 1 Cor. and 2 Cor. 1-9 is strongly confirmed by this verse. In 13:2 he writes, ‘If I come again I will not spare’; here he writes, ‘To spare you I came not any more to Corinth.’ This parallel combined with those between 13:10 and 2:3, and between 10:6 and 2:9, make a strong case. “It seems difficult to deny that St Paul, in each case, is referring to the same thing,—in the passage from 10-13 in the present tense, and in that from 1-9. in the past” (K. Lake, The Earlier Epp. of St Paul, p. 160). See also Kennedy, Second and Third Corinthians, pp. 79 f.; G. H. Rendall, p. 55.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Now coming to the matter, he sweareth, that he did not only, not lightly alter his purpose of coming to them, but rather that he came not unto them for this cause, that he might not be constrained to deal more sharply, with them being present, than he would.

Against myself and to the danger of mine own life.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Moreover I--Greek, "But I (for my part)," in contrast to GOD who hath assured us of His promises being hereafter fulfilled certainly (Co2 1:20-22).

call God--the all-knowing One, who avenges wilful unfaithfulness to promises.

for a record upon my soul--As a witness as to the secret purposes of my soul, and a witness against it, if I lie (Mal 3:5).

to spare you--in order not to come in a rebuking spirit, as I should have had to come to you, if I had come then.

I came not as yet--Greek, "no longer"; that is, I gave up my purpose of then visiting Corinth. He wished to give them time for repentance, that he might not have to use severity towards them. Hence he sent Titus before him. Compare Co2 10:10-11, which shows that his detractors represented him as threatening what he had not courage to perform (Co1 4:18-19).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 23. I call God for a record upon my soul] The apostle here resumes the subject which he left 2Co 1:16, and in the most solemn manner calls God to witness, and consequently to punish, if he asserted any thing false, that it was through tenderness to them that he did not visit Corinth at the time proposed. As there were so many scandals among them, the apostle had reason to believe that he should be obliged to use the severe and authoritative part of his function in the excommunication of those who had sinned, and delivering them over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, c. but to give them space to amend, and to see what effect his epistle might produce, (not having heard as yet from them,) he proposed to delay his coming. It is plain, as several commentators have observed,

1. That St. Paul's doctrine had been opposed by some of Corinth, 1Co 15:12. His apostleship questioned, 1Co 9:1-2, and 2Co 12:13.

2. Himself despised, and treated as a person who, because of the consciousness he had of his own worthlessness, dared not to come, 1Co 4:18. His letters, say they, are weighty and powerful-full of boastings of what he can and what he will do; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible, 2Co 10:10.

3. This being the state in which his reputation was then at Corinth, and he having promised to come to them, 1Co 16:5, he could not but think it necessary to vindicate his failing them by reasons which should be both convincing and kind, such as those contained in the preceding verses. See Dodd and others.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

23. I call God for a witness. He now begins to assign a reason for his change of purpose; for hitherto he has merely repelled calumny. When, however, he says that he spared them, he indirectly throws back the blame upon them, and thus shows them that it would be unfair if he were put to grief through their fault, but that it would be much more unfair if they should permit this; but most of all unfair if they should give their assent to so base a calumny, as in that case they would be substituting in their place an innocent person, as if he had been guilty of their sin. Now he spared them in this respect, that if he had come he would have been constrained to reprove them more severely, while he wished rather that they should of their own accord repent previously to his arrival, that there might be no occasion for a harsher remedy, which is a signal evidence of more than paternal lenity. For how much forbearance there was in shunning this necessity, when he had just ground of provocation!

He makes use, also, of an oath, that he may not seem to have contrived something to serve a particular purpose. For the matter in itself was of no small importance, and it was of great consequence that he should be entirely free from all suspicion of falsehood and pretence. Now there are two things that make an oath lawful and pious — the occasion and the disposition. The occasion I refer to is, where an oath is not employed rashly, that is, in mere trifles, or even in matters of small importance, but only where there is a call for it. The disposition I refer to is, where there is not so much regard had to private advantage, as concern felt for the glory of God, and the advantage of the brethren: For this end must always be kept in view, that our oaths may promote the honor of God, and promote also the advantage of our neighbours in a matter that is befitting.

The form of the oath must also be observed — first, that he calls God to witness; and, secondly, that he says upon my soul For in matters that are doubtful and obscure, where man’s knowledge fails, we have recourse to God, that he, who alone is truth, may bear testimony to the truth. But the man that appeals to God as his witness, calls upon him at the same time to be an avenger of perjury, in the event of his declaring what is false. This is what is meant by the phrase upon my soul. “I do not object to his inflicting punishment upon me, if I am guilty of falsehood.” Although, however, this is not always expressed in so many words, it is, notwithstanding, to be understood. For

if we are unfaithful, God remaineth faithful and will not deny himself (2 Timothy 2:13.)

He will not suffer, therefore, the profanation of his name to go unpunished.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(23) I call God for a record.—Better, I call upon God as a witness against my soul. The thought seems to come across St. Paul’s mind that the Corinthians will require a more specific explanation of his change of plan, and he finds this in what had been in part suggested in 1Co_4:21. Had he carried out his first purpose, he would have come to punish or chastise. He had been, on this account, reluctant to come. His not coming was an act of leniency.

I came not as yet.—Better, I came no more—i.e., not a second time after his first visit. The Greek adverb cannot possibly mean “not yet.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

23. I call God for a record upon my soul] Literally, to witness, as the Rhemish version. Tyndale, whom the other translators follow, has recorde. Either (1) I call God to witness against my soul, i.e. to avenge my perjury (so Calvin and Grotius; Wiclif, agens), or (2) on behalf of my soul, as appealing to God as a witness of his sincerity. See Rom_1:9; Rom_9:1; Gal_1:20; Php_1:8; 1Th_2:5. Also ch. 2Co_11:31. In these passages, however, the form of the expression is different. The word here translated ‘call for a record’ is not used in Scripture in a bad sense. It signifies (1) to surname, as in Mat_10:3; (2) to appeal, as in Act_25:11; and (3) to call upon, as in Act_22:16; 1Co_1:2, &c. Augustine and other commentators have remarked that it is lawful for a Christian to take an oath upon a proper occasion. Cf. Mat_26:63.

that to spare you I came not as yet unto Corinth] Though St Paul could ‘use sharpness’ if need so required he desired, as the minister of the God of love, rather to come in the ‘spirit of meekness.’

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Moreover, I call God for a record upon my soul,.... The apostle having asserted his stability, both as a minister and a Christian, which, with others, he had from God, appeals to him in the most solemn manner, in full form of an oath, for the truth of what he was about to say; and is all one as if he had said, I swear by the living God, the searcher of all hearts; I call upon him to attest what I say, and bear witness to my soul, that it is true,

that to spare you, I came not as yet unto Corinth; however fickle, unstable, and inconstant, it may be insinuated to you I am, or you may take me to be, I do assure you in the name and presence of God, that the true reason of my not coming to you hitherto, since I gave you reason to expect me, was, that I might not be burdensome or chargeable to you; or I have delayed coming to you, hoping for a reformation among you, that when I do come, I may not come with a rod, and severely chastise you for the many disorders among you; that I might not use sharpness according to the power God has given me, in an extraordinary way, as an apostle, to punish for offences committed. Hence we learn, that an oath is a solemn appeal to God, and may be lawfully made in cases of moment and importance, as this of the apostle's was; whose character was traduced, and with which was connected the usefulness of his ministry; and it being an affair that could not be determined in any other way, and an oath being for confirmation, and to put an end to strife, he makes one in this serious and awful manner.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

23 Moreover I call God for a record upon my soul, that to spare you I came not as yet unto Corinth.

Ver. 23. I call God to record] He purgeth himseff by oath. So those, Jos 22:22.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Moreover, I call God for a record upon my soul - It is well remarked by Rosenmuller, that the second chapter should have commenced here, since there is here a transition in the subject more distinct than where the second chapter is actually made to begin. Here Tyndale commences the second chapter. This verse, with the subsequent statements, is designed to show them the true reason why he had changed his purpose, and had not visited them according to his first proposal. And that reason was not that he was fickle and inconstant; but it was that he apprehended that if he should go to them in their irregular and disorderly state, he would be under a necessity of resorting to harsh measures, and to a severity of discipline that would be alike painful to them and to him. Dr. Paley has shown with great plausibility, if not with moral certainty, that Paul’s change of purpose about visiting them was made before he wrote his First Epistle; that he had at first resolved to visit them, but that on subsequent reflection, he thought it would be better to try the effect of a faithful letter to them, admonishing them of their errors, and entreating them to exercise proper discipline themselves on the principal offender; that with this feeling he wrote his First Epistle, in which he does not state to them as yet his change of purpose, or the reason of it; but that now after he had written that letter, and after it had had all the effect which he desired, he states the true reason why he had not visited them.

It was now proper to do it; and that reason was, that he desired to spare them the severity of discipline, and had resorted to the more mild and affectionate measure of sending them a letter, and thus not making it necessary personally to administer discipline; see Paley’s Horae Paulinae, on 2 Corinthians, Numbers 4 and 5. The phrase, “I call God for a record upon my soul,” is in the Greek, “I call God for a witness against my soul.” It is a solemn oath, or appeal to God; and implies, that if he did not in that case declare the truth, he desired that God would be a witness against him, and would punish him accordingly. The reason why he made this solemn appeal to God was, the importance of his vindicating his own character before the church, from the charges which had been brought against him.

That to spare you - To avoid the necessity of inflicting punishment on you; of exercising severe and painful discipline. If he went among them in the state of irregularity and disorder which prevailed there, he would feel it to be necessary to exert his authority as an apostle, and remove at once the offending members from the church. He expected to avoid the necessity of these painful acts of discipline, by sending to them a faithful and affectionate epistle, and thus inducing them to reform, and to avoid the necessity of a resort to that which would have been so trying to him and to them. It was not, then, a disregard for them, or a lack of attachment to them, which had led him to change his purpose, but it was the result of tender affection. This cause of the change of his propose, of course, he would not make known to them in his First Epistle, but now that that letter had accomplished all he had desired, it was proper that they should be apprized of the reason why he had resorted to this instead of visiting them personally.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Now as to my not coming to you, I call God to witness, that I only deferred my coming out of kindness to you, that I came not hitherto to Corinth, to spare you, when by reason of the disorders among you, I must have been forced to use severities against those who were not yet reformed. --- Not that we lord it over your faith, nor desire to treat God’s faithful with severity, or by shewing the power that God hath given us: but we rather desire to be helpers and promoters of your joy, that we may rejoice together with you in God. And now I have this greatest comfort to hear that you stand steadfast and firm in the faith of Christ. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Here is a perfect form of an oath, which is nothing else but a solemn calling of God to witness the truth of what we speak, whether promising or asserting. Those words,

upon my soul, also have the force of an imprecation; but it is in a very serious thing: the apostle was deeply charged with levity, for not making good his promise in coming; and because he reasonably presumed, that some amongst them would be difficult to believe the true cause, to gain credit with them, he takes a voluntary oath, which in weighty matters is lawful (though sometimes it be done not before a magistrate). The thing he thus attests is: That he hitherto had forborne to come out of kindness to them; to

spare them, (as he phraseth it), which may either be understood of their purses, for he could not have gone without some charge to them, though he took no standing salary from them for preaching: or (as others possibly judge better) to spare their persons; for if he had come before they had reformed those abuses that were amongst them, he must (as he before spake) have come unto them with a rod.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Moreover I call God for a record; rather, But I call God for a witness. At this point, to 2Co_2:4, he enters for the first time on the kindly reasons which had led him to forego his intended earlier visit. He uses a similar adjuration in 2Co_11:31; and although these appeals. (comp. 1Co_15:31; Rom_1:9; Gal_1:20) may be due in part to the emotional fervour of his temperament, yet he would hardly have resorted to them in this self defence, if the calumnies of his enemies had not gained much credence. The French proverb, Qui sexcuse saccuse, is often grossly abused. The refutation of lies and slanders is often a duty, not because they injure us, but because, by diminishing our usefulness, they may injure others. Upon my soul. Not "to take vengeance on my soul if I lie," but to confirm the appeal of its honesty and integrity. By the use of such "oaths for confirmation," St. Paul, no less than other apostles, shows that he understood our Lord"s rule, "Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay," as applying to the principle of simple and unvarnished truthfulness of intercourse, which requires no further confirmation; but not as a rigid exclusion of the right to appeal to God in solemn cases and for good reasons. To spare you. This postponement of the intended visit was a sign of forbearance, for which they should have been grateful. After all that he had heard of them, if he had come at all, it could only have been "with a (1Co_4:21) I came not as yet. The rendering is erroneous. It literally means "I no longer came," i.e. I forbore to come as I had intended.

Vers. 23, 24.

A threefold theme.

I call God for a record," etc. In these verses we have three things worthy of note.

I THE FULFILMENT OF A PROMISE ADJOURNED. "Moreover I call God for a record upon my soul, that to spare you I came not as yet unto Corinth." Paul here, in the most solemn way, assigns the reason why he had adjourned his promised visit to Corinth. It was not for his personal convenience, or from a change of purpose, or from any indifference towards them, but on the contrary, out of tender regard to their feelings spare you I came not." Knowing the prevalence of the spirit of schism and disorder which had crept into the Church, he shrank from the exercise of that discipline which of necessity would inflict great pain. Hence, hoping that the admonishing letter which he bad addressed to them would have the effect he desired upon them, he delayed. Surely a love so generous, so pure, and exquisitely sympathetic, would justify, if not the breaking of a promise, the postponement of its fulfilment, Regard for the feelings of others, it has been said, is the grand characteristic of the "gentleman." Anyhow, it is an essential element in personal Christianity.

II AUTHORITY OVER THE FAITH OF OTHERS DISCLAIMED. "Not for that we have dominion over your faith." Had we desired to set up a lordship over you, we might have hastened to you at once, but we respected your feelings, and sought your happiness. The authority which Paul here disclaims has been assumed by priestly ecclesiastics in all times. It is the very spirit of priestism. The minister, whoever he may be, to whatever Church he belongs, who endeavours to make men believe that his own personal ministry, or the ministry of his denomination, is the special ministry of heaven, and essential to the salvation of mankind, has in him the intolerant spirit of the priest, he seeks dominion over the faith of men, he would restrain liberty of thought, and subject the minds of men to his credenda. These men, whether Papists or Protestants, Churchmen or Nonconformists, outrage the spirit of the mission they have received, and inflict untold mischief on the minds of men.

III THE TRUE WORK OF A GOSPEL MINISTER. "But are helpers of your joy." He is a helper, not a lord; a helper, not a substitute. A true minister is:

1. To help men to think aright. To think aright is to think on the right subject, in the right way.

2. To help men to feel aright. Feel aright in relation to self, mankind, the universe, and God.

3. To help men to believe aright. "By faith ye stand." Spiritually men can only "stand" by faith, and the work of a true minister is to help people to "stand" by "faith" on the right foundation. When will ministers come to feel that they are the spiritual "helpers" of the people; to help them, not by doing their work for them, but to assist them in working for themselves?

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I call God for a record upon my soul - Was not St. Paul now speaking by the Spirit? And can a more solemn oath be conceived? Who then can imagine that Christ ever designed to forbid all swearing? That to spare you I came not yet to Corinth - Lest I should be obliged to use severity. He says elegantly to Corinth, not to you, when be is intimating his power to punish.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

In these words, our apostle doth assure the Corinthians in a very solemn manner, that it was not any inconstancy or carnal respect in himself that made him delay his coming to them, but it was purely to spare them, as being unwilling to come with his rod among them, and to use severity upon them.

Here observe the apostle’s manner of speech, it is by way of adjuration: I call God to record upon my soul, &c. The words are an assertory and execratory oath, wherein God is called to witness the truth of what he said.

Learn hence, That it is lawful for Christians under the gospel to swear upon a necessary and great occasion.

But what great occasion was here for St. Paul to do it?

Ans. Very great; the false apostles did accuse him for a vain-glorious and inconstant man. This accusation did redound to the discredit of his ministry, the dishour of the gospel, the destruction of the church; therefore he solemnly protests, that no inconstancy or worldly motives did cause him to delay his promise; but a wise and spiritual consideration of their good, a willingness to spare them, and an unwillingness to use severity upon them.

Hence learn, That the ministerial power which God giveth the officers of the church, ought to be managed with much holy prudence and Christian commiseration: the end of their power should always be in their mind, which is edification, and not destruction.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

[Having first argued that he could not be guilty of duplicity because of the very nature of his relationships to the true and faithful God, Paul in this section answers the charge more specifically by giving such an explanation of his actions as clearly demonstrated his sincerity in the entire premises.] But I call God for a witness upon my soul, that to spare you I forbare to come unto Corinth .

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

23. Moreover … to spare you I came not as yet unto Corinth. He delayed coming in order to give time for his First Epistle to have effect and bring repentance. Had he come before they repented, his coming must have been in severity.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

I call God to bear witness for me

The phrase "bear witness" refers to a person telling what they have seen or heard in order to settle an argument. AT: "I ask God to show what I say is true"

so that I might spare you

"so that I might not cause you more suffering"

we are working with you for your joy

"we are working with you so that you may have joy"

stand in your faith

The word "stand" can refer to something that does not change. AT: "remain firm in your faith" (See: Idiom)

translationWords

call

testimony

Corinth

faith

joy

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

23. Ἐγὼ δὲ μάρτυρα τὸν θεὸν ἐπικαλοῦμαι ἐπὶ τὴν ἐμὴν ψυχήν. But I call God for a witness upon my soul. Ἐγώ and τ. θεόν are emphatic; ‘God is faithful (2Co 1:18), and it is God who sealed us (2Co 1:22), and I call Him as a witness.’ As the order shows, ἐπὶ τ. ἑμ. ψ. belongs to ἐπικαλοῦμαι, ‘I invoke upon my soul God as a witness’: not, ‘against my soul, on which will come the penalty if I lie.’ He appeals to God, τὸν τῶν ἐννοιῶν ἐπόπτην (Theodoret), to investigate his soul, and see whether he is not true in what he says, as in Est 5:1, ἐπικαλεσαμένη τὸν πάντων ἐπόπτην θεόν. The middle voice shows that God is invoked as a witness on his side (Antipho 114, 32; Plato, Laws 664 c). Comp. ἐπικαλεῖσθαι τὸν κύριον or τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ κυρίου (Act 22:16; Rom 10:13; 1Co 1:2; 2Ti 2:22; 1Pe 1:17, where we have a similar predicate), and Καίσαρα ἐπικαλοῦμαι (Act 25:11; Act 26:32; Act 28:19). ‘As my life shall answer for it’ is as incorrect as ‘against my soul.’

φειδόμενος ὑμῶν. With emphasis: it was to spare you, and not out of levity or carelessness. Had he come, he must have used great severity, ἐν ῥάβδῳ (1Co 4:21), and this he did not desire to do or think wise. In making this personal declaration he naturally falls into the singular; Timothy and others are not concerned. But, as Chrysostom points out, he was not acting κατὰ σάρκα in this. It was not merely because he did not like to be severe, that he abstained from visiting them: he was acting under the guidance of the Spirit, as in Act 16:7.

οὐκέτι ἦλθον εἰς Κόρινθον. I came no more (2Co 5:16; Gal 3:25; Eph 2:9; Phm 1:16, &c.), i.e. after his former visits. After the long stay, during which he had founded the Church, he had paid the Corinthians a short and painful visit. This short visit probably took place before he wrote the letter mentioned in 2Co 2:3; 2Co 2:9 and 2Co 7:8, part of which we seem to have in 10–13, where the visit is alluded to several times (2Co 12:14; 2Co 12:21, 2Co 13:12). But it is not alluded to in 1 Corinthians, because, when that was written, the visit had not taken place. The hypothesis that 10–13 is part of the otherwise lost letter is confirmed by this verse. In 2Co 13:2 he says, ἐὰν ἔλθω εἰς τὸ πάλιν οὐ φείσομαι. Here he says, φειδόμενος ὑμῶν οὐκέτι ἦλθον εἰς Κόρινθον. The latter statement looks like a clear reference to the former threat. Chrysostom makes it refer to 2Co 12:21, which supports the hypothesis equally well; but the reference to 2Co 13:2 is much clearer. We have similar correspondences between 2Co 13:10 and 2Co 2:3, and between 2Co 10:6 and 2Co 2:9. See Kennedy, Second and Third Corinthians, pp. 79 ff.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

23. ἐπὶ.… ψυχ.] against my soul,—‘cum maximo meo malo, si fallo.’ Grot.

φειδόμενος ὑμ.] sparing you,—out of a feeling of compassion for you.

οὐκέτι ‘no more,’ viz. after the first time: see Prolegg. to 1 Cor. § v. 6. The following οὐχ ὅτι κυρ. seems to be added to remove any false inference which might have been drawn from φειδόμενος as seeming to assert an unreasonable degree of power over them. But why ὑμῶν τῆς πίστεως? He had power over them, but it was in matters of discipline, not of faith: over matters of faith not even an Apostle has power (‘fides enim prorsus ab hominum jugo soluta liberrimaque esse debet.’ Calv.), seeing it is in each man’s faith that he stands before God. And he puts this strongly, that in matters of faith he is only a fellow-helper of their joy (the χαρὰ ἐν τῷ πιστεύειν, Rom 15:13), in order to shew them the real department of his apostolic power, and that, however exercised, it would not attempt to rule their faith, but only to secure to them, by purifying them, joy in believing. He proceeds to say, that it was the probable disturbance of this joy, which induced bim to forego his visit.

τῇ πίστει, dat. of the state or condition in which: cf. Rom 11:20. So Polyb. xxi. 9. ἔστη τῇ διανοίᾳ.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I call God for a record [τον θεον επικαλουμαι] . Rev., better, witness. A common classical idiom. Compare Plato : "Next will follow the choir of young men under the age of thirty, who will call upon the God Paean to testify to the truth of these words" (" Laws, "664). Homer :" For the gods will be the best witnesses "(" Iliad," 22, 254). Compare Rom 1:9; Gal 1:20; Phi 1:8; 1Th 2:5, 10; Gen 31:50, Sept. This particular form of expression occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. The verb is often translated appeal, as Act 25:11, 12. Also to call upon, in the sense of supplication, Rom 10:12, 13, 14; 1Co 1:2.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.