2 Corinthians 10:5

2Co_10:5

Casting down imaginations.

Forts demolished and prisoners taken

I. Fortresses demolished. Many things are opposed to the knowledge of God. Some are garrisoned against it by the feeling--

1. That they do not want to know God. The masses of our fellow-countrymen are not so much opposed to the gospel as indifferent to it. What shall we eat? etc., are far more important questions than What must we do to be saved? This entrenchment has to be carried, and the gospel arouses apprehension, and so storms the stronghold of indifference.

2. That they know already. Trained from their childhood in false doctrine, they hold fast to it, and defy the gospel to reach them. How the Holy Spirit casts down this imagination when He makes men feel that they are blind by nature.

3. That if they do not know God they can find Him out without His help.

4. That they know of something better already; that the gospel is outworn.

5. That they never can know. In this despair the rebel entrenches himself as in a very Malakoff, and becomes desperate in his resistance to the gospel. Yet even this rampart is cast down by mighty grace.

II. Prisoners are made. Bringing into captivity every thought. The mind is like a city, and when it is captured the inhabitants which swarm its streets are the thoughts, and these are taken prisoners.

1. The gospel comes with power to the heart of a man, and he begins to fear the wrath of God and the judgment. Christ has captured his thoughts of self-security.

2. He cries, I am guilty; I have broken Gods law, and I am condemned! The Lord has captured his thoughts of self-righteousness.

3. Now he begins to pray, God be merciful to me a sinner, and his ideas that he could do without his God are made prisoners.

4. His thoughts of pleasure in alienation from the Great Father are now slain, for he desires to draw near to the Most High.

5. A little hope begins to dawn, he hopes that there may be salvation for him. His thoughts of rebellious despair are led captive.

6. The Spirit of God encourages him, and he comes to believe in Jesus; his self-trust is a prisoner.

7. Hear him as he sings, I am forgiven, because I have believed in Jesus! Oh, how I love His precious name! His inmost heart is captured.

III. These prisoners are to be led away into captivity. Monarchs of old, when they subdued a country, removed the people to a distance. Now, when the Lord captivates the thoughts of our mind, He leads them to another region altogether. The offspring of the mind He guides into the spiritual realm, wherein they delight in the Lord, and bow themselves before Him.

1. He who, being made conscious of his sin, believes in Jesus Christ, submits all the thoughts of his judgment and understanding to the obedience of Christ, and this is a great point gained. His prayer is, Lord, teach me, for else I shall never learn.

2. The same power leads captive the will. It remains a will still, but the will of God is supreme over it.

3. Human hopes also are spellbound by grace. These winged things were wont to flutter no higher than the tainted atmosphere of this poor world, but now they find stronger pinions and soar aloft to things not seen as yet, eternal in the heavens.

4. The mans fears too, now ennobled by grace, cover their faces with their wings before the throne of God, while the man fears to offend against the Fathers love.

5. His joys and sorrows are now found where they never went before; he rejoices in the Lord, and he sorrows after a godly sort.

6. His memory also now retains the precious things of Divine truth, which once it rejected for the trifles of time, and his powers of meditation and consideration keep within the circle of truth and holiness, finding green pastures there.

7. This done, you shall see the same enthralment cast over the Christian mans desires and aspirations. He has flung away his old ambitions, and aspires to nobler things.

8. The same blessed servitude binds the mans plots and designings. He plans still, but it is not for his own aggrandisement; his grandest design is to bring jewels to the crown of Christ. Does this sound rather like sarcasm to you? If it does, stand convicted, for every thought is to be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

9. The renewed mans love and hate are both held captive by the power of grace. He loves Jesus truly and intensely; he hates sin with his whole soul.

10. It is a fair sight to see Christs sacred bands worn by our tastes, which are so volatile and hard to constrain. The fancy, too, that impalpable cloud, painted as by the setting sun, that will-o-th-wisp of the spirit, even this is impressed into royal service, and made to wear the livery of Christ, so that men even dream eternal life. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The present struggle of error, and complete future victory of the gospel

I. What is meant by imaginations? Imaginations in respect to--

1. The being and character of God. Some have imagined that there is no God (Psa_141:1-10.). Others have degraded His character by false representations of Him (Rom_1:23; Rom_1:25). There is the Pantheist--his god is identical with the universe; the Deist--his God is in the heights of heaven, wholly uninterested in the concerns of men; the narrow-minded religionist--his God is implacable and arbitrary.

2. Our own merit and excellence. The Corinthian Church was full of this, and many modern professors have no other standard than themselves, and condemn all who differ from them, however excellent they may be.

3. The performance of the duties of religion.

(1) Prayer. It is to God alone, we are to pray.

(2) The sacraments.

(3) The preaching of the gospel. A poetic style is all very well, but many darken counsel by words without knowledge.

II. These imaginations are perfectly incompatible with the true knowledge of god. That exalteth, etc. They are incompatible--

1. With the whole tenor of the Scriptures; as regards--

(1) The character of God. God is a Spirit. God is light. God is love.

(2) The character of man (Job_15:14; Psa_8:4; Rom_3:10-13).

(3) The various duties of religion.

(a) Prayer must be offered to God from the heart, and in the name of Christ (Psa_65:2; Heb_11:6; Joh_14:14).

(b) The ordinances. Compare the commandments of Christ with the false teachings of men (Mat_28:19-20; 1Co_11:24-26).

(c) Preaching (2Co_4:5; 1Co_9:27).

2. With true philosophy. All sciences point to God.

3. With the experiences of the wise and good in all ages of the world.

III. The tendency of the gospel in regard to these imaginations. The weapons by which they are to be demolished are--

1. The circulation of the Scriptures.

2. The preaching of the gospel in its purity.

3. The influences of the Spirit. Conclusion: We see--

(1) The certain destiny of error. It must perish.

(2) The future felicity of the world. Free from all error.

(3) Our duty in the present. Oppose error, and serve truth. (Congregational Pulpit.)

Strongholds

1. Ignorance is one of these strongholds. Nothing but their ignorance of Christianity makes two-thirds of the world heathen to-day.

2. Indolence may also be mentioned as a stronghold of Satan. Souls may be lazy as well as bodies.

3. Appetite is a formidable stronghold. Some persons, from natural propensity or habits of life are much more under this tyranny than others. With some it has been a point which absolutely commanded the soul, and when Satan succeeds in intrenching himself there, he can usually shell out most of a mans religion from his heart. Fort Drunkenness, Fort Licentiousness, and Castle Gluttony are masters of one-half the world. Many a soul has played the role of Esau, and sold its eternal birthright for a mess of toothsome pottage.

4. Pride is a lofty height which commands many a soul, and which Satan is very sure to get possession of. It is hard for pride to own itself an abject criminal at the bar of God, and to beg for mercy.

5. I need not say that Satan has no more powerful stronghold than the love of money. He prefers gold-plated defences to iron, and if he can succeed in sheathing a soul with sovereigns, he will pretty surely hold it against all assaults. This is par excellence his stronghold in the heart.

6. The power of habit. It is not merely that an old sinner is more depraved than a younger one, which makes us less hopeful of his conversion, but because he has formed a habit of sinning, which, like all other habits, becomes more and more difficult to break. Every time a godless act is repeated is like casting a new spadeful upon the breastworks and fortifications by which we are shutting ourselves off from God, till, finally, the stronghold of Satan rises about us frowning and impregnable as the very ramparts of hell. (The Church.)

And bringing into captivity every thought.--

The moral discipline of the intellect

Men live more lives than one. There is the life of thought as well as the life of action, and the one must be moralised as well as the other. We must practise mental morality. Let us then consider in detail this moral culture of the mind--

I. As it relates to self.

1. Avoid a wrong self-estimate. Neither overestimate nor underestimate. Beware of pride, vanity, conceit, and kindred vices.

2. Cultivate humility--mental modesty. Live in the presence of God, of His holiness and greatness, and keep a fresh and high ideal--pride cannot then exist.

II. As it relates to nature and man.

1. In relation to nature. Let us in our interpretation of it preserve a deep love of truth.

2. In relation to man. Cultivate sobriety in judgment and reflection.

(1) In matters personal. Do justice to distasteful individuals. Be charitable.

(2) In matters political. Beware of blind and bitter partisanship. Argue for truth, not victory.

(3) In matters social. On such questions as capital and labour, allow for the personal equation--for class prejudice and self-interest. Beware of rash theorising.

III. As it relates to God and religion.

1. Practically.

(1). Beware of an unscrupulous conscience.

(2) Beware of an over-scrupulous conscience--weak, narrow, morbid, unenlightened.

(3) Let conduct increase in efficiency, with knowledge.

2. Speculatively. Beware of wanton doubt-dabbling. (E. S. Keeble.)

The conflict of faith with undue exaltation of intellect

The recent history of Cilicia may have well suggested this language, it having been the scene of some very fierce struggles in the wars against Mithridates. The dismantled ruins of 120 strongholds may have impressed the boyish imagination of Saul with the destructive energy of Rome; but the apostle only remembers these earlier impressions to give them a spiritual application.

I. It is the undue exaltation of intellect with which the Church of Christ is in conflict.

1. With intellect itself religion can have no quarrel. It were a libel on the All-wise Creator to suppose that between thought and faith there could be any original relations other than those of perfect harmony.

2. Here, as elsewhere in human nature, we are met with unmistakable traces of the Fall. A range of granite mountains, which towers proudly above the plain, speaks to the geologist of a subterranean fire that has upheaved the primal crust. And the arrogant pretensions of human thought speak no less truly of an ancient convulsion. The Fall so disturbed the original structure of our nature as to make reason generally the slave of desire instead of its master. And therefore the intellect which exalts itself against revelation is often in reality not free intellect, but intellect working at the secret bidding of an irritated passion. Yet intellect never vaunts its freedom so much as when it is in conflict with revelation. We do not pose as champions of free thought in mathematics. We solve an equation as dispassionately as if we were ourselves pure reason. But revelation challenges the activity of will and conscience; and the passions sound an alarm at the first signs of the coming of the Son of Man. Then natural intellect feels it necessary to be upon its guard, and to maintain an attitude of suspicion.

3. Take note of the varieties of intellect which enter into this conflict. There is--

(1) Mercenary intellect. Necessity, it is said, knows no law; and that poverty cannot afford to have a conscience. And sometimes this hired intellect passionately asserts its monopoly of freedom. It even tells the ministers of Christ, who have freely entered His service, that we are not free. Under the circumstances, conflict with religion is natural.

(2) Self-advertising intellect, which is bent on achieving a reputation, no matter how. It will write something startling, original. When it asserts that Scripture is a collection of foolish legends, it takes pleasure in thinking of the trouble which its irritating productions will occasion. But its object is notoriety.

(3) Sensualised intellect, whose purpose is to rouse in the imagination and veins of man those fiery passions which are his worst enemy.

(4) Self-reliant or cynical intellect, that slave of a sublime egotism; but its cold, clear, incisive energy passes for perfect intellectual freedom. 4.We must not forget that among earnest opponents are souls which glow with a love of truth. They have not yet found the road to Damascus; but we may safely leave them to the love and providence of God.

II. It is implied in the language of the apostle, that intellectual opposition to revelation, except on great occasions, and under the leadership of distinguished captains, does not usually seek us in the open field. Its customary instinct is to take refuge on some heights, or behind some earthworks. It screens its advance under the cover of some disputed principle, or of some unproved assumption.

1. A primary characteristic of sceptical intellect is its unwillingness to make room for faith; it assumes to command the whole field of truth. It feels itself humiliated if debarred from the the sight of any spiritual fact.

(1) But we find no such sensitiveness respecting the power and range of the organ of sight. Ask the astronomer whether the stars and suns that reveal themselves to his telescopes are the only ones which exist. Ask the entomologist whether his microscope has discovered the most minute embodiment of the principle of life. It is no discredit to the organs of sense that they are thus limited. Nor should reason complain if, as we ascend the mountain of thought, she reaches a region at which she must leave us.

(2) Reason, indeed, can do much, even beyond the province in which she confessedly reigns. She can prove to man that he possesses a soul and a conscience, and that his will is really free. She can even attain to a certain shadowy knowledge of the First Cause of all. But she can do no more. Her highest conquests but suggest problems she cannot solve, afford glimpses of a world on which she may not presume to enter. What knows she of the inner life of God? What can she tell us concerning sin, or its removal? etc. Reason must accept her providential place as faiths handmaid, not as faiths substitute; or her pride will surely prepare for her a terrible chastisement.

2. But when the possibility, need, and even the fact of a revelation has been admitted, the rebellious intellect stipulates that revelation must not include mysteries. Whatever may be revealed, it must be submitted to the verifying faculty.

(1) But surely it is unreasonable to determine beforehand what a revelation ought or ought not to contain; we are in no position to speculate on such a subject. But let me ask, what is a mystery? Not a confused statement, a contradiction, an impossibility, an unintelligible process, a reverie of the heated religious imagination. A mystery is simply a truth hidden, in whatever degree. We see some truths directly, just as in the open air we gaze upon the sun. We know other truths indirectly, just as we know the sun is shining, from the ray of sunlight which streams in at the window. Now a mystery is a truth of the latter kind. It can only be known from the evidence or symptoms of its presence. Yet the evidence proves to us that the truth is there; and the truth is not the less a truth because it is itself shrouded from our direct gaze. Thus St. Paul speaks of the mystery of the Incarnation, and of the calling of the Gentiles, and even of marriage.

(2) Now the world we live in is a very temple of mysteries. In spring everywhere around you are evidences of the existence of a mysterious power which you can neither see, nor touch, nor define, nor measure, nor understand. What do you really know about the forces you term attraction and gravitation? And you yourselves, what are you but living embodiments, alike in your lower and your higher natures, and in the law of their union, of this all-pervading principle of mystery?

(3) To object to mystery as a feature of a Divine Revelation is therefore irrational. Surely, as we mount in the scale of being, we must expect an increase both in the number and magnitude of these hidden truths.

3. Granting this, the wayward reason falls back upon the demand that revelation shall not be dogmatic. Christianity must abandon the pretension to offer a defined body of truth, and is bidden to accommodate herself to the changed circumstances and imperious necessities of the time.

(1) But this is only a disguised form of opposition to the truth which dogmatic statements embody. A theist, e.g., has no objection to saying explicitly that there is one God. It does not occur to him, that in making that statement he is guilty of an intellectual narrowness or of bad taste. Nor does he hold it necessary presently to balance his profession by some other statement which shall reduce it to the level of an uncertainty. Yet to say that there is one God is to make an essentially dogmatic statement. If, then, he presently hesitates to say that Jesus Christ is truly God, or that His death was a propitiatory offering for human sin this, we must suppose, is because he does not believe the truths which are thus stated in human language. If he urges that a dogmatic statement is more or less unsatisfactory in that, owing to the imperfection of human speech, it leaves unanswered, or rather it suggests, many concomitant questions; it may be rejoined that this is no less true when you assert the unity of God, than when you assert the Godhead or the satisfaction of Jesus Christ. If he dislikes dogma because, forsooth, dogma is the stagnation, or the imprisonment, or the paralysis of thought, his objection applies to his statement that there is one God, just as much as to any other proposition in the creeds.

(2) The fact is, faith discerns in dogma the regulation of its thought, just as the mathematician finds in the axioms which are the base of his science, the fixed principles which guide his onward progress, not the tyrannical obstacle which enthrals and checks him.

(3) This prejudice against dogma is the last stronghold of the enemy; it is a position from which he must be dislodged at any cost, or all previous victories may soon be forfeited. Surely it is of little avail to grant that a revelation has been given, and even that it is replete with mystery, if no one revealed truth may be stated in terms as absolutely certain. If religion is to be a practical thing, it must depend, not upon beautiful thoughts, but upon clearly-defined certainties. When tempted we need something solid to fall back upon; not a picture, not a mist, not a view, not an hypothesis, but a fact. (Canon Liddon.)

Christian subjection of thought

A sceptic once said to me, Why, Christianity actually wants the control of your very thoughts. Who could really conform to a system like that? My rejoinder was, that a mans thoughts were his very life, and that a religion which is going to do anything for a man must work upon his thoughts and endeavour to lift them, by giving him both a law and an ideal of thinking. This is one of the glories of Christianity. In paganism you have religious observances divorced from morality--a cult which panders to a mans lowest passions. And even in Christendom, amongst communions which have more or less lost touch of the Bible and Christ, the problem is how to satisfy the religious instincts of men without troubling them to move out of their present level of thought and practice. The purpose of New Testament religion is the subjection of every thought to the obedience of Christ. Is that too great a programme? It is a difficult one, certainly. Study the development of character in a man who, from practical paganism, has been brought under the power of gospel like Bunyan. First, there was the outward act of submitting himself to Christ. Next follows a reformation of outward conduct. But the greatest conquest comes later. For a long time the trouble was that the thoughts, the grooves of which had been cut in the old dissolute days, could break loose and revel like devils in the chambers of his brain. And it required many a period of wrestling and much powerful work of the Divine Spirit before that great realm of life was fully in the Masters hands.

I. Every thought is a phrase which covers pretty nearly the whole inner life of man. Philosophical analyses of mans mind usually divide it into thought, feeling, volition; but, as a matter of fact, these are all mixed up and act together. You love a person; but the feeling is full of thought. On the other hand, thought is full of feeling. The feeling of gladness or hope produces thoughts of one sort, the feeling of gloom those of an opposite. And when you come to volition or will, you find thought and feeling combined in its every act. And Christ will aim at nothing less than that the whole inner life be subjected to Him. Now what is meant here is simply that all our thinkings be after the pattern of Gods own mind. The ultimate triumph of the gospel is that we shall love to find out what His thoughts are, to interpret them, to enjoy them, to obey them.

II. Only as the worlds thought is brought thoroughly into this subjection can it hope to get the best or soar to the highest.

1. What is a true musician, e.g.? Surely one who in that department is obedient to the thought of God. He is simply an interpreter of Gods laws of harmony. True, some of the great musicians have not been noted as religious men; but inasmuch as they were great in music, it was so by the strictness of their obedience to Gods mind in that one department of it.

2. What of the interests of truth, of scientific investigation? Will the world be shut up to narrow ideas? Why, do we not see that everything that can be found out by investigation, in the heavens above or on the earth beneath, is already true in the mind of God? Every new advance here is simply getting at another of Gods thoughts. Obedience stopping inquiry? Why, it is a call to inquiry. For we need to know more that we may more perfectly obey.

III. This needs pushing home to each one of us. We can never get the best out of life till we have all our thoughts brought into obedience to the Christ of God. Imagine a man regulated by this principle. All his thinkings are, as it were, coloured by the consciousness of Gods presence. Each thought floats in this as in an atmosphere.

1. It is only so that a man comes to understand what faith is and what it can do for him. The secret of the business is in realising that you have not to strain to get yourself into a state of higher exaltation of spirit to find Him, but to feel that He is just here where you are, working in and through your life each moment. When you lift anything and then let it fall, there is gravitation, you say. Yes; it is God at work. When you look at a tree coming into bud, the charm of it is in seeing God, your Great Companion, at work in it. No one else could do this. Yes. He is here as much as anywhere in the universe--here in all His wisdom, power, and love.

2. I have spoken of our thoughts as floating in an atmosphere, and as coloured by that. Just as in a landscape the rocks, woods, water, which yesterday looked black, frowning, almost repulsive, to-day, by their sunny brightness woo and fascinate you, and that simply by a change in the atmospheric conditions; so with persons and your thoughts about them. Now, when the mind is won to the obedience of Christ, the atmosphere in which our thoughts float is the atmosphere of His love. Ah, how differently do our fellow-men present themselves to us when seen through that light! Here, e.g., is one person looked at by three different pairs of eyes. It is that poor fallen woman who crouches at the feet of Christ. Yonder is a man, brutal and sensual, and his thoughts are only of the animal, of sensuous gratification. There is another looking on, a hard, flinty Pharisee, who sniffs here nothing but human carrion, and who goes away thinking how virtuous he is, and how wicked some people are. But there is Christ. We know something of what His thoughts were. Now if I come into obedience to the mind of Christ, I shall have just such thoughts as His about such an one. I should see her and pray to God for her salvation. (J. Brierley, B. A.)

Government of the thoughts

I suppose there are few prerogatives which men would be less inclined to part with than the absolute secrecy and independence of their thoughts. Each one should take care to keep himself inwardly as well as outwardly pure, bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Here, however, an objection is sometimes raised. Our thoughts, it is said, succeed each other according to fixed and unalterable laws, one thought bringing up neither in a constant current, over which the will has no more power than over the current of blood in our veins. Unquestionably it is not for our will directly to determine what we shall think of at the moment; neither can we, merely by willing it, stop thinking altogether. Thus much is true; but it does not follow that we have no control whatever over our trains of thought. Suppose, for example, that I am thinking of a sinful indulgence; I am free to think of that side of it which invites, or of that side of it which repels; I can think of it as an indulgence merely, or as a sinful indulgence; and the train of thought to which the whole will give rise will vary accordingly. We are competent at any moment freely and deliberately to select out of a train of thoughts that one to which we will attend. But we will suppose this selection made, not freely and deliberately, but spontaneously, or from the impulse of the moment, as is probably the fact in most cases; still what we do from the impulse of the moment, depends on the state of our minds, and this again depends, for the most part, on what we have chosen to make it, or allow it to become. Accordingly it will not do to disown all responsibility respecting the government of our thoughts, on the plea that they are not subject to our control. Thus far, the aim of my reasoning has been to prove that no object is likely to suggest bad thoughts, except through the concurrence of a weakened or depraved mind. But, in a practical view of the subject, this is taking higher ground than is necessary, or perhaps judicious. Let us admit, then, that, in the present condition of humanity, there are some things so adapted of themselves to excite bad thoughts that they will have this effect on the best minds. Still this does not hinder us from being able to govern our thoughts, for it by no means follows that we are obliged to put ourselves in the way of such things. Let me add, that the control which every man has, or might have, over his thoughts does not consist in prevention alone. Bad single thoughts may flit, from time to time, through the minds of good men; but it is bad men only who encourage their stay. If we would expel bad thoughts, it must be by the preference we give to good thoughts, that is, by introducing good thoughts into their place. Away, then, with that subtle but most inconsistent form of fatalism, which teaches that we can help our actions, but not our thoughts. What is to choose but to think; and without freedom of choice what freedom of actions could there be? All freedom, therefore, begins and ends with freedom of thought. Within certain limits, therefore, and as far as morality goes, we have as real a control over our thoughts as over our actions or our limbs. This being conceded, nothing remains but to consider some of the reasons and motives which should induce us to exert this power wisely and effectually, bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

I. Consider how much the thoughts have to do in forging and determining the whole character. Thought, says an eloquent writer, is the rudder of human action. As the thought is wise or foolish, good or bad, vicious or moral, the cause of action is noxious or salutary. When, therefore, I am told it is but a thought, I am told that it is the most important of all things. Tell me what are a mans thoughts, and you do not tell me what he will actually do, but you tell me what he would like to do. Tell me what are a mans thoughts, and you do not tell me what he is in the judgment of the world, for the world judges by the outward appearance. Thoughts have been called the seeds of conduct; but they are more than this. They are seeds which have already begun to germinate under ground; they have begun to develop their natural and essential properties. In this way the whole character may be covertly undermined. Melancholy instances of this description occur, from time to time, in what is regarded as the sudden fall of men who have hitherto enjoyed the entire confidence of the community. These men have been falling for years in the slow decay of all upright purpose and thought.

II. It will help us to understand how this can be, and at the same time strengthen our general conviction as to the necessity of controlling our thoughts, if we consider that every sin begins in a sin of thought; that is to say, in some vicious purpose or intention, and often in meditating, over and over again, when at length we are emboldened to do. As a general rule, it is only after frequently revolving crime in their minds that men find the resolution, or rather the hardihood, to commit it. Take, for example, the crimes of envy, jealousy, and malice; who does not know how often a man will wish evil to another, and imagine ways in which he would like to do him evil, before he arrives at the point of putting any one of his fancied schemes in practice? The same is also true of acts of fraud and dishonesty. Actual transgression, when first proposed, is never in itself agreeable to our nature, but always more or less revolting. A strong instinctive aversion must be overcome before we can go on. Our sense of repugnance to the crime has been blunted by familiarity. And here it is that the demoralising influence of ill-regulated thought appears.

III. Hence a third consideration which should impress us with the necessity of governing our thoughts is, that unless the restraint is laid there it is not likely to be effectual. Because we maintain the sinfulness of bad thoughts, it does not follow that we must push this doctrine to the extent of asserting that the thought of sin is as bad as the deed. Unquestionably it is not. The actual perpetrator of a crime is guilty of a double offence, that of desiring to do it, and that of not restraining the desire. Nay, more; if the evil thought is suggested from without, and immediately disowned and rejected from within, it will depart and leave no stain. The guilt of evil thoughts does not consist in our having them, but in our indulging them. Let the check be put upon the thought, and we not only prevent the sin from coming to maturity, but we take the character of sin from its first beginnings; that is to say, we turn what would otherwise have been a temptation yielded to, which is sin, into a temptation overcome, which is virtue. Those, on the contrary, who indulge the thought, and yet rely on their power and resolution to prevent it from passing into act, do miserably miscalculate their strength. As has been said, There can be no doubt with any reflecting mind but that the propensities of our nature must be subject to regulation; but the question is, where the check ought to be placed--upon the thought, or only upon the action? After all, the weightiest consideration which should lead us to govern our thoughts is that which religion suggests; they are known unto God, who will call them into judgment at the last day. Something, doubtless, would be gained, as regards the duty in question, if we would merely give heed to that apothegm of Pagan wisdom, Reverence thyself. For he who knowingly tolerates in himself what he would be ashamed to have others know, shows that he has less respect for his own good opinion than for that of the world. The mind, the soul, will go on thinking still, even in its disembodied state, and thinking as it did here, and takes its place according to the spirit and tendency of its thoughts. Is not this what the Scriptures mean when they say, Therefore, judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts; and then shall every man have praise of God? (J. Walker, D. D.)

The captivity of thought

I. The power of thought. The greatest on earth is man, the greatest in man is mind, the great function of mind is to think.

1. The ability to think is mans great distinction. By this, man seems to be distanced from every other creature by an impassable gulf; for, if other creatures have built the way which leads up to man, it is one they have not been able to follow.

2. Thought is the instrument of all mans work. Within creaturely limits it is a power of creation. Consider what it has already accomplished, what is still being done by it, and what prophecies of work continue ceaselessly to proceed from mans busy brain.

3. Thought is also the great material with which we work. All work is the working out and working up of thought. We sometimes hear men talk of being used-up. He only can be used-up who has not learned to use himself.

4. Thought gives value to everything.

(1) Works of skill are costly. Skilled labour commands the highest market price. And as the world completes its history thought will be more and more in demand. In all great crises the man of thought will come to the front.

(2) The value of thought, too, is seen in its power--when wisely directed--of control over the inferior powers. A man of rightly-directed thought cannot well be a low, bad man. Earnest and well-chosen engagement of mind disengages the body from every excess, and disqualifies it for low pursuits.

II. For our thoughts to have this value, we must learn to lead them.

1. Thought unled, like an unbroken animal, will be drawn hither and thither by the allurements of the senses; or left, passively subject to external influences and circumstances, to vegetate but not to bear fruit; for there is no order in the thought of an undisciplined mind, consequently no harvest--no accumulation of thought and its results.

2. If a man does not lead his thoughts, some other power will, the world, the flesh, or the devil, or all these powers combined. Now, the central character of the power of our thoughts makes it a first necessity that we should lead them, if we are to remain in possession of ourselves. Thought determines the man. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. It arrests the attention, awakens feeling, inflames the passions, subdues the will, and commands action. Thoughts, therefore, unled will be to a man what winds and waves are to a ship under canvas but without a rudder, or what steam is to an engine without the guiding rail--a driving and destructive power.

3. What is so important, then, as that we should have power over our thoughts, that we should be able to choose them, to select those we wish to retain, and to dismiss those we would banish; that we should be able to hold and fix arrested thoughts, infuse them with our will, and work in and by them our good pleasure.

III. If we would lead our thoughts, we must know how to make them interesting. The mind readily places itself at the service of the heart. To master the details of any subject in which we are not truly interested is an irksome task. But when we take to a subject, with what eagerness we pursue it! The mind readily labours for what interests the heart. The heart lives with its treasure, and surrounds it with habitual thought. These thoughts repeat themselves so frequently that they soon become established. We should mark those thoughts which come unbidden, and ascertain their right to the place they seek to occupy. And we cannot do this too soon, for thoughts which occupy the heart become impassioned, and are difficult to dismiss, though they may be such as it ill becomes us to cherish; and, if not at once dismissed, become habitual.

IV. How may we lead our thoughts into captivity? Thought cannot be forced. To lead it we must observe the nature of the mind, which is susceptible of influence, but not of force. Our leading, therefore, must not be arbitrary, but in accordance with law and order--truth and justice. There is nothing more repugnant to the mind than the tyranny of wilfulness; but the appeal of law and order accords with its nature, and awakens their own deep-laid echoes in answering assent. To lead our thoughts, then, we must simply ask for obedience to an authority which, though it speaks without, appeals to its own Amen within us. But to what authority?

1. To that of conscience. Paul only sought to enforce that which commended itself to the conscience in the sight of God. Mans conscience is endowed with that power of judgment which makes him responsible for an obedience according to the light. Our thoughts must be led by our consciences.

2. The Divine Word. This has its correspondence in the conscience, as the light has its corresponding faculty in the eye which witnesses of the designed agreement between them. The Word of God, by awakening the conscience, awakens a power to whose judgment it submits the claims of its authority. But it is a higher authority than conscience. Conscience is corruptible, and has been corrupted. The Word is incorruptible, and liveth and abideth for ever. It faithfully represents the judgment of God, and enables the spirit, which is given to every man, when once awakened, to see things in His light--even the deep things of God. The spirit in the child has an ear which knows the Fathers voice, and an eye which discerns His light, and is the childs capacity for being taught of God. Under the inherited corruption that is in the flesh, and the influence of the vain pageantry of the course of this world, the conscience is dead, and needs to be quickened and enlightened by the Word, which is quick and powerful, etc.

3. He who speaks in the Word. He is the last authority because, without the Word which addresses the conscience through the ear, we should be ignorant of Him. With light everywhere, men know not God. How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? whose minds the god of this world hath blinded lest the light of God should shine unto them. It is through the foolishness of preaching that He is revealed to us as a God of attractive goodness and mercy. In Jesus Christ the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, etc. In Him we have, though last, our highest authority for the obedience of our thoughts. And when He is once seen, like the risen sun, He accounts for and claims as His all the light that preceded Him. He is the centre and source of every attraction. With His reign set up in the heart, submission becomes a devotion, obedience a worship, and the whole life moves in charmed circles of rectitude and peace. The powers of His life, His light, His love are, therefore, the weapons of a warfare which are mighty, through God, to the pulling down of strongholds, etc. How blessed it is to know that there is a way for our thoughts, a way having all the authority of law, the satisfaction of truth, the charm of goodness, the promise of stability, and the certainty of perpetual progress! A right, royal, central way, which conducts to the centre of all blessedness! How blessed it is to know that this way is His, whose counsel standeth for ever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations, who can cleanse the thoughts of our heart by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and who has undertaken to do so as the Captain of our salvation. Admit Him to our hearts, and He will lead our thoughts captive, not by force, but by the love He inspires. But, in order thus to lead our thoughts, He draws us not merely with cords of love but also by the bands of a man--by influences in harmony with the laws of our nature. He knows we are amenable to reason, that we carry an echo truth can awaken, that we respond to goodness and yield to mercy. By appealing, therefore, to our several powers in accordance with their own freedom of action, we are made willing in the day of His power, and yield ourselves up to His sway. (W. Pulsford, D. D.)

The government of the thoughts necessary to holiness

Christianity is sometimes spoken of as the revelation of a plan by which the guilty may be pardoned, and sinners be saved. Thank God this is gloriously true. A truer designation of Christianity is, that it is the divinely offered means for exalting the debased character of fallen man to a fitness for the enjoyment of God and the blessedness of His presence in eternity. Again, Christianity is sometimes treated of as a scheme for improving the character and elevating the morals of mankind. It is certainly not a difficult matter for persons well brought up to be moral in their conduct and honest in their dealings. The light of conscience is abundantly sufficient for withholding us from the commission of numberless vices, and impelling us to the cultivation of some of the most exalted virtues. It is obvious, therefore, that if Christianity aimed at nothing higher than to excite our belief in certain truths, and to elevate our conduct to a certain standard, a very unnecessary expenditure of suffering has been endured for a purpose that might have been attained had Jesus Christ never suffered and His apostles never preached. But God never does employ any means but for an end fully worthy of them. That end is the one expressed in the text. Bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Yes, the gospel goes as no other teaching does, or can, to the hidden man of the heart. It came from God, and it has to do with that in us which constitutes our resemblance to God--the soul. What a work is this! Who that knows anything of his own heart, knows not the difficulty of restraining, controlling, governing, fixing, directing his thoughts and feelings? and our thoughts and feelings are ourselves--the actions, the movements of our souls. We are not so much what our actions are (for ten thousand motives may prompt our actions), but what our thoughts are, what our intentions, purposes, feelings, wishes, aims are. This, then, is true religion, to have every thought brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. All below it may be amiable, but is not Christianity. Our thoughts are heard in heaven. Our thoughts are Gods rule, Gods standard for judging of our character, and fixing of our destiny; our words are but the expression of our thoughts, and our actions but embodied thoughts. Then only do we know what true Christianity is when we acknowledge its supremacy over the movements of our inmost souls. I exhort you to give to the gospel its righteous demands. Religion must have its proper place within us--or none. To give it a subordinate authority is even to pour contempt upon its author, assuredly to deprive ourselves of its promised bliss.

I. The nature of true religion is well expressed. To bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Not that it is meant that every thought of our minds is to be about religion, or that the will of Christ is always to be had directly in view, or the presence of Christ always perceptibly felt. Nothing so impracticable. This is a blessedness reserved for the faithful above. Yet an approach to it is implied and may be made. I speak of the really godly; Christ is enthroned in their affections. Just as gain holds in captivity every thought of the covetous man, or ambition of the worldly man, or pleasure of the man of fashion, or lust of the sensualist; just as music, or painting, or literature of the man of taste, even though ten thousand thoughts, independent of his predominating passion, pass through his mind, and direct his walk--so is it with the man of God. Christ holds in captivity every thought of the Christian. To him to live is Christ. His ruling passion, his prevailing taste, his one great work, is religion. He may have many worldly duties to discharge, but he has not in any a thought or a feeling at variance with the will of Christ. For him to be reconciled to sin, nay not to abhor it in all its phases and disguises, would be as contrary to his new nature as for a musician to be insensible to the charms of harmony or the jarring of discords. Religion with him is not only an appointed work, but a ruling passion, a Divine, a heaven-born taste. Like every other passion or taste (call it which you will), it may require many a strong effort of the mind, demand many a sacrifice, impose much self-denial. Seasons indeed there are in a true believers experience when the influence of grace is as powerfully felt as among the redeemed above. Then is the triumph of religion, and then too is the believers enjoyment complete. But not only then is it that every thought of his breast is in captivity to the obedience of Christ, even his most worldly occupations are under the blessed influence of His loving spirit. Pride, selfishness, anger, jealousy, malice, lust, are prohibited from entering the holy habitation of his heart. Such is true religion, and these are its fruits.

II. The means for making this attainment. Mighty as the change from our natural condition is to that implied by the word of the text, one thing, and but one thing can effect it, can reduce our souls to obedience, can reconcile us to God, and bring every thought into captivity--the Cross, the Cross of Christ, seen, approached, embraced. The life that flows from that death alone can quicken us to submit to His authority who endured it on our behalf. But the difficulty is to bring our souls within the influence of the Cross, within the range of its transforming energy. This can only be done by--

1. Devout meditation on your own souls worth, its powers, capabilities, and eternal duration; the present degradation of living without God in the world, and the unutterable misery of being separated from His presence in eternity. Meditate on the holiness of God, the heinousness of sin, and the fearfulness of that curse which its commission provokes. Then look up to the Cross and meditate on the love of Christ as exhibited in the atoning death.

2. Be much in prayer for grace to give you so lively an impression, to set and keep before you so vivid a perception of the love and power of Christ crucified, as may subdue your soul into obedience and love, and unite all its powers into one great and lasting effort to glorify His name.

3. Be diligent in good works. These, as we abound in them liberally, affectionately, self-denyingly, have a wonderful power in clarifying our spiritual vision; yes, and in perfecting our whole moral nature.

4. Be constant in the means of grace. These are instruments of even almighty power for saving and perfecting our souls in righteousness.

III. The blessedness of bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Verily, their peace shall be as a river, and their righteousness as the waves of the sea. They shall be safe from evil and from the fear of evil. His faithfulness and truth, whose captives they are, shall be their shield and buckler. Unmoved by trying providences, unfermented by earthly passions, unharassed by worldly cares, unsubdued by Satans temptations, they shall pass on their way heavenward in peaceful hope. The pleasures of sense and the promises of sin shall lose their power even to tempt and allure, by reason of the increasing fascinations which those of holiness are felt to impart. (T. Nunns, M. A.)

The subjection of the heart to Christ

The kingdom of heaven is in your hearts. But your hearts, too, are not like a single citadel, but rather a wide, diversified country. Does the kingdom occupy only a narrow space of hardly won ground, or does the royal standard float over every stronghold, and do the Kings writs run through all the wide region peopled by your purposes? Not until then, not till the sway of Christ commands every motion of our wills, not till He has imprisoned every rebellious desire and exiled every turbulent intention, not till He has conquered every ambition that threatens His throne with rivalry, not till our whole nature is a loyal realm, obedient to His sceptre, dare we cease with all earnestness of supplication to uplift the prayer, Thy kingdom come. (C. A. Vince, M. A.)

Unreserved surrender to Christ

I remember reading--I think it was in the Indian Mutiny--of a siege which the British army conducted, how they captured, after long fighting, the walls of the city they had besieged; but the native garrison within only slowly retreated, fighting their way step by step, until at last they entrenched themselves in the citadel, and there defied the British troops. So it is with us. Self may be beaten by Christ in the outworks of life; it may retreat from Christ, until all the soul is open to Christ save one little room. Hold one thing back, you hold all; yield one thing you yield all. Yes, a mans cross is just that which he finds it most difficult to yield. (G. S. Barrett, B. A.)

Christ must be our absolute Monarch

When we are in the right condition Christ and not self occupies the centre of our being. Then it is that He reigns with unhindered sway as King within. The writer not long since heard one who had been a Christian many years describe the nature of the blessing he had recently received in the following words: I had heard of Christ being King. Well, He had reigned in me, but it was only as a constitutional sovereign. I was Prime Minister, and I did a good deal of the work myself. Then I found that He must be absolute Monarch. And so now He is. (E. Hopkins, M. A.)

The victory of Christ over thought

I. This gospel is to bring the thoughts of men into subjection to Christ. Christianity recognises man as a thinking being, bringing into captivity every thought. The thought of man may be regarded--

1. As the distinguishing attribute of his nature. It distinguishes man from the brute creation and assimilates him to God and fits him to enjoy Him for ever. Now--

2. As the great parent of his character. Man is what his thoughts are. If his thoughts be false, his character is false; if his thoughts be in harmony with the everlasting laws of God, his character will be so too. If a man thinks feebly, his character will be feeble; if he thinks vigorously, independently and progressively, his character will be the same.

3. As the chief instrument of his influence. Every other influence is utterly insignificant when compared with this. The corrupting influences of the world are only to be removed by the action of free and loving thought upon them. The death of mind is its departure from God. You cannot point to a country where some of the ideas of Jesus are not. Sometimes we take discouraging views of the progress of Christianity, but we should remember that the thoughts of Christ are mixed with the literature, the philosophy, the legislation, the commerce of the world. Is it not a glorious office of Christianity to bring these thoughts into captivity?

II. How does Christ captivate minds?

1. By arousing them into life and action. A mans religion is valuable just in proportion as it engages his intense, solemn, and prayerful thought. The first action of Christ on the mind is to make us think.

2. By removing obstacles. Strongholds must be pulled down; imaginations or false reasonings must be cast down. What is the great hindrance to the subjection of mind to Christ? Human depravity--sin. But in what form does it manifest itself?

(1) Sensuousness--materialism. Sensuousness took Adam away from his allegiance, deluged the old population, broke up the Jewish nation, first degraded and then destroyed virtue in Greece, and overthrew Rome. Sensuousness is the dominion of the flesh over the spirit; the despotism of matter over mind. This is the most gross form of opposition to Christianity, the most common, and probably the most fatal. There is hope of men while they think, but there is no hope for men if they have sunk into sensuousness.

(2) False philosophy--the spirit of all wrong systems, which generally develops itself in scepticism.

(3) Religious superstition which substitutes mechanical action for mental activity.

(4) Secular authority.

Conclusion:

1. Have you given your thoughts to Christ?

2. What are we to do to bring other minds to Christ? (Caleb Morris.)

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

2Co 10:5-6. Casting down imaginations — Λογισμους καθαιρουντες, literally, demolishing reasonings, namely, such as were fallacious and sophistical, by which vain men endeavoured to controvert, disprove, or even expose to contempt and ridicule, the doctrine of the gospel, and the whole Christian system. For the reasonings which the apostle speaks of, and says they threw down, were not the candid reasonings of those who attentively considered the evidences of the gospel, but the sophisms of the Greek philosophers, and the false reasonings of the statesmen, and all others who, from bad dispositions, opposed the gospel by argument and sophistry. And these the apostles overturned; not by forbidding men to use their reason, but by opposing to them the most convincing arguments, drawn from the evident accomplishment of the Old Testament prophecies, the miraculous powers and gifts with which the apostles and first preachers of the gospel were endowed, the manifest excellence and salutary tendency and influence of the gospel, the blessed effect produced by it on the hearts and lives of multitudes, Jews and heathen, who had before been vicious and profane, but were now evidently reformed in principle and practice, and from the exemplary, useful, and holy lives of all those who in truth embraced the gospel. And every high thing that exalteth itself — In any way whatever; against the knowledge of God — That divine and spiritual acquaintance with him, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent, wherein consisteth eternal life. The apostle, Macknight thinks, alludes to the turrets raised on the top of the walls of a besieged city or fortress, from which the besieged annoyed their enemies. To these high structures the apostle compared the proud imaginations of the enemies of revelation, concerning the sufficiency of men’s natural powers in all matters of religion and morality. And, we may add, all other vain conceits which men are wont to entertain of themselves, with regard to their natural or moral excellences, in consequence of which they disbelieve and disobey, or neglect the gospel, and live without God in the world. These, and such like imaginations, the apostles cast down by the force of the spiritual weapons which they made use of: and similar imaginations have, in all ages, been cast down by the faithful preaching of the true and genuine gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, accompanied by the influence of his Divine Spirit: and bringing into captivity every thought — Every proud and haughty notion of the mind of man; to the obedience of Christ — The true King of his people, and the Captain of our salvation. For, the evil reasonings above mentioned being destroyed, the mind itself is overcome and taken captive, lays down all authority of its own, and entirely gives itself up to perform, for the time to come, to Christ its conqueror, the obedience which he requires: and the various thoughts which arise in it, from that time forth, are made subservient to the will of Christ, as slaves are to the will of their lords. “In this noble passage, the apostle, with great energy, describes the method in which wicked men fortify themselves against the gospel, raising, as it were, one barrier behind another to obstruct its entrance into their minds. But when these are all thrown down, the gospel is received, and Christ is obeyed implicitly; every thought and reasoning taking its direction from him.” And having in readiness to revenge — Say, rather, avenge, or punish; all disobedience — Not only by spiritual censure, but by miraculous chastisements; when your obedience is fulfilled — When the sound part of you have given proof of your obedience, and thereby have distinguished yourselves from the others, that the innocent may not be punished with the guilty. “His love to the Corinthians, whom he desired to spare, and the infirm state of their church at present, made him choose to defer the punishment of these offenders till he had drawn off the affections of the Corinthians from their false apostles, and made them more unanimous in their regards to him. And this is the best excuse that can be made for the neglect of discipline in any church; namely, ‘that there is no place for severe remedies, when a disease hath infected the whole church.” — Whitby. It is to be remembered, it was before this time that the apostle had smitten Elymas with blindness; and it is highly probable, from this text, and others of a like nature, that some other miracles of this awful kind had been wrought by him, though they are not recorded in Scripture.

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

5. Casting—This participle, like having, in 2Co_10:6, refers, through our, in 2Co_10:4, to we in 2Co_10:3. 2Co_10:4 parenthetically describes the weapons, but 2Co_10:3; 2Co_10:5, describe the war and warriors.

Imaginations—The intellectual powers for which strongholds was the figure. The word, of course, is used to include the proud fancies and pretences of St. Paul’s assailants, but comprehends much mightier powers. Paul’s weapons were yet to conquer the Roman empire; much more destroy the figments of his present opponents.

Every high thing—Those proud systems of Paganism and Judaism which, like military towers, rejoiced in their height and strength.

Against the knowledge of God—Not only the atheism of Epicurus and Lucretius, which denied God, but even the purer philosophy of Aristotle and Plato, so far as they stood in the way of the genuine knowledge of God as revealed in Jesus Christ.

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

Casting down. This agrees with "we" understood, not with "weapons." Imaginations; rather, disputations, or reasonings. Every high thing that exalteth itself; rather, every height that is exalted. Against the knowledge of God. (see 1Co_15:34) There, however, we have passive ignorance, here active opposition. Bringing into captivity. When the fortresses are razed, their defenders will be taken prisoners, but for a beneficent end. Every thought. Even intellectual result. The word (noema) is not common in the New Testament. It occurs five times in this Epistle, (2Co_2:11 2Co_3:14 2Co_4:4 2Co_10:5 2Co_11:3) but elsewhere only Php_4:7.

The captivity of the thoughts.

Spiritual warfare is represented as leading to spiritual victory, and this as involving spiritual captivity. As the Roman general, having vanquished his foe and taken multitudes of prisoners, reserved his captives to grace his triumph, so the apostle, commissioned by Christ, regards himself as contending with all lawless and rebellious forces, and as resolved with Divine help to bring all such forces into subjection to his great Commander and Lord.

I THE FORCES WHICH ARE BROUGHT INTO CAPTIVITY. Christianity does not contend with physical powers, does not aim at the mere regulation of outward and bodily acts. It strikes at antagonists far more powerful than any which are dealt with by the powers of this world.

Thoughts, i.e. the desires and purposes of the souls of men, these are the foes with which the spiritual religion of the Lord Jesus contends. Disobedient thoughts, selfish thoughts, worldly thoughts, murmuring thoughts, these it is that the religion of the Lord Jesus assails. These are the source and spring of all the outward evils that afflict and curse mankind. If these can be mastered, society may be regenerated and the world may be saved.

II THE SUBJECTION AND SUBMISSION INTO WHICH THESE FORCES ARE TO BE BROUGHT.

1. It is to the obedience of Christ, the rightful Lord of thoughts and ofhearts, that the spiritual forces of humanity are to be rendered subject. A grand future is in this view opened up before humanity. The Son of man is King of man; and he will then ascend his royal throne when men"s hearts bow loyally before him, acknowledge his unique spiritual authority, and offer to him their grateful and cheerful allegiance.

2. It is a willing captivity into which human thoughts will be led. In this it isutterly unlike the subjection from which the metaphor is taken. Not brute force, but the convincing authority of reason, the sweet constraint of love, the admired majesty of moral excellence, secure the submission of man"s nature to the control of the Divine Lord

3. It is a lasting captivity, not temporary and brief. Whom Christ governshe governs forevermore. Time and earth cannot limit his empire. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. T.

Captivity of thoughts for Christ.

Probably the apostle makes special reference to the confidence of Christians at Corinth in their learning and philosophizing; "to the efforts of human reason to deal with things beyond it, the best corrective of which is, and always will be, the simple proclamation of God"s message to men." But our thoughts are the springs of action, as well as the means of acquiring knowledge; so they may be treated in a comprehensive way.

1. THE IMPORTANCE OF OUR THOUGHTS. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." Note:

1. The defiling power of cherished evil thought.

2. The inspiring and ennobling power of cherished good thought.

3. The relation of thought to

1. conduct,

2. culture,

3. associations.

Right thoughts make openness to God, give graciousness to our conversation, enable us to be considerate of and helpful to others. As we must keep the fountain pure, if the stream is to run sweet and clear, we must recognize the supreme importance of taking heed to our thoughts.

II OUR RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR THOUGHTS. On this point a sentiment prevails which greatly needs correction. It is assumed that we cannot help thoughts coming up before us, and that they may be the suggestions of our soul"s spiritual enemy, and so we cannot be held responsible for them. This is one of those half truths that are oftentimes more mischievous than downright error. We are not responsible for the mere passing of thoughts, as in a panorama, before our mental vision; but we are responsible for what we select of them for consideration; we are responsible for what we cherish. We are further responsible for the materials of our thought, and for the circumstances in which we place ourselves, so far as they may suggest thought. Therefore we have the counsel so earnestly given us, "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.

III THE SECRET OF CONTROLLING OUR THOUGHTS. That secret is made up of parts. It includes:

1. The full surrender of our will to Christ, so that he may rule all ourchoices and preferences, even the very choices of our thoughts.

2. The cherished consciousness of Christ"s living presence with us givestone and harmony with him, to all cur preferences.

3. The culture of mind, disposition, and habits, which involves the resoluteputting away from us of all associations and suggestions of evil.

4. The freeness of access to God in prayer for strength whenever temptation seems to have an overcoming rower.

5. The occupying of heart, thought, and life so fully with the things ofChrist that there can be no room for evil. There is no more practical way of mastering doubting, sensual, corrupt thought than by turning at once to good reading or engaging at once in works of charity. While we pray to God to "cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit," we must also remember that the apostle teaches us to make personal efforts of watchfulness and good endeavour, and so "bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." In every age sincere hearts have prayed the psalmist"s prayer: "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. R.T.

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

2 Corinthians

A MILITANT MESSAGE

2Co 10:5-6 {R.V.}.

None of Paul’s letters are so full of personal feeling as this one is. It is written, for the most part, at a white heat; he had heard from his trusted Titus tidings which on one hand filled him with a thankfulness of which the first half of the letter is the expression; but there had also been tidings of a very different kind, and from this point onwards the letter is seething with the feelings which these had produced. There was in the Corinthian Church a party, probably Judaisers, which denied his authority and said bitter things about his character. They apparently had contrasted the force of his letters and the feebleness of his ‘bodily presence’ and speech. They insinuated that his ‘bark was worse than his bite.’ Their language put into plain English would be something like this, ‘Ah! He is very bold at a distance, let him come and face us and we shall see a difference. Vapouring in his letters, he will be meek enough when he is here.’

These slanderers seem to have thought of Paul as if he ‘warred according to flesh,’ and it is this charge, that he was actuated in his opposition to the evils in Corinth by selfish considerations and worldly interests, which seems to have set the Apostle on fire. In answer he pours out quick, indignant questionings, sharp irony, vehement self-vindication, passionate remonstrances, flashes of wrath, sudden jets of tenderness. What a position for him to have to say, ‘I am not a low schemer; I am not working for myself.’ Yet it is the common lot of all such men to be misread by little, crawling creatures who cannot believe in heroic self-forgetfulness. He answers the taunt that he ‘walked according to the flesh’ in the context by saying, ‘Yes, I live in the flesh, my outward life is like that of other men, but I do not go a-soldiering _according_ to the flesh. It is not for my own sinful self that I get the rules of my life’s battle, neither do I get my weapons from the flesh. They could not do what they do if that were their origin: they are of God and therefore mighty.’ Then the metaphor as it were catches fire, and in our text he expands the figure of a warfare and sets before us the destruction of fortresses, the capture of their garrisons, and the leading of them away into another land, the stern punishment of the rebels who still hold out, and the merciful delay in administering it. It has been suggested that there is an allusion in our text to the extermination of the pirates in Paul’s native Cilicia which happened some fifty or sixty years before his birth and ended in destroying their robber-holds and taking some thousands of prisoners. Whether that be so or no, the Apostle’s kindled imagination sets forth here great truths as to the effects which his message is meant to produce and, thank God, has produced.

I. The opposing fortresses.

The Apostle conceives of himself and of his brother preachers of Christ as going forth on a merciful warfare. He thinks of strong rock fortresses, with lofty walls set on high, and frowning down on any assailants. No doubt he is thinking first of the opposition which he had to front in Corinth from the Judaisers to whom we have referred, but the application of the metaphor goes far beyond the petty strife in Corinth and carries for us the wholesome lesson that one main cause which keeps men back from Christ is a too high estimate of themselves. Some of us are enclosed in the fortress of self-sufficiency: we will not humbly acknowledge our dependence on God, and have turned self-reliance into the law of our lives. There are many voices, some of them sweet and powerful, which to-day are preaching that gospel. It finds eager response in many hearts, and there is something in us all to which it appeals. We are often tempted to say defiantly, ‘Who is Lord over us?’ And the teaching that bids us rely on ourselves is so wholly in accord with the highest wisdom and the noblest life that what is good and what is evil in each of us contribute to reinforce it. Self-dependence is a great virtue, and the mother of much energy and nobleness, but it is also a great error and a great sin. To be so self-sufficing as not to need externals is good; to be so self-sufficing as not to need or to see God is ruin and death. The title which, as one of our great thinkers tells us, a humourist put on the back of a volume of heterodox tracts, ‘Every man his own redeemer,’ makes a claim for self-sufficiency which more or less unconsciously shuts out many men from the salvation of Christ.

There is the fortress of culture and the pride of it in which many of us are to-day entrenched against the Gospel. The attitude of mind into which persons of culture tend to fall is distinctly adverse to their reception of the Gospel, and that is not because the Gospel is adverse to culture, but because cultured people do not care to be put on the same level with publicans and harlots. They would be less disinclined to go into the feast if there were in it reserved seats for superior people and a private entrance to them. If the wise and prudent were more of both, they would be liker the babes to whom these things are revealed, and they would be revealed to them too. Not knowledge but the superciliousness which is the result of the conceit of knowledge hinders from God, and is one of the strongest fortresses against which the weapons of our warfare have to be employed.

There is the fortress of ignorance. Most men who are kept from Christ are so because they know neither themselves nor God. The most widely prevailing characteristic of the superficial life of most men is their absolute unconsciousness of the fact of sin; they neither know it as universal nor as personal. They have never gone deeply enough down into the depths of their own hearts to have come up scared at the ugly things that lie sleeping there, nor have they ever reflected on their own conduct with sufficient gravity to discern its aberrations from the law of right, hence the average man is quite unconscious of sin, and is a complete stranger to himself. The cup has been drunk by and intoxicated the world, and the masses of men are quite unaware that it has intoxicated them.

They are ignorant of God as they are of themselves, and if at any time, by some flash of light, they see themselves as they are, they think of God as if He were altogether such an one as themselves, and fall back on a vague trust in the vaguer mercy of their half-believed-in God as their hope for a vague salvation. Men who thus walk in a vain show will never feel their need of Jesus, and the lazy ignorance of themselves and the as lazy trust in what they call their God, are a fortress against which it will task the power of God to make any weapons of warfare mighty to its pulling down.

II. The casting down of fortresses.

The first effect of any real contact with Christ and His Gospel is to reveal a man to himself, to shatter his delusive estimates of what he is, and to pull down about his ears the lofty fortress in which he has ensconced himself. It seems strange work for what calls itself a Gospel to begin by forcing a man to cry out with sobs and tears, Oh, wretched man that I am! But no man will ever reach the heights to which Christ can lift him, who does not begin his upward course by descending to the depths into which Christ’s Gospel begins its work by plunging him. Unconsciousness of sin is sure to lead to indifference to a Saviour, and unless we know ourselves to be miserable and poor and blind and naked, the offer of gold refined by fire and white garments that we may clothe ourselves will make no appeal to us. The fact of sin makes the need for a Saviour; our individual sense of sin makes us sensible of our need of a Saviour.

Paul believed that the weapons of his warfare were mighty enough to cast down the strongest of all strongholds in which men shut themselves up against the humbling Gospel of salvation by the mercy of God. The weapons to which he thus trusted were the same to which Jesus pointed His disciples when, about to leave them, He said, ‘When the Comforter is come He will convict the world of sin because they believe not in Me.’ Jesus brought to the world the perfect revelation of the holiness of God, and set before us all a divine pattern of manhood to rebuke and condemn our stained and rebellious lives, and He turned us away from the superficial estimate of actions to the careful scrutiny of motives. By all these and many other ways He presented Himself to the world a perfect man, the incarnation of a holy God and the revelation and condemnation of sinful humanity. Yet, all that miracle of loveliness, gentleness, and dignity is beheld by men without a thrill, and they see in Him no ‘beauty that they should desire Him,’ and no healing to which they will trust. Paul’s way of kindling penitence in impenitent spirits was not to brandish over them the whips of law or to seek to shake souls with terror of any hell, still less was it to discourse with philosophic calm on the obligations of duty and the wisdom of virtuous living; his appeal to conscience was primarily the pressing on the heart of the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. When the heart is melted, the conscience will not long continue indurated. We cannot look lovingly and believingly at Jesus and then turn to look complacently on ourselves. Not to believe on Him is the sin of sins, and to be taught that it is so is the first step in the work of Him who never merits the name of the Comforter more truly than when He convicts the world of sin.

For a Christianity that does not begin with the deep consciousness of sin has neither depth nor warmth and has scarcely vitality. The Gospel is no Gospel, and we had almost said, ‘The Christ is no Christ’ to one who does not feel himself, if parted from Christ, ‘dead in trespasses and sins.’ Our religion depends for all its force, our gratitude and love for all their devotion, upon our sense that ‘the chastisement of our peace was laid upon Him, and that by His stripes we are healed.’ Since He gave Himself for us, it is meet that we give ourselves to Him, but there will be little fervour of devotion or self-surrender, unless there has been first the consciousness of the death of sin and then the joyous consciousness of newness of life in Christ Jesus.

III. The captives led away to another land.

The Apostle carries on his metaphor one step further when he goes on to describe what followed the casting down of the fortresses. The enemy, driven from their strongholds, have nothing for it but to surrender and are led away in captivity to another land. The long strings of prisoners on Assyrian and Egyptian monuments show how familiar an experience this was. It may be noted that perhaps our text regards the obedience of Christ as being the far country into which ‘every thought was to be brought.’ At all events Paul’s idea here is that the end of the whole struggle between ‘the flesh’ and the weapons of God is to make men willing captives of Jesus Christ. We are Christians in the measure in which we surrender our wills to Christ. That surrender rests upon, and is our only adequate answer to, His surrender for us. The ‘obedience of Christ’ is perfect freedom; His captives wear no chains and know nothing of forced service; His yoke is easy, not because it does not press hard upon the neck but because it is lined with love, and ‘His burden is light’ not because of its own weight but because it is laid on us by love and is carried by kindred love. He only commands himself who gladly lets Christ command him. Many a hard task becomes easy; crooked things are straightened out and rough places often made surprisingly plain for the captives of Christ, whom He leads into the liberty of obedience to Him.

IV. Fate of the disobedient.

Paul thinks that in Corinth there will be found some stiff-necked opponents of whom he cannot hope that their ‘obedience shall be fulfilled,’ and he sees in the double issue of the small struggle that was being waged in Corinth a parable of the wider results of the warfare in the world. ‘Some believed and some believed not’; that has been the brief summary of the experience of all God’s messengers everywhere, and it is their experience to-day. No doubt when Paul speaks of ‘being in readiness to avenge all disobedience,’ he is alluding to the exercise of his apostolic authority against the obdurate antagonists whom he contemplates as still remaining obdurate, and it is beautiful to note the long-suffering patience with which he will hold his hand until all that can be won has been won. But we must not forget that Paul’s demeanour is but a faint shadow of his Lord’s, and that the weapons which were ready to avenge all disobedience were the weapons of God. If a man steels himself against the efforts of divine love, builds up round himself a fortress of self-righteousness and locks its gates against the merciful entrance of convictions of sin and the knowledge of a Saviour, and if he therefore lives, year in, year out, in disobedience, the weapons which he thinks himself to have resisted will one day make him feel their edge. We cannot set ourselves against the salvation of Jesus without bringing upon ourselves consequences which are wholly evil and harmful. Torpid consciences, hungry hearts, stormy wills, tyrannous desires, vain hopes and not vain fears come to be, by slow degrees, the tortures of the man who drops the portcullis and lifts the bridge against the entrance of Jesus. There are hells enough on earth if men’s hearts were displayed.

But the love which is obliged to smite gives warning that it is ready to avenge, long before it lets the blow fall, and does so in order that it may never need to fall. As long as it is possible that the disobedient shall become obedient to Christ, He holds back the vengeance that is ready to fall and will one day fall ‘on all disobedience.’ Not till all other means have been patiently tried will He let that terrible ending crash down. It hangs over the heads of many of us who are all unaware that we walk beneath the shadow of a rock that at any moment may be set in motion and bury us beneath its weight. It is ‘in readiness,’ but it is still at rest. Let us be wise in time and yield to the merciful weapons with which Jesus would make His way into our hearts. Or if the metaphor of our text presents Him in too warlike a guise, let us listen to His own gentle pleading, ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co 10:5. Λογισμοὺς [imaginations, reasonings] thoughts) those very thoughts of which he speaks, 2Co 10:2.[64]—ΚΑΘΑΙΡΟῦΝΤΕς, casting down) This expression might be construed with 2Co 10:3, but it rather depends on 2Co 10:4, the pulling down [καθαίρεσιν]. Again, the nominative is used for an oblique case, as in ch. 2Co 9:13, note.—ΠᾶΝ ὝΨΩΜΑ, every high thing) Thoughts is the species; high thing, the genus. He does not say, ὕψος; comp. Rom 8:39, note.[65]—ἐπαιρόμενον, exalting itself) like a wall and a rampart.—κατὰ τῆς γνώσεως τοῦ Θεοῦ, against the knowledge of God) True knowledge makes men humble [attributing all power to GOD alone.—V. g.] Where there is exaltation of self, there the knowledge of God is wanting.—αἰχμαλωτίζοντες πᾶν νόημα) ΝΌΗΜΑ implies the faculty of the mind, νοός, of which ΛΟΓΙΣΜΟῚ, the thoughts, are the acts. The latter, hostile in [of] themselves, are cast down; the former vanquished and taken captive is wont to surrender itself, so that it necessarily and willingly tenders the obedience of faith to Christ the conqueror, having laid aside all its own authority, even as a slave entirely depends on the will of his master.

[64] Λογισμοὺς alludes, by Mimesis, to the Corinthians, τοὺς λογιζομενους, etc., 2Co 10:2.—ED.

[65] ὕψος the primitive, height absolutely: ὕψωμα a kind of verbal, not so much high, as a thing made high, elevated, elated.—ED.

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

2Co_10:5. How the πρὸς καθαίρ. ὀχυρωμ. is executed by the ἡμεῖς (the logical subject in 2Co_10:4): inasmuch as we pull down thoughts (Rom_2:15), i.e. bring to nothing hostile deliberations, resolutions, plans, calculations, and the like, raising themselves like fortresses against Christ. More precise definitions (Grotius and many others: ratiocinationes philosophorum, comp. Ewald; subtleties, Hofmann; thoughts of their own, behind which men screen themselves from the urgent knowledge of God) are not warranted by the context, nor yet by the contrast of γνῶσις τ. θ., since this is meant objectively (in opposition to de Wette, who understands thoughts of self-conceited wisdom). Also against Olshausens opinion, that Paul is censuring specially the pretended wisdom of the Christ-party, it is to be observed that he is speaking, not simply of the working against Corinthian opponents, but against enemies in general. The figurative expression of destruction by war, καθαιροῦντες, was very naturally suggested by the image which had just gone before, and which is immediately afterwards taken up again by ὕψωμα (ἐπέμεινε τῇ τροπῇ, ἵνα πλείονα ποιήσῃ τἠν ἔμφασιν, Chrysostom); and the subsequent ἐπαιρόμ. emphatically corresponds to i.

καὶ πᾶν ὕψωμα κ.τ.λ.] and every exalted thing (rampart, castle, tower, and the like, comp. Aq. Psa_18:34, and see in general, Schleusner, Thes. V. p. 427), which is lifted up against the (evangelical) knowledge of God (the knowledge of God κατʼ ἐξοχήν), that this may not become diffused and prevailing. The real meaning of the figurative ὕψωμα is equivalent to that of ὀχύρωμα, 2Co_10:4; the relation to λογισμούς is, however, correctly defined by Bengel: cogitationes species, altitudo genus.

The enemy, who is thus vanquished by the destruction of his high places, is πᾶν νόημα, i.e. not all reason (Luther; comp. Vulgate: omnem intellectum), as if πάντα νοῦν were used, but (comp. on 2Co_3:14, 2Co_4:4) every creation of thought, every product of the human thinking faculty. The λογισμοί before named belong to this, but Paul here goes on to the whole general category of that, which as product of the νοῦς takes the field against Christianity. All this is by Paul and his companions brought into captivity, and thereby into subordination to Christ, after the bulwarks are destroyed, etc. Thus the holy war comes to the goal of complete victor.

εἰς τὴν ἱπακοὴν τοῦ Χ.] so that this πᾶν νόημα, which previously was hostile to Christ, now becomes obedient and subject to Christ. By this is expressed the conversion to Christ, which is attained through the apostolic working, consequently a leading captive ἀπὸ δουλείας εἰς ἐλευθερίαν, ἀπὸ θανάτου πρὸς ζωὴν, ἐξ ἀπωλείας πρὸς σωτηρίαν, Chrysostom. The condition ὑπακοὴ τοῦ Χριστοῦ is conceived of as a local sphere, into which the enemy is led captive. Comp. Luk_21:24; Tob_1:10; 1Ki_8:46; 3 Esdr. 2Co_6:16; Jdt_5:18. Apart from this conception, Paul would have written τῇ ὑπακοῇ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, or simply τῷ Χριστῷ. Comp. Rom_7:23. Kypke, Zachariae, Flatt, Emmerling, Bretschneider, connect εἰς τ. ὑπακ. τ. Χ. with πᾶν νόημα, and take εἰς as contra. But in that case Paul would have written very unintelligibly, and by the change of the preposition (previously κατά) would have simply led the reader astray; besides, the αἰχμαλωτίζοντες, without εἰς τ. ὑπακ. τ. Χ., would remain open and incomplete; finally, 2Co_10:6 shows that he conceived the ὑπακοὴ Χριστοῦ as the goal of the working, consequently as belonging to αἰχμαλ. Comp. also Rom_1:5; Rom_16:26.

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 10:5 . λογισμοὺς καθαιροῦντες κ . τ . λ .: casting down , as if they were centres of the enemy’s force, reasonings (St. Paul’s message, as he told the Corinthians at 1Co 2:4 was not ἐν πειθοῖς σοφίας λόγοις , but “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power”; he ever regards the Gospel as a revelation , not a body of doctrine which could be reasoned out by man for himself from first principles not, to be sure, an irrational system, but one which is beyond the capacity of reason to discover or to fathom to its depths), and every high thing (carrying on the metaphor by which the “towering” conceits of speculation are represented as fortifications erected against the soldiers of the Cross) that is exalted , or “elevated,” “built up,” against the knowledge of God, sc. , which is revealed in Christ, and leading captive (for αἰχμαλωτίζειν the more correct Attic form is αἰχμαλωτεύειν ) every thought into the obedience of Christ ( cf. 2Co 9:13 ). All through this passage the Apostle has directly in view the opposition of gainsayers at Corinth, and so it is not safe to interpret his phrases as directed without qualification against the claims of the intellect and conscience in the matter of doctrine. Yet it must be remembered that he regarded the message which he preached as directly revealed to himself, and not derived from tradition or interpretation, and hence as possessed of a certainty to which the demonstrations of philosophy, however cogent, could not attain. All Truth must be loyal to “the obedience of Christ,” who was Himself “the Truth” ( cf. 2Co 13:8 ).

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

An amplification of this spiritual virtue, which in such sort conquereth the enemies be they never so crafty and mighty, that it bringeth some of them by repentance unto Christ, and justly revengeth others, that are stubbornly obstinate, separating them from the others which suffer themselves to be ruled.

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

imaginations--rather, "reasonings." Whereas "thought" expresses men's own purpose and determination of living after their own pleasure [TITTMANN].

high thing--So it ought to be translated (Rom 8:39). A distinct Greek word from that in Eph 3:18, "height," and Rev 21:16, which belongs to God and heaven from whence we receive nothing hurtful. But "high thing" is not so much "height" as something made high, and belongs to those regions of air where the powers of darkness ::exalt themselves" against Christ and us (Eph 2:2; Eph 6:12; Th2 2:4).

exalteth itself-- Th2 2:4 supports English Version rather than the translation of ELLICOTT, &c., "is lifted up." Such were the high towers of Judaic self-righteousness, philosophic speculations, and rhetorical sophistries, the "knowledge" so much prized by many (opposed to "the knowledge of God"), which endangered a section of the Corinthian Church.

against the knowledge of God--True knowledge makes men humble. Where there is exaltation of self, there knowledge of God is wanting [BENGEL]. Arrange the words following thus: "Bringing every thought (that is, intent of the mind or will) into captivity to the obedience of Christ," that is, to obey Christ. The three steps of the apostle's spiritual warfare are: (1) It demolishes what is opposed to Christ; (2) It leads captive; (3) It brings into obedience to Christ (Rom 1:5; Rom 16:26). The "reasonings" (English Version, "imaginations") are utterly "cast down." The "mental intents" (English Version, "thoughts") are taken willing captives, and tender the voluntary obedience of faith to Christ the Conqueror.

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 5. Casting down imaginations] δογισμους. Reasonings or opinions. The Greek philosophers valued themselves especially on their ethic systems, in which their reasonings appeared to be very profound and conclusive; but they were obliged to assume principles which were either such as did not exist, or were false in themselves, as the whole of their mythologic system most evidently was: truly, from what remains of them we see that their metaphysics were generally bombast; and as to their philosophy, it was in general good for nothing. When the apostles came against their gods many and their lords many with the ONE SUPREME and ETERNAL BEING, they were confounded, scattered, annihilated; when they came against their various modes of purifying the mind-their sacrificial and mediatorial system, with the LORD JESUS CHRIST, his agony and bloody sweat, his cross and passion, his death and burial, and his glorious resurrection and ascension, they sunk before them, and appeared to be what they really were, as dust upon the balance, and lighter than vanity.

Every high thing] Even the pretendedly sublime doctrines, for instance, of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics in general, fell before the simple preaching of Christ crucified.

The knowledge of God] The doctrine of the unity and eternity of the Divine nature, which was opposed by the plurality of their idols, and the generation of their gods, and their men-made deities. It is amazing how feeble a resistance heathenism made, by argument or reasoning, against the doctrine of the Gospel! It instantly shrunk from the Divine light, and called on the secular power to contend for it! Popery sunk before Protestantism in the same way, and defended itself by the same means. The apostles destroyed heathenism wherever they came; the Protestants confuted popery wherever their voice was permitted to be heard.

Bringing into captivity every thought] HEATHENISM could not recover itself; in vain did its thousands of altars smoke with reiterated hecatombs, their demons were silent, and their idols were proved to be nothing in the world. POPERY could never, by any power of self-reviviscence, restore itself after its defeat by the Reformation: it had no Scripture, consecutively understood; no reason, no argument; in vain were its bells rung, its candles lighted, its auto da fe's exhibited; in vain did its fires blaze; and in vain were innumerable human victims immolated on its altars! The light of God penetrated its hidden works of darkness, and dragged its three-headed Cerberus into open day; the monster sickened, vomited his henbane, and fled for refuge to his native shades.

The obedience of Christ] Subjection to idols was annihilated by the progress of the Gospel among the heathens; and they soon had but one Lord, and his name one. In like manner the doctrines of the reformation, mighty through God, pulled down-demolished and brought into captivity, the whole papal system; and instead of obedience to the pope, the pretended vicar of God upon earth, obedience to Christ, as the sole almighty Head of the Church, was established, particularly in Great Britain, where it continues to prevail. Hallelujah! the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!

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

5. And bring into captivity I am of opinion, that, having previously spoken more particularly of the conflict of spiritual armor, along with the hinderances that rise up in opposition to the gospel of Christ, he now, on the other hand, speaks of the ordinary preparation, by which men must be brought into subjection to him. For so long as we rest in our own judgment, and are wise in our own estimation, we are far from having made any approach to the doctrine of Christ. Hence we must set out with this, that

he who is wise must become a fool, (1 Corinthians 3:18,)

that is, we must give up our own understanding, and renounce the wisdom of the flesh, and thus we must present our minds to Christ empty that he may fill them. Now the form of expression must be observed, when he says, that he brings every thought into captivity, for it is as though he had said, that the liberty of the human mind must be restrained and bridled, that it may not be wise, apart from the doctrine of Christ; and farther, that its audacity cannot be restrained by any other means, than by its being carried away, as it were, captive. Now it is by the guidance of the Spirit, that it is brought to allow itself to be placed under control, and remain in a voluntary captivity.

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.

(5) Casting down imaginations.—The participle is in agreement with the “we war not” of 2Co_10:3. In the Greek word rendered “imaginations,” we have the noun derived from the verb rendered “think,” or reckon, in 2Co_10:2. It would be better, perhaps, to carry on the continuity by rendering it thoughts, or even reckonings.

Every high thing that exalteth itself.—The noun probably belongs, like “stronghold,” to the language of military writers, and indicates one of the rock fortresses, the

“Tot congesta manu præruptis oppida saxis,”

[“Towns piled high on rocks precipitous,”]

—Virgil, Georg. i. 156.

which were so conspicuous in all ancient systems of defence.

Against the knowledge of God.—The parable and the interpretation are here obviously blended. The thoughts of men resist the knowledge of God as the stronghold of rebels resists the armies of the rightful king.

Bringing into captivity every thought.—The verb is used by St. Paul again in Rom_7:23; 2Ti_3:6. There can be no doubt that “the obedience of Christ “means “obedience to Christ,” and it had better, therefore, be so translated.

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

5. casting down] This is not spoken of the weapons, but of the Apostles.

imaginations] Rather, as margin, reasonings (consilia, Vulgate, counceilis, Wiclif).The rendering ‘imaginations’ comes from Tyndale. St Paul refers to the efforts of human reason to deal with things beyond it, the best corrective of which is and always will be the simple proclamation of God’s message to man.

exalteth itself] Or, is exalted.

against the knowledge of God] For this phrase see Pro_2:5; Hos_6:6; 1Co_15:34; Col_1:10, and the kindred phrase in Isa_11:9; 2Pe_2:20. Here it signifies that by which we know God, i.e. the Gospel. See 1Co_2:10; 1Co_13:12; Gal_4:9.

bringing into captivity] Another military metaphor. See note on 2Co_10:3.

every thought] The word is the same as in ch. 2Co_2:11, 2Co_3:14, 2Co_4:4. It occurs only in Php_4:7 and in this Epistle.

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.

Casting down imaginations,.... Or "reasonings"; the carnal reasonings of the minds of natural men against God, his providences and purposes, against Christ, and the methods of salvation, and every truth of the Gospel; which are all disproved, silenced, and confounded, by the preaching of the word, which though reckoned the foolishness and weakness of God, appears to be wiser and stronger than men; and whereby the wisdom of the wise is destroyed, and the understanding of the prudent brought to nothing:

and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God; every proud thought of the heart, every great swelling word of vanity, every big look, even all the lofty looks and haughtiness of men, with every airy flight, and high towering imagination, reasoning, and argument advanced against the Gospel of Christ; which is here meant by the knowledge of God, and so called, because it is the means of leading souls into the knowledge of God, even into a better knowledge of him than can be attained to, either by the light of nature, or law of Moses; to a knowledge of him, and acquaintance with him in Christ the Mediator, in whom the light of the knowledge of the glory of God is given; and with which knowledge of God eternal life is connected, yea, in this it consists; it is the beginning of it, and will issue in it.

And bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; or "carrying captive the whole understanding"; that is, so illustrating it with divine light, that it clearly sees Christ to be the alone, able, willing, full, and suitable Saviour, and so becomes obedient to him, both as a Saviour and a King; such an enlightened soul looks to him alone for life and salvation, ventures on him, and relies upon him, and is desirous and willing to be saved by him in his own way; he receives and embraces all his truths and doctrines with faith and love, and obeys them from the heart, and cheerfully and willingly submits to all his commands and ordinances; for though he is taken by the grace of God, and all his strong holds, reasonings, and high thoughts are demolished by the power of God in the Gospel, and he himself is carried captive, yet not against, but with his will, to be a voluntary subject of Christ, and cheerfully to submit to the sceptre of his kingdom.

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

5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

Ver. 5. Casting down imaginations] As the spittle that comes out of a man’s month slayeth serpents, so doth that which proceedeth out of the mouths of God’s faithful ministers quell and kill evil imaginations, carnal reasonings, which are that legion of domestic devils, that hold near intelligence with the old serpent. Nemo sibi de suo palpet: quisque sibi Satan est. Corrupt reason, like Eve and Job’s wife, is always drawing us from God. Out-of-doors with this Hagar.

And bringing into captivity] See here the process of St Paul’s ministry. He overthrows, captivates, subdues to the obedience of the Lord Christ. See the like, Jer 1:10. Chosroes, king of Parthia, was so subdued by the Romans, that he made a law that none of his successors should ever wage war with them again. So here.

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.

Casting down imaginations - Margin, reasonings. The word is probably used here in the sense of device, and refers to all the plans of a wicked world; the various systems of false philosophy; and the reasonings of the enemies of the gospel. The various systems of false philosophy were so intrenched that they might be called the stronghold of the enemies of God. The foes of Christianity pretend to a great deal of reason, and rely on that in resisting the gospel.

And every high thing ... - Every exalted opinion respecting the dignity and purity of human nature; all the pride of the human heart and of the understanding. All this is opposed to the knowledge of God, and all exalts itself into a vain self-confidence. People entertain vain and unfounded opinions respecting their own excellency, and they feel that they do not need the provisions of the gospel and are unwilling to submit to God.

And bringing into captivity ... - The figure here is evidently taken from military conquests. The idea is, that all the strongholds of paganism, and pride, and sin would be demolished; and that when this was done, like throwing down the walls of a city or making a breach, all the plans and purposes of the soul, the reason, the imagination, and all the powers of the mind would be subdued or led in triumph by the gospel, like the inhabitants of a captured city. Christ was the great Captain in this warfare. In his name the battle was waged, and by his power the victory was won. The captives were made for him and under his authority; and all were to be subject to his control. Every power of thought in the pagan world; all the systems of philosophy and all forms of opinion among people; all the purposes of the soul; all the powers of reason, memory, judgment, fancy in an individual, were all to come under the laws of Christ, All doctrines were to be in accordance with his will; philosophy should no longer control them, but they should be subject to the will of Christ. All the plans of life should be controlled by the will of Christ, and formed and executed under his control - as captives are led by a conqueror. All the emotions and feelings of the heart should be controlled by him, and led by him as a captive is led by a victor. The sense is, that it was the aim and purpose of Paul to accomplish this, and that it would certainly be done. The strongholds of philosophy, paganism, and sin should be demolished, and all the opinions, plans, and purposes of the world should become subject to the all-conquering Redeemer.

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

Casting down imaginations; logismouv, reasonings; and every high thing, every height of reasoning,

that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God. The great troublers of this church of Corinth were the heathen philosophers, and such as had sucked in their principles; with whose notions, which were conclusions drawn from reason not sanctified and subdued to the will of God, divers doctrines of faith would not agree. St. Paul tells them, that the gospel, (which was the great weapon of his warfare), through the power of God, was mighty to pull down the strong holds which unbelief had in the carnal understanding of men, to overthrow their reasonings, the heights of them, which exalted themselves against the doctrine of faith; and to bring παν νοημα,

every thought, or counsel into a captivity to the obedience of Christ: so as whatsoever was revealed by the apostles from the Spirit of God, men readily agreed and yielded obedience to; whatever their thoughts or reasonlings about it were, they gave credit to it; not because it appeared rational to them, but upon the Divine authority of the revelation; submitting their reason to that, and believing it the most rational thing in the world, that they should believe what God affirmed, and do what God commanded; and this blessed effect the gospel had in all those who heartily embraced it: for indeed to give an assent to a proposition, merely upon a sensible or rational demonstration, is no faith, that is, no Divine faith. Truly to believe, in a Divine sense, is to assent to a proposition upon the credit of the revelation, though we cannot make it out by our reason: and this it is to have our thoughts brought into a captivity to the obedience of Christ. That whereas reason, as it is since the fall subjected in man, riseth up in arms against several Divine propositions, and saith: How can these things be? How can one be three, and three one? How could the Divine and human nature unite in one person? How can the dead rise? &c.: The believer audit verbum Dei et tacet, readeth these things, and others of the like nature, plainly asserted in holy writ, and chides down his reason; resolving to give credit to these things merely because God hath said them, who cannot lie. Thus our νοηματα, thoughts, counsels, reasonings, deliberations, conclusions, all the product of our understanding, is brought into a captivity to the obedience of Christ; and reason itself, which is the governess and mistress of the soul of man, is made a captive to revelation. And in this appeared the mighty power of the weapons of the apostle’s warfare.

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

Destroying all vain reasonings, and every high thing which exalteth itself - As a wall or rampart. Against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought - Or, rather, faculty of the mind. Into captivity to the obedience of Christ - Those evil reasonings are destroyed. The mind itself, being overcome and taken captive, lays down all authority of its own, and entirely gives itself up to perform, for the time to come, to Christ its conqueror the obedience of faith.

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

casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ ;

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.

5. Casting down imaginations. The sophistries of philosophy. By these weapons the soul is rescued, delivered, and brought to the obedience of Christ.

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.

every high thing that rises up

Paul is still speaking with the metaphor of a war, as if "the knowledge of God" were an army and "every high thing" were a wall that people had made to keep the army out. AT: "every false argument that proud people think of to protect themselves"

every high thing

"everything that proud people do"

rises up against the knowledge of God

Paul speaks of arguments as if they were a wall standing high against an army. The words "rises up" mean "stands tall," not that the "high thing" is floating up into the air. AT: "people use so they will not have to know who God is" (See: Metaphor)

We take every thought captive into obedience to Christ

Paul speaks of people's thoughts as if they were enemy soldiers whom he captures in battle. AT: "We show how all the false ideas those people have are wrong and teach the people to obey Christ" (See: Metaphor and Metonymy)

punish every act of disobedience

The words "act of disobedience" are a metonym for the people who commit those acts. AT: "punish every one of you who disobey us" (See: Metonymy)

translationWords

know

God

captive

Christ

punish

disobey

obey

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

5. λογισμοὺς καθαιροῦντες. Returning to στρατευόμεθα (2Co 10:3), or perhaps an anacoluthon from τὰ ὅπλα, like πλουτιζόμενοι (2Co 9:11): seeing that we cast down imaginations (Rom 2:15 only), i.e. ‘reasonings, counsels’ (consilia, Vulg.); ‘we bring to nought workings of the intellect apart from God.’ Comp. ἵνα καταισχύνῃ τοὺς σοφούς … τὰ ἰσχυρά … ἵνα τὰ ὄντα καταργήσῃ (1Co 1:27-28). It is doubtful whether λογισμούς looks back to λογιζομένους.

πᾶν ὕψωμα ἐπαιρόμενον. Every high thing that is lifting itself up; or better, that is being lifted up. If ἐπαιρόμενον is passive, it makes a better antithesis to καθαιροῦντες; and ‘exalt’ is wanted for ὑψόω (2Co 11:7; Mat 11:23; Luk 14:11; Luk 18:14; &c). Comp. δύο δὲ νῆες ἐπαιρόμεναι τῇ νίκῃ (Thuc. VII. xli. 3). In 2Co 11:20 ἐπαίρεται is no doubt middle. Comp. Rom 8:30, where οὔτε ὕψωμα οὔτε βάθος is to separate us from the love of God; and Job 24:24. Apparently πᾶν ὕψωμα is the genus of which λογισμοί are species.

τῆς γνώσεως τοῦ θεοῦ. A periphrasis for the Gospel and all other means of knowing God (Rom 1:19). Comp. πλανᾶσθαι περὶ τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ γνῶσιν (Wis 14:22). S. Paul knew the Book of Wisdom: see on 2Co 5:1.

αἰχμαλωτίζοντες. In the N.T., S. Paul alone uses this metaphor (Rom 7:23; 2Ti 3:6). In Luk 21:24 the verb is used literally.

πᾶν νόημα. Every device, or design: see on 2Co 2:11. Like λογισμοί, it refers to all workings of the natural reason which hinder or corrupt the Gospel. Luther’s rendering, alle Vernunft, has led some to suppose that the Apostle here disallows ‘thinking for oneself,’ and support was thus found for the doctrine fides praecedit intellectum (Deissmann, Bible Studies, p. 73).

εἰς τήν ὑπακοὴν τοῦ χριστοῦ Obedience to the Christ is thought of as the new condition into which they are changed,—from antagonism to loyalty (Col 1:13). Comp. Luk 21:24; Tob 1:10; Jdt 5:18; 1Ki 8:46. Certainly εἰς does not belong to πᾶν νόημα in the sense of ‘against’; ‘every design against obedience to the Christ.’ To express this S. Paul would again have used κατά, as in κατὰ τῆς γνώσεως.

Stanley suggests that this imagery may in part be suggested by the wars of Pompey against Mithridates and the Pirates. The latter “had been raging amongst the hill forts of the Cilician pirates not more than sixty years before the Apostle’s birth, in the very scene of his earlier years, and was ended by the reduction of 120 strongholds, and the capture of more than 10,000 prisoners.” See Appian, Bell. Mith. XII. xiv. 96.

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.

5.] The nom. καθαιροῦντες refers to ἡμεῖς, the implied subject of ver. 4;—this verse carrying on the figure in ὀχυρωμάτων. By λογισμούς he means, as Chrys., p. 585,—τὸν τῦφον τὸν Ἑλληνικόν, καὶ τῶν σοφισμάτων κ. τῶν συλλογισμῶν τὴν ἰσχύν:—but not only these:—every towering conceit κατὰ σάρκα is also included.

κ. πᾶν ὕψ.] And every lofty edifice (fortress or tower) which is being raised (or, raising itself) against the knowledge of God (i.e. the true knowledge of Him in the Gospel: not subjective here, but taken objectively, the comparata being human knowledge, as lifted up against the knowledge of God, i.e. the Gospel itself), and leading captive every intent of the mind (not ‘thought,’ as E. V.: not intellectual subjection here, but that of the will, is intended) into subjection to Christ (in the figure he treats ἡ ὑπακοὴ τ. χριστοῦ, the new state into which the will is brought by its subjection, as the country into which it is led captive: compare Luk 21:24).

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

5. λογισμοὺς καθαιροῦντες. The constr. is doubtful. We can take it back to περιπατοῦντες and στρατευόμεθα, making v. 4 a parenthesis (AV, RV., WH.); but St Paul so frequently has nominative participles without any regular connexion (θλιβόμενοι, 7:5; στελλόμενοι, 8:20; πλουτιζόμενοι, 9:11), that it is likely that we have a similar feature here; ‘Seeing that we demolish seducing reasonings,’ i.e., sophistries and plausible fallacies with which Jews and Gentiles evaded the teaching of the Apostles. Cf. Pro 21:30. There is nothing personal in the warfare which the Apostles wage. They assail arguments and ideas in order to win over those who hold them. They do not attempt to destroy the reasoners in order to stop the arguments. And in demolishing reasonings St Paul did not use πιθοῖς σοφίας λόγοις, thought some missionaries did according to their ability; the spiritual power with which he was endowed sufficed. It is not likely that λογισμούς is meant to refer to λογιζομένους, and in translating the one we need not consider the other. These specious and arrogant λογισμοί belong to a class of which he goes on to speak. Cf. Rom 2:15, the only other passage in which λογισμός is found in N.T.

πᾶν ὕψωμα ἐπαιρόμενον. ‘Every high thing that is lifting itself up.’ In 11:20 ἐπαιρ is midd., and so it probably is here. The metaphor is from walls and towers standing defiantly, rather than barriers hastily thrown up to check progress; but the pass, is possible, that is ‘erected,’ ‘set up,’ as a towering obstacle.

κατὰ τῆς λνώσεως τοῦ Θεοῦ. ‘In opposition to the knowledge of God,’ that true knowledge of Him which comes through acquaintance with One who was the image of God (4:4). St Paul is sure that he possesses this. Cf. τὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ (Rom 1:19), and πλανᾶσθαι περὶ τήν τοῦ Θεοῦ γνῶσιν (Wisd. 14:22). St Paul’s acquaintance with the Book of Wisdom has been already noted. See on v. 4 and v. 1.

αἰχμαλωτίζοντες. Military metaphors still continue, and in N.T. this metaphor of ‘making prisoners’ or ‘taking captive’ is peculiar to St Paul (Rom 7:23; 2Ti 3:6). In Luk 21:24 there is no metaphor. These two military expressions are found in conjunction 1 Macc. 8:10; ᾐχμαλώτισαν τὰς γυναῖκας αὐτῶν, … καὶ καθεῖλον τὰ ὀχυρώματα αὐτῶν. Cf. τὸ κάλλος αὐτῆς ᾐμαλώτισε ψυχῆν αὐτοῦ(Judith 16:9). In Eph 4:8 we have αἰχμαλωτεύω, from Eze 12:3. Both forms of the verb are very freq. in 70; αἰχμαλωτίζω is used by Josephus, Plutarch, Arrian, etc.

πᾶν νόημα. ‘Every device’; see on 2:11. Neither here, where Luther’s alle Venrunft has led some people astray, nor 1Co 4:4, where AV has done the like, does St Paul express disapproval of human reasoning, or deny the right to think for oneself. It is those λοψισμοί and νοήματα which oppose or corrupt the truth to which he here declares hostility. But θαρρῶ εἰς ὑμᾶς (v. 1) does not justify our taking εἰς τὴν ὑπακοήν with πᾶν νόημα, ‘every device against the obedience’; for this we should have had κατὰ, as in κατὰ τῆς γνώσεως.

εἰς τὴν ὑπακοὴν τοῦ χριστοῦ. These words go with αἰχμαλωτίζοντες, ‘taking every opposing design prisoner and bringing it into the condition of submissive obedience to the Christ.’* Cf. Luk 21:24. Submission to Christ is the new land into which they are carried captive; 1Ki 8:46; Judith 5:18; Tobit 1:10. That the imagery of the passage was suggested by the wars of Pompey against Mithridates and the Pirates (Stanley) is less likely than that the wars of the Maccabees were in the Apostle’s mind. But no actual campaign is needed to suggest the metaphors. Cf. Rom 1:5.

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

Casting down [καθαιρουντες] . Not the weapons, but we : we war, casting down, etc.

High thing [υψωμα] . Only here and Rom 8:39. Falling in with the metaphor of strongholds. High military works thrown up, or lofty natural fastnesses with their battlements of rock. The word is also used in the Septuagint and Apocrypha of mental elevation, as Job 24:24, where the Septuagint reads "his haughtiness hath harmed many."

Exalteth itself [επαιρομενον] . Rev., is exalted. Aeschylus uses a similar metaphor in Atossa's dream of the two women whom Xerxes yoked to his chariot : "And the one towered [επουργουτο] loftily in these trappings" (" Persae, " 190).

Bringing into captivity [αιχμαλωτιζοντες] . Or leading away captive. The military metaphor is continued; the leading away of the captives after the storming of the stronghold. See on captives, Luk 4:18. The campaign against the Cilician pirates resulted in the reduction of a hundred and twenty strongholds and the capture of more than ten thousand prisoners. Thought [νοημα] . See on ch. 2Co 3:14.

To the obedience of Christ. In pursuance of the metaphor. The obedience is the new stronghold into which the captives are led. This is indicated by the preposition eijv into or unto.

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