2 Corinthians 6:1

In these verses we have an account of the apostle's general errand and exhortation to all to whom he preached in every place where he came, with the several arguments and methods he used. Observe,

I. The errand or exhortation itself, namely, to comply with the gospel offers of reconciliation - that, being favoured with the gospel, they would not receive this grace of God in vain, Co2 6:1. The gospel is a word of grace sounding in our ears; but it will be in vain for us to hear it, unless we believe it, and comply with the end and design of it. And as it is the duty of the ministers of the gospel to exhort and persuade their hearers to accept of grace and mercy which are offered to them, so they are honoured with this high title of co-workers with God. Note, 1. They must work; and must work for God and his glory, for souls and their good: and they are workers with God, yet under him, as instruments only; however, if they be faithful, they may hope to find God working with them, and their labour will be effectual. 2. Observe the language and way of the spirit of the gospel: it is not with roughness and severity, but with all mildness and gentleness, to beseech and entreat, to use exhortations and arguments, in order to prevail with sinners and overcome their natural unwillingness to be reconciled to God and to be happy for ever.

II. The arguments and method which the apostle used. And here he tells them,

1. The present time is the only proper season to accept of the grace that is offered, and improve that grace which is afforded: NOW is the accepted time, NOW is the day of salvation, Co2 6:2. The gospel day is a day of salvation, the means of grace the means of salvation, the offers of the gospel the offers of salvation, and the present time the only proper time to accept of these offers: Today, while it is called today. The morrow is none of ours: we know not what will be on the morrow, nor where we shall be; and we should remember that present seasons of grace are short and uncertain, and cannot be recalled when they are past. It is therefore our duty and interest to improve them while we have them, and no less than our salvation depends upon our so doing.

2. What caution they used not to give offence that might hinder the success of their preaching: Giving no offence in any thing, Co2 6:3. The apostle had great difficulty to behave prudently and inoffensively towards the Jews and Gentiles, for many of both sorts watched for his halting, and sought occasion to blame him and his ministry, or his conversation; therefore he was very cautious not to give offence to those who were so apt to take offence, that he might not offend the Jews by unnecessary zeal against the law, nor the Gentiles by unnecessary compliances with such as were zealous for the law. He was careful, in all his words and actions, not to give offence, or occasion of guilt or grief. Note, When others are too apt to take offence, we should be cautious lest we give offence; and ministers especially should be careful lest they do any thing that may bring blame on their ministry or render that unsuccessful.

3. Their constant aim and endeavor in all things to approve themselves faithful, as became the ministers of God, Co2 6:4. We see how much stress the apostle upon all occasions lays on fidelity in our work, because much of our success depends upon that. His eye was single, and his heart upright, in all his ministrations; and his great desire was to be the servant of God, and to approve himself so. Note, Ministers of the gospel should look upon themselves as God's servants or ministers, and act in every thing suitably to that character. So did the apostle, (1.) By much patience in afflictions. He was a great sufferer, and met with many afflictions, was often in necessities, and wanted the conveniences, if not the necessaries, of life; in distresses, being straitened on every side, hardly knowing what to do; in stripes often (Co2 11:24); in imprisonments; in tumults raised by the Jews and Gentiles against him; in labours, not only in preaching the gospel, but in travelling from place to place for that end, and working with his hands to supply his necessities; in watchings and in fastings, either voluntary or upon a religious account, or involuntary for the sake of religion: but he exercised much patience in all, Co2 6:4, Co2 6:5. Note, [1.] It is the lot of faithful ministers often to be reduced to great difficulties, and to stand in need of much patience. [2.] Those who would approve themselves to God must approve themselves faithful in trouble as well as in peace, not only in doing the work of God diligently, but also in bearing the will of God patiently. (2.) By acting from good principles. The apostle went by a good principle in all he did, and tells them what his principles were (Co2 6:6, Co2 6:7); namely, pureness; and there is no piety without purity. A care to keep ourselves unspotted from the world is necessary in order to our acceptance with God. Knowledge was another principle; and zeal without this is but madness. He also acted with long-suffering and kindness, being not easily provoked, but bearing with the hardness of men's hearts, and hard treatment from their hands, to whom he kindly endeavoured to do good. He acted under the influence of the Holy Ghost, from the noble principle of unfeigned love, according to the rule of the word of truth, under the supports and assistances of the power of God, having on the armour of righteousness (a consciousness of universal righteousness and holiness), which is the best defence against the temptations of prosperity on the right hand, and of adversity on the left. (3.) By a due temper and behaviour under all the variety of conditions in this world, Co2 6:8-10. We must expect to meet with many alterations of our circumstances and conditions in this world; and it will be a great evidence of our integrity if we preserve a right temper of mind, and duly behave ourselves, under them all. The apostles met with honour and dishonour, good report and evil report: good men in this world must expect to meet with some dishonour and reproaches, to balance their honour and esteem; and we stand in need of the grace of God to arm us against the temptations of honour on the one hand, so as to bear good report without pride, and of dishonour on the other hand, so as to bear reproaches without impatience or recrimination. It should seem that persons differently represented the apostles in their reports; that some represented them as the best, and others as the worst, of men: by some they were counted deceivers, and run down as such; by others as true, preaching the gospel of truth, and men who were true to the trust reposed in them. They were slighted by the men of the world as unknown, men of no figure or account, not worth taking notice of; yet in all the churches of Christ they were well known, and of great account: they were looked upon as dying, being killed all the day long, and their interest was thought to be a dying interest; "and yet behold," says the apostle, "we live, and live comfortably, and bear up cheerfully under all our hardships, and go on conquering and to conquer." They were chastened, and often fell under the lash of the law, yet not killed: and though it was thought that they were sorrowful, a company of mopish and melancholy men, always sighing and mourning, yet they were always rejoicing in God, and had the greatest reason to rejoice always. They were despised as poor, upon the account of their poverty in this world; and yet they made many rich, by preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ. They were thought to have nothing, and silver and gold they had none, houses and lands they had none; yet they possessed all things: they had nothing in this world, but they had a treasure in heaven. Their effects lay in another country, in another world. They had nothing in themselves, but possessed all things in Christ. Such a paradox is a Christian's life, and through such a variety of conditions and reports lies our way to heaven; and we should be careful in all these things to approve ourselves to God.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Ch. 2Co_6:1-10. How God’s Ministers carry on this Work of Reconciliation

1. We then, as workers together with him] Cf. 1Co_3:9, which, together with the context here, shews that our translators, following the Geneva Version, rightly supply ‘with Him’ here. The earlier translations render more literally. Wiclif, helpinge. Tyndale, as helpers.

beseech you] Better with the earlier versions exhort (monesten, Wiclif). See note on ch. 2Co_1:3, 2Co_5:20.

that ye receive not the grace of God in vain] i.e. that ye make not His kindness in being reconciled to you through Jesus Christ useless by neglecting to walk according to the new life He hath given you in Him (ch. 2Co_5:17). That even the new life itself may be so received as to make its reception useless is clear from the words ‘Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit He taketh away.’ Joh_15:2. “For lest they should think that believing on Him that calleth is itself reconciliation, he adds these words, requiring the earnestness which respects the life.” Chrysostom.

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.

2Co_6:1

We then, as workers together with Him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain

Workers together

Once when a number of employees were invited down to Mr.

George Moores country house, Mrs. Moore, going out one morning, met a venerable man standing and staring about him with astonishment at the gardens and buildings. Are you looking for somebody? asked Mrs. Moore. No, said he, I am just looking round about, and thinking what a fine place it is, and how we helped to make it; I have really a great pride in it. Then, with tears in his eyes, he told how he was the first porter for the firm forty years ago, and how they had all worked hard together. (H. O. Mackey.)

The preaching and reception of the Gospel

Consider--

I. The admonishers.

1. Not loiterers, but labourers; therefore they are often compared to husbandmen, builders, soldiers, and fishermen. They who imagine that the ministry of the gospel is an easy work are greatly mistaken.

2. Workers together.

(1) With God. They are engaged in the same cause with Him who would have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Without Him they can do nothing. Melancthon began with too much confidence in himself, and after many fruitless exertions, said, Old Adam is too strong for young Melancthon. But old Adam is not too strong for the God of all grace, who hath said to His ministers, Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.

(2) But the words with Him are in italics, and may be omitted. As if He had said, we differ in our abilities, modes of preaching, etc., and there are some who take advantage of this to form divisions, and say, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas; whereas we are fellow-workers.

II. The subject of their address.

1. What are we to understand by the grace of God?

(1) The source of the gospel. Was it not free in every sense of the word!

(2) Its subject. The gospel is an offer of free, full, and everlasting salvation to sinners.

2. The gospel is received in vain when it is received--

(1) Partially. If you regard it as a system of doctrine only, or as a system of duty only, you only receive one-half of it, and the one cannot live without the other.

(2) Speculatively. I mean in distinction from experience and practice; for such a reception does not accord with the nature and design of it.

(3) Unperseveringly. He only that endureth unto the end shall be saved.

III. The reasons of their anxiety and earnestness. They beseech you.

1. They apprehend the event which very commonly follows. In all ages Gods servants have been compelled to complain, Who hath believed our report? Four soils received the very same seed. Only one of the four yields anything to the purpose.

2. They dread the event as deplorable. They are affected by the thought of it--

(1) On Gods account. They know how He is dis-honoured; Christ is made to have died in vain.

(2) On your own account: they knew that hence will arise your chief sin and condemnation.

(3) On their own account. It is painful in the extreme to plant and not to gather, to sow and not to reap. (W. Jay.)

Receive not the grace of God in vain

I. What this grace of God is. In the language of the schools it is anxilium speciale, that special and immediate furtherance by which God moves us to will and to do. And this is that which St. Paul mentioneth (1Co_15:10-11). But this is not the grace meant in the text, which is the grace of reconciliation by Christ, the doctrine of the gospel, which Christ commanded to be preached to all nations.

II. And what is a gift, if it be not received? Like a meal on a dead mans grave, like light to the blind, like music to the deaf. What is the grace of God without faith? The receiving of it is that which makes it a grace indeed--gospel. We usually compare faith to a hand, which is reached forth to receive this gift. Without a hand a jewel is a trifle, and the treasure of both the Indies is nothing; and without faith the gospel is nothing. Without this receipt all other receipts are not worth the casting up. Our understanding receives light, to mislead her; our will, power, to overthrow her; our affections, which are incorporeal hands, receive nothing but vanity. Our moral goodness makes us not good: our philosophy is deceit. Our habits lift us no further than the place where they grow. But with this gift we receive all things: we receive the favour of our Creator, who in Christ is well pleased.

III. This grace may be received in vain. The philosopher will tell us: All is not in the gift; the greatest matter is in the manner of receiving it. The gospel is grace indeed; but it will not save a devil, nor an obstinate offender. Seneca tells us: A foul stomach corrupts all that it receives, and turns that meat, which should nourish the body, into a disease; and a corrupt heart poisons the very water of life. The grand mistake of the world is in the manner of receiving Christ. To one it is the savour of life unto life; and to others the savour of death unto death (2Co_2:16). Great care then must be taken that we may not receive it in vain. We must receive it to that end it was given. We must receive it as law as well as physic. God gives us this gift, that we may give Him our obedience; and He hath done this for us, that we may do something, even work out our salvation with fear and trembling. This grace, then, we must receive both to save us and instruct us; as a royal pardon, and as a royal law (Jam_2:8). To interline the pardon, and despise the law, makes a nullity: and this is to receive in vain.

1. A pardon we must not interline. For to blend it with the law of works, or our own merits, is to make it void (Gal_2:21; Eph_2:8-9). Works, though they be a condition required of a justified person, yet cannot be brought in as a part or helping cause of our justification.

2. It is equally vain when we receive the grace of God only as a pardon, and not as a law. It is our happiness by grace to be freed from the covenant and curse of the law; but it is our duty, and a great part of our Christianity, to square our lives by the rule of the law. Therefore religion was called in her purer times The Christian law. (A. Farindon, B. D.)

Receiving the grace of God in vain

I. This takes place when it is not used at all--when the great salvation is neglected (2Co_6:2). In vain is it here, within the sphere of our knowledge and the grasp of our faith, if it be simply ignored. Here is gold in a casket or bag, and I am poor, and yet I will not unloose the strings or open the casket. Of what avail to me is that locked-up wealth? Here is seed-corn, and I have fields where it might be sown, yet I will not sow it. Of what avail to me is the seed, or the soil, the sun, or the shower? I am going on a journey through an unknown country, and here is a guide-book, yet I never open it, but go wandering on. That guide-book is as utterly in vain to me as if it were in the depths of the ocean. Ah yes, you say, but the grace of God is not so definite, so available, as the money, etc. Yes it is. It shines out in the light of every Sabbath day; it is the keynote of every true sermon; it is in every providence, whether dark or bright; it is everywhere, and always abundant, sufficient, and free. It is sad that many will not be persuaded of this. When the sleeping mind begins to awake; when the dull heart begins to feel, and the glad discovery breaks on the soul that all this is a present and sure gift of eternal love, then begins the actual reception of the manifold blessings of the gospel; but until then the grace of God, with all its riches which we proclaim and set forth as common property, and free alike to all, is in vain.

II. A thing is received in vain if it is perverted and turned to some alien use.

1. It may be made a cloak for sin. The danger is that we magnify Gods grace and slur over the evils of our own hearts.

2. It may be made a tent for indolence. Somehow we get the comfortable conviction that what has to be done in and by us will be done soon or late, and that we shall have full entrance at length into perfect purity and eternal life.

3. It may be made the signal for perpetual controversy. We are glad of controversy, in proper spirit and measure--it braces the soul; it clears the air; it defends and instrumentally perpetuates the truth among men. But there is hardly anything which runs more easily to excess, and becomes a perversion, and no longer a defence of the grace of God. The grace of God is gracious; and in its prevailing influence ought to lead us into gracious ways, and words, and dispositions.

III. It is received almost in vain if it is used very little and very imperfectly. This is the case with many Christian people. The plough is taken to the field, but does not plough the whole day; or it ploughs one little field, and leaves all the rest fallow. The seed-corn is cast in only in patches, and some of these but thinly sown. Here is a great world of grace brought down to us, waiting for us, and we may have as much or as little as we will. (A. Raleigh, D. D.)

The grace of God received in vain

This is to be understood as--

I. The gospel of His grace (Tit_2:11), or the word of His grace (Act_20:32; Act_14:3), termed the grace of God, because it proceeds from that grace (Luk_1:78-79), displays it, and is the instrument whereby we receive it and its fruits.

II. Redeeming grace.

III. Enlightening grace.

IV. Justifying grace.

V. Regenerating and renewing grace.

VI. Strengthening and qualifying grace (2Ti_2:1).

VII. Comforting grace, which is given that we may be supported amidst all our trials; but in vain, if we are still cast down and decline from God: and that we may comfort others (2Co_1:3-6), but in vain, if this end be not answered. (J. Benson.)

Grace received in vain

Note--

I. How the grace of God has been manifested in revealing unto man the whole course of this method of salvation. This is seen--

1. In the fact that the great God Himself speaks to men. It is grace that He should have anything to do with us. Why did He not, since we put out the light, leave man to grope his way in the dark? What a wonder that God should speak in this way to sinners.

2. In the suitability of the gospel to those to whom it is sent. Here we are vile; there is mercy for the vilest. How beautifully this suits the case of men!

3. In the way God has revealed His holy truth.

(1) By degrees. The great truths that are now taught you the world was not always ripe for. You dont get daylight coming in all its bright glory at once. The Lord gave the first glance of the light of the morning in that sweet promise about the seed of the woman.

(2) At first by types and symbols. When you teach children you dont often make use of abstractions, but you get pictures. Now the Book of Leviticus is Gods object lesson of the gospel. Every lamb was a picture of that true Lamb, and every priest of that true Priest. That whole Temple service pointed to Calvary.

(3) By adapting it to different types of mind.

4. The revelation which God makes of Himself. Suppose you are standing over against some palace, and it is near midnight, and the gates are opened. Forth from that palace gates there comes a procession. The prince has come forth attended by many of his train. He has not gone far, however, before you hear that the prince has dropped a beautiful gem. He is anxious about that gem, not simply for its intrinsic value, but it was the gift of one he loved, and he calls for lights. Now, the light which falls on the road where that gem is lying goes up also into the face of the prince, and while he finds his gem you see him as you never would have seen him but for that loss. Now, it is like that with the revelation of God. When God came forth from the shrouding darkness that had been about Him in His own eternity, to the salvation of men, there was light which, while it was thrown on the poor, lost sinner that he might be found, was thrown upon the face of God, who came to seek him and to save him.

II. When may we be said to receive the grace of God in vain? When men--

1. Do not believe it. Suppose that during the time of that Indian revolt I had been sent by Her Majesty with a commission--say to the Nana Sahib, and I had been told to proclaim to him that if the rebels would come and yield themselves up entirely to her mercy, she would entirely forgive them. But suppose that that fierce ringleader had said to me, Ah, if they can only just get hold of me, I know what mercy they will give me; I know it is too far gone for that. Well now, he has to surrender in three months, or the law is to take its course. The time passes, and the man is captured, and he is brought to the gallows. Now, whose fault is that? You see he received the Queens grace in vain. Now, it is like that when I come and tell you of Gods readiness to pardon, and you wont believe it. You might as well expect a man to be fed by bread that he will not eat as expect a man to be saved by a gospel that he will not believe.

2. Despise it. Yonder there are a number of suffering poor, and of course some are of a very independent spirit. Now suppose I go to some pale, haggard man, and say to him, Here is a ticket for you; if you will apply at yonder office you will get the relief you need, and the man says, Sir, what right have you to talk to me as if I were a pauper? what right have you to suppose I want any mans charity? That poor man is too proud to take help, and to-morrow he is dead on his cottage floor for want of food. Now, whose fault is that? He despises the grace that was offered! That is just how it is with many sinners. They will not have Gods salvation because they cannot buy it. If they could take their little petty, paltry doings, and buy it with their deeds, they would have it. If they could go and purchase it, they would have it; but because they must have it as a gift they despise it.

3. Neglect it. Now suppose that there had been during the time of the great fire at Moscow some miserly wretch up at the top storey of some tall house. There is great trouble in the town, but all he cares about is his gold bags. The alarm bells are ringing in all directions, and everybody is trying to escape; but that old man never listens to the alarm bells, and while he is counting his cash the fire is creeping up the stairs from chamber to chamber till at last it is burning the very joists of the floor on which he stands. You see he neglected the alarm. That is very like the worldling. We go and tell him of danger and salvation. You know if you go and stand by a blacksmiths smithy and you talk to him, he is so busy with the sound of his hammers that he cant hear what you say, and he keeps on hammering in spite of all your remarks, and does not hear a word. So it is with the busy worldling. Busy with the din of their worldliness, they never seem to hear the message. They neglect the great salvation. They do not deny it, but they just leave it alone. Now if you neglect this great salvation you will perish. (S. Coley.)

Grace received in vain

I. The meaning of the apostles caution.

1. What is meant here by grace? Sometimes it denotes the free and unmerited love of God in redemption (Tit_2:11). Sometimes the gospel generally (Joh_1:17). Sometimes all the gracious influences of the Holy Spirit (2Co_12:9). But in the text the word includes not only all the overtures of grace which God has made, but all those ministries by which those overtures may be most easily accepted.

2. Now such is the perverseness of mans will that all these means and ministries may be offered to him to no purpose. The injured Father of our spirits may stretch out His hand, and find there is none to regard it.

(1) Take the instrumentality of the Word. Grace is received in vain.

(a) When the Word is not received in the love of it. Now no place is left for any possible deficiency in the Word itself; in its evidence, that it is not strong enough; in its statements, that they are not clear enough; in its motives, that they are not encouraging enough. It is of no use saying, I cannot see these things in the same light as others do, for we answer, You do not see them because you have never honestly tried to see them, never put up the prayer in earnest, Lord open Thou mine eyes that I may see the wondrous things of Thy law.

(b) When we neglect to apply the gospel message to our own heart and conscience. To have received the incorruptible seed in barrenness is to have received the grace of God in vain.

(2) And so of those communications of divine grace which come to us apart from the agency of the Word. The Holy Spirit speaks to the ear of the inner man by the lessons of Providence, by the ministries of friendship, and the incidents of common life, etc. And to check these inner convictions, as Agrippa did, or to dismiss them, as Felix did, is to receive the grace of God in vain.

II. It is a real option with us whether this grace of God be received in vain or not. It is practically competent to every one to use such means as shall facilitate the effectual influence of grace upon our minds. The best answer to the man who should object that he could do nothing towards his own salvation because he is not the subject of divine grace, is that he does not believe in his own objection, would not act upon it if accident or sudden sickness should threaten him with the probability that he might die to-morrow. And herein it is that the sinner will be condemned out of his own month. Never mind how much or how little he could do towards the making of his peace with God, has he done all he could? He could not cause the glorious light of the gospel to shine into his heart, but was he compelled to close the door against the entrance of that light? Though the ordinances and instrumentalities of grace have the most perfect adaptation to our state and character, they yet demand all the concurrence of our own moral effort, to work within us a saving result. (D. Moore, M. A.)

The dignity of life

(cf. 1Co_3:9):--We are fellow-workers with God. The one thing which increased learning proves to us is the absence of caprice in the government of the world. The one thing forced upon us is the inevitable sequence of cause and effect. If, on the one hand, we seem to sink into the inconsiderable atoms of a whole too vast for the mind to grasp, on the other we rise to the majestic conception that we are fellow-workers with God. Where can we find a thought more fit than this to stir the heart and rouse the courage within us? The false and frivolous view of life that lies at the root of all our evils, shrivels up the worth of our manhood. It is not our own little interests alone, it is the weal and the woe, the growth and perfection of the whole human family around us, which rests upon us. It is nothing short of world-wide interests which hang upon our doing, with truth and honesty, and hearty energy, that little morsel of Gods work we find placed before us. Our own little fragment of it is no longer the sordid shred of a chance struggle for existence, but the distinct though humble portion of Gods great redeeming work. Let us see how this consciousness of the solemnity and reality of life touches all our commonest actions and employments. Our natural business here is intellectual work. To some it becomes merely an interesting amusement for the mind. To many it is a half distasteful necessity which is undergone in obedience to the dictates of society, to fit us to occupy our proper place in life. To still more, perhaps, it represents the preparation for the future struggle of the world. Regard it in its true light, and all these views seem trivial. It is the search for truth. It is the development of ourselves, because it is fitting to improve to its uttermost the gifts we have received. It is something holy; it is the work of God. What is not given here to intellectual training is chiefly given to social intercourse. Now what is that to most of us? A mere seeking of pleasure for pleasures sake, or perhaps an exaggerated recreation-time far beyond our requirements. Such things in the light of the reality and seriousness of life it cannot be. For our social intercourse is then the chosen ground in which our wits clash with those of our fellows, that part of our lives where intercourse with them gives us our only chance of drawing from them good for ourselves or of implanting good in them. It is a time when we may in the most natural way be helping forward the great work of God. Yet certainly some of you will say, according to this, the very fact which makes our calling so high deprives it of all virtue. The very argument on which the glory of our position as fellow-workers with God with all the coercive force it might exert, is rested, is upon necessity. We are workers with Him because everything, for good and evil alike, is like a piece of mechanism of which He keeps the key. Necessity excludes responsibility: we, like the rest, must do as He bids us do. To such an answer neither I nor any other man can give a full reply. We cannot but know that with each of us there lies the momentous choice whether we will consciously give our work to further Gods work, or put ourselves as hindrances to check its way. Hitherto we have found the dignity which hangs about us as the fellow-workers with God in the fact of His universal presence. It is the all-pervading character of His work- and the consequent serious and holy character of life.

which has supplied us with the belief of the grandeur of our calling. Can we not find something which shall raise us with respect to our inner selves to the same height which we have to reach with respect to our outward energy? Now the imagery of my second text seems to give us such a thought. For it leads us to recollect that we are at once the workers and the work, at once the labourers and the husbandry, the builders and the house built. If we grasp the idea of the unity of the world, and of the presence of God in it all, it is plain that while we are acting as Gods fellow-workers upon others, those others will act upon us--that while we are helping the world onwards we shall ourselves be helped. In the general unity it is impossible but that we shall play both parts. While we ourselves are building we must become a portion of the edifice built. And that building is nothing less than the home and temple of Christ. (J. F. Bright, D. D.)

Grace received in vain

I. In what sense is a minister a fellow-worker with god?

1. In the same way that the husbandman, in the fields, works with the elements. Can he do anything without them? And yet, has not God covenanted to send them, to give effect to his labour?

2. In the same way as the mariner works with the wind. The wind bloweth where it listeth, but as he sits at the helm and holds the canvas in his little boat, he is conscious, I am working with the wind.

3. As ambassadors. The ambassador has no pretension to be the king, he is only a favoured subject. Nevertheless, so long as he is an ambassador, he carries the kings credentials, dignity, and power.

II. This great thought of the fellowship which he had in his work with God, St. Paul used to enforce the exhortation not to receive the grace of god in vain. It was as though he said, in reference to his Master, what his Master said in reference to His Father, The words that I speak unto you are not mine, but His that sent me. When he added also, it was because he himself had not frustrated the grace of God, for, as he said to these Corinthians, His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain, so that he was the better prepared to urge upon others not to receive it in vain.

III. What is it to receive grace in vain.

1. We must look at this discriminatingly. No word of God, under any circumstances, is ever vain (Isa_55:10). But every word does not comfort, convince, save. What, then, does it do? It cannot do nothing. Does not it harden, condemn? Is the light not light, when it blinds the eye that is not fitted to receive it? Or is warmth not warmth when it hardens, but does not melt? No; Gods word cannot return void--it must glorify God either in His mercy or in His justice. Therefore the words must be taken only in relation to man, for that which has not produced holiness and peace to us has evidently been in vain.

2. There are several ways by which this sin may be committed.

(1) Many receive the grace of God in vain, in the same sense in which that word is used in the third commandment--in the trifling, irreverent, inconsiderate manner in which they deal with Gods truth. Men go to church almost as if they went to any other assembly. The mind is not set to the sacred tone of the services in which they are mingling. The message of mercy is to them just as a pleasant tale, or a mere matter of criticism and of conversation.

(2) But there are serious people who see the dignity and gravity of religion. But grace has only reached their understanding; it has not gone down into their hearts. They can define faith, but they cannot use faith.

(3) There are those who have felt the power of Christs grace in their hearts; but they have lost it. The force of early convictions has passed away. Many an influence of the Holy Spirit is now being quenched in them. Consider what it will be to have once carried such a treasure, and then to have dropped it!--to have known and loved such a Saviour, and then to have denied Him!

(4) There are those of you who have received the grace of God, but you have never yet known what it is to rest, with a quiet assurance that you are forgiven. Now, when Gods grace came to you it had this express purpose. If, then, you do not quietly accept His love, and settle down in a happy sense of your pardon, then grace is of no effect to you t What use is it, then, to talk of your faith; if you have no confidence? (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

Grace received in vain

I. What is meant by the grace of God? The doctrine of the gospel (Eph_3:2; Col_1:6; Act_20:32; Tit_2:11). And it is so-called because--

1. It is graciously, and out of the free favour of God, bestowed.

2. Its subject-matter is grace. Whatever saving benefit is contained in the gospel, is all from grace.

(1) Forgiveness of sin (Eph_1:7).

(2) Eternal life (Rom_6:23).

(3) Calling (2Ti_1:9).

(4) Faith (Php_1:29).

(5) Repentance (2Ti_2:25).

3. It is the instrument, under the Spirit of God, of bestowing the benefits of free grace upon us. It is an invitation to the benefits of free grace, and it is our warrant of receiving those benefits, and of applying them.

II. The receiving thereof in vain. The word signifies to receive it emptily, unfruitfully, unprofitably. The gospel cannot save us unless it be received; and therefore you read of receiving it (Mat_13:23; Act_2:41; Act_11:1; Act_17:11; 1Th_1:6). But the gospel may be received ineffectually.

1. In regard of the manner of receiving. When we receive it--

(1) Not with an empty hand. When it is not so received as to be empty of the opinion of our own works and righteousness (Luk_1:53).

(2) Not with the highest estimation. When it is not looked upon to be worthy of all acceptation (1Ti_1:15; when it is not received as a pearl of greatest price. If all be not sold for it, soon will it be left for any thing.

(3) Not with the greatest ardency of desire.

(4) Not with a particular fiducial application of Christ, but only by a general assent--i.e., when we receive it into our heads by light, but do not receive it into our hearts by faith. When we receive it only into our ears, lips, and professions; but do not receive it in the soul.

2. In regard of the issue.

(1) When it is not received so as to purify the heart; when men will have an angelical gospel, but will live diabolical lives.

(2) When it doth not quicken us to new obedience. When there is a receiving without returning; when there is no delight in the law of God; when faith is not made incarnate, as Luther speaks, by maintaining good works (Tit_3:8).

(3) When we so receive grace as that it doth not sustain us in our troubles, nor bear us up in our sufferings. When it is not a word of patience (Rev_3:10).

(4) When we so receive grace as not to impart it, and communicate it unto others. If we be living we shall be lively Christians; if we have the life of grace in us, we shall warm others. If we do no good, it is a sign we have got no good.

(5) When it is so received as that thereby we do not obtain salvation. The gospel of salvation, received into your houses, heads, or mouths, brings not any to heaven (Mat_7:23). (W. Jenkin, A. M.)

Divine grace received to profit

(Text and verse 2):--We have here the privileges of the Christian dispensation.

1. Connected with the heart of God.

2. Associated with the services of the ministers of Christ.

3. Looked at as in the hands of confessed Christians.

4. Regarded as the blessing of the present time. We can, however, only deal with two of these topics.

I. What is meant by That ye receive not the grace of God in vain?

1. Merely to hear, is to be like a sick man who is told of a physician, but who does not apply to him; or a poor man who is told of a treasure and does not seek it. They receive the communications in vain.

2. Only to comprehend intellectually the word of Gods grace is to receive it in vain. It is to be like a man who devotes himself to the study of the chemistry of food, but who neglects to eat. Of what advantage is his knowledge?

3. Only to be pleased with the Christian manifestations of the grace of God, is to receive it in vain. This is like a man who, delighting in good advice, follows his own counsel.

4. To believe what is said of the grace of God without a personal application of those words, is to receive it in vain. It is to be like a man in a house on fire, who sees a way of escape, but does not flee. He will be burned.

5. Anything short of a complete use and enjoyment of the grace of God, is in measure, to receive it in vain. If present pardon, e.g., be not enjoyed as well as possessed, then, in a certain limited sense, it is received in vain.

II. If the grace of God come to us in a time accepted, and in a day of salvation, it cannot be received prematurely, and therefore we ask you to receive it. Open your mouth wide, open your hands and stretch out your arms and receive.

1. This is Gods giving time.

2. This is Gods redeeming time. He is working out your personal salvation on the basis of the sin offering, which His own Son has made.

3. This is your needy time. You will never be more needy than you are now. God seeks to drive that need away, and to fill you with blessings. It is true that you are guilty and most unworthy, but you may receive. Receive, then, to the highest purpose. Receive to the largest extent. Some professing Christians are like cups turned upside down. They will have to be converted before they can be filled. Your capacity to receive will have to be directed heavenward. Let a cup or any vessel be placed on the angle, and can you fill it? Just so with your religion. It must be true to God, to the Saviour, to the Spirit, or you cannot be filled with the fulness of God. (S. Martin.)

The needful caution

I. The exhortation explained. The subject is the grace of God. The great plan of reconciliation is the grace of God in question.

1. This is called the grace of God by way of eminence, because--

(1) The gift of Jesus Christ is the highest display of the goodness of God to man (1Jn_4:10; 1Jn_3:1; Rom_8:32).

(2) It is that which procures for us all other-blessings.

2. Now this grace is to be received

(1) The mind must have a clear perception of it. Many call this head-knowledge; but is not our religion to be in all knowledge and spiritual understanding? If we knew more, we should love more.

(2) The heart must receive the Saviour. With the heart man believeth unto righteousness.

(3) There must be a practical reception of this grace--an adorning of it in the conduct; not talking, but working. Thus the judgment, the affections, the life, all receive the grace of God.

3. Now this grace must not be received in vain. Many have so received it.

(1) The light within has become darkness, and how great is that darkness.

(2) The love they once had, where is it? Their hearts are a moral icehouse.

(3) Their ways now have no tendency to glorify God.

II. The exhortation enforced.

1. From a consideration of the value of the benefit--Gods greatest gift.!--the astonishment of heaven! We value a thing occasionally--

(1) By the amount it cost us. But, ah! we know not what was the value of this, for, though it was bestowed freely, it cost heaven all!

(2) From what it purchased for us. It redeems from death and purchases heaven. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?

2. From the fact that if this be received in vain, every other benefit is in vain. All the sermons you have heard, all the prayers, all your afflictions, convictions, all the strivings of Gods Spirit, etc. In vain pious parents, a religious education, early impressions, good resolutions, etc.

3. From the punishment awaiting such a one.

4. Because this is the only day in which you can receive the grace of God. When time ends with thee, then eternity. Time is the term for thy salvation. (J. Summerfield, A. M.)

Grace given in vain

In the Eastern country, as I dare say you have heard, there are great deserts of sand. For many miles in every direction, you can see nothing but bare and barren sand. You might dig down and down, and you would still find nothing but sand until you came to the hard rock. Nothing grows in these deserts, as you may imagine; nothing can grow there. When the rain which brings greenness and fertility, grass and corn and palm trees, everywhere else, falls on this barren, sandy tract, it does no good at all. It just sinks in for a time until the surface is baked again by the hot sun, and then it rises up again in vapour. Anywhere else it would clothe the soil with greenness; but here it is useless--it does no good. Now what a picture this is of the heart that receives and does not obey Gods grace I As the rain would render the soil fertile with grass and corn, so Gods grace would inspire the heart of man with good thoughts and good actions. As the raindrops, when they fall upon the sand, are wasted and made useless, so the divine grace, the pleadings of the Blessed Spirit, falling upon a heart that obstinately neglects them, or refuses them, or resists them, not only bring forth no fruit, but lay up for the impenitent sinner a heavy load of guilt and of punishment. (The Literary Churchman.)

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

2Co 6:1-2. We then, as workers together with him — Being employed by God in such an important embassy, we prosecute it, and beseech you that ye receive not the gospel of the grace of God — Which announces such glad tidings of salvation; or the free, unmerited favour and Spirit of God, offered and pressed upon you in the gospel; in vain — Which they do in whom this divine grace does not answer the end for which it was designed; does not render them godly and righteous, wise, good, and holy, in this present world, Tit 2:11-13. For he saith — (Isa 49:8,) where God the Father speaks to the Messiah, and engages to give him the Gentiles as an accession to his church, and a reward of his mediatorial undertaking; I have heard — Or, I will hear thee, in the days of thy flesh, when thou shalt offer up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears, (Heb 5:7,) though not so as to deliver thee from death, yet so as to support thee under thy sufferings, and give a blessed success to thy labours. And in the day of salvation — In the time which I have appointed for effecting man’s redemption and salvation; have I succoured — Or, will I succour and assist thee in thy work. Thus the Messiah says, (Isa 50:7,) The Lord God will help me, therefore shall I not be confounded. Behold now, says the apostle, is the accepted time — There spoken of, wherein such a rich treasure of saving grace is dispensed to the church, whether consisting of Jews or Gentiles, and offered to all: therefore, as if he had said, Lose not this gracious season, but improve it by accepting the offered blessings, and using them to the glory of the great and glorious Giver. This verse must be read as a parenthesis, the next being connected with the first.

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

I, 2. Paraphrase. 'Now it is as coöperators with God in this work that we exhort you not to make the grace of God fruitless in your life by continuing in sin. (2) For God has told us in Scripture of a time of grace and of a day of salvation; and this is that blessed time of grace and that day of salvation.'

1. Workers together with him] For the idea cp. 1Co_3:9. In vain] i.e. by an unholy life.

2. He (i.e. God) saith] The v. is a parenthesis. The reference is to Isa_49:8, God's words of comfort to His Suffering Servant. Behold, now, etc.] This is St. Paul's comment on the quotation. Accepted time] RV 'acceptable time.'

3-10. Paraphrase. 'We avoid all conduct which might bring reproach upon our ministry; (4) and try, on the contrary, to commend ourselves by acting as true ministers of God. (5) This is our aim in all the trials and persecutions we endure, (6, 7) for we seek to exhibit all the Christian graces both in our life and in our teaching. (8) Whether we are held in honour or defamed our object is the same: (9) we are looked upon as deceivers, but we remain true; we are obscure, but known by our work; we are often at death's door, but through God's grace we live; (10) we are cast down, but are enabled to rejoice through Christ; in our poverty we enrich many with spiritual blessings; though having nothing of ourselves we have all through Christ.'

3. Giving no offence] The main sentence beginning in 2Co_6:1 is here resumed, these words being in apposition with 'we as workers together with him.'

4. Approving ourselves] RV 'commending ourselves,' i.e. by our conduct in the various circumstances detailed.

In much patience, etc.] The Apostle's desire to commend himself is shown (a) in endurance of hardship and trouble (2Co_6:4); (b) in the persecutions and dangers incidental to a missionary life (2Co_6:5); (c) in the purity and sincerity of his Christian life (2Co_6:6-7); (d) by his conduct in presence of friends and enemies (2Co_6:8); (e) by the manner in which he met the ordinary experiences of his life (2Co_6:9-10).

5. Stripes] cp. Act_16:23; 2Co_11:23-33.

Imprisonments] Act_16:23; 2Co_11:23. Tumults] Act_13:50; Act_14:5, Act_14:19; Act_18:12; Act_19:23.

6. By] RV 'in.' The preposition 'in' is unchanged until the last clause of 2Co_6:7, 'by the armour,' etc.

The Holy Ghost] the translation, 'in a holy spirit,' is tempting, as it brings the clause into parallelism with the others.

7. By the word of truth] i.e. in the preaching of the gospel.

By the power of God] i.e. in his exercise of all the powers entrusted to him by God. The armour of righteousness, etc.] The right-hand weapon was the sword for attack, the left the shield for defence. The Apostle's methods were fair and open, whether in attacking idolatry and vice or in defending himself against traducers.

8. As deceivers] probably refers to the charges of his opponents.

10. Making many rich] i.e. with spiritual gifts. Possessing all things] i.e. all things of value for life and character in this world and a rich inheritance in the world to come: cp. 1Co_3:22-23; 2Co_4:18; 2Co_5:1.

11-13. The Apostle assures them of his deep affection for them before he lays upon them the strict injunctions which might prove unwelcome.

12. Ye are not straitened, etc.] i.e. there is abundant room in my heart for you, but too little hitherto in yours for me.

Bowels] RV 'affections'; as frequently in Scripture.

13. A recompence in the same] A return for his affection.

14-16. Paraphrase. 'Do not become entangled in alliances of any kind with unbelievers to your spiritual hurt. There is no relation possible between holiness and sin, between light and darkness, (15) between Christ and Satan, between the true and the untrue, (16) between the worship of God and the worship of idols: for we are indeed the very temple of the living God; and it is of us that He speaks in His Word, promising to dwell in us and to commune with us, making us His peculiar people, and calling us to purify ourselves and become worthy children of our heavenly Father.'

14. Unequally yoked together with unbelievers] The ever-present and ever-pressing temptation and danger was that they might be led into immorality through the abominable rites of idol-worship: cp. 1Co_5:9, 1Co_5:11; 1Co_6:15; 1Co_8:10-11; 1Co_10:14. Unequally] better, 'incongruously.'

15. Christ with Belial] For the idea cp. Mat_6:24

Belial] Here used as a synonym for the devil. The meaning of this name is doubtful. There is no trace of the worship of any god under this name. It is used in the OT. in such expressions as 'sons of Belial,' 'men of Belial,' meaning 'wicked men': 1Sa_2:12; 1Sa_25:17, 1Sa_25:25; 2Sa_20:1; 1Ki_21:10.

16. The temple of the living God] cp. 1Co_3:16, 1Co_3:17. Ye] RV 'we,' according to the best Gk. MSS. God hath said] i.e. in the Scriptures: see on Lev_26:12.

17. Saith the Lord] The words quoted are from Isa_52:11, freely rendered (2Co_6:17), with echoes of other OT. passages (2Co_6:18) like 2Sa_7:8; Isa_43:6; Hos_1:10.

2Co_7:1. These promises] given in 2Co_6:16-18.

Filthiness] RV 'defilement.' Of the flesh and spirit] cp. Psa_24:4. Perfecting holiness] For the thought cp. 2Co_3:18; Heb_6:1; Heb_12:14.

J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL NOTES

This chapter wrongly isolated at both ends by the customary division of the book. Connection quite closely continuous between 2Co_5:20-21 and 2Co_6:1; as also between 2Co_6:17-18 and 2Co_7:1.

2Co_6:1. Workers together.—With whom? Choose between

(1) God, and

(2) Christ. For

(1) is the repeated use of “beseech,” in 2Co_5:20; 2Co_6:1; for

(2) the “scheme” of the passage (see Homily on 2Co_5:20), according to which Paul and his fellow-ambassadors are doing in His (bodily) absence the work of the Great Ambassador. But for (I) it is pointed out that what Paul here urges is not precisely His message, “Be reconciled,” but an exhortation to those who are “reconciled.” (Also cf. 1Co_3:9.) “Receive,” “acceptable,” “receive” (2Co_6:17) [but not 2Co_7:2], have all the same root, and give a real link of thought. Beseech.—In the (usual) threefold sense of entreaty, exhortation (and consolation). In vain.—Cf. 1Co_15:13; 1Co_15:17; Gal_2:2; Php_2:16.

2Co_6:2.—Isa_49:8, as in LXX. Paul’s comment begins at “Behold,” etc. A new section of Isaiah begins at 49. Cheyne heads 49–57, “Vicarious Atonement” (cf. 2Co_6:2). Kay, in Speaker, points out that in Isa_58:5 the Day of Atonement is joined with the idea “day of acceptance.” He adds: “The word for ‘answered’ is the same that occurs in Psa_22:21; where a Sufferer, who had been ‘a reproach of men and despised of the people’ (Psa_22:6), receives an answer from God in the crisis of His agony, and proclaims that ‘all the ends of the earth’ shall remember and turn to the Lord (Psa_22:27).”

2Co_6:3.—Connect closely with 2Co_6:1; 2Co_6:2 parenthetical. Giving.—Viz. Paul (and his fellow-ambassadors); not the Corinthians. Offence.—“Occasion of stumbling.” Ministry.—I.e. the administration, the discharge, of his function as “an ambassador.” Note, close (verbal) parallel with 2Co_8:20. “The original does not mean that he succeeds in giving no offence, but only that he tries to give none” (Waite, in Speaker). Blamed.—By the human observer, whether Christian or non-Christian.

2Co_6:4. Commending.—Cf. 2Co_3:1; illustrate by Rom_5:8. Ministers.—Not “the ministers” (1Co_3:5). Stanley paraphrases somewhat: “Crushing afflictions, pressure of difficulties, narrow straits. The prevailing idea is of pressure and confinement; each stage narrower than the one before, so that no room is left for movement or escape.” [Illustrate the imagery by Luk_12:50; Php_1:23; the word is different.] Cf. with this enumeration 2Co_11:23 sqq. The outer life of an apostle.

2Co_6:5. Tumults.—Possibly “unsettlement of life” (cf. 1Co_4:11) (Stanley). More likely such as Act_14:5; Act_14:19; Act_19:24. “These probably stand last [of the hardships inflicted by men], partly because they were attended with peril of life and were often designed to destroy him, and partly because they were the occasion of a peculiar injustice, for the first Christian missionaries were accused of raising them and had to bear the infamy and the punishment” (Waite). [Examples of this are in Act_17:6 (Act_21:38).] Watchings.—“Spells of sleeplessness” (Farrar), whilst working for bread. Fastings.—Involuntary, from sheer poverty. Cf. 2Co_11:9; Php_4:10-12.

2Co_6:6.—Stanley compares the rhythmic form of this whole passage with Romans 8 sub. fin, and 1 Corinthians 13. Here the form of the words, rather than the thought, governs the order. “Each word stands singly without any apparent connection, as it came uppermost in his thoughts” (Stanley). Note, keep “in,” as in 2Co_6:4-5; not “by.” Purity.—Of conduct and heart and motive. Longsuffering, kind.—As in 1Co_13:4. Unfeigned love.—As Rom_12:9.

2Co_6:7. By.—Accurate from “armour” onward. Armour.—See in Rom_6:13 (which is literally “weapons [=armour here] of unrighteousness”), 2Co_13:12 (where “works” stands contrasted with “armour”), 2Co_10:4. “Armour” is, of course, a soldier’s whole armament, offensive and defensive. “In Paul’s usual sense of righteousness by faith” (Beet), is surely too specialised a meaning; rather, integrity of speech and action, are sword and shield, “on right hand and on the left.”

2Co_6:8.—“By the approbation which his conduct evokes in good men, and by the dishonour it provokes from the bad, Paul recommends himself. For the approval of the good and the hostility of the bad alike proved that he was doing God’s work.” (Beet.) He had had both “honour and dishonour” at Corinth (1Co_4:12). Deceivers.—2Co_2:17; 2Co_4:2; the very word is used of him in the Clementine Homilies, though he is not named. [The quotation and an account of the Homilies are readily accessible in Stanley, Apostolic Age, pp. 378–379.]

2Co_6:9. Dying.—“So great is their peril that they seem actually falling into the grave.… Yet in the moment of apparent destruction suddenly comes deliverance.… Behold.… Graphic picture (as in 2Co_6:17), retaining even the exclamation of wonder at the unexpected deliverance.” (Beet.) Act_14:19-20 almost exactly gives the sentence pictorial embodiment. Chastened.—Well illustrated by Isa_53:4 (as suggested by Beet).

2Co_6:11.—“The veil, which had hitherto been hung between the Apostle and his readers, is suddenly rolled away; we see them standing face to face; his utterance, so long choked by the counter-currents of contending emotions, is now, for the first time, clear and distinct (‘our mouth is opened’), and for the only time in the two Epistles he calls them by name. With the loosing of his tongue his heart opens also; that heart, which was ‘the heart of the world,’ opens to receive in its large capacities his thousand friends: whatever narrowness of affection, whatever check to the yearnings of the soul, between them might exist, was not on his part, but on theirs; the only reward which he claimed for his paternal tenderness was a greater openness from them, his spiritual children.” (Stanley.)

2Co_6:12. Straitened.—Same word radically as in 2Co_6:5. Bowels.—I.e. practically, “heart” (Php_2:1).

2Co_6:13. In the same.—“In like kind” (R.V.).

2Co_6:14.—In any voluntary companionship; marriage is only one particular case of a general rule. Be not.—Really “become not,” as if to assume that there was as yet no actual union (?). Yoked.—On a similar principle of discovering a world-wide principle in a Levitical enactment, as in 1Co_9:9, here Deu_22:10 is widened, “spiritualised.” [Waite adduces Lev_19:19, and notes the strong antipathy of the Levitical code to any interference with the original ordinance, “after their kind.” See the “Johannean” antithesis of “light” and “darkness.”]

2Co_6:15. Belial.—Not really a proper name. Such a use of the word is due to the Vulgate. Very frequent in the Old Testament for “worthlessness,” “recklessness,” “lawlessness” (see 2Co_6:14). “The term as used in 2Co_6:15 is generally understood of Satan, as the personification of all that is bad; Bengel explains it of Antichrist, as more strictly the opposite of Christ” (Smith, B.D., sub. v.). Infidel.—Only means as much as “unbeliever.”

2Co_6:16. Temple.—“The,” not “a”; 1Co_3:16-17 shows this symbolism one of the “stock”—the staple—ideas of Paul’s religious thought. Lev_26:11-12, freely quoted from LXX.; part of a solemn summing up of the blessings and the real scope of the Mosaic economy.

2Co_6:17-18.—Isa_52:11, freely quoted from LXX., and continued still more freely with reminiscences of Eze_20:34 (which refers to the same gathering out from Babylon), and perhaps of 2Sa_7:14. “Daughters” may be a reminiscence of Isa_43:6; the sexes are equal “in Christ.” [The manner of quotation has no necessary bearing upon the views of the New Testament writers re the Inspiration of the Old Testament. Preachers and writers who have believed in the strictest “dictation” theory of Inspiration, have nevertheless always felt free to quote either freely from memory, or intentionally ad sensum only, or paraphrastically, or with verbal exactness, as might be needed for their purpose.]

HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.—2Co_6:1-10

The Work and Outer Life of Ambassadors (2Co_5:20).

I. Their appeal (2Co_6:1-3).

II. Their credentials (2Co_6:4-10).

I.

1. Mark’s Gospel, as usually read, closes with a good epitome of the Acts of the Apostles, and indeed of all the subsequent history of the Christian Church (Mar_16:19-20). “He was received up into heaven.… They went forth and preached everywhere … the Lord working with them.” Question of exact exposition, rather than of any practical moment, with whom these “co-workers” labour (see Critical Notes). In point of fact it is raised only between two aspects of the same great truth. The earthly workers do not labour in any isolation of merely human strength or wisdom. They are not left by their Divine Lord “to their own devices,” or to their own resources. They are directed from above; they draw their supplies of strength from above; the communication is close and continuous between the Great Ambassador, Who in bodily presence has withdrawn from men’s sight, and the human representatives who are carrying on and carrying out His work below (see Homily on 2Co_5:20). In all review of the conditions of the work, and in all estimates of its “chances” of success at any given juncture, or in the face of any given combinations of obstacles, account must be taken of the Divine Worker, Who is not simply looking on at the workers, but is actively engaged in it all. They are “workers together with Him.” The appeal, therefore, is not theirs, but His; like that in 2Co_5:20.

2.

(1) The appeal is to those who have already responded to that earlier one. They are “reconciled”; they have “received the grace of God.” But that did not finish the work of their “salvation.” “Salvation” in its full sense only began when they were “reconciled to God” in the moment of their faith in the Sinless Substitute. True they were then “saved,” in regard to the penalty of sins; in that moment they came into a new relationship to God. But the Gospel contemplates a larger salvation than this: “that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” In the moment of—in Pauline phrase—their justification, a work began, in which they “co-operate” with the Spirit and grace of God throughout all their after-course. In Birth a Life began. To what shall it grow? How far shall life develop? Shall it develop to nothing? Born “in vain.” After many fights and many victories shall life end in defeat and death? Fighting “in vain.” Shall the Exodus from Egypt end in death in the wilderness, even seeing Canaan from some Nebo-top of vision and yet not entering? Brought out of bondage “in vain.” Shall tho Seed of the Great Sower be “received” [a related word, in Mar_4:20] in good soil, indeed, but so choked with thorns, or so thin a covering of the unbroken rock, that, after a hasty, or a rankly vigorous growth, the seed flags and withers, and the sower has sown in these particular hearts “in vain”? In the first Gift indeed were all subsequent gifts; the first Grace had in it the possibility of all gifts besides. But it is a Talent, a Pound, with which a man must trade, or it has been received in vain. God’s work well begun may end in “failure,”—“failure,” that is, so far as the individual is concerned; no doubt what in their proximate purpose are “failures,” serve some larger end, and contribute to the success of God’s whole Great Plan.

(2) “In vain” may carry the analysis of failure further back. The very message “Be reconciled” may never be responded to. It is “grace” that such a message is committed at all to ambassadors who may bear it even to unwilling, unready ears. It is “grace” that there ever was a Great Ambassador, Who has also been “made sin for us,” etc. Very many know the fact, hear the message, but never give any practical response to it. So far as they are concerned, and for any use they make of it, Christ’s death might have been non-existent. They pass by the Cross, and “die in their sins” (Joh_8:21; Joh_8:24). For them the grace of God has been “received in vain,” to no purpose. It has ended in an empty issue.

(3) By persistent inattention the heart may lose its ear for God’s voice. By persistent worldliness, and much more by continued sins of sense, or covetousness, or unholy anger, and the like, the Spirit is grieved. He may be grieved away. If He withdraw,—the case is, one hopes, exceedingly rare,—the power to take the “grace of God,” offered as it is, is gone. By neglected prayer, by ill-spent Sabbaths, by secret omissions of, perhaps at first, small duties, the Spirit of reconciling “grace” may be constrained to withdraw His aid. Willing as He is to co-operate, He is never simply at men’s call and bidding; the power to fulfil man’s part in making lastingly fruitful use of “the grace of God,” is not guaranteed to be always at man’s absolute command. “If we fail to put to practical use in the details of life the spiritual benefits received by the favour of God, even His favour to us becomes to us a useless and empty thing. An unread Bible, a wasted Sunday, and such knowledge of the truth as does not mould our life are the grace of God received in vain.” (Beet.)

(4) This appeal agrees with all those cautions and warnings of the Word of God which proceed upon the assumption that “the grace of God” may really be “received” and yet not be suffered to issue in a final salvation. The racer may run for a great part of his course, and never finish it, so missing the prize of the calling which reached him from on high (Php_3:14). Salvation wants “making sure.”

3. The encouragement they give to their hearers.—Provision is abundantly secured for their making “a good finish”; provision against every emergency which may arise. Prompt, present, sufficient help. They need never yield, need never be overcome, need never be entangled or overwhelmed. There is always a “now” salvation (see Separate Homily).

4. Their appeal is παράκλησις.—A preacher’s matter needs to be as varied as the varied aspects of Divine truth. He must also speak not only in many portions, but in many manners. A preacher’s method must be varied: entreaty, exhortation, consolation,—all will be needed by the varying types of hearers, and their ceaselessly varying moods or circumstances. [An associate pastorate ought to supply this better than any but a few exceptionally many-sided men can do. Many ambassadors are needed to express and represent the One Great, and only Universal, Ambassador.] But he will never be satisfied, who is a true co-worker with God, unless by every variant of tone and manner and method of appeal he succeeds in so arousing, or hastening, or heartening those to whom he is sent, as that the “grace” of reconciliation once “received” shall end in the abundant success of the heavenly life.

5. Observable here, as everywhere, how Paul grounds his appeals upon, or strengthens his instructions by, references to the Old Testament Scriptures. It is hardly sufficient to say: “Of all the Epistles, however clear the evidence in some instances that they are addressed to those who have been originally heathens, there is not one which does not imply a familiar acquaintance with Jewish Customs and with the Scriptures of the Old Testament” (Stanley, Apostolic Age, p. 200). Paul’s practice is exactly that of a modern missionary to a heathen land. He, like Paul, believes that in even the Hebrew Scriptures he has a word of universal address; an instrument of universal applicability and force; a message, to listen to which is an obligation upon all men, Jews or Gentiles, and which, as matter of experiment, has vindicated its universal cogency by the demonstration of the Spirit, which accompanied it, and before which even Gentile Christians bowed; in acknowledgment of the Divine force of argument and appeal; in acknowledgment of the Divine truth of a teaching which based itself, even for them, upon Scriptures which hitherto only their Jewish brethren had been accustomed to accept and submit to, as being of God. Paul knew no better arguments for Gentiles than those he would have used, and did use, for his fellow-Israelites. It was as illogical, but as self-justifying, as the similar use of the same Scriptures by a Christian missionary in his appeals to a heathen or a Mahometan heart. The historical occasion or embodiment is local, national, but the teaching of the Old Testament is part of God’s revelation for all men. The principles of His action, and especially of His redemptive action, never change. In Old Testament or New Testament He is the same God in Christ. The Old Testament quotations of which this chapter is so remarkably full, carry with them, and contain within them, universal truth. Paul is no Jew merely dealing as a Rabbi with a great literary monument of the past of his nation. He is a Christian ambassador who finds that “every scripture inspired of God is profitable” for Gentile as well as for Jew.

II. The ambassador’s credentials.—

1. He carries credentials. Paul claimed that he needed no credentials to Corinth, except the witness in every Corinthian Christian’s heart of the effectiveness with which the human ambassador had discharged his function. Every “reconciled” Corinthian, rejoicing that he had “received the grace of God,” welcomed Paul without further “letters commendatory” (2Co_3:1). But to others, the ambassador, “the minister of God,” commends himself as such by the many tokens which, in almost rhythmic array, he proceeds to enumerate. Saved men are seals to a man’s ministry; but until they are saved, he must have a commission whose validity is attested by many another seal.

2. And what a series!—The first is negative, but not a thing of small moment. He is careful that nothing in his personal conduct, and nothing in the manner of his official life, shall be a stumbling-block to Jew or Gentile. No thoughtless, inconsistent, offensive behaviour; e.g. no “lording it over the heritage of God”; no selfish, self-indulgent use of his Christian liberty or of his Apostolic privileges to their fullest extent, regardless, reckless, of the consequences, direct or indirect, to others. His life and example, who is an ambassador, a minister, of Christ will for that reason carry weight beyond those of an ordinary Christian, whether for good or evil, for helpfulness or occasion of stumbling. Each particular case of inconsiderateness, or inconsistency, or sin in him will be generalised—as good example will usually not be!—and made representative of the class to which he belongs. Their “administration” of the commission to exhort men to “be reconciled to God,” with all that such a reconciliation carries with it, will be brought into disrepute, and “blamed,” if the “ministers of Christ” be unworthy or unfaithful in their personal or official life. Note how careful Paul is of the reputation of the whole body of fellow-workers. There is none of that self-centered strength, or pride, which, calling itself “independence,” goes forward on its own course, whatever be the bearing of its action upon the world’s estimate of the ministry and its work. This noble man acts as if put in trust with the reputation of the whole number. “He felt that the influence of Christianity upon the world depended very much upon the collective impression made by its prominent advocates, and that this impression would be determined in no small measure by his personal conduct. He was therefore careful so to act in everything as to cause no spiritual injury to any one, lest such injury might lessen the collective influence of the leaders of the Church.” (Beet.) He is wanting in one of the first credentials of the true minister, who is not sensitive lest his own discharge of his function should in any way prejudice his brethren in the ministry of the word of reconciliation. The true ambassador will feel that the honour, first of the Great Ambassador, and next of his human co-workers, is in some degree in his hands. Responsibility for holding it high rests upon each single man.

3. Then follow, in startling series, the positive seals of a valid commission, the notes of a true ambassador. (Consult Critical Notes upon these.) Observe in 2Co_6:4-6 how the very “penalties” of his Apostolic character and work, the strokes of man’s injustice, and even of his own people’s niggardliness, are by a wondrous alchemy of grace transformed into tokens by which he knows, and by which others know, himself a true ambassador. [In Gal_6:17 the scars which mark his body, every one of them with a memory and a history to himself, are the brands of Christ’s ownership.] “If I had none of these troubles, I should begin to doubt whether I were in the ministry. If the world, or the Church, saw none of these things in me, if I slipped through cheaply, escaping all such hardships, they might ask whether indeed I really belonged to the body of ambassadors.” The “popular preacher” who gets everybody’s good word may well pray to be kept on his guard against his Master’s woe (Luk_6:26).

4. These are credentials which others make for him, though he wears them as his badge of service. But next follow some for which himself must take thought. A man needs to watch his own spirit with closest vigilance, in the midst of the persecution of the cruel world, under their false accusations, and when even within the Church he is opposed by “unreasonable and wicked men” (2Th_3:2), when an ungrateful Church leaves him to toil far into the night for the bread which his labour spent on them in the daytime deserved that they should provide. “Longsuffering” will have much occasion to train it in full beauty and strength. “Love unfeigned,” indeed “love” at all, will be a triumphant vindication of the grace of God in a Paul whose apostleship is challenged. He will take care that, so far as depends upon himself, “the Holy Ghost” shall dwell within him in fulness of power. In motive and act he will “keep himself pure.” It will be a further credential, appealing to any critic or opponent who will think, “This man is growing and ripening, day by day, in knowledge of Divine things. He is certainly qualified to be a minister of Christ to me.” And, above all, when such an opponent sees an ungrudging “kindness” which, Godlike, spends itself upon even “the unthankful and the evil,” he says rebuked and self-convicted, “That man is really a minister of Christ.”

5. Then come the many points on which true ministers, whose commission still runs in full validity, will guard their own spirit and inner life. Misunderstood, condemned of men, they will so keep themselves blameless that, whilst “righteousness” of motive and dealing may now and then be the weapons of offence and defence, they may far oftener leave their reputation in the hands of Him Who knows them to be no “deceivers,” etc., and meanwhile go steadily on with their work and “ministry.” Even life itself, often endangered, shall be safe in His keeping, Who will give many a startling deliverance, which shall be rather a resurrection than a mere deliverance. But no credential will be more forcible in its appeal for recognition than this: “We possess all things. We make many rich.” “Great poverty, but great peace.” “Always rejoicing!” Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians is a fine illustration of the true Christian cheerfulness, written as it was amidst circumstances naturally calculated to distress and depress and daunt. [Says Bradburn, an intimate associate of John Wesley’s later days: “It was almost impossible to be dull or dissatisfied in his company.… I never saw him low-spirited in my life.… When speaking of any who imagined religion would make people morose and gloomy, I have heard him say in the pulpit ‘That sour godliness is the devil’s religion.’ In his answer to a letter I had written to him (in a time of strong temptation) he has these words: ‘That melancholy turn is directly opposite to a Christian spirit. Every believer ought to enjoy life.’ … I heard him say, ‘I dare no more fret than curse and swear.’ ”]

6. What is the argument from all these marks? “Each side of these contrasts commends the apostles as ministers of God. That men whom some decry as deceivers are found to be true, that men set aside as unknown become day by day more fully known, that men who seem to be in the jaws of death are rescued and men apparently smitten by God live still, that underneath visible sorrow there is constant joy, and that utter poverty is but a mask hiding infinite wealth, is abundant proof that they in whom these contradictions meet are indeed servants of God. Thus amid many and various hardships, in a spotless and kindly life animated by the Holy Spirit and by sincere love to men, and armed with a word which commends itself as the truth and is confirmed by the manifested power of God, in everything Paul and his companions claim respect and act as becomes ministers of God.” (Beet.)

SEPARATE HOMILIES

2Co_6:2. A “Now!” Salvation.

I. Pivot word of passage.—Make pictorial by parallel of our tiny earth, crowded with its tiny dwellers, borne along in its orbit, hanging poised in space; infinite space above it, below it, around it, in every direction; a point, a minute island in a sea of space. So our life. Of how much are we masters? Think backward,—to the day of Adam; of “the beginning”; of the creation of the “sons of God” who rejoiced over the birth of earth (Job_38:7). And there, at the Land’s End of creaturely being, we gaze out into limitless, past duration. Think forward,—to Judgment; to the end of some vast measure of heavenly happiness; forward again; stop anywhere, yet away there still stretches limitless future duration. A midway parenthesis, the history of Earth; a midway parenthesis within this again, a man’s life—our own; and of this we possess, have, know, only the midmost point; an instant, coming, here, gone, with more than arrow’s swiftness; just now the earliest moment of the Future; whilst we speak of it, the Present; before the words are finished, the latest moment of the Past. Life to us is “Now.” The present moment, hanging poised, like earth, midway in the infinite; duration unmeasured behind, duration unmeasured before. “The dead past;” “the living present;” the future just coming to birth. Our needs, dangers, temptations, duties, all belong to the “Now” of life. God’s “salvation” (in largest sense,—all conceivable, and needed, grace and help) belongs accordingly to the present. Other help may be too early or too late; God’s salvation is stamped with “Now.” “ ‘Now’ is the day of salvation;” our necessary time is God’s “accepted time.”

II. The elementary salvation of pardon is a present blessing.—

1. Glorious Gospel this, but needs guarding. May not take any chance, indifferent, unaffected man who will give attention and intellectual assent to the proposition that there is salvation through Jesus Christ for him, and thereupon assure him that he is “saved.” No man who has not learned his sinfulness, guilt, peril—only relieved by the redeeming grace of Christ—has mastered the A B C of religion.

2. Yet even to such a man we might say, “Come forthwith—now—ask for the sense of sin.” The moment of beginning to inquire after God is the “now” of salvation, so far as this that, No seeking soul was ever left to seek or to perish without finding.

3. Urge even upon such, “Why not seek now? In peril of ‘judgment’ now, your need is ‘now.’ Terms will never be more favourable. Conditions in yourself may become less and less favourable. All the Father’s love; all the Son’s grace; all the Spirit’s help; you have them all,—now!”

4. Young people speculate: “Time enough! Many things may happen! Special wave of ‘revival’ influence, perhaps, bearing many, and ourselves, with it, with less of singularity when ‘everybody’ is seeking salvation.”

5. True use of Paul’s word is to an aroused, truly repentant soul, seeking earnestly; to whom “salvation” is matter of urgent present concern. “Save me, O God!” “I have heard thee in a time accepted; that time accepted is Now.” Or, “I must first do this, or that.” “Now is the day of salvation.” The moment salvation becomes matter of present concern on the soul’s part, it is matter on God’s part of present, offered grace. When man says “Now,” God says “Now” also.

III. The after, many-sided, “salvation” of the believer is a “Now” blessing.—

1. This nearer to the purpose of Paul here. Quotes Isa_49:8; addressed originally to Messiah, discouraged in His work. Paul is encouraging men who were in danger, under pressure or seduction of temptation, of making a poor finish to the “gracious” beginning of a Christian life, “receiving grace of God in vain.” “You need never give way, or give up, or fail. At every moment of new need, God will be near with new help.” The “salvation” of pardon only the first link in a chain of “salvations” reaching up to glory; the first round of a Jacob’s ladder reaching to threshold of heaven. Shall need new help, defence, strength, at each new step, as well as at the first and lowest. At, with, in, each new “now”

2. E.g. Luther at Worms. (Psalms 46, “A very present help in time of trouble.”) In hall of Diet; greatest and wisest of Germany, of Europe, there; greatest prince of the Continent presiding. For most part hostile; many itching to lay hands on audacious monk, hardly restrained by emperor’s “safe conduct.” Only a few venturesomely sympathising. Luther had shrunk; overheard in his chamber (D’Aubigné, Pt. ii., c. 8) crying out before God: “How … the world … gapes to swallow me up!… How weak the flesh!” etc. Men saw in the hall the lion-like man. God saw in the chamber the helpless soul laying hold of the “now” salvation needed in that supreme hour. E.g., better, 2Ti_4:16-18. Paul before “the lion” Nero; life depending on the drunken whim of a deified monster. “No man stood by me.” Peril so extreme that not a Christian in Rome dared to show himself in Court-house, (more Romano) to stand by the dock, a friend of the prisoner. But “the Lord” (not forgetting how He once stood before His judges, and not a disciple dared show himself—except, perhaps, John) “stood by me,” took His stand (aor.; q.d. in the dock), an unseen, but real, present Helper, and “delivered,” at least in that “first appearing” for trial, with a “now” salvation. “I am with you always,—all the days, each successively, and as each new day needs Me.” E.g. day of commercial reverse. Mansion gives place to modest villa; villa to mere cottage; careless affluence exchanged for close-calculating straitness; comforts for necessaries. Father looks round table; no fewer, nor less hungry, mouths. Yet no hard words about “luck,” or God, or man. Strange calm on faces; light in eyes, as if rather some piece of good fortune had happened. Why? “Now is day of salvation.” E.g. battling—perhaps on knees—with our own characteristic temptation. Cry, “Help now!” He answers, “I have heard thee, … now!” So always: with the need, the succour; with the foe, the Friend; with the grief, the grace. Only one moment to live at once, and that the moment of God’s “now” salvation.

IV. Present condition—saved or unsaved—is, our true standing before God.—“Now,” not “yesterday” nor “once,” is the day of any “salvation” that avails us.

1. German poem: Mother holding in arms dying child; its breath going out in short gasps; mother clings tighter, as if to retain the fleeting spirit; when all is over, still clings, as if refusing to believe that she only holds body of her child. So Christian man clings to old membership, old routine of service and worship, long after “spirit” which gave these any value or meaning has departed; clings the more closely, as if to silence the misgiving that all is not as it used to be, nor so well. Our Salvation status before God is a thing of “now.”

2. Oscillating lives, swinging between “Near to God,” “Far from God”; “Near to God,” “Far from God.” Can photograph a swinging pendulum, with instantaneous shutter and rapid plate. What if the “call” which fixes record of our relation to God for ever, photograph us at wrong end of the oscillation?

2Co_6:9. “Unknown.”

I. This ought never to be true, absolutely.—

1. No persons know this better, or insist upon it more strongly, than the men of the world. They expect of a Christian a character which will not let him slip through the world “unknown” as a Christian. Speak to a non-professor about another, known to you as a professor of religion, and with whom he is in daily business contact, but whose religion is so deep down in the heart that it never finds its way to the surface in the life. Perhaps you get a look of surprise; if, indeed, all the man’s courtesy can repress a long-drawn “Oh!” of astonished incredulity. No greater humiliation, no deeper sorrow, to a Christian minister, who has been, perhaps warmly, commending one of his people, than to hear: “So-and-so a Christian? We who are with him every day would never have found it out. He can be passionate with the most hasty of us! Unforgiving as the hardest! Men say ugly things about his business ways too! Thought you Christians ‘renounced the world’! But So-and-so is thoroughly one of us in all our amusements. So far as we see, he judges by our standards and lives on our principles.” The world knows as well as the Church, that a servant should be more diligent and trusty for being a Christian; that a mother’s conversion should be known by her husband and family. They do not understand a “light of the world,” which is not visible, nor makes perceptible difference in the darkness around. They will ask whether a man can be of the “salt of the earth,” whilst nobody tastes any saltness in his conversation, and he imparts no savour by his life. The world demands that, if religion be what preachers and Bible say it is, the effects on religious men should be palpable and patent, even in the home and in the world; always felt in the life; sometimes, at least, heard from the tongue.

2. Christian is professedly seeking another world than this (Heb_11:14). Go with a crowd; you may escape notice. Go against the direction of the movement of a crowd; you cannot but attract attention, perhaps not the most favourable. Become “a marked man” at once. How is he to escape notice, and perhaps not too gentle or friendly notice, whose life-theory implies, “You are going ruin-wards; for safety and life turn [be converted] and go my way”? Live with American or German resident in England for business purposes. Soon discoverable that these are not English fellow-countrymen. Not to speak of the un-English accent, the talk is of “home”—in the States or Germany. The standard for everything is how things are done in America or Germany. Among us, but evidently not of us. So Christians are not seeking a country, “another world”; they already belong to it. Php_3:20, “Citizenship is in heaven.” Speech should bewray them. The “home” ought to be yonder; this only the temporary abode for our Master’s purposes and business and work. Judge of men and things by that world’s standards. In India, devotees have their god-mark in ashes upon their foreheads; an experienced observer can tell at once to what god a man is devoted. “Servants of God sealed,” even now, “in their foreheads.” So long as the “spirit of world” (1Co_2:12) and Spirit of God are so diverse, they in whom they dwell will be as manifestly distinct; the man “in Christ” and the man “of the world” can never be mistaken one for the other. A Christian unknown and unknowable is an anomaly.

3. The Lord is the pattern.—“In the world; world knew Him not” (Joh_1:10). True; but, literally, they knew Him well enough! He affected no singularity of dress or manners, as John did; yet “He could not be hid.” The centre of attraction, whether of love and gratitude, or of wonder or hate. The best known, loved, hated personage in History to-day. Best known, loved, hated man in Palestine in His time. “As He is, so are we in this world.” “Unknown, yet well known, by holiness in all manner of conversation.”

II. In what sense the words are true.—Look again at the Divine Pattern. They understood not His dignity. The boy in Nazarene village; the young carpenter who had been an ordinary workman and synagogue worshipper amongst His family and neighbours; the young teacher who admitted Peter and his friends to most familiar intercourse;—He is God’s Well-beloved Son tabernacling in flesh. A stupendous fact this, claiming a stupendous faith. Hardly anybody around Him recognised the fact. Brothers thought Him beside Himself, and would not, for a long time, believe in Him. His mother knew the secret of His birth, yet never interposed without bringing on herself His gentle rebuke for her dull, earthly conceptions of Him and of His work. “His own” Nation had expected Him for ages, and with unusual intensity was just then longing for His Advent. He came, and they gave God’s Son, their King, only mockery and a cross. Not a case where “world knows nothing of its greatest men” until they are gone from its midst. A spiritual blindness hid Him from their eyes, and made Him “unknown.” Pilate is typical of the universal “world.” The King stood before him in the judgment hall of Herod’s palace. Pilate only saw a peasant, weary with a night of sleeplessness, anxiety, mockery. Eyes weary; face bruised with stripes and blows; a prisoner with bound hands. He speaks of His kingdom. In unfeigned astonishment Pilate says, “Thou a king, then? Thou!” When the King spoke of a kingdom not of this world, a kingdom whose subjects were “of the truth,” the secret came out. “What is Truth? What do I know, or want to know, about Truth? My business is politics. Thy concern is not truth, but thy life.” Such a King, such a kingdom, such topics, were hidden from the mind and heart of His judges. “Unknown.” So “the Christian is the highest style of man”; the humblest Christian is invested with a true royalty, the highest, the eternal. “Partakers of Divine nature” (2Pe_1:4); free access to the King of kings; all His support and interest at their disposal at every step. “Great expectations” indeed, and the title-deeds in their heart. The world understands pride of “birth,” but being born of God is a thing “unknown” to it. It knows greatness based on power, or wealth, or intellectual endowments; but a greatness based on holiness is “unknown.” An inheritance in the future, in heaven, whose title-deeds are only in the strong-room within the heart, is dreamy, visionary, unpractical, outside its range, and of value only according to a standard of which it knows nothing: it all goes for nothing, when, indeed, it is not subject of ridicule or contempt. Sons of God have a life which is a mystery to themselves: “Wind bloweth where it listeth,” etc. To them, the mystery is how it is; to the world, what it is. Christians must be prepared for misconstruction, misrepresentation, scorn, persecution, because their life, experiences, principles, are “spiritual things” unknown by the “natural” man (1Co_2:14). Conviction of sin is an unaccountable melancholy, a fuss without adequate reason. The peace which follows and crowns his faith in Christ; his new “sonship” and its joy, etc., these are enthusiasm. If the world is bitter, it denounces all these experiences as delusion or worse; if courteous, it says, as one of Sir J.Y. Simpson’s professional friends did of him on his conversion, “I don’t understand this new turn of Simpson’s; yet he is a man of good sense.” “Unknown.” The ignorance may be dense and full of enmity. “Enthusiasm!” “Hypocrites, humbugs.” Their devotion to bringing men to God “must be interest, or money profit of some sort”; their life is “folly” or “pretence”; their religious vocabulary “cant”; their abstinence from worldly pleasures “Pharisaism, moroseness, fanaticism”; their denunciation of “worldly” sin is bigotry, fanaticism. The world knows nothing of such aims, nothing of a soul’s life and its dangers, nothing of the real meaning of sin.

1. What, then, of the “Christians” who are not in this sense “unknown,” whom the world does understand and approve?

2. What of such as are known, rather by a pungent, acrid smoke emitted from the fire within their breast, than by any heat or light from it?

3. What, also, of the world to which Christians are “unknown”?

2Co_6:10. Rich Poverty.—How necessary to hear the whole of a matter. Hearing only “as poor” we should say: “Here is as sad and drear a lot as mortal ever inherited. The man has lost all heart.” If we heard only the second; “Here is Fortune’s favourite, intoxicated with his uncounted treasures.” The first part of the text must not be explained away; the second cannot be. Paul was not even owner of as much land as would serve him for a grave; yet was a greater possessor than the wealthiest or mightiest of the world. No juggler with words, no maddened enthusiast, rich only in imaginary possessions, was Paul; the houseless wanderer was really possessor of all things.

I. “Having nothing.” Then

1. The truly great are not essentially the visibly rich.—Needs proclaiming in our materialistic age. To a man “well off” many mansions open their doors, whilst they exclude poverty like leprosy. There are circles where wealthy vice has the ready entrée, if only the vice be decently veiled, or not too obtrusive, but where virtue without its £10, 000 would not be admitted for a moment. [And would not desire to be!] How often has the Church in this imitated the world! Paul, as he was, would hardly to-day excite notice or win wide admiration. Self-impoverishment crowns with greatness. His poverty was voluntarily incurred, for Jesus’ sake.

2. It becomes us to make greater self-denials.—There is only worth in our self-denials when ourselves really deny self. It is not often for the reason that we have taken it up, that the cross is heavy.

3. God does not reward His servants with material pay.—He does not attach to material possessions the importance we do. [If they were the “good” men account them, depend upon it “there would be no want” of that good “to them that fear Him.”] He will let us dare and do for Him without a bribe.

4. God’s poor are the “best off.” The Master promised that whoever for Him left houses, lands, or the like, should “receive a hundredfold” here, and then “eternal life.” If there is a servant of Christ bemoaning his poverty, let him lift up his head, and grasp the title-deeds of his rightful heritage, and read in them “as having nothing, yet”

II. “Possessing all things.”—

1. By holding a true relation to them all. The true possession is much more than ownership, or occupation, or merely having. The “possession” of a series of fine paintings is much more than that they are in the man’s gallery, while he has never felt their power, or been enlarged and uplifted by them. He is no “possessor” of a library to whom his books are unread and unreadable. His employe librarian, or his poor, scholarly, neighbour who borrows them, has far more truly a “possession” of them. The Christian man may not own a house or an acre; but the world is for him, as much as for the owner who hath nothing but “the beholding with his eyes” (Ecc_5:11).

2, It is an entirely false relation to things when their only value or desirableness is to have them to the exclusion of anybody else, which is what “ownership” too often means. The man to whom they are full of God, and who is himself in right relation to God, has the joy they can give and were meant to give. Many a man is really immured in a real dungeon whilst he inhabits his mansion. There is many a man who never walks under the shadow of “his” noble trees, or by the side of “his” lake, or through “his” lovely gardens, but with an aching or empty heart, or with a guilty conscience, or a memory which is a perpetual scourge. The Christian labourer on “his” estate has a far more real heart possession than has the “owner.”

3. Men who fret for what they have not do not own what they have.—[Ahab (1 Kings 20); the kingdom has no value because the little vineyard of Naboth is not his.]

4. If a man’s nature is ripened, enriched by things, what like that can make him in such a great sense their owner? Above all

5. By holding a true relation to Christ he becomes possessor of all things (Rom_8:17; Rev_3:21).—Adapted from H. Martyn, “Homilist,” Third Series, ix. 270.

2Co_6:10. “Poor, yet making many rich.”—Then want of money is not the greatest, nor an insuperable, hindrance to the success of the Gospel. Else would not He have left the gold-mines a legacy to the Church? There is a something which the Church may have, which will enable it to do the work with little or no money.

I. “The triumphs of the first ages were won by men too poor to claim a home.… The days of the Church’s temporal poverty were the brightest days of its victories. Never did the chariot of the Gospel move on with such celerity and stately moral grandeur, as when it rolled on undrawn by golden chains.”

II. Without this something money will be of no service.—“Money can only give machinery; … a great deal more, already, than is used. Money is constantly creating new machinery and tinkering the old; so that we hear more of the creakings of the human engines in the Church than of the flowing and the soul-stirring music of a Divine life. Money can only do for religion what it can do for art,—it can furnish the paint, the brush, the studio; but the genius, to create a breathing beauty on the canvas, it cannot supply. The true evangelising genius [and the power of the Holy Ghost], without which Churches, colleges, books, [committees, Church legislation, organisation] are so much cumbrous machinery, no wealth can purchase.”

III. The constant cry for money indicates the want of this necessary something.—“Real love is communicative.… The office of love is always that of a priest, evermore presenting itself at the shrine of its object. Don’t ask me to give to objects I love; I can’t help it—love will communicate.”—Extracted from a longer sermon on 1Co_9:12 by Dr. Thomas, “Homilist,” 6:154, 155.

2Co_6:10. Cf. “Such as I have give I thee” (Act_3:6).

I. How much the world owes to Christianity!—Some of its noblest art inspirations and ideals; some of the most elevated and true principles of a real, healthy Socialism; some of its best thoughts about God and about morals. It has given a very real “culture” to the lowest, and otherwise “dangerous,” classes, whom nothing else would have reached or saved from narrow, gross animalism of life and practice. Its thoughts and hopes about God and Christ and salvation and eternity must be acknowledged to be grand, enlarging, ennobling, if even they be not accepted as true. The life of an artisan or a slave in Corinth could not be mean, base, or dangerous to society, where the teachings and life of Christianity were truly apprehended and exemplified. “The stone which the builders rejected,” even many of themselves now acknowledge to have been “the head of the corner.” Christ’s religion is the needed completion of all science; of all education; of all personal character. “Not even now would it be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue, from the abstract to the concrete, than to endeavour so to live that Christ would approve our life” (John Stuart Mill, Essays on Religion, 253–255).

II. How much a Church often owes to its godly poor!—These are worth, in many ways, all the money and the ministrations spent over them. They keep sympathies tender and active, which might else die for lack of objects on which to spend themselves. They keep the Church life from growing sordidly rich, or hard and worldly; they exemplify another style of “wealth,” constantly reminding their “more fortunate” fellow-members that there is another, larger, worthier life than that which “consisteth in the abundance of the things which a man possesseth.” Happy the wealthy Church which has many poor members to whom Wordsworth’s words may be applied:

“How oft high service is performed within

When all the external man is rude in show,—

Not like a temple rich with pomp and gold,

But a mere mountain chapel, that protects

Its simple worshippers from sun and shower.”

—Prelude, book xiii.

How much of blessing does a Church owe to those who can only contribute their ceaseless prayers to the Church’s wealth!

III. How much, in a similar way, does personal character often owe to contact with a poor, but pious Christian life!—The Christian servant is made an unspeakable, eternal blessing to the master or mistress or to the children, [and perhaps through one of these to a whole generation or age; e.g. how many did the Christian servant “make rich” who led to Christ the child who became “Lord Shaftesbury”!] The rich visitor gets more from the sick sufferer, of ripe grace and bright patience, than the “money’s worth” of what is given in charity! How many will have to say, “My life is richer, infinitely, than it was, since I knew—,” viz. some poor saint of God.

2Co_6:10. “Poor, yet making many rich. Then—

1. The Gospel is a system intended to enrich men.—Some systems of religion impoverish mind, body, estate. They invade a man’s secular rights, and extort the product of his labour; blind his spiritual sensibilities, fetter his intellect, warp his judgment, ruin his soul. The Gospel enriches the soul with noble thoughts, high purposes, elevating hopes; with Divine fellowship, purity of heart, harmony of being. This soul-wealth is inalienable; it becomes part of the man; Omnia sua secum portat; it is a treasure laid up in the imperishable heavens of his spiritual being. Its value is absolute; for all worlds and ages, for time, for eternity.

2. It enriches man through the agency of “poor men.”—Of men. The treasure is put into earthen vessels. The man who really receives the Gospel, moreover, becomes at once a willing agent to communicate. Of poor men. The poor can, and in fact do, receive the Gospel to a greater extent than any other class. The Saviour, opening His commission at Nazareth, declared Himself anointed—made a Christ—specially that He might preach the Gospel to the poor. There is no special decree indeed which places a barrier before any one class; the door of mercy is thrown open to all. It is that the influence of worldly wealth biases the heart against the true riches. The poor can become morally rich. And it is a more glorious fact that they can propagate the Gospel which enriches them. The Master and His fishermen-disciples were its first missionaries; and in all ages some of its finest theologians, organisers, missionaries, pastors, have sprung from the ranks of the poor. We see, then,—

I. The kind of instrumentality on which the diffusion of God’s Gospel necessarily depends.—It manifestly does not depend on legislative enactments, worldly influence, high culture, great literary attainment. It can use these; it puts their highest honour upon them by using these; their chief glory is to serve the Gospel of Christ. Certainly not even money is indispensable. It may be well, and nobly, used; but Paul could dispense with it. It can provide the men, the means, the machinery, for the work. With these—but without these, if need be—the man filled with the Spirit, burning with love to Christ, taught of God, walking in all holiness, though he may speak no language but his own, and even that imperfectly, has the power to propagate the Gospel.

II. No Christian man is freed from the obligation to diffuse the Gospel of God.—Even the poor man is not. He may not in over-diffidence dream of devolving what even he can do, upon the rich or wise or great. The responsibility of wealth, of leisure, of education, is very great; they who have these must give account for five talents. But the poor man must be a faithful servant with his one. The poor can “make many rich”; then their ability is their responsibility.

III. There is no ground for self-gratulation upon success.—When the poorest and simplest men prove capable of achieving the grandest spiritual results, there is no alternative but to trace success to God. And then from such instances we learn to eliminate from all combinations of contributary causes, God’s power, as the primary and essential cause. The men in all ages who have been most successful in imparting spiritual riches, have always been distinguished by their self-abnegating spirit. Then—

IV. This highest honour is within the reach of all.—What higher honour than to be the human instrument in the regeneration of a soul? Even to awaken and train a sleeping intellect is great. The patient, skilful love which put the deaf, blind, mute Laura Bridgman into real communication with a world in which she lived, but which seemed hopelessly shut off from her, was no mean glory to Dr. Howe, of Boston, U. S. A. But to awaken a soul to a desire after God; to bring it into touch with the surrounding, but unknown, spiritual world; to bring it definitely into the possession of Christ,—is the highest honour, and fills him who accomplishes the task with the purest, grandest joy which a man can taste outside heaven’s gate. To make a beggar, orphan, lost soul the happy possessor of “the unsearchable riches of Christ,” the happy child of the Divine Father, recovered from the initial, present death and ruin of sin, is an honour angels might covet. But it is granted to men only: “When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.” It has been again and again granted to poor men. All necessary ministrations of man to man are level to the ability of every man to render. This most necessary ministration is open to every man who is himself a happy possessor of the kingdom within his own soul.

V. Happily then we may hope for the universal diffusion of the Gospel.—For suitable instruments, at least in one particular, are sure to be always available in plenty; there will at least never be any dearth of men who are qualified to say, “As having nothing.” If, too, it had depended on a learned caste, or a wealthy class, or a political power, there might have been justification for a priesthood, an oligarchy, an Establishment. To spread the Gospel, in the first instance only needed men who had little, or none, of such accompaniments and accessories to their work. And the Gospel can use them or can dispense with them still.—In part adapted from “Homilist,” New Series, iv. 217.

HOMILETIC SUGGESTIONS

2Co_6:2. Now; because—

I. The business is urgent: Finding God’s salvation.—Enter some Galilæan village in the Spring of A.D. 27 or 28. Whole village astir. Everybody in the streets. Some hobbling along on crutches; some tottering and shaking with palsied limbs, glad to lean on some stronger arm; some blind, groping their way as if in midnight darkness; some minus a limb altogether; some with withered limbs that hang stiff like dead branches on a living trunk; some dragging themselves wearily; some borne on their little mattress-“bed” by sturdy bearers. A field day of the cripples and the sick of that Galilæan village! What does it mean? Why all converging to one particular house? Or, the Passover of A. D. 29. Crowds throng every high-road in Palestine. One largest company of pilgrims, like a living flood, reaches, rolls through, and soon leaves, Jericho. A shady nook near the city gate; a beggar—two—blind Bartimæus and his companion. They hear the crowd. They learn the cause. Spite of the hushing of bystanders, again and again before the Chief Pilgrim reaches them, their shrill cry is raised: “Son of David! Son of David!” Those are “seeking the Lord while He may be found.” These latter are “calling upon Him while He is near.” The business is urgent. Try to detain one of those cripples or blind men with a good story; tempt him to turn back with you for a good dinner or a handful of money. Not he! It is only sinners who commit the folly of suffering themselves to be detained or diverted from Christ by some tempting amusement, by sensuous enjoyment, by worldly business. The bystanders sought to hush down the beggars. As pride, or shame, or fear, or social or domestic pressure put on, would suppress or silence the demonstrative concern and the unconventionally urgent outcry of a guilty soul, which wants Christ’s help. “No; I cannot tarry for you. I cannot hush for you. Until I have made this sure, I have no ear, no leisure, for anything else. What must I do to be saved? Leave me to find Christ!” Bunyan not drawing a fancy picture when he makes Christian flee “at full stretch” from City of Destruction, fingers in ears, crying, “Life! Life! Eternal Life!” He had known it himself. Every man under the Spirit’s conviction of sin knows how urgent the business.

II. The time is fitting.—Every stage of life is; youth; opening manhood and womanhood; maturity of strength and prime of vigour or beauty of character; days of waning power, but of sobering thought and heart. No age to which this present salvation is not congruous. Early morning, rising noon, fulness of afternoon light and warmth, evening’s chastened daylight; all are right times. But the earliest is the best. Religion never unsuitable; becomes a man at any stage of life. Life wants its final touch of completeness and beauty, so long as it has not this. “Comes harder” at each later stage. Numa Pompilius and the Sibylline books.

III. The circumstances are favourable.—Particularly the primary condition of all. God says “Now.” He is pledged to “Now,” but to no other time. On this word a soul may plead: “Remember this word unto Thy servant, in which Thou hast caused me to hope.”

IV. The opportunity is limited.—

1. True of nations, so far as history can be read with human eyes. They have their “day of salvation” (Luk_19:44). Perhaps, e.g., we may think that France knew not of its “now” opportunity in the sixteenth century, when Reformation activities and life and grace were neglected and finally put away in massacre and murder.

2. True of individuals. May not limit the power and freedom of God’s grace further than He limits it. But the complete offer of the Gospel always includes, expressly or by implication, a limit to the availableness of the offer. E.g. in Isa_55:6-7, referred to above. Men may seek when He is not to be found, may call when He is not near. A limit seems irrevocably placed sometimes. Thus: Man cooperates with God in this “salvation,” by repentance and faith. What then of the senile decay of mind which seems to make the very conception of repenting and believing no longer possible, and which makes it impossible to arouse attention for the very name of Jesus? What of the breathing, but paralysed body and hopelessly senseless brain, to which the minister is sometimes asked to come in to offer prayer beside it? What of the fixed habits, the world-indurated heart, impervious to, impracticable for, man’s appeal, and from which the very Spirit of God seems “grieved” away? Let it be noted that this closing of the opportunity is never in this life a matter of the mere (arbitrary) will of God. As in salvation, so in this limitation,—whenever it occurs,—man has cooperated with God, and has by his own choice and act contributed to it. [Also: “Now” in “Remember now thy Creator,” etc., must not be emphasised if the appeal is being made to the young. It is only the particle of entreaty, and is not temporal in sense.]

2Co_6:2. God hath spoken once; yea, twice have I heard Him.”

I. An offer twice repeated.—A “time of acceptance”; a “day of salvation.”

II. A double summons to attention.—“Behold”; “behold.”

III. A double indication of time.—“Now!” “now!”—[J. L.]

2Co_6:2. A Present Salvation.

I. It needs to be; you want it now.

II. It ought to be; God offers it now.

III. It may be; all things are ready now.

IV. It must be; to-morrow is not yours.—[J. L.]

2Co_6:4-10. “Approved” [N. B. not the frequent Pauline word in, e.g., Rom_16:10] Ministers of God.

I. Their work.

II. Their trials.

III. Their conduct.

IV. Their consolations.—[J. L.]

2Co_6:7. A Shield of “Triple Brass.”

I. The word of truth defends a Christian’s faith.

II. The power of God defends his experience.

III. The armour of righteousness defends his practice.—[J. L.]

2Co_6:11-13. What shall we Ministers have, therefore?

I. Ministerial zeal.

II. Ministerial disappointment.

III. Ministerial recompense.—[J. L.]

Then, further, the passage may be

lifted to a higher plane. Thus does God appeal to His people. Their thoughts, views, hopes, life, experiences, are narrow. He would have them know, enjoy, a larger life and larger hope and liberty. The narrowness is in themselves, not in His heart or design or Gospel provision. They enter Canaan, indeed; but having taken their Jericho, and having won their first victories, they are content to camp about Gilgal; whilst “there remaineth much land to be possessed” (Jos_13:1). Their enlargement, both of affection and receptiveness, is the “recompense” God desires, for all His “enlarged” heart of merciful design and provision for their well-being. Carey’s motto: “Do great things for God; expect great things from God.” Bring a big vessel when you come to receive God’s bounty. “Open thy mouth wide”—i.e. “sitting a guest at His table, let Him dip His hand in the dish, and, in token of favour and honour, give thee a large portion into thy opened mouth.”

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

XI.—THE APOSTLE’S APPEAL IN AN ETHICAL POINT OF VIEW. HIS CONDUCT IN RELATION TO IT

2Co_6:1-10

1 1We then, [om. We then] as workers together with him, [then, we also] beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. 2 2(For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted [well accepted, εὐπρόσδεκτος] time; behold, now is the day of salvation). 3 3Giving no offence [occasion for stumbling, προσκοπή] in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed: 4 4But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, [as the ministers of God, commending ourselves] in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses [in straits, στενοχωρίαις], 5in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults 6[tossings to and fro, ἀκαταστασίαις], in labours, in watchings, in fastings; by [in] pureness, by [in] knowledge, by [in] long suffering, by [in] kindness, by [in] the Holy 7Ghost, by [in] love unfeigned, by [in] the word of truth, by [in] the power of God, 8by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honour [glory, δόξης] and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet [om. yet] true; 9as unknown, and yet [om. yet] well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; 10as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet [om. yet] possessing all things.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

2Co_6:1-2.—We then, as workers together with Him, also exhort you that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.—Connected with the exhortation and entreaty (2Co_5:20) in which he had spoken of an interest in God’s work of reconciliation by Christ, was another consideration with respect to their continuance in the grace thus attained. There is no indication that σύν in συνεργοῦντες has reference to the church of Corinth (comp. 2Co_1:24); for had such been the Apostle’s idea, ὑμῖν would have been inserted; still less can it be referred to the Apostle’s associates in the ministry; and least of all can the whole word be made equivalent to ἕργω̣ συμπράττοντες with reference to 2Co_6:3 ff. in contrast with the λόγος in 2Co_5:20. The only doubt is whether it implies a coöperation with God or with Christ. If ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ in 2 Co 6:20 signifies in behalf of Christ, and not in the place of Christ; then the preceding passage in which all things had been traced to the hand of God, and especially the phrase, as though God were beseeching by us (2Co_5:20), would be in favor of referring it to God, comp. also 1Co_3:9. In the admonition itself, the whole stress must be laid upon the words, not in vain, inasmuch as these stand at the commencement of the sentence. They here signify to be without fruits, as in Gal_2:2; Php_2:16;1Th_3:5. The word receive (δέξασθαι) is to be taken not in a preterite (as if it meant that ye will not have received), but in a present signification, in accordance with the uniform usage. We have here the moral side of the exhortation, which he had said (2Co_5:20) the ministry were urging, viz., Be reconciled to God. God’s work of reconciliation would be in vain to them, if in receiving it they did not become new men. The grace of God is the grace which had been shown in the work of reconciliation, for God had exhibited in that work special love to sinners. He gives a reason also for his admonition in a parenthetical form in 2Co_6:2 (for 2Co_6:3 is grammatically connected with παρακαλοῦμεν), by introducing a prophetical expression (Isa_49:8, in the words of the LXX.), which he implies had a fulfilment while he was writing—for he says: In an accepted time I heard thee, and in a day of salvation I succored thee: behold, now is the well accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.—God must be regarded as the speaker in this quotation. In the original passage God was addressing the servant of the Lord, and through him as their head the whole people of God. Bengel: The Father speaks to the Messiah, in whom are included all believers. The hearing which was indicated by the succor, the prophet implies was to be shown in the deliverance of the people from the calamities into which they had fallen (Isa_49:7); but it is here made to refer to the salvation which God gives by Christ, and which the Apostle exhorts the Corinthians not to receive in vain. The accepted time (καιρὸς δεκτός, Heb. עֵת רָצוֹן), is a time of favor, (the grace); the same as the “day of salvation” (the time for the communication of salvation to Israel (Mar_1:15; Gal_4:4). It becomes accepted, in consideration of the impression it made upon the people. The same idea is intended, only more forcibly expressed, in the words, well accepted (εὐπρόσδεκτος, used in 2Co_8:12; Rom_15:16; Rom_15:31). The phrases, I heard thee and I succored thee, imply that when God was making this promise, He looked upon the future as already past. In Paul’s application of the passage, the words, Behold, now, (ἰδοὺ νῦν), present the reason for the admonition in 2Co_6:1, q. d.: let not the opportunity pass unimproved; for if ye allow the grace now given you to be in vain, there are no other means of salvation for you (comp. Heb_3:13 ff.; Luk_19:42). The word, now, embraced the brief period until the second coming of Christ (Meyer). A paronomasia is perceptible in the use of δέξασθαι and δεκτός [Hodge: “The Scriptures contain abundant evidence that inspiration did not interfere with the natural play of the powers of the sacred writers. Although they spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, yet they were probably in most cases unconscious of His influence, and acted as spontaneously as the believer does under the power of the Spirit in all His holy exercises. Hence we find that the sacred writings are constructed according to the ordinary laws of mind, and that the writers pass from subject to subject by the usual process of suggestion and association. So here the use of the word δέξασθαι brought up to the Apostle’s mind the word δεκτῷ, as it occurs in the Greek version of the beautiful passage in Isa_49:8.” Stanley: “Let not your receiving of the favor of God be in vain; for the language of God in the prophet is true: ‘In a time which I receive I heard thee.’ This view is confirmed by the stress the Apostle lays on the word δεκτός, carrying it out and amplifying it in his own comment which follows: God has so spoken, and look! (ἰδοὺ) the present is the time which He so receives. You ought to receive Him, for He has received you. Εὐπρόσδεκτος is a favorite word of the Apostle; and as such, and also as being more emphatic, is substituted for the less familiar and less expressive term of the Sept.”]. With reference to ἰδοὺ, consult the notes on 2Co_5:17. [Trench remarks (Synn. P. II. § 7) that “καιρός signifies time (χρόνος) bringing forth its several births, the critical epoch-making periods when all that has been slowly ripening through long ages is mature and comes to the birth in grand decisive events, which constitute at once the close of one period and the commencement of another. It is the nick of time; but whether, as such, to make or to mar, effectually to help or to hinder, the word by itself does not determine.” According to this, the καιρός of which both the prophet and the Apostle spoke was an epoch of great importance in consequence of the great events transpiring, but rendered favorable and acceptable (δεκτός) by the turning of the people to the Lord. (See also Webster’s Synonymns, p. 215)].

2Co_6:3-10. Giving no occasion for stumbling in any thing, that the ministration have not a reproach cast upon it.—Luther incorrectly regards this participial sentence as a part of the Apostle’s admonition or entreaty to the Corinthians; as if he was exhorting them not to receive the grace in vain, and to give no offence lest, etc. But had such been the Apostle’s mind he would have written διδόντας instead of διδόντες. This word is rather to be connected directly with παρακαλοῦμενbefore the parenthesis, and it shows how the conduct of the admonishers corresponded with and gave force to the admonition. In this verse he resumes his apology for himself. The words ἐν μηδενί (in nothing) are neuter like ἐν παντί in 2Co_6:4. Μή is not here in the place of οὐ [for it implies the intention and desire of the writer]. Comp. 1Co_10:33. Προσκοπή is used only here in the New Testament, but it is equivalent to πρόσκομμα 1Co_8:8. It implies that Paul and his companions would do nothing to lead others into error, or to impair the proper effect of their work or of their admonition, and so they would give no occasion for unbelief and unchristian conduct. (Meyer). In saying that the ministration have not a reproach cast upon it, he intended to say that they subjected themselves to so much pains, in order that their efforts as Apostles to reconcile men to God, might be saved from bitter reproaches (for μωμηθῆ implies that he had in his mind no common or slight reproaches). Probably he had reference to those opponents who were inclined to make, or perhaps had already indulged in such reproaches.—But in all things, as the ministers of God, commending ourselves in much patience, (2Co_6:4). In συνιστάντες (2Co_3:1), we have the positive side in contrast with the negative side, which had been given in 2Co_6:3, and it is placed before ἐαυτοὺς because it contains the emphatic point (Meyer). The idea is not that they were commending themselves as ministers [as our English A. V. may be understood and is usually punctuated] for then the expression would have been ὡς θεοῦ διακόνους, but we commend ourselves as the ministers of God commend themselves; or, as is appropriate for such ministers. [Alford: “When these words signify to recommend ourselves in a bad sense (2Co_3:1; 2Co_5:12), ἐαυτοὺς precedes the verb; but here and in 2Co_4:2, where used in a good sense and without any stress on ἐαυτοὺς, it follows the verb. This is only one of many continually occurring instances of the importance of the collocation of words with regard to the emphasis.”] The points on which they commended themselves, are introduced by ἐν. They are, in the first place, Christian virtues, such as patient endurance (ὑπομονή, 2Co_6:4)—pureness (ἁγνότης κ. τ. λ., 2Co_6:6). In connection with patience (perseverance, steadfastness, in contrast with despondency and reluctance) he mentions a variety of states in which he had exhibited much patience, such as in affliction, etc. Augustine quotes 2Co_10:4-12, to show that Paul possessed those qualities which Cicero makes necessary to an orator, viz., magna granditer et ornate loquendi. In proof of what he had said he now adduces principally the trichotomy contained in 2Co_6:4-5, in which he specifies how he had exhibited patience in three triplets of conditions. Bengel says the first triplet of trials, afflictions, necessities and distresses (straits) were general; the second, stripes, imprisonments, and tumults were specific; the third, the labors, watchings, and fastings were voluntary. These evils consist of oppressive, hampering circumstances in general, such as drove him into straits; and they are probably mentioned in the order of a climax. [Stanley divides the Apostle’s enumeration into four clauses, all amplifying ἐν παντι. The first is an expansion of ἐν ὑπομ. πολλῇ. The second enumerates the virtues which accompanied these outward hardships, arranged in two divisions, not so much by the meaning as by the form of the words, the first consisting of one, the latter of two words. In the third the words are held together merely by the word διά, and by their antithetical form. The fourth expands the words, through evil report into a long list of the contrasts between his alleged and his real character, at once showing his difficulties and his triumphs. The first section gives three triplets of evils, each growing out of the last word of the other. The first describes his hardships generally. In crushing afflictions (θλίψεσιν) in pressure of difficulties (ἀνάγκαις), in narrow straits (στενοχωρίαις). The prevailing idea is of pressure and confinement: each stage narrower than the one before, so that no room is left for movement or escape].—In afflictions, in necessities, in straits. —Στενοχωρίαι are mentioned also in 2Co_12:10, and are the highest degree of θλίψεις. Comp. 2Co_4:8. Ἀνάγκαι are necessities, calamities of various kinds, and also mentioned in 2Co_12:10 and in 1Co_7:26. (Some interpret the word as referring to want, poverty). [“The three words here used are cognate in derivation, θλίβω to press, squeeze; ἄγχω to press tight; στένος strait, angustus. The θλίψ. is the tribulation itself of whatever kind it may be, ἀνάγκ. is the result in circumstances, and στενοχ. (as used by Paul in 2Co_6:12; 2Co_4:8; and Rom_2:9) the result in feeling or apprehension.” Webster and Wilkinson.—“The idea of ‘narrow straits’ suggests the thought of actual persecutions, of which he gives the three to which he was most frequently exposed.” (Stanley), viz.].—in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults.—On the word πληγᾶις (stripes) comp. 2Co_11:23; Act_16:23 f. Ἀκαταστασία according to the prevailing usage in the New Testament (2Co_12:20; 1Co_14:32; Jam_3:16), has the sense of disorder, or in particular, tumults, insurrections. (Luk_21:9). With respect to such things in Paul’s life, comp. Act_13:50; Act_14:19; Act_16:19 f.; Act_19:23 ff. Others interpret the word of expulsions from society, restless wanderings from place to place, comp. ἀστατεῖν in 1Co_4:11.—In labors, in watchings, in fastings.—The labors here mentioned relate, not at least exclusively, to labors for his own support (1Co_4:12), but to the cares and toils of his Apostleship, 2Co_11:23; 2Co_11:27; 1Co_3:8; 1Co_15:58. In like manner on watchings, comp. chap, 2Co_11:27; Act_20:31. Others, however, think that this word has reference to his sleepless cares and anxieties for the churches. More particularly it refers to his public teachings, journeyings, meditations and prayers (the whole frame of his mind). Fastings also include not those which his circumstances rendered unavoidable (1Co_4:11; Php_4:12), and which he especially distinguishes from fastings under the name of hunger and thirst in 2Co_11:27, but those fastings which were voluntarily endured and connected with prayer, (comp. Act_14:23; Act_13:2 f. 2Co_9:9). There is no reason, however, to regard these as ascetic acts of self-righteousness. In 2Co_6:6 additional items of moral qualifications for his office are given, viz.—in pureness, in knowledge, in long suffering, in kindness, in the Holy Ghost, in love unfeigned, in the word of truth, in the power of God.—[“There is no reason for exchanging the in, in, etc., before each of these expressions for by, by, etc., as is done in our English A. V., inasmuch as the same preposition is used from ἐν ὑπομ to ἐν δυνάμει implying not the instrument but the sphere or element in which his ministry moved.” Fausset. It is rendered by the English word in in Wiclif’s, Tyndale’s, Cranmer’s, and the Rhemish versions, and in the translation of the American Bible Union]. At the head of the series in this second section stands ἁγνότης, moral purity (comp. Php_4:8; 1Ti_5:22; 1Jn_3:3), or chastity in a more special sense. It would, however, be too confined a signification to restrict the word to the sexual passion, and above all to the opposite of avarice or a love of gain. W. F. Besser says: “As patience had been shown in the nine proofs which had already been mentioned, so purity (in heart and intention, as a cardinal virtue) runs through the eight virtues and gifts which are now to be specified.” Γνῶσι‍ς is either that practical knowledge which quickly recognizes the Divine will, i. e., true Christian wisdom (comp. 1Pe_3:7), or evangelical knowledge, i. e., a vivid perception of Divine truth. The latter corresponds best with the prevailing usage in Paul’s writings. Besser: “Not intellectual learning is here meant, but that sagacity of the heart with respect to Divine truth, which enables a minister in all cases to bring out that mind of the Spirit which is best suited to the wants of his hearers (Php_1:9); and especially that casuistic wisdom which is so indispensable to the cure of souls.” This knowledge has also an ethical aspect, and includes that faith which surrenders entirely to the truth of God. Μακροθυμία and χρηστότης are virtues which belong to the sphere of love (comp. 1Co_13:4). The former signifies that long endurance or perseverance which is exercised under griefs or mortifications; the latter is the same as gentleness or kindness in social life and the pastoral work. Trench (Synn. P. II. § 3) makes μακροθ, a long holding out of the mind before it gives room to action or passion (generally anger) against persons ὑπομόνη, 2Co_6:4, being the same self-restraint with respect to things. The Rhemish renders μακρ. by longanimity, a word which even Taylor’s and Archbishop Whately’s authority has not been sufficient to naturalize in our language. Χρηστότης is rendered by Wycliffe, in Gal_5:22, benignity, and by the Rhemish in our passage, “sweetness.” Trench, P. II. § 13]. Before the Apostle speaks of the original grace of love itself, he refers to the source of all moral excellence, the Holy Ghost, with Which this fundamental virtue is appropriately connected as its source. This πν. ἅγιον should be regarded, not merely as a charism, but as a power always dwelling and acting in the Christian, and manifesting itself in all his conduct. Ἀνυπόκριτη (unfeigned) occurs also in Rom_12:9, as an attribute of love. In 2Co_6:7 he passes on to notice his work as a minister, and that which commended him to his hearers. As in the words, love unfeigned, he probably had some reference to his insincere opponents who affected the appearance of much love, so in the word of truth he had a similar reference to impurity of doctrine, (comp. 2Co_2:17; 2Co_4:2). The want of the article shows that he must have

meant, not as in Col_1:5. and other places, the Gospel objectively considered, but subjectively that which was spoken or proposed to men, the substance of which was truth. The power of God in like manner is not to be limited here to the working of miracles, but referred to the Divine power which was seen in all his discourses, and proved that God was with him. (comp. 2Co_4:7; 1Co_2:4 f.; 2Co_1:18; 2Co_1:24).—By the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by glory and dishonor, by evil report and good report—We have here a change in the preposition (διὰ) in conformity with the ὅπλα with which it is connected. The Apostle now takes up the figure of a conflict, and hence ὅπλα must mean not any instruments in general by which one is aided or protected, but, strictly speaking, weapons. Αιὰ τῶν ὅπλων here stands independently, like all the other clauses introduced by διά, and is not subordinate to ἐν δυν. θεοῦ, as if it implied that the power of God was furnishing all these weapons (“Dei virtute nobis arma subministrante.” Grotius). The armor of righteousness means not merely such weapons as are lawful for a righteous man to use, or still less, good works (in the Roman Catholic sense); but such weapons as are given a man by his righteousness. Neander: “’weapons which would bo useful to a good man.” Among these we may understand either moral blamelessness (Billroth), or the righteousness of faith which makes a man strong and triumphant against all opposition in attack or defence, comp. Rom_8:31-39 (Meyer); or that righteousness of our daily life which proceeds from faith. Its weapons are, the spirit of confidence, a joyful consciousness that our prayers are heard, the strength of a pacified and assured conscience, the unanswerable testimony of a holy life, a delightful enjoyment and power in every work, etc. (Osiander). Or, as the Apostle had just been speaking of the power of God, perhaps he was here thinking of God’s righteousness operating through him, giving him weapons for every conflict, and directed especially to the establishment and development of good order in the world. The object of this Divine power was, on the one hand, to preserve in action all that was originally beneficial, and on the other to destroy all that was injurious; and especially in the department of redemption to preserve and develop all that new life which corresponded to the Divine will, and to remove all which was in opposition to it. (comp. Beck Chr. Lehrw. pp. 551 ff.). In this way probably δικαιοσύνη is used in Rom_6:13; Rom_6:18 ff. In respect to ὅπλα comp. Eph_6:11 ff.; 1Th_5:8. The Apostle, however, speaks of two kinds of these weapons: those on the right hand and those on the left. The former were for assault (sword, lance) and the latter for defence and protection (shield). [Alford thinks this would have required τῶν δεξ. καὶ τῶν ἀριστ.: whereas now no article being inserted before ἀριστ., it is implied that the panoply (τὰ ὅπλα) is on both sides of the person. But even without such a specification by the article the complete armor for the whole person might yet imply that he had the sword and spear (ξὶφος καὶ δόρυ) in the right, and the shield (ἀσπὶς) on the left hand, so that he was called ἀμφιδέξιος]. Both imposed upon the Apostle as the organ through which God’s righteousness acted among men the duty of contending against all forms of error and immorality which were so injurious to good order, and of repelling every kind of assault which might be made upon such order and upon himself as its representative, (comp. 2Co_10:4). As he commended himself to men by his use of these weapons, and of all the means supplied by God’s righteousness for the advancement of God’s cause in the world, the result was of course that he had to pass through glory and dishonor. (2Co_6:8, διὰ δόξης καὶ ἀτιμίας, etc.). At this point he proceeds to mention the opposite judgments which were passed upon his conduct in these struggles. Δόξα is the glory or honor which was awarded him by the friends, and ἀτιμία the dishonor awarded him by the enemies, of God’s cause. The latter as well as the former, and not merely his conduct under both, were naturally the means of commending him to those who had spiritual discernment. (comp. Mat_5:11; Luk_6:22; 1Pe_4:14). Διά stands here in a different position from that in which it stood before τῶν ὅπλων, and means passing through honor and dishonor, i. e., in the midst of honor and disgrace. (comp. Meyer; the remarks of Osiander in opposition to this do not seem appropriate). The same is true with respect to διὰ before δυσφημίας καὶ εὐφημίας (through evil report and good report). [Alford: “Once adopted by the Apostle the διὰ was kept for the sake of the parallelism, though with various shades of meaning. I would understand it in ὅιὰ δοξ., etc., as in διὰ πολλῶν δακρύων (2Co_2:4) as pointing out the medium through which. Thus understood these two pairs in 2Co_6:8 will form an easy transition from the instrumental, through the medial to the passive characteristics which follow.”]—As deceivers and true, as unknown and well known,.—These two clauses are connected with the two immediately preceding, and not with συνιστάν. ἐαυτοὺς ὡς θεοῦ διάκονοι [i. e., the author means, it was as deceivers and true, that they went through evil report and good report (2Co_6:8), and not that they commended themselves (2Co_6:4)]. We may notice, however, that what is detrimental is mentioned in the first part of each couplet, as it had been in some of the preceding clauses (δυσφημίας, εὐφημίας). As deceivers (ὡς πλάνοι) expresses what was the nature of the dishonorable reports respecting him, the false estimate placed upon him (comp. Mat_27:63; Joh_7:12; 1Ti_4:1). And true (καὶ ἀληθεῖς), on the other hand, expresses what was the tenor of the good reports respecting him, and at the same time what was the actual state of the case. But καὶ has not, therefore, the meaning of, and yet [as in the English A. V.], for ὡς qualifies both words in each clause, and the two have reference to εὐφημία (and δόξα).—In 2Co_6:9 ἀγνοούμενοι has the sense of, obscure people, persons whom no one knows [Bloomfield: “obscure nobodies”], and not those who are misunderstood. or for whom no one cares. In contrast with it stands ἐπιγινωσκόμενοι: those who are well known, those who have the good report. It refers, therefore, to the knowledge of men, and not of God (as in 1Co_13:12), to the knowledge which true believers had of him in opposition the judgment of opponents who undervalued him.—As dying and behold we live, as chastened and not killed.—In the first members of the several antitheses which he is about to enumerate, he properly refers still to the evil report and dishonor of which he had just spoken; and in the second he brings forward the actual state of the case, having reference to the glory and good report of the earlier clauses. It is for this reason that he indulges in a greater freedom of expression, as when he says, and behold, we live. His opponents had passed a contemptuous judgment upon him, and upon the constant danger of death in which he was said to stand; they say we are dying, and that we are near our last (ὡς ἀποθνήσκοντες, but he describes the case very differently when he gives his own view of it, 2Co_4:10 f.; 1Co_15:31), “and behold we live.” This last is said in a tone of triumph in opposition to the depreciation of his opponents. Contrary to all their expectations God’s wondrously saving power brings us out of our most imminent perils, not only uninjured, but with ever renewed powers of life (2Co_1:10; 2Co_4:10 f.). The phrase as chastened (ὡς παιδευόμενοι) does not mean that he was actually purified by this discipline. On the other hand, as Neander says: Paul confesses that he was always needing a chastening discipline. The putative meaning of ὡς is still to be retained. It was one part of the evil report through which the afflicted Apostle passed, that he was always looked upon as one punished or chastened of God (comp. Isa_53:4). As to the mode in which this was accomplished, we need not imagine that it was by a literal scourging. And not hilled (καὶ μὴ θανατούμενοι) means that he was not so severely chastened as to be slain.” The discipline was never carried to an extreme (comp. Psa_118:18).—As sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing, and possessing all things (2Co_6:10). In this verse ὡς λνπούμενοι signifies, we are looked upon as afflicted and sorrowful, and hence as men of a melancholy temperament; but in contrast with this distorted judgment, he declares that they were in reality always rejoicing and happy (comp. Php_4:4; Rom_5:3; Rom_12:12; 1Th_1:6). The last sentence refers to the contrast between their poverty and their wealth. In the wealthy city of Corinth, it was a very uncommon thing to find a Christian possessed of riches (1Co_11:21). We are commonly looked upon as poor, and yet we make many rich; as men who have nothing, and yet we have all things. When he says that they were rich and had all things, we need not suppose he had reference to the collections by means of which he had at his disposal all the wealth of the Christian community, but we must understand it of those spiritual blessings to which he had already referred when he said that they were always rejoicing (comp. 2Co_8:7; 2Co_8:9; 1Co_1:5; Rom_1:11; Rom_15:29). Having nothing (comp. Mat_8:20) indicates a high degree of the previously mentioned poverty (πτωχοί), and it alludes to the fact that Paul was sustained by the labor of his own hands. [Wordsworth: “κατὰ in κατέχοντες adds strength to the meaning of the latter.” See 1Co_7:31. Though we have nothing, we have firm possession of an eternal inheritance, yea, of “all things.” Stanley: “ἔχοντες” is simply “having,” κατέχοντες is “having to the full”]. This having all things and being rich must also be understood of spiritual possessions, and not of earthly property in addition, nor probably of the everlasting inheritance (κληρονομία). He speaks in a similar, though not in precisely the same, manner in 1Co_3:22. Neander says: “The whole world belongs to the Christian, because the principle which now governs him is one day to control everything on earth. What the Stoics once said of their wise men, was never completely true except of the Christian; for they alone have that true greatness which is founded upon humility, and they can never be overcome, for they are always in harmony with the will of God.”

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The more exalted the benefits of the atonement, the more important is it that we should not receive them merely as something brought to us by force to pacify our conscience; but without a sincere repentance and a thorough renovation of our own hearts. Such a participation in God’s greatest gift throws upon us a tremendous responsibility; for if we abuse it we bring upon ourselves an irreparable injury, since we not merely lose the opportunity of a great salvation, but we can hope for no other means of deliverance. Hence those who commend the atonement should earnestly invite those who hear them, not only to accept of it, but to bring forth all the appropriate fruits of such amazing grace. They should be exceedingly active in offering God’s mercy to men, and as fellow-laborers with God, earnestly beseech men not to receive the grace of God in vain, but diligently to bring forth and present to God the fruits of righteousness.

2. But to this word of exhortation, all that we are and do should correspond and give power. God’s ministers should not only give no such offence, that those who hate their work, may take occasion to insult and reproach it; but conduct themselves so as to gain the approbation of all well disposed persons. They should never become weary, hesitating, indolent, or desponding in their work; but under every discouragement and opposition, even under personal abuse, tumults, and loss of liberty, they should remain patient and undismayed. For the sake of such a work they should be willing to renounce with cheerfulness those conveniences and enjoyments which would otherwise be lawful to them. But whatever may be their exertions or endurances, they should maintain that purity of heart which longs for and thinks of nothing but the honor and glory of God: that familiarity with the economy of grace which readily and clearly discerns the Divine purposes and ways for saving men; and that forbearance and kindness, which can be learned and enjoyed only in the school of the Friend of Sinners. In all their course they should be controlled by the Holy Spirit shedding continually into their hearts that love of God, which produces and maintains a sincere love to men. Whatever they propose to their fellowmen will then bear the stamp of truth; and whatever they do will be accompanied by tokens of Divine power. In this manner they will prove themselves true champions of the Lord, boldly using the weapons of righteousness, now fearlessly assailing whatever opposes Christ’s cause, and now rigorously defending the truth and laws of God against every form of sin and error. Everything will then also become subservient to their cause, and will more and more compel men to confess that they are from God. Honor and dishonor, good and evil report, will be equally in their favor. If they are sometimes represented as deceivers, it will not be hard to prove themselves true men. If their adversaries disparage them as unknown, (obscure) they will soon prove themselves well known. If they are vilified as sinking, and devoted to death and ruin, they will ere long show themselves living monuments of saving and glorious grace. If they are pointed at as guilty objects of God’s frowns, they will soon prove that their chastisement was not unto death. If they are sometimes looked upon with pretended sympathy, as men overwhelmed with sorrow, poor wretches, who can only starve for want of the necessities of life, they will soon show that they are not merely joyful in themselves, and rich in spiritual blessings, but able also to enrich all their fellow men.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Starke:

2Co_6:1. Since God has chosen ministers to be his helpers in the work of the Gosepl, let no one think himself too well taught and holy to need the services of those who seem to be inferior in endowments, for he can never know what instrument, or slight occasion God may have chosen for a work of grace in his heart.—Hedinger:—Make use of the time you have, for the brief hour will soon be past. Whoever thrusts aside God’s grace, or loses it to secure some worldly advantage, draws down upon himself the severest judgments of God (Heb_2:3; Heb_12:15).—Spener:

2Co_6:2. God sometimes plentifully dispenses to men a grace, which will soon give place to wrath, if they fail to recognize and improve the time of their gracious visitation (Luk_19:42; Luk_19:44.) Thoughtless persons say: “We shall have time enough to-morrow, and we can turn to God even in death;” but are they sure that God will then give them true repentance; that He will accept of the forced repentance of a dying hour; or that he will ever permit them to see another day?

2Co_6:4. A minister’s whole life should be a practical illustration of what he enjoins upon others. (Tit_2:7 f.) He who preaches to others that they must enter the kingdom of heaven only through much tribulation, must not expect to go before them upon roses. An effeminate weakling who can bear no trouble is not fit to serve Christ. In Christ’s service we shall be called upon to endure hardness and to stand by Christ and His word, under all the assaults of the devil and the world. But although such things are sometimes hard to bear, with Divine grace they become light. (2Co_4:8).

2Co_6:5. Blessed are the peacemakers; cursed all rebels. Every hour has its work: God’s word is to be searched; our own house is to be built, the sick are to be visited, and earnest prayer is to be offered for ourselves, and for all the world! Think you this will disturb your peace ? Never fear. For God the Lord will be thy rest and thy strength.

2Co_6:6. A minister must cleanse himself from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit (2Co_6:1.) or he will pull down rather than build up. He who would teach others must know God, and be well acquainted with himself and his people (Joh_10:3; Joh_10:14.)—A patient spirit is the inward light, and kindliness the outward beams of this sun.

2Co_6:7. Behold, the true way to have the power, and the near presence of God: It is to be so familiar with His word, that it shall become thoroughly implanted in our hearts, and engrafted into our spiritual life (Jam_1:21.) As a well-armed warrior carries weapons in both hands, is watchful on every side, and uses his weapons against every assault, we should bring our spiritual weapons to bear against every kind of temptation (from Satan or the world; from the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the pride of life; from fears, tribulations, persecution). Where Christ is, God’s power is; and with this we can triumph over all things. Through God we shall do valiantly (Psa_60:12; Psa_108:13).

2Co_6:8. Stand firmly in God’s grace when men revile and seek to injure thee, and they will soon find that they dishonor themselves more than thee.

2Co_6:9. In severe sickness men will say, “He is dying,” but with God’s help we cry, “Behold I live!” Look well, that you may be able to say, “Christ liveth in me,” etc. (Gal_2:20.)—Hedinger, 2Co_6:10. God’s people have reason to mourn over their sins, their sufferings, the buffetings of their deadly enemy, their fellowmen, the abominable crimes of their day, the perdition of thousands, and the general blindness and hardness of men’s hearts. But they can always rejoice in the Spirit, in God and in Christ, in a blessed hope, in foretastes of future glory, and that their names are written in heaven (Luk_10:10.) While we continue in God’s grace, we always truly participate in, though we may not always be equally conscious of, its consolations. These, however, may always be increased by constant prayer. They are spiritual, pure, uninterrupted, and the offspring of the spirit of God through spiritual graces. If they are sometimes connected with visible things, they are never dependent upon these, but are intended to lead us directly to God. It is for this reason that the enjoyment of them is so sanctifying. God’s true ministers, as spiritual fathers, enrich their people by their instructions, their example, their prayers, and their admonitions to good works and liberality (comp. 1Ti_6:17 f.). He who has God has everything, for God will provide every needful temporal blessing.

Berlenb. Bible:

2Co_6:1. A man must make a holy use of that grace by means of which he is first anointed with the Holy Spirit, justified, sanctified and turned to God: for if he makes it subservient to his fleshly lusts, or to his security in sin, and perverts it to his own pride and self-righteousness, instead of using it for his growth in grace and especially for being born into the kingdom of God, even that which he has already received will be withdrawn.

2Co_6:2. The only proper result of grace already received is the hearing of our prayers, the healing of our back-slidings and the salvation of our souls. When Satan is most aroused, then is the time for plucking souls from his grasp.—There are times in which God sees fit to give us more than common manifestations of His grace. Great will be our blessedness if we make a wise improvement of such seasons.—The deeper our impressions are, the greater the injury, if they are despised and resisted, and so our hearts are hardened against God. Every one should observe whether, and in what way Divine grace is acting upon his heart. If we walk not in the light while it is yet day, darkness will come upon us, and our perverted hearts will lead us to ruin.—When Satan can find an occasion for reproaching God’s children, and especially those who have the care of souls, he will be sure to make a mountain of it, and will corrupt the work of God. But never is he more insulting than when he finds them feeble and dispirited. Then he points to them and cries: “These are the Lord’s heroes!” An occasion for offence is thus given, not merely when we commit some great crime, but when we make no advances, when we are slothful, cold-hearted, and indolent, and when the people do not see us in earnest.

2Co_6:4 f. Where Christians are really zealous, they must expect to suffer. They must then beseech God for patience, and their prayers will keep them from falling.—God’s true messengers, and even Christians in general, may be distinguished from the world by their sufferings, and by their being looked upon by those who are esteemed in society, as the offscouring of all things and as a curse. There is no way in which they will not be assailed, in mind and body, in reputation or in property. They will be perplexed, crushed and beaten (afflictions).—Circumstances will arise when the servant of God will be in extreme distress, that as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, he may be an example to others of a firm trust in God.—Whoever is preparing for the pastoral office, must make it his first object to attain a degree of patience, which nothing but Divine power can give him.—Many have found evangelical fasting, when entered upon voluntarily at suitable times, and without affectation, very profitable, but any other will be found quite useless.—To abstain from an improper use of even those things which belong to us, will be an excellent means of purifying and disciplining us.

2Co_6:6. The best protection against impure thoughts and desires, is to give ourselves thoroughly up to our ordinary employments. Those who have once known how pleasant a holy life is, must have an insatiable hungering after purity of heart. The best way to know and properly appreciate all things around us, is to gain such a familiarity with them as God gives us in the midst of Christian activity, and the trials and temptations to which it subjects us.—He is truly kind who is willing to give up himself when occasion calls for it, and to renounce his own enjoyments at the call of distress and love. This can be done, in a pure and blameless manner, when the heart has been thoroughly awakened and renewed so as to be holy before God, angels and men (by the Holy Ghost).—Many a thing comes to us under the semblance of love. But the Apostolic spirit was in truth also. The very nature of love is such that it makes brethren speak the truth.

2Co_6:7. Truth must be defective if love is wanting. Where a man is actuated by love, he will honestly speak the truth, and of course will neither flatter nor needlessly offend or injure any one.—If a man faithfully pursues his calling, thoroughly renounces the world, and by the aid of the Holy Spirit gives no offence, is sincere, pure, chaste, kind and true, he will possess power, (“by the power of God”) which no one can resist, and his faith will be the victory which overcomes the world. No one can do this who does not make good use of the weapons of righteousness. With these he can defend himself against all mischief from within or from without. God is wonderful in His resources!

2Co_6:8. In itself it is a matter of indifference to a Christian, whether men receive or reject him, if he only has the testimony of a good conscience, and has grace always to own his Lord.

2Co_6:9. The dealings of God with His people are so fatherly, that, with all the humiliations and chastisements to which He subjects them, they are never given over to death. 2Co_6:10. Christians are not without tender feelings when they are in affliction, but they are so refreshed by supplies of grace that they can endure with cheerfulness.—None can understand how wonderful God’s goodness is but those who seek for and love Him; but so abundant will be the riches of knowledge which He gives, that many besides their possessors will be enriched. To have nothing, neither gold, nor possessions, etc., and yet to have all things so as to be unwilling to exchange conditions with the wealthiest of this world, are things so hard to be united, that nothing but Divine power can combine them together.

Rieger:

2Co_6:1 f. If thou hast besought men to be reconciled to God, fail not to admonish them also, for even those who have been brought nigh to God by the word of reconciliation are still in danger. How often is grace obstructed, and the heart hardened rather than benefited.—“I have heard thee,” etc. Such a promise was not for our great High Priest alone during the single hour of His soul’s travail (Isa_49:8), but for those of every age and condition in whose behalf he then acted. His prayer for His disciples and for all who should afterwards believe on Him through their word, has been heard. The present, therefore, is an acceptable time, etc.

2Co_6:3. Men are ingenious in contriving pretexts for receiving the grace of God in vain, especially if they can detect something in those who preach the Gospel inconsistent with their messages.—The minister of Christ must not expect entirely to escape scandal; but when the conscience of a hearer has been offended, so that the Gospel has no power over him, the cause is not unfrequently one which could and ought to have been avoided. The minister’s work should be to him as the very apple of his eye, to be kept most delicately from every contact with vice. Many of the judicial proceedings of the present day fail of success on both sides on account of the contempt and reproach which rests upon the ministerial character (Mal_2:7-9). The salt which has lost its savor will be sure to be crushed under the feet of men. But even those who thus tread upon it must one day answer for being so easily deprived of that which might and ought to have been salt to them, and for being so speedily reduced to a carcass of corruption in God’s sight.

2Co_6:4 The best eye for judging all we do is acquired by having a desire in all things to act worthy of a servant of God.—A stupid, hesitating and timid spirit knows nothing of real patience. None but those who fear no terrors can maintain such a spirit under severe trials.

Heubner:

2Co_6:1. To receive the grace of God (i. e., all that could save us) in vain, is the surest way to injure ourselves and to lose what we have. What an honor and blessedness to be God’s helpers, and to give Him back the tongues and powers he gave us!

2Co_6:2. The acceptable time is the whole period of the Christian dispensation, for salvation is now free to all, especially all who hear the Gospel in its clearness and power. For every one it is now a day of salvation. Luther:—“The word of God moves along like a passing shower; wherever it comes it must be received at once, or it will be gone.”—How soon a man’s “not now” becomes a “never. How many are lost because they put off the day of their conversion!

2Co_6:3. Christianity has always been much dishonored by the unfaithfulness and faults of some ministers whose scandalous walk pulls down faster than their preaching builds up. Most carefully, therefore, should they guard their conduct, for every defect in this will surely be noticed. No wonder, therefore, that the world is full of objections to those who preach the Gospel.

2Co_6:4-5. In performing the duties of your office, seek not to please yourself or the world, but God. Faithfulness to Him will be seen principally in the patient and persevering performance of the difficult duties you have to do. Nothing is more indispensable to a minister of God, driven as he often must be into straits and with none to counsel him, than patience.

2Co_6:6. The severer the opposition, the more honorable the virtues which are shown in encountering it: such as purity of heart, the ready tact and familiarity with Divine things which always hits upon the right thing; the good will and courage which perseveres even when the results do not correspond to our expectations; the unwearied earnestness to benefit those who make no returns of gratitude and continually thwart our pains; the kindness (the outward form of love) which endeavors to win all to Christ; the holy zeal which remains at all times equally constant, and has a heart for God’s work and man’s salvation; and the sincere love to all men which is the soul of all our graces.

2Co_6:8. The equanimity of the Christian under the ever varying judgments of the world.—Honors do not dazzle him, dishonors do not trouble him.

2Co_6:9. To be known by a few faithful friends, is better than to have a name with the multitude.

2Co_6:10. The Christian, though poor in the eye of the world, has an inexhaustible treasure to dispense. With no earthly house or grounds, or possessions, he has a rich inheritance in heaven. With rapture he can cry: “My heart leaps!” etc. (Luk_4:23).

W. F. Besser:

2Co_6:1. God has seen fit to communicate to men the blessing of reconciliation through the medium of His word and the preaching of the Gospel. Though He alone can impart the spirit of faith, and so work upon the heart that we shall come to Christ and find justification and salvation, He dispenses His gifts and influences in connection with the outward word, and calls those who preach it His helpers or fellow-laborers (1Co_3:9).

2Co_6:2. When Paul exclaims: “Behold, now,” etc., he must be understood as saying: “Open your eyes and behold that Gospel which has filled the world with the precious assurance that God is no more angry or punishing men, but is gracious and ready to save them; for our Lord Jesus, who has conquered all our enemies, and now intercedes for us, has purchased us for Himself, and entreats us to be reconciled to God.” The whole period of the New Testament is an acceptable time (Luk_4:19); when the buds of promise are bursting, and every day is a day of salvation. We are continually receiving and appropriating the results of our Saviour’s sufferings and victories. Every Christian may therefore apply to himself the prophetic word, “I have heard thee;” for if one is heard for all, then all are heard; and if one is succored for all, then all are succored.

2Co_6:6. Among the virtues and gifts which distinguish God’s servants, we ought especially to remark the Holy Spirit. From this Source flow the streams of life, of virtues and of gifts both backward and forward in our text. He it is who washes the soul from every defilement, and then it begins to shine with intelligence, long suffering and kindness, and He it is who crowns these virtues with martial glories and entwines them together in a bond of peace.

2Co_6:7. One part of the work to be accomplished by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, is to strip from us the motley garment of our own righteousness, and triumphantly to maintain the genuineness and everlasting suitableness of the beautiful and glorious garment of Christ’s righteousness.

2Co_6:9. When it is objected against the servants of Christ that they are obscure and insignificant, that they have no place among the wise, and no reputation or power in the world (1Co_1:26-28), they are more than compensated by being well known in heaven (Luk_10:20; Php_4:3; Heb_12:23) and in the Church below by all whom they have served with patience and with the humble graces of the Holy Spirit.

2Co_6:10. Every thing on earth is subservient to the welfare of God’s servants; and the future dignities of the meek who inherit the earth (Mat_5:5) may be traced even in this life, when heaven and earth are nothing but a vast storehouse, the key to whose treasures is continually given to faith by prayer. Away with pride and vanity! Let us dread poison when pious people praise us, and learn to find honey among the nettles of calumny and lies; for we have the assurance (Mat_5:11-12).

2Co_6:1-10 (Pericope on Invocavit Sunday):—The Lord glorified by His Apostles: 1, by their blameless deportment (2Co_6:1-4); 2, by their patience in sufferings (2Co_6:4-5); 3, by their holy walk (2Co_6:6-7); 4, by the benefits they confer.—The Apostles are like their Lord: 1, in their work as preachers and their holy walk: 2, in sufferings, not only under positive inflictions, but under privations; 3, in their excellent influence, inasmuch as they make use of none but honorable means.—A season of Fasting a time of salvation: 1. For we should regard it as a time: a. to awake to the reception of God’s grace, as we contemplate the story of Christ’s sufferings (2Co_6:1-2); b. to become more holy in our daily lives (2Co_6:3-4); c. to make use of the trials of life, for the exercise of every Christian virtue (2Co_6:4-6); d. to receive the spiritual aids which are offered us. 2. Beneficial influence of the truths then contemplated: a. for our amendment of life and our confirmation in holiness; b. for our real comfort and peace; c. for the increase of our influence among our fellow-men.—Our whole life on earth is a season of fasting; for it is a time: 1, of suffering; 2, of many privations; 3, of discipline in holiness; 4, of preparation for the great Easter, when we shall be raised from the dead and saved forever (Heubner).

L. Hofacker (pp. 80 ff.):—In the midst of all their outward afflictions, their insignificance and their vileness in the eye of the world, those who follow Christ and labor in His vineyard must expect to be reviled; but in spite of all their sufferings and shame, a Divine greatness and majesty will break forth from them, amply sufficient to prove the reality of the kingdom for which they are contending.—The hidden glories of God’s kingdom: 1. That kingdom has a glory. 2. But it is now concealed: a. in Christ Himself; b. in His Church.

Footnotes:

[1][1 2Co_6:1.—D. (1st cor.) omits ὐμᾶς, and C. and Sinait. (1st cor.) substitute for it ἡμᾶς.

[2]2Co_6:2.—F. and G. have δεκτός instead of εὐπρόσδεκτος. Their authority, however, is not great.

[3]2Co_6:3.—After ἡ διακονία, D. E. F. G. and two other MSS., the Ital., some copies of the Vulgate, the Gothic and Syriac versions, many Greek and the Latin Fathers insert ἡμῶν.

[4]2Co_6:4.—Rec. has συνιστῶντες on the authority of D. (3d cor.). E. K. L. Sin. (3d cor.), with Chrys. Theodt. Damasc. and others, Lachm. Tisch. and Alford (with C. D. (1st Cor.) F. G. and Sin.), have συνιστάντες. B. with two cursives and one MS. of Damasc. have συνιστανόντες. This text is in nearly the same state as 2Co_3:1, which see.]

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7. The Example of the Apostle Paul; His Testings and Trials.

CHAPTER 6:1-13

He beseeches the Corinthians as coworkers, in view of the ministry of reconciliation, not to receive this grace of God in vain. This is not a contradiction of the doctrine of the security of a true believer. The apostle evidently was uneasy about some of these Corinthian Christians and feared that some had not received the grace of God in their hearts. Their conduct led him to this questioning. If the grace of God comes to man it may be received in vain and lead not to the blessed results in quickening power and real salvation for which it is given. “The security of His children is unquestionable, not so much through their perseverance, as men say, but by His power through faith; but the Corinthians needed and received faithful entreaty, for their ways were not such as became the gospel. They were compromising His glory, who had called them to the fellowship of His Son; and the apostle instead of comforting them with the blessed assurance of the close of Rom 8:1-39, would here exercise conscience as well as affection in presence of God’s grace” (William Kelly).

Interesting is the quotation from Isa 49:1-26. A careful examination of Isa 49:4-8 is suggested. It is a prophecy concerning the Messiah. His rejection by Israel is there predicted, and the words of the eighth verse, quoted here, “I have heard thee in a time accepted and in the day of salvation I have succored thee” are addressed to Christ, whom Israel rejected. God raised Him from the dead, and though Israel is not gathered, He becomes the power of salvation for the Gentiles. This is the meaning of “behold now is the accepted time; behold now is the day of salvation.” “Now” means this present dispensation when salvation is offered to the Gentiles. But grace rejected, neglected or perverted, as it is the case in this age in which grace reigns through righteousness, will bring judgment, followed by the blessings for Israel and the earth.

The apostle speaks once more of himself and describes negatively and positively the moral features which he manifested in his life as a true minister of God. He knew nothing of inconsistency in life, which is so detrimental to the ministry of the Word. “Giving no offence in anything that the ministry be not blamed.” Well has it been said, “Christianity is real and living, not dogmatic only, still less official, else it becomes of all things the most contemptible.” The apostle’s life in every detail was a comment on his ministry. He practiced what he preached, The opposite undermines any preaching or teaching. “But in everything commending ourselves as the ministers of God.” There was more than the avoidance of offence; in anything, in all conditions and under all circumstances he behaved himself as becomes the minister of God, the ambassador of Christ. In much patience, never impatient, but always enduring in afflictions of various kinds when the world and the god of this age pressed him hard; in necessities and straits, when there seemed to be no escape. Then there were sufferings: in stripes, in prisons, in tumults. Of these we read more in chapter 11. Then there are named things he took upon himself willingly and gladly as the minister of God, namely: labors, watchings and fastings. By these he manifested his devotedness. Well may we ponder over each as they are given in 2Co 6:6-7. Then follows a series of contrasts. By glory and dishonor. He experienced these opposite extremes, both among the Saints, and also in the world. He was shamefully entreated and also revered. He was beloved and honored by God’s people and dishonored by the slandering tongue of false teachers. But throughout he proved himself as the minister of God. By evil report and good report, as deceivers and yet true. “Woe unto you if all men speak well of you.” If the servant of Christ follows Him, the world will hate him and brand him a deceiver as it was done with the Lord (Mat 27:63). It would take many pages to follow the paradoxes as given by this model and master servant. Nothing more beautiful and attractive than 2Co 6:10, “As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing all things.” Oh, blessed life! May God’s grace and God’s Spirit enable us to manifest Christ as this servant of Christ did.

Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Paul’s Ministry in the Midst of Difficulties. 2Co 6:1-10

Fellow-workers of God:

v. 1. We, then, as workers together with Him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.

v. 2. (For He saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored thee. Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)

Paul had just given a summary description of the ministry of reconciliation which had been entrusted to him, and had sent forth a ringing invitation to accept the grace of God. He now makes the application in an admonition to sanctification: We, then, working together with Him, also entreat you not in vain to receive the grace of God. In carrying out the Gospel-ministry, in issuing the Lord’s urgent invitation to accept the effected reconciliation, Paul and all ministers of the Gospel are God’s assistants, working with Him for the salvation of men’s souls. "Therefore God is the true Master within, in the heart, that performs the best work; and we help and serve Him to this end externally with the ministry of preaching. " It is necessary, then, to add admonition to Gospel exposition, as the apostle here does, entreating the Corinthians, appealing to them not to hear the message of the grace of God without benefit. "To accept the grace of God in vain can be nothing else than hearing the pure Word of God, in which the grace of God is offered, and yet remaining apathetic and not accepting it, remaining as one was before. " The grace of God is offered independently of man’s faith and obedience, but if it is not accepted by the hearers, it will, instead of profiting them, result in their everlasting condemnation, chap. 2:16. If a person feigns interest in the forgiveness of sins, but will not truly repent of his sins; if he makes a practice of referring to the Redeemer, but himself trusts in his own merits; if he is a member of a congregation and uses the means of grace, but incidentally leads a life by which the mercy of God is disgraced, then he belongs to the class of those whom the warning of the apostle strikes.

In order to give proper weight to his evangelical admonition, Paul supports it with a passage from the Old Testament: at an accepted time I hearkened to thee, and in a day of salvation I succored thee, Isa 49:8. This word of the prophet was being fulfilled before the eyes of the Corinthians, as it is today, for he speaks of the time of the New Testament as that of the dispensation of grace. What God had promised to His great Servant, the Messiah, that is being given by grace to all those that accept the Christ in true faith. Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation; that is Paul’s explanation and comment. Since Christ has been made manifest in the flesh, the propitious time has come, the time of His good pleasure, the time of His good will toward men, in which He intends to reveal His mercy, power, and glory. The present Christian dispensation is the day of salvation, with God freely extending His gracious help to all sinners that will hear His call. The repetition of the word "behold" emphasizes the point that the present time is that in which God so accepts, in which He so dispenses His grace and mercy. Now they have free access to the redemption of Christ, Heb 4:16; Rom 5:2. Now, today, they should make their decision and partake of His bounty, accept the hand of reconciliation extended to them. Mark: If the time of grace is neglected, if its invitation is ignored, it may soon be past forever, to be followed by a time of wrath and condemnation. "Now that God has given us His mercy in such rich measure,... truly it is necessary that we do not set the grace of God at naught and let Him knock in vain. He is standing at the door: well for us if we open to Him. He is saluting us; blessed he that answers. If we overlook His passing, who will bring Him back?"

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co 6:1

I. Consider, first, the Apostle’s caution, that we do not receive the grace of God in vain. The word grace has various significations in Scripture, some of more restricted and some of wider meaning. Sometimes it denotes mere kindness of purpose, and is applied to the free and unmerited love of God, by which He was first moved to the scheme of human redemption. Sometimes it stands as the general name for the gospel, as indicating the kindlier genesis of that economy as distinguished from the bondage spirit of law. Sometimes it is put for all the sanctifying, comforting, and sustaining influences of the Holy Spirit. But in the text, and in some other passages, the word is better understood in a broader sense than any of these, and indeed as inclusive of them—namely, as referring not only to all the overtures of grace and mercy which God has made to us in the gospel of His dear Son, but to all those ministries of the Word and the Spirit by which those overtures may be most easily accepted. Now such is the perverseness of man’s will, it is implied in the text, that all these means and ministries for his happiness may be offered him to no purpose. The injured Father of our spirits may stretch out His hand and find there is none to regard it; and the grace that He would have bestowed upon us for our conversion is either rejected or received in vain.

II. The text supposes that it is a real option with us whether the grace of God is received in vain or not; that despite of all apparent difficulties, whether based upon the Divine decrees or upon the sovereignty and spontaneousness of Divine grace itself, it is practically competent to every one of us to use such means as shall facilitate the proper and effectual influence of grace upon our minds. While we must cherish the habitual conviction of our dependence upon God’s promised influence to render His own message effectual, we are really bound, on the other hand, to use all moral endeavours for making it effectual. We shall receive the grace of God in vain if we receive it doubtingly, with perplexed thoughts, with limitations either in it or in ourselves, calculated to make it insufficient for its end.

D. Moore, Penny Pulpit, No. 3395.

Consider certain particulars, in which men, endowed with a certain degree of right feeling in religion, are most apt to go wrong.

I. In the government of their thoughts and imaginations men are apt sometimes to fancy, if they do right, that they may think as they please. But this is surely an inexcusable mistake; for the order and government of our thought proves what we are more distinctly than anything else. In thinking we are alone with God, and the ordering of our thoughts aright is neither more nor less than behaving rightly towards Him. Consider, then, whether your improvement in this respect has been answerable to the means of grace which Almighty God has mercifully afforded you. We ought not to be satisfied with our own devotion of heart, till we find our thoughts returning of their own accord towards heaven whenever they have been interrupted by any worldly call or anxiety.

II. To know whether we are quite sincere in receiving the grace of God, we must consider whether we are the better for it in our daily discourse and conversation with other men. Not that we are to be always talking of religious subjects, but since one of the most necessary truths for a Christian to believe is the corruption of the heart and tongue, it is impossible but that one, who has a true and increasing sense of it, must be more and more on his guard that he offend not in words. This will, perhaps, be the very surest sign and mark by which a sincere man may satisfy his own conscience, that he is really the better for the inestimable love of God in making and keeping him a Christian.

III. Another mark is this—Are we daily becoming more industrious and readier to deny ourselves for the help and comfort of our neighbour? The more we know of the gospel, the more we know of God’s love to us, how dear it cost Him, how far it reaches, how unceasing and unwearied it is; the more pressing, therefore, is the call upon us to think nothing too good for our brethren, no sacrifice too costly to be offered for the sake of ensuring their eternal welfare.

Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times" vol. iv., p. 1.

What is it to receive the grace of God in vain? To this question a threefold answer may be given.

I. There is the non-use of grace—the neglect of a great salvation. In vain is it here, within the sphere of our knowledge and within the possible grasp of our faith, ready for immediate application to all the uses of life and to all its heart-needs, if it be simply ignored.

II. A thing is received in vain if it is perverted and turned to some alien use. Such perversion of the gospel is, alas! too easy and too common. It may be made (1) a cloak for sin, (2) a tent for indolence, (3) the signal for perpetual controversy.

III. There is yet another way of perverting the grace of God, and one which comes closely home to ourselves—the very little and imperfect use we make of it as Christians.

A. Raleigh, From Dawn to the Perfect Day, p. 297.

Fellow-workers with God.

In these words is expressed the bond of fellowship in which we all meet as brethren in the Church of God: "fellow-workers with God," not blind instruments, not simple recipients, but having freedom to work for ourselves and being called to cooperate in the work with the Almighty Hand which can need nothing of His creatures. This grand yet mysterious title belongs to man as man, but belongs especially to Christians as Christians.

I. Such power is the birthright of humanity, and the birthright, as always, is restored to us in a Diviner perfection by the Lord Jesus Christ. The very mystery of His incarnation is the supreme exemplification of the working together of humanity with Godhead for the salvation of the world. The Christian who knows God as his Father in heaven, and who in the true Son of God and man has at once the strength and the pattern of an energetic service of faith, is without excuse if he ever forgets that he is a fellow-worker with God.

II. What is it to be a fellow-worker with God? There is a true service of God in the sphere of the visible world and this present life; but there is a deeper and truer service in conscious fellow-working for the kingdom which is avowedly the kingdom of salvation, not touching merely the transitory and visible present, but dealing with that which, being spiritual, is immortal, and so stretching on to an illimitable future.

III. This view of life is full of grandeur and of far-reaching and manifold significance. It has a lesson (1) of humility and sobriety; (2) of confident hope; (3) of unity among ourselves; (4) of cheerful and hopeful patience.

A. Barry, First Words in Australia, p, 35.

References: 2Co 6:1.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iv., p. 89; vol. viii., p. 91; J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 8th series, p. 193; W. Hay Aitken, Mission Sermons, vol. i., p. 331; E. Cooper, Practical Sermons, p. 32; R. Forrest, Church of England Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 85; Scott, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 1. 2Co 6:1, 2Co 6:2.—W. Hubbard, Ibid., vol. ix., p. 296; S. Martin, Sermons, p. 23. 2Co 6:1-10.—A. Short, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xii., p. 376; F. W. Robertson, Lectures on Corinthians, p. 347. 2Co 6:2.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. x., No. 603; vol. xxiv., No. 1394; W. C. E. Newbolt, Counsels of Faith and Practice, p. 114; R.A.Bertram, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 315; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 327; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 274. 2Co 6:3.—A. M. Brown, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 220. 2Co 6:5.—C. S. Horne, Ibid., vol. xxxvi., p. 232. 2Co 6:6.—C. J. Vaughan, Words of Hope, p. 113. 2Co 6:7-10.—Homilist, 4th series, vol. i., p. 31. 2Co 6:9.—J. Edmunds, Sermons in a Village Church, p. 114.

2Co 6:9-10

A String of Paradoxes.

I. Note the first paradox of the text: "As unknown, and yet well known." The early disciples were a literally unknown and obscure set of persons, even the Apostles themselves being called from the most ordinary avocations of life. By far the greatest of their number, notwithstanding his natural and acquired ability, was sneered at by the world of his day. The world, as a whole, still misjudges and underrates the Church. The Apostle John’s declaration is as true now as ever: "The world knoweth us not,"—unknown to the world, yet well known to the Church triumphant and to the angels of God. Our names are written, not on earth, but in heaven itself.

II. "As dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed." It is not our only life that the world sees; we have another, an inner, higher, diviner life, hid with Christ in God—a life of faith, a life of love, a life of hope, hope which, like an electric conductor, draws light from the very Throne of God, and tinges the dark death-cloud with the radiancy of the immortality beyond. And though this the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

III. Hear also the third paradox: "As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing." When the little bird starts from the twig to breast the force of the storm, the wind as it meets it only tends to drive it higher and higher towards the sky. In like manner the storms of life, as the Christian faces them, do but force him higher and higher, until he reaches that calm elevation above the storm where the sun of Divine love and peace sheds its light and warmth upon his soul.

IV. "As poor, yet making many rich." Poor enough were the Apostles and their early followers, and significant is the fact that not poverty but wealth has been the Church’s chiefest bane. But amidst present poverty, God’s children have the power to scatter broadcast present wealth—the power to impart a knowledge of riches that wax not old.

V. "As having nothing, and yet possessing all things." A man may own a magnificent picture-gallery on earth, and yet, because of his lack of sympathy with painting, the poor man whom he permits to visit it, who has the mystic sympathy, may be the truest possessor of the pictures. Even so in reference to the Christian and the universe in which he lives: though legally he may have nothing, yet, being in harmony with the Spirit of the great Creator, he can trace His hand in every work; and whilst the wicked never acknowledge God in nature, he in reality, by sympathy and spiritual discernment, possesses all things.

J. W. Atkinson, Penny Pulpit, new series, No. 956.

References: 2Co 6:10.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. viii., p. 1; J. Vaughan, Sermons, 13th series, p. 101; W. Moffat, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 325; Sermons for Boys and Girls, p. 14; Homilist, 2nd series, vol. iv., p. 217. 2Co 6:11.—Ibid., 4th series, vol. i., p. 352.

2Co 6:14

Communion with God.

I. We can require no proof that God and the wicked man cannot be said to have fellowship or communion, though God be about that wicked man’s path and spieth out all his ways. There is no proposing of the same object or end, for God proposes His own glory, whereas the wicked man proposes the gratification of his own sinful propensities. To have fellowship, to have communion with God, what can this denote, if not that human nature has been wondrously purged from its corruption, refined into something of affinity to the ethereal, and endowed with affections which find their counterpart objects in the Divine Being alone? You see at once the contradiction between the assertions—that a man is in fellowship with God and yet loves the present world—is eager for its wealth, addicted to its pleasures, or ambitious for its honours. The phraseology of our text implies a state of concord or friendship—a state, in fact, on man’s part, of what we commonly understand by religion.

II. We cannot conceal from ourselves that there is a great deal of vague hope of heaven which takes little or no account of what must necessarily be the character of the inhabitants of heaven. It follows so naturally, with regard to earthly things, that we seek what we love, that there is very little difficulty, with regard to heavenly things, to draw from the fact of loving the inference that we must be in earnest as candidates for a kingdom of which we so readily recognise the worth and attractiveness. But we forget that in order to anything of happiness there must be a correspondence between the dispositions of the inhabitants of a world and the glories and enjoyments of that world. It is nothing that we have a relish for descriptions of heaven. The question is whether we have any conformity with the inhabitants of heaven.

H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2215.

References: 2Co 6:14.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. i., p. 223; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 246. 2Co 6:15.—G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 260. 2Co 6:16.—Homilist, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 296; vol. iv., p. 588; J. Irons, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 85; F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxx., p. 8; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 126: Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. x., p. 142. 2Co 6:17.—Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 255. 2Co 6:17, 2Co 6:18.—W. Landels, Christian World Pulpit, vol. v., p. 4; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ix., p. 115.

The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Division 4. (2Co 6:1-18; 2Co 7:1-16.)

Testing and trial in the world through which we pass.

We have now, as always in these fourth divisions, the testing by the way; in which, if on the one hand our weakness is proved, the power of God for us is no less manifested, and the grace of God also in its support all through and in the development of the fruits of righteousness. The suffering and trial, it is manifest, give just the opportunity for this. If there were no difficulties there would be nothing to triumph over. If there were no testing, there would be no manifestation of the reality of God’s work in His people. There would be no accomplishment either of that which is wrought by the necessary discipline in it all. The things that seem against us are thus really for us, according to the abiding assurance that God maketh all things to work together for good to them that love Him.

1. We have still, as all through here, the apostle himself the witness of the trial and in the trial. It is really that he is an example, by way of eminence, of that which still applies to all the people of God. Otherwise, the example would be no example. There would be nothing for us, at least, except a mere ability given to admire in another what would have no meaning for one’s self. The life of the apostle, indeed, in all its suffering, may seem very little suited as an example for us in the days that we are fallen upon, days which are none the better indeed for this, and which give the trial in many respects another character. Still the principles remain all the way through, and God’s way is to give us principles, the application of which appeals to us for the needed faithfulness to carry out. Joining his fellow workers with himself, the apostle beseeches that the grace of God exhibited in his message may not be received in vain; for indeed now was the time accepted of which God before had spoken, for He had said: "I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in a day of salvation I have succored thee." Now is the time characterized pre-eminently in this way. Its character as a whole, not exceptionally or occasionally, is that of a well accepted time, a day of salvation.

Beseeching them thus, he can appeal to that which was manifestly a character of his own testimony, giving no manner of offence in anything, causing none to stumble and the ministry so to be blamed, "but in everything commending ourselves as the ministers of God, in much endurance, in afflictions, in necessities, in labors, in watchings, in fastings." These were the circumstances suited for the development of such a character as he goes on to speak of: "In pureness, in knowledge, in longsuffering, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in love unfeigned, in the word of truth, in the power of God." It is evidently a world just suited to display these things in, as darkness is suited for the stars to shine in it. With reference to the opposition also: "By the armor of righteousness on the right hand and the left, by glory and dishonor, by evil report and good report"; "as deceivers" in the evil report, and "true" in reality; "as unknown," on the one side, and "well known" on the other; "as dying" in the life here, with regard to all the things that in men’s thoughts constitute life, "yet living" in the life which alone is true and eternal; then "as chastened and not put to death; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing and possessing all things." What contradictions and anomalies here are nevertheless made all to work harmoniously for the manifestation of Christ and His people! And this was so evident as to the apostle that there was no need indeed to enlarge upon such things. They knew that the staple of his life was found in them. He could therefore appeal confidently in the fulness of the love which he had to them, and in which now through grace he could count upon them. His mouth was open to them, his heart enlarged. Indeed, it had never been in himself that they were straitened, but in those affections really in which, speaking in love as unto his children, he could ask them by way of recompense now to be enlarged.

2. This, then, was the picture of a life so different from that which the Corinthians plainly had been seeking for themselves, in which alliance with the world had been substituted for persecution by the world, and the beginning is manifest of that which the centuries since have developed in so terrible a way. He urges them, therefore, here that they "be not united in a foreign yoke with unbelievers." For those who believed in a crucified Christ, for whom the measure of things was seen in the cross, how was it possible that there should be now the ability to go on together in common effort for a common end? What participation could there be between righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship had light with darkness? Or what concord between Christ and Belial? What portion could there be for a believer to enjoy with an unbeliever; and that temple of God which he had before reminded them that they were, how could it go on in association with idolatry? Christians are the temple of the living God, the fulfilment of those words: "I will dwell among them and walk among them, and I will be their God and they shall be My people." Where God dwells, He must be God. Where God walks, those who walk must be in harmony with Him. Association with the world is thus the ruin of Christianity. Christ and the world are fundamental opposites, and we cannot, as the Lord said long before, serve two masters after this manner. The apostle appeals to them, therefore, to come out from them and be separate, (not he alone had said this, but the Lord,) and not to touch the unclean thing; and only upon such conditions could He practically be to them that which in grace He had declared Himself. He was their Father, but they forfeited, in the meanwhile, their claim to the enjoyment of such a relationship, unless they were in a condition in which He could display His love without compromise of His holiness. Thus alone could the Lord, the Almighty, have them with Him as sons and daughters.

How the accumulation of these divine titles here is witness of the terrible loss which they could put up with so easily! Do not the same principles obtain for us today? Are not the same conditions imperative, conditions which depend upon the nature of God Himself, impossible to change? Are not our associations, therefore, a matter of first consequence for us to consider? How little, however, is such association regarded now! Christians go with those most unchristian, whenever, as they think, they have common ends and purposes; which, in fact, they never can have without giving up that which is the whole matter before God -the heart exhibited in these. Communion without separation is here declared to us to he an impossible thing and how clearly is manifested here the drift of things, even among Christians, in a day like this, when large liberality is supposed to he what is pre-eminently Christian, and the love that thinketh no evil is confounded with the blindness which sees none where it manifestly exists. God’s word abides for us today, and the world abides also still in its essential character the same, the busy, self-seeking world that knows not the cross; save, perhaps, as an ornament on the outside. Here then are the promises which are made by God Himself, and which are certain of fulfilment, and as certain in the necessity of the conditions which they imply. "Let us cleanse ourselves, therefore, from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God."

3. The apostle pours out to them now once more all his heart towards them. He could appeal to them in the consciousness of his blamelessness, in which they would bear him witness. He had injured none. He had corrupted no one. He had made personal gain of none. It was not to condemn them that he spoke thus, for they were in his heart to die and live with them. It is remarkable and noteworthy that he puts the dying first, before the living; but he had now, not only great boldness towards them, but even great glorying with regard to them. He is as ready, and much more ready, to speak to their praise, than in rebuke; however necessary at times this might be. Now he was as full of the joy as he had been of the sorrow; a joy which the tribulation through which he had passed in no wise weakened. He had been in exceeding distress he repeats, as if he could not too earnestly insist upon it. In Macedonia his flesh had had no rest, -fightings without and fears within, but God, who encourageth those who are brought low, had encouraged him by the coming of Titus; and not by his mere coming, but by the encouragement which he had himself received amongst them. So that if he had grieved them by the letter formerly written, he could not now regret it, though for the moment he had regretted, -a remarkable instance of how little the inspiration of the inspired writer was always that of which in himself he was conscious! Here was a letter which we all recognize as an inspired letter, and yet in a moment of weakness he had regretted writing it. It shows how our affections may indeed for a time overpower our reason, and even our spiritual judgment! That grief on the part of the Corinthians, -though but for a season, and which now so evidently had worked blessing for them, -how strange, yet in some sense comforting, these exercises of the apostle as to it! But now it was abundantly manifest how God had been in it, and worked by it for blessing. They had been indeed grieved to repentance and made sorry after a godly manner, only so that in nothing there might be injury from his course with regard to them. This godly sorrow worked repentance to salvation never to be regretted. He is speaking, of course, of the salvation which, as we see in Philippians, we have to work out for ourselves, although God works in it in His grace towards us. He is speaking of deliverance from the difficulties of the way, and this, mere sorrow of the world never did work out, but rather death. He bids them look at the effects. If they had sorrowed after a godly sort, what diligence it had wrought in them; what earnest desire to clear themselves of all that could be charged; "what indignation" in view of sin; "what fear" as they realized the weakness that had been so manifest; what "earnest desire" now for a better testimony, and "what zeal" for God, yea, even "what vengeance" upon all that opposed itself to Him! Thus they had approved themselves every way to be clear as to this matter. And what he had written to them was not for the sake of individuals merely, but that they might realize the diligent zeal which was in his heart for them in the sight of God. He was now comforted by the refreshment which Titus had received from them, and the confirmation of what he had boasted about them to him. It was now evident that spite of what had come in, yet he had spoken, in fact, the truth with regard to them. They had sustained the character which he had given them in the obedience now manifested to the word by him, and in the fear and trembling with which they had received his messenger. Confidence as to the mass of them was fully restored.

F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chapter 17

THE SIGNS OF AN APOSTLE.- 2Co_6:1-13 (R.V)

THE ministry of the Gospel is a ministry of reconciliation; the preacher of the Gospel is primarily an evangelist. He has to proclaim that wonderful grace of God which made peace between heaven and earth through the blood of the Cross, and he has to urge men to receive it. Until this is done, there is nothing else that he can do. But when sinful men have welcomed the glad tidings, when they have consented to accept the peace bought for them with so great a price, when they have endured to be forgiven and restored to Gods favor, not for what they are, nor for what they are going to he, but solely for what Christ did for them on the cross, then a new situation is created, and the minister of the Gospel has a new task. It is to that situation St. Paul addresses himself here. Recognizing the Corinthians as people reconciled to God by the death of His Son, he entreats them not to receive the grace of God in vain. He does so, according to our Bibles, as a fellow-worker with God. This is probably right, though some would take the word as in 2Co_1:24, and make it mean "as fellow-workers with you." But it is more natural, when we look to what precedes, to think that St. Paul is here identifying himself with Gods interest in the world, and that he speaks out of the proud consciousness of doing so. "All is of God," in the great work of redemption; but God does not disdain the sympathetic co-operation of men whose hearts He has touched.

But what is meant by receiving the grace of God in vain, or to no purpose? That might be done in an infinite variety of ways, and in reading the words for edification we naturally grasp at any clue suggested by our circumstances. An expositor is bound to seek his clue rather in the circumstances of the Corinthians; and if we have regard to the general tenor of this Epistle, and especially to such a passage as 2Co_11:4, we shall find the true interpretation without difficulty. Paul has explained his Gospel-his proclamation of Jesus as Universal Redeemer in virtue of His dying the sinners death, and as Universal Lord in virtue of His resurrection from the dead-so explicitly, because he fears lest through the influence of some false teacher the minds of the Corinthians should be corrupted from the simplicity that is toward Christ. It would be receiving the grace of God in vain, if, after receiving those truths concerning Christ which he had taught them, they were to give up his Gospel for another in which these truths had no place. This is what he dreads and deprecates, both in Corinth and Galatia: the precipitate removal from the grace of Christ to another Gospel which is no Gospel at all, but a subversion of the truth. This is what he means by receiving the grace of God in vain.

There are some minds to which this will not be impressive, some to which it will only be provoking. It will seem irrelevant and pithless to those who take for granted the finality of the distinction between religion and theology, or between the theory, as it is called, and the fact of the Atonement. But for St. Paul, as for all sufficiently earnest and vigorous minds, there is a point at which these distinctions disappear. A certain theory is seen to be essential to the fact, a certain theology to be the constitutive force in the religion. The death of Christ was what it was to him only because it was capable of a certain interpretation: his theory of it, if we choose to put it so, gave it its power over him. The love of Christ constrained him "because he thus judged"-i.e., because he construed it to his intelligence in a way which showed it to be irresistible. If these interpretations and constructions are rejected, it must not be in the name of "fact" as opposed to "theory," but in the name of other interpretations more adequate and constraining. A fact of which there is absolutely no theory is a fact which is without relation to anything in the universe-a mere irrelevance in mans mind-a blank incredibility-a rock in the sky. Pauls "theory" about Christs death for sin was not to him an excrescence on the Gospel, or a superfluous appendage to it: it was itself the Gospel; it was the thing in which the very soul of God s redeeming love was brought to light; it was the condition under which the love of Christ became to him a constraining power; to receive it and then reject it was to receive the grace of God in vain.

This does not preclude us from the edifying application of these words which a modern reader almost instinctively makes. Peace with God is the first and deepest need of the sinful soul, but it is not the sum-total of salvation. It would, indeed, be received in vain, if the soul did not on the basis of it proceed to build up the new life in new purity and power. The failure to do this is, unhappily, only too common. There is no mechanical guarantee for the fruits of the Spirit; no assurance, such as would make this appeal unnecessary, that every man who has received the word of reconciliation will also walk in newness of life. But if an evangelical profession and an immoral life are the ugliest combination of which human nature is capable, the force of this appeal ought to be felt by the weakest and the worst. "The Son of God loved me, and gave Himself for me": can any of us hide that word in his heart, and live on as if it meant nothing at all?

Paul emphasizes his appeal to the Corinthians by a striking quotation from an ancient prophet: {Isa_49:8} "At an acceptable time did I hearken unto thee, And in a day of salvation did I succor thee"; and he points it by the joyful exclamation: "Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation." The passage in Isaiah refers to the servant of Jehovah, and some scholars would insist that even in the quotation a primary application must be made to Christ. The ambassadors of the Gospel represent His interest; {2Co_5:20} this verse is, as it were, the answer to His prayer: "Father, the hour is come: glorify Thy Son." In answering the Son, the Father introduces the era of grace for all who are, or shall be, Christs: behold, now is the time in which God shows us favor; now is the day on which He saves us. This is rather scholastic than apostolic, and it is far more probable that St. Paul borrows the prophets words, as he often does, because they suit him, without thinking of their original application. What is striking in the passage, and characteristic both of the writer and of the New Testament, is the union of urgency and triumph in the tone. "Now" does certainly mean "now or never"; but more prominently still it means "in a time so favored as this: in a time so graced with opportunity." The best illustration of it is the saying of Jesus to the Apostles: "Blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear. For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them." Now, that we live under the reign of grace; now, when Gods redeeming love, omnipotent to save, shines on us from the Cross; now, that the last days have come, and the Judge is at the door, let us with all seriousness, and all joy, work out our own salvation, lest we make the grace of God of no effect.

St. Paul is as careful himself as he would have the Corinthians to be. He does not wish them to receive the Gospel in vain, and he takes pains that it shall not be frustrated through any fault of his: "working together with God we entreat you giving no occasion of stumbling in anything, that our ministration be not blamed." It is almost implied in a sentence like this that there are people who will be glad of an excuse not to listen to the Gospel, or not to take it seriously, and that they will look for such an excuse in the conduct of its ministers. Anything in the minister to which objection can be raised will be used as a shield against the Gospel. It does not matter that in nine cases out of ten this plea for declining the grace of God is impudent hypocrisy; it is one which the non-Christian should never have. If it is not the chief end of the evangelist to give no occasion of stumbling, it is one of his chief rules.

This is a matter on which Jesus lays great stress. The severest words He ever spoke were spoken against those whose conduct made faith hard and unbelief easy. Of course they were spoken to all, but they have special application to those who are so directly identified with the Gospel as its ministers. It is to them men naturally look for the proof of what grace does. If its reception has been in vain in them; if they have not learned the spirit of their message; if their pride, or indolence, or avarice, or ill-nature provoke the anger or contempt of those to whom they preach, -then their ministration is blamed, and the shadow of that censure falls upon their message. The grace of God which has to be proclaimed through human lips, and to attest itself by its power over human lives, might seem to be put in this way to too great hazard in the world; but it has God behind it, or rather it is itself God at work in His ministers as their humility and fidelity allow Him; and in spite of the occasions of stumbling for which there is no excuse, God is always able to make grace prevail. Through the faults of its ministers, nay, sometimes even with those faults as a foil, men see how good and how strong that grace is.

It is not easy to comment on the glowing passage (2Co_6:4-10) in which St. Paul expands this sober habit of giving no occasion of stumbling in anything into a description of his apostolic ministry. Logically, its value is obvious enough. He means the Corinthians to feel that if they turn away from the Gospel which he has preached to them they are passing censure lightly on a life of unparalleled devotion and power. He commends himself to them, as Gods servants ought always to do, by the life which he leads in the exercise of his ministry, and to reject his Gospel is to condemn his life as worthless or misspent. Will they venture to do that when they are reminded of what it is, and when they feel that it is all this for them? No right-minded man will, without provocation, speak about himself, but Paul is doubly protected. Hes challenged, by the threatened desertion from the Gospel of some, at least, of the Corinthians; and it is not so much of himself he speaks, as of the ministers of Christ; not so much on his own behalf, as on behalf of the Gospel. The fountains of the great deep are broken up within him as he thinks of what is at issue; he is in all straits, as he begins, and can speak only in unconnected words, one at a time; but before he stops he has won his liberty, and pours out his soul without restraint.

It is needless to comment on each of the eight-and-twenty separate phrases in which St. Paul characterises his life as a minister of the Gospel. But there are what might be called breathing-places, if not logical pauses, in the outburst of feeling, and these, as it happens, coincide with the introduction of new aspects of his work.

(1) At first he depicts exclusively, and in single words, its passive side. Christ had shown him at his conversion how great things "he must suffer" for His names sake, {Act_9:16} and here is his own confirmation of the Lords word: he has ministered "in much patience-in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses; in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults"-where the enmity of men was conspicuous; "in labors, in watchings, in fastings" - freely exacted by his own devotion. These nine words are all, in a manner, subordinated to "much patience"; his brave endurance was abundantly shown in every variety of pain and distress.

(2) At 2Co_6:6 he makes a new start, and now it is hot the passive and physical aspect of his work that is in view, but the active and spiritual. All that weight of suffering did not extinguish in him the virtues of the new life, or the special gifts of the Christian minister. He wrought, he reminds them, "in purity, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in love unfeigned, in the word of truth, in the power of God." The precise import of some of these expressions may be doubtful, but this is of less consequence than the general tenor of the whole, which is unmistakable. Probably some of the terms, strictly taken, would cross each other. Thus the Holy Spirit and the power of God, if we compare such passages as 1Co_2:4, 1Th_1:5, are very nearly akin. The same remark would apply to "knowledge." and to "the word of truth," if the latter refers, as I cannot but think it does, to the Gospel. "Purity" is naturally taken in the widest sense, and "undissembled love" is peculiarly appropriate when we think of the feelings with which some of the Corinthians regarded Paul. But the main thing to notice is how the "much endurance," which, to a superficial observer, is the most conspicuous characteristic of the Apostles ministry, is balanced by a great manifestation of spiritual force from within. Of all men in the world he was the weakest to look at, the most battered, burdened, and depressed, yet no one else had in him such a fountain as he of the most powerful and gracious life. And then

(3) after another pause, marked this time by a slight change in the construction (from εν το δια), he goes on to enlarge upon the whole conditions under which his ministry is fulfilled, and especially on the extraordinary contrasts which are reconciled in it. We commend ourselves in our work, he says, "by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and the left, by glory and dishonor, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet coming to be well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowing, yet ever rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things." Here again it is not the details that are important, but the whole, and yet the details require notice. The armor of righteousness, is that which righteousness supplies, or it may even be that which righteousness is: Pauls character equips him right and left; it is both Spear and shield, and makes him competent either for attack or defense. Without righteousness, in this sense of integrity, he could not commend himself in his work as a minister of God. But not only does his real character commend him; his reputation does the same service, however various that reputation may be. Through honor and dishonor, through evil report and good report-through the truth that is told about him, and through the lies-through the esteem of his friends, the malignity of his enemies, the contempt of strangers-the same man comes out, in the same character, devoted always in the same spirit to the same calling. It is indeed his very devotion which produces these opposite estimates, and hence, inconsistent as they are, they agree in recommending him as a servant of God. Some said "He is beside himself," and others would have plucked out their eyes for his sake, yet both these extremely opposite attitudes were produced by the very same thing-the passionate earnestness with which he served Christ in the Gospel. There are good scholars who think that the clauses beginning "as deceivers, and true," are the Apostles own commentary on "through evil report and good report"; in other words, that in these clauses he is giving samples of the way in which he was spoken of, to his honor or dishonor, and glorying that honor and dishonor alike only guaranteed more thoroughly his claim to be a minister of God. This might suit the first two pairs of contrasts ("as deceivers, and true: as unknown, and gaining recognition"), but it does not suit the next ("as dying, and behold we live"), in which, as in those that follow, the Apostle is not repeating what was said by others, but speaking for himself, and stating truth equally on both sides of the account. After the first pair, there is no "dishonor," or "evil report," in any of the states which he contrasts with each other: though opposites, they have each their truth, and the power and beauty of the passage, and of the life which it describes, lie simply in this, that both are true, and that through all such contrasts St. Paul can prove himself the same loyal minister of the reconciliation. Each pair of opposites might furnish by itself a subject for discourse, but what we are rather concerned with is the impression produced by the whole. In their variety they give us a vivid idea of the range of St. Pauls experiences; in the regularity with which he puts the higher last, and in the climax with which he concludes, they show the victorious spirit with which he confronted all that various life. An ordinary Christian-an ordinary minister of the Gospel-may well feel, as he reads, that his own life is by comparison empty and commonplace. There is not that terrible pressure on him from without; there is not that irrepressible fountain of grace within; there is not that triumphant spirit which can subdue all the world contains - honor and dishonor, evil report and good report-and make it pay tribute to the Gospel, and to himself as a Gospel minister. Yet the world has still all possible experiences ready for those who give themselves to the service of God with the whole-heartedness of Paul: it will show them its best and its worst; its reverence, affection, and praise; its hatred, its indifference, its scorn. And it is in the facing of all such experiences by Gods ministers that the ministry receives its highest attestation: they are enabled to turn all to profit; in ignominy and in honor alike they are made more than conquerors through Him who loves them. St. Pauls plea rises involuntarily into a paean; he begins, as we saw, with the embarrassed tone of a man who wishes to persuade others that he has taken sincere pains not to frustrate his work by faults he could have avoided-"giving no occasion of stumbling in anything, that the ministry be not blamed"; but he is carried higher and higher, as the tide of feeling rises within him, till it sets him beyond the reach of blame or praise- at Christs right hand, where all things are his.

Here is a signal fulfillment of that word of the Lord: "I am come that they might have life, and might have it more abundantly." Who could have it more abundantly, more triumphantly strong through all its vicissitudes, than tile man who dictated these lines?

The passage closes with an appeal in which Paul descends from this supreme height to the most direct and affectionate address. He names his readers by name: "Our mouth is open unto you, O Corinthians; our heart is enlarged." He means that he has treated them with the utmost frankness and cordiality. With strangers we use reserve; we do not let ourselves go, nor indulge in any effusion of heart. But he has not made strangers of them; he has relieved his overcharged heart before them, and he has established a new claim on their confidence in doing so. "Ye are not straitened in us," he writes; that is, "The awkwardness and constraint of which you are conscious in your relations with me are not due to anything on my side; my heart has been made wide, and you have plenty of room in it. But you are straitened in your own affections. It is your hearts that are narrow: cramped and confined with unworthy suspicions, and with the feeling that you have done me a wrong which you are not quite prepared to rectify. Overcome these ungenerous thoughts at once. Give me a recompense in kind for my treatment of you. I have opened my heart wide, to you and for you; open your hearts as freely, to me and for me. I am your father in Christ, and I have a right to this from my children."

When we take this passage as a whole, in its original bearings, one thing is plain: that want of love and confidence between the minister of the Gospel and those to whom he ministers has great power to frustrate the grace of God. There may have been a real revival under the ministers preaching-a real reception of the grace which he proclaims-but all will be in vain if mutual confidence fails. If he gives occasion of stumbling in something, and the ministry is blamed; or if malice and falsehood sow the seeds of dissension between him and his brethren, the grand condition of an effective ministry is gone. "Beloved, let us love one another," if we do not wish the virtue of the Cross to be of no effect in us.

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

6:1-2 To win over the disaffected believers at Corinth, Paul appeals to them to listen to him and Timothy as God’s servants and messengers. • As God’s partners: Literally As we work together, which leaves open the question whether Paul meant that they were working together in a team effort, or that they were working together with God.

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

2Co 6:1. Συνεργοῦντες, workers together) Not only as the ambassadors of God, or on the other hand, as beseeching, we deal with you; but also, as your friends, we co-operate with you for your salvation. [This is the medium between the dignity of ambassadors and the humility of beseeching, ch. 2Co 5:20. That is, we try all means.—Not. Crit.] For you ought to work out your own salvation, Php 2:12. The working together with them is described, 2Co 6:3-4; the exhortation, 2Co 6:2; 2Co 6:14-15 [as far as ch. 2Co 7:1.—V. g.] He strongly dissuades them from Judaism, as an ambassador, and by beseeching; as working together with them, he strongly dissuades them from heathenism. None but a holy [ch. 2Co 7:1] minister of the Gospel can turn himself into all forms of this sort.—καὶ, also).—τὴν χάριν, the grace) of which ch. 2Co 5:18-19 treats, [and ch. 2Co 6:2; 2Co 6:17-18.—V. g.]—δέξασθαι) This word is drawn from the δεκτῷ of 2Co 6:2 [receive—For this is God’s season of receiving sinners]. Divine grace offers itself: human faith and obedience avail themselves of the offer.

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

2Co_6:1. Connection and meaning: We do not, however, let the matter rest merely with that entreaty on Christs behalf: be ye reconciled to God, but, since we are His fellow-workers, and there is thus more laid on us to do than that entreaty on Christs behalf, we also exhort that ye lose not again the grace of God which you have received (2Co_5:21), that ye do not frustrate it in your case by an unchristian life.

συνεργοῦντες] The συν finds its contextual reference not in the subject of 2Co_5:21, where there is only an auxiliary clause assigning a reason, nor yet in ὡς τοῦ θεοῦ παρακαλ. διʼ ἡμῶν, 2Co_5:20, in which there was given only a modal definition of the πρεσβεύειν ὑπὲρ Χ., but in ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ, 2Co_5:20 : as working together with Christ. It cannot, therefore, apply to God (Oecumenius, Lyra, Beza, Calvin, Cajetanus, Vorstius, Estius, Grotius, Calovius, and others, including Rückert, de Wette, Osiander, Hofmann, in accordance with 1Co_3:9), or to the fellow-apostles (Heumann, Leun), or to the Corinthian teachers (Schulz, Bolten), or to the Corinthians in general (Chrysostom, Theodoret, Pelagius, Bengel, Billroth, Olshausen[246]), or to the exhortations, with which his own example co-operates (Michaelis, Emmerling, Flatt). The apostles are fellow-workers with Christ just in this, that they are ambassadors ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ, and as such have to represent His cause and prosecute His wor.

μὴ εἰς κενὸν κ.τ.λ.] ἐπάγει ταῦτα τὴν περὶ τὸν βίον σπουδὴν ἀπαιτῶν, Chrysostom. For if he that is reconciled through faith leads an unchristian life, the reconciliation is in his case frustrated. See Romans 6; Rom_8:12-13, al.

εἰς κενόν] incassum, of no effect, Gal_2:2; Php_2:16; 1Th_3:5; Diod. xix. 9; Heliod. x. 30; Jacobs, ad Anthol. VII. p. 328.

δέξασθαι] is to be explained as recipiatis. So Vulgate, Luther, and others, including Rückert, Ewald, Osiander, Hofmann. Those, namely, who, like the readers (ὑμᾶς), have become partakers of the reconciliation through compliance with the entreaty in 2Co_5:20, are placed now under the divine grace (comp. Rom_6:14 f.). And this they are not to reject, but to receive and accept (δέξασθαι), and that not ΕἸς ΚΕΝΌΝ, i.e. not without the corresponding moral results, which would be wanting if one reconciled and justified by faith were not to follow the drawing of grace and the will of the Spirit and to walk in the καινότης τῆς ζωῆς (Rom_6:4) as a new creature, etc. Comp. Theodoret. Pelagius also is right: in vacuum gratiam Dei recipit, qui in novo testamento non novus est. Hence it is not (not even in Rom_15:9) to be taken in the sense of the praeterite, as many of the more recent commentators (even de Wette) take it, contrary to usage, following Erasmus: ne committatis, ut, semel gratis a peccatis exemti, in pristinam vitam relabentes in vanum receperitis gratiam Dei.

ὑμᾶς] is now, after the apostolic calling has been expressed at 2Co_5:20 in its general bearing, added and placed at the end for emphasis, because now the discourse passes into the direct exhortation to the readers, that they receive not without effect, etc. If in their case that apostolic entreaty for reconciliation had not passed without compliance, they are now also to accept and act on the grace under which they have been placed.

[246] Billroth says: he does not simply preach the gospel and leave the Corinthians then to stand alone, but he at the same time busies himself with them for their salvation, inasmuch as he stands by their side with his exhortations as their instructor. Olshausen: condescendingly Paul does not place himself over the Corinthians; he wishes only to be their fellow-labourer, to exhort them in such wise as they ought to exhort one another. In that case Paul ought to have written συνεργοῦντες δὲ ὑμῖν, in order to be understood.

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 6:1 . συνεργοῦντες δὲ καὶ παρακαλοῦμεν κ . τ . λ .: and working together (that is, with God, as is plain from chap. 2Co 5:20 , and also in connexion with 1Co 3:9 ; cf. Act 15:4 ), we, sc. , I, Paul, entreat also ( cf. chap. 2Co 5:20 , Θεοῦ παρακαλοῦντος διʼ ἡμῶν ) that ye receive not the grace of God (a general phrase, frequently used by St. Paul to express the favours and privileges offered to the members of the Church of Christ, not to be limited to grace given at any special moment, as, e.g. , at baptism) in vain (see reff. and cf. Heb 12:15 ). Note that “the grace of God” may be “received” in vain; it is offered, independently of man’s faith and obedience, but it will not profit without these. The choice in the Anglican Liturgy of 2Co 6:1-10 as the epistle for the First Sunday in Lent, when the Ember Collect is said on behalf of those to be ordained in the next week, is especially happy; the magnificent description of the characteristics and the conditions of a faithful Christian ministry (2Co 6:4-10 ) being prefaced by the solemn warning of 2Co 6:1-3 .

2Co 5:20 to 2Co 6:3 . AS CHRIST’S AMBASSADOR HE ENTREATS THE CORINTHIANS TO BE RECONCILED TO GOD.

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

Chap.

6:1-10.] He further describes his apostolic embassage, as one of earnest exhortation not to receive the grace of God in vain (vv. 1, 2), and of approving himself, by many characteristics and under various circumstances, as the minister of God (vv. 3-10).

1.] συνεργοῦντες, viz. τῷ θεῷ, Whose representatives they were, and Whose grace they recommended. This is implied not only in what went before, but in the τοῦ θεοῦ of our verse itself. Meyer makes it τῷ χριστῷ, referring it to the ὑπὲρ χρ. above: Chrys., Theodoret, Bengel, Olsh., al., ὑμῖν, which certainly would have been expressed, and does not suit the sense, nor Paul’s habit of speaking of the ministry, see 1Co 3:9. Flatt and Emmerling would make the σύν imply, working with our exhortations, aiding them by our example: which sense, though occasionally belonging to σύν and πρός in composition, could hardly have place here without some plainer indication in what went before, of that to which the preposition refers,—and would not suit the καί, which severs συνεργ. from παρακαλ.

The δέ is one of transition, introducing a new feature. Moreover, while working with God, we also exhort, that you (when preaching to you,—or others, when preaching to others: he still is describing his practice in his ministry, not using a direct exhortation to the Corinthians) receive not (‘recipiatis;’—not ‘receperitis,’ ‘that ye will not have received,’ i.e. ‘will not by apostasy shew that ye have received …’ as Erasm., al., and De Wette. This mistake arises mainly from regarding the words as directly addressed to the Corinthians instead of a description of his apostolic practice) the grace of God (i.e. the reconciliation above spoken of) to no purpose (i.e. unaccompanied by sanctification of life; so Chrys., ἵνα … μὴ νομίσωσιν ὅτι τοῦτό ἐστι καταλλαγὴ μόνον, τὸ πιστεῦσαι τῷ καλοῦντι, ἐπάγει ταῦτα, τὴν περὶ τὸν βίον σπουδὴν ἀπαιτῶν. Hom. xii. p. 521.)

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

6:1-10. There is once more an unintelligent division of the chapters: 6:1 is closely connected with 5:20, 21, and the first ten verses of this chapter are a continuation of the Apostle’s self-vindication from another point of view; they set forth his conduct and his experiences as God’s ambassador, and as a minister to whom has been entrusted the message of reconciliation. After an earnest appeal to the Corinthians not to lose through neglect the grace offered to them, the spiritual exaltation of the Apostle once more gives a rhythmic swing to his language, as if he were singing a song of triumph. Magna res est, et granditer agitur, nec desunt ornamenta dicendi (Aug. De Doc. Chris. iv. 20). Way calls it a “Hymn of the Herald of Salvation.” There is no good reason for supposing that St Paul here turns to “the better-disposed heathen believers.” He is addressing weak believers, who were in danger of a lapse into heathen laxity, through making so poor an attempt to reach a Christian standard of holiness. He points to the way in which an Apostle does his work, and to what he has to endure: these are things which the Corinthians can appreciate.*

1. Συνεργοῦντες δὲ καὶ παρακαλοῦμεν. ‘But there is more to be said than this (δὲ καί): as working together with God we entreat that you do not accept the grace of God in vain.’ God had committed the message of reconciliation to His ambassadors; St Paul had brought it to the Corinthians; they must do their part and make a right use of it. Where συνεργεῖν (1Co 16:16; Rom 9:28) or συνεργός (1:24, 8:23; 1Co 3:9) or other compounds of σύν occur, it is plain that the force of the συν- depends on the context. But that principle is not decisive here, because there are several possibilities in the context. Five connexions have been suggested. (1) ‘Co-operating with God’; which is the natural inference from 5:18, 21, and it is confirmed by 1Co 3:9. (2) ‘With Christ’; which might be inferred from 5:20, if ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ means ‘in Christ’s stead.’ (3) ‘With you’ (so Chrys.); the Corinthians have co-operated with the missionaries in listening to their message, and so the Apostle is a fellow-worker with them. The objection to this is that the whole context is concerned with the preachers’ part rather than with that of the hearers. (4) ‘With other teachers.’ This explanation assumes that the 1st pers. plur. refers to St Paul alone. If it included other teachers, the συν- would be meaningless; ‘co-operating with ourselves.’ (5) ‘With our exhortations, ’ i.e. adding our example to our precept. If this had been meant, it would have been expressed in a plainer manner.

εἰς κενόν. ‘To no profit’; in vacuum (Vulg.), frustra (Beza). The expression is freq. in LXX (Lev 26:20; Job 39:16; Isa 29:8; Jer 6:29, 28:58), but in N.T. it is peculiar to Paul (1Th 3:5; Gal 2:2; Php 2:16). It is probable that δέξασθαι is a timeless aorist after παρακαλεῖν, like κυρῶσαι (2:8), παραστῆσαι (Rom 12:1), συναγωνίσασθαι (Rom 15:30), περιπατῆσαι (Eph 4:1), and may be rendered ne recipiatis (Vulg.). The reference is to the present time; acceptance of grace is continually going on, and there ought to be good results. But the aorist may have the force of a past tense and be rendered ne reciperetis (Beza). In this case the reference is to the time of their conversion; he exhorts them not to have accepted the grace of God in vain, i.e. not to show by their behaviour now that they accepted it then to no profit. Chrys. seems to take it in the latter way, for he interprets ἐς κένον as losing through unfruitfulness the great blessings which they have received. In any case, ὑμᾶς comes last with much emphasis; ‘you, whatever the rest of the κόσμος may do.’ ‘We are commissioned to preach to all mankind; I beseech you not to let the preaching prove vain in your case.’

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

Men do not only need the ministry of the Gospel, before they have received grace, that they may be partakers of it, but also after they have received grace, that they may continue in it.

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

CHAPTER VI.

We should not receive the grace of God in vain, having such

promises of support from him, 1, 2.

We should act so as to bring no disgrace on the Gospel, 3.

How the apostles behaved themselves, preached, suffered, and

rejoiced, 4-10.

St. Paul's affectionate concern for the Corinthians, 11-13.

He counsels them not to be yoked with unbelievers, and advances

several arguments why they should avoid them, 14-16.

Exhorts them to avoid evil companions and evil practices, on

the promise that God will be their Father and that they shall

be his sons and his daughters, 17, 18,

NOTES ON CHAP. VI.

Verse 1. We then, as workers together with him] συνεργουντες δε και παρακαλουμεν. The two last words, with him, are not in the text, and some supply the place thus: we then, as workers together WITH YOU, and the Armenian version seems to have read it so; but no MS. has this reading, and no other version. For my own part I see nothing wanting in the text if we only suppose the term apostles; we, (i.e. apostles,) being fellow workers, also entreat you not to receive the grace of God in vain.

By the grace of God, την χαριν του θεου, this grace or benefit of God, the apostle certainly means the grand sacrificial offering of Christ for the sin of the world, which he had just before mentioned in speaking of the ministry of reconciliation. We learn, therefore, that it was possible to receive the grace of God and not ultimately benefit by it; or, in other words, to begin in the Spirit and end in the flesh. Should any one say that it is the ministry of reconciliation, that is, the benefit of apostolic preaching, that they might receive in vain; I answer, that the apostolic preaching, and the whole ministry of reconciliation, could be no benefit to any man farther than it might have been a means of conveying to him the salvation of God. And it is most evident that the apostle has in view that grace or benefit that reconciles us to God, and makes us Divinely righteous. And this, and all other benefits of the death of Christ, may be received in vain.

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

1. Assisting. He has repeated the instructions of embassy with which the ministers of the gospel have been furnished by God. After they have faithfully communicated these instructions, they must also use their endeavor, that they may be carried into effect, in order that their labor may not be in vain. They must, I say, add continual exhortation’s, that their embassy may be efficacious. This is what he means by συνεργοῦντες, (fellow-workers,) that is, devoted to the advancement of the work; for it is not enough to teach, if you do not also urge. In this way, the particle σύν would have a relation to God, or to the embassy, which he assigns to his servants. For the doctrine of the gospel is helped by exhortations, so as not to be without effect, and ministers connect their endeavors with God’s commission; as it is the part of an ambassador to enforce by arguments, what he brings forward in the name of his prince.

The particle σύν may also be taken as referring to the endeavors of ministers in common; for if they do the Lord’s work in good earnest, they must mutually lend a helping hand to each other, so as to give assistance to each other. I rather prefer, however, the former exposition. Chrysostom interprets it as referring to the hearers, with whom ministers are fellow-workers, when they rouse them up from slothfulness and indolence.

Ministers are here taught, that it is not enough simply to advance doctrine. They must also labor that it may be received by the hearers, and that not once merely, but continually. For as they are messengers between God and men, the first duty devolving upon them is, to make offer of the grace of God, and the second is, to strive with all their might, that it may not be offered in vain.

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.

VI.

(1) We then, as workers together with him, beseech you . . .—The thought of the marvel of the atoning love fills the heart of St. Paul with an almost passionate desire to see its purpose realised in those whom he has taught; and so, “as a fellow-worker with Him”—the pronoun may be referred grammatically either to God or Christ, but the general tone of the context, and St. Paul’s language elsewhere (1Co_12:6; Eph_1:11; Eph_1:20; Php_2:13), are decisive in favour of the former—he renews his entreaty. The language in which he does so is every way significant. Those to whom he wrote had believed and been baptised, and so they had “received the grace;” but the freedom of the will to choose good or evil remained, and if they chose evil they would frustrate the end which the grace was intended to work out. (Comp. the language of 1Co_9:27; 1Co_15:10.)

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

1 We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.

Ver. 1. As workers together] Not as coadjutors, but as instruments, such as God is pleased to make use of. See the note on 1Co 3:9.

The grace of God in vain, ] That embassy of grace, 2Co 5:20; or that unspeakable gift of Christ, 2Co 9:15, which many use as homely as Rachel did her father’s gods, -she hid them in the litter and sat on them; or as that lewd boy in Kett’s conspiracy, who when the king’s pardon was offered the rebels by a herald, he turned toward him his naked posteriors, and used words suitable to that gesture. One standing by discharged a harquebus {a} upon the body. (Life of K. Edward VI, by Sir John Hay.)

{a} The early type of portable gun, varying in size from a small cannon to a musket, which on account of its weight was, when used in the field, supported upon a tripod, trestle, or other ‘carriage’, and afterwards upon a forked ‘rest’. The name in German and Flemish meant literally ‘hook-gun’, from the hook cast along with the piece, by which it was fastened to the ‘carriage’; but the name became generic for portable firearms generally in the 16th century, so that the type with the hook was subsequently distinguished as arquebuse à croc: ŒD

2 (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)

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.

We then, as workers together with him - On the meaning of this expression, see the note, 1Co 3:9. The Greek here is (συνεργοῦντες sunergountes) “working together,” and may mean either that the apostles and ministers to whom Paul refers were joint-laborers in entreating them not to receive the grace of God in vain; or it may mean that they cooperated with God, or were engaged with him in endeavoring to secure the reconciliation of the world to himself. Tyndale renders it: “we as helpers.” Doddridge, “we then as the joint-laborers of God.” Most expositors have concurred in this interpretation. The word properly means, to work together; to cooperate in producing any result. Macknight supposes that the word here is in the vocative, and is an address to the fellow-laborers of Paul, entreating them not to receive the grace of God in vain. In this opinion he is probably alone, and has manifestly departed from the scope and design of the passage. Probably the most obvious meaning is that of our translators, who regard it as teaching that Paul was a joint-worker with God in securing the salvation of people.

That ye receive not the grace of God in vain - The “grace of God” here means evidently the gracious offer of reconciliation and pardon. And the sense is, “We entreat you not to neglect or slight this offer of pardon, so as to lose the benefit of it, and be lost. It is offered freely and fully. It may be partaken of by all, and all may be saved. But it may also be slighted, and all the benefits of it will then be lost.” The sense is, that it was possible that this offer might be made to them, they might hear of a Saviour, be told of the plan of reconciliation and have the offers of mercy pressed on their attention and acceptance, and yet all be in vain. They might notwithstanding all this be lost, for simply to hear of the plan of salvation or the offers of mercy, will no more save a sinner than to hear of medicine will save the sick. It must be embraced and applied, or it will be in vain. It is true that Paul probably addressed this to those who were professors of religion; and the sense is, that they should use all possible care and anxiety lest these offers should have been made in vain. They should examine their own hearts; they should inquire into their own condition; they should guard against self-deception. The same persons 2Co 5:20 Paul had exhorted also to be reconciled to God; and the idea is, that he would earnestly entreat even professors of religion to give all diligence to secure an interest in the saving mercy of the gospel, and to guard against the possibility of being self-deceived and ruined.

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

We helping, or in the Greek, working together, that is, with God, as employed by him, or as his ministers, and ambassadors, we exhort you not to receive the grace of God in vain, by resisting his interior graces, by an idle, or a wicked life. (Witham)

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

We then, as workers together with him: ministers of the gospel are fellow workers together with Christ; though but as instruments, serving him as the principal Agent, and efficient Cause: he trod the wine press of his Father’s wrath alone, and had no partner in the purchase of man’s salvation; but in the application of the purchased salvation, he admits of fellow workers. Though the internal work be his alone, and the effects of his Spirit upon the souls of those whose hearts are changed; yet there is a ministerial part, which lieth in exhortation and argument, by the ear conveyed to the soul; thus ministers work together with Christ. And without him they can do nothing: they are workers, but they must have Christ work with them, or they will find that they labour in vain.

Beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain: grace signifieth any free gift; and it is in the New Testament variously applied; but here it signifies, the doctrine of the gospel, held forth in the preaching of it, which these Corinthians had received with the ears of their bodies. And this was Paul’s, and should be every godly minister’s, work, not with roughness, but with all mildness and gentleness, to beseech those to whom they preach the gospel, that they would believe and embrace it, and live up to the holy rules of it; without which, (as to their souls’ benefit), all the kindness of God, in affording them the gospel and means of grace, is in vain, and lost: though God yet hath his end, and his ministers shall he a sweet savour to God, as well with, reference to them that perish, as those who shall be saved. For the effectual grace of God in the heart, that cannot be received in vain; nor is that here spoken of.

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

1. We—Apostles. The statement of the gospel-appeal to men (2Co_5:20 to 2Co_6:2) is here continued.

Workers together—Co-operators here, as ambassadors in 2Co_5:20.

With him—In italics, as being supplied by the translators. Commentators differ whether it should be with him, God, or with you, Corinthians, or with Christ, or with the apostles all conjointly. But the parallelism with 2Co_5:20 indicates with God.

Beseech—As in 2Co_5:20,

Receive not—Past tense. We beseech you that you shall not have received. Erasmus, quoted by Meyer, renders, “That ye may not so transgress as that, having once been exempted from your sins, ye may, by relapsing into your former life, have received the grace of God in vain.”

In vain—By damnation because of total apostasy.

PART SECOND.

THE EXHORTATION — TO UNITE IN HIS COLLECTIONS FOR JERUSALEM, 2Co_6:11 to 2Co_9:15.

1. Direct exhortation to largeness, separateness, and sanctification, 2Co_6:11 to 2Co_7:1.

With a soul swelling with his survey of the gospel of reconciliation as given in 2Co_5:13 to 2Co_6:2, and of his recital of the history of his struggles to bring that gospel to them, Paul calls upon his Corinthians to fall back upon the grandeur and purity of that gospel. His special assailants are out of view. He addresses the Corinthians as being the unit he had once left them, and seeks to rally them back to first principles.

He conjures them to as large a heart as his own, 2Co_6:11-13; to separate from all their old unrighteous associations, and to become, according to the blessed promise, the true sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, 2Co_6:14-18; nay, to claim the higher promises, and rise to a perfected holiness, 2Co_7:1.

Corinthians—An emphatic and joyous vocative. By pronouncing their name he would aim to reach their hearts. Twice elsewhere Paul thus calls, out of the regular address, his audience by name, the Galatians indignantly, the Philippians affectionately. Gal_3:1; Php_4:15.

Mouth… open—Being filled by the fulness of our heart. In the recital of our sufferings in your behalf we are aroused to a freedom of boundless utterance to your very souls.

Heart is enlarged—Is broadened in its area, so as to admit you through its wide doors into its roomy home.

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

The methods and conditions of an apostolic ministry (vers. 1-10). Appeal to the Corinthians to reciprocate his affection and separate themselves from evil (vers. 11-18).

We then, as fellow workers. Continuing the entreaty of 2Co_5:20, he adds, "But as (his) fellow workers we also exhort you." The "also" shows that he does not rest content with merely entreating them (deomeqa), but adds to the entreaty an exhortation emphasized by a self-sacrificing ministry. "Fellow workers with God". (1Co_3:9) Beseech. The word is the same as that rendered "beseech" by the Authorized Version in 2Co_5:20, and it should be rendered "exhort:" "God exhorts you by our means; we therefore entreat you to be reconciled to God; yes, and as Christ"s fellow workers we exhort you." That ye receive not. The word means both passively to receive and actively to accept as a personal boon. The grace of God. To announce this is the chief aim of the gospel. (Act_13:43 Act_20:24) In vain; that is, "without effect." You must not only accept the teaching of God"s Word, but must see that it produces adequate moral results. It must not, so to speak, fall "into a vacuum (eijv kenon)." "He," says Pelagius, "receives the grace of God in vain who, in the new covenant, is not himself new." If you really are in Christ you must show that you have thereby become "a new creation". (2Co_5:17) The branches of the true Vine must bear fruit. (For the phrase, "in vain," see (Gal_2:2; Php_2:16) What the grace of God is meant to effect is sketched in Tit_2:11, Tit_2:12.

HOMILETICS.

Vers. 1, 2.

The grace of God received in vain.

then, as workers together," etc. There are three topics here for meditation.

I A SUBLIME MISSION. "Workers together with him." What is the grand work in which God is engaged and in which we can cooperate? He is engaged in numerous works works of creation, government, conservation, in which we can have no hand. The work here is evidently the work spoken of in the preceding chapter the work of reconciling man to himself, the work which he does in Christ. Now, all genuine ministers cooperate with him in this; their grand endeavour is to bring alienated souls into friendship with him. Blessed partnership this.

II A SOLEMN POSSIBILITY. "Receive not the grace of God in vain." The grace of God here evidently refers to the offer of this reconciliation. This may be looked upon objectively or subjectively. Objectively it is the gospel, which is called the "gospel of the grace of God;" subjectively it is personal Christianity. It may be received "in vain" in two forms. Many have the offer of reconciliation and reject it, and to them the offer has been received "in vain." It is possible for those who have personally experienced it to lose it. The free agency of man, the exhortations of the Scriptures, and the facts of apostasy as in the case of David, Peter, etc. show the possibility of losing this. No greater calamity can happen to a man than to receive this "grace in vain;" hence the earnestness of the apostle.

III A SUPREME OPPORTUNITY. "For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." To use the words of a modern writer, "There is, so to speak, a "now" running through the ages. For each Church and nation, for each individual soul, there is a golden present that may never again recur, and in which lie boundless possibilities for the future. The words of the apostle are, as it were, the transfigured expression of the generalization of a wide experience, which tells us that there is a tide in the affairs of men.

HOMILIES BY C. LIPSCOMB Vers. 1-10.

Appeal growing out of the foregoing argument.

The grace of God had been manifested in the reconciliation of which he had been treating; and this reconciliation had its period, or season, special as to its character and advantages. Everything has relation to time. Life has infancy, childhood, youth successive eras. Nature has her seasons. It was now God"s receiving time, a dispensation of mercy, an acceptable time, a day of salvation. So sensible was St. Paul of this fact that he, as a coworker with God, pressed the exhortation on the Corinthians not to neglect the grace of God freely vouchsafed in this auspicious time. Good influences were conspiring in their favour; "receive not the grace of God in vain." It was a coworking period. Out of the turmoil, the strife of tongues, the collisions within the Church and without, doctrines were emerging into clearer view, and, as doctrines were better understood, duties would be more faithfully discharged. Had not these Corinthians been revived and strengthened of late? Had they not heeded his affectionate warning and purified the Church? It was a season for continued and enlarging coworking, the Holy Spirit and the Church combining in an effort, peculiarly desirable then, to extend Christ"s kingdom. And what was he doing to this end? For his part he was studious to put no stumbling block in the way of others, lest the ministry be reproached. That was the prudence which wards off evil. It has grave duties. It is vigilant, able to see the approach of danger and measure the extent of the peril. It is prompt to set in a precautionary manner. Yet this was only one part of a coworker"s duty. On the other hand, then, he was intent on commending himself to their confidence and affection, and by what means? The portraiture of St. Paul as a coworker is now presented. Previously to this he had sketched himself (see ch. 2., 3., 4.) in certain specific relations, such for instance as an "able minister," and as one who carried his treasure in an "earthen vessel;" but it was now his purpose to delineate himself and his experience with reference to a particular end. To be a cooperator, patience is the first virtue required. He speaks, therefore, at the outset, of "much patience," and assuredly he did not mistake the basic position of this great quality. He mentions nine forms of suffering which have been regarded by some commentators as constituting three classes, viz.: afflictions or general calamities, necessities, distresses, the leading idea being pressure, or "narrow straits;" then stripes, imprisonments, tumults, referrable to the popular excitement against him as a preacher; and lastly, labours, watchings, fastings, as indicative of ministerial experience: In all these things patience was exercised, keeping him steadfast, enabling him to endure, and preserving his mind in the peace of Christ. It is a description of one whose body was open on all sides the invasions of pain as the infliction of opposition and malice; and again, of one whose mind had anxieties and sorrows originating in its own sense of responsibility. Body wrought upon mind, mind upon body. Under these conditions the coworker had to proceed with his task patience "much patience." being the cardinal excellence of his character. But, further, the coworker speaks of purity, knowledge, long- suffering, kindness, endowments of the Spirit, sincere love; and again, he speaks or the word of truth, how he worked with God"s power, and fought also with an armour of righteousness, right hand and left hand engaged in the conflict. Just here the mind of St. Paul reacts from its subjective state, the enumeration of his moral virtues is suspended, and the idea of conflict brings back the "afflictions" alluded to (ver. 4). Nearly all his transitions occur in one of two ways, either as the immediate product of a physical sensation or as the result of some exciting thought, having its source in his train of reflection. At the instant when the image of battle comes before him, the coworker has the doctrine and morality of the gospel to defend against fierce, vindictive, might assailants. The honor of his position and the glory of Christ as the Captain of his salvation are at stake. Sword and shield are in hand, and for what is he fighting and how? "Armor of righteousness is very expressive. The great truth was in his mind foremost as a restraint as well as an impulse, the truth so ably argued in the previous chapter that we are "made the righteousness of God in him." Give the ethical philosopher all the credit he deserves; honour the moralist who strives to protect society from immorality; and yet it is very obvious that a man who feels himself set for the defence of the "righteousness of God" as manifested in Christ stands on ground infinitely higher than the mere philosopher and moralist. This cannot be denied; such a man has a spirit, a motive, an end, far remote from the others, and peculiar to the sphere he fills. What the apostle fights for is righteousness. And how is he fighting? It is important that we should see his temper, his tactics, his whole method of conducting the campaign. Men who ostensibly fight for righteousness are not always righteous fighters. "I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me," said one of the psalmists. "Make haste to help me, O Lord my salvation," was David"s prayer. "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of," were the words of Jesus when the "sons of thunder" wished to call down fire from heaven on the Samaritan village. Michael the archangel, in contention with the devil, "durst not bring against him a railing accusation." A bad spirit is not allowable even towards Satan, nor can an archangel go beyond "The Lord rebuke thee." Now, the apostle speaks of himself as fully armed for offensive and defensive warfare. And the fight goes on amid honour and dishonour, praise and cheer from friends, hostility and contempt from enemies; by evil report and good report; vilified as a deceiver, but yet a true man; as unknown ("obscure nobodies") to men, but known to God; as dying, and behold, out of perils, life springs renewed and enlarged; chastened as a discipline needed for a spiritual warrior who was meantime in everything a coworker with Christ; a sorrowful man in the estimation of many, but in reality always rejoicing; poor, working with our own hands for a living, but making many rich in spiritual blessings; and, finally, having nothing, and yet glorious paradox possessing in Christ all things. L.

HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON Ver. 1.

Workers together.

One who is sent upon a mission, who fills the office of an ambassador, is evidently one who, however he works, does not work alone. He is the representative of the court from which he is sent, by which he is accredited. When the apostle thought of his life mission, especially when he thought of its difficulties, it was natural that he should recall to his own mind the fact that God, who had commissioned him, was working with him and giving efficacy to his labours. And, in writing to others, it was appropriate that he should remind them that they had to deal, not merely with a fellow man, but with a fellow man who was supported and authorized by Divine wisdom and grace.

I GOD WORKS. He not only wrought the earth and the heavens, which are "the work of his fingers:" he follows his work of creation by the unceasing work of providential care, government, and oversight. The laws of nature are the ways in which God works. And the spiritual realm is his highest and noblest sphere of operation, in which he is carrying out his holy purposes.

II MEN, WHEN THEY WORK SUCCESSFULLY, WORK WITH GOD. Take two illustrations. The husbandman toils through all the changing seasons of the year, and in his ploughing, sowing, and reaping depends upon the processes of nature, i.e. works along with God. The physician studies the human frame, and, when it is diseased, seeks its recovery to health through cooperation with the laws of the various organs and tissues of" the body, and succeeds only by working with God. So is it in the spiritual sphere. The preacher of Christianity makes use of God"s truth and relies upon God"s Spirit; any other method must involve failure and discouragement.

III HUMAN LABOURERS WORK IN SUBJECTION TO THE DIVINE LORD. There is no equality in this fellowship. God can dispense with any man"s services, however great, wise, and good he may be. No man can dispense with the counsel and the aid of Heaven.

1. In the recognition of this lies the labourer"s strength.

2. And the dignity attaching to his position and office, which is notpersonal, but ministerial.

3. And the responsibility of all for whose welfare the Christian labourertoils. Such are bound to consider, not the human minister merely, but the Divine Lord, whose servant and messenger he is. T.

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

We then not only beseech, but as fellow-labourers with you, who are working out your own salvation, do also exhort you, not to receive the grace of God - Which we have been now describing. In vain - We receive it by faith; and not in vain, if we add to this, persevering holiness.

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

sin Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23").

righteous Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 5:21").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Here note, 1. The nature of the ministerial function: The ministry is a work, an arduous and laborious work; neither angels nor men are of themselves sufficient for it, without proportionable assistance from God. Ministers are workers.

Note, 2. They are workers together; they join together with one voice, with one cry, beseeching sinners to be reconciled unto God. All the ministers of Christ are fellow-labourers, workers together in God’s harvest-field; that which is the work of one, is the work of all; they should all join in it, and rejoice together in the success of it; not only labour with, but bless God for the services and success of, each other.

Lord! how sad it is to see the ministers of God divided in their work and way, when one rejoiceth in that which to another is cause of mourning!

Note, 3. Ministers are workers together with God, as well as with one another; they are subordinate instruments working by him, but not co-ordinate causes producing with him the work of conversion in the souls of men; not as if they could communicate any power of strength to the working of grace by the preaching of the word, 1Co 3:5 Who is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed?

Observe, 4. The exhortation, or cautionary direction, given; We beseech you, receive not the grace of God in vain; where by the grace of God, is meant the grace of the gopsel; because it is graciously and freely bestowed upon a people, and because the matter and message which it brings is grace.

The law discovers God’s will, the gospel discovers his good will: and by receiving this grace in vain, is meant the receiving the gospel unfruitfully, unprofitably, and ineffectually; when we do not receive it with a due estimation, with fervency of affection, with a fiducial application; when it doth not purify the heart, reform the life, and save the soul. It is not the receiving of the gospel into our houses, into our heads, into our mouths, but into our hearts, that will bring us to heaven.

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

GOD’S TIME NOW

1. “And indeed co-operating with you, we entreat you that you receive not the grace of God in vain.

2. “For He says, At a set time I heard thee, and in the day of salvation I succored thee. Behold, now is the accepted time, and now is the day of salvation.]” Satan is wonderful on procrastination, never letting the sinner get ready to repent, always clamoring, “Wait till tomorrow”; while the devil’s tomorrow never has come, and never will. “God is nigh in the valley of decision.” The will can only act in the present tense. Faith is actually circumscribed to the present tense, having neither past nor future, and, as we get everything from God by faith, we must receive it in the present tense. It is actually now or never.

3. “Giving no hindrance in anything, in order that the ministry may not be blamed.

4. “But in everything commending ourselves as the ministers of God, in all patience, in tribulations, in pressures, in difficulties,

5. “In stripes.” When did Paul go to a place without receiving a broken head or a bleeding back, the wounds not convalescing till superseded by others, and the scars prominent till he laid down his head on the executioner’s block. “In prisons,” e. g., the Philippian jail and innumerable other imprisonment’s unmentioned. “In tumults.” He always raised a row everywhere he went, mobs and uproars rising on all sides. This wicked world is no more congenial to the truth of God now than then. Though civil administration has made progress for which we glorify God, yet it is an undeniable fact that the truth faithfully preached never fails to stir the devil and raise a fuss. I am an old revivalist, and a witness to this fact the last thirty years. Our work always stirred the devil and raised a hubbub. Satan has more sense than any man. He does not waste his ammunition on dead beats. When he does not stir and roar, rest assured you are doing no good; you had better lie prostrate before God, and cry till He gives you power to stir the devil. “In labors.” Paul was a most indefatigable worker, having Asia and Europe in his field of labor, other apostles going to Africa; e. g., Matthew preached and suffered martyrdom in Ethiopia, Mark in Egypt, and Matthias in Abyssinia. Paul traveled over many countries in Asia and Macedonia and Achaia in Europe, nearly always going on foot. He must have been a wonderful pedestrian. Having preached all night at Troas, he enjoyed a morning walk of thirty miles to Assos, where lie embarked on the ship with his comrades, having traveled thither by sea. “In vigils,” i. e., watchings, i. e., often spending sleepless nights of toil and privation, because they had no lodgings or by reason of the perils, conflicts and toils in which they were encompassed. “In fastings.” Frequently, doubtless, these fasts were perpetuated to a paradoxical prolixity from sheer financial inability to procure food, or while traveling across deserts and through uninhabited regions. “In purity.” The word means bodily chastity and blameless unselfishness, in which they excelled, having the complete victory over all their animal propensities and living in a state of pre-eminent communion with God. “In knowledge.” This is the word denoting the spiritual gift of knowledge, which is insight into Divine truth, which they enjoyed in a most pre-eminent degree. Paul had spent his early life in constant study, and, having a good memory, wonderfully retained the Holy Scriptures at his command in every emergency; meanwhile he and his comrades were superlatively illuminated and enriched by the Holy Spirit with the apprehension and perspicacity required site to give them clear and lucid understanding and interpretation of God’s precious Word. “In long- suffering.” This is one of the nine graces of the Holy Spirit which you find in the catalogue in Gal 5:22. It is most beautiful, amiable and charming in its intrinsical character, keeping you constantly low down at the feet of Jesus, and indefatigable in every ramification of patient suffering for Christ’s sake. “In kindness,” i. e., a kind and considerate demeanor reaching out a helping hand to every suffering creature, whether human or animal; always abounding in profound sympathy with bereavement, distress, ignorance, degradation and misery, and doing their utmost to rescue the perishing, condole the broken-hearted, and raise up the fallen. “In the Holy Ghost,” as the Power and the Agent by whom all of these graces and enduements in this long catalogue are administered and subordinated to happy participation. He was the grand secret of their wonderful and paradoxical endurance and perseverance amid a world of adversity, hostility and constant antagonism. “In Divine love free from hypocrisy.” We receive this Divine love, poured out into our hearts by the Holy Ghost, in regeneration. But so long as Adam the first is on hand, we are never free from the fundamental elements of insincerity, dissimulation and a diversity of strategy which constitute the very essence of hypocrisy. hence the man of sin must be slain; holy Samuel must arise with the sword of the Spirit, and hew down the old Gag who walks out with the stealthy tread of hypocrisy. Oh, that we may all, like Paul. and his comrades, enjoy the experience of Divine love free from hypocrisy!

7. “In the Word of truth.” They were wonderfully enriched and impregnably fortified by the precious Word of truth. We have logos here, which means “God’s word,” in contradistinction to reema, “man’s word.” This logos has a peculiar force, because it is one of the words occurring in the Scriptures to designate the incarnate person of our Lord (John 1). This is pertinent from the fact that “word” means “revelation,” and the incarnation of Christ, rendering Him apprehensible by our material senses, is really the grand summary of all Divine revelation. This glorified, incarnate Christ had appeared to Paul in person on his way to Damascus, and three years afterward in the temple in Jerusalem. These manifestations of the incarnate, glorified Savior to Paul are significantly adumbratory of His glorious appearing in His second advent, as His visit to Abraham at Mamre was anticipatory of His first advent. The wonderful proximity and fellowship which Paul enjoyed with the glorified Savior are problems too deep for our solution. “In the power of God,” the Greek is “dynamite.” They were thoroughly endued and equipped with this Divine dynamite, which was more than a match for all their enemies, visible and invisible. When we consider the wonderful potency of dynamite as a mechanical power, and then recognize the Omnipotence in this case identified with it, we need not wonder at the mighty paroxysms of the earthquake which liberated them from the Philippian jail. “Through the arms of righteousness on the right and on the left.” Ephesians 6 describes this invincible panoply, i. e., the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the gospel shoes and the sword of the Spirit. In the Tower of London I saw many of the mediaeval warriors clothed in shining steel from the crowns of their heads to the soles of their feet, so as to render them actually invulnerable to all their foes on the battlefield. While looking at them I thought of the Christian warrior, thus impregnably panoplied against every possible assault of the diabolical foe.

8. “Through glory and dishonor.” The Christian life is a perpetual enigma and an irreconcilable contradiction, of glory within and opprobrium without. Carnal eyes can see nothing but dishonor, indecorum, disappointment and failure in the deep humility, self-abnegation and worldly depreciation incident to the true Christian life; meanwhile from the standpoint of angels and glorified saints, it is all honor, victory and triumph. “Through evil report and good.” We must be like the apostles, utterly dead to the ipse dixit of the world, whether good or bad, absolutely indifferent to praise or blame, there simply being no difference between them; e. g., at Lystra, one hour they actually worshipped them as gods and the next hour were stoning them to death. Hence we must get to where we are literally dead to praise or blame, and equally unmoved by both, as they are liable to alternate any moment. “As deceivers and true.” Hosts of people actually believed the apostles to be hypocrites and scoundrels, going about to deceive the people for selfish and mercenary motives. Hence when people look upon you in that capacity you must not be astonished, think hard of them, or suffer yourself to be jostled or affected in any way by their utter misunderstanding of all your motives, enterprises and character. They misunderstood Jesus and actually killed Him, believing Him to be a bad man. If the Jews had really believed that He was their own Christ of prophecy they would have fallen in adoring congratulation all around Him. If the Romans had known who He was they would have died in their tracks before they would have laid a violent hand on Him The martyrs were all killed by religious people whose sincerity we have no right to call in question. But they misunderstood them, believing them to be corrupt, deceitful and heretical. So you may expect the people to look upon you as a deceiver, while at the same time it is enough for you to have the blessed assurance that you are true and right.

9. “A unknown and well known.” Paul was an indefatigable traveler, going to the ends of the earth, and always among strangers, who knew him not. Hence pertinently it is said that they were “unknown.” So it will be with you. God will lead you as He did Abraham, away from home and kindred to sojourn among strangers. There is also another sense in which they were “unknown,” even by the people who daily recognized their physical person and identified them, yet strangers to them spiritually. How pertinently are they said to be “well known”! No people get so intimately acquainted either with other as the saints of God. I am now well known personally, having many intimate and much-esteemed friends and acquaintances, spanning the continent all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific; besides, I feel that I am well known by a great host who dwell above the stars. “As dying, and behold, we live!” This wicked world with its fallen churches has slain their Leader and sworn vengeance against all of His followers. Hence they live constantly exposed to martyrdom, and thus in the attitude of perpetual dying. What a beautiful emphasis in the exclamation: “Behold, we live!” Not only do we now live, but the life we enjoy will sweep through the flight of ages! “As being chastised and not put to death.” With the whole world against them, and daily persecutions on all sides, they are the constant subjects of Divine chastisement, conducive to their good, alienating them from earth and sweetening them for Heaven.

Meanwhile profitable spiritual castigation, in the blessed providence of God, is the very ultimatum of the hostility from their enemies, as God’s saints are immortal till their work is done, as Death is no chastisement but a blessing, felicitously releasing us from our prisons of clay and opening to our happy ingress the gates of glory.

10. “As sorrowing, and always rejoicing.” The Christian life is a perpetual antithesis of sympathetic and external sorrow in contemplation of millions perishing on all sides; and an artesian well of internal joy incessantly flowing in the heart, gladdening the whole spirit, making life a triumph and actually participating a Heavenly prelibation. “As poor, and making many rich.” The beautiful antithesis between the temporal and the spiritual is here perpetuated. Though actually penniless in temporal things, they were constantly enriching the people with Heavenly treasures. Earthly possessions are unprofitable encumbrances to the Heaven-bound traveler. It is really important that he be unencumbered, and light as a bird of paradise. “As having nothing, and possessing all things.” True saintship can not afford to deflect an iota from the apostolic precedent of actually possessing nothing in the way of temporal estate. Under the false intuition of fallen churchism, the idea now prevails that the Lord’s people need temporal resources in order to their efficiency as soul-savers. The Scriptures reveal the diametrically opposite of this hypothesis. When Barnabas, a Cyprian farmer, went as a delegate to Jerusalem to attend the Pentecostal festival, receive the fiery baptism and the call to preach, among his preparations for a life-work in the vineyard of the Lord he sold out his Cyprian farm and laid every cent at the apostle’s feet, going penniless into the work that, unencumbered, he might enjoy his utmost availability as a preacher of the gospel. When thus utterly destitute, if true to God, we really “possess all things,” having a cheque on Heaven’s bank for everything we need in time and eternity.

11. “Our mouth is open unto you, O Corinthians, our heart has become enlarged.” This was the greatest church of the Pauline ministry, numerically, and we hear of no others so wonderfully enriched with the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit. Now, after an absence of three years and six months, traveling throughout Asia and Macedonia, he is on his way to visit them again, and survey the old battlefield on which he stood eighteen months courageously fighting the powers of darkness, beginning with nothing and witnessing the conversions of hundreds and, I know, thousands of Jews and Gentiles in that European metropolis. His long absence was a necessity, that he might visit hundreds of other churches, and establish them in holiness. With no facilities for public conveyance, and traveling generally on foot overland, he has found this long absence inevitable. The time is at hand for him to go down and see them. again look into their beautiful faces, take them by the hand, and congratulate them, forty months nearer Heaven than ever before. He feels full of gospel truth ready to pour out of his mouth, meanwhile his heart has broadened out in their behalf, and he feels impatient to take them all in his arms and again enjoy their Christian fellowship and the exquisite privilege of again preaching to them the living Word. No wonder he feels an enlargement of the heart contrastively with the time when first he found them groveling in the superstitions of polytheistic idolatry, and wasting away in the low debaucheries of sin and misery. His preaching now will be on a vastly different line. They have already been converted out of heathenism and dead Judaism, many of them wonderfully sanctified and not a few actually flooded with the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost, qualifying them for pre-eminent usefulness as soul-savers.

12. “Ye are not straitened in us.” Among the innumerable preachers who had been with them during his long absence, some had impeached his apostolical authority, and in other ways spoken among them to his depreciation. He now assures them that he perfectly understands the situation, has victory complete in his own heart and life, and everything auspicious from his own standpoint. Consequently they may rest easy so far as he is concerned. “But ye are straitened in your own hearts.” As in the former letter, he is still moving judiciously and boldly on his castigatory line, chastising them for the irregularities and the inconsistencies of which he has heard through others during his absence, and especially from Timothy and Titus, whom he had sent to preach to them, after his arrival on the coast, before leaving Asia. This letter, in co-operation with the former, has for its object the correction of all those errors and the radical reformation which he had been working up through his epistolary preaching and the corroboration of the same by Timothy and Titus, favorite preachers of his and much like himself, whom he had sent at different times to prevail upon them to receive appreciatively all he had written to them.

13. “Grant unto me this reward, as I speak to children, be ye also enlarged.” The reward here mentioned is their own enlargement of heart toward him in filial reciprocation of his enlargement of parental affection toward them, that the expansion of their love either for other, as parent to children and children to their spiritual father, may be mutual and reciprocal when lie arrives among them.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And working together with him we entreat also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain

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.

2 Corinthians Chapter 6

Paul had said that God exhorted by his means. In chapter 6 the affection of the apostle carries on by the Spirit this divine work, beseeching the Corinthians that it might not be in vain in their case that this grace had been brought to them. For it was the acceptable time, the day of salvation. [7] The apostle had spoken of the great principles of his ministry, and of its origin. He reminds the Corinthians of the way in which he had exercised it in the varied circumstances through which he had been led. The cardinal point of his service is that he was the minister of God, that he represented Him in his service. This rendered two things needful: first, that he should be in all things without reproach; and then that he should maintain this character of God’s minister, and the exercise of his ministry, through all the opposition, and in all the circumstances through which the enmity of man’s heart, and the cunning even of Satan, could make him pass. Everywhere and in all things he avoided, by his conduct, all real occasion of being reproached, in order that no one should have room to blame the ministry. He approved himself in all things as a minister of God, worthily representing Him in whose name he spoke to men; and that with a patience, and in the midst of persecution and contradiction of sinners, which shewed an inward energy, a sense of obligation to God, and a dependence on Him, which the realisation of His presence and of our duty to Him can alone maintain. It was a quality which reigned through all the circumstances of which the apostle speaks, and had dominion over them.

Thus he shewed himself to be the minister of God in everything which could test him; in pureness, in kindness, in love; as a vessel of power; whether disgraced or applauded; unknown to the world, and known and eminent; outwardly trodden under foot of man and chastened, inwardly victorious and joyful, enriching others, and in possession of all things. Here ends his description of the sources, the character, the victory over circumstances, of a ministry which displayed the power of God in a vessel of weakness, whose best portion was death.

The restoration of the Corinthians to a moral state befitting the gospel, associated with the circumstances through which he had just been passing, had allowed him to open his heart to them. Pre-occupied till now with his subject of the glorious Christ, who, having accomplished redemption, sent him as the messenger of the grace to which that redemption had given free course, and having spoken with a free heart of all that was comprised in his ministry, he returns with affection to his beloved Corinthians, shewing that it was with them that he had all this openness, this enlargement of heart. “My mouth is open unto you, O Corinthians,” he says, “my heart is enlarged; ye are not straitened in me, but in your own affections.” As a recompense for the affections that overflowed from his heart towards them, he only asks for the enlargement of their own hearts.

He spoke as to his children. But he avails himself of this tender relationship to exhort the Corinthians to maintain the place in which God had set them: “Be not in the same yoke with unbelievers.” Having a hold upon their affections, and rejoicing deeply before God in the grace which had restored them to right sentiments, his heart is free to give way, as though beside himself, to the joy that belonged to him in Christ glorified: and, with a sober mind after all when his dear children in the faith were in question,[8] he seeks to detach them from all that recognised the flesh, or implied that a relationship which recognised it were possible for a Christian-from everything that denied the position of a man who has his life and his interests in the new creation, of which Christ is the Head in glory. An angel can serve God in this world: little would it concern him in what way, provided that way was God’s; but to associate himself with its interests, as forming a part of it, to ally himself with those who are governed by the motives that influence the men of this world, so that a common conduct would shew that the one and the other acted according to the principles that form its character, would be, to those heavenly beings, to lose their position and their character. The Christian, whose portion is the glory of Christ-who has his world, his life, his true associations, there where Christ has entered in-should not either; nor can he, as a Christian, put himself under the same yoke with those who can have only worldly motives, to draw the chariot of life in a path common to both.

What communion is there between Christ and Belial; between light and darkness; faith and unbelief; the temple of God and idols? Christians are the temple of the living God who dwells and walks among them. He is a God to them; they are a people to Him. Therefore must they come out from all fellowship with the worldly, and be separate from them. As Christians, they must stand apart, for they are the temple of God. God dwells among them and walks there, and He is their God. They are therefore to come out from the world and be separate, and God will own them, and will be to them in relationship of a Father with sons and daughters who are dear to Him.

This, observe, is the special relationship which God assumes with us. The two preceding revelations of God with men are named here, and He takes a third. To Abraham He revealed Himself as Almighty; to Israel as Jehovah or Lord. Here the Lord Almighty declares that He will be a Father to His own, to His sons and daughters. We come out from among the worldly, for it is just that (not physically out of the world, but while in it), in order to enter into the relationship of sons and daughters to the Almighty God: otherwise we cannot practically realise this relationship. God will not have worldlings in relation with Himself as sons and daughters; they have not entered into this position with regard to Him. Nor will He recognise those who remain identified with the world, as having this position; for the world has rejected His Son, and the friendship of the world is enmity against God: and he who is the friend of the world is the enemy of God. It is not being His child in a practical sense. God says therefore, “Come out from among them, and be separate, and ye shall be to me for sons and daughters.” Remember that it is not a question of coming out of the world-it is while we are in it-but of coming out from among the worldly, to enter into the relationship of sons and daughters, in order to be to Him for sons and daughters, to be owned of Him in this relationship. [9]

But it is not only that from which we are separated to be in this position of sons and daughters that engages the apostle’s attention, but the legitimate consequences of such promises. Sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty, holiness becomes us. It is not only that we are to be separate from the world; but, in relationship with God, to cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit: holiness in the outward walk, and that which is quite as important with regard to our relationship to God, purity of thought. For, although man does not see the thoughts, the flow of the Spirit is stopped in the heart. There is not enlargement of heart in communion with God, It is much if His presence is felt, His relationship to us realised; grace is known, but God scarcely at all, in the way in which He makes Himself gradually known in communion.

Footnotes for 2 Corinthians Chapter 6

7: The passage is a quotation from Isa 49:8, which speaks of the blessing that should be brought to the Gentiles when Christ was rejected by the Jews, but through Christ’s work and by the resurrection.

8: What a blessed state is that of a man, who, when he is taken out of himself and a state of calm reflection, is entirely absorbed with, or turned towards, God, and, when he does think soberly and calculates, is occupied in love in seeking the good of his brethren, the members of Christ: who is either rapt up into the contemplation of God and communion with Him, or filled with Him, so as to think only of others in love!

9: The reader may remark that the passage sets two things before us: that God is present in the assembly of those who are separated from the world, and walks among them, as He did in the case of Israel in the wilderness when they had come out of Egypt; and that the individuals who compose the assembly enter into the relationship of sons and daughters.

John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1–3. We then. Paul and Timothy especially (1:1), and other ministers associated with them. As workers together. Not only fellow-laborers, but workers with Christ. See conclusion of last chapter. That you receive not the grace of God in vain. The grace (favor) of God meant is the gospel, the ministry of reconciliation. To receive it in vain would be to receive it and then fall away. Compare 1 Cor. 15:2.

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.

Connecting Statement:

Paul summarizes how working together for God is supposed to be.

General Information:

In verse 2, Paul quotes a portion from the prophet Isaiah.

Working together

Paul is implying that he and Timothy are working with God. AT: "Working together with God" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain

Paul pleads with them to allow the grace of God to be effective in their lives. This can be stated in positive terms. AT: "we beg you to make use of the grace that you have received from God" (See: Double Negatives)

For he says

"For God says." This introduces a quotation from the prophet Isaiah. AT: "For God says in scripture" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

Look

The word "Look" here alerts us to pay attention to the surprising information that follows.

We do not place a stumbling block in front of anyone

Paul speaks of anything that would prevent a person from trusting in Christ as if it were a physical object over which that person trips and falls. AT: "We do not want to do anything that will prevent people from believing our message" (See: Metaphor)

we do not wish our ministry to be discredited

The word "discredited" refers to people speaking badly about Paul's ministry, and working against the message he proclaims. This can be stated in active form. AT: "we do not want anyone to be able to speak badly about our ministry" (See: Active or Passive)

translationWords

beg

receive

grace

God

favor

save

stumbling block

to minister

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

1–10. S. Paul continues his personal explanations respecting his work. These personal explanations are specially prominent in 2Co 6:3-4, about which 2Co 6:4-10 give details as to the way in which his ministry was exercised. He can give an account of it which might well put his adversaries to shame. His readers can use it as a material for defence. “The almost lyrical character which belongs to this burst of feeling may be fitly compared to Rom 8:31-39; 1Co 13:1-13, which occupy in a similar manner the central place in these Epistles” (Stanley).

1. Συνεργοῦντες δὲ καὶ παρακαλοῦμεν. But working together (with him) we intreat also. The reference is to 2Co 5:20: ‘we besought you on Christ’s behalf to become reconciled to God; but we do more; we intreat also.’ Συνεργοῦντες implies working with some one, and with God or with Christ is probably meant. With the other Apostles, or with other teachers at Corinth, or with you Corinthians is possible, but does not fit the context so well as with Him. ‘Working together with our exhortations,’ joining example to precept, is forced. The καί refers to the previous appeal, and shows that the same class of readers is addressed as before. It takes up the idea of the ‘ambassador.’ Comp. 1Co 3:9.

μὴ εἰς κενὸν τ. χ. τ. θ. δέξασθαι ὑμᾶς. The ὑμᾶς is emphatic, ‘ye any more than we Apostles. Our converts must remember what the grace which they have received involves, and must live accordingly. That they have received it through divinely appointed Apostles should remind them of their obligations, and render Corinthian licentiousness impossible.’ For εἰς κενόν comp. Gal 2:2; Php 2:16; 1Th 3:5; Isa 65:23; Jer 6:29. For the timeless aorist after παρακαλεῖν comp. 2Co 2:8; Rom 12:1; Rom 15:30; Eph 4:1. It is still more common after κελεύειν.

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.

As workers together with Him [συνεργουντες] . Lit., working together. With Him is implied in the compounded oun with. That it refers to God, not to the fellow - Christians, is evident from the parallel 1Co 3:9, laborers together with God, and because the act of exhortation or entreaty in which the fellowship is exhibited is ascribed to God in ch. 5 20. The phrase Qeou paredroi assessors of God, occurs in Ignatius' letter to Polycarp. Compare Mr 16:20.

In vain [εις κενον] . Lit., to what is vain. Equivalent to the phrase to no purpose.

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