PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Expositor's Bible: The Second Epistle to the Corinthians
Denney, James · 122,179 words · 161 reading sections
_The Gospel Defined_
"Therefore seeing we have this ministry, even as we obtained mercy, we faint not: but we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the Word of God deceitfully; but by the manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. But and …
745 wordsSECTION 62_The Gospel Defined_
This is probably the simplest and most complete directory for the preaching of the Gospel. The preacher is to make the truth manifest. It is implied in what has just been said, that one great hindrance to its manifestation may easily be its treatment by the preacher himself. If he wishes to do anything else at the same…
696 wordsSECTION 63_The Gospel Defined_
Let these solemn words appeal to our hearts and consciences, before we attempt to criticise them. Let us have a due impression of the stupendous facts to which they refer, before we raise difficulties about them, or say rashly that the expression is disproportioned to the truth. To St. Paul the Gospel was a very great …
811 wordsSECTION 64_The Gospel Defined_
This passage is one of those in which the subject of the Gospel is distinctly enunciated: it is the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. The glory of Christ, or, which is the same thing, Christ in His glory, is the sum and substance of it, that which gives it both its contents and its character. Paul…
784 wordsSECTION 65_The Gospel Defined_
In the fourth verse the stress is logically, if not grammatically, on Christ. "The Gospel of the glory of _Christ_," I say. "For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake." Perhaps ambition had been laid to Paul's charge; "the necessity of being first" is one of t…
841 wordsSECTION 66Footnotes:
[37] Expositors seem to be agreed that in this passage there is a reference, more or less definite and particular, to the Judaising opponents of St. Paul at Corinth. This may be admitted, but is not to be forced. It is forced, _e.g._, by Schmiedel, who habitually reads St. Paul as if (1) he had been expressly accused o…
288 wordsSECTION 67_The Victory Of Faith_
"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves; _we are_ pressed on every side, yet not straitened; perplexed, yet not unto despair; pursued, yet not forsaken; smitten down, yet not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying …
953 wordsSECTION 68_The Victory Of Faith_
This verse is never without its application; and though the contempt of the world did not suggest it to St. Paul, it may naturally enough recall it to us. One would sometimes think, from the tone of current literature, that no person with gifts above contempt is any longer identified with the Gospel. Clever men, we are…
1,077 wordsSECTION 69_The Victory Of Faith_
The moral of the passage is similar to that of chap. i. 3-11. Suffering, for the Christian, is not an accident; it is a divine appointment and a divine opportunity. To wear life out in the service of Jesus is to open it to the entrance of Jesus' life; it is to receive, in all its alleviations, in all its renewals, in a…
768 wordsSECTION 70_The Victory Of Faith_
What an interesting illustration this is of the communion of the saints! Paul recognises a spiritual kinsman in the writer of the Psalm;[42] faith in God, the power which faith confers, the obligations which faith imposes, are the same in all ages. He recognises spiritual kinsmen in the Corinthians also. All his suffer…
1,019 wordsSECTION 71_The Victory Of Faith_
But who shall speak of the two great verses in which the Apostle, leaving controversy out of sight, solemnly weighs against each other time and eternity, the seen and the unseen, and claims his inheritance beyond? "Our light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight…
755 wordsSECTION 72Footnotes:
Distrust of the supernatural, insistence on the present and the practical, and the pride of a self-styled common sense, have done much to rob modern Christianity of this vast horizon, to blind it to this heavenly vision. But wherever the life of Jesus is being manifested in mortal flesh--wherever in His service and for…
355 wordsSECTION 73_The Christian Hope_
"For we know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens. For verily in this we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven: if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For ind…
888 wordsSECTION 74_The Christian Hope_
The third verse states the great gain which lies in the fulfilment of this hope: "Since, of course, being clothed [with this new body], we shall not be found naked [_i.e._, without any body]." I cannot think, especially looking on to ver. 4, that these two verses (2 and 3) mean anything else than that Paul longs for Ch…
870 wordsSECTION 75_The Christian Hope_
There is no objection to be made in principle to the idea that the Apostle's outlook on the future was subject to modification--that he was capable of attaining, or even did attain, a deeper insight, with experience, into the connexion between that which is and that which is to come. But it is surely somewhat against t…
964 wordsSECTION 76_The Christian Hope_
The Apostle cannot look to the end of the Christian hope without referring to its condition and guarantee. "He that wrought us for this very thing is God, who gave us the earnest of the Spirit." The future is never considered in the New Testament in a speculative fashion; nothing could be less like an apostle than to d…
896 wordsSECTION 77_The Christian Hope_
In bringing this subject to a close, the Apostle strikes a graver note. A certain moral, as well as a certain emotional temper, is evoked by the Christian hope. It fills men with courage, and with spiritual yearnings; it braces them also to moral earnestness and vigour. "Wherefore also we make it our aim"--literally, w…
568 wordsSECTION 78_The Measure Of Christ'S Love_
[43] The true rendering here is that in the margin of the R.V. [44] This translation is Schmiedel's. For the use of διὰ cf. Rev. xxi. 24: Καὶ περιπατήσουσιν τὰ ἔθνη διὰ τοῦ φωτὸς αὐτης. It cannot mean "by" faith, in the sense of "according to" faith, or as faith directs. Nor can it be proved that εῖδος ever means "sig…
1,289 wordsSECTION 79_The Measure Of Christ'S Love_
The connexion of ver. 13 with what precedes is very obscure. Perhaps as fair a paraphrase as any would run thus: "And well may you boast of our complete sincerity; for whether we are beside ourselves, it is to God; or whether we are of sober mind, it is unto you; that is, in no case is self-interest the motive or rule …
758 wordsSECTION 80_The Measure Of Christ'S Love_
The strongest point in favour of this interpretation seems to me not the tense of ἐξέστημεν, but the use of Θεῷ: "it is unto God." If the meaning were the one first suggested, and the madness were the holy enthusiasm of the Evangelist, that would be distinctly a thing which did concern the Corinthians, and it would not…
948 wordsSECTION 81_The Measure Of Christ'S Love_
If this were an exposition of St. Paul's theology, and not of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, I should be bound to consider the connexion between that outward death of Christ in which the death of all is involved, and the appropriation of that death to themselves by individual men. But the Apostle does not direc…
539 wordsSECTION 82_The New World_
[45] The φανερωθῆναι of the last judgment, ver. 10, has as good as taken place--for God. [46] According to Winer ἐξέστη in Mark iii. 21 has the present sense = _insanity_; and so it might be with ἐξέστημεν here. The verb occurs fifteen times in the New Testament, and except in these two passages has always the sense o…
902 wordsSECTION 83_The New World_
Another interpretation of the words would make "knowing Christ after the flesh" refer to a knowledge at first hand of the facts and outward conditions of Christ's life in this world: a knowledge which Paul had in his early Christian days valued highly, but for which he no longer cared. There were numbers of men alive t…
921 wordsSECTION 84_The New World_
Nevertheless, this interpretation, though mistaken, has a certain truth in it. There _is_ a historical knowledge of Christ which is a mere irrelevance to Christianity, and it has sometimes a stress laid upon it by its possessors which tempts one to speak of it in St. Paul's scornful tone. Many so-called "Lives" of Chri…
694 wordsSECTION 85_The New World_
The seventeenth verse seems a new inference from the same ground as the fifteenth. Indeed, it connects so naturally with ver. 15 that one critic has suggested that ver. 16 is spurious, and another that it was a later insertion by the Apostle. Perhaps we may assume that St. Paul, who had no fear of such critics before h…
1,030 wordsSECTION 86_Reconciliation_
[47] The "we" in the first clause of ver. 16 is emphatic. [48] As Heinrici does. [49] See the excellent section on Paul and the Historical Christ in Sabatier's _The Apostle Paul_ (English Translation, pp. 76-85). [50] Observe the aorist παρῆλθεν. [51] Chap. ii. 14, 17, and chap. iii. 14, are more limited. [52] Per…
974 wordsSECTION 87_Reconciliation_
Much impatience has been shown in the criticism of this conception. Clever men have exhibited their talent and courage by calling it "heathenish"; and others have undertaken to apologise for St. Paul by describing this objection as "modern." I cannot understand how any one should feel entitled either to flout the Apost…
672 wordsSECTION 88_Reconciliation_
The connexion of the words "not reckoning unto them their trespasses, and having committed unto us the word of reconciliation," is rather difficult. The last clause certainly refers to something which took place after the work of reconciliation had been wrought; Paul was commissioned to tell the story of it. It seems m…
718 wordsSECTION 89_Reconciliation_
The Received Text and the Authorised Version attach the twenty-first verse to this exhortation by γὰρ ("for"): "For Him who knew no sin He made _to be_ sin on our behalf." The "for" is spurious, and though it is not inept the sentence gains greatly in impressiveness by its omission. The Apostle does not point out the c…
653 wordsSECTION 90_Reconciliation_
Now, God reconciled the world to Himself--He made a peace which could be proclaimed and offered to the world--when, all sinless as Christ was, He made Him to be sin on our behalf. What does this mean? Not, exactly, that He made Him a sin-offering on our behalf. The expression for a sin-offering is distinct (περὶ ἁμαρτί…
998 wordsSECTION 91Footnotes:
In the last words of the passage the Apostle tells us the object of this great interposition of God: "He made Christ to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." Our condemnation is made His; it is accepted, exhausted, annihilated, on His cross; and when we receive the reconciliation-…
263 wordsSECTION 92_The Signs Of An Apostle_
"And working together _with Him_ we intreat also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain (for He saith, At an acceptable time I hearkened unto thee, And in a day of salvation did I succour thee: behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation): giving no occasion of stumbling in anythi…
738 wordsSECTION 93_The Signs Of An Apostle_
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, a…
849 wordsSECTION 94_The Signs Of An Apostle_
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 intreat you ... giving no occasion of stumbling in anything, that our ministration be not…
661 wordsSECTION 95_The Signs Of An Apostle_
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…
984 wordsSECTION 96_The Signs Of An Apostle_
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. Paul's experiences; in the regularity with which he puts the higher last, and in the climax with which he …
743 wordsSECTION 97_New Testament Puritanism_
[55] Observe that it is ὡς Θεοῦ διάκονοι, not διακόνους. [56] Some, because of the want of the article, make it equivalent to "veracity." [57] Beet, however, takes it in the technical sense: justification by faith is the preacher's sword and shield. [58] _Rara et præsentissima appellatio_ (Bengel). "Be not unequall…
973 wordsSECTION 98_New Testament Puritanism_
(1) The moral demand is first put in the negative form: "Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers." The peculiar word ἑτεροζυγοῦντες ("unequally yoked") has a cognate form in Lev. xix. 19, in the law which forbids the breeding of hybrid animals. God has established a good physical order in the world, and it is not to be…
753 wordsSECTION 99_New Testament Puritanism_
(2) Observe now the assumption on which the demand not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers is based. It is that there are _two_ ethical or spiritual interests in the world, and that these are fundamentally inconsistent with each other. This implies that in choosing the one, the other has to be rejected. But it impli…
787 wordsSECTION 100_New Testament Puritanism_
(3) But what bulks most largely in the passage is the series of divine promises which are to inspire and sustain obedience. The separations which an earnest Christian life requires are not without their compensation; to leave the world is to be welcomed by God. It is probable that the pernicious association which the w…
795 wordsSECTION 101_Repentance Unto Life_
[59] An ingenious defence of the place of these verses has been made by Godet in his Introduction to St. Paul's Epistles. At chap. vi. 10 the Apostle suddenly stops, amazed, as it were, at himself and at what the Spirit has just dictated to him. His heart swells, and he longs to embrace the thankless Church to which he…
760 wordsSECTION 102_Repentance Unto Life_
He begins by resuming the appeal interrupted at chap. vi. 13. He has charged the Corinthians with being straitened in their own affections: distrust and calumny have narrowed their souls, nay, shut them against him altogether. "Receive us," he exclaims here--_i.e._, open your hearts to us. "You have no cause to be rese…
1,082 wordsSECTION 103_Repentance Unto Life_
Then comes the most delicate part of this reconciliation (vv. 8-12). It is a good rule in making up disputes to let bygones be bygones, as far as possible; there may be a little spark hidden here and there under what seem dead ashes, and there is no gain in raking up the ashes, and giving the spark a chance to blaze ag…
1,027 wordsSECTION 104_Repentance Unto Life_
St. Paul can point to the experience of the Corinthians themselves as furnishing a demonstration of these truths. "Consider your own godly sorrow," he seems to say, "and what blessed fruits it bore. What earnest care it wrought in you! how eager became your interest in a situation to which you had once been sinfully in…
979 wordsSECTION 105_Repentance Unto Life_
The last results of the painful friction between Paul and the Corinthians were peculiarly happy. The Apostle's confidence in them was completely restored, and they had completely won the heart of Titus. "His affections are more abundantly toward you, as he remembers the obedience of you all, how with fear and trembling…
406 wordsSECTION 106_The Grace Of Liberality_
[61] But see on chap. ii. 5-11. [62] This is, I think, the only possible meaning of πολλή μοι παῤῥησία πρὸς ὑμᾶς. [63] So Schmiedel. [64] It is difficult to fix either the text or the punctuation in ver. 8, and agreement among critics is quite hopeless. Practically they are at one in omitting the γὰρ of the Received…
670 wordsSECTION 107_The Grace Of Liberality_
Money is usually a delicate topic to handle in the Church, and we may count ourselves happy in having two chapters from the pen of St. Paul in which he treats at large of a collection. We see the mind of Christ applied in them to a subject which is always with us, and sometimes embarrassing; and if there are traces her…
1,102 wordsSECTION 108_The Grace Of Liberality_
This was the application which St. Paul made of the generosity of the Macedonians. Under the impression of it he exhorted Titus, who on a previous occasion[68] had made some preliminary arrangements about the matter in Corinth, to return thither and complete the work. He had other things also to complete, but "this gra…
776 wordsSECTION 109_The Grace Of Liberality_
Some strange criticisms have been passed on this appeal to the Incarnation as a motive to liberality. It shows, Schmiedel says, Paul's contempt for the knowledge of Christ after the flesh, when the Incarnation is all he can adduce as a pattern for such a simply human thing as a charitable gift. The same contempt, then,…
681 wordsSECTION 110_The Grace Of Liberality_
It is in this connexion that the Apostle lays down the laws of Christian liberality. In these verses (11 to 15) there are three. (_a_) First, there must be readiness, or, as the Authorised Version puts it, a willing mind. What is given must be given freely; it must be a gracious offering, not a tax. This is fundamental…
499 wordsSECTION 111_The Fruits Of Liberality_
[67] Ἁπλότης is literally simplicity or singleness of heart, the disposition which, when it gives, does so without _arrière-pensée_: in point of fact this is identical with the liberal or generous disposition. Cf. chap. ix. 11, 13; Rom. xii. 8; James i. 5. [68] Previous to his recent visit? So Schmiedel. Or simply = f…
719 wordsSECTION 112_The Fruits Of Liberality_
This long passage has a good many difficulties of detail, for the grammarian and the textual critic. Where it seems necessary, these will be referred to in the notes; but as the large meaning of the writer is hardly affected by them, they need not interrupt the course of exposition. It falls into three parts, which are…
1,145 wordsSECTION 113_The Fruits Of Liberality_
(2) Chap. ix. 1-5. This section strikes one at first as greatly wanting in connexion with what precedes. It looks like a new beginning, an independent writing on the same or a similar subject. This has led some scholars to argue that either chap. viii. or chap. ix. belongs to a different occasion, and that only resembl…
807 wordsSECTION 114_The Fruits Of Liberality_
(3) Chap. ix. 6-15. In the third and last section the Apostle resumes his direct and urgent tone. "I do not need to write to you," he seems to say, "but one thing I cannot but set down: He that soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he that soweth bountifully[78] shall reap also bountifully." That is the law o…
665 wordsSECTION 115_The Fruits Of Liberality_
(_a_) It yields a rich harvest of thanksgiving to God. This is expressed in ver. 12, and is the principal point. It is something to fill up further the measure of a brother's needs by a timely gift, but how much more it is to change the tune of his spirit, and whereas we found him cheerless or weak in faith, to leave h…
754 wordsSECTION 116_The Fruits Of Liberality_
These "fruits" are not as yet actually borne, but to the Apostle's loving anticipation they are as good as real. They are the fruits of "the righteousness" of the Corinthians, the harvest that God has caused to grow out of their liberality. From the very beginning there have been two opinions as to what St. Paul means …
351 wordsSECTION 117Footnotes:
[73] Αὐθαίρετος ἐξῆλθεν: the aorists all through this passage are virtually epistolary--ἐξῆλθεν = he is going; συνεπέμψαμεν = I am sending with him. [74] _Our_ (ἡμῶν), not _your_ (ὑμῶν), is the true reading. The precise sense is doubtful. It may be as the R.V. gives it, though this completely upsets the balance of the…
301 wordsSECTION 118_War_
"Now I Paul myself intreat you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I who in your presence am lowly among you, but being absent am of good courage toward you: yea, I beseech you, that I may not when present show courage with the confidence wherewith I count to be bold against some, which count of us as if we w…
1,083 wordsSECTION 119_War_
The charge of walking after the flesh is one that needs interpretation. In a general way it means that Paul was a worldly, and not a spiritual, man; and that the key to his character and conduct--even in his relations with Churches--was to be sought in his private and personal interests. What this would mean in any par…
961 wordsSECTION 120_War_
Perhaps in the fifth verse, which is an expansion of "the casting down of strong holds," a special reference to the Corinthians begins to be felt: at all events they might easily apply it to themselves. "Casting down imaginations," the Apostle says, "and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God." "…
676 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.