two classes are designated ah eventu. The gospel and those who preach it are well pleasing to God, whether men receive it and are saved, or reject it and are lost. The light is inesti- mably precious, whether the eye rejoices in it, or through dis- ease is destroyed by it. Comp. 1 Cor. 1, 18. 2 Thess. 2, 10.
IG. To the one (we are) the savour of death unto death; to the other the savour of Hfe unto hfe. And who is sufficient for these things ?
The words loe are are not in the text, but are necessarily implied. The apostle and all faithful ministers are to God an eucoSta, a sweet savour^ to men an oa-fx-q^ a savour, salutary or destructive according to circumstances. We are, i. e. we as preachers. The idea is the same whether we say that preach- ers of the gospel, or the gospel itself, or Christ, are the cause of life to some, and of death to others. As Christ is to some a tried corner stone, elect and precious, the rock of their sal- vation, to others he is a stone of offence. 1 Pet. 2, 7. 8. So the gospel and its ministers are the cause of lite to some, and of death to others, and to all they are either the one or the other. The word of God is quick and powerful either to save or to destroy. It cannot be neutral. If it does not save, it destroys. '' This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light," John 3, 19. "If I had not come and spoken unto them they had not had sin," John 15, 22. If a man rejects the gospel, it had been far better for him never to have heard it. It will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah hi the day of judg- ment than for him. This, which is the doctrine of the Bible, is plainly the doctrine of this passage. The gospel and those who preach it, are either a savour of life or a savour of death. If not the one, they must be the other. In the phrase "a savour of death unto death," of death expresses the quality, imto death, the etfect. It is a deadly savour, and it produces death. And so of the corresponding clause, " a savour of life unto life," is a salutary savour i)roducing life. The Rabbins often use a similar expression in reference to the Law, which they say is either an odour of hfe or of death.
On the authority of two of the older MSS. (A and C), and several of the more modern ones, Lachmann, Tischendorf and Meyer read Ik Savdrov and cV liuyq instead of the simple geui-