tive. It is then not a savour of death or of Ufe^ but a savour arising from death, and a savour arising from life. To the one class Christ is dead and yields only a savour of death ; to the other, he is alive, and yields a savour of life. According to either reading the main idea is the same. Christ and his gospel, and therefore his ministers, are to behevers the source of life, and to unbehevers the source of death. See Matt. 21, 44. Luke 2, 34. John 9, 39. The common text has more ex- ternal authority, and certainly gives a simpler sense, and is therefore preferred by the majority of editors.
And who is sufficient for these things f Kat {and) before a question often indicates a consequence of what precedes. It is frequently in our version in such cases rendered then. " Who then can be saved ? » Mark 10, 26. " How is he then David's son ? " Luke 20, 44. So here, Who then is sufficient for these things ? If the work is so great, if eternal life or eternal death must follow the preaching of the gospel, who then is sufficient (tKavos) for so responsible a calhng? The most natural answer to this question would seem to be, ' No one in himself.' The following verse, however, which begins with (yap) fo)\ and is designed to confirm the implied answer, requires that answer to be, " I am." ' I am sufficient for this work, for I do not handle the word of God deceitfully.' "My sufficiency," however, the apostle immediately adds, 3, 5, " is of God." Of himself he vvas not fit or able to do any thing. There is, as Calvin remarks, an imphed antithesis. *The object of preaching is the difiusion of the knowledge of Christ ; the effiect of that dift\ision is life to some and death to others. Who then is competent to this work? Not your false teachers who corrupt the word of God, but I and others who preach the pure gospel from pure motives.' This view is sustained by what follows, for the apostle immediately pro- ceeds to vindicate his claim to this sufficiency or fitness, which he denies to the false teachers.
17. For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God ; but as of sincerity, but as of God, as in the sight of God, speak we in Christ.
The connection indicated by for is ob™us. ' We are competent to this work, for we are not like the fiilse teachers, but are sincere.' We are not as many^ ol TroXkot, the many. 3