σ.
1Ο. εἰ γὰρ ἐχθροὶ
ὄντες κατηλλάγημεν τῷ Θεῷ διὰ τοῦ θανάτου τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ, πολλῷ
μᾶλλον καταλλαγέντες σωθησόµεθα ἐν τῇ ἵωῇ αὐτοῦ: II. οὐ µόνον
hiCor.i. 31. δὲ, ἀλλὰ καὶ καυχώµενοι ἐν τῷ " Θεῷ διὰ τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν ᾿Ιησοῦ
12 Cor. ν. 18 f.
there love in God equal to it? Yes, when we were enemies we were recon- ciled to God by the death of His Son. κατηλλάγημεν is a real passive: “we” are the objects, not the subjects, of the reconciliation; the subject is God, 2 Cor. v. I9-21. Compare ver. 11: τὴν καταλλαγὴν ἐλάβομεν. To represent κατηλλάγημεν by an active form, e.g., ‘we laid aside our hostility to God,” or by what is virtually one, e.g., “ we were won to lay aside our hostility,” is to miss the point of the whole passage. Paul is demonstrating the love of God, and he can only do it by pointing to what God has done, not to what we have done. That we on our part are hostile to God before the reconciliation, and that we afterwards lay aside our enmity, is no doubt true; but here it is entirely irrelevant. The Apostle’s thought is simply this: ‘if, when we lay under the Divine condemnation, the work of our reconciliation to God was achieved by Him through the death of His Son, much more shall the love which wrought so incredibly for us in our ex- tremity carry out our salvation to the end”’. The subjective side of the truth is here completely, and intentionally, left out of sight ; the laying aside of our hostility adds nothing to God’s love, throws no light upon it; hence in an exposition of the love of God it can be ignored. To say that the reconciliation is ‘‘mutual,” is true in point of fact; it is true, also, to all the suggestions of the English word; but it is not true to the meaning of κατηλλάγημεν, nor to the argument of this passage, which does not prove anything about the Christian, but exhibits the love of God at its height in the Cross, and argues from that to what are comparatively smaller demon- strations of that love. ἐν τῇ ζωῇ αὐτοῦ: the ἐν is instrumental: cf. ver. 9 ἐν τῷ αἵματι αὐτοῦ. The Living Lord, in vir- tue of His life, will save us to the utter- most. Cf. John xiv. το.
Ver. II. κανχώµενοι is the best attested reading, but hard to construe. It is awkward (with Meyer) to supply καταλλαγέντες with οὐ µόνον δὲ, and retain σωθησόµεθα as the principal verb:
Χριστοῦ, δι οὗ νῦν τὴν ‘kataddayhy ἐλάβομεν.
and ‘not only (as reconciled shall we be saved), but also rejoicing, etc. There is no proportion between the things thus co-ordinated, and it is better to assume an inexact construction, and re- gard κανχώμενοι as adding an indepen- dent idea which would have been more propertly expressed by the indicative (κανχώµεθα). But see Winer, 441. The Christian glories in God; for though “boasting is excluded” from the true religion (iii. 27), yet to make one’s boast in God is the perfection of that religion. Yet the believer could not thus glory, but for the Lord Jesus Christ; it is in Him, ‘‘ clothed in the Gospel,” that he obtains that knowledge of God’s charac- ter which enables him to exult. δι’ οὗ viv τὴν καταλλαγὴν ἐλάβομεν. Nothing | could show more unmistakably that the καταλλαγὴ is not a change in our dis- position toward God, but a change in His attitude toward us. We do not give it (by laying aside enmity, distrust, or fear); we receive it, by believing in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth as a propitiation through faith in His blood, We take it as God’s unspeakable gift. Cf.2 Macc. ii. 50. 6 καταλειφθεὶς ἐν τῇ τοῦ παντοκράτορος ὀργῇ πάλιν ἐν τῇ τοῦ μεγάλου δεσπότου καταλλαγῇ μετὰ πάσης δόξης ἐπανωρθώθη. Έοτ απ examination of the Pauline idea of τε- conciliation, see especially Schmiedel on 2 Cor, v. 21, Excursus.