2 Corinthians 1
v.1
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia:
v.2
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
v.3
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,
v.4
who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
v.5
For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.
v.6
If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.
v.7
And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
v.8
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.
v.9
Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.
v.10
He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us,
v.11
as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.
v.12
Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God. We have done so not according to worldly wisdom but according to God’s grace.
v.13
For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand. And I hope that,
v.14
as you have understood us in part, you will come to understand fully that you can boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of the Lord Jesus.
v.15
Because I was confident of this, I planned to visit you first so that you might benefit twice.
v.16
I planned to visit you on my way to Macedonia and to come back to you from Macedonia, and then to have you send me on my way to Judea.
v.17
When I planned this, did I do it lightly? Or do I make my plans in a worldly manner so that in the same breath I say, “Yes, yes” and “No, no”?
The force of the accusation of fickleness may have been fueled by popular Stoicism, which was the most fashionable philosophy of Paul’s day and attracted many followers and admirers. Arius Didymus (Epit. 11m), summarizing the Stoic teaching on the virtuous man, writes, “Nor do [the Stoics] assume that a man with good sense changes his mind, for changing one’s mind belongs to false assent, on the grounds of erring through haste. Nor does he change his mind in any way, nor alter his opinion, nor is he confused.” Allegations that Paul was operating in a worldly (or “fleshly”) manner are confronted and dismissed by Paul several times in this letter (5:16; 10:2–3).
v.18
But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.”
v.19
For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy, was not “Yes” and “No,” but in him it has always been “Yes.”
v.20
For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.
Christ represents God’s yes to his promises in that Christ is proof of God’s faithfulness to his covenant with Abraham and Israel. As God was working to fulfill his promises to Israel in spite of their rebellion and in spite of what looked like his rejection of his promises, so too his apostle is committed to fulfilling his appointed task in Corinth in spite of what looks like his abandonment of this church. Hafemann aptly summarizes these verses by observing, “Because Paul’s intention remained the same, his plans changed!”
v.21
Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us,
v.22
set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
Seals became a work of fine craftsmanship in the Roman era and commonly bore the image of their owner. It is possible that Paul’s reference to the believer being “sealed” contains an allusion to the divine image being embossed, so to speak, upon the believer through the Spirit. The Corinthians had already been instructed on being bearers of the divine image (1 Cor. 15:42–49), and Paul will take up the subject again in 2 Corinthians 3:18 and 4:4–6.
The Greek word arrabōn, rendered “deposit” by the NIV, is drawn from the world of commerce, where it denoted a partial payment in promise of full payment at a later time. The giving of the Spirit is called a “deposit,” and the image implies that God has obligated himself to complete the transaction in the future. This same term is used in 5:5, where the future completion is described as mortality being “swallowed up by life” (5:4)—that is, our future bodily redemption at Christ’s return (see further the comments on 5:5).
v.23
I call God as my witness that it was in order to spare you that I did not return to Corinth.
v.24
Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, because it is by faith you stand firm.