2 Corinthians 12:21

And lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed. MY GOD - implying resignation to the will of God, as being his God, however trying the humiliation in store for him. WILL HUMBLE ME. The indicative implies that it will actually be so. The faithful pastor is 'humbled' at, and 'bewails,' the falls of his people, as his own. SINNED ALREADY - before his second visit, in which he had much to rebuke. UNCLEANNESS. Contempt for authority of pastors tends to unbridled licentiousness ()....

21._Lest, when I come, my God should humble me _His abasement was reckoned to him as a fault. The blame of it he throws back upon the Corinthians, who, when they should have honored his Apostleship, loaded it, on the contrary, with disgrace; for their proficiency (941) would have been the glory and honor of Paul’s Apostleship. When, therefore, they were, instead of this, overrun with many vices, they heaped disgrace upon him to the utmost of their power. He does not, indeed, charge them all with this crime, but only a few, who had impudently despised all his admonitions. The meaning, then, is this: “They think contemptuously of me, because I appear contemptible. Let them, then, give me no occasion of abasement: nay more, let them, on the contrary, laying aside their forwardness, begin to feel shame; and let them, confounded at their iniquities, prostrate themselves on the ground, instead...

11-21 We owe it to good men, to stand up in the defence of their reputation; and we are under special obligations to those from whom we have received benefit, especially spiritual benefit, to own them as instruments in God's hand of good to us. Here is an account of the apostle's behaviour and kind intentions; in which see the character of a faithful minister of the gospel. This was his great aim and design, to do good. Here are noticed several sins commonly found among professors of religion. Falls and misdeeds are humbling to a minister; and God sometimes takes this way to humble those who might be tempted to be lifted up. These vast verses show to what excesses the false teachers had drawn aside their deluded followers. How grievous it is that such evils should be found among professors of the gospel! Yet thus it is, and has been too often, and it was so even in the days of the apostl...

Verse 2 Corinthians 12:21. _LEST, WHEN I COME AGAIN_] And even after all that has been done for you, I fear that when I _do come_-when I pay you my _second_ visit, _my God will humble me_-will permit me to be _affected_ with deep sorrow through what I may see among you; as I have been by the _buffetings_ of the _apostle of Satan_, who has perverted you. Humiliation is repeatedly used for _affliction_, and here ταπεινωση has certainly that meaning. _HAVE SINNED ALREADY_] προημαρτηκοτων. _Who have sinned before_; who were some of the _first_ offenders, and have not yet repented. _OF THE UNCLEANNESS_, c.] There must have been a total relaxation of discipline, else such abominations could not have been tolerated in the Christian Church. And although what is here spoken

AND LEST, WHEN I COME AGAIN, MY GOD WILL HUMBLE ME ... - Lest I should be compelled to inflict punishment on those whom I suppose to have been converted under my ministry. I had rejoiced in them as true converts: I had counted them as among the fruit of my ministry. Now to be compelled to inflict punishment on them as having no religion would mortify me and humble me. The infliction of punishment on members of the church is a sort of punishment to him who inflicts it as well as to him who is punished. Members of the church should walk uprightly, lest they overwhelm the ministry in shame. AND THAT I SHALL BEWAIL MANY ... - If they repented of their sin he could still rejoice in them. If they continued in their sin until he came, it would be to him a source of deep lamentation. It is evident from the word “many” here that the disorders had prevailed very extensively in the church at Corint...

EXPOSITION The revelations vouchsafed to him (2 Corinthians 12:1). The counteracting "thorn in the flesh" (2 Corinthians 12:7). One more apology for glorying (2 Corinthians 12:11, 2 Corinthians 12:12). His disinterestedness (2 Corinthians 12:13). Indignant refutation of the charge that he had made gain of them through the agency of subordinates (2 Corinthians 12:16)

AND LEST WHEN I COME AGAIN,.... Another thing which he feared would be the case when he came again to them, that he himself should be afflicted and distressed, seeing them in a disorderly and dissolute course of life, be obliged to punish them, which would be an humiliation and matter of grief to him: MY GOD WILL HUMBLE ME; instead of rejoicing in the fruit of his labours, that they were not in vain, he signifies that he should have great sorrow of heart; and whereas he had promised himself much pleasure and comfort in visiting them, it would be the reverse; and inasmuch as he had boasted of them to others, he should be ashamed: AND THAT I SHALL BEWAIL MANY WHICH HAVE SINNED ALREADY, or "before"; not before conversion, but before the writing of this or the former epistle; for nothing was more grieving, and occasioned more sorrow and humiliation to the apostle, than the unbecoming walk...

SINNED SIN (_ See Scofield) - (Romans 3:23). _...

3. REVELATION IN WHICH HE MIGHT GLORY. HIS APOSTLESHIP. CHAPTER 12 _ 1. Caught up to the Third Heaven. (2 Corinthians 12:1)_ 2. The Thorn in the Flesh. (2 Corinthians 12:7) 3. The Marks of His Apostleship. (2 Corinthians 12:11) 4. His Continued Deep Concern. (2 Corinthians 12:16 .) In the previous chapter the apostle gloried in that which in the eyes of man has no glory at all. From the ignominious experience of being let down in a basket he turns to another experience in which he was caught into the third heaven. “I will come to visions

RETROSPECT OF THE BOASTING. This paragraph is marked by rapid oscillation of feeling. Now that he has made and proved his claim, the same doubt seizes him as when he began (2 Corinthians 11:1; 2 Corinthians 11:16). Has he not been foolish? It was the duty of the Corinthians to testify to his legitimate authority. And they had quite sufficient ground for doing so in what they had seen (2 Corinthians 12:12; _cf._ 2 Corinthians 12:6), the signs of an apostle (_cf._ Acts 2:22 *), wrought by Paul. Corinth h