2 Corinthians 1:21

Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ Rather, and He, &c., as explaining the words -by us." -Not as though we had any power in ourselves, to do anything of ourselves (cf. ch. 2 Corinthians 3:5), but it is God who stablisheth us and Who anointed us for our great work." The meaning of the Greek word translated stablisheth, as of the English one by which it is rendered (derived from the Latin stabilio), is to make firm, immoveable. For - in Christ," the original has untoor uponChrist, i.e. by the faith and hope in Him which are -as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast," Hebrews 6:19; cf. 1 Corinthians 3:11. Also Matthew 16:18; Ephesians 2:20.

and hath anointed us Observe the change of tense here from the present to the past. The Greek however is not the perfect as in the A. V., but the aorist (so Wiclif, the perfect having been introduced by Tyndale, whom the other versions follow). That is, at some indefinite time in the past God -anointed" St Paul and his fellow-labourers (see Acts 10:38; and 1 John 2:20; 1 John 2:27, for the expression -anointed"), i.e. when He commissioned them for their task (see Acts 13:2), which was to be -ministers of Christ," the Anointed One, 1 Corinthians 4:1.

is God From no less than Him did their commission proceed, and in Him, and in none less, were their ministerial acts done.