2 Corinthians 2:1. BUT I DETERMINED THIS FOR MYSELF, THAT I WOULD NOT COME AGAIN TO YOU WITH SORROW. This is so plainly a continuance of his explanation of the delay of his expected visit to Corinth, that it is a pity a new CHAPTER SHOULD in the recognised division have begun here.... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 2:2. FOR IF I MAKE YOU SORRY ‘as I knew my First Letter would,' WHO IS HE THAT MAKETH ME GLAD ‘by the happy effect which I hoped the sharpness of that Letter would produce, and now I find has produced,' BUT HE THAT IS MADE SORRY BY ME? The use of the singular number “he,” in place of “... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 2:3. AND I WROTE THIS VERY THING UNTO YOU (my peremptory demand for so severe a sentence), LEST, WHEN I CAME, I SHOULD HAVE SORROW FROM THEM OF WHOM I OUGHT TO rejoice. The strength of the step itself, the sharpness with which he had characterized the guilty act itself and indicated th... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 2:5. BUT IF ANY HATH CAUSED SORROW referring delicately and indirectly to the offender, HE HATH CAUSED SORROW, NOT TO ME, BUT IN PART (that I press not too heavily) to you all. This is somewhat obscurely expressed, but the emphatic “me” seems to give the meaning thus: ‘The wrong has be... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 2:6. SUFFICIENT TO SUCH A MAN IS THIS PUNISHMENT INFLICTED BY THE MANY either ‘the majority,' in which case the decision was not unanimous, some dissenting, for reasons not hard to seek: or (taking “the many” to refer to the _publicity_ of the act) in presence of the gathered congregat... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 2:7. SO THAT CONTRARIWISE YE SHOULD RATHER FORGIVE HIM, AND COMFORT HIM, LEST BY ANY MEANS SUCH AN ONE SHOULD BE SWALLOWED UP WITH HIS OVERMUCH SORROW. Beautiful tenderness this, after the merciless severity of his former Letter. Not a day beyond the needed separation from all Christia... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 2:8. WHEREFORE I BESEECH YOU TO CONFIRM _YOUR _ LOVE TOWARDS HIM by as public a restoration to fellowship as publicly he had been banished from it.... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 2:9. FOR TO THIS END ALSO DID I WRITE, THAT I MIGHT KNOW THE PROOF OF YOU, WHETHER YE ARE OBEDIENT IN ALL THINGS not only for the man's good and the preservation of church purity, but “also” to test their obedience to spiritual authority.... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 2:10. BUT TO WHOM YE FORGIVE ANY THING, I FORGIVE ALSO: ‘As your excommunication, in my absence, yet by my instructions, was mine, so will your restoration be,' FOR WHAT I ALSO HAVE FORGIVEN, IF I HAVE FORGIVEN ANY THING, FOR YOUR SAKES _HAVE I FORGIVEN IT _ IN THE PERSON (_Gr_. ‘the p... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 2:11. THAT NO ADVANTAGE MAY BE GAINED OVER US BY SATAN; FOR WE ARE NOT IGNORANT OF HIS DEVICES. The personality and agency of Satan (as Alford well remarks) could hardly be expressed more strongly. To overreach the victorious servants of Christ in “destroying the works of the devil,” h... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 2:12. NOW WHEN I CAME TO TROAS PROBABLY NOT THE city only, but the region of ‘the Troad.' It lay on the coast of Mysia, and commercially its importance was considerable, FOR THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST, AND A DOOR WAS OPENED UNTO ME OF THE LORD (compare 1 Corinthians 16:9). His object was to... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 2:13. I HAD NO RELIEF FOR MY SPIRIT, BECAUSE I FOUND NOT TITUS MY BROTHER as if this seemed to bode ill news. He had sent him to Corinth (2 Corinthians 12:18) with the double purpose of hastening the collection and of bringing him accounts of the effect of his former letter. Before par... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 2:14. BUT THANKS BE UNTO GOD, WHICH ALWAYS CAUSETH US TO TRIUMPH IN CHRIST. The objections made to this sense are considered in the footnote. [1] Beyond all doubt, what immediately follows agrees best with the _causative_ sense of the word here used, AND MAKETH MANIFEST THE SAVOUR OF H... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 2:15. FOR WE ARE UNTO GOD A SWEET SAVOUR OF CHRIST. The figure is continued, but beautifully varied in application. In the former verse it was the knowledge of Himself, diffused by preachers, which went up as a sweet-smelling savour unto God: here it is the preachers themselves that go... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 2:16. TO THE ONE A SAVOUR FROM DEATH UNTO DEATH; TO THE OTHER A SAVOUR FROM LIFE UNTO LIFE: the one class, already “dead in trespasses and sins,” sinking deeper, and approaching nearer, by every successive resistance of the truth, to “the second death;” the other, already “alive unto G... [ Continue Reading ]
2 Corinthians 2:17. FOR WE ARE NOT AS MANY, CORRUPTING (_Gr. ‘_ adulterating') THE WORD OF GOD those characterised in chap. 10-11 in the strongest terms of reprobation. These have easy work of it they are “sufficient” for anything; BUT (as for us) AS OF SINCERITY, AS OF GOD, IN THE SIGHT OF GOD SPEA... [ Continue Reading ]