2 Corinthians 7:10

2 Corinthians 7:10. For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, a repentance bringing no regret. The two words here used mean quite different things, and the difference is so important that the same word should not have been used for both in the Authorised Version. The first word means that gracious change of mind which the English word “repentance expresses;” but the second word means only regret for something previously done, even though unaccompanied by any change of heart. Thus it is said of Judas, that when he saw that the Lord whom he had betrayed was condemned, he “ repented himself... went away, and hanged himself” (Matthew 27:3; Matthew 27:5). But it is the second word here used, not the first, which is there employed. Although, therefore, one might like to retain the happy alliteration of our Authorised Version here, it could only be done by sacrificing a most important distinction in the sense; this, namely, that the “repentance unto salvation” which godly sorrow worketh is what no one will ever have cause to ‘ regret or be sorry for, ' [1]

[1] The whole idea seems to have been suggested by the play upon the two Greek words which the preposition in composition suggested metanoiana-meta meleton (as Neander notes).

but the sorrow of the world worketh death mere regret for wrong done. Such remorse of conscience, however pungent which is all that “the world” reaches at its best has no subduing, chastening, saving effect, but on the contrary, has an embittering, corroding, consuming effect, “working death;” a death which being put in contrast with “salvation” as the fruit of genuine repentance, must mean (as Meyer rightly says) eternal death. In the case of many besides Judas, when the “sorrow of the world” works despair, existence is felt to be intolerable, and self-destruction sends them to “their own place” (Acts 1:25).

Now follow the features of that godly sorrow, the effect of which had been so remarkable, that the apostle was transported at the tidings he received of it