Bible Commentaries
2 Corinthians 12

Verses 1-21

/par/parXII 1. The ’if’ is omitted in the best MSS. Paraphrase: ’Boasting is the order of the day. It is true that it is not for our good, but at any rate I will proceed, and speak of my visions . . .’ It is of only one vision that he does speak. We get the impression that he had never mentioned this before, that it was different from other visions and that he had approached as nearly as a living man can to the direct contemplation of God. He was not specially reserved about all visions. He had already told the Corinthians about the one on the road to Damascus (1 Corinthians 9:1; 1 Corinthians 15:8). Four others are mentioned in Ac (16:9; 18:9; 22:18; 27:23). But here all the signs, especially the strangely ambiguous language, show that he was claiming something far beyond the other visions, an overwhelming experience. /par/par2. ’A man’: there can be no doubt that he means himself. ’In Christ’: Either ’in the Church’ (as Romans 16:7) or ’rapt by the power of Christ’. Omit ’above’. The date (thirteen years past, according to our expression) would be a.d. 41 to 44, not long after the escape from Damascus. ’Whether’, etc. This doubt does not seem to arise in most visions, and helps to mark this one out—an ecstasy. ’Third heaven he is using the language of some astronomical system which he had heard of there were many). He certainly means the highest or farthest) sphere, regarded as the place where God dwells. /par/par3. Doubtless the same vision. /par/par4. ’Paradise’: evidently means the same thing as ’third heaven’. The word meant a park, but it had now come to denote the place where the souls of the good awaited the resurrection (Luke 23:43). ’Secret’. Or perhaps unutterable’. ’Not granted’ probably means that they are of their nature incommunicable. /par/par5. ’For’, i.e. ’about.6. ’Shall . . . will’. More natural to say should and would.’That nobody may impute to me something more than he sees . . . or hears . . .’ This seems to mean that he was afraid that, if he said more, some of his converts from paganism might regard him as semi-divine. Such ideas were common, cf. § 598q. /par/par7. The Greek is very strange. It seems likely that Paul began a sentence and left it unfinished, cf. 11:16. ’And owing to the grandeur of the revelations—Therefore that I might not become proud. . . .’ He at last discloses that he has been speaking of himself. ’Sting’: ’a thorn for the flesh’. The image is that of a thorn or splinter embedded in the body. But ’flesh’ may be wide enough in meaning to cover both body and mind, the natural man. St Paul’s ailment is expressly mentioned only here and Galatians 4:13-14, where we gather that it was a severe trial to those around him. Nervous disorder, ophthalmia, and malaria, are the best suggestions, and the first has the largest support and the special advantage that it might explain the reference to Damascus (see on 11:30). ’Messenger of Satan’, i.e. something sent by him, for all disorder is ultimately traceable to him. /par/par8. ’Thrice’: perhaps during the three first attacks. /par/par9. Christ’s answer might be taken as a summary of the whole epistle. Man’s weakness is, in his present circumstances, often the best condition for God to achieve great things through him; see 1:3; 4:10. /par/par10. ’I please myself’: ’I gladly accept Infirmities’, etc., i.e. the ’thorn’, whatever it was. He here adds it to a summary list of the sufferings enumerated before. ’In outrages (the word means always insult and generally violence), in hardships, in persecutions, in the last extremities. ’For when’, etc. Another summary of the deepest thoughts of the epistle. /par/parXII 11-XIII 13 Last Protests and Last Warnings— XII 11-18 Last Protests —These eight verses are a kind of appendix to the whole self-assertive passage. The question of maintenance again comes in. /par/par11. ’Foolish . . . echoes 11:16 and refers to the intervening passage. ’No way’, etc.: practically a repetition of 11:5. ’Nothing’: cf.1 Corinthians 15:9 (’I am the least of the apostles’) and 1 Timothy 1:15 (’. . . sinners of whom I am the chief’). We should set these words against the unwilling self-praise of this letter. /par/par12. Omit ’yet’. ’The marks (proofs) of an apostle have been produced before you in the form of patience under all kinds of sufferings and of signs’, etc. The three words ’signs . . . deeds’ all mean miracles. He ranks his patient endurance above miracles, but he can and does confidently appeal to miracles done by himself at Corinth. /par/par13. He means apparently that the marks of apostolic grace have been as plain at Corinth as in any church founded by another apostle. ’For in what respect have you been less favoured than the rest of the churches, except that I indeed (as compared with other apostles in their churches) was not burdensome to you?’ /par/par14. The first sentence can mean either: ’For the third time I have made ready to pay this visit’, or: ’I am now ready to pay my third visit’. The second, which fits the context somewhat better, would imply that there had been an intermediate visit, § 884g. ’The things’: i.e. their money. ’Lay up’: ’to save money’—to make provision for their children’s education. Later the grown-up children of course might be bound to support their parents, but this later stage does not come into St Paul’s picture: they are his little children and cannot be expected to do anything for him. /par/par15. ’Although’, etc.: the better Greek texts read: ’If I love you more, am I loved less in return?’ i.e. does every new sign of my love cause a diminution of yours? /par/par16. He abruptly cites and rebuts one of the false accusations of his enemies: ’Granted—I myself was not a burden to you, but, like the rascal I am, I played a trick on you, I suppose?’ The accusation, as the next verse shows, was that his assistants had taken presents at his suggestion and for his use. /par/par17. ’Overreach’, i.e. make some profit out of them. /par/par18. Probably epistolary tenses as in 8:17, 18, 22; ’I have asked Titus (to visit you) and I am sending the brother’. It is the same visit as arranged in ch 6 and is referred to almost in the same words—strong evidence that ch 8 was written before this. The ’brother’ is probably the first of the two mentioned in ch 8. § 884f. Titus is the only one who has been to Corinth already, so the following question is only about him. The ’we’ means Paul and Titus. XII 19-XIII 10 Last Warnings and Appeals —The stern chapters have hitherto been addressed to the majority of the Corinthians, for many now repentant had allowed themselves to be misled. But the remainder is addressed to the still rebellious members—this becomes clearer in 13:2. Many tender expressions are mingled with the sternness. But it is an ultimatum: those who have not repented and submitted before his arrival will be excommunicated. /par/parXII 19-XIII 6 Last Warnings—19. ’Have you been thinking all this time that we have been on our defence before you?’ He has in fact been defending himself, but he says he did so freely at his own choice, he is not answerable to them, but to God. ’We speak . . . Christ’: exactly the same words as in 2:17, see note. ’But all things’, etc.: meaning: ’But I would do anything for the good of your souls, my dearly loved ones’, i.e. he will not stand on his dignity when it is a question of winning them back. The verse which begins so roughly ends in marvellous gentleness. /par/par20. ’I shall be found’, etc., i.e. be forced to act as a stern judge: ’dissensions’, etc.: ’party-divisions, backbiting, malicious whispers, conceit, confusion, should still persist among you’. This verse and the next enumerate the chief faults condemned in 1 Cor with one great exception (laxity towards paganism). Paul seems to fear that the party of the False Apostles had become a rallying point for all kinds of bad Christians at Corinth. 21. The beginning is ambiguous in the Greek, and can be translated either as in the DV or ’Lest, when I come again, God should humble me’. The DV implies that he had already undergone one humiliation at Corinth, i.e. that there had been a ’painful intermediate visit’. The other translation does not imply this, cf. § 884g. ’And I mourn’: i.e. ’And lest I should mourn . . .’ He calls their sin his humiliation, such was his charity. ’Done penance’: ’repented’. ’Lasciviousness’ ’licentiousness’—a wide word. Who are these ’former sinners’ who have never repented of unchastity? Probably Gentile converts who have never given up the immorality which they practised as pagans. Perhaps they have also continued to participate in rites. In that case they may be the persons addressed in 6:10-7:3. The omission of any express mention of pagan practices here seems to make this more likely. The same persons are again meant in 13:2 onwards.