Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
2 Corinthians 6:2

Clarke's Commentary

Verse 2 Corinthians 6:2. For he saith — That is, God hath said it, by the prophet Isaiah, Isaiah 49:8; which place the apostle quotes verbatim et literatim from the Septuagint. And from this we may at once see what is the accepted time, and what the day of salvation. The advent of the Messiah was the עת רצון eth ratson, the time of God's pleasure or benevolence, of which all the faithful were in expectation; and the day of salvation, יום שועה yom yeshuah, was the time in which this salvation should be manifested and applied. The apostle therefore informs them that this is the time predicted by the prophet; and the ministry of reconciliation being exercised in full force is a proof that the prophecy is fulfilled; and therefore the apostle confidently asserts, Behold, NOW is this accepted time, NOW the Messiah reigns, NOW is the Gospel dispensation, and therefore NOW is the day of salvation; that is, the very time in which the power of God is present to heal, and in which every sinner believing on the Lord Jesus may be saved.

I rather think that this second verse should be read immediately after the last verse of the preceding chapter; as where it now stands it greatly disturbs the connection between the first and the third verses. I will set down the whole in the order in which I think they should stand. 2 Corinthians 5:20: Now then we are ambassadors for Christ; as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, to be reconciled to God. For he hath made him a sin-offering for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him: for he saith, "I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee." Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. Immediately after this, the sixth chapter will very properly commence, and we shall see that the connection will be then undisturbed:-

We then, as fellow workers, beseech you also, that ye receive not this grace of God in vain, giving no offence in any thing, that this ministry be not blamed. This change of the place of the second verse, which every one allows must, if it stand here, be read in a parenthesis, preserves the whole connection of the apostle's discourse, and certainly sets his argument before us in a stronger light. Let us review the whole:

1. God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, 2 Corinthians 5:18.

2. He appointed the apostles to proclaim to mankind the doctrine of reconciliation, 2 Corinthians 5:19.

3. The apostles, in consequence, proclaim this doctrine; and show that Christ was a sacrifice for sin, and that through him we may be perfectly saved, 2 Corinthians 5:20; 2 Corinthians 5:21.

4. They show also that all this was agreeable to the declaration of God by the prophet Isaiah, Isaiah 49:8, where he predicts the days of the Messiah, and the grace then to be communicated, 2 Corinthians 6:2.

5. The apostle then, speaking in the person of all his fellow labourers, who had this ministry of reconciliation intrusted to them, exhorts them not to receive such a benefit of God in vain, 2 Corinthians 6:1.

6. He exhorts those who had embraced the Gospel not to put a stumbling block in the way of others, by acting irreligiously, lest this ministry of reconciliation should be reproached on their account, 2 Corinthians 6:3.

7. He shows what conscientious and scrupulous care he and his fellow apostles took to preach and walk so that this ministry might have its full effect, 2 Corinthians 6:4, &c.

This view of the subject, if I mistake not, shows a beautiful consistency throughout the whole.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

The power of love (5:11-6:13)

Because Paul knows that he is accountable to Christ, he knows what it means to fear the Lord, and this makes him more diligent in his service. God knows that his motives are pure and he trusts that the Corinthians know also (11).
In making these statements, Paul is not trying to write a recommendation for himself. He is trying to give his supporters reason to be bold in defending him against those who criticize him (12). They may have seen him display his feelings in different ways at various times, but they know he never acted out of self-interest (13). His constant awareness of Christ’s love was the inner spiritual power that guided his actions. Christ died the death that sinners should have died, firstly to bear the penalty of their sins, and secondly to put an end to living for self. From now on they should live for him (14-15).
Before he became a Christian, Paul had judged Jesus by the standards of the ordinary person of the world, and in so doing had judged him wrongly. Now he no longer judges Jesus, or anyone else, from a merely human standpoint, because in Christ he sees everything in a new light. Old attitudes go and new attitudes replace them (16-17).
This changing from the old to the new is done by God through Jesus Christ. It is part of the total work that God does as he reconciles people to himself, and turns sinners into his friends. Having reconciled them, God then sends them out to preach the message of reconciliation to others, so that other sinners might be brought to God (18-20). The basis of this message is the death of Christ. Through the judgment of sin in Christ, God is able to forgive repentant sinners and give them a righteous standing before him (21).
Some at Corinth had heard this message but not responded to it. They were still spiritually dead. Paul therefore offers salvation to them once again, and they must decide whether to accept it or reject it (6:1-2). They are not to make excuses by trying to find fault with Paul, for he has never given anyone grounds for rejecting the gospel (3). He has had all kinds of difficult experiences (4-5), but through them all he has proved his genuineness by the spiritual quality of his life and the truth and power of his message (6-7). Some people have honoured him, others insulted him, but in all circumstances he has shown by his consistent behaviour that he is a true servant of God (8-10).
The Corinthians have not returned to Paul the open-hearted love that he has shown them. He has room in his heart for them, but they have no room in their hearts for him (11-12). He appeals to them to return his love (13).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

(For he saith, At an acceptable time I hearkened unto thee, and in a day of salvation did I succor thee: behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation).

The passage in Isaiah from which this comes is:

Thus saith the Lord, In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee: I will preserve thee and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth (Isaiah 49:8).

This passage was addressed "To the Servant of Jehovah, the type primarily of Christ, and then of all who are `in Christ.'" F. W. Farrar, The Pulpit Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1950), Vol. 19, 2 Cor., p. 144. Thus it is clear that in his appeal to this scripture, Paul was referring to the gospel age as "the day of salvation" and the "acceptable time." However, Paul at once added some inspired comment of his own making the application personal and immediate.

Now is the acceptable time … now is the day of salvation … The urgency of immediate acceptance of the gospel was also stressed by the author of Hebrews (Hebrews 3:7-8; Hebrews 3:13), and for discussion of this subject, see my Commentary on Hebrews, pp. 74-75.

Now … It should be noted that this tightens the urgency even beyond the passage of Hebrews. There, the message is "TODAY … harden not your hearts"; here it is "NOW is the day of salvation."

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

For he saith - see Isaiah 49:8. In that passage the declaration refers to the Messiah, and the design is there to show that God would be favorable to him; that he would hear him when he prayed, and would make him the medium of establishing a covenant with his own people, and of spreading the true religion around the earth; see my note on that place. Paul quotes the passage here not as affirming that he used it in exactly the sense, or with reference to the same design for which it was originally spoken, but as expressing the idea which he wished to convey, or in accordance with the general principle implied in its use in Isaiah. The general idea there, or the principle involved, was, that under the Messiah God would be willing to hear; that is, that he would be disposed to show mercy to the Jew and to the Gentile. This is the main idea of the passage as used by Paul. Under the Messiah, it is said by Isaiah, God would be willing to show mercy. That would be an acceptable time. That time says Paul, has arrived. The Messiah has come, and now God is willing to pardon and save. And the doctrine in this verse is, that under the Messiah, or in the time of Christ, God is willing to show mercy to people. In him alone is the throne of grace accessible, and now that he has come, God is willing to pardon, and people should avail themselves of the offers of mercy.

I have heard thee - The Messiah. I have listened to thy prayer for the salvation of the pagan world. The promise to the Messiah was, that the pagan world should be given to him; but it was a promise that it should be in answer to his prayers and intercessions. “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the pagan for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession;” Psalms 2:8. The salvation of the pagan world, and of all who are saved, is to be in answer to the prevalent intercession of the Lord Jesus.

In a time accepted - In Isaiah, “in an acceptable time.” The idea is, that he had prayed in a time when God was disposed to show mercy; the time when in his wise arrangements he had designed that his salvation should be extended to the world. It is a time which he had fixed as the appropriate period for extending the knowledge of his truth and his salvation; and it proves that there was to be a period which was the favorable period of salvation, that is, which God esteemed to be the proper period for making his salvation known to people. At such a period the Messiah would pray, and the prayer would be answered.

In the day of salvation - In the time when I am disposed to show salvation.

Have I succored thee - The Messiah. I have sustained thee, that is, in the effort to make salvation known. God here speaks of there being an accepted time, a limited period, in which petitions in favor of the world would be acceptable to him. That time Paul says had come; and the idea which he urges is, that people should avail themselves of that, and embrace now the offers of mercy.

Behold, now is the accepted time ... - The meaning of this passage is, the “Messiah is come. The time referred to by Isaiah has arrived. It is now a time when God is ready to show compassion, to hear prayer, and to have mercy on mankind. Only through the Messiah, the Lord Jesus, does he show mercy, and people should therefore now embrace the offers of pardon.” The doctrine taught here, therefore. is, that through the Lord Jesus, and where he is preached, God is willing to pardon and save people; and this is true wherever he is preached, and as long as people live under the sound of the gospel. The world is under a dispensation of mercy, and God is willing to show compassion, and while this exists, that is, while people live, the offers of salvation are to he freely made to them. The time will come when it will not be an acceptable time with God. The day of mercy will be closed; the period of trial will be ended; and people will be removed to a world where no mercy is shown, and where compassion is unknown. This verse, which should be read as a parenthesis, is designed to be connected with the argument which the apostle is urging, and which he presented in the previous chapter. The general doctrine is, that people should seek reconciliation with God. To enforce that, he here says, that it was now the acceptable time, the time when God was willing to be reconciled to human beings. The general sentiment of this passage may be thus expressed:

(1) Under the gospel it is an acceptable time, a day of mercy, a time when God is willing to show mercy to people.

(2) There may be special seasons which may be especially called the acceptable, or accepted time:

1. When the gospel is pressed on the attention by the faithful preaching of his servants, or by the urgent entreaties of friends;
1. When it is brought to our attention by any striking dispensation of Providence;
2. When the Spirit of God strives with us, and brings us to deep reflection, or to conviction for sin;
3. In a revival of religion, when many are pressing into the kingdom - it is at all such seasons an accepted time, a day of salvation. a day which we should improve. It is “now” such a season, because:
4. The time of mercy will pass by, and God will not be willing to pardon the sinner who goes unprepared to eternity.
5. Because we cannot calculate on the future. We have no assurance, no evidence that we shall live another day, or hour.
6. It is taught here, that the time will come when it will not be an accepted time. Now is the accepted time; at some future period it will not be.

If people grieve away the Holy Spirit; if they continue to reject the gospel; if they go unprepared to eternity, no mercy can be found. God does not design to pardon beyond the grave. He has made no provision for forgiveness there; and they who are not pardoned in this life, must be unpardoned forever.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

2.For he saith, In an acceptable time. He quotes a prediction of Isaiah, exceedingly appropriate to the exhortation of which he speaks. It is without doubt of the kingdom of Christ that he there speaks, ⁽⁵⁷⁶⁾ as is manifest from the context. The Father, then, appointing his Son a leader, for the purpose of gathering together a Church, addresses him in these words:

“I have heard thee in an acceptable time.” (Isaiah 49:8.)

We know, however, what a degree of correspondence ⁽⁵⁷⁷⁾ there is between the Head and the members. For Christ was heard in our name, as the salvation of all of us is entrusted into his hand, and nothing else has he taken under his charge. Hence we are all admonished in the person of Christ — not to slight the opportunity that is afforded for obtaining salvation. While the rendering of the Greek interpreter is, εὐπρόσδεκτον, (acceptable,) ⁽⁵⁷⁸⁾ the word made use of by the Prophet is, רצון, (ratson,) that is, benevolence, or free favour. ⁽⁵⁷⁹⁾

The quotation must be applied to the subject in hand in this way: “As God specifies a particular time for the exhibition of his grace, it follows that all times are not suitable for that. As a particular day of salvation is named, it follows that a free offer of salvation is not made every day.” Now this altogether depends on the providence of God, for theacceptable time is no other than what is called in Galatians 4:4, the fullness of the time ⁽⁵⁸⁰⁾ The order of arrangement also must be observed. First, he makes mention of a time of benevolence, and then afterwards of a day of salvation By this it is intimated, that salvation flows to us from the mercy of God exclusively, as from a fountainhead. Hence we must not seek the cause in ourselves, as if we by means of our own works moved God to assign to us his favor, for whence comes the day of salvation? It is because it is the acceptable time, that is, the time which God has in his free favor appointed. In the mean time, we must keep in view what Paul designs to teach — that there is need of prompt expedition, that we may not allow the opportunity to pass unimproved, inasmuch as it displeases God, that the grace that he offers to us should be received by us with coolness and indifference.

Behold now is the time The Prophet had spoken of the time, when Christ was to be manifested in the flesh for the redemption of men. Paul transfers the prophecy to the time when Christ is revealed by the continued preaching of the gospel, and it is with good reason that he does so, for as salvation was once sent to the whole world, when Christ appeared, so now it is sent to us every day, when we are made partakers of the gospel. Here we have a beautiful passage, and affording no ordinary consolation, because, while the gospel is preached to us, we know assuredly that the way is opened up for us into the kingdom of God, and that there is a signal of divine benevolence raised aloft, to invite us to receive salvation, for the opportunity of obtaining it must be judged of by the call. Unless, however, we embrace the opportunity, we must fear the threatening that Paul brings forward — that, in a short time, the door will be shut against all that have not entered in, while opportunity was afforded. For this retribution always follows contempt of the word.

(576) “Il ne faut point douter, que le Prophete ne parle du regne de Christ;” — “There is no room to doubt, that the Prophet speaks of the kingdom of Christ.”

(577) “Quelle similitude et proportion ou conuenance;” — “What a resemblance, and proportion, or correspondence.”

(578) The precise word in the Septuagint version (with which the Apostle’s quotation exactly corresponds) is δεκτῳ, (acceptable.) Calvin had probably been led to make use of the word εὐπρόσδεκτον from the circumstance, that that adjective is employed by the Apostle in the latter part of the verse, when commenting upon the passage quoted. — Ed.

(579) The Hebrew term referred to is employed in this sense in the following (among other) instances: Psalms 5:12; Proverbs 16:15. — Ed.

(580) Calvin makes a similar observation when commenting on the expression here referred to, in Galatians 4:4. “Pergit in similitudine adducta, et suo instituto definitum a Patre tempus accommodat: simul tamen ostendit, tempus illud, quod Dei providentia ordinatum erat, maturum fuisse et opportunum. Ea igitur demum iusta est opportunitas ac recta agendi dispensatio, qu’ providentia Dei regitur;” — “He proceeds with the comparison which he had brought forward, and applies to his purpose the expression which had been made use of — the time appointed by the father, but still showing that that time, which had been ordained by the providence of God, was proper and suitable. That alone is the fit season, and that the right system of acting, which is directed by the providence of God.” — Ed.

Smith's Bible Commentary

We then, as workers together with him ( 2 Corinthians 6:1 ),

And what a glorious way to view the ministry. I'm working with Jesus, working together with Him.

[We] beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored thee: [but Paul adds] behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.) Giving no offense in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed ( 2 Corinthians 6:1-3 ):

And so, Paul again goes back to the subject of his ministry, his ministry for Jesus Christ. He views it as being a worker together with Him. And as such, beseeching them in his . . . that they would "not receive this grace of God in vain," but would accept the salvation today. Don't turn aside God's offers to you. The grace of God, receive it. Today is the day of salvation. And so Paul said, "I seek not to bring any offense to man in anything, because I don't want the ministry to be blamed."

But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God ( 2 Corinthians 6:4 ),

Seeking to prove that my ministry really is of God, first of all, in the physical sense.

in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings ( 2 Corinthians 6:4-5 );

The preposition in talking about the physical suffering and hardships that Paul endured as a minister of Jesus Christ. Things by which he proved his ministry. And then changing to the word by, he speaks of the mental things that he endured:

By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned ( 2 Corinthians 6:6 ),

And then going into the spiritual things:

By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left ( 2 Corinthians 6:7 ),

So the ministry, the proof of the ministry. The characteristics of the minister. God give us such ministers today who will so serve the Lord and man.

By honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true; As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things ( 2 Corinthians 6:8-10 ).

So, these interesting contrasts that take place within the ministry. "Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, yet I possess everything." Because I possess Christ.

O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is [expanded or] enlarged ( 2 Corinthians 6:11 ).

"I'm expressing myself to you. My heart is just enlarged for your sakes."

Ye are not straitened in us ( 2 Corinthians 6:12 ),

This word straitened literally means a narrow place. It came to me being pressed into a narrow place. Being pressed so hard into a narrow place that it straightens out all the kinks. And so, the idea of straiten is that the crookedness or whatever, you know, if you press hard enough on you, it just flattens you out. You become straightened. And so, being put in pressure in a narrow place, being squeezed in causes this straightening. And the word anguish then developed out of this Greek word. The anguish of being pressed into a narrow place.

Now Paul said to the Corinthians, "You haven't been put in a narrow place because of me."

but ye are straitened in your own bowels. Now for a recompense in the same, (I speak as unto my children,) be ye also enlarged ( 2 Corinthians 6:12-13 ).

"You've been put in this pressure. You've been put in anguish, in this narrow place. But my heart is enlarged towards you. Now I pray that you'll be enlarged. Your heart will be enlarged. You'll be freed from this pressure, from this narrow place."

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship [communion, oneness] hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? ( 2 Corinthians 6:14 )

There are many people who believe that theirs is a special case not really covered by the scripture, and thus, they can do what they please because it really doesn't apply to their situation. God doesn't, God wasn't really thinking of their situation when He gave the rule. And thus, there are many people who enter into unequal yokes with unbelievers, believing and hoping that things are going to equal out, that God will take care of it.

There is an old Greek saying: "The dice of the gods are loaded." That is, you cannot go against God and win. You cannot go against the word of God and win. Over the years of pastoring, I've had so many young people come in. Oh, they are so in love. Oh, he's the man of their dreams. There's only one thing wrong: he isn't a Christian. "But I know that as I live the life of Christ before him and I walk in love and in meekness and all, I know he'll come to Jesus." And I said, "Yes, but the scripture says, 'Be not unequally yoked with an unbeliever.'" "Oh, but you know, we love each other. And I know he's going to change." And they are determined to marry in spite of the counsel of the word of God otherwise. And in scores of case after case after case after case after case, a year, two years down the road, I sit with the same young lady who is completely torn up. "Oh, I wish I had listened to you. I'm living in a hell. I don't think I ever really loved him. Oh, this is horrible. Do I have to stay in this state?" And their lives messed up because they thought that they could go against God's command and win and come out ahead. "Be not unequally yoked together with an unbeliever."

Now, this does not and is not limited to just marriage. This goes to many different types of yokes where you are brought together with an unbeliever, and you are always in an unequal situation. Watch it. You're always in an unequal situation if you're yoked with an unbeliever. You see, they don't follow the same rules that you follow. They don't live by the same ethic that you live by. And to lie won't bother them. To cheat won't bother them. To fudge won't bother them; but it will you.

And I've had so many businessmen who have come to me bemoaning the fact that their partner wants to do that which is illegal. "They don't want to report all of the profits. They want to keep a double set of books. What shall I do?" They've entered into an unequal yoke. "What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? What communion hath light with darkness?"

And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? ( 2 Corinthians 6:15 )

You're trying to bring together unequal things. The results are always disastrous.

And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God ( 2 Corinthians 6:16 );

This old tent is nonetheless "the temple of the living God." "What?" Paul said, "Know ye not that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you? You are not your own; you've been bought with a price" ( 1 Corinthians 6:19 ). What relationship can there possibly be with the temple of God and with idols?

as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty ( 2 Corinthians 6:16-18 ).

So, God's call for His people to separation. You are to be different from the world. You cannot have real communion with the world. You have no common ground of meeting. You're trying to bring two diverse situations together. You're trying to join together the life of the flesh with the life of the Spirit. They cannot co-mingle. It's an unequal yoke. So, God's call for you is to come apart. "Be separate, saith the Lord. Don't touch the unclean thing. And God said, I will be a Father, and ye will be my sons and daughters."

As a child of God, you do live different than a person who is not a child of God. You're expected to live differently. Living by different standards, living for different purposes. "If you only love those that love you, what do ye more than others? Even the publicans do the same. But love those that hate you, do good unto those that despitefully use you, pray for those that persecute you; And so shall ye be the children of the Father" ( Matthew 5:44-46 ).

You see, Jesus is declaring, "You're to be different. You're a new creation." "The old things have passed away; everything is become new" ( 2 Corinthians 5:17 ). And God now lays claim to you as His son, as His daughter.

"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. For he that hath the love of the world in his heart hath not the love of the Father" ( 1 John 2:15 ). The cry of the Spirit, "Be ye reconciled to God." The ministry of reconciliation. You can only be reconciled to God as you come into the life of the Spirit, denying the flesh, denying yourself, the self-centered life. And taking up your cross to follow Him. And that's the challenge of the Spirit of God to our hearts tonight. May we respond in Jesus' name.

Father, we thank You for Your word. And may Thy Spirit take Thy word tonight as a sharp, two-edged sword and may He cut deep into our hearts to expose those things that are there, in order that He might heal. Heal our relationship with You that we might be reconciled unto God through Jesus our Lord. Bless Thy word now, may it take root and may it grow forth and bring forth fruit unto Thy glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

And now, "be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For he who hears the word of God, and does not do it, is like unto a man who is looking into a mirror: And sees the truth about himself, but as soon as he walks away, he forgets what he saw" ( James 1:22-24 ). How easy that is, isn't it? We have an image of ourselves. We look in a mirror many times and we're shocked at the truth. But as soon as we walk away, we embrace our image again. We forget what we saw.

I don't want to acknowledge what I saw. I like my image of myself better than I like the reality of myself. In my image of myself, I'm still in shape. Far from reality. So is the man who hears the word of God, acknowledges the ideal, but then doesn't live by it. He's deceived. He's living in a delusion, a dangerous delusion. So with the psalmist may we pray, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there is a way of wickedness in me, and God, lead me in the way everlasting" ( Psalms 139:23-24 ). In Jesus' name. "

Contending for the Faith

(For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)

For he saith: The entirety of verse 2 is a parenthetical statement in which Paul references a time in the Old Testament when the Lord spoke to Israel:

In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee: and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages (Isaiah 49:8).

The purpose of this quotation is to reinforce the Christian’s need to be "accepted" (dektos), meaning to be "favorable" in God sight (Arndt and Gingrich 173), by taking full advantage of God’s grace, mentioned in verse 1.

I have heard thee in a time accepted: The Lord has heard the Corinthians in an opportune time, specifically when they accepted the fact that they need the Lord. It appears Paul is emphasizing the fact that the Christian dispensation is the dispensation of grace spoken of by Isaiah, the prophet. The Lord did not simply hear them in the sense that he listened to them, but He actually responded in a time "accepted" (euprosdektos) for these Christians, that is, in a time "favorable for bringing God’s grace to fruition" (Arndt and Gingrich 324).

and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: The "day of salvation" is the day God "succoured" (boetheo) them, meaning the day He rendered "aid" (Arndt and Gingrich 144) to the Christians; and therefore, they were saved.

behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation): The "accepted time" and the "day of salvation" refer to the same occasion. Paul’s emphasis is that God is willing to save people who come to Him; however, he expresses the urgency of Christians’ accepting and remaining obedient to the gospel. The time of their coming should be now—not later—not when there is a more convenient time—but now, because "now is the accepted time" and "now is the day of salvation." This "salvation" (soteria) means the day God "rescue(s)" (Strong 4991) the people from their sins.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Paul’s example as an ambassador of Christ 6:1-10

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

As he begged unbelievers to receive God’s reconciling grace (2 Corinthians 5:20), Paul now urged his readers to respond quickly and positively to God’s grace to them. Paul quoted Isaiah 49:8 to stress the importance of responding immediately. The "acceptable time" will not last forever. In the context of the Isaiah quotation, God addressed His Servant, whom the nations had despised, promising eventual vindication and urging Him to restore His people. The parallel with Paul and the Corinthians’ ministry is obvious. Rather than squabbling among themselves over Paul, the readers needed to get on with the ambassadorial work that God had given them to do.

Barclay's Daily Study Bible

Chapter 6

AMBASSADOR FOR CHRIST ( 2 Corinthians 5:20-21 ; 2 Corinthians 6:1-2 )

6:1-2 So then we are acting as ambassadors on Christ's behalf, for God is sending you his invitation through us. We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made him who had no acquaintance with sin to be sin for us, that through him we might become the righteousness of God. Because we are trying to help him to win men, we urge you not to have received the offer of the grace of God all to no purpose. (For scripture says, "At an accepted time I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you." Lo! Now is the accepted time. Lo! Now is the day of salvation).

The office that Paul claims as his one glory and his one task is that of ambassador for Christ. The Greek he uses (presbeutes, compare G4246) is a great word. It had two uses corresponding with the Latin word of which it is a translation (legatus).

(i) Roman provinces were divided into two types. One was under the direct control of the senate, the other under the direct control of the Emperor. The distinction was made on this basis--provinces which were peaceful and had no troops in them were senatorial provinces; provinces which were turbulent and had troops stationed in them were imperial provinces. In the imperial provinces, the man who administered the province on behalf of the Emperor, was the legatus presbeutai. So then, the word in the first place paints a picture of a man who has a direct commission from the Emperor; and Paul regarded himself as commissioned by Jesus Christ for the work of the Church.

(ii) But presbeutes (compare G4246) and legatus have an even more interesting meaning. When the Roman senate decided that a country should become a province they sent to it ten legati or presbeutai, that is, envoys, of their own number, who, along with the victorious general, arranged the terms of peace with the vanquished people, determined the boundaries of the new province, drew up a constitution for its new administration, and then returned to submit what they had done for ratification by the senate. They were the men responsible for bringing others into the family of the Roman Empire. So Paul thinks of himself as the man who brings to others the terms of God, whereby they can become citizens of his empire and members of his family.

There is no more responsible position than that of ambassador.

(i) An ambassador of Britain is a Briton in a foreign land. His life is spent among people who usually speak a different language, who have a different tradition and who follow a different way of life. The Christian is always like that. He lives in the world; he takes part in all the life and work of the world; but he is a citizen of heaven. To that extent he is a stranger. The man who is not willing to be different cannot be a Christian at all.

(ii) An ambassador speaks for his own country. When a British ambassador speaks, his voice is the voice of Britain. There are times when the Christian has to speak for Christ. In the decisions and the counsels of the world his must be the voice which brings the message of Christ to the human situation.

(iii) The honour of a country is in its ambassador's hands. His country is judged by him. His words are listened to, his deeds are watched and people say, "That is the way such-and-such a country speaks and acts." Lightfoot, the great Bishop of Durham, said in an ordination address, "The ambassador, while acting, acts not only as an agent, but as a representative of his sovereign.... The ambassador's duty is not only to deliver a definite message, to carry out a definite policy; but he is obliged to watch opportunities, to study characters, to cast about for expedients, so that he may place it before his hearers in its most attractive form." It is the great responsibility of the ambassador to commend his country to the men amongst whom he is set.

Here is the Christian's proud privilege and almost terrifying responsibility. The honour of Christ and of the Church are in his hands. By his every word and action he can make men think more-or-less of his Church and of his Master.

We have to note Paul's message. "Be reconciled to God." The New Testament never speaks of God being reconciled to men, but always of men being reconciled to God. There is no question of pacifying an angry God. The whole process of salvation takes its beginning from him. It was because God so loved the world that he sent his son. It is not that God is estranged from man but that man is estranged from him. God's message, the message which Paul brought, is an appeal from a loving Father to wandering and estranged children to come home where love is waiting for them.

Paul beseeches them not to accept the offer of the grace of God all to no purpose. There is such a thing--and it is eternity's tragedy--as the frustration of grace. Let us think of the matter in human terms. Suppose that a father sacrifices and toils to give his son every chance, surrounds him with love, plans for his future with care, and does everything humanly possible to equip him for life. And suppose the son feels no debt of gratitude, never feels the obligation to repay by being worthy of all this; and suppose he fails, not because he has not the ability, but because he will not try, because he forgets the love that gave him so much. That is what breaks a father's heart. When God gives men all his grace and they take their own foolish way and frustrate that grace which might have recreated them, once again Christ is crucified and the heart of God is broken.

A BLIZZARD OF TROUBLES ( 2 Corinthians 6:3-10 )

6:3-10 We do our work, trying to put an obstacle in no man's way, for we do not wish the ministry to become a laughing stock for critics. But in everything we try to keep on commending ourselves as ministers of God must do--in much endurance, amidst the things which press sore upon us, in the inescapable pains of life, in anxieties, amidst stripes, in prisons, in tumults, in toils, in sleepless nights, in fastings, in purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in love unfeigned, in the declaration of the truth, in the power of God, with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left, in honour and in dishonour, in ill report and in good report; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and lo! we live; as chastened, but not killed; as grieved, but always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing all things.

In all the chances and changes of life Paul had only one concern--to show himself a sincere and profitable minister of Jesus Christ. Even as he made that claim, his mind's eye went back across what Chrysostom called "the blizzard of troubles" through which he had come and through which he was still struggling. Every word in this tremendous catalogue, which someone has called "the hymn of the herald of salvation," has its background in Paul's adventurous life.

He begins with one triumphant word of the Christian life--endurance (hupomone, G5281) . It is untranslatable. It does not describe the frame of mind which can sit down with folded hands and bowed head and let a torrent of troubles sweep over it in passive resignation. It describes the ability to bear things in such a triumphant way that it transfigures them. Chrysostom has a great panegyric on this hupomone ( G5281) . He calls it "the root of all goods, the mother of piety, the fruit that never withers, a fortress that is never taken, a harbour that knows no storms" and "the queen of virtues, the foundation of right actions, peace in war, calm in tempest, security in plots." It is the courageous and triumphant ability to pass the breaking-point and not to break and always to greet the unseen with a cheer. It is the alchemy which transmutes tribulation into strength and glory.

Paul goes on to speak of three groups, each of three things, in which this victorious endurance is practised.

(i) There are the internal conflicts of the Christian life.

(a) The things which press sore upon us. The word he uses is thlipsis ( G2347) which originally expressed sheer, physical pressure on a man. There are things which weigh down a man's spirit like the sorrows which are a burden on his heart and the disappointments which are like to crush the life out of him. The triumphant endurance can cope with them all.

(b) The inescapable pains of life. The Greek word (anagke, G318) literally means the necessities of life. Certain burdens a man may escape, but others are inescapable. There are certain things which a man must bear. The greatest of these are sorrow, for only the life which has never known love will never know that, and death which is the lot of every man. The triumphant endurance enables a man to face all that is involved in being a man.

(c) Anxieties. The word Paul uses (stenochoria, G4730) literally means a too narrow place. It might be used of an army caught in a narrow, rocky defile with space neither to manoeuvre nor to escape. It might be used of a ship caught in a storm with no room either to ride it or to run before it. There are moments when a man seems to be in a situation in which the walls of life are closing round him. Even then the triumphant endurance makes him able to breathe the spaciousness of heaven.

(ii) There are the external tribulations of life.

(a) Stripes. For Paul the Christian life meant not only spiritual suffering, but also physical suffering. It is the simple fact that if there had not been those who were ready and able to bear the torture of the fire and the wild beasts we would not be Christian today. There are still some for whom it is physical agony to be a Christian; and it is always true that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church."

(b) Prisons. Clement of Rome tells us that Paul was in prison no fewer than seven times. From Acts we know that before he wrote to the Corinthians he was in prison in Philippi, and afterwards in Jerusalem, in Caesarea and in Rome. The pageant of Christians who were imprisoned stretches from the first to the twentieth century. There have always been those who would abandon their liberty sooner than abandon their faith.

(c) Tumults. Over and over again we have the picture of the Christian facing, not the sternness of the law, but the violence of the mob. John Wesley tells us of what happened to him in Wednesbury when the mob came "pouring down like a flood." "To attempt speaking was vain; for the noise on every side was like the roaring of the sea. So they dragged me along till we came to the town; when, seeing the door of a large house open, I attempted to go in; but a man, catching me by the hair, pulled me back into the middle of the crowd. They made no more stop till they had carried me through the main street, from one end of the town to the other." George Foxe tells us of what happened to him at Tickhill. "I found the priest and most of the chief of the parish together in the chancel. So I went up to them and began to speak, but immediately they fell upon me; the clerk took up the Bible as I was speaking, and struck me on the face with it, so that it gushed out with blood, and I bled exceedingly in the steeple-house. Then the people cried, 'Let us have him out of the Church'; and when they had got me out they beat me exceedingly, and threw me down, and over a hedge; and afterwards they dragged me through a house into the street, stoning an beating me as they drew me along, so that I was besmeared all over with blood and dirt.... Yet when I was got upon my legs again I declared to them the word of life and shewed them the fruits of their teachers, how they dishonoured Christianity." The mob has often been the enemy of Christianity; but nowadays it is not the violence but the mockery or the amused contempt of the crowd against which the Christian must stand fast.

(iii) There is the effort of the Christian life.

(a) Toils. The word Paul uses (kopos, G2873) is in the New Testament almost a technical term for the Christian life. It describes toil to the point of sheer exhaustion, the kind of toil which takes everything of body, mind and spirit that a man has to give. The Christian is the workman of God.

(b) Sleepless nights. Some would be spent in prayer, some in a situation of peril or discomfort where sleep was impossible. At all times Paul was ready to be the unsleeping sentinel of Christ.

(c) Fastings. No doubt what Paul means here is not deliberately chosen fastings, but times when he went hungry for the work's sake. We may well contrast with his spirit the spirit of the man who would not miss a meal to attend the worship of the house of God.

Now Paul turns away from the trials and the tribulations, which endurance enabled him to conquer, to his own God-given equipment for the Christian life. Once again he retains the same arrangement of three groups of three items.

(i) There are the God-given qualities of mind. (a) Purity. The word Paul uses (hagnotes, G54) was defined by the Greeks as "the careful avoidance of all sins which are against the gods; the service of the honour of God as nature demands", as "prudence at its highest tension" and as "freedom from every stain of flesh and spirit." It is in fact the quality which enables a man to enter into the very presence of God.

(b) Knowledge. This kind of knowledge has been defined as "knowledge of the things that must be done." It was the knowledge which issued not in the theologian's fine-spun subtleties but in the actions of the Christian man.

(c) Patience. Usually in the New Testament this word (makrothumia, G3115) denotes patience with people, the ability to bear with them even when they are wrong, even when they are cruel and insulting. It is a great word. In First Maccabees it is said ( 1Ma_8:4 ) that the Romans conquered the world by "their policy and their patience" and there the word expresses that Roman unconquerableness which would never make peace under defeat. Patience is the quality of a man who may lose a battle but who will never admit defeat in a campaign.

(ii) There are the God-given qualities of heart. (a) Kindness. Kindness (chrestotes, G5544) is one of the great New Testament words. It is the very opposite of severity. One great commentator describes it as "the sympathetic kindliness or sweetness of temper which puts others at their ease and shrinks from giving pain." The great example is in Genesis 26:17-22 which tells how Isaac would not fight or strive. It is the quality which thinks far more of others than of itself.

(b) The Holy Spirit. Paul knew well that no useful word could be spoken nor any good deed done without the help of the Holy Spirit. But the phrase may well mean not the Holy Spirit, but a spirit of holiness. It may mean that Paul's dominating motive was one which was holy, one which was directed solely towards the honour and service of God.

(c) Unfeigned love. The word Paul uses is agape G26) , which is a characteristic New Testament word. It means unconquerable benevolence. It means that spirit which, no matter what anyone else does to it, will never seek anything but the other person's highest good, will never dream of revenge, but will meet all injuries and rebuffs with undefeatable good will.

(iii) There is the God-given equipment for the work of preaching the gospel.

(a) The declaration of the truth. Paul knew that Jesus had not only given him a gospel to proclaim but the strength and the ability to proclaim it. To God he owed both the word and the door of utterance that had been opened for it.

(b) The power of God. To Paul this was everything. It was the only power he had. It was said of Henry the Fifth after the battle of Agincourt, "Neither would he suffer any ditties to be made and sung by the minstrels of his glorious victory, for that he would wholly have the praise and thanks altogether given to God." Paul would never have said in pride, "I did this," but always in humility, "God enabled me to do it."

(c) The weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left. This means the weapons for defence and for attack. The sword or the spear was carried in the right hand and the shield on the left arm; and Paul is saying that God has given him the power to attack his task and to defend himself from his temptations.

Paul completes this lyrical passage with a series of contrasts. He begins with in honour and in dishonour. The word he uses for dishonour is normally used in Greek for loss of rights as a citizen (atimia, G819) . Paul says, "I may have lost all the rights and privileges which the world can confer but I am still a citizen of the Kingdom of God." In ill-repute and in good-repute. There are those who criticize his every action and who hate his very name, but his fame with God is sure. Deceivers and yet true. The Greek word (planos, G4108) literally means a wandering quack and impostor. That is what others call him but he knows that his message is God's truth. Unknown yet well known. The Jews who slandered him said he was a no-account nobody whom no one had ever heard of, yet to those to whom he had brought Christ he was known with gratitude. Dying, and lo! we live. Danger was his companion and the prospect of death his comrade, and yet by the grace of God he was triumphantly alive with a life that death could never kill. Chastened, but not killed. Things happened to him that might have chastened any man's spirit but they could not kill the spirit of Paul. Grieved, but always rejoicing. Things happened that might have broken any man's heart but they could not destroy Paul's joy. Poor, yet making many rich. He might seem to be penniless but he brought with him that which would enrich the souls of men. Having nothing, yet possessing all things. He might seem to have nothing, but, having Christ, he had everything that mattered in this world and the next.

THE ACCENT OF LOVE ( 2 Corinthians 6:11-13 ; 2 Corinthians 7:2-4 )

6:11-13 My dear Corinthians, we have spoken to you without keeping anything back. Our heart lies wide open to you. If there is any constraint between us, it lies, not in us, but in your hearts. Give me fair exchange. I speak as to children. Do you, too, open wide your hearts to us.... Make room for us in your hearts.

Paul is speaking with the accents of purest love. The breaches are healed. The quarrels are all made up and love reigns supreme. The phrase that we have translated "Our heart lies wide open to you," literally means, "Our heart is enlarged." Chrysostom has a fine comment. He says that heat makes all things expand and the warmth of love will always expand a man's heart.

In the King James Version in 2 Corinthians 6:12 we note a translation which is very common in the New Testament and not very fortunate, "Ye are straitened in your own bowels." The word translated bowels is the Greek word splagchna ( G4698) . It literally means the upper viscera, the heart, the liver and the lungs. In these organs the seat of the emotions was supposed to lie. The form of expression sounds awkward but it is not really any more curious than our own English form. We speak of a man being melancholy which literally means that he has a black liver. We put the seat of love in the heart, which, after all, is a physical organ. But in English idiom it is more natural to use the word heart than bowels.

Paul here makes a great series of claims. He has wronged no one, he has corrupted no one, he has taken advantage of no one. Towards the end of his life Sir Walter Scott made the great claim, "I have unsettled no man's faith, I have corrupted no man's principles." Thackeray, also towards the end of his life, wrote a prayer in which he prayed that he "might never write a word inconsistent with the love of God, or the love of man, might never propagate has own prejudices or pander to those of others, might always speak the truth with his pen, and might never be actuated by a love of greed."

Only one thing is worse than sinning oneself, and that is teaching another to sin. It is one of the grim truths of life that another must always present a person with his first temptation, must give him the first push into sin, and it is a terrible thing to introduce a younger or a weaker brother to the wrong thing.

Someone tells of an old man who on his death-bed seemed distressed by something. When asked what was the matter he said that, when he was a boy, he and some companions had been playing at a cross-roads in the middle of a common. There was a signpost there and it was loose in its socket. They turned it round so that its arms were facing in the wrong directions. And the old man said, "I cannot stop wondering how many people were sent on the wrong road by the thing we did that day."

There can be no regret like the regret of having sent another on the wrong way. It was Paul's proud claim that his guidance and his influence had always been towards the best.

He finishes this passage by telling the Corinthians how complete his comfort is and how overflowing his joy even although at the moment troubles are all around him. Surely there never was a clearer proof that human relationships are the most important thing in life. If a man is happy at home, he can face up to anything outside. If a man is in fellowship with his friends, he can withstand the slings and arrows of fortune with a smile. As the writer of the Proverbs has it, "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a fatted ox and hatred with it." ( Proverbs 15:17).

GET YOU OUT ( 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 ; 2 Corinthians 7:1 )

6:14-18 Do not allow yourselves to become joined in an alien yoke with unbelievers. What partnership can there be between righteousness and lawlessness? What fellowship can darkness have with light? What concord can there be with Christ and Belial? What share can the believer have with the unbeliever? What agreement can the temple of God have with idols? For you are the temple of the living God, even as God said, "I will dwell in them and I will walk in them, and I will be their God and they will be my people." Therefore, "Come out from among them and separate yourselves," the Lord says, "and, have no contact with impurity, and I will receive you, and I will be a father to you, and you will be sons and daughters to me," says the Lord, the ruler of all. So then, since we possess these promises, let us purify ourselves from every pollution of flesh and spirit, and let us thus make holiness complete in the fear of God.

We come now to the passage which we omitted previously. There is no doubt that it comes in very awkwardly where it is. Its sternness is at odds with the glad and joyous love of the verses on either side of it.

In the introduction we saw that Paul wrote a letter prior to First Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians 5:9 he says, "I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with immoral men." That letter may be altogether lost. Or it may be that this is a section of it. It could easily happen that, when Paul's letters were being collected, one sheet could get misplaced. It was not until A.D. 90 or thereby that the collection was made, and by that time there may well have been none who knew the proper order. Certainly, in substance, this well suits the letter referred to in 1 Corinthians 5:9.

There are certain Old Testament pictures behind this. Paul begins by urging the Corinthians not to be joined to unbelievers in an alien yoke. Undoubtedly that goes back to the old commandment in Deuteronomy 22:10, "You shall not plough with an ox and an ass together." (compare Leviticus 19:19). The idea is that there are certain things which are fundamentally incompatible and were never meant to be brought together. It is impossible for the purity of the Christian and the pollution of the pagan to run in double harness.

In the demand, "What has the temple of God to do with idols?" Paul's thought is going back to such incidents as Manasseh bringing a graven image into the temple of God ( 2 Kings 21:1-9), and, in the later days, Josiah utterly destroying such things ( 2 Kings 23:3 ff.). Or he is thinking of such abominations as are described in Ezekiel 8:3-18. Men had sometimes tried to associate the temple of God with idol worship, and the consequences had been terrible.

The whole passage is a rousing summons not to hold any fellowship with unbelievers. It is a challenge to the Corinthians to keep themselves unspotted from the world. It has been well remarked that the very essence of the history of Israel is in the words, "Get thee out!" That was the word of God that came to Abraham as the King James Version has it. "Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house" ( Genesis 12:1). That was the warning that came to Lot before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. ( Genesis 19:12-14). There are things in the world with which the Christian cannot and dare not associate himself.

It is difficult to realize just how many separations Christianity meant for the people who first accepted it.

(i) Often it meant that a man had to give up his trade. Suppose he was a stone mason. What was to happen if his firm received a contract to build a heathen shrine? Suppose he was a tailor. What was to happen if he was instructed to cut and sew garments for priests of the heathen gods? Suppose he was a soldier. At the gate of every camp burned the light upon the altar sacred to the godhead of Caesar. What was to happen if he had to fling his pinch of incense on that altar in token of his worship? Time and time again in the early Church the choice came to a man between the security of his job and his loyalty to Jesus Christ. It is told that a man came to Tertullian. He told him his problem and then he said, "But after all I must live." "Must you?" said Tertullian.

In the early Church a man's Christianity often meant that he had to get out from his job. One of the most famous modern examples of this same thing was F. W. Charrington. He was the heir to a fortune made by brewing. He was passing a tavern one night. There was a woman waiting at the door. A man, obviously her husband, came out, and she was trying to keep him from going back in. With one blow of his fist the man felled her. Charrington started forward and then he looked up. The name above the tavern was his own, and Charrington said, "With that one blow that man did not only knock his wife out, he also knocked me clean out of that business forever." And he gave up the fortune he might have had, rather than touch money earned in such a way.

No man is keeper of another man's conscience. Every man must decide for himself if he can take his trade to Christ and Christ with him to his daily work.

(ii) Often it meant that a man had to give up social life. In the ancient world, as we saw when studying the section on meat offered to idols, many a heathen feast was held in the temple of a god. The invitation would run, "I invite you to dine with me at the table of our Lord Serapis." Even if that were not so, a heathen feast would begin and end with the pouring of a libation, a cup of wine, to the gods. Could a Christian share in that? Or must he get out and say good-bye to the social fellowship which used to mean so much to him?

(iii) Often it meant that a man had to give up family ties. The pain of Christianity in the early years was the way it split families. A wife became a Christian and her husband might drive her from his house. A husband became a Christian and his wife might leave him. Sons and daughters became Christians and might find the door of the home shut and barred in their faces. It was literally true that Christ came not to send peace but a dividing sword upon earth and that men and women had to be prepared to love him more than their nearest and dearest. They had to be prepared to get out even from their homes,

However hard it may be, it will always remain true that there are certain things a man cannot do and be a Christian. There are certain things from which every Christian must get out.

Before we leave this passage, there is one point we may note. In it Paul quotes scripture and his quotation is a mixture of a variety of passages, none quoted accurately, from Leviticus 26:11-12, Isaiah 52:11, Ezekiel 20:34, Ezekiel 37:27 and 2 Samuel 7:14. It is a fact that Paul seldom quotes accurately. Why? We must remember that in his time books were written on papyrus rolls. A book the size of Acts would require a roll about thirty-five feet long, a very unwieldy thing. There were no chapter divisions; they were inserted by Stephen Langton in the thirteenth century. There were no verse divisions; they were inserted by Stephanus, the Paris printer, in the sixteenth century. Finally, there was no such thing as a concordance until the sixteenth century. The result was that Paul did the only sensible thing--he quoted from memory, and so long as he got the substance right he did not worry about the actual wording. It was not the letter of scripture but the message of scripture which mattered to him.

-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)

Gann's Commentary on the Bible

2 Corinthians 6:2

he said -- God the Father saith to God the Son, and so to all believers who are regarded as one with Him.

day of salvation I helped you -- Paul quotes Isaiah 49:8 to appeal to the Corinthians and emphasize God’s readiness to receive them when they turn to Him. Just as God restored Israel from exile, He now reconciles people to Himself through Christ (see 2 Corinthians 1:3). The day of salvation refers to the present period of time (between Christ’s first and second comings) in which reconciliation with God is available to all people. - FSB

heard you -- In the eternal purposes of my love I have hearkened to your prayer for the salvation of your people (compare John 17:9, John 17:15, John 17:20, John 17:24).

now is the day of salvation. -- Paul applied Isaiah’s words to the present situation. There is a time in God’s economy when He listens to sinners and responds to those who are repentant—and it was and is that time (cf. Proverbs 1:20-23; Isaiah 55:6; Hebrews 3:7-8; Hebrews 4:7). However, there will also be an end to that time (cf. Genesis 6:3; Proverbs 1:24-33; John 9:4), which is why Paul’s exhortation was so passionate. - MSB

To emphasize the seriousness and urgency of his appeal and to highlight the privilege of the present and the danger of procrastination, Paul quotes Isaiah 49:8 and then applies the passage to the age of grace. In its original context this quotation belongs to a section of Isaiah where the Lord directly addresses his Servant who has been “despised and abhorred by the nation” (Isaiah 49:7), promising him vindication before people in due time and calling on him to carry out the work of restoration after the return from exile. Paul uses the quotation to establish that the gospel era (“now”) is “the day of salvation,” when God’s favor is shown to humankind. How unthinkable that such grace should be received in vain (v.1)! - EBC

favorable [accepted] time -- (compare Psalms 69:13). As it is God’s time of receiving sinners, receive ye His grace: accept (2 Corinthians 6:1) the word of reconciliation in His accepted time.

in the day of salvation -- "in a day of salvation" (Luke 4:18-19, Luke 4:21; Luke 19:42; Hebrews 3:7).

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted,.... These words are a citation from Isaiah 49:8 and are spoken by the Father to Christ, declaring he had heard him, as he always did. He heard him when he put up that prayer to him, recorded John 17:1 for the glorification of himself, by strengthening him as man in his work, by raising him from the dead, setting him at his own right hand, and giving him the glory he had with him before the world was; for the good of his people, the preservation of those that were called, the conversion of them that are called, and the glorification of all the Father had given him: he heard him in the garden, and answered him; the will of God was done according to his desire, and his will was conformed to the will of his Father, and he was delivered from the fear of death; his ends in his prayer there were answered, which were to show the greatness of his sufferings, the impossibility of man's salvation in any other way, and that there could be no alteration made in the methods of obtaining it. He heard him on the cross with respect to the deliverance of him from man, with regard to his being forsaken by God, and for the forgiveness of his enemies. Now this period of time in which he was heard on account of these several things, is called a time accepted; or, as in the Hebrew text, עת רצון, "a time of good will, or acceptance"; a season in which God expressed good will to the sons of men, by sending his own Son to work out salvation for them; this was good will to men, and not to angels, to such as were ungodly, enemies, sinners, and the worst of sinners: it was a time very grateful to him; it was "the accepted year of the Lord"; the sufferings, sacrifice, satisfaction, and righteousness of his Son were well pleasing to him; because his purposes, promises, and covenant transactions had their accomplishment, his perfections were glorified, and his people saved. And it was a time of acceptance, or an acceptable time to men, since it was the day of their salvation, and therefore must be exceedingly agreeable to all such who see their need of it, know the worth of it, and are sensible that there is no other way of salvation than by him.

And in the day of salvation have I succoured thee. These words are still spoken to Christ, who whilst he was in human nature, working out the salvation of his people, by his obedience, sufferings, and death, was succoured, or helped by his Father. This help was promised to him as man, and he expected it, and exercised faith on God for it, and which was actually and punctually given him; and which is no instance of weakness in Christ, who is the mighty God, and was mighty to save; but an indication of the Father's regard to the human nature of Christ, and of his concern for the salvation of men; and also shows what power and strength were necessary to accomplish it.

Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. These are the words of the apostle, applying the former to the present Gospel dispensation; which he introduces with prefixing a "behold" to each sentence, in order to raise both attention to, and admiration at what is delivered:

now is the accepted time; not that the Gospel dispensation is a milder dispensation of things, in which God will accept of an imperfect sincere obedience to his law, in the room of a perfect one; or in which Christ is now offered to sinners, and it is left to them whether they will accept of him or not: but it is so called, because God and Christ now testify their good will to the sons of men, and are ready to accept of, and embrace poor sensible sinners coming to them; and because the Gospel publishes salvation by Christ, which, as it is worthy of their acceptation, cannot but be acceptable to them: now is the day of salvation: now is salvation preached, as being done, already obtained by Christ for sinners, the chief of sinners; it is now brought home to their souls by the ministration of the Gospel under the influence of the Spirit of God; now sinners are convinced of their need of it, and that it cannot be had elsewhere; now they are made to submit to Christ, to be saved by him, and him alone, are encouraged to believe in him, and are by him actually possessed of it. "Now" is, and not yesterday was, the day of salvation; and "now", and that for ever, that is, as long as the Gospel dispensation continues; for it will be always now till all the elect of God are gathered in. This day of grace and salvation will never be over till that time comes; it is still "now is the day of salvation": though men may have long withstood the ministration of the Gospel, and notwithstanding their manifold sins and transgressions. There is no withstanding the "now" of grace when it comes with the power of the Holy Ghost.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      1 We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.   2 (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)   3 Giving no offence in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed:   4 But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses,   5 In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings;   6 By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned,   7 By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,   8 By honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true;   9 As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed;   10 As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.

      In these verses we have an account of the apostle's general errand and exhortation to all to whom he preached in every place where he came, with the several arguments and methods he used. Observe,

      I. The errand or exhortation itself, namely, to comply with the gospel offers of reconciliation--that, being favoured with the gospel, they would not receive this grace of God in vain,2 Corinthians 6:1; 2 Corinthians 6:1. The gospel is a word of grace sounding in our ears; but it will be in vain for us to hear it, unless we believe it, and comply with the end and design of it. And as it is the duty of the ministers of the gospel to exhort and persuade their hearers to accept of grace and mercy which are offered to them, so they are honoured with this high title of co-workers with God. Note, 1. They must work; and must work for God and his glory, for souls and their good: and they are workers with God, yet under him, as instruments only; however, if they be faithful, they may hope to find God working with them, and their labour will be effectual. 2. Observe the language and way of the spirit of the gospel: it is not with roughness and severity, but with all mildness and gentleness, to beseech and entreat, to use exhortations and arguments, in order to prevail with sinners and overcome their natural unwillingness to be reconciled to God and to be happy for ever.

      II. The arguments and method which the apostle used. And here he tells them,

      1. The present time is the only proper season to accept of the grace that is offered, and improve that grace which is afforded: NOW is the accepted time, NOW is the day of salvation,2 Corinthians 6:2; 2 Corinthians 6:2. The gospel day is a day of salvation, the means of grace the means of salvation, the offers of the gospel the offers of salvation, and the present time the only proper time to accept of these offers: To-day, while it is called to-day. The morrow is none of ours: we know not what will be on the morrow, nor where we shall be; and we should remember that present seasons of grace are short and uncertain, and cannot be recalled when they are past. It is therefore our duty and interest to improve them while we have them, and no less than our salvation depends upon our so doing.

      2. What caution they used not to give offence that might hinder the success of their preaching: Giving no offence in any thing,2 Corinthians 6:3; 2 Corinthians 6:3. The apostle had great difficulty to behave prudently and inoffensively towards the Jews and Gentiles, for many of both sorts watched for his halting, and sought occasion to blame him and his ministry, or his conversation; therefore he was very cautious not to give offence to those who were so apt to take offence, that he might not offend the Jews by unnecessary zeal against the law, nor the Gentiles by unnecessary compliances with such as were zealous for the law. He was careful, in all his words and actions, not to give offence, or occasion of guilt or grief. Note, When others are too apt to take offence, we should be cautious lest we give offence; and ministers especially should be careful lest they do any thing that may bring blame on their ministry or render that unsuccessful.

      3. Their constant aim and endeavor in all things to approve themselves faithful, as became the ministers of God, 2 Corinthians 6:4; 2 Corinthians 6:4. We see how much stress the apostle upon all occasions lays on fidelity in our work, because much of our success depends upon that. His eye was single, and his heart upright, in all his ministrations; and his great desire was to be the servant of God, and to approve himself so. Note, Ministers of the gospel should look upon themselves as God's servants or ministers, and act in every thing suitably to that character. So did the apostle, (1.) By much patience in afflictions. He was a great sufferer, and met with many afflictions, was often in necessities, and wanted the conveniences, if not the necessaries, of life; in distresses, being straitened on every side, hardly knowing what to do; in stripes often (2 Corinthians 11:24; 2 Corinthians 11:24); in imprisonments; in tumults raised by the Jews and Gentiles against him; in labours, not only in preaching the gospel, but in travelling from place to place for that end, and working with his hands to supply his necessities; in watchings and in fastings, either voluntary or upon a religious account, or involuntary for the sake of religion: but he exercised much patience in all, 2 Corinthians 6:4; 2 Corinthians 6:5. Note, [1.] It is the lot of faithful ministers often to be reduced to great difficulties, and to stand in need of much patience. [2.] Those who would approve themselves to God must approve themselves faithful in trouble as well as in peace, not only in doing the work of God diligently, but also in bearing the will of God patiently. (2.) By acting from good principles. The apostle went by a good principle in all he did, and tells them what his principles were (2 Corinthians 6:6; 2 Corinthians 6:7); namely, pureness; and there is no piety without purity. A care to keep ourselves unspotted from the world is necessary in order to our acceptance with God. Knowledge was another principle; and zeal without this is but madness. He also acted with long-suffering and kindness, being not easily provoked, but bearing with the hardness of men's hearts, and hard treatment from their hands, to whom he kindly endeavoured to do good. He acted under the influence of the Holy Ghost, from the noble principle of unfeigned love, according to the rule of the word of truth, under the supports and assistances of the power of God, having on the armour of righteousness (a consciousness of universal righteousness and holiness), which is the best defence against the temptations of prosperity on the right hand, and of adversity on the left. (3.) By a due temper and behaviour under all the variety of conditions in this world, 2 Corinthians 6:8-10; 2 Corinthians 6:8-10. We must expect to meet with many alterations of our circumstances and conditions in this world; and it will be a great evidence of our integrity if we preserve a right temper of mind, and duly behave ourselves, under them all. The apostles met with honour and dishonour, good report and evil report: good men in this world must expect to meet with some dishonour and reproaches, to balance their honour and esteem; and we stand in need of the grace of God to arm us against the temptations of honour on the one hand, so as to bear good report without pride, and of dishonour on the other hand, so as to bear reproaches without impatience or recrimination. It should seem that persons differently represented the apostles in their reports; that some represented them as the best, and others as the worst, of men: by some they were counted deceivers, and run down as such; by others as true, preaching the gospel of truth, and men who were true to the trust reposed in them. They were slighted by the men of the world as unknown, men of no figure or account, not worth taking notice of; yet in all the churches of Christ they were well known, and of great account: they were looked upon as dying, being killed all the day long, and their interest was thought to be a dying interest; "and yet behold," says the apostle, "we live, and live comfortably, and bear up cheerfully under all our hardships, and go on conquering and to conquer." They were chastened, and often fell under the lash of the law, yet not killed: and though it was thought that they were sorrowful, a company of mopish and melancholy men, always sighing and mourning, yet they were always rejoicing in God, and had the greatest reason to rejoice always. They were despised as poor, upon the account of their poverty in this world; and yet they made many rich, by preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ. They were thought to have nothing, and silver and gold they had none, houses and lands they had none; yet they possessed all things: they had nothing in this world, but they had a treasure in heaven. Their effects lay in another country, in another world. They had nothing in themselves, but possessed all things in Christ. Such a paradox is a Christian's life, and through such a variety of conditions and reports lies our way to heaven; and we should be careful in all these things to approve ourselves to God.

Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible

Now

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A Sermon

(No. 603)

Delivered on Sunday Morning, December 4th, 1864 by

C. H. SPURGEON,

At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

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"For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." 2 Corinthians 6:2 .

WE FREQUENTLY HEAR the question discussed as to which are the best times. Some are perpetually singing the praises of the "good old times;" though, if one reads the page of history, it does not appear that the old times deserve any very special praise, unless oppression, ignorance, persecution, and abundant suffering deserve to be the theme of song. It is the common habit of the fathers, with tears in their eyes, to say, "The former days were better than these," but we have the wisdom of Solomon on our side when we tell them they do not enquire wisely Concerning this. "Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this." (Ecclesiastes 7:10 .) Others there be who are always boasting of the present eventful period. There was none like it: this is the era of invention and of progress, the age of liberty and of light, when slavery must cast away her fetters, and superstition must hide herself among her congenial associates, the moles and bats. But I cannot perceive that this century is so much the age of gold as to need any very enthusiastic praises. Its greatest virtues are counterbalanced by greater sins; and the progress which has been made towards liberty, has scarcely kept pace with its advance towards licentiousness: the barriers have been broken down, it is true, but in some places the bulwarks have fallen too. Many there be who with bright eyes are looking forward to the future, and their declaration is, that the "good time is coming," if we but "wait a little longer;" if we will but look ahead, till this beast shall have been slain, that vial shall have been poured out, and the other seal shall have been broken, then it is that we shall arrive at halcyon times. We agree with these watchful waiters: the age of gold is yet to come; the Advent is the world's best and brightest hope, insomuch that every lover of his kind, may importunately cry out, "Come quickly; yea, come quickly, Lord Jesus."

But there is one thought which should not leave us when talking about times and seasons, namely, that now, now, just now, this present flying moment, that second which is being recorded by the ticking of yonder clock, is the only time which we have to work with. I can do nothing with the days that are past, I can do nothing with the days future yet I reach out towards them but I cannot improve them. The past and present are fields far beyond the reach of my culture. I can neither plough nor sow the future, nor can I prune and correct the past. For practical purposes, the only time I have is that which is just now passing. Did I say I had it? While I said I had it, it is gone, like the meteor which dashes adown the sky, or the eagle which flies afar, or the swift ships which disappear beyond the horizon.

Time present is the only time I may ever have. Ere any future shall have become present, I may be merged in eternity. As far as I know, this day may be the end of my life's career, and when yonder sun sinks to his rest, I may sink to my rest also, so far as time is concerned. If there be more time allotted to me, yet it will never come to me in any other guise and form than as time present. I call it future now, but when I get, say, to 1866, or 1880, it will be just like to these moments, it will be to me present then; and consequently, for practical purposes, however much we may speculate upon the past or the future, the present moment is the only time we have, may have, or ever can have; and it becomes important that all our thoughts should be centred upon it, if we would make our calling and election sure. Our text directs us to that solemn employment, and it does so by a very telling argument.

You perceive that our text is a quotation. How ought we to value the Old Testament! If inspired men of God, who spoke by the Holy Ghost, yet quoted the Old Testament, how valuable must be its bejewelled sentences! The apostle here quotes from the forty-ninth chapter of Isaiah, the eighth verse. In that passage the Lord God is speaking to the Messiah, speaking to our Lord Jesus Christ, and he says to him, "In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee." The first part, then, of this verse is a quotation from Isaiah; the second part of the verse is Paul's commentary upon the passage, "Behold, now is the accepted time." He takes his text from the Old Testament, but he gives us a New-Testament sermon upon it. Let us try if we can catch the apostle's meaning.

When Paul was reading in Isaiah, he perceived that the Lord Jehovah had expressly said to him, "Whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth (and who is this but the Lord Jesus?) "In an acceptable time have I heard thee." Jesus' sighs, and tears, and bloody sweat in the garden of Gethsemane did not fall unheeded; like the blood of Abel, they cried from the ground, and were heard acceptably above; an answer was given: this was plainly proved by the descent of the angel to strengthen the Savior; so the prophetic words add, "In a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored thee." The apostle infers from this, that inasmuch as God hath accepted Christ, the representative of his people, he hath thereby ushered in an era of acceptance. Acceptance given to the Savior is, in the apostle's view, acceptance given to sinners. Inasmuch as Christ is heard he prayed not for himself, but for us there is therefore an accepted time for us begun and commenced from the day when Christ went up to the tree, stretched his hands to the nails, bowed his head to death, and said, "It is finished." Paraphrase the text thus: " I have heard Jesus, the surety, in an acceptable time; in the day of salvation have I succoured him, the mighty Savior; and therefore to you, my people, to you, poor lost and wandering sinners, to you, now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation." If Christ had not died, there had never been a day of salvation. If Christ had not been heard and accepted, an accepted time there never could have come to us; but since he, man's representative, hath obtained favor in the eyes of God, and through his complete work, hath for ever settled that favor upon himself, there is favor in the heart of God to those whom Christ represented, even to those transgressors for whom he maketh intercession.

We shall now take the text, as God may help us, using it first, to look at the now of believers; then, at the now of sinners; and after this taking wing from the text, we shall offer a few reflections upon now in heaven; and close with a few solemn thoughts upon now in hell.

I. First, then, NOW, WITH THE BELIEVER. With him, "Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation."

As a believer, it is well for the Christian to live in the present. I say, as a believer, for, alas! there is a temptation to make our faith a thing of the past. It is nearly sixteen years since I first looked to the crucified Redeemer, and was lightened, and my face was not ashamed. Is there a temptation in me to say the faith which I exercised in Christ in my youthful days has saved me, and therefore I am now in a different position from what I was then, and need not feel now as I did at first? If there be such a temptation, let me shake it off as a man would shake off the deadly sleep of frozen climes; let me this morning feel myself to be still in myself just what I was, a sinner loathsome, undeserving, ill-deserving, hell-deserving. And what then? Why, let me then this morning, stand where I stood in the first moment of my salvation, at the foot of the Savior's cross, and look up and view the flowing of his soul-redeeming blood, with divine assurance, knowing he has made my peace with God. At this moment, my dear brother, your proper standing is as a sinner saved by blood, looking up to those dear wounds from which your pardon streamed. Have you had many virtues since then? Has the grace of God led you on to add to your faith courage; and to your courage, experience; and to your experience, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity? Yet, for all this, your safest, happiest, holiest, best position, is at the foot of the cross, with none of these things in your hand as the price of your salvation, but looking to your Redeemer, who alone has found a ransom for you. Since the day of your espousals you have committed many sins: dare you look at them without trembling? How often have we grieved our Lord! Our love to him! Shall we dare to call it love? Our faith in him, how mixed with unbelief! Our zeal, how dashed with selfishness! Our humility, how stained with pride! Our patience, how spoiled with murmuring! Our every good thing marred and rendered worthless! What a crop of weeds the soil of our heart has produced! When we look within we see, "The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy;" and every unclean bird seeks a lodging-place in our hearts as in a grove of vanities: what shall we then do? Why, come just now with all these sins, and wash once more in that fountain which has lost none of its fullness, and feel the power of that precious blood which has not diminished one whit in its efficacy. I know the temptation is to climb to some higher room, but let us be warned by the nonsuccess of the boasting Pharisee, and taught by the justification of the humble publican, still to cry, "God be merciful to me a sinner." Beware of trying to live before God as a minister. Brother minister, this is poor living: to live officially, to go to the closet or come into God's house merely as holding a certain profession, oh! this is starving work. If your tendency be to live as Church-members, if not altogether as worldly men, rouse yourselves from it, I pray you, and confess with Paul, "And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." The proper place of a Christian is never to get one inch beyond this a monument of grace, a sinner saved by blood. I live in Jesus, on Jesus, for Jesus, with Jesus, and hope soon to be perfectly conformed to his likeness. Let me recollect that if there could be a moment in which my soul might stand out of Christ, no longer leaning upon him, and no longer covered with his righteousness, that very moment I must be condemned; for there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, but there is a terrible condemnation against every soul that is out of him. Have ye climbed so high that ye have towered above the place of the poor thief? Come back again, brother, for thou hast climbed to a dangerous altitude, and may be thou shalt find it a gallows whereon Haman was hanged, and thou shalt hang with him. Or hast thou dived so deep in a sense of thine own depravity, that thou hast forgotten to rest on Jesus Christ as able still to save thee? My brother, look up from the hole of the pit, for in it there is no water, and thou wilt perish there with a grievous famine. O, then, away with all but Jesus! None but Jesus: this must be our watchword at the gates of death, and we must enter heaven with it. As we have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so must we walk in him: he must be Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, author and finisher, first and last. As believers, let us by God the Holy Spirit's grace keep our trust just where it was at first, in him whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation for our sins.

Take the word "now" again, and look at the Christian as a professor. Now you are in the house of God, my dear friends, and you recollect that you profess to be followers of Christ. Now, therefore, you sing in holy hymns of praise, and join in solemn prayers to God, as Christians should do in the worship of God. To-morrow morning, some of you, perhaps, will be at Copenhagen Fields' Market, some of you at Newgate Market, others of you will be lighting the fire in your master's house, others seeing to your numerous families, others taking down the shop shutters; will you then recollect, dear friends, that now, where you then are, you are a Christian. You are not to say, "I was a Christian yesterday," but "now, now I am a Christian." A customer will come in; the temptation will be, perhaps, to take more than you ought to do; will you please recollect, "Now I am a child of God;" not "yesterday, when I was listening to Mr. Spurgeon, at the Tabernacle," but now. When you are in the market, there will be much to plague and vex you, and perhaps you will think, "I cannot enjoy the presence of God here." Oh! but, my dear brother, "now is the accepted time." Buying sheep, selling bullocks, using the hammer, snipping with the scissors, working at the plough, tending your sheep now, now, now is the day of salvation: you are still a Christian, therefore act as a Christian. But you are much plagued and vexed, somebody teases you, things go wrong: what could be a better stop to that little rising passion, what could keep under the naughty spirit better than to recollect, "Now, now I am a Christian even now." A true Christian cannot shake off his character. He is really what he is: he always must be a Christian. I heard the other day of a certain Scotch moderate minister, who being much provoked by a person in his parish, said, "If I were not a minister, I would give you a sound thrashing, sir;" and when he was further irritated, he took off his coat and said, "There is the minister there he lies " he was then in his shirt sleeves "there is the minister, and I am only So-and-so, and will give you your due," and proceeded at once to give the man a sound thrashing. It is just possible the man may have deserved it, that is not to my point; but if a man can say, "There lies the minister," or, when you take off your cloth coat to-night, if you can say, "There lies the member of the Church:" If you, good women, when you get off your gowns, can say, as you hang up your best attire in the wardrobe, "There goes the Christian," then you have no religion at all, you have none whatever worth having; you have the faith of devils that will damn you, but not the faith of Christians that will save you. It is not a religious coat, but a renewed heart: I pray you keep this at all times on your mind, "Now I am accepted; now I am saved: how can such a man as I do such a thing? 'How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?'" Mordecai once wore the king's robe, but he soon put it off, because he was not really a king; and thus do many act who wear the garb of religion in the house of God, but cast it off when they go home. When Lord Burleigh, Queen Elizabeth's councillor, reached his home, he was so little pleased with the cares of state, that taking off his robe, he threw it down, saying, "Lay there, Lord Chancellor." Ah! how irksome must some men's religion be to them, and how cheerfully would they lay aside its restraints! but you, who are really the Lord's, will, I trust, feel your faith to be your constant help, and your profession your perpetual honor. You will not, you cannot sin, because you are born of God.

Suppose a brother has his pen in his hand, and is going to write what we sometimes call a nasty letter now suppose an angel should whisper in his ears as he is writing, "Now, now you are one of God's chosen; you have been washed in the precious blood of Christ, and now you profess to be a member of his body, a king and a priest unto God." Why, methinks he would throw the pea away and tear the paper up. Or, just when you are about to proceed to extremities with some poor soul who asks your mercy, if you could recollect that you are now, even now an heir of heaven, methinks you would say, "Lord, give me grace to act according to my profession, and not to stain the character I have assumed." Let "now" keep upon your mind with regard to your profession and the duty which it brings.

Dear friends, let me comfort your hearts by the recollection that now, as a child of God, you are a possessor of present privileges. I do not know what thy frame of mind may be this morning. Thou mayst have been very much tempted, thou mayst feel, through some sickness of body, anything but cheerful, but if thou believest in Christ, remember now thou art a son of God, and though it doth not yet appear what thou shalt be, yet, when he shall appear, thou shalt be like him, for thou shalt see him as he is. At this very moment, I, a believer in Christ, am completely pardoned; no spot of sin remains on me if I believe in Jesus. White as the newly-fallen snow is every soul that has been washed in the precious blood. Think of this delightful truth, desponding Christian, and let your countenance be no more sad. Your eye of faith is dim, your evidences are very slender, your graces are at a low ebb, but you are completely forgiven, absolved and acquitted at this moment, if your soul rests upon the Rock of Ages. You are completely justified at this moment, despite your sins. Wearing your Savior's righteousness, you stand all beauteous in the eye of God at this very moment: the words of Solomon to the spouse are the words of Christ to you, though you are vexed with a thousand cares, "Thou art all fair my love: there is no spot in thee." Covered with his righteousness and washed in his blood, even the pure and holy eyes of God can find no fault in thee, and, as a consequence of this, thou art this moment accepted. "He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel." "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" God doth not look upon thee with any anger. Though thy heart may be struggling and tormented with sin, yet if thou art resting upon God's Son, the love of God is flowing out to thee in a stream which never can be stayed. Think of this sweet thought, and let thy soul be filled with the perfume of it. Loved of God now, the object of the almighty affection of the blessed One art thou now. Nay, more than this, thou art not only accepted, but thou art in union with Christ now. Beloved believer, canst thou realize it? Thou art a member of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. There is a vital union at this instant between you and the Lord of glory; the life-blood flows from him, the head, to thee; and at this moment, whether in thy worst state of feeling or thy best, thou art now one with Jesus, by eternal union, one. I would to God we realized our present privileges. We are thinking about the heaven that is to come, and forgetting the heaven below. The first we should do; but the second we should not leave undone. The men of grace find that the fruits of paradise hang over the wall, and they begin to pluck and eat thereof before they pass the gates of pearl. Come, Christian, "Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." Since Jesus is accepted, so are you even now. Live upon your present privileges and be glad.

Recollect that wherever there is present privilege there is also a present duty to be performed, and so I touch a string which I made to sound just now. Since " now is the accepted time" with sinners, now is the accepted time for thee to work, O Christian. I know what you intend to do; you have vast plans and machinery. My brother, I do not care what you mean to do to-morrow, but I do care about what you intend to do to-day. Oh! those day-dreams of ours! We are always intending in a year or two's time to be such valorous defenders of the faith, such good soldiers of Christ, such good winners of souls. My dear brother, what art thou doing now? There flies that moment; what does it bear upon its wings? Another drop of the stream of time is passed away: what action of thine is reflected on its crystal surface? Art thou doing anything now? "I do not know," says one, "I do not know that I can do anything just now. When the service is broken up, I may get home, and then try to do something." I would pray thee remember that " now is the accepted time," and therefore now seek to get thy heart warm; and, when the service is over, think thou hearest the now, and begin to speak to those in the pew, or on the way home talk to any person you may meet with; and then, tomorrow, do not say, "Sunday is over, and I cannot do any good on the week-day," but think you hear the clarion-sound of this word now. You have a sister unsaved, pray for her now; you have a brother unconverted, write to him if you cannot speak to him, and do it now. There is a court, a blind alley, which needs visiting; a dying man who needs instruction do it now. Do you feel you have a talent? Use it now. You think you will have a better sphere in ten years' time; I pray thee get a sphere now, for now is the day of salvation. I say again, I do not care what you do with your to-morrow. If you will but give God your now, your to-morrows will be all right. For duty, then, let the Christian prize the "now."

One thought more. The Christian recollects that now he may die. What is his prospect now? Let him take courage. If his Lord should come now, he has his loins girt about, and his lamp well trimmed, and he is ready to enter in to the supper; he will not be overtaken as by a thief, but his Lord, when he cometh, shall find him watching: and should death come before the Advent, then he can say, "Now shall I enter into my rest, now shall I see the face of my Lord Jesus without a veil to hide him, and I shall be with him supremely blest." The glorious Advent or the bliss of heaven is your prospect now; not that you will go to heaven if you die in twenty years' time, but if you die now, if the hand of death should take you in the street, or you should feel its numbing influence while you are in the pew; now the celestial band shall bear you to the sublimities of glory, and introduce you to the presence of him whom you love. Now, Christian, rejoice, now labor, now live at the foot of the Savior's cross.

II. May the Master give us power on the second point to deal with "NOW" AS IT RESPECTS THE SINNER.

The great mischief of the most of men is that they procrastinate. It is not that they resolve to be damned, but that they resolve to be saved to-morrow. It is not that they reject Christ for ever, but that they reject Christ to-day; and truly they might as well reject him for ever, as continue perpetually to reject him "now." Sinner, let me put thy "now" before thee as a man. Thou must soon pass away and be forgotten, like the flowers that withered in autumn, and the insects which flitted through the summer hours. Now, then, is thy time to think about eternity, and to prepare thyself to meet thy God. "See to your business first, James," said a careful father "get a good trade, and after that, look to your religion." There spake a fool, who knew not that infinite wisdom has commanded, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Wouldst thou give God the fag-end of thy life? Take care lest thou have no old age at all; for many candles are blown out as soon as lit. Wouldst thou, as a lamb, be Satan's? and when thou art withered and worn out, shall the lean skeleton of tottering weakness be brought and laid upon the altar? Be it not so; let thy flower be plucked in the bud and put into the hand of Jesus. God grant thee grace to seek him in the days of thy youth, for the promise is, "They that seek me early shall find me." As a man, I charge thee, since there is only a "day of salvation" before the sun goes down and the black night of eternal ruin shall come upon thee, lay hold upon the hope that is set before thee.

As a sinner, I also address thee concerning this "now." "Now is the day of salvation: thou needest it now. God is angry with thee now. Thou art condemned already. It is not the torment of hell thou hast to dread only, but if thou hast thy senses, thou wouldst tremble at thy present state. Now without God, now without hope, now an alien from the commonwealth of Israel, now dead in trespasses and sins, now in danger of the wrath to come, thou wantest a Savior this morning, young man. Young woman, I do not charge thee to store up medicine against the maladies of twenty years hence, it is the sickness of to-day of which I would fain have thee cured this very morning. It is not to look after a danger which shall press upon thee when thou growest old that I exhort thee, but now thou art on the brink of the precipice. Now therefore thou needest to be saved.

But here comes the beauty of my text. As a sinner under the gospel, I pray thee to recollect that "Now is the accepted time." The most of my unconverted hearers do not believe this. I know what you are saying. You say "I have had a great many thoughts about religion;" but why dost thou not believe in Christ now? "Well," you say, "I will endeavor to think seriously of it:" but what will be the result of your thinking? After you have thought ever so much, do you imagine you will think yourself into salvation? If the gospel command were "Think, and be saved," I would cheerfully allow you a month's thinking; but the command is, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ," and "Now is the accepted time." "But, sir, I do not think such things should be done in a hurry." A hurry! What does David say? "I made haste, and delayed not to keep thy commandments." A hurry! when a man is on the edge of damnation and on the borders of the grave! Do not talk of hurry, sir; when it is a case of life and death, let us fly swift as a flash of lightning. "Well, but I do not feel prepared." Do you think that disobeying God will make you more prepared? If you have lived a month without believing, you have lived a month in sin; do you think when you have sinned more, you will be better prepared to obey the command which comes to you, "Believe now in the Lord Jesus Christ"? "Yes, but my heart feels so hard." Dear friend, dost thou think thou wilt be able to soften it between this and next week, or next month, or next year? Is there anything in the Word of God which leads thee to believe that thou canst in any way soften thine own heart? Is not this a mighty work of grace? and when the text says, "Now is the accepted time," does not this suppose that even if you have a hard heart, still it is true that now is the accepted time? "Well, but," saith one, "I do not feel convinced enough." That is to say, dear friend, you do not think that "now is the accepted time:" you think that another time when you get more convicted will be the accepted time. Here is a quarrel between God and you. He says "Now;" you say, "No, no, it cannot be true;' when I am more convicted, then will be the time." My dear friend, are you not altogether mistaken? The likelihoods are that you never will be more convicted than now, if you are brought now to think upon these things. Your heart will certainly grow harder in course of time; but softer, never. I never heard the case of a man whose heart was made softer by delay. "Yes, but I should like to get home and pray." My text does, not say it will be the accepted time when you get home and pray; it says, "Now," and as I find you are "now" in this pew, "now is the accepted time." If you trust Christ now, you will be accepted: if now you are enabled to throw yourself simply into the hands of Christ, now is the accepted time between God and you. "Well," says another, "it does seem strange to think that I shall be saved this morning: there must be a little time occupied in it surely?" The text says, "Now is the accepted time;" it does not say, "There is an accepted time lasting through a period of weeks, and months, in which we pump ourselves up into a state of grace," but "now," in a moment, acceptance is given. But do you really mean it" says one, " that I, as I am, trusting Christ this morning, without any previous preparation whatever, shall be accepted?" My dear friend, it is not what I mean; it is what the Scripture means. "Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." The moment a sinner trusts in Christ, he is saved, and if thou trustest him now, it is the day of salvation to thee.

Will you kindly look at that text just open your Bibles now, and look at it you, especially, who are unconverted, whet her my hearers or readers? It has two fingerposts to point to it: two beholds. " Behold, now is the accepted time." Now, stop and look at that. Do you believe it? Say "Yes," or "No." There is another "Behold" "Behold, now is the day of salvation." Do you believe that? I have asked you to look at the text, because I want you to look in its face, and, if you dare, say "That is a lie." No, you do not dare to say that. Then if you do not dare to say so, away must go in a single moment all those excuses which you make about a hard heart, not being convinced enough, praying, reading, preparing, and so on. Now, just as the clock ticks, not as an event to take place during a quarter of an hour, but in a moment the whole thing is done: "Now is the day of salvation." And what dost thou say to this? Does God the Holy Spirit now lead thy soul to say, "Gracious Lord, I trust my soul with thee now"? Oh! it is all done. Fly up to heaven, angels! bear the tidings, tell the spirits who look down anxiously watching for the spreading kingdom of the Savior, that another heir of glory is born, another prodigal has returned to his Father's house. Now! now! now! O God, let conquering grace get the victory! How my soul has longed over this text! and now when I get at it, I cannot handle it as I would; but, if I might, I would fain take some of you by the hand think that I have your hand now and I would put this to you, I may never have another opportunity of preaching this text in your ears, for you may be gone before there is another season to hear. "Wilt thou be made whole?" "Canst thou believe?" "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." Old Nabal said to David, "There be many servants now-a-days that break away every man from his master." A bad old fellow, but he spake a good sentence there without knowing it. Are there not some here who will break away from their old master? Are there not some who would fain be servants of Christ and no longer servants of the devil? O souls, if God has made you willing to break with Satan, to lay hold on Christ, this is not a day in which Christ will deny you, for he has expressly said, now he will accept you, for "Now is the accepted time." "But, sir, I am a harlot steeped up to the throat in vice." Still "Now is the accepted time." "Ah! but I have grown grey, sir, I am seventy or eighty, and have lived in sin all these years." Yes, but "Now is the accepted time." Do you believe it or not? "Oh! I have refused the invitation a thousand times over." Yes, but still, still the abundant grace of God says, "Now, is the accepted time." I would to God some of you would decide this very morning, this very morning in your pew where you are now sitting. Now, O Spirit of the living God, waken those whom thou hast chosen and set apart unto eternal life.

I have not time now to dwell on the other two points; we will merely, therefore, hint at them.

III. Now IN HEAVEN! Can you think of it? Now in heaven!

They now delight in the society of Christ; they are now blest with communion with all the glorified spirits; they are now resting from their labors, their toils, their sufferings; they are now full of joys, while to their golden harps they sing; they are just now satisfied with the favor and full of the goodness of the Lord; they are now knowing what they knew not here, knowing even as they are known; they are now more than conquerors, waving their palm branches; they are now safely shut in from all fear of danger; they are now perfect, without taint of sin or remnant of corruption; they are now supremely blest. I merely point the finger where my wing cannot carry me, and where my eye cannot see. Such are your friends who have departed. Your wife is there now, your little infant children are there, your brother is there, your grandsire is there, and we, if we should now die, blessed he the name of God, many of us, should know what they know, and taste what they enjoy in an instant.

IV. That is a dreary thought Now IN HELL!

Some of my hearers who listened to me last year, and in the years that are past, are now now in hell! Now, where no hope can come; now, where no gospel shall ever he preached; now, where they bitterly regret their wasted Sabbaths and despised opportunities; now, where memory holds a dreadful reign, reminding them of all their sins; now, "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched;" where they gnaw their fire-tormented tongues in vain; now, where God's fury is manifested to the full in Tophet's hideous fire; now, where devils, once their tempters, become their tormentors; now, where sinners, who kept jovial company, help to increase the doleful miserere of sighs, and groans, and weeping, and gnashing of teeth; now, accursed of God, accursed for ever and ever! And within a moment, that may be the lot of every sinner here. Within the twinkling of an eye, there is not a man or woman among us out of Christ who may not know this. One drop of blood goes wrong a thousand chances, as we say, may cause it, and hell is your portion. Every anatomist knows that hundreds of times in an hour, through the internal economy of the human frame, our life is in danger; nay, there is not a second in which it is not so. "Great God! on what a feeble thread hang everlasting things!"

"Our life contains a thousand springs,

And dies if one be gone;

Strange! that a harp of thousand strings

Should keep in tune so long."

While we are in this danger, we are passing on to our doom

"We nightly pitch our moving tent

A day's march nearer home."

But where is that home to be with you, unconverted ones? When the express trains first began to run to Scotland, there was seen at the station, one evening, a gentleman tall and thin, whose cheek had the consumptive mark upon it. The porters asked him several questions about his luggage, of which there was a good deal, and when he had been asked several times by different persons, another came up and said, "Where are you going, sir?" Being of short temper, and in great haste, he said, "To hell!" A servant of Christ passed by that moment, and heard the answer. He sought to get in the same carriage, and did so, but at the other end of it; and this gentleman was talking very freely to different persons upon common topics, and the man thought, "I will get a word in if I can." So he joined in the general tenor of the conversation till they alighted at a refreshment station, when, taking the opportunity, he said to the gentleman, "When do you expect to get to the end of your journey?" "Oh," said he, "I am going to cross at such-and-such a town by the boat to-night, and hope to get to my journey's end about twelve o'clock to-morrow morning." The man said, "I think you misunderstand my question. You said when the porter asked you just now where you were going to, that you were going to a very different place." "Ah! yes, I recollect I did," said the gentleman, "but I am sometimes very hasty." The other said to him, " Was it true? Are you going to hell? If so, when do you expect to get there?" And he began to talk to him about that sickness which he could see so certainly in his cheek, and warned him that unless he sought another road, and fled to Christ, the only refuge, he would certainly reach that dreadful end. There are some in this place, who if they were labelled this morning as to where they are going, would have to be directed "to hell." You know that this is the case. And when will you get to your journey's end? Some here may live another fifty years. I pray God that that question of mine may haunt you, and if it be never blessed to you before, may it be then, "When will you yet to your journey's end?" When will you arrive in hell? This morning may some of you in your hearts say, "I am journeying thither, but, by the grace of God, I have come to a dead halt, and not another inch will I go. Lord, make me ready to go to heaven, give me now to trust the Savior that I may live." May God bless these feeble words of mine to his glory and your profit. Amen.

Kelly Commentary on Books of the Bible

2 Corinthians 1:1-24. It is impossible to read the two epistles to the Corinthians with the smallest care without perceiving the strong contrast between the wounded tone of the first epistle (the heart aggrieved so much the more because it loved the saints), and now, in the second, that same heart filled with consolation about them from God. This is exceedingly assuring, and it is as evidently divine, the effectual working of God's own grace.

In human things nothing really shuts out decay. The utmost wise men essay is to put a drag on the progress of corruption, and to stave off as long as may be the too rapid inroads of death. Thanks be to God, it h not so in divine things. There is nothing which so brings out the resources of God as His supremacy over evil in grace, nothing that so manifests His tender mercy and His goodness wherever there is real faith. And spite of the painful disorders of the Corinthians, reality was there. So the apostle, though heart-broken because of their state, would confidently look up to God about them, even in his first so strongly reproving epistle; for it was the Lord Himself who had told him He had much people in that city. There was small appearance of it when he wrote the earlier letter to them; but the Lord was right, as He always is, and the apostle confided in the Lord spite of appearances. He now tastes the joyful fruit of his faith in the recovering grace of the Lord. Hence in this epistle we have not so much as in the former the evidence of their outward disorders. The apostle is not occupied as there with the regulation of the state of the church as such, but we see souls restored. There is indeed the result of that salutary dealing in the very different state of individuals, and also of the assembly; but very emphatically, whatever might be the effect on the many, to a large extent there is a blessed unfolding of life in Christ in its power and effects.

Thus our epistle reminds us to a certain extent of the epistle to the Philippians, resembling it, though not of course the same, nor by any means of so lofty a character; but nevertheless a state appears wholly different from the downward path which the first epistle had reproved. For this change God had prepared His servant; for He takes in everything in His matchless wisdom and ways. He considers not only those written to, but the one He was employing to write. Assuredly He had dealt with them, but He had also dealt with His servant Paul. It was another sort of dealing, not without humbling to them, in him withering to nature, without the shame that necessarily befell the saints at Corinth, but so much the more fitting him to go out in love toward them. As he knew what God's grace had wrought in their hearts, he could the more freely express the sympathy he felt, and, encouraged by all that had been wrought, take up what remained to be accomplished in them. But the unfailing grace of God, that works in the midst of weakness and in the face of death, and had so wrought mightily in him, made the Corinthians very dear to him, and enabled him to bring to bear on their circumstances and their state the most suited comfort that it was ever the mission of that blessed man to minister to the hearts of those that were broken down.

This he now pours forth abundantly, "Blessed be God;" for his heart, surcharged with grief when the first epistle was written, could open, "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble," no matter what, were it through grave faults, were it to their own deep shame and to his grief as once. But now the comfort far overcomes the sorrow, and we are enabled to "comfort them that are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." Here with a true heart he at once brings in the sufferings of Christ: "For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation."

The difference in this from Philippians, to which I have referred, is remarkable. The point in hand there is, that they were working out their own salvation, the apostle being, in a certain sense, completely shut out from them. Unable from circumstances, he there lets them know that he does not mingle himself with them in the same way. Their state did not need it. Undoubtedly this is a difference; but it is only that which is owing to their manhood in grace. Here they wanted more. It was the unfolding of grace in both; but the difference was largely to the credit of His name in the Philippians. It was the proof of their excellent condition that the apostle had such perfect confidence in them, even while he was absolutely precluded from being near them. He was at a distance from them, and had but small prospect of meeting with them shortly.

To the Corinthians he could speak otherwise. He was comparatively near, and was hoping the third time, as he tells us in the latter part of the epistle, to come to them. Nevertheless he interweaves his own experience with theirs in a way which is wonderfully gracious to those who had a heart. "And whether we be afflicted," he says, "it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation." Was it not the reckoning of grace? Whatever came on them, it was for their comfort. If affliction, the Lord would turn it to their blessing; if joy and consolation, no less to their blessing. At the same time he lets them know what trouble had come upon himself, and in the most delightful manner turns it to account. Whatever was the might of God that had sustained him when there was nothing on their part to give him comfort, but rather to add to the anguish of his spirit, now that grace was operating in their hearts, he shows how dependant he felt on their prayers. Truly beautiful is grace, and far different from the manner of man.

How blessed to have the working of God not only in Him that is absolute perfection, but in one who feels like ourselves, who had the same nature in the same state that has wrought such continual mischief towards God! At the same time, it is proved by such a one as this servant of God to be only the means of furnishing additional proof in another form that the might of God's Spirit is without limit, and can work the greatest moral wonders even in a poor human heart. Undoubtedly we should lose much if we had it not in its full perfection in Christ; but how much we should lose if we had not also the working of grace, not where human nature was itself lovely, not a spot without nor a taint of sin within, but where everything natural was evil, and nothing else; where nevertheless the power of the Holy Ghost wrought in the new man, lifting the believer completely above the flesh. This was the case with the apostle.

At the same time there was the answer of grace in their hearts, though it might be developed comparatively but little. Evidently there was a great deal that required to be set right in them; but they were on the right road. This was a joy to his heart, and so at once he encourages them, and gives them to know how little his heart had turned away from them, how he loved to link himself with them instead of standing aloof from them. "Ye also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf. For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity," etc. He had been charged with the contrary. Being a man of remarkable wisdom and power of discernment, he paid the penalty that this must always entail in this world. That is, they imputed it to his ability and natural penetration; and the real power of the Spirit of God was thus merely accredited to flesh.

There was also an imputation of vacillation if not dishonesty. His purpose of visiting Corinth had been set aside. First of all the apostle takes this up in a spirit of self-renunciation, bent on Christ's glory. Supposing their imputation to be true, supposing Paul had been as fickle-minded a man as his enemies insinuated, if he had said he would come and did not come after all, what then? At any rate his preaching was not thus. The word that Paul preached was not "yea and nay." In Christ it was "Yea," where there is no "nay." There is no refusal nor failure. There is everything to win, and comfort, and establish the soul in Christ. There is no negation of grace, still less of uncertainty in Christ Jesus the Lord. There is everything that can comfort the sad, attract the hard, and embolden the distrustful. Let it be the very vilest, what is there lacking that can lead on and into the highest place of blessing and enjoyment of God, not only in hope, but even now by the Spirit of God in the face of all adversaries? This was the Christ that he loved to preach. By Him came grace and truth. He at least is absolutely what He speaks. Who or what was so worthy of trust? And this is put in a most forcible way. "For," says he, "all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen." It is not a bare literal accomplishment of the promises. This is not the, statement any more than the state of things which is come in now; but as to all the promises of God, it matters not what they may be, in Him is the yea, and in Him the Amen, to the glory of God by us. They have found their every verification in Christ.

Was eternal life promised? In Him was eternal life in its highest form. For what will be eternal life in the millennial day compared with that which was and now is in Jesus? It will be a most real introduction and outshining of eternal life in that day; but still in Christ the believer has it now, and in its absolute perfection. Take, again, remission of sins. Will that display of divine mercy, so needed by and precious to the guilty sinner, be known in the millennium at all comparably with what God has brought in and sends out now in Christ? Take what you please, say heavenly glory; and is not Christ in it in all perfection? It does not matter, therefore, what may be looked at, "whatever be the promises of God, in him is the yea, and in him the Amen." It is not said in us. Evidently there are many promises not yet accomplished as regards us. Satan has not lost but acquired, in the dominion of the world, a higher place by the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ; but faith can see in that very act by which he acquired it his eternal downfall. Now is the judgment of the world. The prince of the world is judged, but the sentence is not executed yet. Instead of being dethroned by the cross, he has thereby gained in the world that remarkable place and title. But for all that, whatever the apparent success of the devil, and whatever the delay as to "the promises of God, in Him is the yea, and in Him the Amen, unto the glory of God by us."

But further, the apostle is not content with this alone. He would have them know, having thus described the word which he preached, that which was infinitely dearer to him than his own character. Now he tells them that it was to spare them he had not come to Corinth. This ought to have been a reproof; and it is given in the most delicate manner. It was the sweet result of divine love in his heart. He preferred to tarry or turn aside, rather than to visit the Corinthians in their then condition. Had he come at all, he must have come with a rod, and this he could not endure. He wished to come with nothing but kindness, to blame nobody, to speak of nothing painful and humiliating to them (albeit, in truth, more humiliating to him, for he loved them). And as a parent would be ashamed in his child's shame far more than the child is capable of feeling, so precisely the apostle had this feeling about those he had begotten in the gospel. He loved the Corinthians dearly, spite of all their faults, and he would rather bear their unworthy suggestions of a fickle mind because he did not visit them at once, than come to censure them in their evil and proud state. He wished to give them time, that he might come with joy.

In 2 Corinthians 2:1-17 this is entered into a little more, and the deep anxiety of his heart is shown about them. We may easily gather what an open door for evangelizing is to one who was a great preacher of the gospel, as well as an apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles. Although such an opportunity now offered itself, and was, no doubt, a strong impelling cause to work there, still he had no rest for his spirit. His heart was disturbed about the state of Corinth, and the case that tried him most in their midst. It seemed as if he felt nothing else, as if there was no sufficient call to occupy him in other quarters. He could turn from that most animating and immediate reward to any labourer in this world. Whatever might be the preciousness of presenting Christ to those who knew Him not, to see the manifestation of the glory of Christ in those that did know Him, to see it restored where it was obscured was something even nearer to his heart. The one would be, no doubt, great joy to wretched souls, and the spread of the glory of the Lord in the regions beyond; but here the glory of the Lord had been tarnished in those that bore His name before men; and how could Paul feel this lightly? What pressed so urgently on him? Hence it was that no attraction of gospel service, no promise of work, however fair, that called him elsewhere, could detain him. He felt the deepest affliction about the saints, as he says here, and had no rest in his spirit, because he found not Titus his brother, who had been to see them.

Then, again, among the particular instances which most pressed on him was, his exceeding trouble about the man he had ordered them to put away. For this he had authority from God, and the responsibility of heeding it abides, I need not say, in its entirety for us. We are just as much under that authority as they were. But now that God had wrought in the man who was the chief and grossest evidence of the power of Satan in the assembly, what a comfort to his heart! This sin, unknown even among the Gentiles, and the more shameful as being where the name of the Lord Jesus had been confessed and the Spirit dwelt, became the occasion of the most salutary instruction for all their souls, for they had learnt what becomes God's assembly under such humiliating circumstances. And they had responded to the solemn call pressed on them in the name of the Lord, and had purged out the evil leaven from the midst of their paschal feast. Only now they were in danger on the judicial side. They were disposed to be as over-severe as they had been previously unexercised and lax. Paul would infuse the same spirit of grace towards the penitent offender that filled himself. They had realised at length the shame that had been done to the Lord's glory, and were indignant with themselves as parties to identifying His name, not to speak of themselves, with such scandals. Thus they were slow to forgive the man that had wrought such a wrong, and Satan sought in an opposite way to separate them in heart from the blessed apostle, who had roused them to just feelings after their too long slumber. Just as Paul was horrified at their indifference to sin at first, so now it was impossible but that he must be concerned, lest there should be a failure in grace as a little before in righteousness. But there is nothing like a manifestation of grace to call out grace; and he lets them know what was his own feeling, not merely about the wrong-doer, but about themselves. "To whom ye forgive anything, I forgive also; for if I forgave anything, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ; lest Satan should gain an advantage over us: for we are not ignorant of his devices." This is his spirit. It is no longer a command, but a trust reposed in the saints; and when we think of that which is afterwards to appear in this epistle, what was still at work among them as well as what had been, it is certainly a most blessed and beautiful proof of the reality of grace, and of the effects which can be, as they have been, produced by it in the heart of a saint here below. What do we not owe to Jesus?

After having disposed of this matter for the present (for he recurs to it afterwards), he turns to speak of the way in which he was led of God through trial, no matter of what character. let the question be of the man who had wandered so far astray, but was now restored really to the Lord, and to whom he desired that his brethren should publicly confirm their love; or let it be that he is turned aside from gospel work because of his anxiety on their account, he now tells them of the triumph which the Lord gave him to prove everywhere.

This leads in2 Corinthians 3:1-18; 2 Corinthians 3:1-18 to an unfolding of righteousness in Christ, but in a style considerably different from what we found in the Epistle to the Romans. There the broad and deep, foundations were exposed to view, as well as the Spirit's power and liberty consequent on the soul's submission to Christ's work. The proposition was God just and the justifier, not by blood only, but in that resurrection power in which Christ rose from among the dead. According to no less a work of such a Saviour we are justified.

But in this chapter the Spirit goes higher still. He connects righteousness with heavenly glory, while at the same time this righteousness and glory are shown to be perfectly in grace as regards us. It is not in the slightest degree glory without love (as sometimes people might think of glory as a cold thing); and if it withers up man from before it, the fleshly nature no doubt, it is only with a view to the enjoyment of greater vigour, through the power of Christ resting on us in our detected and felt weakness.

The chapter opens with an allusion to the habit so familiar to God's church of sending and requiring a letter of commendation. "Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?" Not at all. And what then is his letter of commendation? Themselves. What confidence he must have had in the gracious power of God, that his letter of commendation could be the Corinthian saints! He does not look around to choose the most striking instances of those converted by him. He takes what was perhaps the most humiliating scene that he had ever experienced, and he points even to these saints as a letter of commendation. And why so? Because he knew the power of life in Christ. He was reassured. In the darkest day he had looked up to God with confidence about it, when any other heart had failed utterly; but now that light was beginning to dawn upon them, yet still but dawned so to speak afresh, he could boldly say that they were not merely his, but Christ's, letter. Bolder and bolder evidently he becomes as he thinks of the name of the Lord and of that enjoyment which he had found, and found afresh, in the midst of all his troubles. Hence he says, "Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart." There were not wanting there those that endeavoured to impose legal principles on the Corinthians. Not that here it was the strongest or subtlest effort of the enemy. There was more of Sadduceeism at work among them than of Pharisaism; but still not infrequently Satan finds room for both, or a link between both. His ministry was emphatically not that which could find its type in any form of the law, or in what was written upon stone, but on the fleshy table of the heart by the Spirit of the living God. Accordingly this gives rise to a most striking contrast of the letter that kills and of the spirit that gives life. As is said here, "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; who also hath made us able ministers of the new covenant." Then lest any should conceive that this was the accomplishment of the Old Testament, he lets us know it is no more than the spirit of that covenant, not the letter. The covenant itself in its express terms awaits both houses of Israel in a day not yet arrived; but meanwhile Christ in glory anticipates for us that day, and this is, of course, "not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."

Next, we find a long parenthesis; for the true connection of the end of verse 6 is with verse 17, and all between properly forms a digression. I shall read the words outside the parenthesis, in order to make this manifest. He had said that "the spirit giveth life." Now the Lord (he adds) "is that spirit;" which last word ought to be printed with a small "s," not a capital. Some Bibles have this, I dare say, correctly; but others, like the one in my hand, incorrectly. "That spirit" does not mean the Holy Ghost, though it is He alone that could enable a soul to seize the spirit under the letter. But the apostle, I believe, means that the Lord Jesus is the spirit of the different forms that are found in the law. Thus he turns aside in a remarkable but characteristic manner; and as he intimates in what sense he was the minister of the new covenant (i.e. not in a mere literal fashion but in the spirit of it), so he connects this spirit with the forms of the law all through. There is a distinct divine purpose or idea couched under the legal forms, as their inner spirit, and this, he lets us know, is really Christ the Lord "Now the Lord is that spirit." This it is that ran through the whole legal system in its different types and shadows.

Then he brings in the Holy Ghost, "and where" (not simply "that spirit," but) "the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." There is a notable difference between the two expressions. "The Spirit of the Lord" is the Holy Spirit that characterizes Christianity; but underneath the letter of the Jewish system, faith seized "the spirit" that referred to Christ. There was the outward ritual and commandment with which flesh made itself content; but faith always looked to the Lord, and saw Him, however dimly, beyond the letter in which God marked indelibly, and now makes known by ever accumulating proofs, that He from the first pointed to the One that was coming. A greater than anything then manifested was there; underneath the Moseses and the Aarons, the Davids and the Solomons, underneath what was said and done, signs and tokens converged on One that was promised, even Christ.

And now "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." This was unknown under the Levitical order of things. There was a veiled form of truth, and now it is manifest. The Holy Ghost brings us into the power and enjoyment of this as a present thing. Where He is, there is liberty.

But looking back for a moment at the parenthesis, we see that the direct effect of the law (no matter what may be the mercy of God that sustained, spite of its curse) is in itself a ministration of death. Law can only condemn; it can but enforce death as on God's part. It never was in any sense the intention of God by the law to introduce either righteousness or life. Nor these only, but the Spirit He now brings in through Christ. "If the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away," it was not at all an abiding thing, but merely temporary in its own nature, "how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be, rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation" (another point after the ministration of death; if it then) "be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory." It is not simply the mercy of God, you observe, but the ministration of righteousness. When the Lord was here below, what was the character of His ministration? It was grace; not yet a ministration of righteousness. Of course, He was emphatically righteous, and everything He did was perfectly consistent with the character of the Righteous. Never was there the smallest deflection from righteousness in aught He ever did or said. Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. But when He went up to heaven on the footing of redemption through His blood, He had put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself: the ministration was not of grace merely, but of righteousness. In short, righteousness without redemption must destroy, not save; grace before redemption could not deliver, but at most forbear to judge; but righteousness founded on redemption provides the stablest possible basis for the believer.

Whatever the mercy displayed to us now, it is perfectly righteous in God to show it. He is vindicated in everything. Salvation is no stretch of His prerogative. Its language is not, "The person is guilty; but I will let him off; I will not execute the sentence against him." The Christian is now admitted to a place before God according to the acceptance of Christ Himself. Being altogether by Christ, it brings nothing but glory to God, because Christ who died was God's own Son, given of His own love for this very purpose, and there in the midst of all wrongs, of everything out of course here below, while the evil still remains unremoved, and death ravages still, and Satan has acquired all possible power of place as god and prince of this world, this deepest manifestation of God's own glory is given, bringing souls which were once the guiltiest and the vilest out of it, not only before God, but in their own souls, and in the knowledge and enjoyment of it, and all righteously through Christ's redemption. This is what the apostle triumphs in here. So he calls it not the ministration of life indeed; for there was always the new birth or nature through the mercy of God; but now he brings in a far fuller name of blessing, that of the Spirit, because the ministration of the Spirit is over and above life. It supposes life, but moreover also the gift and presence of the Holy Ghost. The great mistake now is when saints cling to the old things, lingering among, the ruins of death when God has given them a title flowing from grace, but abundant in righteousness, and a ministration not merely of life, but of the Spirit.

So he goes on farther, and says that "that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth. For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious." This again is another quality that he speaks of. We come to what abides to what never can be shaken, as he puts it to the Hebrews later. To this permanence of blessing we are come in Christ, no matter what else may come. Death may come for us; judgment certainly will for the world for man at least. The complete passing away of this creation is at hand. But we are already arrived at that which remains, and no destruction of earth can possibly affect its security; no removal to heaven will have any other effect than to bring out its lustre and abidingness. So he says, "Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech: and not as Moses, which put a veil over his face."

This characterized the dealings of the law, that there never was the bringing God and man, so to speak, face to face. Such a meeting could not yet be. But now it is. Not only has God come down to man face to face, but man is brought to look in where God is in His own glory, and without a veil between. It is not the condescension of the Word made flesh coming down to where man is, but the triumph of accomplished righteousness and glory, because the Spirit comes down from Christ in heaven. It is the ministration of the Spirit, who comes down from the exalted man in glory, and has given us the assurance that this is our portion, now to look into it, soon to be with Him. Hence he says it is "not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: but their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament; which veil is done away in Christ." This is as in Christ when known to us. So "even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away." But then we do not wait here for their turning to the Lord, which will be their portion by-and-by. Meanwhile the Lord has turned to us, turning us to Himself, in His great grace, and brought us into righteousness, peace, as well as glory in hope yea, in present communion, through redemption. The consequence is, all evil is gone for us, and all blessedness secured, and known to be so, in Christ; and, as he says here, "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Then, he adds further, "We all, with open [unveiled] face, beholding ["as in a glass" is uncalled for] the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." Thus the effect of the triumph of our Lord Jesus, and of the testimony of the Holy Ghost, is to put us into present association with the glory of the Lord as the object before our souls; and this is what transforms us according to its own heavenly character.

In 2 Corinthians 4:1-18 the apostle takes into account the vessel that contains the heavenly treasure. He shows that as "we have this ministry, and "have received mercy" therefore to the uttermost, "we faint not; but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. But if our gospel be hid, it is bid to them that are lost." Such is the solemn conclusion: "In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

This is the gospel of the glory of Christ. It is not merely that we have the heavenly title, as we are taught in 1 Corinthians 15:1-58. The utmost on this subject brought before us there was, that we are designated "heavenly," and are destined to bear the image of the heavenly One by-and-by. The second epistle comes between the two points of title and destiny, with the transforming effect of occupation with Christ in His glory on high. Thus space is left for practice and experience between our calling and our glorification. But then this course between is by no means sparing to nature; for, as he shows here, "we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." God makes us feel this, and helps on the practical transformation; and by what means? By bringing us into every kind of trouble and sorrow, so as to make nothing of flesh. For it is the allowed liveliness of nature that hinders the manifestation of the treasure; whereas its judgment leaves room for the light to shine out. This, then, is what God carries on. It explained much in the apostle's path which they had not been in a state to comprehend; and it contributed, where received and applied in the Spirit, to advance God's objects as regards them. "Death worketh in us, but life in you." What grace, and how blessed the truth! But see the way in which the process is carried on, "We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death." He speaks of the actualisation: all helps the great object, even such circumstances as seemed the most disastrous possible. God exposed His servant to death. This was only carrying out more effectually the breaking down that was always going on. "So then death worketh in us, but life in you. We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak; knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you. For all things are for your sakes." And thus then, if there was the endurance of affliction, he would encourage their hearts, calling, as he felt it, "light affliction." He knew well what trial was. "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal."

This introduces the Christian's estimate of both death and judgment as measured by Christ. He looks now steadily at all that can possibly appal the natural heart. Death the Christian may pass through. Judgment will never be for the Christian. Nevertheless his sense of judgment, as it really will come, although not for himself, is most influential and for others too. There may be a mighty effect on the soul, and a deep spring of worship, and a powerful lever in service, through that which does not concern us at all. The sense of what it is may be all the more felt because we are delivered from its weight; and we can thus more thoroughly, because more calmly, contemplate it in the light of God, seeing its inevitable approach and overwhelming power for those that have not Christ. Accordingly he says, "We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven."

But let us not forget that he takes care (for his heart was not relieved as to every individual in Corinth) to add solemnly, "If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked." He was not quite sure but that some there might be found exposed, because devoid of a Saviour. There are those who give this a very different turn, and make it to be a verse of consolation instead of warning; but such a view deprives us of the true scope of the clause. The common version and natural interpretation appears to me quite correct. It does not mean "since being clothed we shall not be found naked," which has no worthy lesson to convey to any soul. The readings differ, but that which answers to the common version I believe to be correct. The apostle would warn every soul that, although every one will be clothed in the day that is coming (namely, at the resurrection of the body, when souls are no longer found without the body but clothed), nevertheless some, even in spite of that clothing, shall be found naked. The wicked are then to be clothed no less than the saints, who will have been already raised or changed; their bodies shall be raised from the dead just as truly as those of the righteous; but when the unrighteous stand in resurrection before the great white throne, how, bare will they appear? What will it be in that day to have no Christ to clothe us?

After so salutary a caution to such as made too much of knowledge in the neglect of conscience, the apostle turns to that fulness of comfort which he was communicating to the saints. "We," he says, "that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened." He has no wish to deny the sorrow and weakness. He knew what it is to suffer and be sorrowful far better than any of them. "We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed." Thus there is no mere wish to get away from the present scene with its sadness and trial. It is never allowed one to be impatient. To desire to be with Christ is right; but to be restive under that which connects us with shame and pain is not of Christ. "Not for," then, "that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon." This was his ardent wish, to be "clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life." It is not that he might die, but the very reverse, that the mortality already working in him might be swallowed up by Him who is eternal life, and our life.

He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God." It is not here wrought something for us, but "wrought us." This is a remarkable expression of the grace of God in associating with His unfailing purpose in Christ. "He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit;" given us, therefore, even now a taste of the blessedness and glory that are in store for us. "Therefore we are always confident." Think of such language! Think of it as the apostle's words describing, our portion, and in full view of both death and judgment! "We are always confident." We can easily understand one whose eye was simply on Christ and His love, saying, "We are confident," though turning to look at that which might well tax the stoutest heart. Certainly it were madness not to be overwhelmed by it, unless there were such a ministration of the Spirit as the apostle was then enjoying in its fruits in his soul. But he did enjoy it profoundly; and, what is more, he puts it as the common enjoyment of all Christians. It is not alone a question of his own individual feelings, but of that which God gave him to share now with the saints of God as such. "Therefore," says he, "we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: for we walk by faith, not by sight: we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ."

This, again, is a very important truth indeed in its own place, and the effect is most striking; namely, deep anxiety about the lost, and the consciousness of our own manifestation to God now. Not that I mean by this that we shall not be manifested by-and-by; for we shall be perfectly. But if we are manifest in conscience before God now, it is evident that there is nothing that can cause the slightest uneasiness in our being manifested before Christ's tribunal. The truth is, so far is the manifestation before our Lord a source of alarm to the saint (though it should surely solemnise the heart), that I am persuaded the soul would lose a positive and substantial blessing, if it could by any possibility escape being manifested there. Nor does it matter what the degree of manifestation may now be in conscience. Still, it can never be perfect till then; and our God would give us perfection in this as in all else. It is now hindered by various causes, as far as we are concerned. There is the working of self-love in the hearts of the saints; there is that which has cast a film over the eye which dulls our souls. Alas! we know it too well.

The effect of our manifestation before the tribunal of Christ is, that we shall know as we are known. That is, it will be carrying out in absolute perfection what we now know in the measure of our spirituality. Now, what is the effect of one's arriving at a better knowledge of himself, and a deeper consciousness of the Christian's place in Christ? Always a real blessing, and a means of greater enjoyment of Christ. Is it not much to have a lowlier feeling about ourselves? to esteem others better than ourselves? and thus to deepen daily in the grace of the Lord Jesus? And are not these things the result? And will the perfect knowledge of ourselves be a loss, and not a gain?

At the same time, it is solemn assuredly for every secret to be spread out between the Lord and ourselves. It is solemn for all to be set in the light in which we may have been misled now, and which may have caused trouble and grief to others, casting reproach on the name of the Lord, in itself an affecting and afflicting thing. Never should we be deceived by Satan. He may accuse the saints, but they ought in no case to be deceived by him. He deceives the world, and accuses the brethren. Alas! we know, in point of fact, that we are liable through unwatchfulness to his wiles; but this does not make it less a humiliation for us, and a temporary advantage for Satan when we fall into his trap. We are not ignorant of his devices; but this will not always, nor in itself in any case, preserve us. There are defeats. The judgment-seat of Christ will disclose all; where each hidden thing will be clear; where nothing but the fruit of the Spirit shall stand for ever.

Nevertheless the sight of that judgment-seat brings at once before his eye, not the saints, but the perishing world; and so complete is the peace of his own spirit, so rich and sure the deliverance Christ has accomplished for all the saints, that the expressed effect is to kindle his heart about those that are braving everlasting destruction those on whom the judgment-seat can bring nothing but hopeless exclusion from God and His glory.

For we say here by the way, that we must be all manifested, whether saints or sinners. There is a peculiarity in the phrase which is, to my thinking, quite decisive as to its not meaning saints only. As to the objection to this founded on the word "we," there is no force in it at all. "We" is no doubt commonly used in the apostolic epistles for saints, but not for them exclusively. Context decides. Be assured that all such rules are quite fallacious. What intelligent Christian ever understood from scripture all the canons of criticism in the world? They are not to be trusted for a moment. Why have confidence in anything of the sort? Mere traditional formulas or human technicalities will not do for the ascertainment of God's word. The moment men rest on general laws by which to interpret scripture, I confess they seem to me on the brink of error, or doomed to wander in a desert of ignorance. We must be disciplined if we would learn indeed; and we need to read and hear things as God writes them; but we do well and wisely to eschew all human byways and short-cuts for deciding the sense of what God has revealed. It is not only the students of medieval divinity, or of modem speculation, who are in danger. None of us is beyond the need of jealousy over self, and of simple-hearted looking to the lord.

Here, indeed, the apostle's reasoning, and the nicety of language, furnish demonstrative evidence in the passage (that is, both in the spirit and in the letter), that we must all, whether saints or sinners, be manifested before Christ; not at the same time nor for the same end, but all before His judgment-seat at some time. Had the language been, "we must all be judged," the "we" must have been there limited to the unconverted. While they only come into judgment, believer and unbeliever must alike be manifested. The effect of manifestation for the believer will be the fulness of rest and delight in the ways of God. The effect of the manifestation for the unbeliever will be the total withering up of every excuse or pretence that had deceived him here below. No flesh shall glory in His presence, and man must stand self-convicted before the Judge of all. Thus the choice of language is, as usual in scripture, absolutely perfect, and to my mind quite decisive that the manifestation here is universal. This acts on the servant of Christ, who knows what the terror of the Lord is, and calls him out to "persuade men." What is meant by this? It is really to preach the gospel to men at large.

At the same time the apostle adds, "We commend not ourselves again unto you, but give you occasion to glory on our behalf." For he had expressed his trust of being made manifest to their consciences, as well as stated how absolutely we are manifested to God. "For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God: or whether we be sober, it is for your cause." Then he brings in the constraining power of the love of Christ, and why? Because, as he looked round him, he saw nothing but death written on man, and all that pertains to him here below. The whole scene was one vast grave. Of course, he was not thinking of the saints of God, but, contrariwise, in the midst of this universal death, as far as man is concerned, he rejoices to see some alive. I understand, therefore, that when he says, "If one die for all, then were all dead," he means those who had really died by sin, and because of the contrast it seems to me plain "He died for all, that they which live" (these are the saints, the objects of God's favour) "should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again." What was the effect of this? That having thus before his soul, not the universal death of all only, but some who by grace were alive, through the death and resurrection of Christ, he now brings out, not the contrast of the new creation with all that went before yea, the contrast of the Messianic hopes as such with that higher glory which he was now asserting. Even a living Messiah could not satisfy what his soul had learnt to be in accordance with the glory of God. Not, of course, that he did not delight in the hope of his nation. It is one thing to value what God will do for the earth by-and-by, it is quite another to fail in appreciating that which God has now created and revealed in a risen Christ above, once rejected and dying for us. Accordingly it is one glory that will display the promises and ways of God triumphing over man and Satan; it is another and far surpassing glory which He who is the Messiah, but much more, and now the heavenly man, reveals. His death is the judgment of our sins in God's grace, and an end of the whole scene for us, and hence perfect deliverance from man and from present things yea, even from the best hopes for the earth.

What can be better than a Messiah come to bless man in this world? But the Christian is not occupied with this at all. According to the Old Testament he looked at it, but now that the Messiah is seen dead and risen, now that He is passed into heavenly glory through death, this is the glory for the Christian. "Henceforth know we no man after the flesh:" this puts the saints in a common position of knowledge. "Henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh." As for a living Messiah, and all the expectations that were bound up with Him and His coming here below, all this is passed away for the Christian. It is not that the Messiah will not return as such; but as for the sphere and character of our own relations, they are founded on death and resurrection, and seen on high. Such is the way the apostle treats it. He looks at Christ in His relationship with us as One that has passed out of this earth and the lower creation into heavenly places. It is there and thus we know Him. By knowing Him he means the special form of the truth with which we are concerned, the manner in which we are put into positive, living association with Him. That which we know as our centre of union, as the object of our souls, is Christ risen and glorified. In any other point of view, however bright and glorious, "now henceforth know we him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ," etc.

It is not merely if any man look to Christ: the Old Testament saints rejoiced to see His day; but this is a very different thing from being in Christ. There are many who take the scriptures in so crude and vague a manner that to their eyes it is all the same; but I hope such is not the case with any here. No doubt, to be in Christ as we are now is through looking, to Him. But it was not always so. Take the disciples in the days of Christ's pathway here below: were they in Christ then? Certainly not. There was the working of divine faith in them. They were unquestionably "born again;" but is this the same thing as being "in Christ"? Being in Christ means that, redemption having come in, the Holy Ghost can and does give us a conscious standing in Christ in His now risen character. To be "in Christ" describes the believer, not in Old Testament times, but now.

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." Thus there is a blessed and suited ministry. The law directed a people at a distance from God. It Supposed such a condition and dealt accordingly. Even if a poor brute touched the mountain, it was to be stoned. At length God came down to meet man in grace as he is; and man rejected God manifest in flesh. Redemption was thereby effected; man is brought without sin to God. Christ is the person who made both good. He brought God down to man, and He brought man in Himself up to God. Such is the position in which we stand. It is not any longer merely God coming down to man in Christ. This is neither the manner nor the measure in which He reveals Himself now. The Lord Jesus Christ is gone up to heaven; and this not as a sole individual, but as the head of a family. He would not take the place of headship until all the evil was completely gone. He would give us His own acceptance before God. He took His stand on retrieving God's moral glory by bearing our sins; yet as He came down, so He went up to God, holy and spotless. He had by His own blood blotted out the sins of others who believe in Him. It was not merely a born Messiah, the chief of Israel, but "God was in Christ."

Observe, not that God is in Christ, but that He was. It is a description of what was manifested when the Lord was here below. But if it be a mistake to read God is, it is a still greater error too common in books, old and new alike, that God has reconciled the world. This is not the meaning of the statement. The English version is perfectly right; the criticism that pretends to correct it is thoroughly wrong It is never said that the world is reconciled to God. Christ was a blessed and adequate image of God; and God was in Him manifesting Himself in the supremacy of His own grace here below. No doubt His law had its suited place; but God in grace is necessarily above the law. As man, at least as of Israel, Jesus was born under the law; but this was in not the slightest degree an abandonment of God's rights, and still less of His grace. God came near to men in love in the most attractive form, going in and out among them, taking up little children, entering into houses when asked, conversing by the way, going about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with Him. It was not merely in quest of the lost sheep of Israel. How could such grace be restrained only to Jews? God had larger thoughts and feelings than this. Therefore let a Gentile centurion come, or a Samaritan woman, or any body else: who was not welcome? For "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them."

Full of grace and truth, He would not even raise the question of this trespass or that. There was no doubt of man's guilt; but this was not the divine way of Christ. Other and more efficacious aims were in the hand of the God of all grace. He would save, but at the same time exercise the conscience more than ever. For great would be the loss for a sinner awakened, if it were possible for him not to take God's part against himself. This is the real course and effect of repentance in the soul. But God was in Christ reconciling the world for all that, yea in order to it. It was not a question of dealing with them for their trespasses. And what now that He is gone away? "He hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation." He is gone, but not the errand of mercy for which He came. The Messiah as such disappears for the time; there remains the fruit of the blessed manifestation of God in Christ in an evil world. "Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech by us: we pray in Christ's stead, be reconciled to God." But how can this be? On what basis can we essay such a task! Not because the Spirit of God is in us, however true it may be, but because of the atonement. Redemption by Christ's blood is the reason. "For God hath made him. to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

Then, following up this in the next chapter (2 Corinthians 6:1-18), the, true moral traits of the Christian ministry are shown, and what a price it had in his eyes. What should not be done and endured for the sake of worthily carrying out this ministration of Christ here below! What should be the practical witness to a righteousness not acquired by us, but freely given of God! Such is the character of it, according to the work of Christ before God and of His redemption; so we should "give no offence in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed: but in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments." In every thing crushing to nature did the apostle fulfil his mission. Is the reproach of Christ to be an apostolic perquisite? Are not His servants to share it still? Is it not true from first to last?

Again, in serving the Lord, there are two special ways in which we are apt to go astray. Some err by an undue narrowness, others by as injurious laxity. In fact, it is never right to be narrow, and always wrong to be lax. In Christ there is no license or excuse for either. But the Corinthians, like others, were in danger on both sides; for each provokes the other. Hence the appeal, "O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels." There was the caution against a narrow heart; but now against a lax path he warns, "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? and what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?" Thus is embraced individual responsibility as well as corporate. "For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them."

Thus, as in the exercise of ministry according to Christ, there was nothing that should not be endured; there was no scorn or trial, no pain or shame, but what he himself counted as nothing that Christ only should be served, and the witness of His name kept up in this world according to His grace; so now he presses on the saints what is incumbent on them as the epistle of Christ, to make good a true witness for Him in this world, steering clear of all that is hard and narrow, which is altogether alien from the grace of God, and of that laxity which is still more offensive to His nature. In the first verse of 2 Corinthians 7:1-16 the whole matter is wound up, "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." The second verse evidently belongs to the subject succeeding. In the rest of the seventh chapter he renews (and has, I think, connected both with these words about the ministry and the responsibility of the saints) what he had alluded to already among them. He touches, with that delicate tact so characteristic of him, on their repentance. He would encourage their hearts in every way, but now ventures to go somewhat farther in the grace of Christ.

Accordingly his own feelings are told out, how exceedingly cast down he had been, and oppressed on every side, so that he had no rest. "Without were fightings, within were fears." Indeed, the fear had gone so far, that he had actually been tried as to the inspired epistle he had written. The apostle had a question raised in his mind about his own inspired epistle! Yet what writing was more certainly of God? "For though I made you sorry with the letter, I do not regret, though I did regret." How clearly we learn, whatever the working of God in man, that after all the inspiration of a vessel is far above his own will, and the fruit of the action of the Holy Ghost! As we find an unholy man might be inspired of God to bring out a new communication for example, a Balaam or a Caiaphas, so holy men of God still more. But the remarkable thing to note is the way in which a question was raised even about an epistle which God has preserved in His own book, and, without a doubt, divinely inspired. But he also mentions how glad he was now that, having sent off that letter, he had made them sorry. "For I perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry, though it were but for a season. Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance; for ye were made sorry according to God, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing." How great is the grace! "For sorrow according to God worketh repentance to salvation not to be regretted: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed according to God, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter." What a comfort to the heart that had been so profoundly touched by their state!

In 2 Corinthians 8:1-24, and 2 Corinthians 9:1-15, the subject of contributing for saints is resumed, though a great deal more fully than in 1 Corinthians 16:1-24, and with a fresh spring of joy communicated to his spirit. What an evidence is given of the exercises of his heart in this thing too! It appears he had spoken confidently about the Corinthian saints. There had been afterwards much to wound and weaken that confidence; but he now returns to the matter, and reckons with certainty that the God who had wrought in the painful matter, not of the guilty man only, but in them all about it, that His grace would also give him cause for joy in rousing their hearts into largeness of love for those that were depressed elsewhere. He had boasted of the liberality of the Corinthians, which had kindled zeal in others. On the one hand, he would have his hope of them verified, on the other he desired none to be burdened, but certainly fruit Godward both in the givers and in the receivers. How rich and enriching in His grace! Blessed be God for His unspeakable gift!

In 2 Corinthians 10:1-18, and 2 Corinthians 11:1-33 he comes to another subject his own ministry on which a few words must suffice. Enough had been cleared away to open his heart on it: he could enlarge here. It was his confidence in them that made him write. When his spirit was bound, because of there being so much to cause shame and pain, he could not be free; but now he is. Hence we have here a most blessed opening of what this servant of God felt in what was necessarily a sore distress to his spirit. For what could be more humbling than that the Corinthian saints, the fruit of his own ministry, had admitted into their hearts insinuations against him, doubts of the reality of his apostolate, all that lowering which, in other forms but not substantially unlike, we may have too often observed, and just in proportion to the importance and spiritual value of the trust reposed of God in any on the earth? The apostle knew sorrow as no other ever knew it. Not even the twelve tasted its bitterness as he did, from spirituality and from circumstances; and the manner in which he deals with it, the dignity, and at the same time the lowliness, the faith that looked right to the Lord, but at the same time the warmth of affection, grief of heart mingling with joy, furnish such a tableau as is unique even in the word of God. No such analysis appears anywhere else of the heart of one serving the saints in the midst of the greatest outrages to his love, as we recognise in this epistle. He bows to the charge of rudeness in speech; but they had used the admitted power of his letters against himself. Yet he warns lest what he is absent they may learn in him present. Others might exalt themselves through his labours; he hoped when their faith was increased to preach the gospel in the regions beyond. (2 Corinthians 10:1-18) They had exalted the other apostles in disparagement of him. They had even imputed to him selfishness. It might be true, thought they, that he had reaped no material benefit himself from them; but what about others, his friends? How much there was calculated to wound that generous heart, and, what he felt yet more, to damage his ministry! But in the midst of such sorrow and the rather as flowing from such sources, God watched over all with observant eye. Wonderfully hedged in was His servant, though to speak of himself he calls his folly. (2 Corinthians 11:1-33) But no human power or wit can protect a man of God from malice; nothing can shut out the shafts of evil speaking. In vain to look to flesh and blood for protection: were it possible, how much we should have missed in this epistle! Had his detractors been brethren of the circumcision from Jerusalem, neither the trial nor the blessing would have been anything like what it is for depth; but the fact that it came to Paul from his own children in Achaia was enough to pain him to the quick, and did prove him thoroughly.

But God sometimes lifts us up to look into the glory, as He comes down into the midst of our sorrows in pitiful mercy. This, with his own heart about it, the apostle brings before us lovingly, though it is impossible, within my limits, so much as to touch on all. He spreads before us his sorrows, dangers, and persecutions. This was the ministry of which he had boasted. He had been often whipped and stoned, had been weary, thirsty, hungry, by sea and land: these were the prizes he had received, and these the honours which the world gave him. How it all ought to have gone to their hearts, if they had any feeling at all, as indeed they had! It was good for them to feel it, for they had been taking their ease. He closes the list by telling them at last how he had been let down from the wall of a city in a basket, not a very dignified position for an apostle. It was anything but heroism thus to escape one's enemies.

But the same man who was thus let down immediately after speaks of being caught up to heaven. Now, it is this combination of the truest and most proper dignity that ever a man had in this world, for how few of the sons of man, speaking of course of Christians, that approached Paul in this respect; so on the other hand, how few since have known the dignity of being content to suffer and be nothing, of having every thought and feeling of nature thoroughly crushed, like Paul, within as well as without! So much the more as he was one who felt all most keenly, for he had a heart and mind equally capacious. Such was he who had to be thus tried as Christ's bondman. But when he comes to special wonders, he does not speak about himself; when about the basket he is open. Thus here he talks ambiguously. "I know a man" is his method of introducing the new portion. It is not I, Paul, but "a man in Christ" is taken up, who had seen such things as could not be expressed in human words, nor suited to man's present state. It is therefore left completely vague. The apostle himself says he does not know whether it was in the body, or out of the body; so completely was all removed from the ordinary experience and ken of man. But he adds what is much to be observed, "And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh." Thus a deeper humiliation befell him than he had ever known, "a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan," the allowed counterbalance to such extraordinary experiences. It was Paul. The secret could not be hid. But Christ is here, as ever, the theme of the apostle from first to last. This was the treasure in the earthen vessel; and in order to bring about corresponding profit, God works by external means as well as by inward grace, so as to carry forward His work of enhancing always and increasingly what is in Christ, and making less and less of man.

The close of the chapter sketches, with painful truth but a loving hand, the outbreakings of that nature, crushed in him, pampered in them. For he dreaded lest God should humble him among them because of their evil ways. What love such a word bespeaks!

The final chapter (2 Corinthians 13:1-14) answers a challenge which he kept for the last place, as indeed it ill became the Corinthians above all men. What a distress to him to speak of it at all! They had actually dared to ask a proof that Christ had spoken to them by him. Had they forgotten that they owed their life and salvation in Christ to his preaching? As he put in the foreground patience as a sign of apostleship, which in him assuredly was taxed beyond measure, so now he fixes on this as the great seal of his apostleship at least, to them. What can be more touching? It is not what Jesus had said by him in books, or in what power the Spirit had wrought by him. "Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, which to you-ward is not weak, but is mighty in you . . . . . examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves." They were the living proof to themselves that he was an apostle of Christ to them. There is no allowance of a doubt in this appeal: rather the very reverse was assumed on their part, which the apostle admirably turns to the confusion of their indecorous and baseless doubts about himself. "Therefore I write these things being absent, lest being present I should use sharpness, according to the power which the Lord hath given me to edification, and not to destruction." Brief and pregnant salutations follow, with the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost.