2 Corinthians 6
LenskiCHAPTER VI
XIX. Working Jointly with God
2 Corinthians 6:1
1 Δέ, “moreover,” adds the other, somewhat different point. Παρακαλοῦμεν is parallel with δέομαι in 5:21: first “we beg” all to be reconciled; next “we admonish” those who are reconciled. At the same time παρακαλοῦμεν continues God’s παρακαλεῖν mentioned in 5:20: God admonishes through us; in the same way, but now expressed differently, the ἡμεῖς of 5:21 work jointly with God and also admonish. The connection with the foregoing is linguistically perfect and is made in the simplest manner.
The chapter division of the A. V. is quite correct and in place. The R. V. makes a break at 5:20, which is not correct since 5:20, 21 belongs to the preceding. These two verses still speak about reconciliation as does 5:18, 19.
This is not all. When Paul is describing “the ministry of the reconciliation” (called so in 5:18) with its begging: “Be reconciled to God!” no pronominal object is added. Paul does not say: “we are begging you,” nor does he add whom we thus beg to be reconciled. The Corinthians were already reconciled; the call mentioned in 5:20 cannot be addressed to them. We need not be told to whom it is addressed, for it lies on the surface that Paul and his assistants are ever calling on those who are not yet reconciled to God, whether they be located in Corinth or in any other place, to be thus reconciled. But in 6:1 we now have the pronoun “you”: you Corinthians who have long ago heard the call to be reconciled and have accepted the grace of God, do you not receive this heavenly grace in vain; we and you are now living in the acceptable time, in the blessed day of salvation. This absence of “you” or other persons in 5:20 and the presence of “you” (ὑμᾶς) in 6:1, are most important for understanding the connection and the progress of thought.
As ambassadors of Christ (5:20) Paul and his assistants keep doing two things: calling on men everywhere to be reconciled and then admonishing those who heed and have heeded this call (here the Corinthians to whom this is written) to receive God’s grace “not in vain.” It is this double work of the ambassadorship, of the ministry of the reconciliation (5:18) with the word of the reconciliation (5:19), which is executed by Paul and his assistants in the way which he describes at length in 6:3–10. This description exhibits Paul and his assistants to the Corinthians as living examples of what it means to receive the grace of God not in vain. This is the pattern that the Corinthians should copy. To be sure, the pattern is that of ambassadors, of Christ’s ministers, and the Corinthians are not such ministers. But “like priest, like people.” “Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an example,” Phil. 3:17; also 2 Thess. 3:9; 1 Pet. 5:3. When the Corinthians, each in his station of life, emulate Paul and his assistants in the spirit with which they exhibit God’s grace in their lives, they will indeed not have received that grace in vain.
But Paul’s purpose in writing this letter is to complete the work of winning back the Corinthians to himself. The breach recently caused by opponents of Paul’s who invaded Corinth (which Titus reported to be healing) is to be completely healed. The old, sound relation between the Corinthians and Paul is to be fully re-established. For this reason Paul again expands on the way in which he and his assistants conduct their ambassadorship (compare 4:7–15). How can the Corinthians hold aloof from such ministers as these? How can they at all listen to men who deviate from the true doctrine in so many respects and who in their lives showed a spirit which was so unlike that of Paul?
The Corinthians knew only to well that every word of 6:3–10 was true in regard to Paul. No polemics against the invaders are inserted. Here is something that was stronger (and it dominates the entire first part of the epistle, chapters 1 to 7), namely drawing the Corinthians into Paul’s own spirit of complete devotion to the Lord. When this knits the Corinthians and Paul together as it should, they will be proof against all enemies of Paul who may appear in Corinth, against all vicious influence which seeks to separate them from Paul and his blessed teaching.
Moreover, as jointly working (with God) we also keep admonishing for you not in vain to accept the grace of God. For the word is:
At an acceptable season I gave thee favorable hearing,
And in salvation’s day I came to thy aid.
Lo, now is a season highly acceptable; lo, now (is) salvation’s day!
“Jointly working” has its ample explanation in the ministry God gave us (5:18), in the word he deposited with us (5:19), and in our being ambassadors for Christ. As such “we keep working together with God”; the implication of σύν cannot be “together with you Corinthians” or just “we in association with each other.” In addition (καί) to our other work we continue with this admonition (on παρακαλέω see 5:20) and urging: “for you not in vain to accept the grace of God.” The emphasis is first on “not in vain” and next on the object which is placed before the verb, “the grace of God,” finally on the subject “you” which is placed after the verb. The insertion of ὑμᾶς into this infinitive clause and not immediately after the main verb “we keep admonishing” yields the following sense: we so admonish all who have been reconciled to God, and this our admonition applies in particular also to you Corinthians.
On “the grace of God” see 1:2. Here, however, the unmerited favor Dei is specifically the reconciliation which God has effected both for and in us as described in 5:18–21. This is “grace” indeed, yea “the grace,” grand and specific. Δέχομαι is “to accept,” which is a little more precise than “to receive.” The aorist infinitive denotes the one act of our acceptance, that comprised in faith.
“In vain,” εἰςκενόν, means “in an empty, hollow way,” the commentary on which is James 1:22: “doers of the Word, and not hearers only,” also James 2:17, 20: “dead” faith, “inactive” faith (ἀργός). Matt. 13:20, 21. “The grace of God” sounds good to not a few, and they readily accept it; but they do not let it penetrate them so that the power of this grace works in them. When the tests come, tribulation, etc., the emptiness of the acceptance appears. This blight of emptiness at times also sets in later. God’s minister-ambassadors must thus keep on admonishing just as Paul does here.
2 Corinthians 6:2
2 With γάρ and utilizing Isa. 49:8, and re-enforcing it by exclamations Paul’s admonition reminds the Corinthians of the blessed καιρός or time period that God has sent them. Paul has in mind the present time in which the rich grace of God is brought to the Corinthians. What a pity if they accepted it only in an empty way! The formula of quotation λέγει is usually explained by supplying “God” or “the Scripture” (B.-D. 130, 3), but it is better to regard the verb as impersonal: es heisst (B.-P. 736), which the English cannot duplicate except by the passive “it is stated” or the active “the word is.”
The two poetic lines cited from Isaiah are synonymous, and Paul merely adopts them because they express what he wants to impress upon the Corinthians. “The acceptable time” = “salvation’s day,” the latter defines the former. Καιρός is a definite period which is always marked as such, here by its being “acceptable,” i.e., accepted by God as the proper time for bringing his grace in Christ also to the Corinthians. “Salvation’s day” is practically a compound and hence is decidedly definite because of the genitive. The A. V. renders this: “the day of salvation,” while the R. V. loses the force of the word by translating it: “a day of salvation.” This καιρός, this ἡμέρα, is the accepted one so that God may bring “salvation,” rescue and deliverance and the consequent secure condition. Hence we have the aorist form, of the verbs, the one explaining and intensifying the other: “I gave thee favorable hearing” (I listened favorably to thy cries of distress, σού genitive: hearing a person speak)—“I came to thy aid.”
Paul adds the emphatic exclamations: “Lo, now is a season highly acceptable; lo, now is salvation’s day!” Isaiah’s word fits most exactly the “now,” this time period, this day. “Lo—lo!” you Corinthians, do not fail to note it well! Instead of δεκτός Paul uses the intenser εὑπρόσδεκτος, “highly or well acceptable.” A more acceptable time will not come. How tragic if, while we are living at this time and getting into contact with God’s grace and salvation, it would finally become manifest that we had done so only in a superficial, empty way!
The time and day which Paul has in mind is that in which God is sending out the gospel into the whole world. We still live in this blessed time. See all those whom he has already heard so favorably with his grace, to whose aid he has come with his salvation! But there is also a more specific sense in the terms. Luther pointed it out to the German nation of his day when the pure gospel ran through all of Germany and beat down upon the land like a great shower of rain. He bade the Germans prize the gospel while they had it and warned them that the day might come when it could no longer be had. He bade the Germans look at the lands and the cities of Asia Minor where the gospel once flowed so freely, where the Turk now ruled and the gospel has disappeared.
The lives of individuals pass through a similar experience. Salvation’s day comes, God’s accepted time Make fullest use of it, despise is not as though it might continue forever and wait on our pleasure. A time may also come when it may be too late. The disposition of these καιρόι and these ἡμέραι in the case of the world, the individual nations, and the individual persons, rests in God’s hands alone, in his providence which is always inscrutable to finite minds in these its workings.
2 Corinthians 6:3
3 Paul continues with two nominative participles which are followed by many phrases until in v. 9, 10 he again uses both nominative adjectives and participles. Especially in the Greek, which distinguishes the nominatives from accusatives (which is not the case in English), the construction is perfectly clear, it is a sort of duplicate to the nominative participles used in 4:8–10. There is no reason for making a parenthesis of v. 2 as our versions do and also B.-D. 465, R., and others. Others let these participles modify the “we” in “we keep admonishing” in v. 1. But this, too, is insufficient, for this “we” reaches back through the intervening verses to “us” in 5:18. Paul used grammar, used it for what it is intended: a flexible and a beautiful medium for expressing thought. He was alive to all the flexibility for which the Greek is especially noted.
Every reader and every hearer without the least effort understood Paul’s smooth transition to participles and all that follows even to v. 10. The surmise “that the text is not in order,” that a pause in dictation intervenes, perhaps also a “sleepless night,” that something has dropped out between v. 2 and 3, is unfounded. We have already (third and fourth paragraph introductory to v. 1) set forth the connection between v. 3–10 and v. 1, 2 and hence need not do so again. We act as ambassadors, etc. (5:20), and thus also admonish (6:1) and exemplify our admonition in ourselves and thus draw you Corinthians to our hearts: giving no reason for stumbling in anything in order that the ministry be not blamed; on the contrary, as God’s ministers commending ourselves in everything, in, etc., etc. The negative and the corresponding positive are placed side by side for the sake of stronger effect.
The two words have μή because they are used with the participle. Προσκοπή occurs only here in the New Testament: “cause for stumbling,” “offense” in this sense (A. V.). It is to be distinguished from σκάνδαλον, the trigger stick in a trap, to which the bait is fixed and by which the trap is sprung. This is fatal and kills whereas the other causes only the foot to strike and the person to stumble, at the most to fall and suffer only a slight hurt. These ministers of God cause no one even a slight moral or spiritual hurt in anything. So carefully they guard themselves at every point.
Here is a sermon for preachers, to say nothing of church members! Offenses of preachers are especially offensive and damaging. We know how Paul acted in the domain of the adiaphora and of Christian liberty, Rom. 14:21; 1 Cor. 8:13.
Paul’s purpose was “that the ministry be not blamed”; the subject and the verb are transposed in order to emphasize both. When the ministry is blamed because of thoughtlessness, lack of love, and lack of devotion on the part of its incumbents, men’s hearts are closed to its appeal, and the cause of the gospel and of Christ suffers. Paul was blamed often enough, but wrongfully, never for a cause that he gave but only for a cause that was invented by the enemies of the gospel. As a man is known by the friends he has, so he is known by those who blame him. Get friends of whose praise you can be proud and thus enemies whose blame of you is equal to a compliment, of which you can be proud.
2 Corinthians 6:4
4 We must reverse the order of the Greek words in order to convey Paul’s meaning because διάκονοι is nominative and is to be construed with the subject and not accusative and predicative to the object “ourselves.” It is not “commending ourselves as God’s ministers” but “as God’s ministers commending ourselves,” etc. We do this, Paul says, as being no less and as such men ought to do. On the question of self-recommendation Paul has already expressed himself in 3:1, etc.; 4:2; 5:12. He and his helpers had been slandered as merely recommending themselves. That slander is answered, and there is no special sting in the present connection when Paul says that we keep commending ourselves in everything. The sense is: we want people always to see in us true ministers of God, whose one recommendation it is that they act as such in every respect.
They recommend themselves by letting their entire conduct as God’s ministers speak for them. It always does that, and people always listen to what that conduct says. Ministers often fool themselves on that point, and some people are also fooled by them. But true spirituality and devotion to Christ, the gospel, and the ministry are hard to imitate. An example: be a companion at cards with a man, and when he is on his deathbed he will not really want you. “Commend ourselves” is the direct opposite of “be blamed,” i.e., by others; so also “in everything” matches “in nothing.”
What Paul says about himself and his assistants as being “God’s ministers” can easily be applied to God’s people whom this ministry serves. The genitive is possessive: ministers who belong to God; he is mentioned because in 5:18 he gave the ministry of the reconciliation to us. The beautiful word “ministry,” διακονία, must be noted: rendering service to others freely so that the benefit may be wholly theirs. The Corinthians had abundantly enjoyed these benefits through Paul and through his assistants.
Paul is saying a great deal here; just how much he is saying the following shows. It is not a boast but a catalog of concentrated facts, an elaboration of “in everything.” Each item could be elaborated by many details. We should get an entire biography of the ministerial life of Paul and of his assistants, a wonderful volume, indeed. Some incidents, but all too few, we shall, indeed, get in chapter 11, etc.
Those who find a loose array of phrases, etc., in the following do Paul an injustice. Paul never writes loosely. His series of items is most carefully arranged. His rapid mind has often been noted, generally to prove that he outruns his expressions and his language whereas a rapid mind never does that but sees in advance and has the end present to the mind when the mind begins a thought or a list of items. This is evident here.
“Commending ourselves in everything, in much perseverance, in tribulations, in necessities, in anxieties, in strifes, in prisons, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessnesses, in fastings.
Let us stop with these ten—ten to express completeness (like the Ten Commandments, the ten virgins, the ten servants, the ten talents, etc.). Ten is the grand number to indicate completeness; four, which is used three times here, is the common rhetorical number to express completeness and is so used by all good writers. Paul’s ten is here composed of 1 + 3 + 3 + 3 = 10. We at once see the principle that underlies this first list. The first phrase governs all the rest, and therefore it alone is distinguished by an adjective: “in much perseverance.”
Why does “perseverance,” literally, “remaining under,” head the list? And why is “much” added? Ask one more question: “Why is this one alone singular while the remaining nine are plurals?” Yes, Paul has a keen mind—here is beautiful proof. “Perseverance” runs through this entire list of nine. And who will say that to endure all of those nine which, as the plurals indicate, are repeated over and over again does not require “much,” yes, very much “perseverance”? All of these nine are hard to endure, not only when each is repeated, but when all nine heap up their repetitions like a mountain.
The three threes are as they should be: 1) three abstract terms to denote what must be perseveringly endured: “tribulations—necessities—anxieties,” and these are not mere synonyms; 2) three concrete terms to denote heavy inflictions that are most painful to endure: “stripes—prisons—tumults,” and again they are not merely synonyms; 3) three added abstract terms, one to denote exertions and two to denote deprivations. That fills the great measure to the very brim. Five additional groups await us, but none is like this one.
Now each item: “afflictions” is the most general and is derived from θλίβω, to press. Next, “necessities,” forcings, compulsions against one’s will. Third, “anxieties,” the effect of the other two; the word is derived from στενός, “narrow” (4:8), as when one is in a tight place, hemmed in, full of anxiety in regard to getting out where he can breathe again. Yes, these three beautiful situations go together. To Paul and to his companions they came delightfully often. They certainly required much perseverance so that these men, facing such situations, did not grow faint (4:1, 16) and give up the ministry that was so full of such distressing experiences. If they could endure them with brave perseverance, could not the Corinthians hold out in what little share of them fell to their lot?
2 Corinthians 6:5
5 Do you wish for something that is a little more concrete and definite? Take these three which form a climax: “stripes” (like those which Paul and Silas received at Philippi, Acts 16:23, and the eight scourgings mentioned in 2 Cor. 11:24, 25); worse than stripes, “prisons” (thrown into jail as at Philippi; and in the case of the apostles this began early, Acts 4:3); worse than both of these, “tumults” as when the mob stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city as being dead, Acts 14:19. A few experiences of flogging by Jews or by Roman lictors, a taste of abominable jails, and a riot or two about one’s house or one’s person would alone be enough to take the heart out of any man. Even in Corinth itself the Jews started a riot, Acts 18:12
Another trio follows the preceding two: “labors,” the word denotes what is hard, tiring, severe, without saying anything about what is accomplished as does “works.” Now two negatives: “sleeplessnesses” and “fastings.” In return for all the heavy labors many a sleepless night, many a foodless day and night. Since “labors” precede, loss of sleep and lack of food refer to ordinary experiences and not just to whippings, prisons, and tumults. Nor should we think only of Paul and thus perhaps of some ailment of his that caused insomnia or indigestion. These plurals refer also to all of Paul’s helpers. When they took some of those long, hard journeys afoot and by boat, sleeping and eating were problems that were often not solved. Their ministry was not fitted out with parsonages, salary, perquisites, donations, comfort, and even luxuries but was graced by hardships such as the three mentioned in this group.
These are the men who tell the Corinthians not to accept God’s grace in vain. The admonition comes from them with peculiar force, and the hearts of the Corinthians surely must respond to men who cling to their gospel work with wonderful perseverance “in” all these trying experiences.
2 Corinthians 6:6
6 In purity, in knowledge, in longsuffering, in kindliness. Two pairs and a rhetorical group of four. The A. V. lists six in this verse; but six do not constitute a unit group. One could regard the six as three pairs, which would be good; here, however, the eight ἐν are best divided into two groups of four. And this ἐν differs from the ἐν found with the preceding plurals which = “in the midst of” the experience of tribulations, etc. The present eight ἐν = “in connection with” purity, etc. They speak about what is in the hearts of Paul and of his helpers.
First “purity” of motive in all that they do and suffer. But motive, when it is ill informed though it be ever so pure in itself, leads to many a wrong deed as Jesus himself says in John 16:2. So “knowledge” is joined with purity in motive. These two constitute a pair. We at once see what a lack of either of these two would mean, and often enough one or both are lacking even in ministers. The insertion of “knowledge” has puzzled some, yet this is done only because the right motive must have also the right information.
“Longsuffering” and “kindliness” are the companion pair. Equipped with pure motive and full knowledge, the heart will exercise patience with men, will not be hasty to give up, to turn away, to cast off. Trench defines: “A long holding out of the mind before it gives room to action or passion.” So also the heart will exercise benignitas or bonitas. This characterized the ministry of Jesus; it was one of kind, mild, gentle, helpful treatment of poor sinners.
These four should exhibit the effect of God’s grace in the heart of every minister, who should be an example to all his flock so that grace might work the same effects in them.
Now another rhetorical four which is again in pairs: in the Holy Spirit, in love unhypocritical, in truth’s Word, in God’s power. It puzzles some to find the Holy Spirit inserted into this long list of ἐν phrases. If we group Paul’s statements into six in v. 6 as the A. V. does, we cannot see why the Holy Spirit is put into fifth place, between kindliness and love. But when we group into fours, we get the last ἐν group of four, and in this group the Spirit is first. We at once see how the other three fall properly into line, each attesting the Spirit’s presence in the clearest way. Rhetorically beautiful is the use of double terms after so many single terms with ἐν. “Spirit Holy—love unhypocritical” (adjectives); “Word of truth—power of God” (genitives)—all beautifully perfect in wording.
These four rise far above the fourteen that precede. The upward sweep is not a glide upward that ends with the mention of the Spirit but a leap upward that begins with him. The reader feels that the Spirit is involved in the entire fourteen that precede; now that the last, greatest, and highest are named he must be mentioned. As in the case of the first ten perseverance is not one of the ten but the one exhibited in the nine, so the Spirit is not one of these last four but the One who is back of the three. We drop mere mechanical counting. Even when the count is made correctly: 10—4—4, etc., this is not all. In each group each item is significantly placed in just its proper place. The list is perfect down to the last word.
We thus see why this group contains not only the three: Spirit—Word—power, which obviously go together, but includes love, genuine, “unfeigned” love, love without a trace of hypocrisy. The Spirit’s Word with its power of God is conceived as being used ἐν or in the ministry of the reconciliation (v. 19), and thus this love must fill the minister’s heart so that he may, indeed, wield this Word and this power. For this reason this love is placed before the Word and the power. Regarding ἀγάπη as the love of full understanding and corresponding purpose see 2:4. The ancient actors wore masks; “hypocrite” = one under a mask. Love is not to be a mere mask. 1 Cor. 13 is Paul’s own wonderful description of genuine love that is wrought by the Spirit. Should not this love fill the hearts of the Corinthians as it filled these ministers who ministered to them?
2 Corinthians 6:7
7 It would be trivial to refer the weighty concept “truth’s Word” to only the Christian virtue of truthfulness. We could not even consider such a meaning since “God’s power” (Rom. 1:16 predicates this of the gospel) follows. Regarding “truth” see 4:2, ἀλήθεια, all the saving realities centering in God and Christ, revealed by the Spirit, embodied in the λόγος (see word in v. 19) or Word in order to be conveyed to men. The whole ministry is “in truth’s Word” even as are the faith and the life of all Christians. And thus “God’s power,” all the saving power of God, is next. His love gave the Word with this power, and our love is to promulgate that Word and to bring its power of love to work on and in men. Wonderful, indeed, is this third group of four!
Why the A. V. and those who originally divided this chapter into verses did not make one verse of the three διά phrases seems strange. These three go together so markedly: between the aids of the (true) righteousness on the right and on the left; between acknowledgment and despising, between bad report and good report. Διά worries some interpreters. It need not, for its root idea is “between,” and this shows what is meant here. We first have aids to the right and to the left, the ministers are “between”; we next have acknowledgment and dishonorable treatment, and again they are διά, “between”; finally, bad report and good report, “between” which the ministers go on. “Between” fits exactly.
Some regard ὅπλα as meaning “weapons,” and then the right hand wields the sword and the spear, the left hand the shield, and Paul is said to be using the favorite figure of a soldier armed for fight. But the whole list is literal, and to insert a strong metaphor is unlike Paul. The figure of war, too, clashes with the rest of the list; it would be out of the line of thought. In Rom. 6:13 we have the same expressions: “present your members as ὅπλαδικαιοσύνης to God,” and we are told that “weapons of righteousness” is the sense. But God does not use our bodily members as “weapons” or “arms.”
Ὅπλα are any kind of equipment that aids one in his work; thus arms or weapons is the meaning only when we have a military connection. Ὅπλα alone do not refer to a soldier; not this word but the context does that. In the present connection the sense is: “the aids of the righteousness,” both terms are articulated and definite: all the aids that this specific righteousness (see 5:21) which we preach by the Holy Spirit’s help, with unfeigned love, in the Word of truth as the saving power of God, affords us in our work.
What these aids are calls for no elaboration. Since the three “between” phrases are synonymous, we may say that these aids are “acknowledgment” and “good report” and on the left “despising” and “bad report.” God’s righteousness, as this is brought by the Word with the power of grace, is not helpless and weak. It has its aids for its own effective and successful presentation. The genitive is possessive: the aids which belong to this righteousness. Paul says that we have them on both sides of us. “Right” and “left” are neuter plurals in the Greek and modify ὅπλων, literally, “the right hand and the left hand aids of the righteousness.” These help us on both sides as our most adequate equipment for the ministry. Note the natural transition from “God’s power” to these “aids.”
2 Corinthians 6:8
8 With the first διά we have the two terms right and left; so with the next two διά we also have double terms, but these are opposites and not coordinates: “between acknowledgment and despising; between bad report and good report.” It is an interesting question whether the bad as well as the good aids the ministry. The meaning of δόξα is not “glory” but, as its derivation from δοκέω shows, Anerkennung, favorable opinion; and its opposite is thus ἀτιμία, withholding credit, honor, or acknowledgment. We may translate “between credit and discredit.” These are judgments that are based on contact. To these are added chiastically reports that are based on hearsay: “between bad report and good report.” In 1 Tim. 3:7 Paul writes μαρτυρίακαλή, “an excellent testimony from those outside,” which is an entirely different matter from a report or a rumor about a minister. The bad reports of which Paul speaks are the slanders that are spread by enemies and repeated by those who hear them.
These three “between” mark the path also of faithful church members, should mark that of the Corinthians when they faithfully follow their illustrious teachers.
2 Corinthians 6:9
9 From ἐν and διά Paul advances to seven ὡς, “as.” These are divided into three and four, and in the case of the third the formulation marks a break. In these seven the grouping into pairs continues, and we have striking opposites in each pair. Why this part of the list should be admired and not the preceding part and thus the whole strikes one as being strange: as deceivers and yet true; as unknown and yet well known; as dying and yet, lo, we go on living. All are paradoxes and yet simple facts. Decried and by so many treated “as deceivers” whose teaching leads astray, Paul and his assistants are ever found wahrhaftig, speaking nothing but what is true, the actual fact and reality. We have adjectives; ὡς indicates the appearance that catches the superficial eye, and καί has adversative force: “and yet.”
“As unknown,” men of no standing in the world, upstarts, unworthy of attention in the opinion of so many; and yet in reality “well known” wherever believers are found, their names even being written in heaven on the pages which do not show the names of so many who are admired and praised by the world. This is climaxed: “as dying,” soon to disappear and to be forgotten, “and yet, lo,” the astonishing thing is “we go on living.” The interjection and the finite verb indicate that a break has occurred, and that the three statements form a unit. Men pointed at these ministers and considered them imposters, unknown upstarts, bound soon to die because of the way in which they worked. But look at the other side! They were content to be so looked upon—how could the world really understand them? On the dying see 4:10, etc.
Again: as being chastised and yet not made to die; as grieved but always rejoicing; as poor but making many rich; as having nothing and yet thoroughly having everything. Our versions regard the first of these four as a part of v. 9, probably because in Ps. 118:17, 18 living and not dying, being chastised and not given over to die, are combined, and because Paul apparently makes use of the thoughts of this psalm. On chastisement see Heb. 12:5–11. The constant afflictions which these ministers bore seem even to Christians as though, to say the least, God was constantly chastising them for all kinds of faults. Ἀποθνήσκω is intransitive, “to die,” θανατόω transitive, “to make to die.” Always appearing to men as dying, we yet keep on living by God’s grace; always as if God is chastening us in his displeasure and yet is never putting us to death.
2 Corinthians 6:10
10 “As being grieved” by being treated so “but always rejoicing.” In fact, Paul writes: “Let us also glory in our tribulations,” Rom. 5:3, etc. Here we have δέ and not καί as if to say that we are really not grieved, we ever rejoice, “ever,” ἀεί, being added. Being chastised and grieved are a pair; so are “poor” and “having nothing.” Πτωχός is “poor” in the sense of crouching and cringing as a beggar when asking for alms. The word is expressive of what one sees everywhere in the Orient, whining beggars. So we are considered, paul says, “but” (another δέ) we are “making many rich,” rich beyond all earthly wealth.
Yes, “as having nothing and yet thoroughly having everything,” κατέχειν with perfective κατά, to hold fast. Matt. 5:5, the meek inherit the earth; “the kingdom ours remaineth,” Luther. It is no loss to have nothing and no gain to have everything in the way in which the world has and has not; but to have as Christians have is to have everything, no matter how little they have according to the world’s way of having. For “all things” work together for our good, Rom. 8:28, as if we owned them, and were our slaves.
2 Corinthians 6:11
11 All that Paul has been saying about himself and his assistants in regard to the way in which they conduct themselves in their office (from 3:1 onward), about their inner feelings, motives, purposes, spirit, experiences, etc., all that climaxes in this last admonition not to accept the grace of God in an empty way and then reveals how they themselves act under this grace (6:1–10), now comes to a head in a fervent appeal to the Corinthians which names them and speaks even as a father to his children. Our mouth has opened to you, Corinthians; our heart has been expanded wide.
Note the effect of the asyndeton. The two perfect tenses refer to all that Paul has been saying; they do not refer to what follows in v. 14, etc. All these personal, intimate things which Paul has been saying are such as he would be reticent about under all ordinary circumstances; but to you Corinthians, Paul says, we have opened our mouth, we have said them all. “Our heart has been expanded wide.” We have let you see our very feelings, our inner motives, our deepest expriences, all for love of you. The passive “has been expanded” means by you, by our desire that you may reciprocate with like love and confidence. The effect of the perfect tenses is: our mouth is still open toward you in what we have said; our heart is still expanded to take you in with all its love.
We have continually noted this reaching out to enfold the Corinthians. It is now expressed openly and without restraint. It is for this reason that Paul is writing and writing in the way he has done. As we dwell on what he has written we see that he has laid bare his heart in this letter as in no other. Such a man, such men in their hard, hard ministry! How could the Corinthians help responding? Men had come to Corinth to make the Corinthians disaffected toward Paul and his assistants. Here is his answer; he lets his inner heart speak for himself. The Corinthians cannot resist that.
2 Corinthians 6:12
12 You are suffering no restraint in us, you are suffering restraint only (δέ) in your own feelings. The verb means to narrow in, to crowd, and the passive to be crowded in, “to suffer restraint.” No, no, Paul says, there is nothing in us to hold you aloof, to put you under restraint; nothing in us to make you hold back as though you could not be free toward us as friend is free with friend, one heart toward another. And with the same open heart of love Paul adds: “you are suffering restraint only in your own feelings,” and that should certainly not be the case.
The σπλάγχνα (always plural) are the nobler viscera, heart, lungs, liver, which are conceived by the Greek as the seat of the feelings and affections and are so translated here; “bowels” in the A. V. is misleading since it is generally used with reference to the intestines; “affections” in the R. V. is too narrow. Any restraint on the part of the Corinthians is due entirely to their own wrong “feelings” toward Paul and his assistants. Nothing stands between them but these feelings, which have no justification whatever. In order to remove them Paul has bared his whole heart to show the Corinthians all that is there.
2 Corinthians 6:13
13 Now for the same reciprocation—as to children do I speak—do you, too, be expanded wide! Paul asks that the Corinthians reciprocate by expanding their hearts wide in the same way as he and his assistants are expanding theirs. Then nothing will remain between them to cause restraint, a feeling of not being considered and treated aright. Wide open is the heart of Paul to embrace the Corinthians, will they not in the same way reciprocate and open theirs wide again to embrace him with the old warmth?
The accusative τὴναὑτὴνἀντιμισθίαν has received various explanations: adverbial accusative R. 487 (“as to the same reciprocity”), remote accusative with a passive (R. 486), or pregnant for “the same expansion as reciprocation” (B.-D. 154), which would be the cognate accusative with the passive. Take your choice. “The same reciprocation” is one “in like kind” (as the R. V. circumscribes), “in the same” (as the A. V. prefers). But “recompense” scarcely brings out Paul’s idea. The aorist imperative is urgent but with the urgency of a great desire and love; moreover, it calls for one act of being fully expanded and not for only a gradual expanding.
The passive is significant: “be expanded,” i.e., by us whose heart has so expanded toward you. Love creates reciprocating love. The parenthesis: “as to children do I speak,” inserts the note of great tenderness. The Corinthians are to hear a father’s paternal voice, are to respond and to reciprocate as τέκνα, the word for “children” when the connotation is that of dearness.
The criticism that these three appealing verses are not in their proper place, do not fit here, come in without preparation is unfounded. Such criticism, to say only one thing, has failed to feel the heartthrobs, the expansion and the reaching out of a heart of love that are manifested in all of the preceding. For that reason, too, so much of what Paul says in the foregoing about his office, experiences, and conduct is regarded as being merely didactic and not in keeping with the style of a letter, as being parts that could well be omitted, which would improve the letter. But all such comment does not appreciate the spirit, the inner motive, and the purpose of Paul.
XX. “Come out from Their Midst and Be Separate!”
2 Corinthians 6:14
14 The call to reciprocate, to expand wide their hearts, and to take into them their old teachers, the founders of their congregation, includes complete, final separation from all others who are ranged on the opposite side. The positive ever stands opposed to its negative.
These others are here set forth in their fullest, sharpest opposition. Let us catch the full spirit of this chapter! Following the great reconciliation with God through Christ’s death with its ministry of this reconciliation (5:18–21) there comes the admonition not to accept this grace of God in an empty way (6:1). Already here there is the cue for the opposites which are now presented together with the call for separation. It is an empty grasping at God’s reconciliation and grace not to see the impossibility of trying to avoid this separation. Now is the acceptable time, now is salvation’s day (6:2).
All this is intensified by the personal example of Paul and his fellow workers which is presented in the grand section 6:3–13. Here there is full devotion to God, to his reconciliation and grace; here are God’s ministers who are leading the way. And here they open wide their hearts to take the Corinthians into this fellowship of God’s grace (v. 11–13). Will the Corinthians not reciprocate, in the same way open their hearts wide to these their ministers? Then they will, indeed, break every contrary connection; they, too, will become wholly separate. It could not be otherwise.
This new paragraph matches v. 3–10 in rhetorical beauty; Paul intends that it should. The fervor of his utterance continues in the same flow. See the conclusion at the end of 7:1 for contrary opinions.
Do not try to be heterogeneously yoked up with unbelievers! The very idea should appear monstrous to you. Μὴγίνεσθε with the present participle is a periphrastic present imperative (R. 375) and is conative in this connection: do not try, do not ever incline or begin to be so yoked up. This verb has been found only here, the adjective ἑτερόζυγος appears in Lev. 19:19, LXX. The idea expressed by ἕτερος, “different,” is intense: a yoke that is utterly alien and foreign to you Corinthians who have accepted the grace and reconciliation of God and the blessed yoke of Christ (Matt. 11:29).
The dative is associative (R. 529): “with or in association with unbelievers.” There is no article and thus their quality is emphasized, and at the same time all, whoever they may be, that have this quality are included. The reference is to Deut. 22:10 which forbade harnessing an ox and an ass, a clean and an unclean beast, together to a plow. Paul uses this passage in a figurative way: the believer has been cleansed, the unbeliever has refused to be cleansed. What business have they under the same yoke? It will always be the unbeliever’s yoke, namely his unbelief. For never would the unbeliever take the believer’s yoke of faith; it is always the other way. The unbeliever would laugh at the suggestion of his taking on faith’s yoke; yet, strange to say, instead of equally scorning unbelief’s yoke, many a believer accepts it upon his neck and even imagines that he can still retain faith’s yoke.
Here again Paul employs just a few words; but they speak volumes, they contain an overwhelming argument, they strike at the heart of the whole danger that is threatening believers, they drive home a conquering appeal. What a picture: a believer with his neck under the unbeliever’s yoke! What business has he in such an unnatural, self-contradictory association? What is he, the believer, doing by helping to pull the plow or the wagon of the unbeliever’s unbelief? That yoke breaks the necks of those who bear it. God delivered us from it; can we possibly think of going back to that frightful yoke? See what Paul and his helpers are doing (v. 3–10); read this admonition in that light.
Ἄπιστοι is exactly the proper word; the Corinthians, then, are πιστοί. These trust God’s grace, those refuse such trust. To be yoked together means that these are joined with those in their refusal to trust. For the association referred to is this very one of faith joining hands with unbelief. Contacts outside of this domain, as long as they do not lead to this contact and association, come under Paul’s word written in 1 Cor. 5:10.
“With unbelievers” mentions the extreme. Some read this and the following like the Pharisees read the commandments: Thou shalt not kill, shalt not commit adultery! as if this forbids only the extreme. Did Jesus, then, expound in vain in Matt. 5:21, etc., by showing that every extreme includes everything of the same nature that has not yet reached that extreme? To be sure, the extremes murder and adultery must be named, for many go that far; but this forbids even the very first step in that direction. This is true with regard to total unbelief which makes open mock of Christ. It includes every bit of unbelief, every repudiation of Christ’s doctrine, every little yoke that is not of the true faith. Besser is right when in these yokes he finds a reference to unionism with those who repudiate any part of the Word.
It ought not to be necessary to warn against this unnatural yoking together. Paul’s elaboration and our constant experience show that it is only too necessary in fact. The Corinthians had been going back to the evil yoke. When invaders arrived, they had listened to them, had begun to believe their false teachings, had begun to turn from the apostle. These things have been repeated. Paul’s words are not an academic discussion. These imperatives are personal. His elucidations (γάρ) are pertinent to the Corinthians in the highest degree. For what partnership (is there) for righteousness and lawlessness?
Five self-answering questions shed their penetrating light on Paul’s admonition. What is as wide apart as Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom and Dives in the torments of hell cannot be joined in a union in Christ or elsewhere. In this first question the inner quality of believers and of unbelievers is placed side by side. The copula is omitted for the sake of greater emphasis; we have two common Greek datives with ἐστί (εἶναι): “is for,” i.e., belongs to. Μετοχή (μετά + ἔχειν, to have together) = partnership, sharing together.
The fact that “lawlessness” is the second dative does not imply that both datives refer only to conduct: the believer’s righteous life and the unbelievers unrighteous, lawless life, so that the question would be: “What partnership is there between good works and evil works?” It is “righteousness” that determines its opposite “lawlessness,” and not the reverse. Paul’s progression is orderly: faith and unbelief and now righteousness and its opposite. The righteousness of the believer is that which he has by faith, the imputed righteousness of Christ which is so pertinently mentioned in 5:21 in connection with the reconciliation: “that we may become God’s righteousness in him (Christ).” Due to God’s verdict of acquittal, this quality belongs to the believer.
The unbeliever has no such acquittal, his quality is entirely “lawlessness.” That is God’s verdict in regard to him. “Thou hatest all workers of iniquity,” Ps. 5:5. Rom. 8:7, 8. All the unbeliever’s righteousnesses are filthy rags, Isa. 64:6. “Without fear of God, without trust in him, and with fleshly appetite,” Augsb. Conf. II. In Rom. 2 Paul convicts all of the moralists, both pagan and Jewish, by means of the very law which they use to reform men; that law condemns even the moralists as being full of lawlessness (study the author’s exposition of Rom. 2). The point to be noted here is that both δικαιοσύη and ἀνομία refer to God’s judgment: he pronounces righteous, and the believer thus has God’s righteousness in Christ (5:21); his law pronounces every unbeliever lawless; his law condemns that lawlessness.
“Or” marks the second question as being an alternative to the first. So these two are a pair. This is the conjunctive “or” which is to be distinguished from the disjunctive. The third question and the fifth are introduced by δέ, “moreover,” and thus turn to a different angle; but a second “or” unites the third and the fourth. All this means that Paul is not using five co-ordinates, which would be unrhetorical, but three, namely two pairs and a single term. In such a succession the third and last is often the longest and the most ample.
When, as here, it is but a single term after two doubles, this produces a kind of sharp halt and arrests attention. That is exactly what Paul desires. Many a man might go to school to Paul and learn even fine Greek style, not for style’s sake, indeed, but for perfect transmission of thought and thought effect.
Or, what communion (is there) for light with darkness? From the attributes righteousness and lawlessness we are taken back to the powers which produce them. The synonyms are most carefully chosen. If righteousness and lawlessness could exist in the same persons, there would be a μετοχή or partnership; but if light and darkness operated together, they would be in κοινωνία, in “communion” or fellowship. But, like the attributes, they exclude each other by their very nature; where the one is, it drives out the other. The dative φωτί is the same as the previous two datives after ἐστί understood. R. 1051 has the idea that the substantive κοινωνία “has enough verbal consciousness left to govern” a dative. Here it does not need to have.
God himself is “light,” and in him is no darkness at all, 1 John 1:5. Christ is the true light, John 1:9, the light of the world, John 8:12, and his Word is the light of life. This light power has entered the believer and makes him a child of light, Matt. 5:14; John 12:36; Eph. 5:8, and so the believer walks in the light, John 12:35, 36; 1 John 1:7, although there is still some darkness in him because his old nature has not been entirely put off. He is also a “partaker of the inheritance of light,” Col. 1:12. Light = the divine, saving truth, concrete and full reality in God, Christ, the Word; but always active, powerful, streaming out.
Its opposite is “darkness,” lie, falsehood, which are concreted in Satan, demons, the world; it is also always active, powerful, seeking to envelope and to penetrate. In the beginning God separated light from darkness (Gen. 1:4), and this separation is typical also of light and darkness in the spiritual sense. “Ye were once darkness but are now light in the Lord,” Eph. 5:8. “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness,” Eph. 5:11. The devil and his angels are “the rulers of the darkness of this world,” Eph. 6:12. All his followers walk in darkness, John 3:19, and shall be cast into outer darkness, Matt. 22:13; 25:30; 2 Pet. 2:17. Out of this spiritual darkness God has called the believers, 1 Pet. 2:9; from it he delivered them, Col. 1:13. Light brings life, darkness is death.
2 Corinthians 6:15
15 Moreover, what agreeing of Christ (is there) with Beliar? In what word, thought, purpose, work do these two agree? This question advances to the opposite personal rulers that are back of the qualities and of the powers. Συμφώνησις, act of agreeing, occurs only here and in ecclesiastical writers, συμφώνημα, the result, is a later word (M.-M. 599). The question is: Do these two ever agree? The fact that light and darkness are to be understood in a soteriological sense is clear from the mention of the σωτήρ and of the destroyer in this question.
“Christ” has obtained our righteousness for us (5:21), was made unto us righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30), and is our everlasting light (Rev. 21:23). As “Christ,” the Anointed, he is our Prophet, High Priest, and King. We prefer the reading “Beliar” to “Belial” (our versions). The former = “lord of the forest,” the latter “worthlessness,” Stellhorn, Woerterbuch, Abbott-Smith, Lexicon. The latter, namely Belial, is used as a common noun and is translated by the LXX as transgressor, impious, foolish, pest, and Milton describes Belial as a sensual profligate. The Jews used Beliar as a title for Satan. Christ came to destroy the works of the devil; that is his act of agreement with him.
The companion question is: Or what portion (is there) for a believer together with an unbeliever? This advances us to the personal subjects involved. In fact, all these questions focus in these persons and are intended for us.
The believer is one who is justified by faith (Rom. 3:28), the bearer of the highest blessing (Rom. 4:6, 7), at peace with God (Rom. 5:1), assured of eternal salvation (Mark 16:16). The light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ has shined in his heart (2 Cor. 4:6); he walks no longer as the Gentiles in the vanity of his mind, with an understanding darkened (Eph. 4:17), but presses forward toward the prize of high calling in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:14). The unbeliever (“infidel,” A. V., but not in the special sense of a disbeliever in the existence of God) has the very opposite of all this. He has been judged already, and he “shall not see life” (John 3:18); he is not of Christ’s sheep (John 10:26); he shall not enter into God’s rest (Heb. 3:18, 19); yea, he shall be damned (Mark 16:16) and be cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:15).
As subjects of their respective lords, what “portion” have they together? What the one has, the other has not: righteousness, pardon, spiritual light and life, peace, hope of salvation, a place in heaven. The portions of these two diverge at every point. The words πιστός and ἄπιστος without the article refer to any and every believer, any and every unbeliever. The proof-point of this question brings the whole matter down into the very experience of each individual Christian. He must realize that not only righteousness, light, and Christ as such are utterly at variance and contradictory to lawlessness, darkness, and Beliar, but that this contradiction comes to an issue in his own heart and bars him completely from a yoke fellowship with an unbeliever.
2 Corinthians 6:16
16 We reach the climax in this final question. The others are pairs. In each pair the point of the question is divided into two, which makes the one question a double one. Qualities (righteousness, lawlessness) go with the powers that produce them (light, darkness); so these make up one question. Again, to ask about Christ and Beliar with reference to us is also to ask about believer and unbeliever, which again makes one question that has two parts. But in the final question no division into two members is necessary, for in reaching the climax the question is about us as being united with God and is thus complete in itself: Moreover, what accord (is there) for God’s sanctuary with idols?
All that is needed is to point out: for we on our part are the living God’s sanctuary even as God said, etc. In the preceding pair of questions we had persons, but the doubling divided them into two: Christ—believer. Now the final, highest question unites and asks about us as “God’s sanctuary.” God and we are joined in this term; we have the persons in their ultimate relation.
The point of the question is misunderstood when it is said that nothing can be asked beyond God because he is supreme. The subject is not God. The question is not one about God and idols. We have what is more than that already in Christ and Satan (Beliar). This question is one about “God’s sanctuary,” God united with us. It rises above Christ and the believer, one who embraces the Savior by faith.
To such a one God himself descends and dwells in him. This is the ultimate. “God’s sanctuary” is absolutely for God alone. “I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have no other gods before me.” The word used is not ἱερόν, a temple including its courts and auxiliary buildings; it is ναός, the inner sanctuary. In Jerusalem it was the Holy and the Holy of Holies and not the courts and the other structures. In Solomon’s Temple the presence of God filled the Sanctuary with a cloud.
Now consider “together with idols” and συγκατάθεσις, “depositing votes together.” False gods, idols, and everything for which they stand, all their lies, all their false worships, are like a company that is able to sit together, talk together, vote together. They have no difficulty about it at all. They do not even clash. They combine in a pantheon. One may add a new god and idol at any time. Athens was full of gods, and the Athenians at first thought Paul was bringing only another god of this kind.
A pagan has room in his heart for many goods. A whole mass of them dwells on Olympus. The German Walhalla has them feasting together. Their mark is unionism, syncretism. Thus also is everything for which they stand. Can God’s sanctuary be placed in this company?
Paul’s question does not ask about God’s sanctuary and the sanctuaries of idols; this is not an ellipsis as some think. The question goes beyond that. It does not inquire whether one can go into God’s sanctuary and then also go into the sanctuaries of various idols. It asks whether an idol or idols can be carried into God’s sanctuary there to speak and to vote in concord with God. This was the crime of Ahaz and of other kings of Juda. The whole idea is monstrous.
Some feel that Paul is thinking only of actual idols as he does in 1 Cor. 8 where he speaks about attending idols’ feasts, etc. But Paul has started with “unbelievers,” and his last question was about “believer” and “unbeliever.” In his final admonition (7:1) he tells us that he is speaking of “all defilement of flesh and spirit” and of its opposite, “holiness in God’s fear.” “Idols” is a concrete expression for this double defilement; this expression at the same time indicates the extreme of such defilement. And again the extreme includes all lesser types and forms. All pagan gods can sit and vote harmoniously together; all the lies they represent, all the defilements of body, and all the defilements of spirit, all immoralities and moral filth, and all lying doctrines and errors of mind and spirit, since all agree in falseness and are fathered by Beliar, are in basic accord. But are we, we who are God’s sanctuary? Can we admit into ourselves (flesh or spirit) even one of these idols or defilements, one immorality, one religious lie?
“For” explains: “We (emphatic ἡμεῖς: we on our part; we are the ones who) are the living God’s sanctuary.” We need not pause to consider the reading “you” which is found in some texts; for in 7:1 Paul writes, “Let us cleanse ourselves,” and this follows immediately after the address “beloved,” which shows that “we” includes the Corinthians and Paul and his assistants: we Christians all. Paul adds the participle: “the living God.” All the idols are dead. The hearts that embrace them embrace what is devoid of life. In all these defilements of flesh and of spirit there is no life but only death.
“The living God’s sanctuary” is a mystic expression: “Ye in me, and I in you … If a man love me, he will keep my Word: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him,” John 14:20, 23. What the old Jewish sanctuary foreshadowed is in the most blessed way fulfilled in every Christian heart: the living God dwells in him as in a sanctuary. There is no difference whether the individual Christian is named or the whole body of believers, “the church of the living God” (1 Tim. 3:15), “an holy sanctuary (ναός) in the Lord—an habitation of God in the Spirit” (Eph. 2:21), “a spiritual house” (1 Pet. 2:5).
Even as God said: I will dwell in them and will walk about in them and will be their God, and they shall be my people. The subject and the verb are reversed: “as said God,” thus both are emphasized. This formula of quotation occurs only here. That is due to the fact that Paul uses a catena of Biblical expressions and not an exact quotation from any one Old Testament passage. But note well that Paul calls what Moses and the prophets wrote God’s own Word: “God said it.” He is the real speaker and none other. This is one of the strong incidental proofs for verbal inspiration, and they are scattered throughout the Scriptures. The citation draws upon Lev. 26:11, 12: “And I will set my tabernacle among you … and I will walk among you, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people.” Also upon Ezek. 27:27: “My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” The latter statement occurs often: Hos. 2:23; Jer. 24:7; 30:22; 31:33; 32:38; etc.
The blessedness of this union is not understood until we see it as God’s intention from the beginning and note how it realized itself step by step when God dwelt with the patriarchs of old, travelled with his people through the desert in the pillar of fire and in the cloud, manifested his presence in the Tabernacle and in the Temple, in the words of all the prophets, finally in his own Son incarnate (who calls himself ναός in John 2:19) and in the Spirit who was shed abroad at Pentecost. All this shall reach its climax when John’s vision shall be fulfilled: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth… And I heard a great voice out of the throne, saying: ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.’”
2 Corinthians 6:17
17 On the foundation thus laid Paul makes his appeal. He puts it into the form of a deduction: Wherefore. But in a most striking manner he clothes it in words that are gathered from the Old Testament as though God himself is addressing the readers, Paul “doing this according to the riches of his spirit, melting together many passages into one heap and forming from them a text furnished by the entire Scriptures and one in which the sense of the entire Scriptures appears” (Luther).
Come out from their midst and be separated! says the Lord (κύριος = Yahweh),
And stop touching anything unclean!
And I myself will receive you,
And I will be to you a Father,
And you shall be to me sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.
This is, first of all, an adaptation of Isa. 52:11: “Depart ye, depart ye, go out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord!” Verse 12 adds: “And the God of Israel will be your rereward,” or exactly: “will gather you,” hence Paul says, “will receive you.” “Rereward” = rearward = rear warden, rear guard, as God in the pillar of cloud and of fire guarded the rear of the Israelites at the Red Sea. Compare also Ezek. 20:34: “And I will bring you out from the people and will gather you,” etc.
Separation runs through the entire Old Testament and equally through the New. God’s children are ever a separated and a separate people. Note how the active and the passive are combined: “come out from their midst—be separated.” We come out when God separates us. The verbs are aorist imperatives, peremptory and indicate decisive acts. In the second line the negative imperative is present, and this often means to stop an action already begun, which is correct here: “stop touching” (R. 853), this verb is construed with the genitive ἀκαθάρτου (no article: “anything unclean”). God’s sanctuary would be defiled and could not remain his sanctuary if we touched anything unclean.
First, complete separation; next, no return as much as even to touch. Here we have the commentary on “idols” occurring in v. 16: “anything unclean.”
The old Pharisees and the lawyers quibbled about “who is my neighbor,” but only in order to restrict the term as much as possible. So some ask in this connection: “Just what is unclean?” and reduce the term so as to leave as many contacts as possible quite clean, quite proper for Christians to touch, yea, to embrace. In fact, some think that a certain amount of uncleanness in a Christian and in a Christian congregation is really normal. Some people get so “broad” and so “liberal” and so “modern” that the tainted pleasures of an evil generation, worldly business methods, godless and Christless associations and practices of all kinds no longer appear unclean to them. The worst is the unclean in the so-called learning, religious ideas and teaching, Christless altars, prayers, religious ceremonies, Christless brotherhoods and organizations.
The Scriptures nowhere make a list of what is “unclean” but they define most perfectly: everything in body and in spirit that is contrary to our righteousness in Christ, to the light (Word), to Christ, to our faith, to ourselves as the living God’s sanctuary—these, everyone and all, are “unclean,” from these be so separated by God as not even to touch them. Ever anew and in ever new variation we must preach separation and not unionism. We must accept the stigma of being “separatists.” The danger is seldom of doing too much in this respect but always too little. Read 1 Cor. 6:9, and then 3:16, 17.
2 Corinthians 6:18
18 The promises are great indeed. Ἐγώ is most emphatic: “I myself will receive you.” What this implies is stated in part: “I will be to you a Father” (εἰς is predicative, R. 595). And this is amplified: “You on your part (ὑμεῖς to match ἐγώ) shall be to me sons and daughters.” This means more than “children” who are dear to me. “Sons” connotes all the high rights of sonship, and “daughters” does the same. Paul seemingly refers to 2 Sam. 7:14 (Father and son); Jer. 31:9 (Father); Isa. 43:6 (sons and daughters). In order to magnify the greatness of these promises Paul adds from 2 Sam. 7:8 (see Amos 3:13; Rev. 1:8): “says the Lord Almighty.” The LXX render “the Lord of hosts” Κύριοςπαντοκράτωρ: Yahweh who has all in his power. Ex hac appellatione perspicitur magnitudo promissionum (Bengel). Who would jeopardize the promises by touching anything unclean and not remaining entirely separated?
7:1) This verse so evidently belongs to the preceding that we append it here. Accordingly, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every stain of flesh and spirit, bringing to its goal holiness in God’s fear! The fervency of 6:11–13 appears in the address “beloved,” the verbal of ἀγαπᾶν (on ἀγάπη see 2:4). This is not a mere term of affection since on Paul’s part it implies the love of true understanding and of purpose according therewith. The great promises, all of which are pure gospel, are the motivation to which Paul appeals.
The subjunctive καθαρίσωμεν is hortative: “let us cleanse,” and is properly the aorist to express a cleansing that actually cleanses. Call it the effective aorist. This aorist does not denote a single act as some suppose who then stress the idea of its being single and compare it with the single act when God cleanses in baptism and in justification. We see the force of this aorist when we note what the present subjunctive or imperative would say, namely enjoin a constant cleansing, a working at it all the time, which would rather imply that the filth is never removed or that it multiplies as fast as we cleanse it.
Some also express surprise that Paul includes himself; but this is unwarranted. Paul writes plainly about himself in Phil. 3:12–14, compare 1 John 1:8–10. Neither Paul nor John were perfectionists. Believers cooperate with God, and one of the activities in which they do this is in keeping themselves clean, “keeping themselves unspotted from the world” (James 1:27). They refuse to touch anything unclean (6:17). They resist temptation.
It is about this self-cleansing that Paul speaks. With it goes repentance for sin that we still commit, which brings God’s cleansing, who is “faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all iniquity” (1 John 1:9). We are, indeed, clean (John 13:10; 15:3; 1 Cor. 6:11), and yet we need to wash our feet (John 13:10); every branch must be purged to bear more fruit (John 15:2), we must fight sin and temptation.
“From every stain of flesh and spirit” = from everything that would defile either body or soul. The question is raised whether Paul could write this phrase, and the answer given is negative. First, there is the rare word (found only here in the New Testament) μολυσμός; but in 1 Cor. 8:7 Paul has the verb μολύνω, and the noun appears in the LXX, in Plutarch, and in Josephus. It may happen to any writer that even in a large volume he uses a certain word only once.
Next, here is stain “of flesh and of spirit,” and it is asked how flesh can still be stained, and how it is possible to stain the spirit. The matter is almost elementary: σάρξ = the body in its material substance of flesh; πνεῦμα = the immaterial part as distinguished from the material (see C.-K. 946, at the bottom, where our passage just precedes). In English we usually say “soul” to refer to man’s immaterial part; our “soul” approaches the Greek πνεῦμα and rises considerably above ψυχή, which is often used to designate only the “life” that animates the body.
The genitives may be regarded as objective; there are sins that stain our bodily flesh, all those that need our bodily members for their commission, and there are sins that stain the spirit or soul such as thoughts, wrong ideas, philosophies, false doctrines, etc. Away with all of them! The latter are worse than the former, less readily regarded as sins, less easily cleansed away.
The fact that the aorist subjunctive, while it is effective, denotes a process appears from the present participle: “bringing to its goal holiness in God’s fear.” Ἀγιωσύνη, which is one of those words that are derived from an adjective by means of the suffix -σύνη in order to express quality, is not the action of sanctifying: Heiligung, but the resultant quality of holiness: Heiligkeit. “In God’s fear” (see 5:11) = in this ethical sphere. The objective genitive names God as the one who is feared.
Although it is called a low motive, one that is no longer used by Christians today, it is not only found throughout Scripture but belongs to the highest Christian motivation even as Paul uses it here. It goes hand in hand with love: love is the positive side, fear the negative; love prompts one to do what pleases God, fear prompts one to refrain from what displeases God. Neither can dispense with the other; neither functions alone. Fear in the sense of “terror” is quite another matter. This could not be called the beginning of wisdom, Prov. 9:10; Ps. 111:10; it is the deadly dismay which the wicked experience when God’s judgment finds them out.
Ἐπιτελεῖν = ἐπί plus τέλος, “to bring to a goal.” The durative tense is iterative, and the participle modifies the main verb in the aorist. Thus: we cleanse ourselves effectively when in every instance that presents itself we turn from the stain of flesh and spirit and thereby ever and again reach the goal, which is holiness in God’s fear. In each case the holiness is the one attained in that case. The durative participle excludes sanctification that is attained by one act; moreover, our actions are here stated and not an action by which God totally sanctifies us in one instant.
Now a word regarding the “criticism” which would remove 6:14–7:1 from its place in this epistle irrespective of the suggestions that are offered as to what to do with this paragraph. Every known text has this paragraph where it is. The style and the substance are Pauline. The rare words that occur offer no basis for doubt. The question raised can be based only on the idea that this paragraph does not fit properly into the connection. But this doubt is raised by the critics already in regard to 6:11–13, yes, and 6:3–13.
But this raising of doubt should raise another question, namely whether these critics have followed Paul’s thought in its whole connection with 6:1, 2. We have seen how 6:3–10 is exactly in line with what precedes, and how 6:11–13 is due to 6:3–10. This is true also with regard to 6:14–7:1, a paragraph that is beautifully wrought in detail and exactly in place.
Opening their hearts wide to Paul and to his assistants in reciprocity for the way in which Paul has opened his own and his assistants’ hearts for them can mean only one thing, namely separation from all cooperation with unbelievers no matter who they may be. This is not merely stated, it is elaborated, and exactly as Paul would elaborate it, namely by going to the bottom of what such cooperation would mean and by casting also the full light of Scripture upon what it means. Those are mistaken who think that this paragraph repeats 1 Cor. 8 and is aimed only at idols, or that it is aimed only at Judaizers and opponents of Paul. Since they are believers, indeed, who have become God’s righteousness in Christ (5:21), who have not received God’s grace in an empty way (6:1), who recognize the day of salvation (6:3), who appreciate Paul’s example (6:3–10) and thus reciprocate his appeal to them (6:11–14), the Corinthians will drop and shun all wrong connections and embrace God’s great promises with Paul and his assistants and will cleanse themselves and in every instance bring their holiness to its goal. In this whole letter we find what 7:1 again reveals: Paul joins the Corinthians to himself: “let us cleanse ourselves.” He does not pose as a saint who rebukes them because they are unclean. He wins them by doing what he asks them to do. See the full beauty of this mutuality and appreciate its effect on the Corinthians themselves when they read these words.
B.-D. Friedrich Blass’ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, vierte, voellig neugearbeitete Auflage, besorgt von Albert Debrunner.
R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, 4th ed.
C.-K. Biblisch-theologisches Woerterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Graezitaet von D. D. Hermann Cremer, zehnte, etc., Auflage, herausgegeben von D. Dr. Julius Koegel.