2 Corinthians 1
1
1Paul, through the divine purpose an apostle of Christ Jesus, and with him Timothy, one of the brethren, salutes the church of God in Corinth, and with that church he includes all those who have been purified by the Christ, wherever they may be living, throughout the province of Achaia. 2To you all be grace and peace from God who is our Father, and from Jesus Christ whom we acknowledge as Lord.
The divine comfort
3How good, how full of blessedness is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Comfort dwells with Him, in all ways His nature awakes the sense of compassion, and with it strength and comfort. 4I am comforted always in the great dangers and trials which now beset me, and that which upholds and sustains me continually throughout these buffetings serves also for your support and comfort. 5I know your trials, but God is comforting us. The sufferings of the Christ have this compensation; though all our lives are included in them and they abound in us, there goes along with them the same divine comfort and strength which comforted him; and just as his sufferings and even his death were not endured for any faults of his own, but because of others, because of those near him, because of all humanity, that is also the case with ours. 6If I suffer, I know that these sufferings are bringing our final victory and safety from evil nearer, and I know that I suffer for your good; and when God fills me with comfort and strength, that victory over my own sufferings enables me to assist you to the same victory over yours. Both you and I endure these sufferings, 7but our hope is absolutely sure. Patience and endurance only are required in order to win the predestined victory, for his comfort, his strength is mine, and is yours without fail, without fear. 8My struggle in Asia has been beyond words; I have been through deep waters; so far as my own powers, my own physical self and will went, I despaired; 9I had the sentence of death in me, but even so, I knew that my trust and faith were in another, in God who raises the dead, to whom belongs the everlasting victory. 10And so He succoured me, He drew me out of this manifest death, and set my feet upon it, and I am persuaded now that so will it ever be, and I shall feel His support for evermore — 11your own work, your prayers and spiritual help assisting — expressed in that gratitude of the many for God’s marvellous blessing and succour which He shows to me so abundantly.
Paul boasts of his love for them
12Now the only boast I have in myself for this is simply my pure and free conscience which knows that I live and act in the world not on the lines of man’s carnal wisdom, but by His grace, and this is especially the case in my relations with you. 13-14You yourselves are my boast, and I am yours, you know it already; I have no other thoughts, no other motive than that (you have known it always and always will know it), even what I write to you now that I have no boast, no claim to aught in the day of the Lord Jesus but the love that is common to us both, the love we bear one another.
The reason for the change in his plans
15With this deep confidence in my heart, it was my desire on the former occasion to come to you as I wrote, to come for the second time and renew the joy we had before in meeting. 16I wished, as I said, to pass through you to Macedonia, and then to return to you again from Macedonia, and to be sent on my way to Judaea. That was my intention and purpose. 17Did I lightly change my mind? Brethren, I no longer make plans in the human way. I believe in that yea, yea, and nay, nay of the gospel which can only be arrived at by spiritual means, by faith. Otherwise we get the world’s yes and no, changeable and doubtful. 18Faith gives us the one “Yea” which cannot change, and God has ever been faithful in His guidance of us. 19He who sent me to preach the one unchanging Gospel has enabled me in His infinite goodness to show it in my life. He has not made my conduct or my plans light and changeable. For I preach the eternal fulfilment of His promises. That was the gospel which I and Silvanus and Timothy brought you — the absolute accomplishment of God’s purpose and the promises of Scripture in the person of Christ Jesus. 20Him we proclaimed and declared to the world as being the perfect Son of God, in whom we find the positive instead of the negative, the eternal “Yea” of the gospel, instead of the finite “Nay” of the carnal law; in him is all the word of Scripture fulfilled, for God is in him. Through him all we on earth utter the everlasting Amen, in joyful unison with the gospel “Yea”; 21for it is God who is accomplishing all these things; it is God who is sustaining us, and anointing us with the graces of this Christ, 22placing upon us His own stamp and image, giving us the token and pledge of Himself in the gift of the spirit.
23If this then is the gospel which brought me to you first, do not think that the change in my plans for coming to you the second time was due to the mere changeableness and uncertainty of human things or of my own mind. No, I call in God as witness of my own heart and soul that my set purpose in not coming to you was a kind one. 24I do not claim, remember, to exact from you a mere empty obedience and submission to me. Yet had I come to you when I purposed, I could not have come to you in any other spirit than one of unsparing hostility to those influences which I remarked in my first letter as being still active in your midst — divisions, and the danger of idolatry, and the sins of the heathen, especially fornication. Why should I have come to you again in that spirit? I want your love, I want the joy that we have in common, in our common work. For what is that but to stand in the faith even as you do?
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Translated in 1916, published in 1937.
2 Corinthians 1
1
Greeting
1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will, # 1Co 1:1; Eph 1:1; Col 1:1; 2Tm 1:1 and Timothy # 1Th 3:2; 1Tm 1:2 our # Lit the brother:
To God’s church at Corinth, # 1Co 1:2 with all the saints who are throughout Achaia. # Ac 18:12; Php 1:1
2Grace to you and peace # Lk 12:51; Rm 1:7; 2Tm 1:2; 3Jn 14 from God our Father # Mt 5:16; 11:27; Lk 11:13; Jn 8:42; Eph 5:20 and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The God of Comfort
3Praise # Mk 14:61 the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies # Heb 10:28 and the God of all comfort. # Lk 2:25 4He comforts us in all our affliction, # Or trouble, or tribulation, or trials, or oppression ; the Gk word has a lit meaning of being under pressure. so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5For as the sufferings # Gl 5:24; Php 3:10 of Christ # Rm 8:17; 2Co 4:10; Gl 6:17; Php 3:10; Col 1:24 overflow to us, so through Christ our comfort also overflows. # Php 1:29 6If we are afflicted, # Heb 11:37 it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is experienced in your endurance of the same sufferings that we suffer. # Php 1:29 7And our hope # 1Th 1:3 for you is firm, because we know that as you share # Phm 17 in the sufferings, so you will share in the comfort.
8For we don’t want you to be unaware, brothers, of our affliction that took place in Asia: # Ac 6:9 we were completely overwhelmed — beyond our strength # Ac 8:10; 1Co 15:24; Eph 1:21; 1Pt 3:22 — so that we even despaired # 2Co 4:8 of life. 9Indeed, we personally had a death sentence within ourselves, so that we would not trust in ourselves but in God # Ps 25:2; 26:1; Jr 17:5-7; Lk 18:9 who raises # Mk 9:27; Jn 2:19 the dead. 10He has delivered # Mt 27:43 us from such a terrible death, # Mt 10:21; Jn 8:51; Php 3:10 and He will deliver us. We have put our hope in Him that He will deliver us again 11while you join in helping us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our # Other mss read your behalf for the gift that came to us through the prayers of many.
A Clear Conscience
12For this is our confidence: The testimony # 1Tm 2:6 of our conscience # Heb 13:18 is that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you, with God-given sincerity and purity, not by fleshly # The word fleshly (characterized by flesh) indicates that the wisdom is natural rather than spiritual. wisdom # Pr 3:19; 1Co 1:21 but by God’s grace. # Ac 23:1; 2Co 4:2; 5:12; 1Th 2:10 13Now we are writing nothing to you other than what you can read and also understand. I hope you will understand completely — 14as you have partially understood us — that we are your reason for pride, # Rm 2:17; Gl 6:4 as you are ours, # 2Co 9:3; Php 2:16; 4:1; 1Th 2:19-20 in the day of our # Other mss omit our Lord Jesus. # Php 1:6
A Visit Postponed
15I planned with this confidence to come to you first, # Ac 18:1-18; 1Co 4:19 so you could have a double benefit, # Other mss read a second joy 16and to go on to Macedonia # Ac 16:9 with your help, then come to you again from Macedonia and be given a start by you # Ac 20:38 on my journey # Ac 19:21; 1Co 16:5-7 to Judea. # Lk 1:5 17So when I planned this, was I irresponsible? Or what I plan, do I plan in a purely human # Or a worldly, or a fleshly, or a selfish # Php 3:3; Col 3:22 way so that I say “Yes, yes” and “No, no” simultaneously? 18As God is faithful, # Nm 23:19 our message to you is not “Yes and no.” 19For the Son of God, # Jn 5:19; Heb 1:2 Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us — by me and Silvanus # Or Silas ; Ac 15:22-32; 16:19-40; 17:1-16 # 1Th 1:1 and Timothy — did not become “Yes and no”; on the contrary, a final “Yes” has come in Him. # Heb 13:8 20For every one of God’s promises # Gn 12:7 is “Yes” in Him. Therefore, the “Amen” # Ps 72:19; Rv 22:21 is also spoken through Him by us for God’s glory. # Mk 10:37; Lk 9:32; Jn 17:24; 2Co 3:18; 2Pt 3:18 21Now it is God who strengthens us, with you, in Christ and has anointed # Lk 4:18; 1Jn 2:20 us. 22He has also sealed us and given us the Spirit as a down payment # Eph 1:14 in our hearts. # Jms 4:5
23I call on God as a witness, # Rm 1:9; Php 1:8; Heb 12:1 on my life, that it was to spare you that I did not come to Corinth. # 1Co 4:21; 2Co 13:2,10 24I do not mean that we have control of # Or we lord it over, or we rule over your faith, but we are workers with you for your joy, because you stand # Pr 24:16 by faith.
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