Now in the Second Epistle we find that the apostle's patience had been turned against himself by some, as if he was afraid to come and had boasted of an authority which he did not possess; yea, he is even held up to reproach as a vain and fickle man, whose word was not to be depended on. But this does not move him: he endures all things for the elect's sake, and preferred their restoration to the vindication of his own character; even as the perfect patient Servant, when He was reviled, reviled not again, but committed His cause to Him Who was near to justify Him. Nothing but the consciousness of being in the place of the servant, entirely forgetting himself, that he might serve others for the Lord's sake, could have carried him through circumstances so trying. Ingratitude from those to whom he had been a father, personal reproach heaped on him by those who were accredited as teachers in the church, whisperings as to his honesty and integrity, all these trials, so hard to man, moved him not from his purpose of being their servant, as the servant of the Lord unto blessing. The mind which was in Christ Jesus was in him; and it appears to me that the Second Epistle to the Corinthians is the exhibition of that mind in the spirit and conduct of the apostle. It holds a very singular place among the writings of the apostle: there were questions to be answered and error to be corrected in the First Epistle, but in this all the blessed truth is brought out incidentally as exhibiting the reason of his own conduct. We have the experience of man under law given us by the apostle in Rom. 7. He speaks in the Galatians as one identified with Christ in His death and resurrection. He gives us his own estimate of all fleshly advantages in the Philippians. But here we have all the painful experience of the servant of the Lord in outward hardship and inward trial. But the spring of it all, the hidden spring of his unfailing energy in service, was the knowledge of, and communion with, the mind of Christ; which in result caused him always to triumph in Christ. With the exception of the eighth and ninth chapters, all this Epistle is of a personal character; in the first seven chapters he speaks both in the person of Timothy, as well as in his own person; in the last chapters he was compelled; although it were folly, to speak of himself. He who had taught to rejoice in tribulation now rejoices in it. He begins this Epistle as one who had triumphed— “blessed be God.” All his trials in service had only served to lead him to know God, as he could not have known Him otherwise, “as the Father of mercies, and God of all consolation.” It was in this school he acquired the ability to comfort others; so that the personal afflictions or personal comfort of the apostle worked unto the same end, even their profit, for he was their servant for Jesus' sake.
The manner in which the apostle met the charge of fickleness against himself, shows forth the dexteritousness of divine wisdom. Be it so—I am fickle, but He Whom I preach is not so; in Him is stability—in Him is yea—in Him is amen. The servant would exalt his Master, even apparently at his own expense. For there was no stability in the servant himself, except that which he had in common with them all, even that stability which God Himself had given them, by establishing them in Christ. He draws them away from looking to him, by turning them to those blessings which they had in common with him as believers in Christ. He thus makes them, as it were, judges, themselves, putting them in the place of exercising righteous judgment. Had he succeeded in most satisfactorily answering the charge, it would have done nothing to establish their souls. This was his object: as one who knew that when the soul itself is unestablished in grace, it can only judge after the seeing of the eye, or hearing of the ear. But when he had thus set them in blessed security, the common security of the church, and had shown to them that the privileges which they had in common with the apostle, were the highest that either he or they could have; then he could solemnly tell them, that it was no fickleness on his part that had prevented his carrying his intention into effect; but that to spare them he had not come to Corinth. Surely the servant of the Lord must not faint or be discouraged under misconception or misrepresentation: even evil report is a means, of approving ourselves as ministers of Christ; even as deceivers, we are yet true. There is no self-seeking in the servant's place, but the using of every occasion to turn it to the Master's account.
He next gives the reason why he had written instead of personally coming to them; it was to prove his love for them and interest in them. He knew their value as saints. He estimated them as seeing them in Christ and not according to their actual standing, and disorderly walk: nothing but their recognition of their real standing would have been real reformation. His immediate presence might have produced that which was outward, but he sought to touch the inward spring. And here we find in the conduct of the servant that which would be judged blameworthy by those who merely looked on the outward appearance and sought not the mind of Christ. The servant knew the preciousness of the saints to the Lord, and knew also how much the glory of His name was implicated in their walk, and more than this his own energy depended on it; so that when he had before him the two services of preaching to the world or ministering to weak and disorderly saints, we find the servant, of the Lord led into that which might even have been deemed, by those who judged not in the Spirit, to be idleness. “When I came to Troas to preach Christ's gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord, I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother; but taking my leave of them, I went from thence to Macedonia.” What a lesson are we taught here! The active diligent pains-taking servant, whom no hardship could move, no danger could hinder, has no heart or ability for the preaching of the gospel, because of his anxious care for distant disorderly saints. How did the apostle feel himself to be of the body! How little is this known in our days! Who among the servants of the Lord is tracing his own dispiritedness for the work to its right cause—the divided state of the body of Christ?
Again, it must be repeated, he might have set all right by his own immediate presence at Corinth, he might have exposed all their errors and declared infallibly the truth of God; but this would not have ministered life to them, nor gladness and strength to his own soul. But how blessedly his ways in Christ resulted, he subsequently states. “I am filled with comfort, I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation. For when we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side; without were fightings, within were fears: nevertheless God, that comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus, and not by his coming only, but by the consolation wherewith he was comforted, in you.” It was this coming of Titus which made him so exult, and connects his triumphant language with his apparent failure in the twelfth and thirteenth verses of the second chapter. For immediately on having mentioned his going from Troas into Macedonia, he says, “Now thanks be unto God which always causes as to triumph in Christ.” He is not here speaking of any success in preaching in Macedonia, nor indeed of preaching at all, but that the way of Christ in which he had walked was. the way of triumph. It was the way of self-renunciation, the way “in which the flesh had no rest.” To have power and yet not to exercise power—to be able to vindicate most satisfactorily an aspersed character, and yet to endure the contradiction of sinners against oneself, here is no rest in the flesh—here is the mind and way of Christ—here is the path of glory and virtue leading to certain triumph, conscious triumph even here. Now whilst it is most fully allowed that this is applicable to the preaching of the gospel, and that in this to the faithful servant there is constant triumph, since the testimony always prospers in that whereunto God has sent it, whether they hear and whether they reject it, yet I do assuredly believe that the whole context shows the mind of the Spirit to be the triumph which always follows walking in Christ.
There are two ways of testimony unto Christ; the one is by preaching, which may be done through strife or vain glory, and this hinders not the blessing of God to souls, because Christ is to be magnified; but the other way is that of His living power manifested in service. And it is to this the apostle adverts, when he says, “and maketh manifest the savor of His knowledge by us in every place, for we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ, in them that are saved and in them that perish: to the one we are the savor of death unto death; and to the other the savor of life unto life.” The elect Servant of Jehovah was, in the eyes of man, one in whom there was no form nor comeliness; one in whom they saw no beauty that they should desire Him Yet He was ever a sweet savor unto God. If man despised Him, it only proved the justice of God's judgment as to man; and where there was faith, there “wisdom was justified of her children.” The apostles, and real servants of the Lord, were “the foolish, the weak, the base, the despised things of the world.” Yet as such, they always triumphed even as their Master, to whom it was said as the despised of men, “therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong.” And it is thus the apostle looks from himself to his Master. “For though He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him (with Him, margin), but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you.” His very triumph in Christ was his own personal humiliation in the eyes of men; he knew that, just in proportion as Paul was hidden, Christ would be made to appear. And painful as the needed discipline was, he could say, “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.”
In speaking of the Corinthians themselves, as his best letter of recommendation, he is led to contrast the ministration of the New Testament with that of the Old, and their different glories. Moses as the servant of the one exhibited the glory of the Old or of the letter, in its repulsiveness and obscurity; but Paul as the servant of the other was to exhibit its attractive glory, not only in testimony but in service likewise. Each ministration had the effect of assimilating its servant to its own character. And whilst the apostle states it as the common portion of all to have communion with that glory (3:18), he himself and his fellow-laborers through the knowledge of it were prevented from fainting. “Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have obtained mercy, we faint not.” There was indeed enough to make him faint: all human energies must have given way under the pressure; but the character of the ministry, “life and righteousness,” and “we have obtained mercy,” caused him not to faint. Official authority might have punished, but then the servant would have been lost sight of in the apostle; and although it put him in so low a place, yet he could thus minister that which their case required. How gracious indeed is it to know that, low and degraded as saints may be, the ministration of the New Testament can reach to them and raise them up! But then it must be by the manifestation of the truth, setting man aside to show that the only sufficiency is in God. The exercise even of apostolic authority might have tended to obscure the luster of the glory of that grace; but when such a ministry was commended by the conduct of those who were themselves exhibiting the glory of it, it could only be the direct power of Satan that could cause it to be hidden. That the character of service is here intended to be brought out, is, I think, sufficiently clear from the connection in 4:5, “for we preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.”
Now what follows is all characterizing service, in its abasement of the flesh. God's glory must be put in an earthen vessel, that it may be manifested as His and not the vessel's which bears it. The chosen vessel must suffer for the name it bears. Is it the ministration of life? How shall it be manifested? By seeing death as to man stamped on him who ministers it. It was life in Jesus, as being only in Him, that they had to preach and minister; therefore it was with them, “always bearing about in his 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 always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, &c. It is most clear from the words, “so then death worketh in us, but life in you,” that the apostle is here speaking of that which is death to man as man—everything that would tend to exalt him in the estimation of others, the power of command arising from superior intellect, the influence of birth, the advantages of education—on all of them death was written. And the servant of the Lord had to know the deep trial of foregoing all these advantages, that life might work in others. What a practical comment was the experience of the apostle in service on the word of the Lord, “a man must hate his life in this world!” It was the deep entering in of the soul into the power of the resurrection, which made him practically acquainted with death as man. He had the same spirit of faith as He had Whom he served. Faith could say, “I believed, therefore have I spoken: I was greatly afflicted. I said in mine haste, all men are liars. Yea, truly all men are liars—are vanity; and therefore it was faith in a resurrection—God which sustained the apostle in his daily dying. But whilst thus he was lifted above death, he could look at all his sufferings as being in service to the church, “for all things are for your sakes;” and therefore here was another ground of not fainting. The outer man might perish, but the inner man was renewed day by day by the power of unseen things.
The same leading thought runs through the fifth chapter and into the sixth, as is plainly stated: “giving no offense in anything, that the ministry be not blamed, but in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God.” The fifth chapter is connected with the preaching by the word “for we know.” The expression, “we know,” is dogmatic with the apostle for that knowledge which is peculiar to a Christian, and seems generally to be applied to practical knowledge. It is the portion of the believer alone to be able to judge all things as from above. “We know that the law is spiritual” —this we could not know unless we were spiritual. “We know that, if our earthly tabernacle were dissolved, we have,” &c. This we could not know unless our soul had entered into resurrection as its portion. It was therefore not a vague, but a very distinct, apprehension of the resurrection of the body, which made the apostle patient under all hardships, groaning from without and within in earnest desire of deliverance.
There was another thing also which entered into the question of service, and that was the solemn apprehension of the light in which everything would be judged, when the veil was drawn aside and Christ should appear. His service all had respect to that day, and therefore was not to be judged of by human prudence, but by the Spirit which alone could know the terror, of the Lord. He anticipated the judgment, and had been made manifest to God, and also he trusted to their consciences. This was the use in service which the apostle made of the solemn truth that all of us have to be manifested before the Bema of Christ. But, farther, the light of the resurrection-day had such a powerful effect on the soul of the apostle, that he would often appear to be acting extravagantly or inconsistently; but still he could say, “Whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God; or whether we be sober, it is for your cause; for the love of Christ constraineth us.” He labored as one who had already died, and therefore in a manner beyond the range of human thought. He knew no man after the flesh, and would not himself be manifested after the flesh. Everything was new to him, and he labored as it were in a new creation.
(Continued from p. 57.)