2 CORINTHIANS 7 (SECOND READING)
2 CORINTHIANS 7 (SECOND READING)
Rem It was a great joy to the apostle to see his children recovering as a result of his first letter.
CAC Yes. We might learn from this how the Lord’s heart yearns over us, to see us free for spiritual prosperity. If the Lord sees a little move with us it is a great joy to Him. Paul says, “Ye are in our hearts, to die together, and live together”. I suppose that is the right order.
Rem It has the spiritual aspect of living in view.
CAC Yes.
Ques Why did he say, “Receive us”?
CAC I suppose it is a reference to the unprofitable men they had received, who had really injured and ruined and made gain of them. The apostles were not on that line.
Ques Would “combats” refer to something outside, or to trouble in the assembly?
CAC I should think it might refer to both; in Macedonia there were outward difficulties, and there was this great burden on Paul’s spirit about Corinth, “within fears”. It is very beautiful that he speaks of God as “he who encourages those that are brought low”, as though it were a characteristic feature of God, referring of course to those who were brought low in exercise about the assembly; that was what brought Paul low.
Rem I wonder why all the variety of his exercises has been allowed to be [p. 302] recorded here.
CAC He is bringing out his own earnest care for them, which they had lost sight of. They had given themselves up to other influences. The apostle was not a man that moved along quite superior to everything. He felt things very keenly.
Rem His feelings are very diverse in this chapter, joy and grief and so on. He seems to be able to separate out his mixed feelings.
CAC When Titus came back and told him about the letter, it was a cause of very great joy; he could hardly contain himself.
Rem He rejoiced because they had “been grieved to repentance”.
CAC Yes; the first letter he wrote was an inspired letter, and then he regretted having written it in case it might have made a complete break between him and them. A servant may speak in the power of the Spirit faithfully and needfully, and then perhaps he may feel afterwards that he has said too much. Well, the apostle may have had exercises of that sort.
Rem Such exercises would give us a true balance for the sake of the truth ministered.
CAC I am sure that is right. No true servant would have wished to grieve people simply for the sake of doing so.
Rem Receiving a letter like this would be a test. Sometimes we do not like the reproof!
CAC When we do not like it, it shews we needed it!
Rem He speaks of it as “grief according to God”; he seems to analyse it. How the apostle was in the good of 1 Corinthians 13, for it was really love that produced all these fine feelings and sensibilities!
CAC And it is something like the first exercises of the soul in repentance when converted. When God first took us in hand, it produced godly sorrow, sorrow for the [p. 303] life I lived; then repentance came about and then salvation. It is the same kind of thing whenever a soul meets fresh exercise. It is the exercise repeated that we had when we were converted at the beginning; there is sorrow, repentance and salvation; that is the moral order. Repentance is that we see we have been wrong. If a christian gets light from God that certain things he has been going on with are wrong, are displeasing to God, he repents. Well, repentance is that we change our outlook on things. It is continual and should be deepening with us. As we go on we should repent more fully and deeply than we ever did before.
They had been giving up all the great truths of christianity, fellowship, the Lord’s supper, the Spirit and the truth of the body. When they saw that they had turned away from all the apostle had brought before them, they repented in godly sorrow and had salvation from all those things that had so led them astray. Then we see that this being grieved according to God leads to great activity of soul for it wrought in them much diligence, indignation, fear, ardent desire, zeal and vengeance. That is, it was a tremendous reality to them, it affected them deeply. “What excusing of yourselves” would mean they had been letting things pass, even the gravest moral disorder and corruption; and when the apostle’s letter came they realised that things so displeasing to God could no longer be allowed to pass. They put zeal and energy into it.
Rem Verse 12 is very remarkable.
CAC The apostle is referring to the same case he had called attention to in his first epistle, but he was not so concerned about the case itself as that the Corinthians should be convinced of his diligent zeal for them being manifested. He would have them to recognise what was working in his mind and heart.
Rem “Ye have proved yourselves to be pure in the matter”. The fact of the spiritual result for the assembly is more important than the case in question.
CAC Yes, and it is an important matter that when the Lord brings evil to light there should be sufficient care and concern to deal with it in a divine way, in such a way that the holiness of God’s house is maintained.
Rem The divine thought is that the offender should be recovered.
CAC The offender was apparently brought into deep sorrow, because there was a danger that he should be “swallowed up with excessive grief”, 2 Corinthians 2: 7.
Rem It was not a single instance, but a leaven among them.
CAC Yes; he says he feared lest at his coming he should have to “grieve over many of those who have sinned before, and have not repented”, 2 Corinthians 12: 21. As you say, it was a leaven in the whole lump.
Rem So he said, “Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump”, 1 Corinthians 5: 7.
CAC And purging out the old leaven was not getting rid of the wicked person, it was getting rid of the element working in them all.
Ques Does “before God” in verse 12 imply that all that was done by the apostle was done consciously before God?
CAC Yes. He would have it manifested to them that it was godly jealousy, not that he merely wanted his own way in the matter.
Rem He refers to the spirit of Titus and later to the “heart of Titus”.
CAC The apostle was evidently in the habit of speaking well of the saints. He had not run the Corinthians down to Titus; he had boasted of them. He had said so much in their favour that he was exceedingly pleased when it turned out to be true. The letter, which was the [p. 305] ministry of the word, had produced a complete change of everything with them. They were being worldly and losing all the character of the assembly, and through the use of the word they were recovered. There is no reason to despair of anybody until they absolutely reject the word.
Rem What an example of the power to repent David is, and he was a godly saint!
CAC Sometimes when we see a christian doing something dreadful, we are inclined to think he will never be any good again. But David became greater spiritually after his dreadful sin than before, and I suppose his exercises greatly deepened the work of God in his soul. But we need to look at these things as God looks at them.
Rem The way in which a thing is done is of great importance, the spirit in which discipline is exercised.
CAC So that evil coming into the assembly should bring out the best and most spiritual qualities there are in the saints. No doubt this resulted in the false apostles being judged and sent about their business. They would lose their influence entirely.
We see the beautiful yearnings of divine love brought into exercise by the very disorders. It is as though it provided an occasion for the exercise of divine love. That is the first thought suggested to us in the Bible. In Genesis 1 we get the first movements of God in a scene of disorder and chaos, when “the earth was waste and empty”. The first thing was that the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep. The Spirit of God comes in to move with feeling over a scene of chaos in order to bring about restoration and something which should be for God’s pleasure. God delights in the restoration of what has departed from Him. Well, it was the same thing at Corinth, it was like the Spirit of God hovering in feeling and tender sensibility over a scene of chaos,
[p. 306] and God worked so that something was brought about for His pleasure. How one would like to bring in something like that.