7. Open Rebuke
7
Open Rebuke
The Failures of the Corinthians and the Motives of the Apostle
11I have made a fool of myself, but you drove me to it. I ought to have been commended by you, for I am not in the least inferior to the “super-apostles,” even though I am nothing. 12The things that mark an apostle—signs, wonders, and miracles—were done among you with great perseverance. 13How were you inferior to the other churches, except that I was never a burden to you? Forgive me this wrong!
14Now I am ready to visit you for the third time, and I will not be a burden to you, because what I want is not your possessions but you. After all, children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children. 15So I will very gladly spend for you everything I have and expend myself as well. If I love you more, will you love me less? 16Be that as it may, I have not been a burden to you. Yet, crafty fellow that I am, I caught you by trickery! 17Did I exploit you through any of the men I sent you? 18I urged Titus to go to you and I sent our brother with him. Titus did not exploit you, did he? Did we not act in the same spirit and follow the same course?
19Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you? We have been speaking in the sight of God as those in Christ; and everything we do, dear friends, is for your strengthening. 20For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disorder. 21I am afraid that when I come again my God will humble me before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual sin and debauchery in which they have indulged.
2 Corinthians 12:11–21
There is a time for subtle dealings: there is also a time for blunt confrontation. As a wise counselor, Paul knows the difference. He has built a very strong case against the intruding apostles, and exposed the fundamentally un-Christian structure of their triumphalism. But so far Paul has been relatively gentle with the Corinthians themselves. He has shamed them a little with his irony, and demanded that they think through the criteria of Christian leadership they have been fed by the interlopers; but he has not launched an open assault on their own complicity in the troubling state of affairs the false apostles have introduced into the Corinthian church.
In the verses before us, that changes. Paul details some of the specific failures of the Corinthians in this sorry affair; and then, lest his reasons for bringing them up be impugned yet again, he reveals some of his own deep motives for doing so. We may profitably learn to avoid the failures of the one and to nurture the motives of the other.
A. The Failures of the Corinthians (12:11–18)
1. The Corinthians have driven Paul to the agony of these chapters (12:11). Paul’s foolish boasting is now pretty well over. Boasting was certainly not something the apostle wanted to do. After all, he had condemned the habits of others in this regard, and insisted that the biblical pattern was to boast only in the Lord (2 Cor. 10:7–18). Nevertheless, Paul was driven to indulge in what he condemned. Of course, most of what he did was cast in terms of deep and sometimes scathing irony; and the entire series of boasts, he insisted, was in any case not the mark of Paul the Christian, but Paul the fool (11:17). If at some point he actually did claim something for himself such as the fact that he had been the recipient of surpassingly great revelations, he did so with the lightest touch, indeed through an embarrassing and awkward appeal to a third-person “man in Christ.” And even then Paul turned immediately from what might have become real boasting to boasting about his weaknesses.
The entire procedure has been eminently detestable to Paul. It may have been necessary in order to save the church from spiritual charlatans and their false doctrine, but it was a personal agony for the apostle, as he indicates by saying yet again, “I have made a fool of myself.”
In one sense, of course, the people responsible for bringing the apostle to this sorry state were the interlopers themselves. But there is another way of looking at the matter. If the Corinthians had been half as wise and discerning as they thought they were, they would not have been taken in by the “deceitful workmen” (2 Cor. 11:13). “I have made a fool of myself,” Paul admits, “but you drove me to it” (12:11). The pagan boasting of false leaders would never have forced Paul to adopt somewhat similar tactics, or a parody of them; only the silence of his own churches could do that, as his converts held their peace and were gradually taken in by the false apostles. Paul may have been forced to play the fool, but at least his action was excusable. Those who had driven Paul into this role could offer no excuse in their own defense.
No church was in a better position to defend and commend Paul than the one in Corinth. “I ought to have been commended by you,” Paul goes on to say, “for I am not in the least inferior to the ‘super-apostles,’ even though I am nothing” (2 Cor. 12:11b). This church was founded by Paul (1 Cor. 4:14–16) and received all its early training in the way of righteousness from him; but when he is subtly maligned by these latecomer super-apostles, the Corinthians themselves, far from stoutly defending Paul and smartly turfing the interlopers out, have kept their peace about Paul and become the dupes of the frauds they should have disciplined.
Paul is not contradicting himself, begging for the kind of letters of commendation his rivals made so much of (cf. 2 Cor. 3:1). He well knew his apostleship was independent of men: its origin was the commission he received from the Lord Jesus himself (Gal. 1:1); and no commendation could either add to or take away from the authority and responsibility conferred on him by that commission. Yet the Corinthians were his converts. In that sense they were the seal or confirming sign of his apostleship (1 Cor. 9:2). Converted under Paul’s apostolic ministry (1 Cor. 3:6, 10; 4:15), they merely had to acknowledge that fact, and they would have been commending his ministry. Pathetically, they failed to display even this minimum sign of gratitude. Preferring the worldly standards of leadership paraded by the interlopers, the Corinthians began to feel ashamed that their father in Christ was meek (10:1), short on rhetorical flourishes (v. 10; 11:6), not very secure financially (vv. 7–11; 12:13), and reticent about his spiritual experiences (12:1–10).
The Corinthians should have seen instantly that Paul was “not in the least inferior to the ‘super-apostles’ ” in anything that was truly a Christian value; and in other matters, the Corinthians had to learn their criteria were wrong (see on 2 Cor. 12:12–14, below). Even this slight brush with boasting is enough to embarrass the apostle, however, and so he quickly adds, “even though I am nothing.” Even his equivalence in every legitimate apostolic claim has nothing to do with personal superiority: he is a debtor to grace, and for Paul that is no mere cliché.
The Corinthian believers cannot be lumped together with the interlopers; but they stand indicted in their own right. Their failure to defend and commend Paul has been the immediate cause of the spiritual agony he undergoes in composing these chapters. Their sin was silence; yet it was not only silence, since:
2. The Corinthians utilized false criteria in assessing leaders (12:12–14). There are at least three of these. First, the Corinthians succumbed to love of power and supernatural displays, forgetting that Paul’s ministry was characterized by a distinctively Christian balance of miracle and perseverance. In a syntactically difficult verse, Paul says, “The things that mark an apostle—signs, wonders, and miracles—were done among you with great perseverance.” The last phrase could be rendered several different ways. It seems unlikely, however, that it modifies the verb “were done,” as if the apostle had persevered in his miracle-working at Corinth: i.e., in spite of opposition to miracles or personal fatigue. This does not easily square with what we know of Paul, nor fit the context before us very well.
It seems better to take the phrase to mean “in all endurance” (a more literal rendering of the Greek), in the sense “in (the context of) all endurance,” so that the verse as a whole reads, “The things that mark an apostle—signs, wonders, and miracles—were done among you in the context of all endurance.” In other words, it sounds as if the Corinthians have been saying that if Paul really loved them, he would have displayed more apostolic power. Perhaps the intruders were willing and able to parade their miracles. The Corinthians might ask, then, if Paul thought they were unworthy to receive his miracles. The apostle’s reply is to this effect: No, you too witnessed many miracles typical of apostolic ministry, but they appeared in the context of great endurance. They were not triumphalistic bits of showmanship but displays of the power of God revealed, as in the ministry of Jesus, in the midst of suffering and perseverance. The “endurance” in Paul’s case would then refer to all the things mentioned in 2 Corinthians 11 and 12, including the beatings, the privations, and the thorn in the flesh.
This interpretation therefore suits the preceding, but it also fits with what comes next: Paul asks, “How were you inferior . . . ?” In other words, the Corinthians had apparently been feeling inferior, owing to Paul’s treatment of them. They wanted miracles without suffering, triumphs without endurance; and their embittered memories were suggesting Paul had never really displayed his apostolic stuff to them at all! Paul’s reply, then, is that “signs” (miracles with a peculiar ability to point beyond themselves and instruct the observer), “wonders” (miracles conceived as supernatural events that evoke awe), and “miracles” (lit., “mighty deeds,” i.e., mighty displays of divine power that transcend what is normally seen in the course of nature) were indeed done among them: the Corinthians have no ground for complaint. But Paul refuses to say that he did the miracles: the passive “were done” is a nice touch, for Paul means the miracles “were done [sc. by God!].” He thereby avoids saying he himself performed them. As usual, Paul prefers not to cast his language as claim or boast. Moreover, he then adds that the miracles done were accomplished in the context of great endurance.
Although miracles in the post-Pentecost period of the New Testament are sometimes done by the hands of non-apostolic figures, normally apostles are the agents. In that sense, miracles constitute one “mark” of an apostle. But there are others, not least the stamina, endurance, and fortitude bound up in the phrase rendered “with great perseverance.” The fault of the Corinthians was that their criteria for what is truly apostolic were painfully selective. They magnified the miracles and sapped all significance from suffering. They became true triumphalists; and their descendants are still with us.
The second false criterion espoused by the Corinthian believers is shown up by Paul’s next sentence, a rhetorical question: “How were you inferior to the other churches, except that I was never a burden to you?” Then he adds, with cutting irony, “Forgive me this wrong!” (2 Cor. 12:13). In part, this verse carries on from the last one. The Corinthians were not inferior in the number or kind of apostolic miracles performed among them; in fact, with but one exception, the Corinthians were not in any way treated as if they were an inferior breed. The one exception is that Paul refused to take money from the Corinthians. If that refusal made the Corinthians inferior, it is hard to see how—unless it made them feel inferior because their understanding of triumphalistic leadership inevitably cried out for strong authority figures who actually exploited them (11:7–12; 12:20–21)!
We have already learned something of Paul’s reasoning on these matters. It was his normal fiscal practice to refuse help from the people to whom he was currently ministering. He might well accept it later, when it would help sustain him and his ministry in another mission field; but even then he was apparently reluctant to receive anything from any group in which triumphalism prevailed.
One way to get at the problem is to distinguish apostolic marks or qualifications from apostolic rights. Paul has the right of an apostle to be supported by the church or churches among which he is currently ministering; but he prefers not to use it (cf. 1 Cor. 9:1–18; 2 Cor. 11:5–12). That is one of the things that distinguishes a mark from a right. A mark or characteristic must be presented in some sense; but a right need not be, since it might be cheerfully abandoned for some purpose of strategy, generosity, goodness. The Corinthians’ error lay in transforming an apostolic right that Paul chose to forego into a necessary mark or qualification of apostolic office. Their error was a particular form of majoring in the minors.
In the third place, not only did the Corinthians fail to distinguish between apostolic mark and apostolic right, but they misinterpreted Paul’s motives for not passing the hat among them. “Now I am ready to visit you for the third time” (on the numbering, cf. 2 Cor. 13:1), Paul writes; and then he publicly resolves, “I will not be a burden to you, because what I want is not your possessions but you. After all, children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children” (12:14). This third trip will not find Paul changing his financial policy; so the Corinthians had better get used to it. Indeed it is this very policy, a policy the Corinthians think strange and demeaning, that Paul uses to prove he is unlike the false apostles in his motives. Strange as his policy may be from the perspective of pagan one-upmanship, it forcefully demonstrates that what the apostle wants is not their possessions but them—i.e., he wants their continued allegiance and devotion to Christ, and their reciprocated love (6:13; 12:15). Far from making the Corinthians inferior, Paul’s fiscal policy toward the Corinthians wisely exposes the exploiters for what they are, and presents a Christian value system to display criteria based on money and power.
The illustration Paul adds (“After all, children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children,” 12:14b) should not be universalized. More extensive family responsibilities are set out in 1 Timothy 5:8, responsibilities that presuppose a child may very well provide for an aging or infirm parent. Besides, Paul elsewhere defends the right of other apostles to be supported by their “children” (1 Cor. 9:3–14). The point of Paul’s illustration is, not that no other possible relationship may exist between parents and children, but that his motive toward the Corinthians is akin to that of a parent much concerned to bring his offspring to maturity and independence, not to exploit them.
The Corinthians, then, have driven Paul to the agony of these chapters and utilized false criteria in assessing leaders. The apostle now itemizes a third and a fourth failure on their part.
3. The Corinthians have withheld their love from the apostle who has loved them so deeply (12:15–16a). Paul has just said he acted toward the Corinthians as parents toward their children. He continues this theme, but utilizes it in a new way by emphasizing once more the depth of his commitment to them: “So I will very gladly spend for you everything I have and expend myself as well” (2 Cor. 12:15a): he will cheerfully pour out on his converts not only whatever possessions he may have but his reserves of time and energy as well, so great is his love for them and his commitment to their maturity. But now the argument turns to point out this third Corinthian failure: “If I love you more, will you love me less?” (v. 15b). The comparatives “more” and “less” continue the analogy from verse 14. Paul is asking in effect, “If I love you more than parents love their children, will you love me less than children love their parents?”
One of the great Christian virtues is gratitude. Our first responsibility in this area is to be grateful to God, not only for life itself, with all the blessings of common grace, but above all for forgiveness of our sins through Christ’s voluntary self-sacrifice, and for all the benefits that have flowed to us on account of the Lord Jesus. It is generally true, however, that those who are grateful to God will also display a grateful attitude to others, not least to God’s choice servants from whom they have derived so much good. Conversely, if Christians are singularly ungrateful to the older believers who have led them in their first steps of faith and discipleship, the failure probably reflects the kind of egocentric immaturity that is thankless toward God himself.
Christians bent on maturity should work hard at gratitude. Thankfulness to friends, parents, senior believers who have helped us on our way, and above all to God himself, is not only common courtesy, it is something more, much more: it is simultaneously a powerful antidote to bitterness and malice, and potent acknowledgment that we stand by grace. What else could ever display gratitude as the appropriate response to grace, whether the special grace that brings us salvation or the grace mediated through fellow believers, friends, and events? Grace gives; what more can we do than give thanks? What response to grace could be more vile than ingratitude?
In an important sense, even our love finds its birth in gratitude: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. . . . We love because he first loved us” (1 John 3:16; 4:19). All of our love for him is at best a response to his love for us. Conversely, failure to love him is a denial of his love for us. As such, it is a crude form of blasphemy, a slur on the love and grace of God manifest in Christ Jesus. By extension, the same vices are present in those who fail to reciprocate love to God’s children.
The Corinthians out of simple thankfulness should have opened wide their hearts to the apostle and returned at least some portion of the love he had lavished on them. But supposing they remain stingy in their love, what will Paul’s response be? Should he forego his fiscal policy and adopt the standards of the Corinthians? No, Paul could not do that; for in the current atmosphere, that would be akin to shifting from a theology of grace to a theology of merit. The gospel itself would be eviscerated. Therefore Paul contemplates the past silence of the Corinthian believers, and recalls his own unswerving policy: “Be that as it may, I have not been a burden to you” (2 Cor. 12:16a).
4. The Corinthians have suggested that Paul is financially corrupt (12:16b–18). Despite the fact that Paul has not taken any financial help from the Corinthian church (perhaps indeed because of it!), these believers have come to entertain the suggestion that Paul’s fiscal independence was a cunning front that masked his financial corruption. He is charged with being unscrupulous and crafty by nature, traits used to enable him to extract money by guile from the Corinthians when he wouldn’t take it openly and honestly. It is to this charge that Paul refers when he writes his next sentence with biting irony: “Yet, crafty fellow that I am, I caught you by trickery!”
It appears likely that the charge of financial fraud arose in connection with Paul’s persistent appeals to the Corinthians for funds for the believers in depressed Jerusalem (1 Cor. 16:1–4; 2 Cor. 8–9). Probably someone started the rumor that Paul was going to use this money, or a substantial part of it, to line his own pockets. His assistants, they would say, come and pick up what we set aside and carry it to Paul; and who knows what happens to it then (wink, wink)? “It was not the smallest part of the hurtfulness of this charge that it touched Paul’s assistants as well as himself” (Barrett).
Paul seeks to defend himself against this outrageous accusation by pointing out that the assistants he sent did not act like rapacious exploiters and bullies (unlike the false apostles!), but conducted themselves with the same spirit displayed by Paul. “Did I exploit you through any of the men I sent you?” Paul asks (2 Cor. 1:17). In fact, the grammar of this rhetorical question is broken, probably owing to the intensity of emotion as Paul composes his letter: “Any of those I have sent—did I exploit you through him?” More explicitly, Paul continues, “I urged Titus to go to you and sent our brother with him. Titus did not exploit you, did he? Did we not act in the same spirit and follow the same course?” (12:18). If the messengers Paul sent were not exploiters, why should the Corinthians think Paul himself was?
Probably the only thing that could finally allay all suspicion would be an appropriate letter of thanks from the Jerusalem church, a letter that would serve as a receipt. When Paul wrote these chapters, the money had not yet been completely collected, let alone sent on; and therefore Paul’s options for defending himself were extremely limited. The thrust of his reply is to shame the Corinthians into recognizing that the demeanor, self-denial, discipline, and integrity of Paul and his assistants are so demonstrable and obvious at every level of their dealings that the charges are absurd.
It is a reflection of the Corinthians’ immaturity, of their sins before God, and of their brutal treatment of the apostle on so many fronts, that they have sunk so low. Sometimes, of course, our spiritual leaders do get sucked into dishonest or disreputable practices; and then they are to be rebuked publicly (1 Tim. 5:20). But more often their public life and ministry leave them open to unfounded charges, and for that reason Christians are to be very slow even to listen to accusations against them. That the Corinthians could entertain such blatant nonsense about the apostle Paul is an index of their own attitudes and suspicions, their belief that money is important and all men want it, their lovelessness and ingratitude toward both God and Paul.
These failures in the Corinthians constitute the reason why the apostle must turn from this subject to a further elucidation of his own motives. If the Corinthians can actually believe Paul is characterized by graft and duplicity, they have not understood very well just what drives him. Thus the next paragraph, outlining some of Paul’s motives, is part and parcel of the broader rebuke.
B. The Motives of the Apostle (12:19–21)
1. To strengthen the Corinthians (12:19). Paul is painfully aware that the Corinthians, judging by their past performance, might well display a remarkable ability to misunderstand and distort all that he is writing, and especially to twist his motives. With a little perverse encouragement, they might dismiss these admonitions as yet another sample of Paul’s forceful writing style, a desperate strategy to scramble back into the good graces of the Corinthian church by pathetic self-defense.
The first sentence of verse 19 may be a question (as in NIV), or it may be a blunt statement: “You have been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you.” Either way, Paul denies the validity of their mental reservations, and details his true motives: “We have been speaking in the sight of God as those in Christ; and everything we do, dear friends, is for your strengthening” (2 Cor. 12:19b).
Paul is so greatly aware that everything he says and does “is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Heb. 4:13) that he could not possibly be involved in a petty power scramble. He has been speaking in the sight of God to whom ultimately he is accountable; he has been speaking as a Christian, as one of those in Christ. This theme dominates large parts of the Corinthian correspondence, probably because the Corinthians are so irresponsible in their use of language, in their boasting, in their personal relationships that they expect all others to partake in the same irresponsibility. It is said that one of the greatest punishments of the liar is not that he is not believed but that he will not believe. Similarly, the person who is undisciplined in his speech and selfish in his motives may face his greatest danger not in being rejected by others but in foolishly rejecting wise and disciplined and unselfish Christians. Paul does not fit their mold; and so he must explain to them, again and again, “Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God” (2 Cor. 2:17); or again, “Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also to your conscience” (5:11); or again, as here, “We have been speaking in the sight of God as those in Christ.”
In one sense, of course, Paul has indeed been defending himself. That is truly demonstrated by the fact that he has been forced by the Corinthians to engage in the foolish boasting. But when Paul in this verse denies that he is defending himself, he means only that he is not launching a defense of himself as the Corinthians measure self-defense. In the view of the Corinthian church, such self-defense is self-serving, and designed to promote self-interest and personal authority. If Paul were defending himself in that sense, it would mean the Corinthians are the judges who must assess what sort of man Paul is. But whatever Paul is doing here, he is not (he tells the Corinthians) defending himself “to you.” He is so concerned to maintain God’s approval (1 Cor. 4:3–5) that he shows little interest in sinking to the judgment of lower courts.
With that perspective controlling Paul’s outlook, then, his description of his motives cannot reasonably be challenged: “everything we do, dear friends, is for your strengthening” (2 Cor. 12:19). The Corinthians have suspected Paul is writing to vindicate himself before them, whereas the truth is that he is writing to strengthen them, to build them up. If he could achieve this aim without winning them over in personal allegiance to himself, that would not bother him in the slightest. Although the very nature of the contest makes such an option impossible, Paul’s motives remain comfortably distanced from self-interest.
There is the mark of true Christian leadership. Sadly, too many leaders consciously or unconsciously link their own careers and reputations with the gospel they proclaim and the people they serve. Slowly, unnoticed by all but the most discerning, defense of the truth slips into self-defense, and the best interest of the congregation becomes identified with the best interest of the leaders. Personal triumphalism strikes again, sometimes with vicious intensity. It is found in the evangelical academic who invests all his opinions with the authority of Scripture, in the pastor whose every word is above contradiction, in the leader transparently more interested in self-promotion and the esteem of the crowd than in the benefit and progress of the Christians allegedly being served. It issues in political maneuvering, temper tantrums, a secular set of values (though never acknowledged as such), a smug and self-serving shepherd and hungry sheep.
We have much to learn from Paul. When in our hearts (and not merely in our verbal piety) our aim before God is to strengthen other believers, not to defend ourselves, we will not only succeed in revitalizing the church by our sacrificial ministry and example, but we shall also strike a powerful blow against the demonic heart of triumphalism, which is self in another guise. And if, with Paul, we sometimes face believers who completely misunderstand our motives, then at least we may be confident, with the apostle, that we have been speaking in the sight of God as those in Christ, and that the attacks may reveal more about the attackers than anything else. May God raise up many Christian leaders whose passion is to build up the body of Christ.
2. To promote candor and righteousness (12:20a). “For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be” (2 Cor. 12:20a). What the Corinthians would want out of a visit by Paul is not entirely certain, but presumably they would not want him to administer the whip (cf. 1 Cor. 4:21), and they would like him not to upset their pagan perspectives. Alternatively, what they might well prefer is that Paul appear in the haughty arrogance and self-serving style of the rival apostles. Either way, Paul will have none of it: he is neither a wimp nor a triumphalist.
For his part, Paul does not want to arrive and find the Corinthians indulging in the sins of the spirit or in the sins of the flesh he lists. The first list is immediately linked with Paul’s fear that the Corinthians may not be what he hopes they would be: “I fear that there may be quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance, and disorder” (12:20b). These sins were doubtless endemic at Corinth, as they are part and parcel of the party spirit that dominated their behavior (cf. 1 Cor. 1:11–12, 31; 3:3; 4:6; 8:1; 11:18; 14:33a); but they are also the sorts of sin that would be particularly prominent once the rival apostles took hold of the ministry there.
One of his reasons for writing, therefore, is to lay bare the kind of expectations each side had of the other, and to establish criteria for those expectations that would be in line with righteousness. The particular demonstration of righteousness Paul doubtless wants to see in this congregation is the serious effort to maintain the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace (cf. Eph. 4:1–3).
But Paul has a third motive for writing:
3. To identify with his own wayward converts (12:21). It is remarkable that before listing some sins of the flesh that he earnestly hopes will not be present in the congregation when he arrives, Paul reflects another motive, or perhaps another face to the dominate motive of strengthening the believers he serves: “I am afraid that when I come again my God will humble me before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual sin and debauchery in which they have indulged” (2 Cor. 12:21). “Nothing brings a Christian teacher into the dust so much as the defection of those whom he has looked on as fruits of his labour and as his crown of rejoicing” (Beet).
This verse focuses on two principle themes. First, it contemplates the possibility that when Paul arrives the Corinthians will be awash in sexual sin. At first glance this is surprising, for sexual sin does not seem to play a major role in any part of 2 Corinthians.
The problem largely dissolves when we remember how prominent Paul’s discussion of sexual sins was when he penned his first canonical epistle to the Corinthians. Not only did he have to deal with the shameful case of a church member sleeping with his stepmother (1 Cor. 5:1–10) and with polarized opinions about sex, celibacy, marriage, and divorce (chap. 7), he also had to warn the Corinthian believers to “flee from sexual immorality” (6:18), explaining to them that freedom from the law does not sanction licentiousness (vv. 12–20). Christians are purchased people, bought at the terrible price of the Son of God’s death; and therefore their conduct must honor him. The warning was particularly urgent in Corinth, where morals were so low that “a Corinthian girl” became a synonym for a harlot throughout the Mediterranean world, and where the professing believers still had such hazy notions of Christianity that they sometimes tried to domesticate theology to make it a servant of their lust.
Paul remembers the background of the Corinthians, and now fears that on his next trip to Corinth he will have to grieve again over those who sinned earlier (a reference to the situations he confronted in 1 Cor.) and who have not repented of their sexual sin. Paul does not say that is the way it will be; indeed, if he were sure that such promiscuity were alive and well in Corinth, it is inconceivable he would not have confronted it more forcefully in this letter. But he fears it will be this way, for he recognizes that the kind of doctrinal, attitudinal, and spiritual sins he knows are rife at Corinth regularly provide the best soil for the sexual sins as well—especially in a city like Corinth, where sexual immorality was so common.
In short, Paul implicitly acknowledges a profound principle: the spiritual and doctrinal state of a church will sooner or later be reflected in the moral arena as well. This is not to say that if any individual Christian is immature or given to jealousy, factionalism, outbursts of anger, and the other sins listed, he or she will undoubtedly tumble into fornication. The connection is not anywhere near that close; there is no entailment at the individual level. But when a church or a denomination is characterized by such sins, it will not be long before it is also characterized by the grosser forms of immorality.
The reasons are pretty obvious. Not only do such professing believers, on average, lose the control of thought and motive that spiritual maturity brings, leaving sin far less restrained, but the church shot through with Corinthian problems cannot possibly exercise wise, firm, and loving discipline; and an undisciplined church sooner or later multiplies its sins. There may not be an entailment from, say, arrogance and factionalism to sexual immorality and debauchery at the individual level, as if each person guilty of the former must inevitably commit the latter, but there is certainly an entailment at the corporate level, both in terms of averages and in terms of general moral tone.
It follows that the low state of the sexual morality in many modern churches is likely an index of far deeper problems, the kinds of problems, which Paul is seeking to handle in this epistle. Because he understands the connection, he fears that the repentance that seemed to alleviate the earlier promiscuity will prove false, and he will find triumphalism bedding down with licentiousness.
There is a second focus in this verse. Paul casts his fear in what at first appears to be a very strange phrasing: he fears that when he returns to Corinth again his God will humble him before the Corinthians. This humbling is clearly brought about by the need to deal with gross sin in a church that should have attained much more maturity by this point in its pilgrimage; yet Paul says he fears God will humble him, and that this humbling will be before the Corinthians. Why does he phrase his fear just this way?
What this very careful phrasing reflects is Paul’s profound sense of responsibility for the churches he has founded and the Christians he has nurtured, coupled with a sustained belief that even in the apostle’s failures God’s sovereign purposes for good are being worked out. On the one hand, Paul sees the immaturity and sin of the Corinthians as in some sense his own failure. He clearly holds them responsible for their own sin, of course; for otherwise there would be little point in writing. But even so, he does not wash his hands of them, and say in effect, “I’ve done what I could. If you’re going bad, so be it.” Nor does he view with aloof equanimity the possibility he will need to impose apostolic discipline on the Corinthian church. Rather, although he is prepared to impose discipline, he treats the need to do so as a personal humiliation. He follows his own instruction: discipline may be necessary, but it must always be accompanied by tears (cf. 1 Cor. 5:2). Not for him the haughty sternness of egocentric leaders who can with dry eyes and a high hand discipline members ensnared by sin. Paul is too much aware of the intertwining of responsibilities in the body of Christ. He cannot even distance himself entirely from their sin. He himself feels humbled in the face of it, just as a father feels humbled by his son’s rebellion.
On the other hand, Paul understands that even in such pathetic and difficult situations, the bounds of God’s sovereignty are not breached. In one sense therefore it is correct to say that if his fears are realized, it will be God himself who is humbling the apostle, just as it was in some sense God himself who sent the thorn in the flesh (see discussion above on 2 Cor. 12:7). Paul’s perspective does not absolve the Corinthians of their responsibility, any more than it absolves Satan of his guilt in sending his messenger; but it does enable the apostle to carry on with full faith in the God who in all things works for the good of those who love him. Perhaps, Paul reasons, just as the thorn was sent to keep him from conceit, his humiliation in Corinth, should it take place, will advance his own maturity and witness as he carries in his body the death of Jesus (4:10), and preaches in his person as in his sermons the message of the cross (1 Cor. 1:18). Moreover, as Barrett rightly notes, “That Paul feared this humiliation is no way inconsistent with his recognition in it of the hand of God; Jesus feared death (Mark xiv.33), and Paul prayed for the removal of the angel of Satan (xii.8).”
The Corinthians must understand, then, that one of Paul’s motives is his driving desire to identify with his own wayward converts, while still discharging his responsibilities before God. That is not the least of his reasons for writing them in this manner; for if this work bears fruit, he will not be humiliated before his converts by their disgraceful conduct.
The rebuke is ended. Some of the worst failures of the Corinthians have been detailed, and contrasted with the apostle’s motives. It remains for Paul to offer a final word of warning, and to enunciate exactly what he is praying God will do in this painful situation.
The movements of Titus have a bearing on the question of how 2 Corinthians was composed. If the trip of Titus and “our brother” (12:18) is the same as the trip promised in 8:16–24, a passage that anticipates the mission to Corinth of Titus along with “the brother who is praised by all the churches for his service to the gospel” (8:18) and “our brother who has often proved to us in many ways that he is zealous” (8:22), then 2 Corinthians 10–13 must have been written some time later than 2 Corinthians 1–9, since by 2 Corinthians 12:18 the trip has taken place, whereas in 2 Corinthians 8:16–24 it is still in the future. Alternatively, the trip Paul mentions in 12:18 may refer to an earlier journey of Titus to Corinth, alluded to in 8:6. On that journey Titus “made a beginning” toward the collection for the impoverished Christians in Jerusalem. In that case 2 Corinthians 10–13 would not have to be cut off so decisively from 2 Corinthians 1–9—although some have used the same identification to open up the possibility that 2 Corinthians 10–13 is to be identified with the “severe letter” written before 2 Corinthians 1–9. For discussion of the broader issues, see chap. 1 of this book.