Commentary on the Epistles to the Corinthians John Calvin (continued)
John Calvin are oppressed with poverty, but the Lord affords us help. Many enemies are in arms against us, but under God's protection we are safe. In fine, though we are brought low, so that it might seem as if all were over with us, 1362 still we do not perish." The last is the severest of all. You see, how he turns to his own advantage every charge that the wicked bring against him. 1363
10. The mortification of Jesus 1364 He says more than he had done previously, for he shows, that the very thing that the false apostles used as a pretext for despising the gospel, was so far from bringing any degree of contempt upon the gospel, that it tended even to render it glorious. For he employs the expression — the mortification of Jesus Christ — to denote everything that rendered him contemptible in the eyes of the world, with the view of preparing him for participating in a blessed resurrection. In the first place, the sufferings of Christ, 1365 however ignominious they may be in it was external trouble. The very word there used, {Θλιβόμενοι}, signifies dashing a thing from without. As the beating and allision of the waves against a rock make no trouble in the rock, no commotion there, but a great deal of noise, clamor, and tumult round about it. That is the sort of trouble which that word in its primary signification holds forth to us, and which the circumstances of the text declare to be the signification of the thing here meant. […] The word {στενοχωρούμενοι} expresseth such a kind of straitening as doth infer a difficulty of drawing breath; that a man is so compressed, that he cannot tell how to breathe. That is the native import of the word. As if he had said, `We are not reduced to that extremity by all the troubles that surround us, but we can breathe well enough for all that.' Probably there are meant by this thing desired, two degrees or steps of inward trouble… Either it is a trouble that reacheth not the heart, or if it doth, it does not oppress or overwhelm it.'' --- Howe's Works, (London, 1834), p. 706. --- Ed.
1362"There is an allusion," says Dr. Bloomfield, "to an army so entirely surrounded and hemmed in {στενοῖς}, (in straits,) as the Roman army at the Caudinae Furc', that there is left no hope of escape.'' --- Ed.
1363"Pour le rendre contemptible;" — "To render him contemptible." 1364"Mortificationem." — Such is Calvin's rendering of the original term {νέκρωσιν}, and it is evidently employed to convey the idea of putting to death, the main idea intended to be expressed being, as our author shows, that the apostles were, for the sake of Christ, subjected to humiliating and painful sufferings, which gave them, in a manner, an outward conformity to their Divine Master in the violent death inflicted upon him. The term mortification, when taken in strict accordance with its etymology, in the sense of putting to death, appears to bring out more fully the apostle's meaning, than the word ``dying,'' made use of in our authorized version. Beza, who gives the same rendering as Calvin, subjoins the following valuable observations: --- ``Mortificationem {τὴν} {νέκρωσιν} --- Sic vocat Paulus miseram illam conditionem fidelium, ac pr'sertim ministrorum (de his enim proprie agitur) qui quotidie (ut ait David) occiduntur, quasi destinationem ad coedem dicas: additurque Domini Iesu, vel, (ut legit vetus interpres) Iesu Christi, tum ut declaretur causa propter quam mundus illos ita persequitur; tum etiam quia hac quoque in parte Christo capiti sunt conformes, Christusque adeo ipse quodammodo in iis morte afficitur. Ambrosius maluit mortem interpretari, nempe quia in altero membro sit mentio vitoe Christi. At ego, si libuisset a Pauli verbis discedere, coedem potius exposuissem: quia non temere Paulus {ςέκρωσιν} maluit scribere quam {θάνατον}, quoniam etiam Christus hic considerandus nobis est non ut simpliciter mortuus, sed ut interemptus. Verum ut modo dixi {νέκρωσις} nec mortem nec coedem hic significat, sed conditionem illam quotidianis mortibus obnoxiam, qualis etiam fuit Christi ad tempus;'' --- ``Mortification {τὴν} {νέκρωσιν} This term Paul makes use of to denote that miserable condition of believers, and more especially of ministers, (for it is of them properly that he speaks,) who are, as David says, killed every day --- as though you should say a setting apart for slaughter; and it is added --- of the Lord Jesus, or (as the old interpreter renders it) of Jesus Christ, partly with the view of explaining the reason why the world thus persecutes them, and partly because in this respect also they are conformed to Christ, the Head, and even Christ himself is, in them, in a manner put to death. Ambrose has preferred to render it death, for this reason, that in the other clause mention is made of the life of Christ. For my own part, however, were I to depart from Paul's words, I would rather render it slaughter, inasmuch as Paul did not rashly make use of {νέκρωσιν} rather than {θάνατον}, since Christ also is to be viewed by us here, not simply as having died, but as having been put to death. But, as I said a little ago, {νέκρωσις} here does not mean death nor slaughter, but a condition which exposed every day to deaths, such as Christ's, also, was for a time.'' --- Ed.
1365By the "sufferings of Christ," here, Calvin obviously means — not the sufferings of our Redeemer personally, but sufferings endured for Christ in the persons of his members, as in
Commentary on the Corinthians the eyes of men, have, nevertheless, more of honor in the sight of God, than all the triumphs of emperors, and all the pomp of kings. The end, however, must also be kept in view, that we suffer with him, that we may be glorified together with him. (Romans 8:17.) Hence he elegantly reproves the madness of those, who made his peculiar fellowship with Christ a matter of reproach. At the same time, the Corinthians are admonished to take heed, lest they should, while haughtily despising Paul's mean and abject appearance, do an injury to Christ himself, by seeking an occasion of reproach 1366 in his sufferings, which it becomes us to hold in the highest honor.
The word rendered mortification, 1367 is taken here in a different sense from what it bears in many passages of Scripture. For it often means selfdenial, when we renounce the lusts of the flesh, and are renewed unto obedience to God. Here, however, it means the afflictions by which we are stirred up to meditate on the termination of the present life. To make the matter more plain, let us call the former the inward mortification, and the latter the outward. Both make us conformed to Christ, the one directly, the other indirectly, so to speak. Paul speaks of the former in Colossians 3:5, and in Romans 6:6, where he teaches that our old man is crucified, that we may walk in newness of life He treats of the second in Romans 8:29, where he teaches, that we were predestinated by God to this end — that we might be conformed to the image of his Son. It is called, however, a mortification of Christ only in the case of believers, because the wicked, in the endurance of the afflictions of this present life, share with Adam, but the elect have participation with the Son of God, so that all those miseries that are in their own nature accursed, are helpful to their salvation. All the sons of God, it is true, have this in common, that they bear about the mortification, of Christ; 1368 but, according as any one is distinguished by a larger measure of gifts, he, in that proportion, comes so much the nearer to conformity with Christ in this respect.
That the life of Jesus. Here is the best antidote to adversity — that as Christ's death is the gate of life, so we know that a blessed resurrection will be to us the termination of all miseries, 1369 inasmuch as Christ has associated us with himself on this condition, that we shall be partakers of his life, if in this world we submit to die with him.
The sentence that immediately follows may be explained in two ways.
Colossians 1:24. — Ed.
1366"Matiere d'opprobre et deshonneur;" — "Matter of reproach and dishonor." 1367Wiclif (1380) renders the expression as follows: "euermore we beren aboute the sleyng of Ihesus in oure bodi." — Ed.
1368"Here we have a strong mode of expressing the mortal peril to which he was continually exposed; (as in 1 Corinthians 15:31, {καθ} {᾿} {ἡμέραν} {ἀποθνήσκω}, I die daily,) together with an indirect comparison of the sufferings endured by himself and the other apostles, with those endured by the Lord Jesus even unto death. The genitive {τοῦ} {Κυριου} (of the Lord,) is, as Grotius remarks, a genitive of likeness. The sense is --- `bearing about --- continually sustaining, perils and sufferings, like those of the Lord Jesus.' '' --- Bloomfield, --- Ed.
1369"La fin et l'issue de toutes miseres et calamitez;" — "The end and issue of all miseries and calamities."