Commentary on the Epistles to the Corinthians John Calvin
Commentary on the Corinthians occasion to punish your obstinacy more severely, if I come, and find among you nothing of amendment." He teaches, accordingly, by his example, that mild remedies must always be resorted to by Pastors, for the correction of faults, before they have recourse to extreme severity; and, at the same time, that we must, by admonitions and reproofs, prevent the necessity of having recourse to the utmost rigor.
Lest, by any means, there be contentions. He enumerates the vices, which chiefly prevailed among the Corinthians; almost all of which proceeded from the same source. For had not every one been devoted to self, they would never have contended with each other — they would never have envied one another — there would have been no slandering among them. 1832 Thus the sum and substance of the first catalogue 1833 is want of love, because ({φιλαυτία}) self-love, 1834 and ambition prevailed.
21. Lest, when I come, my God should humble me His abasement was reckoned to him as a fault. The blame of it he throws back upon the Corinthians, who, when they should have honored his Apostleship, loaded it, on the contrary, with disgrace; for their proficiency 1835 would have been the glory and honor of Paul's Apostleship. When, therefore, they were, instead of this, overrun with many vices, they heaped disgrace upon him to the utmost of their power. He does not, indeed, charge them all with this crime, but only a few, who had impudently despised all his admonitions. The meaning, then, is this: "They think contemptuously of me, because I appear contemptible. Let them, then, give me no occasion of abasement: nay more, let them, on the contrary, laying aside their forwardness, begin to feel shame; and let them, confounded at their iniquities, prostrate themselves on the ground, instead of looking down upon others with disdain."
In the mean time, he lets us know the disposition of a true and genuine Pastor, when he says that he will look upon the sins of others with grief. And, undoubtedly, the right way of acting is this — that every Christian shall have his Church inclosed within his heart, and be affected with its maladies, as if they were his own, — sympathize with its sorrows, and bewail its sins. We see, how Jeremiah entreats, that there may be given him a fountain of tears, (Jeremiah 9:1,) that he may bewail the calamity of his people. We see, how pious kings and prophets, to whom the government of the people was committed, were touched with similar feelings. It is, indeed, a thing that is common to all the pious, to be grieved in every case in which God is offended,
1832"Ils n'eussent iamais mesdit l'vn de l'autre;" — "They would never have slandered one another."
1833"Du premier denombrement de leur vices qu'il fait yci;" — "Of the first enumeration that he makes here of their vices."
1834Calvin has here very probably in his eye 2 Timothy 3:2, in commenting on which, he calls his readers to remark, that the vice first noticed by the Apostle in that passage — selflove ({φιλαυτία}), may be considered to be the fountain, as it were, of all the other vices there enumerated by him --- avarice, boasting, pride, etc. --- See Calvin's Harmony, vol. 2, p. 69, and vol. 3, p. 60; also Calvin's Institutes, volume 1.
1835"Qu'ils eussent proufite en sainctete de vie;" — "That they had made progress in holiness of life."
John Calvin and to bewail the ruin of brethren, and present themselves before God in their room as in a manner guilty, but it is more particularly requisite on the part of Pastors. 1836 Farther, Paul here brings forward a second catalogue of vices, which, however, belong to one general head — unchastity.
1836"Des Pasteurs et Ministres;" — "Of Pastors and Ministers."