And having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, I have believed, therefore have I spoken; *we* also believe, therefore also we speak;
Death is at work in Paul while life is at work in the Corinthians. At that exact point he reaches back to a psalm and makes its words his own, because faith is what keeps him speaking.
Paul names what held him up under the trials he has just listed. A writer traces the same pattern in the psalm Paul quotes: death pressed in on the psalm-writer, yet he spoke of life.
The Apostle passes on to speak of the power that, on his side, sustained him in all these trials. It was the power of faith. The same spirit of faith sustained the Psalmist. Sorrows of death surrounded him; he found trouble and sorrow, and he was greatly afflicted. Even then he could speak of life, for he said, "I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living." Then he tells us how he could speak of life while death was closing in. He says, "I believed, therefore have I spoken" (Ps. 116:3, 9, 10).
(The ESV reads Psalm 116:10, "I believed, even when I spoke, 'I am greatly afflicted.'" The writers quoted here use an older wording.)
The psalm and the apostle share more than hardship. Both men looked past death to what lies on the other side.
Faith, however, looks ahead to the land of the living before it gets there. It may get there by deliverance from death, or by resurrection. "I believed, therefore have I spoken," is the language of faith. Paul pointed to this in 2 Corinthians 4:13, saying, "Since we have the same spirit of faith." Death rolled in upon his spirit and threatened his body too. But in faith he kept his eye on the resurrection world, and so he could testify with boldness, just as the Psalmist did in his day.
The words Paul borrows come from Psalm 116. Who is speaking there?
This is the resurrection song of Messiah… We know from 2 Cor. 4:13 that Jesus is the one we hear in this Psalm. But we also learn there that anyone with a "like spirit of faith" may use it in their measure.
Is there one spirit of faith, or many? One writer answers, and puts Christ at the head.
What spirit of faith? There is indeed only one. It was given by measure to the prophets, but to the Son without measure… He who is now the revealed object of our faith is also our great Forerunner in this race. In a supreme and matchless sense, the Saviour both believed and spoke. As a man on earth He testified to what He, and He alone, had seen and heard with God.
The order in the verse is fixed: belief, then speech. Speech that runs ahead of belief has nothing behind it.
This word is to be the guide in everything… And that, you know, is the only ground on which we ought to speak: "I believe and therefore have I spoken." David said of King Saul's armour that he had not "proved" it, so he had it taken off him. It is the thing you have proved that you can speak of for a certainty.
Because faith rests on resurrection, no threat can reach far enough to silence it.
But in Christ is the power of resurrection — now to faith, one day in fact… No trial or suffering can stop the believer's mouth, not even death in view. He trusts in God, and can speak out, and speak well of Him.
One writer puts Paul's stand into plain words. He had counted the cost before he opened his mouth.
That is to say, 'At whatever cost, despite everything — all the danger, all the opposition — I have spoken for God. I have borne my testimony. I have had confidence enough in God to bear testimony to Him and to His truth, whatever the consequences might be, even if I had died in doing it.'
Paul could have leaned on his apostleship here. Instead he chose a footing that anyone who believes can stand on.
But even this great, large-hearted apostle loved to place his ministry on the broadest ground of grace. It was the ground that would vindicate the scattered preachers: "we also believe, and so we also speak" (2 Cor. 4:13).
- Same faith. One Spirit of faith runs through the psalm-writer, through Christ our Forerunner, and through Paul. That is why an old psalm fits the apostle's lips.
- Same pressure. That faith speaks of life just when sorrow and death are closing in.
- Same sight. What it sees is the resurrection world ahead, so death cannot be the last fact it reckons with.
- Same order. Believing comes first, speaking follows. You can speak for certain only of what you have proved.
- Same ground. Paul rests his ministry on believing, not on office. That ground is open to every believer who speaks.
knowing that he who has raised the Lord Jesus shall raise us also with Jesus, and shall present [us] with you.
In verse 12 Paul described a life where death works in him so that life may work in others. Now he names what keeps him speaking: God has already raised the Lord Jesus.
Verse 13 quotes a psalm. Verse 14 gives what the speaker knows: death cannot cost him anything.
So the apostle could use the language of the Spirit of Christ in the Psalms: "I believed, and so I spoke." That is to say: whatever the cost, despite all the danger and all the opposition, I have spoken for God. I have borne my testimony. I had enough confidence in God to testify to Him and to His truth, whatever the consequences. I would have spoken even if I died doing it. In other words, the apostle said: I have acted as Christ Himself did. I know that He who raised up Jesus would do the same for me. He would present me, together with you, before His face in that same glory where Christ now is in heaven.
Others put the same thing in a single sentence. Commenting on these two verses, one writer sums up Paul's attitude:
That is, "I do not mind death, I have faith in my Lord."
The word "knowing" carries the weight of the verse. We can know our future resurrection because it hangs on something God has already done. The two stand or fall together.
We know God as the God of resurrection in a way Old Testament believers could not. He has raised up the Lord Jesus. We are so identified with Him that this fully assures us of what lies ahead for us also: He "will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into His presence." The resurrection of Christ guarantees the resurrection of His people, as the apostle has told us before. If we do not rise, then it must be that He has not risen. If He has risen, He has risen as the firstfruits of those who slept.
Commentators differ on the wording: some read "with Jesus," others "by" or "through Jesus." Read as "with," it marks out whose resurrection this is. God does not raise everyone on the same footing.
And so we are to be on a common principle with Jesus. The wicked stand in contrast: they refuse to believe on Him, and divine power raises them only for judgment. It is not so with the righteous, or saints. They live by His life, and since redemption the Spirit of God dwells in them. They look to be changed at His coming. Then they will enjoy His glory and love in a perfect state, as they already enjoy them in His person.
Read as "through Jesus," the verse adds Him to a list of things He personally carries out for His own:
Then we have a further step, don't we, in 2 Corinthians 4:14, where we are told we shall be raised up also by, or through, Jesus. So we see Him as administrator: first, the One through whom we are justified; second, the One who puts His saints to sleep; and third, the One who raises them up.
"With you" is not a throwaway. Paul expects to arrive in glory beside the very people who had been criticising him. Some readers have tried to make the promise smaller than that.
He adds that God will "bring us with you into His presence." Meyer and others today, like some in earlier times, try to reduce this to rescue from dangers or difficulties. Their efforts are useless. Here all are presented together in glory, the servants and those served in grace alike. All are raised on the same principle as their Master. He died for them, and He is their life. What are present trials compared with such a prospect! Nothing will be able to separate the saints from the love of God which is in Christ. In the same way, God will have together in glory those who on earth faced all sorts of divisive and destructive influences. How blessed that is!
A worker and his converts appear side by side, with nothing to separate their welcome:
God's labourers will be presented together with what they have produced, by the effective working of His grace, with an equal acceptance in that coming day of joy.
This is not abstract teaching. It comes from a man under persecution, and hope is what keeps him standing.
Here the hope so fills the apostle that even if persecution should end in death, he has no fear. He looks forward to resurrection by Jesus, and to being with the Corinthian saints when the Lord presents them all... Many today are spoken against for Christ's sake and treated as the scum of all things. Without this hope they would be of all people the most miserable. So here the hope cheers the witnesses of the rejected Jesus. They will guard His honour here. He will soon bring them into glory, and five minutes there will more than repay the sufferings of the little while.
- Knowing — Faith speaks because it knows; Paul testifies at any cost because he is sure death cannot rob him.
- Raised — Christ's resurrection is not a parallel case but the guarantee of ours: if we do not rise, He has not risen.
- With Jesus — Believers rise on the same principle as their Master and share His life. The unbelieving are raised only for judgment.
- With you — This is more than rescue from danger. Servants and those they served arrive in glory together.
- Therefore — This hope keeps a suffering witness on his feet. Five minutes in that glory more than repays the pain of the little while.