But [as] fellow-workmen, we also beseech that ye receive not the grace of God in vain
Paul has just set out the ministry of reconciliation. Now he turns from the message to the people who heard it. His plea is short and heavy, and it raises two questions: what does "working together with him" mean, and how could a believer ever receive God's grace in vain?
The words "with him" raise a question. Several writers say the "him" is not in the original at all. They read the phrase as describing how the servants work with one another.
"With him" is not quite right. The "with" is there, but not the "him." I think the idea is workers with one another. They are companions or fellow workmen, because they work together.
Commentators differ here. Others keep the wider sense and read Paul as working alongside God Himself:
And he does this as a fellow worker — not only with those who serve Christ beside him, but with God, whose servant he is... His grace is complete and freely offered; let our acceptance of it be sincere.
Some read the verse as a sample of gospel preaching to unbelievers, like the closing verses of chapter 5. The word "you" rules that out.
This is a direct appeal to the Corinthians. It is not a description of how the apostle preached. He is not urging all men, but the Corinthians who bore the Lord's name, not to receive the grace of God in vain. If the word "you" were not written here, the other reading could be argued; but there it stands... What the apostle has in view is the danger of easy-going self-satisfaction in those who already called on the name of the Lord.
The test is not the claim to have received grace. The test is what grows out of it.
To receive it in vain means to claim you have received it while it leaves you unchanged. It was like the seed sown among thorns or on rocky ground: it bore no fruit. The apostle wanted the seed to prove to have fallen into good ground, so that there might be fruit. Wherever a person truly receives the grace of God, there is always a response in the heart and life.
Can a real Christian receive grace in vain? The question assumes that everyone called a Christian truly is one. The letters answer people where they stand.
The question forgets that God takes people up on the ground of what they profess... They are on Christian ground, so they are addressed as Christians... The apostle's plea is a solemn warning against the possibility that they had settled for a mere profession. It is really a word for the conscience.
So the appeal never threatens a real child of God.
The security of His children is beyond question. It rests not so much on their perseverance, as men say, but on His power through faith. Still, the Corinthians needed a faithful appeal, and they got one, because their ways did not match the gospel. They were compromising the glory of the One who had called them into fellowship with His Son.
God gave grace with an aim in view. The rest of the chapter spells out what it produces.
God has given us His grace so that it may shape our lives... The saints were not to give offence to anyone, so that no one could blame the ministry. They were not to be tied together with unbelievers. They were to come out of every tie that bound them to the men and things of this world. Then God would receive them, and they would know His care through all the opposition that separation from the world would bring on them.
- Together. The servants are companions in one work. Whether the words also mean working alongside God Himself is a point where commentators differ.
- To you. The word "you" settles it. This is not a gospel call to the world. It is an appeal to people who already carry the name of Christ.
- In vain. Grace received in vain is grace professed but never felt — seed on rock. Where it takes root, the heart and life answer back.
- Secure. The believer's safety rests on God's power through faith, not on human staying power. God still takes people up on the ground of what they profess. So the warning is real.
- Out. Grace that lands does something. It guards the ministry from blame. It walks the believer out of every tie to the world.
(for he says, I have listened to thee in an accepted time, and I have helped thee in a day of salvation behold, now [is the] well-accepted time; behold, now [the] day of salvation)
Paul quotes a line from the prophet Isaiah, then adds a word of his own: now. The verse raises two questions. Who did God first speak those words to? And how long does this "now" last?
(The writers quoted below use older translations. Where the ESV says "favorable time," they say "accepted time" or "acceptable time.")
The words Paul quotes were first spoken to someone else.
Verse 2 is a parenthesis, set in brackets, and its first part quotes Isaiah 49:8. Those words are spoken as prophecy to the Messiah. He was to be rejected, and yet become a light to the Gentiles and salvation to the end of the earth. Despite His rejection, God would hear Him and help Him. That hour of hearing and helping would be the accepted time and the day of salvation. The rest of the verse points out that we are living in that very hour. He has been heard in resurrection, and with His resurrection the day of salvation has begun. It will continue until the day of judgment takes over.
Readers of Isaiah could not have guessed how far that promise reached.
Jesus Himself was heard out of the depths, and helped on the ground of full atonement made... Old Testament saints read of the Messiah being heard personally in an accepted time and helped in a day of salvation. Who among them could have known that there would be a people accepted in His acceptance? Who could have known that they would be saved in His own salvation out of death and judgment, and could say that by His resurrection they were raised with Him?
Paul points them to the kind of day they are living in.
He draws their attention to the character of the present day... This is the day when God is favourable to men. The passage applies literally to Christ, and in Scripture it stands linked with the world to come. That coming day will be the accepted time and the day of salvation in a very plain way. But the resurrection and glory of Christ has brought it in, and the gospel now bears witness to it. There is no public display of it yet, but faith can lay hold of it and anticipate the day when it will be on world-wide display.
Paul does not simply repeat Isaiah. His own wording is stronger than the prophet's.
Bright as that coming hope was in the apostle's heart, a far brighter light shone in Him who is exalted into a new and higher glory at God's right hand. So he says, "Behold now a right acceptable season, behold now a day of salvation." The prophecy suggested those words, but he means them to rise above it in strength, because they express God's present display of grace in the gospel.
Paul has just urged them not to receive the grace of God in vain. So what does that failure look like?
To receive it in vain means to say you have received it, while it leaves you unchanged. Like seed sown among thorns or on rock, it bore no fruit. The apostle wanted the seed to prove to have fallen into good ground, so that there might be fruit. Where the grace of God is truly received there is always a response to it in the heart and life.
This day of grace will not last. Something else follows it.
He is reconciling now. He will be judging later. It is all grace now; it will be all wrath then. He is pardoning sin now, through the cross. He will punish it then, in hell, and that for ever. He is sending out a message of purest, richest, freest grace... All this makes the present moment one of special solemnity. Unmixed grace declared! — unmixed wrath coming. How solemn!
Another writer points to a change in who is searching for whom.
There is a time coming when men will seek God but He will not be found. Today is the acceptable time when, on the ground of Christ's work, He may be found. But grace rejected will lead to judgment, when God will no longer be found by men, but men will be found out by God.
The word "now" is not vague.
Just look at your watch a moment. Do you note the time? Well, NOW means this very moment. So you can have no difficulty in grasping the meaning of that precious word... There is no folly like that of putting off the salvation of the soul.
- Heard — Isaiah's words went to the rejected Messiah: God would hear Him and help Him.
- Raised — God heard Him in resurrection, and that opened the day of salvation we live in.
- Included — believers are accepted in His acceptance and saved in His own salvation; His resurrection raised them with Him.
- Fruitful — grace received in vain is grace claimed but fruitless; where grace is really received, heart and life answer back.
- Now — this day of grace ends in a day of judgment, so "now" means the moment on your watch, not a moment you plan for later.