But he who encourages those that are [brought] low, [even] God, encouraged us by the coming of Titus;
Paul reached Macedonia worn down, with trouble pressing on him from every side. This verse is where that pressure breaks, and the relief comes from God through a man walking through the door.
The verse turns on a contrast. Before it, Paul has no rest. After it, he overflows with joy. One writer follows that swing and points to the God who does not fail.
Sorrow closes the heart, joy opens it. Now the apostle's gladness of heart matched the depth of his pain over believers so dear in the Lord... He was full of heaviness and anxiety not only in Troas, but also in Macedonia. He had gone there hoping to hear the latest news from Titus. There he had yet more pressure of trouble till the good news came... But God does not fail. He is the encourager of the depressed as He resists the proud.
Here God takes a name from what He does for people in one condition. One writer sees it as one of several names He keeps in reserve, each for the moment it fits.
Are we indeed "cast down?" He can reveal Himself as "God who comforts those who are cast down." Are we in tribulation? He is able to come in as "the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort." Let us get down as low as we can before God. He always has some part of His own name in reserve to reveal and meet us.
Being low is the qualification, not the disqualification. One writer weighs the sorrow against what it brings.
"God who comforts those that are cast down." Ah, I say, it is worth being cast down for such comfort as that! … and think what it is to have God occupying Himself with us in our sorrows when we remember who He is.
The word "downcast" names a condition, and that condition is itself what draws God out.
Chapter 7 shows us, further, who is fit for this gracious ministry of comfort. It is, in one word, "those who are cast down"... Distress and sorrow, fear and depression, the burden of grief — all of it appeals to the heart of God for consolation and help. How often the Lord Jesus showed this in His life on earth!
God's answer to Paul was not a striking act that removed the trouble. It was a colleague arriving with news. One writer presses this as the ordinary pattern.
God took up two things to minister to the depressed heart of His servant: the visit of a brother, and the assurance he brought the apostle of the love of the believers at Corinth. We want to press this on the reader. When we are "bowed down," we very often look for some special and extraordinary display of comfort. Or we expect God to step in and remove our burdens in some striking way. But more often it is in a quiet way, as with the apostle, that He meets our need... if we welcome a visit from a believer as God's messenger, he may be the chosen instrument for our needed consolation.
Yet the source of Paul's joy was not Titus himself. Paul directs the Corinthians to Titus, and higher still, to God.
He would have them know that the source of his joy was the God of all comfort, who had used the coming of Titus to comfort him... So the Apostle would turn their thoughts and affections not only to himself, but also to Titus, who had spoken so well of them. Above all he would turn them to the source of all blessing — the God of all comfort.
One writer explains how much this word for comfort carries.
The word in the fourth verse, "the God of consolation," does not mean quieting comfort only. It means cheering and encouragement, so that the afflicted felt fresh force and bravery to go on.
Enjoying that comfort has a condition, and it concerns whose hand put us low.
Weeping may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning. To enjoy God's comfort as we should, we must first acknowledge His hand in our casting down. In all things true faith has to do with God, not only with the circumstances close at hand. Those circumstances make up the furnace in which faith is tried. Natural strength of character is worth nothing in the time of spiritual conflict.
- Low — being cast down does not shut you out of God's comfort. It is the very condition this name of His answers.
- Name — God keeps parts of His own character in reserve, revealing each one to meet the need it fits.
- Means — His usual method is quiet and ordinary: a visit, a conversation, good news brought by a friend.
- Source — thanks belong to Titus, but above all to the God of all comfort who sent him.
- Effect — this comfort does more than soothe; it puts fresh force and courage back so the afflicted can go on.
and not by his coming only, but also through the encouragement with which he was encouraged as to you; relating to us your ardent desire, your mourning, your zeal for me; so that I the more rejoiced.
Paul had been under heavy strain. He found no rest in Troas, and in Macedonia there were fights outside and fears inside. Then Titus arrived with news from Corinth. This verse tells us the relief came in two layers: the friend himself, and then what the friend had to report.
The arrival alone would have lifted Paul. But the report multiplied his joy. The three things Titus described proved to him that the church at Corinth was healthy again.
Joy came to him in double measure. Paul had mourned alone, but now has company in his comfort. Titus was glad too. As a true child of grace, he shared the grateful and happy feelings stirred in the heart of his father in the faith. Paul had found that what he wrote with so many tears had been blessed by God even beyond his hope. To see Titus was a joy to him. But to hear from his own lips what had happened at Corinth filled his cup to overflowing. Three separate proofs convinced him that God's assembly there — most of it, at least — had truly been restored to spiritual health.
Notice the chain in the verse. The Corinthians comforted Titus, and Titus brought that comfort to Paul. Paul points them back along it — first to Titus, then past him.
He wanted them to know that the source of his joy was the God of all comfort. God had used the coming of Titus to comfort him. Titus reported their mourning over all that Paul had condemned among them. He also reported the fervent love they had shown to Paul. So the Apostle would turn their thoughts and affections not only to himself, but also to Titus, who had spoken so well of them. Above all, he would turn them to the source of all blessing — the God of all comfort.
The relief did not arrive by luck. The same God who worked repentance at Corinth sent the news that lifted Paul.
A striking feature of this chapter, from verse 5 onwards, is the way it traces all these events to the hand of God… Then at last, when things seemed at their lowest, Titus appeared with good news about the letter's effect. This was the mercy of God stepping in to comfort the downcast Apostle. It had also been the mercy of God producing a godly repentance in the hearts of the Corinthians… God had intervened, and this was the real basis and cause of Paul's comfort and joy.
The older translation reads "your fervent mind toward me." Behind it stands the word usually translated "zeal." The same word can also mean jealousy.
Paul speaks to the Corinthian believers of the "zeal" they had for him. He also speaks of the "zeal" they showed in clearing themselves from the evil among them (2 Cor. 7:7, 11). The older translation calls it a "fervent mind." Afterwards he says he was jealous over them with a godly jealousy (2 Cor. 11:2); but in 2 Cor. 12:20 he uses the same word for the "envyings" or "jealousies" he feared he might find among them.
Longing, mourning and zeal were not just warm feelings about an absent friend. Paul saw the Spirit's work behind them.
He saw the moral fruits of the Spirit's work — their desire, their tears, their zeal toward the apostle. So his heart turns back to them. By expressing his affection he binds up all the wounds his first letter may have made in their hearts.
Each of the three signs had pushed out something worse.
Once they were indifferent to what was due to Him whose name they bore. Now there is an eager and dutiful desire. Once they were puffed up while shameful things went on among them. Now there was mourning, the mourning that suits people who confess their moral and spiritual failure. Whisperers had poured cold suspicions into the minds of some of them, and had already pulled them away from Paul. In their place came the opposite and worthier feeling of zealous love.
The whole painful business drew out love on both sides. The quote below uses the older wording of verses 7 and 12.
Verse 7 mentions "your fervent mind toward me." Verse 12 mentions "our care for you in the sight of God." It was no small thing to put matters right between the one who did the injury and the one he injured. It was greater still to bring into display that love which is the fruit of the Divine nature in the saints.
- Source — God stands behind both ends of the story: repentance at Corinth, comfort in Macedonia.
- Gift — comfort came with a person. Seeing Titus was a joy; his report doubled it.
- Reach — comfort travels: Corinthians to Titus, Titus to Paul. Paul sends the thanks back up the chain to God.
- Evidence — longing, mourning and zeal are fruits of the Spirit's work, not just feeling. Each one replaced something worse.
- Result — the deepest gain was not the problem solved but love brought into the open on both sides.
For if also I grieved you in the letter, I do not regret [it], if even I have regretted it; for I see that that letter, if even [it were] only for a time, grieved you.
Paul had already sent one severe letter to Corinth, and this verse lets us watch him second-guess it. He admits the letter caused pain. He admits he wished for a time that he had not sent it. Yet he stands by it. How could a man writing by the Spirit ever wish his own words unwritten?
The phrase points back to a specific document, not just any note. One commentator insists the article matters, and blames translators for blurring it:
It is not "a" but the letter, clearly referring to the first epistle to the Corinthians. Did our translators wish to conceal this?
The startling thing is not the pain he caused, but the doubt he carried afterward:
His fear went so far that even the inspired letter he had written became a trial to him. The apostle had a question raised in his mind about his own inspired letter! Yet what writing was more certainly of God?... This teaches us plainly that, whatever God is working in a man, the inspiration of the vessel stands far above his own will. It is the fruit of the Holy Spirit's action.
Commentators differ on how to explain the regret. Some treat it as a lapse produced by affection:
His heart was so filled with love that it clouded his spiritual discernment. For a moment he forgot the character of his letter. He was not the one responsible for what he had written; the Spirit of God was its author. The regret showed weakness at a time when no news reached him from Corinth and his loving heart was so burdened for the Corinthians.
Others read it as ordinary human dread of hurting people, not doubt about the message:
His wavering did not come from any lack of confidence in what his hand had written. He knew the words were only in a secondary sense his own (1 Corinthians 14:37). But he was a man with the same feelings as the people he wrote to. So he shrank from picturing the effect on them of the letter he had been led to write.
Between sending the letter and hearing the outcome, Paul suffered. His "I did regret it" points to real inner pain:
There was no recalling what was past. We love those we have ministered to in the church of God more deeply than others. A link is formed between their souls and ours that even the glory will not erase... He feared he had lost the beloved Corinthians. How will they receive his letter? Was it too hard, too severe? In deep exercise he regretted having written it. "I did regret it," he says, speaking of his tried heart's exercise... He could not rest at a great and prosperous work in Troas, but went in search of Titus, so that his soul might be relieved.
The verse shows a man pulled two ways at once — firm about what needed saying, tender about what it cost them to hear it:
Nothing is more touching than the conflict in his heart. Their earlier state had made it necessary for him to write with severity, and with a certain cold authority. Now that the letter had done its work, his affection dictated almost an apology for the grief he might have caused... What concern! What a heart for the good of the saints!
Paul no longer regrets the letter, because he can see what the pain produced:
This sorrow was only for a season; it was a sorrow according to God. Because it was godly sorrow, it produced repentance leading to salvation, which no one regrets, and it brought forth fruit worthy of repentance... How different is the sorrow of this world! We see it in the solemn case of Judas. His sorrow was not for a season but for eternity. It was not godly but merely human, and instead of producing repentance it led only to death.
- The letter. Paul means one definite letter — the first one he sent to Corinth, written with severity.
- The regret. For a time he wished he had not sent it, though God had inspired it. Commentators differ on the reason: human weakness, or a tender man dreading the pain he had to cause.
- The love. The regret came from love, not from doubt about what he wrote. He feared losing the people he had ministered to.
- The season. The grief the letter caused was brief; godly sorrow has a time limit, unlike the sorrow of the world seen in Judas.
- The harvest. Once the fruit appeared, the regret vanished. Brief grief had produced repentance that leads to salvation.
Now I rejoice, not that ye have been grieved, but that ye have been grieved to repentance; for ye have been grieved according to God, that in nothing ye might be injured by us.
Paul had sent a letter that hurt the people he loved, and for a while he wished he had not sent it. Now he says where his joy lies. It is not in their pain, but in what the pain produced. And in the end their pain cost them nothing.
Paul is careful to say what he is not glad about. One writer explains why the success of his letter alone would not have satisfied him:
His word had come with power, and their old pride had given way to submission. That confirmed the confidence he had in his commission, but it gave Paul no joy. Demons can obey the Name he spoke in while men's hearts stay unrestored to God. His deep delight lay in the quality of their sorrow. Their sorrow was a godly sorrow, so their changed attitude towards him was the fruit and proof of their repentance toward God.
One phrase decides everything here: their grief was "a godly grief." That is what turned a letter Paul feared into a gain:
The letter had grieved them in such a way as to cause, not resentment, but repentance. Their grief was grief according to God — that is, grief seen from God's viewpoint. So it brought blessing, instead of the damage Paul had feared. Such grief works repentance that leads to salvation, and no one ever regrets it. That is true of salvation first of all. But here it applies to believers: their true repentance saves them from the traps of self-indulgence.
Paul had once wished that earlier letter unsent. One writer notes how striking that is, since the letter is Scripture:
His fear had gone so far that the inspired letter he had written now troubled him. The apostle had a question raised in his mind about his own inspired letter! Yet what writing was more certainly of God?
Being sad and repenting are not the same thing. The verse says their grief led somewhere: they were "grieved into repenting." One writer traces the inward movement step by step:
The apostle's first letter came with the power of the Spirit to their souls... God stopped their will, and they grieved at the sense of having gone wrong: conscience, not will, began to work... It was still godly sorrow, a broken will, a broken heart; the feeling — I have been following my own will, I have forgotten God... This works a far more active, deliberate judgment of evil, which is called repentance here. Godly sorrow works repentance that we shall never regret.
The Corinthians were already Christians. Their repentance was not about becoming believers but about what they had tolerated:
When we are told that God uses sorrow to work repentance that is never regretted, remember that these people were already believers. Here the apostle's rebukes worked repentance in them about the shameful evil they had allowed. And what worked it was godly sorrow, not the joy of the gospel.
The grief came "through us," Paul says — through him. Yet they lost nothing by it, and two things came of it:
His first letter had been used to do two things. First, it brought a thorough repentance about the evils he had condemned. Second, it revived their affection for him. There was, of course, a very close connection between the two. As they realised how wrong they had been, they saw that love lay behind his plain and faithful protests; and their hearts kindled with love for him in return.
This is what correction among God's people is meant to achieve:
Believers who go wrong are not disciplined just to punish them. Discipline aims to bring them to repentance and so restore them, both in their souls and to their place of fellowship among God's people. That is what happened with the offender at Corinth.
- Sorrow measured. Paul's joy is not that they hurt. It is that their hurt was godly sorrow, proving their hearts had turned back to God, not just bowed to an apostle.
- Sorrow directed. A godly grief is grief seen from God's viewpoint. That direction is what makes it bring blessing instead of damage.
- Sorrow working. Sadness is not yet repentance. It stops the will, wakes the conscience, and brings the deliberate judgment of evil that no one ever regrets.
- Sorrow for believers. These people were already believers. When a Christian tolerates what dishonours the Lord, repentance is still the way back.
- Sorrow costing nothing. They suffered no loss through Paul's letter. The letter gave them a cleared conscience and fresh love for the man who wrote it. Restoration, not punishment, was always the aim.
For grief according to God works repentance to salvation, never to be regretted; but the grief of the world works death.
Paul had written a letter that hurt the Corinthians, and for a while he almost wished he had not sent it. Now he has heard how they took it. So he weighs what their grief did in them, and he lays down a test that tells apart two sorrows that can look the same from outside.
Darby describes what Paul's first letter started inside them: a broken will, not a frightened soul.
Still it was godly sorrow, a broken will, a broken heart. The feeling was this: I have been following my own will, I have forgotten God. The illusion of a perverse will is gone, and the working of God's nature in us begins. Where the soul feels this rightly, there is no fear. There is no thought that God will hold the sin against it or condemn it. There is sorrow and grief of heart that it followed self-will. This works a far more active, deliberate judgment of evil, called repentance here.
The verse does not say that sorrow is repentance. It says the one produces the other. Pridham marks the difference.
The distinction between sorrow and repentance is clearly marked. The first leads to the second. The one is passing; the other lasts and keeps working. Godly sorrow shows a state of feeling; repentance is an active purpose of the heart, which by its nature grows into a habit.
Kelly rules out two things people mistake for repentance, then says what it is.
Even sorrow, however deep, is not repentance, though sorrow according to God works it out. It is also not correct to confuse repentance with conversion to God... Repentance is the soul, as born of God, sitting in judgment on the old man and its acts, its words and its ways... So Scripture calls it repentance not about God, but "toward God". The conscience then takes His side in self-judgment before Him, and weighs everything as in His sight.
Older translations read "repentance... not to be repented of", which sounds circular. Darby notes that the second word is a different one.
But in 2 Corinthians 7:10 a second word is used, completely different; it should read: "Repentance to salvation, never to be regretted."
Why can no one regret it? Pridham points to what repentance does.
Repentance cannot be repented of, since it is a turning from evil to good, and from oneself to God. So by its very nature it leads to life and salvation. It is a working thing: in a sinner its effect is conversion, in a saint restoration. In either case its end is peace.
Grief over sin can be entirely about oneself. Mawson traces what happens when the pain is only about the fallout.
The second is the sorrow that goes with fear of the consequences, and not because the sin itself is hateful. This is an entirely selfish experience... In this sorrow the devil seems very near. He mocks the soul in its distress and increases its fears. Again and again the soul vows that if it can escape the consequences, it will avoid that trap in future. The devil can mock with confidence, for he knows that as long as the soul is self-centred, it will go back to the same sin.
Hamilton Smith names the man whose sorrow shows where that road ends.
How different is the sorrow of this world! We see it in the solemn case of Judas. His sorrow does not last a season; it lasts for eternity. It was not godly but merely human. And instead of working repentance, it led only to death.
Paul is writing to believers. So the "salvation" here is rescue from the sin itself.
The repentance and salvation Paul speaks of there are the repentance and salvation of Christians... Godly sorrow had taken the place of shameless glorying in evil. This sorrow for their sin worked repentance: it led the Corinthian believers to turn from their evil course and clear themselves from the wrong they had allowed. Repenting in this way, they were saved from going further down the hill of decline... It shows that when a believer sins, his repentance should be as real and as practical as we expect a sinner's first repentance to be.
If repentance goes this deep, how does anyone reach it? Stuart answers that no one produces it in himself.
He who was crucified is exalted to give repentance and forgiveness of sins... Effort, hard work and self-punishment are all useless. He gives it, as we learn. The word of God works it in the soul, acting on the conscience by the power of the Spirit.
- Two sorrows. Both are sincere and both hurt; one is about the sin, the other about the consequences.
- Sorrow works. Godly sorrow is not the finish line. It is the feeling that produces repentance — a settled purpose of heart that keeps working.
- Repentance judges. It is the renewed soul taking God's side against itself, weighing its own words and ways in His sight.
- Never regretted. You can regret a painful letter, a painful season, even a painful confession — you will never regret this.
- Given, not achieved. Effort and self-punishment achieve nothing. Christ, now exalted, gives repentance by His word working on the conscience.
For, behold, this same thing, your being grieved according to God, how much diligence it wrought in *you*, but [what] excusing [of yourselves], but [what] indignation, but [what] fear, but [what] ardent desire, but [what] zeal, but [what] vengeance in every way ye have proved yourselves to be pure in the matter.
Paul's first letter to Corinth had wounded the church. Here he lists what that wound produced: seven marks left by a grief that came from God. The verse raises a question every reader faces. How do you tell real repentance from mere regret?
Each word in Paul's list names a change in a church that had let a scandal sit unjudged. The writers below quote an older translation, which reads "carefulness" for "earnestness," "vehement desire" for "longing," and "revenge" for "punishment."
"Carefulness" or "earnestness" stands in happy contrast to their earlier slackness. "Clearing of themselves" describes how readily they took up the solemn duty of judging the offence, once his earlier letter had stirred them. "Indignation" is the right word for the just and natural feeling that woke in their minds. Their eyes were newly opened, and they saw how great the evil was that they had left unjudged for so long. It was a feeling directed no more against the wrongdoer than against themselves. The "fear" he speaks of pointed first to the Lord, and then to Paul.
The last three words carry the list from feeling into action.
"Vehement desire" may seem very strong here. But the First Epistle had clearly struck them deeply, and awakened warm affection toward the Lord. "Zeal" follows. Last is "revenge" or "vengeance." This would speak of the actual judgment of the evil among them, and the putting away of the wicked man of 1 Corinthians 5.
Grief on its own proves nothing.
Grief may arise, and even reach a passionate extreme, and yet have as little changing effect on the person as summer dew on a rock… So the difference between sorrow and repentance is clear. The first leads to the second. The one is passing. The other lasts and keeps working. Godly sorrow shows a state of feeling. Repentance is an active purpose of the heart, and by its nature it grows into a habit.
That is why the test of repentance is deliverance, not tears.
This scripture shows us very clearly what genuine repentance really is. It is not quite sorrow for sin, though godly sorrow of that sort is part of it… The right sort of repentance is repentance to salvation. That is, it means deliverance from the thing repented of. Mere sorrow for sin, when a person faces its consequences, is the kind the world can have. It works death, not salvation. Judas Iscariot is a sad example of this.
This was not a conversion. The Corinthians already belonged to Christ, and still had to repent.
In its fruit in 2 Corinthians 7:9-10, they sorrowed to repentance; godly sorrow worked repentance. Here they were converted long ago, and had believed long ago. But they had been in a bad state, and had repented. You can see how it showed itself in verse 11.
Paul's closing verdict is that at every point they proved themselves innocent in the matter. Removing the offender was never the whole point.
Simply putting the wicked person outside, important as that may be, is not what comforted the apostle's heart. What comforted him was the working of deep and shared moral feelings among them all… Merely to be done with the offender would show in others an unexercised conscience, or else judicial hardness.
The sin they had tolerated involved the whole church, not just the man who committed it.
His words in the second Epistle show his thought: they were involved in the evil by allowing it. "At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter." His complaint was that there was sin, leaven — not just a sinner, but sin among them.
Kelly asks for more than the offender's own sorrow.
If we want God's will, it is not enough that the offender be truly repentant. God's people too, when they have to deal with a grievous case, should humble themselves and in grace bear the shame as if it were their own.
- Sorrow starts it. Grief can be strong and still change nothing. Godly grief is the seed, repentance is the crop, and only repentance lasts.
- Fruit proves it. Paul does not take their word for it. He reads seven marks: earnestness, clearing, indignation, fear, longing, zeal, punishment.
- Believers need it. The Corinthians had believed long before. Repentance here is a Christian judging himself, not a first conversion.
- The body owns it. Sin they tolerated made the whole church a party to it. The whole church, not one man, had to clear itself.
- Grace ends it. Paul's aim was never just to expel a man. He wanted a shared humbling, so that he could say they had proved themselves innocent.
So then, if also I wrote to you, [it was] not for the sake of him that injured, nor for the sake of him that was injured, but for the sake of our diligent zeal for you being manifested to you before God.
Paul now explains why he sent that painful earlier letter to Corinth. His aim was not the wrongdoer or his victim, but the whole church and its state before God.
The offence in Corinth was real, but Paul was not writing to close a single case.
Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth (1 Cor. 13:6). Paul had written to rescue the Corinthian saints from the completely false state they had fallen into. He wrote to build them up again in the truth of God. The goal of spiritual exhortation is not to stamp out one form of evil, or to set right some special wrong. Its goal is to bring God's children into practical communion with Himself, and with each other in His sight. Such communion cancels the workings of the flesh in all its forms.
Paul could have ended the scandal by his own authority. He did not. The sin pointed to something worse behind it.
But using apostolic authority to shut down this one trouble would have done nothing to recover the Church. That open sin was only a plague-spot. To his divinely guided eye it showed the unhealthy state of a body that could tolerate such evil and feel no shame. His eye was not so much on the one who did the wrong, or the one who suffered it. It was on Satan, who stirs up all evil and corrupts the way of truth by deceit. That such an outrage went unnoticed proved to Paul how far the adversary had prevailed. He wrote as he did to wake them from their deadly sleep. His aim was to set them once more against the one who was robbing them of their glory.
The state of the whole gathering was the issue, so the work belonged to them. Even honest grief would have counted for something.
The apostle's anxiety is about them, the gathering as a whole. He explains it further in this verse. Suppose they had felt morally unfit to deal with the case, or had held back for other reasons. Even then, if they had "mourned" (1 Cor. 5:2) over it in true self-judgment, God might have acted in His providence and removed the offender. Instead they were glorying in their gifts and making light of defilement, even when it was so gross.
The closing words are disputed. The ESV has Paul writing "that your earnestness for us might be revealed to you." An older English version puts it the other way round: that his care for them might be shown. The ancient copies differ here.
So the apostle adds that he wrote, not for the sake of the wrongdoer, nor of the one wronged. He wrote so that before God they might see either their earnest zeal for him, or his for them. It seems very strange that the earlier clauses should ever look obscure. In the last clause the copies differ in opposite directions, and some give no good sense. Whatever the adversary had achieved for a time, their true zeal for the apostle was at last made plain to themselves before God. This is the best supported sense.
Either reading points the same way. Love between Paul and the Corinthians came into the open, and that mattered more than settling the case.
It was no small thing to put matters right between the one who did the injury and the one who suffered it. It was greater still to bring into the open that love which is the fruit of the divine nature in the saints.
- Wide care. Paul wrote about a scandal, but for a people. The offender and the victim were not the point — the church's state before God was.
- Deep care. One open sin exposed a body willing to tolerate it. Removing that sin by authority would have left the real state untouched, and the real enemy unopposed.
- Shared care. If they had only mourned over the sin, God might have stepped in Himself. Paul left the work with them, so that their own consciences would wake.
- Visible care. "In the sight of God" is where the result showed. The earnestness between Paul and the church came to light at last, though the copies differ over whose earnestness is named.
- Greater care. Settling the case mattered. Bringing out love, the fruit of the divine nature, mattered more.
For this reason we have been encouraged. And we the rather rejoiced in our encouragement more abundantly by reason of the joy of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed by you all.
Paul's long account of the trouble at Corinth ends in relief. The painful letter had done its work, Titus came back with good news, and joy spread from the Corinthians to Titus and on to Paul.
The trouble at Corinth had been real, and so was the recovery. Kelly weighs how far that joy spread, and who felt it most.
Grace had given the happiest outcome to what fleshly energy or ease had ruined for a time. And joy abounded not in them only, but more in Titus, most in Paul himself.
The Corinthians had caused Paul's distress. Now the same people bring him relief, and Titus too.
If he is comforted, it is through the same people who for a while had made him sad. He has, moreover, a second joy, as a sharer in what Titus felt, who had found such refreshment to his own spirit in the reception he had met with as Paul's fellow-worker and messenger to them. Out of the evil which so sorely tried his love, there had come, by the grace of God, a more abundant good.
Pridham adds that this outcome was neither small nor expected:
There remained still some discouraging drawbacks to this joy, and he will mention them in their place; but there was enough in what God had clearly done to create a deep and grateful gladness in his heart. For this was not an ordinary or expected blessing; he had staked much on this visit of his younger fellow-worker, as what follows shows.
The word Paul picks for what happened to Titus is not a casual one. A close look at the Greek shows two things. It assumes earlier toil. And it marks the Corinthians as the source the refreshment came from.
The word assumes toil, and then the end of it. It does not point to an agent whose power and influence the matter, or the person, is now under. If they had been in a good state, Titus might have been received and cheered by them — though scarcely even that. But he could not have been refreshed when they had been going wrong before. His refreshment now proceeded from them.
The result for Paul was freedom. With nothing left between them, he could speak without holding back.
What a moment of soul-comfort now followed! He can well say, "We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open." He can pour out his heart's teaching. He is unhindered in his joy.
Titus came back in far better shape than Paul had dared to hope.
Titus had come back thoroughly refreshed and joyful. This had clearly gone far beyond Paul's hopes. There had been much anxiety about them, and many things to blame, as the first letter shows; and yet the way they had received him went beyond his expectations.
Hole then turns that on the reader:
In all this we see how God delights to lift up and encourage His tried servants. The God who acted this way with Paul is just the same today. Why are we not filled with greater and more complete confidence in Him?
- Grief first. The sorrow Paul's letter caused was the road to comfort, not a block in the way. The people who had made him and Titus sad became the ones who cheered them.
- Refreshed, not just welcomed. The word for what Titus received assumes hard work, and then rest from it. A warm welcome on its own is not the same thing.
- Comfort travels. Their comfort comforted Paul, and the joy of Titus lifted him higher still — one recovery, three glad hearts, and Paul held the largest share.
- Joy opens the mouth. With the strain gone, Paul's heart is wide open and his teaching pours out. Nothing holds his joy back.
- God lifts His servants. He lifted a worn and anxious Paul, and He has not changed. The honest question is why we trust Him so little.
Because if I boasted to him anything about you, I have not been put to shame; but as we have spoken to you all things in truth, so also our boasting to Titus has been [the] truth;
Paul had praised the Corinthians to Titus before sending him to Corinth. Then bad news came from Corinth, and those words began to look reckless. This verse is his relief. Titus came back with a report that matched Paul's words. Paul had told them the truth to their faces, and he had told the truth about them behind their backs.
Paul's earlier praise was not self-promotion. One writer sees two motives behind it: joy in what God had done through his work, and a wish to cheer a younger colleague.
He loved to speak with Titus, his own son in the faith they shared. He would tell him what the Lord had done through his work among the many people the Lord had at Corinth (Acts 18:10). He did not do this to boast about himself. He did it to stir and cheer the spirit of his younger partner in the work of God.
He did this for all his converts, not for Corinth alone.
This flowed from the love that rejoices with the truth. He always delighted to point out, in front of others, whatever marks of real grace and godliness he saw in any of his children in the faith. That is how he had said much to Titus about these believers at Corinth. But when the people of Chloe's household came with such a bad report, he trembled both for them and for his own earlier words.
Sending Titus put those words to the test. Paul knew the result might shame him. So he settled in advance how he would take it, either way.
He was also willing to let the picture Titus had formed of their spiritual progress, drawn from Paul's earlier description, be tested by facts. There was a risk in it, and the risk distressed him. Still, he took it on willingly, as a man who could work only with the truth (2 Cor. 13:8). Suppose Titus found them in a bad state, after all his boasting. Then he would take the disappointment as a chastening from the Lord, the only One in whom we may boast without reserve (1 Cor. 1:31). But his hope still rose above his fears. If that hope came true, he would boast louder still, to the praise of the One he trusted.
"I was not put to shame" is the language of a man who had left himself exposed.
Paul had boasted to Titus about the fine qualities of the Corinthians. Titus had found it to be true. So Paul does not have to take his boast back in shame.
The verse ties two things together: how Paul spoke to the Corinthians, and how he spoke about them. Both were true. He had blamed them plainly too, so no one could write off his warm words as flattery.
His heart did not change, and his tongue was never insincere. He loved his dear children at Corinth, even though he had also blamed them. Now they could value it all better, and he could say everything out to them freely, though still with care.
Kelly reads the whole recovery as God's work rather than a happy accident:
Human energy, or human ease, had ruined things for a time. Grace gave the happiest outcome instead. And the joy overflowed not in them only, but more in Titus, and most of all in Paul himself.
The result went far beyond what Paul had hoped.
True, he had boasted of them to Titus. He had spoken of them with warm affection, and with confidence that they were genuine. And now everything turned out just as he had said. The apostle's distress turned into overflowing joy and thankfulness. In all this we see how God delights to lift up and encourage His tried servants. The God who acted like this with Paul is just the same today. Why do we not trust Him more completely?
- Praise — Paul spoke well of the Corinthians to Titus. He did it to cheer a younger fellow worker, not to inflate himself. Naming real grace in others was his habit.
- Risk — that praise could prove empty, and he sent Titus knowing it. He had already decided to take a bad report as the Lord's chastening.
- Truth — the same honesty ruled what he said to them and what he said about them. A tongue that had blamed them could be trusted when it praised them.
- Vindication — Titus found them just as described. Paul had nothing to take back, and his distress turned into overflowing joy.
- Grace — what human energy or ease had ruined for a time, grace repaired. The joy ran through them, through Titus, and most of all through Paul.
and his affections are more abundantly towards you, calling to mind the obedience of you all, how with fear and trembling ye received him.
Titus had gone to Corinth with a hard letter, unsure how he would be received. This verse tells what he brought back: a deep affection for the very people he had been sent to correct.
One writer traces both sides of the visit — what their obedience did for them, and what it did for Titus.
Their ready obedience to the truth brings more blessing back on themselves. It renewed and strengthened the bond of their first love to the apostle. It also opened a new spring of comfort for them. They now had a special place in the heart of Titus too, and a fresh tie of affection had formed that would not easily break. He could only go to Corinth with a doubtful mind... He arrived on a mission whose outcome no one could foresee, and they welcomed him in a way worthy of the Lord, whose messenger he truly was. Their fear and trembling proved that their return to God was real. For the most part they had truly obeyed the commands given to them in His name.
Their trembling was not nervousness before a visiting official. It came from a letter that carried weight in their own consciences.
The Corinthians had received Titus "with fear and trembling"; they had been marked by obedience. Paul's letter had come to them with an authority that was Divine. In it he had called on them to recognise that what he wrote was "the commandments of the Lord." As the inspired Word of God, the letter proved itself in their consciences, and it commanded their obedience. Today some would like to persuade us that we have no good reason to accept any part of Scripture as the Word of God unless "the Church" first vouches for it. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The Word of God proves itself in the hearts and consciences of those who are born of Him.
Paul himself came to Corinth in this same fear. It is nothing like the fear of the servant in the parable, who thought his master harsh.
So the apostle Paul says he was with those who received the gospel at Corinth "in fear and in much trembling." Yet he had the full assurance of faith, and his labours were as abundant as his love. In the Second Epistle he praises the saints for receiving Titus with fear and trembling, to his own comfort and the joy of his fellow-worker. What a contrast with the wicked and slothful servant in the parable! The Lord describes him as afraid of the gracious Master, counting Him "a severe man." So he hid His talent in the ground instead of using it for the good of others in His service, trusting His love!
Nothing in the Corinthians themselves explains such a response.
...his inward affection went out to them more than ever... a state of soul which grace alone produced, especially in people like the Corinthians.
Paul reports this affection to people who knew how far they had drifted from him. Telling them did its own work.
He spoke of his feelings for them while they still knew how far they had drifted from him for a time, and how low they had sunk. This would seal their affection more than ever, for it proved his own love true from first to last. His heart never wavered, and his words were never insincere. He loved, even if he had blamed, his beloved children at Corinth, and they could now appreciate it all better, as he could tell out everything freely, however delicately.
Paul's confidence in them rested on one thing — how they took the Word.
The obedience of the Corinthians to the Word of the Lord gave the apostle full confidence in them. Do we think that was an overstatement on his part, the result of his feelings swinging back the other way? It was not so at all. It was the expression of a sober judgment. Believers may fall short and be at fault in many things. But if they recognise the Word of God when they hear it, and obey its instructions, we need have no fear about them. All will be well.
- Received — Titus came not knowing how it would go. They welcomed him in a way worthy of the Lord who sent him.
- Trembling — they did not dread the man who brought the letter. They bowed before words their own consciences knew were God's.
- Grace — grace alone produced that state of soul. It is the opposite of the servant who thought his master harsh and buried the talent.
- Affection — their obedience brought blessing back on them. It formed a fresh tie of love in the heart of Titus, one not easily broken.
- Confidence — where people recognise God's Word and obey it, other failures need not shake confidence. All will be well.
I rejoice that in everything I am confident as to you.
Paul had written hard words to the Corinthians about sin among them, and then waited, distressed, for news. Here he tells them his heart is at rest again. The words raise a real question: what changed, and how far can one believer trust another?
The verse marks the end of a period of doubt. Older translations read "I have confidence in you in all things," where the ESV has "complete confidence" — the quotes below use the older wording.
Everything had turned out as this much-tried and much-honoured "minister of God" had longed for. His reward matched his faith. He had been cast down and deeply distressed about them, yet he had still counted on the Lord. Now his repayment has come at the right time. The alarm is over, and he has full confidence again in the very people he had doubted. His troubled spirit now rests in the complete reassurance he has received.
This confidence was not a mood. It followed something the Corinthians had done about the sin among them.
The apostle had very great affection for the Corinthians, and more than that, he had very great confidence in them. "I rejoice, therefore, that I have confidence in you in all things" (2 Cor. 7:16). Who did he say that to? He said it to a company who had judged themselves, and where the fruits of repentance had come in. Without that repentance, I'm afraid it will not be confidence we have, but the certainty that the Lord's hand is still upon us.
What made such trust safe? Paul could see who was at work in them.
So the apostle looks at this with the joyful assurance of his confidence in them "in all things." It was clear that God was working in their souls — and that work is always worthy of confidence.
Had Paul's blame meant that his love had cooled? He speaks here at the very moment they felt how far they had drifted.
They must have been aware of how they had drifted from him for a time, and of how sadly low their state had been. Speaking of his feelings towards them at such a moment would seal their affection more than ever, for it proved that his own love had been true from first to last. His heart was not changeable, and his words were not insincere. He had blamed his beloved children at Corinth, yet he loved them. Now they could value it all better, as he could speak everything out freely, though with great care.
One thing explains Titus's warmth towards them. It was not only that they obeyed, but the spirit in which they did it.
The apostle had had to write very strongly to these same saints about discipline. Yet he says, "I rejoice that I have confidence in you in all things." Why? Because Titus had come back refreshed in spirit. Paul had sent him to see how his First Epistle had worked among them, and he returned with deeper affection for them, remembering how they all obeyed, and how they received him "with fear and trembling." When the saints' ways are in question, this is blessed fruit of the Spirit indeed. For He who finds fault even with His angels says, "But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word" (Isaiah 66:2).
Full confidence in one matter did not mean Paul thought all was well at Corinth.
So far all was well. The Apostle rejoiced and told them about his gladness of heart in a beautiful passage (see 2 Cor. 7:4-16). Yet there were still things among them that caused him grave anxiety. With great warmth and tact he acknowledges in the early part of the letter all that grace had worked among them. Only when he reaches his farewell words does he say plainly what he fears about them, and so point out evils that were still at work among them.
- Sorrow. Paul's confidence starts on the far side of grief — his own distress over them, and their repentance and self-judgment.
- Evidence. Paul spoke this to a company that had judged itself. Where repentance is missing, what follows is not confidence but the Lord's hand upon us.
- Ground. What Paul trusted was God's work in their souls — a work always worthy of confidence.
- Manner. The proof was obedience, and a welcome given with fear and trembling — the spirit God looks to: humble, contrite, trembling at His word.
- Limit. Full confidence here did not mean full approval. Paul still names other evils before the letter closes.