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.