J. N. Darby

The 'therefore' is not connected, as you make it, with this glorious future state, as making him confident, but with what he already possessed while in the body. "Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always confident," etc. Now you cannot fail to see how immensely important this is to the whole question. It was what Paul had already as God's workmanship, which made him so courageous at all times. Now if all this was totally to perish — that is, if what God had made him to be was, "He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing" — how could that inspire him with confidence? The utter total perishing of what God had wrought was a strange ground of boldness.