2 Corinthians 6

2 Corinthians 6:1

And we whose office it is to labour for that for which Christ hath laid down his life, ch. v. 21, do exhort you not to frustrate all these gracious methods of God, not to permit the gospel (see note [d] Heb. xiii.) to be cast away upon you.

2 Corinthians 6:2

For the prophet saith in the person of God, Isa. xlix. 8, In a season which I had chosen, I have

[a] salvation] What σωτηρία signifies hath been often said, (see note [c] on Rom. xiii.) God’s rescuing his faithful persevering servants out of their distresses; thus it clearly signifies here, proportionably to what it had done in the prophecy here cited, Isa. xlix. 8. In an acceptable time have I heard thee, that is, in a time that God chose, and saw fit for the turn, in the day of salvation have I helped thee, and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant to this people, (a kind of rainbow to the drowned world, a sign of a covenant that God will drown them no more in such afflictions,) to establish or raise up the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages. And therefore when he saith, Now is the accepted time, the season that God hath pitched on, now is

M 2

2 Corinthians 6:3

And one especial part of our labour and care is, to abstain strictly from all things that may avert any man from the faith, endeavouring to approve ourselves to all, that all men may look on our behaviour in the gospel with reverence, and not with censure, and so be attracted to Christian life, not deterred by us.

2 Corinthians 6:4

Approving our fidelity in the discharge of our office, by all proper means: first, by the constant, patient enduring of all sort of afflictions; viz. pressures, wants, exigencies,

2 Corinthians 6:5

Scourgings, imprisonments, seditions; by painstaking, denying ourselves our ordinary sleep and food;

2 Corinthians 6:6

By continence; by the study of the divine law in the more secret sense (see note [c] 2 Pet. i); by longsuffering, by bounty, by the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit (prophesying, languages, &c.); by sincere charity, and zeal to the good of souls;

2 Corinthians 6:7

By preaching the pure gospel of Christ; by the power of God in doing miracles, &c.; by weapons evangelical of all sorts, for the temptations of a prosperous and an adverse condition; the spears in time of prosperity, to repel the temptations of the world; resolution against all the assaults of carnality; and the shield, in order to dangers, and approach of evil, patience, constancy and perseverance, to defend us from them;

2 Corinthians 6:8

Through the various fates of being contumeliously used by some, as well as reverently by others; vilified as well as commended; counted as deceivers, when yet we are most faithful dispensers of the truth of God;

2 Corinthians 6:9

Esteemed and looked on by some as if they knew us not, by others owned and valued; some judging us as lost men, that by our needless zeal had

2 Corinthians 6:10

Our lives pitied and looked on, as made up of nothing but sadness, whilst yet we are always cheerful, and rejoicing in the testimony of a good conscience; as poor ourselves, and yet enriching whole multitudes of men with that which is the most valuable true riches: and though we are deemed, and that truly, to have nothing, yet are we so provided for by God’s good providence, as to want nothing that is necessary or useful for us.

2 Corinthians 6:11

I have spoken clearly and freely to you, O Corinthians, and my heart as well as my mouth hath been enlarged to you also, so great is my kindness and affection to you.

2 Corinthians 6:12

Ye are not pent up in us as in a narrow room, my whole soul is open to you, and at your service; you have no small place in my affections; but you do not retribute as ye ought, ye are somewhat straitened in your affections toward me.

2 Corinthians 6:13

And truly it were but a just return, as from children to your parent, if ye would be, back again, as kind and affectionate to me, as I have been to you.

2 Corinthians 6:14

Is there any reason you should be more inclinable, more favourably affected to them that are not Christians, to false prophets or teachers, than to us? Is it possible for you Christians to receive any benefit from such? doth impiety advantage justice? or darkness contribute any thing to light?

[b] unequally yoked] The word ἐτεροζυγείν the Vulg. renders jugum ducere, which seems to have given occasion to Buddæus, and H. Stephanus out of him, to affirm that ἐτεροζυγείν here in this apostle is used for ὁμοζυγείν, to be in the yoke with another. But this is a mistake without any grounds, save only the equivocalness of the word ζυγός, which signifies a yoke to draw in, as well as a balance to weigh in. The word ἐτεροζυγείν is doubtless to be rendered here, as in Greek authors it signifies, among whom a pair of scales or balance, whose beam inclines or propends toward one part, is called σταθμός ἐτερόζυγος, (in opposition to ἰσόζυγος, equally inclined both ways, or whose beam stands even,) trutina alteri jugis, ἐτερορροπής, non ἰσορροπής, “a scale that weighs down one way, stands not in the equilibration.” So in Phocylides,

Σταθμὸν μὴ κρούειν ἐτερόζυγον, ἀλλ’ ἴσον ἕλκειν,

“Let the balance stand even, not inclined more to one side.” And so the sense of the place will be, ‘Be not more propense and inclined toward the proposals of these apostatizing Gnostics, that heresy to which your present leaders would seduce you, than you are to us the apostles of Christ, who love you so passionately:’ which is the argument almost of the whole chapter. Thus in Clement’s Epistle to the same Corin-

2 Corinthians 6:15

What agreement of desires can Christ or a Christian have with Satan, or a lawless man? what accord a believer with an unbeliever? and such are many of those Gnostic heretics that are so followed by you.

2 Corinthians 6:16

Or how can ye reconcile God’s temple and the idol temples? Now ye are the temple of God, among whom he dwells, and walks, and owns you for his people, as he hath promised to do to the Jews upon condition of their obedience to him. 17, 18. This lays an obligation upon you to get out

⁶ But by way of this very recompense, τὴν δὲ αὐτὴν ἀντιμισθίαν. ⁷ Do not ye become

more inclinable to. ⁸ participation is there betwixt righteousness and wickedness? what

communication betwixt light and darkness? μετοχὴ δικαιοσύνη καὶ ἀνομία; τίς δὲ κοινωνία

φωτὶ πρὸς σκέτος; ⁹ among, &c. ¹⁰ among. N 2

2 Corinthians 6:18

Now all these things depend on God, as the author of them, who hath used this means of making up that breach between him and us, and hath given us power and commission to give men reconciliation, peace, or pardon, or absolution, upon renewing of their lives.

2 Corinthians 6:19

And the tenure of our commission runs thus, That God hath used Christ as a means to make peace between him and the greater and worse part of the world, the Gentiles at this time as well as the Jews, (not by pardoning of their sins, while they remain in them, but by admitting them to repentance, by not shutting up ways of mercy, and moreover calling them, using admirable methods of mercy in revealing himself to them,) and hath put in our hands the word of reconciliation, the preaching of this gospel, and making known the means of grace, and advising and persuading all men to make use of it.

2 Corinthians 6:20

This therefore is the nature of our present employment, to be (as our title of apostles imports) proxies and negotiators for Christ, we supplying the place of Christ on earth, and so treating with men, after the manner that Christ did when he was here, calling sinners to repentance, and that with all the affectionate importunity imaginable, as sent from God on purpose to entreat men to it: and accordingly now we do, in Christ’s stead; we beseech you to reform your lives, and make yourselves capable of the return of God’s favour to you: see note [m] Matt. v.

2 Corinthians 6:21

For Christ, an innocent, pure, sinless person, hath God sent to be a sacrifice for our sins, that we might imitate his purity, and thereby be, through the benefits of his death, accepted and justified by God.

CHAP. VI.

[d] sin for us] What is meant here by the word ἀμαρτία, sin, will best appear by the notion of it in the Old Testament sometimes, and by the opposition to δικαιοσύνη, righteousness, here. In the Old Testament it is taken for a sacrifice for sin, Lev. iv. 3, 29, and v. 6, and psalm xl. 7; and so piaculum in Latin is both a sin and a sacrifice of expiation, or the person that is so sanctified. And there is nothing more ordinary in the Septuagint than for ἀμαρτία to signify a sacrifice for sin, and so in the Chaldee paraphrase also, Exod. xxix. 14, where the Hebrew reads sin, they read a sacrifice for sin: for indeed the Hebrew אטו signifies primarily two things, sin and legal uncleanness, and secondarily two things more, a sacrifice of propitiation for sin, and of purification for uncleanness; and consequently being rendered sometimes ἀμαρτία, both in the notion of sin and also of uncleanness, Lev. xii. 6, Num. vi. 2, sometimes ἱλασμός and ἐξιλασμός, propitiation, Ezek. xlv. 27, xlv. 19, and sometimes ἄγνωσμος, purifying, Num. xix. 19, ἄγνωσμος, purification, Num. viii. 7; from hence comes, that this one Greek word ἀμαρτία, as if it were of the same latitude with the Hebrew אטו, is made use of to signify all these severals. For that of sin I need not instance: for that of legal uncleanness, see Num. vi. 2, ἥμαρτε περὶ τῆς ψυχῆς, he was unclean by the touch of a dead body. For that of sacrifice of expiation, among many others, see Lev. iv. 25, the blood of the ἀμαρτία, sin, that is, sin-offering: and in the last for purification, either of a leper, or a woman after childbirth, or after the touching of a dead body, the word generally used is περὶ ἀμαρτίας, for sin: so in the New Testament, Rom. viii. 3, περὶ ἀμαρτίας, for sin, is the sacrifice of propitiation; and so Heb. x. 6, and xiii. 11, and so here ἀμαρτία, sin, without περὶ, most distinctly. Then for the opposition wherein ἀμαρτία, sin, is here set to δικαιοσύνη, righteousness, Christ made ἀμαρτία, sin, that we might be made δικαιοσύνη, righteousness, that is an argument, that as our being δικαιοσύνη, righteousness, signifies our being sanctified first, and then accepted by God, justified; so his being ἀμαρτία signifies his being condemned, that is, consecrated as a sacrifice is wont to be devoted for the sins of the people.