2 Corinthians 6

2 Corinthians 6:1

The [cometh] the end. The end follows soon after the resurrection of the saints. When he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God. See 1 Corinthians 15:28. When Christ’s work is accomplished he places all in the Father’s hands.

2 Corinthians 6:2

For he must reign. He is reigning now, and will continue to reign until he has conquered all his enemies. He is not waging a contest for a kingdom, as some contend, but will give up the kingdom when the contest is over and the final victory won. All enemies. All the wicked opposers, human and supernatural; also sin and death. All must be overthrown.

2 Corinthians 6:3

The last enemy . . . [is] death. See Revelation 20:12-14. The order there of closing events is the resurrection, the judgment, and the casting of Death and Hades (hades–the grave) into the lake of fire.

2 Corinthians 6:4

For he put all things under his feet. Quoted from Psalms 8:6, a statement that Christ is Lord of all and that God has subjected all to him. He is excepted, which put all things under him. God gave Christ the power, and hence he is excepted. The Father is not subject to the Son.

2 Corinthians 6:5

When all things shall be subdued unto him. When the world is subdued to Christ. Then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him. Then, as his work is done, he will give up the kingdom to the Father (1 Corinthians 15:24). Then Christ will give up the seals of office.

2 Corinthians 6:6

Else what shall they do who are baptized for the dead? Paul again returns to the argument for the resurrection. This passage is difficult, and has received almost as many interpretations as there have been commentators. Some have held that there was a custom of baptizing living persons for the benefit of persons who had died without baptism. Had that custom existed, Paul would have rebuked it. It did arise afterwards, as an abuse from the misinterpretation of this passage, among the followers of Cerinthis, and, in our times, of Joseph Smith.

I will try to make clear its meaning: (1) All the Corinthians were baptized (Acts 18:8). (2) Their baptism was a “planting” in the likeness of the burial of Christ, and in the “likeness of his resurrection” (Romans 6:4,5). They were in, and raised from, a watery tomb. (3) Their baptism in the likeness of the death and resurrection of Christ was in hope of their own resurrection from the dead through Christ’s resurrection. (“Huper Nekroon”, “for”, or “on account of the dead”, with the exception of resurrection from the dead.) But if Christ has not risen, and the dead rise not, this memorial and emblematic burial has no meaning. “Why, then, are they baptized for the dead”? that is, for the sake of their own resurrection from the dead. This interpretation harmonizes better with Paul’s argument than any I have seen.

2 Corinthians 6:7

Why stand we in jeopardy every hour? What motive, if there is no hope beyond, can we apostles have for placing ourselves in constant peril by preaching the resurrection?

2 Corinthians 6:8

I protest . . . I die daily. I am in daily peril of death.

2 Corinthians 6:9

If after the manner of men. Speaking humanly. I have fought with beasts at Ephesus. Encountered furious opposition, like the rush of wild beasts. The allusion is hardly to be taken literally. If he had been thrown to wild beasts at Ephesus, some record would have been made of it in the record in Acts of his sojourn at Ephesus. Besides, a Roman citizen was preserved from that manner of death. What advantageth it me if the dead rise not? All his sufferings are to no purpose if the dead rise not. Let us eat and drink, etc. All Epicurean maxim, a proverbial saying.

2 Corinthians 6:11

Awake to righteousness, and sin not. Such an error leads to Epicurean sensuality. Shake it off, that you sin not. Some have not the knowledge of God. “Some have no knowledge of God” (Revised Version). Such errors can only spring from ignorance of God and his power to raise men.

2 Corinthians 6:12

But some [man] will say. But two difficulties are raised: How are the dead raised up? What kind of a body do they have?

2 Corinthians 6:13

[Thou] fool. The idea is, slow of understanding. Why cannot you learn the lesson nature teaches? That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die. The grain that thou sowest has to die and be dissolved before it comes forth in a new life. So the body must die and be dissolved.

2 Corinthians 6:14

And that which thou sowest . . . bare grain. We sow, not the plant that comes forth, but only a bare seed.

2 Corinthians 6:15

But God giveth . . . to every seed his own body. To the seed planted God gives a new body, the stalk of wheat or corn, or whatever it may be. This new body bears no outward resemblance to the seed planted.

2 Corinthians 6:16

All flesh [is] not the same flesh. All the different animals have bodies unlike, and suited to their conditions.

2 Corinthians 6:17

[There are] also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial. These, too, have forms and glories, unlike, and suited to their condition.

2 Corinthians 6:18

[There is] one glory of the sun, etc. The sun has its own peculiar form and glory. So of the moon, and the stars. The thought is that to every condition is given a form suited to that condition.