Homily 1 — Second Corinthians 1, verses 1 to 5

“Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” [a]

It is right to ask two things first: why he adds a second letter to the first, and what his reason can be for beginning as he does, with the mercies and the comfort of God.

Why, then, does he add a second letter? In the first he had said, “I will come to you, and I will find out not the talk of those who are puffed up, but their power” (First Corinthians 4, verse 19). And again, toward the end, he had promised the same thing in milder terms: “I will come to you when I have passed through Macedonia, for I am passing through Macedonia; and it may be that I will stay, or even spend the winter with you” (First Corinthians 16, verses 5 and 6). Yet now, after a long interval, he had not come. He was still lingering and delaying, even though the time he had set had passed, because the Spirit was holding him back for other matters far more urgent than these. That is why he needed to write a second letter. He would not have needed to, if he had overstayed his time only a little.

But that was not the only reason. It was also because the first letter had corrected them. The man who had committed sexual immorality, whom they had earlier applauded and been puffed up about, they had now cut off and separated from themselves completely. He shows this where he says, “But if anyone has caused sorrow, he has caused sorrow not to me, but in part (so that I do not press too heavily) to you all. This punishment, which was inflicted by the majority, is enough for such a man” (Second Corinthians 2, verses 5 and 6). And as he goes on, he refers to the same thing again when he says, “For look: that you were made sorry in a godly way, what earnest care it produced in you, yes, what eagerness to clear yourselves, yes, what indignation, yes, what fear, yes, what longing, yes, what zeal, yes, what punishment of the wrong! In everything you proved yourselves pure in this matter” (Second Corinthians 7, verse 11).

Besides this, they had gathered the collection he instructed them to make, and with great eagerness. That is why he says, “For I know your readiness, which I boast of on your behalf to the Macedonians, that Achaia has been prepared since a year ago” (Second Corinthians 9, verse 2). And Titus too, whom he had sent, they received with every kindness, as he shows again when he says, “His heart goes out to you all the more, as he remembers the obedience of you all, how you received him with fear and trembling” (Second Corinthians 7, verse 15). For all these reasons he writes the second letter. It was right that, just as he had rebuked them when they were at fault, he should approve and commend them now that they had corrected themselves.

This is why the letter is not very severe throughout, but only in a few places toward the end. For even among them there were Jews who thought highly of themselves and accused Paul of being a boaster who deserved no regard. That is where this saying of theirs comes from: “His letters are weighty, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech is of no account” (Second Corinthians 10, verse 10). By this they meant that when he is present he seems of no account (that is the meaning of “his bodily presence is weak”), but when he is away he boasts loudly in what he writes (that is the sense of “his letters are weighty”). Moreover, to raise their own standing, these men made a show of taking nothing, and he refers to this too where he says, “so that in what they boast of, they may be found to be just as we are” (Second Corinthians 11, verse 12). And besides, since they also had a command of eloquent speech, they were at once puffed up. That is why he calls himself “unskilled in speech” (Second Corinthians 11, verse 6), showing that he is not ashamed of it and does not think the opposite any great prize. Since it was likely, then, that some would be led astray by these men, after commending what the Corinthians had done rightly, and bringing down those men’s senseless pride in Jewish practices, which they quarreled to keep when their season had passed, he gives a gentle rebuke on this subject too.

This, then, to put it briefly and in passing, appears to me to be the argument of this letter. It remains to consider the opening, and to say why, after his usual greeting, he begins as he does, with the mercies of God. But first we must speak of the very beginning and ask why he joins Timothy with himself here. For he says, “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Timothy our brother.” In the first letter he had promised to send him, and had instructed them, “Now if Timothy comes, see that he is with you without fear” (First Corinthians 16, verse 10). How is it, then, that here, at the very opening, he joins him with himself? Timothy had been among them, just as his teacher had promised — “I have sent Timothy to you, who will remind you of my ways which are in Christ” (First Corinthians 4, verse 17) — and had set everything in order. Then he had gone back to Paul, who had said when he sent him, “Send him on his way in peace, so that he may come to me, for I am expecting him with the brothers” (First Corinthians 16, verse 11). [c]

So Timothy had come back to his teacher, and after setting things in order in Asia together with him (for Paul says, “I will stay at Ephesus until Pentecost,” First Corinthians 16, verse 8), he had crossed over again into Macedonia. It is not without reason, then, that Paul now names him with himself, since he was staying with him. For the first letter he wrote from Asia, but this one from Macedonia. Moreover, by naming him with himself in this way, he at once wins more respect for him and shows his own great humility. For Timothy was far below him, yet love brings everything together. That is why he everywhere makes him his equal. At one time he says, “as a child serves a father, so he served with me” (Philippians 2, verse 22); at another, “for he does the work of the Lord, as I also do” (First Corinthians 16, verse 10); and here he even calls him “brother.” By all these means he makes him respected by the Corinthians, among whom, as I have said, he had been and had given proof of his worth.

“To the church of God which is at Corinth.” Again he calls them “the church,” to draw them all together and bind them into one. For it could not be one church while those in it were torn apart and stood aloof from one another. “With all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia.” By greeting all of them through the letter addressed to the Corinthians, he honors the Corinthians and at the same time brings the whole nation together. But he calls them “saints,” implying that anyone who is impure has no share in this greeting.

But why, when he writes to the mother city, does he address them all through her, since he does not do this everywhere? In his letter to the Thessalonians, for example, he did not address the Macedonians as well. In the same way, in the one to the Ephesians he does not include all Asia, and the one to the Romans was not written to those living in Italy as well. But in this letter he does it, and in the one to the Galatians. There too he writes not to one city, or two, or three, but to all who are scattered everywhere, saying, “Paul, an apostle (not from men, nor through a man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead), and all the brothers who are with me, to the churches of Galatia: grace to you and peace” (Galatians 1, verses 1 to 3). To the Hebrews also he writes one letter to all of them together, without dividing them by their cities. What, then, can be the reason for this? It is because, as I think, in these cases all were caught up in one common disorder, and so he addresses them together, as needing one common remedy. For the Galatians were all infected; so too were the Hebrews; and so, I think, were these Achaeans as well.

So, having brought the whole nation together into one, and having greeted them with his usual greeting — “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Second Corinthians 1, verse 2) — listen how fittingly for the purpose at hand he begins: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (verse 3). Do you ask how this fits the purpose at hand? I answer: very well indeed. For notice: they were greatly upset and troubled that the apostle had not come to them, even though he had promised, but had spent the whole time in Macedonia, preferring others to them, as it seemed. So he sets himself to meet this feeling against him and gives the reason for his absence. Yet he does not state it directly, like this: “I know, of course, that I promised to come. But since I was held back by afflictions, forgive me, and do not find me guilty of any kind of contempt or neglect toward you.” Instead, he goes about it another way. He gives the subject at once more dignity and more credibility, and makes it great by the kind of comfort he speaks of, so that afterward they would not even ask the reason for his delay. It is as if someone had promised to come to a person he longed to see, and finally arrived after countless dangers, and said, “Glory to you, O God, for letting me see the dear face I so longed to see! Blessed are you, O God! From what dangers you have rescued me!” Such a hymn of praise is an answer to the one who was getting ready to find fault, and does not let him so much as complain of the delay. For a man who is thanking God for rescue from such great disasters is not someone the other would have the face to drag into court and order to clear himself of dawdling. That is why Paul begins this way: “Blessed be the God of mercies,” implying by these very words that he had been brought into great dangers and rescued from them. [d]

David, too, does not address God everywhere in the same way or with the same titles. When he speaks of battle and victory, he says, “I will love you, O Lord, my strength; the Lord is my shield.” When he speaks of rescue from affliction and from the darkness that had overwhelmed him, he says, “The Lord is my light and my salvation” (Psalm 27, verse 1). As the occasion at hand suggests, he names God now from his love for humankind, now from his justice, now from his righteous judgment. In the same way Paul here at the beginning describes him by his love for humankind, calling him “the God of mercies,” that is, “who has shown me such great mercies as to bring me up from the very gates of death.”

To have mercy in this way is God’s own special and excellent quality, the one most deeply rooted in his nature. That is why he calls him “the God of mercies.”

And notice here too, I beg you, Paul’s humility. Though he had been in danger because of the good news he preached, he does not say he was saved because he deserved it, but by the mercies of God. He declares this more clearly later on; for now he goes on to say, “who comforts us in all affliction” (Second Corinthians 1, verse 4). He does not say, “who does not let us fall into affliction,” but, “who comforts us in affliction.” For this at once shows the power of God and increases the endurance of those who are afflicted. For, he says, “trouble produces endurance” (Romans 5, verse 3). So too the prophet: “You have given me room when I was in distress” (Psalm 4, verse 1). He does not say, “You did not let me fall into affliction,” nor, “You quickly took my affliction away,” but, while it still continues, “You have given me room,” that is, “You have granted me great freedom and relief.” This is what really happened to the three young men as well (Daniel 3, verse 21, and following). God did not prevent their being thrown into the flame, nor, once they were thrown in, did he put it out; but while the furnace was still burning, he gave them freedom. And this is always God’s way of dealing with us, as Paul also implies when he says, “who comforts us in all affliction.”

But he teaches something more in these words. Do you ask what? That God does this not once, nor twice, but without letup. He does not comfort at one time and not at another, but always and constantly. That is why he says “who comforts,” not “who has comforted,” and “in all affliction,” not “in this one or that one,” but “in all.”

“So that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” Do you not see how he gets his defense in first, by putting the thought of some great affliction into the hearer’s mind? And here again his modesty shows. He does not say this mercy was shown because of their own merits, but for the sake of those who need their help. “For,” he says, “he has comforted us for this purpose, that we might comfort one another.” By this he also shows how excellent the apostles were: once he has been comforted and has caught his breath for a moment, he does not lie back at ease as we do, but goes on his way to anoint others, to strengthen them, to rouse them.

Some, however, take the apostle’s meaning to be this: “Our comfort is the comfort of others too.” But my own opinion is that in this opening he is also finding fault with the false apostles, those empty boasters who sat at home and lived in luxury. He does this covertly and in passing, as it were, since his main object is to make his defense for the delay. It is as though he were saying: “If we were comforted for this purpose, that we might comfort others too, do not blame us for not coming. For this is where all our time went: in guarding against the plots, the violence, and the terrors that assailed us.”

“For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our comfort also abounds through Christ.” So as not to discourage his disciples with too heavy an account of his sufferings, he declares on the other side that the comfort too was great, and more than great. And he lifts up their hearts not by this alone, but also by reminding them of Christ and calling the sufferings “his.” And before he even comes to the comfort, he draws comfort from the sufferings themselves. For what joy could I have as great as sharing with Christ, and suffering these things for his sake? What comfort could equal this? [g]

But this is not the only source from which he raises the spirits of the afflicted; there is another as well. Do you ask what it is? It is that he says “abound.” He does not say, “As the sufferings of Christ are in us,” but, “as they abound,” declaring by this that they endure not only his sufferings but even more than these. For he is saying, “Not only what he suffered have we suffered, but even more. Consider: Christ was cast out, persecuted, whipped, and died; but we,” he says, “have suffered more than all this.” This by itself would be comfort enough.

Now let no one condemn this as too bold a thing to say. Elsewhere he says, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings, and on my part I fill up what is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh” (Colossians 1, verse 24). Yet neither here nor there does it come from boldness or presumption. For just as they worked greater miracles than he did, according to his own saying, “Whoever believes in me will do greater works than these” (John 14, verse 12), and yet it all came from him who was at work in them, so too they suffered more than he did, and yet again it all came from him who comforted them and fitted them to bear the evils that befell them.

Paul, aware how great a thing he had said, restrains it again in a remarkable way by adding, “so our comfort also abounds through Christ.” In this way he at once gives him the credit for everything and proclaims his love for humankind here too. For he does not say, “As our affliction is, so is our comfort,” but, “far greater.” He does not say, “our comfort is equal to our sufferings,” but, “our comfort abounds,” so that the season of struggles was also the season of new crowns. For tell me, what is equal to being whipped for Christ’s sake and keeping company with God; to being more than a match for everything, getting the better of those who drive us out, standing unconquered by the whole world, and looking forward after this to such good things as “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man” (First Corinthians 2, verse 9)? And what is equal to suffering affliction for the sake of godliness and receiving from God comforts without end; to being rescued from sins so great, counted worthy of the Spirit, made holy and counted righteous; to fearing and trembling before no one, and in the midst of danger itself outshining everyone?

So let us not sink down when we are tried. For no one who pampers himself has fellowship with Christ, no one who sleeps, no one who lies idle, none of these lax and loose-living people. It is the one in affliction and trial who stands near him, the one who travels the narrow road. For he himself walked that road, which is why he says, “The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” So do not grieve when you are in affliction. Think with whom you share fellowship, how you are purified by trials, and how great your gain is. For nothing is miserable except offending God. Apart from this, neither afflictions nor plots nor anything else has power to grieve a right-minded soul. Just as, if you throw a little spark into deep water, you put it out at once, so even the heaviest and most overwhelming sorrow, if it falls on a good conscience, easily dies away and disappears. [h]

This, then, was the spring of Paul’s constant joy: in everything that came from God he was full of hope, and he did not so much as keep count of such great evils. Though he grieved as a man, he did not sink. In the same way the patriarch was surrounded with joy in the midst of much painful suffering. Consider: he left his country; he went through long, hard journeys; when he came into a foreign land, he had “not even enough to set his foot on” (Acts 7, verse 5). Then a famine awaited him, which made him a wanderer once more. After the famine came the seizure of his wife, then the fear of death, and childlessness, and battle, and danger, and plots, and at the last that crowning trial: the slaying of his only son, his true-born son, that grievous sacrifice beyond all remedy.

Do not think, I beg you, that because he obeyed readily he did not feel all the things he went through. Even though his righteousness was beyond all price, as indeed it was, he was still a man, and he felt as nature bade him. But none of these things cast him down. He stood like a noble athlete, and for each one he was proclaimed victor and crowned. So too the blessed Paul: though he saw trials beating down on him every day as thick as a snowstorm, he rejoiced and exulted as if he were in the very midst of the delights of Paradise.

Just as the one who is gladdened by this joy cannot fall prey to despair, so the one who does not make it his own is easily overcome by everything. He is like a man in faulty armor, who is wounded by even an ordinary blow. But not so the man who is well protected at every point and proof against every arrow that comes at him. And truly, joy in God is stronger than any armor. Whoever has it, nothing can ever make him hang his head or look downcast; he bears everything nobly. For what is harder to bear than fire? What is more painful than continual torture? Truly it is more overwhelming in its pain than the loss of untold wealth, of children, of anything at all. For, he says, “Skin for skin; yes, all that a man has he will give for his life” (Job 2, verse 4). So nothing can be harder to bear than bodily pain. And yet, because of this joy in God, what is unbearable even to hear about becomes both bearable and something to long for. If you take a martyr down from the cross or off the roasting grate while he is still barely breathing, you will find within him such a treasure of joy as cannot be put into words.

Does someone say: “What am I to do? This is no time for martyrdom.” What are you saying? This is no time for martyrdom? There is never a time when it is not; it is always before our eyes, if we will keep them open. For it is not only hanging on a cross that makes a martyr. If that were so, Job would be shut out from this crown. He never stood in court, never heard a judge’s voice, never looked at an executioner; no, nor did he hang aloft on a wooden frame and have his sides torn. Yet he suffered worse than many martyrs. The news brought by those messengers, one after another, struck him more sharply than any blow and goaded him from every side; and the gnawing of the worms that fed on every part of him was more painful than a thousand executioners. [j]

Against what martyr, then, could he not rightly be set? Against ten thousand, surely. For in every kind of suffering he wrestled and was crowned: in his goods, his children, his body, his wife, his friends, his enemies, his servants (for they too spat in his face), in hunger, and visions, and pains, and stench. That is why I said he could rightly be set not against one, or two, or three, but against ten thousand martyrs. For besides what I have mentioned, the time also adds greatly to his crown: he suffered this before the law, before grace, and for many months, and each trial in its worst form; and all these evils fell on him at once.

And yet each evil by itself was unbearable, even the one that seems most bearable, the loss of his goods. Many have patiently endured whipping but could not bear losing their goods. Rather than give up any part of them, they were content even to be whipped for their sake and to suffer countless evils; this blow, the loss of goods, seemed heavier to them than all the rest. So here is another way of martyrdom, for the one who bears this loss nobly.

And does someone ask: “How are we to bear it nobly?” When you have learned that by one word of thanksgiving you will gain more than all you have lost. For if, at the news of our loss, we are not troubled but say, “Blessed be God,” we have found riches far more abundant. Truly, you will not reap such great fruit by spending all your wealth on the needy, by going around looking for the poor and scattering your property among the hungry, as you will gain by that one word. So I do not admire Job as much for throwing his house wide open to the needy as I am struck by his taking the plundering of his property with thanksgiving, and praise him for it.

One can see the same in the loss of children. Here too you will receive a reward no less than that of the man who offered his son and presented him as a sacrifice, if, as you watch your child die, you give thanks to the God of love. For how will such a man be less than Abraham? Abraham did not see his son laid out as a corpse; he only expected to. So if Abraham comes out ahead in the comparison by his intention to kill and by reaching out his hand to take the knife (Genesis 22, verse 10), yet he falls behind in this: that here the child lies dead. Besides, he had some comfort in the prospect of a good deed done, and in the thought that this great achievement was the work of his own courage; and the fact that the voice he heard came from above made him readier still. But here there is nothing of the kind.

So a man would need a soul of diamond to be able to look calmly on his child, his only one, raised in plenty, just as his fair promise was dawning, lying laid out as a corpse on the bier. And if such a man, calming the surging of nature within him, is given the strength to say Job’s words without a tear — “The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away” (Job 1, verse 21) — for those words alone he will stand with Abraham himself and be proclaimed victor with Job. And if he stops the women’s wailing, breaks up the troupes of mourners, and rouses them all to sing glory to God, he will receive rewards without number, above and below: people admiring him, angels applauding, God crowning him.

Do you say: “How is it possible for someone who is only human not to mourn?” I answer: it is possible if you reflect that neither the patriarch nor Job, though both were men, gave way to anything of the kind — and in both cases this was before the law, and before grace, and before the excellent wisdom of the laws we now have. It is possible if you consider that the one who has died has moved to a better country and sprung away to a happier inheritance, and that you have not lost your son, but have placed him from now on where nothing can harm him. [k]

So do not say, I beg you, “I am no longer called father.” Why are you no longer called that, when your son lives on? Surely you have not parted with your child or lost your son? Rather, you have gained him, and you hold him in greater safety. So from now on you will be called “father” not only here but also in heaven. You have not lost the name “father”; you have gained it in a nobler sense. For from now on you will be called the father, not of a mortal child, but of an immortal one, of a noble soldier on constant duty within the palace. Do not think that because he is not present he is lost. If he had been away in a foreign land, you would not have lost the name of that relationship along with his bodily presence.

So do not gaze at the face of the one lying there, for that only kindles your grief afresh. Turn your thoughts away from the one who lies there, up to heaven. That is not your child lying there; your child is the one who has flown away and sprung up into the boundless heights. So when you see the eyes closed, the lips pressed together, the body motionless, oh, do not let your thoughts be these: “These lips no longer speak, these eyes no longer see, these feet no longer walk, but all are on their way to decay.” Oh, do not say this. Say the opposite: “These lips will speak better, and these eyes will see greater things, and these feet will mount upon the clouds; and this body that is now decaying will put on immortality, and I will receive my son back more glorious.”

And if what you see distresses you, say to yourself meanwhile, “This is only clothing, and he has taken it off to receive it back more precious. This is a house, and it is being taken down to be rebuilt in greater splendor.” For when we plan to take houses down, we do not let those living in them stay, so that they may escape the dust and the noise. We have them move out for a little while, and when we have rebuilt the building securely, we let them back in freely. God does the same. He is taking down this decaying tent, and meanwhile he has received him into his own fatherly dwelling and to himself, so that once it has been taken down and built anew, he may give it back to him more glorious.

So do not say, “He has perished and will be no more,” for these are the words of unbelievers. Say instead, “He is sleeping and will rise again,” and, “He has gone on a journey and will return with the King.” Who says this? The one who has Christ speaking in him. “For,” he says, “if we believe that Jesus died and rose again” and came back to life, “even so God will bring with him those also who sleep in Jesus” (First Thessalonians 4, verse 14). So if you are looking for your son, look for him there, where the King is, where the army of the angels is — not in the grave, not in the earth — so that while he is raised so high, you yourself are not left crawling on the ground.

If we have this true wisdom, we will easily drive off all this kind of distress. And may “the God of mercies and Father of all comfort” comfort all our hearts, both those weighed down by grief like this and those held down by any other sorrow. May he grant us deliverance from all despair and an increase of spiritual joy, and grant us to obtain the good things to come. May we all attain them, through the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom be glory, power, and honor to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.