The Second Letter to the Corinthians

Mark A. Seifrid

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780802837394
• eBook ISBN: 9781467442251
• Subtopic: Critica e interpretazione biblica

Newest volume in the acclaimed Pillar New Testament Commentary series
The question that Paul set before the ancient church in Corinth -- Do you not recognize that Jesus Christ is in and among you? (2 Cor 13:5) -- remains a critical question for the church today. This commentary by Mark Seifrid seeks to hear Paul's message afresh and communicate it to our time.
Seifrid offers a unified reading of 2 Corinthians, which has often been regarded as a composite of excerpts and fragments. He argues that Paul's message is directed at the "practical atheism" of the Corinthian church -- the hidden heresy that assumes God's saving work in the world may be measured by outward standards of success and achievement.
Like all of the Pillar volumes, Seifrid's commentary on 2 Corinthians offers careful grammatical analysis and exegesis with clear pastoral application.

Commentary

I. THE OPENING OF THE LETTER: THE CALL TO FELLOWSHIP WITH THE APOSTLE IN CHRIST (1:1–2:17)

The openings of Paul’s letters take a consistent form, in which Paul announces his calling by Christ as apostle and with it expresses the message of the Gospel. Nevertheless, no two openings of Paul’s letters are alike. In each instance, the apostle communicates his pastoral concern for the concrete needs of his addressees. His variations on the theme of the Gospel speak to their needs at that moment in their life. His word is always a word targeted to his churches.1 As he tells the Corinthians, it is a “word to you” (1:18).

The letter openings, then, generally take the following pattern: (1) a prescript and address (or “superscript”), in which Paul identifies himself and those to whom he writes; (2) a “grace pronouncement,” in which the apostle blesses the church by the power and authority of the Gospel; (3) a prayer of thanksgiving, in which Paul communicates the presence of his addressees in his heart and prayer; and (4) a self-disclosure, in which Paul reports concerning himself and his activities to his readers. The shift from Paul’s report concerning his person to his message to his addressees marks the transition from the opening to the body of the letter.2

Letters are a substitute for personal presence. This is dramatically so in this letter, in which Paul must explain to the Corinthians why he did not visit them as he had promised.3 His absence raised suspicions and may well have provided opportunity to his opponents. Did he fail to come to Corinth because he was not reliable and did not really care about them? Or perhaps he was ashamed of his inadequacies and was embarrassed to appear there? The Corinthians — likely under the influence of Paul’s opponents — perceived an obvious difference between Paul’s letters and his personal presence: “His letters, they say, are weighty and strong. But his bodily presence is weak and his speech is contemptible” (10:10). This suspicion, however, is a misjudgment of the apostle, in whom Christ’s death and life, the saving work of God, is present. Paul’s own person was at the center of his contention with the church in Corinth.4 There was no room in this church, which lived for power, for an apostle who lived in weakness. Outward, visible presence and performance — measured, as it must be, by mere human tastes — had become the standard by which the Corinthians judged the presence of Christ, the ministry of the Gospel, and the legitimacy of the apostle.5 Indeed, they regarded their letters of commendation as necessary for Paul’s accreditation.6 In the height of irony, Paul now must defend his apostolic authority to a church that was the fruit of his apostolic labor. As he tells them more than once, they themselves are the proof of his apostleship — so long as they hold to the true apostle through whom they received the Gospel.7 Paul writes “boldly” to the Corinthians so that he might spare them from the severity that he would otherwise be forced to exercise in a personal visit (13:10), a severity that he already had avoided in his decision to cancel his promised visit (1:23–2:4). Such apostolic severity would also have meant sorrow, tears, and self-humiliation on Paul’s part — an expression of weakness that the Corinthians thus far have failed to comprehend.8

As Paul makes clear, this contention over apostolic authority does not have to do with him but with the Gospel, and therefore with the very salvation of the Corinthians.9 In his understanding, the authority of an apostle rests not in office or in personal charisma or in the genius of rhetoric. It is an authority that rests solely in the call of Christ and in the Gospel, of which Paul is neither master nor interpreter.10 It is the Gospel that masters and interprets the apostle in word and life — and with him the Corinthians as well. It must run its course with him through this conflict with the Corinthians, and through all others whom it provokes in this world. The apostle bears the message of the Gospel, not merely in his word and speech, but also in his body and life.11 The story of Jesus Christ, in which all God’s people share — past, present, and future — must repeat itself in the apostle for the comfort and strengthening of those to whom he has been sent. While Paul’s authority as an apostle does not rest in his person, it cannot be separated from his person.

A. Prescript (1:1-2)

1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother. To the church of God that is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

1. Superscript (1:1a)

1a The superscript, address, and pronouncement of grace follow the usual pattern of Paul’s letters in a rather restrained manner (vv. 1-2). Unlike other occasions (as, for example, First Corinthians), Paul’s particular theological concerns here hardly come to expression. Or perhaps they do in Paul’s silence. In the absence of elaboration, the fundamental matters receive full attention. The Gospel itself is at stake. To those familiar with Paul’s letters, as the Corinthians were by this time (having received four of them), the simplicity of his opening words very likely communicated this very point.

Paul here names himself “apostle by the will of God” as he does in First Corinthians and elsewhere.12 No additional designation (such as “slave”) appears.13 Nor does Paul elaborate his calling, as he does in Galatians and Romans.14 Here it is necessary for him merely to make his fundamental claim: by the will of God he is apostle. That is to say, he is not apostle by virtue of his own abilities, powers, or self-assertion. The Corinthians were looking for a genius. God sent them an apostle, who was theirs in weakness and suffering.15

“Apostles” were those eyewitnesses of the crucified and risen Lord who had been called by Jesus himself to proclamation and witness. The immediate background to this apostleship most likely lay in the practice of the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem, who authorized delegates with authority to act in their name.16 This early Jewish practice had roots, or at least its precedent and legitimation, in the divine sending of the prophets as messengers.17 Similar Hellenistic practices also existed in this period. Paul elsewhere characterizes his apostolic calling in the language of Jeremiah’s call as a prophet, and he strikingly appeals to the words of the prophets as an anticipation of apostolic witness, suggesting that the biblical background of the suffering prophets also shaped his understanding of the apostolic calling.18 It was of course Jesus — standing outside the sphere of scribal or high-priestly authority — who first had made an implicit claim to authority in appointing apostles, especially in his original naming of twelve apostles. The circle was expanded after the resurrection (1 Cor 15:5-11). The requirement that an apostle be a direct witness of Jesus, appointed by him, was well known to the Corinthian church (1 Cor 9:1-18). Undoubtedly, it was also known to the adversaries with whom Paul has to deal in this letter, who themselves claimed to be apostles of Christ.19 Paul does not attack them on this ground. How could he? The claim would be difficult if not impossible to challenge. It would have been beside the point, in any case. For Paul, apostolic calling expresses itself in fidelity to the Gospel. Proclamation or conduct that did not conform to the Gospel of Christ was not apostolic, no matter from whom it came.20 At this point in their relations, Paul’s conflict with the church at Corinth had finally focused on the question of the legitimation of an apostle. This question had been present from the start, playing a role within all the other issues that had troubled Paul’s relationship with the church. It was already present in the factions within the Corinthian church, a situation that Paul addresses in First Corinthians: “Each of you says, I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Cephas, I am of Christ.”21 Now others had presented full “apostolic credentials,” including Jewish identity, offering themselves as an alternative to Paul. At this point, the entire debate came to be centered on the question as to what constituted the marks of an apostle. Who could rightly claim the title?

Paul is an “apostle of Christ Jesus” (v. 1). In the Pauline prescripts, “Christ” is often placed before “Jesus,” which suggests that something of its titular force is retained. Paul thus describes himself as apostle of “Messiah Jesus,” the Anointed One of Jewish hope. Behind the question of the legitimating marks of the apostle stood the question of the identity of the Christ. As we have noted, already at the beginning of the troubles, when divisions arose in the church, there was a group who refused to identify themselves with any earthly leader and named themselves as those “of Christ.”22 But what sort of “Christ,” what sort of “Anointed One” did they imagine that they followed? One who imparted heavenly speech perhaps? One who endued them with outward and visible power? Paul, for his part, refused to abandon “the word of the cross” for “the wisdom of word.”23 He refused to surrender God’s wisdom “hidden in a mystery”24 for the overt wisdom of rhetorical skill and a pleasing presentation. Paul preached Christ crucified, namely, the Crucified One, who now lives by the power of God alone.25 In him all human wisdom and power is brought to an end, so that the wisdom and power of God may have its place.26 It was not merely other apostles to whom the Corinthians were attracted, but to another, false “Jesus” in whom there was a corruption of “the simplicity and purity” that belongs to the crucified and risen Christ.27 The question of apostolic authority is nothing other than the question as to who is “of Christ.”28 The Corinthians, who seek proof of the presence of Christ in Paul, here receive a definitive answer from him.29 It was an answer that they hardly expected.

Paul names Timothy alone as co-sender of and witness to the letter, which was probably sent from Macedonia.30 Timothy had been present as one of Paul’s co-workers at the first proclamation of the Gospel and the founding of the church in Corinth (v. 19).31 In the course of Paul’s troubles with the Corinthians, Timothy also had served as Paul’s messenger and representative in difficult circumstances.32 He would have been familiar to the Corinthians. They would have been familiar to him as well. His earlier visit, like that of Paul’s, had failed to resolve the problems in the church.

Paul’s simple description of Timothy as “brother” is by no means an indication of secondary status (v. 1). Rather, it is an acknowledgment of him as a genuine fellow Christian, an equal to Paul in Christ.33 They differ only in their callings.

2. Address (1:1b)

1b Paul addresses the letter first to the “church of God that is at Corinth.” The expression “church of God” recalls the scriptural description of the gathering (qahal) of Israel as the people of the Lord.34 By virtue of its root (kaleō, “to call”), the term ekklēsia connotes the calling and work of God by the Gospel — a calling that is therefore effective. The “church” is no mere gathering of the pious, but rather “the church of God,”35 the gathering of those whom God has called as his people.36 The term ekklēsia signifies “assembly” or “gathering”; in secular usage it often refers to the assembly of the citizens of a city.37 As Bernd Wannenwetsch observes, it is striking that the earliest Christians chose a distinctively political (and yet, as we have noted, simultaneously biblical) term for their collective existence, speaking of themselves as an ekklēsia, a public assembly, rather than as a “religious gathering” (“synagogue”).38 They thereby confessed that the church is a political entity. They did not insist that it become political in its espousal of one cause or another. They confessed that it is essentially political because it already shares in the new creation, which inevitably challenges the present world and all its judgments (and not merely those of the right or the left).39 No matter that the church remains within the present, fallen world and continues to be marked by sin and death; it knows the crucified and risen ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Editor’s Preface
• Author’s Preface
• Abbreviations
• Bibliography
• INTRODUCTION
• COMMENTARY
• I. Authors
• II. Hebrew Old Testament
• III. Greek Old Testament (Septuagint) with Apocrypha
• IV. New Testament
• V. Extrabiblical Literature