They were saying in Corinth that Paul was a liar, that he had broken his word – that he wasn’t to be trusted, that he wasn’t a person of integrity. And we saw last week just how much that mattered to Paul: not because of wounded pride (much as it might have for you or me), but because the God whom Paul served is essentially a God of His Word, a God who gives His word to the human race and keeps it; who made promises and has always kept them. In fact, that’s basically what faith is: responding to God’s word – trusting what God has said and acting on it. This is why we have to be so careful about ascribing words to God. When someone says, “God has told me to do such and such,” or, “I’ve had a word from God about something or other,” we need to be careful! God never breaks His word. Any word that really is from God is going to have to be able to stand that test. And so we need to beware of modern Christian songs that put words into the mouth of God – unless they are words that He has already spoken to us in the Scriptures. Ascribing spurious speech bubbles to the deity is a dangerous activity: if His word cannot be broken.
So, as a messenger of God, Paul’s word mattered because God’s word matters; and so Paul was at pains to explain why he had not visited Corinth after he had said he would. That was what the disagreement with Corinth was.
As we consider that explanation in this passage, we are going to find it difficult for two reasons: on the one hand we don’t know exactly what had gone on in Corinth. Perhaps like me you are slightly irritated by Mr. Vodaphone, the man on the train who starts a conversation next to you, or maybe in the seat behind, in a very loud voice. I cannot help trying to guess who it is he/she is speaking to: is it his wife? her mum? a work colleague or some friend? It is fruitless speculation – fun but fruitless – because I cannot know the answer (unless I go and tap him on the shoulder and ask him to tell me the other side of that conversation – which would be an unusual thing to do amongst the British on a train journey). So this evening I am going to be very British, and do the minimum of speculating about the things we can’t know for certain which lie behind this passage.
The second reason that we are going to find this difficult is because it reveals to us the mind of God: and that is always a problem for us. When my human mind and the mind of the Creator come together, they don’t match. If they are to match, one or the other has got to change. You probably remember that transcript of an actual radio conversation that took place between a US naval ship and the Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October 1995. It was released by the Canadian Chief of Naval Operations on November 10th that year:–
Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.
Canadians: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.
Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.
Canadians: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.
Americans: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN, THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES’ ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS, AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH, THAT’S ONE-FIVE DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTER-MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.
Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call.
But it is a little like that every time that you and I face up honestly to the word of God. Someone is going to have to change course. And it won’t be God. So:
1) Why had Paul not returned to Corinth? (2 Corinthians. 1:23 – 2:4)
‘I call God as my witness that it was in order to spare you that I did not return to Corinth. Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, because it is by faith you stand firm. So I made up my mind that I would not make another painful visit to you. For if I grieve you, who is left to make me glad but you whom I have grieved? I wrote as I did so that when I came I should not be distressed by those who ought to make me rejoice. I had confidence in all of you, that you would all share my joy. For I wrote to you out of great distress and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to grieve you but to let you know the depth of my love for you’ (1:23-2:4).
At first reading it would appear that Paul’s reason was to avoid pain: ‘So I made up my mind that I would not make another painful visit to you’ (2:1). But it is clear from the course that he did follow (writing to them instead), that it was far from pain-free: For I wrote to you out of great distress and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to grieve you but to let you know the depth of my love for you’ (2:4). The suggestion is that it did grieve him: there was pain on both sides with that letter.
Notice how verse 24 follows verse 23 in chapter 1: ‘I call God as my witness that it was in order to spare you that I did not return to Corinth’ (v. 23). Now why does verse 24 fit in there? ‘Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, because it is by faith you stand firm.’ We’ve got to fit that into the logic of what Paul is saying. Had he come to Corinth in person, there was clearly some scandal in the fellowship about which he would have had to exercise his apostolic authority. He couldn’t have turned a blind eye to it. It needed action. And the danger was that they would have done the right thing, but only because Paul was himself present with them. His presence would have ensured their obedience. But it wouldn’t have been their own faith in God’s word that ensured their obedience. And Paul knew that it was by faith in God’s word that they stood firm. Look at it again: ‘I call God as my witness that it was in order to spare you [we read that as ‘spare you pain’, but I think we should read it as ‘spare you the exercise of my apostolic authority over you – the force of my personality’] that I did not return to Corinth. Not that we lord it over your faith [so that we don’t lord it over your faith, it could be], but we work with you for your joy, because it is by faith you stand firm’ (1:23, 24).
Now look on to chapter 2 verse 9: ‘The reason I wrote to you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything.’ Paul wasn’t concerned that they should obey him, or be obedient to his personal authority. To achieve that he would certainly have gone in person to Corinth, and stood there and stamped his foot and wagged his finger at them, wouldn’t he? No, he wanted the obedience of faith to the word of God. That was always Paul’s concern with the churches he was working with, the Christians he was nurturing. And for that to occur it needed to be in his absence. He wanted them to do the right thing without the force of his own personality and presence lording it over their faith: ‘Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, because it is by faith you stand firm.’ Faith in the word of God.
I don’t know if you remember that great moment in The Wind in the Willows when the three friends, Badger, Rat and Mole, have determined to cure Toad of his lunatic obsession with motor-cars. Badger has just spent 45 minutes with Toad in the smoking-room (as it was called in my 1954 edition – I’m sure it has now been sanitised to ‘the library’). At last they emerge ….
‘ “There’s only one thing more to be done”, continued the gratified Badger. “Toad, I want you solemnly to repeat, before your friends here, what you fully admitted to me in the smoking-room just now. First, you are sorry for what you have done, and you see the folly of it all?”
‘There was a long, long pause. Toad looked desperately this way and that, while the other animals waited in grave silence. At last he spoke.
‘ “No!” he said a little sullenly, but stoutly: “I’m not sorry. And it wasn’t folly at all! It was simply glorious!”
‘ “What?” cried Badger, greatly scandalized. “You backsliding animal, didn’t you tell me just now, in there −”
‘ “O, yes, yes, in there,” said Toad impatiently. “I’d have said anything in there. You’re so eloquent, dear Badger, and so moving, and so convincing, and put all your points so frightfully well – you can do what you like with me in there, and you know it. But I’ve been thinking searching my mind since, and going over things in it, and I find that I’m not a bit sorry or repentant really, so it’s no earthly good saying I am; now, is it?”
‘ “Then you don’t promise,” said the Badger, “never to touch a motor-car again?”
‘ “Certainly not!” replied Toad emphatically. “On the contrary, I faithfully promise that the very first motor-car I see, poop-poop! off I go in it!” ’
It’s a great book! And that’s a light-hearted illustration. But the Christian life is never brought about by the strength of a human personality: not the personality of someone else – a preacher or a Bible speaker or a mentor – nor even by my own personality. I can’t do it by the strength of my own character, nor can I look to someone else to lord it over my faith for me. It is by faith in God’s word that we stand firm – as we listen to what He says to us and act upon it in faith, and God’s Spirit moves us to trust that word and to live by it. I wonder if you have such a faith. I wonder if you recognise yourself and the way you go forward in the Christian life in what I’m saying. Or does it all seem a little strange for you? There are two ways to stand up in the rush hour in the Tube in London (if you have the misfortune to spend part of your life having to travel in that way). It is so full you can just simply stand there. You won’t fall over: there are people on all sides of you, they keep you absolutely tight − until they get out. Or you can reach up and take a strap (in the old days) or an aluminium bar above your head. Two ways to hold on. Both are fine while it’s full of people, but only one will keep you upright when it starts to empty.
I’m not saying that Paul was not deeply grieved at the prospect of the pain that his visit might have caused. He clearly was. But he wouldn’t have shrunk from that pain for a moment if he had been convinced that a visit to these Corinthians was in their best interests. Actually he knew that the obedience to God’s word without his presence was a far better thing.
Now there is a second thing we must consider as we read these verses.
2) The depth of Paul’s love for them (2:5, 6)
Paul’s love for them just flows out of these verses, which read as though the original parchment must have been stained with his tears, just as that other letter which he refers to here was clearly stained with his tears. Let’s start again at verse 2:
‘For if I grieve you, who is left to make me glad but you whom I have grieved? I wrote as I did so that when I came I should not be distressed by those who ought to make me rejoice. I had confidence in all of you, that you would all share my joy. For I wrote to you out of great distress and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to grieve you but to let you know the depth of my love for you. If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you, to some extent − not to put it too severely. The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient for him’ (vv 2 – 6).
There is no question as we read that, or other bits of this early part of 2 Corinthians, of the intensity of Paul’s concern for these new young Christians in Corinth, is there? ‘No man is an island entire of itself’ wrote John Donne; and how much more is no Christian an isolated unit: ‘If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you, to some extent − not to put it too severely.’ We belong to one another, like different parts of a body. Some tiny part of a physical body can bring grief to the whole body (think about a splinter under a finger-nail, or toothache!); so what happens to each one of us spiritually affects all of us. If I were to commit adultery this coming week (even if it remained completely unknown) everyone else in this building at the moment, the whole fellowship, would be damaged. If you and I go from here tonight to live our lives through this coming week in the bitterness of some wrong relationship or in the grip of some greedy, ungodly ambition, we are all damaged. We damage one another.
In spiritual terms there is no such thing as personal and private morality. How we wish there was, don’t we? My moral behaviour spills over onto other believers, and so we have a responsibility for one another in these matters. How you are doing with the Lord is of concern to me; and how I am doing is of concern to you. Does that surprise you? It matters so much that we have to learn to take responsibility for each other, and even to exercise a love that will, if necessary, inflict punishment. That lies behind verses 5 and 6, doesn’t it? ‘If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you, to some extent − not to put it too severely. The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient for him.’ That’s the degree of intensity of the relationship, spiritually, if you’re part of a home group or Focus group or some other small group like a college Bible study. You may think, Oh, I just turn up on a Wednesday night, look at the Bible together and walk away again. But Scripture is telling you, No, No, No: you are interwoven with those people you study the Bible with.
Now I have decided not to deal tonight with church discipline. I ought to, because these verses beg some important questions about it. And I did deal with it the last time I preached at St. Andrew the Great on this passage. But what I’m hoping is that one of you, perhaps several of you, will raise a question about church discipline at the next ‘Grill the Preacher’ session (a session we hold every so often after the evening service). I’m hoping somebody there will say, “Mark, what on earth were those verses telling us about church discipline?” There are other Free Churches that you may know of which exercise it collectively on their membership. The Church of England doesn’t do that, and it’s well worth thinking, Why? and whether we’re right or wrong not to. But I’m not going to spend time on it tonight, I’m hoping you will come and ask me then. (It’s a great opportunity to pursue things from the preaching in the ‘Grill the Preacher’ sessions, and I hope you often have issues you would like to pursue. If you can’t stay on for these, you’re welcome to write and we will try to answer any questions when they come up – and answer you in writing as well if you say you can’t be there and would like to have a written answer.)
So, for this evening we’re just going to end on my third heading.
3) Forgiveness and Satan’s Schemes (2:7-11)
‘Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. The reason I wrote to you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. If you forgive anyone, I also forgive him. And what I have forgiven − if there was anything to forgive − I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes’ (2:7-11).
The purpose of Church discipline is remedial: to make things right, to make them better. Paul was not encouraging the Corinthian Christians to cast this person out (whoever he was) and then to keep him out in order to preserve the purity of the fellowship against the risk of moral contamination. I’m afraid that as Christians we do have a tendency to think that way, so that we have gained the reputation for being an army that shoots our own wounded – sometimes after torture! The homosexually orientated, the unmarried mother, the ex-prisoner – there are many who find it hard to believe that the Church accepts them. But they should not. The Christian gospel is a message about sin and forgiveness. If we are going to reflect that, we have got to have a deep sense of just how forgiven we ourselves are. Look again at verse 10: ‘If you forgive anyone, I also forgive him. And what I have forgiven − if there was anything to forgive − I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake. . . ’ We need to remember that when Paul talks about forgiveness, he is a man who has persecuted Christians to death. That’s not just a few mocking remarks in the JCR. He was a man who had persecuted Christians to death. He knew what it was to be forgiven even for that. And perhaps we have too small a sense of being forgiven because we have too small a sense of how we have sinned. And that makes us so unwelcoming sometimes to those in need of forgiveness. We offer it so grudgingly. The homosexual has to know that he/she is a sinner. But no worse a sinner than those of us who are heterosexual and who sin in other ways.
Notice it is Satan who delights to exploit this: ‘I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes’ (2:7-11). Satan gets us to sin and then he convinces us that there is no forgiveness for sin – or at least not for my sin: it’s so bad; or I’ve done it so often; or I’ve not got the strength of resolve to keep myself from it in future. That is Satan’s specialism: to convince us we are not forgiven; that we cannot be forgiven. The devil knows the power of forgiveness in the human heart. He knows how the Saviour can save. When, nearly 50 years ago, Billy Graham was holding a series of evangelistic meetings in Glasgow, a converted miner tried to persuade a friend who had been terribly injured in a pit accident to come to hear Billy. “There’s no place at a meeting like that,” said the friend, “for a man with scars like mine.” “We worship a Saviour,” replied the converted miner, “who has worse scars than yours.”
Jesus came all the way down. He didn’t stand on a moral summit and call to us, “Come up hither.” He came all the way down. He was the friend of sinners. That is one of the things they disliked about Him. It’s one of the things that you and I would dislike about Him if He was present in Cambridge tonight. He might not consort with us. He might consort with people we thought were much, much worse. “Won’t you come to St. Andrew the Great, Lord? We’re great and faithful people here, we’d love to hear your words.” He might say, “No, I won’t. I didn’t come for you. I came for those who know how deeply, how desperately they need me.” He knows how to deal with sin – not by moral exhortation − again and again that’s the way we Christians have tried to deal with it, isn’t it? Telling one another to live better lives. But the knowledge that I ought to be better never changed anyone for the better. The discovery that Christ died so that my sins are washed away – that has changed millions of lives. I wonder if it has changed your life. And I wonder if it is changing your life, if it is a discovery you have made. Are you living in that discovery? And is it the message we’re offering to our world: the forgiveness of sin for Jesus’ sake?
It is the change-enabling experience. I want to suggest to you that moral exhortation does not change lives − but forgiveness does. And as a church we are to be a change-enabling community – because there is only one thing that makes us a community, and that is the grace of God. It’s all we have and it’s all we can offer. And it is everything our world needs: the power to change the human heart. Amen.
(All scripture quoted is from the New International Version of the Bible unless otherwise stated.)