Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - 2 Corinthians 5:19 - 5:19
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
2Co_5:19. Confirmatory elucidation of the previous ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ , τοῦ καταλλάξαντος … καταλλαγῆς . “I have reason for saying, from God, who has reconciled us, etc., because, indeed, God in Christ reconciled the world with Himself,” etc. The recurrence of the same leading expressions, which were used in 2Co_5:18, gives to this elucidation a solemn emphasis. The θεός emphatically prefixed, however, looking back to ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ in 2Co_5:18, shows that the point is not a description of the καταλλαγή (Camerarius, Wolf, Estius, Billroth, and others), or of the διακονία τῆς καταλλαγῆς (Grotius, Rückert), but the divine self-activity in Christ’s reconciling work and in the bestowal of the office of reconciliation. The two participial clauses, μὴ λογιζόμενος κ . τ . λ . and καὶ θέμενος κ . τ . λ ., stand related to θεὸς ἦν ἐν Χ . κόσμ . καταλλ . ἑαυτ . argumentatively, so that the words καὶ θέμενος ἐν ἡμῖν κ . τ . λ ., which serve to elucidate καὶ δόντος ἡμῖν κ . τ . λ ., 2Co_5:18, are not co-ordinated to the καταλλάσσων (as one might expect from 2Co_5:18), but are subordinated to it,—a change in the form of connecting the conceptions, which cannot surprise us in the case of Paul when we consider his free and lively variety in the mode of linking together his thought.
ὡς ὅτι θεὸς ἦν ἐν Χ . κόσμ . καταλλ . ἑαυτῷ ] because, indeed, God in Christ was reconciling the world with Himself. On ὡς ὅτι ,[238] utpote quod (to be analyzed: as it is the case, because), see Winer, p. 574 [E. T. 771]. The ἦν καταλλάσσων should go together (see already Chrysostom), and is more emphatic than the simple imperfect. Paul wishes, namely, to affirm of God, not simply what He did ( κατήλλασσε ), but in what activity He was; in the person and work of Christ ( ἐν Χριστῷ ) God was in world-reconciling activity. The imperfect receives from the context the definite temporal reference: when Christ died the death of reconciliation, with which took place that very καταλλάξαντος , 2Co_5:18. See, especially, Rom_3:24 f., 2Co_5:10. Ambrosiaster, Pelagius, Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Beza, Calovius, Bengel, and many others, including Rückert, Osiander, Neander, connect ἮΝ ἘΝ ΧΡΙΣΤῷ together: God was in Christ, while reconciling the world with Himself. This would only be possible in the event of the two following participial clauses expressing the mode of reconciliation, which, however, on account of the second clause ( καὶ θέμενος ἐν ἡμῖν κ . τ . λ .), cannot be the case; they must, on the contrary, contain the confirmation of θεὸς ἦν ἐν Χ . κόσμ . καταλλ . ἑαυτῷ . According to their contents, however, they do not at all confirm the fact that God was in Christ, but the fact that God was in Christ reconciling the world; hence it is at variance with the context to make the connection ἦν ἐν Χριστῷ . Theodoret was right in denying expressly this connection. Hofmann, after abandoning his earlier (in the Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 326) misinterpretation (see in opposition to it my fourth edition, p. 147), now explains it by referring ὡς ὅτι κ . τ . λ . merely to Κ . ΔΌΝΤΟς ἩΜῖΝ Κ . Τ . Λ .: because He was a God, who in Christ was reconciling to Himself a world in its sinful condition without imputation of its sins, and who had laid the word of reconciliation on him the apostle.” A new misinterpretation. For, first, the qualitative expression “a God,” which is held to be predicative, would not only have been quite superfluous (Paul would have had to write merely ὡς ὅτι ἦν κ . τ . λ .), but also quite unsuitable, since there is no contrast with other gods; secondly, the relative tense ἮΝ must apply to the time in which what is said in ΔΌΝΤΟς ἩΜῖΝ Κ . Τ . Λ . took place (in the sense, therefore: because he was at that time a God, who was reconciling), which would furnish an absurd thought, because, when Paul became an apostle, the reconciliation of the world had been long accomplished; thirdly, θέμενος would be a participle logically incorrect, because what it affirms followed on the καταλλάσσων ; lastly, ΜῊ ΛΟΓΙΖΌΜ . cannot be taken in the sense of “without imputation,” since a reconciliation with imputation of sins is unthinkable.
κόσμον ] not a world, but the world, even without the article (Winer, p. 117 [E. T. 153]), as Gal_6:14; Rom_4:13. It applies to the whole human race, not possibly (in opposition to Augustine, Lyra, Beza, Cajetanus, Estius) merely to those predestinated. The reconciliation of all men took place objectively through Christ’s death, although the subjective appropriation of it is conditioned by the faith of the individual.[239]
μὴ λογιζόμενος αὐτοῖς κ . τ . λ .] since He does not reckon (present) to them their sins, and has deposited (aorist) in us the word of reconciliation. The former is the altered judicial relation, into which God has entered and in which He stands to the sins of men; the latter is the measure adopted by God, by means of which the former is made known to men. From both it is evident that God in Christ reconciled the world with Himself; otherwise He would neither have left the sins of men without imputation, nor have imparted to the apostolic teachers the word of reconciliation that they might preach it. If, as is usually done, the participial definition μὴ λογιζόμενος is taken in the imperfect sense (Ewald takes it rightly in a present sense) as a more precise explanation of the modus of the reconciliation, there arises the insoluble difficulty that θέμενος ἐν ἡμῖν also would have to be so viewed, and to be taken consequently as an element of the reconciliation, which is impossible, since it expresses what God has done after the work of reconciliation, in order to appropriate it to men. θέμενος , namely, cannot be connected with θεὸς ἦν , against which the aorist participle is itself decisive; and it is quite arbitrary to assume (with Billroth and Olshausen) a deviation from the construction, so that Paul should have written ἔθετο instead of θέμενος (comp. Vulgate, Calvin, and many others, who translate it without ceremony: et posuit).
ἐν ἡμῖν ] The doctrine of reconciliation (comp. on the genitive, 1Co_1:18; Act_20:32) which is to be preached, is regarded as something deposited in the souls of the preachers for further communication: “sicut interpreti committitur quid loqui debeat,” Bengel. Comp. on ἐν ἡμῖν , which is not to be taken as among us, the θεῖναι ἐν φρεσί , ἐν θυμῷ , ἐν στήθεσσι .
[238] In 2Co_11:21, the ὅτι in ὡς ὅτι does not specify a reason, but introduces the contents of λέγω . In 2Th_2:2, also, ὡς ὅτι is like that. At our passage it is: in measure of the fact, that God was, etc.,—a more circumstantial and consequently more emphatic introduction of the ground than a simple ὅτι or γάρ would have been. It makes us linger more over the confirmatory ground assigned.
[239] The question whether and how Paul regarded the reconciliation of those who died before the ἱλαστήριον of Christ, and were not justified like Abraham, remains unanswered, since he nowhere explains himself on the point, and since the dead are not included in the notion of κόσμος . Still, Rom_10:7, Php_2:10 presuppose the descent of Christ into Hades, which is the necessary correlative of the resurrection ἐκ νεκρῶν , and it is expressly taught by Paul in Eph_4:9.