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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Paul's Apostolic Kindness.
Paul continues his explanation:
v. 1. But I determined this with myself, that I would not come again to you in heaviness.
v. 2. For if I make you sorry, who is he, then, that maketh me glad but the same which is made sorry by me?
v. 3. And I wrote this same unto you, lest, when I came, I should have sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice, having confidence in you all, that my joy is the joy of you all.
v. 4. For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears, not that ye should be grieved, but that ye might know the love which I have more abundantly unto you.
Paul had declared that he had reconsidered his intention of visiting them first and changed his plan about coming in order to spare them. And he here adds another point for their consideration: But I decided this for my own sake, not to come to you again in sorrow. His next visit was not to be the painful experience which his last was. It appears, then, that Paul had made a short visit to Corinth during his long stay at Ephesus and had been deeply hurt and grieved by conditions as he found them there. He had been obliged to use severity, to cause them sorrow. 1Co_4:21. And so he asks, in all gentleness: For if I make you sorrowful, who, then, is it that makes me glad, that cheers me, unless it is he that has been made sorrowful by me? His love for the Corinthians had caused him to rebuke their sins and faults, to cause them sorrow, for he had in mind their repentance which would, in turn, gladden his heart. But if he had come at the time he first intended to visit them, the very people upon whom he depended to cheer him, to be a source of satisfaction and joy to him, would have caused him pain once more, since the abuses which he wanted to have removed were at that time still being tolerated by them. In doing his duty as their spiritual father, in inflicting upon them the chastisement which conditions merited, he would be deprived of the joy which the Corinthian Christians, as his children, afforded him. But as matters stood, his letter had indeed caused sorrow, but things had meanwhile been adjusted, and Paul was spared the personal intercourse of sorrow.
This thought is brought out still more fully in the next verse: And I wrote you this very thing, lest in coming I should have sorrow from them from whom I ought to have cheer, firmly persuaded concerning you all that my joy is that of you all. The desire to spare them and to save himself pain had prompted the apostle to send his censure in writing, as he did in the first letter. This course made it easier for both parties: it saved him an unpleasant experience, a factor all the weightier since their relation to him should at all times have been of a nature to cheer him. Just how much that meant for him appears from the fact that he was fully persuaded, that he felt the utmost confidence in them all, that his joy was the joy of them all. He was sure of the bond of sympathy between them; they would want to see him cheerful and happy at all times, and he, considering them all as his friends, would surely be willing to spare them a distressing experience.
The state of mind in which he wrote his first epistle the apostle did not care to experience again: For out of great affliction and anxiety of heart I wrote to you with many tears. Many sections of the first letter might seem harsh and conducive to anything but a feeling of joyfulness; but his very love for the Corinthians made his lamentation about their harm and his fear for their peril all the greater. He had held himself in check purposely, lest his opponents bring the charge of impulsiveness and uncontrolled feeling. But for all that, the accompanying circumstances were such as just stated by the apostle, his purpose in telling of them at this time being: Not that you should be made sorrowful, but that you might know the lore which I so abundantly have toward you. Just as the love of the mother is most tender toward the sickly and weak child, just as the shepherd shows the depth of his love especially in his seeking of the one that is lost, so Paul in his care for all congregations, chap. 11:28, yet had a special love for the Corinthians, because they were most in need of love and caused him the most anxiety. The same pastoral love is today exhibited in thousands of cases with probably as little appreciation on the part of those that are the objects of this loving care.