2 Corinthians 13:7-9 Now I pray to God that you do no evil; not that we should appear approved, but that you should do that which is honest… The prayer is — I. FOR THE PERFECT RECOVERY WHICH WOULD RESULT FROM "NOT DOING THE EVIL." The vices that infested the Corinthian Church are those which have been the bane of the Church from the beginning. 1. Rebellion against the supreme authority of the Divine Revealer and Inspirer of truth in the person of the apostle. There was a tendency to rely on the light of their own reason, and to criticise revelation. Rationalism in the individual is fatal to religious stability and growth, and in the Church is the root of all disorganisation, and must be put away before either can put on "perfection." 2. Lax maintenance of some of the vital doctrines of the Christian confession — the direct result of the former. The Corinthian heretics assailed the resurrection generally, and Christ's resurrection in particular. Hence their doctrinal errors went perilously near to an abandonment of the atoning death of Christ; and it was not to be wondered at that they misapprehended the design of the Sacrament. Obviously the integrity of their faith was in his thought in verse 8. 3. Neglect and irreverence in divine service, which invariably follow hard upon laxity of doctrine. The flagrant disorders rebuked in the First Epistle were doubtless checked, but this Epistle indicates that the same leaven was at work; and the final prayer includes the removal of that spirit of disorder, and the observance of all that is "decent" (ver. 7) in its wish for their restoration to perfection. Never was this prayer more needed than now. Two kinds of dishonour are done to the divine service — the one taking away its simplicity and discerning more in ordinances than they have to show; the other robbing everything external and symbolical of its true value, and reducing religious ceremonial to the level of mere human arrangement. Both are equally distant from ecclesiastical perfection. From the equal sins of excess and defect may we be saved. 4. The spirit of faction, closely connected with the preceding elements of disorder and imperfection. This evil seems to have been rebuked by the First Epistle in vain (1 Corinthians 12:20), and it might seem as if the apostle had a presentiment of the calamities which would befall the Church through this spirit of division; for he sets no limit to his indignation in dealing with it. And it was with a distinct apprehension of its exceeding sinfulness that he expressed the hope that they would cease to do this evil, and wished their "perfect restoration to order." 5. The violation of Christian morality. In 2 Corinthians 12:20, 21 there is obvious reference to those two classes of moral offence from which, in 2 Corinthians 7:1, they had been exhorted to cleanse themselves. (1) The sins of the spirit are summed up in the completest of those catalogues for which St. Paul's Epistles are remarkable. (2) The sins of the flesh are lamentable. Many were no less infamous in their secret sensuality than in their open turbulence. And this condition was the necessary result of the other elements of disorder. II. FOR THE ATTAINMENT OF ALL THE COMPLETENESS WHICH MAY BELONG TO A CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Note the wonderful fact that a Church encompassed by such corruptions should be prayed for as capable of immediate and perfect amendment as the result of energetic co-operation with Divine grace. Paul knew that the enemies of order and purity were only a minority, and it may be that his Master gave him a secret assurance of success. And this is an abundant encouragement to us in our day. There need be no more than a step between great disorder and a sound amendment. 1. The bond of ecclesiastical perfectness is, in Paul's view, a compact organisation vivified and kept in living unity of the Holy Spirit. It was this for which he prayed. The Greek term expresses the apostle's ardent wish that the community might be "perfectly joined together" under one discipline: all factions suppressed, and the separate congregations of the city united in one corporate body for common worship, communion and work. And it expresses the Holy Spirit's will concerning us that division and discord should cease. Lawlessness within a church itself and bitterness towards other churches are both alike inconsistent with its corporate perfection. 2. The Church's order of worship may even on earth attain a certain standard of perfection; and this must be included in the present prayer. Happy the Christian congregations who seek to attain in the Spirit's own method the ideal which the Spirit proposes; avoiding the two extremes, of a ceremonial that stifles the simplicity of devotion, and of a bareness and poverty which dishonour the holy name of Him who is in the midst. That there is such a perfection of praise and prayer attainable as shall make the place where the disciples meet the antechamber of heaven, and the Christian communion the earnest of an eternal fellowship, let us never doubt. 3. Paul's ideal of corporate perfection included a noble theory of mutual help. These epistles are a complete depository of the social principles of Christianity. Their teaching is that every member of the body must in his vocation and stewardship render back to Christianity all that in Christianity he receives, and give to the community the fullest advantage of whatever talent he as an individual may possess. This ideal is most fully realised when charity has the disposal of the Church's wealth; where employment is given in various ways to the diversified talents of its members; where mutual exhortation and encouragement are secured by periodical meetings; where, in short, every joint, according to its deferred function in the common organisation, supplieth the measure of its effectual working to the edifying of the body in love. 4. The apostle's ideal embraces a high standard of Christian morality. The purity of the Church must be guarded by a rigid discipline. But this discipline is of two kinds. (1) It is ecclesiastical. Where that is relaxed the Church is already on its way to dissolution, or worse. (2) But the more effectual discipline is the maintenance of a high standard of morality in the common sentiment of the people through the instruction of the Christian ministry. It is not, however, because the world expects it or because consistency demands it, that the "approved" Church aims at a lofty ethical standard. It is because Christ is in it (ver. 5), and prompts by His Spirit to every good word and work. Where vice reigns, or even moral laxity, the Church is in the way to declare itself "reprobate." Its perfection, however, as prayed for by St. Paul, is its aim at a perfect holiness. 5. The end of perfection is charity. Note the apostle's extraordinary anxiety for the due and cheerful exercise of benevolence towards the poor Christians at Jerusalem. And we may regard this as only one illustration of that boundless compassion towards the miserable inhabitants of this sin-stricken world which every Christian community is bound by its allegiance to Christ to exhibit. No other excellence, and no combination of excellences, will compensate for the lack of this. Conclusion: Scarcely any reference has been made to the individual believer, because the peculiar word demands an ecclesiastical application. Still, every application of scriptural truth finds its way to the individual. Let every one, then, who hears this "wish" bethink himself of his own soul, and ask what there is in himself of disorder and imperfectness, and seek to bring his own heart into the "unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," so making sure that his own part is contributed to the Church's perfect harmony. (W. B. Pope, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Now I pray to God that ye do no evil; not that we should appear approved, but that ye should do that which is honest, though we be as reprobates. |
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