2 Corinthians 7:8-11 For though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent, though I did repent: for I perceive that the same letter has made you sorry… It was marked by — I. UNFLINCHING SEVERITY. St. Paul rejoiced in the pain he had inflicted, because the pain was transitory, while the good was permanent; because the suffering was in this world, but the salvation for eternity: for the sinner had been delivered to "Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." Learn the misfortune of non-detection. They who have done wrong congratulate themselves upon not being found out. Boys are disobedient; men commit crimes against society, and their natural impulse is to hush all up; and if they can do so they consider it a happy escape. It is not so. If this scandal at Corinth had been hushed up, then the offender would have thought it a fortunate escape, and sinned again. Somehow, like a bullet-wound, the internal evil must come out in the face of day, be found out, or else be acknowledged by confession. Let me ask then, who here is congratulating himself, My sin is not known, I shall not be disgraced nor punished? Think you that you will escape? Your sin is rankling in your heart: your wound is not probed, but only healed over falsely; and it wilt break out in the future, more corrupted and more painful than before. II. BY THE DESIRE OF DOING GOOD. It is no rare thing for men to be severe in rebuke. They tell you of your faults, not for your reformation, but their own vainglory. Now St. Paul was not thinking of himself, but of the Corinthians (vers. 9, 11, 16). He was trying to save their souls. It is often a duty to express disapprobation strongly and severely, but then we do it not in St. Paul's spirit, unless it is done for the sake of amelioration. III. BY JUSTICE (ver. 12). His inference was no taking of a side, no espousing the cause of the injured, nor mere bitterness against the criminal, but a godly zeal, full of indignation, but not of vindictiveness. Now this is exactly what some of us find most difficult — those especially who possess quick, sensitive, right, and generous feelings. We can be charitable, we can be indignant, we can forgive; but we are not just. Again, this justice is most difficult when religious interests are involved: as, for example, in the quarrel between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant, who judges fairly? IV. BY JOYFUL SYMPATHY IN THE RESTORATION OF THE ERRING, Very beautiful is the union of the hearts of Paul and Titus in joy over the recovered — joy as of the angels in heaven over "one sinner that repenteth." (F. W. Robertson, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: For though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent, though I did repent: for I perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry, though it were but for a season. |
    |