We as ministers, and our work of preaching Christ, are acceptable to God, whatever may be the result of our labors. This idea is connected with the preceding as an amplification and confirmation. ‘God by us diffuses the knowledge of Christ everywhere as a savor; for (o[ti, because) it is well pleasing to God whatever be the effect which it produces.’ There is, as is so common in Paul’s epistles, a slight change in the figure. In v. 14 the knowledge of Christ is declared to be a savor as of incense, here the apostle is the sweet savor. But it is the apostle not as a man, not the purity or devotion of his life; but the apostle as a preacher of the gospel, and therefore the gospel which he preached; so that the thought remains the same. In both verses the diffusion of the knowledge of Christ is said to be well pleasing to God. Savor of Christ, does not mean a savor of which Christ is the author. The idea is not that Christ rendered Paul or his life acceptable to God. That indeed is true, but it is not what is intended.
When we speak of the perfume of the rose, or of the violet, we mean that perfume which the rose or the violet emits and which is characteristic of it.
When Paul says, “We are a sweet smelling savor of Christ,” he means we are the means of diffusing the knowledge of Christ. When a man’s
garments are perfumed with myrrh or frankincense, he fills with the fragrance every place he enters. So Paul, wherever he went, diffused abroad the fragrance of the name of Christ, and that was acceptable to God. In them, i.e. among them, that are saved; and in (among) them that perish. This does not mean among them predestined to be saved, and those predestined to perish. The idea of predestination is not included. The two classes are designated ab eventu. The gospel and those who preach it are well pleasing to God, whether men receive it and are saved, or reject it and are lost. The light is inestimably precious, whether the eye rejoices in it, or through disease is destroyed by it. Comp. <460118>
1 Corinthians 1:18; <530210>
2 Thessalonians 2:10.
16. To the one (we are) the savor of death unto death; to the other the savor of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?
The words we are are not in the text, but are necessarily implied. The apostle and all faithful ministers are to God an eujwdi>a, a sweet savor, to men an ojsmh>, a savor, salutary or destructive according to circumstances.
We are, i.e. we as preachers. The idea is the same whether we say that preachers of the gospel, or the gospel itself, or Christ, are the cause of life to some, and of death to others. As Christ is to some a tried corner stone, elect and precious, the rock of their salvation, to others he is a stone of offense. <600207>
1 Peter 2:7, 8. So the gospel and its ministers are the cause of life to some, and of death to others, and to all they are either the one or the other. The word of God is quick and powerful either to save or to destroy.
It cannot be neutral. If it does not save, it destroys. “This is the
condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light,” <430319>
John 3:19. “If I had not come and spoken unto them they had not had sin,” <431522>
John 15:22. If a man rejects the gospel, it had been far better for him never to have heard it. It will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for him. This, which is the doctrine of the Bible, is plainly the doctrine of this passage. The gospel and those who preach it, are either a savor of life or a savor of death. If not the one, they must be the other. In the phrase “a savor of
death unto death,” of death expresses the quality, unto death, the effect. It is a deadly savor, and it produces death. And so of the corresponding clause, “a savor of life unto life,” is a salutary savor producing life. The Rabbins often use ‘a similar expression in reference to the Law, which they say is either an odor of life or of death.
On the authority of two of the older MSS. (A and C), and several of the more modern ones, Lachmann, Tischendorf and Meyer read ejk qana>tou and ejk zwh~v instead of the simple genitive. It is then not a savor of death or of life, but a savor arising from death, and a savor arising from life. To the one class Christ is dead and yields only a savor of death; to the other, he is alive, and yields a savor of life. According to either reading the main idea is the same. Christ and his gospel, and therefore his ministers, are to believers the source of life, and to unbelievers the source of death. See
<402144>
Matthew 21:44; <420234>
Luke 2:34; <430939>
John 9:39. The common text has more external authority, and certainly gives a simpler sense, and is therefore preferred by the majority of editors.
And who is sufficient for these things? kai> (and) before a question often indicates a consequence of what precedes. It is frequently in our version in such cases rendered then. “Who then can be saved?” <411026>
Mark 10:26. “How is he then David’s son?” <422044>
Luke 20:44. So here, Who then is sufficient for these things? If the work is so great, if eternal life or eternal death must follow the preaching of the gospel, who then is sufficient (iJkano>v) for so responsible a calling? The most natural answer to this question would seem to be, ‘No one in himself.’ The following verse, however, which begins with (ga>r) for, and is designed to confirm the implied answer, requires that answer to be, “I am.”’I am sufficient for this work, for I do not handle the word of God deceitfully.’”My sufficiency,” however, the apostle immediately adds, 3:5, “is of God.” Of himself he was not fit or able to do any thing. There is, as Calvin remarks, an implied antithesis.
‘The object of preaching is the diffusion of the knowledge of Christ; the effect of that diffusion is life to some and death to others. Who then is competent to this work? Not your false teachers who corrupt the word of God, but I and others who preach the pure gospel from pure motives.’
This view is sustained by what follows, for the apostle immediately proceeds to vindicate his claim to this sufficiency or fitness, which he denies to the false teachers.
17. For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God; but as of