Translation & Sermon by
Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 17 August
2025
Underlined words in Scripture quotes indicate words that
are in common with the Greek text of the sermon passage. Otherwise,
underlining indicates words to emphasize when reading this transcript
out loud.
Omitting greyed-out text should
reduce read-aloud time to just over
40 minutes.
In 2 Corinthians 1:15-17, Paul explains the change in his travel itinerary that had disappointed the Christians in Corinth with a delay in his visit, but in the verses that follow, Paul moves beyond the change in the travel itinerary to address the criticism from false teachers who had moved into Corinth and used Paul’s itinerary change to launch an assault on the trustworthiness of the Gospel itself that the apostles had preached. These new teachers were apparently telling the Corinthian Christians that Paul and Timothy were self-contradictory religious nut-cases who should be ignored in favor of their new agenda, and that the church should forget about Jesus and look for someone else to save them.
I had a great conversation with a guy last week who told me that he was an atheist because of the problem of evil. He raised the same basic question that the Corinthians faced: Can we really trust the religious teachings of Paul and everybody who wrote the New Testament? Is there any real substance to the doctrine of Christianity? Or were they just a bunch of religious whack-jobs?
The Apostles Paul and Timothy set forth part of their response in this text, going back to the Old Testament and then to the person and work of Jesus, giving a resounding YES to the question of whether the Gospel which Paul preached is trustworthy. Paul said, in effect, “The promise of my coming was my own and I gave that promise from myself: but the preaching is not my own, nor of man, but of God, and what is of God, it is impossible that it should lie.1” Matthew Henry summarized it: “Bad men are false; good men are fickle; but God is true.”
Read my translation of the passage, starting at verse
15:
Now, it was under this impression that I was
wanting to come to y’all first (in order that y’all might have a
double grace), that is, to pass through y’all into Macedonia, then
to come again from Macedonia to y’all, and then to be sent forth
by y’all into Judea. So, when I was wanting that, was I using
dishonor? Or is it according to the flesh that I want what I want,
such that [saying] “Yes, yes!” AND “No, no!” might be the
case with me? But God is trustworthy, so our message to y’all was
not “Yes” AND “No,” but rather has been “Yes” in Him,
because the Son of God, Jesus the Anointed One (the One who was
proclaimed among y’all by us – by Silas and Timothy and myself),
was not “Yes and No,” because, however many promises there are
from God, in Him is the Yes, and in Him is the Amen, in order that
glory might be to God through us. Now, the One who confirms us
together with y’all into the Anointed One – and the One who
anointed us – is God. He is also also the One who sealed us and
the One who gave the down-payment of the Spirit into our hearts.
Paul begins in verse 18 with the fundamental truth of the character of God upon which he builds as an apostle: “God is trustworthy/true/faithful...”
This is a quote from the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy:
Deuteronomy 7:8-10 “But because the Lord loved you, and as keeping the oath which he sware to your fathers, the Lord brought you out with a strong hand, and the Lord redeemed thee from the house of bondage, out of the hand of Pharao king of Egypt. Thou shalt know therefore, that the Lord thy God, he is God, a faithful God, who keeps covenant and mercy for them that love him, and for those that keep his commandments to a thousand generations, and who recompenses them that hate him to their face, to destroy them utterly...” (Brenton2)
Deuteronomy 32:4 “As for God, his works are true, and all his ways are judgment: God is faithful, and there is no unrighteousness in him; just and holy is the Lord.” (Brenton)
Paul had already quoted this truth about God in 1 Corinthians:
1:8-9 “He will also make you firm until the end – so as not to be called down in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ, our Lord.” (NAW)
and 10:13 “...God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tested above what you are able, but rather He will make together with the test also the way out for the ability to undergo [it].” (NAW)
Now, because Paul and Timothy are God’s apostles (1:1), they represent God’s words and God’s character, so they say “Our word/message was not Yes AND No because God’s is not both Yes AND No.”
What is that “word/message”?
It’s the good news about Jesus Christ which was already introduced in 1 Corinthians as “the word/message” which Paul preached:
1 Corinthians 1:17-18 “For Christ did not commission me to baptize, but rather to evangelize – [and that] not by sophistication of words, so that the cross of Christ would not be nullified. For the word – the one of the cross – to those who are being destroyed is foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God…” (NAW, cf. 1 Cor. 2:13, 2 Cor. 2:17)
1 Corinthians 15:1-2 “Now, I am making known to you, brothers, the gospel: which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you have been standing, through which also you are being saved, if you hold fast in the particular word I preached to you” (NAW)
and we see it repeated here and also later in 2 Corinthians 5:19 “...God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.” (NKJV)
In the Greek language of the New Testament, the word for “word” can also mean an entire “message.”
This gospel message also shows up in abbreviated form in v.19, where Jesus is said to be the “Son of God3” as well as “the Christ” – the Messiah, anointed to to be our high priest and king to bring us into a good relationship with God forever.
This is the “message” that Paul and his traveling companions “Timothy and Silvanus” (or “Silas” for short) had “proclaimed” during their first term of ministry in Corinth. (You can read about that in Acts 18.)4
And it is just as true now as it was then.
At the end of verse 19, the verb tense switches from Aorist tense (“it was not Yes and No”) to Perfect tense (“it has been yes”).
The Greek Perfect tense indicates a continuing present effect from something in the past.
I like the way the NIV rendered it: “[Our message] … was not Yes and No, but in him it has always been Yes.” (although the word “always” is not actually in the Greek text).
Now, what does “Yes in Him” mean?
For one thing, it must be referring to the apostles’ message:
The alternative is to translate it that “Jesus has been Yes in Jesus,” and that makes no sense.
So “our message”, they say, in verse 18 “was not Yes and No...” rather “It has been Yes in Jesus...” in verse 19 “for/because Jesus was not a ‘Yes AND No’ sort of guy.”
We saw in the last sermon that Jesus was not a ‘Yes-and-No’ man, for He taught His disciples to say either “Yes” or “No,” according to whatever was the truth, in Matt. 5:37.
It’s interesting that not only is this true in principle of Jesus’ character (that He told the truth and didn’t try to please everybody, but consistently kept His promises), it is also true in a literal sense:
Nowhere in the New Testament is Jesus actually recorded as saying “No” to anybody5,
but Jesus IS recorded as saying “Yes” five times in addition to Matthew 5:37 (when he said “let your Yes mean Yes and your No mean No”),
the last time being in the next-to-last verse in the Bible – Revelation 22:20 “… Yes, I am coming quickly...” (NAW)6
The literal “yes’es” of Jesus should encourage us to come to Him hopefully, remembering that He also said in John 6:37, “… the one who comes to me, I would never reject” (NAW).
I believe that the way Jesus taught, saying, “This is the way it is,” neither changing it to be less offensive to His enemies, nor changing it to cut corners on promises to His beloved, is what Paul and Timothy mean by their message always being “Yes” in Christ Jesus.
The only other time in the Greek Bible when this word for “Yes” shows up together with this verb for “was/is/has been,” is in Matthew 11:25-26 (paralleled in Luke 10:21), where Jesus “agrees with” God the Father in prayer that the plan which they had made together in the eternal counsel, to “hide” their plan of salvation from proud, “smart men,” and to “reveal” it to humble, “immature” folk, and the way they had carried out their plan was good.
This was the same plan of salvation which God had revealed to Paul after humbling him on the road to Damascus, and which Paul and his ministry partners had then preached in Corinth when they had lived there. That plan of salvation will never change.7
Mankind will never be able to do enough good things to save themselves from being punished by God for their rebellions against Him.
God’s plan from the beginning was to provide His perfect Son to suffer the consequences of sin on behalf of all those sinners that He wanted to save, and Jesus revealed Himself in the first century AD to be that “Son of God” who redeemed His children when He died on the cross, and He ascended back into heaven to become our advocate with the Father to ensure our salvation.
And all who trust Jesus to forgive their offenses against God and to make them right with God will be saved, as they become followers of Jesus.
And Jesus will return in the future to punish and purge all evil and to bring to glorious fellowship with Himself to all who have believed in Him.
None of those facts will change, and all that is still-future about those facts, will certainly be fulfilled, because God, in Christ, affirmed them.
So the causal “for/because” at the beginning of verse 19 gives us confidence in the good news about Jesus due to the integrity of the character of Jesus. Verse 20 also starts with a causal “for/because,” giving us a second reason for being sure that the Gospel is true, and that is Jesus’ desire for us to bring glory to God.
Verse 20 is hard to translate, however, because it was originally written without using any verbs. So, any verb in verse 20 in your English Bible was supplied by an editor to try to interpret this difficult verse. The original meaning, however, is not disturbed when we add verbs of being in English (like “is/are/were/was”).
And if we don’t add anything but verbs of being, the picture in verse 20 emerges of Jesus, from eternity past, throughout time, next to God the Father, together planning and executing their plan of salvation for the people they love. The Father says, “Let’s do this,” and Jesus says, “Yes! Let it be done!”8
This, by the way, is not due to Jesus being a slavish subordinate who can’t think for Himself, but rather because there is such close unity between God the Son and God the Father that they naturally want to do the same thing because they think the same way about everything.
And, notice in verse 22 that the Holy Spirit is also right there, in total agreement with the Father and the Son, enthusiastically “sealing” the deal, with every step of the Trinitarian plan of salvation.
One last comment before we move on: Ancient Syriac Bibles and most contemporary English Bibles add words to this verse to make it be Jesus who says “Yes” and we who say “Amen” (rather than Jesus who says both “Yes” and “Amen”), but I don’t see this as a big problem because these added words nevertheless fit the meaning of the second half of the verse.
In the second half of verse 20, we see the reason that the Father, Son, and Spirit are working together in this plan: they do it “to” the end that “glory” will go “to God, through us” who are saved!
The original language is very clear that this “glory” is intended to go “through us” “to God.”
Some English versions add words like “utter” or “spoken” to describe how we give this “glory to God,” and that matches other verses in the Bible9 which confirm that our “spoken” praise does indeed “glorify” God, such as Psalm 145:10-12 “All Your works shall praise You, O LORD, And Your saints shall bless You. They shall speak of the glory of Your kingdom, And talk of Your power, To make known to the sons of men His mighty acts...” (NKJV, cf. Eph. 1:14) It is God’s goal for us to glorify Him!
Now, it is reasonable to ask if these “Promises of God” actually concern our salvation, or whether they are about something else – perhaps they are promises of total freedom from sickness and pain? To double-check myself, I looked up every place in the Greek Bible where the word for “promise” is plural, and here’s what I found:
Galatians 3:13-16 “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us... that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith... Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made... ‘And to your Seed,’ who is Christ.” (NKJV)
Hebrews 8:6-11 “… And He [Jesus] is the mediator of a better covenant which has been legally-instituted upon better promises... ‘Look, days are coming, the Lord says, when I will complete... a new covenant… and I will be to them for a God and, as for them, they will be to me for a people. And they... will all know me, from the little one among them up to the great one among them.” (NAW)
Romans 15:8-9 “...Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy...” (NKJV)
I don’t think it could be any more clear; the “Gentile” nations of the world will bring “glory” to “God” because of God’s mercy in saving them through the work of “Jesus Christ,” which “confirms” and fulfills the “promises.”
And if you expand the search to include the word “promise” in the singular, you get even more, such as Paul’s sermon at the synagogue in Psidian Antioch before he made it over to Corinth: Acts 13:32-39 “And we declare to you glad tidings – that promise which was made to the fathers. God has fulfilled this for us their children, in that He has raised up Jesus... Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him everyone who believes is justified...”(NKJV, cf. 1 John 2:25)
“Therefore,” says Hebrews 6:12 “...become... imitators of those who, through faith and longsuffering, are inheriting the promises.” (NAW, cf. 7:6, 11:13, 17, 33, 2 Cor 7:1)
Now, in verses 21-22, we see four participles which describe things which God Himself does to provide even more certainty to our faith in Jesus’ salvation:
The first participle tells us that God is “the One who confirms/establishes/makes us stand firm ...in Christ.”
The way this word is used throughout Scripture10, it seems to refer to God’s work in us after our conversion, to keep us firmly attached to Christ and His church, not letting us collapse in discouragement or wander off and get lost. There are four main passages where we see this:
Two of them are in the Psalms, where we see that David already trusted God, yet kept looking to the power of God’s personal presence and the encouragement of God’s word to keep him in good relationship with God: Psalm 41:12 “...You held on to me in my integrity and You kept me firm before Your face for ever,” and Psalm 119:28 & 31 “...confirm me with Your words... I have clung to your testimonies, O Lord; put me not to shame.” (NAW)
The other two passages were written by the Apostle Paul: Colossians 2:6-7 “As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established [confirmed] in the faith, as you have been taught...” (NKJV) and 1 Corinthians 1:4-8 “...the grace of God... was given you by Jesus Christ, so that in everything, y'all were enriched by Him in every word and in every [piece of] knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed by you, so that y'all don't miss out on any [spiritual] gift as you are eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who will also make you firm until the end – so as not to be called-down in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ, our Lord.” (NAW)
You see, it is God’s faithfulness to keep us in a good relationship with Himself that gave Paul and Timothy the confidence that they would see all God’s promises of salvation come true in their lives,
and they explicitly say that this confidence in God’s salvation isn’t just something for apostles, it is also for every believer! God is the one who will make us stand firm in Christ together with y’all! (And “Y’all” means “you all”!)
The second participle in verse 21 (describing what God does to give us confidence in His saving work in our lives) is that God is “the One who anointed us.”
Remember that the word “Christ” means “Anointed,” so God first anointed Jesus before anointing us:
Acts 10:38 “...God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit…” (NKJV, cf. Acts 4:27 & Heb. 1:9)
So, Jesus said in Luke 4:18 that Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled in Him that “THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE HAS ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL…” (NKJV, quoting Isa. 61:1)
And then, when Jesus ascended into heaven after His death and resurrection, He sent His Holy Spirit to “anoint” all whom He loves.
The Apostle Paul affirmed in Romans 8:9 “...the Spirit of God dwells in you...”
The Apostle John explained it even more clearly: In John 16:7-13 he quotes Jesus as saying, “...It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you... when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth...” (NKJV)
Then, in his first epistle, John wrote, “...you yourselves have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know… And the anointing which you yourselves received from Him remains in you, and you have no need for someone to be teaching you. But as His anointing is teaching you concerning everything – and it is true; it is not a lie – just as it taught you, you remain in Him.” (1 John 2:20 & 27, NAW)
So this “anointing” of the Holy Spirit upon believers to “teach” them and “guide [them] in all truth” is parallel to the way that God, through His word and His powerful presence, “keeps us standing firm” in Christ.11
The third participle describing what God does to provide certainty for our faith is in verse 22: He is “the one who seals us.”
What does it mean to “seal?”
Some of the more-recent English Bibles add explanatory phrases like “God put His seal of ownership on us,” and ownership is one of the meanings of “sealing.” John 6:27 tells us that “...God the Father set His seal on… the Son of Man.” So then, when we were bought by the blood of Jesus, 2 Corinthians 1:21 says we were “sealed” by God – we came under His ownership in a special way, so “you are not your own,” as 1 Corinthians 7:23 says.
Identity is also derived from sealing12. When a person in Bible times sealed a written document, he would drip wax onto the folded or rolled-up edge of the document and press a signet ring against the wax while it was still hot and soft so that it would harden with the imprint of his ring which had his name or insignia engraved on it. When the recipient saw that imprint on the wax seal, he knew who the document came from. In Revelation 7:3, a messenger – perhaps Jesus, because it says He already “had the seal of the living God” – went and “sealed the servants of… God on their foreheads,” identifying and certifying who would be saved. Romans 8:16 “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (NKJV)
Sealing also symbolizes security. Seals kept letters from being tampered-with before they reached the recipient. (This connects back with the “anointing” and the “confirming” work of the Holy Spirit mentioned in verse 21.) According to Ephesians 4:30, the Holy Spirit “seals” us to keep our relationship with God from being messed-up and to preserve us intact until Jesus returns. “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” (NKJV)
This is also related to...
The fourth participle describing God’s work in providing certainty for our faith: He is the one who “gave us the down-payment/pledge/earnest/deposit/guarantee of the Spirit.”
I want to comment a little on the translation here:
All the English Bibles published before the year 1946 read that God “gave the earnest of the Spirit,”
but all the English Bibles published from 1946 on (with only one exception that I could find) translated this phrase “gave/put the Spirit as a pledge/guarantee/deposit,” as though the Holy Spirit might be one of any number of alternatives.
The one exception I found was the New Living Translation which faithfully rendered what all the Greek manuscripts actually say, which is, that the Spirit is not “a” but “the first-installment.”
But what is this “pledge/earnest/deposit/guarantee of the Holy Spirit”13?
Arndt & Gingrich’s Lexicon14 defines this Greek word ἀῤῥαβών as “a first-installment… that pays a part of the purchase price in advance, and so secures a legal claim to the article in question, or makes a contract valid… [and] which obligates the contracting party to make further payments.”15
In this metaphor, God makes a covenant with us to be our God and to make us His people, then gives us the Holy Spirit as a “down-payment” which shows His commitment to fulfilling the rest of the terms of the covenant, including taking care of us, sanctifying us, and glorifying us, then giving us as a gift to His Son, and enjoying fellowship with us forever. This gift of the Holy Spirit also locks us in to the covenant, protecting us from being spoiled or lost along the way.
From the rest of Scripture, we can conclude at least 3 things about this “deposit of the Spirit:”
God sends His Spirit to help every Christian.
Paul already wrote in 1 Corinthians 12:7 “Now, to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit…” (NAW)
The Apostle Peter also declared in Acts 5:32 that “God has given… the Holy Spirit... to those who obey Him.” (cf. 1 Thess. 4:8, Luke 11:13)
And so did the Apostle John: “...we know that He is remaining in us, through the Spirit which He gave to us.” (1 John 3:24, NAW)
So, the Holy Spirit comes with the ‘base package’ of Christianity; if you are a Christian, you have the Spirit. A second principle is that...
The Holy Spirit interacts, as a general rule, with the incorporeal part of us – that is, “in our hearts,” at the core of our personality.
Romans 5:5 “...the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (NKJV)
Galatians 4:6 “And because you are [His children], God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’” (NKJV)
This stands to reason because the Holy Spirit is a spirit, not made of matter and energy, but it also means that, all that you are, can be conformed to all the goodness of God’s personality! Finally, the third principle we can glean is that...
The Spirit’s work in us increases our confidence in God’s salvation of us, promising more of God’s grace yet to come!
We’ll see this later on in 2 Corinthians 5:1&5 “Now He who has prepared us for this very thing [that is, ‘a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens’] is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.” (NKJV)
1 John 4:13 “In this we know that we are staying in Him and He in us: that He has given out of His Spirit to us.” (NAW)
Ephesians 1:13-14 “In whom also you having heard the word of the truth – the good news of your salvation, in whom also you having believed, were sealed in the Holy Spirit of the promise, Who is a down-payment of the inheritance of us into redemption of His possession into praise of His glory.” (NAW)
I hope you can see that you can be confident of being saved if you believe the good news about Jesus, because all three persons of the Trinity are behind it.
God the Father came up with the plan, and He is totally trustworthy.
Jesus completely agrees with it and went to the cross to make it happen.
And the Holy Spirit is working in your heart to reassure you.
All three persons of the Trinity have a stake in making sure that everyone who trusts in Jesus is saved because it brings them glory when we see the greatness and effectiveness of their plan of salvation and tell others how wonderful our God is!
So,
No, we can’t forget about Jesus and move on!
We won’t let the “problem of evil” (or anything else, for that matter) get in the way.
We will trust what God’s Prophets and Apostles wrote in the Bible.
We know that the Biblical doctrine of salvation has real substance that we can hang our lives on!
ByzantineB |
NAW |
KJVC |
RheimsD |
MurdockE |
15 Καὶ ταύτῃ τῇ πεποιθήσει ἐβουλόμην πρὸς ὑμᾶς Fπρότερον ἐλθεῖν, ἵνα δευτέραν χάριν Gἔχητε, |
15 Now, it was under this impression that I was wanting to come to y’all first (in order that y’all might have a double grace), |
15 And in this confidence I was minded to come unto you before, that ye might have a second benefit; |
15 And in this confidence I had a mind to come to you before, that you might have a second grace: |
15 And in this confidence, I was before disposed to come to you, that ye might receive the grace doubly; |
16 καιH̀ δι᾿ ὑμῶν διελθεῖν εἰς Μακεδονίαν, καὶ πάλιν ἀπὸ Μακεδονίας ἐλθεῖν πρὸς ὑμᾶς καὶ ὑφ᾿ ὑμῶν προπεμφθῆναιI εἰς τὴν ᾿Ιουδαίαν. |
16 that is, to pass through y’all into Macedonia, then to come again from Macedonia to y’all, and then to be sent forth by y’all into Judea. |
16 And to pass by you into Macedonia, and to come again out of Macedonia unto you, and of you to be brought [on my way] toward Judaea. |
16 And to pass by you into Macedonia: and again from Macedonia to come to you, and by you to be brought [on my way] towards Judea. |
16
and to pass by you into Macedonia, and again to come to you from
Macedonia, and so
X ye |
17 τοῦτο οὖν βουλJόμενος μήτι ἄρα τῇ ἐλαφρίᾳ K ἐχρησάμην; ἢ ἃ βουλεύομαι, κατὰ σάρκα βουλεύομαι, ἵναL ᾖ παρ᾿ ἐμοὶ τὸ ναὶ ναὶ καὶ τὸ οὒ οὔM; |
17 So, when I was wanting that, was I using dishonor? Or is it according to the flesh that I want what I want, such that [saying] “Yes, yes!” AND “No, no!” might be the case with me? |
17 When I therefore was thus minded, did I use lightness? or the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be yea yea, and nay nay? |
17 Whereas then I was thus minded, did I use lightness? Or, the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, that there should be with me, It is X X, and It is not X X? |
17
When
therefore I
thus purposed,
did I
purpose X
|
18 πιστὸςO δὲ ὁ Θεὸς ὅτι ὁ λόγος ἡμῶν ὁ πρὸς ὑμᾶς οὐκ ἐγένετοP ναὶ καὶ οὔ. |
18 But God is trustworthy, so our message to y’all was not “Yes” AND “No,” |
18 But as God is true, X our word toward you was not yea and nay. |
18
But God is faithful: for our |
18
God is the |
19 ὁ γὰρQ τοῦ Θεοῦ υἱὸς ᾿Ιησοῦς Χριστὸς ὁ ἐν ὑμῖν δι᾿ ἡμῶν κηρυχθείς, δι᾿ ἐμοῦ καὶ Σιλουανοῦ καὶ Τιμοθέου, οὐκ ἐγένετο ναὶ καὶ οὔ, ἀλλὰ ναὶ ἐν αὐτῷ γέγονενR. |
19 but rather has been “Yes” in Him, because the Son of God, Jesus the Anointed One (the One who was proclaimed among y’all by us – by Silas and Timothy and myself), was not “Yes and No,” |
19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. |
19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, by me and Sylvanus and Timothy, was not: It is and It is not. But, It is, was in him. |
19 For the Son of God, Jesus the Messiah, who was preached to you by us, namely, by me, by Sylvanus, and by Timotheus, was not Yes and No; but it was Yes in him. |
20 ὅσαιS γὰρ ἐπαγγελίαι Θεοῦ, ἐν αὐτῷ τὸ ναί Tκαὶ ἐν αὐτῷU τὸ ἀμήνV, τῷ Θεῷ πρὸς δόξαν δι᾿ ἡμῶν. |
20 because, however many promises there are from God, in Him is the Yes, and in Him is the Amen, in order that glory might be to God through us. |
20
For |
20
For |
20
For |
21 ὁ δὲ βεβαιῶνW ἡμᾶςX σὺν ὑμῖν εἰς Χριστὸν καὶ χρίσας ἡμᾶς Θεός, |
21 Now, the One who confirms us together with y’all into the Anointed One – and the One who anointed us – is God. |
21 Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; |
21 Now he that confirmeth us with you in Christ and that hath anointed us, is God: |
21 Now it is God who establisheth us, with you, in the Messiah, and hath anointed us, |
22 ὁ καὶ σφραγισάμενοςY ἡμᾶς καὶ δοὺς τὸνZ ἀρραβῶνα τοῦAA Πνεύματος ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ἡμῶν. |
22 He is also also the One who sealed us and the One who gave the downpayment of the Spirit into our hearts. |
22 Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. |
22 Who also hath sealed us and given the pledge of the Spirit in our hearts. |
22 and hath sealed us, and hath given the earnest of [his] Spirit in our hearts. |
1This is a quote from Chrysostom’s homily on v.18.
2The Septuagint was the only known translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek available to the first-century apostles. Brenton translated the Greek Septuagint into English in the 19th century. Underlining matches the exact Greek words found in our sermon passage in 2 Corinthians. Since this phrase is found nowhere else in the Greek Bible except Deuteronomy and 1 & 2 Corinthians, it is believed that Paul was quoting Deuteronomy.
3Regarding the phrase “Son of God” see Psalm 2:7 (“You are my son”), Matt. 3:17 & 17:5 (“This is my beloved Son”), 14:33 (disciples in the boat confess), 16:16 (Peter’s confession), 27:54 (centurion’s confession), Hebrews 4:4, 5:5, 2 Pet. 1:17, 1 John 1:3-7, 2:22, 3:23, 5:5-9, 5:20, and 2 John 1:3&9.
4Calvin suggested that maybe Apollos was not mentioned because he had not been calumniated to the extent that the others had.
5The New Testament does record Him saying the word a couple of times, but in neither case is he saying it TO someone. In Matt. 5:37, He tells His disciples to mean it when they say No, and in Matt. 13:29, He is telling a parable and quoting someone else who had said “No.”
6The other four instances are Matt. 11:9-10 || Luke 7:26-27 (“... Yes! I tell you, he is even more than a prophet…”), Matt. 11:25-26 || Luke 10:21 (“... Yes, Father, because this way happened to be pleasing in your sight”), Matt. 21:15-16 (“Yes. And haven't you ever read…”), and Luke 11:51 (“...Yes, I say to you, it shall be required of this generation.”) ~NAW
7“Hence, too, his confidence in denouncing a curse upon angels, if they dared to bring another gospel, one that was at variance with his. (Galatians 1:8.) Who would dare to make the angels of heaven subject to his doctrine, if he had not God as his authority and defense?” ~J. Calvin, 1546 AD
8“The
meaning is that how many soever are God's promises, in Christ is the
incarnate answer, ‘yea!’ to the question, ‘Will they be
fulfilled?’ ... Wherefore also through Him is the Amen. In giving
this answer in His person and life, Christ puts the emphatic
confirmation upon God's promises…” ~M. Vincent, 1886 AD
“Christ
is the fulfiller and fulfilment of all the promises of God because
he is the sum and substance of them. From Genesis to Malachi –
from the protoevangelium,
the first promise of a Redeemer, to prophecy’s last witness to his
coming – each and every promise finds its affirmation and
accomplishment in him…” ~Geoffrey Wilson, 1979 AD
9Psalm 145:11, Matthew 15:31, 1 Peter 4:11, cf. Hebrews 13:15.
10This Greek word (βεβαιόω) is also used in Rom. 15:8 & Heb. 2:2-4 to describe God’s promises being testified-to or fulfilled, thus “confirming” God’s word, but here in 2 Cor. 1:22, the object is “us,” not God’s “word,” so it is a different concept. On the other hand, there is another Greek word στηρίξαι which is a synonym for the kind of “confirmation” under discussion in 2 Cor. 1:21. That synonym is found in 1 Pet. 5:10, 1 Thess. 3:13, and Rom. 16:25, and those passages could also be studied profitably.
11Chrysostom preached at length in his homily on how this makes us Prophets, Priests, and Kings with Abraham.
12“For as upon soldiers a seal, so is also the Spirit put upon the faithful. And if thou desert, thou art manifest [by it] to all. For the Jews had circumcision for a seal, but we, the earnest of the Spirit.” ~Chrysostom, c. 400 AD
13Cf.
Rom. 8:23 “the firstfruits of the Spirit”
P. Hughes
explored the possibility of the the “anointing,” “sealing,”
and “earnest” being sacramental action (such as baptism), but
concluded that “such an identification does not seem to have been
proposed.”
14Cf. Strong’s: “part of the purchase money or property given in advance as security for the rest” and Thayer’s: “money which in purchases is given as a pledge or downpayment that the full amount will subsequently be paid.”
15According to Pringle, it is a Hebrew word [ערבון] which was borrowed by Greek and Latin speakers.
AWhen
a translation adds words not in the Greek text, but does not
indicate it has done so by the use of italics or greyed-out text, I
put the added words in [square brackets]. When one version chooses a
wording which is different from all the other translations, I
underline it. When a version chooses a translation which, in my
opinion, either departs too far from the root meaning of the Greek
word or departs too far from the grammar form of the original text,
I use strikeout. And when a version omits a word
which is in the original text, I insert an X. I also place an X at
the end of a word if the original word is plural but the English
translation is singular. I occasionally use colors to help the
reader see correlations between the various editions and versions
when there are more than two different translations of a given word.
NAW is my translation. My original chart includes annotated copies
of the NKJV, NASB, NIV, and ESV, but I erase them from the online
edition so as not to infringe on their copyrights.
BThis Greek New Testament is the 1904 "Patriarchal" edition of the Greek Orthodox Church. As published by E-Sword in 2016. The Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine majority text of the GNT and the Textus Receptus are very similar. The Westcott-Hort, Nestle-Aland, and UBS editions, however, are a slightly-different family of GNTs developed in the modern era, focusing on the few manuscripts which are older than the Byzantine manuscripts. Even so, the practical differences in the text between these two editing philosophies are minimal.
C1769 King James Version of the Holy Bible; public domain. As published by E-Sword in 2019.
DRheims New Testament first published by the English College at Rheims, A.D. 1582, Revised and Diligently Compared with the Latin Vulgate by Bishop Richard Challoner, Published in 1582, 1609, 1752. As published on E-Sword in 2016.
EJames Murdock, A Literal Translation from the Syriac Peshito Version, 1851, Robert Carter & Brothers, New York. Scanned and transcribed by Gary Cernava and published electronically by Janet Magierra at www.lightofword.org, and published on E-Sword in 2023.
FThis is not the reading of any Greek manuscript, but it is the reading of the Greek Orthodox and Textus Receptus editions. The Byzantine majority of manuscripts (the oldest of which is dated at the 9th century) insert a definite article here (το) which makes the word “first” more of a substantive adjective (“the first time”). The rest of the words in this verse are in all the manuscripts, but in various orders, but this word (“first”) is put next to (“to come”) in 19 manuscripts (including the 6 oldest-known ones) and thus in the critical editions of the GNT, calling for it to be interpreted more as an adverb. Vincent argued that it should be translated “come to you first,” but his protegé Robertson argued that it should be translated “before,” as in, it “was his former plan.”
GThis
is the reading of the majority of Greek manuscripts (the oldest of
which is the 6th century Bezae) and the Greek
Orthodox and Textus Receptus editions. 14 Greek manuscripts
(including the 4 oldest-known) and the critical editions of the GNT
spell this word with a different first letter σ-,
which changes the tense from Present to
Aorist, making no substantial difference in meaning except perhaps
that the Aorist focuses on the possession at that particular point
in time, whereas the Present would focus on the continuing
possession of the thing, but neither meaning excludes the other, and
the KJV translation (which follows the Textus
Receptus) is identical to the ESV
(which follows the UBS critical text) with “you might
have.”
Chrysostom (and, according
to Pringle, “the ancient Commentators” and “Wold and Shleus”
and the English versions of Tyndale and
Cranmer – and he mistakenly added Geneva, so
I shall remove it from his list and add A.T. Robertson and Westcott
instead) translated xarin
as “joy/pleasure/gratification,” and Calvin said he wouldn’t
“much object” to that.
HLit. “and” (KJV). The NKJV, NIV, and ESV interpreted it as L&N semantic domain #91.1 (“markers of a new sentence, but often best left untranslated”). But I like the NASB’s interpretation that it is an explanatory parenthesis: “that is to say” (which is L&N#89.106a in Smith’s Supplement to the L&N Greek-English Lexicon Index).
ICf.
Rom. 15:24 - “for the same service by the Roman Christians on his
proposed trip to Spain.” ~ATR
“[H]e means that they were to
provide companions to escort him on his way, which was then a common
practice among friends (cf. 1 Cor. 16:6, 11; Acts 15:3; 20:38; 21:5;
Rom. 15:24; Tit. 3:13; 3 John 6).” ~Hughes
JThis
is the reading of 18 manuscripts (including the five oldest-known)
and of the Greek Orthodox and contemporary critical editions of the
GNT. The majority of Byzantine manuscripts (the oldest of which is
the 6th century Bezae) and the
Robinson-Pierpont and Textus Receptus editions of the GNT
insert ευ here,
changing the middle voice to passive, although, with a deponent verb
like this, it doesn’t necessarily change the meaning at all – it
could just be that spelling
conventions changed over the centuries and
were edited into the manuscript.
Either
way, this participle is temporally connected in the present tense to
the main verb in the Aorist “I used.”
KHapex Legomenon. “Lightness” is the general consensus of meaning. Here it is figurative – not enough weight put on the decision, thus made with levity, flippantly, inconsiderately. NASB & ESV render “vacillating,” following Arndt & Gingrich’s Lexicon, which lists “light” as the first meaning of the word, but found this word used for “fickleness” in Polybius and Homer (who also used it to mean “impetuous”). Those meanings are not listed in any other lexicon I consulted (including Pershbacher, Strong, Thayer, Friberg, Danker, Liddel-Scott, and Louw & Nida. L&N came closest with 88.99 “caprice and instability.”)
LHanna noted comments about this hina clause from E. D. Burton, Moods and Tenses of New Testament Greek (“expresses the concerned result of an action”) and J. H. Moulton, A Grammar of New Testament Greek (“...final; Paul is disclaiming the mundane virtue of unsettled convictions, which aims at saying yes and no in one breath”), then offered his opinion that “result and purpose are not to be distinguished, which may be the case here (cf. Rom. 5:20).”
MThe Vulgate, following P46 (the oldest-known manuscript) and one 10th century manuscript, removed the reduplication and just rendered it “yea and nay.” Cf. Calvin: “[T]he reiterating of the affirmation and negation will not have the same meaning as in Matthew 5:37 and in James, but will bear this meaning — ‘that yea should with me be in this instance yea, and on the other hand, when it pleases me, nay, nay’” and Hughes: “It is not an emphatic yes which may be expected to turn into an equally emphatic no (this is the force of the repetition in the expression...)”
NThe Peshitta uses a 3rd plural suffix, but in Greek it is a 1st singular pronoun.
OAGNT tagged this word with Louw & Nida semantic domain #31.87 (“trustworthy”). Poetically, it is the Greek word for the Hebrew word “Amen” which occurs in v. 20. Most English versions added the comparative “As” out of thin air and interpreted it as an oath, but Vincent rightly commented, “Not to be taken as a formula of swearing...”
PThis Aorist-tense verb is the reading of the Majority of Greek manuscripts (although the oldest manuscript containing this reading in the original handwriting is from the 9th century). It is the reading of the Textus Receptus and Greek Orthodox editions and of the Vulgate, Peshitta, Geneva, and KJV. (ESV renders it in Perfect tense for no apparent reason.) However, a dozen Greek manuscripts (including the 6 oldest-known which date earlier than the 8th century) read with a different verb-of-being in the Present tense (although two of them were corrected to the verb-of-being found in the majority of manuscripts), thus estin is the reading of the contemporary critical editions, and therefore the verb-of-being is present tense (“is”) in the NASB, NIV, NET, and NLT. Since verbs-of-being are synonymous, there is no difference in meaning beyond “is” vs. “was,” despite this variant.
QThis is the reading of the majority of Greek manuscripts (including the 3nd century P46 and the 6th century Bezae), and therefore of the Textus Receptus and the Greek Orthodox editions, but, based on the reading of 10 manuscripts (including Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Ephremei, and Alexandrinus from the 4th and 5th centuries), the contemporary critical editions of the GNT place this conjunction (“for”) two words later in the Greek sentence. However, it makes no difference in the meaning.
RThe tense switches from Aorist (“it was not Yes and No”) to Perfect (“it has been Yes”). KJV did not translate the distinction, making both verbs “was.” NASB and ESV made it a distinction between past and present tense (“was … is”), since the Greek Perfect indicates a continuing present effect from a past event. The NIV made an even more accurate translation, despite the fact that they added the word “always” (“was not… but... has [always] been”).
SStrangely, the Geneva and KJV followed the Peshitta instead of the Greek and Latin manuscripts here with “all” (which Vincent commented was “wrong”). Less-surprisingly, the NET and ESV and NLT rendered “all” as well. The word in Greek and Latin is actually a correlative pronoun (“as many as”), so the NASB and NIV translations are good here (although it was gratuitous for the NIV to add “no matter”).
TThe majority of Greek manuscripts read this way (καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ “and in him”), with support from a third of the oldest-known manuscripts (dated before the 9th century), so this reading is reflected in the Textus Receptus and Greek Orthodox editions of the GNT. But, based on about 16 manuscripts (including 2/3 of the pre-9th century ones) and the Vulgate, the contemporary critical GNT editions read διὸ καὶ δι᾽ αὐτοῦ (“thus also through him”). The meaning is not essentially different, although perhaps the majority saw value in two different prepositions to distinguish the different kinds of work between Christ (“Amen in him”) and us (“glory through us”). Curiously, the contemporary English versions which insisted on both phrases having the same preposition δι[α] still used two different English prepositions to maintain the same sort of semantic distinction which they removed by editing the traditional Greek text, rendering it “through him… by us.”
UThe Peshitta felt the need to insert “Christ” to define who “him” is, and the NIV followed suit, but it is not in any Greek manuscript. The Peshitta also felt the need to insert “we give our” before “the Amen,” even though that is not in any Greek or Latin manuscript, and, surprisingly the NASB, NIV, ESV, and NLT (and J. Calvin, P. Hughes, and G. Wilson) followed the Peshitta instead of the Greek or Latin. The NET, on the other hand, stuck with the Greek “He is the one who gave,” as did Chrysostom (“In Him is the yea and the Amen… For in Him, not in man, the promises have their being and fulfilment”), Matthew Henry, and Vincent. Pringle, who was Calvin’s English editor, also quoted “Penn.” in the footnotes in contradiction to Calvin, to wit, “through Him who is the AMEN”). We might also note that Jesus is called “The Amen” in Rev. 3:14.
VThis is a transliteration of a Hebrew word using Greek letters. The Hebrew word אמן is usually translated into Greek as πιστὸς, which is the first word in v.18 - “faithful, true, trustworthy, sure.” Even so, this word is frequent in the Greek New Testament, occurring in every book except for Acts, James, and 3 John.
W“The present participle with εἰς (into) indicates the work as it is in progress toward a final identification of the believers with Christ.” ~Vincent
XHughes noted that in the argument, “us” meant Paul and Timothy; in other words, if Paul and Timothy had been “confirmed,” “anointed,” and “sealed” with the Holy Spirit, then their message could be trusted. However, all of these actions can be found in scripture applied to ALL believers, not just to the Apostles.
YAGNT labeled this word with Louw & Nida’s semantic domain # 33.484 “...to put a mark on something, primarily to indicate ownership but possibly also to mark group identity...” and the NIV added several words to expound that first meaning. This, however, is the third definition in the Greek lexicons of Thayer and of Arndt & Gingrich (the first being to secureThayer/put a wax seal onA&G, the second being to “conceal,” the third being to indicate ownershipThayer/identityA&G and the fourth being to “confirm/authenticateThayer/certifyA&G). Like the “anointing,” the “sealing” was also done first to Jesus (John 6:27 "...God the Father has set His seal on Him [the Son of Man].") and then to His people (Eph. 1:13; 4:30; Rev. 7:3-8). Hughes’ assertion that it meant God repairing “the image of God” in man after it had been “defaced by the fall” goes beyond what the text actually says.
ZBefore the year 1946, all the English Bibles that I can find (Wycliffe, Geneva, KJV, ERV, ASV) translated this phrase as “gave the earnest of the Spirit.” This accurately translates the reading of all the Greek manuscripts with the object of the verb “given” being “the earnest” (with the definite article “the”), followed by the word for “Spirit” in the genitive case (“of the Spirit”). But beginning in 1946, all the English Bibles I could find (with one exception), switched the words for “Spirit” and for “earnest,” making “Spirit” the object that was “given” and also replacing the “the” from in front of “earnest” with an invented preposition “as,” even though none of these abberations are to be found in any Greek manuscript. The one exception I found was that the NLT at least kept the “the,” indicating that the Holy Spirit is not just “a guarantee/pledge” – potentially interchangeable with any number of alternatives (RSV, NKJV, NET, NASB, NIV, ESV), but rather “the first-installment” (NLT – It appears that they got the translation “first-installment” from Arndt & Gingrich’s Lexicon). I suspect that this change may have come about in order to avoid the interpretation possible in the older English translations that only part of the Holy Spirit would be given to believers upon conversion (and that more of the Spirit would be given to them later), which would seem to contradict with John 3:34 “...God does not give the Spirit by measure,” although it might comport with 1 John 4:13 (“He has given us of His Spirit”).
AASee above. Commentators I read were divided pretty equally on the question of whether this meant receiving only a portion of the Holy Spirit or the totality. Chrysostom favored the portional view, “Wherefore He said not simply ‘the Spirit,’ but named ‘earnest,’ that from this thou mightest have a good hope of the whole as well. For did He not purpose to give the whole, He would never have chosen to give ‘the earnest’ and to waste it without object or result.” Calvin took the opposite position that “the Spirit… is our security… and is called the earnest,” and Vincent followed in his steps (“Not the foretaste or pledge of the Spirit, but the Spirit Himself in pledge of the fulfillment of the promises. By a common Greek usage the words are in apposition: the earnest which is the Spirit.”) But it is not true that an accusative phrase followed by a genitive phrase in Greek commonly denotes apposition. Hughes approvingly quoted Lightfoot, “the present gift of the Spirit is only a small fraction of the future endowment.”