This Change Casts No Shadow on the Unchangeableness of Gospel Truth (2 Cor. 1:18–22)

2 Cor. 1:18. But as God is faithful, our word to you is not ‘Yes’ and ‘No.

They could have thought that if his yes is not yes and his no is not no, then it turns out that about the same matter he says both yes and no. And what if the Gospel is the same?! Anticipating this, he says: no, do not think thus; my Gospel is unchangingly true, as God is true. So Saint Chrysostom: “Here the Apostle refutes an arising objection. For they could have said to him: if you previously determined in your promise to come to us, but then changed what you said before, if with you there is no ‘yes, yes’ and ‘no, no,’ then woe to us! Did not the same happen even in the preaching itself? So that they would not think this and be troubled, he says: ‘God is faithful, so our word to you is not yes and no.’ In preaching, he says, this cannot be; but this happens only in predetermined journeys. In preaching our words are always true and unchanging. For by ‘word’ here he means preaching. Next he presents an irrefutable proof of this, attributing the work of preaching to God. And his words have this meaning: the promise of coming was mine, that is, I promised it of myself; but preaching is not mine and not human, but God’s; and what is from God is beyond the reach of falsehood and deception. Therefore he said: ‘God is faithful,’ that is, true. Therefore, suspect nothing in what comes from God; for there is nothing human in this.”

2 Cor. 1:19. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not ‘Yes’ and ‘No’; but in him it is always ‘Yes.

He proves the unchanging truth of his word by the very deed, by the very working of preaching. When, he says, we preached Christ the Saviour to you, was it so that we said one thing and something else came to pass? No; but whatever we said, all of it was vindicated in deed in you and upon you. We said: believe in the Son of God who was crucified and you will receive the remission of sins; through baptism you will receive a new life; through the laying on of our hands (the equivalent of what is now chrismation) you will be deemed worthy of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and will be filled with power to overcome all sin, all passion, and all enemy violence. Did it come to pass as we said? It did, and you know this. So do not think or say that Christ, whom we preached to you, was yes and no: for you clearly see that in Him all is yes. Whatever we say about Him, all of it is so; and whatever you hope for from Him when you approach Him, all of it you receive fully and with abundance. “Everything we preached about Christ has come to pass with complete accuracy in deed” (Oecumenius).

By placing Silvanus and Timothy with him, with whom he first established faith in Corinth, the Apostle brings the Corinthians to the remembrance of what they were before receiving faith and what they became upon receiving it. He speaks as if saying: remember what you were before communion with Christ the Lord and what you became afterward; but what you became afterward, we promised you this before you became Christ’s. Christ, the Son of God, whom we preached to you, therefore was—yes.

“Silvanus is here the name of Silas, for he shared with Paul bonds in Philippi” (Acts 16:25). “Having left him in Berea of Macedonia, Paul went to Athens” (Acts 17:14). “He, together with Timothy, coming to Paul in Corinth, became his co-worker in preaching.” (Theodoret).

2 Cor. 1:20. For all the promises of God find their ‘Yes’ in him. That is why it is through him that we say the ‘Amen,’ to the glory of God.

All the promises of God, he says, in Christ Jesus, our Lord, are fulfilled with complete exactness—in Him they are “yes” and “amen.” The promises of God were uttered in the Old Testament through the prophets. They concerned the person of Christ the Saviour, the time, place, and other circumstances of His manifestation—and especially related to the work of salvation which He was to accomplish, that is, how He would suffer for our sins, die on the cross, rise, ascend into heaven, and sit at the right hand of the Father—how He would send the Divine Spirit from the Father for the renewal of spiritual life in mankind through faith and grace, thereby preparing the sons of the eternal kingdom. All these promises, prefigured in prophecies, were completely fulfilled and are being fulfilled in Christ Jesus the Lord. Those who approach the Lord in faith immediately experience in themselves the fulfillment of all promises relating to the work of salvation: they experience the remission of sins, in which testimony is given them by a lightened conscience; they experience renewal, in which testimony is given them by the consciousness of new life received in the baptismal font; they experience the coming of the grace of the Holy Spirit, in which testimony is given them by the perceived moral strength to overcome all passion and all sin; they experience adoption as sons, in which testimony is given them by the inner feeling of sonship to God, quickened by the Spirit, as a result of which they cry out: Abba, Father. Another part of the promises to believers relates to the future life—the resurrection and eternal blessedness with Christ. These have not yet been fulfilled, but that they will certainly be fulfilled is assured by the promises that have already been fulfilled, which the Apostle brings together in the giving of the Spirit, calling this giving the seal or pledge of the inheritance. From this directly follows that all the promises of God in Christ Jesus are “yes” and “amen.”

“To the glory of God through us.” How are God’s promises about Christ Jesus fulfilled? Through the Apostles. For in order to become a partaker of them, one must believe. But how can one believe without preachers? The Lord established them. He Himself sat at the right hand of the Father; but in His place He sent the Comforter Spirit and, clothing the Apostles with His power, sent them throughout all the earth to plant faith and establish salvation in people. The multiplication of those accomplishing salvation is God’s glory on earth—the final goal of the fulfillment of all God’s promises in the Lord. For it Christ’s coming in the flesh, for it apostolic preaching, for it faith, for it also the future blessedness—so that the one God be glorified by all lips and all deeds, both by Apostles and believers and by the deeds of all of them.

The holy Chrysostom in his discourse on this passage dwells with especial attention on the future promises. “The evangelical preaching,” he says, “contains many promises, and the Apostles proclaimed and preached of many promises. For they spoke both of resurrection and of adoption as sons and of immortality and of great rewards in the future life and of unspeakable blessings there. These promises the Apostle calls irrevocable. And if God’s promises are irrevocable and there is no doubt that God will fulfill them, then all the more is He Himself faithful and the word about Him firm: and one cannot say that sometimes He is, and sometimes is not; but He always is and is one and the same. What then does it mean: ‘in him it is Yes and Amen’? By this he shows that God’s promises will certainly come to pass, for their fulfillment depends on God, not on man. So there is nothing to fear. For not a man promises, who can be suspected of unfaith, but God, who speaks and acts.”

2 Cor. 1:21, 22. But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, by putting his seal on us and giving us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

“Confirming us”, βεβαιων—confirming; but not simply confirming, but confirming with conviction, communicating to us unshakeable assurance in the firmness of faith and promises about Christ Jesus the Lord. “And has anointed us,” that is, filled us with the Holy Spirit, through whose power the perfections which were prefigured in the ancient high priests, prophets, and kings are communicated to our spirit. This anointing—not an external sign, but the internal indwelling of what is signified. That God’s promises are not false is attested by this anointing. Thus God Himself established it and thus He accomplishes it in us. “Us with you,” that is, both Apostles and believers: for what is spoken of operates equally in those and in others; and the Apostles in this respect have no advantage before believers, for this belongs to the common order of faith and the work of salvation.

The following words: “who has sealed us” explain the anointing; and “and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee” indicate the foundation for the confirmation. “Sealed”—means put in us the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Spirit is God’s seal upon us. A seal on wax gives it form; a seal in our spirit is the forming of it by the action of the received Spirit of grace. By this is signified both regeneration and grace-filling. The Apostle wishes to say by the word “sealed” that all this is not mere name and sign, but power and life. “And given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.” Sealing with the Spirit is the same as giving the Spirit into our hearts, or dwelling of Him in our inner man. This dwelling is a guarantee, that is, a pledge, a down payment, assuring that all the promises, not yet fulfilled, will certainly be fulfilled. The assurance is established by the fact that such a great down payment has been given. If the down payment were small, it would be fitting to still doubt, as is usual in worldly matters; but when it is so great as the giving of the Spirit, who can doubt that all the future will be fulfilled in exactness?

The holy Chrysostom says: “From what has come to pass, the Apostle establishes the truth of what is to come. For if God Himself establishes us in Christ, that is, does not permit us to waver in faith in Christ, and He Himself anointed us and gave the Spirit into our hearts, how will He not give us the blessings promised in the future life? How will He not give us these blessings after He has already given the beginning and foundation, the root and source of them, that is, true knowledge of Him and participation in the Holy Spirit? Truly, if even the present blessings which we enjoy have been given for the sake of those which we still await, then the Giver of the present will certainly give the awaited ones. And if He gave these blessings to us when we were still enemies of His, then all the more will He give the future ones now that we have become loved by Him. Therefore the Apostle did not simply say” “Spirit,” but added “as a guarantee,” that is, a down payment, so as to assure us more and give us hope in receiving all that God has promised. Indeed, if God did not wish to give us all that He promised, He would not be pleased to give a down payment, lest He waste it pointlessly and in vain.

Thus he says that our word was not yes and no with you, and that on the contrary, all that we proclaimed to you is unchangeably true; in this you have tangible assurance in the fact that with you and in you has been accomplished and by you has been received. Do not therefore dare to cast shadow of doubt on this because I changed my plan. On the contrary, from the faithfulness of the work of salvation accomplished in you, you ought to conclude that if I changed my plan, I changed it not from levity or inconstancy, but having important reasons. I will now tell you what they are.