Now Is the Accepted Time; the Marks of the Ministers of God (2 Cor. 6:1–6)

2 Cor. 6:1. And working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain.

The discourse above was about how the Apostles, by God’s command, go everywhere and urge all to enter with God into the covenant of peace, arranged by Him for their salvation. Now his word turns to those who have already entered into this covenant, to those who have already believed, repented, been baptized, and received the gift of the Holy Spirit. He says as it were: we not only invite all to enter into the covenant of peace with God, but we also do not abandon those who have already entered, but continue to care for them, beseeching them so that, having been vouchsafed such great grace, they might from now on keep themselves worthy of it, so that it might not be received in vain by them but might bring forth fruit worthy of it. It is not important merely to enter into this covenant and receive the grace connected with it, but it is especially important to fulfill its conditions precisely. “Therefore, listen to us and do not accept in vain the grace proposed to you; that is, so that you do not think that reconciliation consists only in believing in the One calling, He still requires the correction of life. For when you have received forgiveness of sins and been reconciled with God, to live as before is the same as to begin again to wage war and to receive grace in vain. Grace will not save us in an unclean and dishonorable life; on the contrary, it will harm us even more and increase our sins if after such knowledge and gift we return to former lawlessness. However, the Apostle does not clearly say this so as not to make his word heavy; but he only says that otherwise we will receive no benefit.” (St. John Chrysostom).

“With such a thought on the content of this text, the word: ‘working together,’ συνεργουντες, can also have this meaning: continuing our work and our labor, we beseech you also that this grace might not be received in vain. It turns out: ‘working together’ with you; for we, he says, help you more than God, from whom we are sent. He has no need of anything; all salvation belongs to you. However, this does not deny that the Apostles were also helpers to God, as he says in another place: ‘we are God’s fellow workers’ (1 Cor 3:9).” (St. John Chrysostom). So also Theodoret: “He makes known that the messengers are cooperating with those being urged to make use of Divine grace and not to make the economy fruitless and vain if they show life contrary to it.” Theophylact admits both, holding that the Apostle, saying: “working together,” meant cooperation with both God and people. “We are working together,” he says, “both with you and with God: with you, so that you might be saved; with God, so that His desire to save us might be fulfilled.”

2 Cor. 6:2. For He says: ‘In an acceptable time I heard you, “and on a day of salvation” “I helped you. Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”

He continues to persuade them not to make vain the grace they have received. Hasten, he says, to use the time; now it is very favorable for salvation; if you neglect it, you will perish. The time, he means,—the time of this life for each person and the time until the second coming for all people. Thus Saint Chrysostom: “Do not give yourselves to carelessness; strive in every way to please God and to gather spiritual treasures; so that after such great care from God, having given yourselves to carelessness and shown nothing good, you may not be deprived of such great blessings. Do not think that this forbearance will continue forever. It will continue only until the second coming of the Lord. He will entreat and call, as long as we are here, but after that—judgment and torment. This, he says, is what moves us to entreat you. He stirs believers not only by the abundance and height of blessings and the kindness of God, but by the shortness of time, and not only by the shortness of the time given, but by the fact that this time alone is favorable for salvation. ‘Behold now, he says, is the favorable time; behold now is the day of salvation.’ Let us not then lose the favorable time, but show concern worthy of the grace given us. Therefore, he says, we ourselves also hasten, knowing the shortness of the favorable time. ‘The favorable time.’ What is this time? — The time of gift and grace, in which no accountability for sins is required and no condemnation is pronounced, but with the forgiveness of sins countless blessings are offered to be enjoyed: justification, sanctification and all others. How much one would have to labor to obtain such a time? But behold, without any labor on our part, this time has come, bringing with it the remission of all sins committed before. Therefore he calls it favorable; because the Lord now receives even the greatest sinners, and not only receives them, but even honors them with the highest honors. For at the coming of the king it is not a time of judgment, but of mercy and salvation. Therefore, again, he calls the time favorable, as long as we are in the struggle, as long as we work in the vineyard, as long as the eleventh hour remains. So let us undertake the struggle, show a virtuous life; for it is easy and fitting to receive a reward when struggling in such a time, in which such gifts have been poured out, such grace. And with earthly kings, at the time of celebrations, when they appear in royal garments, even one who has labored little receives great gifts; but at the time when they judge, greater exactness is required and great effort to obtain anything. Therefore we too will struggle in such a favorable time now, in which all things are given freely. For now is the time of grace, of God’s grace, in which we can easily obtain crowns. For if God accepted and forgave us burdened with such sins, will He not all the more accept us, already forgiven, when we bring something also from our own will?”

The Apostle brings this lesson together with the prophetic word. Our interpreters do not dwell on the words of the prophet, but take the general thought of the text and explain it. From this it is evident that whether we understand the word of the prophet as we should, whether in the flow of prophetic speech there and here in the flow of apostolic speech, or not – the lesson of the Apostle remains equally powerful. The Apostle takes the words of the prophet Isaiah: “The Lord says” (Is. 49:8). Who speaks? – In the prophet Isaiah it directly states: “The Lord.” “Thus says the Lord.” To whom does the Lord address His speech in the prophet? – To him of whom He said above: “I have given you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles, that you may be my salvation to the end of the earth” (Is. 49:6). It is evident that here Christ Jesus, the Lord Saviour, is being spoken of. The words brought by the Apostle are read the same way in the prophet: “At a favorable time I listened to you, and on a day of salvation I helped you.” – “I listened” presupposes a prayer from the Saviour to God the Father, and “I helped” – the hearing of the prayer and the granting of all requested. When did the Lord Saviour pray so fervently that it was anticipated and known by the prophetic spirit? – About this the same Apostle says: “In the days of His flesh, He offered up prayers and entreaties to the One able to save Him from death, with loud cries and tears, and was heard because of His reverence” and so on. (Heb. 5:7). From this it is evident that the prophet calls the favorable time and the day of salvation that time when the Son of God, having become incarnate and suffered, thereby opened all the treasuries of Divine grace to mankind. The cross-bearing death was His prayer and supplication, not by word but by deed, and it attracted all God’s mercies to us. This intercessory prayer, having begun, does not cease, but continually rises with a loud cry to God for mercies toward us. Hence the favorable time and the day of salvation is all the time while this intercession has power, and it will cease when the sole Mediator comes instead of intercession to judge; all the time from Christ’s first coming to the second – the time of establishing Christ’s kingdom on earth, a kingdom of grace. The prophetic indication is very clear precisely about this; for he says afterward “I helped you – to establish the earth,” and further: “saying to the prisoners, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Appear.’” “Those in bonds” are those ensnared by sins, and “those in darkness” – those plunged in the murk of ignorance. The Apostles did nothing other than carry everywhere on behalf of Christ the Saviour freedom from the bonds of sin and enlightenment by the light of Divine knowledge. Therefore the holy Paul could not fail to see in his time the precise fulfillment of the prophetic word. He speaks as it were: the favorable time proclaimed by the prophet has come; hasten to use it, for if there is favorable time, then there is also unfavorable time; and who can say when it will come?! “Behold, now is the favorable time, behold, now is the day of salvation.” And tomorrow, perhaps, one can no longer say thus. Therefore, do not delay.

2 Cor. 6:3, 4. We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that our ministry will not be blamed, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: through much endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in straits.

We do our work, he says, as we should, with all diligence. To help you progress in the life of grace, we do everything on our part: we persuade you not only in word but also conduct ourselves so as not only not to be an obstacle to anyone, but rather to present ourselves to all as an example of how God’s servants should live. Looking at us, no one can reasonably think that we are not God’s servants, and consequently suspect our word of falsehood. Having been convinced of the truthfulness of our word and accepting it as completely true, you have in this an incentive to faithfully fulfill it; and how to fulfill it, our life will teach you. St. John Chrysostom says: “Since the Apostle is accustomed to present himself in the middle so that they might take an example from him, he does this here as well, saying: ‘We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that our ministry’ might be ‘blameless.’ He draws conviction not only from time, as he did above, but also from the example of those who labored as they should. And see how modestly he does this. He did not say: look at us, and we are such and such; but, as if defending against accusation, he enumerates his own labors and virtues. He sets down two distinguishing features of a blameless life: the first is ‘we put no obstacle in anyone’s way’; he did not say: accusation, but what is far less important, ‘obstacle,’ that is, giving no one even a pretext for slander and reproach against us, ‘so that our ministry’ might be ‘blameless,’ so that no one would begin to blame this ministry; and again he did not say: so that no one would blame or accuse, but so that it might give no accidental occasion for anyone to be able to blame it in anything.”

The second feature is: “but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way” (2 Cor. 6:4), which is far higher than the preceding. Because it is not the same thing to be free from accusation and to conduct oneself so that it is clear from everything that we are God’s servants. Similarly, it is one thing to avoid blame and another to be praised. He did not say: showing ourselves (φαινομενοι—appearing in appearance) but “we commend ourselves” (συνιςωντες), that is, in deed and from the heart representing ourselves, or being such. Further, he speaks of how they became such. How then?

“Through much endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in straits.” He set endurance as the foundation of blessings, which is why he said not simply: in endurance but “through much endurance,” to show the measure and extent of it: for to endure one or two hardships is not yet a great thing; therefore he enumerates many sorrows and trials, saying: “in afflictions, in hardships.”

“In afflictions,” not in such cases that oppress only externally, but in such cases that strike and wound the heart, and are truly painful sorrows. “In hardships,” αναγκαις, in necessities and extremities, from which the sorrow is felt even more acutely by the sorrowful. “Extremity strains sorrow, representing the evil that oppresses man as unavoidable” (Theophylact). “For sorrow is usually increased when one cannot avoid misfortunes, and as if some unavoidable necessity requires suffering” (St. John Chrysostom). “In straits.” Strait is the final degree of extremity; evil has seized and oppresses, like a beast that has seized its prey. He means “strait from hunger and necessary needs, or simply strait from trials in general” (St. John Chrysostom), “such a sorrowful condition from which no convenient exit appeared” (Oecumenius).

2 Cor. 6:5. In beatings, in prisons, in riots, in labors, in sleepless nights, in hunger.

“In beatings,” of course from blows. By the time of writing this, it was known that the Apostle was stoned in Lystra (Acts 14:19), which could not have happened without wounds, and beaten with rods in great numbers of blows in Philippi (Acts 16:22, 23). He himself testifies of himself that from the Jews he received five times forty stripes less one and was beaten with rods three times (2 Cor 11:24, 25). “In prisons.” Having beaten him with rods abundantly in Philippi, together with Silas they threw him into prison; and in general, as he himself says, he was in prisons “far more abundantly” (2 Cor 11:23). “In riots,” ακαταςασιαις, when persecution arose against him with noise and commotion, forcing him to flee from one place to another. Mostly the Jews raised such storms against him. So it was in Iconium (Acts 14:5), in Thessalonica (Acts 17:5), in Berea (Acts 17:13), and in Corinth itself toward the end of his stay there (Acts 18:12). St. John Chrysostom says: “And each of these three trials is in itself grievous: it is grievous to endure scourging, grievous to be in bonds, and it is grievous to have no rest from persecution—for that is what ‘in riots’ means—but when all these sorrows come upon you all together, think what kind of soul is required for this!”

“In labors:” the most difficult labors—travel, mostly on foot; then the labors of work for his own support and that of others; teaching required labor, and the establishment of order in the newly established Christian churches. “In sleepless nights,” when he spent nights in prayer or conversation with the newly converted. So in Philippi he and Silas around midnight, praying, sang to God (Acts 16:25), and then engaged in instructing and baptizing the jailer with all his household and spent the whole night without closing his eyes. So later in Troas he extended his discourse until midnight; and after the young man Eutychus, who had fallen from the window, was revived, he conversed until dawn, until the time came to leave the city (Acts 20:7, 11). The same, of course, happened in all other places. “In hunger,” when not from lack but voluntarily he deprived himself of food, as an aid to prayer and for appeasing God, to prepare himself for any struggle against falsehood and error. Fasting is a powerful moral means and a precious feat in the eyes of God. St. John Chrysostom says: “Here to the external (involuntary) sorrows he adds those that depended on him himself, pointing to the labors with which he burdened himself, traveling from place to place and working with his own hands; to the nights in which he taught or worked for himself, and at the same time did not forget fasting, though these feats alone were worth more than a thousand fasts.”

2 Cor. 6:6. By purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love.

“By purity,” εν αγνοτητι, in cleanness, in purity. Here he means either chastity (bodily and of heart), or purity in all things (moral purity, purity of intentions, purity of conscience in general), or non-covetousness (Theophylact—freedom from corrupt gain), or that he also preached the Gospel for free (St. John Chrysostom). “By knowledge,” εν γνωσει, in knowledge of Divine things, seeing all clearly and being powerful to resolve all difficulties. St. John Chrysostom asks: what is “knowledge”? And answers: “Wisdom descending from God, which is truly knowledge and understanding. Supposed wise men boasting of external learning do not have this understanding.” “By patience,” εν μακροθυμια, by magnanimity, which despite all unpleasantness from others does not lose a peaceful and kind disposition toward them. “This is important testimony of a courageous and noble soul—to endure blows and strikes magnanimously, coming from all sides” (St. John Chrysostom). “An adamantine soul has this property: when they torment and wound from all sides, not only to endure it with equanimity but also to show goodwill to the offenders” (Theophylact). “By kindness,” εν χρηστοτητι, by tenderness of heart, when they have a merciful heart toward all, ready to do any good to anyone, to dispel any sorrow, to avert any misfortune—a heart that cannot see unmoved the need or sorrow of another and cannot rest until it exhausts all its means and eases his lot.

“By the Holy Spirit,” not in the general grace of the Holy Spirit that all Christians have, but in that which filled the Apostles abundantly, bestowing upon them all that was necessary for the confirmation of the faith of Christ on earth. By this is encompassed the whole fullness of apostolic spiritual gifts. From it came all the enumerated feats and virtues and every success in spreading faith. St. John Chrysostom says: “Through Him, he says (that is, through the Holy Spirit), we accomplish all this. But see where he placed the help of the Holy Spirit—after already enumerating his own feats. It seems to me he wished to show something special. What? It is fair to say that we are abundantly filled with the Holy Spirit and justify our Apostolate no less in that we have been vouchsafed spiritual gifts; nevertheless, we ourselves, he says, were not without part in this: our conditions, labors, and feats gave room for God’s grace to work through us. And if someone thinks that besides what is said, the Apostle in these words further expresses that they, in the use of the gifts of grace, gave no one any occasion for offense, I think he will not go against the sense. Indeed, some of the Corinthians, having received the gift of tongues and being puffed up by it, gave occasion for their own condemnation, for whoever receives spiritual gifts can also abuse them. But we, he says, were not such; we remained blameless in the Spirit, that is, in spiritual gifts.” “By genuine love.” Love is the all-embracing virtue; and all the virtues enumerated above and the feats proceed from it, as the Apostle expounded in his first letter, ch. 13. She is poured into hearts by the Holy Spirit; which is why she is set immediately after the words: “by the Holy Spirit.” That he added: “genuine,” he added to distinguish it from works of love shown in visible activity. The works of love can be accomplished by rational self-compulsion, well-intentioned or not; and the path to acquiring love is voluntary labor in doing works of love, until at last the grace of the Spirit fills the whole heart. Of this latter the Apostle speaks, that not only his visible works of love, but his very heart is full of love. “This was the cause of all the blessings he obtained; this is what made him such and preserved the Spirit in him, by whose action all in him came to perfection” (St. John Chrysostom).