2 Corinthians 7:12

These verses belong to 2 Corinthians 7:5–16, where Paul tells of the comfort and joy that followed a time of deep anxiety. He had sent the Corinthians a severe letter about serious trouble in the church, and he waited anxiously to hear how they had taken it.

Titus came back with news of their repentance and their renewed affection for Paul, and his fear gave way to comfort (2 Corinthians 7:5–7). Corinth was a busy, wealthy port city with a mixed population and a name for loose living, and the church there struggled with divisions, immorality, lawsuits between believers, and confusion over spiritual gifts and the resurrection. Paul had founded that church, and his letters to it show both deep affection and the need to confront. Letters were the main way an apostle could teach, rebuke and encourage a church while he was away from it, and Paul used his authority to build the church up.

“For though I made you sorry with a letter” uses the Greek verb lypéō, to distress, or in the passive, to be sad or to grieve. The letter did what Paul meant it to do, and it grieved them. Then comes “I do not repent, though I did repent”. Both uses of “repent” in this verse translate metaméllomai, a verb meaning “to care afterwards”, to regret, a change of feeling about something already done. For a time after sending the letter Paul regretted the pain he had given people he loved. Now he has settled the matter in his own heart, because he can see what the letter accomplished. In English this “repent” looks like the “repentance” of the next two verses, but the Greek words differ. Here Paul is speaking of his own feelings about the letter, and what he rejoices over in the Corinthians is metánoia, the turning of a whole life.

“For I perceive” is blépō, to see clearly. Paul sees that the same letter that grieved them did so “but for a season”. The word is hṓra, an hour or a time, and here it marks a short while. The grief was brief, and the good it brought has lasted. Scripture says the same of the Lord’s own correction: “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby” (Hebrews 12:11). God uses present pain for lasting good in the same way when tribulation works patience, experience and hope (Romans 5:3–5), and when the trying of our faith works patience (James 1:2–4).

Paul’s honesty about his feelings shows a shepherd’s heart. He felt their pain keenly, and he still put their good before God ahead of his own comfort and their good opinion of him.

“Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance”. Paul’s joy rests on what their grief produced. Delight in their pain would be cruel, and what fills him with joy is the repentance their pain led to. “Made sorry” and “sorrowed” are again the verb lypéō, and here it describes the real grief the Corinthians felt over what they had done and allowed.

The word for repentance is metánoia. Strong’s describes it as compunction for guilt, including reformation, and by implication the reversal of a decision. It is a change of mind, a turning around, which shows itself in a new attitude, a new direction and new conduct. Repentance turns a person away from sin and toward God, into a new way of life.

“For ye were made sorry after a godly manner” explains why their grief did them good. The Greek is kata theon, “according to God”. Katá means according to, or after the manner of, and theós is the common word for a god, and especially for the one true God. This was sorrow in line with God’s will. It saw their sin as an offence against God and his holiness, and so it led them back to him. God himself brought this sorrow about, or allowed it, for their good.

“That ye might receive damage by us in nothing” tells us the result. Because their sorrow led to repentance, Paul’s letter did them no lasting harm. It spared them the far greater damage that sin left alone and a hardened heart would have done, and their bond with Paul came through whole and stronger. A heart broken over sin is the very thing God receives: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise” (Psalm 51:17).

In the Greek and Roman world, sorrow could be taken as a sign of weakness, and public shame was a common way of keeping people in line. The sorrow Paul praises is grief before God over sin, and its aim is a changed heart and a right standing with God.

“For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” The noun for sorrow is lýpē, sadness, grief or heaviness, and “sorrow” stands twice in this verse. Grief itself can go either way. What decides its worth is where it comes from and where it leads.

The verb in both halves of the verse is katergázomai, to work fully, to accomplish or produce. Each kind of sorrow carries something through to its end. Godly sorrow produces repentance, metánoia, and that repentance leads “to salvation”, sōtēría, which is deliverance, healing and eternal life.

“Not to be repented of” translates ametamélētos. It describes a repentance that a person will never regret, because it leads to true life and freedom. The word is built on the same root as metaméllomai, the regret Paul spoke of in verse 8. Paul regretted his letter for a while, and the repentance it produced is one that nobody ever regrets.

“The sorrow of the world”, lýpē tou kósmou, centres on self: on personal loss, on shame, and on the consequences of being found out. It has no hope in it and no desire to be reconciled to God. It too works something through to its end, and what it produces is death, thánatos. The word covers physical death, and here it means above all spiritual death, separation from God. The sorrow of the world can show itself in despair, bitterness, spiritual deadness or isolation, and it leads to ruin. Scripture gives a sobering example in Judas, whose remorse after betraying Jesus ended in his own death (Matthew 27:3–5).

“For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort”. “Behold”, idoú, calls attention to what follows, and “this selfsame thing” is the godly sorrow of verses 9 and 10. Here again “godly” comes from theós: they sorrowed according to God, grieving over sin as he sees it. Paul then lists seven things that this sorrow worked in them, and the words “yea, what” come before each of the last six, so that every item lands with its own weight.

• Carefulness. The word is spoudē, earnest diligence. They dealt with the sin promptly, seriously and thoroughly.
• Clearing of yourselves. They made their defence, showing that they stood apart from the sin, by separating themselves from the wrongdoer and by putting right their own earlier failure.
• Indignation. Aganáktēsis is anger, and theirs was aimed at the sin itself, a moral revulsion at evil.
• Fear. Phóbos here is a reverent fear of God’s displeasure and a wariness of falling into the same offence again, the kind of fear that leads to obedience.
• Vehement desire. Epipóthēsis is intense longing. They longed to be reconciled with Paul and to have their fellowship restored, and with it a right standing with God.
• Zeal. Zēlos is fervent eagerness, here to put the wrong right and keep the church pure.
• Revenge. Ekdíkēsis, vindication or the carrying out of justice, explained below.

“In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.” To approve, synistáō, is to show or commend, and to be clear, hagnós, is to be pure or blameless. By these actions the church proved that it had broken with the wrong that had grieved Paul, and he declares his full confidence in their repentance.

Godly sorrow works itself out in deeds. John the Baptist called for exactly this: “Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance” (Luke 3:8). The Corinthians’ response answered the call to purity in the body of believers that Paul had given them before: “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump” (1 Corinthians 5:6–8).

“Wherefore, though I wrote unto you” draws a conclusion from all Paul has said. “Wherefore” is ára, which marks a result drawn from what goes before, and “wrote” is gráphō, the ordinary verb to write.

“I did it not for his cause that had done the wrong, nor for his cause that suffered wrong”. The letter dealt with a wrong between two people, and Paul wrote it for the whole church. He was taking neither side in a personal quarrel, and he was acting from love, free of any grudge of his own. Scripture leaves both men unnamed. Many identify the wrongdoer with the man of 1 Corinthians 5:1, and the one who suffered wrong may be the church as a whole or a particular person.

“But that our care for you in the sight of God might appear unto you.” “Care” is spoudḗ, earnestness, eagerness, diligence, the same word that verse 11 translates “carefulness”. The Corinthians’ earnestness in putting things right answered Paul’s own earnestness for them. His care was active and intense, and it drove him to the hard step of writing a severe letter. He said the same of that letter earlier: he wrote “that ye might know the love which I have more abundantly unto you” (2 Corinthians 2:4). It is the love that shows in his prayer for another church, “that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment” (Philippians 1:9–11).

“In the sight of God” is enṓpion, literally “in the face of”, in the presence of, before. Paul’s care was exercised before God, who sees every heart, so his motives lay open to the Judge of all. That was how he always served. He spoke of the testimony of his conscience that he had lived in simplicity and godly sincerity (2 Corinthians 1:12). He wrote, “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Corinthians 5:11), and he spoke “not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts” (1 Thessalonians 2:4). He told Felix that he exercised himself “to have always a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men” (Acts 24:16).

Correction given like this is love at work, and its goal is restoration. Paul tells the spiritual to “restore such an one in the spirit of meekness” (Galatians 6:1), and God himself chastens his children “for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness” (Hebrews 12:10–11).

True repentance is possible because of Christ. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin against a holy God, and that sorrow leads us to the cross, to “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Through his name “whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts 10:43), and by his death we are reconciled to God (Romans 5:10–11). Christ bore the righteous judgment for sin: “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

That is why godly sorrow leads “to salvation not to be repented of”. The eternal life and restored fellowship with God that Christ bought by his death and resurrection are the salvation no one regrets. “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:17). Apart from him the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), the end that the sorrow of the world comes to. Those who turn to him are made new, for “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Jesus began his preaching with this same call: “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). The fruit worthy of repentance that the Corinthians bore was the work of his Spirit in them, and their sorrow gave way to joy, as the psalm says: “weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Psalm 30:5).

These verses show that God uses grief over sin to bring his people home. The pain of conviction lasts for a season, and the repentance it produces leads to a salvation that no one regrets. The sorrow that turns us to God is his gift, and in the end it does us no damage. Its fruit is plain to see: earnestness, a clean break with the wrong, a reverent fear of God, and a longing to be reconciled.

They also show us the heart of a faithful shepherd. Paul grieved to cause pain, wrote anyway, and wrote before God out of care for the church, and he rejoiced when the hard word did its work. God’s own discipline comes from the same love, “for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth” (Hebrews 12:6), and it is always for the good of those he loves.