2 CORINTHIANS CHAPTER 2
Paul’s Apostolic Kindness. 2 Cor. 2, 1–11.
Paul continues his explanation: V.1. But I determined this with myself, that I would not come again to you in heaviness. V.2. For if I make you sorry, who is he, then, that maketh me glad but the same which is made sorry by me?
Paul had declared that he had reconsidered his intention of visiting them first and changed his plan about coming in order to spare them. And he here adds another point for their consideration: But I decided this for my own sake, not to come to you again in sorrow. His next visit was not to be the painful experience which his last was.
It appears, then, that Paul had made a short visit to Corinth during his long stay at Ephesus and had been deeply hurt and grieved by conditions as he found them there. He had been obliged to use severity, to cause them sorrow. 1 Cor. 4, 21.
And so he asks, in all gentleness: For if I make you sorrowful, who, then, is it that makes me glad, that cheers me, unless it is he that has been made sorrowful by me? His love for the Corinthians had caused him to rebuke their sins and faults, to cause them sorrow, for he had in mind their repentance which would, in turn, gladden his heart.
But if he had come at the time he first intended to visit them, the very people upon whom he depended to cheer him, to be a source of satisfaction and joy to him, would have caused him pain once more, since the abuses which he wanted to have removed were at that time still being tolerated by them. In doing his duty as their spiritual father, in inflicting upon them the chastisement which conditions merited, he would be deprived of the joy which the Corinthian Christians, as his children, afforded him.
But as matters stood, his letter had indeed caused sorrow, but things had meanwhile been adjusted, and Paul was spared the personal intercourse of sorrow.