Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Corinthians 1

Timothy our brother. Literally, Timothy the brother. The word is used obviously in its wider sense as meaning a fellow-Christian. The opening words of the Epistle are nearly identical with those of 1 Corinthians 1:1. Timotheus, however, takes the place of Sosthenes, having apparently left Corinth before the arrival of the First Epistle, or, possibly, not having reached it. (See Introduction.) It is natural to think of him as acting in this instance, as in others where the Apostle joins his name with his own (Philippians 1:1; Colossians 1:1), as St. Paul’s amanuensis.

With all the saints. On the term “saints,” see Note on Acts 9:13. The term Achaia, which does not occur in the opening of 1 Corinthians, includes the whole of the Roman province, and was probably used to take in the disciples of Cenchreæ (Romans 16:1) as well as those of Corinth, and possibly also those of Athens.

Grace be to you.—See Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:3.

Blessed be God . . . the Father of mercies.—The opening words are spoken out of the fullness of the Apostle’s heart. He has had a comfort which he recognizes as having come from God. The nature of that comfort, as of the previous sorrow, is hardly stated definitely until we come to 2 Corinthians 2:13; 2 Corinthians 7:6–7.

At present the memory of it leads him to something like a doxology, as being the utterance of a more exulting joy than a simple thanksgiving, such as we find in 1 Corinthians 1:4; Philippians 1:3; Colossians 1:3.

The same formula meets us in Ephesians 1:3, where also it expresses a jubilant adoration. Two special names of God are added under the influence of the same feeling. He is the Father of mercies, the genitive being possibly a Hebraism, used in place of the cognate adjective; in which case it is identical with "God, the merciful Father," in Jewish prayers, or with the ever-recurring formula of the Koran, "Allah, the compassionate, the merciful."

It seems better, however, to take the words more literally, as stating that God is the originator of all mercies, the source from which they flow. So we have Father of lights in James 1:17. The precise phrase does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament; but we have the same noun in the mercies of God in Romans 12:1.

The God of all comfort.—The latter word, of which (taking the books of the New Testament in their chronological order) this is the earliest occurrence, includes the idea of counsel as well as consolation. (See Note on Acts 4:36.) It is used only by St. Paul, St. Luke, and the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and is preeminently characteristic of this Epistle, in which it occurs twelve, or, with the cognate verb, twenty-eight times.

In the balanced structure of the sentence—the order of "God" and "Father" in the first clause being inverted in the second—we may trace something like an unconscious adoption of the familiar parallelism of Hebrew poetry.

Who comforts us.—For the writer, the name “God of all comfort” was the outcome of a living personal experience. He had felt that ever-continuing comfort flowing into his soul, and he knew that it had not been given to him for his own profit only, but that it might flow forth to others. Heathen poets had asserted one side of the truth. Sophocles had said—

“They comfort others who themselves have mourned;”

—Fragm.

and Virgil—

“Not ignorant of ill, I, too, have learned
To aid those that suffer.”—Æn. i. 630.

There was a yet deeper truth in the thought that the power to comfort varies with the measure in which we have been comforted ourselves. Sorrow alone may lead to sympathy, but it falls short of that power to speak a word in season to those who are weary (Isaiah 1:4), which is of the very essence of the work of comforting. The words imply that he had passed through a time of tribulation himself. They imply also that he knew of their troubles (Compare 2 Corinthians 7:7–11).

Abound in us.—Better, overflow to us. The sufferings of Christ, as in 1 Peter 4:13 and 1 Peter 5:1 (the Greek in 1 Peter 1:11 expresses a different thought), are those which He endured on earth.

These are also the sufferings which, in His mysterious union with His Church, are thought of as passing from Him to every member of His body, so that they too may drink of the cup that He drank of.

For the thought that in our sufferings, of whatever nature, we share Christ’s sufferings, compare to 2 Corinthians 4:10; Philippians 3:10; Colossians 1:24; and 1 Peter 4:13.

The use of the plural, as in “our tribulations” and “overflow to us”, is partly because St. Paul joined Timothy with himself in his salutation.

It is also partly because this is his usual way of speaking of himself unless he needs to distinctly assert his own individuality.

So our consolation also abounds.—Better, as before, overflows. The consolation which has come to him through Christ, as the channel through whom it flows down from the Father, has, like the suffering, an expansive power, and pours itself out on others.