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The authorised translation at first sight strikes us as most suitable. Practically Paul had been engaged in a conflict with the Corinthians, and for a time it seemed not improbable that he might be beaten; but God caused him to triumph in Christ — i.e., acting in Christ's interests, in matters in which Christ's name and honour were at stake, the victory, as always, had remained with him. But there can be little doubt that the Revisers were right in translating "leadeth us in triumph." The triumph is God's, not the apostle's. Paul is not the soldier who wins the battle and shouts for victory as he marches in the triumphal procession; he is the captive who is led in the conqueror's train, and in whom men see the trophy of the conqueror's power. When he says that God always leads him in triumph in Christ, the meaning is not perfectly obvious. He may intend to define, as it were, the area over which God's victory extends. In everything which is covered by the name and authority of Christ, God triumphantly asserts His power over the apostle. Or he may mean that it is through Christ that God's victorious power is put forth. These two meanings, of course, are not inconsistent, and practically they coincide. It cannot be denied, I think, if this is taken rigorously, that there is a certain air of irrelevance about it. It does not seem to be the purpose of the passage to say that God always triumphs over Paul and those for whom he speaks, or even that He always leads them in triumph. It is this feeling which mainly influences those who keep to A.V., and regard Paul as the victor. But the meaning of the original is not really open to doubt, and the semblance of the irrelevance disappears if we remember that we are dealing with a figure, and a figure which the apostle himself does not press. Of course, in an ordinary triumph, such as that of Claudius over Caractacus, of which Paul may easily have heard, the captives had no share in the victory; it was not only a victory over them, but against them. But when God wins a victory over man, and leads his captive in triumph, the captive too has an interest in what happens; it is the beginning of all triumphs, in any true sense, for him. If we apply this to the case before us, we shall see that the true meaning is not irrelevant. Paul had once been the enemy of God in Christ; he had fought against Him in his own soul, and in the Church which he persecuted and wasted. The battle had been long and strong, but not far from Damascus it had terminated in a mighty victory for God. There the mighty man fell, and the weapons of his warfare perished. His pride, his self-righteousness, his sense of superiority to others and of competence to attain to the righteousness of God, collapsed for ever, and he rose from the earth to be the slave of Jesus Christ. That was the beginning of God's triumph over him; from that hour God led him in triumph in Christ. But it was the beginning also of all that made the apostle's life itself a triumph — not a career of hopeless internal strife, such as it had been, but of unbroken Christian victory. So the only triumphs we can ever have, deserving the name, must begin with Christ's triumph over us. This is the one possible source of joy untroubled. We may be as selfish as we please, and as successful in our selfishness; we may distance all our rivals in the race for the world's prizes; we may appropriate and engross pleasure, wealth, knowledge, influence; and after all there will be one thing we must do without — the power and happiness of thanking God. No one will ever be able to thank God because he has succeeded in pleasing himself, be the mode of his self-pleasing as respectable as you will; and he who has not thanked God with a whole heart, without misgiving or reserve, does not know what joy is. Such thanksgiving and its joy have one condition: they rise up spontaneously in the soul when it allows God to triumph over it. When God appears in Christ, when, in the omnipotence of His love and purity and truth, He makes war on our pride and falsehood and lusts, and prevails against them, and brings us low, then we are admitted to the secret of this apparently perplexing passage; we know how natural it is to cry, "Thanks be unto God, who in His victory over us giveth us the victory! Thanks be to Him who always leadeth us in triumph!" It is out of an experience like this that Paul speaks; it is the key to his whole life, and it has been illustrated anew by what has just happened at Corinth.

(J. Denney, B. D.)

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KJV: Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.

WEB: Now thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and reveals through us the sweet aroma of his knowledge in every place.