2 Corinthians 12:12-15 Truly the signs of an apostle were worked among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds. are frequently referred to by Paul, and are of various kinds. By far the most important and frequently insisted on is success in evangelistic work. He who converts men and founds churches has the supreme and final attestation of apostleship (1 Corinthians 9:2; 2 Corinthians 3:1-3). In this passage Calvin makes patience a sign. Patience is certainly a characteristic Christian virtue, and it is magnficently exercised in the apostolic life, but it is not peculiarly apostolic. Patience, here — "every kind of Christian patience," rather — brings before our minds the conditions under which Paul did his apostolic work. Discouragements of every description, bad health, suspicion, dislike, contempt, moral apathy and moral licence the weight of all these pressed upon him heavily, but he bore up under them, and did not suffer them to break his spirit or to arrest his labours. His endurance was a match for them all, and the power of Christ that was in him broke forth in spite of them in apostolic signs. There were conversions, in the first place; but there were also miracles, viewed under three different aspects. 1. "Signs," as addressed to man's intelligence, and conveying a spiritual meaning. 2. Wonders, as giving a shock to feeling, and moving nature in those depths which sleep through common experience. 3. Powers, as arguing in him who works them a more than human efficiency. But no doubt the main character they bore in the apostle's mind was that of charismata — gifts of grace, which God ministered to the Church by His Spirit. It is natural for an unbeliever to misunderstand even N.T. miracles, because he wishes to conceive of them, as it were, in vacuo, or in relation to the laws of nature; in the N.T. itself they are conceived in relation to the Holy Ghost. Even Jesus is said in the Gospels to have cast out devils by the Spirit of God; and when Paul wrought "signs and wonders and powers," it was in carrying out his apostolic work, graced by the same Spirit. What things he had done at Corinth we have no means of knowing; but the Corinthians knew, and they knew that these things had no arbitrary or accidental character, but were the tokens of an apostle. (J. Denney, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds. |
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