The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the Second Epistle to the Corinthians
We may see here how heretics twist and wrest aside the Scripture to suit their own fancies, just as if it were a nose of wax. So did the Iconoclasts of olden times, and lately Calvin (de Reliquiis) twist these words of the Apostle against the veneration of relics and of images of Christ and the Saints, just as though the Apostle had said : Now after the resurrection we know not Christ after the flesh ; whatever in Him was carnal must be consigned to oblivion and sent about its business, that we may devote all our energies to seeking Him and possessing Him according to the spirit. But it is most evident that this is not the Apostle’s meaning; for if it were, he would have us forget the flesh, the death, and Passion of Christ, and be unmindful of it and unthankful for it, the very opposite of which Christ commanded when He instituted the Eucharist as the perpetual memorial of His death. Whence S. Paul himself says (1 Cor. xi. 26): “As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do show the Lord’s death till He come.” Therefore the Apostle’s meaning here is not Calvin’s, but the one I have given above. Cf. Second Council of Nice, act 6, following Epiphanius and Cyril.
Ver. 17. — Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature . If any one is with me regenerate in Christ, and re-created and changed, as it were, into a new creature, even as I am not what I was, Saul being changed into Paul, then the old rites of Judaism, the old former affections and judgments, such as knowing any one according to the flesh, have all passed away. In such an one all is made new : he has new affections, new thoughts about the realities and hopes of Christianity, a new life, a new hope of the resurrection, new grace, sanctification, and justification. On this newness, cf. S. Anselm and S. Augustine (de Cantico Novo, vol. ix.).
S. Bernard (de Assumpt. B. Mariae) assigns its cause. He says : “ All things are made new ; i.e., the old fortress is overturned , a new one raised ; lust having been banished, the heart expands with a mighty longing ; and after its arrival the mind yearns far more for heavenly things than it had ever before longed for earthly. Now is the wall of continence raised up , the bulwark of patience . But this work rises on the foundation of faith , and grows by love of one's neighbour till it reaches even to the love of God.”
Ver. 18. — And all things are of God . All these new things were created and given by the gift and grace of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ , and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation , in order that through our preaching we may persuade men to repent and receive the faith of Christ, that so we may reconcile them to God.
Ver. 19. — God was in Christ. I.e., as the Son by oneness of Essence. So Ambrose and Primasius. Hence S. Ambrose (de Fide ad Gratian, lib. iii. c. 5) says that God, i.e., everlasting Divinity, was in Christ, and Christ reconciled the world because He was God. Secondly and better : “ God was in Christ,” i.e., through Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. Thirdly, Cajetan takes it : God reconciled to Himself the world in Christ, or the world that believes in Christ. But this seems forced and harsh.
Not imputing their trespasses unto them. Not imputing but freely forgiving their trespasses, not by imputation of the righteousness of Christ, as the heretics think, but by a real infusion of it. So Chrysostom and Anselm.
Observe the Hebraism. (1.) When the Scripture says that God imputes or does not impute sin, it does not mean that He acts against the reality of things, for so would God be false, but rather, since the judgment of God is most pure, He regards things and sins as they truly are. (2.) The same appears from the fact that the whole law, and consequently every sin against the law, depends on the judgment of God, i.e., on the eternal law which is in the Mind of God. (3.) And the chief reason is that all remission of sins depends on the forgiveness of God : but to forgive is not to impute ; for sin, belonging to the sphere of morals as an offence against God, is removed by forgiveness, which equally belongs to the moral world. But the generous goodness of God infuses, together with this forgiveness , grace, charity, and all virtues, that we may be adorned with them as real gifts of God, may be justified and become worthy of the friendship of God.
And hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. He hath given us the duty of preaching the word of God, by which we are to reconcile men to God, as was said at the last verse. By metonymy , word may be put for the reality as sign for the thing signified . In this way the word of reconciliation would be reconciliation itself, or the power and ministry of reconciling men to God.
Ver. 20. — We pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. As Christ’s ambassadors, even as if Christ were entreating you by us, we implore you to give up your wills to be reconciled to God. See what diligence, what energy, what zeal the Apostle displays in his endeavours to convert the Corinthians.
Ver. 21. — Him who knew no sin. Experimentally, says S. Thomas, Christ knew no sin, though by simple knowledge He did, for He did no sin.
Hath made Him to be sin for us. For us, says Illyricus, who were sin; because, he says, sin is the substance and form of our soul. But to say this of ourselves is folly, of Christ blasphemy. (1.) The meaning is that God made Christ to be the victim offered for our sin, to prevent us from atoning for our sins by eternal death and fire. The Apostle plays on the word sin , for when he says, “Him who knew no sin,” he means sin strictly speaking; but when he says, “He made Him to be sin for us,” he employs a metonymy. So Ambrose, Theophylact, and Anselm. In Ps. xl. 12, Christ calls our sins His. (2.) Sin here denotes, says S. Thomas, the likeness of sinful flesh which He took, that He might be passible, just as sinners who are descended from Adam are liable to suffering. (3.) Sin, in the sense of being regarded by men as a noteworthy sinner, and being crucified as a malefactor. So the Greek Fathers.
Of these three interpretations the first is the more full, significant , and vigorous, and the one more consonant with the usage of Scripture, which frequently speaks of an expiatory victim as sin. Cf. Hosea iv. 8; Lev. iv. 24 and 21 ; Ezek. xliv. 29. The reason of this metonymy is that all the punishment and guilt of the sin were transferred to the expiatory victim, and so the sin itself might seem to be also transferred to it. In token of this the priest was accustomed to lay his hands on the victim, and call down on it the sins of the people ; for by the hands are signified sinful actions, which are for the most part executed by the hands, as Theodoret says in his notes on Leviticus i. Therefore the laying of hands on the victim was both a symbol of oblation and a testimony of the transference of guilt to the victim, showing that it was expiatory, and that it bore the sin itself, with all its burden of guilt and punishment. In this way the high-priest on the great Day of Atonement turned a goat into the wilderness, having imprecated on it the sins of the whole people. Cf. Lev. xvi. 20.
That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him . (1.) That we might be made righteous before God, with the righteousness infused by God through the merits of Christ. So Chrysostom. He says righteousness and not righteous , says Theophylact, to signify the excellency of the grace, which effects that in the righteous there is no deformity, no stain of sin, but that there is complete grace and righteousness throughout. (2.) The righteousness of God was Christ made, in order that its effects, or the likeness of the uncreated righteousness of God, might be communicated to us by His created and infused righteousness. So Cyril ( Thesaur . lib. xii. c. 3). (3.) Christ is so called because God owes not to us, but to Christ and His merits, the infusion of righteousness and the remission of our sins. Cf. Augustine (Enchirid. c. 41). Cf. also 1 Cor. i. 30. Heretics raise the objection that Christ was made for us sin, in the sense that our sin was imputed to Him and was punished in Him; therefore we are made the righteousness of God, because it is imputed to us. I answer that the two things are not parallel; for Christ could not really be a sinner as we can really be righteous, nor does the Apostle press the analogy. He only says that Christ bore our sins, that we through Him might be justified. Moreover, Christ actually was made sin, i.e., a victim for sin (this is the meaning of “sin” here), and therefore we truly become the righteousness of God. So easily and completely can we turn the tables on these Protestant objectors.