I speak not this to condemn you: for I have said before, that you are in our hearts to die and live with you.
All Commentaries on 2 Corinthians 7:3 Go To 2 Corinthians 7
John Chrysostom
AD 407
How is this evident? For I have said before, he adds, that you are in our hearts to die and live with you. This is the greatest affection, when even though treated with contempt, he chooses both to die and live with them. 'For neither are you merely in our hearts,' he says, 'but in such sort as I said. For it is possible both to love and to shun dangers, but we do not thus.' And behold here also wisdom unspeakable. For he spoke not of what had been done for them, that he might not seem to be again reproaching them, but he promises for the future. 'For should it chance,' says he, 'that danger should invade, for your sakes I am ready to suffer every thing; and neither death nor life seems anything to me in itself, but in whichever ye be, that is to me more desirable, both death than life and life than death.' Howbeit, dying indeed is manifestly a proof of love; but living, who is there that would not choose, even of those who are not friends? Why then does the Apostle mention it as something great? Because it is even exceeding great. For numbers indeed sympathize with their friends when they are in misfortune, but when they are in honor rejoice not with, but envy, them. 'But not so we; but whether ye be in calamity, we are not afraid to share your ill fortune; or whether ye be prosperous, we are not wounded with envy.'
2. Then after he had continually repeated these things, saying, You are not straitened in us; and, You are straitened in your own affections; and, make room for us; and, Be also enlarged; and, We wronged no man; and all these things seemed to be a condemnation of them: observe how he also in another manner alleviates this severity by saying, Great is my boldness of speech towards you. 'Therefore I venture upon such things,' he says, 'not to condemn you by what I say, but out of my great boldness of speech,' which also farther signifying, he said, Great is my glorying on your behalf. 'For think not indeed,' he says, 'that because I thus speak, I speak as though I had condemned you altogether; (for I am exceedingly proud of, and glory in, you;) but both out of tender concern and a desire that you should make greater increase unto virtue.' And so he said to the Hebrews also after much rebuke; But we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak: and we desire that each one of you may show the same diligence to the fullness of hope even to the end. Hebrews 6:9-11 So indeed here also, Great is my glorying on your behalf. 'We glory to others of you,' he says. Do you see what genuine comfort he has given? 'And,' he says, 'I do not simply glory, but also, greatly.' Accordingly he added these words; I am filled with comfort. What comfort? 'That coming from you; because that you, having been reformed, comforted me by your conduct.' This is the test of one that loves, both to complain of not being loved and to fear lest he should inflict pain by complaining immoderately. Therefore he says, I am filled with comfort, I overflow with joy. 'But these expressions,' says one, 'seem to contradict the former.' They do not do so, however, but are even exceedingly in harmony with them. For these procure for the former a favorable reception; and the praise which they convey makes the benefit of those rebukes more genuine, by quietly abstracting what was painful in them. Wherefore he uses these expressions, but with great genuineness and earnestness. For he did not say, 'I am filled with joy;' but, I abound; or rather, not abound either, but superabound; in this way also again showing his yearning, that even though he be so loved as to rejoice and exult, he does not yet think himself loved as he ought to be loved, nor to have received full payment; so insatiable was he out of his exceeding love of them. For the joy it brings to be loved in any degree by those one passionately loves, is great by reason of our loving them exceedingly. So that this again was a proof of his affection. And of the comfort indeed, he says, I am filled; 'I have received what was owing to me;' but of the joy, I superabound; that is, 'I was desponding about you; but you have sufficiently excused yourselves and supplied comfort: for you have not only removed the ground of my sorrow, but have even increased joy.' Then showing its greatness, he not only declares it by saying, I superabound in joy, but also by adding, in all our affliction. 'For so great was the delight arising to us on your account that it was not even dimmed by so great tribulation, but through the excess of its own greatness it overcame the sorrows that had hold of us, and suffered us not to feel the sense of them.'
