THEOSISJohn Chrysostom
“And I wrote this very thing to you” (v. 3). What thing? “That I did not come, precisely in order to spare you.” When did the Apostle write about this? Was it in the First Epistle, when he said, “I do not want to see you now merely in passing” (1 Cor 16:7)?
No. I think it was in the same Epistle, when he said, “lest, when I come again, my God should humble me among you.” Therefore, he says, “This very thing I wrote to you. At the end of the Epistle, lest, when I come again, my God should humble me among you, and lest I should mourn over many who sinned before” (2 Cor 12:21).
Why then did you write? “So that when I came I might not have sorrow from those over whom I ought to rejoice. For I am confident about you all, that my joy is the joy of you all” (2 Cor 2:3).
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Since the Apostle had said, “I rejoice when you are grieved,” and since these words could still seem too heavy and severe, he again expressed the same thing differently. By the words that followed, he made what he had said more bearable.
“I wrote to you beforehand,” he says, “so that, to my sorrow, I might not find you unreformed. And when I said, ‘that I might not have sorrow,’ I said this with your benefit in view, not my own. I am confident that you rejoice if you see me rejoicing, and that you will be filled with grief when you see me grieving.”
See now how closely connected all that has been said is. Now his words will be clear to us. “For this reason,” he says, “I did not come, so as not to grieve you if I found you still unreformed. I acted this way with your benefit in view, not my own.
From your grief I receive no small pleasure, when I see that you care for me so much that you yourselves grieve and sorrow when you see me grieving: ‘Who makes me glad except the one made sorrowful by me?’
Yet even with this disposition of my soul, because I seek your benefit, ‘I wrote this very thing to you, so that I might not have sorrow.’ And here again I sought not my own benefit, but yours. For I know that you yourselves will grieve when you see me grieving, just as, conversely, you will rejoice when you see me rejoicing.”
See what prudence there is here. First he said, “I did not come so as not to grieve you, though,” he says, “I also rejoice.” Then, lest they think that he rejoices only in their grief, he says, “I rejoice because I still have a place in your hearts.
Otherwise I would have borne a double grief: because I would have been compelled to grieve with reproaches you who love me so much, and because I myself would have grieved, thereby increasing your grief still more.”
See now how he also spoke these words with praise: “those over whom I ought to rejoice.” They testify to his sincerity and great love for them. A father might speak in this way to children for whom he had done much good and labored much.
“Therefore,” he says, “if I only write and do not come to you myself, I do not come because I am arranging something better for you, and not because of hatred for you. It is not because I turn away from you, but because I love you greatly.”
Then, lest, in view of the words that the one who grieves him is the one who makes him glad, they say to him, “So you care only about rejoicing yourself and showing everyone what great power you have among us. ” he adds the following: “For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you, with many tears, not that you should be grieved, but that you might know the love which I have abundantly for you” (v. 4).