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"And in this confidence I was desirous (not `determined' but the imperfect, `I was
wishing') before to come unto you, in order that a second benefit (grace, or joy) ye might
have, and by your means to pass unto Macedonia, and again from Macedonia to come
unto you, and by you be sent forward unto Judæa. When I therefore was thus desirous,
did I show fickleness?" (II Cor. 1: 15-17).
The apostle expresses his wishes in this passage, but we must not assume that he was
ruled by them. His wishes were ruled by his will, even as his will, as he is yet to show,
was always subservient to the will and purpose of God.
To show how unfounded was any possible charge of fickleness, the apostle states
categorically his reason for not visiting Corinth as he had wished to do:--
"Moreover, I call God for a witness upon my soul that to spare you I came not as yet
to Corinth . . . . . but I determined this with myself that I would not come again to you in
heaviness" (II Cor. 1: 23, 2: 1).
Resuming our reading at verse 17, we find a change. Leaving his desires which,
though expressed, were nevertheless subservient to his sense of right and wrong, he
comes to the deeper matter of his purposes and plans:--
"Or the things that I purpose (i.e., `resolve', bouleuomai as distinguished from
boulomai, `I desire'), do I purpose them according to the flesh (i.e., with carnal
willfulness) in order that with me the yea should be yea and the nay should be nay?"
Or, to give a rather free paraphrase of the apostle's words:--
"Do I of my own fleshly will decide whether I shall or shall not do a thing? Or
whether my plans and purposes shall or shall not be altered? This cannot be, for who can
use such terms but God only? Not only do I submit my own wishes to my own purposes,
but I also submit those same purposes to the revealed will of God."
Thus, as Wordsworth says, the apostle disposes of two objections:--
"the first, charging him with capricious fickleness in his wishes; the second, imputing to
him arbitrary imperiousness of will."
The apostle, by a natural transition, turns from his actions and criticism of them, to
related doctrine and the possible criticism of that:--
"But as God is faithful, our word toward you is not yea and nay, for the Son of God,
Jesus Christ, Who was preached among you by us, even by me, and Sylvannus and
Timothy, became not yea and nay, but Yea in Him hath it become. For how many soever
be the promises of God, in Him is the Yea, wherefore also through Him is the Amen,
unto the glory of God through us" (II Cor. 1: 18-20).
Thus is most striking contrast with the inability of the best of his servants either to
desire or to determine anything that shall be an unalterable Yea or Nay, stand the
promises of God. Those promises, as we saw when dealing with Gal. 3: 16 in the