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From: 2 Corinthians 1:18-22

Why He Has Not Visited Corinth (Continuation)

[18] As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been Yes and No. [19]
For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we preached among you, Silvanus and
Timothy and I, was not Yes and No; but in him it is always: Yes. [20] For all the
promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why we utter the Amen through him,
to the glory of God. [21] But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and
has commissioned us; [22] he has put his seal upon us and given us his Spirit in
our hearts as a guarantee.

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Commentary:

17-20. He calls on God to witness to the sincerity of his actions and to his being
a man of his word. He cannot act otherwise, he explains, because he preaches
Jesus Christ and follows him: and Christ is absolutely faithful and truthful (cf. Jn
14:6) and demanded sincerity in word and in deed (cf. Mt 5:37; Jas 5:12). The
faithfulness of Christ — in whom it is always “Yes” (vv. 19-20) — is the model for
all Christians, both those who dedicate their lives totally and exclusively to God
in celibacy and those who do so through marriage. Referring to this passage, Bl.
John Paul II teaches that “just as the Lord Jesus is ‘the faithful witness’ (Rev 3:
14), the ‘yes’ of the promises of God (cf. 2 Cor 1:20), so Christian couples are
called to participate truly in the irrevocable indissolubility that binds Christ to the
Church, his bride, loved by him to the end (cf. Jn 13:1)” (”Familiaris Consortio”,
20).

Relying on Christ’s faithfulness the faithful are able to say that “Amen” (”So be
it”), by which they adhere fully to the Apostle’s teachings. From the very begin-
ning of Christianity, the “Amen” was said at the end of the Church’s public pra-
yers (cf. 1 Cor 14:16).

Silvanus, called Silas in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 15:40), had helped St
Paul to found the Church in Corinth (cf. Acts 18:5).

18. “As surely as God is faithful’: so translated to evoke a form of words used in
taking a oath; literally, “Faithful is God.”

21-22. As in other passages of this letter (cf. 3:3; 13:13), St Paul is here referring
explicitly to the promises made of the Blessed Trinity: it is God (the Father) who
has given us our “commission” (anointed us with grace) establishing us in the
Son, through the gift of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

Using three different expressions—”commissioned” (anointed), “put his seal upon
us”, given us his Spirit “as a guarantee”—the Apostle describes the way God acts
in the soul: in Baptism the Christian is spiritually anointed with grace and incorpo-
rated into Christ; he is thereby “sealed”, for he no longer belongs to himself but
has become the property of Christ; and together with grace, he receives the Holy
Spirit as a “guarantee”, a pledge of the gifts he will receive in eternal life. All those
effects of Baptism are reinforced by the sacrament of Confirmation (St Paul may
well have had this sacrament in mind also, when writing these words).

Commenting on this passage St John Chrysostom explains that by this action
the Holy Spirit establishes the Christian as prophet, priest and king: “In olden
times these three types of people received the unction which confirmed them in
their dignity. We Christians have not one of these three dignities but all three pre-
eminently. For, are we not kings, who shall infallibly inherit a kingdom? Are we
not priests, if we offer our bodies as a sacrifice, instead of mere animal victims,
as the Apostle says: ‘I appeal to you...to present your bodies as a living sacrifice,
holy and acceptable to God’ (Rom 12:1)? And are we not constituted prophets if,
thanks to God, secrets have been revealed to us which eye has not seen nor ear
heard?” (”Hom. on 2 Cor.”, 3).

“He has put his seal on us”: the St Pius V Catechism uses these words to ex-
plain the “character” which the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Order
impress on the soul; Paul “not obscurely describes by the word ‘sealed’ a cha-
racter, the property of which is to impress a seal or mark. This character is, as
it were, a distinctive impression stamped on the soul which perpetually inheres
and cannot be blotted out” (II, 1, 30).

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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.