As indicated by the record in 2 Corinthians, while Paul and his co-workers were suffering for the sake of the gospel, the Triune God was dispensing Himself into them, and this dispensing became their comfort and encouragement. Furthermore, through their experience of being encouraged through the divine dispensing, they had the riches with which to comfort others. This was the reason Paul could say that they were “able to encourage those who are in every affliction through the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God” (1:4). Their comforting of others was also a matter of dispensing. As the apostles were comforting the saints, they were dispensing into them the riches of the Triune God that they themselves were enjoying.
In 1:5 Paul goes on to say, “Because even as the sufferings of the Christ abound unto us, so through the Christ our encouragement also abounds.” The sufferings here are not the sufferings for Christ, but Christ’s own sufferings as shared by His disciples (Matt. 20:22; Phil. 3:10; Col. 1:24; 1 Pet. 4:13). “The Christ” in 2 Corinthians 1:5 is a designation of the condition of Christ, not a name (Darby). Here it refers to the suffering Christ, who suffered afflictions for His Body according to God’s will. The apostles participated in the sufferings of such a Christ, and through such a Christ they received encouragement.
In 1:3-5 Paul seems to be saying, “We were in affliction, but the God of all encouragement comforted us by dispensing Himself into us. Now we have the means to comfort others. Because we have experienced the divine riches, we can dispense the Triune God into others who are suffering for the Lord’s sake. We enjoy the divine dispensing, and we also dispense into you the divine riches for your comfort and encouragement. If you enjoy this dispensing, you will also be able to dispense the riches into others who are suffering.”
It is by the divine dispensing of the divine riches that the believers, including the apostles, grow toward maturity. Furthermore, it is by this dispensing that we are constituted of the divine essence in our ministry. The result is that we become victorious in life and triumphant in ministry.
In 1:9 Paul says, “But we ourselves had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not have confidence in ourselves, but in God, who raises the dead.” Literally, the Greek word rendered “sentence” means answer or response. When the apostles were under the pressure of affliction, despairing even of life, they may have asked themselves what the issue of their suffering would be. The answer, or response, was death.
The experience of death ushers us into the experience of resurrection. Resurrection actually is the very God who resurrects the dead. The working of the cross terminates the self so that we may experience God in resurrection. The experience of the cross always issues in the enjoyment of the God of resurrection. Such experience produces and forms the ministry (vv. 4-6). This is further described in 4:7-12.
In verse 12 Paul says, “For our boasting is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in singleness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom, but in the grace of God, we conducted ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you.” This verse indicates that we must have a pure conscience (2 Tim. 1:3), a conscience without offense (Acts 24:16), to bear testimony to what we are and do.
In verse 12 Paul speaks of the sincerity of God. This is a divine virtue, a virtue of what God is. To conduct ourselves in such a virtue means to experience God Himself. Hence, it equals the grace of God mentioned later in this verse.
Fleshly wisdom denotes human wisdom in the flesh. This equals us, just as the grace of God equals God Himself. The grace of God is God for our enjoyment.