Verse 16
16. Therefore… enemy Is it inferable from the immense change on your part?
The truth For telling them the truth is he who was once their angel now their enemy? The change was neither in the truth nor its apostle, but in themselves. So is it with backsliders and apostates; the truth and its minister they once loved they often now dread and hate.
When was it that he so spoke the truth as to incur this enmity? Not at his first visit, commentators reply, for then he was as an angel to them. Nor in this letter, for they have not as yet read it. Therefore, at his second visit.
Acts 18:23, it is said. Nevertheless he told them no new truth at that second visit. The very reason why he is now deemed their enemy is, because he is the fixed representative of the same unchanging truth, at his first visit, his second, and in this epistle.
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