Catholic Commentary
The Urgency of Receiving God's Grace
1Working together, we entreat also that you do not receive the grace of God in vain.2For he says, “At an acceptable time I listened to you. In a day of salvation I helped you.” Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.
2 Corinthians 6:1–2 presents Paul's urgent appeal that the Corinthians cooperate with God's grace rather than receive it without transformative response, emphasizing that the prophesied "acceptable time" of salvation is now present in Christ. Paul urges active partnership with divine grace, warning that grace can be received yet rendered fruitless through spiritual apathy or resistance.
Grace can be received and still bear no fruit—the danger is not that God withholds it, but that we do not truly cooperate with it.
2 Corinthians 6:1 — "Working together, we entreat also that you do not receive the grace of God in vain."
The phrase "working together" (Greek: synergountes) is theologically dense. Paul presents himself and his co-workers not merely as messengers but as co-laborers with God — an idea rooted in 1 Cor 3:9 ("we are God's fellow workers"). This is not a claim to equality with God, but a testimony to the astonishing dignity of the apostolic ministry: God works through human instruments while those instruments truly and freely cooperate with Him. The word carries the seed of what Catholic theology will later develop as the doctrine of synergy — the cooperation between divine grace and human freedom.
"We entreat" (parakalomen) shifts the tone from proclamation to appeal. Paul is not commanding but beseeching, reflecting the nature of grace itself: it is never coerced. The urgency is pastoral and personal — Paul is not writing an abstract treatise but addressing a community he loves and fears for.
The heart of the verse is the warning: "do not receive the grace of God in vain" (eis kenon). The Greek kenon means "empty" or "to no purpose." This is a sobering possibility: grace can be received — sacramentally, historically, intellectually — and yet fail to transform if it is not welcomed, cooperated with, and allowed to penetrate the will. This is not Pelagianism (as if the Christian could earn grace) but neither is it the Lutheran forensic view (as if grace operated irresistibly without any response). Paul's warning only makes sense if the recipient's free cooperation is genuinely required. The Corinthians had received the Gospel, had been baptized, had been given spiritual gifts (1 Cor 1:4–7) — and yet were in danger of rendering all of it fruitless through division, immorality, and indifference to the apostolic teaching.
The word kenon echoes Paul's great fear expressed in Galatians 2:2 and Philippians 2:16 — that his own labor might be "in vain" — and the more cosmic dread in 1 Cor 15:2 that the Corinthians might believe "in vain" if they abandon the resurrection. Grace received in vain is not a neutral outcome; it is a tragedy of wasted opportunity and, implicitly, of spiritual peril.
2 Corinthians 6:2 — "For he says, 'In an acceptable time I heard you, and in a day of salvation I helped you.'"
Paul quotes Isaiah 49:8 (LXX), the second of the great Servant Songs. In its original context, God addresses the Servant of the Lord — Israel personified and, in its deepest typological sense, the Messiah — promising that in the appointed time of favor, God will act to restore, to release prisoners, and to bring light to the nations (cf. Is 49:6–9). Paul's application is breathtaking: this prophecy, spoken to the Servant, has now been fulfilled in Christ and, by extension, in the preaching of the Gospel. The "acceptable time" (kairos dektos) is no longer a future hope — it is the present moment of the Gospel's proclamation.
The LXX word dektos (acceptable, favorable) is the same word Jesus uses in Luke 4:19 when he reads from Isaiah 61 in the Nazareth synagogue: "to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." This is not coincidental — both passages announce the eschatological jubilee, the new age of divine favor inaugurated by the Messiah.
Paul then applies this with personal urgency: "Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation." The double "behold" (idou) is an imperative of attention — Look! Pay attention! — demanding that the reader wake up to the gravity of the present moment. The two "nows" are emphatic in the Greek. This is not a time for complacency, deferral, or half-hearted response. The prophetic "day of salvation" that Isaiah's hearers waited centuries for has arrived — in the flesh of Christ, in the sacramental life of the Church, in this very letter, in this very reading.
Typological and Spiritual Senses:
Typologically, Isaiah's "acceptable time" points forward through multiple layers: first to the return from Babylonian exile, then to the Servant Messiah, then to the entire age of the Church, and ultimately to the eschatological consummation. Paul, standing in the middle of this arc, declares that the Church's present moment is always kairos — a charged, decisive time. Each celebration of the Eucharist, each reception of Absolution, each hearing of the Word is a renewal of this "acceptable time." The spiritual sense (the sensus plenior) of Isaiah 49:8 is fully disclosed only in Christ and His Body, the Church.
Catholic tradition brings several uniquely illuminating lenses to this passage.
On Synergy and Cooperation with Grace: The word synergountes is foundational for the Catholic understanding of grace and freedom. The Council of Trent (Session VI, Decree on Justification, Chapter 5) explicitly taught that while grace takes the initiative and is entirely God's gift, human beings are not "utterly inert" but genuinely cooperate with their free assent. The Catechism of the Catholic Church echoes this: "God's free initiative demands man's free response" (CCC 2002). St. Augustine, whose anti-Pelagian writings shaped so much of Western soteriology, nonetheless insisted that grace perfects rather than obliterates freedom: "He who made us without ourselves will not save us without ourselves" (Sermo 169). Paul's "working together with God" is the scriptural foundation for this entire tradition.
On the Danger of Receiving Grace in Vain: St. John Chrysostom, in his Homilies on Second Corinthians (Homily 12), identifies the reception of grace in vain with those who "have been counted worthy of calling but show no works worthy of the calling." This connects to the Catholic sacramental understanding: Baptism and the other sacraments confer grace ex opere operato, but their fruit requires the recipient's cooperation (ex opere operantis). A baptized person who lives entirely contrary to their baptismal commitments has, in a real sense, received grace in vain — not annulled it, but failed to let it flourish.
On the "Acceptable Time" and the Sacraments: Pope Benedict XVI, in Deus Caritas Est (§14), reflects on how the "now" of encounter with Christ is always mediated through the Church. The kairos Paul announces is not merely a historical moment in 57 AD; it is re-enacted in every sacramental celebration. The Fathers, especially Origen (Commentary on Romans) and St. Cyril of Alexandria, read Isaiah 49:8 as referring to the entire dispensation of grace from the Incarnation to the Parousia — making every moment of the Christian life a participation in the "day of salvation."
For a Catholic today, these two verses issue a direct challenge to one of the most pervasive spiritual temptations of contemporary life: deferral. We receive sacraments — Baptism, Confirmation, Reconciliation, Eucharist — and then return to habits, relationships, and patterns utterly unchanged. Paul's warning that grace can be received "in vain" is not about doubting God's generosity but about examining our own cooperation. Are we bringing the grace of Confession into changed behavior, or confessing the same sins indefinitely without effort at amendment? Are we receiving the Eucharist as a transformative encounter, or as a routine ritual?
The "now" of verse 2 is particularly searching in a culture of procrastination. "I'll take my faith more seriously when I'm older / less busy / less stressed." Paul's double idou — Behold! Now! — demolishes every such deferral. The acceptable time is not a future season of greater convenience; it is the present moment, with all its demands and graces. Practically: identify one area where grace has been stagnant in your life. This week, cooperate with it — through prayer, a sacrament, a concrete act of charity, or a frank examination of conscience. The day of salvation is today.
Commentary