Paul is explaining why he stayed away. If he had come and had to bring sorrow on the church, who would be left to make him glad? Only the very people he had grieved. Barnes explains that Paul pictures arriving and having to carry out severe discipline, which would spread grief through the whole church. The point, Barnes says, is that Paul was so attached to them that "he could not expect to be happy unless they were happy." Gill puts it the same way: "should they be grieved, he should grieve also." The question shows that Paul's joy was bound up with theirs.

Paul answers inside the question itself: the only one who could make him glad is "the same which is made sorry by me." He goes on to say he wrote instead of coming, so that he would not "have sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice," trusting "that my joy is the joy of you all" (2 Corinthians 2:3). He wrote "with many tears," not to grieve them "but that ye might know the love which I have more abundantly unto you" (2 Corinthians 2:4). Later in the letter Paul says he now rejoices, "not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance" (2 Corinthians 7:9).

Paul had planned to visit Corinth but changed his plans, and he denies that this was fickleness (2 Corinthians 1:17, 23). In his earlier letter he had told the church to deal with a man living with "his father's wife" (1 Corinthians 5:1). Gill says "the same which is made sorry" may mean that one offender, who had been disciplined, or it may stand for the whole church, which had been grieved by Paul's sharp rebukes. The next verses speak of a man whose punishment "was inflicted of many" and whom the church should now forgive and comfort (2 Corinthians 2:6-7).

This question opens a window into what church discipline cost Paul. He did not stand above the Corinthians handing down rebukes. When they hurt, he hurt. Barnes says that even though Paul knew he was only doing his duty, causing grief would "mar the pleasure of his visit." Matthew Henry draws the lesson simply: "We should always give pain unwillingly, even when duty requires that it must be given."

The passage also shows that loving correction aims at restoration, not at winning. Paul's next words call the church to forgive the man who had been punished, "lest Satan should get an advantage of us" (2 Corinthians 2:7, 11). Paul's sorrow and joy both point toward a healed relationship.