Being Sorry God's Way

God addresses strained relationships through a process, not a quick fix: confronting sin leads to godly grief (v.8), repentance (v.9), and ultimately salvation (v.20) Here, salvation refers to the restoration of “rough" or “severed” relationship between Paul and the Corinthian church. Confrontation, Contrition and Conversion, speaks of the restoration of Christian-to-Christian relationships (cf. Luke 17:3, Matthew 18:16). Because the Corinthians were already believers, Paul was not referring to initial repentance (past-tense salvation, justification), but to ongoing repentance in sanctification (present-tense salvation).