2 Corinthians 3:12-18

12Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. 13We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. 14But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. 15Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. 16But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.


Dig Deeper
When our now twelve-year-old son was about two, we decided it was time to start potty training him. As a part of that training process, we got him a package of pull-ups. From the very beginning, though, the pull-ups were a temporary measure meant to be part of the learning process moving him along to being fully potty trained. What was meant to be a temporary thing, however, began to backfire a bit. The pull-ups are supposed to be easier for a child to get up and down while learning to use the toilet, while at the same time protecting them from accidents. Unfortunately, he learned rather quickly that he didn’t have to bother with all of that and could just let it go in his training pants. For quite a while it seemed as though, because of his attitude, he was never going to understand the purpose and temporary nature of the training pants and would never be potty trained.

In a sense, this is what Paul is trying to explain when it comes to the Old Covenant. It was never meant as a permanent solution for the chasm that sin had created between God and man. The Law was a temporary measure that was designed to point people to the need for something better and to quarantine God’s people until the coming of the Messiah. It was, from the moment it was given, being rendered inoperative or annulled by the coming of the perfect and New Covenant in Christ Jesus. The problem that Paul will briefly mentions in this passage is that Israel never appreciated the fading nature of the Old Covenant, and instead held tightly to it. But in the very act of holding tightly to what was temporary, they were missing the whole point of the true plan of God.

Paul continues his defense of his status as minister of the New Covenant by further explaining the differences between the ministry of Moses and his ministry. The hope of the glory of the New Covenant that will last forever as it is administered by the Spirit, has lead to Paul feeling bold in exclaiming the gospel and the benefits of the new ministry. The word he uses for “bold” (parresia), is a very specific technical term which refers to a lack of shame in one’s behavior, that leads to an open and courageous manner of speech. Paul realizes that the things he is saying could be deemed rather controversial, but He is so confident in the work of the Spirit, that he does not for one minute hesitate to proclaim the glories of the New Covenant.

Paul reminds his readers in Corinth that there are two big differences between the ministry that he is proclaiming and the ministry which Moses dispensed. First, whereas the New Covenant, administered through the Spirit, is never ending and will never need replacing, the Old Covenant was being annulled or fading from the moment it appeared. Second, the ministry of which Paul is a part is administered internally to each person who enters into Christ through the life-giving, transforming work of the Holy Spirit. Under the Old Covenant, there was always a need for a veil between God’s glory and the people because of their hardness of heart.

Paul uses the veil that Moses wore to keep the Israelites from seeing the reflected glory of God on his face (the glory that would destroy them because of their condition), as a picture of the veil that stood between the people and the Law. Paul makes it clear, however, that it was not the Law that was veiled, but rather it was the hearts of the Israelites. This veil of hard heartedness still stands between Israel and the Law. This is evidenced by the fact that all of Moses and the prophets pointed to Jesus (Luke 24:44-45) and they have rejected Christ and His message as well. The sad irony is that the One that they rejected was the only one who could remove the veil between them and God.

Although he doesn’t say it directly here, lying just under the surface is the fact that the Law never could remove that veil because that is not what it was designed for. What he does say directly is how the veil might be removed. Paul says that whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. This truth goes all the way back to Moses. When Moses returned to God’s presence, he was able to take the veil off and be in God’s presence. Paul considers Moses to be the prototype of New Covenant believers who turn to the Lord, in Christ, and have the veil of hardness removed by God from our hearts.

One difficult-to-understand portion of this passage comes in verse 17 when Paul says that “the Lord is the Spirit.” Is Paul saying that Jesus and the Spirit are synonymous? The difficulty is that “Lord” (kyrios) is ambiguous because it can just mean “sir” or “master” but it is also the word used in the Septuagint Latin translation for YHWH, the personal name of God. Thus, in the New Testament, although it is usually used of Christ, it can also refer to the Father. This wouldn’t make the translation any easier, though. Another possibility would be that Paul is using kyrios here to refer to lordship, thus saying that the Spirit is the master or lord in the life of the believer. Probably the best and simplest explanation, however, is that Paul is using this to explain the use of Lord in verse 15. According to this view then, verse 17 could be understood to read, “Now when I say Lord, I mean the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Regardless of which of these explanations is correct, it is clear that the Spirit gives freedom because through His transforming power to mold the lives of those in Christ into the image and likeness of the Messiah.

It is through the power of the Spirit that our hearts are no longer veiled and we can reflect the Lord’s glory as surely as Moses did. Not only are we being transformed into the likeness of the Messiah, we have the freedom to look at the glory of God being reflected in the lives of fellow believers and do not need a veil between us and God’s glory. The ministry of the New Covenant is the means through which the new creation of God has been inaugurated. God’s Spirit transforming the lives of believers is the beginning of His new creation, and the fact that we can look at one another reflecting the glory of God, is evidence that God’s great reconciliation project for His creation has begun.

Not only is this lack of need of a veil in the New Covenant an encouraging thing for Christians, it also comes along with a gentle challenge. Paul says that we are all being transformed into the image of the Lord in increasing measure. Before we get to the challenge, what does Paul mean by that. In short, he is referring to the loss of God’s image, the ability to fully represent God, as a result of sin (Gen. 1:26-27; see also Gen. 5:3 where Adam has a son in his own image rather than God’s as a result of his sin). It is Christ, however, that we are told came in the image of God (Col. 1:15; 2 Cor. 4:4). We who have permanently lost the image of God because of sin can be restored to our full humanity as God’s image bearers only in Christ (Col. 3:10; Eph. 4:22-24). All those in Christ are being restored to the image of God, but herein lies the challenge for us. The mature Christian is the one who realizes that we are all being slowly transformed into the image of Christ. Paul reminds us that we need to see the glory of the image of Christ being reflected in the lives of one another rather than seeing all of the faults and all of the areas that have not yet been transformed. That doesn’t mean that we are to ignore areas that others need to grow in and act like they are perfect, but it means spending more time noticing and rejoicing the work of God in the lives of fellow Christians. So, which is true for you. Are you quicker to notice the spiritual growth in a fellow believer or are you quicker to notice the things that bother you?


Devotional Thought
Do you recognize the glory of God as it is reflected in the lives of other believers or do you focus on their faults and flaws? Make an honest effort to look for signs of the new creation and the transforming power of the Spirit when you look at fellow Christians rather than being so sensitive to the areas that still haven’t felt that transformation.

2 Corinthians 3:7-11

The Glory of the New Covenant
7Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, fading though it was, 8will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? 9If the ministry that condemns men is glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness! 10For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. 11And if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!


Dig Deeper
It is quite common and popular now days for someone to meet a new romantic interest through the internet. There are even sites for Christians to meet online with an eye towards getting married. The people will look at one another’s profile, decide to meet, and carry on the new relationship through pictures and letters passed back and forth. That’s all well and good, but in the end, it’s very difficult to truly get to know someone that way. There is a distance there that only meeting in person could actually ever resolve.

In discussing the differences between the Old and New Covenants, Paul’s point is clear that the New Covenant, of which he is a legitimate minister, is far superior to the Old Covenant. The reasons for that, though, are more similar to the internet example than we might at first suspect. It’s simply difficult to have a fulfilling relationship when there is distance between the two parties, regardless of what form that distance takes.

Paul maintains that there are similarities between the two ministries of the Old and New Covenants, that are only outweighed by their differences. To truly grasp the differences, we must understand that Paul has Exodus 32-34 as a backdrop in mind for this section. The problem with the Old Covenant dispensation was that the Israelites broke it from the beginning (see Ex. 32:7-9, 19). Despite the fact that Israel had been freed from slavery, their idolatry demonstrated that their hearts were still hard and their necks still stiff in their enslavement to sin (Ex. 32:9; 34:9). Because of that, the Covenant had failed in its purpose from the very beginning. Due to the stiff necks of God’s people, His presence would bring punishment and judgment, not their actual transformation. Thus, the law remained an external letter from God that could do no better than reminding them of their shortcomings and failure to truly transform into the people that God intended them to be.

This failure of the Old Covenant had, of course, nothing to do with any shortcoming on the part of God. It was the moral failure and the stiff necks of the Israelites. Yet, it left God with a problem. How could His glory continue to dwell in the midst of His people without judging and destroying them? Moses pleads with God that he might experience God’s glory and serve as a mediator between God and His people (Ex. 33:18-23). God grants Moses’ request and the Covenant is restored (Ex. 34:1-10). From that point on, however, Israel is separated from the transforming glory of God. First they were separated from God’s glory at Mt. Sinai, as they could only glimpse Moses’ veiled face which reflected God’s glory. Then, God’s glory would continue to be veiled or separated from them in the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle and the Temple. They could only know it externally and from a distance. That was better than nothing but it was still not what God wanted for his people.

What is important for Paul is that God’s glory was present during the Old Covenant just as in the New. It is the same glory of the same God. Why did God’s glory in the Old Testament bring death, while the gospel brings life? The answer is, that the gospel does not bring life. The gospel brings the same judgment and punishment for those who remain stiff-necked. It is neither the Law or the gospel that brings death or life. Both of them are mere external announcements of God’s faithfulness to His people. What makes all the difference is the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. It is the ministry of the Spirit that brings the transforming, life-giving power of God to His people. Without the Spirit, the gospel would bring death to those whose hearts are heartened just as much as the Old Covenant Law did.

This is precisely what Paul wants the Corinthians to understand. What makes all the difference between the Old Covenant and the new dispensation of God’s grace is that the Spirit actually enters into believers as they enter into Christ. This is what allows stiff-necked humans to be transformed into the Kingdom of priests that we were always intended to be. It is because we enter into the sin-free life of Christ that we can be temples of the Spirit of the living God. It is the power of the Spirit that enables us to internalize God’s glory and be transformed by it rather than being judged and destroyed.

Make no mistake though, the Old Covenant was indeed glorious. It was, after all, God’s revelation to mankind. What it could not do, however, due to the lack of the indwelling presence of God’s Spirit, was bring righteousness. God’s righteousness is the fact of Him being faithful to His covenant justice and promises. For man, being righteous means to stand in the right place before God and uphold our end of the Covenant. This cannot be done without the internal presence of the Spirit which transforms us into the likeness of the life of Christ in whom we have entered. In comparison with the New Covenant then, the Old Covenant has no glory now. What it could only point to, the restoration and transformation of human beings, the New Covenant can actually accomplish. It is not that Paul is saying that the Old Covenant simply can’t stack up to the New. It as though the Old Covenant took man half way up the mountain. Now the New Covenant takes man all the way up to the summit, thus, surpassing the Old in purpose and result. Once the New Covenant arrived, complete with its Spirit-powered granting of life, the Old Covenant, with the primary purpose of condemnation is no longer the place where God’s glory can be found. The Old Covenant was designed to point man towards their need for something greater, and in the New Covenant the greater is now available to mankind.

There was indeed glory in Moses’ ministry or there would have been no need for his veil. The problem is that the glory of God’s presence was fading from the very beginning because it could only bring judgment and punishment due to the continuing rebellion of mankind. The more Israel tried to follow the Law, the more they failed, and the more they needed a buffer between them and God. In the New Covenant, we have access to the transforming power of the Spirit that will never fade, will never go away, and will never need to be replaced.


Devotional Thought
The glory of the New Covenant is that we have access to the Spirit who transforms us and allows us to uphold the Covenant and to be righteous. Have you allowed the Spirit to come in and transform your life? Are there certain areas of your life that you’ve tried to hold back from the transforming power of the Spirit or have you completely surrendered?

2 Corinthians 3:1-6

1Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? 2You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. 3You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

4Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. 5Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. 6He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.


Dig Deeper
I had spent years learning and teaching about Abraham Lincoln and the events in history that surrounded his life, but I would never say all that much about his personal abhorrence of slavery. It never needed to be addressed much; his personal dislike for the institution of slavery could be assumed. At least that’s what I thought. Then one day I met someone who challenged that. He began to argue that Lincoln hated slaves and could not have cared less about what happened to them. It wasn’t until he began to challenge this common assumption that I had to really research and defend the point of view that he did care and he personally hated slavery. That’s often the way it is with matters of theology as well. Things are often assumed but not vehemently defended or explained until someone comes along and challenges those assumptions. In that way, heresies and false teachings often help develop sound and proper doctrine.

Paul, in fact, had never gone into great detail about what it meant to be an apostle, but now his identification as an apostle has been challenged by some critics in Corinth. Much of what this letter is about, in the face of this opposition, is Paul’s explanation of what it means to be apostle. But we should not think that Paul’s defense of apostleship is a personal defense of his own actions. Paul’s defense of his apostleship has everything to do with the gospel. Paul is not concerned with what they think of him personally but is extremely concerned that they understand the nature of the kingdom of God and the gospel that God has given to be spread. If they have an improper understanding of his apostleship and apostleship in general, then they will never understand the incredible gospel which had been proclaimed to them and which they were to, in turn, proclaim to the world around them.

It was a common practice in the ancient world to expect a letter of recommendation from another person or group of people detailing their qualifications to do whatever it was they were coming to do. This was often necessary without means of mass communication such as we have today. We can learn from the late first century Christian writings, the Didache (pronounced dee duh kay), that letters of recommendation were common in the early Christian world as well. If a teacher or evangelist came to a town where they were not known, it was common for them to bring a letter from another congregation, recommending the spiritual qualifications of the individual. This was necessary as even Lucian, the pagan satirist, noted that any con-artist could rip off Christians because they were so hospitable, inviting, and simple-minded.

Up to this point, Paul has argued that the legitimacy of his apostolic ministry is based on his sufferings. The Messiah suffered, and what is true of him is true of his people, so Paul’s sufferings demonstrated the source of his ministry. Now he will switch that argument to answer the ongoing challenges to his authority. Paul will begin to argue for the validity of his ministry based on the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. He will do this in a line of reasoning that will continue all the way through 4:6, in which he will compare and contrast the Old and New covenants as a way to demonstrate the difference between his type of ministry and that of others.

Those in Corinth who were challenging Paul’s legitimacy were evidently claiming that some of the material in 1 Corinthians in which Paul is defending his ministry, was serving as his attempt to recommend himself. They were likely claiming that Paul could only recommend himself and had no such verification from anyone else. He was not, according to their arguments, an apostle at all. Thus, Paul is a bit sensitive, and a bit sarcastic as he asks if his defense of his ministry in chapters 1 and 2 are sounding like another self-recommendation. Paul’s point is that in the ancient world, letters of recommendation showed that someone lacked their own evidence to back up the claims they were making. They were a substitute for credibility. Paul doesn’t need that because the existence of the Corinthian Church is his letter of recommendation. They are the source of his credibility, which nicely puts them on the spot. If they are the verification of his ministry, if they are his letter, then the inherent question is, are they acting like it? What would people know of Paul based on the way they were acting? Paul has basically told them that what is true of them is true of him. Thus, if they question his legitimacy and his ministry, then they call themselves and their faith into existence. If Paul is not a legitimate apostle, then they have just cut off the branch they’re sitting on.

We shouldn’t just skip by passages like this without making them deeply personal for ourselves, though. Imagine the situation. Paul planted these churches and has labored, toiled, and prayed without end for the welfare and benefit of the Corinthians. He had poured his very life into them and now some of them had begun to question his very legitimacy as an ambassador of the gospel. Surely this had the the potential to be deeply painful for Paul and we might understand if he launched into an angry tirade, but Paul does nothing of the kind. Instead, he calmly and lovingly works through his own hurt and lets his concern for the Corinthians take precedence over his own feelings. What a challenge for us to remember that even when we’ve been hurt or wronged we are still called, as Jesus’ people, to work for the benefit of others, including those who have hurt us. This is equally true of our children, our siblings, our parents, our co-workers, our friends, our church family. Just as Christ hung on the cross and asked forgiveness for those who were killing him and Paul can calmly and lovingly deal with those who were attacking him, we are called to remember that we died to ourselves when we entered the life of Christ and we are to embody that life of Christ and his love in our own actions. This is a stiff challenge but one that cannot be dismissed or ignored.

Returning to our passage, Paul has two primary passages in mind as he makes the case for his apostolic ministry, beginning in verse 3. One is Exodus 34:29-35, the account of Moses and the stone tablets, and Jeremiah 31:31-34, the promise of the new covenant that would be written on the hearts of God’s people (although Paul certainly makes allusions to Ezek. 11:19 and 26:26-27 as well). Paul is contrasting the Old Covenant with the New, promised Covenant, saying that his ministry is the fulfillment of the promise. It is the ministry that is empowered by the Holy Spirit and is written on the hearts of people. What Paul is saying is that his God had promised a time when He would give a covenant that would be written on hearts not stone tablets. His ministry is the fulfillment of that promise, and so cannot be defined by written letters. He is making a connection between the need for letters and the Old Covenant Law (we have to be careful to realize that Paul is not denouncing the entire practice of letters of recommendation, he is making a point about his ministry and the specific demand of some in Corinth that he produce such a letter.)

Rather than questioning his legitimacy, the Corinthians should realize that Paul’s letter, which is the Corinthian Church, shows himself to be quite legitimate and competent. Of that he is quite confident, which shows his confidence not only in his own ministry, but also in them. This does not build himself up, though, or say anything wonderful about Paul the man. Every aspect of Paul’s ministry comes from God. It is God who has chosen Paul and made him fit for duty as a minister of the New Covenant. Just as God called men like Moses, Gideon, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and made them sufficient despite their insufficiency, so He will do the same for Paul. In contrast, though, the Old Covenant law was expressed in writing and was not kept by men, leading to their death. Now, however, Paul’s ministry is sufficient because it is powered by the Spirit; The Spirit that empowers God’s Word to be obeyed from the heart.


Devotional Thought
Just as Paul says in Romans 8 that the Spirit has now done what the Law couldn’t, here he says that “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” The resurrection of Jesus has made life available to the world. Paul, the apostles, and all Christians since then, are simply servants and stewards of this new life. Have you been a good steward of it this week?

2 Corinthians 2:12-17

Ministers of the New Covenant
12Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me, 13I still had no peace of mind, because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said good-by to them and went on to Macedonia.

14But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. 15For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. 16To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task? 17Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God.


Dig Deeper
I once went to an outdoor church service in another state. When we arrived we saw one guy, in particular, running around furiously, setting up chairs and picking up garbage. I was looking for the senior minister in the Church because I wanted to meet him, so I asked this guy where I might find him. My assumption was that this couldn’t be the minister since he was running around doing such mundane tasks so conscientiously before the service was to begin. Of course, you see where this is going. This guy was, in fact, the minister. What I had forgotten was a lesson I needed to learn badly. It was precisely because he was the minister, the servant of the Lord, that this man was doing all of that work. His work was not a sign that he wasn’t the minister, as I had supposed, it was in fact the sign that he was the true minister of that church, doing whatever needed to be done.

Paul will continue in this passage, as he does in much of this letter, to defend his apostolic ministry. In almost every instance that Paul’s critics used to discount his ministry and apostolic authority, Paul demonstrates that it’s quite the opposite. What they were using as evidence to point out that he couldn’t be a true apostle was actually proof that he was.

Paul says that his change of plans in Troas did not demonstrate that he was unstable and led by the mind of his flesh as his detractors were no doubt claiming. His changes of plans were a demonstration of the fact that he was an apostle. They were an expression of his Christ-like suffering on their behalf. Paul had sent Titus ahead to Corinth to determine how the Corinthians had responded to his “tearful letter.” He had expected him to come back quickly but, for reasons unknown to us, Titus had not. His concern for the spiritual condition of the Corinthians was so overwhelming that Paul left an open spiritual door in Troas to go to Macedonia to find Titus. Paul didn’t try to conceal his anxiety; he said “good-bye” to them, and presumably, openly explained why he was leaving. No doubt, his critics would have argued that this was another demonstration that he was no true apostle, to leave an open spiritual door because of his own anxiety. Paul’s answer to that charge, once again turns things on its head. His leaving of Troas was an example of the suffering that God had called him to as an apostle, not a sign that he was not one. His love and concern for the Corinthians was so intense and deep that this was among the most difficult suffering Paul had to endure.

The fact that Paul saw this example of anxious suffering as being part of his call from God is demonstrated in verses 14-16. (Some commentators claim that the switch between verses 13 and 14 is too abrupt and that 2:14 begins a section of a different letter fragment that was inserted here. This doesn’t hold water, though, because if Paul truly left off at 2:13 and 2:14 is from another letter, then he would be playing right into the hands of his critics, not at all answering the potential charge that he left Troas because he was unstable. Verses 14-16, as we will see, clearly explain why Paul saw his anxious suffering as being from God, and thus, a demonstration of his apostolic authority.) The key to understanding verses 14-16 is in the phrase triumphal procession, which in the Greek is thriambeuo, a technical term referring to Roman victory processions.

The Roman triumphal procession was a common event that would have been familiar to everyone in Corinth. The average processional would have been led by a victorious general. There were very specific criterion in a victory during battle that needed to be met in order to qualify for a processional. The processional was much like a parade and was intended to bring honor to the victorious conqueror. Also in the processional would be the enemies of Rome who had been captured in the battle. They would march along with the processional, going off to their death. One of the many aspects of the processional was the burning of incense along the route. The sights, smells (which often included people walking up and down the processional swinging incense sifters), and sounds of the entire processional served as a great sign of life and victory for the conquering Romans, but it signified death and defeat for the conquered enemy and for those being led as prisoners to their certain death.

This brutal imagery is precisely the point Paul wants to make about his ministry and service to the Lord. He is not, however, claiming to be the leading, victorious general in this great procession. No, that spot is reserved for the Messiah. Paul considered himself one of the vanquished prisoners. He was one of God’s conquered enemies being led to his death. Paul was Christ’s slave being led to his death in order to display the glory and majesty of God, his conqueror. Rather than Paul’s suffering being a demonstration that he was not an apostle, he describes his suffering as the means through which God was revealing Himself. When Paul’s suffering was too much for him to bear, he needed to be strengthened by God, which demonstrated God’s power. It is then, the surrendered lives of Christians that serve as the fragrance of incense in the victorious processional of Jesus Christ, serving as the sweet smell of life to those who submit, but the putrid smell of death to those who would remain as enemies of God.

If we understand Paul’s understanding of the gospel, this picture makes perfect sense. We tend to think of the gospel and the encouraging message that Jesus has died for us and offers us personal salvation and a relationship with God. For Paul, though, the gospel was the proclamation that the Messiah was the Son of God who had defeated death through resurrection, which had vindicated him as the true king and ruler of the world. This gospel announcement then had the effect of bringing salvation to all who would accept it in faith and die to self by entering into the life of the Messiah. For Paul, then, the spreading of the gospel was like a triumphal procession. It was the announcement that Jesus was the victor and it invited all who would act in faith to join in on the march to their. The one difference, of course, between this death and the death of the Roman triumphal procession was that death for the sake of the Messiah meant true life.

Verse 17 offers another example of his apostolic credibility. Because he is a slave in Christ’s procession, Paul will not make a profit on the Word of God. This in not, as his critics would suppose, another example that what he was teaching was then worthless. It was the very sign of his sufficiency for the ministry because of his special circumstances. Unlike those who peddled the gospel purely for profit, Paul’s ministry in no way glorified himself, he was after all, merely a conquered foe, being led to his death. Of course, the huge difference that Paul doesn’t mention here, is that rather than being merely led to the end of his life, Paul was being led through his death so that he might have the life of Christ.


Devotional Thought
Paul obviously had an extremely intense love and concern for the Corinthians. Do you have that same sort of passion for other Christians? Are you as concerned about the spiritual welfare of other Christians in your life as Paul was? If not, what can you do to change that situation?

2 Corinthians 2:5-11

Forgiveness for the Sinner
5If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you, to some extent—not to put it too severely. 6The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient for him. 7Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. 8I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. 9The reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. 10If you forgive anyone, I also forgive him. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, 11in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.


Dig Deeper
As a teacher, one of the things I used to tell my students was that when we hate someone, we give them power over us. We give them the power to control our thoughts, energy, and emotion. When they ignored someone who was taunting or mistreating them, that person lost any power they might have had over them. These students would spend so much time and energy hating other students, hating certain teachers, hating people from rival gangs, or hating people of another race, that they never stopped to think that they were actually giving these very people a great deal of control over them. The very people that they despised had been given one of the most powerful control that any human can have over another, the power to control their emotions.

Paul is operating on a similar principle as I had tried to give my students, but is going one step further. He tells the Corinthians here that as Christians, they should not just ignore but forgive and forget what has been done against them. There are times when people will wrong us, and that is certainly the case for Paul and the Corinthians, but if we hold onto to that hurt it will continue to have its bad effect on us. When we forgive, we take away the power of the other person to continue to hurt us. Thus, not only does forgiveness release the other person from their guilt, it also frees us from being continually hurt by their actions and having our emotions controlled by those who have hurt us.

Paul here specifically calls for the Corinthians to forgive someone in their congregation. In what we call Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he laid out principles of wisdom and church discipline, including the need to remove at least one believer from the congregation for a time. Now Paul is helping them find the balance between discipline and forgiveness. There is definitely a time for discipline. It would, in fact be dangerous and counterproductive to bypass discipline and go right to forgiveness. Yet, once discipline has been appropriately administered, the time for true forgiveness cannot be ignored either.

The first question that we need to attempt to answer is who Paul is talking about here. Some have speculated that he is referring to the immoral man from 1 Corinthians 5, but this doesn’t really fit the circumstances very well. Far more likely is that Paul is referring to one of the people who slandered him and his apostolic relationship with the Corinthian Church. After the majority of the Church had repented as a result of his “tearful letter” (2 Cor. 2:4), they took action against the offender who had influenced them against Paul. They presumably punished him for divisiveness, or even slander, by excluding him from the body, following the principles laid down in 1 Corinthians 5.

The action had its intended effect. At least offender had, if we are correct in our assumptions, repented for his actions and apparently wished to rejoin the community. Paul calls them to follow his example of not just enacting discipline when it was needed, but in extending mercy to those who had repented. Paul realized the flow of mercy should pass down to this man just as Christ had shown Paul mercy, Paul had then shown mercy to the Corinthians, and they should, in turn, show it to this man. Paul is worried that if they do not forgive him, the man will be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. It is time to release this this man from his guilt, but it is also time for them to be freed from his hurtful actions.

As we said, Paul desires them to strike the right balance between discipline and forgiveness through wisdom. This is particularly instructive for those of us who live in a culture where church discipline is almost unheard of because we don’t want to risk offending anyone. A church that does not practice proper discipline will spiral into disarray, while a church that does not practice appropriate forgiveness will congeal into a mass of rigidity and unmerciful behavior (Can we not say the same thing for individuals?). For Paul, Christians are a community whose lives are all bound together in Christ. What is true of one is true of all (1 Cor. 12:26). If one person is allowed to sin without restraint, it will adversely effect the whole community. If one person is not forgiven when they are truly repentant, it will also adversely effect the entire body.

There is a word of wisdom in Paul’s balanced handling of this situation that is instructive not just in cases of church discipline but also in our daily lives as spouses, parents, children, workers, bosses, etc. Discipline and genuine forgiveness must go hand in hand bound together by love for the recipient. Discipline without forgiveness is tyranny but forgiveness without discipline can be just as dangerous. If we approach situations with love we will see the necessity of both discipline and forgiveness and have the wisdom to know when it is time to apply them.

There are several amazing things about Paul’s feelings concerning this incident. First is that he feels that the real damage has been done to the Corinthians not himself. This would not be a necessary statement if it wasn’t a situation (like slander against Paul) that the Corinthians might have felt damaged Paul more than them. Paul feels, however, that in following the rebellion of this man, they were really injuring themselves. In addition, Paul is one that truly understands his life in Christ; he will not take personal offense when someone sins against him, for he died to his own life. How much stress and grief could we avoid if we could embrace Paul’s same heart to realize that we do not need to take personal offense when wronged because we have already agreed to die to self at our baptism. Paul was far more concerned with the spiritual health of the congregation and the condition of the offender than with his own feelings. This stands as a challenge to us to be resolved to imitate this aspect of the life of Christ that is so apparent in Paul’s character.

Second, is that Paul considers this whole ordeal to be a test. His “tearful letter” was written, in part, to see if they would be obedient in everything. Not just in administering appropriate discipline but also in forgiving when the circumstances were right. Paul is now challenging them to live up to that test and to embrace the opportunity to forgive others just as God had forgiven them.

Third, Paul’s words “if there was anything to forgive” appears almost as a passing comment, yet its implications are huge. Paul is the one that has been slandered here, yet he puts the onus of forgiveness on the Corinthians. Why? Because Paul has already forgiven the offender for what has been done to him. Yet, not only has he forgiven him, he doesn’t even remember if has forgiven. This is not absent-mindedness, this is the Christian discipline of forgetting once one has forgiven. This shows us the quality of person we are dealing when we talk about Paul.

Finally, Paul wants them to remember that the real enemy is not the brothers that were attempting to cause divisions between Paul and the Corinthians. No, the real enemy is Satan. He is the one who will use any scheme he can to create cracks in the Christian community. Satan would be equally pleased with a church that did not practice either discipline or forgiveness, so both must be administered with love in the appropriate situations.


Devotional Thought
In verse 10, Paul reminds us that everything is done in the sight of Christ. Do you really live your life as though you were in Christ’s presence all the time? Do you, at the appropriate times, administer loving discipline? Do you, at the appropriate times, truly forgive people? Make an effort this week to carry yourself, in all situations, as though you were under the gaze of Christ.

2 Corinthians 1:23-2:4

23I call God as my witness that it was in order to spare you that I did not return to Corinth. 24Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, because it is by faith you stand firm.

1So I made up my mind that I would not make another painful visit to you. 2For if I grieve you, who is left to make me glad but you whom I have grieved? 3I wrote as I did so that when I came I should not be distressed by those who ought to make me rejoice. I had confidence in all of you, that you would all share my joy. 4For I wrote you out of great distress and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to grieve you but to let you know the depth of my love for you.


Dig Deeper
A few days ago I sent my four-year-old up to clean his room. Even though he is quite capable, he always tries to claim that he can’t do it all by himself. I sent him up and told him that he had five minutes to pick up his toys. I would come in up five minutes and bring some discipline if his room wasn’t picked up. After five minutes, though, I didn’t go up. I sent his older brother up to remind him that he was supposed to be cleaning his room. A few minutes later then, I went up and he had finished. We could celebrate together that he had completed his task. Why didn’t I go up after five minutes? Because I knew that his attention span would waver, that he wouldn’t have completed his task, and that if I went up then, that I would have to make a painful visit focused on discipline. Instead, I gave him a little more time to get things together so that when I did come we could rejoice.

This is something of the idea that Paul is telling the Corinthians here. Paul had changed his plans and had to inform the Corinthians that he was not coming. He didn’t want to risk another painful visit like the last one. This opened him up to his critics, who now claimed that Paul was a coward who refused to face those who opposed him. So, rather than coming to Corinth for his planned lengthy visit, Paul returned to Ephesus where he wrote them a biting letter of warning that he mentions in verses 3 and 4 (a letter that has been lost to history).

So, was Paul’s change of plans a sign of fleshly, scattered thinking or even worse, a sign of cowardice? No, Paul serves a God of patience and mercy. Keep in mind, that Paul is not afraid of exercising his authority and bringing judgment (1 Cor. 4:21; 2 Cor. 5:1-13). But before judgment comes mercy. The Bible is replete with examples of God staying his judgment so that people could get their house in order. Paul wants to extend the same opportunity to the Corinthians.

Paul calls God to be his sole witness to the fact that the reason he did not come was to spare them. In fact, the NIV simply drops what Paul actually says, losing the full brunt of his statement. He literally says, “I call God as my witness against my life.” He is willing to put his life on the line to show them that he is sincere. If he comes, he knows that he will find them unprepared as they were in their last visit. The previous letter, and this one, serve the same function as sending the older brother upstairs to remind the little brother to clean his room. Dad is coming soon and you’d better get it together. Paul didn’t fear rejection, he wished to spare them the judgment he would have to enact if he came to them as planned. If he had come in the middle of their rebellion, he would probably have had to throw some of them out of the Church (cf. 1 Cor. 5:1-5; 2 Cor. 5:12-13). He wished to avoid that, hoping that the extra time will give them the chance to repent and get things together. No, this wasn’t an act of cowardice, it was a showing of humility and restraint.

He was holding back his authority for their own benefit, not his. He was not going to lord his authority over them. Instead he chose to work with them to bring about joy. Yet, there is some advantage for Paul in handling things this way, and he is up front about it. If he had to make another painful visit, it would be as painful for him as it would be for them. Who would be there to encourage him? Paul’s joy comes from seeing others succeed in Christ. If he has to enact discipline he will, but he would rather that a show of mercy and restraint bring about repentance and the subsequent joy. Their joy is his joy, so if his postponing his plans would give them time to repent and deal with the sinful attitudes, then when he did come, the trip would be a purely joyful one. His previous letter was designed to bring about their renewed faith, which would give Paul reason to rejoice. This would, in turn, give the opportunity for the Corinthians to share in Paul’s joy and rejoice with him.

In doing this, Paul is firmly rejecting the type of worldly authority that either lords it over others, or manipulates them into behaving a certain way. Paul rejects that type of power. He wants nothing to do with it. He prefers to work with the Corinthians as partners. His authority over them is based on and determined by his great love for them. When they suffer, he suffers. When they rejoice, he rejoices. This is exactly the point Paul made to them in 1 Corinthians 12:25, 26: “there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”

This is a stern reminder for Christian leaders who can often be tempted to handle difficulties that come up out of frustration or impatience rather than love. Paul is clear that everything he does, he does for the benefit of those he leads. He leads out of love not impatience or frustration. Christian leaders must always remember that those we lead are God’s children and not ours and he demands that we love them. Whether we take actions of mercy or discipline, and Paul took both as the situation needed, we should be acting out of no other motivation than love.

Paul wants no part of attempting to beat the Corinthians into loving God. He would prefer that they serve God because of their love for and faith in Him. Above all, Paul wants to ensure that his actions don’t come between the Corinthians and their faith in God. Instead Paul’s actions are designed to mimic God’s character so that they can see and experience God more fully. What Paul is demonstrating for the Corinthians and for us, is nothing less than true Christian leadership.


Devotional Thought
Paul demonstrated incredible love and patience for the Corinthians throughout this ordeal. Do you operate under the same sense of love and mercy that Paul did? Whether it be in church matters, at work, or with your wife and children, how would you do things differently if behaved (when appropriate) more like Paul did with the Corinthians?

2 Corinthians 1:15-22

15Because I was confident of this, I planned to visit you first so that you might benefit twice. 16I planned to visit you on my way to Macedonia and to come back to you from Macedonia, and then to have you send me on my way to Judea. 17When I planned this, did I do it lightly? Or do I make my plans in a worldly manner so that in the same breath I say, "Yes, yes" and "No, no"?

18But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not "Yes" and "No." 19For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy, was not "Yes" and "No," but in him it has always been "Yes." 20For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God. 21Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, 22set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.


Dig Deeper
When I first became a Christian I had a very immature attitude towards the leadership of the Church of which I was a part. I felt like everything that they did reflected the truth of the message that they were speaking. In my mind they were more than just representatives of God’s message, they were supposed to be the complete embodiment of it. If they failed in some way (at least in my opinion) then I would question the Church as a whole, and even God. One time, I recall not liking the way that one of the ministers of the Church behaved during a sporting event. That caused me to completely judge whether or not he was truly a man of God. It wasn’t an issue of sin, it was an issue of, whether (in my mind) a true man of God would act like that. This is precisely what was going on in principle in Corinth.

Paul had made plans for an extended visit to Corinth, but then had to change his plans to two shorter visits. This just provided more fodder for Paul’s critics who began to charge that this was yet another demonstration that he was no man of God. In their minds, no apostle would behave that indecisively. This was further evidence that he was not a legitimate apostle. God was a sure God who never changes, they reasoned, so his servant should be able to rely consistently on God’s guidance, not change his plans from one minute to the next. Rather than his schedule reflecting the consistency of the God who never changes, his critics charged that he made his decisions according to the flesh, that the Spirit was not at all at work in Paul’s ministry. His critics charged that no true ministry led by the Spirit would like this. Behavior like this raised questions in his critics mind (although they were apparently quick to jump on anything Paul did and examine it for fault) and they were trying to raise these same questions in everyone else’s minds. If they couldn’t trust Paul when it came to everyday things and promises, how could they trust him in the big things he was telling them about God, God’s nature, and how God was at work in the world and through them?

Paul’s answer is that, once again, what they perceived as a sign of his weakness, or that he wasn’t truly from God, is actually quite the opposite. He was firmly in the ministry and dispensation of God’s grace. His plans changed precisely because he was being led by the Spirit. Not coming immediately by sea, but rather coming more slowly by land would serve the dual benefit of getting to see them twice so that they might doubly benefit, but it would also give Paul the opportunity to send messengers ahead to prepare them for his visit. After his last, disastrous visit, Paul doesn’t want to show up and find them unprepared for his coming to be with them. Paul, though, is confident that his plans didn’t change because a lack of God’s guidance. No, they changed because of Paul’s response to God’s grace in his life. They need to know and trust that Paul’s plans changed because of God’s guidance not in spite of it. Because Paul is so confident of that, he reminds them that he doesn’t need to swear an oath by saying a double “yes” or double “no” (in the Jewish world the repetition guaranteed the truth of what was being said). He doesn’t need to do that, because his faithful witness that comes from God needs only one “yes” or “no”. This is the precisely the point Jesus laid down for His followers when he urged them to stay away from oaths, letting their “yes” be “yes” and their “no” be “no” (Matt. 5:33-37).

Paul is not trying to string them along with a false “yes” when he has no intention of coming. His ministry comes from God and is characterized by “yes.” There are, as Paul will describe, three areas that God’s answer is an affirmative one. First, Paul says that all the promises God has given to his people concerning solving the problem of exile between God and man, and death and sin have been answered decisively “yes” through Jesus Christ. Christ is the fulfillment of all of God’s promises, and in fact, He is the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament. Christ specifically fulfills the one grand promise (and all of the other secondary promises that supported that great promise) that God would bless the whole world through the one family of descdants of Abraham’s family. What this does not mean (as some prosperity gospel teachers are quick to assert) that all of the promises of natural wealth made specifically to the Old Covenant Jews will be fulfilled by being a Christian. What Paul means is that all of the natural things, like wealth, pointed to, have been fulfilled by and made complete in Christ. The one who already has Christ has all he or she needs; we don’t have Christ so that we can get all that we supposedly need. Second, Paul says the “Amen” is lifted up to God’s glory. Everything that God does can be affirmed by those in Christ with an “amen” (literally “let it be so”) because we know that God is faithful and whatever He does is for our benefit in the long run. Third, Paul says that we have a positive response from God by enabling us to stand firm in Christ. If the purpose of the Christian life is to enter into the life of the Messiah, then we have to grown into that assignment. God has confirmed our status with a definitive “yes” by offering us the means to stand firm and grow in the life of the Messiah so that what is true of Him is and will increasingly be true of us.

This work of growth is enacted by the Spirit, and just as Paul described three affirmative responses of God’s grace, he will now describe three aspects of the Spirit’s work in enabling us to stand firm. The first aspect of this is that we are anointed. “Messiah” means “the anointed one,” and as the entire New Testament is quite clear, what is true of the Messiah is true of His people. If he has been set apart in the way that a King or Priest would have been, then so have we. We are co-heirs with him and share in his status as the anointed one of God. The second aspect is that we have been sealed by the Spirit. In the ancient world, a seal was placed on an item to show that it was the property of or came from the sealer and also to protect it from being broken into. God has sealed his people with the stamp of the Messiah himself, demonstrating to the world that we share in His death and life, and thus, belong to Him. The third aspect is that we have the presence of the Spirit in our hearts (see Acts 2:38). This is a down-payment that guarantees that we will one day take part in the resurrection just as Christ, who has preceded us. We can’t stress this too often, for it is the Christian hope. The Messiah has been resurrected, and because we share his life, so will we.


Devotional Thought
One of the primary lessons that Paul weaves into nearly everything he teaches the Corinthians is the need for them to no longer regard things from a human point of view but from God’s. This is precisely what he is trying to teach them here. In what areas of your life do you still view things more from a human point of view than you do from God’s? What steps do you need to take to truly transform your mind in these areas?

2 Corinthians 1:8-14

8We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. 9Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, 11as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.

Paul's Change of Plans
12Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God. We have done so not according to worldly wisdom but according to God's grace. 13For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand. And I hope that, 14as you have understood us in part, you will come to understand fully that you can boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of the Lord Jesus.



Dig Deeper
I couldn’t believe the scene I was observing during a volunteer workday. I was listening to a young man constantly whine about all of his problems. He was complaining to an older man about how little sleep he had gotten the night before. It didn’t just stop there, though, he continued to lament about how much his back and shoulder hurt from playing basketball and how difficult this made it for him to work. The older man listened patiently, never telling the younger man that he was currently suffering from a debilitating disease that would eventually take his life. That’s the odd thing about suffering. Usually those that complain about it the loudest, haven’t really experienced it. Those who have truly suffered don’t often mention it much. Paul was a man that suffered greatly but didn’t talk about it much unless he had a specific point to make. He didn’t make a show out of his suffering, so when he does talk about it, we should sit up and take notice.

What exactly happened to Paul is a mystery. He never gives us the details, and it is highly unlikely, at this point, that we will ever fully discover them. Whatever happened, we know that Paul endured incredible suffering in Ephesus. Some of it may be described in Acts 19, during the riot in the theater. This may have simply been the alarm clock that awakened the people in Ephesus to what a threat Paul and his teaching could truly be to them. This may have opened Paul up to great persecution, as people don’t take kindly to something that they perceive as a threat to their way of life. To add to what was happening in Asia, Paul was dealing with the incredible difficulties that were arising in his relationship with the Corinthians. This all left Paul in a terrible mental state. He talks in terms like ‘despairing of life’, which in our world would get him classified as clinically depressed. Paul’s response to this is incredible, especially for us who live in a world where any hardships lead most to get angry at God and reject Christianity. Rather than seeing his great persecution and resulting mental state as a reason to be angry with God, Paul sees it as a reason to praise Him. God was using this situation to teach Paul to rely on Him. This is a startling realization considering that Paul had already taught that he owed everything he was able to do to the grace of God (1 Corinthians 15:10). What this shows us was that when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians he still had some things to learn about relying on God and the meaning of the resurrection of Christ in the daily lives of Christians. Not only that, but Paul also believes he suffered but was not crushed because God delivered him. Paul is able to see adversity in its proper perspective because he knows that he does not need to view things from a worldly point of view but instead can trust in the God who will resurrect the dead. Paul is seeing thing from the perspective of his understanding of resurrection which puts everything in proper place for the Christian.

Paul has a theology that is not extremely popular in our day of user-friendly Christianity that is all about living your best and most comfortable life possible. He absolutely believes that God will deliver him from any deadly and dangerous situations in his life, but God will not keep him from those situations. Paul knows of no such thing as a trouble-free life, despite what is taught in our day, and as we will see in this letter, what was also being taught in his day. God will not keep us from trials but He will deliver us through them as we learn to rely on Him alone.

Paul’s critics would have had great folly with his sufferings. For most people in the ancient world, suffering was a sign of God’s punishment and disfavor. Not so, says Paul. The suffering is not at all a sign of God’s disfavor, but rather a sign that He wants his child to trust Him more fully. This was not a common or very popular message in Paul’s day, anymore than it is in ours. Yet, he wants the Corinthians to understand that this is part of the world-changing message of the gospel.

Paul desires that they should pray for him. Prayer matters and Paul needs theirs. When many people pray for something and it comes to pass, the thanksgiving will be all the more. For Paul when people worship and give thanksgiving to God something in the universe is set right again. The world is out of whack in a way that only giving thanks to God will set right. Worship is the way things were meant to be, and so engaging in it is a sign of what the world will be like one day.

It is this God of whom Paul will boast. Not the one who gives Paul everything for which he could possibly imagine but the one who allows him to endure suffering so that he may learn all the more to rely on God. Paul will freely boast about the things he has endured and learned because it gives glory to God (see 1 Corinthians 1:31; 15:9; 2 Corinthians 10:17; Romans 5:2; 15:17; Galatians 6:4; Philippians 3:3). We tend to view any boasting as inappropriate, but for Paul, it is not the act of boasting that makes the determination of whether or not it is acceptable, it is the content. It is also true that in the ancient world a boast was a bit different than the simple bragging that we tend to think of when we hear the word “boast”. Your boast in the ancient world was the thing on which you relied for your strength, your identity, and the thing that would often commend you before God.

Part of Paul’s boast is the work that he has done with the Corinthians and the way he has conducted himself with them. He has lived with all holiness and sincerity among them, but this is not a boast in himself, because his ability to do so comes from God. In his defense of his actions among them in verses 12-13, we begin to see some of the charges being leveled against Paul by his critics in Corinth. One charge must have been that Paul had something to hide, there was more to his conduct than met the eye. To that Paul responds that he has lived a life characterized not by shadows but by holiness and sincerity. Another charge against Paul was that he had hidden motives. To this charge, Paul answers that his conduct was not controlled by shrewdness or playing angles, but by God’s grace, given to him so freely. The third charge that Paul beings to answer, is that he didn’t always say what he meant. Paul says, however, that everything he writes is straightforward, understandable, and exactly what he means. Paul’s conscience is clear, he has nothing to hide, and he wants, above all, the Corinthians to be able to fully trust in the message that he has for them.


Devotional Thought
To get to the point that we face our own death and actually despair of life is probably the lowest point to which anyone can get. Yet, the best thing anyone can do, is to get to that point and then realize that they must trust God. We need to realize that our sufferings are not a sign of God’s displeasure or a proof of his lack of his existence. They are a vehicle through which we can learn to trust more fully in our God and creator.

2 Corinthians 1:1-7

1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia:

2Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The God of All Comfort

3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 6If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.


Dig Deeper
Just recently I found a box full of letters that my wife had kept. The letters were from me when I was in college and we were dating. As I read a few of them, the thing that struck me was, regardless of the length of the letter, I could immediately tell how I was feeling and what was on my mind in the first few lines of the letter. That’s the way it is for most people that write letters. Paul’s second recorded letter to the Corinthians is no different. We find out immediately what he is feeling, what is on his mind, and what the rest of this letter is going to be about.

It doesn’t take us long in this letter to realize that something has changed in the relationship between Paul and the Corinthians since he wrote the letter that we know as 1 Corinthians. Paul begins this letter in much the same way as he begins many of his other letters which was in a standard letter form for his day. Usually, though, he expands the greeting a bit, but this time he forgoes that, using a nearly standard greeting for his time. Paul, seemingly wants to get right to the point of his letter. He does, however, set some things down in the first two verse which lay the foundation for what he will say in the rest of the letter.

Paul stresses that he is an apostle or messenger, sent by Jesus Christ, but only at the will of God. Paul, in that statement, is showing that he feels he is a legitimate apostle because he has been chosen by the same will of the same God that sent Jesus as Messiah in the first place. We should also note that the scope of Paul’s letter has widened. His first letter was just to Corinth, but in this letter all the saints throughout Achaia are added. This demonstrates that the gospel has been spreading during the two-or-so years in between letters. Paul probably wants this letter to circulate throughout the entire area of which Corinth is a hub, to ensure that the opposition to him that has arisen in Corinth does note spread to the whole area. It was not possible to gain government recognition and secure a public building where all the believers in a region could meet together very often, so responding to false teaching was difficult. The only way to address common concerns was to circulate a letter like this one.

With the initial greetings out of the way, Paul moves into his opening prayer, which will let us know quickly what he is feeling and what the topic of this letter is going to be. It becomes quite obvious that Paul is consumed with thoughts of comfort and suffering. It is striking that there are 31 specific references to “comfort” (paraklesis) and “comforting” (parakaleo) in the New Testament; of those, 25 appear in Paul’s writings. Of those 25, 17 appear in 2 Corinthians and ten of those are in verses 3-7 of chapter 1. When one is mentioning comfort that often, it stands to reason that the presence of much suffering and affliction must be near. In fact, the term for “affliction” (thlipsis) appears only 45 times in the New Testament, 9 of them are in 2 Corinthians and 4 of those are in these verses here. Similarly, the word for “suffering” (pathema) appears 16 times in the New Testament; of those, 9 appear in Paul’s writings, 3 are found in 2 Corinthians, all being in these few verses here. As Paul opens this letter, he clearly has suffering, affliction, and corresponding comfort on his heart and in his mind.

So, why is Paul so focused on suffering and comfort? Much has happened in the short time between these letters. Situations have arisen which have caused Paul and the Corinthians great grief and have necessitated a switch from the gentle, teaching tone of the first letter to the more direct tone in the second letter, that leaves Paul justifying his own ministry to the very church that he helped create. The things that have happened will come out in the letter as we proceed, but we do need to fill in some gaps between the two letters. We know that Paul wrote at least four letters to the Church in Corinth. His first letter is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 5:9 (a letter which has not been preserved by the Holy Spirit); following that he wrote the letter we know as 1 Corinthians; after that came the severe letter referred to in 2 Corinthians 2:3-4 (another letter that has not been preserved by the Holy Spirit); finally, we have the book that we now call 2 Corinthians.

Paul had sent Timothy to Corinth as he had promised (1 Cor. 16:10-11). Once there, Timothy found the situation in Corinth had escalated with the appearance of Paul’s critics. Paul apparently decided to go to Corinth immediately to smooth things over, but the result had just the opposite effect. Paul would describe this as a very “painful visit” (2 Cor. 2:1), as the church called into question Paul’s authority and his version of the gospel. These other teachers had deceived many of the Corinthians into accepting a different gospel (cf. 2 Cor. 11:4). Paul then left Corinth for Ephesus in the midst of this rebellion against his apostolic authority (2 Cor. 1:23-2:5; 7:12). This was not, however, a cowardly act of running from the problem as the false apostles had portrayed it (2 Cor. 10:10-11; 11:20-21). While in Ephesus, Paul sent Titus with the painful and severe letter, warning them of God’s judgment and calling them to repent (2 Cor. 2:3-4; 7:8-16). Paul later reunited with Titus and discovered that his severe letter had caused the repentance of most of the Church (2 Cor. 2:5-11; 7:5-16). There was still a presence of rebellion against Paul, however, so he wrote 2 Corinthians from Macedonia, somewhere between 1-3 years after 1 Corinthians, and began to make plans to return to Corinth for the third time (2 Cor. 12:14; 13:1).

One thing that we need to remember, in order to make this section and the rest of the letter clear, concerning Paul’s way of thinking is that he believes that what is true of the Messiah is true of His people, and vice-versa. As we will see, some in Corinth wanted a Christian life that was all about victory and comfort, rather than suffering. Paul reminds his fellow Christians that when we are truly in Christ, we will experience both. Paul has been living out the life of the Messiah and makes it clear that because of that status, everything he does is out of concern for others, a point he taught throughout 1 Corinthians. Now they are seeing that in living color. Paul’s critics were claiming that his suffering and weaknesses were a sign that he was not a true apostle. Paul says, though, that he must go through suffering precisely because he is a true apostle, and he has unashamedly suffered because, in the end, it is for their benefit. Everything Paul does, he does for their sake, which is always the sign of true Christianity.

For us today, there is probably not a better example than 2 Corinthians than a godly individual dealing with an incredibly trying situation that could cause insecurity. Paul had labored and loved the Corinthian church and now they were questioning his very calling as an apostle and a servant of Jesus Christ. The letter of 2 Corinthians can, in many ways, serve as handbook of remaining secure in our position in Christ despite the temptation to spiral into insecurity based on what is going on around us. As we go through the remainder of the letter, keep your eyes and your heart open and watch how Paul deals with hurt and insecurity and remains firmly secure in his relationship with God and solidly consistent with his love for the very people that were questioning him and hurting him.


Devotional Thought
Paul stands firm in the belief that God has been at work in any suffering that he has gone through and any comfort that he has received. It is easy for us to recognize that comfort comes from God but we’re not usually as quick to acknowledge that the sufferings of Christ must also flow into our lives because we are His people. Do you embrace suffering and persecution as a sign that you are the Messiah’s, or do you try to avoid suffering?

1 Corinthians 16:10-24

10If Timothy comes, see to it that he has nothing to fear while he is with you, for he is carrying on the work of the Lord, just as I am. 11No one, then, should refuse to accept him. Send him on his way in peace so that he may return to me. I am expecting him along with the brothers.

12Now about our brother Apollos: I strongly urged him to go to you with the brothers. He was quite unwilling to go now, but he will go when he has the opportunity.

13Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. 14Do everything in love.

15You know that the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia, and they have devoted themselves to the service of the saints. I urge you, brothers, 16to submit to such as these and to everyone who joins in the work, and labors at it. 17I was glad when Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus arrived, because they have supplied what was lacking from you. 18For they refreshed my spirit and yours also. Such men deserve recognition.

Final Greetings
19The churches in the province of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord, and so does the church that meets at their house. 20All the brothers here send you greetings. Greet one another with a holy kiss.
21I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand.

22If anyone does not love the Lord—a curse be on him. Come, O Lord!
23The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you.
24My love to all of you in Christ Jesus. Amen.


Dig Deeper
It is normal, even in our time, when writing a letter, to end it with some final words of encouragement, some exhortations, and final greetings. If there is a bit of a strain in the relationship between you and the one to whom you are writing you would probably stress a few items that you and the receiver have in common, things which would bind you together. In a few short verses, at the end of 1 Corinthians, Paul manages to do all of that. He encourages, exhorts, informs, teaches, and ties them together with him in their common relationship in Christ.

Paul plans to send Timothy to Corinth, but he seems to be a bit worried about the reception he will receive. It appears, from reading this and other of Paul’s letters that Timothy, although strong and courageous, did not seem to have an extremely forceful personality. He was probably not the flashy impressive type of teacher; he was exactly the sort of guy that the Corinthians might look down upon. Yet, he is exactly who Paul wants to send. Why? This is another brilliant move by Paul, affording them the opportunity to apply in a real-life situation, the things he’s been teaching them. If they accept a simple man like Timothy with open arms and accept his leadership, then they will have demonstrated the true sort of love and rejection of puffed-up ways that are talked about in this letter. In addition to that, having Timothy there with them, teaching them for a time, will create a strong tie between Paul and the Church in Corinth.

Paul then addresses the situation of sending Apollos. The phrase, now about our brother Apollos, seems to indicate that Paul is responding to something they inquired about. This makes it likely that the Corinthians had requested that Apollos come to them, as it is clear from earlier in the letter, that many in Corinth greatly enjoyed his style of teaching. Paul says he urged him to come (the word Paul uses can either be translated as “strongly” or “often”), but it will not work out right now. It is difficult to translate Paul’s next thought concerning Apollos. It could be that Apollos was unwilling to come at that time, as the NIV translates it. This could also be understood as saying that it was God’s will for him not to come. In either case, the important thing that Paul is stressing is that he desired for Apollos to come as soon as possible. This is another way of Paul tying the Church and himself together, while avoiding any hard feelings. Paul is demonstrating that there is no rivalry or division between he and Apollos, and that he is not in any way trying to keep Apollos from coming. The problem was not with Apollos or his ability to teach, the problem was with the value that the Corinthians were putting on that ability.

Paul then turns to military language to exhort and encourage the Church. Each exhortation builds on and comes out of necessity by executing the previous command. Paul says that he wants them to be on guard, always alert and ready for the attacks that will come on them as followers of Christ. When one stands guard, they will see the coming attacks and they must be firm in the faith. Doing that will require and necessitate them being men of courage, which is a necessary trait when the actual attacks come. Finally, in showing that courage they must be strong. Yet, this must all be tempered with love.

Paul creates another tie between himself and the Corinthians by praising the three men who have come to him from Corinth to bring their letter to him and carry his letter back to them. Paul supports these men not because they are supporters of him (as in those who follow Paul from chapter 1 because then he could just be accused of backing his own people, so to speak), but because of their strong example as men of faith. They have encouraged Paul and reinvigorated his spirit just as they had done for the Church in Corinth.

Even the greeting sent from Aquila and Priscilla was a brilliant act of relational discernment by Paul, one that created another tie between he and Corinth. They were Jewish Christians expelled from Rome (Acts 18:2), who had then gone to Corinth for some time. They were, no doubt, highly loved and respected, so Paul sends greetings from them. This not only reminds them of their affection for this couple but lets the Corinthians know that Aquila and Priscilla are firmly in the corner of Paul. Paul is not pulling out a bunch of political moves to manipulate them, he is trying, very strategically, to demonstrate his genuine love for them. This is demonstrated not only by what he says but even in the fact that he wishes to take the pen from his transcriber (perhaps Sosthenes, 1:1), and writes the final few lines in his own hand.

Paul ends by placing a curse on those who do not love the Lord. (It is possible that he is referring to those who had strongly opposed the spread of the gospel. These were primarily Jews, and thus, the curse mentioned would be specifically the curse of the Covenant from Deut. 28.) The final line is noteworthy in that Paul sends his love, but only to those in Christ, an idea that he has stressed throughout the letter. For Paul, this location and identification are the most important aspect of the Christian life. One to which we must all strive to conform.


Devotional Thought
The final ties that Paul creates between himself and the Corinthians are his salutation of grace and love. Are these two tings that characterize your life? Are you known for your grace and love? In what ways can you improve the manifestation of the grace and love of Christ in your life?

1 Corinthians 16:1-9

The Collection for God's People
1Now about the collection for God's people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. 2On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made. 3Then, when I arrive, I will give letters of introduction to the men you approve and send them with your gift to Jerusalem. 4If it seems advisable for me to go also, they will accompany me.

Personal Requests
5After I go through Macedonia, I will come to you—for I will be going through Macedonia. 6Perhaps I will stay with you awhile, or even spend the winter, so that you can help me on my journey, wherever I go. 7I do not want to see you now and make only a passing visit; I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits. 8But I will stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost, 9because a great door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many who oppose me.


Dig Deeper
While I was teaching high school we had an annual event called the Coin Clash. This was a school-wide fund raiser based on collecting coins from the students. The money was collected by homerooms and it became a large competition between each homeroom. The money, once gathered, would then be donated to a worthy cause that had been chosen for that year. This was important, but the competition also served another important purpose. It was held early in the school year when classes could still be difficult because there was so much diversity whether it was due to race, gang affiliations, or something else. The competition served as a powerful tool to bring the students in each class together. They ceased to be a class of individuals and became a team, and often, great friendships were built during the week.

What Paul is doing with this collection is not quite like those collections, but there was a similar concept involved. Rather than getting all of the Christians to raise money and compete together to create unity, he is asking that all of the Gentile Christians take up a collection for the Church in Jerusalem. No doubt, one of Paul’s motivations in doing this was to help out the Jerusalem Christians who had undergone incredible persecution and were now beginning to feel the effects of it. He has another purpose, though. There has been a great deal of misunderstanding and mistrust between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. It took a long time for the Jewish Christians to accept that the Gentiles could truly be viewed as equals within Christianity without also living by the visible markers of being a Jew. This collection would serve as a powerful sign and indicator that the the Gentiles are part of the same universal church body that the Jewish Christians are. It would, at least in Paul’s mind, build a great deal of unity between the two groups.

Paul doesn’t give us a great deal of detail in this passage concerning this collection, but when we piece together the various other passages that deal with this great project, the details begin to fill in (see 2 Cor. 8-9, Galatians 2:1-10; Romans 15:24-33). The collection was charity for a hurting church, but it was also an opportunity to break down the walls of hostility and mistrust that had been built between the Gentile and Jewish Christians. Generosity and love would span a bridge over the chasm of suspicion that had been created between these two factions of the Church. This plan will encounter great difficulties (2 Cor. 8-9; Acts 21), but none of that is in sight yet.

One thing that we can learn from this passage is that Christian giving had not become entirely systematized yet, although it is clear that there was a central location available to collect and store money as a Church. There are many principles laid down for giving here, though, that will be a part of any church that approaches giving in a healthy way. Giving should be done regularly (first day of every week); universally (each one of you); systematically (set aside a sum of money. . . saving it); proportionately (in keeping with his income); and freely (no collections will have to be made). Regular giving of any type is vital for a Christian community because it is both a regular exercise in self-sacrifice as well as a powerful reminder that all that we have comes from God and by giving we return just a small portion of that to him.

Another part of Paul’s plan is that he will not just send money to Jerusalem but he will send several men from Corinth, chosen by them, to go as well. This will serve the dual purpose of removing Paul from any suspicion of taking the money himself as well as generating a meeting, of sorts, between the Jewish Christians and several Gentile Christians. It is much easier to judge and develop prejudices against people that you don’t know; this will help greatly in breaking down those walls. In addition, it is much easier for churches to continue giving sacrificially when faces can be attached to the giving. Once the Corinthian brothers have gone to Jerusalem it will be much easier to continue to give in the future to people that they know and love.

Beyond that, though. It is vitally important to develop deep and lasting Christian relationships beyond the confines of our own church and, in our times, even beyond the confines of our own countries. It is far more than just a matter of boosting financial support from wealthier churches to less fortunate churches. Building personal relationships like this between churches does a world of good for both the recipient churches as well as the providing church. They both benefit from the building of relationships, the growing horizons of friendships, and the expanding of their vision of the universal scope of the body of Christ. Personal relationships like this can be more costly than just sending money, but there true value is priceless.

Paul then informs the Corinthians of his travel plans for the immediate future. He intended to spend the winter in Corinth (winter travel was difficult to the point of being nearly impossible and was dangerous) and then head out once again in the spring. When Paul came, he didn’t just want to spend a short time there and move on, he wanted to be able to really stay and enjoy some real time together. Yet, Paul always realized that plans might change. It is all dependent on the Lord’s will not his.

Paul, for the immediate future, however, will stay in Ephesus. He mentions that there are both encouraging and discouraging things happening at Ephesus. Paul understands, though, that it is the Holy Spirit who has opened a door of opportunity. Paul has clearly learned an important concept. Wherever the Spirit truly opens a door for the gospel to be spread, opposition is never very far behind. There will rarely, if ever, be a time when the gospel can be preached without also facing great opposition. This should both encourage and steel us. Doors will open, but opposition will come as well.


Devotional Thought
One thing that is implied in all of this talk of collections is the fact that Paul believed that giving to other Christians in need is the same as giving to the Lord Himself. Do you have that same attitude when it comes to giving? What about Paul’s desire for Christians from other parts of the world to develop relationships? Do you use your resources and time to take self-fulfilling vacations or do you use them to build relationships with Christians in other parts of the world?

1 Corinthians 15:50-58

50I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."

55"Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?" 56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

58Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.


Dig Deeper
As the battle raged on, suddenly Obi Wan Kenobi did something very strange in Star Wars: A New Hope; he raised his arms allowing Darth Vader to kill him. Why would he do that? Because in the world of Star Wars, once someone passes into the afterlife, they become even more powerful. Yet, the Star Wars conception of death is a sort of shadowy bodiless, ghost-like existence. It’s not quite death but it’s not quite life either. This is the sort of picture of life after death that was put forth by Plato and has been accepted by increasingly large portions of the Christian world since the 4th or 5th centuries. Yet this is not at all the sort of thing that Paul is teaching about in his longest passage on the resurrection. Paul believed in and taught bodily resurrection in a physical sense. He believed that in Jesus’ resurrection body, the world was given a glimpse into what resurrection looked like. Jesus was, after all, quite adamant that He was not a ghost; He had a physical body with flesh and bone (Luke 24:39).

Why then, does Paul say that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God? Does Paul not know what he is talking about here? Is he contradicting what he has said before or what Jesus said? Does he suddenly no longer believe in the bodily resurrection of the saints? Of course the answer to all of these questions is ‘no’. When Paul uses the term ‘flesh and blood’, he isn’t speaking technically. He is using a common figure of speech for regular sinful humanity. Jesus made it clear that the resurrection body was a physical, material body. Paul’s point then, is that human beings must be transformed before they can inherit the Kingdom of God.

This is what he says in verses 51-52. Not everyone, he says, will have to die in order to undergo this transformation (a point of confusion for some because of all of the talk of transformation and which led, in part, to Paul’s discussion of this very topic in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18), but everyone will be transformed. It will happen in a flash, suddenly those dead in Christ will be raised to life in the age to come, while those still alive in Christ will be immediately transformed. In these two verses, Paul uses language similar to two other passages where he describes the moment of Christ’s return, Philippians 3:20-21 and 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. In 1 Thessalonians 4:16 Paul says that the coming of Christ will be like a great trumpet call, signaling what was happening. There he uses a picture of Roman citizens running outside the city gates to meet the Emperor and then accompanying him back triumphantly into the city (meeting in the clouds is the language of God’s presence, not bodiless spirits floating off into the clouds where heaven is; it is the time when the King will return to reign over His restored creation). In Philippians 3:21, Paul says that when we are transformed, we will be transformed so that our lowly bodies will be like Jesus’ glorious resurrection body. It is at that moment when the perishable will transform into the imperishable. The mortal will be clothed with the immortal, but nowhere in site is the idea that we will have anything less than material, physical bodies.

It becomes clear that in Paul’s new creation theology, all those in Christ will be transformed to enjoy glorious, incorruptible, immortal, imperishable bodies just like Jesus had after His resurrection. There is no shadowy ghost-like, spirit existence that would make Plato proud to hear of. That would be a compromise with death. If the soul somehow continued on without a body, then death would still rule victorious over the body, with Christ merely redeeming part of the human being. No, says Paul, death has been completely swallowed up in victory. The pagan world looked at death and realized that it could do nothing about it, so they simply accepted it and try to make it palatable. Even in the Jewish worldview, the best that could be done was to believe that God would do something about it in the future. Paul’s message is quite radical from either of those options. He is saying that God has already done something about death. He has completely defeated death through the Messiah, and those who are in the Messiah are guaranteed to share in that victory when they too, one day, will be resurrected.

Paul now takes the tone of one who is taunting and mocking an opponent that has been rendered powerless. He teases death itself by quoting from Isaiah 25 and Hosea 13, passages which point to the victory of God over death. God has removed the sting of death, it’s power has been swallowed up. Paul isn’t merely prooftexting a couple of passages to make his point, he is emphasizing that, once again, this is what all of the Old Testament Scriptures pointed towards. God has gained the victory over sin and death through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Paul, though, after taunting death a bit, doesn’t stress that this is the glorious hope to which we should all cling, although he certainly feels that way. He says that knowledge of this should strengthen our resolve to labor in the Lord. The work that Christians do and the suffering that Christians endure is not in vain. There is a correspondence between what we do in this present age and what happens in the age to come. If God is going to resurrect us in the future age, then what we do now with our time and bodies matters. The resurrection is our future hope, but it is not just a future hope. We have access to the life of the age to come and should begin living it. Paul does not explain exactly how what we do in this age will be carried on into the age to come but we know that it will happen. This is why we do what we do now, in this age. The transformation of the mortal into the immortal, the perishable into the imperishable, and the corruptible into the incorruptible is our present and our future hope for those in Christ. Our job now is to begin to anticipate, as a community of believers, that life now in the present age. We are to show the rest of the world what it looks like to live by the values of God’s age to come. Some will embrace it, others will reject those values, but living by them now will not be in vain. It matters now and will matter even more in the resurrection.


Devotional Thought
Do you live as though you are motivated by the hope of resurrection? Do you truly live and work as though what you do in this age will be woven into the tapestry of God’s future age? For Paul, it was the present and future hope of the resurrection that motivated him not to sit back and relax, knowing that he would be okay after death. Rather it motivated him to work all the harder for the Kingdom of God. Get resolved to have the same kind of motivation and effort that Paul had.

1 Corinthians 15:35-49

The Resurrection Body
35But someone may ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?" 36How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.

42So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. 48As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.


Dig Deeper
There is a lot of attention these days on how many miles per gallons different cars get. When gas was under $2 (US) per gallon people didn’t seem to care all that much but when it goes over that price or even much higher, then suddenly people start getting concerned about it. People start to want smaller cars that get better miles to the gallon and many have turned to hybrid cars and even electric cars to achieve that. In every case, however, the discussion has to do with powers the cars and makes them go. No one imagines that the material that makes up the body of the car matters a whole lot. When people speak of changing cars to get something with better mileage, they are speaking of what powers the car not what materials make up the body. They want to make a change that will really matter and alter the actual performance of the car in a meaningful way.

If the central hope of the Christian faith is, as Paul has been pointing to, the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the subsequent future resurrection of all of those in Christ, then the obvious questions of how this will all work, begin to arise. What will the body be like? How will it happen? These are the very sorts of questions that Paul will begin to address in this dense section. But like the cars, it is important to know that Paul is not really concerned with what the body is comprised of, with what material it will be made of (there was simply no discussion of that as it was assumed that bodies in the resurrection would be just as physical as bodies are in our present age) but what the body runs on. Paul is discussing the animating force that powers our being and will.

The tone that Paul uses in the original Greek language for the questions of verse 35 suggest a mocking or skeptical tone, indicating a lack of belief in the whole process of actual bodily resurrection. It seems that many in Corinth had maintained the same view of death that their Greek-thinking compatriots had. They most likely held to the view that the resurrection would entail a separation of the body and soul, with the soul living on for eternity once it has escaped the prison of the body. Paul’s answer to them is that they are foolish for this skepticism. Resurrection is not some form of living on after death in spirit form, in a body that wouldn’t be visible to the natural human being, it is an actual reversal of death. That is the key. Those who experience the resurrection will actually die, but in Christ, death will be defeated and reversed as the natural body is transformed into something quite like the natural body, but also quite different.

In verse 44, Paul labels two types of bodies. One is the pre-resurrection “natural body” and the other is the post-resurrection “spiritual” body. This translation is misleading in that it implies that the bodies are somehow of a completely different composition. The question that Paul is answering is not the composition of the body, but rather what animates the body. Is it the soma psychikon, the body animated by the normal breath of life (the soul if you will), or is it the soma pneumatikon, the body animated by the Spirit of the living God? Paul is speaking in equal opposites throughout this passage as he talks of bodies that are perishable versus imperishable, honor (or glorified) versus dishonor, weakness versus power which culminates in a body that is sown a natural body that runs on the normal human soul versus the supernatural (a better translation than spiritual) body that will run on God’s own spirit.

This is the heart of the issue for Paul. In this age, our bodies are given life and characterized by the ordinary human spirit, but in the age to come, those who have experiences the resurrection will have bodies animated by the Spirit of God Himself. This is why he says that our current natural bodies are sown perishable, in dishonor, and in weakness. What Paul means is that the current use of bodies, is not the ultimate purpose for which they have been made. Since the fall of man we have been marred by the effects of sin, subject to death, and become the mere image bearers of sinful human fathers (Genesis 5:3). In Christ, though, we will be raised to bodies that fulfill their true purpose, being raised imperishable, in glory, and in power. Through the Spirit, we will have our natures transformed to natures like God so that sin and death will no longer have power over us, and although we will have free will (as God does), we will no longer be able to sin because it will go against our very natures, the animating force of the Spirit of God. They will be imperishable, glorified, and in power. This is what will power our bodies, which is far more important and profound than a simple discussion of what the body is made of, a discussion that can only come about if we accept the Greek philosophical point that the material realm is bad and must be escaped by the soul.

This is what Paul means with his explanation of verses 38-41. God has created all different kinds of bodies with different purposes and properties. Within the bodies of humans, we bear the seeds of the intended purpose and glory that man was to have. This is not to say that Adam had a resurrection body and lost it due to sin. The resurrection body is something new, something for which man was intended. Paul’s metaphor of a seed does not mean to imply that once we die, the seed of our bodies will flower into something new. His point is that just as a seed has all of the characteristics and ability to be a flower inside of it, so our ‘natural’ bodies have all of the characteristics and ability to be the imperishable, incorruptible resurrection body. The contrast between our new bodies and our bodies in the present age is that when a body is animated by the Spirit it will not wear out, it will not die. There are all kinds of flesh, Paul says. Man has one kind of flesh. It is not that we are going to have a different kind of flesh in the age to come, it is what animates that flesh that is of true importance.

Paul begins in verse 45 to state explicitly what he has had in mind all along. He is describing a new creation, a re-writing of Genesis 1 and 2. There are two kinds of humanity, the body animated by the natural human spirit and the one animated by the Spirit of God. The resurrection body will be the realization of what we were made for in the first place. The prototype of this resurrection body has already been rolled out through the last Adam, Jesus Christ. He is the one worthy of entering into the age to come. He lived without sin and thus had the right to become the truly human being. Those in Christ will experience all of this when He returns. Paul uses the word ‘heaven’ as the place of God’s presences where he keeps things safe before their great unveiling (Col. 1:3-5; 1 Pet. 1:3-5; Acts 3:19-21). This does not, in Paul’s mind, mean that we will die and go to heaven, and become the new type of resurrected human there. No, God will somehow bring the resurrection, the renewal of humanity and all things from heaven to earth. At the time of the coming of Christ, He will transform the bodies of Christians who are still alive, and raising the dead to the same renewed deathless, glorified, body. Up to this point, we all have one thing in common, the fact that we share in the earthly likeness of our common ancestor, Adam. The glorious hope for the Christian, however, is that we will one day be transformed and our bodies will be redeemed (Rom. 8:20). We will become in fact what we are in position now as Christians. While we are in Christ positionally at the present time, we will, on that day of resurrection, actually bear His likeness for eternity.


Devotional Thought
The hope of the Christian in resurrection is that we will have our natures transformed so that we will be animated by the Spirit of the living God. We will no longer be subject to temptation and sin. We will have natures that are incapable of sinning. How much does this motivate you in the present age? Take some time to today to think about the resurrection and what it means for us. Praise God for His incredible plan for mankind.