This will be my third visit to you. “Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” I already gave you a warning when I was with you the second time. I now repeat it while absent: On my return I will not spare those who sinned earlier or any of the others, since you are demanding proof that Christ is speaking through me. He is not weak in dealing with you but is powerful among you. For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God’s power. Likewise, we are weak in him, yet by God’s power we will live with him in our dealing with you.
Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test? And I trust that you will discover that we have not failed the test. Now we pray to God that you will not do anything wrong—not so that people will see that we have stood the test but so that you will do what is right even though we may seem to have failed. For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. We are glad whenever we are weak but you are strong; and our prayer is that you may be fully restored. This is why I write these things when I am absent, that when I come I may not have to be harsh in my use of authority—the authority the Lord gave me for building you up, not for tearing you down.
Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.
Greet one another with a holy kiss. All God’s people here send their greetings.
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2 Corinthians 13)
A Last Warning
The warning in this final chapter of 2 Corinthians reminds us that in this chapter we may have a fragment of the severe letter that Paul sent to Corinth. That severe letter may have been combined by a later editor with other fragments of correspondence between Paul and Corinth.
Paul’s warning is that if the Corinthians have not dealt properly with the matter of sin in their midst, Paul will not be sparing. The Corinthians thought Paul was weak. They doubted that he would really mete out any punishment.
Paul reminds the Corinthians of the most important thing. Christ is not weak in dealing with us. He is, in fact, powerful among us. Yes, Christ was crucified in weakness, but he was raised in power.
Yes, as human beings we are often weak. Paul admits he can be a weakling. Yet, at the same time, he is depending upon God’s power for daily living and for dealing with the Corinthians appropriately.
I wonder, do you often feel as though you are weak? I imagine that for many of us, as we mature in Christ, we realize that there are many areas where we are weak, and that’s a good thing. But the even better thing is to realize that Christ will give us the strength that we need, right where we need it, in the midst of our weakness.
A Last Wish
The second thing we see in this chapter is Paul’s last wish for the Corinthians. It is his wish and prayer that the Corinthians would do what is right. If they do, then Paul won’t need to exert his authority. He wants to focus on building up the Corinthians, not tearing them down.
To that end, to help the Corinthians to prepare for his visit, he asks them to examine themselves. For what are they to examine themselves? To see whether they are in the faith. Then he asks them an all-important question: “Do you realize that Christ is in you?”
If we have Christ in our hearts, we cannot go wrong forever. We have within us a self-correcting principle. The Holy Spirit will be speaking to us saying, “This is the way, walk ye in it.” (Isaiah 30:21)
The question is: are we listening for his still, small voice?
A Last Hope
The third thing we see in this passage is a last hope expressed by Paul. He actually has three hopes for the Corinthians.
First, he hopes that they will go on to perfection. By perfection Paul means wholeness; he is talking about moving on to the goal for which God created us and redeemed us. Paul’s words remind us of the fact that we ought not to even try to stand still in the Christian life. If we are not advancing, we are slipping back. If we are not growing, we are dying.
As Christians, we are ever on our journey toward God. And so, we must be ever preparing for that day when we will meet God face to face. Meanwhile, it is good to remember that God also journeys with us by the power of the Holy Spirit, living in us and giving us forward momentum.
Paul’s second hope for the Corinthians is that they will listen to the direction he is giving them. It takes a strong person to be willing to be humble and listen to the advice of another who is further along the Christian way than we are. Those of us who are good talkers especially need to take the time to close our mouths and simply listen for the word or words Christ might have for us through others.
Paul’s third hope is that the Corinthians will live in agreement and peace. No Christian and indeed no congregation can live in a constant state of tumult. We cannot truly worship the God of peace if we have bitterness in our hearts. We must love each other if the love of God is going to be real in our midst.
A Last Blessing
Fourth, and finally, Paul offers a last and lasting blessing. The Corinthian correspondence has been filled with severity, struggle, and debate. But Paul does not want to end on that note. He wants to end with a note of serenity, with a good word.
One of the best ways to make peace with an enemy is to pray for them. It is hard to go on hating someone for whom you are praying. So, Paul ends with a prayer of sorts, not for his enemies, but for a church with whom he has had a troubled relationship.
The story is told of two Christian co-workers who had a difficult boss. After dealing with this boss for some time, the two Christians agreed that their best approach would be to pray for their boss. They decided they would do so during their lunch hour while their boss was out of the office. To be most effective, they decided they would pray for their boss in his office. So, during their lunch hour they stood in their boss’s office each with one hand raised toward heaven, and the other hand raised toward their boss’s seat behind his desk. While they were praying, their boss returned early from lunch and an interesting conversation ensued! Their boss was actually touched by the fact that his employees would pray for him, and their entire relationship changed for the better from that point onward. Sometimes praying for our “enemies” is indeed our best course of action in life…
I wonder if Paul had any idea how often in the future his benediction would be repeated. As you know, this is the benediction that I give at the end of almost every worship service. It is ingrained in my heart and mind and soul. “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”
Though Paul does not use the word “trinity”, the teaching of the trinity is present, in solution as it were, in all his letters. Here we have a benediction, a good word, from the God who is three in one, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The doctrine of the trinity is something the early church came to believe out of experience. Most of Jesus’ first followers were Jews. They were fierce monotheists. But the more they experienced of Jesus, the more they recognized his divinity. Then, after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, on the Feast of Pentecost, Jesus poured out on his followers the gift of the Holy Spirit. Suddenly, Jesus’ first followers were experiencing God in yet another way, another person, as it were. So, it was out of their experience of God that the first Christians came to believe in God as three-in-one. If the early church had not begun using the term “trinity” in the fourth century, we probably would have needed to invent a shorthand term like it to describe what the early Christians were talking about.
In talking about the trinity, Paul begins with the Son. He begins with Jesus. I find this very intriguing because in many ways I think this is where my spiritual journey really began in earnest. It began with coming to know Jesus in a personal way and experiencing his grace, his unmerited favor, which is something he embodies perfectly. Out of the three persons of the Godhead, Jesus is the One I still relate to the best. And I imagine it is that way for many other believers.
In a previous church, I had a young man go through confirmation who, when asked by his mother what he had learned in the class, said: “It’s all about grace. God’s love and forgiveness is a free gift. So that means that once I’m confirmed, I don’t need to go to church anymore.”
The mother asked me if that was indeed what I taught her son in confirmation class. I said, “No, he got the first part right but not the second.”
Grace is a free gift. God loves us and forgives us through Jesus. There is nothing we can do to earn it or to lose it unless we completely reject the gift.
But grace is also a power working in us and through us to accomplish great things for Christ and his kingdom. Those whose lives are transformed by grace become generous and self-giving people, not only in the context of the church, but also in the wider world. Being a Christian begins in grace and it continues in grace as we serve God and others by his gracious power.
Secondly, Paul speaks of the love of God the Father. For many people God seems distant. Especially for those who have had a problematic relationship with an earthly father, it is hard to imagine that we have a loving heavenly Father. But we do! And this is one of the main things Jesus reveals to us. He shows us how to have a relationship of love with our Abba, our heavenly Daddy. Jesus opens the way for us, by his perfect life and his sacrificial death, into an everlasting relationship of love with God the Father. Love is at the very heart of who God is. It is a startling truth, but there is no documented evidence of any Jew referring to God as Father, let alone, Abba, before Jesus came along. That’s one thing that makes Jesus’ life and words so startling. He not only spoke of God as Father, but as Daddy. And he teaches us to do the same. Jesus reveals to us a heavenly Father who is love.
I have shared with some of you this story, but I think it bears repeating. Many years ago, I was going through a difficult time that brought a sort of interruption to my prayer life. I had been taught to pray in my own words and suddenly I had no words. So, I decided I would pray the Lord’s Prayer every day. I thought I could at least continue doing that. And one day, as I was praying the Lord’s Prayer (I think it was during our time living in Ireland) a picture came into my mind. When Josh was very young, like most children, he liked being carried around. But he did not like being carried piggyback style. He would only let me carry him if he could look into my face. Well, one day as I was praying and saying, “Our Father” it was as if the Lord said to me, “Yes, I am your Father and I want you to let me carry you, just like you carry your son Josh, in such a way that you can look up into my face throughout the day.”
So, I had that picture, a new picture, of what my relationship with our heavenly Father could be—a picture of him carrying me through the day in such a way that I could look up into his face whenever I needed reassurance. And I believe our heavenly Father wants to carry each of us in that way, and he wants us to gaze moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day, into his face.
The third and final word of Paul’s blessing is a word about the Holy Spirit. Paul wishes for the Corinthians and for us the blessing of fellowship with the Holy Spirit. The word translated as fellowship is koinonia in Greek. It means to share in common.
The Spirit is the One who connects us with the Father and with the Son. He is also the One who connects us with each other as a family, as the Body of Christ. The Holy Spirit makes it possible for us to share a common life with God and with his Church.
As St. Augustine used to say, “God the Father is the Lover, the Son is the Beloved, and the Holy Spirit is the Love between them.” The power of God’s love, the blessing of his grace through Christ, and the fellowship, the connection with God, it all comes to us through the Spirit. And if we are not sure whether we have the Holy Spirit in our lives, all we have to do is ask. Jesus says,
If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! (Luke 11:13)
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