2 Corinthians 13:1–10
13 This is the third time I am coming to you. Every charge must be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 2 I warned those who sinned before and all the others, and I warn them now while absent, as I did when present on my second visit, that if I come again I will not spare them— 3 since you seek proof that Christ is speaking in me. He is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among you. 4 For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God.
5 Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! 6 I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test. 7 But we pray to God that you may not do wrong—not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed. 8 For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. 9 For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. Your restoration is what we pray for. 10 For this reason I write these things while I am away from you, that when I come I may not have to be severe in my use of the authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down.
Section Overview: Restoration through Testing
This is the final section of the body of 2 Corinthians. As such, we find one last plea from Paul to the Corinthians to reorient their perception of Paul and even of Christ in accord with gospel realities, namely, that death begets life and weakness begets strength to those united to a crucified yet risen Savior. The first half of this passage (13:1–4) is directed primarily at the impenitent in Corinth, those most in need of correction. The second half (vv. 5–10) is directed primarily at the penitent, those who seem to remain open to Paul’s ministry and leadership. A particularly strong theme throughout the whole passage is “proof” (v. 3) or “testing” (vv. 5–7), that is, the open vindication of either the worldly mindset demonstrated by the super-apostles (lauding human strength) or the gospel mindset of Paul and his colleagues (lauding human weakness and divine strength).
Section Outline
IV.D. Concluding Summary Remarks (12:11–13:14) . . .
4. Warning to the Impenitent (13:1–4)
a. Paul’s Intention (13:1–2)
b. Christ’s Precedent (13:3–4)
5. Warning to the Penitent (13:5–10)
a. Paul’s Exhortation: Testing (13:5–7)
b. Paul’s Goal: Restoration (13:8–10)
Response
Is Jesus Christ “in you” (13:5)? If so, do you realize you are “weak in him” (v. 4)? Union with Christ liberates us into a new way of existence in which our weaknesses become catalysts for strength rather than obstacles to strength. Why? Because Christ himself “was crucified in weakness” (v. 4). When we stop fleeing our smallness and fears and insecurities and insignificance and instead bring them to God, offering them to him, those very weaknesses become the kindling by which divine power erupts into our mundane day-to-day existence. We are at those points more aligned with Jesus Christ himself than any time we seek to work out of our supposed strengths. When God’s power finds a home in our weakness, we are more deeply tested and more truly approved than ever, even though the world sees our weakness as a failure.
This is the great test of life: Will we humble ourselves enough to divest ourselves of our self-resourced capacities and lean into the power of a crucified Christ? Will we cast ourselves onto One who was once weak and now welcomes our weakness as an open door to true strength? Will we look for resurrection power through that weakness instead of by fleeing it?
13:1 Paul repeats (cf. 12:14) his intention to make a third visit to Corinth. And when he arrives, he does not intend to accommodate passing hearsay or casual indictments offered by a single individual. In accord with the wisdom of OT law (Deut. 19:15), Paul then immediately and seemingly out of nowhere reminds the Corinthians that three (or at least two) witnesses are required for an accusation to be considered. But throughout 2 Corinthians Paul clearly feels himself to be alone. Yes, he has spoken of his colleagues from time to time (e.g., 8:16–24). But can he be confident of having another Corinthian or two on his side?
It cannot be missed that Paul says, in short compass, both that “this is the third time I am coming to you” and that accusations require “two or three witnesses.” Paul’s visits are the witnesses. His first visit was the first testimony. His second “painful” visit (2:1) was the second testimony. Now his arrival will provide the third. If the Corinthians wish to avoid judgment, they have one final opportunity to reform.
13:2 That the three visits represent the three witnesses required by OT law is reinforced here. Paul references three warnings to the impenitent in Corinth, corresponding to three visits:
Warning 1 in the wake of the first visit (“I warned those who sinned before”)
Warning 2 during the second visit (“as I did when present on my second visit”)
Warning 3 here in 2 Corinthians (“I warn them now while absent”)
Three witnesses; three visits; three warnings. The Corinthians have been duly prepared for Paul’s imminent visit. If impenitence remains, they have nothing to blame but their own recalcitrance, and Paul is left no choice: “I will not spare them.” We bear in mind that Paul is speaking not of the entire Corinthian congregation here but simply of the impenitent minority. What does it mean that Paul will “not spare them”? Excommunication—removing them from the church and treating them like unbelievers (Matt. 18:17), with civility but not counting the impenitent as coheirs of Christ. In other words, the church will hand them over to Satan with the hope that they might come to their spiritual senses and repent (1 Cor. 5:5; cf. 1 Tim. 1:20).
13:3 Verses 3 and 4 work in tandem as Paul now brings in Christ himself with one last reminder to the Corinthians of the upside-down nature of vital gospel life and ministry.
In verse 3 Paul responds to an apparent insistence by the Corinthians that Paul offer some “proof” that Christ speaks through him—that is, that Paul’s apostolic ministry truly represents Christ’s own concerns and inaugurated kingdom. Paul describes Christ in the second half of the verse as the one (lit.) “who is not weak in you but is powerful among you”; by this Paul likely repeats their own claim to Christ’s power. Paul may allude here to the miraculous demonstrations of the Spirit in Corinth for which that church had become well known, but he speaks of proof not that the Spirit is speaking in him but that Christ is speaking in him. In mind primarily are things like rhetorically impressive preaching (10:10) and triumphant authoritarianism (11:20)—in short, all the outer trappings of flesh-fueled “ministry.” That the preaching of the super-apostles versus the preaching of Paul is in the foreground is hinted at by Paul’s language of Christ’s “speaking” in him. Paul is saying: “You want to know whether this Christ who is so apparently impressive and imposing in my opponents’ preaching ministry can really be present in my own unimpressive preaching ministry.”
13:4 Paul then turns on its head the claim to Christ’s strength among the Corinthians by doing once more what he has been doing throughout this letter: upending the Corinthians’ natural intuitions about where Christ’s strength is truly manifested. A mountain of theological significance is packed into this single verse.
Christ’s power, Paul wants to remind the Corinthians, is not reflected in outward impressiveness. Yes, Christ has power. But what was the route by which he himself got there? “He was crucified.” Shame and ignominy is that to which the Corinthians are becoming so averse under the fleshly influence of the super-apostles. But it is precisely shame and ignominy that were the path to true power in Christ himself. The Corinthians eschew weakness. But Christ himself was crucified “in weakness.” Only by going down into death and shame did Christ rise eternally into life and glory (“but lives by the power of God”). When the Corinthians find themselves shrinking back from an experience of weakness, they shrink back from the experience of Christ. And Christ’s power came not from self-grabbing but from self-emptying (cf. Phil. 2:6–11). Jesus plunged into death and only then received resurrection life.
And Paul connects Christ’s death and resurrection to his own apostolic ministry. “We also are weak in him.” United to Christ, believers share not only in Christ’s resurrection power but also in his cruciform weakness. While Paul applies this truth to overcoming personal sin in Romans 6:1–5, here in 2 Corinthians 13 he applies it to overcoming a fleshly aversion to weakness. And his point is that his apparent weakness, since he is plugged into a crucified yet now risen Christ, brings along with that weakness real strength. The difference between Paul’s weakness/strength and Christ’s is that Christ experienced weakness and strength in linear fashion, whereas Paul—and here we come to the main theme of the letter again—experiences weakness and strength as simultaneous, overlaid realities. As he said in 12:10, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” Christ’s resurrection power, while fully manifest in the new earth, shows itself already here and now through weakness.
13:5 Paul has been speaking mainly regarding the impenitent to this point in chapter 13, but now he pivots to the penitent in Corinth. He begins by instructing them to examine themselves. Throughout the letter Paul has been defending the legitimacy of his ministry. He has been the one under examination. Now he turns the tables and states that the Corinthians need to hold up a mirror and test their own spiritual reality. The Corinthians, who “seek proof that Christ is speaking in me” (v. 3), ought to seek proof that Christ is actually in them.
Paul’s exhortation here, then, is not for a crass introspection that seeks to plumb one’s own heart in a way that is out of accord with the Bible’s far more frequent calls to look to Christ (John 3:14–15; Col. 3:1–2; Heb. 3:1; 12:1–3), including here in 2 Corinthians (3:18). The Scottish preacher Robert Murray M’Cheyne famously told his people, “For every look at self, take ten looks at Christ”—and this captures the biblical rhythm. Take brief glances when looking within. Take long stares when looking to him.
13:6 The “we” is emphatic in the Greek in this sentence. “And I hope,” Paul is saying, “as you examine yourselves, reflecting afresh on what true strength looks like for those united to a crucified Christ, that you will not discover that we ourselves have fallen into the very same worldly mindset you have been drifting into.” But of course “hope” (Gk. elpizō) for Paul does not denote flaccid, wishful thinking. Paul “hopes” that he too will be found to be functioning out of full gospel integrity in the sense that he is utterly confident he will be. We might put it in English like this: “I trust you will find . . .” Indeed, the verb translated “find out” is the word more often rendered “know”: “You will know that we have not failed the test.” As the Corinthians bring their self-understanding into line with the upside-down mindset of the gospel, Paul knows that this self-reflection will open their eyes to the legitimacy of his own outwardly unimpressive ministry.
13:7 But as soon as Paul refers to his own exoneration in the eyes of the Corinthians, he quickly swivels back to his overriding concern for their spiritual welfare. Paul’s desire that they “not do wrong” but instead act out of gospel health (however weak it may appear on the outside) is not simply a desire to clear his own name. His goal is that the Corinthian church would walk into a deeper gospel culture than they have ever known. He wants them to “do what is right,” with the word for “right” (Gk. kalos) referring to that which is good or beautiful.
Indeed, Paul is quite willing for him and his colleagues to be mistakenly perceived as untested themselves if only it means that the Corinthians will move into spiritual health fueled by identification with a Christ both crucified and risen. The phrase “failed” is the fifth occurrence in verses 5–7 of a single Greek root:
(1) “test” (dokimazete; v. 5)
(2) “fail to meet the test” (adokimoi; v. 5)
(3) “failed the test” (adokimoi; v. 6)
(4) “met the test” (dokimoi; v. 7)
(5) “failed” (adokimoi; v. 7)
Lining these up together makes clear that by “may seem to have failed” Paul refers to his ministry’s being exposed as untested or unproven, not meeting the minimum bar of the very authentic gospel ministry into which he exhorts the Corinthians to step.
13:8 Just as Paul had spoken earlier to the Corinthians of his being constrained to preach the gospel (1 Cor. 9:16), here he speaks of being constrained to preach the gospel in a certain way. He simply cannot exercise service to Christ in any other way than in the method he has been outlining in recent verses and indeed throughout the letter. Christ himself was put on a cross in a display of abject human weakness, experiencing resurrection life only thereafter (2 Cor. 13:4). So too Paul cannot minister this Christ and his gospel in a way out of accord with this necessary duality of life through death, strength through weakness. Such ministry reflects the “truth” of the gospel (cf. Gal. 2:14). Put negatively, a false ministry would be a ministry that admired strength only. Such a fleshly approach would unwittingly prevent real power from flowing in, for God’s power manifests itself through human weakness (2 Cor. 12:9–10).
13:9 As long as the truth of the gospel is upheld (v. 8), Paul is happy, even if this means he himself is viewed as untested or unapproved (the likely primary meaning of “weak” here). Yet, by referring to himself as “weak,” Paul means more than simply being viewed as unapproved. He is also speaking more broadly of the entire apparent weakness of his ministry, from his bland rhetorical skills (10:10) to his many shameful sufferings (11:23–27) to his ridiculous nocturnal basket escape (11:32–33). He is glad to exercise his ministry in weakness if it means the Corinthians will be spiritually “strong.” Here he means “strong” not in a worldly sense but in a truly healthy sense, restored relationally to one another, to Paul, and indeed to the Lord. That is clear from the second half of the verse: “Your restoration is what we pray for.” The hard things Paul has said throughout 2 Corinthians have never been aimed to discourage these believers. He wants instead to see them move happily into flourishing and calm, into peace and joy, into unity and love. Indeed, this is more than mere desire; it is his prayer. Paul has been speaking to the Corinthians on behalf of God (5:20). But he has also been speaking to God on behalf of the Corinthians.
13:10 All that Paul has written has been to pave the way for a mutually peaceful and celebratory reunion when he arrives in Corinth for the third time. It is not that Paul cannot exercise his apostolic authority. He can be “severe” if called for. God has “given” him such authority. But this is not Paul’s heart. His heart, and his chief mandate, is “building up,” not “tearing down,” the flock of God.
The two words Paul uses here are worth noting. “Building up” translates oikodomē, just used in 12:19 (“all for your upbuilding, beloved”). An even closer parallel is 10:8, where Paul speaks also of his “authority” as given by God for “building up” instead of “tearing down” (AT). The Greek word comes from the world of architecture and refers to a building itself or the construction of a building. Likewise, “tearing down,” used only two other times in the NT and both in this letter (10:4, 8), here speaks of the deconstruction of a building. Paul’s authority has been granted for construction, not demolition, of the church. Authority that throws its weight around, authority that takes pleasure in pointing out errors, authority that spends more time looking down on others rather than looking up to the Lord who gave it—this is not biblical authority. True authority is for the sake of Christian spiritual health.