2 Corinthians 13--Final Warnings and Final Greetings

2 Corinthians 13
English Standard Version

Final Warnings
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.

Final Greetings
​11 Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. 12 Greet one another with a holy kiss. 13 All the saints greet you.
14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

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Paul gives the Corinthian church one final ultimatum that they should exercise church discipline and fix the problems going on in their church themselves before Paul arrives or he will carry out the promises that he made to exercise his apostolic authority and judge those who are living in sin.  For even though Jesus died in a state of "weakness" by choosing to not fight against the men trying to arrest Him and crucify Him, and submitted to the will of the Father in all things, that does not mean that Jesus is in any way weak or doesn't have the power or authority to deal with sin and rebellion in His Church.  On the contrary, He rose again and is living with power and now sits at the right hand of the Father (a position of power and authority) and one day He will return for His Church and then all of heaven and earth will be given to Him and He will reign with a rod of iron and will defeat and crush all the enemies of God as He judges both the living and the dead.  Let there be no pretenders on that day who imagine themselves to be "in Christ" but they are still enslaved to sin and living in it and relishing it, for he will sift the grain from the chaff and separate the sheep from the goats and will expose every thought of the mind and ever intent and motive of the heart so that everything will be judged rightly.  It is therefore better for us as the Church to deal with issues of sin here and now the the hope that it will lead to repentance and that such a person will not need to experience the wrath of God on that day, but will instead experience the grace and mercy of God for all eternity since God's wrath that was stored up against those who were to be saved was poured out on Christ at the cross.

So then, Paul, like both the apostle John and James the half-brother of Jesus encourage those who think themselves to be in the faith to examine themselves and see if they are truly in the faith, for those who truly love Him will submit to His authority, will love His commandments, and will live in obedience to them--not out of obligation or trying to earn eternal life, but because of how much we love the One that first loved us.  This is not to say that any of us can "lose our salvation," but that we need to make sure we are a "sheep" that belongs to Him and not a "goat" that looks the part from a distance, but doesn't have the identity of a kingdom citizen, because the Kingdom of God will not have an illegal immigrants--only those who have become citizens and sons by adoption and who are officially recorded in the Lamb's Book of Life will be allowed entry, all others will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father, but it will be too late for them, for their confession will be like that of the demons--a confession of the facts, but not of a saving faith that changes their nature and identity.  Those who die in such a state of rebellion will have perfect theology, but that will not save them.  They may even appear to have "perfect" religion--examine Matthew 7:21-23:

Matthew 7:21-23
English Standard Version

I Never Knew You
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
So then the deciding factor is not calling Him Lord, or even the good works that we do, even if we do them in His Name, but it's all about if He knows us and has chosen us as a groom knows and has chosen His Bride.  For heaven is an eternal honeymoon meant only for the Bride and the Bridegroom.  The angels of heaven will be witnesses and the Father will officiate as the Bride of Christ is part of the eternal inheritance that the Father gives to the Son.


Paul prays for the restoration of those who have fallen away so that they will not be found to be in rebellion at that time when there will be no more opportunity for repentance.  This is not a prayer that Paul prays so that he and his team would look good (that they would have a great "success rate," but for each and every soul that he has ministered too because he, like Christ, does not wish for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.


2 Peter 3:9
English Standard Version
9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

For this reason and for this purpose, it is worth it if Paul needs to come with authority and power to judge them now so that they would repent and not have to face the wrath of God and judgment of the Lamb who sits upon the throne

Finally, Paul encourages them to see restoration and reconciliation as they exercise their authority in church discipline.  The purpose is not to take our own vengeance out on those who do not believe or to put those who are not under condemnation or wrath somehow under it, but that in true faith and humility that all should repent and believe the truth gospel and that we can say together "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" because those whom he saves he justifies, and those whom He justifies, He also sanctifies (makes us holy and set apart) so that we might be conformed to the image of Christ that one day be may be glorified with a different kind of glory whereas the sun has one kind of glory that bright and blinding because it produces its own light, but the moon has another glory, soft and gentle that lights up the night and reflects the light of the sun.  So too the Church is there to reflect the light of Christ and because we see the light of the moon, we know the light of the sun is still there, even though we cannot look directly into it without being blinded or come into direct, prolonged contact with it without being burnt.  

Only in our collective submission to the authority of God and to the Word of God will we have peace with God and each other so that we will be be able to see each other as brothers and sisters of one holy priesthood as we "greet each other with a holy kiss." (A sign of fellowship and a greeting that you would give to friends and family members).

Paul then says that all the saints (probably of the other churches, as it seems the Corinthians church has been on the minds of Paul as well as the other churches in the area) send their greetings, and Paul closes with a slightly non-traditional closing asking for the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God (the Father), and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit to be with them all.  I think this again goes back to Paul continuing to pray that all of those who hear these words come to salvation and experience grace, love, and fellowship, for those are only things that those who are saved can experience.  Something about this group of people that claimed to be Christ-followers must have really been weighing on Paul's heart and mind for him to close this letter in such a way.

This is the last we hear of the Corinthian church.  We really have no idea from the Bible if they repented and their faith was proved to be genuine or if they continued to wink at sin and allow their members to live in sin because they did not want to exercise their authority on earth to judge sin in the Church through church discipline.  Failure to act is complicity and those who are complicit will not be found guiltless (we've already seen this in the Law of Moses).  Those who refuse to confront sin do not have a proper view of God or themselves or what's at stake for those that live in sin and in open rebellion to God.  You cannot love both God and your sin.  You will either love God and hate your sin or you will love your sin and hate God, but you cannot try to be a citizen of both kingdoms and play in the world's sandbox all while saying "I've got my fire insurance, so I'm good."  It doesn't work like that--"By their fruits you will know them."  The Fruit of the Spirit is the fruit that is in keeping with repentance that can only come about by changed hearts, changed minds, changed lives, and changed identities.  We need to become "new creations" in Christ.


Matthew 3:7-9
English Standard Version
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.

Let's look back at one key passage from the book of 2 Corinthians that I think will sum-up the whole book very well for us:


2 Corinthians 5:16-21
English Standard Version
16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.