About to visit the Corinthians "the third time." he informs them very distinctly what they had to expect. In the words of the Old Testament Law, he says, "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established." The strength of his resolution to punish impenitent offenders is declared - "I will not spare." A crisis was at hand, and he was fully prepared to meet the issue. He refers to the main source of all the trouble, viz. the disparagement of his office as Christ's apostle. Everything had been done by the Judaizers to put contempt on him and his official position The forbearance he had shown, the patience under repeated and aggravated provocation, his deeds of self-denial, Christ's testimony to the greatness of the work alone among them, had all been misconstrued and turned to his injury. Even his infirmities, the defects of personal appearance, his conscientious avoidance of the least worldly art in his ministry, had been used to his disadvantage. Craft, falsehood, malignity, had followed him with persistent steps. Neither his private nor public life had escaped prying eyes and slanderous tongues. A man in feeble health, his strength constantly over taxed, infirmities growing beyond his years as well as with his years, labouring to support himself, and thus making heavy drafts on his bodily powers, he had these ills daily augmented by annoyances and vexations from those who sought to come between him and his Churches. To undo his work was their aim and ambition. They hated him officially, they despised him personally, nor could they rest while he had friends to cheer him on in his labours. What is most noticeable is the utter blindness of these persecutors to the wonderful tokens of God's presence with him. It is to this fact he alludes in the words, "Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me." Remember, it was in this Corinth, where these turbulent spirits were most industrious to overthrow him, that Christ had given the most numerous and remarkable evidences of the favour bestowed on his apostle as the apostle of the Gentiles. "Seek a proof," to our ears sounds most strangely. "Signs and wonders and mighty deeds," and yet "seek a proof of Christ speaking in me"! It is well that there was an antecedent history, a fourfold history but one biography, and that this biography of the Lord Jesus opens to us a full view of man's capacity to disbelieve where Divine manifestations are concerned. "If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you." So the Lord Jesus had foretold; so St. Paul had realized. And now, in the closing hour of writing this Epistle, the apostle identifies his condition with that of Christ in the days of the flesh. Years before, the great fact had occurred of which these recent facts were no more than exemplifications. Taking upon himself the lowly form of a servant and submitting to every kind of privation and sorrow, putting himself as to his circumstances in extreme contrast with his power and never exercising this power except; under the agency of the Holy Ghost, men treated him, Son of God, Son of man, as one in their hands, over whom and his earthly destiny they had entire control. "He was crucified through weakness." He could have been crucified in no other way. The sole condition under which this event was possible is here stated, viz. weakness. The weakness was assumed voluntarily by him because it was necessary to the work of redemption. "Yet he liveth by the power of God." Even in the grave his body was treated as though men had it under mastery. Roman procurator and Jewish Sanhedrim held it as their own, and stationed a military guard at the sepulchre where his corpse, still their prisoner, lay till the third day ended the mystery of his weakness. Then came the triumph "of the power of God." Authority felt it and was abased. To its degradation it added the infamy of a lie, and to the lie the infamy of a money bribe. Guilt felt it and acknowledged its impending curse in the return of innocent blood as vengeance on its head. Sad as this hour was to St. Paul, his faith was never firmer. Had he not said just before, that if he should have to "bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented," he should accept the humiliation as a holy discipline? "My God will humble me among you." One had gone before him in weakness. But his Leader in trial would be his Leader in triumph. "For we also are weak in him." It is not our weakness. It wears a human look, speaks human words, trembles with human sensibility, sighs with human pathos, yearns for relief with human desires. Nevertheless it is a fact, "we also are weak in him. The weakness we share is that of the God-Man, the weakness of the Divine incarnation, so that we walk according to our small measure in the footsteps of him who himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses." "But we shall live," not in the resurrection, but in the day when we come to Corinth and vindicate our authority, "we shall live with him by the power of God toward you. Then, indeed, you who have taunted us as weak and contemptible," shall see and know that this risen and exalted Christ is Christ in us," the power of God toward you." Do you then "seek a proof of Christ speaking in me"? 1 shall come with "the power of God" and the "proof" shall be given. - L.

Notice —

I. GOD'S METHOD OF OPERATION IN THE CHURCH BY HIS APPOINTED SERVANTS.

1. The rebellious Corinthians had spoken ill of the apostle as lacking in power: his personal presence was not commanding, his speech was not fascinating. Paul does not deny the charge, but declares the general principle of power in weakness, by which the Lord conducts the gospel dispensation.(1) Life, born of death, is the life of our souls (ver. 4). By assuming our weakness Christ gained the power to act as our substitute, and put away our sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Because of His being obedient to death, even the death of the Cross, "God also hath highly exalted Him," etc. By this sign He conquered: the ensign of His Cross is the seal of victory. It is Himself thus slain which is His power to pardon and to save.(2) Our Lord's power over our hearts comes by His great love, and this matchless manner of His showing it. Stooping so low to save such unworthy ones He conquers our hearts. His dying love has begotten living love within us.

2. Why did Paul interject this teaching? To show us that God does not save by the strength of His ministers, but by their weakness.(1) Paul was willing to lose all personal honour, though, in truth, not a whit behind the chief of the apostles. "We have this treasure in earthen vessels," etc. He cheerfully sank that his Lord might be exalted.(2) In those days there was a great liking for philosophy. But Paul determined not to know anything among them save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. "But at least," they said, "what he has to say ought to be delivered with the graces of oratory." "No," says Paul, "my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."(3) He might have come among them and said, "I am an apostle; I have supreme power over churches; out of this Church I shall eject offenders without any question"; yet he never used such authority; on the contrary he was the servant of all, gentle, unselfish. If any one was grieved, Paul was grieved with him; if any suffered trial, Paul was tried. Thus he was a power among them. By laying aside authority he became mighty to influence them for good. All who desire to be useful must learn that in self-sinking their usefulness will be found. He who becomes least is greatest of all. "When I am weak, then am I strong."

II. THE SURE PROOF OF POWER; the indisputable evidence of any minister's call from God to preach the gospel.

1. "Ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me."(1) He did not care about what they thought of his own speaking; but he was greatly concerned that they should not think lightly of the Lord Jesus who spoke in him.(2) Further, the apostle declares that even the power of the living Christ is the power of God. Our Lord kept nothing to Himself, but His weakness through which He was crucified, for He liveth by the power of God. Such must be the power of every Christian worker.(3) Then, says Paul, "If you want a proof of Christ's speaking in me with power, look at yourselves." He says elsewhere, "Ye are our epistle." "Ye are God's husbandry," and the test of how far our husbandry has been the Lord's husbandry must be found in your fruitfulness. The proof that Christ really doth speak by us is that He has wrought by that speaking in you after such a fashion as proves the doctrine to be Divine. Your souls are the seals of Christ's power. If ye seek any proof of Christ speaking by me, ye have it in your —

1. Conversion. When the chief priests and scribes saw the man that was healed standing with Peter and John, they could say nothing against them. Conversion proves that He by whose means it was wrought was sent by God.

2. Comfort. If by our speaking the Lord strengthens your weak hands and confirms your feeble knees, He points us out to you as His messengers.

3. Correction. Have you not sometimes felt your hearts turned inside out, as if the spirit of burning were scorching and purging you? Was not that of the Lord?

4. Conduct. My heart sinks within me when I hear of some who have been numbered with us. Do people say, "These are members of Spurgeon's church"? You are either our joy and crown, or else our sorrow and dishonour. You must estimate whether a man farms well by the crops which he raises. True you cannot condemn him if a few thorns and thistles spring up in the hedgerows, but if there is a preponderance of weeds, everybody says, "This is wretched farming."

5. Consecration. When your zeal burns, when you speak by the power of the Holy Ghost, then again I can say, seek ye a proof of Christ speaking by me? You are my witnesses inasmuch as by our word you have been stirred up to speak in the power of the Holy Ghost for the winning of souls.

6. Completion of the Christian character, and the display of it in the last hours. I have come down many times from the chamber of dying Christians with faith confirmed and joy increased. No dying man has looked me in the face and said, "Sir, you did not preach a religion which a man can die with."

III. A NEEDED PROOF OF OURSELVES.

1. "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith." It is something to have our ministry attested, but it is much more to have your salvation attested.(1) Therefore you are not to take it for granted that you are saved. In London years ago every shop had its sign, and they had a saying that the house which had the sign of the sun in a certain street was darker than any other. So there are some who have grace for their sign, but no sign of grace. To have a name to live is a wretched thing, if we be really dead(2) Of course we are to examine our lives, but he says, "Examine yourselves." Sin within will ruin even if it be not seen in act. Of course we are to examine our doctrines, but even more we are to examine ourselves. Heart error is more deadly than head error.(3) "Prove your own selves." Pry deeper. You have already given yourself a sifting; take a finer sieve and go to work again. You have already been in the crucible — go in again, and become as silver tried in a furnace purified seven times. A man cannot make too sure work about his own salvation. But can we not be certain of our safety? Yes, we can: but certain because we have not shunned the most rigorous self-examinations.

2. And what is to be the point of search? "Whether ye be in the faith," whether what ye believe is true, and whether you truly believe it.

3. Dwell mostly on this point, "Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" Is Jesus Christ in you? I know all about Him. Yes, but is He in you? I read of Him. Read on, but is He in you?

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

Corinthians, PaulAchaia, CorinthChrist, Dealing, Desire, Fact, Feeble, Giving, Infirm, Lips, Mighty, Powerful, Practical, Proof, Relation, Seeing, Seek, Seeking, Sign, Speaketh, Speaking, Speaks, Strong, Towards, Weak, You-ward1. Paul threatens severity, and the power of his apostleship, against obstinate sinners.
5. And, advising them to a trial of their faith,
7. and to a reformation of their sins before his coming,
11. he concludes his epistle with a general exhortation and a prayer.

2 Corinthians 13:3

     8723   doubt, results of

2 Corinthians 13:3-4

     1105   God, power of

Self-Examination
The Corinthians were the critics of the apostles' age. They took to themselves great credit for skill in learning and in language, and as most men do who are wise in their own esteem, they made a wrong use of their wisdom and learning--they began to criticise the apostle Paul. They criticised his style. "His letters," say they, "are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak and his speech contemptible." Nay, not content with that, they went so far as to deny his apostleship, and for once …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 4: 1858

How to Use the Prayer-Book
Before the Service.--If possible be in your place a few moments before the appointed hour, that you may collect your thoughts and prepare for the service. On entering, go at once quietly to your seat, kneel down, and say a short prayer for yourself and your fellow-worshipers. The Collect for the Nineteenth or the Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity, or the Collect, "Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open," at the beginning of the Communion Office, you may find appropriate. When you have said …
Jacob A. Regester—The Worship of the Church

"And if Christ be in You, the Body is Dead Because Sin,"
Rom. viii. 10.--"And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because sin," &c. This is the high excellence of the Christian religion, that it contains the most absolute precepts for a holy life, and the greatest comforts in death, for from these two the truth and excellency of religion is to be measured, if it have the highest and perfectest rule of walking, and the chiefest comfort withal. Now, the perfection of Christianity you saw in the rule, how spiritual it is, how reasonable, how divine, how …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Sermon.
The great and blessed God that made heaven and earth, the seas and the great fountains of the deep, and rivers of water, the Almighty JEHOVAH, who is from everlasting to everlasting. He also made man and woman; and his design was to make them eternally happy and blessed. And therefore he made man in his own image; "in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them:" He made them after his own likeness holy, wise, merciful, just, patient, and humble, endued them with knowledge, righteousness, …
William Penn—A Sermon Preached at the Quaker's Meeting House

Reprobation.
In discussing this subject I shall endeavor to show, I. What the true doctrine of reprobation is not. 1. It is not that the ultimate end of God in the creation of any was their damnation. Neither reason nor revelation confirms, but both contradict the assumption, that God has created or can create any being for the purpose of rendering him miserable as an ultimate end. God is love, or he is benevolent, and cannot therefore will the misery of any being as an ultimate end, or for its own sake. It is …
Charles Grandison Finney—Systematic Theology

On Being Filled with the Spirit
Text.--Be filled with the Spirit.--Eph. v. 18. SEVERAL of my last lectures have been on the subject of prayer, and the importance of having the spirit of prayer, of the intercession of the Holy Ghost. Whenever the necessity and importance of the Spirit's influences are held forth, there can be no doubt that persons are in danger of abusing the doctrine, and perverting it to their own injury. For instance, when you tell sinners that without the Holy Spirit they never will repent, they are very liable …
Charles Grandison Finney—Lectures on Revivals of Religion

The Clergyman and the Prayer Book.
Dear pages of ancestral prayer, Illumined all with Scripture gold, In you we seem the faith to share Of saints and seers of old. Whene'er in worship's blissful hour The Pastor lends your heart a voice, Let his own spirit feel your power, And answer, and rejoice. In the present chapter I deal a little with the spirit and work of the Clergyman in his ministration of the ordered Services of the Church, reserving the work of the Pulpit for later treatment. THE PRAYER BOOK NOT PERFECT BUT INESTIMABLE. …
Handley C. G. Moule—To My Younger Brethren

The Greatest of These is Love.
"The greatest of these is Love."-- 1 Cor. xiii. 13. That the shedding abroad of Love and the glowing of its fire through the heart is the eternal work of the Holy Spirit, is stated by no one so pithily as by St. Paul in the closing verse of his hymn of Love. Faith, Hope, and Love are God's most precious gifts; but Love far surpasses the others in preciousness. Compared with all heavenly gifts, Faith, Hope, and Love stand highest, but of these three Love is the greatest. All spiritual gifts are precious, …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

Of the Character of the Unregenerate.
Ephes. ii. 1, 2. And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. AMONG all the various trusts which men can repose in each other, hardly any appears to be more solemn and tremendous, than the direction of their sacred time, and especially of those hours which they spend in the exercise of public devotion. …
Philip Doddridge—Practical Discourses on Regeneration

The Third Wall.
The third wall falls of itself, as soon as the first two have fallen; for if the Pope acts contrary to the Scriptures, we are bound to stand by the Scriptures, to punish and to constrain him, according to Christ's commandment; "Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every …
Martin Luther—First Principles of the Reformation

Concerning the Scriptures.
Concerning the Scriptures. From these revelations of the Spirit of God to the saints, have proceeded the Scriptures of Truth, which contain, I. A faithful historical account of the actings of God's people in divers ages; with many singular and remarkable providences attending them. II. A prophetical account of several things, whereof some are already past, and some yet to come. III. A full and ample account of all the chief principles of the doctrine of Christ, held forth in divers precious declarations, …
Robert Barclay—Theses Theologicae and An Apology for the True Christian Divinity

Assurance of Salvation.
"These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may knew that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God." (1 John v. 13. ) There are two classes who ought not to have Assurance. First: those who are in the Church, but who are not converted, having never been born of the Spirit. Second: those not willing to do God's will; who are not ready to take the place that God has mapped out for them, but want to fill some other place. …
Dwight L. Moody—The Way to God and How to Find It

Testimonies.
"Without faith it is impossible to please God."--Heb. xi. 6. In order to prevent the possibility of being led into paths of error, faith is directed, not to a Christ of the imagination, but to "the Christ in the garments of the Sacred Scripture," as Calvin expresses it. And therefore we must discriminate between (1) faith as a faculty implanted in the soul without our knowledge; (2) faith as a power whereby this implanted faculty begins to act; and (3) faith as a result,--since with this faith (1) …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

The Christian's Peace and the Christian's Consistency
PHILIPPIANS i. 21-30 He will be spared to them--Spiritual wealth of the paragraph--Adolphe Monod's exposition--Charles Simeon's testimony--The equilibrium and its secret--The intermediate bliss--He longs for their full consistency--The "gift" of suffering Ver. 21. +For to me, to live is Christ+; the consciousness and experiences of living, in the body, are so full of Christ, my supreme Interest, that CHRIST sums them all up; +and to die+, the act of dying,[1] +is gain+, for it will usher me in …
Handley C. G. Moule—Philippian Studies

Concerning the Ministry.
Concerning the Ministry. As by the light or gift of God all true knowledge in things spiritual is received and revealed, so by the same, as it is manifested and received in the heart, by the strength and power thereof, every true minister of the gospel is ordained, prepared, and supplied in the work of the ministry; and by the leading, moving, and drawing hereof ought every evangelist and Christian pastor to be led and ordered in his labour and work of the gospel, both as to the place where, as to …
Robert Barclay—Theses Theologicae and An Apology for the True Christian Divinity

Concerning Perfection.
Concerning Perfection. In whom this pure and holy birth is fully brought forth, the body of death and sin comes to be crucified and removed, and their hearts united and subjected to the truth; so as not to obey any suggestions or temptations of the evil one, but to be free from actual sinning and transgressing of the law of God, and in that respect perfect: yet doth this perfection still admit of a growth; and there remaineth always in some part a possibility of sinning, where the mind doth not most …
Robert Barclay—Theses Theologicae and An Apology for the True Christian Divinity

Reprobation Asserted: Or, the Doctrine of Eternal Election and Reprobation Promiscuously Handled, in Eleven Chapters.
WHEREIN THE MOST MATERIAL OBJECTIONS MADE BY THE OPPOSERS OF THIS DOCTRINE, ARE FULLY ANSWERED; SEVERAL DOUBTS REMOVED, AND SUNDRY CASES OF CONSCIENCE RESOLVED. BY JOHN BUNYAN OF BEDFORD, A LOVER OF PEACE AND TRUTH. 'What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.'--Romans 11:7 London: Printed for G. L., and are to be sold in Turn-stile-alley, in Holbourn. Small 4to, 44 pages. EDITOR'S ADVERTISEMENT. This valuable tract …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

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