"For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive another spirit which from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough!" (II Corinthians 11:4, ESV)
"For apparently you cheerfully accept a man who comes to you preaching a different Jesus from the one we told you about, and you readily receive a different spirit and a different gospel than the one you originally accepted!" (II Corinthians 11:4, Phillips)
In last week's lesson (on II Corinthians 10:7-18), we found the apostle Paul in the midst of defending his integrity and the ongoing ministry he had worked so hard to establish with the Corinthians; defending it against false teachers who had somehow infiltrated the church of Corinth in his absence, and who reasoned that if they could just get the Corinthian believers to lose their trust in Paul, they could become the reigning teachers and bring on their damnable lies and heresies, and destroy the work of Paul and his ministry with the Corinthians!
And so we saw Paul (in 10:7) challenging them "not to look at things superficially but to use discernment in examining the evidence with their eyes wide open, and see the obvious contrast between his life and ministry and that of the false teachers!
The Corinthians had been saved through the ministry of Paul; he was the founder of the church of Corinth and their "spiritual father"! They knew of his conversion experience on the road to Damascus and how his life was supernaturally changed; of his calling, and of his authority, as an apostle of Jesus Christ; and of his mandate to build them up spiritually, and not destroy them! They knew of the zealousness and impact of his teaching and of the exemplary life he lived before them! His track record was clear, in stark contrast with that of the false teachers! How could they possibly believe that the false teachers were the true apostles and that he was a false one?
And we learned from this lesson that a true man of God can be known:
And that set the scene for our lesson last night (on 11:1-6), where we find Paul continuing to defend his apostleship and his calling, not for his own pride and self-=preservation, or to save his personal reputation, but because the ministry of the gospel of Christ, and the survival of the church of Corinth, were at stake!
And so Paul, in verse 1, being the humble man of God that he was, is expressing his wish that the Corinthians "put up with a little more of his foolishness," as he continues to defend himself against the accusations of his critics, and even uses a little sarcasm in making his point! "Bear with me in a little foolishness," he writes! Phillips says, "I wish you would put up with a little of my foolishness! Please try!" (Constable calls it foolishness because "he didn't like focusing on himself, and shouldn't have had to defend himself, or remind them of God's commendation of his ministry"! Both he and his ministry are well-known to the Corinthians and he's asking them just to "hang in there with him" while he continue his "foolish" self-defense a little longer!
It was important for the Corinthians to recognize him as an apostle of Jesus Christ and accept his apostolic authority, as a spokesman of God, as they apparently were doing, he notes in verse 1!
He writes (in verse 2) that he was jealous for them with a "godly jealousy," having the same kind of concern for the Corinthians as God had for Israel! God jealously guarded His people Israel from the deceitfulness of deceivers who sought to drive their affections away from Him, and He charged them "not to forget His covenant, and not to make (and worship!) graven images"!
Deuteronomy 4:24 says, "For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, and a jealous God"! Psalm 78:58 says, "they (the children of Israel) aroused His jealousy with their graven images!" And the Psalmist wrote (in Psalm 69:9) that "zeal for Your house has eaten me up"! These latter words were picked up and fulfilled by Jesus, John 2:13-17 tells us, when He "went up to the temple in Jerusalem, when the Sabbath was near," and found "money changers making His Father's house a place of business"! And so, He overturned the tables and cleansed the temple," reminding the disciples, verse 17 says, what was written about Him in the Psalms, "Zeal for Your house will consume Me"!
The apostle Paul felt this same "pain of God's jealousy" when His name was dishonored, according to our text! MacArthur writes that he was "all caught up in whatever dishonored God in the life of the church," and that he used a simple analogy in verse 2 to describe his concern--likening himself to the Corinthians "as a father bethrothing his virgin daughter to her would-be husband"! And, in that regard, making sure that she "remained pure and faithful, and was made ready for the consumation of her marriage in the upcoming wedding"!
Scripture likens marriage to the relationship between Jesus Christ and "His bride," the church! In Ephesians 5:25-27, Paul writes: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless!"
The apostle Paul had this same concern: that the church would be kept pure until the Rapture and the coming marriage ceremony when He will gather His bride (the church, the "body of Christ"!) and take it to glory for the "marriage supper of the Lamb"! Revelation 19:6-9 describes it this way: "Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, 'Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns! Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride (the church!) has made herself ready! It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous act of the saints! Then he said to me, 'Write. blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb!" (Wow! What a day that will be, when all the redeemed from all the ages will be gathered together participate in this by the throne of God!)
But Paul also expressed a fear he had, in verse 3! "That the minds of the Corinthians might be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ by the same serpent who deceived Eve in the garden! Led astray by false teachers who were infiltrating the church of Corinth!
Swindoll writes that "Satan's major thrust into the experience of Christians is to cause our minds to stray from devotion to Jesus Christ into all sorts of other avenues, even ones that seem wise"! (And he calls this very passage "one the most significant passages in the Bible concerning spiritual warfare"!)
Constable writes that "genuine Christians can be, and are being, deceived by false teachers today, and that they are abandoning their faith! This sometimes happens when young people go off to college and conclude that what they learned in church is unscientific and inaccurate! It also happens when Christians accept the teaching of cultists who come knocking on their doors!"
Remember how Jesus Himself warned, in Matthew 7:15-16, that "false prophets would come in sheep's clothing (the garb of sheperds), but inwardly would be ravenous wolves"! And how Peter wrote (in II Peter 2:1-2) that "in the last days false teachers will rise, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves"!
And, according to this text, they had already arrived in the church of Corinth! Paul writes, in verse 4 (and this is the way the Phillips' translation puts it): "For apparently you cheerfully accept a man who comes to you preaching a different Jesus from the one we told you about, and you readily receive a spirit and a gospel quite different from the ones you originally accepted!" (The NASV says it more sarcastically: "For if one comes to you and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully!" (Beautifully?)
In Galatians 1:6-9, the apostle Paul wrote something similar to the Galatians! "I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of God, for a different gospel, which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ! But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed"! (The Greek word, "anathema," meaning to be separated from Christ and doomed to eternal Hell!)
Paul, still on the defensive, concludes this section in effect with this (and again with some sarcasm): "You may think I'm being foolish when I say this, but I consider myself not in the least bit inferior to the most eminent of these so-called 'super apostles"! Obviously referring not to "the twelve" (since he already described himself "as the least" of the real disciples of Christ), but to the false teachers who claimed to be apostles of Christ! And he goes on to say (in verse 6): "But even if I am unskilled in speech, yet I am not so in knowledge; in fact, in every way we have made this evident to you in all things"!
Phillips puts it this way (and again, sarcastically): "Yet I can't believe I am in the least inferior to these extra-special messengers of yours! Perhaps I am not polished speaker, but I do know what I am talking about, and both what I am and what I say is pretty familiar to you!" It should be so evident to them, he writes!
Paul earlier (in I Corinthians 2:6-16) had written this to the Corinthians: "Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory, the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has undestood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; but just as it is written, 'Things which the eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him! For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depth of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God! Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words! But the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct him? But we have the mind of God!" Wow!
And so we witnessed Paul standing firm and reprimanding the Corinthian believers for putting up with false teachers and allowing heresies to infiltrate the church of God! The church! The "body of believers"! And the "bride of Christ"!
MacArthur, our dear brother, had this to say when preaching this passage: "I will never be the same as I was before I studied II Corinthians, by any means, not will I ever understand ministry in more rich, profound, heart-searching, and personal terms, than I have come to understand it from knowing the heart of Paul as revealed in this tremendous letter"! And we can probably echo his thought!
And we want to sing again, as we did last night, that great old hymn of the faith: "The Church's One Foundation'"! Sing it with me, as a remembrance of what we shared last night: "The church's one foundation is Jesus Christ our Lord; she is His new creation, by water and the Word; from heav'n He came and sought here, to be His holy Bride; and with His blood He bought her, and for her life He died!"
On the second verse: "Elect from every nation, yet one o'er all the earth; her charter of salvation, one Lord, one faith, one birth; one holy Name she blesses, partakes one holy food, and to one hope she presses, with every grace endued!"
And the third: "Mid toil and tribulation, and tumult of her war, she waits the consumation of peace for evermore; til with the vision glorious, her longing eyes are blest, and the great church victorious shall be the church at rest!"
And the fourth! "Yet she on earth hath union, with God the Three in One; and mystic sweet communion, with those whose rest is won; O happy ones and holy, Lord, give us grace that we, like them, the meek and lowly, in love may dwell with Thee!"
Thank you Lord, for the heart and example of Paul, and for the true, Bible-teaching and God-honoring church of Jesus Christ!
May God be with you all, til we meet again!
Lowell
"For apparently you cheerfully accept a man who comes to you preaching a different Jesus from the one we told you about, and you readily receive a different spirit and a different gospel than the one you originally accepted!" (II Corinthians 11:4, Phillips)
In last week's lesson (on II Corinthians 10:7-18), we found the apostle Paul in the midst of defending his integrity and the ongoing ministry he had worked so hard to establish with the Corinthians; defending it against false teachers who had somehow infiltrated the church of Corinth in his absence, and who reasoned that if they could just get the Corinthian believers to lose their trust in Paul, they could become the reigning teachers and bring on their damnable lies and heresies, and destroy the work of Paul and his ministry with the Corinthians!
And so we saw Paul (in 10:7) challenging them "not to look at things superficially but to use discernment in examining the evidence with their eyes wide open, and see the obvious contrast between his life and ministry and that of the false teachers!
The Corinthians had been saved through the ministry of Paul; he was the founder of the church of Corinth and their "spiritual father"! They knew of his conversion experience on the road to Damascus and how his life was supernaturally changed; of his calling, and of his authority, as an apostle of Jesus Christ; and of his mandate to build them up spiritually, and not destroy them! They knew of the zealousness and impact of his teaching and of the exemplary life he lived before them! His track record was clear, in stark contrast with that of the false teachers! How could they possibly believe that the false teachers were the true apostles and that he was a false one?
And we learned from this lesson that a true man of God can be known:
- By his personal relationship with Jesus Christ!
- By the impact he has on the church, the body of believers!
- By his compassion for people!
- By his distain for eloquent sophistry and other fleshly methods to win the applause of people!
- By his humility and unwillingness to compare himself with others!
- By his willingness to minister within limits, and to not take credit for others' labors!
- And for his seeking only of the glory of God!
And that set the scene for our lesson last night (on 11:1-6), where we find Paul continuing to defend his apostleship and his calling, not for his own pride and self-=preservation, or to save his personal reputation, but because the ministry of the gospel of Christ, and the survival of the church of Corinth, were at stake!
And so Paul, in verse 1, being the humble man of God that he was, is expressing his wish that the Corinthians "put up with a little more of his foolishness," as he continues to defend himself against the accusations of his critics, and even uses a little sarcasm in making his point! "Bear with me in a little foolishness," he writes! Phillips says, "I wish you would put up with a little of my foolishness! Please try!" (Constable calls it foolishness because "he didn't like focusing on himself, and shouldn't have had to defend himself, or remind them of God's commendation of his ministry"! Both he and his ministry are well-known to the Corinthians and he's asking them just to "hang in there with him" while he continue his "foolish" self-defense a little longer!
It was important for the Corinthians to recognize him as an apostle of Jesus Christ and accept his apostolic authority, as a spokesman of God, as they apparently were doing, he notes in verse 1!
He writes (in verse 2) that he was jealous for them with a "godly jealousy," having the same kind of concern for the Corinthians as God had for Israel! God jealously guarded His people Israel from the deceitfulness of deceivers who sought to drive their affections away from Him, and He charged them "not to forget His covenant, and not to make (and worship!) graven images"!
Deuteronomy 4:24 says, "For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, and a jealous God"! Psalm 78:58 says, "they (the children of Israel) aroused His jealousy with their graven images!" And the Psalmist wrote (in Psalm 69:9) that "zeal for Your house has eaten me up"! These latter words were picked up and fulfilled by Jesus, John 2:13-17 tells us, when He "went up to the temple in Jerusalem, when the Sabbath was near," and found "money changers making His Father's house a place of business"! And so, He overturned the tables and cleansed the temple," reminding the disciples, verse 17 says, what was written about Him in the Psalms, "Zeal for Your house will consume Me"!
The apostle Paul felt this same "pain of God's jealousy" when His name was dishonored, according to our text! MacArthur writes that he was "all caught up in whatever dishonored God in the life of the church," and that he used a simple analogy in verse 2 to describe his concern--likening himself to the Corinthians "as a father bethrothing his virgin daughter to her would-be husband"! And, in that regard, making sure that she "remained pure and faithful, and was made ready for the consumation of her marriage in the upcoming wedding"!
Scripture likens marriage to the relationship between Jesus Christ and "His bride," the church! In Ephesians 5:25-27, Paul writes: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless!"
The apostle Paul had this same concern: that the church would be kept pure until the Rapture and the coming marriage ceremony when He will gather His bride (the church, the "body of Christ"!) and take it to glory for the "marriage supper of the Lamb"! Revelation 19:6-9 describes it this way: "Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, 'Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns! Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride (the church!) has made herself ready! It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous act of the saints! Then he said to me, 'Write. blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb!" (Wow! What a day that will be, when all the redeemed from all the ages will be gathered together participate in this by the throne of God!)
But Paul also expressed a fear he had, in verse 3! "That the minds of the Corinthians might be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ by the same serpent who deceived Eve in the garden! Led astray by false teachers who were infiltrating the church of Corinth!
Swindoll writes that "Satan's major thrust into the experience of Christians is to cause our minds to stray from devotion to Jesus Christ into all sorts of other avenues, even ones that seem wise"! (And he calls this very passage "one the most significant passages in the Bible concerning spiritual warfare"!)
Constable writes that "genuine Christians can be, and are being, deceived by false teachers today, and that they are abandoning their faith! This sometimes happens when young people go off to college and conclude that what they learned in church is unscientific and inaccurate! It also happens when Christians accept the teaching of cultists who come knocking on their doors!"
Remember how Jesus Himself warned, in Matthew 7:15-16, that "false prophets would come in sheep's clothing (the garb of sheperds), but inwardly would be ravenous wolves"! And how Peter wrote (in II Peter 2:1-2) that "in the last days false teachers will rise, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves"!
And, according to this text, they had already arrived in the church of Corinth! Paul writes, in verse 4 (and this is the way the Phillips' translation puts it): "For apparently you cheerfully accept a man who comes to you preaching a different Jesus from the one we told you about, and you readily receive a spirit and a gospel quite different from the ones you originally accepted!" (The NASV says it more sarcastically: "For if one comes to you and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully!" (Beautifully?)
In Galatians 1:6-9, the apostle Paul wrote something similar to the Galatians! "I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of God, for a different gospel, which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ! But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed"! (The Greek word, "anathema," meaning to be separated from Christ and doomed to eternal Hell!)
Paul, still on the defensive, concludes this section in effect with this (and again with some sarcasm): "You may think I'm being foolish when I say this, but I consider myself not in the least bit inferior to the most eminent of these so-called 'super apostles"! Obviously referring not to "the twelve" (since he already described himself "as the least" of the real disciples of Christ), but to the false teachers who claimed to be apostles of Christ! And he goes on to say (in verse 6): "But even if I am unskilled in speech, yet I am not so in knowledge; in fact, in every way we have made this evident to you in all things"!
Phillips puts it this way (and again, sarcastically): "Yet I can't believe I am in the least inferior to these extra-special messengers of yours! Perhaps I am not polished speaker, but I do know what I am talking about, and both what I am and what I say is pretty familiar to you!" It should be so evident to them, he writes!
Paul earlier (in I Corinthians 2:6-16) had written this to the Corinthians: "Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory, the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has undestood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; but just as it is written, 'Things which the eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him! For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depth of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God! Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words! But the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct him? But we have the mind of God!" Wow!
And so we witnessed Paul standing firm and reprimanding the Corinthian believers for putting up with false teachers and allowing heresies to infiltrate the church of God! The church! The "body of believers"! And the "bride of Christ"!
MacArthur, our dear brother, had this to say when preaching this passage: "I will never be the same as I was before I studied II Corinthians, by any means, not will I ever understand ministry in more rich, profound, heart-searching, and personal terms, than I have come to understand it from knowing the heart of Paul as revealed in this tremendous letter"! And we can probably echo his thought!
And we want to sing again, as we did last night, that great old hymn of the faith: "The Church's One Foundation'"! Sing it with me, as a remembrance of what we shared last night: "The church's one foundation is Jesus Christ our Lord; she is His new creation, by water and the Word; from heav'n He came and sought here, to be His holy Bride; and with His blood He bought her, and for her life He died!"
On the second verse: "Elect from every nation, yet one o'er all the earth; her charter of salvation, one Lord, one faith, one birth; one holy Name she blesses, partakes one holy food, and to one hope she presses, with every grace endued!"
And the third: "Mid toil and tribulation, and tumult of her war, she waits the consumation of peace for evermore; til with the vision glorious, her longing eyes are blest, and the great church victorious shall be the church at rest!"
And the fourth! "Yet she on earth hath union, with God the Three in One; and mystic sweet communion, with those whose rest is won; O happy ones and holy, Lord, give us grace that we, like them, the meek and lowly, in love may dwell with Thee!"
Thank you Lord, for the heart and example of Paul, and for the true, Bible-teaching and God-honoring church of Jesus Christ!
May God be with you all, til we meet again!
Lowell
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