2 Corinthians 13:4

“This is the third time I am coming to you” comes near the end of a long letter. Paul has defended his ministry against people who belittled him, dealt with divisions in the church and poured out his concern for the Corinthians’ souls. He had been with them twice already, and the second visit, which verse 2 recalls, was a painful one where he first gave the warning he now repeats. He had also written to them more than once, including a severe letter written in tears, which is either lost to us or is the closing part of this letter, 2 Corinthians 10–13.

He has already told them that he is ready to come a third time (2 Corinthians 12:14), and that he fears finding quarrels among them and sin still unrepented (2 Corinthians 12:20–21). So this visit will be a formal inspection, where the truth will be settled and sin that remains unrepented will be dealt with.

The second half of verse 1 is the law of Moses. The rule of two or three witnesses stands in Deuteronomy 17:6 and Deuteronomy 19:15, and Israel applied it in serious matters, cases of life and death among them. It protected people from false accusation and made sure that a judgment rested on testimony that agreed. Paul knew the Scriptures from his youth and reaches for this rule naturally, and the believers of Corinth, living in a Roman city, also knew what it meant to have a case heard properly.

The words of the phrase carry its meaning. The mouth, stóma, stands by implication for what the mouth says, so “in the mouth of” means on the spoken testimony of. A witness, mártys, is one who testifies, in a court or in a wider sense, and by analogy the word also means a martyr. To be established, hístēmi, is to stand or be made to stand, so a matter that two or three witnesses confirm stands firm and settled. “Every word” covers any matter brought before Paul, whether an accusation, a report of sin or a claim to be in the right.

Jesus gave his church the same safeguard when he taught how to deal with a brother who sins. If he refuses to hear you alone, you take one or two others with you, so that the matter rests on witnesses (Matthew 18:15–17). Hebrews 10:28 also recalls the rule of two or three witnesses as part of the law of Moses.

Paul holds to this rule because Corinth was a church with many troubles: challenges to his authority, sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 5), lawsuits between believers (1 Corinthians 6) and factions. Whatever he does when he comes will rest on facts that witnesses confirm. Any discipline will then be just and open, the innocent will be protected, and the unrepentant will be faced on clear ground.

The rule shows us who God is. He is just and orderly, and he wants truth upheld and judgment grounded in evidence, among his people as much as in a court. Christ himself is “the faithful and true witness” (Revelation 3:14) and the truth (John 14:6). He sent his apostles out as his witnesses (Acts 1:8), and every promise of God is yes in him (2 Corinthians 1:20), so every word God has spoken, of promise and of judgment, will stand.

Verse 2 repeats a warning the Corinthians have heard before. “I told you before” looks back to his second visit, when he warned them face to face, and “foretell you” is the same warning given again now. “As if I were present” gives the letter the full weight of his presence, so what he writes carries the authority of what he said among them. The verb “I write” is gráphō, the ordinary word for writing, whose early sense was to scratch and then to draw. The letter puts his warning on record, so that every one of them has been told plainly.

He writes to two groups. “Them which heretofore have sinned” renders proamartánō, which means to have sinned before or previously. These are the people who had sinned before this letter and before his earlier warning, and the end of chapter 12 shows Paul fearing that their sin was still unrepented. “And to all other” brings in the whole congregation. Everyone else in the church shares responsibility for its health and stands under the same standard.

“I will not spare” joins the plain negative ou, “not”, to pheídomai, to hold back, be sparing or treat gently. If Paul finds sin unrepented when he arrives, he will use the full weight of his authority to correct it. That could mean firm discipline, and possibly putting someone out of the fellowship, as Paul had told the church to do in 1 Corinthians 5:1–5. “If I come again” leaves the outcome to their response, and there is still time to repent before he arrives.

Verse 3 explains why Paul must come with authority. “Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me” tells us that some in Corinth doubted whether Paul’s words came from Christ at all. People said his letters were weighty while his bodily presence was weak and his speech contemptible (2 Corinthians 10:10). Corinth was a busy, wealthy city that admired eloquence, wisdom and outward shows of power, and in a culture of honour and shame a plain man who suffered looked weak. Rival teachers, whom Paul calls with irony “the very chiefest apostles” (2 Corinthians 11:5), came with polished speech and boasts of their experiences and their Jewish heritage, and they wanted signs of God’s approval that fit those expectations.

The word for proof is dokimḗ, from the same root as dokimos, “approved”. It means a test, or the proven character that comes out of a test, and the Corinthians wanted Paul put to the test. “Weak” in this verse is asthenéō, to be feeble, sick or without strength, and “mighty” is dynatéō, to be mighty or effective, from dynatos, “able”.

Paul’s answer is that the proof is already in front of them. “Which to you-ward is not weak, but is mighty in you” speaks of Christ who speaks in Paul. Christ has been mighty among the Corinthians themselves, and their conversion, the gifts of the Spirit among them and the very existence of their church are the evidence they are asking for. They have only to look at themselves. Paul’s preaching first came to them in the power of the Spirit, so that their faith would rest on the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:4–5). His whole ministry among the Gentiles was carried out by that power (Romans 15:18–19), and he labours with the energy Christ works mightily in him (Colossians 1:29).

God works through human servants, just as the Father did his works through the Son (John 14:10). The power at work in believers is the exceeding greatness of the power that raised Christ from the dead (Ephesians 1:19–20), and the church, built of changed lives, grows into a holy temple where God lives by his Spirit (Ephesians 2:21–22).

Verse 4 is the ground of everything Paul has said, and it begins with Christ. “Though he was crucified through weakness” uses stauróō, to crucify. Crucifixion was a public, agonizing and shameful death, kept for criminals and slaves, and to human eyes it looked like utter defeat. The word for weakness, asthéneia, means feebleness, infirmity or lack of strength, of body, mind or morals. Here it is the frailty of Christ’s human life, which he gave up willingly to death at the hands of his enemies. He humbled himself and became obedient to death on a cross (Philippians 2:5–8). He was the servant Isaiah foretold, who bore our griefs and was wounded for our transgressions (Isaiah 53:4–5), and on the cross he disarmed the powers of darkness (Colossians 2:15). What the world counts as weakness is God’s means of saving us, and the preaching of the cross is the power of God to those who are being saved (1 Corinthians 1:18).

“Yet he liveth by the power of God.” To live, záō, is to be alive, and Christ is alive now because God raised him from the dead. Power, dýnamis, is strength or ability, and the word is often used of miraculous power. Here it is God’s own power, which raised Christ and conquered death, and through his resurrection we too are raised to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4).

These verses show us a God who warns before he judges and gives time to repent. He settles matters by truth, on the word of witnesses, and protects the innocent while he deals with sin. His authority in the church is given for building his people up.

They also show where his power is found. Christ went to the cross in weakness and lives by the power of God, and the same Lord told Paul that his strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9–10). Our frailty, then, is the place where his power works, in union with Christ and for the good of his church. The proof that Christ speaks through his servants is his mighty work in changed lives, and every believer whose life Christ has changed is part of that proof.