Bible Commentaries
2 Corinthians 6

Verses 1-13

The Work of the Ministry (4:1-6:13)

The longest single passage in Second Corinthians with one over-all theme is this on the ministry. Here is the essence of what it means to be a minister of the gospel, of the "new covenant" (3:6), or "the ministry of reconciliation" (5:18). Indeed, we can think of this section as beginning with 2:1-7, where Paul speaks of "peddlers" as contrasted with those who are "com­missioned by God." If we think of the section on the ministry as beginning there, we can say now (at the start of chapter 4) that he has already spoken of the minister’s commission, of his true recommendation, and of the glory of the New Covenant which he proclaims and in which he stands.

Now Paul begins more plainly to speak of what it means to be a Christian minister. Laymen may think this is only for preach­ers, and skip it; but Paul is not writing to preachers. He is writ­ing about preachers to people who were not professional preach­ers. You cannot afford to skip this, if you are a Christian. What kind of church would we have if only the ministers knew what they were trying to do? Indeed, that is just what is wrong with some churches—the minister is almost alone in knowing what his real work and aims are. Pulpit committees will call men who turn out to be failures because the committee and the congre­gation in selecting and calling them ask the wrong questions.

Verses 11-13

The Ministry of Reconciliation (5:11-6:13)

Paul now comes back from the Last Judgment to his main theme in this part of his letter, namely, the work of the Christian ministry. In 5:11 he uses one of his all-embracing phrases: "Knowing the fear of the Lord [he means reverence, not fright], we persuade men." The minister stands between God and men; it is only as he knows God that he can persuade men. It is not Paul who gives Paul dignity, but God. Paul does not commend himself; he commends Christ. He may have been accused of being off-beat, off-center. Well, he says, if he has been crazy it is for God’s cause. Paul, like all true preachers ever since, however sensational he might be, had as his root-motive nothing selfish, much less crazy. "The love of Christ controls us," he says. He means first of all the love Christ had shown to him, but possibly he means also the love he has toward Christ. The Christian reader should stop and think about this sentence a long time. What is my motive in Christian work? What should be a young man’s reasons for entering the ministry, a girl’s for becoming a deaconess or a missionary? It is much better not to be a minister at all than to be one for the wrong reasons.

"One has died for all." Here as in many places Paul starts from the Cross to find the meaning of Christianity. Verses 14 and 15 are a summing up of the whole Christian life. There is an argument about these verses. Does Paul mean by "all," all men, or only all for whom Christ died? Can you go to any human being anywhere and say, "Christ died for you"? Some theologians do not believe that Paul could have meant what he says here. But if we go on the principle that it is best to understand Paul (or anyone else) on the basis of his clearest and plainest state­ment on any topic, then it is hard to see where Paul ever ex­pressed himself more flatly and unmistakably than here: Christ died for all. There are churches that teach that God has no in­tention or wish to save some people; but the majority of Chris­tian churches teach that, in Paul’s words, God "desires all men to be saved" (1 Timothy 2:4). This does not mean that all will be saved; God leaves men free even to say No to him, No to the Christ on the cross.

Verse 16 does not mean that Paul had a sort of out-of-this­-world attitude to other people. It is another side of what we have already noticed: What is real is always more than meets the eye. He has been talking about salvation, only calling it not "salva­tion" but "life," and in verse 17 he comes to this point: What happens to a man when he is converted? Outwardly, nothing at all. He has been to church, he has been impressed by sermon or prayer or hymn, he consciously gave his heart to the Lord. And he goes home to Sunday dinner as usual. But Paul says he is a "new creation." What he means is that if you look at the man as, say, the policeman or his boss looks at him, "from a human point of view," he is still plain John Doe. But as God sees him, something has happened to him, inside. A new creation has be­gun, a new life has started. Paul does not use the words "new birth," but "new creation" is just as radical and means the same. Paul telescopes the life experience of a Christian; he says the old has passed away, the new has come—not fully come, as he well knew from those half-baked Corinthians, but the start has been made.

The life in Christ, furthermore, is not something a man simply decides to do, not a mere turning over a new leaf. It is some­thing God does to and in a person. And yet there is no getting away from personal response, taking or rejecting God’s love in Christ. Paul does not say, "All this is from God and therefore you don’t need to do a thing." He says, "All this is from God... So we ... beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God" (5:18-20).

Here as elsewhere, Paul speaks of our being reconciled to God, not of his being reconciled to us. Other religions may recommend ways of persuading the gods to be gracious. The Christian religion knows that the only God is a God of grace. He does not need to be won over to us; we need to be won over to him.

Here again it is well to stop and think as deeply as you can into this profound truth. What does it mean to be an enemy of God? How do we show hostility to him? Why is being reconciled to God the same thing as becoming a "new creation"?

And again Paul reminds us of the terrible yet triumphant paradox—the truth that is too strange to seem true—that, so to speak, God came so far over on our side that in Christ he not only became human, joining the human race, but he took the place of the human sinner. Christ knew no sin, yet he was made to be sin. As he took our place he gave us his. Paul has already (1 Corinthians 1:30) called Christ our righteousness; here he calls us the "righteousness of God in him [Christ]" (see 5:21).

Verse 21 can be called the whole doctrine of the Atonement in a single sentence. If someone complains that Paul does not fully explain it, all we can say is, How can anyone explain the love of a God who identifies himself with his own enemies in order to re-create them as his friends? It is really a good thing that God does not always act "rationally" toward us. If he did, we could have small hope. The God who is love does the unexpected, the unexpectable. We have to remember that when the God of love walked this earth as a man, some people thought him crazy and some thought him bad. A God who does nothing but what respectable citizens will approve would be a sorry sort of God.

Nevertheless, salvation—the new life in God—is not simply God’s affair It does not come automatically, without our knowl­edge and consent. If Paul had thought so he never would have gone on (6:1) to say, "We entreat you . . ." There is no point in the Christian life, at its beginning or in the midst of it, at which God does it all. Always we are called on to respond. The people at Corinth were Christians, church members. Paul is not appealing to them to accept Christ; they had done that. What he fears is that they have accepted God’s grace in vain; that is, they have gone on living as if God had never come in Christ to their rescue.

Paul now (6:3-13) rather suddenly comes back to the main theme of this section, the nature of the Christian ministry. He has been speaking about the message of the minister, the plea for harmony with God which as we have said is one of the main themes of the epistle. Now he speaks of the minister—of himself in particular, as the minister he knew best. Again we find a pas­sage calling for meditation rather than explanation. Up to verse 9 it is clear enough. The point is: Does it resemble the reader’s own experience? What Paul says can be applied to all forms of Christian service. Isn’t it true that most of us serve God—when we do—for selfish reasons? Isn’t it true that we serve him when convenient, and not otherwise? How many young men would turn back from the ministry if they knew that what Paul de­scribes in verses 4-8 would be their lot? How many of us refuse to serve just as soon as it becomes a little bothersome?

The long sentence beginning in verse 8 is not merely an ex­ample of Paul’s paradoxical style. It is the double truth about the Christian ministry. The truth is so double that it can be described only by what sounds like double talk. Ask Paul: What do you get out of being a missionary? He could honestly say, "What do you think? People claim I’m a faker; I have no reputation to speak of; I have to live in the slums; I’m often within inches of death; I get stiff sentences in the courts; I could sit down and cry—and I do—over these ’Christians’ and their stupid sins; I barely make ends meet, in fact they don’t meet." But Paul could also say honestly: "What do I get out of it? Everything! It isn’t only that I’m known from Jerusalem to Rome; God knows me and that’s enough. The nearer I am to death, the nearer I am to the life everlasting. I haven’t been killed yet, though a good many have tried it. I have learned to find joy in all that I do. I may not have money, but I have brought to many what money cannot buy, and they are grateful. I have everything God wants me to have, and that’s enough for any man."

No Mismating with Unbelievers (6:14-7:1)

In verses 11-13 Paul begins a plea for harmony between him­self and the Corinthians. His heart is open to them; let theirs be just as open to him. But he barely gets started on this line when (as our Bibles print it) he interrupts himself to speak of some­thing entirely different in verses 6:14-7:1. We have seen (see Introduction) that a number of interpreters believe this section is actually a part of the letter to which Paul refers in I Corin­thians 5:9. Be that as it may, it does not fit either what goes before or what comes after, in spite of great efforts on the part of commentators to make it appear to do so. In any case, we shall take a look at it here, since we are following the text of the letter as it has come down to us.

The main meaning is clear enough: "Do not be mismated with unbelievers." This is the same advice to which Paul refers in 1 Corinthians 5:9, if not a quotation from the same letter. Paul explains what he means by this, in 1 Corinthians 5:9-11. He does not mean that Christians are never to have any dealings with non-Christians. He does mean that Christians ought not to have unbelievers in the church membership. This is a warning against accepting hypocrites as if they were genuine Christians. Now the unbelievers of whom Paul speaks are not people with some off­beat ideas; they are not imperfect Christians (otherwise we should all have to be shut out of the Church). They are (as described in 1 Corinthians 5) immoral, idol-worshipers, robbers, and so on; in 2 Corinthians 6 such words are used as "unbe­liever," "iniquity," "darkness." The Scripture Paul quotes is taken from various books of the Old Testament; the central point, verse 17, is from Isaiah 52:11 and refers to outright pagans, the people of Babylon.

People who rely on this passage to justify leaving a Christian church are misusing it. They read it as if it said: "Do not be mismated with people who do not believe precisely as you do." This is not Paul’s meaning. What he is pleading for is a Chris­tian Church made of Christians; not—even partly—of people who are indifferent or opposed to Christ and his cause and his people. It is also a warning against trying to combine the Chris­tian Church with other religions. Christianity can be itself only when it is not mixed with other faiths. When a man becomes a Christian he is asked to leave his idols at the door.