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Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 1:19; 2:14-15; 3:3, 18; 4:4-7, 10-11; 5:14-17, 21; 8:9; 10:1, 5; 11:2-3, 10; 12:9; 13:3-5, 14
In the previous chapter we saw the four lines in 1 Corinthians. Now we want to compare what has been spoken concerning Christ in 1 Corinthians with what Paul said in 2 Corinthians.
Second Corinthians gives us a real picture of Christ in our experience in an improved way. In the first Epistle, the aspects concerning Christ are mentioned more or less in a doctrinal way. But we need all these aspects in order to go on to the deeper experience of Christ seen in Paul’s second Epistle. First, we have the doctrinal aspects of Christ. Then we have the Christ in our experience.
In 2 Corinthians 1:19 Paul said, “The Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you through us, through me and Silvanus and Timothy, did not become yes and no, but our word has become yes in Him.” We can realize that Paul has turned from the doctrinal side to the experiential side. Christ is not yes and no. Christ is yes in your experience, not in your understanding. We can say that Christ is the Yes only by our experience.
In 2:14 Paul said, “Thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in the Christ and manifests the savor of the knowledge of Him through us in every place.” If you are going to enjoy and experience Christ, you have to be a captive. You have to be captured. You may say that Christ is the power and wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24), but if you are going to experience Christ as God’s power and wisdom, you have to be a captive. Do you like to be captured? You have to be led by Christ in His train of vanquished foes (Eph. 4:8). In this universe God is celebrating Christ’s victory with a triumphal procession of vanquished foes. You must be one of these defeated and captured foes.
Saul of Tarsus was a strong, ambitious young man who was against Christ. When the Lord met him on the road to Damascus, He said to Saul, “It is hard for you to kick against the goads” (Acts 26:14). A goad on a plow is a sharp-pointed stick used to subdue and prod an ox yoked to the plow. While Saul was kicking against the goads, the Lord was laughing at him in the heavens (Psa. 2:4). Actually, Saul was under the Lord’s control. This rebel was made an apostle by being captured by Christ. God led him from city to city as a captive to celebrate the victory of Christ. Paul could tell people, “I once was a rebel, but now I am a captive!” This is a celebration. Saul was a rebel against Christ, but he became captured by Christ. He went from city to city to preach Christ as one in the train of vanquished foes to celebrate the victory of Christ.
We have to apply this experience to ourselves. Before we preach Christ to others, we have to be captured by Christ. While we are preaching, others should have the impression that we are captives in the celebrating train of vanquished foes. We can tell people how we used to be rebellious against Christ, but now we are the captives of Christ. This will become a sweet savor, a sweet odor of Christ, which can be smelled by others (2 Cor. 2:15-16). The real preaching is not a matter of mere speaking. It is a matter of showing forth that we are being led as captives in Christ’s train of vanquished foes. When we are such captives, we can experience Christ in a deeper way. This is the pure experience of Christ to make us a fragrance of Christ to God (v. 15).
In 2 Corinthians 3:3 Paul said, “Since you are being manifested that you are a letter of Christ ministered by us, inscribed not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tablets of stone but in tablets of hearts of flesh.” Christ has to be written into us, to be wrought into us, to make us the living letters of Christ. People should be able to read Christ on our being. We may preach about Christ, but how much of Christ can people read on us? When people observe the way that we live, can they read Christ?
This shows again that 2 Corinthians is not a book of doctrine but a book of experience. We need to be captives of Christ and letters of Christ. We need more of Christ written upon us. This means that we need more of Christ wrought into us. Christ has to be wrought into our thinking, our loving, our choosing, and our entire being. This is not a matter of doctrine. It is absolutely a matter of experience.
Paul told us that we are captives of Christ and letters of Christ. Then in 3:18 he told us that we are a mirror of Christ. As a mirror of Christ, we need to behold Him that we may reflect Him. By beholding and reflecting Him, we are being transformed into His image from one degree of glory to another. This is a matter of experience. In order to behold Christ, we need an unveiled face. When all the veils are taken away, the mirror can behold the image with an unveiled face. Then the mirror can reflect the image. We need all the veils to be taken away from us so that we can have an open spirit to look at Christ. Then we will be transformed from glory to glory into His image.
In 4:7 Paul said that we have this treasure in earthen vessels. Christ is the treasure, and we are the earthen vessels to contain Him. Chapter 4 goes on to reveal that we need to be broken, consumed, and reduced so that Christ as the treasure can be manifested from within us (vv. 8-12, 16-17). Do not think that if you learn more doctrines or receive more gifts, you will grow. We need to see that to grow in life is to be reduced.
Chapter 4 speaks of the “putting to death of Jesus,” or the killing of Jesus (v. 10). Christ is killing us. He is not only the life-giving Spirit but also the killing Spirit. Christ is always putting us to death to reduce and consume us in our outer man, our natural man, so that our inner man may have the opportunity to develop and be renewed (v. 16). You may think that if you have learned all the doctrines in the Bible, you have grown up. But you are not grown-up; you are puffed up (1 Cor. 8:1). The real growth is to be reduced. We need to be reduced, to be broken. The outer man is being consumed so that the inner man may be renewed day by day. This is the real growth in life. The killing of Jesus accomplishes the reducing of our natural life.
If everything in our environment were right with us, we could not be reduced. We need the wrong things to reduce us. God sovereignly arranges our environment to allow many wrong things to happen to us. This is not Christ in doctrine, but Christ in our killing experience and even painful experience. Paul said that he experienced the killing of Jesus that the life of Jesus could be manifested in his body (2 Cor. 4:10). Without this killing, we cannot enjoy Christ’s life.
In 2 Corinthians 5 Paul spoke of the love of Christ constraining us to live to Christ. Verses 14 and 15 say, “The love of Christ constrains us because we have judged this, that One died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all that those who live may no longer live to themselves but to Him who died for them and has been raised.” We have to be constrained to such an extent that we lose ourselves, forget about ourselves, and live to Christ.
Verse 21 says that Christ was made sin and that we are made the righteousness of God in Him. This does not mean that we are righteous, but that we are righteousness itself through the redemption of Christ. We were sin itself. To turn sin into righteousness required much work. Christ was made sin for us to be judged and done away with by God that we might become God’s righteousness in Christ.
Chapter 10 speaks of Paul’s experience of the meekness and gentleness of Christ (v. 1). This cannot be worked out by teaching. Someone may tell you to look at how gentle and meek Christ was on earth and that you need to learn of Him, but this does not work. We need Christ wrought into us so that His meekness and gentleness can be ours.
In 10:5 Paul said, “As we overthrow reasonings and every high thing rising up against the knowledge of God, and take captive every thought unto the obedience of Christ.” Our thoughts have to be brought into captivity. They must be taken captive to obey Christ. Often, we are rebellious in our mind. Our mind is wild, natural, rebellious, and unrenewed. This is why we need to be transformed by the renewing of the mind (Rom. 12:2). By being renewed, our mind will be subdued and brought into captivity unto the obedience of Christ. How much has our mind been renewed, subdued, and captured? This is not a matter of doctrine but of experience.
Thus far, we have seen that we are the captives of Christ, the letters of Christ, the mirrors of Christ, and the vessels of Christ. Chapter 11 of 2 Corinthians goes on to tell us that we are the virgins of Christ who have been betrothed to Christ (v. 2). To marry someone is not a matter of doctrine but a matter of experience. Do we have the real experience of being a virgin to Christ?
In 11:10 Paul said that the truthfulness of Christ was in him. Because Paul lived by Christ, whatever Christ is became his virtue in his behavior. This virtue of truthfulness has to be wrought into us.
In 12:9 the Lord told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you.” At that time Paul had a thorn which was piercing him, troubling him, hurting him, and giving him pain all the time (v. 7). He asked the Lord three times to remove this thorn (v. 8), but the Lord left the thorn with him so that he might experience the Lord’s sufficient grace. If the Lord had taken away the thorn, Paul could not have experienced His sufficient grace.
In chapter 13 Paul said that Christ was speaking in him (v. 3). This is not a doctrine. Have you experienced Christ speaking within you?
This speaking Christ within us is powerful, not weak. But if we are to experience Christ as power, we have to learn how to be weak in Him (v. 4). We are always taught to be strong, but we have to learn how to be weak. We are too strong in ourselves, in our natural man. We need to learn to be weak that Christ might be powerful within us.
Paul concluded 2 Corinthians by saying, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” The grace of Christ is the full enjoyment of Christ. Paul wanted this enjoyment along with the love of God and the fellowship of the Spirit to be with us in our experience.
Now that we have seen the verses related to Christ in 2 Corinthians, we can realize that every aspect in this Epistle is absolutely a matter of experience. In 1 Corinthians we saw that there are four lines: the line of Christ, the line of the gifts, the line of the spirit, and the line of the church. In 2 Corinthians the line of Christ is greatly enriched and developed in experience. We can also see the line of the spirit and the line of the church in 2 Corinthians. But the line of the gifts is not here. Healings, miracles, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues, and knowledge are not mentioned in 2 Corinthians.
The Lord did use Paul to perform some miracles, but the Lord would not perform a miracle to remove the thorn in his flesh. The Lord kept the thorn with Paul so that he might learn to experience the Lord’s sufficient grace. A husband might ask the Lord to change his wife, but the Lord would keep his wife the same so that he might learn to experience Christ as grace. If the Lord changed this brother’s wife, there would be no opportunity for him to experience the Lord as the sufficient grace. Do you want to have a better wife or the sufficient grace? The Lord allows our spouse, our children, and our entire environment to trouble us so that we will have the chance to experience Christ as the sufficient grace.
There are no miraculous things in 2 Corinthians because this is a book on the deeper experience of Christ. When we are in the elementary stage, we may desire the gifts, but when we are advanced in Christ, we care for the deeper experiences of Christ. Second Corinthians does not speak of miracles and gifts increasing with us. Instead, it speaks of Christ increasing within us all the time through many sufferings.
Everything in 2 Corinthians has been developed in a deeper way, and all the outward teachings and gifts are over. I am not saying that the gifts are unnecessary or that the teachings are useless. They are good for the beginning. But once something has been started through the teachings and gifts, you have to be turned from them. Doctrinal teachings and gifts will divide.
If our gifts are steadily increasing, after a short time we will be divided by these increasing gifts. Gifts are good for the start. But once you have the start through the gifts, you have to be turned to the indwelling Christ. In 2 Corinthians there are no more gifts. There is just the indwelling Christ to be wrought into us through hardships, trials, troubles, and sufferings. If we mean business with the Lord and go along with the Lord, we will experience Him through sufferings, hardships, and trials.
We can never be divided by the experience of Christ in the spirit, but it is easy to be divided by teachings and gifts. If we pay our attention to increasing the gifts, there is the danger that these increased gifts will become dividers to divide us. Then the local church can never be built up. This is why in 2 Corinthians the gifts are not increasing but they are terminated. Instead, Christ is developing and increasing all the time. This is the way that we can have the real growth in life for the local church to be built up.
The increase of teachings and gifts is not the growth in life. The growth in life is absolutely something of Christ being developed within you and experienced by you. The Body of Christ is built up with the increase and development of Christ, not with the increase of doctrine or with the development of the gifts. May the Lord have mercy upon us that we would be willing to turn away from the elementary gifts. The gifts are elementary things good for the beginning. Once something has been started, we need to turn away from the start to the real experience of Christ Himself.
