Christ in 2 Corinthians

Christ Connection - Grace From a Single Source

Read the greeting slowly and something quiet stands out: grace and peace come “from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ” - one preposition, one stream, two names. Paul does not say grace comes from the Father and luck comes from Jesus. He names them together as the one place every blessing flows from. He wrote this into the opening line of letter after letter, and the early church prayed it until it was second nature. The Son gives what only God can give.

After a hard letter and a painful visit, Paul writes again, and Christ stands at the center of every turn. The forgiveness he asks the church to extend to the penitent offender is not his own magnanimity but Christ’s: he forgives in the person of Christ (v. 10), and the appeal echoes the gospel command, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye (Col. 3:13). The refusal to let godly sorrow harden into despair - lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch so…

Christ Connection - Sufficient Through Christ

Later in this same letter, Christ answers Paul’s pleading with one line: "My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness." That is the sufficiency Paul means here: a Person you turn to, a Person who hands Himself over precisely to those who have run out. The one resting on his own righteousness is lost. The one resting on Christ is complete.

Christ Connection - Jesus in Gethsemane

In the garden, with His sweat falling like blood, Jesus came as close to fainting as a man can come - and prayed His way through to “not my will, but thine.” That is the strength Paul leans on when he says we faint not. It is borrowed strength. The same risen Lord who held on in Gethsemane now holds on inside a tired apostle, and inside you. The vessel only needs to be His.

Christ Connection - The First Resurrection Body

Christ was raised in a body of flesh - a real body that bore the scars of the cross, that could be touched, that ate fish. Yet it was transformed, passing through locked doors, appearing and vanishing. This is the prototype. “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). Your resurrection body will follow the pattern of His.

Christ Connection - The Appointed Now

When Paul writes "now is the accepted time," he is speaking of the entire era opened by Christ’s resurrection. Hebrews echoes this: "Today, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts" (Heb. 4:7). Christ has made this moment sacred. The invitation stands. The offer is real. The gospel is not a future promise - it is a present call.

Christ Connection - Cleansed by His Blood

Paul says “cleanse ourselves,” but He knows - and his readers know - that the cleansing power is not our own. John says it plainly: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Our part is to come with open hands; His part is to wash. Christ’s blood is the only thing that cleanses away filthiness of the spirit.

Christ Connection - The Gift of Self

This is precisely what Christ did. He "gave his own self" (Gal. 2:20). He did not send money. He did not hire someone else. "Christ loved us, and gave himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God" (Eph. 5:2). The Macedonians, in their generosity, imitated Christ’s model of self-surrender. Every true gift begins when the self is handed over first.

This chapter closes Paul’s long appeal for the relief fund the Gentile churches were raising for the poor saints in Jerusalem, and from its first lines to its last it keeps tracing every gift back to God’s own giving. The Corinthians are to have their gift ready as a matter of bounty, and not as of covetousness (v. 5) - freely, gladly, never extorted. And the temper God prizes is named in the verse the chapter is known by: Every man according as he purposeth in his heart,…

Christ Connection - His Meekness, His Power

Jesus himself claimed meekness: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart" (Matt. 11:29). Yet the same Jesus overturned tables, cast out demons, and will one day judge the living and the dead. Meekness in Scripture is power held under the control of love. Paul’s gentleness in person - his willingness to be thought lowly - does not diminish his apostolic authority. Like Christ, his authority rests on truth and the power of God.

Christ Connection - The Church Betrothed to Christ

Notice where Paul places himself. Not the bridegroom - the friend of the bridegroom, the one who prepares a bride for someone else and then steps aside. The Corinthians were never his to own. They are Christ’s, betrothed to Him, and Paul’s whole jealous ache is to hand them over pure on the wedding day. The pastor who forgets he is only the friend has already started stealing the bride.

Christ Connection - The Door to Paradise

Paul was caught up into "paradise," the place he will not describe. The one other person in the Gospels told he would be there is the thief on the cross, and it is Jesus who opens the door: "To day shalt thou be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43). What Paul glimpsed, a condemned man received by a word from the crucified Christ.

Christ Connection - Christ’s Word Is Power

Jesus said, "My word shall not pass away" (Matt. 24:35). And Paul wrote elsewhere, "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Rom. 10:17). The same power that spoke light into darkness, that raised Lazarus, that cast out demons - that power works through an apostle’s preaching. The test is not eloquence or signs, but lives changed by Christ’s living word.