Paul is here appealing to the law, saying that it applies to the Corinthians as well.

Paul takes great pains to write in advance of his coming, because he hopes that the church will put things right before he gets there, so that what he threatens to do will prove to be unnecessary.

Paul is saying that he has stuck his neck out so often and so many people have heard his threats that if he comes and nothing has changed he will have to carry them out. Even so, he will see it more as a humbling and as a defeat than as anything else.

The Corinthians are seeking proof that Christ is speaking in the apostles. When they do not obey Paul’s teachings, they want to test him to see whether he will dare to exact retribution.

Paul will not punish the Corinthians just to prove that he has the power to do so. His patience with them does not stem from weakness but from love and long-suffering.

Paul is referring here to the personal experience of the apostles, who were made weak by being treated badly, imprisoned and beaten. . . . Believers are made strong by being weak. Death inflicted by unbelievers is life as far as believers are concerned, for they will rise again to reign with Christ.

This is a difficult passage which causes problems for many people. What is meant here by weakness? In Scripture weakness can refer to bodily illness, and it can also mean not being securely grounded in faith. But there is a third possibility, and that is what we find here. Weakness can mean persecutions, trials, plottings and the like. Christ was not weak in body or in spirit, but he was persecuted and put to death. It was not because of any inherent weakness that he went to the cross; on the contrary, he chose to die in that way in order to give us life in the power of God.

Earlier Paul said that Christ became sin and a curse for us, even though he knew no sin and was not a curse in himself.^[1] Likewise here he says that Christ was crucified in weakness, even though this weakness was not his own but rather something which he assumed on our behalf.

Paul is saying this because if we do not know how to put one another to the test, we do not know whether Christ is in us or not. To fail to meet the test is not to know the faith inherent in our religious profession. A person who has a sense of faith in his heart knows that Jesus Christ is within him.

Look into yourselves and you will find that you have Christ in you. But if Christ is in you, how much more is he in your teacher!

Paul is calling them to a knowledge of the faith and an upright life. Once they have recognized the authority of the apostle and his worth in God’s sight, they will start to be concerned about themselves.

Paul is praying that he and his colleagues will be humbled, as it were, by seeing the Corinthians so well behaved that he will not dare rebuke them. If they are humbled in this way, they will appear to be false. It is when they judge sinners with the authority granted to them that they are seen to be approved as genuine by God. If then there are no people for them to judge, it looks as if they have been proved false through the lessening of their authority.

Paul is saying this because there is no power against the truth. They cannot reprove someone who is living a good life, but only someone who is an enemy of the law. This power will come to nothing if people have done what is good.

Who is there who can equal Paul? He was despised, spat upon, ridiculed, mocked as mean and contemptible, accused of being a braggart. But although he sees the need for making a show of his power, he puts it off and prays that it will not be necessary. He does not want his claims to be proved. On the contrary, he would rather that the situation be cleared up in advance so that such proof will be unnecessary.

Paul would rather that his authority be shown in his words and not have to be demonstrated in deeds. But he left the Corinthians to draw the conclusion that if they did not put things right, he would have to come and do it for them.

Paul shows that chastisement is a form of edification. If one or two are punished, the entire fellowship learns the lesson.

The joy referred to here will come when the Corinthians mend their ways, after which it will be possible for them to mature in faith. But before that there will be consolation, enabling them to abandon the pleasure of the present in favor of hope for things to come. The peace of God is one thing, but the peace of the world is another. People in the world have peace, but it works to their damnation. The peace of Christ is free from sins, and therefore it is pleasing to God. A person who has peace will also have love, and the God of both will protect him forever.

How can Paul expect them to rejoice after he has said this kind of thing to them? It is for this very reason that he says it. For if they follow what he commands, there will be nothing to prevent them from rejoicing. Nothing is more comforting than a pure conscience.

What is a holy kiss? It is one that is not hypocritical, like the kiss of Judas. The kiss is given in order to stimulate love and instill the right attitude in us toward each other. When we return after an absence, we kiss each other, for our souls hasten to bond together. But there is something else which might be said about this. We are the temple of Christ, and when we kiss each other we are kissing the porch and entrance of the temple.

Paul is calling the Corinthians to holiness, so that they may be bold enough to return the greeting of the saints. For they are greeted by the saints with the intention that they should imitate them.

All the saints sent their greetings, not just the leaders.

If there is one grace, one peace, one love and one fellowship on the part of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, surely there is one operation, and where there is one operation, certainly the power cannot be divided or the substance separated.

Here is the intertwining of the Trinity and the unity of power which brings all salvation to fulfillment. The love of God has sent us Jesus the Savior, by whose grace we have been saved. The fellowship of the Holy Spirit makes it possible for us to possess the grace of salvation, for he guards those who are loved by God and saved by the grace of Christ, so that the completeness of the Three may be the saving fulfillment of mankind.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ saves us apart from works and fills us with grace.

This is written against the Arians, who maintain that the Father is greater than the Son on the ground that he is usually mentioned first.

Paul closes his letter with prayer, taking great care to unite them all with God. Those who claim that the Holy Spirit is not God because he is not inserted with the Father and the Son at the beginning of Paul’s letters are sufficiently refuted by this verse. All that belongs to the Trinity is undivided. Where the fellowship is of the Spirit, it is also of the Son, and where the grace is of the Son, it is also of the Father and the Spirit. I say these things without confusing the distinctiveness of the Persons but recognizing both their individuality and the unity of their common substance.