The Ultimate Test
| Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you--unless, of course, you fail the test? 6 And I trust that you will discover that we have not failed the test. 7 Now we pray to God that you will not do anything wrong. Not that people will see that we have stood the test but that you will do what is right even though we may seem to have failed. (2Corinthians13:5-7) |
The important backdrop here is that Paul led the Corinthians to Christ. Their faith, salvation and redemption had its roots in the gospel that Paul preached to them and their early nurture and training to be disciples came through Paul's stay with them.
And so Paul challenges them: Do a self-examination - test yourselves - Is Christ in you and are you in the faith? Failing the test is rhetorical in this situation - Paul knows the conclusion they will have to come to is that they are standing in the faith and that Christ is in their hearts.
And if they look at their lives and find Christ there, then they will have to acknowledge the validity of Paul's ministry because He is the one who introduced them to Christ. Their self-examination and test is therefore also Paul's test. And so Paul rather cheekily says: "And I trust that you will discover that we (Paul and co) have not failed the test"!
But lest we should think that Paul is arrogant, vs.7 balances things out - Paul prays that they will be delivered from evil - not so that Paul will look good, but so that they will stand.
(Throughout this passage the idea of Christ in us is paralleled to standing in the faith. The idea of standing in the faith was a public dimension whereas Christ-in-us has a private dimension.)
Paul's final thought is tongue-in-cheek. His prayer is that they will "do what is right even though we may seem to have failed." Paul argues that if he was as bad as the super-apostles claimed, the Corinthians would not be standing. But they are standing and so Paul's apparent failure is actually not failure.
At the end of the day it doesn't matter how many sermons we preach or rands that we give out in charity - what matters is the lives we have touched and influenced for Christ.
