A Call for Completion
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2017 · 11 June 2017
Paul ends 2 Corinthians 13 by saying, “Finally brethren, farewell. Become complete. Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. 12 Greet one another with a holy kiss. 13 All the saints greet you. 14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” Paul is telling us what a pastor should really be concerned about, he summarizes the concerns of his heart for the church.
The Corinthian church had been under siege from the world, the flesh and the devil, just like many churches are experiencing now in this area. The culture around them was filled with immorality. Their culture had all kinds of sinful devil worship which influenced their lives prior to coming to Christ. This continues to be a bad influence, as they were surrounded by all that. This is also true now here in Colorado.
The devil, who is behind all false religions, was able to come into the church at Corinth in the form of false teachers who were teaching lies. They wanted to destroy the people's confidence in Paul. They had come to attack the church and had some success in doing so. And then, there was the attack from the flesh. People were committing sins of the flesh which was their way of life before they repented and had come to Christ.
Now as Paul comes to the final summation, he had three concerns for them. He desires for them and for us too, that is perfection, affection and benediction. He begins in verse 11 by saying, "Finally, brethren." Brethren is a term Paul used to refer to the believers at Corinth. These three words sum up what any faithful pastor would want for his church and what I want for every Christian here.
Notice what is not mentioned in his list: prosperity, success, physical health, comfort, freedom, honor, prestige and all the things that people pursue, even in the church. For 13 chapters Paul defended his apostleship, his ministry, his integrity, including a straightforward confrontation of the false teachers who were lying to them. And in his final summary, he tells them what he really wants to happen in that church.
Look first at perfection. Verse 11, "Brethren, farewell, become complete." The key to understanding this point is found in that statement, "Become complete.” It means to put in order. This does not mean that it is incomplete. It could be translated as wholeness. It is used to refer to restoring a broken bone, or to locating a dislocated joint.
The same word is used in Hebrews 10:5 and it's translated by the word "prepare," that it has the idea that something is ill prepared, something is not ready, something is not right and it needs to be further prepared. We could translate it "mend your ways." Paul is calling for restoration here. There are a lot of things in the church that are not right.
Get your life in line as a church. This is spiritual wholeness. Try to have everything consistently in conformity to the Word of God and the will of God. This is the equipping of the saints for the work of the service. This is the building up of the body of Christ till it becomes mature and reaches the fullness of Christ, as he says in verse 13.
We should try to get everything in the kind of harmony that was exhibited by Jesus Christ, where his theology and his thoughts and his words and his life all were in perfect harmony. Everything he did, everything he was, everything he claimed, everything he believed was in perfect integrity. We are talking here about spiritual wholeness.
That is what life is all about. You go through your whole Christian life being restored, getting the priorities back in appropriate places, correcting errors and facing sins. That is exactly what the church should be involved in. We are given this responsibility of getting the church in order according to His Word and it is a never-ending battle. But we are given the power of the Holy Spirit and the truth of the Word of God to do this.
Where there is laziness, indifference, apathy and lethargy, it needs to be turned back into energy, commitment, devotion and service. And that is what pastors do much of the time, but that's what the people need to have as a goal as well. Galatians 6:1 says, “Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.”
Paul knew that evangelism was a byproduct of that attitude. He knew that changing the world around them was more likely to occur when they became what God wanted them to be. They need to reject the false teachers, reject their lies, and reject their heresies. They need to repent from the sins of the flesh and the world. They need to hear and follow the truth of God.
And they need to start with their own hearts. That is why 2 Corinthians 13:5 says, “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.” Start with yourself. Make sure things are in order in your life. Keep first your own life in order and then to be concerned about the lives around you.
Study the Word of God so that you can witness to people about God's will so they can live according to it. Try to conform the church to the Word and the will of God, because that's the desire of God. We can know God's desire for the church and the people through what Paul wrote because it is God who inspired Paul to write this.
Now doing this is an endless task. Just try to do that in your family with your spouse and with your children. Just try to bring them back in line with God's way and God's Word and God's will. And to do that in the church there are some features that make that happen. Let us study what God through Paul is telling us to do about this.
Number one, look at the word "farewell." This could also be translated as the greeting when you met someone. And the word really means "rejoice," It all started when Jesus came out of the grave and first greeted the disciples, He said, "rejoice." So it became the greeting everyone used. The early Christians said something meaningful, they said, "Rejoice," because Christ is alive.
Paul said repeatedly in Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!” 1 Thessalonians 5:16 says, “Rejoice always.” The life of the church needs to be expressed in joy. Joy is a part of our Lord's legacy. In John 16:22 Jesus said, “I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.”
We should be joyful all the time. Our sins are forgiven. Our past is dealt with. Our present is under the power and control of the Spirit of God. And our future is secure in God's promises. Christian joy is not something superficial. Christian joy is the experience from deep confidence that God is in control of everything and all is well. Circumstances on the surface change but joy remains.
What about illness? What about death? What about economic difficulties? What about the loss of a job? What about disappointment in affection? What about broken friendships? A good understanding of God's Word gives you the confidence and that is shown when you rejoice. Rejoicing is an act of appreciation for the work of Jesus Christ.
The second one is in the phrase "be of good comfort," in verse 11. Actually the verb here means submission. If a church is to have integrity and demonstrate the fullness and the wholeness of spiritual life, if we are to be what we ought to be, we must have joy but we also must have humility. Paul says, we must be willing to submit to the authority of God, a call to obedience.
The third key word is truth. It’s found in the phrase, "be of one mind." Now normally you think of people who learn to agree with each other. But that is not it. The key word here is truth. This phrase says, "Think of the same thing, and have the same convictions. In other words, believe the same things that the Word of God teaches. This is truth based on a unified understanding of God's Word.
In Romans 15:4:5 Paul says, “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning. 5 Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded.” And there is the point, there is a standard of truth to be understood. There is a standard of truth to be adhered to. In 2 Corinthians 13:8, Paul said, "For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.”
The standard of truth is the Word of the living God. There is so much misunderstanding about this today. We are often criticized for being narrow minded so they say and somehow that is wrong. But in fact, this is what God requires for the wholeness of His church. If we have the fullness of Christ, then it has to be in line with the truth. Sound doctrine establishes the basis for all the functions of the church.
So perfection then includes joy, submission, truth and fourthly unity. That comes from the phrase, "Live in peace." One of the reasons churches do not split up is because they believe the same things. But when you have a teacher who teaches something different, then you create the fracture. So if you want to live in peace, you have to be like-minded, submissive to the truth and expressing joy in that truth.
God gives us a promise at the end of verse 11, “If you do this the God of love and peace will be with you.” What it means is that you will know the fullness of blessing from the God of love and peace. As the church pursues spiritual wholeness, as the church expresses joy, submission, truth and unity, the presence of God flourishes.
Do you know there are times when God does abandon His church? Look at Revelation 2:5, “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.” In other words, lots of things were not right. If you don't change, I will come and blow the light of your church out.
The second thing Paul sought was the affection of the church. 2 Corinthians 13:12-13 says, “Greet one another with a holy kiss, all the saints greet you." What was a holy kiss? It was common in the ancient times to greet one another with a kiss. That was a way to demonstrate affection. We love sacrificially. We love by meeting needs. We consider others more important than ourselves.
What really sets us apart as a Christian and a church is that we love one another. The love that should govern our life comes from God. God is love and He showed it by sending His only Son to live a sinless life and to take on the punishment for our sins and die for us. This is very different from selfish worldly love. Because it is so different it is also very difficult to learn and to practice. So God created the church to also teach us to practice this love. And sadly we often fall short in this matter.
And Paul knew there often was division in the church. So he wants them to demonstrate affection. Most notably this was done at the Lord's Table where sin was brought out. Once they had confessed and repented, they were restored with this kind of embrace. Verse 13 says, "All the saints greet you." Sometimes when someone has become critical of me, I will purposely embrace them to break down walls.
Verse 14 is the benediction meaning, "Solemn invocation of blessing on someone.” Paul says, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." Paul wanted that they would have many blessings. And he knew that if they were obedient and faithful, they would receive those blessings of God. And this is what God wants us to do here in this church.
There are some important things about this benediction. It is a Trinitarian benediction. It speaks of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that is the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. So each member of the trinity is there. And there is also an obvious equality here. Now any denial of the doctrine of the Trinity creates a false god and is a form of idolatry.
The Mormons say, "God was once as we are now and is an exalted man who became God who then created the Son and the Holy Spirit." Not true. So when the Mormons say they believe in the God of the Old Testament, they don't. When they say believe in Jesus Christ, they don't. When they say they believe in the Holy Spirit, they don't. They have created idols with the same names, but they are not the true God.
There are many places in the Bible where the trinity is demonstrated to us. Go back in Genesis 1:2, you will find God is creating, the Spirit is moving on the waters. John 1 says Christ is the Creator of everything there is. The trinity are all at work in the resurrection. There are passages in the New Testament that say Jesus raised Himself from the dead, others say the Holy Spirit raised Him from the dead, others say that God the Father raised Him from the dead. Clear reading of Scripture yields that there are three personages in the Godhead who are all equal.
There are no illustrations that can help us understand this. But I don't have to understand everything I believe. There are lots of things that my brain and mind can't grasp. Paul said, it was the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that saved me and He came as a result of the love of God, the Father. And the result was that I entered into the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The scheme of salvation makes the trinity very clear. God, the Father, God, the Son and God, the Holy Spirit are all involved in salvation. As a pastor, I want you to know this all and experience it also. Let us pray.