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“Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.” (2nd Cor. 13:11, NIV)
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After all of the correction, exasperation, frustration, exhortation and vexation, Paul could still call the Corinthians “brothers and sisters” in a spirit of Christian love and reconciliation, and he could still offer them his heartfelt blessings. Paul corrected the Corinthians, but he did not condemn them. He called them out on their errors, but he never disqualified them from God’s continual saving grace.
That is worth repeating. Paul never suggested that his “brothers and sisters” in Corinth were “losing their salvation.” He dealt forthrightly with their sin, but he did not pass condemning judgment on them. He was honest in his criticism, but in his own humility managed not to condemn where Christ does not condemn (Romans 8:1-4).
Paul understood that the people to whom we wrote were saints who were sinning, they were no longer lost sinners who were sinning. The difference is all the difference in the world! Lost sinners who sin (that is, ALL unregenerate sinners) cannot be restored to something they never had in the first place, whereas saints – believers in the Gospel who are justified and sanctified in Christ – are washed and restored day-by-day and hour by hour in continual right standing with God by virtue of the completed work of Christ, applied to them by grace through faith, with repentance as a fruit of the Spirit within them.
“Strive for full restoration.” Other versions have it: “Aim for restoration” (ESV). “Be perfect” (KJV). “Keep things in good repair” (TMV). “Be made perfect” (YLT). “Be perfected” (ASV). The idea here is to be engaged in a purposeful process of being completed, restored, and put into original or intended condition. Importantly, this is set forth as a process, not a continuous state of moral perfection. Paul was certainly referring (as we know from the context) to his hope that the Corinthian believers would stop allowing themselves to be taken off track by false-teaching “super-apostles,” so they could pursue true, authentic “perfection” in knowledge and understanding and not some counterfeit, false notion of truth.
In other words, Paul expressed his hope that the believers in Corinth would be continually reminded and restored to believing and holding to the true Gospel as Paul had delivered it to them, not as the imposters and false teachers had twisted and misrepresented it.
In all of this, we should remember that Paul wrote 1st Cor. 13 (the famous “love chapter”), and as far as a fallible, fallen human being could imperfectly do, he appears to have lived up to it. It would be most difficult to accuse Paul of gross hypocrisy with reference to 1st Cor. 13, though he would most certainly have described it as aspirational. In all of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, his love and devotion to their ultimate wellbeing in Christ was never in question.
We can be both excited and grateful to have studied and reflected on these letters of Paul to the Corinthians. God has provided fresh insights and understanding. He has deepened our knowledge of Him and imparted a new sense of His direction and calling. These blessings and benefits come to us by way of the Holy Scriptures, as we study and meditate by the illuminating power of the Spirit of Christ.
It is the Holy Spirit who provides understanding and passion for the inspired word of God. God gave the gift of His grace, by way of His gift of faith, and now He is giving the gift of an increasing love, passion and understanding of His word. In doing this, He gives deeper meaning and purpose to everyday life in the Kingdom, and He provides us with a beautiful path of communion and cooperation through the use of the gifts and abilities He created within us – abilities to think, reason, question, ponder, discuss, reflect, and translate from historical and abstract to present, practical, real life.
In short, His word and His illumination of it are the principal and foundational means by which we learn of Him, abide in Him, and thereby grow and bear fruit in Him.
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