2 Corinthians 13 - Introduction

Final Warning and Closing Words.

Paul finishes the letter with a promise shortly to be with them for a third time and with a final challenge. He warns them that if their behaviour is as he fears he will not spare them when he comes. This third visit will witness to their true situation. They have sought a proof that Christ, the One Whom they see as powerful within them, is speaking through him. That is well and good. So let them also consider themselves. Are they also seeking to test the genuineness of their own faith? Let them consider whether Jesus Christ truly is within them, with all that that involves, for if He is not they are on the way to rejection. They are reprobate, failing the test. But he trusts that they will prove not to be so and that their final conclusion will be that he is not reprobate. That Christ is truly in him. And that therefore they will repent. And with that challenge he says his final farewells.