¹This is the third time I am coming to you. Every fact is to be confirmed by the testimony of two or three witnesses. ²I have previously said when present the second time, and though now absent I say in advance to those who have sinned in the past and to all the rest as well, that if I come again I will not spare anyone, ³since you are seeking for proof of the Christ who speaks in me, and who is not weak toward you, but mighty in you.

Pulling out the stops, Paul resorts to the formal biblical mandate (Deut. 19:15) for confronting sin. That he doesn’t introduce this with “It is written…” or similar, suggests this method for determining the truth was familiar to the Corinthians. Their behavior requires a “gloves off” approach.

The point of the quotation is that the charges against the Corinthians (of which there are many, but in particular their insolence toward Paul), needed to be brought out into the open. Things had gotten to the point where Paul was calling them to question their own salvation (see 2 Cor. 13:5), as there is no other apparent reason for the behavior some of them had exhibited. These are serious things! Thus Paul wants to step carefully in his decisive confrontation.

Again he refers to his upcoming trip as his third one (2 Cor. 12:14), concerning which the Corinthians had accused him of waffling (2 Cor. 1:15–18), and about which he had called “God as witness to my soul” (2 Cor. 1:23). He is definitely coming, and there is a plan. This is not an idle threat like those made by parents who repeatedly say to their children, “I mean it this time,” yet do nothing different. But for Paul, what will be the difference this time?

The Corinthians want “proof” of his teachings and authority—and that’s what they will get! He is speaking primarily of those who have “sinned in the past,” which we take as those who have demonstrated a resistance to apostolic authority and who have sought to gain their own following. The apostle will come in demonstration of power, a word he uses eighteen times in his two letters to them. Power is found in the cross and is from God (1 Cor. 1:18, 24). Paul’s preaching of the cross was powerful (1 Cor. 2:4) in that it effected real change in people’s lives, not just a change in one’s thinking. God’s power is the foundation on which faith is to rest (1 Cor. 2:5). “[T]he kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power” (1 Cor. 4:20). False teachers are full of words, but real spiritual change comes through the message of the cross. The preached Word is powerful, being a primary weapon of spiritual warfare (2 Cor. 6:7, 10:4). Spiritual power resides in the Word itself, from God, and not in oratory or pulpit skills. It is with that power that Paul will come again to them.

Lord, I confess my tendency toward a cerebral faith, and not just in Your power to change my life.