My burden in this message is to point out that in the introductory word to 2 Corinthians Paul presents himself to the believers at Corinth as a pattern of a person who lives Christ for the church. Paul seems to be saying, “Corinthians, in my first Epistle I gave you a revelation of what it means to live Christ for the church. Now I know that you also need a pattern of such a living. In my second Epistle, I present myself to you as this living pattern. I ask you to look at me and see that I have no confidence in myself. My confidence is fully in the God of resurrection. Because I have confidence in Him, I live Christ. Furthermore, whenever I decide something, I make a decision by taking Christ as my person. I am one who is firmly attached to Christ, to God’s Anointed. He is the Christ of the faithful God, the God with whom there is no shadow due to change. Therefore, I, Paul, am one with the Triune God.” This is a person living Christ for the church.
Paul’s purpose in living Christ was that God’s administration may be carried out through the church. If we want to know how to live Christ for the church, we need to consider the life of Paul and learn of him. He is our pattern, our example.
Among the Epistles written by Paul, 2 Corinthians is unique. This Epistle opens with Paul’s personal testimony. This testimony is not given in a brief way. Rather, it is presented in a detailed way. Paul tells the Corinthians that he did not want them to be ignorant of the afflictions they experienced in Asia. He wanted the believers at Corinth to know that the apostles were heavily pressed, that the pressure was so heavy that it was beyond their capacity to endure. They even despaired of life and had the sentence of death within themselves. According to their feeling and realization, they were dying. Why did God put them into such a situation? God did this because He wanted them to be terminated. Therefore, Paul could say, “God’s intention is to terminate us. He does not want us to live any longer. Instead, He wants Christ to live in us.”
It is easy to talk about termination. But for us to actually be terminated we need to experience a great deal of suffering. For example, the Lord will use your husband or wife and your children to terminate you. If you are a wife, the Lord will use your husband to terminate you. If you are a husband, the Lord will use your wife to cut you to pieces. Furthermore, your children will also be helpful to Him in bringing you to an end so that Christ may live in you.
It is easy to say in a doctrinal way that we have been crucified with Christ, that we no longer live, and that Christ lives in us. This may be nothing more than a teaching. It is possible to go on speaking like this for years, quoting Galatians 2:20 again and again, but still not live Christ for the church.
We all need to experience the inward cutting in a practical way so that we may be terminated. The Lord will even use the saints in the church life to accomplish this for us. In a sense, the church life is a life of slaughter, a life of termination. Praise the Lord that we are willing to be slaughtered because our desire is to live Christ.
If we live Christ, our confidence will be in the God of resurrection, in the God who raises the dead. Then we shall conduct ourselves in the grace of God, and we shall be one with the unchanging Christ of the faithful God, the Christ who is the unique yes. Thank the Lord that in all these verses in 2 Corinthians 1 we see that Paul was a pattern of living Christ for the church.