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March 7/8, 2015
Jason Meyer | 2 Corinthians 10:1-6
I, Paul, myself entreat you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away!—I beg of you that when I am present I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.—2 Corinthians 10:1–6
Introduction
In the ancient world, much of the warfare consisted of an invading army attacking a defending city or stronghold. This was called siege warfare. The invading army would lay siege to a city. With all due respect to Helm’s Deep, normally the city under siege could not withstand the invading army. The strongholds of the city were usually no match for the siege engines, weapons devised to tear those structures down. Siege warfare had a few clearly defined steps: tear down the strongholds which were keeping the attackers out, move in and kill or capture the people, and crush any uprisings in the future to keep that city.
The apostle Paul speaks of the same strategy in verses 4–6: destroy strongholds (v. 4), take captives (v. 5), and punish disobedience or resistance (v. 6). But notice what should make you sit up straight on the edge of your seat. He is talking about laying siege to a church—a congregation of professing Christians. We are not talking about Paul waging war against the world. Paul is talking about waging war with a church. Take a moment to let that sink in.
That is what we will see during the next three weeks as we look at Paul’s “Bold Warfare” with the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 10. His bold warfare has three aspects: tearing down (vv. 1–6), building up (vv. 7–12), and boasting in the Lord (vv. 13–18).
We will look at one of these aspects each week. This week (March 7–8), we’ll look at what Paul tears down in 2 Corinthians 10:1–6. Next week (March 14–15), we’ll look at what Paul builds up in 2 Corinthians 10:7–12. The week after that (March 21–22), we’ll look at how Paul boasts in the Lord in 2 Corinthians 10:13–18.
In this week’s passage (vv. 1–6), Paul warns the Corinthians about what will happen if he has to address their unrepentant rebellion when he visits. Paul warns them that though he walks in the flesh, he wages war with divine weapons.
As we work our way through these points, watch how they all work together to form one main point: Christ sometimes builds his church by laying siege to it and recapturing it.
I, Paul, myself entreat you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away!—I beg of you that when I am present I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh.
Paul here is really responding to two charges. The first is that he is humble when face-to-face with the Corinthians and bold only when away from them. He quotes what others are saying about him:
For they say, “His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account,"—2 Corinthians 10:10
Paul’s response to this charge is really quite simple. He shows that he has integrity and is not double minded. He will not say one thing and do another.
Let such a person understand that what we say by letter when absent, we do when present.—2 Corinthians 10:11
Notice that Paul says he entreats them with the meekness and gentleness of Christ about his desire to not have to show them the full extent of his boldness when he comes to them. Watch then how he turns the tables on the charge against him that he is humble in person and bold when away. He is now speaking with humility while he is away, and he warns them that he will come with boldness when he comes to address their rebellion.
The second charge is the suspicion some have that he merely walks according to the flesh. They intend for this charge to be derogatory. They are claiming that Paul is not carried and led by the Spirit. Instead, they say he only conducts his ministry in the flesh, and thus he has impure motives and uses trickery, like he is going to take some off the top of the collection. Paul turns this charge on its head as well in the next verse.
against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.
Paul says he walks in the flesh—not in all of the ways they think, but in one key respect: he himself is merely human. He is weak. He doesn’t possess any intrinsic power. He is not sufficient in himself to do any of his divine calling. He cannot turn any of his human powers and abilities into weapons to threaten the Corinthians. Paul is not up to the task of dismantling the false thinking of the Corinthians in a way that takes them captive for Christ.
His accusers think walking in the flesh is an insult, but Paul wears it as a badge of honor. They say, “Look at him—he is so weak and unimpressive.” They say that “his bodily presence is weak and his speech of no account” (v. 10). Paul says, “I know. I am not debating this side of the coin at all.”
But they are missing the other side of the coin. The flip side is that Paul doesn’t wage war at all in his own strength. Now the other shoe drops. If he doesn’t wage war in his own strength (according to the flesh), it means that he wages war in God’s strength. Things just got really serious.
For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.
As we noted at the beginning of the sermon, these verses lay out Paul’s siege strategy: tear down, take captives, punish resistance.
First, Paul says that God has given him weapons that are strong enough to tear down strongholds (v. 4). He defines these strongholds in verse 5: “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God. ” They have raised up arguments not just against Paul but against God. There are arguments and lofty opinions arrogantly opposing God. God opposes the proud. They are cut off from grace, but he gives grace to the humble. God is laying siege to the Corinthians. Why do they think they can win?
Second, if God is laying siege to the Corinthians then the only way to win is full surrender, taking every though captive to obey Christ (v. 5). Repent and be a captive of Christ! Notice that surrender involves a profound change of mind, a radical reorientation, an about face.
Paul is a military general who tears down the defenses of fortified rebels and takes them captive for Christ. This is a picturesque way of saying, “we preach Christ Jesus as Lord” (2 Cor. 4:5).
Third, those who mount a resistance will be punished as soon as the Corinthians as a whole join the cause against the opponents. Notice the severe mercy at work here. Paul does not want to punish resistance until he has given the Corinthians as a whole a chance to respond. He does not want to punish them prematurely before as many Corinthians as possible are brought back in the fold.
Application
There are many directions we could go in application. Paul says that the false teachers are promoting a false view of Jesus, the Spirit, and the gospel (2 Corinthians 11). He says that he fears he will have to address their quarreling, jealousy, and conceit (arrogance), and he will have to grieve for some who have not yet repented for their sexual immorality (2 Corinthians 12:19–21). The root sin underneath it all is arrogance or pride.
We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God.—2 Corinthians 10:5
High-sounding, lofty opinions are raised up against God. In their arrogant refusal to be corrected by Paul, the Corinthians are not just opposing Paul—they are opposing God. Have you ever seen this tendency in yourself or others? You try to correct someone and they don’t want to hear it, so their heart becomes hard to what you are saying. Their heart becomes so hard you can see it on their face, like a stone face or a stone wall that says, “I will not listen to what you have to say.”
How do you root out a root sin? Have you seen pride in yourself? Jonathan Edwards said pride is “the most hidden, secret, and deceitful of all sins.” It is hard to spot and harder to kill. So let me invite you to get to know yourself. Fighting pride is like fighting a shape shifter. It can appear in forms that look like polar opposites: building up and tearing down. Here are the six interrelated forms of pride:
Building Up: self-exaltation, self-promotion, and self-justification
Tearing Down: self-degradation, self-demotion, and self-condemnation.
The first three usually show up when we succeed and others fail. The latter three responses are more common when others succeed and we fail.
First, pride puts on the smug face of self-exaltation when success comes its way. Self-exaltation takes credit for the good things in our lives. Second, self-promotion is an extension of self-exaltation because it puts those good things forward so that others will give us credit for them. Third, self-justification is more specific in that it focuses on taking credit for morally good works as a way of being right either before God or in the sight of others. Taking credit for being in the right makes it more likely that we will blame others for being in the wrong and hold them in contempt.
People like the Pharisees displayed all of these species of pride. They tried to parade their self-righteousness before people to get praise from others (Matthew 6:1–2). Jesus said everyone who exalts himself like a Pharisee will be humbled (Matthew 18:14).
These three forms of pride all propose a toast to self as a way of celebrating and showing off our successes. This toast to self usually takes place in the context of an awareness of the failures of others. The Pharisees not only “trusted in themselves that they were righteous,” but they also “treated others with contempt” (Luke 18:9).
Self-degradation, self-demotion, and self-condemnation all come when the shoe is on the other foot and we stew over our losses and others’ successes. Rather than raising a toast to successes, these three forms of pride throw an elaborate pity party. First, self-degradation is a form of demolition that tears down the self, while self-exaltation elevates and builds up the self.
Second, self-demotion throws a public pity party to highlight the fact that we have performed worse than others, we have it worse than others, or we have less than others. Why would we want others to see these things? Self-demotion can be a sneaky form of self-promotion because we are actually fishing for affirmation and reassurance. We can say, “I did such a terrible job,” or “I am just not sure if it was any good,” in a way that wants the other person to say, “No, you did a great job. It wasn’t bad at all.”
Third, self-condemnation passes judgment on us when we fall short of our own standards. Sometimes we carry out the judgment on ourselves. We can mentally replay poor performances in order to beat ourselves up over our failures. Self-condemnation does not feel vindicated in the sight of others; it feels shame for falling short in the sight of others. It hides from God and from others in the shadows.
Pride is a colossal problem. It is a cosmic crime that should cause a chill to go down your spiritual spine. Pride is our greatest enemy because it makes God our enemy—an Almighty opponent.
God opposes the proud.—James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5.
Why? What makes pride so singularly repulsive to God is the way that pride contends for supremacy with God Himself. Pride is not one sin among many. It is a sin in a class by itself. Other sins lead the sinner further from God, but pride is particularly heinous in that it attempts to elevate the sinner above God. Do you hear that from our text: “raised up against God” (v. 5)?
Pride is not just a sin—it is a sinful mother, a sinful orientation that gives birth to more sins. For example, pride can lead to lying. You tell a lie because you are too proud to admit you were wrong or you did something wrong.
But the problem is so much bigger. Pride doesn’t just tell lies; it is a lie. Why? Pride is self-obsession; pride is preoccupation with ourselves. Therefore, pride is a lie about reality. It tells me that I am worth thinking about all the time. It is an orientation that wrongly assumes that everything revolves around us.
Here is a conversation that I might have with myself after a meeting at church. I might think, “That meeting went really well. People really seemed to rally around that idea I shared.”
Then, I could start to think, “I said that really well. Wait a minute—that was such a prideful thought. It sounds like I am taking credit for the meeting going well because I said something really well. I am such a prideful person. I hate my pride and want to put it to death.”
But then three seconds later, I might think, “I am glad that I caught that thought. I am thankful that I am so aware of my pride. I wonder if other people are as aware of their pride as I am of mine—wait a minute, it just happened again. I am taking pride in my awareness of pride. Oh, deliver me from this body of death, Lord Jesus!”
If pride is preoccupation with ourselves, then we cannot defeat pride by becoming preoccupied with how we are doing against pride. We play right into the hands of pride there because we take a page out of pride’s playbook. Think about yourself more. Obsess more. Become preoccupied with how you are doing. How the fight is going?
Maybe some of this will make more sense if we talk about what real humility is. As C. S. Lewis said, true humility is “not thinking less of ourselves, but thinking of ourselves less.” We can spend a lot of time thinking less of ourselves, but we only end up thinking a lot about ourselves. The problem of pride does not boil down to whether we think high thoughts or low thoughts about ourselves but that we think lots of thoughts about ourselves. Humility is fundamentally a form of self-forgetfulness as opposed to pride’s self-fixation. Humility can set you free because when you think about yourself less, you are free to think about Christ more. Pride puts us above God and his mighty hand that can tear us down, but humility puts us under the mighty hand of God to receive grace (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5).
The collision between the glory of God and the pride of man has two possible crash sites: hell or the cross. In other words, either we will pay for our sins in hell or Christ will pay for our sins on the cross. Hell is like an eternal crash site and crime scene. It is a horror movie in which there are no closing credits because it never ends. God opposes pride actively and hates it passionately, which means that pride is spiritual suicide. The reason is simple. Pride is on a collision course with God Himself and the date is set.
For the LORD of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up—and it shall be brought low.—Isaiah 2:12
All must be torn down so that one thing alone may be left standing.
The LORD alone will be exalted in that day.—Isaiah 2:11c.
The Bible calls it the day of the Lord.
But God in his mercy made another way. The Son of God emptied himself by taking on humanity and humbled himself by obeying to the point of death, even the death of the cross. God sends his Son to vindicate the worth of his great name, which sinners have defamed. The sacrifice of Christ fully absorbs and satisfies the wrath of God. Seeing the cross rightly crushes our pride decisively.
Why? Seeing the cross rightly means that we see ourselves rightly. We see Christ on the cross and conclude that we are actually seeing our sin on the cross. The cross reveals what we deserve from God. We cannot receive the grace of Christ apart from seeing and embracing the undeserved disgrace of Christ. We see the cross rightly through the miracle of conversion. We were blind to the glory of Christ on the cross (2 Corinthians 4:3–4), but God’s grace is stronger. When Christ is proclaimed, God overcomes our spiritual blindness by flooding our hearts with light. The eyes of our heart are opened to see and savor the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6). The Spirit acts like a floodlight to illuminate the work of Christ on the cross.
Conclusion
The pride of man puts trust in our own thoughts and opinions. Humility trusts in God’s wisdom. This battle is on display in Proverbs 3:5: “trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.” Proverbs 14:12 warns about relying on things that seem right to us.
There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.—Proverbs 14:12
Humanity’s cursed condition came from a moment when Adam and Eve relied on their own understanding instead of trusting in God’s wisdom (Genesis 3:6). Proverbs says pride comes before a fall; Genesis says pride came before the fall. They were tempted to become like God (Genesis 3:5).
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.—Genesis 3:6
We know we are on the right track because the next chapter (2 Corinthians 11:3) repeats the word thoughts from v.5.
For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.—2 Corinthians 11:2-3
The serpent is at it again. This time he is in Corinth trying to lead them away with his cunning. He tried to entice them to toward the only thing that could kill them, and now he is trying to entice them away from the only thing that can save them.
Satan’s work is so subtle—he will do anything to keep you from seeing Jesus. Do you see how subtle it is? How does he do it?
For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.—2 Corinthians 11:4
Satan actually leads people away from Jesus by having the false teachers preach Jesus but just different enough to not be detected by the Corinthians. Satan keeps enticing people away from a crucified Jesus. A bloody Jesus dying for sinners—this is the power of the cross, that Christ became sin for us. God chose how we would be saved in order to humble us.
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.—1 Corinthians 1:21–25
He became our all in all in order to bring all of us to nothing, so that we might not boast in ourselves at all, but boast in him as all in all. That is why we resolve to be a church that knows nothing except the depths of Jesus Christ and him crucified. I don’t want to be a proud church. Pride goes before the fall. It was true of Adam and Eve, and it was true of some in Corinth. It is not just true for a person, but for a people or a church. Let us glory in him. Boast in him. Rest in him as sufficient to save you alone. Don’t add anything to him. No power of the flesh. I am praying for you and I and everyone listening that we may be a single-minded people. A sincere, pure devotion to Christ is what defines a church.
How can you stare at the cross and be smug? Stare until your pride melts away. Stare until you can say, “When I survey the wondrous cross on which the prince of glory died, my richest gain I count but loss and pour contempt on all my pride.”
Let’s put our armor on against all the devil’s lies to boast in something other than Christ.
Sermon Discussion Questions
Outline
In this passage, Paul warns the Corinthians about what will happen if he has to address their unrepentant rebellion when he visits. Paul warns them that though he walks in the flesh he wages war with divine weapons.
Main Point: Christ sometimes builds his church by laying siege to it and recapturing it.
Discussion Questions
1. What accusations does Paul have to answer? How does he turn the tables on his accusers each time?
Application Questions
1. What were the six different forms of pride? Which form do you struggle with most?