These words recall the traditional descriptions of sacrifices in the Book of Leviticus, where they are usually called “an aroma pleasing to Yahweh.” The apostle is undoubtedly alluding to the relevant texts of the Torah when he compares his witness to a sacrifice. This is hardly surprising: every sacrifice was always, first and foremost...
These words recall the traditional descriptions of sacrifices in the Book of Leviticus, where they are usually called “an aroma pleasing to Yahweh.” The apostle is undoubtedly alluding to the relevant texts of the Torah when he compares his witness to a sacrifice. This is hardly surprising: every sacrifice was always, first and foremost, a form of communion with God that sanctified the person who came to the altar and participated in the sacrificial meal. It was a way for a person to partake of God's presence abiding at the altar. The “effectiveness” of the sacrifice depended on the person's openness and readiness to change and be sanctified.
The same is true of witness. Paul bore witness to the Kingdom while himself being one of its inhabitants and living its life. To bear witness means to carry this life onward and open it to those to whom one testifies. As a person listens to a true witness of Christ, they find themselves, as it were, at the altar, in God's presence, feeling upon themselves the breath of the Kingdom by whose life that witness lives.
And as always in God's presence, the person faces a choice: to accept or reject, to say “yes” or “no” to God. Everything thereafter depends on the answer. For the “aroma,” the “fragrance” of which the apostle speaks contains not only the breath of the Kingdom but also the person's response. If the response is negative, the breath of the Kingdom becomes deadly to that person: it destroys the one who does not want its life. But if a person says “yes” to God, the breath of the Kingdom opens the entire fullness of life to them. It cannot be otherwise with a true witness, for, as the apostle says, he does not peddle the word but carries it in all its fullness. Here it is no longer the person who decides how much of God they need; God comes to the person and takes them wholly to Himself. Or leaves them, if the person does not want this—but wholly so as well.
