NOTES for Co2 2:15-16
These words recall the traditional descriptions of sacrifices from the Book of Leviticus, where sacrifices are usually called 'a pleasing aroma to Yahweh.' The apostle is certainly alluding to the corresponding texts of the Torah, comparing his witness with a sacrifice.
This is not surprising: every sacrifice was always and above all a form of communion with God, sanctifying the person who came to the altar and took part in the sacrificial meal. It was a form of sharing in God's presence that abides at the altar. And the 'effectiveness' of the sacrifice depended on the openness of the person, on his readiness to change and be sanctified.
So it is also with witness. Paul bore witness to the Kingdom while himself being its inhabitant and living its life. To bear witness means to carry this life further, opening it to those to whom one bears witness. A person listening to a true witness of Christ is, as it were, at the altar, in God's presence, feeling upon himself the breath of the Kingdom by whose life a true witness of Christ lives.
And, as always in God's presence, a person faces a choice: to accept or reject, to say yes or no to God. Everything further depends on the answer. For that 'aroma,' that 'fragrance' of which the apostle speaks, contains not only the breath of the Kingdom, but also the human answer.
If the answer is negative, the breath of the Kingdom becomes deadly for the 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 to him the whole fullness of life. It cannot be otherwise with a true witness: he, as the apostle says, 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 he needs; God comes to the person, taking him wholly for Himself. Or leaving him, if the person does not want this, but also wholly.