NOTES for Co2 13:1-14
Concluding his discussion of witness and rebuke, Paul once again draws the attention of the addressees of his letter to the fact that among Christians any rebuke makes sense only insofar as the life of the Kingdom is at issue. He says: you are looking for proof that my witness is true, that through me the Savior Himself is addressing you, but you will still find no proof of this if you yourselves are not living one life with Him (v. 3). Only the life of the Risen One, the life of the Kingdom, can be a reliable foundation joining Christians to one another, and only in connection with it does everything Paul says to his Corinthian brothers make sense (v. 4). They must be firmly confident in their Christianity, just as Paul himself is confident, and then everything will fall into place (vv. 5-6). As we can see, the apostle again and again reminds the Corinthian Christians of that spiritual wholeness without which it is impossible to live in the Kingdom, and therefore impossible to be a Christian. If there is no wholeness, there is no confidence either: in that case a person is in fact unable to be rooted in the Kingdom as he should be.
Paul, of course, does not write by chance to the Corinthian Christians that he prays for their perfection, that they may be able to live the life of the Kingdom in all its fullness (v. 9). He is not frightened by the fact that against the background of a spiritually strong church he himself may appear spiritually weak: the apostle is not trying to demonstrate his strength to anyone, and he is not frightened by the prospect of "appearing to be something other than what he ought to be" (v. 7). He understands perfectly well the difference between "being" and "appearing," and he knows that in the Kingdom all human comparisons of oneself with others are worth nothing. For him only one thing matters: that the Church remain the Church and Christians remain Christians (v. 11). That is how it should be for a genuine witness of Christ and the Kingdom.