But what I do, I will also do, that I may cut off the opportunity of those wishing [for] an opportunity, that wherein they boast they may be found even as we.
reason: watery opening, over length
The decision was not a mood but a standing rule, and Paul gives his reason openly.
In the regions of Achaia, as long as this attitude remained, Paul had settled it: he would not give up this boasting that he received nothing from them. He does not hide his reasons. He shows clearly that they are right. God knew this was not from any lack of love for them: love was in it more than they realized. But he will keep on as he has, to "cut off occasion from them who desire occasion." Some were ready to accuse Paul of selfish motives about money the moment he took anything from the Corinthians. So he would give them not the slightest occasion for it.
reason
There is a sternness of tone in the decision at the close of this passage. At first it may seem out of keeping with the warm language of his love elsewhere in the letter. But there is no real conflict. For love's own sake he had to make that decision and hold to it. The enemies of truth had questioned the purity of his hands and the validity of his apostolic mission, and Corinthian saints had listened to the slander. This plain work of Satan did not chill his eager zeal for them; it stirred it up. So it showed him how important it was to cut off occasion carefully from those who sought occasion.
reason
The men at Corinth were advertising that they served for free, and Paul removed the comparison they wanted to make.
Later there was another special reason why the apostle would not take money from the Corinthians. False teachers wanted to profit from Paul's work, and they pretended to work for nothing. Paul wanted to take away every occasion of influence from these evil men. They were not to claim something that was not just as true of him.
The words "found even as we" run one way only — the rivals must rise to his level, not he sink to theirs.
His true motive he explains. "But what I do I will also do that I may cut off the occasion of those desiring an occasion that wherein they boast they may be found even as we" — a cheap boast where men have plenty and need no self-denying devotedness. "For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ."
By holding his own line, Paul made their conduct the visible test of their claims.
In this course he keeps his true character as a minister of God, a witness and servant of the truth. To him, to live was Christ, and he would have the walk of these pretenders tested by the same rule. They boasted loudly, so he would know on what grounds. Was their boasting like his own, in the heart, or only on the lips? Had they come to Corinth as faithful and outstanding ministers of Christ? No — were they, with all their empty claims, ministers of Christ at all? The Corinthian saints were to know, for Paul would act so as to force his rivals to show their true character.
Refusing pay at Corinth did not cancel a worker's right to support. Paul set a right aside in one place, not everywhere.
The apostle was ready to preach the gospel everywhere, whatever it cost him. In some places he felt free and glad to receive support, from people and from whole assemblies who walked with God in grace and humility. Where the spirit of the world ruled, he held back and would take nothing. The general principle stood: "the labourer deserves his wages"; "the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel." The apostle laid down what is right, yet in grace he could go beyond it, and did. He used the right not for himself but for Christ, wherever His glory called for it. From the poor Macedonian believers he received; from the wealthy Corinthians nothing.
The principle reaches past Paul. It gives every believer a working rule.
We have to think about foes as well as friends, and they are quick to attack what condemns them. So let us seek to cut off occasion from those who seek occasion, so that even the enemy, whatever kind he is, may have no evil thing to say about us.
- Occasion sought. Critics at Corinth waited for any chance to accuse Paul of selfish motives. The verse is his answer to men who wanted an opening.
- Occasion cut off. He kept taking nothing, as a settled rule in that region, so that no accusation could find a handle.
- Occasion tested. The same rule tested his rivals. They boasted that they served for free, so Paul made them measure up to his standard, not he to theirs.
- Occasion and love. The refusal looked cold, but it was love. God knew there was more affection in it than they realised.
- Occasion today. A worker's right to support stands, but grace can lay it down. And every believer can live so that opponents have nothing bad to say.
For such [are] false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ.
Paul's rivals in Corinth were passing themselves off as apostles of Christ, and here he names them plainly. His three words — false, deceitful, disguised — raise the question every reader faces: how do you tell a real servant of Christ from a good copy?
Each word lands on a different part of the problem — their sending, their work, and their disguise:
They were false apostles, because they had never been sent by the Lord as the true apostles were. They were workers, true enough. But they were deceitful workers, since they turned themselves into what they were not. In this they shared the character of the one they served, and their end will match their deceitful works.
Up to this point Paul has been half-mocking, granting his rivals more than they deserve. Verse 13 changes the tone, and one writer explains why the words are so strong:
His ironical concessions are now replaced by direct and unsparing denunciation. These grand and all too convincing pretenders are no true shepherds. They are wolves in sheep's clothing. The strength of his language matches the seriousness of the evil he is opposing. Unreal claims are lies by their very nature; and no lie is of the truth — they all have the same parent, the devil. In every attack on the truth there is a power at work below the surface, and it is the office of the Spirit of truth to uncover it and strip off its mask. That Spirit glorifies Jesus.
These men looked impressive. Their claims ran high, and one thing was missing:
Complete wickedness can wear a religious dress. That is no wonder, since Satan himself takes the form of an angel of light, and his servants appear as ministers of righteousness. Notice the claims here: superior light and assumed righteousness. They are high, showy claims, but they leave out the cross of Christ, and so the pure grace of God. The whole thing becomes a hollow and deadly sham.
Paul had already told the Corinthians what these men preached. He could also see where it would end:
With Satan's own cunning, these men twisted the truth. They preached "another Jesus," "a different spirit," and "a different gospel" (v. 4). The Apostle also saw what was coming. If the churches put up with these evil workers, the Christian circle would lose its simple devotion to Christ. Believers' hearts would be pulled away from true loyalty to Christ. They would follow men who drew disciples after themselves to make themselves great (v. 20). So they pretended to be what they were not. They twisted the truth, corrupted the Christian profession, and lifted themselves up at the cost of others.
Paul's verdict was not a private opinion that others had to take on trust. Another assembly did the checking for itself, and the Lord commended it for doing so:
They tested the claim of some to be equal with the apostles. They tested it so well that every false claim showed up in the light of the signs that marked out the Lord's apostles (1 Cor. 9; 2 Cor. 11; 12). The word "tried" means tested, or put to the proof (2 Cor. 13:5; 1 John 4:1). "Have found them to be false." These men claimed apostolic office and authority on no ground at all. The test overturned that claim and branded the men themselves as liars — or, as Paul puts it, "false apostles."
Commentators trace this beginning forward. One sees in it the seed of an official class claiming authority without any real gift from Christ, and notes how the target shifted once Paul was gone:
The evil ways that soon produced a clergy class were already at work. That class did away even with any claim to gift from Christ, and leaned instead on the made-up claim of apostolic succession. Such men then opposed the apostle in person, as now they oppose his doctrine.
Another writer gives the practical test:
Our only hope of spotting these frauds is to look at what such movements actually do. Do the marks of the Word of God show up in their practice? If not, stay well away from them.
- Counterfeit. They were false, because the Lord never sent them. They were deceitful, because they made themselves into what they were not.
- Costume. The disguise was religious, not shocking: high claims to light and righteousness, with the cross of Christ left out.
- Cost. Left alone, the fake pulls hearts away from simple loyalty to Christ and ties them to men who are building a following of their own.
- Check. Test the claims. One church put men who called themselves apostles to the proof and found them false.
- Consequence. The costume does not decide the end. The end will match the works.
And [it is] not wonderful, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
It is no great thing therefore if his ministers also transform themselves as ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
Paul has just called his rivals false apostles and traced their disguise back to Satan, who dresses himself as an angel of light. If the master can pose as light, his servants can pose as servants of righteousness — so how does that disguise work, and how does it end?
The disguise is not random. Satan takes the form of the very thing he wants to destroy, so the copy looks as much like the real thing as possible.
God is light, and Satan is His opposite; his power is the power of darkness, but his craft is the mimicry of light. To corrupt and destroy truth is his unceasing aim, and to do it he takes the form of the very thing he attacks. When Paul calls these false apostles "ministers of Satan," he describes them by the destructive nature of their influence in the church.
Paul's word for "servants" is the ordinary word for anyone who serves.
The Greek word is more often translated "minister" and "servant" than "deacon." It twice refers to Christ, Romans 15:8; Galatians 2:17. It is used of Paul and others, Colossians 1:7, 23, 25, and of magistrates, Romans 13:4. It is even used of Satan's agents, 2 Corinthians 11:15.
God's truth is holy, and God fits His servants to it. The enemy copies that fit.
The God of holiness is holy in His ways; and His instruments must match this in character. The truth itself is holy; and those who make it known must do so in a way that shows in their own lives and ways. Satan is the great opposer of truth. He shows his full knowledge of this when, as Paul says, he is transformed for his purpose into an angel of light. "Therefore," he goes on, "it is no small thing if his ministers also are transformed as the ministers of righteousness." Even he sees that the ways must morally suit the end.
The older wording quoted here, "transformed as the ministers of righteousness," is the ESV's "disguise themselves as servants of righteousness."
Loud claims to holiness often point the other way.
High, showy claims to personal holiness usually come from a certain kind of person. They offer to guide others in the way of peace, but they have no true knowledge of the grace of God themselves. They preach themselves and not the cross of Christ. So they deny God's righteousness while trying to set up their own.
The claims are high. The gap is at the centre.
Complete wickedness can be dressed in religious clothing. It is nothing to wonder at, since Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light, and his servants as ministers of righteousness. Notice, these are high, pretentious claims — superior light, and assumed righteousness. But they leave out the cross of Christ, and so the pure grace of God. The whole thing becomes a hollow and deadly sham.
The same gap shows in what these men serve to hungry people.
They appear as ministers of Christ, but they do not preach Christ. The world wants entertainment, so these men take up the art of entertaining. Even starving souls are caught for a time. They are like Nero. When Rome was starving, he sent to Egypt for shiploads of sand for the arena instead of grain for the hungry people.
Open bad behaviour will not always give them away. There is a better test: what the teaching does in a soul that is truly hungry for God.
Satan, when he comes in as an angel of light, does not send out open evil-doers to recommend his teaching. On the other hand, an evil life may dishonour a preacher of real truth. But a true and needy soul tests the fruit of what is spoken for itself. Such a soul will surely find that the truth has its own witness to the heart and conscience, such as nothing but the truth can have.
The verse does not stop at how these men look. Its last clause says where they are going.
They were false apostles, because they had never been sent by the Lord as the true apostles were. They were workers right enough, but deceitful ones, since they transformed themselves into what they were not. In this they shared the character of the one they served, and their end will match their deceitful works.
The damage did not stop with a few men in Corinth.
Copying their master, these false men covered up their evil with a show of good works, as if ministers of righteousness. These ministers of Satan stood against the true minister of Christ. In that we see the beginning of a vast system of corruption.
- Mimicry. Satan's craft is the imitation of light; he takes the form of the very thing he means to destroy.
- Mask. Satan picks righteousness as the costume because God's truth is holy. Loud claims to personal holiness make the best disguise.
- Missing. The cross of Christ, and with it the grace of God, is what the copy always leaves out — which makes the whole display hollow.
- Measure. Bad behaviour will not expose them; the test is whether their teaching carries truth's own witness to a needy heart and conscience.
- Match. The mask is temporary, the verdict is not: their end will match their deceitful works.
Again I say, Let not any one think me to be a fool; but if otherwise, receive me then even as a fool, that *I* also may boast myself some little.
Paul turns back to defending himself, and he hates doing it. He calls the whole exercise folly. So he asks the Corinthians either to spare him that name or to let him play the part. Behind the strange request lies a real question: when is it right for a servant of Christ to talk about himself?
One writer shows how far this was from what Paul loved to do, and what pushed him into it:
The apostle has turned aside to warn about false apostles, their high claims and their low reality. Now he comes back again — reluctantly, as we see — to speak of himself, his "folly" as he calls it. In truth no task could be more repulsive to him, for he loved to speak only of Christ and the wonderful grace of God in Him. But what he so much disliked was a necessity... But the Lord's glory was at stake and the saints were in danger; and so he again takes up the disagreeable task.
The Corinthians face a choice. They can think better of Paul, or give him the freedom they give to anyone else who talks big:
Turning from the deceivers to the people they had fooled, he throws down his challenge before those who sat as judges of the quarrel. He does object to their contemptuous downgrading of him. But if they must think so poorly of one who once held a very different place in their esteem, let them at least act in a way worthy of themselves. Let the fool have licence to display his folly... His habit, as they well knew, was to glory in the Lord. But now other boasting was in fashion. While he was away, it had largely taken the place once thought due only to the praise of God. So he would also stand among his rivals.
The appeal has an edge to it. If the Corinthians could sit happily under men who boasted, they had no grounds for refusing Paul a hearing:
Still, as these men acted in this way, Paul felt he should take up their challenge. If they wanted to run a competition over who had the highest credentials, he would say something more about his. This boasting was all foolishness, but since they had started it he would speak; and again in verse 19 he uses irony. The Corinthians were enriched in all knowledge and so took the place of being wise, and seemed to put up gladly with the fools who boasted so much; for, he says, you do indeed suffer when these boasting men domineer over you and browbeat you as they have been doing.
The contest was not over doctrine but over credentials. One writer lists what the rivals put forward, then turns the point on preachers since:
The false apostles were dishonouring the Lord and damaging the saints. They did it by putting forward their advantages in the flesh: a fine personal presence, power of mind, play of imagination, readiness of speech, rhetorical tricks, independent wealth, family connections, social position, and the like. So he feels it necessary to put forward what God had done through the ability He gave... It is humbling yet instructive to set the apostle's pain at having to speak this way against the obvious pleasure many a servant of Christ takes in telling personal stories. Such stories seem to have no aim but to prove his own cleverness at the expense of poor Mr This or Mr That.
Paul says in the next breath that he speaks "not according to the Lord." Commentators are careful with that phrase: it describes his distaste, not a lapse in inspiration.
He objects to their thinking him a fool; but if they will not grant him that, "accept me as a fool, so that I too may boast a little." They, being deceitful workers, sought their own glory. The apostle wrote only to deliver the saints from what undermined the Lord and puffed up the flesh... He had ample material and real substance. Still, it was not directly about the Lord, and this tried him, however necessary it was. This seems to be the true meaning. He was not writing as an uninspired man at all. By inspiration he was writing what was painful to a heart wholly devoted to the Lord's glory.
That God required the record has a use far beyond Corinth:
God required it in this case, and His inspiring it keeps it entirely free from exaggeration or undue exalting of a man... It is valuable for our day, when men exalt themselves and claim apostleship or something like it. Measure such a claim against Paul's character, labour and sufferings, and it will collapse in utter shame.
Paul's reluctance points to where our strength really lies:
Our strength is not looking back at past experience, though that may sometimes have a place. Our strength is living on Christ now, in the path of God's will. I deny that Paul talks about himself and his experiences, except where he says he is a fool for doing it — they had compelled him.
- Forced. Paul does not choose this subject. Danger to the saints and to the Lord's honour drives him to a task he calls repulsive.
- Folly. He calls his own self-defence foolish before anyone else can. Spare him the label, he says, or give him the fool's freedom to speak.
- Fashion. The rivals boasted in presence, eloquence, wealth and connections. These were advantages of the flesh, and the Corinthians had learned to admire them.
- Fruit. God inspired this folly, so the record holds no exaggeration. Measure any later boast against it, and the boast collapses.
- Frame. Our strength is living on Christ now, not retelling past experience. When Paul did speak of himself, he called it folly — and that reluctance is the model.