Who are the super-apostles Paul mentions in 2 Corinthians 11:5?

In the third part (chapters 10 to 13:10) Paul has to deal with another negative topic already alluded to in the first letter: his mission and service as apostle of Jesus Christ (compare 1 Corinthians 9:1ff). Then there had been doubts in relation to his apostolic authority but now he has to deal with the strong resistance of a party, i.e. a group of people in Corinth styling themselves “super apostles” and challenging his apostleship. They requested that Paul identify himself in writing as apostle and servant of Christ (3:1ff; 13:3), they assumed apostolic authority (10:10; 10:18; 11:5; 11:13-15; 12:10), they insisted on their Jewish ancestry (11:22), and they taught false teachings (10:2-5; 11:2-4). Paul does not discuss his apostleship based on visible proof but rather tries again to reach the hearts of these badly influenced Corinthians by telling them about his life and his service for his beloved Lord (11:2; 11:7; 11:23-33; 12:1-10; 12:14-15; 12:19). Therefore this part of the letter is written in a much more severe and harder style than the other parts. The general subject of the second epistle to the Corinthians is therefore the service and the authority of the apostle Paul in relation to the Corinthians.

(Vv. 2-4.) Accordingly he first sets forth the motive that actuated him in speaking of himself, as well as the occasion that called for self vindication. It was no mere vanity of the flesh, that loves to exalt itself, that moved the Apostle, but godly jealousy for the glory of Christ and the blessing of the saints. Using the figure of a man and his bride, he says, "I have espoused you to one man, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." He had presented Christ to them as the One that is altogether lovely, and engaged their hearts with Him. His desire now was to present them to Christ in perfect suitability as a chaste virgin. He longed that the saints should be found in holy separation from this defiling world, walking in simple-hearted devotedness to Christ. He foresaw that the enemy was making a subtle attempt to draw them away from Christ, even as in the Garden of Eden he beguiled Eve from her allegiance to God. We know that Satan tempted Eve with the acquisition of knowledge. He said, "Ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil." Again, he sought to steal the hearts of the Corinthian saints from Christ — the Tree of Life, by tempting them with the Tree of Knowledge. The Apostle, in his first Epistle, admits that they were enriched "in all knowledge," but warns them that knowledge without love "puffs up" (1 Cor. 1:5; 1 Cor. 8:1-3). As of old the enemy approached Eve with the question "Hath God said?" thus calling in question the word of God, so today he has sought to undermine God's word by substituting human reason for divine revelation and has thus corrupted the great Christian profession by presenting "another Jesus," "another Spirit," and "another gospel" than that of God's word. Thus souls have been drawn away from the truth that is presented in Christ. This surely is the evil root that will lead to the great apostacy. If then this was the danger to which the saints at Corinth were exposed, they might well bear with the Apostle, through whom they had received the truth, if he has to speak of himself in defending the saints from false brethren.

(Vv. 5, 6.) These false teachers were seeking to undermine the Apostle's work by calling in question his apostleship and service. He could truly say, that he "was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles." He might be rude in speech, yet he had no lack of divine knowledge, for in everything he had made manifest the truth to them (N. Tn.).

Verse 4. "For if he that comes preaches another Jesus, whom we did not preach," etc. In Eden what God said was contradicted by the tempter, and the same process is repeated in the church. The testimony of the Holy Ghost is controverted, boldly or covertly, by the lying lips of men who have been first themselves deceived (2 Tim. 3:13). The drift of this difficult passage, which has been variously rendered, may perhaps be soundly stated thus: You have received, and entertained with honour, a class of teachers who are evidently seeking to estrange your hearts from us; and you are listening to their insinuations. But why this change of feeling on your part towards him who first led you to the truth? Have these men revealed to you a new and better gospel? Is the Jesus of whom they speak a different Lord from ours? and are you receiving from the newcomer a better Comforter than He who first taught you to cry, Abba, Father? You know that it is not so; that to us there is one Lord and one Spirit, and that if they profess truly to believe on the name of the Son of God, they must speak of Him of whom we also speak. Why, then, are you standing now in doubt of us? You had heard and accepted the gospel of the grace of God, you had received the Spirit and confessed the only Lord, through our preaching, long before the advent of these new apostles. Do you not see that these men, if themselves of God, must speak as we, and that wherein they differ from our doctrine they depart from truth? Yet their coming and their words have loosened, if not destroyed, your confidence in us! But in disowning us you are denying your own faith, since from us it was that you received the truth. Be, then, the pretensions of these teachers what they may, you should yet bear with me. And let it be remembered also, that if acknowledged on your part at all, it must be according to the fulness of our apostolic claim; we cannot take a secondary place without dishonouring both yourselves and us. For you received me as God's witness and messenger, and are yourselves the open seal of my commission from the Lord.

Verses 5, 6. "For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles," etc. Judge then between us. What I was among you is well known to you all. But your new director says my speech is rude. I have confessed it; nay, it is a chief badge and token of that grace of God in which I make my boast, and which thus makes the weakness of the earthen vessel an exponent of the excellency of the power which has filled and used it. You have heard of the original apostles of the Lord, and although they who are wont to extol them among you, at my cost, bestow on them no honest praise, you do well to venerate their names and calling. I have already made open avowal of my personal unworthiness to be numbered of their company; yet in respect of power, of knowledge, or of effective grace, wherein have they excelled me? What has at any time been said or done, by either, or by all of them, that God has not equalled, not to say exceeded, by the rich abundance of His grace, in my work and labour of love? Nay, if knowledge be a test of true apostleship, from whose lips, if not mine, did you gather what you now so confidently claim to know of God and of His things? If among other churches ye are counted wise in Christ, and are surpassed by none in the abundance of God's manifested gifts (1 Cor. 1:7), it were well to call once more to your remembrance the means by which those blessings were received. For indeed there was neither secrecy nor artifice in what was wrought by us at Corinth; our ways were open to the view of all men, even as we lived and walked with God, and in His sight. Nor did we shun to declare among you anything that ye were ready to receive.* Yet there is one point on which you might fairly take exception to our practice, and I will state it here.

And what had they got to warrant slight or alienation? "For if indeed he that comes preaches another [ἄλλον] Jesus whom we preached not, or ye receive a different [ἕτερον] spirit which ye received not, or a different gospel which ye accepted not, ye might well bear with [it]." For none of these blessings were they indebted to any channel but the apostle; him they had lightly esteemed whilst ready to honour the self-exalting men who had set up to teach on his foundation, crying up the twelve only to depreciate Paul. "For I reckon that I am in nothing come short of those surpassingly apostles; but if even ordinary in speech, yet not in knowledge, but in every way we manifested [it, or, were made manifest] in all things towards you." They had all had the amplest experience of the apostle in everything; and as in power so in knowledge, they knew that he was behind none, unless it were in the rhetoric of the schools which the Greek mind overvalued.

So, once more, in defending his Gospel from the subtle attack of Satan through men who were, however unwittingly, serving him, he had to make plain the reality and power of his apostleship in contrast to features that marked them. He was indeed an apostle, and not in the least inferior to those who were most prominent among the twelve.

This leads the Apostle to speak with great plainness about the opposers. They were false apostles, for they never had been sent of 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 partook of the character of him whom they served, and according to their deceitful works will be their end.

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." The beginning of those evil ways was then at work which soon formed a clerical class, dispensing even with the claims to gift from Christ under the fabulous pretension to apostolic succession. Such men then opposed the apostle in person, as now they oppose his doctrine. Is this wonderful, when as the apostle reminds us, "Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light? It is no great thing therefore if his servants also transform themselves as servants of righteousness," though he solemnly adds, their "end shall be according to their works."

Looking at the other side of the picture, we see that, in those early times, there were "false brethren" who, not only made a christian profession, but assumed to be apostles. Such were "false apostles" and "deceitful workers." Nevertheless they came to the saints with such a fair show in the flesh that they appeared as angels of light and ministers of righteousness. With satanic subtlety, these men perverted the truth by preaching "another Jesus," "another Spirit," and "another gospel" (v. 4). Furthermore, the Apostle foresaw that if the assemblies suffered these evil workers in their midst, the Christian circle would be corrupted from simplicity as to Christ, with the result that the hearts of the saints would be drawn from true allegiance to Christ, and they would become followers of those who, for their own exaltation, were drawing away disciples after themselves (v. 20). Thus pretending to be what they were not, they perverted the truth, corrupted the Christian profession, and exalted themselves at the expense of others.

Now Paul deliberately, solemnly characterizes these men as "false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ." It is the Spirit of God who so inspires Paul to write. It does not seem that all the assembly was influenced by these men, but some among them were; and the saints required this faithful warning. Utter wickedness can be clothed in a pious garb; and it is nothing to be marvelled at, for 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 leaving out the cross of Christ, and therefore the pure grace of God: all therefore becomes a hollow and deadly sham.

Because of these deceivers, Paul must speak of himself, though in so doing he feels himself a fool. But he asks that the Corinthians will not think of him as such, for his reasons for speaking in this way are evident. Yet, if they do, still they ought to bear with his speaking for a little at least, for they had done so with false apostles! Though he speaks "not after the Lord," yet let us remember that it is the Lord who requires him so to write: but it is not the normal way for a Christian, and nothing but abnormal conditions would justify it.

Still as these men acted in this way Paul felt that he should take up their challenge. If they wished to institute a kind of competition as to who had the highest credentials, he would speak somewhat further as to 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 suffer gladly the fools who boasted so much; for, he says, you do indeed suffer when these boasting men domineer over you and brow-beat you as they have been doing.