Building Up and Tearing Down

Reformed theologians and confessions frequently refer to three marks of a true church—the right preaching of the gospel, the correct administration of the sacraments, and the proper use of church discipline. We can find these marks revealed throughout the New Testament, but Paul’s letters to the Corinthians especially highlight them. The Apostle stresses the centrality of the gospel (1 Cor. 1–2), the importance of celebrating the Lord’s Supper correctly (11:17–34), and the necessity of church discipline (ch. 5). In today’s passage, as he has been doing thus far in 2 Corinthians 13:1–8, Paul again addresses issues of church discipline and its use.

What emerges from the Apostle’s discussion is that Paul is clearly willing to employ later steps of discipline, including excommunication, but he hopes not to. He has exhorted the Corinthians to examine themselves to see whether they are in the faith, to look at their hearts to see their need of repentance for the sin that they were continuing to tolerate in Corinth (12:21). His goal in all this is not to rehash their transgressions so as to keep them at arm’s length, as it were, for he prays for their restoration. He wants them to be strong even as he is weak (13:9). In other words, Paul admits that he has a weak presence (see 10:10; 11:6; 12:10) and that he is glad to rely on the strength of Christ in admonishing the Corinthians by letter if it means that they will be restored to him and to Jesus in all fullness. But make no mistake: he will be more severe in person with the Corinthians if he has to. Yet that will tear them down—separate them, or at least many of them, from the church—and not build them up, which is the purpose behind his God-given Apostolic authority (13:10).

With this last statement about building up and not tearing down, Paul does not mean that excommunication is an illegitimate use of his authority. Essentially, the Apostle is leaving it up to the Corinthians as to how they will receive his teaching and admonitions. John Calvin likens Paul’s meaning here to earlier texts such as 2 Corinthians 2:15–16, which says that the effect of gospel admonition is contingent on the recipient. “The meaning, therefore, is this: ‘Do not, through your own fault, allow that to turn to your destruction, which God has appointed for salvation.’ ” Those who receive the gospel and its discipline will be built up in the faith, but those who reject these things will be torn down.