2 Corinthians 2:14-4:6 • Being Transformed into the Aroma of Christ

AI was not used to generate this post.

Do you recognize that there are people around you who want to know God but just don’t know how? In 2 Corinthians 2, Paul said that believers are the aroma of Christ spreading everywhere the knowledge of God. Consider an aroma that is especially enticing to you, something delightful. How can you be such an aroma to others, especially those who want to know Him but do not yet know Him? In the last article, we looked at how we can depend on God as we experience the pain of relationships. This is post #4 in the God-Dependent Woman blog series. We will let 2 Corinthians 2:14-4:6 teach us what it means to be transformed into the likeness of Christ so that we can be a fragrant aroma of Him, a living letter of recommendation for Him, and His light-bearer to the world.

Listen to this post as a similar podcast from The God-Dependent Woman Bible Study covering 2 Corinthians in the New Testament. (11 lessons)

As you read 2 Corinthians 2:14 – 4:6, it is easy to get lost in the wording. The subjects of this part of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians include aromas that bring death or life, letters of recommendation, and competence. The words glory and glorious are repeated so much. Then there are a bunch of references to veils. Your first response might be, “Huh?”

Overall, we can say that this passage describes how God builds into our lives what we need for life, fills our hearts with His presence, and brings His glory to others through us.

God Wants Us to Be an Aroma of Life

But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task? Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, as those sent from God. (2 Corinthians 2:14-17)

Enticing aromas

Aromas are powerful things. I love the flavor of crawfish. I know its aroma well. So does my daughter. One day she walked in the front door and declared, “I smell crawfish. What’s for lunch?” Sure enough, I had made a crawfish etouffee that day.

To my daughter and I, the smell of cooked crawfish is delightful. To some of my friends, though, the smell is disgusting.

Paul reminded us in 2 Corinthians chapter 2 that we are the aroma of God. We ought to have an enticing smell and not a bad aroma.

Disgusting aromas

A friend of mine recently told me of the change in her work environment when one new female co-worker was added. A team-oriented, respect-and-support-each-other work climate suddenly went into toxic shock because of one woman in a matter of 3-4 weeks!

From the moment she stepped into her new job, Ms. Toxic began targeting her fellow administrative personnel (mainly women) with harsh criticism. No one had done this before in their “safe” little office. Pretty soon, Ms. Toxic had planted seeds of doubt in all the other women about each other so that distrust and hurt feelings prevailed based on gossip and slander. This was done without the managers recognizing what was happening. Finally, one of the hurting women cracked under the torture and spilled the beans to her boss.

The sad thing is that the woman who created the “toxic shock” work environment calls herself a Christian and attends a local Bible-teaching church. The pastor is well-known for his truthful sermons. She goes to church on Sunday, joins in the worship music and hears a sermon on being Christ-like all the time. Then, she leaves it at home when she goes to work on Monday. What about work is not part of the 24/7 when a Christian is supposed to be the beautiful, enticing aroma of God to those around her?

Having the aroma of life

The problem is that we humans are frail. We are swayed by whatever is modeled before us and by our own emotions of how we want to act. Most of the time those models and emotions are based on worldly wisdom like we discussed in the last article. Teachings and impulses lead us away from approaching life God’s way so that we approach life the world’s way instead.

Yet, God chooses to use us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of Him. Our responsibility to represent Christ well and be that enticing aroma is weighty. No one is equal to this task! On our own, that is. But God does not ask us to do what He does not enable us to do. God fills our hearts with Himself. This is what makes us competent to represent Him to others.

God Fills Our Hearts with Himself and Makes Us Competent

Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians chapter 3,

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such confidence we have through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit … (2 Corinthians 3:4-5)

You and I can have confidence in what God is doing in our hearts because of our faith in Jesus Christ. From the moment of our salvation, God Himself comes to live inside of us in the form of the Holy Spirit. First, let us look at who the Holy Spirit is then we will look at what He does for us through what we know as Spirit Baptism.

Spirit Baptism

Who the Holy Spirit is

The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. Our God is one God but three persons. The Spirit is not an impersonal “it” or simply an influence but a personal being just as the Father and the Son are persons. The Spirit convicts the unbeliever of sin and makes believers into new creations the moment we believe. He is the first gift we receive from God when we trust in Jesus for salvation.

Jesus promised His disciples that the Spirit would live in them forever, and He would change them from the inside out. Their lives as they knew them would never be the same. And it would all begin with Spirit Baptism. What is Spirit Baptism? Here’s just a brief synopsis of it.

You can read more complete explanation about Spirit Baptism in this article, Acts 2 • Spirit Baptism.

Spirit Baptism is the Spirit’s work of doing these:

Indwelling the believer. Every believer receives the complete Holy Spirit the moment we trust in Christ. He enters our spirits and seals us with Himself so our salvation is secure. We see that in 2 Corinthians 1:21-22. He is God’s empowering presence in us. He enables us to understand the Bible and takes our prayer needs to God the Father, even when we can’t.
Uniting us with Christ, fusing us together with who He is and what He has done. We take on the identity of Jesus so that when God looks on us, He sees Jesus instead. All the spiritual blessings we have in Christ—being chosen, adopted, forgiven, sealed—are wrapped up and delivered to us at Spirit Baptism. It is God’s gift initiated by God to those who put their faith in Christ. It is not initiated by us. We will talk about these spiritual treasures more in future podcasts.
Making all believers permanent members of the Body of Christ. We are all part of the one Church since Pentecost—those who are already in heaven as well as every Christian alive at this moment. This is clearly taught in many New Testament verses.

Spirit Baptism is a permanent condition and occurs once and for all at the salvation of each believer.

Water baptism can be repeated at different times in your life. Spirit Baptism cannot be repeated because a person would have to be removed from the Body of Christ in order to be reinstated again by a second baptism. We know that cannot happen because Scripture makes it clear that the Spirit will be with us forever. It is not like the Old Testament days when He came upon people temporarily for them to do a specific job. Under the new covenant, Jesus assures us that He has given us the Holy Spirit as His indwelling presence forever.

Spirit Baptism is a change of state in which we are made into new creations.

Think of baking a cake. Individual ingredients are mixed together for a cake, but once baked those ingredients can never be separated out again. Through Spirit Baptism, a person goes …

from being without God to being with God forever
from being filthy with sin to being cleansed of all sin
from being an enemy of God to becoming the Temple of God. That God lives inside of me both amazes and humbles me. Does it do the same for you?

Spirit baptism is not validated by any particular outward sign.

Whether or not you sensed anything, God’s Word assures you that Spirit Baptism happened to you the moment you placed your trust in Jesus Christ.

You can read more complete explanation about Spirit Baptism in this article, Acts 2 • Spirit Baptism.

Spirit Baptism begins the transformation process that changes you into the likeness of Christ.

He does this work from the inside out so that your character looks more like Jesus and your lifestyle brings God’s glory to everyone who is watching.

Paul finished 2 Corinthians chapter 3 with these words:

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:17-18)

Any reference to “the Lord” in Paul’s letters refers to Jesus Christ. He is the Lord. The Spirit of the Lord is the Holy Spirit. He brings freedom to us from all of our meager attempts to make ourselves measure up to God’s standard of goodness or substitute our own standards of goodness in the place of God’s desires for us. From the moment we are saved, the Spirit of the Lord fills us with Himself and begins transforming us from the inside out so that our character looks more like Jesus and our lifestyle glorifies God more and more. This brings God’s glory to everyone who is watching.

Let us look at the transformation process a little more closely.

Transformation into the Likeness of Christ

There are two aspects of being transformed to the likeness of Christ—God’s part and our part.

God’s part involves some mystery

It is a mystery how God works in you. We are told in the Scriptures that He does work according to His will and purpose for your life. We also are told that God will complete His work so that you will be like Jesus in your future.

We know that God is the one who puts into your heart the desire to be like Jesus. He wants that for you. He puts that desire in your heart so you want it too. That is evident throughout Paul’s writings for sure.

And the Bible teaches that God gives you everything you need to be godly, starting with the Holy Spirit’s empowering presence inside you. Add to that all the wonderful blessings of forgiveness, redemption, reconciliation, justification, and sanctification. God puts everything in you to enable your transformation.

Our part involves choices

One choice is renewing your mind (Romans 12:2) through studying God’s words in the Bible to see how to approach life His way. You learn what pleases God. Then, you can choose to follow up on that in your daily life.

Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you (Colossians 3:16)

Richly means abundantly, to permeate all your thinking and behavior. The Holy Spirit uses the Word to transform you.

Another choice on your part is having a desire for God’s work in you to give you the character of Christ. When you long for His work in your life, you will want to submit to what He is doing and ask for Him to change you. As you submit to the Spirit’s transforming power, He will clothe you with compassion, kindness, humility, and all those other qualities of Jesus.

A third choice is to commit to doing life God’s way. That is part of the transformation process. Jesus modeled for us how to approach life God’s way and live in dependence upon Him in the process. Living in dependence means you choose to trust Him in prayer.

Transformation will happen

God will complete His part. You will see part of it during your lifetime as you yield to His work in your life. But you will definitely be transformed completely after your life on earth ends and you begin your life in heaven. That is a promise.

Bringing God’s Glory to Others

In the UNTIL time, when others see the transformation in you, that brings God’s glory to them. You become God’s letter of recommendation from Himself to the world. You become the visible representative of the invisible God to those around you. His glory can be evident even if you have problems in your own lives. Because remember, it is not about you. It is about Christ in you.

Jesus Christ gave His life for you so He can give His life to you so He can live His life through you. (Major Ian Thomas, Saving Life of Christ)

That is living a God-dependent life.

Does It All Depend on Me While I’m Depending on God?

I have another pithy saying from a Facebook feed to evaluate in this post. It really fits our passage. Here is the saying, “It all depends on me, and I depend on God.” Is this true or false?

Do you ever think that it all depends on you? Should you? Does that give you comfort or stress you out?

Does it ever all depend on you? Saying or thinking that it all depends on you implies that you have control. Remember what I told you in the first article, “The Call to Dependent Living.” Control is an illusion. You only think you have control. The only control you really have is what you choose to do in response to any situation. You have no control over circumstances, what happens in the world, or the choices others make. You don’t even have control over your own schedule because God could change your plans in the blink of an eye. Control is an illusion.

It—whatever it is—does not depend on you. Unless the “it” is depending on God and trusting Him. But that is not what the saying implies. It implies that you can take on yourself the burdens of the world just because you are trusting God.

As Bob Newhart puts it in one of his famous comedy routines, “Stop it!” Relax. Throw “it” off your shoulders. Jesus Christ is the Lord of planet Earth. All “its” are under His domain, not yours. Now, don’t you feel better?

Reasons Why God Wants Us to Depend on Him More Than on Ourselves

From 2 Corinthians 2:14-4:6, here are some reasons why God wants us to depend on Him more than on ourselves:

He uses us to spread the knowledge of Him. (2:14)
He sends us to speak for Him. (2:17)
He writes a letter of recommendation for Himself in our lives. (3:3)
He gives us confidence to trust Him. (3:4)
He gives us competence to represent Him. (3:5)
He takes away the veil over our hearts when we believe. (3:16)
He transforms us by His Spirit. (3:18)
So we won’t lose heart. (4:1)
He makes His light shine in the darkness through us. (4:6)

In the next post, we will see the purpose and reward for enduring life’s challenges.

Let Jesus satisfy your heart with confidence that you can depend on Him. Then, live each day as a God-dependent woman!

All of the above information is covered in The God-Dependent Woman Bible Study of 2 Corinthians.