2 Corinthians 2.14-17

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not peddlers of God’s word like so many; but in Christ we speak as persons sent from God and standing in his presence.

(2 Corinthians 2.14-17)

In 2 Corinthians Paul defends his apostleship over against those who have condemned him as just another “televangelist,” and in these verses Paul gives a snapshot of what his ministry (and, in a sense, all evangelistic ministry) is about. He writes that Christ always leads us [evangelists] in a triumphal procession. Some have taken this as a reference to God’s ability to triumph in the gospel proclamation despite any weaknesses on the part of the evangelists themselves; John Gill notes, “[This] is a triumph peculiar to ministers of the Gospel, who are made to triumph over men and devils, over the world, the reproaches, persecutions, smiles, and flatteries of it; over wicked men, by silencing them, stopping the mouths of gainsayers, refuting false teachers, and preserving the Gospel pure, in spite of all opposition; and by being made useful to the turning of many souls from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.” While we can’t deny God’s triumph in evangelism, Paul may be taking a different line altogether, echoing what he wrote to the Corinthians in an earlier letter. In 1 Corinthians 4.9 he writes, For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, as though sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to mortals. Paul may be alluding to the Roman triumphus, where victorious Roman troops led captives in a processional route down the streets of Rome to the temple of Jupiter. The streets would be lined with spectators applauding as the victors and their captives marched by. In this sense Paul and the other evangelists were made spectacles before the world, captives of God in the victory of Christ, and in the mockery and derision they endured, the gospel advanced.

In verse 14, Paul gives the evangelist’s task: to spread in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing God in Christ. The Greek word for fragrance here can mean both a pleasant or unpleasant odor, and one’s opinion of the scent comes from one’s reaction to the gospel: those who set their teeth against God find the odor a noxious fume, while those who repent and put their faith in Christ find the odor to be pleasant and sweet. This odor, which the evangelist disseminates, is the odor of “knowing God”. As J.I. Packer writes, “Knowing about God is crucially important for the living of our lives. As it would be cruel to an Amazonian tribesman to fly him to London, put him down without explanation in Trafalgar Square and leave him, as one who knew nothing of English or England, to fend for himself, so we are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it.” This knowledge of God through Christ, this fragrance, is depicted as a light that pierces our hearts in 2 Corinthians 4.6; Paul writes, For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

The message of the gospel is picked up either as a sweet smelling perfume or a repugnant odor; the scent is determined by the hearts of the hearers. Paul puts humanity into two groups: those on the path to life and those on the path to destruction. “From death to death” and “from life to life” are Hebrew idioms inferring that the scent of the gospel proclamation intensifies as it is being preached, so that those on the path leading to destruction find the gospel increasingly intolerable to their senses, whereas those on the path leading to life find the gospel increasingly pleasant. When we proclaim the gospel, we shouldn’t expect everyone to find the preaching delightful; we should expect, as Paul tells us, that there will indeed be many who find the gospel repulsive, and they won’t hesitate to tell  us so.

Paul asks, “Who is sufficient for these things?” It’s implied that no one is sufficient for these things, least of all Paul: his sufficiency is not of himself but of God. He sees himself as a prophet who stands in God’s presence and proclaims God’s message not for his own purposes but because he has been sent by God to do precisely that. Paul’s self-identification as a prophet is seen in Romans 1.5, where he writes, And here is what [God] has done: He has graced us [apostles] and sanctioned us as His emissaries whose mission is to spread the one true and obedient faith to all people in the name of Jesus.