Are You Qualified?

My title is drawn from two commands Paul makes in 2 Corinthians 13:5. Most translations of the Bible read, “Test yourselves… examine yourselves” or they reverse the two imperatives saying, “Examine yourselves… test yourselves”. In the Greek, the first imperative is a different word from the second. Either one may be translated test or examine which explains why translators have difficulty differentiating between them. The difference I find is in the subsequent verses. Paul uses forms of the second word four more times in the next two verses.

This is not just a trivial linguistic issue in my opinion. The first command asks the Corinthians to test or examine themselves “to see if you are in the faith.” What he means is to see if you are truly a believer, one who is “in the faith.” Throughout church history, there has been a debate over how people can know if they are saved – “in the faith.” It is glaringly obvious that the Corinthian church had people who claimed to be in the faith but acted very much like those who were not – like unbelievers. The two letters we have from Paul to the Corinthians are full of correction and rebuke. He certainly questioned the legitimacy of their belief.

One could ask whether the Corinthians believed Paul’s message at first (got saved), but later they stopped believing (lost their salvation). The answer to this question generally comes from one of two perspectives: either Calvinist or Arminian. (I wrote about this in some detail in “Calvinist or Arminian”) The Calvinist position holds that once a person is saved, it is not possible to lose salvation: once saved; always saved. The Arminian view is that everyone makes a conscious decision to be saved and can therefore decide to be “unsaved.”

This passage may be Paul’s entrance into the debate. I say this because of the second word he wrote in verse five. Whereas test or examine is a fair translation of the first of his commands (πειράζω), the word he used in the second command is dokimazō (δοκιμάζω) which may legitimately be translated “qualify.” The fact that he used forms of this word repeatedly in the rest of the passage leads me to think he meant “to qualify” rather than test or examine. An alternative translation of Paul might read, “Qualify yourselves! Or do you not recognize regarding yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you, unless you are unqualified? And I hope that you will recognize that we are not unqualified! Now we pray to God that you not do wrong in any way, not that we are seen as qualified, but that you do what is good, even though we are seen as though unqualified.”

In the larger context, Paul had been asserting his qualifications as an apostle. At this point, he told the Corinthians not to concern themselves with his qualifications but to look to their own condition. In the end, the only thing that mattered was if they were qualified as believers. So, the question becomes what Paul says qualifies one as a believer. They claimed to be “in the faith,” or in Christ. Paul insists that to qualify as a believer, Christ must be “in them.” As he said to the Colossians: “Christ in you the hope of glory.”

The important question one must ask is what kind of faith qualifies one to say, “Christ is in me.” Paul told the Roman believers, “But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, this person does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, the one who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also make alive your mortal bodies through his Spirit who lives in you.”

This was Jesus’ promise to His disciples on the night He was betrayed. He prayed to His Father, “that they may be one, just as we are one – I in them, and you in me, in order that they may be completed in one, so that the world may know that you sent me, and you have loved them just as you have loved me.” Just before this prayer for His disciples, He had told them, “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love…. This is my commandment: that you love one another just as I have loved you.” The quality of faith that proves Christ is in you is a faith that loves selflessly, agape love, the love of Jesus. This reminds me of what James said: “Faith without works is dead.”

It should be no surprise that we are called to obey Jesus; life in Christ is a “long obedience in the same direction,” according to Eugene Peterson. That direction is conforming our life to the life of Christ. In his book Rumors of Another World, Philip Yancey asserts that, “Those who invest their hope in an unseen world prove it by their actions in this world…. putting feet to Jesus’ prayer that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” If we are in Christ and Christ is in us, we must continue His work doing His Father’s will.

None of this should suggest that once I am “qualified” I am good for eternity. In the same way that I had to fulfill continuing education requirements to maintain my teaching certificate (qualifications), believers must continue to affirm their qualifications by continuing to grow up into maturity in Christ. The essential quality of maturity is demonstrating selfless love to a greater and greater degree.

One wonders how this quality of faith affects the quality of one’s life here on earth. Yancey quotes Albert Schwietzer: “The only [people] who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.” It is no coincidence that throughout the Old Testament prophets, the promised Messiah is called God’s Servant. He shocked His disciples at the “Last Supper” by washing their feet and proclaiming that servanthood was to be the hallmark of His disciples. Jesus said He, “came not to be served, but to serve.” I believe that one important qualification for saying you are “in Christ” is servanthood. Are you qualified?

Related Posts: Necessary Obedience; Weak-day Christians