2 Corinthians 11:3-4 But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.
Paul expresses his concern that has driven his response in the last part of the letter. The basic issue is the possible departure from the true gospel. An unnamed “someone” has come to Corinth and preached a different gospel. This slick someone appears to have done this intentionally, deceiving them like the serpent deceived Eve. Paul has this inner fear (middle voice verb) within himself that this is the news he has received. He recalls the story from Genesis 2 and how the serpent was “cunning” and tricky about telling half the truth to Eve. These false teachers in Corinth have enough of the truth of the gospel that their message sounds good and appealing, just like the forbidden fruit. But the end result will be that the Corinthians will be led astray from their commitment to Christ. This commitment is described as sincere or genuine and also with a close synonym meaning pure. They have given themselves to Christ, but they could be led astray from this. There is always a danger of being deceived by false but appealing teachings in the world today. We must always test these against the truth of the Bible. Sometimes, those who teach false doctrines sound good and may even look good. They built up a person’s trust. They may even be a pastor or preacher. Every Christian should be wise and be discerning of everything he or she hears. Test the truth of what is spoken. The best way to do this is to study ourselves and know the gospel well.
Verse 4 describes what this “someone” has done. Paul uses the form of a complex conditional sentence. The assumption is that this is what is actually been happening. This is a serious accusation, and the Corinthians should take this as the upmost importance. There are three conditional clauses. The first gets at the matter of proper doctrine: a different Jesus. There have been different interpretations of Jesus since the earliest days of the church. People have called Jesus a good man, a ghost, a martyr, a Palestinian preachers, and many other things. They have questioned his divinity, humanity, death, and resurrection. No one can deny that he lived. These opponents were teaching wrong ideas about Jesus. This is easy to do if you don’t have the right knowledge to begin with. In today’s world, it is possible to go to certain schools, universities, and seminaries and get a different Jesus. That is why it is so crucial to study the Bible and honor it as God’s inspired and accurate word.
The second clause refers to a different spirit. Modern translations interpret the word “spirit” to refer to a false one and use a lower case “s.” The second “Spirit” with a capital “S” comes from a neuter article used as a pronoun meaning “the one which you received.” The implied reference for the first spirit would be a something false. Many things could fit into this, from emotionalism, humanism, or any time of false religion, to dark demonic forces. Paul gives no hint of what he means here but leaves it wide open. The second implied “Spirit” would be referring to the one and only Holy Spirit of God. The Corinthians had received the Holy Spirit as believers. They had been sanctified by the Spirit but could lose all this if they followed the false spirits taught by the false teachers.
The third clause gets to the heart of doctrine. They were listening to a wrong interpretation of the gospel. The gospel could refer to the message of salvation in Jesus Christ. Paul had to deal with false teachers in many places. There were two main issues he dealt with, evident in Galatians and other books. One of these revolved around Jewish regulations and the law, resulting in legalism. The other was antinomianism resulting in the belief that Christians were free from the law and thus could do anything they want. There were also false doctrines emerging that would later develop into full-blown Gnosticism. All of these teachings were a distortion of the gospel Paul preached.
The problem was that the Corinthians put up with all of this and did not do anything about it. They accepted it all. They needed to be shaken up and awakened to the dangerous path they were following. There are a lot of false teachings in our day floating around, even in churches. People are naive to the real gospel. They do not study the Bible. They follow the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel or human liberalism. They misinterpret the Bible so that it fits their ethics. As believers today, we must be vigilant and not make the mistake the Corinthians were embroiled in. We can learn from Paul’s strong words to them in this letter.
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