2 Corinthians 13:5-10 (HCSB)
Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves. Or do you yourselves not recognize that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless you fail the test. And I hope you will recognize that we do not fail the test. Now we pray to God that you do nothing wrong—not that we may appear to pass the test, but that you may do what is right, even though we may appear to fail. For we are not able to do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. In fact, we rejoice when we are weak and you are strong. We also pray that you become fully mature. This is why I am writing these things while absent, that when I am there I will not use severity, in keeping with the authority the Lord gave me for building up and not for tearing down.
Paul has been writing that he has been authorized and empowered by the risen and glorified Jesus to actively confront sin, rebellion, and heresy in the Church. For that reason, some might possibly be anticipating his arrival with anxiety instead of with joy as Paul wishes.
His solution for those who need it is very simple: he encourages the Corinthians to examine themselves and make sure that their lives are in clear accord with the genuine gospel. If they are then they have nothing to fear before God, and therefore absolutely nothing to fear from Paul. Of course, if they find that their lives are not in full accord with the gospel, there is still a ready solution that will put everything right immediately: repentance.
Paul gains nothing by confronting the Corinthians except to hope that they will quickly and thoroughly respond to his correction. Instead, his prayer is simply that they will not do anything wrong, that their lives will be holy so that they will glorify God whether he comes or not.
In fact, Paul is praying for their perfection (the underlying meaning of the Greek word translated here as “fully mature”). The concept of perfection in Christianity is roundly rejected by many in the Church today as being antithetical to the humility that is supposed to characterize true Christians. But not only did Paul earnestly pray for the Corinthians, not simply that they would be good, or nice, or even pious; he prayed that they would be perfect., genuinely holy in every thought, word, and deed. In this, he is merely praying for what Jesus commanded his followers to be in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthews 5:48).
Paul is not praying for a legalistic, pharisaical perfection. He had tried that route before and found it to be false, and a trap. Instead, he was urging the Corinthians to simply let the Christ who was in them (verse 5b) have full and uncontested reign in them, so that they obeyed His leading instantly, and to allow Him to live His own holy life through each of them.
Father, I agree with those who say that perfection of any kind is impossible if we try to become perfect in our own strength and with our limited human knowledge. But we so easily forget that we never were commanded to be perfect in our own strength, but to simply to allow Jesus to be holy through us, as Paul wrote so well in Colossians 1:27: “God wanted to make known among the Gentiles the glorious wealth of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” It is this “mystery” that gives Paul the hope that may present everyone mature/perfect in Christ (Colossians 1:28). Help me, Lord, to never strive for merely being “better” in my own strength. Instead, help me to allow Jesus to fully live His life through me, so that I can be perfect in Him, and so glorify You every minute of every day. Amen.