2 Corinthians 13:2-4 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

I told you before As you will remember; and foretel you now, as if I were present That is, I declare what you ought to regard as much as if I spake it personally to you; and being absent In body, not in spirit; now I write to them who heretofore have sinned In any scandalous and aggravated manner, namely, before ye received my letter; and to all others Who have sinned since, and have not repented; that if I come again I will not spare As I have hitherto done, but am determined, by the divine permission, to animadvert with severity upon notorious offenders, by the exertion of that miraculous power with which God hath endowed me. Since ye seek, &c. This verse appears to be connected with the preceding, and in that case the sense is, I will not spare, since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in, or by me. As if he had said, This course I am obliged to take, because you will not believe that Christ gives me authority for what I say and do, without some manifest proof of it; which to you-ward is not weak, &c. But has manifested his mighty power in and among you by my ministry, in your conversion, gifts, &c., and will do it further by enabling me to punish you. For though he was crucified through weakness As a weak, frail man, left to the impotence of human nature; yet he liveth He rose from the dead, and is alive for evermore; by the power of God Which hath exalted him to uncontrolled and universal authority; and this power you ought to stand in awe of in me his minister. For though we also are weak in him And to them who regard only external appearances may seem contemptible, nevertheless we shall live with him; by the power of God toward you Shall appear to be alive and powerful in and through Christ, being endowed with power from him to punish obstinate offenders.