Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up!

Paul and the False Apostles

11 I hope you will put up with me in a little foolishness. Yes, please put up with me! 2 I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. 3 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.

In today's lesson Paul shows his pastoral heart for the Corinthians.  He says he is jealous for them, but in a godly way.  He is jealous in the sense of the Corinthians going after a different Christ.  The language is relational and he is using the metaphor of a woman going away from her husband.  Jesus is called the bride of the church in other parts of the bible.  

Paul's biggest concern is that the church will be led astray from Christ by the false ideas the false apostles are presenting about Jesus.  Just like Eve tempted Adam by presenting an alternative path to trusting in God's goodness, the false apostles were trying to present a new Jesus.  Paul says they are preaching a "different Jesus"  than the one he presented.  What was different about the Jesus the false apostles were teaching?  Who was this other Jesus?

One commentator offers this explanation,

Who was this “other Jesus?” Because of the way the Corinthian Christians despised Paul’s image of weakness and unimpressive appearance, the “other Jesus” was probably one who knew no weakness, persecution, humiliation, suffering, or death. A “super Jesus” is another Jesus, not the real Jesus, and another Jesus cannot save.

A lot of people want Jesus to be like Superman, "Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings is a single bound." 

But in Philippians chapter 2 Paul describes Jesus as someone who, "Emptied himself taking the very nature of a servant, being found in human likeness, who humbled himself unto death on a cross."

The Corinthians were still living in the flesh and wanted Paul to be an impressive orator, and a Jesus who was more of a superman than a servant.  Paul warned them not to be deceived as this was not the same Jesus who died for them on a cross.  So what would Paul say to us today?

What is the "different kind of Jesus" he might warn us about?  A Jesus that promises to meet all of our needs in whatever way we want him to.  A Jesus who always does what we ask him to do on our terms.  A Jesus who doesn't really take sin all that seriously.  

Friends, we believe in a different kind of Jesus.  A Jesus who died a cruel death so that our relationship with God might be restored.  A Jesus who showed us that true friendship meant laying down one's life for one's friends.  A Jesus who showed us every human being's instrinsic worth in God's eyes.  A Jesus who didn't judge sinners but called them to the living water! A Jesus who hated legalism and those who made rules they themselves could not keep.  Let's not make Paul jealous by going after another kind of Jesus!  The real Jesus is all we need!