Christ's Triumphal Procession

2 Corinthians 2:14-16 But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. 15 For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; 16 to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things?

This passage uses the Roman victory parade or “Triumph” as a word picture of Christ’s glory to the downtrodden faithful. It parallels the encouraging words of Romans 8:37, Ephesians 4:8, & Colossians 2:15; the contexts likewise parallel too, as they are all reference a more mature audience of believers who are suffering persecution for a steadfast exhibition of faith in Christ.

A Triumph typically coursed through all the most important streets of Rome to arrive at its most consecrated place, the temple of Jupiter. It had very high standards; the parade could only be given in honor of the highest of military officials (a general or the emperor himself), & it could only pay tribute to the most decisive victory- the kind that had vanquished an entire empire. It was never given upon the success of a mere battle, but only upon the complete subjugation of whole kingdoms. In addition to the leader of the victorious campaign, the procession included his army, the Roman Senate, trumpeters, incense burners, the conquered enemy leaders, & the spoils of war.

Therefore, it is in this context that Paul often alludes to this “Triumph”. He intends to convey to the believer the understanding that, although the battle seems ongoing & as yet inconclusive to the Christian under duress, Christ has indeed already achieved the victory…

Colossians 2:13-15 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, 14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.

Consider the past tense here; Paul is stating the fact that though sometimes the battle seems untenable to the faithful, victory is assured, for Christ’s cross has already carried the day for us. Our spiritual foes, like the Japanese island defenders who sometimes fought & killed for years after their nation’s unconditional surrender, continue to wage war, though their cause is hopeless. God allows times like these, times of affliction & sorrow, to display our faith in our triumphant Victor to all.

Ephesians 4:7-8 But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, "WHEN HE ASCENDED ON HIGH, HE LED CAPTIVE A HOST OF CAPTIVES, AND HE GAVE GIFTS TO MEN."

Hallelujah, Christ’s victory of the cross culminated in a Triumphal procession of the spiritual sort, the only sort of any lasting significance, upon His ascension! This event was past tense for the Christians of Paul’s day, & it is for us as well! Our distress for the cause of Christ in this temporal realm is simply a result of God’s decree that we dwell in Christ in the everlasting spiritual realm! God “raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:6). Martin Lloyd-Jones fleshes out the implications of Paul’s imagery of the first century Roman Triumph for us here in modern America…
“It is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ leading in His triumphal train the devil and hell and sin and death—the great enemies that were against man and which had held mankind in captivity for so long a time. The princes which had controlled that captivity are now being led captive themselves.”
But Paul’s imagery of 2Corinthians presses further still with the implications of this Triumph parade of Christ, for not only are Christ’s (& by extension, our) vanquished spiritual foes made to march in their subjugation, in their chains, but we march as well. Here, the apostle references our place in the parade & utilizes the present tense; God, through Christ “always leads us in triumph” showing that, even in the midst of a present despairing affliction which presses upon us, Christ is still presently triumphing through us. The Triumph is celebration of Christ’s conquest, but we are herein shown to sharers in that glory, in that we are become sharers in His suffering (Rom. 6:5, 2Cor 1:5-7, Heb. 10:32-35). In particular, it is in these times that God “manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him”. Fresh flowers & burning incense were staples of the Roman Triumph, & Paul carries that word picture into his portrayal too. Once again reflect upon the text:
2 Corinthians 2:15-16a For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life

The Father loves the Son beyond measure (John 3:35, 5:20), so too it pleases Him immeasurably to breathe in the consequence of His Son’s work as the world sets us alight & we burn with the sweet aroma of His Son. We worship God as we reflect the nature of His glorious Son, particularly in those times when we share in His suffering (e.g. Acts 5:41, 9:16, Rom. 8:17, Phil. 1:29, 1Peter2:20).

And this text also reveals that our witness of Christ in such times carries an impact in this earthly realm too. We witness to friend & foe alike as we put on display the reality of Christ’s glory at work within us. We proselytize both the faithful & unfaithful with a tangible demonstration of the spiritual Truth at work within us. What Christian is not entranced by the narratives of martyrs past? The witness of Tyndale’s prayer that the King’s eyes would be opened to Christ is etched upon the backdrop of his being burned upon a stake at that very moment. Understand, no matter the consequence of his prayer, in regards to whether or not the King would ultimately receive Christ, Tyndale accomplished his most important work- to simply exude Christ’s gloriously merciful nature towards his enemy in the midst of said enemy’s greatest act of violence against him (Rom. 5:10). 
“Paul, in 2Cor. 2:14-16, imagines himself as part of his Master’s procession passing through the world. First he is a captive in Christ’s conquering train; then he is one of the incense-bearers, scattering fragrant perfume; then he conceives of his life as being in itself that perfume. As the captives in a triumphal procession would be divided into two bodies, of which one company was doomed to die while the other was spared, so inevitably all who come in contact with Christ, either directly in the preaching of the gospel or indirectly in the lives of His people, are influenced either for evil or for good.…. No sense remains in the memory like scent. There is nothing we remember more strongly than pleasant smells, except perhaps unpleasant smells. Thus the apostle wished that his life might be a sweet perfume, floating on the air, reminding me, and above all reminding God, of Christ…. The Apostle fancies himself challenged to furnish letters of commendation and he repudiates the claim. ‘No,’ he cries, ‘the lives and testimonies of those whom I have won for God, are all the credentials that I require!’ Every Christian should be a clearly written and legible tract, circulating for the glory of God. Men will not read the evidences for Christianity as contained in learned treatises, but they are keen to read us. God alone can suffice us to sustain this searching scrutiny" -F.B. Meyer

We never know what strength God has for us until the time of need, as Corrie Ten Boom’s father related to her in her distress over possible Nazi persecution…


“Father sat down on the edge of the narrow bed. ‘Corrie,’ he began gently, ‘when you and I go to Amsterdam, when do I give you your ticket?’ I sniffed a few times, considering this. ‘Why, just before we get on the train.’

‘Exactly. And our wise Father in Heaven knows when we're going to need things too. Don't run out ahead of Him, Corrie. When the time comes that some of us will have to die, you will look into your heart and find the strength you need--just in time.’ ” -Corrie Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place

What it Means to Have Comfort in Christ

2Corinthians 1:3-10 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. 6 But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer; 7 and our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort. 8 For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life; 9 indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; 10 who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope. And He will yet deliver us.

Firstly, it should be noted how very different Paul opens this second letter to the Corinthians, in comparison to his first. His tone throughout most of his former letter is strongly critical, admonishing them in every manner of doctrine & comparing them to a strange sort of adolescent infant (1Cor 3:1ff), while the majority of the second letter has Paul instead desiring that they be “comforted”. What is the cause of this distinct change of tone, & just what manner of comfort is this?

No matter the minimal measure of their particular distress, it seems normal for western society to continually seek greater ease; so the cause for the wide popularity of this passage. We are a people that rely heavily upon our “creature comforts”, & more so with every generation. Life would be unfathomable for most of us today- apart from our cars, computers, & air conditioning. It would be natural for us to read this sort of nicety into a modern sense of Paul’s “comfort”- if only ignorant of all that he refers to as he speaks of his “afflictions” (2Cor. 11:23ff); for every time he speaks of this “comfort”, we find him also referencing an “affliction”. It is in the midst of just such suffering that the apostle broaches this subject again in the seventh chapter…

2 Corinthians 7:4-5 Great is my confidence in you; great is my boasting on your behalf. I am filled with comfort; I am overflowing with joy in all our affliction. 5 For even when we came into Macedonia our flesh had no rest, but we were afflicted on every side: conflicts without, fears within.

Understand, the reason his tone is so different with the second letter is that the Corinthians had largely heeded all his admonitions in the first! Formerly, he oftentimes had “no praise” for them (1Cor. 11:17), but now, he was even “boasting” on their behalf! Hallelujah for obedient Christians!

And therein lies the rub; since they had largely fallen in line with regards to obedience to Paul, they had also fallen in line with some of his worldly afflictions; thus their need for this “comfort” that the apostle knew in such abundance.

The problem is we tend to interpret both “afflictions” & “comfort” in the context of our lives instead of theirs. The Greek translated “comfort” in all these passages is “paraklesis”, & the striking thing to note is that this “paraklesis” is more often translated as “exhortation” than “comfort” in the NASB, particularly when it is clearly indicating a pastoral message (e.g. Luke 3:18, Acts 2:40, 13:15, 20:1-2, 1Tim. 4:13) Because of this, the word “exhortation” has developed a sort of negative connotation in secular usage, given the poor example of legalistic preaching by some (supposedly) inside the church (e.g. Fred Phelps, of Westboro Baptist Church infamy), as well poor reactions to good gospel preaching by those outside the church, due to the nature of their rebellion.

And that is the point, all true exhortation will engage the gospel (literally the good news of Christ’s glory & saving work) because “paraklesis” has an overarching positive significance for the believer.

The “comfort” spoken of throughout 2 Corinthians is inexorably tied to the more classical sense of exhortation, as expressed by Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary of American English:
EXHORT v.t.- to encourage, to embolden, to cheer, to advise. The primary sense seems to be to excite or to give strength, spirit or courage.
1. To incite by words or advice; to animate or urge by arguments to a good deed or to any laudable conduct or course of action.
2. To advise; to warn; to caution.
3. To incite or stimulate to exertion.



Conversely therefore, the “comfort” Paul speaks of will not result in a dull, passive state of ease, but a cheerful, strengthened, animated, active, & excited exertion towards a “laudable conduct or course of action”. It is nearly the opposite of how it would be thought to mean by those unaware of either the Greek subtext or Paul’s context.

Know this too, that this “comfort”, or “exhortation” of the Lord may not always seem immediately cheerful; sometimes it may even be painful, but it will always lead towards Christ’s glory, as well as simultaneously towards our benevolence & joy as we follow in the footsteps of our Savior. The severe emotional distress He felt of Gethsemane, followed by the physical afflictions of Golgotha, horrendous as they were, paled in comparison to His (& our) consequential joy. So likewise, Hebrews tells to maintain a sense of joy, even in the midst of suffering, for this faithfully acknowledges the power of our sovereign Lord in all things…

Hebrews 12:1-11 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. 4 You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; 5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, "MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD, NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM; 6 FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES." 7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. 11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

So now, consider once again the core verse of this part of the teaching…

2 Corinthians 1:5 For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort (exhortation) is abundant through Christ.