The Aroma That Divides

In the previous article, Paul lifted his eyes in the middle of his unrest and saw a procession. Christ at the front. Captives in the train. The aroma of the knowledge of Him rising in every place the captives walked. The question now is what that aroma does when it reaches the people who breathe it in. Verse 15 and the first half of verse 16 give us the answer, and the answer is not what most modern ears want to hear.

A Fragrance to God First

Read the first line slowly. We are a fragrance of Christ to God.

Before Paul says one word about the people who hear us, he tells us who the primary audience really is. Not the neighbor. Not the coworker. Not the family member at the dinner table. To God. The Father is the one who breathes in the aroma. The Father is the one pleased with it. When a faithful believer carries the knowledge of Christ into a room, the sweetness of that fragrance rises first and foremost to heaven, not to the people in the room.

That changes everything about how we measure ministry. We have a way of evaluating our witness by what the listener does with it. Did they respond? Did they soften? Did they ask another question, or did they walk away? Paul lifts our eyes higher. The fragrance is going up to the Father before it ever goes out to the neighbor. The Father is well pleased with the aroma of Christ rising from His people, regardless of what the neighbor does next.

Two Columns, Both Moving

There are two groups of people who encounter the fragrance. Those who are being saved, and those who are perishing.

Notice the verb tenses. Paul does not say those who will be saved or those who might be saved. He says those who are being saved. The work is underway. God has begun it and God is carrying it out. On the other side, those who are perishing. The destruction is underway too. Both groups are moving. One is being drawn toward life. The other is on the road to death.

Some folks get a little upset about the translation here. Being saved. But that is what the Greek says. Scripture itself uses three tenses of salvation. We have been saved from the penalty of sin (Ephesians 2:8). We are being saved from the power of sin (our text). And we shall be saved from the presence of sin (Romans 5:9–10). This is no novelty. It is what good Baptists have taught for centuries. I was first taught the three tenses as a boy at King’s Addition Baptist Church under Pastor James Hobbs. T. P. Simmons taught the same thing in his systematic theology. In our text Paul speaks of present-tense salvation, the ongoing work of grace in the lives of those who belong to Christ.

Same Aroma, Opposite Effects

Here is the part that catches us. The same fragrance reaches both groups. Paul does not say there are two different gospels for two different audiences. He does not say the preacher needs to soften the message for one group and sharpen it for the other. There is one aroma. The aroma of Christ. And it produces opposite effects depending on the heart of the one who breathes it in.

To the one an aroma from death to death. That is the perishing. They were dead in their sin already. Ephesians 2 told us that. Dead in trespasses and sins, walking according to the course of this world. When the fragrance of Christ reaches them and they reject it, that rejection seals what was already true. They were dead. Now they are dying. Death to death. The gospel they refused is the very thing that hardens them further toward the death that is coming.

To the other an aroma from life to life. That is the saved. They were dead too. Every one of us who knows Christ today was once in that other column. Dead in sin. But God, who is rich in mercy, breathed His Spirit into us, and the same fragrance that meant death to the perishing meant life to us. It does not stop. Life to life. The gospel that raised us is the gospel that keeps us. The fragrance that quickened us is the fragrance that sustains us. From the moment of new birth to the day we see Him face to face, it is life to life all the way through.

The gospel divides. It cannot help but divide. When the aroma rises in every place, it splits every audience in two. Always has. Always will.

We do not need to be offensive with the Word of God. The Word of God is offensive enough.

Paul said the same thing in his first letter to the same church.

Same two columns. Same two outcomes. Same one message. The cross is foolishness to the perishing and power to the saved. The aroma is death to the perishing and life to the saved. Paul says it in two different letters to two different churches because it is the abiding shape of how the gospel works in the world.

You see this even in the church. Two people walk out of the same Bible conference. One says it was the best preaching he has ever heard. The other says it was the worst conference he has ever sat through. Same preacher. Same room. Same chairs. Same Bible read from the same pulpit. Opposite reactions. The difference was never in the preaching. The difference was in the heart that received it.

Over twenty years ago, when I lived in New Mexico, Jill and Mavia decided to make sauerkraut. They went through all the work of it. Cabbage, salt, the jars, the waiting. When it was finally ready, I loved it. Tangy, sharp, a little funky, exactly the way good sauerkraut is supposed to be.

The trouble was, neither of them could stand it. They didn't like the taste or the smell. Wrinkled noses, faces twisted, carrying on like I had handed them something out of the trash can. And there I was at the same table, going back for seconds.

One jar. One smell. One taste. Two completely different reactions. The sauerkraut had not changed between the bite Jill took and the bite I took. The difference was not in the jar. The difference was in the one doing the tasting. That is what Paul is saying about the gospel.

What This Passage Does to Your Witness

This passage will change how you witness if you let it.

First, it takes the weight off your shoulders. When you speak of Christ to a coworker and they shrug, or argue, or walk away, you have not failed. The fragrance did exactly what God appointed it to do. The aroma went up to the Father, and the Father was pleased with it, and the reaction of the coworker was never the measure of your faithfulness. Stop carrying that weight. It was never yours.

Second, it sobers us about the lost. If you have a family member who has heard the gospel from your lips for twenty years and has never responded, this verse is hard. It tells us that the gospel they have rejected is not neutral. It is not sitting on a shelf waiting for them to come back to it on their own terms. Every faithful presentation of Christ they refused has been aroma from death to death. We pray. We keep speaking. We trust God for the miracle of new birth. But we do not lie to ourselves about what is happening when the gospel is heard and turned away.

Third, and this is for the saints. When was the last time the gospel smelled sweet to you? When did you last breathe in the knowledge of Christ in your own quiet time, in this pulpit, around your own table, and find it fragrant? Sometimes believers walk through seasons where the gospel that once was life to them has grown stale, not because the gospel changed but because they stopped breathing it in. If that is you this morning, come back to the fragrance. Open the Word. Pray. Sit under the preaching with the lid off your heart. The aroma is still rising. Breathe.

Who Is Sufficient for These Things?

Once Paul says the gospel divides every audience into life and death, he asks the question every honest minister and every honest witness has asked at some point. Look at the end of verse 16.

Paul has just laid out the weight of gospel ministry. The aroma rises in every place. The fragrance divides every audience. Death to the perishing. Life to the saved. The eternal destiny of every hearer is somehow caught up in whether the message of Christ is faithfully carried into their ears. Paul stops, looks at all of that, and asks the only honest question a man can ask. Who is sufficient for these things?

The expected answer is no one. No man, on his own resources, in his own strength, with his own intelligence and charisma and training, is adequate for the weight of carrying eternal news to eternal souls. Paul knows it. He answers his own question two chapters later.

There is the answer. We are not sufficient in ourselves. Our sufficiency is from God. So when Paul asks the question here in 2:16, he is not in despair. He is setting up the contrast that comes in verse 17. If our sufficiency is from God, then the kind of ministry that God produces in His servants looks a particular way. The kind of ministry that men produce on their own resources looks a very different way. Verse 17 puts the two side by side.

Not Peddlers

Stop on that word peddling. The Greek word is kapeleuontes. It pictures a huckster in the marketplace. Specifically a wine merchant who waters down his stock to sell more of it, or who mixes cheap wine with good wine and passes the whole thing off as the real thing. The peddler is selling a religious product. He has taken something precious, the Word of God, and he has cut it. He has watered it down to make it more palatable to the crowd, more sellable to the customer, more comfortable to the ear.

Paul says there were many doing this in his day. Not a few. Many. The first-century Mediterranean was crawling with traveling religious teachers selling their version of the truth for a fee and a following. Paul says, we are not like them.

Picture a wine merchant in a port town. He has barrels in the back of his shop. The good wine, the wine he advertised at the door, is in one barrel. But the good wine costs him. So he has another barrel full of water, and a third barrel full of cheaper, harsher wine, and he mixes from all three depending on the customer. The customer who knows wine gets the good barrel. The customer who does not know any better gets watered stock with just enough of the good barrel mixed in to fool the tongue. The merchant goes home at the end of the day with more coins in his purse than the honest dealer next door.

That merchant knows exactly what he is doing. He has tasted his own product. He knows it is not what he promised. He knows the customer is walking out the door with something less than the customer paid for. But the coins are real, and the customer cannot tell the difference, so he keeps doing it. Paul says there are men doing that with the Word of God. Tasting their own diluted product and selling it anyway. We are not those men.

Four Marks of Faithful Speech

Paul stacks four short prepositional phrases that frame what real ministry actually looks like. Slow down and take them one at a time.

As from sincerity. The Greek word carries the idea of something tested by sunlight, held up to the light and found pure, without mixture, without dilution. The faithful servant of the gospel is not running a side hustle. He is not mixing the message with something else to make it sell. He brings the pure thing.

As from God. The source matters. The peddler invents his content. He surveys the market and adjusts the product to fit demand. The faithful servant receives his content. The message comes from God before it ever comes out of the preacher's mouth.

In the sight of God. This is the gaze the servant lives under. Not the gaze of the audience. Not the gaze of the donors. Not the gaze of the religious establishment of his town. The faithful servant preaches and teaches and witnesses with his eyes fixed on the face of the Father who sees him.

We speak in Christ. The location of the speech. Not in the flesh. Not in the wisdom of the world. In Christ. Every faithful word about the gospel is spoken from within the believer's union with the risen Lord. That is the only ground from which a servant of Christ has any authority to speak at all.

Four marks. From sincerity. From God. In the sight of God. In Christ. That is the anatomy of faithful ministry. Every one of those four marks is the opposite of what the peddler is doing.

This passage is for every believer, not just for the men who stand behind a pulpit. For Sunday school teachers. For parents leading family worship. For women discipling younger women. The temptation to peddle is always there. The temptation to soften a hard text because you know who is sitting in the room. The temptation to skip a doctrine because it does not flatter the crowd. The temptation to dress up the Word with something else, something more entertaining, something more contemporary, something more comfortable. Do not do it. The four marks of verse 17 are not optional.

For those who witness in everyday life, and that is every one of you who knows the Lord. When you speak of Christ to a coworker, to a neighbor, to a family member at the dinner table, you are not selling a product. You are not running a marketing campaign. You are not a peddler. You are a censer in the procession, carrying the aroma of Christ, and the four marks of verse 17 apply to you the same way they apply to Paul.

Two Calls

Two questions, one for the one who does not yet know Christ, and one for the one who does.

To the One Who Does Not Yet Know Christ

The fragrance has reached you. It has reached your nose week after week, and the question is what it has smelled like. Paul tells us in verse 16 that there are only two possibilities. Aroma from death to death, or aroma from life to life. There is no third column. There is no neutral hearer. Every time the gospel is preached and turned away, the rejection seals what was already true. You were dead in your sin. The gospel you refused is the very thing that hardens you further.

Hear this. The procession is still moving. The aroma is still rising. Today the smoke is still in the air, and as long as it is, the call of Christ is still being offered to you. Repent of your sin. Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was crucified for sinners and raised on the third day. Breathe in the fragrance and live. The day is coming when the procession passes by for the last time, and the offer will be withdrawn. Do not wait for that day. Come to Christ.

To the One Who Already Knows Christ

Paul has told you who you are. You are a captive in the procession of the King. You are a censer in His hand. The aroma of Christ rises through you in every place you walk this week, whether you can smell it or not. That is who you are on Monday morning. That is who you are at the kitchen sink. That is who you are at the workbench, at the cash register, on the boat, in the hospital waiting room. You are a carrier of the fragrance of Christ.

So here is the charge. Before next Sunday comes again, walk into one ordinary place in your life and speak as Paul speaks in verse 17. From sincerity. From God. In the sight of God. In Christ. Not as a salesman. Not as a peddler. Not watching the face of the person across from you to see how it lands. Watching the face of the Father who sees every word.

You may be a husband bringing the Word to your family at the dinner table. You may be a mother teaching one of your children. You may be a believer answering a coworker's question about why you live the way you live. Wherever it is, walk in and speak. The aroma is already rising through you. Your job is to open your mouth and let the fragrance into the room.

Do it with the sufficiency Paul preached. Not yours. His. Our sufficiency is from God. You are not adequate. Neither am I. Christ is. He has bound you to Himself in the procession and He will not let you go.