Savor of Life or Death

“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. And who is adequate for these things?”  2 Corinthians 2:15-16

It is remarkable how the very same testimony can have such dramatically opposite effects on its recipients. A lecture on the scientific evidence of creation, for example, or on the inspiration of the Bible will be received with great joy and understanding by some, provoke furious hostility in some, and generate utter indifference in others. This seems to be true of any message - written or verbal, or simply demonstrated in behavior - which has any kind of biblically spiritual dimension to it. It is like the pillar of cloud in the wilderness, which “came between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel;
and there was the cloud along with the darkness, yet it gave light
at night. Thus the one did not come near the other all night”
(Ex. 14:20). A Christian testimony draws and wins the one, repels and condemns the other. “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him” (John 3:17).

Thus the wonderful message of the gospel yields two diametrically opposite results. “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36). Christ came to bring both unity and division. “‘Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone’...This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, ‘The stone which the builders rejected, This became the very corner stone,’ and, ‘A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense’; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word” (1 Pet. 2:6-8).

But the wonderful thing is this: Whether a true testimony generates life or condemns to death, it is still “a fragrance of Christ to God.”