Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary 2 Corinthians 11:4

"For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or [if] ye receive a different spirit, which ye did not receive, or a different gospel, which ye did not accept, ye do well to bear with [him]." — 2 Corinthians 11:4 (ASV)

Paul’s fear had a foundation in fact; the “if” as used here denotes an actual, not a hypothetical, situation (i.e., “if, as has happened, someone comes”). In justifying his plea for the Corinthians’ tolerance of his enforced boasting (v.1), Paul ironically appeals to the ready welcome they gave visitors who came proclaiming a message other than the Gospel that they had embraced and that had brought them salvation. Surely they ought to show their father in the faith the same degree of tolerance they showed a newcomer preaching a different faith!

It is impossible to reconstruct the precise content of what these false apostles said; it is also uncertain whether “spirit” here alludes to the Holy Spirit or to a spirit of fear and slavery (Romans 8:15; 2 Timothy 1:7). What seems clear, however, is that the willingness of the Corinthian believers to entertain the eloquent preacher of an adulterated gospel (cf. Galatians 1:6–9) that added human merit to divine grace illustrated their tendency to look “only on the surface of things” (10:7; cf. 1 Corinthians 1:17; 2:1, 4–5; 2 Corinthians 10:10).