Utumishi Blog

What does Paul mean in 2 Corinthians 2:14-15 when he talks of how God “through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere, for we are the aroma of Christ”?

Sometimes we pray that there would be the ‘aroma of Christ’ in a home or a city. Perhaps we hope that through our presence around non-Christians, without having to say a word, they would pick up something of the ‘fragrance of Jesus’. What are we talking about? What does Jesus smell like? A flowery meadow? I guess – if we were pushed – we might say we’re talking about ‘life-style evangelism’, about ‘preach the gospel and if necessary use words’, about ‘being Christ to people’, about ‘living such good lives that people would see something of God in us’.

But is that what 2 Cor. 2:14-15 is about? What’s the context? (Sorry it’s the C-word again!)

When I came to Troas to preach the gospel… (v12)

Who is sufficient to these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ. (v16-17)

And in between those two brackets, what does it say this fragrance is all about? “…the knowledge of him” (v14). And what are the reactions to this fragrance? Interestingly it is not that everyone is attracted by the wonderful flowery scent:

to one [perishing] a fragrance from death to death, to the other [being saved] a fragrance from life to life. (v16)

Haven’t we heard that somewhere before?

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. (1 Cor. 1:18)

So now I’m starting to think (and I find that the old commentators got there hundreds of years before me) that Paul is just using a very powerful metaphor to talk of his preaching of the Cross in terms of smell. To some, Christ-centred preaching will stink. To others it will be like heaven itself has been opened and they catch the fragrant wafts of Eden, of the Banquet and of the Beloved (SoS 1:12-13; 2:4,12-13; 3:6; 5;13; 7:12-13).