Verse 5
Try your own selves, whether ye are in the faith; prove your own selves. Or know ye not as to your own selves, that Christ is in you? unless indeed ye be reprobate.
Someone at Corinth had suggested that Paul "prove" himself by exercising the authority he claimed, perhaps suggesting that they would like to examine him; but here Paul thundered the message that he would conduct a trial, not of himself, but of them, they, not himself, being the persons who needed to prove that they were in the faith.
Christ is in you ... is a complimentary remark. Despite the sins of some, Christ was yet in the Corinthian church, unless, of course, the whole church had become "reprobate," a possibility that Paul rejected in the last clause. Again, there is witness here to the fact that the major part of the Corinthian congregation was entitled to all the wonderful things Paul said about them in 2 Corinthians 1-9, a further attestation of the unity of the epistle.
In the faith ... is a significant word, as used here, being a synonym for the Christian religion. In many references where Paul speaks of "faith," it has exactly the same meaning as here. Usually, when Paul says "saved by faith," it is not the subjective faith of the believer, but an objective reference to Christianity, which is meant.
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