II Cor. 13:5 ... "Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!"
The word "faith" in New Testament usage can mean either "mental acceptance of something" or "the substance of that which one believes." One has faith in Jesus if he believes Jesus is the Son of God and the Savior of man. The doctrine of who Christ is, of what He did while on earth, and of the truth of what He taught is the faith, which Jude 3 declares was "once for all handed down to the saints." In this sense the faith is synonymous with the gospel. It is with this meaning of "the faith" as "the substance of what we believe," or the gospel, that the text above exhorts us to "test" ourselves to see whether we "are in the faith." The faith which has been handed down to us delineates a specific mode of life to which we are to conform. Once we have committed ourselves to this norm, we must take care lest we drift out of it. Throughout the New Testament we are constantly reminded to guard ourselves lest this drifting tendency take hold of us, for it can happen very easily. The changes that separate us from the way of faith are nearly always small, subtle and seemingly innocuous, so that we hardly take note of them one at a time. It is only after a succession of them that it becomes apparent we have left the way of the faith and entered into the field of sin and transgression. Thus we are warned in Heb. 2:1 that "we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it." The phrase, "what we have heard," is a single word in the original Greek and is here equivalent to "the faith," which is the gospel.
It is a never ending task for a Christian to determine whether he is conducting his life within the parameters of the faith, which is what Paul was urging upon the Corinthians in the above text. Even a casual reading of the two epistles he wrote to them indicates plainly that they had not been sensitive to influences which had worked strongly within them to lead them further and further from the faith. In fact, they had removed so far that most of us today would hardly admit them to be a church of Christ, and yet, that is how Paul addressed them (I Cor. 1:2; II Cor. 1:1). Nevertheless, the digression had advanced so far that, as the apostle concluded this second letter, he threatened to come and administer corrective measures, (see 13:1-2). He hoped this letter, with the demand to "examine youselves," would have the desired effect of drawing them back within the limits of the faith before his arrival.
It is better to find your own faults and correct them than carelessly continue with them and have them addressed by someone else. In this writer's long experience as a high school math teacher, he persisted in urging students taking a test to "check your work carefully, find your mistakes and correct them. When I discover with my famous red pen, you'll lose precious credit and get a lower grade." In the Lord's Supper passage in I Corinthians 11, just after writing that "a man must examine himself," Paul then wrote, "If we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged'" (vs. 28, 31). Any sin we are able to detect within us through careful self-examination is a sin we will not carry into the Judgment, where it will surely be uncovered by God, who will condemn us for never having repented of it. Our God, most benevolent, has given us a special mirror for inspecting our lives, His word (Jas. 1:23-25). When used well, it will reveal to us every flaw and blemish in our way of life and show us indeed whether we are "in the faith." After that, it is our task to devote our attention and ability to repent of every sin, to alter the attitudes and behavior patterns that led us into them, and to pray earnestly to God to remove them. If we will be diligent to do that, God will delete them and lead us back into the faith. But if we ignore or excuse them, He will condemn us in the Judgment and sentence us to everlasting punishment (Mat. 25:46).
