14 And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. 15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.
Paul unmasked his opponents in verses 14-15. They were unregenerate imposters. They did not merely claim to be Christians but to hold the highest office of the church—apostleship.
11:14
And no wonder!
It is no wonder that people at Corinth pretended to be apostles; they came out of a deceptive satanic system. His system requires one to present himself as something he is not. That is the way to deceive followers.
For Satan himself [emphatic] transforms [masquerades habitually] himself into an angel of light.
These fake apostles presented themselves as genuine apostles, but they were emissaries of Satan. Satan disguises himself as an “angel of light,” whereas he is an angel of darkness. The arch-enemy is an arch-deceiver. He comes as an agent of virtue.
11:15
Therefore
The punchline from verse 14 is that Satan has ministers—ministers of deception. If Satan masquerades himself as an angel of light, it is not surprising that his servants masquerade as ministers of righteousness.
it is no great thing if his ministers
The false apostles were servants of Satan. It is not a big step for Satan’s ministers to disguise themselves into ministers of the light because Satan did and does the same thing.
also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness,
Although the false apostles were ministers of darkness, they “transformed themselves into ministers of righteousness.” They presented themselves in a guise different from what they were. Paul did not depict how they did this or with which doctrine they showed but just the fact that they did it. That way, the principle applies to any generation. However, he said that they “peddled the Word of God” (2 Co 2:17).
whose end will be according to their works.
God will judge these pretenders based on what they believed and how they acted, not on what they claimed for themselves. God is never fooled by pretension. The end of these false apostles will be what their actions deserve.
PRINCIPLE:
Satan presents tolerance as a virtue.
APPLICATION:
Today, Satan deceives the church into believing that tolerance in doctrine is a virtue. He is in the business of creating clean non-Christians. There is a radical difference between tolerating the person and what the person believes. Satan’s appeal to the believer to accept no boundaries will assert that any viewpoint can be correct. It seeks to undermine the idea that people can find truth in the propositions of Scripture. The problem is that the toleration of today is intolerant of anything but its own position. It has created an indifference to God’s truth revealed in Scripture.
