The Divine Fragrance

I am fascinated these days by the force and the reality of this passage:

2 Corinthians 2:14-16 ESV
But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? 

First I am intrigued that those who follow the One who leads, exude an essence, a very fragrance. “Everywhere” means it’s discernable to all. A scent is not a logic. A fragrance is a perception of the intuition, alive in all, saved and unsaved.

A Walking Fragrance

2 Corinthians 2:15 Amp
 For we are the sweet fragrance of Christ [which exhales] unto God, [discernible alike] among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing: 

Such fragrance comes only from the genuine knowledge of Christ by letting Him live His own Life within you. You know Him by watching His life, His lead…eating His flesh, drinking His blood in a oneness that takes Him for your own breath, your every second.

You aren’t aware of being a walking fragrance but others are. Everywhere! Imagine, that in the most common places of life, the store, the bank, the school, the office, you are known by His elusive Presence that gives off a knowable essence.

Sweet Fragrance of Christ

Next, this aroma is not of you the follower, nor for the humanity you pass by.
That aroma, the burning incense is this:

we are the sweet fragrance of Christ [which exhales] unto God.

We are an aroma of Jesus, not of our own being! That humanity picks up the scent is the result but it is not the objective. It’s a byproduct, a side effect of intimacy with Christ. The presence of Christ in the surrendered secret-place becomes the evidence of Christ publically. But more astonishing, it is a smell, a smoke that wafts up to God.

How wondrous, the things God says in the Bible! The ethereal is stated as a common occurrence.

among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.
To the latter (the perishing) it is an aroma [wafted] from death to death
[a fatal odor, the smell of doom];
2 Corinthians 2:15 AMP

This explains the unexplainable hate that attacks the bottle of His aroma. An assault shocking in its intensity and illogical in its reason. These are ones who refuse Christ and cannot bear to be reminded of His sweetness. It is the murder of Cain, the madness of Judas, rising still in this day and to the very end of days. The trusting Abel, the innocent Christ. The ‘perishing’ must kill death so they can continue on without having to smell their own doom.

So real this is…

But those who are God’s – those born-again new creations ­­­– to them it is the ineffable scent of a passerby that causes you to stop and know of this stranger, ‘we are connected.’

The fragrance of Christ is Life nearby, exuding Him in mystery—to the former (the saved) it is an aroma from life to life [a vital fragrance, living and fresh] (2 Corinthians 2:16a AMP).

Jesus…made present by a living fragrance so powerful that ­–

it exposes and evokes both Life and Death, Immortality or Perishing.

And so victorious is His essence, His burnt purity, that He always rises to win and conquer…always! And as Christ forever moves on, unstoppable in Supreme Victory, His followers are carried into that absolute Triumph, in spite of Hatred’s dread of Love.

And who is qualified (fit and sufficient) for these things? [Who is able for such a ministry? We?]
2 Corinthians 2:16b AMP

A ministry of fragrance? No person is sufficient for such! Only Christ’s aroma can change the very air, for obscure lives that pass by and are gone…but who remain forever impacted.

Dear God! May we let Christ so be Himself in our earthen vessel that His presence is the smell of heaven in the scene of the world’s foul stench.