“Timothy Stackpole was a New York Firefighter, who was severely burned in a 1998 fire. After he recovered, he returned to the force despite the advice of some friends and family and the fact that he could retire comfortably.
“He was a great fire fighter and passionate about his work and was soon promoted to captain. Timothy was one of the fire fighters that ran into the second tower to try to save some people. When he did, it collapsed and took his life. He knew his calling—to save people.”1
We too, as ambassadors for Christ, have a calling to save people from eternal death by sharing the saving gospel of God’s grace, and to do so with the heart of our apostle, who wrote, “I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (1 Cor. 9:22).
Triumph in Christ
“Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of His knowledge by us in every place” (2 Cor. 2:14).
Paul gave thanks to God because He “always causeth us to triumph in Christ.” The apostle uses a metaphor here in his praise and thanksgiving to God. The idea of “always causeth us to triumph” is a reference to the ancient Roman triumphal procession, which was a victory parade celebrating a successful military campaign. The parade was called the Roman Triumph. In the Triumph, a victorious general was honored with a festive, ceremonial parade through the streets of Rome.
One commentator painted the scene this way:
“In a Triumph the procession of the victorious general marched through the streets of Rome to the Capitol in the following order.
“First came the state officials and the senate.
“Then came the trumpeters.
“Then were carried the spoils taken from the conquered land. For instance, when Titus conquered Jerusalem, the seven-branched candlestick, the golden table of the shewbread and the golden trumpets were carried through the streets of Rome.
“Then came pictures of the conquered land and models of conquered citadels and ships.
“There followed the white bull for the sacrifice which would be made.
“Then there walked the captive princes, leaders and generals in chains, shortly to be flung into prison and in all probability almost immediately to be executed.
“Then came the lictors bearing their rods, followed by the musicians with their lyres; then the priests swinging their censers with the sweet-smelling incense burning in them.
“After that came the general himself. He stood in a chariot drawn by four horses. He was clad in a purple tunic embroidered with golden palm leaves, and over it a purple toga marked out with golden stars. In his hand he held an ivory scepter with the Roman eagle at its top, and over his head a slave held the crown of Jupiter.
“After him rode his family; and finally came the army wearing all their decorations and shouting loud exclamations, ‘Triumph! Triumph! Triumph!’”2
It is reminiscent of a tickertape victory parade for a sports team in their home city after they have won a championship. From this celebratory scene of the Roman Triumph, Paul drew an analogy about our witness for Christ and the advance of the gospel of grace.
Through His cross and resurrection, Christ has triumphed over our enemies of sin, death, and Satan. As believers in Christ, we are forever on the side of victory. And now throughout all our lives, we are always led in a triumphal procession by our Savior. Having defeated the enemy, Christ, the supreme Victor, marches in ultimate triumph, and no one can stand against Him.
Having trusted Christ as our personal Savior, we are on the side of victory. He won the victory for us, and being on the Lord’s side, we get to share in His triumph. He gets the glory, but we, His followers, join Him in the grand celebration of His triumphal procession. And Paul gave thanks to God for this privilege of always being led in triumph in Christ, because it is by the grace of God that we have been saved and that we have victory through Christ.
As the Roman Triumph advanced, clouds of incense permeated the scene, and the sweet fragrance filled the air in the streets of Rome. Paul equated this aroma to how God “maketh manifest the savour of His knowledge by us in every place.” As the Church is led in triumph in Christ, the aroma of the knowledge of God is diffused throughout the world by our life, witness, and deeds.
Paul refers to this “knowledge” a couple of chapters later, where he wrote: “For God, Who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (4:6). At our conversion, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God shined in our hearts, and God then uses the Church to make known to the world His saving knowledge. Paul likened the wafting of the Roman Triumph’s fragrant incense to God’s disseminating, through His people, the knowledge of Christ’s triumph over sin and death.
Paul stated that he and his coworkers made known the knowledge of Christ’s victory “in every place” (2:14) they traveled, as they took the gospel of the grace of God to the nations. Following Paul’s example, the Church, the Body of Christ, is called to do likewise, to be a witness to Christ in every place in this world, because in every place there are sinners in need of the Savior.
To be truly Pauline, we are called to follow Paul’s heart and passion for lost souls. Paul wrote in Philippians 4:9, “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.” When we look at Paul’s life and ministry in God’s Word, what we see is that evangelism and churchplanting were the very heart of it. And the church-planting had as its purpose the equipping of God’s people to further reach the unbelieving and to be a lighthouse for truth.
As we read and follow Paul in our witnessing, we learn that Paul was bold in sharing Christ, but he apparently didn’t always feel that way, because Paul even asked others to pray for his boldness (Eph. 6:19). At times, Paul was even fearful of speaking out for Christ. Paul was not superhuman, and Paul’s fear and lack of boldness are very relatable, because evangelism is not an easy thing. In Corinth, the Lord spoke to Paul and encouraged him, “Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace: For I am with thee…” (Acts 18:9-10). Philippians 4:9 assures us that the God of peace will be with us, too, as we follow Paul in our witness and we reach out to others. God will give us boldness to speak out for Him and He will calm our fears and grant us His peace as we do so.
A Sweet Fragrance
“For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish” (2 Cor. 2:15).
“A sweet savour” refers to a pleasing fragrance, and here it is an aroma that is pleasing to God. Likewise, with the Cross, Ephesians 5:2 tells us that “Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.” Christ’s offering for sin was a pleasing fragrance to God the Father, and He was satisfied and wellpleased with His Son’s perfect sacrifice.
The “sweet savour” in 2 Corinthians 2:15 refers not to the message we proclaim, but to us, the messengers who proclaim the message. As we spread the good news of salvation and are a witness of Christ and His cross, Paul said that “we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ,” and we are pleasing to God.
When we take that step of faith and reach out and share the good news of Christ, that sweet fragrance goes right to the throne of God. As Paul wrote, “For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ,” and God is well-pleased.
The fragrance is sweet to God based on our faithfulness to make the gospel known, not on the success of the response. Paul added that we are “a sweet savour of Christ,” regardless of the response, both “in them that are saved, and in them that perish.”
There are only two categories or camps of people from God’s point of view, and there is no inbetween. Every single person is either saved from their sins, spiritually alive, and going to heaven, or they are perishing in their sins, lost, and headed for judgment in the lake of fire.
The believer’s life is an aroma of the knowledge of God that others react to, either in trusting Christ or rejecting Christ. This being so, may our prayer be that of the missionary Jim Elliot, who once prayed, “Father, make me a crisis man. Bring those I contact to decision. Let me not be a milepost on a single road; make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me.”3
Being an aroma of Christ to the world by our witness includes both our words and our lives. It is important how we live; others are watching. A few verses later in chapter three of 2 Corinthians, Paul wrote, “Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men” (v. 2).
In light of this, Paul challenged the Ephesians, “For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light” (Eph. 5:8). To live as a child of light, living a righteous, godly life that stands out and is separate from the darkness of the world is to show love to the unbelieving all around us. It is to love them enough to present them with the contrast between faith and unbelief, life and death. The light of a loving, Christ-like life can expose unbelievers to the contrast between the character and destructiveness of sin and their need for salvation. We show love for the world by not being like it. Our walk as light can point and show the way to Christ. And when a faithful testimony backs our words for Christ, it makes our witness more powerful.
“A woman was nervously waiting at the airport for her husband to return from his skydiving lesson. The pilot approached her: ‘I’m sorry, but there’s been an accident. I have some bad news, some good news, some more bad news, and some more good news. The bad news is your husband fell out of the plane. The good news is he had his parachute on. The bad news is he hit the ground before his chute could open. The good news is we hadn’t taken off yet.’”4
Who Is Sufficient for These Things?
“To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Cor. 2:16).
In the Roman Triumph, the aroma of incense was a perfume of joy, victory, and life for the victors. For the captives, however, it was an aroma of doom, a reminder of defeat, captivity, and their impending death and execution. Similarly, a person’s response to the fragrance of the gospel depends on whether he marches in triumph in Christ or he chooses defeat, captivity, and death.
A person’s response to the gospel has eternal consequences. For those who reject the gospel, “death unto death” refers to the spiritual death they remain in, which will ultimately lead to the eternal second death if they die in their sins. It is God’s desire and heart that people who are “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1) receive life and not death (1 Tim. 2:4), but they must respond in faith to the gospel of grace to have everlasting life. “Life unto life” refers to the spiritual life unto eternal life that one is given the moment one believes the gospel. And for the believer, anytime we hear the gospel of grace, we smell that sweet aroma of its truth, and we know that message means life, peace, and eternity with God for us.
“Death unto death” is what is coming for the unbeliever. In his message at Antioch in Pisidia, Paul warned of God’s judgment by quoting a prophecy from Habakkuk 1:5: “Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you” (Acts 13:41). The judgment that God will pour out in the lake of fire upon those who die in their sins is so severe, frightening, and horrific that it is unimaginable and hard to believe, yet absolutely true.
The second death, to be eternally in the lake of fire, separated from God and His life and goodness (2 Thes. 1:8-9), is a horror that is difficult for our minds to conceive. In that place of doom, unbelievers will spend eternity in the midst of unmixed, all-encompassing evil. They will reside in the presence of demons and Satan for eternity.
The lake of fire is a place of darkness, fearsome blackness of darkness (Jude 1:13). They will never see light again. The morning will never come. They are spiritually blind and in darkness in their sins, and they will remain in darkness forever.
There is no rest in the lake of fire (Rev. 14:11). The horror of that place, its terrifying sounds, the pain and torment, and the restlessness of soul will never allow anyone to rest, ever. Those who find themselves there will reside in a constant, scorching, suffocating stench of burning brimstone and the experience of never-ending, tormenting pain. The fire burns forever; the heat never relents. There is no respite and no relief from the suffering. It never lets up.
Some people are flippant, saying that they’ll party with their friends, in the lake of fire, but the lake of fire is a place of utter loneliness. There will be no companionship; there are no relationships in hell. Each person will be alone forever with their thoughts. And in the anguish and regrets of those thoughts, they will forever weep and gnash their teeth (Matt. 22:13).
You and I have the message, the truth of the good news that saves one from entering this everlasting suffering (2 Cor. 4:7). We have the message that delivers one from this second death and gives one a home in God’s presence forever. That message to others is to trust that Christ died for all, for the sins of each and every one of us, personally, and that He rose again (1 Cor. 15:3-4).
The good news is that Christ took your sins upon Himself; He faced the judgment of God against them at the Cross; and He paid the price for all your sins (2 Cor. 5:21). And when you trust this, God saves you from hell, forgives you of all your sins, and grants you eternal life as a free gift (Rom. 6:23; Eph. 2:8-9).
As Paul contemplated the tremendous responsibility of making known the gospel that has such far-reaching, critically important, and eternal consequences, he cried out, “And who is sufficient for these things?” It staggered Paul as it should stagger us. The gospel we share divides humanity eternally. Heaven and hell, life and death, are on the line. Who is equal to such a vitally important task?
God uses rescued people to rescue people, and it is the task of our lives to rescue the perishing (2 Cor. 5:20). And it is true that none of us in ourselves, in our own strength, is adequate or competent to serve God in this supremely consequential ministry. The only way we are sufficient for these things is through God Himself. As 2 Corinthians 3:5 says, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God.”
1. “Know Your Calling,” accessed October 5, 2025, https://ministry127.com/resources/illustration/ know-your-calling.
2. . “2 Corinthians 2 Commentary,” accessed October 5, 2025, https://www.preceptaustin.org/2-corinthians-2-commentary#2:14.
3. “Missionary Quotes” posted October 4,2016, https://missions.tips/missionary-quotes/.
4. “A woman was nervously waiting at the airport for her husband to return from his skydiving lesson” reddit, accessed October 6, 2025, https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/rymtdu/a_woman_was_nervously_waiting_at_the_airport_for/.