2 Corinthians 5:11–21
11 Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. 12 We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. 13 For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.1 The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling2 the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
1 Or creature 2 Or God was in Christ, reconciling
Section Overview: Sinlessness through Sinfulness
Having reflected on the new covenant ministry (2 Cor. 3:1–18) in which life flourishes amid death (4:1–18) as we await the final resurrection (5:1–10), Paul presses deeper into what it looks like to welcome others into this life in Christ (5:11–21). We see him persuading others (5:11) rather than commending himself (5:12), passing on the message of reconciliation (5:18–19), and imploring his readers (5:20). The message communicated is the gospel itself, that those united to Christ are reconciled to God and enter into the new creation.
Section Outline
II.E. The Ministry of Reconciliation (5:11–6:13)
1. Persuading Others with Integrity (5:11–13)
a. Integrity before God (5:11, 13a)
b. Integrity before the Corinthians (5:12, 13b)
2. Persuading Others in Light of the Climax of History (5:14–17)
a. Christ’s Death and Therefore Ours (5:14–15)
(1) Christ’s Love for Us (5:14)
(2) Our Love for Christ (5:15)
b. A New Outlook on Reality (5:16–17)
(1) The Outlook of the Old Age (5:16)
(2) The Outlook of the New Age (5:17)
3. Persuading Others to Be Reconciled to God (5:18–21)
a. The Source of Reconciliation (5:18)
b. The Message of Reconciliation (5:19)
c. The Agents of Reconciliation (5:20)
d. The Means of Reconciliation (5:21)
Response
Washing over us as we read this passage is the descending flood of God’s grace to sinners in defiance of all that they deserve or even, left to themselves, desire. God took it upon himself to reconcile us to him. He did this not by pulling in a neutral third party to pay our debt but by sending his own beloved Son. He exhausted his righteous divine wrath on that Son in his death on the cross. All that is left now for sinners is to receive the boundless mercy of God that walks us into the newness of life of the latter-day eschaton that was launched in Christ.
And it is our happy privilege to pass on this word of reconciliation to those around us. Who could possibly refuse this? Yes, sinners like us remain blinded, veiled, and needing God himself to shine light into their hearts that are naturally pitch black (4:3–6). But it is through this very word of reconciliation that God does this light-shining work. Let us be “always of good courage” (5:6), then, and “implore” others to “be reconciled to God” (5:20). In doing so we are bringing fellow sinners into the great secret at the heart of the universe—a love too great to be limited to what we deserve.
Or creature
Or God was in Christ, reconciling
5:11 In light of his reflection on appearing before the judgment seat of Christ, Paul speaks of “knowing the fear of the Lord.” Here we must remember what the biblical writers generally mean by “fearing” God or Christ. This is not hopelessly trembling in guilt or shame but responding to Christ in a way that accords with who he is. If Christ is the all-supreme and unswervingly righteous and perfectly holy Ruler of the universe (Col. 1:15–16), something would be wrong with us if we did not feel fear of him—that is, sober-minded, reverential awe, mindful of his knowledge of every hidden thought of our hearts. J. I. Packer explains the “fear of the Lord” in this text as “carrying Old Testament overtones of humble loyalty within the covenantal frame of reverent and adoring awe (as when the fear of the Lord is said to be the beginning of wisdom). Alarm and panic are not in view at all.”
Keenly aware of this Christ, “we persuade others”—the controlling idea of 2 Corinthians 5:11–21. The time is short. Christ will return one day, and all opportunity to repent will be past. Now is the time for salvation (cf. 6:2). The latter-day morning has dawned. The Messiah has appeared on the scene; the Spirit has come down; the Gentiles are flowing in to the people of God. The eschaton is here. Not in final consummation but in decisive inauguration. Urgency is demanded.
In this work of gospel persuasion Paul’s conscience is clear, known to God and the Corinthians (5:11b). What may get missed in translation is that the verb Paul uses here for “known” (Gk. phaneroō) is the same one he has just used in verse 10 to say we will “appear” (i.e., become known) before Christ’s judgment seat. Not only will all believers’ inner lives and motives be disclosed on the final day, but both God and the Corinthians know now Paul’s deepest motives. He is not double-minded or duplicitous. Paul’s gentle appeal comes through: “You Corinthians know this about me, if you are honest . . .”
5:12 Once again Paul has defended his apostolic ministry, unimpressive as it (and he) is. And therefore once again he must head off the objection that he is simply putting himself forward in a self-elevating way. The language of the first part of this verse matches exactly that of 3:1 (“Are we beginning to commend ourselves again?”). Whereas in 3:1 this was a rhetorical question with an implied “no,” in 5:12 it is a clear denial that he and his ministry colleagues are commending themselves.
And yet Paul has indeed been speaking in lofty ways of his ministry these past few chapters. He claims to be an agent of new creational light (4:4, 6), carrying about the very death and life of Jesus in his body (4:10–12). If not to bolster himself, why has he been doing this? To give the Corinthians a supply of arguments with which to fend off the anti-Paul intruders into Corinth, the insincere “peddlers of God’s word” (2:17). These impressive invaders “boast about outward appearance” (lit., “in face”) instead of “what is in the heart.” Note the way Paul is quietly aligning the intruders with the outmoded old covenant glory of the old age, in which divine glory was seen on the “face” of Moses (3:13), whereas new covenant glory shines “in our hearts” (4:6). The gospel inverts our natural predilections to impress outwardly and cover the secrets of the heart.
5:13 This cryptic verse continues Paul’s modest defense of his integrity. Left to its own devices, the human heart knows no other way to operate except by seeking to craft the best possible opinion of oneself. All funnels into this. All of our words and actions are carefully crafted, often driven by motives beneath even our awareness, out of self-interest. This is the flesh.
And this is what Paul is denying. His genuine concern has been for God’s glory and the Corinthians’ benefit. Perhaps, like the Lord he preached (Mark 3:21), Paul was accused of being crazy. Every faithful pastor knows what it is for such whispers to be passed among his people. Paul may be out of his mind regarding his personal relationship with God (cf. 2 Cor. 12:1–6), but even if so, God knows his true heart and motives (5:11). Likewise, to whatever degree Paul is viewed as being in his right mind, this is for the Corinthians’ sake. He appeals to them to receive him accordingly. If they perceive anything right-minded in him, they should not stiff-arm his ministry but rather receive him.
5:14 No, Paul is not animated by arrogant self-concerns. A far nobler motive impels him forward: “the love of Christ” (that is, Christ’s love for us). The verb here for “controls” means to “hem in” and is used, for example, to describe the soldiers’ “holding Jesus in custody” in Luke 22:63. Christ’s love for his people is not one competing motivation among others but is the master motivation, the transcendent, dominating, all-determining engine for Christian life and ministry. As Calvin puts it: “Every one who truly considers and ponders the wonderful love that Christ has shown us in His death, cannot but be bound to Him by the tightest chain so as to devote himself to His service.” We note in passing the Bible’s noncontradictory but healthy complexity in its presentation of the fullness of the living Christ: a Christ the greatness of whose judgment incurs fear (2 Cor. 5:10–11) and yet the greatness of whose love generates all-consuming control.
But what does it actually mean for Christ’s love to control us? Consider the logic of where Paul goes in his argument to drill down into this love. Christ’s love sends us forward, “having judged this” (AT; also 2:1, “made up my mind”)—that is, Christ’s love impels us not toward rash, thoughtless flights of emotion but toward the deliberate consideration of something, namely, “that one has died for all, therefore all have died.” Here we come up against a fundamental hermeneutical axiom of the apostles, that of corporate solidarity. Non-Western Christians will understand this intuitively in a way that Christians in the West may not. This is a basic interpretive lens in both the OT and the NT by which the one stands for the many and the many are represented by the one. Just as Adam represented humanity in his sin, Christ represents his people through his righteousness (Rom. 5:12–21; 1 Cor. 15:22). But this is not only a vicarious, exclusive representation, by which Christ does what we could not do; it is also an inclusive representation, in which we coexperience death with him, though in a nonatoning way. By virtue of our union with Christ, when Christ died, we who are his died in him (cf. Rom. 6:1–4, 10–11; Gal. 2:20; Col. 2:20). That is, we died to self, to pride, to the flesh, to insincerity, to everything the false teachers in Corinth were about.
5:15 Paul repeats the statement that Christ “died for all” but now adds a purpose statement: that “those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” Paul does not say, “Christ died for all, that those who live might not stand condemned.” That is a true statement, and Paul makes it elsewhere (e.g., Rom. 3:24–25; 5:6, 8; 1 Cor. 15:3; 1 Thess. 5:10). This is exclusive place-taking, by which Christ as substitute died under divine wrath so that his people might not. But while this exclusive work spares us from eternal condemnation, our union with Christ puts us in solidarity with him existentially and experientially, as we have already begun to see in 2 Corinthians (e.g., 4:10–11). “No longer” likely has a double meaning, both individually/experientially and aeonically/eschatologically. We “no longer” live for ourselves in our life experience. We have left behind once and for all the life in which love of self “controls us” (cf. 5:14). But we also “no longer” live for self in the sense that we now belong to a new period of history. Our basic identity has been airlifted out of the old age and into the new.
As Paul said to the Corinthians in earlier correspondence, “You are not your own”; rather, all believers have been “bought with a price” (1 Cor. 6:19–20). We have been enslaved by liberating love. We belong to another.
5:16 Continuing the eschatological undercurrent of what has erupted into world history in the death and resurrection of Christ, Paul says that “from now on” we look at people differently. As with “no longer” in verse 15 and again at the end of verse 16, “from now on” likely has at some level a double meaning—“from now on” individually/experientially but also aeonically/eschatologically. Not only henceforth in our personal lives but henceforth on the world stage, for the new age has washed over us and embraced us as its citizens.
Consequently, we apprehend both others and Jesus Christ in an entirely different way, no longer “according to the flesh.” We must remember here the consistent theme in the preceding context of apprehending people’s motives truly, whether Paul’s (v. 11) or the intruders’ (v. 12). Previously we judged according to “outward appearance” (v. 12), easily taken in by what is externally impressive while looking askance at what is weak and frail (such as “jars of clay”; 4:7) according to worldly standards (cf. 1 Cor. 1:26). Now that we have been swept up into the new aeon, however, we no longer gaze at the “things that are seen” (2 Cor. 4:18). Rather, God has opened the eyes of our heart with new creational power (4:6) to unveil and unblind us to the “light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (4:4). We see in the crucified carpenter the supremely dazzling Savior of the world.
5:17 To have one’s eyes opened in this way is a result of being ushered into the new creation that was launched by Christ’s death and resurrection—a point that has been largely kept below the surface but which now explodes explicitly onto the surface of Paul’s train of thought.
The first half of the verse lacks a verb in the Greek: “So that if anyone in Christ—new creation!” In this compact though theologically pregnant statement we first note the reference to union with Christ, which is the broadest way in which Paul speaks of salvation. All the benefits of the gospel come to the believer in Christ—justification, sanctification, reconciliation, adoption, glorification, and so on. Union with Christ is Paul’s macrosoteriological category. But union with Christ answers not only “how” questions (How do we get justified, sanctified, etc.?) but also a “when” question. Where in human history are we? The promised new creation that dawned when Christ was resurrected has embraced us and now defines our locatedness. Paul is not primarily calling believers “new creatures” but asserting that the restoration of Eden that God has been working toward progressively ever since Genesis 3 has finally dawned. Although the exact phrase “new creation” occurs only in one other place (Gal. 6:15), the concept everywhere informs Paul’s writing.
Most fundamentally, therefore, “The old [archaios, related to our English “archaic”] has passed away; behold, the new has come.” This is what the prophets of old had long anticipated (e.g., Isa. 43:18–19; 65:17). What they had not expected was that the old age would continue steamrolling right alongside the new. This is why it is imperative to judge not “according to the flesh” (2 Cor. 5:16; cf. 10:2), for to do so would be to perceive reality according to the old age. But believers have been transferred into the new age. This is their basic identity. This is who they now are. And one day Christ will return, this time not disguised but in open glory, and the old will indeed finally fall away, with only the new remaining.
5:18 A consistent refrain thus far has been the unilateral divine initiative in God’s work to bring about the new creation and welcome sinners into it (e.g., 1:10; 3:5; 4:6, 7; 5:5). So again here: “All this is [lit., “all things are”] from God.” All what? Our being in Christ and placed in the new creation. And now Paul reminds the Corinthians and us of how we got into Christ and thus into the new creation: God reconciled us. Paul does not say that God and we met in the middle. Still less does he say that we reconciled ourselves to God. Rather, God reconciled us to himself. He was the offended party and yet took the initiative to take us back into fellowship with him.
“Reconciliation” is an important way to understand Christian salvation. Whereas for justification the sphere is the courtroom, for sanctification the temple, for redemption the slave market, and for adoption the family, the sphere of reconciliation is that of friendship. In reconciliation believers move from being God’s enemies to being his restored friends. How did God do this? “Through Christ.” God did not casually overlook our treasonous rebellion against him. He sent his own Son to pay the penalty for his people’s sins and wipe away all that stood between us and restored fellowship with God.
Not only did God reconcile us back to himself, he also “gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” This is most immediately true for Paul as an apostle, though by derivation also for today’s pastors and church leaders (Eph. 4:11–12), and at some level also for all of God’s people (1 Pet. 3:15). God not only restored us to himself; he sent us out as those through whom this message of reconciliation would flood out into the world. The word for “ministry” here (Gk. diakonia) is the same word used for “ministry of the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:8) and “ministry of righteousness” (3:9), reminding us that this “ministry of reconciliation,” as clear from 3:8–9, is the ministry of the new age, the dawning eschaton.
5:19 If one were to “click on” verse 18 to press more deeply into it, verse 19 is what would come up on the screen. Verse 19 clarifies and amplifies verse 18.
Whereas in verse 18 Paul speaks of God’s reconciling us, in verse 19 it is said that God was in Christ reconciling the world. This cannot mean every last human being, or else it would be nonsensical for Paul to speak of any need for a ministry of reconciliation by which this gospel would be brought to the world. Rather, Paul is widening out to underscore the broadness of God’s mercy and its global dimensions. Specifically, for Paul, this would include centrally the notion that the Gentiles are welcomed into the people of God as equal heirs of salvation alongside believing Jews (Rom. 15:8–12; Eph. 3:6).
The flip side of “reconciling the world to himself” is “not counting their trespasses against them.” “Counting” (Gk. logizomai) is an important word in NT theology, used throughout Romans 4 and Galatians 3 to speak of our sins not being “counted” against us and instead our being “counted” righteous through faith in Christ (Rom. 4:3–12, 22–24; Gal. 3:6). This is the key word behind the Protestant doctrine of “imputation” (cf. comment on 2 Cor. 5:21). Paul repeats that he and others have been given this message to steward, using “message” (Gk. logos, “word”) of reconciliation after speaking of the “ministry” of reconciliation in verse 18. Reconciliation comes to sinners not through a vision or an impression or a feeling or a hug or an intuition. It comes through words.
5:20 To be an “ambassador” is to operate as a representative on behalf of a higher authority, bringing that ruler’s message on that ruler’s authority and justly expecting a response as if the ruler himself were present. This is what legates would have done on behalf of the emperor in Paul’s day, and it is what national ambassadors do in today’s world. And this is what bearers of the gospel do on Christ’s behalf. God is speaking his word of reconciliation to the world, and he does so not through a heavenly loudspeaker or microphone but through another channel: us. The Greek verb for “making his appeal” is parakaleō, the same verb used to speak of God as “comforting” us in our afflictions (1:4 [3x], 6) and of Paul as “comforted” by the coming of Titus (7:6 [2x], 7). While it would be a bit awkward to translate this somewhat flexible verb as “God comforting through us,” one should not lose the flavor of the kind of “appeal” God is making: he is urging us to enter into his gentle embrace and endless love. His hands are not on his hips, exasperated; his hands are wide open, beseeching.
Paul, in God’s stead, therefore “implores” the Corinthians to be reconciled to God. That is, the unbelievers and recalcitrant in Corinth are implored to enter into Christ and the new age for the first time, while the believers are reminded of their reconciliation to God and taught afresh to conduct themselves accordingly as citizens of the new age.
5:21 All of this leads into the fundamental means of reconciliation and one of the most famous verses in all the Bible, cherished by all who know themselves to be sinful even as they have already been brought into Christ.
We can get at the meaning by repeating this verse with interrupting explanatory glosses: “For our sake [out of sheer grace, in light of need, prompted by his goodness] he [the Father] made him [the Son, Christ] to be sin [not sinful, but counted as a sinner; indeed, to be counted as the focal point of all the accumulated sins of his people across all of human history] who knew no sin [Christ’s being the only flawless life, having zero trace of the old age], so that in him [united to Christ, plugged in to him spiritually and invincibly] we might become the righteousness of God [in new-age union with Christ we are clothed with the perfect robes of Christ’s own righteousness; that is, his flawless record becomes ours, which is counted to us solely through the empty hands of faith, and we are not only acquitted but positively righteous in the sight of God].”
Here we are confronted with the glory, the wonder, of the Christian gospel. Here we penetrate into the core difference between Christianity and every other world religion. We become acceptable and beautiful before God not by what we bring but by what Christ brings, not by what we do but by what he has done. In a wondrous interchange God legally imputes to us Christ’s righteous record and imputes to Christ our wretched record (cf. 1 Cor. 1:30). He, the billionaire, takes our unpayable debt; we, the beggar, receive his bottomless fortune. Across the centuries few have probed more deeply than Martin Luther into what he called the “great exchange”: