2 Corinthians 5

2 Corinthians 5:1

H. Living in the Light of Christ’s Judgment Seat (5:1-10) The verses to follow are closely linked with what has gone before. Paul has been speaking of his present sufferings and distresses, and the future glory which lay before him. This brings him face to face with the subject of death. In this section we have one of the greatest unfoldings of death in all the word of God, and the Christian’s relationship to it. 5:1 In verse 1, the apostle speaks of our present mortal body as our earthly house, this tent. A tent is not a permanent dwelling, but a portable one for pilgrims and travelers. Death is spoken of as the dissolving of this tent. The tent is taken down at the time of death. The body goes into the grave, whereas the spirit and soul of the believer go to be with the Lord. Paul opens the chapter with the assurance that if his earthly house should be destroyed (as a result of the sufferings mentioned in the preceding chapter) he knows he has a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Notice the distinction between tent and building. The temporary tent is taken down, but a new, permanent house awaits the believer in the land beyond the skies. This is a building from God, in the sense that God is the One who gives it to us. Furthermore, it is a house not made with hands. Why should Paul say this? Our present bodies are not made with hands; so why should he emphasize that our future, glorified bodies will not be made with hands? The answer is that the expression not made with hands means not of this creation. This is made clear in Heb_9:11, where we read, But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. What Paul is saying in 2Co_5:1 is that whereas our present bodies are suited to life on this earth, our future, glorified bodies will not be of this creation. They will be especially designed for life in heaven. The believer’s future body is also described as eternal in the heavens. It is a body that will no longer be subject to disease, decay, and death, but one that will endure forever in our heavenly home. It might sound from this verse as if a believer receives this building from God the moment he dies, but that is not the case. He does not get his glorified body until Christ comes back for His church (1Th_4:13-18). What happens to the believer is this. At the time of death, his spirit and soul go to be with Christ where he is consciously enjoying the glories of heaven. His body is placed in the grave. At the time of the Lord’s return, the dust will be raised from the grave, God will fashion it into a new, glorified body, and it will then be reunited with the spirit and the soul. Between death and Christ’s coming for His saints, the believer might be said to be in a disembodied condition. However, this does not mean that he is not fully conscious of all the joy and bliss of heaven. He is! Before leaving verse 1 we should mention that there are three principal interpretations of the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens:

1. Heaven itself.
2. An intermediate body between death and resurrection.
3. The glorified body. The house can scarcely be heaven itself, because it is said to be eternal in the heavens and from heaven (5:2). As far as an intermediate body is concerned, the Scriptures never mention such a body. Moreover, the house not made with hands is described as eternal in the heavens, which would not be true of an intermediate body. The third viewthat the house is the resurrection body of gloryseems to be the correct one. 5:2 In this present mortal body, we are often forced to groan because of the way it limits us and impedes us in our spiritual lives. What we greatly desire is to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven. In this verse, the apostle seems to change his figure from a tent to clothing. A suggested explanation of this is that Paul was a tentmaker and realized that similar material used for tents was also used for clothing. At any rate, the meaning is clear that he longed to receive his glorified body. 5:3 What does naked mean in this verse? Does it mean that the person is unsaved and therefore without any covering of righteousness before God? Does it mean that the person, though saved, will be without reward at the Judgment Seat of Christ? Or does it mean that the saved person does not have a body between the time of death and resurrection, and is naked in the sense that he is a disembodied spirit? This writer understands it to mean disembodied or unclothed. Paul is saying that his earnest desire is not for death, and for the disembodied state that goes with it, but rather for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ when all those who have died will receive their glorified bodies. 5:4 That our interpretation of verse 3 is valid seems to be borne out by verse 4. The apostle says that we who are in this present earthly tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. In other words, he did not look forward to the state between death and the Rapture as the ideal hope of the believer, but to what will take place at the Rapture when believers will receive a body that will no longer be subject to death. 5:5 It is God … who has prepared us for this very purpose, namely, the redemption of the body. This will be the climax of His glorious purposes for us. At the present time we are redeemed as to our spirit and soul, but then redemption will include the body as well. Just think of itGod made us with this goal in viewthe glorified statea house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens! And how can we be sure that we will have a glorified body? The answer is that God … has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. As explained previously, the fact that every believer possesses the indwelling Spirit of God is a pledge that all God’s promises to the believer will be fulfilled. He is a token of what is to come. The Spirit of God is Himself a guarantee that what God has already given to us in part will one day be ours in full. 5:6 It was the deep assurance of these precious realities that enabled Paul to be always of good courage. He knew that as long as he was at home in the body, he was absent from the Lord. This was certainly not the ideal state for Paul, but he was willing that it should be so if he could serve Christ down here and be a help to the people of God. 5:7 The fact that we walk by faith, not by sight is abundant proof that we are absent from the Lord. We have never gazed upon the Lord with our physical eyes. Only through faith have we ever seen Him. As long as we are at home in the body, we have a life that is less close and intimate than the life of actual sight. 5:8 Verse 8 resumes the thought of verse 6 and completes it. Paul is of good courage in view of the blessed hope that lies before him, and he can say that he is well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. He has what Bernard calls a case of heavenly homesickness.This verse might seem to contradict what the apostle has just been saying. In the preceding verses he has been longing for the glorified body. But here he says that he is willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord, that is, willing rather to be in the disembodied state that exists between death and the Rapture. But there is no contradiction. There are three possibilities for the Christian, and it is simply a matter of which is most to be preferred. There is the present life on earth in this mortal body. There is the state between death and the coming of Christ, a disembodied state, but one in which the spirit and soul are consciously enjoying Christ’s presence. Finally, there is the consummation of our salvation when we receive our glorified bodies at the coming again of the Lord Jesus. Paul is simply teaching in this passage that the first state is good, the second is better, and the third is best of all. 5:9 The believer should make it his aim to be well pleasing to the Lord. While his salvation is not dependent on works, his reward in a coming day will be directly proportionate to his faithfulness to the Lord. A believer should always remember that faith is linked with salvation, and works are linked with reward. He is saved by grace through faith, not of works; but once he is saved, he should be ambitious to perform good works, and for so doing he will receive rewards. Notice that Paul wanted to be well pleasing to Him, whether present or absent. This means that his service on earth was designed to bring pleasure to the heart of his Lord, whether Paul was still here on earth or whether he was standing before the Judgment Seat of Christ. 5:10 One motive for being well pleasing to Christ is that we must all appear before His judgment seat. Actually it is not just a matter of appearing there, but of being made manifest. The NEB correctly says, We must all have our lives laid open before the tribunal of Christ. It is one thing to appear in a doctor’s office and quite another thing to be X-rayed by him there. The judgment seat of Christ will reveal our lives of service for Christ exactly as they have been. Not only the amount of our service, but also its quality, and even the very motives that prompted it will be brought into review. Although sins after conversion will have an effect on our service, a believer’s sins, as such, will not be brought into review for judgment at this solemn time. That judgment took place over 1900 years ago, when the Lord Jesus bore our sins in His body on the tree. He fully paid the debt that our sins deserved, and God will never bring those sins into judgment again (Joh_5:24). The judgment seat of Christ has to do with our service for the Lord. It will not be a matter of whether we are saved or not; that is already an assured fact. But it is a matter of reward and loss at that time.

2 Corinthians 5:11

I. Paul’s Good Conscience in the Ministry (5:11-6:2) 5:11 This verse is commonly taken to mean that since Paul was aware of God’s terrible judgment on sin and the horrors of hell, he went everywhere seeking to persuade men to accept the gospel. While true, we believe this is not the primary meaning in this particular passage. Paul is not here speaking so much of the terror of the Lord for the unsaved as of the reverential awe in which he sought to serve the Lord and to please Him. As far as God is concerned, the apostle knows that his life is an open book. But he would like the Corinthians also to be persuaded of his integrity and faithfulness in the ministry of the gospel. And so he says, in effect: Since we know the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade men as to our integrity and sincerity as ministers of Christ. But whether we succeed in persuading men or not, we are well-known to God. And we hope that this will be the case in the consciences of you Corinthians as well! This explanation seems to fit best with the context. 5:12 Immediately Paul realizes that what he has just said might be misinterpreted as self-praise. He does not want anyone to think that he is indulging in that! And so he adds, we do not commend ourselves again to you. This does not mean that he ever had commended himself to them, but he had been accused of doing so time and again, and he here seeks to disabuse their minds of any such idea. Why then has he been giving such a prolonged defense of his ministry? Paul’s answer is We … give you opportunity to boast on our behalf, that you may have an answer for those who boast in appearance and not in heart. He was not interested in commending himself. Rather he realized that he was being sharply criticized by the false teachers in the presence of the Corinthian saints. He wanted the believers to know how to answer these attacks on him, and so he was giving them this information that they might be able to defend him when he was condemned in their presence. He describes his critics as those who boast in appearance and not in heart (compare 1Sa_16:7). In other words, they were interested in outward show, but not in inward reality, integrity, and honesty. Physical appearance or eloquence or seeming zeal meant everything to them. To the externalists, superficial appearances were everything and sincerity of heart counted for nothing (Selected). 5:13 It would seem from this verse that the apostle had even been accused of insanity, of fanaticism, of various forms of mental disturbances. He does not deny that he lived in what Denney has called a state of spiritual tension. He simply says that if he is beside himself, it is for God. Anything that might seem like insanity to his critics was really his deep-hearted devotion for the Lord. He was consumed with a passion for the things of God. If, on the other hand, he was of sound mind, it was for the sake of the Corinthians.

What the verse says, in short, is that all of Paul’s behavior could be explained in one of two ways: either it was zeal for God, or it was for the welfare of his fellow believers. In both cases, his motives were entirely unselfish. Could his critics say that of themselves? 5:14 No one who studies the life of the apostle can fail to wonder what made him serve so tirelessly and unselfishly. Here, in one of the greatest sections of all his letters, he gives the answerthe love of Christ. Does the love of Christ here refer to His love for us or to our love for Him? There can be no question that it is His love for us. The only reason that we love at all is because He first loved us. It is His love that compels us, moves us along, as a person is moved along in a crowd of Christmas shoppers. As Paul contemplated the marvelous love which Christ had shown to him, he could not help but be moved along in service for his wonderful Lord. In dying for all, Jesus acted as our Representative. When He died we all diedin Him. Just as Adam’s sin became the sin of his posterity, so Christ’s death became the death of those who believe on Him (Rom_5:12-21; 1Co_15:21-22). 5:15 The apostle’s argument is irresistible. Christ died for all. Why did He die for all? So that those who live through faith in Him should live no longer for themselves, but for Him. The Savior did not die for us so that we might go on living our own petty, selfish lives the way we want to live them. Rather He died for us so that we might henceforth turn over our lives to Him in willing, glad devotion. Denney explains: In dying our death, Christ has done for us something so immense in love, that we ought to be His, and only His for ever. To make us His is the very object of His death. 5:16 Perhaps Paul is here referring back to verse 12, where he described his critics as those who boast in appearance, and not in heart. Now he takes up that subject again by teaching that when we come to Christ, there is a new creation. From now on we do not judge men in a carnal, earthly way, according to appearances, human credentials, or national origin. We see them as precious souls for whom Christ died. He added that even though he had known Christ according to the flesh, that is, as merely another man, yet he did not know Him in that way any more. In other words, it was one thing to know Jesus as a next-door neighbor in the village of Nazareth, or even as an earthly messiah, and quite another thing to know the glorified Christ who is at the right hand of God at this present time. We know the Lord Jesus more intimately and more truly today as He is revealed to us through the word by the Spirit, than those knew Him who judged Him simply according to human appearances when He was on earth. David Smith comments: Though the Apostle had once shared that Jewish ideal of a secular Messiah, he had now attained to a loftier conception. Christ was for him the risen and glorified Savior, truly not known according to the flesh, but according to the spirit; not by historic tradition, but by immediate and vital fellowship. 5:17 If anyone is in Christ, that is, saved, he is a new creation. Before conversion, one might have judged others according to human standards. But now all that is changed. Old methods of judging have passed away; behold, all things have become new. This verse is a favorite with those who have recently been born again, and is often quoted in personal testimonies. Sometimes in being thus quoted, it gives quite a false impression. Listeners are apt to think that when a man is saved, old habits, evil thoughts, and lustful looks are forever done away, and everything becomes literally new in a person’s life. We know that this is not true. The verse does not describe a believer’s practice but rather his position. Notice it says that if anyone is in Christ.

The words in Christ are the key to the passage. In Christ, old things have passed away and all things have become new. Unfortunately, in me not all this is true as yet! But as I progress in the Christian life, I desire that my practice may increasingly correspond to my position. One day, when the Lord Jesus returns, the two will be in perfect agreement. 5:18 All things are of God. He is the Source and Author of them all. There is no ground for human boasting. It is this same God who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. This splendid statement of the scriptural doctrine of reconciliation is found in A New and Concise Bible Dictionary: By the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross, God annulled in grace the distance which sin had brought in between Himself and man, in order that all things might, through Christ, be presented agreeably to himself. Believers are already reconciled, through Christ’s death, to be presented holy, unblamable, and unreprovable (a new creation). God was in Christ, when Christ was on earth, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing unto them their trespasses; but now that the love of God has been fully revealed in the cross, the testimony has gone out world-wide, beseeching men to be reconciled to God. The end is that God may have His pleasure in man. 5:19 The ministry of reconciliation is here explained as the message that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. There are two possible understandings of this statement, both of which are scripturally correct. First of all, we may think of it as saying that God was in Christ, in the sense that the Lord Jesus Christ is Deity. This is certainly true. But then we could also understand it as meaning that God was, in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. In other words, He was reconciling the world, but He was doing it in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whichever interpretation we accept, the truth remains clear that God was actively removing the cause of the estrangement that had come between Himself and man by dealing with sin. God does not need to be reconciled, but man does need to be reconciled to Him. Not imputing their trespasses to them. At first reading, it might seem that this verse teaches universal salvation, that all men are saved through the work of Christ. But such a teaching would be completely in disagreement with the rest of the word of God. God has provided a way by which men’s trespasses might not be imputed to them, but while that way is available to all, it is effective only in those who are in Christ. The trespasses of unsaved men are definitely reckoned to them, but the moment these men trust the Lord Jesus as Savior, they are reckoned righteous in Him, and their sins are blotted out. In addition to His reconciling work, God has also committed to His servants the word of reconciliation. In other words, He has entrusted them with the marvelous privilege of going forth and preaching this glorious message to all men everywhere. Not to angels did He give such a sacred charge, but to poor, feeble man. 5:20 In the previous verse the apostle said he has been given the message of reconciliation. He has been sent forth to preach this message to mankind. We would like to suggest that from 5:20 through 6:2 we have a summary of the word of reconciliation. In other words, Paul lets us listen to the message which he preached to the unsaved as he went from country to country and continent to continent. It is important to see this. Paul is not here telling the Corinthians to be reconciled to God. They are already believers in the Lord Jesus. But he is telling the Corinthians that this is the message which he preaches to the unsaved wherever he goes. An ambassador is a minister of state, representing his own ruler in a foreign land. Paul always speaks of the Christian ministry as an exalted and dignified calling. Here he likens himself to an envoy sent by Christ to the world in which we live. He was a spokesman for God, and God was pleading through him. This seems rather strange language to apply to an ambassador. Usually we do not think of an ambassador as pleading, but that is the glory of the gospel, that, in it, God is actually on bended knee and with tear-dimmed eye begging men and women to be reconciled to Himself.

If any enmity exists, it exists on man’s part. God has removed any barriers to complete fellowship between Himself and man. The Lord has done all he can possibly do. Now man must lay down his arms of rebellion, must cease his stubborn revolt, and must be reconciled to God. 5:21 This verse gives us the doctrinal foundation for our reconciliation. How has God made reconciliation possible? How can He receive guilty sinners who come to Him in repentance and faith? The answer is that the Lord Jesus has effectively dealt with the whole problem of our sins, so now we can be reconciled to God. In other words, God made Christ to be sin for usChrist who knew no sinthat we might become the righteousness of God in Him. We must beware of any idea that on the cross of Calvary the Lord Jesus Christ actually became sinful in Himself. Such an idea is false. Our sins were placed on Him, but they were not in Him. What happened is that God made Him to be a sin-offering on our behalf. Trusting in Him, we are reckoned righteous by God. The claims of the law have been fully satisfied by our Substitute. What a blessed truth it is that the One who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we who knew no righteousness might become the righteousness of God in Him. No mortal tongue will ever be able to thank God sufficiently for such boundless grace.