2 Corinthians 5

CHAPTER V

XV. “A House not Made with Hands”

2 Corinthians 5:1

1 There is a close connection with the preceding. In 4:18 “we are keeping our eyes on the things that are not seen.” How do we do this, and what are these things not seen? “For” explains. For we know that, if our tent house here on earth is taken down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens. This is what we keep looking at, and it lifts us far above “the things that are seen,” all the persecutions and the death we endure (4:7–15).

“We know” refers only to Paul and to his assistants in the ministry. The previous context as well as what follows in v. 11, etc., show who “we” are. “We know” is often used by Paul to introduce a piece of general Christian knowledge, but here this word is addressed to the Corinthians and does not combine their knowledge with Paul’s. Yet the sense is not “we know” this that you do not know; no emphatic ἡμεῖς is written. The fact is that all true Christians know what is so comforting and strengthening for all of us, that our true home is in heaven. Yet it is only by way of an application that we can add this “we, too, know” to Paul’s “we know.”

Ἐάν with its subjunctive denotes expectancy and thus vividly visualizes what may occur at a future moment. It is significant here, for it does not say positively that Paul and his assistants will die before Christ’s Parousia. Paul does not know when Christ will return and thus expresses himself accordingly. Those are unfair to him who charge him with at first being certain that he will live to see the Parousia and now with having given up this certainty for the opposite, the certainty that he will die long before the Parousia. See further remarks under 4:14.

In the expression “our tent house here on earth,” ἐπίγειος = “here on earth” and denotes a place; its opposite is “in the heavens,” which is again local. Our versions use “earthly,” which may pass if it intends to refer to a place. The word is not equal to ὀστράκινος which occurs in 4:7, “earthen,” made of earth. In ἡοἰκίατοῦσκήνους the genitive is appositional or definitional (R. 498) and is thus the main word: “the house of the tent” = the tent home. Its opposite is οἰκοδομή, a permanent “building,” the permanence of which is fully stated by ἐκΘεοῦ, “from God.” This building has its whole source and origin (ἐκ) in God.

While it, too, is an οἰκία like the tent οἰκία, the latter is one that is constructed by ourselves, by our hands, while the one in heaven is “not made with hands,” one that is vastly above any handiwork, any fashioning or constructing by ourselves. God’s grace and glory create it. And thus it can, of course, never be taken down as a tent is always taken down. Καταλύειν corresponds exactly to σκῆνος or “tent”; our idiom is “to strike tent”; the Greek idiom is “to loose completely” (κατά perfective), to loose the ropes from the pegs so that the stretched canvas collapses and can be rolled up.

Here we again have a beautiful sentence in which all terms are exact and placed in exact contrast. “Our tent house here on earth,” which may be taken down at any time, is our earthly existence, it is like living in a tent, simply that sort of a home or οἰκία (see “for a season” in 4:18). Its opposite is “a building from God, a house or home not made with (human) hands, eternal, in the heavens” with God and Christ: a permanent, glorious, infinitely blessed existence in heaven. Let the one form of existence or life come to an end, be folded up and put away like a tent; we have the other awaiting us, an existence and a life like an everlasting, great building, which were created for us by God himself in heaven. The sense of what Paul says (his metaphors are so carefully worded) is simple and easily understood.

The usual form of a condition of expectancy is ἐάν with the subjunctive (protasis) and future indicative (apodosis). But here the apodosis has ἔχομεν, a present indicative, “we have.” R. 1019 regards this as a futuristic present or as expressing Paul’s confidence. Now, Paul says, amid all our sufferings, in this our tentlike existence and earthly life, “we have and possess” the eternal, heavenly existence and life. It is “not seen” (4:18) as yet by our earthly eyes, it is regarded and looked upon (σκοπεῖν, 4:18) by the eyes of faith, but it is there in heaven awaiting us. The mansions for this existence are already built (John 14:2). In what manner we already have this coming glory life the Scriptures tell over and over again: as heirs, as coheirs of Christ. “An eternal weight of glory” (4:17) is already worked out for us. This is the “building from God, not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens.”

The R. V. prints in its margin “bodily frame” as a translation for σκῆνος. Dictionaries follow the cue, B.-P. 1212; M.-M. 577: “the body as the dwelling place of the soul,” and cite our passage. But this is a rare, semioccasional use of the word and is found in the writings of only a few philosophers. We cannot agree that Paul uses a philosophic word here and in v. 4 when he is addressing his readers who were for the most part ordinary people. Was Paul not a tentmaker? Had he not worked for a year and a half in the shop of Aquila making tents right in Corinth? When the Corinthians heard σκῆνος from this tentmaker’s pen read to them, could they think that he meant “bodily frame” and not “tent”?

And this philosophic use of the word here nullifies Paul’s contrast. If “our tent house here on earth” = our bodily frame, our house of the soul, then “a building from God,” etc., must mean a corresponding heavenly body. At death the earthly body remains on earth, in the grave; the soul alone enters heaven. So the commentators and the makers of the dictionaries think that in heaven the soul receives some kind of body from God.

Some advance the inadequate idea that in place of our earthly body we get heaven, a mansion in the skies: the soul is here tented in “the bodily frame,” it lives there in its eternal mansion. The soul does not carry a mansion around with it in heaven as it carries the body around with it here on earth. So others advance a view that is more consistent. In place of the body tent that is left in the grave the soul gets some kind of an ethereal body when it enters heaven at death. It would otherwise be “naked” (v. 3). Clothed thus with this ethereal body, the old earthly body is, of course, no longer needed, its resurrection is unnecessary. We are thus told that Paul has changed the opinion he so valiantly defended in 1 Cor. 15; conjecture seeks to supply what intervened so as to produce this change; at any rate, we are informed that Paul has discarded belief in the resurrection of the body.

The idea of ethereal bodies (some think of ether, others of a firelike substance) is theosophical and anti-Scriptural. It is frequently extended also to the angels; they, too, are invested with such bodies. Consistent reasoning along this line extends the idea even to God, and also he is given a body. We need not follow the argumentation which supports these ideas. Let us add that “we have” is sometimes extended to mean that these ethereal bodies are now ready, awaiting the coming of our naked souls. Still more is offered, for some hold that the souls of the dead, also of the godly dead, do not enter heaven at death but enter an intermediate place, the Totenreich. “The great problem,” as it is called, is thus complicated still more.

Even a man like Besser is drawn into this current. We are glad to name Stosch, Apostolische Sendschreiben II, 147, as one who is more reliable. Left to the common run of commentaries, Field and the Expositor’s Greek New Testament among them, our preachers are frequently led astray and are unclear in their sermons on this great Pauline text. For this reason we mention a few names. We may note also that Paul’s words do not lend themselves to such an interpretation. Take the adjective “not made with hands.” We are told that it is not used properly here since “the natural body is also, of course, not made with hands.” This adjective is a warning that “the tent” does not mean “the body” or “bodily frame.” But this adjective plainly implies that “our tent house here on earth” is made with (human) hands.

So, preserving the idea of the body or bodily frame, it is thought to be made “by the hands of the Erzeuger,” of the parents who beget the body (Windisch). It is not the physical body that is made with hands but our life here on earth as we live it in our earthly existence. It could not be without our hands and all that they make for us and do for us, all of which is not needed for the existence and the life to come, either before or after resurrection day. We have one of the essential distinctions between tent οἰκία and heavenly οἰκία.

2 Corinthians 5:2

2 For, in addition (καί), in this we continue to groan, longing (constantly) to put on our habitation, the one (that is) from heaven (and bears the nature of its origin, ἐκ). Καί is not “verily” (R. V.), nor is it to be omitted (A. V.). It adds the subjective feeling (groaning and longing) to the objective fact (we know that we have); and “for” makes the new statement explanatory. We need spend no time on determining the antecedent of ἐντούτῳ, for in v. 4 its counterpart is “we who are in the tent”; so here “in this tent” (σκῆνος, v. 1) is the meaning. The sense is simple and clear: In our present life and existence, filled, as they are, with affliction (4:8–18), we can only groan and long to enter the blessed, heavenly existence which is prepared and awaiting us.

The thought is the same as that found in Rom. 8:22, 23, and the same verb “to groan” is used. Both the verb and the participle are present and durative: continue to groan and to long. The groaning is due to the life here, the longing to the glory (“eternal weight of glory,” 4:17) beyond.

Paul advances the idea of “a building from God” by now writing “the habitation, the one from heaven,” ἐκ, with heaven as its origin, thus heavenly in its very nature. “Habitation” = occupancy and thus “building,” and the two ἐκ phrases: “from God” and “from heaven,” indicate the same source. When we remember that these metaphorical terms mean the heavenly life and existence we have no difficulty with regard to ἐπενδύσαθαι, “to put on ourselves,” aorist middle.

Metaphors picture realities; their propriety and their excellence are governed by the realities they are intended to express. The heavenly existence and life awaiting us are put on by us at death. Paul has called them “an eternal weight of glory”; this envelops our soul at death, a divine, heavenly garment, indeed, “from God,” “from heaven.” The word “habitation” is the middle link: we inhabit a building and still more a garment. “Habitation” and the verb “inhabit” contain the very idea of “habit” or garment. “To put on” is thus perfectly proper as a figure, but it is, as is characteristic of Paul’s method of writing, an advance of the idea, a fuller, more intense expression for the great reality to be pictured.

Nor should we forget that “the things not seen” (4:18) are ineffable. The Scriptures constantly resort to figurative language in an effort to convey some impression of them to us. The realities cannot be put into direct human language. Besides using figures to present the positive side they also employ negatives: not so as here on earth: no tears, no death, no sorrow, crying, or pain—all these have passed away (Rev. 21:4). Even so, as we catch dimly what is meant, the glory of it all overwhelms us. It is not easy to put divine and heavenly realities into a human, earthly medium.

The very verb “to put on ourselves” bars out the view that an exchange of bodies is referred to in v. 1. This earthly body was never “put on,” from our conception onward we were never without it. The Scriptures know of no ethereal body that our soul puts on when it leaves the body of clay. The old earthly life and mode of existence are taken down and folded away like a tent; the new heavenly life and existence are put on like a glory garment. This is what the Scriptures teach.

But this is not all. The best of men may miss Paul’s thought, and we should all pray that the Spirit may ever guide us. And the Analogy of Faith and the Analogy of Scripture will be valuable guides. Paul’s thought is sometimes misunderstood because of the ἐπί found in the infinitive ἐπενδύσασθαι. In v. 3 Paul has ἐνδυσάμενοι without ἐπί. This is enough.

In many instances the addition of a preposition only strengthens the idea of the verb, and in repetitions the preposition is dropped. The verb Paul uses is sometimes taken to mean “to put on over” the earthly body this heavenly garment, this ethereal (theosophic) body. And the following thought is constructed. Paul dreads to die; he is afflicted with Todesscheu, horror of death. Since he writes “we,” Timothy, Titus, etc., also cringe before death. What they long for is Christ’s Parousia so that they may be changed while they are still alive, which is conceived as putting on the ethereal body over (ἐπί) the physical body.

Windisch suggests “that the Himmelskleider (heavenly robes) would be brought along by the angels who accompany the Messiah.” But 1 Thess. 4:15 states, “Shall not prevent them who are asleep.”

2 Corinthians 5:3

3 With strong assurance Paul adds: since also—and this is placed beyond all question—after having put it on, we shall be found not naked, no indeed! Εἴγε = siquidem in the sense of “since” (Liddell and Scott, 4262), literally, “if indeed, which is assured.” The aorist participle expresses the one act of putting on the habitation and precedes the future “shall be found”: “after having put it on.” In v. 2 the aorist infinitive likewise indicates the one act. The sense of οὑγυμνοί, “not naked,” is determined according to the context; “not naked” = fully and forever clothed, never found otherwise after this garment has once been put on, never destitute of a habitation like those who are cast into outer darkness.

The charge that this is too simple a thought is unwarranted. Throughout all his trials, with death constantly impending, the one comfort and stay of Paul and his assistants are “the things not seen” (4:18), “the eternal weight of glory” (4:17), this everlasting habitation, which, should death strike them down, will not let them be found naked as those will be found who look only to “the things seen.” We do not read εἴγε as an indirect question: “whether, indeed, we shall really be found as clothed and not naked,” i.e., groaning with this question in mind. This turns Paul’s assurance into doubt and negatives all that he has said (4:1–18), negatives also “we know” (5:1).

Few words of Paul’s have been as variously interpreted as this little clause, and some say he should never have written it. Plato has been referred to as giving the word γυμνοί the meaning souls deprived of their bodies, poor wraiths in the nether world. Plummer regards them as souls in sheol “without form and void of all power and activity,” and R., W. P. likewise. Not once does Paul use the word “souls,” to say nothing of “naked souls” à la Plato or some paganized Jew. And would these naked souls be happy if they got back their bodies? Does the body constitute bliss for the soul in the nether world or in sheol?

The interpretation: “if so be that, being clothed (with the garment of Christ’s righteousness), we shall not be found naked (destitute of the right to heaven),” which is offered by a few, would serve excellently for homiletical purposes and would keep fully to the Analogy of Faith, but it is not suggested by the text or the context. This interpretation is only a pious effort to put an orthodox meaning into Paul’s words.

2 Corinthians 5:4

4 A little more (καί) must be said in explanation (γάρ) of the previous statement about our groaning. See καὶγάρ in v. 2. For also, as they that are in this tent we keep groaning as being weighted down for the reason, not that we want to put off, but to put on in order that the mortal may be swallowed up by the life. We are not Stoics, we feel the burden and we groan; not because we are cowards and just want to escape our burden, but because we want to put on the heavenly life. So both the groaning and the longing mentioned in v. 2 are further elucidated.

By substantivizing and by writing οἱὄντεςκτλ. Paul secures an apposition: “we, as being in the tent.” This avoids an adverbial idea such as “while or because we are in the tent” and merely describes the subject: “we who are,” etc. “The tent” with the article of previous reference is enough in the Greek; in the English we say “in this tent,” i.e., in this transient, tentlike life and existence, which, like a tent, shall presently be taken down, no longer to be used. The wording is a little fuller than it was in v. 2: “in this (i.e., tent) we groan.” An unmodified participle is now added adverbially: “we groan as weighted down,” since we are under a constant, depressing burden.

What the heavy burden is Paul has described in 4:8, 9. It is surely enough to make anyone groan. The thought is not that we are womanish and always give way to our feelings in loud complaints; but we do feel the burden, and our hearts groan inwardly. There is a kind of paradox in the idea of a tent, which is light enough, and in being burdened, which implies something overheavy. In v. 2 the participle that is paired with groaning is “longing,” which looks forward; here it is “burdened,” which looks at the present.

Ἐφʼ ᾧ, in the classics also the plural ἐφʼ οἷς, here as well as in Rom. 5:12 and Phil. 3:12 = ἐπὶτούτῳὅτι, B.-D. 294, 4; darum dass, weil, 235; see also R. 604; Abbott-Smith, Lexicon 166, etc.: “for the reason that, because”; B.-P. 447, and many others. This phrase amounts to a mere conjunction: “because.” See further Rom. 5:12. Paul now restates and explains what he means by the longing mentioned in v. 2. It is not a longing to escape but a longing to attain. It is not cowardice but glorious hope.

There are many who tire of life and its excessive burdens; that is a morbid state which Christians should conquer. Some also quail at the thought of death, but this, too, is not the normal Christian feeling. Worldly men prefer anything to the great vicissitudes of this life and then simply throw life away with the thought that the hereafter cannot be worse. This negative motive is wholly foreign to Paul and to his assistants. When they groan under their heavy burden as ministers of Christ, the reason is (ἐφʼ ᾧ), “not that we want to put off, but (that we want) to put on.” The two infinitives are enough; they need no objects, especially not in the Greek. The Greek mind is always nimble enough to supply what the thought requires whereas the English mind is slow and often demands that the objects of verbs be written out. While it is a little terse for the English reader, yet even to him it is clear: “not do we want to put off but to put on.” The emphasis is on these two infinitives which are aorists because the acts are momentary.

The ἵνα clause forms the climax of the entire statement. It states the real purpose, aim, and object of what we want when we groan under our burden in this tentlike existence. It states this object in language that overtops all the metaphors that were used in the preceding verses, for the two realities are now named outright: τὸθνητόν and ἡζωή, and the verb climaxes the figure of putting on a garment and in this climax comes far nearer to the actual reality: “to swallow up.” It is the identical verb that was used in 1 Cor. 15:54: “Swallowed up was the death in victory.” In fact, in 1 Cor. 15:53, 54 the same advance is made from the idea of putting on to that of swallowing up; study the passage as Paul’s own commentary on what he is now saying. None better has been written. “In order that swallowed up this mortal may be by the life”—that is the purpose which we so mightly desire to have fulfilled when we groan as we do.

Τὸθνητόν, a substantivized neuter adjective, in classic Greek fashion is more than the abstract noun, for it is most concrete: our entire mortal existence. “The life” is not ἡψυχή, mortal life animating a body in its earthly existence, but ἩΖΩΗ, “the life,” spiritual, divine, heavenly, eternal, the existence in heavenly glory of which Paul has been speaking. This life shall swallow up the mortal one. Nothing shall be left of it just as death shall be swallowed up in victory (1 Cor. 15:54). This life, born in regeneration, working in us now (4:12) so that we are already οἱζῶντες, “the ones really living” (4:11), at our death will swallow up our earthly existence and leave nothing but itself. Christ is “the life” (John 14:6), the source of the life for us, the life Paul has in mind. Amid this mortal with its heavy load—who would not groan for this that is life indeed? Indeed, we wish to die that we may live.

The ἐπί in ἐπενδύσασθαι is again stressed as it was in v. 2, and we are told that Paul was kreuzesscheu and todesscheu, shied at the cross and at death, and that what he wanted was the earliest possible return of Christ so that he would not need to undergo death but would be changed in the twinkling of the eye, the life thus swallowing up all that was mortal in him. But Paul contradicts this view in the very next words.

2 Corinthians 5:5

5 Now he who wrought us out for this very thing (is) God, he who gave us the pledge of the Spirit. The entire credit belongs to God. He made us what we are; he did it by giving us his Spirit. By the use of two substantivized participles instead of verbal modifiers, everything is centered most personally on Θεός, the predicate, which is hence without the article; the copula is omitted for the sake of greater emphasis. He is the One who wrought us “for this very thing,” namely that the life is presently to swallow up all that is mortal. “This very thing” is God’s aim and goal in all his previous work in us. Surely, then, we, too, should long for its consummation.

For this “he gave us the pledge of the Spirit” (see the explanation in 1:22), the great down payment as a full guarantee that all the rest would follow. This gift he made to us in baptism; it has ever been ours, always our ἀρραβών, which is even increased by hearing the Word and by partaking of the Lord’s Supper. “He gave” makes the assurance objective and subjective in one: the gift—objective; we experiencing the giving and having the gift—subjective. Only a little while, and the consummation will follow.

XVI. “We Are of Good Courage”

2 Corinthians 5:6

6 Knowing what we do about the life that awaits us despite all our groaning in the present life and our longing for the life for which God himself has made us ready, “we are of good courage” and only too ready to be at home with the Lord and make it our aim to please him even as we must all appear before his judgment seat. Οὗν thus introduces the conduct that is in proper accord with the convictions which steady us amid our groaning while we are here in the body. All that is stated in the section from v. 1 to 10 is woven closely and compactly together so that we do not follow those who find a contradiction between the groaning (v. 2, 4) and the good courage.

Accordingly, being of good courage always and having come to know that while at home in the body we are away from home from the Lord—for by way of faith we walk, not by way of sight—we are then (δέ) of good courage and well-pleased rather to be away from home out of the body and to be at home with the Lord.

This is not an anacoluthon unless this term is made very broad. After the parenthesis Paul takes up θαρροῦντες with the finite θαρροῦμεν and marks that fact with δέ. We have no irregularity. The sentence is purposely constructed thus because it enables Paul to repeat the verb. He has twice written “we are groaning,” so he now wishes to write twice that “we are of good courage,” and by doing this in the same sentence, once with the participle and then with the finite verb, he makes this even stronger than the two “we are groaning,” in which we have mere repetition. “Being of good courage, we are of good courage.” So he said previously, and that also twice, in 4:1, 16: “we do not faint.” That is the negative side of what is now stated positively, being of good courage. The groaning is, then, not a contradiction.

Many a man has been in great hardship and even mortal danger and has yet not lost heart but has kept high courage to the last. In fact, groaning amid severe experiences shows that not fainting and keeping courage are genuine.

But the good courage of Paul and of his assistants is not like that of worldly men who face misfortunes and dangers with head erect and flying colors and march right into the jaws of death. They face eternity blindly and rush to their doom. Paul and his helpers are not like that. He has already shown us the solid ground on which their assurance and their courage rest. See 4:6, 14, 17; 5:1, 5. This does not call for further repetition; it is enough to say how they have come to view their present situation in the light of their assurance regarding death and eternity.

Why should they grow faint and discouraged when in the body they are away from the Lord only for a little while and are soon to join him forever? Note the tenses: “being of good courage always,” durative present; “having come to know,” ingressive aorist. Once having reached the point of this knowledge, their courage goes on without a single misgiving.

Paul has not dropped the figure of the tent, house, building, and habitation which he used in v. 1 and 2. He advances it and makes it more personal when he speaks of putting on and putting off. And he does so still more when he uses “to be at home” and “to be away from home.” This is typical of Paul’s mind; he sees all the different angles and facets of the thought, all the ways in which he may turn and adapt a metaphor. One is at home in a house that really belongs to him. The body is a house that belongs to us in its present state only for the time being; the heavenly glory is our everlasting habitation and home.

In ἐνδημεῖν and ἐκδημεῖν we have δῆμος or “people” and thus “to be among one’s own people,” i.e., at home, and “to be away from one’s own people,” a pilgrim or stranger in alien surroundings, i.e., away from home. So Paul says that we have come to know “that while we are at home in the body,” in this our distressful earthly existence, “we are away from home from the Lord,” away from that blessed existence in the visible company of our Lord, the true home of all God’s blessed children. The statement is perfectly clear. It prepares us for the coming one which reverses this our rather being away from home out of the body and at home with the Lord. The chiasm is beautiful to say nothing about thus using “at home” and “away from home.”

2 Corinthians 5:7

7 The parenthesis explains (γάρ) by at once stating the reality: “for by way of faith we walk, not by way of sight.” In this manner we now walk and live, altogether by way of faith and not by way of sight. This explains both what we have and what we lack while we are at home in the body and far from home from the Lord; it also states both what we shall not need and what we shall have when we get to be at home with the Lord. The thought evidently reverts to 4:18, “the things not seen.” We now have only faith with regard to them; they shall be actual objects of sight anon. Διά expresses the medium, we may render it “by” or, as we here attempt, “by way of.” Yet “faith” is not minimized as though it amounts to little or nothing. Heb. 11:1 should preserve us from that idea. For this life “faith” is everything, the all-sufficient substitute for “sight.” It deals with the unseen as if it were the seen: “seeing it afar off” as strangers and pilgrims on the earth (read Heb. 11:13). By dealing with “the things not seen” in this way faith really has them, and sight will follow.

Even the world, in its worldly affairs, goes on faith or trust. If no man trusted another, earth would be an earthly hell. Let men mock at Christian faith, these very mockers have faith in handling their own affairs. The trouble with the world is that its faith is so often misplaced, it trusts where it is cheated, where it ought to mistrust; it mistrusts where it ought to trust and thus again cheats itself. Take these mockers at Christian faith: they will not trust Christ and cheat themselves in that way; they do trust in religious fakes and so cheat themselves once more. The faith by which we walk, as did Paul, rests on the Rock of Ages.

Unseen, it holds Christ and salvation, and soon these shall be fully seen. They who demand sight too soon will also have to wait, but then they shall have more sight than they want, enough to terrify them forever.

Εἶδος is not ὄψις, “seeing,” yet this need not cause difficulty as far as the contrast with πίστις or faith is concerned. The former is species, the visible appearance of the thing itself. Yet Trench adds regarding ἰδέα (= εἶδος): species sub oculos cadens, something that is seen with the connotation that there is one who does the seeing. As in connection with πίστις, the act of believing, we think also of him who is believed, so it is with regard to εἶδος, but the reverse: with the appearance we think of the act of seeing the appearance, for without this act appearance would be nothing. Our English “sight” is quite good; a sight is objective, yet it is called so only because it is subjectively seen.

In both “faith” and “sight,” we should note, the same object is referred to, which, we may say, is here the Lord (mentioned twice), once not seen directly (faith), finally seen with direct vision (sight). Another point: heavenly sight will not end faith as such (see the author on 1 Cor. 13:13): trust goes right on in heaven; only this will be ended, that then faith will need to do without sight as it must now. Compare John 20:29 on faith and sight (Thomas) and 1 Cor. 13:12 on the sight “in part” that is possible now.

2 Corinthians 5:8

8 “We are, then (δέ), of good courage” as has already been stated by the participle. The point is emphasized, and they are mistaken who think that the main statement is that “we are well-pleased rather to be away from home out of the body,” etc. No; courageous, courageous are we—that is the main point, and to this καί adds another which lies in what is said about our now walking by way of faith and not yet also by sight, namely that we should prefer to have also sight. This is the explanation of the longing mentioned in v. 2. Our longing is to be satisfied by realization. What faith now embraces as being unseen it shall presently embrace as seen. “The things not seen” now (4:18) shall presently turn to things seen.

This must come, otherwise faith would trust in something that does not exist, it would be like the faith of the worldling who trusts in something that does not exist and that he will, therefore, never see. He is like a man who thinks that he has a million dollars in the bank, who goes on in this fatuous faith, and who, when he at last tries to draw out his million, finds that he never had a million, finds that he owes a million and cannot pay. We trust that our bank has a million dollars that were deposited for us by Christ; he has, indeed, deposited them for us, and when at death we come to draw them out, they will be handed out to us, we shall get sight of every penny of them, shall have them in our hands forever.

Certainly, then, we are of good courage as we go on here in the body, walking by faith. Why should we not be? And yet at the same time this, too (καί), is our feeling that we are pleased rather (i.e., that we prefer) “to be away from home out of the body and to be at home with the Lord.” See the same thought in Phil. 1:21–23. The present existence in the body is like being at home (v. 6) but like living in a tent (v. 1, 4), in only a temporary home. What makes it temporary is the fact that we can now live only by faith, faith that still has to wait for sight of him in whom it trusts. We are thus while we are at home here really away from home from the Lord, from the full, blessed sight of him (v. 6).

So faith ever longs for and greatly prefers “to be at home with the Lord,” everlastingly at home. That is being at home indeed. For this is the ultimate, the eternal goal. Nor could the soul attain or hold more even as more cannot be imagined.

Paul is speaking about death: “out of the body.” He has been speaking about nothing else throughout, (5:1, etc.). The idea that he dreads to die, that he groans to escape dying by living to see the Parousia and then being transformed, is unwarranted. All that is true is that ἐάν in v. 1 leaves the possibility that the Parousia may come at any time. To be sure, “out of the body” means that the body will be left behind; it will go to the grave. To say that this will be the end of it, to deny the resurrection of the body on the strength of this phrase, is untenable. The proposal that we should believe that Paul has given up all that he wrote in 1 Cor. 15, the most magnificent presentation of the resurrection of the body in the entire Bible; that Paul has now come to believe that the body will not be raised up at the Parousia, is unacceptable to us.

At one time we are to believe that Paul wanted his body to be transformed at the Parousia and then that, if he died, his body would never be raised and transformed. Yes, there is a separation from the body; but 4:11 has already told us that in due time the body will be made to share in the home with the Lord: “and will present us together with you.”

It remains to note the prepositions. In v. 6 it is “away from home ἀπό the Lord,” and in v. 8 “at home πρός the Lord.” The latter = “face to face”; R. 625: “It is the face-to-face converse with the Lord that Paul has in mind.” The other preposition means that we are still “away from” this. In v. 6 “in the body” = “away from the Lord”; in v. 8 “out of the body” = “face to face with the Lord.” The exactness of these prepositions ought not to escape our attention.

2 Corinthians 5:9

9 In v. 6–8 we see the feelings that stir in the hearts of Paul and of his assistants; we are now shown their corresponding conduct: Therefore also we are making it our honor aim, whether at home or whether away from home, to be well-pleasing to him. Those who have this hope purify themselves even as he is pure, 1 John 3:3. The thought of approaching nearer and nearer to the Lord and of soon seeing him face to face, makes us ashamed to do anything that is displeasing to him, spurs us on to do everything that is well-pleasing to him. Note how “we are well-pleased” corresponds with our being “well-pleasing” to the Lord.

Φιλοτιμούμεθα is a noble word, containing, as it does, both “affection” and “honor”: “to act from love of honor,” honor that the Lord bestows. R., W. P., points out that the Latin ambitio, from ambire, to go both ways to gain a point, has an ignoble flavor. The A. V.’s “we labor,” margin “endeavor” is not good; the R. V.’s “we make it our aim,” margin “are ambitious” is only a little better. “We love it as a point of honor” ever to be well-pleasing to the Lord, not only to do what he says, but to have him take pleasure in us and in all that we do.

And we do this “whether being at home or whether being away from home”; whether being in this life or in the next. “For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore or die, we are the Lord’s,” Rom. 14:8. “That, whether we wake or sleep, we may live together with him,” 1 Thess. 5:10. In v. 6 and 8 the words are placed chiastically: at home—away from home; away from home—at home. But each is defined by the addition of a phrase. We now have only the two participles without phrases in the sense: no matter in which state we find ourselves, at home or away from home, all we want is to have the Lord pleased with us. It is most natural, however, to think of being in this bodily life and being out of it at death and not the reverse, of being with the Lord and still being away from him. The implication is also that it belongs wholly to the Lord into what condition he places is. Our supreme concern is that he ever be pleased with us.

How we may ever please him need not be said here; it has been indicated throughout. In the case of the Corinthians, however, the point to be noted is that they should understand and fully appreciate the motives of Paul and of his helpers, these motives and these aims in all that they have been doing with the situation in Corinth, yea, in all that they will yet do. Paul and his helpers are pleasing neither themselves nor men but ever only the Lord. Do the Corinthians want them to do that? Will they themselves not want to join Paul and his assistants in that? Paul is not saying all of this just for his own sake; in 4:15 he says plainly: “All these things are because of you.”

2 Corinthians 5:10

10 The thought of being with the Lord and of being well-pleasing to him brings to mind the last judgment. For we must all be made publicly manifest before the judgment seat of Christ in order that each one may get to carry away the things (done) by means of the body, according to what things he did, whether something good or something bad.

This is the great fact that Paul and his helpers always keep in mind. Τοὺςπάνταςἡμᾶς = “the whole number of us” (R. 773) and takes them all together in their totality. Φανερωθῆναι is passive, hence it means more than “appear” (A. V.), it is rather “be made manifest” (R. V.), but with the idea of the greatest and completest publicity: before the whole world of angels and men so that all of them may see who and what we really have been. Christ will do this with us.

Δεῖ denotes all forms of necessity, here the one from which no man can escape. The βῆμα is the dais or platform on which the chair for the judge stands, from which he pronounces his verdict. The scene pictured is the final judgment with Christ (note that he is named according to his office: he who is our Savior will be our Judge) seated on the platform, all of us facing him, and all of us made public so that nothing shall be hid. Human courts and human judges try to achieve this, they often do so with poor success. Those who are being tried hide their guilt as much as they can, their lawyers help them in this, the prosecution often connives, is inefficient or even tries to invent guilt or to exaggerate such guilt as there is. The all-perfect judgment before the omniscient and all-righteous divine Judge awaits us all.

We are all judged now and in the instant of death. This judgment is secret. Many a man dies concerning whom we are wholly uncertain as to how Christ judges him. Even when we feel certain we know that we may be mistaken. The last judgment is public. All the verdicts are the same, but now they are not only made public, now they are also publicly substantiated and established before the universe as being just; see further Rom. 2:5. For this reason the Scriptures regularly state that the judgment at the last day will be based on our works: “in order that each one may get to carry away (aorist) the things (done) by means of the body” in his present existence.

This is not work-righteousness. Nor does this plural refer to isolated works, one here and one there. These things done by means of the body (τά makes a substantive of διὰτοῦσώματος) constitute the sum of each man’s life, what his life truly amounts to in God’s sight: πρὸςἃἔπραξεν, “facing what he really did.” And this will be one of two things: ἀγαθόν, a sum or unit that is “good” in God’s sight or one that is φαῦλον, “bad,” good for nothing. The one is the fruit of a life of faith that was marked and beautified by trust in Christ and thus revealed to all eyes who it was that produced this “good.” The other is the product of a condition where faith was absent and reveals the unbeliever as what he truly was.

In no case will there be the least doubt. So, too, it will be faith or its absence on which the verdict will rest, but both as determined by the indisputable public evidence of the works. All the saving power of faith in Christ will appear, all the damning power of refusal to trust Christ. No balance will be struck for the believer between the sins he committed and the good works he did as though the latter offset the former. All his sins will be utterly wiped out by the blood of Christ, removed as far as the east is from the west (Ps. 103:12), cast into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19), blotted out, yea, blotted out as a thick cloud (Isa. 43:25; 44:22), not to be found forever. All the imperfections of his good works will also be removed forever.

No inquisition will or can be made into any believer’s sins. In their place will be found only Christ’s blood and righteousness.

But in the case of the unbeliever everything, even what the world was pleased to call good, will be marked by unbelief and insult to Christ. Yes, that will be a revelation indeed. Paul and his assistants ever keep it before their eyes so that they may please the Lord. And what is thus stated applies to “us all,” to the Corinthians also, so that they may take it to heart in their treatment of Paul. These words are written to them.

Note how Paul varies the plural and the singular. First, “the whole number of us” in mass, next, “each one” as an individual; first, τά and πρὸςἅ, all that each has done, next, singulars, unit sums, ἀγαθόν or φαῦλον. On the latter see Trench, Synonyms. The verb κομίζω, here the aorist subjunctive middle, means more than “receive,” it means “may carry away with or for himself.” The thought is that all that each one has done in the body is decreed by the Judge to be his own so that he may take and carry it away together with all the consequences. Thus, when a murderer is sentenced by the judge, he carries his crime away with him to the gallows or to the electric chair; the innocent man, acquitted by the judge, carries his innocence away to freedom and to honor. The absolute justice of Christ is indicated in this verb.

XVII. “The Love of Christ Constrains Us”

2 Corinthians 5:11

11 In close connection with Christ, the Lord, whom they ever seek to please, and before whose judgment seat we all must appear, Paul and his assistants conduct their ministry and want to be judged and esteemed accordingly by the Corinthians. Accordingly, having come to know the fear of the Lord, we are busy persuading men and have (long already) been made manifest to God, and I hope have (long already) been made manifest also in your consciences.

Οὗν connects what is said about the fear of the Lord and its effect with what is said about the judgment in v. 10 and about the holy ambition to please the Lord in v. 9. The aorist εἰδότες is again (v. 6) ingressive: “having come to know.” “The fear of the Lord”—why our versions translate this “the terror” we are unable to say—is the same in both the Old and the New Testament. Together with the love of God it controls the Christian during his whole life.

Only the godly have this holy fear. Its distinctive mark is that it is always combined with trust in God and love toward God and is thus differentiated from the fear and dread of God which at last overwhelms the ungodly. The fear of God ever shrinks from offending him, from calling forth his judgment and retribution. It ever feels and speaks as Paul does in v. 10. How it keeps from sin is shown by the fine example of Joseph, Gen. 39:9.

With fear ever before our eyes, Paul says, we do the work of our ministry, and he describes this ministry in two words: ἀνθρώπουςπείθομεν. The present tense is not conative (R., W. P.): “try to persuade,” but durative: “we are busy persuading men.” Note the chiasm which places the emphasis on the two objects: come to know—the fear of the Lord; men—we are busy persuading. Our feeling toward the Lord controls all that we do in regard to men.

Paul is not alluding to slander that was uttered in Corinth to the effect that he and his helpers were just persuasive talkers, and those who uttered this slander claimed that they saw through them. Nor is the sense that Paul and his helpers seek to allay suspicion regarding themselves by persuading people in regard to their good and honest intentions. No such ideas are developed here. “Men we are engaged in persuading” is broad and general and signifies: bringing them to faith. Persuasion is still the great task of the gospel ministry. It is not done with human argument, with “persuasive wisdom words” (ἐνπειθοῖςσοφίαςλόγοις), 1 Cor. 2:4, but with the greatest persuasive force which men have ever used, the gospel.

The two δέ are adversative, but each adds another point, δέ noting that it is different; καί would mean that it is very similar. The English cannot indicate this distincton, the sense alone must show it. “And we have (long already) been made manifest to God,” or, to reproduce the emphasis, “as far as God is concerned, to him we have long been fully manifest.” The perfect passive reaches far back into the past and extends to the present. Πεφανερώμεθα refers back to φανερωθῆναι in v. 10: on judgment day all will be brought to public manifestation before the whole universe; Paul and his helpers have long been manifest to God in this way. He has known and still knows as something that is lying fully open before him how these ministers of Christ are ever conducting their work of persuading men in the true fear of the Lord.

“And I hope,” Paul adds with another δέ, “have been made manifest (this long while) also in your consciences.” The singular “I hope” amid the many “we” is only incidental. Our work, Paul says, and the way in which we do it have certainly been before your eyes long enough so that we have been fully manifest to you Corinthians, and you have been able to see who we really are. “I hope so,” Paul says; not, “I know it.” There has been opposition to Paul, and this has caused him great worry in regard to Corinth. He is writing in order to remove the last of it. “I hope” is just the right touch. So he also does not say “have been made manifest also to you,” but far more searchingly, “in your consciences.” Regarding conscience see 1:12, and Rom. 2:15.

Next to God, conscience is the most honest judge. It tells us what it thinks is right or wrong irrespective of what we may desire or men say. So Paul appeals to this unbiased and honest judgment of the consciences of the Corinthians. He cannot look into their consciences, hence also for this reason he says “I hope.” Conscience is often also misled; so one cannot be too certain about what the conscience of another person may tell him. “In your consciences” touches another point, one that is brought out in v. 12, namely the treatment which Paul has of late received from the Corinthians when some of them thought ill of him; Paul says, “in your consciences you certainly, I hope, have seen how wrong this is.” Just as Paul knows how to appeal to his own conscience (1:12), so he knows how to touch the consciences of others (4:2 and here).

2 Corinthians 5:12

12 What he is saying about the way in which he and his helpers do their work among men in the fear of the Lord and have long ago become manifest to God, is, as the reference to the consciences of the Corinthians shows, not intended as self-praise and self-commendation, it is not intended to help the standing of Paul and of his helpers among the Corinthians: Not again are we recommending our own selves to you. It is intended as something that is quite different, namely as furnishing the Corinthians themselves with a good starting point (ἀφορμή) for their praise of Paul and his assistants, the men who, in the fear of the Lord, have done so much in Corinth. With this praise they are to stop the mouths of the fellows who have invaded Corinth, who try to ruin the reputation of Paul and of his assistants, whose own praise is nothing but their face and the show they make and not at all their heart and what God sees there: but as giving you a starting point for glorying on our behalf in order that you may have (something) against those who glorify themselves (by what is) on their face and not (by what is) in their heart.

Paul once more refers to this matter of self-recommendation. In 3:1, etc., he has already said most emphatically that he and his assistants need no letters of commendation and recommendation to the Corinthians or from the Corinthians since the Corinthians themselves constitute the grandest letter of recommendation which Paul could wish, one that is inscribed as on a public monument so that all men in Corinth may read it. We founded your congregation; it stands as a public monument in Corinth; whoever passes by can read upon it the fact that we have reared it. What are little letters of papyrus or parchment which are secured from persons far away compared with a monumental letter like this which is open to the eyes of all men in all Corinth?

This is Paul’s answer to the slanders that he has no letters of recommendation, that he does no more than to recommend and to glorify himself. In 4:2 he adds that he and his helpers do recommend themselves, do it by putting away all tricks and all falsifications of the Word, by publishing the truth, and by thus recommending themselves to every man’s conscience. If that is not genuine recommendation, what is? So he again says: “We are certainly not again trying to recommend ourselves to you.” We read the present tense as being conative. After founding the Corinthian church, after building it up so strongly, does Paul still dream of recommending himself to the Corinthians? Is he not as yet manifest in their consciences as what he really is?

What he is saying about himself and his assistants, their work and their way of working, is intended to give the Corinthians the information which they need so they may praise Paul and his helpers and by this praise stop the mouths of these false slanderers of Paul. The Corinthians should really have no need of being given such ammunition against such men. The moment they came to Corinth and began their attacks upon Paul, the Corinthians should have hushed them up with their own loud boasts of what Paul was and what he had done for them. Not even one ear should have taken in one slanderous word against Paul.

But that is the way church members often act. Instead of defending the best pastors that God ever gave them they are often inclined to listen to evil-minded men who want to destroy the work of such pastors. It is the devil’s cunning: he cannot stop the work, so he inspires men to tear it down and finds that those who ought to prevent that tearing down let it proceed, perhaps even lend a hand. This occurs so often after a good pastor has left a charge. Paul had been absent from Corinth about three years.

The grammarians regard συνιστάνομεν, ἀλλὰδιδόντες as an anacoluthon and supply something before the participle: “we do not recommend but (say or write these things) as giving you,” etc. R. 439; B.-D. 468, 1. In the writer’s opinion this is pedantic, especially with reference to the Greek which is noted for its flexibility and for its varied use of the participle. By using the participle instead of the finite verb Paul subordinates the giving, that is the reason for the participle. This is not an oversight or an irregularity, it is intentional, it says something, and language and construction are intended to do just that.

As we have said repeatedly, the subject of the so-called anacoluthon still awaits adequate treatment. This treatment has begun in part by regarding many passages that were formerly so regarded as not being anacolutha (R. 439); it ought to advance to the full recognition of the anacoluthon as a legitimate use of language, which is not to be listed as grammatically improper but is to be set forth as a means for conveying what would otherwise not be conveyed. Here the participle avoids the direct assertion: “we give to you,” and only intimates: “as giving to you.”

This accords with ἀφορμήν, which is even emphatic by being placed before the participle. Paul reduces his intimation: the Corinthians may use what he is saying as such “a starting point,” as something that furnishes an impetus. The idea of “basis” is too strong. The genitive is objective: “a starting point (impetus) for glorying on our behalf.” And καύχημα is not the activity as such, the word for which idea would be καύχησις, but what the Corinthians may say in behalf of their great teachers, Paul and his helpers. Starting with what Paul indicates in v. 11 as the right starting point, he intimates that the Corinthians, who truly know him in their consciences, will want to say much more, but it will all be in line with this starting point: persuading men in the fear of the Lord and as ever manifest to God and thus also manifest in the conscience of right-thinking and truly conscientious men. Paul wants no false praise from anyone; but he does want true recognition.

As he strives to obtain it from God, so he strives to have it in men’s consciences. It is spurious humility to regard the conscientious recognition which we receive as true ministers of Christ as nothing. Our very success in the ministry depends on securing proper recognition in men’s consciences (4:2).

This was vital in Corinth because of the opponents who had been busy trying to turn the church against Paul and against his work. The way in which he characterizes these opponents shows that they were not Corinthians but had come to Corinth and had been trying to attain leadership. They had letters of recommendation. From whom they had received them we do not know; they had certainly not received them from any of the other churches. It is always an easy matter to get such letters; men who ought to be more careful often sign them without due thought.

These letters seem to have impressed the Corinthians, who thus foolishly listened to these strangers. Paul calls them “those who make a business of glorifying themselves” (durative present to indicate a standard characterization and middle reflexive); and this they do ἐνπροσώπῳ, καὶμὴἐνκαρδίᾳ, which is too terse for the English, hence we expand: “(by what is) on (their) face and not (by what is) in (their) heart.” Face and heart, appearance and real inner purpose do not agree. On the surface these opponents look like good and reliable men, but if the Corinthians would compel them to manifest what is really in their hearts they would be shocked and horrified.

Paul stops with this brief characterization. The commentators at times supply more. On their face these invaders are said to be born Jews, advocates of legalism and law observance, eloquent, boasting of Scripture knowledge, of acquaintance with the other apostles, perhaps even of acquaintance with Jesus. But it seems more important to ask how Paul can speak so confidently of what is in the hearts of these men when he had not been in Corinth and had not himself seen them.

Is Paul guilty of Herzensrichterei, this dangerous business of judging men’s hearts? Paul had received full accounts from Titus who had just returned from Corinth (2:13; 7:6, 13). It was no longer a question as to what was in the hearts of these invaders; they had exposed that from the beginning by using even foul means (slander, etc.) to break down what Paul had built up at such cost of labor. The sin of judging the heart consists in imputing base motives to another person’s heart even when he does what is right. These men were tearing down the true work of God under cover of praising themselves by an outward display as reliable men. The Corinthians looked at the latter and became impressed thereby and failed to note the former which revealed what was really in the hearts of these men.

Paul bids the Corinthians to look at what has come out of their hearts. Was that something by which these men could glorify themselves?

Paul wants to be judged and can properly be judged only in the same way that he judges these men. The Corinthians must look at Paul’s heart through the window of what he has wrought among them and is still trying to work as he states in 4:2 and, in fact, throughout, also in the rest of this chapter where he once more enters into the very heart of the gospel and of his own ministry. This entire epistle more than the others bares Paul’s inmost heart, all his deepest motives and inner purposes, and does all this by means of what he has done and is still doing. When in chapters 10 to 12 he is compelled to compare himself with others in an outward way he says that he feels like a fool for doing so. His glorying was in his infirmities, for which men would despise him. It is his glorying to be nothing but a clay vessel in order to make the treasure of the supreme power of God stand out the more by contrast (4:7, etc.). He thus indicates to the Corinthians what they may use in regard to himself and his assistants for silencing and for getting rid of the imposters who had come to trouble them.

2 Corinthians 5:13

13 The γάρ introduces a point on which he and his assistants had evidently been attacked; its force is “for example.” For whether we have lost our wits, (it was) for God; whether we are keeping our wits, (it is) for you. First an aorist and then a present tense: ever lost our wits—have them now. We note that the plural “we” continues, and it refers to Paul and to his assistants throughout the chapter. R., W. P., finds a literary plural in v. 13 among all the ordinary plurals. He and others apply the two verbs (especially the first) only to Paul. They apply also to Timothy (1:1), to Titus, to Silvanus, and to other assistants of Paul.

We also note that ἐξίστημι is never employed in the technical sense of being in ecstasy in either profane or Biblical Greek (C.-K. 532). This bars out all ecstatic conditions such as the one described in the case of Peter in Acts 10:9, and such as the visions and the revelations of Paul mentioned in 2 Cor. 12:1, etc., or the speaking with tongues referred to in 1 Cor. 14:18.

Finally, the two datives “for God” and “for you” are not in opposition, do not exclude each other as though “for God” = for him and not for you, and “for you” = for you and not for God. All that Paul and his assistants did and do is for God and for you.

Ἐξίστημι has two meanings: 1) being dumbfounded because of something miraculous (often); 2) being touched with lunacy as in Mark 3:21. The latter is the meaning here. The reference is to instances such as that recorded in Acts 26:24, when Festus cried out excitedly to Paul: “Thou art mad!” Paul, however, assured him that he was far from being mad. We thus see what both the plural and the aorist mean: actual instances in the past when Paul or one of his assistants spoke about the great things of the gospel with such fire and fervor as to astonish people so that they thought the speaker was mentally unbalanced. Also Paul’s assistants on occasion spoke like men who were carried beyond themselves by what they uttered. It is fortunate that we have Luke’s full account of such an instance in Acts 26:24, when, not Paul, but Festus lost his equilibrium (see the author’s exposition of the scene in his Interpretation of Acts), for it helps us to understand just what Paul means by the charge of having lost his wits.

Before the days of Festus, men who had as little sense as he, and men who were like the relatives of Jesus himself in Mark 3:21, saw nothing but unbalanced minds when they watched the burning zeal and fervent speech of these ministers of Christ. When these opponents of Paul’s invaded Corinth they very likely caught up the charge and sought to make the Corinthians believe that Paul and his assistants were mentally somewhat unbalanced. The Greek uses the aorist whereas the English employs the perfect: “have lost our wits” (R. 845).

It is Paul himself who adds the counterpart: “whether we are keeping our wits”; he naturally does this with a present tense, an aorist would be improper. This has been understood as being another charge. To some, we are told, Paul was too extravagant in his language and his zeal, to others too sober in both; or, to some incomprehensible, to others too calculating. But these opinions are not in accord with the terms here used. Nobody would advance as a charge against a man the fact that he is sober-minded; and sober-minded is never used in an evil sense like calculating. Paul adds this so that he can make his answer complete.

And he does this with two words: Θεῷ—ὑμῖν, dativi commodi. Their ministry has two sides: “for God” who called them; “for you” whom we serve. Neither excludes the other, yet the two cannot be reversed. The first means: If in our zeal and our fervor of speech anything ever seemed beyond some of you, let them remember that we serve God who is higher than you are. The second means: When any of you find us sober-minded in word and in act you surely see that we are serving you. In other words: If some of you have not always been able to keep peace with us and to understand all our fiery devotion, God understands it well enough, and there has always been a great amount that you could well understand as certainly being most beneficial for you.

2 Corinthians 5:14

14 For the love of Christ constrains us, his love for us (subjective genitive) as the following establishes. On ἀγάπη see 2:4, the love of fullest comprehension and of corresponding purpose and action. Paul does not say that our love for Christ holds us to our ministry in such a way that men sometimes wonder whether we have lost our mental balance when they see us going beyond what they imagine to be reasonable. That would be stopping at the halfway station. Our love for Christ is kindled and constantly fed by his love for us. Paul goes at once to the supreme source of motivation in his and in his assistants’ ministry. “Christ’s love”—that ought to make plain how they above all serve God and thus also serve the Corinthians.

If this love’s constraining power now and then impels Paul and his assistants to go beyond what ordinary men are able to grasp, it is not strange at all just as it is not strange that the Corinthians should find themselves so abundantly served by the sober wits of these ministers. For the constraining power, Christ’s love, is active even in the latter.

Paul is speaking about his ministry, about how the love of Christ constrains him and his helpers in their ministry, συνέχει, holds them tightly together with their task so that nothing can keep them from it. It is because Christ died for all men with two mighty results: the one that all died; the other that all who live should live for him. This love that made him die constrains his ministers to bring the knowledge and the power of this love to all men everywhere so that they, too, may be made alive by it and may ever live unto him. The mainspring of all energy in the Christian ministry is the love of Christ as evidenced by the death of Christ for all men with its automatic universal effect (“therefore they all died”) and its saving purpose (“in order that they who live,” etc.). If his love died with this effect and this purpose, how can we do anything but live for him in devotion to this purpose?

Paul continues with the ingressive aorist of purpose: having come to judge this: One died for all, therefore they all died; and he died for all in order that those living may no longer live unto themselves but unto him who for them died and was raised up. We have arrived at this judgment, Paul says; the aorist participle states its finality. This is not a mere theoretical, logical conclusion or just a subjective opinion; it is the judgment which finds this a fact and so accepts and declares it as a fact. As a judge declares what the fact in the case is, so Paul does, so do his assistants with him. When they first came to this judgment need not be said; it was when the whole significance of Christ’s death dawned upon them. “Christ” is also the proper name because it designates him according to his Messianic office. We regard ὅτι as recitativum so that what follows is direct and not indirect discourse.

The judgment is pronounced directly: “One—for all—died, therefore they all died,” and the emphasis is on the two subjects. In v. 15 the emphasis is on the verb: “For all he died in order that they who live may live,” etc. Note how “one” and “for all” are abutted in order to indicate contrast and emphasis. “He died” = he did no less, he sacrificed his very life for them on the cross.

He did this for “all.” The Calvinistic efforts to limit this word to “all the elect” constitute one of the saddest chapters in exegesis. The Scriptures shine with the “all” of universality, but Calvinists do not see it. Their one effort is to find something that would justify them to reduce “all” to “some.” Calvin himself says that all = all kinds, all classes, rich and poor, high and low, rejecting no class, taking some of each, but not all in the sense of every individual. Hodge has the statement: “therefore all died,” refer to the death of the old nature in conversion; and since this occurs only in some, the preceding statement is likewise said to refer to “some.” The real assurance for me that Christ died for me is this alone, that he died for absolutely all. If he omitted any, then, knowing what a fearful sinner I am, I must come to the judgment that he surely passed by also me. In regard even to the lost 2 Pet. 2:1 declares: They deny “the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction.”

Ὑπέρ = over and is used in many connections, in particular where substitution is to be expressed. This was formerly denied on the score that ἀντί should be used as it, indeed, also is in Matt. 20:28, and Mark 10:45. But the papyri have disclosed the fact that ὑπέρ is the favorite preposition for expressing substitution, much more so than ἀντί or πρό or any other (R., W. P.). The overwhelming evidence for this Robertson presents in part in The Minister and His Greek New Testament, 35, in the chapter on “The use of ὑπέρ in business documents in the papyri.” His verdict is that in our passage “substitution must be understood” (R. 631).

The church has always held this conviction, nor has it ever been uncertain regarding the force of the preposition. Our present advantage is the mass of purely secular linguistic evidence for the correctness of this meaning of the preposition. In large numbers of instances an act could not be “for,” “in behalf of,” “for the advantage of,” if it is not “instead of,” in substitution for another person. See also Trench, Synonyms, and his quotation from Tischendorf.

The matter is of supreme importance because the vicarious, substitutionary death of Christ has ever been and is still the main point of attack on the part of rationalism and modernism that mock at this “blood theology.” The so-called “theories of the atonement” (the Scriptures know of no “theory,” they know only the fact, just as they know only the fact of inspiration and no “theory”) also dispense with the substitution.

“Therefore all died,” ἀπέθανεν and ἀπέθανον, ἄρα being placed between them: when Christ bowed his head on the cross, in perfect correspondence with (ἄρα) his death all men died then and there. All who had ever lived, all who will yet live until time ends, died in Christ’s death, died in Christ, their Substitute. One mere man may substitute for one other man; when equivalence is more inexact, one man might substitute for several. But one mere man could not substitute his death and have it equal the death of the universe of men in all ages. Only the God-man could be this Substitute. Without Christ’s deity his effective substitution becomes fiction. If Christ is not true God he might die a thousand times, and despite all the deaths it could never be said: “therefore they all died.” Οἱπάντες, “they all,’ the article taking up πάντων = these very all instead of whom Christ died.

In what sense did they all die? The answer lies in ὑπέρ, in Christ’s substitution. It is indicated in Matt. 20:28 and Mark 10:45: he gave his life as a ransom in the stead of many. He laid down the price, and that price was reckoned as though we had laid it down. Each of us might die a thousand times, and this would amount to nothing even for those who did this: we are sinners who are damned to die. The death of the sinless Son, the Lamb without spot or blemish, this, and this death alone, equals the death of all for whom he died.

Erase the substitution, and Paul’s judgment becomes fiction, ceases to be fact. Christ’s death ransomed all, atoned for all, satisfied for all, made sacrificial expiation for all, paid for all. All these are statements of the same fact, all define ὑπέρ to the same effect. The death of Christ, in which they all died, changed the relation of all to God. All of them are now redeemed and ransomed, their sin and guilt being expiated by Christ’s death. They all died, not by a death of theirs, but by Christ’s death which he died in their stead. Cancel his death by altering it in some way, and our relation to God remains unchanged; then we are all unredeemed, lost beyond hope.

“They all died,” yet by this alone none obtained life, the life that lives forever. How we now as the result of Christ’s death by which we died also obtain this life, will be told presently. But this must be noted: Christ died 1900 years ago, on a certain day, at a certain hour in time. But this counts for all time: for the entire future time, for all the prior time. For by Christ’s death “all died,” Adam and all his descendants. The effect covered all. It is literally true: “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” His death availed for Adam. All in the Old Testament who believed were saved by that death just as all are in the New Testament who believe.

2 Corinthians 5:15

15 First the objective effect (v. 14) and now the purpose with the intended subjective result. This, too, rests on the fact that Christ died in the stead of all. Hence we have the important repetition: “and for all he died.” It is difficult to understand how this can be regarded as an unnecessary repetition. The fact stated is so tremendous that it cannot be stated too often. Repetition emphasizes, and if emphasis is ever in place, it is so here. Yet this is more than emphasis of the fact alone. Εἷς is omitted. The contrast: “One—they all,” is dropped. A new one enters: “He died—that they who live may live,” etc. Although Christ died “for all,” not all live, only some do.

Paul is writing to Christians who know how all this is to be understood. Out of the whole plan of salvation he is taking what he needs to show how the love of Christ constrains us, namely his ministers in their work, but these only as belonging to all others who have the life that comes out of Christ’s death. So Paul at once advances from Christ’s death to our living. See how οἱζῶντες appears already in 4:11, there it is also applied to Paul and to his helpers, there, too, it is connected with Christ’s death and with his life. We connect all that is there said with what is here said.

“They that live” are they that have the ζωή, the spiritual, deathless life, and the divine purpose in Christ’s death for all men is that, having been brought to this life, the living ones should live this life, namely live no longer unto themselves as they once lived before they were reborn but unto him who died for them and rose again. Living thus defines what it means that the love of Christ constrains us. Our whole life’s interest should center in Christ, and no interest should center in ourselves apart from Christ. The statement of this purpose is general and is predicated of all who have this life although it applies in particular to Paul and to his fellow ministers. In their holy office their spiritual life is to have a special field of manifestation (φανερώμεθα in v. 11). The datives are commodi (R. 539).

Instead of saying: “should live for Christ,” the death of Christ is mentioned for the third time (it deserves to be), but it is now joined with his resurrection: “should live for him who for them died and was raised up.” We regard ἐγερθέντι as a passive; our versions regard it as a middle: “rose again.” Some passive forms are middle in sense; that question arises repeatedly in regard to this verb. The point itself is not material since the Scriptures say both that Christ arose and that he was raised up by God. R. 799 says regarding ἠγέρθη: “usually transitive,” but in 817 he reduces this to “sometimes passive” although he quotes Moulton who says “often.”

We see no reason for any force but the passive in the present connection. After twice saying in regard to Christ: “for all he died,” with the phrase being placed before the verb, Paul once more writes in the same way: “he who for them died,” i.e., for those who are spiritually alive. This is sufficient to settle the point as to whether the phrase modifies both participles or only the one. It modifies only the one. Although one article unites the two participles, if the phrase is to modify both of them it should be placed after the first participle (although this would still leave doubt) or after both participles (which would leave no doubt).

This matter has become important. It has been taken for granted that the phrase modifies both participles, and from this assumption the deduction is drawn that ὑπέρ cannot mean “instead of” in this phrase or in the other two but in all three must mean only “for the sake of,” “in behalf of.” It cannot be said that Christ was raised up instead of anybody. To be sure, this cannot be said, and for this reason Paul places this last phrase exactly as he does the other two so that no one should assume that he intends to have it modify both participles. Moreover, although the death and the resurrection of Christ always go together, and although the apostles generally emphasize the resurrection (this already involves the death since only one who died can be raised up), here, where the great point is the love of Christ, it is his death “in our stead” that must be emphasized, for this is the great proof of his love. And Paul does that very thing.

Furthermore, when he speaks about all men, it is enough to mention the death, for by it Christ made a bloody atonement for all. When he now speaks about believers, among whom are Paul and his assistants, all of whom respond to Christ’s love, he adds to the great fact that Christ died in their stead also the other fact that he rose again. No modifier is needed in the case of this second fact, and Paul adds none. In the case of believers, who are to live unto Christ, it is in place to add Christ’s resurrection: they are to live unto him as their ever-living Lord.

One of the unacceptable interpretations is the view that ὑπέρ has a mystic meaning. But it never has and cannot have. The mystic union is expressed by ἐν: I in you, and you in me; or by σύν: we died, were entombed, rose again with Christ. This is the true mystic union. It is predicated only of believers and never of all men. When a mystic sense is attributed to ὑπέρ, the meaning of the preposition is changed, and the force of the first two ὑπέρ phrases is altered by the idea that all men were in mystic union with Christ when he died, and so all died in his death (but why did they not all also rise in his resurrection?); or by the idea of Calvin that “all” does not mean all but only some.

This mystic phase seems to appeal to a good many, but they seem to lack a clear conception of what “mystical” signifies and so find mystic statements where none exist and thus are led into other errors. See Rom. 6:4, etc., on mystic language. But note that what is Biblically mystic has nothing to do with the so-called mystics like Tauler, Boehme, etc.

2 Corinthians 5:16

16 The Lord’s purpose that we who have the spiritual life should live unto him alone has been realized in the case of Paul and in the case of his assistants. Paul says so, not, however, merely in order to place himself and his conduct toward the Corinthians into the right light for the Corinthians, but also to induce them to reciprocate fully so that they, too, may think and do everything only as unto Christ who died for them and was raised up again. Wherefore we on our part from now on know no one in a fleshly way. If also we have known Christ in a fleshly way, yet now we know him so no longer.

Ἡμεῖς has the emphasis: “we on our part among those who are living unto Christ.” “From now on” = “henceforth” (our versions) with less of the temporal! than the resultant idea: “we in consequence.” Our whole way of looking at people has undergone a change: “we know no man in a fleshly way.” “Flesh” has ceased to be the norm of our thinking and judging in regard to anybody; carnal ideas no longer control us, but the high and holy considerations which center in Christ do. We neither approve nor disapprove, love nor hate any person from motives and with purposes such as rule people who have not experienced the love of Christ in their hearts. This love alone constrains us; we live unto him (v. 14, 15). Here we have an exposition of v. 14, 15 as far as the contact of Paul and his assistants with other persons is concerned.

In both statements κατὰσάρκα belongs to the verb and needs no article in the Greek. It is like so many other phrases in this respect. The phrases are purely adverbial, each is placed immediately after its verb where it naturally belongs. The supposition that the phrases modify the objects or both the verbs and the objects is untenable. It is doubly so in regard to Christ, for the phrase precedes “Christ”; if it were intended to modify “Christ,” we should have τὸνκατὰσάρκαΧριστόν. When the phrases are referred to the objects, abstruse ideas result that are out of line with Paul’s thought. “According to flesh” means that in our knowing anyone, no matter who he is, we follow no norm of flesh whether it be flesh as sinful flesh or flesh as mere natural flesh, i.e., whether it be sinful or mere natural, human thought.

The Corinthians are to apply what Paul says about the way in which he and his assistants know anyone to the way in which they have dealt with the Corinthians throughout and during the difficulties which the Corinthians have been causing. The treatment which Paul and his assistants accorded and still accord the Corinthians in no way smacks of anything like flesh. Would that every minister could say that to his congregation!

The Corinthians may also think of themselves, of the way in which they have been acting toward Paul and toward his assistants. Has only the love of Christ always constrained them? Have they always been living not unto themselves but only unto Christ? Has flesh been the norm of their treatment of Paul? Would that every congregation and every member of a congregation could say what Paul says about himself and his fellow workers!

The thought is carried to its climax by being extended to Christ. Him, too, we no longer know in a fleshly way. This was the wrong way, Paul says, in which we once knew him, but it has changed completely, changed since we came to be constrained by this love, came to live unto him as the One who died for us and was raised up again. R. 1026 says regarding εἰκαί, “if also,” that the protasis is treated as a matter of indifference. “If there is a conflict, it makes no real difficulty. There is sometimes a tone of contempt in εἰκαί. The matter is belittled.” The sense is: “What if we have once done so,” i.e., known Christ in a fleshly way?

The asyndeton tends toward emphasis. The condition is one of reality, and the perfect tense of the verb indicates that Paul and his assistants have for a long while known Christ only in this wrong way. We now have γινώσκω, to know by observation and experience; in the preceding clause οἶδα means to know through mental reflection. So the idea of knowing is now intensified; it should be, for Christ is not just “anyone.” Any knowledge of Christ that a person obtains affects him far more deeply than knowledge of any other person would.

Consider the case of Paul alone. At one time he knew Christ with a carnal mind, in a carnal way. He was offended in Christ, considered him opposed to Jewish interests, saw him only with fleshly eyes. To his fleshly, Pharisaical mind Christ was a false Messiah. We know how this affected Paul. He looked at other men in the same blind, fleshly way; but when he looked thus at Christ he raged like a wild beast (Acts 8:3; 9:1) that was full of fury. It is still so today. Many know Christ only “according to flesh” and are filled with foolish, pernicious, vicious thoughts about him, which, when they have come to know his love, fill them with utter shame in deepest repentance.

By construing “Christ according to flesh” a few commentators think that Paul means that he was acquainted with Jesus while the latter lived on earth. This introduces an irrelevant and a wrong thought. For in the preceding sentence “no one according to flesh” would then have to mean the same thing. Paul does not write “Jesus,” the name by which the Master was known when he lived among men. Whether Paul ever saw Jesus while Jesus was on earth has no bearing whatever on what he here says to the Corinthians. Besides, Paul says “we,” which includes Timothy (1:1), Titus, Silas, Luke, etc. As far as evidence goes, Paul never met the Savior during his earthly sojourn as little as did young Timothy or Luke.

When the love of Christ constrains us, Christ becomes the chief object of our knowing and realization, and we know all other men only as Christ bids us know them. But this has an obverse side, and the Corinthians may well think of that. When we begin to look at men in a fleshly way, the love of Christ is slipping from its control, we are beginning again to live to ourselves and thus are in the greatest danger of again knowing Christ only in a fleshly way. Unless the fleshly treatment which the Corinthians had accorded Paul and his assistants is checked, it will develop into a similar treatment of Christ himself. He and his Word ever try to stop us from knowing anyone only according to flesh; when we persist to the contrary we can do so only by thrusting him and his Word aside, i.e., by treating him according to flesh. For this reason Paul has written the two statements, one in regard to any person, the other in regard to Christ himself.

2 Corinthians 5:17

17 A second ὥστε mentions a second result, and the asyndeton calls for attention. We are shown what underlies the first result. Knowing and realizing depend on what we are. The love of Christ controls us only when we are new creatures; we live unto Christ only in the new spiritual life as new creatures. Paul ever follows the facts to the very end. Wherefore, if anyone (is) in Christ, a new creation (is he). The old things have passed away. Lo, things have become new!

Three short, incisive statements, and the third is exclamatory. There are no connectives; this makes the statements sharper in the Greek, for the Greek loves to join everything so that, when he omits connectives, he feels a jolt. “Wherefore” presents what we find when we trace things to their source. In v. 16 “wherefore” = when we follow forward and note the effects. Both ὥστε = results, but as indicated.

To be constrained by Christ’s love and to live unto him alone evidently involves an inner connection with Christ. One must then be “in Christ.” This is the phrase which is used a large number of times by Paul in many varied connections and has called forth monographs as has also the phrase “through Christ.” Ἐν = in union or in communion with or in connection with. The picture is that of a sphere or a circle. Christ fills that circle as Christ, as our Savior, our Lord, etc., with all his love for us (v. 14), with his life (4:10), the fount of life for us. We, too, are placed into this sphere. How?

By the objective means of his Word and his Sacrament, by the subjective means of faith which is wrought in us by the Word and the Sacrament. Thus we are in living, spiritual connection with Christ, ἐνΧριστῷ. Christ “in us” is merely viewing this in the other way. We and our emptiness, need, etc., are viewed as the sphere into which Christ and all that he is and has enter by his blessed means. The condition “if” and the indefinite “anyone” include all individuals who are thus joined to Christ spiritually.

The predicate, which is without a copula, καινὴκτίσις, is pointed, incisive: “a new creation,” no less! This is no mere mending or improvement but an actual “creation.” This word means the act of creating and is then applied also to what the act creates. A Creator is implied, and we may take him to be God or the Holy Spirit. “Creation” leads us to think of what God did when he created the world. The two acts are comparable. See 4:6. This comparableness has at times been drawn too closely, especially when the δύναμιςΘεοῦ is mentioned, or when the figure of resurrection is employed.

We are not made a new creation by omnipotence but by grace. The two are distinct and are never confused in Scripture. The one is God’s power as much as the other, the other creates spiritually. We are “a new creation” (“creature” is less exact) by virtue of the spiritual life created in us, the life by which we live not to ourselves but to Christ (v. 15). This is καινός, “new,” in contrast with something “old,” here “flesh,” our former sinful being and state. “A new creation”—if only we would always think of ourselves in this way and not try to hold fast to the old!

A new creation means that “the old things have passed away,” have gone παρά, have been cast “aside.” These are “the old things” of the flesh, in which we at one time lived, which at one time were our love and our delight, which at one time filled our whole being. Paul is a master in using the singular and the plural: “a new creation”—now “the old things.” A new unit—the entire mass of old things discarded. What would a new creation have to do with these good-for-nothing old things of the old life? The Greek uses the aorist: “did pass away,” our idiom the perfect: “have passed away.” The aorist denotes one decisive past act by which the grand severance was made and the new creation was wrought. That is, of course, conversion or regeneration. And “passed away” is correct despite the fact that some of the old things still cling to us in this life. They only cling to the new creation; they are now “old things” and not really any longer a part of us.

So wonderful is this that Paul exclaims because of it by using the opposite: “Lo, things have become new!” “All things” in the A. V. is an importation from Rev. 21:5. But the R. V. is also mistaken with its rendering: “they are become new,” i.e., the old things. They could not possibly become new; they had to be cast entirely away; other things had to take their place, things that were newly created. The subject of γέγονε is not drawn from παρῆλθεν; “have become new” contains its own subject, one that is implied in καινά: “things have become new.” The perfect tense signifies: became new in the past constantly to remain so. In these new things we live unto Christ.

In conclusion a few remarks regarding 16b, about no longer knowing Christ κατὰσάρκα. Something like nine different opinions are offered, and a tenth that a choice cannot be made. The details need not be offered the reader. Yet this may be added. Paul’s “we” is made an “I.” A “Paul and Jesus problem” is said to arise. Paul is thought to be writing polemically.

He does not have all the material about Jesus which the other apostles possessed, he knew only the death and the resurrection of Jesus. He does not know the contents of our four Gospels save for the two points mentioned. He feels this lack keenly in serving his congregations. So in “an act of desperation” he here rejects “the authority of the earthly Jesus.” He has his own “Christ conception,” the “death to life” idea, which is offered to him in the cult doctrines and the mystery religions of Hellenistic paganism. The cult god dies and comes to life again. The “Jesus and Paul problem” is thus solved.

It is needless to state that we find none of this in Paul’s statement regarding knowing “Christ according to flesh.”

XVIII. “The Ministry of the Reconciliation”

2 Corinthians 5:18

18 This change in us is due to what God has done for us. Paul has already described the expiation: “instead of all Christ died and was raised up again.” He now goes still farther: “God reconciled us to himself through Christ,” and this brings him back to the ministry which connected him with the Corinthians. Δέ is merely metabatic, it passes on to the new thought.

Now all these things (are) from God, him who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave to us the ministry of this reconciliation—how God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their transgressions, also having deposited in our charge the statement of this reconciliation.

Τὰπάντα are not “all things” (general) but all the things just mentioned (specific), these that have become new, by which we are a new creation, men who live unto Christ, who are constrained by his love (v. 14–17). All these things without an exception have their ultimate source in God (ἐκ); but again specifically God as he “who did reconcile us to himself through Christ.” From him who effected our reconciliation we (Paul and his assistants) have obtained all these new things. They go with reconciliation as its essential products.

It is imperative to note the tenses used in v. 18, 19; next, to note “us” in connection with which the tense is an aorist to indicate an act that is finished, and “the world” and “them” (all the individuals in the world) in reference to whom the participles are present to indicate actions that continue. The difference is this. For Paul and for his assistants God’s reconciliation had been accomplished both objectively and subjectively: through Christ’s death and expiation God had removed their guilt, which had separated them from God; and by making them a new creation so that they were now living unto Christ and were constrained by his love, God had transformed them also subjectively from enemies into friends, which is exactly as Rom. 5:10 states both of these acts of reconciliation. It is vital to note that this is the sense of the aorist. God did this, he alone.

It is unwarranted to think of only the objective fact; or to have the pronoun “us” include all Christians much as it is true that, like Paul and his helpers, all Christians can say also in regard to themselves what this aorist says. But in the case of the world the tenses must be open, must be continuous. True, Christ died for all (aorist, v. 14, 15, three times), and in that sense the whole world has been reconciled to God; if that were all that is here meant, we should have had another aorist. But Paul means more. He has in mind especially the subjective fact of the reconciliation as he does in v. 18 where he speaks only about “us.” God is ever busy with this feature, namely transforming enemies into friends. Hence we have the present participles: “engaged in reconciling to himself, engaged in not reckoning to them their transgressions.” This work goes right on, it is now in progress.

For this reason, and in sharp distinction from the two present participles, the third is an aorist: “also having deposited in our charge (ἐνἡμῖν, Paul and his helpers) the statement (τὸνλόγον, declaration) of reconciliation.” By means of this ministry which has been placed into our hands by God, Paul says, God is doing this wondrous work, bringing reconciliation and pardon from sin to the world, i.e., “to them,” the individuals in the world. This θέμενος is a historical aorist and even a middle: God placed this logos in our hands for himself. He called and appointed us ministers, made me an apostle to do this work for him. In these chapters which are so full of “we” forms ἐνἡμῖν is not an exception that in this one phrase refers to all Christians in general.

Verily, as Robertson has said (The Minister and His Greek New Testament, 88), there are “sermons in Greek tenses.” Entire doctrines pivot on the tenses that are here used.

The usual exegesis has sometimes failed to see what these tenses convey. “He who reconciled us to himself through Christ,” v. 18, is referred only to the objective reconciliation which was effected through or by means of (διά) the death of Christ. How God could then give to men who were reconciled only objectively “the ministry of this reconciliation,” is not made clear. The gap is ignored, but Paul filled it. “Reconciled us to himself” includes also the subjective side, what Rom. 5:11 states thus: “we received (into personal possession) the reconciliation” (effected by Christ’s death). Only to such men could “the ministry of this reconciliation” be given by God. The very task of this διακονία is to bring to the world this objective reconciliation for subjective appropriation by faith (v. 20). The genitive in “the ministry of this reconciliation” is objective: to serve this reconciliation by bringing “the word of this reconciliation” unto men (v. 19).

2 Corinthians 5:19

19 The same truth is restated in v. 19: “also having deposited ἐνἡμῖν, in our charge, the word (statement, declaration) of this reconciliation.” The genitive is again objective as it is in “the word of this salvation” (Acts 13:26); “the word of the cross” (1 Cor. 1:18); “word of life” (Philippians 2:16): the word which tells about this reconciliation, salvation, cross, life. Both δόντος and θέμενος are properly aorists. Note also “gave” to us as a gift but “deposited for himself” (middle) with us. How could God deposit this “word” with anyone whom he had not yet brought to personal reconciliation? Τοῦκαταλλάξαντος emphasizes the subjective reconciliation.

Some of the current exegesis asks: Does Paul not write “world” and “them”? Then he refers to only objective reconciliation. We ought to have three aorist forms if objective acts are referred to; we ought to have God did reconcile the world, did not reckon, also (καί) did deposit. But Paul writes an imperfect ἦν and two present participles and only one aorist. There is some discussion about ἦνκαταλλάσσων being a periphrastic imperfect, but should this not include also μὴλογιζόμενος? Since it is assumed that this is objective reconciliation and thus a historic past act on the part of God, this ἦν, whether it is made periphrastic or not, whether it is construed with one or with both participles, is regarded as if it were an aorist, as if it expressed an aorist past act, one that God did when Christ died. Some date this act at the time when Christ was raised up on Easter morning.

What does Paul say? That what God has finished for him and for his helpers (aorist καταλλάξαντος) he is still busy with (durative present participles) in regard to the world, namely the individuals in it; that in steadily working at this reconciling and not reckoning to men their transgressions God employed Paul and his helpers in the ministry which he gave them with the word of reconciliation that he deposited with them. This work began when Christ died, when “God was in Christ,” when he wrought the objective reconciliation “through Christ” (v. 18). That objective reconciliation includes the whole world. But it must be brought to the world, to be made a personal possession by faith, a personal, individual reconciliation by means of the ministry of the reconciliation and the word of the reconciliation.

The ἦν cannot be construed periphrastically. It has its own modifier “in Christ” and thus states a separate and a continuous past fact: “God was in Christ.” This statement of fact is modified by two present, durative participles: “engaged in reconciling the world to himself, (doing this by) not reckoning to them (the plural in a constructio ad sensum, B.-D. 282) their trespasses.” Καί in the sense of “also” adds in further explanation: “also (by) having placed in our charge the word of this reconciliation.” Καταλλάσσων cannot be read periphrastically because it has its own object. Moreover, this participle is separated from ἦν by both “in Christ” and “the world” (κόσμον needs no article, being a word for an object only one of which exists).

Our versions translate correctly. R. 891 calls καταλλάσσων descriptive, which is helpful, but the tense expresses continuousness. The present participle is also used to express purpose (B.-D. 418, 4; 339, 2c; R. 991, 1115). May we then not translate: “God was in Christ in order to be reconciling the world by not reckoning,” etc.? Since μὴλογιζόμενος has no connective it explains how the reconciling is to be effected, namely by no longer reckoning to men (αὑτοῖς) their trespasses, by no longer charging their sins against them. The position of κόσμον before its participle renders it emphatic: God’s continuous work of reconciling extends to the whole world, to no less than that; God is now operating so.

“There is no doubt of the use of ὡςὅτι in the declarative sense = ‘that’” (R. 1033); B.-D. 396 says only: “ὡςὅτι = ὅτι apparently three times with Paul.” But it is so used in the LXX and in the papyri. The debate about this connective may thus be concluded. Our versions are quite satisfactory: “to wit, that,” etc. The Greek uses παράπτωμα, the result of falling off to a side, away from the right road, whereas the English has the conception of going across (contrary to): “transgression,” or of going where one is forbidden to go: “trespass.”

“To reckon” is to impute, to charge against. Here we have “not reckoning.” All these sinners have transgressions, but God does not charge them against sinners. This is a litotes, a negative expression for a positive idea: God remits the sins, cancels the debit in his ledger, blots out the handwriting with Christ’s blood. Instead of reckoning unto them their sins he reckons unto them their faith (i.e., Christ embraced by faith); in regard to this positive reckoning see Rom. 4:3 in extenso. God continues to do this again and again, always when sinners are brought to faith, καταλλάσσων and μὴλογιζόμενος are iteratively durative.

Regarding καταλλάσσω and καταλλαγή see Rom. 5:10, 11. There, as here, it is not God who is changed but God who changes men. God always loved the world (John 3:16). He was “in Christ” when Christ died for all (v. 14, 15). He gave his Son to die for the world. He needed no reconciling, nothing to change him, for he is love—why should he change?

The trouble is with the world, with us, with what our transgressions have made us. The conception is wrong that, what happens so often in the case of men also occurred between God and us, that we had mutually fallen out with each other, and that reconciliation had to be a mutual change. No; this reconciliation was one-sided, completely so, even doubly so: we were wrong, we alone; moreover, it was impossible to change ourselves, God alone could effect a change in us. That required the death of his Son. God reconciled us to himself “through Christ” (διά, Christ became the Mediator by his death for all, v. 14, 15). In καταλλάσσεινκατά is perfective, and the root is ἄλλος (G.

K. 252): “to make thoroughly other.” God is always the agent, men are always the object. It is never said that we reconcile God; never that Christ reconciled God. We, we have to be made thoroughly other, and God has to do this if it is to be done at all.

And this must be done in a double way. First, the trespasses we accumulate have to be removed. Christ removed them by dying in our stead, by expiating them with his blood. This changed the whole world of men in its objective relation to God. It was then and there a redeemed world, every sinner from Adam onward to the end of time was redeemed, in this sense made thoroughly other by God himself through Christ. But these transgressors (Rom. 5:10 calls them ἔχθροι, active enemies) had to undergo a subjective change, had to be personally changed in their hearts.

Individually they had to be brought to contrition, faith, and new obedience. God has to do this by means of the word of the reconciliation as this is preached to the world by his ministers. Men had to be changed from enemies into friends. We have to be reconciled to God also in this sense.

In the proposition: “God was in Christ,” the phrase “in Christ” is according to the persons involved and thus goes beyond v. 17: “anyone in Christ.” We are twice emphatically told: “God reconciled and is reconciling to himself.” Christ is named twice: “through” and “in Christ.” Christ is the Mediator, Christ, the sphere in the whole reconciliation. As far as the objective side is concerned, this underlies the whole of v. 19, and on this objective rests the subjective, the forgiving of sins αὑτοῖς, i.e., to the individuals reconciled, for which also the ministry is instituted (καὶθέμενοςκτλ.).

We do not find the idea that Paul here says that when Christ died, when in and by his death God reconciled the world objectively, he then and there (or at the time of Christ’s resurrection) forgave all sins to the whole world. Αὑτοῖς = individuals and refers to their subjective reconciliation. The use so often made of this passage should be modified. On the question of universal and personal justification consult the author’s Interpretation of Romans, 5:10, also 1:17.

2 Corinthians 5:20

20 Accordingly, for Christ we are ambassadors, God, as it were, admonishing you through us. We keep begging for Christ: Be reconciled to God!

The point of all that Paul says is his own and his assistants’ connection with all this continuous reconciling work of God. The reason for stressing this point is to show the Corinthians his own and his assistants’ right relation to them. So in v. 19 Paul ended with God’s depositing with himself and with his assistants “the word of the reconciliation.” The very term θέμενος is weighty: for himself God officially invested them with this word. “Accordingly,” Paul now adds, you Corinthians can see what our position is because of our office, first in regard to Christ and God, secondly, in regard to you and to men generally. “We are acting as ambassadors of Christ,” as no less.

Πρεσβεύω and its noun πρεσβύτης are derived from πρέσβυς, “old,” since old and experienced men were usually sent as ambassadors of emperors and of kings. This word is a noble one and conveys a great deal. An ambassador represents his government also in all its dignity. To scorn an ambassador or to mistreat him is to scorn and to mistreat the government which sent him. To send him away is to break off relations with the government and the ruler whom he represents. An ambassador speaks wholly for his ruler, he is his ruler’s mouthpiece. He never utters his own thoughts, offers, promises, demands, but only those of his ruler. An ambassador’s person lends no weight to what he says. They to whom he is sent see and hear in him only the king who sent him.

We now see how much is conveyed by the statement “deposited for himself” in v. 19. Here there is food for thought for all ambassadors today. How dare we alter, change, reduce the word committed to us? How dare we act as if we were dealing with men or let men think they are dealing only with us? How can we ever lower our high office? No potentate is as high as is he who commissioned us. An ambassador is absolutely responsible to his king. Woe to him if he forgets that!

Here, too ὑπέρ = “instead of” and only in this sense “for” and “in behalf of.” It is unwarranted to stress the point that God sent us, that he deposited his word with us, and that he admonishes men through us as though this means that as ambassadors we represent God and not Christ. For v. 19 states in so many words: “God was in Christ.” No distinction such as indicated can be made between Christ and God. We must take both together: “for Christ” = as representing Christ, as speaking to men in his stead; and “God admonishing through us” = the same thing. The force of ὡς is “as it were.”

Without a connective and hence with emphasis Paul adds in brief how as ambassadors in Christ’s stead he and his assistants speak in Christ’s name, or, which is the same, how God speaks through them: “We keep begging for Christ (again the significant ὑπέρ): ‘Be reconciled to God!’ “Note that no “you” is added, there is no reference to the Corinthians. They were already so reconciled. Paul is speaking of his office in general and how it is being executed in the world among men everywhere (αὑτοῖς in v. 19). Παρακαλέω may have various implications: to admonish, to encourage, to comfort. Here the former meaning is best: God admonishes men. Our versions have “beseech,” which is less good. For δέομαι, which follows, means even more: “to beg.”

This word is remarkable in every way in this connection. Here is the God of heaven and of earth and Christ, his Son who by his death (v. 14, 15) reconciled all to God, and here are their high ambassadors representing God in Christ. On the other hand are transgressors (v. 19). And lo, these ambassadors are sent by God and Christ to beg these transgressors: “Be reconciled!” Yet here there is a secret. In Rom. 5:10 they are called “enemies.” It is love, condescending love alone that wins enemies, overcomes their enmity and hostility and thus works reconciliation in them. No threats of law can do that, no demands but only the gospel voice that admonishes and begs.

Note that καταλλάγητε is the second aorist passive imperative: “be once for all reconciled.” It is not a middle: “become reconciled.” God is the agent who is named as the agent no less than twice in v. 18, 19. This is subjective reconciliation. No man can produce it in himself even to the least fraction. God must do so by his word of the reconciliation (v. 19). The dative τῷΘεῷ is the ἑαυτῷ, “to himself,” which was used twice in v. 18, 19: “God reconciles to himself.” The synergistic reasoning is fallacious that, since God tells men to be reconciled, men must have the ability to obey. The imperative is passive; it does not say: “Reconcile yourselves to God!” “Turn thou me, and I shall be turned!” Jer. 31:18.

Reconcile thou me, and I shall be reconciled! Every gospel imperative is full of the divine power of grace to effect what it demands. If it counted on even the least power in the sinner it would never secure the least effect. Jesus calls this the Father’s drawing (John 6:44; 6:65; 12:32). Every reconciled sinner was reconciled by God to God in Christ—by God alone. “Be reconciled to God” = “the word of the reconciliation” (v. 19). Thank God for this passive verb.

2 Corinthians 5:21

21 It is part of the ambassadors’ word, which has been deposited with them by God so that they may convey it to the transgressors: Him who did not know sin, for us he made sin in order that we on our part may become God’s righteousness in connection with him. This is one of the most tremendous statements written by Paul’s pen. It is so tremendous because it so completely and in such a striking form reveals what God has done for us. Therefore, too, no connective joins it to the foregoing. Here is the objective ground of our reconciliation and together with it the definition of our personal reconciliation which is expressed as God’s purpose.

The object and the verb are reversed, hence both are strongly emphatic: “him who knew no sin—he made sin.” Even the predicate accusative is placed before the verb: “sin he made.” He who knew no sin = “a Lamb without blemish and without spot,” 1 Pet. 1:19. “Which of you convinceth me of sin?” John 8:46. “Who did no sin,” 1 Pet. 2:22. The aorist τὸνμὴγνόντα is constative; it covers the whole life of Jesus. Γινώσκω has its intensive meaning: nosse cum affectu et effectu. Jesus never knew sin as we do by sinning, by in any degree realizing sin in himself. Tempted to sin, he did not, even could not, sin. No sinful motive or desire ever entered his soul. The Son of God was made flesh, but “without sin” (Heb. 4:15), ever “separate from sinners” (Heb. 7:26), so that those who were closest to him ever beheld his sinless glory, glory as of the only-begotten, glory as of the Father (the testimony of John 1:14). Attacks on the perfect sin-lessness of Christ will continue to be made by the sinners who want no such Savior from sin; they continue like other blasphemous sins.

The older grammatical supposition that the negative μή is subjective still creates confusion by raising the question in whose thought or consciousness Jesus is called sinless. But μή is the regular negative with the participle and does not concern itself with such questions. “Who knew no sin” states a negative fact, and it makes no difference to whose thought or consciousness this fact is present.

So also the discussion about anarthrous ἁμαρτία, its being abstract and its relation to the concrete, is misleading. Jesus did not know “sin,” anything that is so named and designated throughout Scripture. Ἁμαρτία, “that which misses the mark,” is the commonest, broadest, most general term and is used here on that account. Moreover, the ideas of sin and guilt go together, and this is the connotation of “sin” in the present connection.

Now the astounding thing is that this sinless One God “made sin for us.” “Sin” is to be taken in the same comprehensive sense. God did not make him “a sinner.” God did less, and he did more. God left Jesus as sinless as he was. The idea of God making anyone a sinner, to say nothing of his own Son, is unthinkable. God did something else entirely: he laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isa. 53:6) so that he bore our sins in his own body on the tree (1 Pet. 2:24), so that he was made a curse for us (Gal. 3:13, ὑπέρ, “in our stead”), so that he died for all (v. 14, 15, again ὑπέρ, “instead of all”). God made Christ sin ὑπὲρἡμῶν by charging all that is “sin” in us against him, by letting him bear all this burden with all its guilt and penalty “in our stead” in order to deliver us.

It sounds incredible that God should have done this with his own sinless Son. Because it is so astounding Paul puts it in this astounding way. But it is fact, God did this.

To the three ὑπέρ occurring in v. 14, 15 there are added three in v. 20, 21; all are used in the same sense: “instead of.” Four times Christ “instead of” all (us); twice God’s ambassadors acting “instead of” Christ. Each of the six is so plain when the persons involved are considered, that its meaning cannot be mistaken. Note also that the first two phrases cover “all” (v. 14, 15), the next covers “them,” those who live for Christ (v. 15), while the last in v. 21 mentions “us,” Paul and his fellow workers. In the first two “all,” “them” and “us” are embraced. As Paul has something to say about “them” in particular, so he now has much to say about “us.” Hence we have the particular mention of the smaller groups. But all that is said about them is due to what the universal phrase “instead of all” contains.

God made the sinless One sin instead of us “in order that we on our part may become God’s righteousness in connection with him.” Let us get the relation of the tenses. This was God’s purpose when he “made” Christ sin for us (historical aorist). This purpose was fulfilled in Paul and in his assistants when Paul dictated these lines. He has just said that “we are acting as ambassadors for Christ.” He is now dictating as such an ambassador. Because it is written out in the Greek, ἡμεῖς is emphatic. Paul says: God wanted me and my assistants to be justified when he made his Son sin for us.

God certainly wanted the same thing for all men even as he gave his Son into death for all. But ὑμὲρἡμῶν and ἡμεῖς speak about Paul and his assistants alone. They are so specifically singled out because God is using them to bring the reconciliation (v. 19) and this righteousness of God in connection with Christ’s death to others. This causes no difficulty whatever, especially after all that precedes from v. 14 onward. Note that γενώμεθα is an aorist and punctiliar: “get to be” or “become” in one decisive act. “Might” in our versions should not be regarded as being only potential, and “become” does not denote a process. The sense is: be justified, declared righteous by God in connection with Christ’s sacrifice for the sin of all men.

Regarding “God’s righteousness” see Rom. 1:17 and 3:21, 22 where Paul expounds this great theme of Romans: δικαιοσύνηΘεοῦ. God’s righteousness, in brief, is the quality that is stamped upon us by God himself when in heaven, on his judgment seat, he renders the judicial verdict that acquits us of all sin and guilt “gratuitously, by his grace, by means of the ransoming that is in Christ Jesus,” Rom. 3:24, which see at length. The genitive is that of source and origin. No sinner can possibly secure the quality, status, and standing of righteousness before God except by God’s own verdict of acquittal. The instant that verdict is pronounced he is δίκαιος, “righteous.” And this verdict God pronounces upon no sinner except ἐναὑτῷ, “in connection with him,” Christ, whom he made sin for us, who died instead of all (v. 14, 15). The connection is faith as Rom. 3:21, etc., sets forth so fully and so completely.

What makes this statement of Paul’s so remarkable is the fact that he does not say: be given, get, receive, have God’s righteousness, but “become.” it is identifying us with God’s righteousness in Christ. The expression constitutes a climax. Justification has never been put into stronger or intenser terms. Yet the fact that God made Christ sin is equally strong and intense. The two expressions also properly go together in their contrast: Christ all sin for our sakes and in our stead; all of us God’s righteousness in connection with Christ. Sin—righteousness, true opposites. For this reason, after speaking of reconciliation, not “reconciliation,” but “righteousness” is the most exact word.

Moreover, only righteousness, this righteousness that God’s verdict declares, can accomplish our personal reconciliation to God. God can embrace only those who are righteous as being subjectively reconciled to him; and only they who let go their sin and accept God’s righteousness by faith in Christ are personally reconciled and as such return to him. And “God’s” is in place, “God’s righteousness,” with the same emphasis it has in v. 18: “These things all from God,” and “God was in Christ.” God, the Reconciler, and we reconciled when we become God’s righteousness. Let us dwell on these points and thus enter into the fulness and the blessedness of Paul’s thought. These are the wondrous realities that are here stated for us in perfect language; we only stammer when we try to repeat them in words of our own. They are the realities for you and for me personally. What an incentive for apprehending them!

R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, 4th ed.

B.-D. Friedrich Blass’ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, vierte, voellig neugearbeitete Auflage, besorgt von Albert Debrunner.

R., W. P. Word Pictures in the New Testament, by Archibald Thomas Robertson. Vol. IV.

C.-K. Biblisch-theologisches Woerterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Graezitaet von D. D. Hermann Cremer, zehnte, etc., Auflage, herausgegeben von D. Dr. Julius Koegel.