2 Corinthians 5:11-19

The emphasis is on the opening words of 2 Corinthians 5:11. Among the clouds of misrepresentation to which he was exposed was the sneering assertion that in some unworthy sense he persuades or gets round men (cf. Galatians 1:10). If it can be said of him with any truth at all, this, which he has just stated, is the reason. In any case both his motives and his methods are plain to God and (he will never let go the hope) plain also to the inward judgment of the Corinthians. This does not mean that he is justifying another charge made against him, the charge of commending himself. He is really inviting them to be proud of him, as they will be if they do him justice. So will they be able to face his opponents, who found their claim on outward things such as eloquence (2 Corinthians 10:10), or on letters of commendation (2 Corinthians 3:1), or their Jewish blood (2 Corinthians 11:22), or on their personal acquaintance with Jesus, rather than upon inward motive or disposition. In the case of Paul, all experience, all action even, has lost any merely personal reference. His periods of ecstasy are for the glory of God; his times of sober consciousness are for the benefit of others. For he is governed by Christ's love and by the form in which it had been manifested. Christ had died for all. It followed that all died with Him died to the old life. Christ had risen again; it follows that those who live (with the new life) in Him, live not to themselves but to Him. And so real is this new life, so completely is it cut off from the old one, that all relationships on the plane of human life are transcended. Even a claim to have known the historical Jesus (such as was probably made by some of Paul's opponents) was irrelevant. Christ's true followers knew Him in another and a higher way, not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. It is not possible to decide whether Paul waives the fact or only the supposition that he had known Jesus in the flesh. But since he was probably in Jerusalem at the time of the Crucifixion, the possibility of his having at least seen Him cannot be excluded. In fact, those who live because they are in Christ, are actually new beings. And all this comes from God. It is He who has reconciled men to Himself, He who has appointed Paul to a ministry of reconciliation. For all his magnifying of the glory and sacrifice of Christ, Paul never loses sight of God as the primal Author and Source of salvation (1 Corinthians 3:23). And this is the burden of his message, that God in Christ has brought humanity into a relation of peace with Himself. In doing this God must have cancelled the record of human offences against Himself (Romans 3:23), and to give effect to it He had committed to the apostles and teachers the message of reconciliation.

[ 2 Corinthians 5:16 to know Christ after the flesh may mean to hold the old Jewish Messianic ideas. A. J. G.]