2 Corinthians 5: The New Creation

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Thank you for listening to First Day.

Paul continues in chapter five informing the Corinthians the outcomes that they should expect following their decision to die to self and live in Christ. These are the results of righteousness. Up front let me tell you that this chapter is one of the heaviest, most theologically and doctrinally dense chapters in the New Testament. Some of the commentary here may seem to you incomplete—and it probably it—because the themes and teachings here are fleshed out further in Romans. In fact, I’m starting to think that 2 Corinthians 5 should be required reading before tackling Paul’s magnum opus.

1 For we know that if our earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal dwelling in the heavens, not made with hands.

We sacrifice and are afflicted and face hardship and privation for the sake of the gospel; we experience these things in our physical bodies: hunger, pain, and emotional stress, to identify just a few. The Christian who allows his or herself to die with Christ on the cross to live in Christ will find that their faithfulness will yield the blessing of a new spiritual body. This is in keeping with Paul’s earlier teaching on the resurrection in 1 Corinthians. “…our earthly tent” may also refer to our lives in general, with Paul concerned with how we live them: Upon what do we focus? What are our priorities? 

2 Indeed, we groan in this tent, desiring to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3 since, when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4 Indeed, we groan while we are in this tent, burdened as we are, because we do not want to be unclothed but clothed, so that mortality may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now the one who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as a down payment.

We long for that spiritual body given at resurrection just like we long to live in God’s kingdom. Either way, we will be “clothed” in Christ. When that time and state of being finally comes, we will find God to be our refuge, and God’s hand will cover us. Remember Psalm 116 from last episode. As Paul has already explained to the Corinthians, the only way for a person to gain immortality is to die to self and be made alive in Christ. From this perspective, being unclothed means to be mortal and to be clothed is to be immortal, clothed in the glory and majesty of God. We know that this will be the outcome of our faith because God has given to us His Spirit in Christ Jesus. 

6 So we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 For we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 In fact, we are confident, and we would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 Therefore, whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to be pleasing to him. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may be repaid for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Is Paul speaking specifically here—that this is about our physical bodies—or this Paul speaking generally about to kind of life that we live: our own, worldly one or Christ’s? As with most bibly things, even though most Christians want it either/or, it is probably both/and. Consider verse six: would you rather be here or in God’s kingdom? Would I rather be in the kingdom than be here where I must struggle against my pride every day? Duh… In verse eight Paul tells us his preference, that he’d prefer to be with God, but “whether we are home or away, we make it our aim to be pleasing to him.” This really leads us to verse ten. We may long to be in God’s kingdom, like Paul, but the fact is we are still here. Let us spend a minute here in verse ten.

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may be repaid for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. 11 Therefore, since we know the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade people. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your consciences.

What Paul says to the Corinthians here is one of the most often ignored teachings in the whole of scripture. In our kneejerk reaction to what we perceive to be dogma in the Roman Catholic Church—what has come to be called “works righteousness”—we Protestants long ago decided that salvation was through faith alone. Some of you listening are going, “Yes,” and some of you are going, “No,” but most of you are going, “Where is he going with this?” Well, this is where: We Christians don’t tend to like to dive into the deep end of our common faith. I guess it’s called the comfort zone for a reason. To put this as succinctly as possible, Paul says here that we are to be judged not on what we believe but whether we have faith—which is belief in action. We must act on what we believe, and these actions declare what we believe. And Paul tells us in verse eleven that this is why he does what he does. “What we are in plain to God, and I hope it is plain to your consciences.”

12 We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you an opportunity to be proud of us, so that you may have a reply for those who take pride in outward appearance rather than in the heart. 13 For if we are out of our mind, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14 For the love of Christ compels us, since we have reached this conclusion, that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised.

Paul has not written this letter to provide the Corinthians with evidence for his apostolic authority. Instead, he has written to them to provide them with an example for, or better, a counter argument to, those Christians who wear their belief on their sleeves—those who do what they do to set themselves apart—perhaps even to those who try to do the ministry of Christ commonsensically or as the world would do ministry. These Christians live for themselves, whereas in verse fifteen we hear Paul declare the necessity of the death-to-self: “…so that those who live should no longer live for themselves…” Why we do what we do is as important and necessary as what we choose to do. This message is in line with what he had already written to the Galatians: that we no longer live but that Christ lives in us. 

To me, verse fifteen is the standout. “And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised.” Much of Paul’s soon to be written letter to the Romans is dedicated to explaining what the apostle means here, and I can’t wait to get there: Jesus died so that we might be able to live for something greater than ourselves. 

16 From now on, then, we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective. Even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective, yet now we no longer know him in this way. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come! 18 Everything is from God, wh...