2 Corinthians5chapter 5

2 Corinthians 5:1-4

For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens: skenos, tent, names the body as a temporary dwelling struck at death, set against a permanent building from God, and the bench reads Paul's own trade as tentmaker sitting quietly behind the figure. The groaning of verses 2 and 4 is not a wish to be disembodied but the opposite, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven, that mortality might be swallowed up of life; the hope is resurrection embodiment, not escape from the body. Verse 3 guards against the fear such longing could raise, if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked, the intermediate state never left as a final destination.

2 Corinthians 5:5

Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit: arrabon, the same commercial word Paul used at 1:22, a down payment guaranteeing the full sum still owed. The Spirit given now is God's own pledge that the resurrection body of verses 1 through 4 will follow, and the bench sets this beside the eternal security doctrine the letter carries throughout, the Spirit's presence in the believer standing as God's earnest, not the believer's own performance. The verb wrought, katergasamenos, credits the whole preparation for glory to God as the acting party.

2 Corinthians 5:6-8

Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: the confidence rests on the pledge just named, and the bench reads the whole triad, verses 6 through 8, as Paul's clearest statement of what happens to a believer at death. For we walk by faith, not by sight names the present condition parenthetically, and verse 8 states the preference plainly, willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord, immediate presence with Christ at death rather than soul sleep or an interval of unconsciousness. The passage stands with Philippians 1:23 as the New Testament's plainest word on the intermediate state, and the exposition holds the two together.

2 Corinthians 5:9-10

Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him: the confidence of the previous verses becomes motive for present diligence rather than an excuse for it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad: bema names a tribunal for reward and evaluation, the same word used of a magistrate's platform, and the bench distinguishes this appearing sharply from the judgment of condemnation Christ already bore, since John 5:24 promises the believer shall not come into condemnation. What is weighed here is the quality of a saved life's works, reward gained or lost, never salvation itself put back in question, and the exposition holds that line as the letter's eternal security shape requires throughout.

2 Corinthians 5:11-13

Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men: the bema of the previous verse supplies the terror, not hell for the believer but the sober weight of giving account, and it drives Paul's evangelism rather than a fear he preaches to unbelievers as their present danger. But we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences answers the charge of self-commendation raised back in chapter 3, Paul appealing past outward credentials to what God and the Corinthians' own conscience already know of him. Verse 13 answers the accusation of madness, whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God: or whether we be sober, it is for your cause, his ecstatic zeal answerable to God alone, his plain reasoning offered for the church's sake.

2 Corinthians 5:14-15

For the love of Christ constraineth us: sunechei, hems in on every side, the same word used of a besieged city, and the bench reads it as the true engine of every apostolic labour named in the letter. Because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead names the logic, one substitutionary death standing for the death of all whom he represented, all humanity under sin's sentence. And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again: the resurrection is named in the same breath as the death, and the exposition marks the verse as the hinge from Christ's finished work to the new life the next two verses describe.

2 Corinthians 5:16

Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: the love just described changes how Paul evaluates every person, sarx here meaning outward, worldly estimation, rank, nationality, appearance, the very measures the false apostles at Corinth traded on. Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more: the bench takes this as Paul's own confession, whatever knowledge he once had of Jesus by human report or even by his pre-conversion opposition to a merely earthly Messiah, the risen and glorified Christ he now knows is known no longer that way. The verse closes the door on judging Christ, or any man, by outward criteria once the cross has been understood.

2 Corinthians 5:17

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: kaine ktisis, new creation, and the bench reads the phrase against Isaiah's promise of new heavens and a new earth, the same creative power that made the first world remaking the man in Christ. Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new states the totality of the change, and Spurgeon's sermons on the verse press the double aorist, passed away and become new both accomplished facts, not a process still pending. The verse is the letter's shortest and most complete statement of what union with Christ does to a person, standing beside 5:21 as the twin summits of the chapter.

2 Corinthians 5:18-19

the ministry of reconciliation: And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation: katallage, reconciliation, restoring a broken relationship, and the bench notes the direction of the verb throughout, God reconciling man, never man reconciling God, since it is God's own wrath that the cross satisfies. To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation: the incarnation is stated in three words, God was in Christ, and the reconciling work is world-wide in scope while its application waits on the word being received. The ministry entrusted to the church is this same message, not a new one, and the exposition presents it as the letter's summary of the gospel's content.

2 Corinthians 5:20-21

we are ambassadors for Christ: Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God: presbeuomen, the term for an official envoy speaking with the sender's own authority, and the bench reads the plea as addressed first to the still-resistant faction at Corinth before it is addressed to the world. Verse 21 states the great exchange at the center of the whole letter, for he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him: Christ's sinlessness is affirmed absolutely, the imputation runs both directions, our sin credited to him, his righteousness credited to us, and the bench across every era reads this as substitutionary atonement stated as plainly as anywhere in Paul. The exposition teaches the verse at its full strength as the letter's own climax.