The section of this epistle that expounds the glory of the Christian ministry (2:14-6:10) builds to a climax in the following verses (5:11-6:10). Here Paul clarified the driving motive, the divine mission, the dynamic message, and the diverse ministries of the New Covenant. He did so to inspire the Corinthians to recognize his ministry as Spirit-led and to follow his example in their ministries.
5:11 Respect for the Lord since He would be his judge (v. 10) motivated Paul to carry out his work of persuading people to believe the gospel. A healthy sense of our accountability to God should move us to fulfill our calling as Christians (Matt. 28:19-20).
"According to II Cor. 5:11, the judgment seat is the place where the terror of the Lord' will be manifested. The word terror' in this verse is a translation of the Greek word phobos, referring to that which causes fear,' terror,' apprehension.' This is the same word translated fearful' in Heb. 10:31 . . . another reference to events at the judgment seat."177
Paul had a double purpose. The NEB translates "we persuade men"as "we address our appeal to men."Paul tried to persuade people of the truth of the gospel but also of the truth about himself. His motives were pure (1:12), and his conduct had been consistent with his apostleship (cf. 3:1-6; 4:1-6). Paul's knowledge that his life was an open book to God led him to voice the hope that it would be transparent to all the Corinthians too.
"The ministry is ultimately responsible to God. Christian ministers are servants of the Lord (1 Cor. 3:5), attendants of Christ and stewards of God (1 Cor. 4:1); they discharge their ministry in the sight of God' (2 Cor. 4:2; cf. 1 Cor. 4:5) as knowing the fear of the Lord' (2 Cor. 5:11)."178
5:12 Paul insisted that he had bared his soul to the readers in the previous verses not to boast (cf. 3:1). He had written what he had to give his allies in Corinth ammunition to combat his critics whose judgments were wrong. He was simply reminding his original readers of things they should have remembered. The external appearances that Paul's critics admired included physical relationship to Jesus during His earthly ministry (5:16), their Jewish orthodoxy (11:22), and their visions and revelations (12:1-7). The heart reality that Paul considered more important was the testimony of his clear conscience before God and people.
"His anomalous position as an apostle who was called directly by Christ and who did not belong to the college of the twelve disciples meant that he had no option but to appeal to that call. But this laid him open to the accusation that he was self-commended. In consequence, whenever he affirms his ministry--in this case that he evangelizes (we persuade men')--he must disclaim self-commendation (see on 3:1 and 6:4). Nonetheless, his ministry did commend him, as the Corinthians should have recognized (12:11; cf. 4:2, 10:18)."179
5:13 All of Paul's ministries to and for the Corinthians had been for God's glory and their welfare.
What Paul meant by the charge of being beside himself, and its opposite, being of sound mind, could and probably does include all the following possibilities. Some critics apparently attacked him for his teaching that differed from mainstream Judaism, his ecstatic experiences, and his ceaseless service. To this his response was, "That is for God to judge"(cf. vv. 9-11). Other critics may have thought him crazy for speaking in tongues and having visions (cf. Acts 22:17-21). For Paul, that was a matter between him and God (cf. 1 Cor. 14:2). Occasionally Paul may have appeared carried away with his emotions, but that conduct only resulted in God's glory. His self-commendation may have looked like lunacy to some in Corinth, but Paul was only defending God's cause. To the Jews the apostle's conversion marked him as a madman, but that change of mind was a totally rational decision.180Jesus' critics had misjudged Him too.
5:14-15 The primary reason Paul could not live for himself, however, was God's love for him (probably a subjective genative181) that extended to Jesus Christ's dying on the cross. Jesus provided the example that all His disciples must follow. He gave His life for others. Yet Jesus' death was much more than an example. Paul had come to appreciate the widespread effects of that death (as being "for all") and the essence of that death (as a substitute).
"Paul is not suggesting that, irrespective of their response and attitude, all men know forgiveness of sins or experience selfless living. There is universalism in the scope of redemption, since no man is excluded from God's offer of salvation; but there is a particularity in the application of redemption, since not all men appropriate the benefits afforded by this universally offered salvation."182
The apostle had also become aware that such love merited complete devotion (i.e., making the fulfillment of God's desires rather than selfish desires the goal of life). We "all died"(v. 15) in the sense that all believers died in the person of their representative, Jesus Christ.183
". . . Christ's death was the death of all, in the sense that He died the death they should have died; the penalty of their sins was borne by Him; He died in their place . . ."184
". . . One died on behalf of all (not only, for the benefitof all . . . but instead ofall . . ."185
Moreover as Jesus died to His own desires and rose to continue serving us, so we should die to our own selfish interests and live to serve others. Paul himself modelled what he observed in Jesus' experience and called on his readers to duplicate His example.
"Thus there emerge from v. 11 and v. 14 two motives for apostolic evangelism, the fear of the Lord' and the love of Christ.' . . . The one relates to Jesus' role as Judge, the other to his role as Savior."186
In this section Paul identified two motives for Christian service: an awareness of our accountability to God (v. 11) and the example of Jesus Christ (v. 14). Jesus is both our Judge and our Savior, and His two roles should have an impact on how we live.
5:16 Paul now illustrated how Christ's love had changed his viewpoint. Since his conversion, he had stopped making superficial personal judgments based only on external appearances (cf. v. 12). Previously he had looked at people on a strictly physical basis, in terms of their ethnicity rather than their spiritual status. Now whether a person was a believer or a non-believer was more important to him than whether one was a Jew or a Gentile.
Paul had also formerly concluded that Jesus could not be the divine Messiah in view of His lowly origins, rejection, and humiliating death. Now he recognized Him for who He really was and what He really had done (cf. vv. 14-15). Probably Paul did not claim to have known Jesus during His earthly ministry here, though he may have known Him. However after his conversion on the Damascus road, Paul saw Christ in a new light (i.e., according to the Spirit).
5:17 Jesus Christ's death and resurrection (vv. 14-15) had had another effect besides altering Paul's viewpoint (v. 16).187Whenever a person experiences conversion, as Paul did, he or she really becomes a new person. It is not just his or her viewpoint that should change and can change, but many things really do change. Certain old conditions and relationships no longer exist (Gr. parelthen, aorist tense), and others take their place and continue (Gr. gegonen, perfect tense).
Obviously there is both continuity and discontinuity that takes place at conversion (justification). Paul was not denying the continuity. We still have the same physical features, basic personality, genetic constitution, parents, susceptibility to temptation (1 Cor. 10:14), sinful environment (Gal. 1:4), etc. These things do not change. He was stressing the elements of discontinuity: perspectives, prejudices, misconceptions, enslavements, etc. (cf. Gal. 2:20). God adds many new things at conversion including new spiritual life, the Holy Spirit, forgiveness, the righteousness of Christ, as well as new viewpoints (v. 16).
The Christian is a new creature (a new man, Rom. 6) in this sense. Before conversion we did not possess the life-giving Holy Spirit who now lives within us (Rom. 8:9). We had only our sinful human nature. Now we have both our sinful human nature and the indwelling Holy Spirit. This addition makes us an essentially new person since the Holy Spirit's effects on the believer are so far-reaching. We also possess many other riches of divine grace that contribute to our distinctiveness as believers.188
This section and the first two verses of chapter 6 constitute the crux of Paul's exposition of the apostolic office (2:14-7:4) and of the entire letter.189
5:18-19 The basis of this total change (new attitudes, v. 16, and new creation, v. 17) is God's gracious provision of reconciliation in sending His Son to die for us. He has brought people to Himself by dealing with our sins in Christ. God is the reconciler, and He has reconciled everyone to Himself, the elect and the non-elect alike (cf. Rom. 5:10-11; Col. 1:20-22). He has brought everyone into a savable relation to Himself by sending His Son who paid the penalty for sin that separates people from God. The fact that God has reconciled everyone does not mean that everyone is justified. People still need to respond to the offer of salvation by believing the gospel to receive justification (v. 20). Reconciliation removes a barrier to our salvation, but it does not by itself accomplish our salvation.
God has committed the message of this provision to those who have experienced reconciliation, and our ministry is to present it to all people (Matt. 28:19-20). Paul was perhaps speaking primarily of his own ministry of bringing people back to God as well as the ministry of his fellow apostles. However all believers clearly share this ministry since God has reconciled us all. The word of reconciliation is the gospel message.
5:20 This makes us God's ambassadors, one of the most exalted titles the Christian can claim. Ambassadors authoritatively announce messages for others and request, not demand, acceptance. The Christian ambassador, moreover, announces and appeals for God.
". . . when Christ's ambassador entreats it is equivalent to the voice of God entreating through him."190
However the stakes involved require an urgent appeal. We should never present the gospel to the lost with a "take it or leave it"attitude. Our presentation should communicate the urgency of their believing the message. Full reconciliation only takes place when a person trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ as his or her Savior (John 3:16). Consequently it may be helpful to think of reconciliation as objectively provided by God in the past but needing subjective appropriation by the unsaved in the present.
We could understand the word "you"in "we beg (or implore) you"as a specific reference to the Corinthians or as a general reference to all people. Paul was probably not appealing to his Corinthian readers to be reconciled to God. They had already been reconciled (v. 18) and had trusted in Christ.191He was explaining his ministry to the unsaved generally (v. 19).
5:21 Verse 21 condenses the ground of Paul's appeal and expresses it in another paradox. This verse explains the "how"of full reconciliation and takes us to the very heart of the atonement.
"In these few direct words the Apostle sets forth the gospel of reconciliation in all its mystery and all its wonder. There is no sentence more profound in the whole of Scripture; for this verse embraces the whole ground of the sinner's reconciliation to God and declares the incontestable reason why he should respond to the ambassadorial entreaty. Indeed, it completes the message with which the Christian ambassador has been entrusted."192
Paul probably intended that we understand what he wrote about Jesus Christ becoming sin in three ways. First, God treated Jesus as if He were a sinner when He poured out His wrath on Jesus who bore the guilt and penalty for all people's sins.193Second, Jesus Christ became a sin offering (Lev. 4:24; 5:12), the perfect and final one.194Third, He became the locus of sin under the judgment of God.
"So complete was the identification of the sinless Christ with the sin of the sinner, including its dire guilt and its dread consequence of separation from God, that Paul could say profoundly, God made him . . . to be sin for us.'"195
Jesus Christ was the target of God's punishment of sinners God having imputed the sin of all humankind to Him (cf. Rom. 8:3; 1 Cor. 15:3). Now God makes us the targets of His righteousness and imputes that to us (1 Cor. 1:30; Phil. 3:9). The effect of God imputing righteousness to believers is that now God sees us as He sees His righteous Son, namely fully acceptable to Him.
"Paul has chosen this exceptional wording ["made sin for us"] in order to emphasize the sweet exchange' whereby sinners are given a righteous status before God through the righteous one who absorbed their sin (and its judgment) in himself."196
"Here, then is the focal point to which the long argument has been building up. Paul, having himself been reconciled to God by the death of Christ, has now been entrusted by God with the task of ministering to others that which he has himself received, in other words, reconciliation. Verse 20 then follows from this as a dramatic double statement of his conception of the task . . . That is to say, when Paul preaches, his hearers ought to hear a voice from God, a voice which speaks on behalf of the Christ in whom God was reconciling the world. Astonishingly, the voice of the suffering apostle is to be regarded as the voice of God himself, the God who in Christ has established the new covenant, and who now desires to extend its reconciling work into all the world. The second half of the verse should not, I think, be taken as an address to the Corinthians specifically, but as a short and pithy statement of Paul's whole vocation: On behalf of Christ, we make this appeal: "Be reconciled to God!"
"What the whole passage involves, then, is the idea of the covenant ambassador, who represents the one for whom he speaks in such a full and thorough way that he actually becomesthe living embodiment of his sovereign--or perhaps, in the light of 4:7-18 and 6:1-10, we should equally say the dyingembodiment."197
6:1 Since God appeals to the unsaved through heralds of the gospel (5:20), the herald is in that sense a partner with God in His work of bringing people into final reconciliation.198Evangelism is a joint effort of the Lord and His human ambassador. Paul went beyond that specific function of an ambassador and, for God, also appealed to his Christian readers. In addition to responding to the call to be reconciled to God, they also needed to respond to another call. They needed to make sure that they were responding to God's grace as well.
Paul's readers had received God's grace when they had heard the gospel message. Now Paul urged them to respond to it so God's gracious bestowal would not have been in vain. God gives grace to all people throughout their lives, but He gives more grace at the moment of conversion and from then on. It is not clear which manifestation of grace Paul had in mind, the grace the Corinthians received at conversion or the subsequent grace. I think he probably had both in mind and spoke of their response to divine grace generally since he did not clearly identify the past or the present manifestation. Receiving God's grace in vain would be not allowing it to have its divinely intended result in their lives. In the context, conflict between some of the Corinthians and Paul resulting in the discrediting of the gospel ministry seems to be in view (v. 3). More generally, disunity among believers frustrates God's desire and His provision of grace (help). Most broadly, any disobedience to God's will frustrates His grace (cf. 7:1; 11:4; 12:20-21).
"The explanation which in our judgment is most satisfactory, and which seems best to fit the broad context in which this verse is found, is that Paul is here thinking in terms of the judgment-seat of Christ, before which the works of every Christian will be made manifest (5:10)."199
6:2 As he begged unbelievers to receive God's reconciling grace (5:20), Paul now urged his readers to respond quickly and positively to God's grace to them. Paul quoted Isaiah 49:8 to stress the importance of responding immediately. The "acceptable time"will not last forever. In the context of the Isaiah quotation, God addressed His Servant whom the nations had despised promising eventual vindication and urging Him to restore His people. The parallel with Paul and the Corinthians' ministry is obvious. Rather than squabbling among themselves over Paul the readers needed to get on with the ambassadorial work that God had given them to do.
6:3 The Corinthians should not and Paul tried not to give any cause for others to stumble because of their ministry. Obviously we cannot prevent all criticism of our ministry because there may be some who take offense without good reason. Still we should do everything we can to make sure we do not give anyone cause for justifiable criticism.
6:4-5 Paul proceeded to describe positively how he had conducted himself to prove that his own reception of God's grace had not been in vain. He commended and defended his ministry to provide the faithful Corinthians with more ammunition to rebut his critics. Note that he referred to his actions rather than his words. He cited three groups of trials, and there are three kinds of trials in each group. These he prefaced with a claim to patience (steadfast endurance), an extremely important quality in an ambassador of Christ.
