Chapter 5
| 2 Corinthians: Chapters -1- -2- -3- -4- -5- -6- -7- -8- -9- -10- -11- -12- -13- |
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| 5:1 We are aware that if our earthly dwelling, this tent, should perish, we already possess a house out from God, a house not made by hands, a house age-unfolding inside of the heavens. 2 And indeed, inside of this reality we groan with great pressure and grief, longing to be clothed with our dwelling-place out from heaven. 3 If indeed also, having been clothed, we will not be found poorly clothed. • 4 And so, being inside of this tent, we groan with great pressure of travail and grief, being weighted down, not that we desire to be unclothed [lose our physical bodies] but to be clothed, that what is dying may be swallowed up, drunk down, and consumed by LIFE. • 5 The One who has now prepared us, having achieved and worked out already for this same thing, is God, who has already given to us the earnest payment of the Spirit, the security of the whole. [g] 6 We always show confidence and good courage, therefore, and are aware that, if we identify ourselves inside of the dying body, we are not identifying ourselves as from the Lord; • 7 for we walk through faith, not through sight. 8 We show confidence and good courage, and are well-pleased, rather, not to identify ourselves as out from a dying body, but to identify ourselves fully towards the Lord [e]. 9 Therefore, we also love being well-pleasing to Him, wherever our identity might be. 10 For it is necessary for all of us to be fully visible [without pretending] in the presence of the judgment seat of Christ, that we may carry the things each performs through the body, whether good or evil. • 11 Knowing, therefore, the fear of the Lord, we persuade men to a God who has been made visible as us [inside the face of Christ]. And I hope that we are made visible inside of your consciousness as well. 12 Again, we are not commending ourselves to you, but are giving to you the opportunity to boast on our behalf, so that we may have the answer towards those who boast inside of appearance [pretending], and not inside of the heart. 13 For if we are out of our minds, it is to God; or if we are of sound minds, it is for you. • 14 For the love of Christ presses us together, because we have concluded that if One died for all, then all have died. • 15 And He died for all, that those living should no longer themselves live, but rather the One who died and who was raised again for their sakes [in trade, life for life] [f]. 16 Therefore, from now on, we do not perceive or identify anyone according to the details of the flesh. Though even Christ we have known according to the details of the flesh, yet now we know Him in that way no longer. • 17 Therefore, if anyone is inside of Christ, he is a new creation. The old things are already gone; look and see, the New has already become. • 18 And all things are now out from God. God has already reconciled and reconnected us to Himself through Christ, and has given to us the ministry and service of reconciliation and reconnection, • 19 how that God was inside of Christ reconciling and reconnecting the world-cosmos to Himself, not counting to them their false steps [not knowing in His mind any sin or disconnection], and now this same God has set forth and placed inside of us the Word of reconciliation and reconnection with God. • 20 For the sake of Christ, therefore, we are ambassadors as God Himself encouraging and inviting through us. We deeply desire for the sake of Christ: Be reconciled, connect yourself back [through faith] to God. • 21 For He made the One who never once knew any disconnection from God, to take upon and into Himself that disconnect for us, for our sakes, so that we might become the just innocence of God inside of Him. |
| Gospel Word | Notes |
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| • Life: Our human weakness is God’s dwelling place forever, but the dying of our physical bodies is not. Because we see God filling us full, in spite of our mortality, we groan in travail for that moment when our physical bodies are swallowed up by LIFE, God becoming visible through us. • Covenant: God made us specifically for the experience of our dying physical bodies being swallowed up by the Life of Resurrection without ever losing them. The Spirit of Devotion given to us is the certainty of the Covenant that makes such an experience the goal of all our travail. • Ruling Verse 7: Human weakness and mortality are two very different things. With Paul, we glory in our weakness, for God is our all-sufficiency. But death is our enemy (see 1 Cor. 15:26). We are part of Christ because we are confident that we are part of Christ with no outward sign, that is, there is no outward reason to believe such a thing. The key is our identity, and this is why we speak Christ. Our identity is that we are at home inside of Jesus and not anywhere else. • Ruling Verse 5: Because Jesus died for all, we know that all died upon that Cross, the entire original creation. We are already crucified with Christ, and we are already made alive inside of Jesus. We have stepped through the Cross through faith into all of life shared with the Lord Jesus. We no longer ourselves live, but Christ lives as us. • Speak Christ: Christ is my Life; I have no other life. • Ruling Verse 6: Through Jesus as our Way, through the Blood, we live inside of God. Look and see. You are inside of God; everything that you see is only God Himself, your Father, sharing all with you. The Cross is your entrance into God. Look and see this God inside of whom you dwell, revealed to you through a very human Jesus. And when you know that everything you experience is now out from God, then be ready for what comes next. • Ruling Verse 8: God showed Himself to us through Jesus, through a man on his face in the mud under a cross he could not carry, carrying us, carried by Father. By this we have known Love. Now this same God, a God who knows no evil, is inside of us, having turned us around, that He might come as Salvation through us into our world – And we also. God through me now encourages you to embrace full union with Christ, to know that you also share Life with God. • Ruling Verse 6: Jesus is our Scapegoat, living now as us, taking upon Himself even our ongoing sinfulness, even all of our antagonism against God. Inside that same exchange, for our sakes, Jesus makes us to be His own just innocence, the just innocence of God, even as we dwell only inside of Him. |
e. Paul is not speaking here of geography. We CANNOT be “absent” from the Lord, neither is heaven and earth two separate “places,” rather, he is speaking of our identity. Note: Paul is using Greek idioms, here, familiar to the Greek Corinthians. Idioms cannot be translated directly for their meaning is not in the literal words. f. Notice, now as you continue reading, how this whole passage of several chapters has become one meaningful and integrated whole. Paul is not jumping from one topic to another, but everything expresss the same reality or transformation into glory, just in several different ways. The rule of Paul’s thinking is found in 2:14-15, 3:3, and 3:18, and 4:7. |