2 Corinthians
Chapter 5
Overview
Paul reflects on life in a fragile body and the lasting life God prepares beyond death. He speaks of Jesus as Lord and Messiah—the promised ruler traditionally called Christ. Because everyone will answer for what they have done, Paul explains what drives his work: the Messiah’s love. This changes how he sees people and even how he understands life itself. The chapter then turns outward. God is repairing humanity’s broken relationship with himself and has made Paul and his coworkers messengers of that peace. Mortal life may feel like a tent, but hope gives it a surprisingly solid foundation.
1We know that if the earthly tent we live in—our present body—is taken down, God has a building for us: an eternal home in heaven, not made by human hands.
2While living in this body, we groan because we deeply long to put on our home from heaven like another layer of clothing.
3If we have put it on, we certainly will not be found naked.
4While we are still in this tent, we groan under a heavy burden. We do not want simply to take off our mortal body, but to put on the heavenly one over it, so that life may swallow up everything that is mortal.
5God himself has prepared us for this very purpose, and he has given us his Spirit as the first installment guaranteeing what is to come.
6So we are always confident. We know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord.
7We live by trusting him, not by seeing him.
8Yet we are confident, and we would rather leave the body and make our home with the Lord.
9Therefore, whether we are at home in the body or away from it, our ambition is to please the Lord.
10All of us must appear before the Messiah’s judgment seat. Each person will then receive what is due for what they did while living in the body, whether good or worthless.
11Because we know how seriously the Lord is to be feared, we try to persuade people. God sees us exactly as we are, and I hope that your consciences see us clearly too.
12We are not recommending ourselves to you again. Instead, we are giving you a reason to be proud of us, so that you can answer those who boast about outward appearances rather than what is in the heart.
13If we seem to be out of our minds, it is for God. If we are thinking clearly and sensibly, it is for your benefit.
14The Messiah’s love controls us because we have reached this conclusion: one person died for everyone, and therefore everyone died.
15He died for everyone so that those who live would no longer live for themselves. Instead, they should live for the one who died for them and was raised from death.
16From now on, then, we do not judge anyone by merely human standards. Even if we once understood the Messiah that way, we no longer do.
17So if anyone is united with the Messiah, there is a new creation. The old has passed away; look, the new has come!
18All this comes from God. Through the Messiah, God repaired our broken relationship with himself, and he gave us the work of helping others be restored to him.
19In other words, God was working through the Messiah to restore the world’s relationship with himself. He did not hold people’s wrongs against them, and he entrusted us with the message of this restored relationship.
20We therefore serve as the Messiah’s representatives, as though God were making his appeal through us. On the Messiah’s behalf, we plead with you: accept the restored relationship God offers you.
21The Messiah had never sinned, but for our sake God made him bear the full reality of sin, so that, united with him, we might become people who embody God’s justice and faithfulness.