Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 2 Corinthians · About this commentary
The Love of Christ Constrains
2 Corinthians 5:11-15
11 Knowing therefore the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are revealed to God, and I hope that we are revealed also in your consciences. · WEB
A death is reported as having happened to everyone, and the conclusion drawn from it is about who a survivor now lives for.
Knowing therefore the fear of the Lord, we persuade men. The judgment seat of the previous verse is the reason for the persuading, and the verb is worth noting — persuasion, not compulsion, in a letter much concerned with authority.
Verse 12 heads off the obvious objection: we are not commending ourselves to you again. What he is doing instead is supplying them with ammunition — giving you occasion of boasting on our behalf, that you may have something to answer those who boast in appearance and not in heart.
So the defense is not for his benefit. They are the ones being asked awkward questions about the apostle they backed, and the distinction he draws is between two places boasting can be located: in appearance, which is what his rivals had, and in heart, which cannot be displayed.
Verse 13 concedes both halves of what people said about him: if we are beside ourselves, it is for God. Or if we are of sober mind, it is for you. Called unhinged, he does not deny it; called calculating, he does not deny that either. Each is assigned a beneficiary, and neither is himself.
Then verse 14, which supplies the motive for everything in the letter: for the love of Christ compels us.
The verb means to press in from both sides — what a crowd does to a man in a narrow street, or what banks do to a river. It is not encouragement. It is a constraint that leaves one direction open.
And the reasoning attached to it is a syllogism: we judge thus: that one died for all, therefore all died. The inference runs from his death to theirs. Because the death was on behalf of all, all are reckoned to have died in it — which is why the conclusion is not about gratitude.
Verse 15 states that conclusion, and it is about ownership of a life: that those who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who for their sakes died and rose again.
The alternative to living for oneself is not living for others in general. It is living for one person, named by what he did.
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