Expert: Quentin Parker - 3/15/2010

Question
Hi!Quentin
Can you explain this 2 Cor 5:16 for me.?  
Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.
Thank you
Pat

Answer
Hi Pat,

Thank-you for your question.

Here is the passage you referred to:
2 Corinthians 5:16-21: “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting mens sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

When Paul forbids believers to ‘think of Christ after the flesh’ what he intends, I believe, is to admonish us not to speak irreverently of Christ, or emphasize too greatly His manhood at the risk of impiously neglecting His deity. Now that we have been shown His salvation we no longer regard Christ as a mere man, for we know that ‘in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead, bodily’ (Colossians 2:9). Now that we are no longer children of this world we affirm His deity and speak of Him in a reverent manner that acknowledges this belief.

This admonition does not simply preclude the more obvious ‘fleshly thinking’ of speaking and thinking of Christ as a ‘good man’ or ‘worthy example’ but it also prohibits our speaking of Him in too familiar a manner - choosing to overlook His deity in favor of making Him more ‘personable’ to us, talking of Him in tender, affectionate terms devoid of awe and reverence that ignore or minimize His majesty and greatness. We are to “Serve the LORD with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for His wrath can flare up in a moment.” (Psalm 2:11,12)

In short, this apt and much-needed warning wisely cautions us against any irreverence towards the Son particularly because it is easier for us – because of the Incarnation – to fall into such disregard concerning the deity of Christ forgetting that He is our Lord, our Creator, our Saviour, and our Judge: "...our Lord Jesus Christ…  who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen." (1 Timothy 6:14-16).

"All must “honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him” (John 5:23).

Thanks again for your question. I hope you find this helpful.

God bless!
Quentin Parker