Held by the Love of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:11-15)
Today’s Word
[Christ’s Love Compels Us] (NIV)
11 Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience.
12 We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart.
13 If we are “out of our mind,” as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.
14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.
15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
Background
Once again the passage opens with a connecting word. In verse 10 Paul had just said that we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Today’s verses pick up from there. How does a person live who knows they will one day stand before Christ? Paul answers with his own life.
Verse 11 speaks of knowing what it is to fear the Lord. This is the same fear of the Lord that the Old Testament calls the beginning of wisdom. It is less about trembling in terror and more about knowing that God is God, and refusing to treat life lightly in his presence. Paul says that this reverence is what drives him to persuade others. Preaching the gospel was not a hobby or a career move for him. It was work he would one day lay before the Lord.
Then he adds at once, what we are is plain to God. The verb is the same one he used in verse 10 for appearing before the judgment seat. Paul is not someone who will be exposed someday. He is already living as someone whose life lies open before God. With nothing to hide from God, he has no need to put on a show for people.
Verse 12 makes sense only when we know what was happening in Corinth. After Paul left, other teachers arrived. They came carrying letters of recommendation from other churches and showed off their eloquence, their presence, and their spiritual experiences. In chapter 11 Paul calls them, with a touch of irony, those “super-apostles.” Next to them Paul looked unimpressive. People were saying that his letters were weighty and forceful, but in person he was unimpressive and his speaking amounted to nothing (10:10). Some began to doubt whether his ministry was real at all.
That is why Paul had already asked in 3:1, are we beginning to commend ourselves again? In verse 12 he repeats the point. He is not promoting himself. He is handing the Corinthians something to say to his critics. Those critics took pride in what is seen, literally in the face. They proved themselves by outward appearance and visible credentials. Paul sets the heart on the other side of the scale. It echoes the old word from 1 Samuel 16: people look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.
Verse 13 sounds strange at first. Out of our mind? The Greek word is existemi, literally to stand outside oneself, and it is the root of our word ecstasy. There are two ways to read it. One is that Paul is referring to his deep spiritual experiences. In chapter 12 he will carefully mention being caught up to the third heaven. Such moments belong between him and God, not on a list of credentials. The other reading is that his opponents were calling him crazy. In Acts 26 the governor Festus actually shouted at him, you are out of your mind, Paul. Either way Paul’s conclusion is the same. The moments that look like madness are for God. The calm, clear-headed teaching is for the church. There is no compartment in his life that is simply for himself.
Then in verse 14 Paul gives the reason behind all of it in one sentence. Christ’s love compels us. The verb is synecho, which means to press in from every side, to hold fast, to hem in. Luke uses it when the crowds press around Jesus (Luke 8:45) and when Peter’s mother-in-law is gripped by a high fever (Luke 4:38). Paul uses it in Philippians 1 when he says he is torn between the two, hemmed in between living and departing. Here he confesses that the love of Christ has hold of him like that, surrounding him so completely that there is no way to slip out.
The phrase we are convinced also carries weight. The word means to judge, to reach a verdict. It is not a passing feeling but a settled conclusion. Paul was once the man who hunted down the followers of Jesus. After the risen Christ met him on the road to Damascus, he reconsidered everything. And he came to this conclusion: one died for all.
Key Words Made Simple
- Fear the Lord: Greek phobos tou kyriou. Reverence for the Lord. Not the fear that makes us run away, but the seriousness that comes from knowing who God is.
- Persuade: Greek peitho. To convince, to win someone over. Not dragging people along, but moving their hearts with words and with a life.
- Plain: Greek phaneroo. The same word as appear in verse 10. Paul says he already lives transparently before God, before that day ever comes.
- Commend: Greek synistemi. To introduce, to vouch for. Travelers often carried letters of recommendation from one city to the next, and Paul’s critics in Corinth leaned heavily on theirs.
- Opportunity: Greek aphorme. Originally a military word for a base of operations, a starting point. Paul wants to give the Corinthians solid ground to stand on when they face his critics.
- What is seen: Literally the face, Greek prosopon. Outward appearance, the credentials that catch people’s eyes.
- Out of our mind: Greek existemi. To stand outside oneself. It can describe ecstatic experience or being thought insane.
- In our right mind: Greek sophroneo. To think soberly and with self-control.
- Compels: Greek synecho. To press in on every side, to hold fast. Not being shoved from behind, but being held so firmly by love that you cannot get loose.
- For all: Greek hyper. On behalf of, in place of. Christ’s death happened in our place and for our sake.
- Raised: Greek egeiro. To raise up, to wake. Christ did not only die. He was raised again.
Expressions Worth Noting
- “What we are is plain to God” (verse 11)
- The same verb as the judgment seat in verse 10. Someone who knows they will be revealed one day starts living in the open today.
- A person who is transparent before God does not have to work so hard to manage their image before people.
- “Those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart” (verse 12)
- Face against heart. People judge by what they can see, but God looks at the heart.
- Paul’s critics relied on letters, eloquence, and experiences. Paul does not try to outdo them on their own terms. He changes the measure itself.
- “If we are out of our mind, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you” (verse 13)
- The fervent moments go to God. The steady, sensible moments go to others. None of it is kept back for self.
- Faith is not proven by its emotional temperature. It is proven by its direction.
- “Christ’s love compels us” (verse 14)
- What drives Paul is not only duty or fear but love. The reverence of verse 11 and the love of verse 14 live side by side in the same man.
- This is not mainly our love for Christ but Christ’s love for us. He is the one holding on.
- “One died for all, and therefore all died” (verse 14)
- Christ’s death is not something that happened far away to someone else. In that death, the old self in me died too.
- In Romans 6 Paul says we were crucified with Christ. Here he says the same truth in a single line.
- “No longer live for themselves” (verse 15)
- Here the purpose of Christ’s death is written out plainly. He did not stop at forgiving us. He meant to turn our lives in a new direction.
- No longer draws a line between past and present. There was a time of living for ourselves, and that time is over.
What the Passage Says
- Those who know they will stand before the Lord live differently today (verse 11). Paul does not let the judgment seat end in fear. His reverence sends him out toward people, and he lives as someone already laid open before God, with nothing to hide.
- God looks at the heart, not the face (verse 12). Some in Corinth tried to prove themselves by appearance and credentials. Paul refuses to compete on those terms. The true worth of a ministry, he says, lies not in what catches the eye but in the heart before God.
- There is no compartment kept just for ourselves (verse 13). In fervor and in calm alike, Paul was turned toward God and toward others. Whatever people said about him, the direction of his life held steady.
- The love of Christ holds us and turns our lives around (verses 14-15). Christ died for all, and in his death our old life came to an end. Now we no longer live for ourselves but for the one who died for us and was raised again. What makes that life possible is not willpower but love.
Standing Before This Word Today
Read this passage slowly and two words stand side by side. Fear in verse 11. Love in verse 14.
We usually keep these two apart. A faith built on fearing God can feel rigid and cold. A faith that speaks only of God’s love can feel warm but thin. In Paul the two do not compete. Because he knows the Lord is to be feared, he does not treat life lightly. Because he knows that same Lord died for him, he does not let fear fill his life. Love without reverence easily grows vague. Reverence without love easily grows hard. Paul held both.
The second place to linger is verse 12. Those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart.
This is not just a story about Corinth two thousand years ago. We also live in a world that boasts in the face. Which school you went to, what title you hold, how well you speak in front of people, how good your life looks in photos. We write letters of recommendation every day and read them every day. We measure others by them, and above all we measure ourselves.
Paul was on the losing side of that contest. Set beside his critics, he looked small. Yet he does not try to win by producing a more impressive letter. He changes the measure. God looks at the heart, not the face. That is a comfort to those who feel unimpressive, but it is also a question for those who look impressive. Everything on the outside may be in order, and still the direction of the heart lies open before God.
The third place is verse 13. If we are out of our mind, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.
Turn this short verse over a few times and you begin to see how simple Paul’s life was. Most of us live in compartments. A compartment for God, a compartment for family and neighbors, and a compartment we do not hand over to anyone. Paul’s sentence has no room for that last one. What is not given to God is given to others, and what is not given to others is given to God. This does not mean Paul never rested or never cared for himself. It means his whole life faced one direction.
The verse also shows us someone free from other people’s verdicts. Some said Paul was mad. Others said he was weak. Paul does not spend his strength arguing. Call him mad or call him sane, either way he is living for God and for the church. A person who knows whom they live for is less shaken by the labels people attach to them.
The fourth place is verse 14. Christ’s love compels us.
This line is so familiar that its force is easy to miss. Once we know the word means to press in from every side and hold fast, it reads differently. Paul does not say he is holding on to love. He says love is holding on to him. We are not steady because we grip something tightly. We are steady because we are inside a love that took hold of us first.
That difference is larger than it sounds. A faith that depends on my grip weakens when my grip weakens. There are tired days, doubting days, days when prayer will not come. What keeps us on those days is not our resolve. It is the love of Christ that surrounds us and will not let go. Paul was seized by that love on the Damascus road. Christ came looking for the man who was fighting against him. From then on Paul never managed to walk out of that love, and it became his greatest freedom.
The fifth place is verse 15. No longer live for themselves.
Here the purpose of Christ’s death is written in plain words. Not only to forgive us, but to change the reason we live. That can sound like a heavy load. If I am not to live for myself, where does that leave me?
Read it the other way around, though, and it looks different. Living for myself turns out to mean endlessly proving myself. Collecting more letters, polishing the face, hanging on every opinion. But there is one who died for me and was raised again. If he already knows me most deeply and has loved me most fully, I no longer have to live to prove myself. No longer living for myself also means no longer wearing myself out trying to justify my existence.
In the end this word asks one question. What moves me? The eyes of other people, fear, or the love of the one who died for me? We will not answer that perfectly every day. But even on the days our answer wavers, that love does not waver. It still surrounds us.
Living It Out
- Name the letter of recommendation you carry. Write down one thing you often reach for to prove yourself to others. It might be education, a title, or an achievement. Then write beside it that even without it you are still loved before God.
- Ask who one task is for. Pick one thing you will do today and quietly ask whether it is for God, for others, or to put yourself on display. The task can stay the same while its direction changes.
- Look for the heart, not the face. Choose one person you will meet today and try to see them by their heart rather than their appearance or status. It is practice in seeing others the way God sees you.
- Remember when that love held you. Think of a time when you could not hold on in your own strength and the love of Christ held you instead. Then confess that the same love surrounds you today. The Christ at the judgment seat in Walking by Faith, Not by Sight (2 Corinthians 5:6-10) is this very Christ who loves us.
- Set one thing down before the words no longer. Choose one thing you no longer need to cling to for your own sake. It might be the need for approval or the need to win. Offer it to the Lord in a short prayer.
Questions to Sit With
- How do reverence for God and delight in God’s love live together in me? Do I lean too far toward one of them?
- What am I using to evaluate myself lately? Is that measure closer to the face or to the heart?
- What is the compartment in my life that I give to neither God nor others?
- How is it different when I feel I am holding on to my faith and when I feel Christ’s love is holding on to me?
- Does no longer living for myself sound like a burden or like freedom to me? Why?
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