It is clear to Paul that the Kingdom and remaining in it are inseparable from the relationships that bind each of His followers to Christ...
It is clear to Paul that the Kingdom and remaining in it are inseparable from the relationships that bind each of His followers to Christ, but those relationships themselves are possible only when a person remains in Christ to the end and completely as a poor one - in the spiritual sense of the word in which the prophet Isaiah of Jerusalem had already spoken of poverty. And in this sense of the word, poverty carried through to the end is nothing other than becoming nothing, even to the point of physical death, if such death is required for witness. And for the Messiah, it means going as far as complete, unreserved, and unconditional immersion in the sinful life of the fallen world, into whose depth He had to bring the fullness of the Kingdom that was contained in Him.
And the evil of the sinful world really does take the Messiah Himself captive: it cannot penetrate the depth of His heart or His human nature, free from the power of sin, but it was able to bring Him to the cross. The One who knew no sin came under the power of sin, became sin for our sake - this is how Paul describes it. Such is the Messiah's poverty carried through to the end, a poverty without which the Kingdom would not have entered the world, because the Messiah Himself could not have entered the world in any other way than as a poor one.
And this is understandable: any other kind of entry would have meant submission to the laws of the world that lies in evil. Not to submit to them meant to leave the world; but to leave the world and at the same time remain in it means to die. Such a path for the Messiah, bearing within Himself all God's fullness, all the fullness of the Kingdom, could end on earth only with the cross. And with the resurrection, of course, too - but that is already the reality of the Kingdom, not of the fallen world. The Kingdom to which the fallen world can belong only to the extent that, being transformed, it ceases to be fallen.
And we Christians become participants in this process, as the apostle reminds us. If we are alive and remain in this world, it is only insofar as the world itself has already ceased to be fallen, insofar as it has already managed to be transformed and become part of the Kingdom. If the Kingdom were not in the world, nothing would remain for us but to die. Or to live as the righteous lived while awaiting the Kingdom in pre-Christian times. If, of course, we are Christians not only in name.
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5:11 Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we the more earnestly persuade men to seek his favour; and as God knoweth this, so, I trust, ye know it in your own consciences.
5:12 We do not say this, as if we thought there was any need of again recommending ourselves to you, but to give you an occasion of rejoicing and praising God, and to furnish you with an answer to those false apostles who glory in appearance, but not in heart, being condemned by their own conscience.
5:13 For if we are transported beyond ourselves - Or at least, appear so to others, treated of, Co2 5:15-21, speaking or writing with uncommon vehemence. It is to God - He understands (if men do not) the emotion which himself inspires. If we besober - Treated of, Co2 6:1-10. If I proceed in a more calm, sedate manner.It is for your sakes - Even good men bear this, rather than the other method, in their teachers. But these must obey God, whoever is offended by it.
5:14 For the love of Christ - To us, and our love to him.Constraineth us - Both to the one and the other; beareth us on with such a strong, steady, prevailing influence, as winds and tides exert when they waft the vessel to its destined harbour.While we thus judge, that if Christ died for all, then are all, even the best of men, naturally dead - In a state of spiritual death, and liable to death eternal. For had any man been otherwise, Christ had not needed to have died for him.
5:15 And that he died for all - That all might be saved.That they who live - That all who live upon the earth. Should not henceforth - From the moment they know him. Live unto themselves - Seek their own honour, profit, pleasure. But unto him - In all righteousness and true holiness.
5:16 So that we from this time - That we knew the love of Christ. Know no one - Neither ourselves, nor you, neither the rest of the apostles, Gal 2:6, nor any other person.After the flesh - According to his former state, country, descent, nobility, riches, power, wisdom. We fear not the great. We regard not the rich or wise. We account not the least less than ourselves. We consider all, only in order to save all.Who is he that thus knows no one after the flesh? ln what land do these Christians live? Yea, if we have known even Christ after the flesh - So as to love him barely with a natural love, so as to glory in having conversed with him on earth, so as to expect only temporal benefits from him.
5:17 Therefore if any one be in Christ - A true believer in him. There is a new creation - Only the power that makes a world can make a Christian. And when he is so created, the old things are passed away - Of their own accord, even as snow in spring.Behold - The present, visible, undeniable change! All things are become new - He has new life, new senses, new faculties, new affections, new appetites, new ideas and conceptions. His whole tenor of action and conversation is new, and he lives, as it were, in a new world. God, men, the whole creation, heaven, earth, and all therein, appear in a new light, and stand related to him in a new manner, since he was created anew in Christ Jesus.
5:18 And all these new things are from God, considered under this very notion, as reconciling us - The world, Co2 5:19,to himself.
5:19 Namely - The sum of which is, God - The whole Godhead, but more eminently God the Father. Was in Christ, reconciling the world - Which was before at enmity with God. To himself - So taking away that enmity, which could no otherwise be removed than by the blood of the Son of God.
5:20 Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ - we beseech you in Christ's stead - Herein the apostle might appear to some "transported beyond himself." In general he uses a more calm,sedate kind of exhortation, as in the beginning of the next chapter. What unparalleled condescension and divinely tender mercies are displayed in this verse! Did the judge ever beseech a condemned criminal to accept of pardon? Does the creditor ever beseech a ruined debtor to receive an acquittance in full? Yet our almighty Lord, and our eternal Judge, not only vouchsafes to offer these blessings, but invites us, entreats us, and, with the most tender importunity, solicits us, not to reject them.
5:21 He made him a sin offering, who knew no sin - A commendation peculiar to Christ. For us - Who knew no righteousness, who were inwardly and outwardly nothing but sin; who must have been consumed by the divine justice, had not this atonement been made for our sins. That we might be made the righteousness of God through him - Might through him be invested wi th that righteousness, first imputed to us, then implanted in us, which is in every sense the righteousness of God.