NOTES for Co2 5:1-10
Paul moves from the theme of witness to the theme of the Kingdom, which is hardly surprising: it was the Kingdom to which both he and other Christians always bore witness. The Apostle could not, of course, fail to understand that the present human condition can only be temporary and transitory (vv. 1–3). But these are not merely reflections on the death inevitable for everyone or on some mysterious afterlife, another life that will begin only when our earthly journey has ended. To Paul it is clear that what is usually regarded as death, as departure into the world of shades or at any rate into another world, is for a Christian not death but a passage into the fullness of life that can be found only in the Kingdom (vv. 4–5). This is precisely what distinguishes the path of a Christian from the path of someone who does not know Christ and the Kingdom, and therefore does not know the true life of which the Apostle speaks.
But Paul also understands that the Kingdom begins not at the threshold of death but already in this present earthly life, if what is at issue really is Christianity. He therefore pays particular attention to the quality of a Christian’s life. On the one hand, the present body, not yet transformed, limits human possibilities, so that anyone who seeks the fullness of the Kingdom’s life cannot but feel burdened by it to some degree (vv. 6–8). On the other hand, our present life belongs to the Kingdom just as much as the future life still before us (v. 9). Yet an assessment of our earthly path, which forms one of the most important stages of our life, can be made only when that path is complete, and all subsequent stages will in turn depend on that assessment (v. 10).
This is not yet, of course, the Judgment that awaits everyone at the end of time, regardless of whether he traveled his earthly path as a Christian or not. It is only an assessment of one particular stage of the journey. But for a Christian this assessment is fundamentally important: unlike the earthly path of an ordinary person, his earthly path was connected with the Kingdom and became part of it, and is therefore assessed by the Kingdom’s standards and criteria. This is not done to reproach the traveler for anything, but to open to him the possibility of moving onward toward that fullness of life without which dwelling in the Kingdom loses all meaning.