Let's recap. Paul says, the love of Christ controls him. He says the reason for that is because Christ died for all, and therefore all died, and therefore he (Paul) now "regards" people not according to the flesh, but according to the understanding that Christ died for them. There. It's all very simple!
Now, the passage first began plaguing me last week when the question occurred to me, "Do I, like Paul, no longer regard people according to the flesh? All people? Not just really nice people that I like, but everybody I meet?"
To get there, I must remind myself that Christ died for all. And therefore, they died. This may seem a rather daring leap. Paul, how can you say such things? What do you mean, "they died"? Whatever the answer is, it begins with the deepening realization, "Christ died for all." ALL.
To regard people according to the flesh is a kind of spiritual short-sightedness. Our sense of a person is dominated by all the obvious worldly categories. Male or female. Rich or poor. Powerful or powerless. Smart or stupid. Fat or skinny. Dark or light. "Barbarian, Scythian, slave, free." Christ's death for all made all these categories irrelevant. Nevertheless, I believe that, if we are honest with ourselves, we should have to admit that such categories (and many more) impinge more than we would like to admit on how we "regard" people.
But the category that controls Paul's perspective is simply this: Christ died for all. So that the thought uppermost in Paul's mind when he meets someone is, "Here is another one for whom Christ died." This is a perspective that comes with the new life that is "in Christ," which is why Paul sings out,
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come. [HCSB]I used to read this brief passage and think it was all about me. I'm born again, so I'm a new creation! But Paul is talking about how we are to regard others. We are to regard them from God's perspective. That's why I like the Holman Christian Standard translation here. As the next few verses show, he is talking about the world here, the creation! In terms of our regarding, how we see things, the old has passed away. Therefore, from now on (!) "we do not know anyone in a purely human way." Instead we regard people with what I'll call exclamatory sight:
"Look! There is a new creation."No matter whether that person we are beholding understands him or herself that way. That's how we're to see them. All worldly categories, all that is of the flesh, is now out of our perspective. These matters are no longer definitive. We see with Christ-sight!
And here we come to one of the most important words of this or any Biblical passage. "Reconciliation." From God's perspective, because of the Cross, there is reconciliation between Himself and people. People may be at war with God, but He is not at war with them. Peace has been declared!
In my next post I want to take up this thread again. The question on the table remains, How do I get to the place where, like Paul, I am controlled by the love of Christ? More later.
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