2 Corinthians 5 explained: From Tent to New Creation

Tent and lasting house (vv. 1-5)

Paul pictures the body as a tent that will one day come down, and the life to come as a permanent house God builds. He does not long to be bodiless but to be 'clothed' with a new, undying body, and he calls God's Spirit a down payment that guarantees the rest.

At home, away from home (vv. 6-8)

While living in this body, Paul feels away from his true home with the Lord, trusting what he cannot yet see. He would rather be with the Lord, though scholars debate whether he means right after death or at the final resurrection.

Facing Christ's judgment (vv. 9-10)

Paul's aim is to please the Lord, because everyone will stand before Christ to answer for what they did in this life. Corinth had a raised platform where Roman officials gave judgments, an image his readers would know.

Why Paul does what he does (vv. 11-15)

Paul contrasts himself with people proud of outward show, and says that whether he seems carried away or level-headed, it is for God or for his readers. Christ's love drives him, because one died for all so that people would live for him instead of for themselves.

Seeing people in a new way (vv. 16-17)

Paul once judged Jesus by worldly standards, probably seeing him as a failed messiah, but he no longer judges anyone that way. Anyone joined to Christ, he says, is part of a new creation where the old order has passed.

Messengers of peace with God (vv. 18-21)

God has made peace with the world through Christ, not holding people's wrongs against them, and sends Paul as an envoy urging people to accept it. Christians commonly read verse 21 as an exchange: the sinless Christ takes on sin so people can be made right with God.

Key verse: 2 Corinthians 5:17

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on how verse 21 works, with some reading 'made him to be sin' as Christ bearing the punishment in people's place and others as Christ becoming a sin offering or fully sharing the broken human condition.

Something to think about

Paul says he stopped sizing people up by how they look from the outside; whose judgment of you, or yours of someone else, rests mostly on appearances?