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For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. (2 Corinthians 5:14-15 ESV)
Generally speaking, there are motivations behind the things we do or why we are acting and behaving in a particular way.
• One young man may have the reputation of being a pugnacious drunkard who gets into trouble daily. Yet after marriage and having three kids, the man becomes a hardworking father who is consumed with the motivation of putting food on the dining table and saving money for the future of his family.
• An underdog athlete’s daily grind in the gym motivated by proving the odds wrong.
• Your neighbor who seldom greets anyone or smiles at anyone suddenly reverses his ways as the election day for Barangay officials draw near.
• Law enforcers know this very well that when they are investigating a murder case, one of the important questions they ask is “Who has a probable motive behind the murder?”
Fellow worker, what is the chief motivation behind your service to the Lord? I am asking this question because not all motives behind outward acts of piety are good. There are those who imagine that godliness is a way to material gain (1 Tim. 6:5). Even preachers with the right message could proclaim Christ out of envy and rivalry (Phil. 1:15).
There is some complexity in 2 Corinthians but what we can say at the very least for the purpose of this post is that in Corinth there were false apostles who were offering a form of ministry which was very different from how Paul ministered. They peddled the word of God for profit (2 Cor. 2:17). They did “ministry” through secret and shameful ways like the use of deception and distorting the word of God (2 Cor. 4:2). They presented themselves as “super-apostles” displaying excellence in public speaking (2 Cor. 11:5-6). Nearer to our passage is 2 Cor. 5:12: they take pride in the externals rather than what is internal. They put premium on outward appearance and not what is in the heart. So much of what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians is a defense of authentic ministry. In our day and age counterfeit ways of doing ministry are still rampant. For this reason, the lessons on authentic ministry in 2 Corinthians are still relevant.
In the verse that immediately precede our passage (see verse 13), we can see that Paul’s ministry is characterized by a devotion to God and a concern for people. This is the last unit of thought that the apostle connects with our passage with the coordinating conjunction gar (“For”, ESV). In this context, the conjunction provides the “ground” <1> (or the foundation) of this God-centered and people-oriented ministry. This leads us to the first of the three headings.
1.
The Sacrificial Love of Christ: The
Controlling Motivation for Authentic Christian Ministry
“For the love of Christ controls us,” (v.14). This is the ground, the foundation, the controlling motivation for authentic Christian ministry. There are two options on what “the love of Christ” means. The first option is to take it as an objective genitive. In this case, Christ is the receiver of our love. The other option, which I think is the right option is to take it is as a subjective genitive—that is Christ is the giver of this love and we are the receivers. The reason why I think this is the correct option is because in context, what is being emphasized is the sacrificial love of Christ manifested in his dying in behalf of his people.
This love, the Apostle asserts, “controls us”. This word sunecho in Greek, like any other word, has different shades of meaning depending on the context. I think Louw & Nida’s lexicon’s hint on this particular verse is very helpful: “in 2 Cor 5.14 'Christ's love controls us' may be rendered as 'the fact that Christ loves us causes us to act as we do.'”<2> In other words, Paul and his associates do ministry in a God-centered and people-oriented way because the love of Christ causes them to do ministry that way.
If there is something I would like to add with the useful hint in Louw & Nida’s lexicon, it is the seeming weakness of the word “causes”. It seems to me that the definition should be stronger in the light of how the different translations render it: “controls” (ESV), “impels” (NABRE), “compels” (NIV), “constraineth” (KJV). These are all stronger words than merely communicating causation. Both the sense of “control and compulsion”<3> is carried here. The love of Christ holds control over us. It restrains us from doing certain things and compels us to do other things. The inclination of your carnal self is to go that direction, but the love of Christ stops you in your tracks and moves you toward the opposite direction. And the direction of a Christ-controlled ministry is toward the glory of God and the benefit of his people.
Yet we should not see this controlling power over us as something that is intrusive and oppressive. It is not something that violates our will. For the Apostle continues that this comes about by a conclusion we have made. It is a conviction burned deeply in the heart. We are fully convinced that this one Christ “has died for all, therefore all have died; is the one that died for all”. This brings us to the next heading.
2.
Our Union with Christ in His Death:
Mystical Yet Real
What is being referred to here is that biblical doctrine we call Union with Christ. This could be defined as: “The sharing of believers in the life of Jesus Christ by faith, allowing them to share in all the benefits and riches that result from his person and work”<4> . It has four different aspects::
- We are in Christ
- Christ is in us
- We are like Christ, and
- We are with Christ <5>
All of these aspects have one thing in common: they are all mystical— a spiritual reality not apparent to the senses. Yet it is factual, it is real because the Bible says so. So real is this that when the believers are persecuted, Christ is also persecuted (Acts 9:4-5).
Back to our passage, Paul says that he is thoroughly convinced that in the death of one (Christ), all died (cf. Rom. 6:1-4). Another way of putting this is the phrase “dying to self” (Rom. 6:6). As we die to self, pride dies. The flesh dies. Insincerity dies. This explains why Paul does ministry very differently from the way of the false apostles in Corinth. They are still motivated by self-exaltation and self-promotion. No doubt the old Pharisee in Paul could have had stood toe-to-toe with their ways. But that old Pharisee in Paul is dead because Christ has died. Thus, the ministry of the New Paul is characterized by being God-centered and people-oriented. And these should characterize our ministries too.
We can view this clearer as we move into the final heading of the message.
3. Living for Christ: The Purpose of Our Union with Him in His Death
Here in verse 15, Paul repeats the proposition that Christ died for all. What is new here is that he adds a purpose clause: “so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised.”
There are two ways to live. You either live for your own selfish desires or you live for the one who died for you. But the second way to live is available only for those who are in union with Christ in his death. We therefore cannot understate the importance of conversion and regeneration. Only God can convert a soul. Only God can regenerate a heart. There is no union with Christ without conversion and regeneration.
Since there are two ways to live, there are also two ways of doing ministry. These are in sharp contrast against each other. One way of doing ministry is for the self. It promotes self. It exalts self. Its focus is on the self. In contrast, biblical ministry promotes Christ. It exalts Christ. Its focus is on Christ for this is the very purpose of the death of Christ—so that the worker could no longer live for himself but for him who died for him. Elsewhere, Paul puts it this way: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20)
CONCLUSION
Close to 2,000 years after the Apostle Paul, the temptation to do ministry the wrong way has remained strong. It is a pitfall too attractive to the weak flesh. The call is to remain steadfast in practicing authentic Christian ministry. This is built on the sure foundation of Christ’s sacrificial love that has rendered us dead to the phony ways of doing ministry. Let this be the controlling power for everything we think and do both in life and ministry.
FOOTNOTES
<1> Fredrick Long, II Corinthians: A Handbook on the Greek Text (Baylor University Press, 2015)
<2> Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Nida; Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (United Bible Societies, 1996)
<3> George H. Guthrie; 2 Corinthians (BECNT, 2015)
<4> Dictionary of Bible Themes (Manser, McGrath, Packer, and Wiseman, editors)
<5> Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 2nd edition
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