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Second Corinthians 5:14-17 reveals Christ as the sphere and element of the new creation. According to the context of chapter 4, the new creation in 5:17 is composed of those who have Christ as the treasure within and bear Christ as the image of God without. The realm of resurrection is the sphere of the new creation, and Christ as the life-giving Spirit is the germinating element of the new creation.
Second Corinthians 5:14 and 15 say, “The love of Christ constrains us because we have judged this, that One died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all that those who live may no longer live to themselves but to Him who died for them and has been raised.” The phrase have judged this in verse 14 means “have concluded,” probably at the time of conversion. Paul concluded that because One died on behalf of all, “therefore all died.” Christ’s loving death was the motivating factor of the apostles’ being constrained to live a loving life for Him. Since Christ died as our Substitute, suffering the sentence of death on behalf of us all, in the eyes of God we all died. Hence, we do not need to die in the way as has been reserved for men to die and face judgment (Heb. 9:27). Moreover, Christ died on behalf of all so that we may no longer live to ourselves, but to Him. Christ’s death not only saves us from death so that we do not need to die, but it also causes us, through His resurrection, to live no longer to ourselves but to Him.
According to 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, Christ is the One who loved us, died for us, and was raised up for us. The death and resurrection of Christ show His love toward us. This love constrains us to live not to ourselves but to Him. Many of us can testify that we have Christ as the treasure within us and that we love Him. Yet at times we may be reluctant to go along with Him because certain things in the world distract us from the Lord. At such times, however, the constraining love of Christ appears to us, causing us to see that the most excellent One loves us and that He died and has been raised for us. Such love constrains us to the uttermost. It is this love — not a mere teaching, religion, or ritual — that constrains us to drop so many distracting things in the world.
The constraining love of Christ in 2 Corinthians 5:14 is the love which was manifested on the cross through His death for us. The Greek word rendered “constrains” means “to press on...from all sides, to hold...to one end, to forcibly limit, to confine to one object within certain bounds, to shut up to one line and purpose” (as in a narrow, walled road). The same Greek word is used in Luke 4:38; 12:50, Acts 18:5, and Philippians 1:23. In such a way the apostles were constrained by the love of Christ to live to Him.
Today we also are constrained by Christ’s love toward us. This love surely limits us, confines us to a narrow way, toward the unique goal — Christ Himself. We need to be impressed with the fact that to be constrained by the love of Christ means to be pressed by it from all sides and held by it to one end. When we are thus constrained, we are limited, as if walking on a narrow, walled road, and we are forced to go in a certain direction. Although we love the Lord, we are not always willing to take His way. Had we not been walled in by Him, we probably would have escaped from Him. But the love of Christ constrains us; it presses us from every side and holds us to one goal. We have no other way; there is no other way for us to take. Actually, this is not our choice. If the choice had truly been ours, we would have probably been somewhere else today. No, it is not up to us to make the choice; rather, it is the love of Christ that constrains us. We are constrained by the Lord’s love to live to Him.
We must be persons carried away by the love of Christ. In 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 Paul indicates that Christ’s loving death is like the rushing of great waters toward us, impelling us to live to Him beyond our own control. To be constrained is similar to being carried away by a tide of water. The love of Christ is as strong as a tide of water which overcomes us and carries us away. We need to be flooded by the love of Christ. We need to be constrained by His love so that we have no choice. We should be able to say, “I have no other way to go. I must love the Lord because His love has constrained me.” When the flood waters come, we do not have a choice as to whether we will receive them or not; they give us no choice. We must all be constrained by the love of Christ in such a way.
We need to pray day by day that the Lord would show us His love so that we would be constrained by the love of Christ. We all need to pray to the Lord: “Constrain me with Your love. O Lord, flood me with Your love.” Although we may be at some crossroads in our Christian experience and may have choices, once we are flooded by the love of Christ, we will lose all our choices.
In 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 the apostle Paul puts together Christ’s constraining love with our living to Him, indicating that because we love Christ, we live to Him, not to ourselves. It is quite meaningful that in verse 15 Paul does not say, “No longer live for themselves but for Him”; rather, he says, “No longer live to themselves but to Him.” Living to the Lord is deeper in significance than living for the Lord. Living for the Lord implies that I and the Lord are still two; living to the Lord indicates that I am one with the Lord, as the wife is one with the husband in married life.
To live to the Lord means that we are under the Lord’s direction and control and that we desire to fulfill His requirements, satisfy His desires, and complete what He intends. Worldly people live to themselves. But the love of Christ constrains us to live to Him and not to ourselves. To live to ourselves means that we are under our own control, direction, and governing and that we care for our own aims and goals. This is to live not only for ourselves; it is to live to ourselves. But the apostles had the single ambition of pleasing the Lord by living to Him (v. 9). They were absolutely under the Lord. They were under His direction, control, and governing. Everything they did was to fulfill the Lord’s purpose and desire. As such persons, they did not live to the law, to themselves, or to anything other than the Lord.
Paul did not live to himself but to his Master, Christ. He was different from the rabbis who lived to the law and did everything with a view to the law. Paul’s only aim was to please his Master. Paul sought to please the Lord not by doing a work but by living to Him in every aspect of his daily life. Likewise, we should not seek to please ourselves but seek to please the Lord by living to Him. All that we do must be to Him. Since we are to the Lord, our time and money are also to Him. Nothing is for ourselves, because none of us lives to himself but to Him.
Moreover, if we consider the context, we will see that to live to the Lord in 5:15 means to live the kind of life the Lord Jesus lived. In chapter 4 we see that the apostles experienced the putting to death of Jesus (v. 10). When we experience the putting to death of Jesus, we can live the kind of life Jesus lived. This is to live to the Lord.
To live to the Lord is to live a crucified life. It is to live in such a way that the outward man is always put to death. The Lord Jesus lived this kind of life, and those who live such a life today are living to the Lord. This understanding of living to the Lord is according to the concept conveyed in chapter 4.
Christians often try to live for the Lord according to their own concepts. We may do many things for the Lord instead of to the Lord. What the Lord wants is not that we be so active for Him. He wants us to experience the putting to death of Jesus so that our natural man and our active being may be terminated. Many are active or aggressive for the Lord in a natural way. They do things for Him by their natural aggressiveness. This offends the Lord, and it distracts us from enjoying Him. Therefore, what we need is to be constrained by the Lord’s love simply to live to Him.
If we would live to the Lord, we must deny our outward man. The outward man is the flesh. When we live to Christ, we do not live by our outward man, by our flesh. This means that living to Christ requires that we live by our inward man, by our regenerated spirit. Living to Christ in 2 Corinthians 5:15 is equal to walking according to the spirit in Romans 8:4.
Second Corinthians 5:17 says, “So then if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation. To be in Christ is to be one with Him in life and in nature. This is of God through our faith in Christ (1 Cor. 1:30; Gal. 3:26-28). The old creation includes the heavens, the earth, billions of items, and mankind, but the new creation includes only the chosen and redeemed people of God. God’s people once were the old creation. But when Christ as the life-giving Spirit entered into us, we were germinated with the Triune God to become the new creation.
The new creation was created by God with Christ as the embodiment of the divine life. Hence, the material for the new creation is the divine life. Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation because God’s life has entered into him. Before our regeneration we did not have the divine life, but through regeneration God imparted Himself into us and became our life. Thus, we became the embodiment of Christ. He has been born into us as our life. In this way we have become a new creation.
The new creation is actually the old creation transformed by the divine life, by the processed Triune God. The old creation is old because God is not part of it; the new creation is new because God is in it. We who have been regenerated by the Spirit of God are still God’s creation, but we are now His new creation. However, this is real only when we live and walk by the Spirit. Whenever we live and walk by the flesh, we are in the old creation, not in the new creation. Anything in our daily life that does not have God in it is the old creation, but what has God in it is part of the new creation.
If we would be in the new creation, we must enter into an organic union with the Triune God. Apart from such a union we shall remain in the old creation. But now, by the organic union with the Triune God, we are in the new creation. As believers in Christ, we are the new creation through an organic union with the Triune God. In Adam we were born into the old creation, but in Christ we were regenerated into the new creation.
Second Corinthians 5:17 goes on to say, “The old things have passed away; behold, they have become new.” The old things of the flesh have passed away through the death of Christ, and all has become new in Christ’s resurrection. The words behold, they have become new are a call to watch the marvelous change of the new creation. The word they in verse 17 refers to the old things. The old creation does not have the divine life and nature; however, the new creation, composed of the believers born again of God, does have the divine life and nature (John 1:13; 3:15; 2 Pet. 1:4). Hence, the believers are a new creation, not according to the old nature of the flesh but according to the new nature of the divine life.
