Wherefore also we are zealous, whether present or absent, to be agreeable to him.
Paul has just spoken of the believer's confidence, and now he draws the practical conclusion. Everything turns on two words. What is the "aim"? And does "please him" mean earning God's welcome, or delighting the One who has already welcomed us?
The older English rendering reads, "that we may be accepted of him." One commentator warns that this wording, taken at face value, overturns the gospel:
The common version gives a completely misleading idea. If anyone took it in fully, it would destroy the gospel. The danger is greater because the translators put philotimoumetha as "we labour" or "endeavour," and euarestoi as "accepted." That comes dangerously close to suggesting salvation by works in the most open way. Already accepted in the Beloved (Eph. 1) we aspire — it is our zealous aim — to serve Him well, whether present or absent. His favour is better than life, so we devote ourselves to the pleasure of the One who delights only in what is good, holy, true, lowly and loving.
The Greek word itself is the evidence. The same translators handled it differently everywhere else:
Euarestos occurs nine times in the New Testament. Translators render it "acceptable" four times, "well-pleasing" four times, and "accepted" only once — here in 2 Cor. 5:9. Why they translated it that way in this one place, I do not know. We may well take our pen and strike out the word "accepted," and put in the word "well-pleasing."
Paul's verb here carries the sense of ambition.
The word used here is "ambition." The literal translation is, "Therefore we are ambitious." Another rendering is, "We make it our aim." It was true that the apostle groaned, longing for his house from heaven. But as long as the Lord left him here, he was ambitious to please Him.
Because it is an ambition, it competes with other ambitions:
What more beautiful ambition for every true Christian — to be "well-pleasing" to the Lord, no matter whether it is in life or in death. Worldly ambition has brought ruin to multitudes of the Lord's soldiers and servants. All around us we see loved saints of God whose lives announce their ambition for riches or honour or ease or learning or fame. But how rarely do we meet someone whose ambition in life is to preach the gospel where Christ is not known, and, whether in life or in death, to be well-pleasing to Him.
Paul aims at one Person only, and holding that aim costs something. The translation he quotes reads "agreeable to Him."
This speaks of Paul's desire, his ambition toward God. He did not have the approval of man in view. He was not concerned about the honours of this world. His one thought was, as he says elsewhere, to be "agreeable to Him." That meant a pathway completely separated from the current of man's mind. But it brought the joy and peace and triumph that belong to a walk in communion with God.
Keep two acceptances apart. One settles a sinner's standing. The other is a servant's commendation.
Always remember this: absolute trust in God as our Saviour is the sole foundation of all acceptable service in His sight. In this verse the apostle says nothing about our personal acceptance as forgiven sinners... To draw from such a text the idea that a believer's escape from wrath is still uncertain, you must first shut your eyes to the whole drift of the apostle's teaching. You must confuse two very different things: acceptance with a Saviour, and acceptance with a master. One is a believer's standing as an heir of grace. The other is Christ's commendation of His chosen when their race is done.
The next verse gives the reason, and it has a practical effect:
In short, the judgment seat of Christ brings everything to light and rewards it. That solemn fact tends to check all lightness and laziness. It makes us eager to respond to the grace that wants to reward all that was done according to the mind of the Holy Spirit. To this end we need earnestness in the study of the Word, and diligence in prayer, so that we may know and be led into right activities.
Pleasing Him starts with knowing Him:
To be well-pleasing to any person you must know him. It is the same with your Lord. You cannot know Him closely and well if you do not spend much time with Him. You must live to Him and not to yourself... Remember that when He chose His apostles, it was not first of all so that He might send them out to preach, but that they might be with Him. The preaching followed that.
- Accepted first. God has already taken the believer into favour in the Beloved. Verse 9 starts from there.
- Acceptable next. The Greek word means "well-pleasing," not "accepted" — the aim is to please a Master, not to win a Saviour.
- Ambition, not duty. Paul's word is the language of ambition, and it competes with the ambition for riches, honour, ease and fame.
- Either way. In life or in death, the aim never changes.
- Rewarded. The judgment seat brings everything to light and rewards it. That prospect turns ambition into study of the Word and prayer.
For we must all be manifested before the judgment-seat of the Christ, that each may receive the things [done] in the body, according to those he has done, whether [it be] good or evil.
Paul turns from how a Christian lives now to where that life ends up: in full view of Christ. Two questions follow. How can people whose sins the cross has settled still stand before a judgment seat? And what do they "receive" there?
The word translated "appear" means more than turning up. Older translations read "be manifested."
The word "appear" in verse 10 is "manifested." We must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ. Our works and our ways as Christians will then come fully into view. Everything will come into the light. Nothing can be hidden, and the believer receives the things done in the body.
For the believer, that moment brings sight, not sentence.
When the believer appears before the judgment seat of Christ, he won't be judged in the sense of condemned. That matter was settled at Calvary. But he will be revealed. It should be a joy for the believer to think that then, for the first time, he will see his own life exactly as the Lord Jesus sees it. And in our glorified bodies we will completely agree with this judgment.
How wide is "we all"? One writer reads it broadly, and shows why Paul's wording still guards the believer:
The context seems to show that Paul's statement is general, in that it includes believers and unbelievers. But since believers will be there, he does not say, "We must all be judged." He says, "We must all be manifested." Perhaps for the same reason, he does not speak of judging persons, but of "the things done in the body." Remember too that we reach the judgment seat of Christ by the coming of Christ, and by it we shall be "changed into the image of the heavenly." So when we stand there we shall have a body of glory like Christ; we shall be like the Judge.
If Christ is the one seated there, the outcome for His own is already settled by who He is to them.
The Lord Jesus will sit on the judgement seat. He died for believers' sins and rose again for their justification. He is the believer's righteousness, and He will not judge His own work. God has justified the saint, so the saint cannot be judged. John 5:24 says he does not come into judgement at all. But he will be manifested. The things done in the body will be brought into review. He will then see it all in its true light, whether good or bad, and this will only exalt the grace that has saved him.
Believers reach that seat by way of Christ's coming, changed into His likeness. So the fitness required there is not the fitness of a needy sinner.
Many a sincere person — I mean a sincere Christian — does not see this place of his in Christ. He may say, I am a poor sinner, and the cross just suits me. Blessedly true. But change the phrase: I am a poor sinner, and the judgment-seat just suits me! That will not do. Yet we must all be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ. There we must be fit for the judge.
Paul's phrase reaches beyond service for the Lord.
It will also mean reward or loss, according to what has been done "in the body" — that is, in the whole of our lives of responsibility here. We see the same thing in 1 Corinthians 3:14-15. But there the question is the character of our work as servants of the Lord. Here it is more general and comprehensive, being a question of all our actions and ways.
Everything that comes out has a result, and the outcome is accepted without complaint:
Even in the saints, not all had been good. Everything has its result, though it never endangers the grace that saved them by Christ. God is not unrighteous, so He will not forget the work of faith and labour of love. Failure and wrong bring loss. The soul itself will understand fully, bow in adoration without a murmur, and bless Him who orders the place of each in the kingdom.
This truth is meant to shape life now.
Then, for the first time, we shall judge everything truly. We shall understand the perfection of Christ's grace all through. We shall see how wrong and mistaken we have been in many ways down here. To limit the judgment seat of Christ to a reward for works robs it of much of its practical power.
Christians who dread that day have misjudged it:
Many, when they stand before that judgment seat, will wonder why they ever feared it for themselves. They will see their mistake and adore the grace that has been so much better than all their legal fears.
- Manifested, not tried. "Appear" means shown. The believer's works come into the light, but the believer never comes into judgment.
- The Judge is the Saviour. He died for those sins and is the believer's righteousness — He will not judge His own work.
- Like the Judge. We reach that seat changed into Christ's likeness, so the light falls on someone already like the One seated there.
- The whole life. "The things done in the body" covers all our actions and ways, not just service — and it brings real reward and real loss.
- Its power is now. Treat it as a prize-giving and it loses its force. Take it seriously and it shapes how you live today.
Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord we persuade men, but have been manifested to God, and I hope also that we have been manifested in your consciences.
Paul has just written about the judgment seat of Christ. Now he tells the Corinthians what that sight does to him: it sends him out to persuade people, and it keeps his own life open before God. (Where the ESV reads "the fear of the Lord," older translations read "the terror of the Lord" — the wording the writers below use.)
The dread in this verse is not the believer's dread. The same judgment seat looks different, depending on who stands before it.
This holds no terror for believers. They have boldness for that day, because Christ is already our righteousness. God has taken us into favour in Him, and we share in all that love of which He is the Object. When that day comes, we will be in bodies of glory like Him. But what about those who must appear there naked, with no righteousness, with no shelter from the wrath they are heirs to? The apostle thinks of them as that throne comes before his eyes, and it is with them in view that he calls it the terror of the Lord. It was no terror to him, but to those appearing there without Christ.
Notice what the thought of judgment does not do to Paul. He looks straight at it and then turns outward.
Then he considers judgment. He calls it the terror of the Lord, looks it full in the face, and knows it. He states that we shall all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ. And then — what? Does he tremble or think of himself? Not at all; he persuades men. Its terror produces no effect of terror at all on his own mind. It was a judgment which, as such, affected others.
One writer warns that this motive for service is under attack:
Satan seems determined in our day to remove this motive for service altogether. Never has the coming judgment been made to sound so mild, or even been openly denied. But this deals falsely with people, and it turns us into tools of the enemy. Paul kept the future before his eyes, with all its huge and dreadful outcomes. It made him even more eager in his work for Christ among people.
Persuading has two sides, and the preacher can speak of both because he has proved the remedy himself.
How deep and loud and constant is the call for believers to wake up those who do not believe, while the day of grace lasts! They must not face that judgment unwarned, for it will be their ruin beyond remedy. The call is to "persuade men" — on the one hand of the wickedness, the folly, and the danger of sin; on the other of the reality and freeness, of the fulness and certainty, of salvation in Christ... We speak what we know and press a remedy, a deliverance, we have proved.
Persuasion is also a limit. It is as far as any servant can go.
Under-servants, even one as great as the apostle Paul, cannot go beyond persuading people; only the Spirit of the living God can work so effectively in the hearts of men as to "compel them to come in."
The second half of the verse turns from others to Paul himself.
The light has come in now, and an upright Christian delights in the light of God. He does not wait for the judgment seat of Christ to declare his motives... A Christian should be perfectly transparent. If not, he is unlike Christ. You may read me through and through, says Paul; I have nothing to conceal, all is out now.
Darby points to the tense Paul uses, and to what it does now.
The thought of that day brings him into God's judgment as a present thing, in a way that sanctifies him. We are, he says (not shall be), manifested to God. This is a most important effect: in practice it is simply being brought into the presence of God to judge ourselves, and to judge good and evil as they will be judged in that day.
The two clauses are not stated with equal confidence, and the difference is deliberate.
He could speak with certainty about being made manifest to God. About being manifested to the consciences of believers he could only speak in hope, because disturbing influences might be at work in them. At best that could only be partial, while to God, I repeat, they were already fully manifest.
- Terror — the judgment seat gives the believer boldness. For anyone who stands there without Christ, it is terror.
- Turned outward — that sight made Paul fear for others, not for himself. It moved him to persuade, not to tremble.
- Persuasion — he pressed home the danger of sin and the freeness of salvation. He spoke of a deliverance he had proved himself.
- Limit — a servant can only persuade; the Spirit alone compels people to come in.
- Manifested — Paul already lived in the light of that day. He was open before God, judging himself now as he will be judged then, and he hoped others could read him the same way.