2 Corinthians 5:7
(for we walk by faith, not by sight;)
View all translations →Sandwiched between Paul's longing for the heavenly body (v. 1-5) and his confident readiness to be "absent from the body and present with the Lord" (v. 8), this short statement gives the governing principle of the whole passage: the Christian's path is shaped not by what the eyes register but by the certainty of unseen, eternal realities.
Commentary first sets the verse forward as a description of the believer's everyday outlook — the standard, not the exception.
A. J. Pollock"We walk by faith, not by sight." That is the normal attitude of the Christian to the unseen world. The Christian is governed by absolutely different ideas to what the man of the world is.
A. J. PollockHow good it is to have a vision! See how faith acts. "We walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Cor. 5:7). Do we? That is the question for us all to answer.
A second strand draws out what faith does: it gives the invisible the weight and nearness that sight gives to visible things — only without sight's deceptions.
Magazines — Faith and Its FootstepsTo faith, that which is unseen becomes as present, as real, as though present to sight. Yes, much more so; because there is deception in seen things; but there is no deception in things communicated by the Spirit to the heart.
This is why Christianity differs from the outward, visible system that came before it. Under the law every appeal was to the senses; in Christ everything central is unseen.
G. C. WillisAll these things were provided in order that man in the flesh might be in relationship with God... no need to use faith to see that which is invisible. Christians, on the other hand, are a heavenly people. They do not see the Object whom they adore ("Whom, having not seen, we love"), except by faith... Now our hearts rise up into the heavenly temple... But we see all this by the eye of faith.
Faith does not only inform; it transports. The believer remains physically here yet inwardly belongs elsewhere, and that double standing produces both joy and a certain isolation.
C. H. Mackintosh"We walk by faith, not by sight." (2 Cor. 5:7) "It doth not yet appear what we shall be." (1 John 3:2)... As to fact, we are in Egypt, yet, in spirit, we are in the heavenly Canaan. Faith brings the heart into the power of divine and unseen things, and thus enables it to mount above everything down here, in this place "where death and darkness reign."
Magazines — Faith and PatienceThose who walk by faith in the midst of a world where all is conducted on the principle of sight... must not expect to be understood or appreciated here, but the reverse. If it be true that our treasure is in heaven, that we belong to a heavenly ascended Christ... all our resources are in quite a different sphere to that of sight.
The "for" of v. 7 explains the boldness of v. 6. The apostle's courage rests not on a future re-creation but on what God has already worked in him by the Spirit.
J. N. DarbyThe 'therefore' is not connected... with this glorious future state, as making him confident, but with what he already possessed while in the body. "Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always confident"... It was what Paul had already as God's workmanship, which made him so courageous at all times.
Finally, walking by faith is not only a moment of conversion but the continuing law of Christian life — paralleling Hebrews 10:38 and Romans 1:17.
Magazines — Truth and TidingsWe have been justified by faith, and so we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1). But then as Christians we should continue to live by faith, for the righteous one shall live by faith — not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7; Hebrews 10:38).
- Normal, not heroic. Walking by faith is simply the standard Christian outlook toward the unseen world; the question is whether we actually live it.
- Faith makes real. The Spirit communicates unseen things so vividly that they become more certain than what the eyes see, which deceive.
- Heavenly people. Christianity, unlike the law's outward system, has no visible temple or altar; its Object is loved unseen and approached only by the eye of faith.
- Pilgrim cost. Those governed by unseen treasure will not be understood by a world built entirely on the principle of sight.
- Paul's ground of courage. The "therefore" rests on what God has already wrought in the believer by the earnest of the Spirit, not on a future re-creation.