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2Co_5:16. Inference from 2Co_5:14-15 opposed to the hostile way of judging of his opponents (comp. 2Co_5:13). Hence it is with us quite otherwise than with our opponents, who judge regarding others κατὰ σάρκα : we know henceforth no one according to flesh-standard. Since all, namely, have (ethically) died, and every one is destined to live only to Christ, not to himself, our knowing of others must be wholly independent of what they are κατὰ σάρκα . Accordingly, the connection of thought between 2Co_5:16 and 2Co_5:14-15 demands that we take κατὰ σάρκα here not as subjective standard of the οἴδαμεν , so that we should have to explain it: according to merely human knowledge, without the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit (comp. 2Co_1:17; 1Co_1:26): “as one might know Him in a way natural to man” (Hofmann, Osiander, and, earlier, Lyra, Calovius, and others; comp. also Ernesti, Urspr. d. Sünde, I. p. 69), but as objective standard (comp. 2Co_11:18; Joh_8:15; Php_3:4), so that εἰδέναι τινὰ κατὰ σάρκα means: to know any one according to merely human appearance, to know him in such a way, that he is judged by what he is in virtue of his natural, material form of existence, and not by what he is κατὰ πνεῦμα , as a Christian, as καινὴ κτίσις (2Co_5:17). He who knows no one κατὰ σάρκα has entirely left out of account, e.g. in the Jew, his Jewish origin; in the rich man, his riches; in the scholar, his learning; in the slave, his bondage; and so forth (comp. Gal_3:28). Comp. Bengel: “secundum carnem: secundum statum veterem ex nobilitate, divitiis, opibus, sapientia.” It is inaccurate to say that this interpretation requires the article before σάρκα (Osiander). It might be used, but was not necessary, any more than at Php_3:3 ff., Rom_1:3; Rom_9:5, al., where σάρξ everywhere, without the article, denotes the objective relatio.
ἡμεῖς ] i.e. we on our part, as opposed to the adversaries who judge κατὰ σάρκα . The taking the plural as general embracing others (Billroth, by way of suggestion, Schenkel, de Wette), has against it the evidently antithetic emphasis of the pronoun; it is only with the further inference in 2Co_5:17 that the discourse becomes genera.
ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν ] after the present time, i.e. after our present (Christian) relation, and with it also the κρίναντας κ . τ . λ ., has begun. Paul has ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν only here. Beyond this Luke alone in the N. T. has i.
οἴδαμεν ] not acstimamus (Grotius, Estius, and others, including Emmerling and Flatt), but novimus; no one is to us known κατὰ σάρκα ; we know nothing of him according to such a standard. Comp. on εἰδέναι οὐδένα or οὐδέν in the sense of complete separation, 1Co_2:2. οἶδα is related to ἔγνωκα , cognovi, as its lasting sequel: scio, quis et qualis si.
εἰ καὶ ἐγνώκαμεν κ . σ . Χριστὸν κ . τ . λ .] apologetic application of the assertion just made, ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν οὐδένα οἴδαμεν κ . σ . This remark is added without δέ (see the critical remarks), which is accounted for by the impetuous liveliness of the representation. If even (as I herewith grant to my opponents, see Hermann, ad Viger. p. 832) the case has occurred that we have known Christ according to flesh-standard, this knowing of Him now exists with us no longer. The emphasis of this concessive clause lies on the praeterite ἐγνώκαμεν , which opposes the past to the present relation ( οἴδαμεν , and see the following γινώσκομεν ). Therefore Χριστόν is not placed immediately after εἰ καί , for Paul wishes to express that in the past it has been otherwise than now; that formerly the γινώσκειν κ . σάρκα had certainly occurred in his case, and that in reference to Christ. This in opposition to the usual interpretation, according to which Χριστόν is invested with the chief emphasis. So e.g. Billroth: “if we once regarded even Christ Himself in a fleshly manner, if we quite misjudged Him and His kingdom;” Beyschlag similarly: “even with Christ I make no exception,” etc. Rückert, without any reason whatever, conjectures that Paul erroneously inserted Χριστόν , or perhaps did not write it at all. The right interpretation is found in Osiander, Ewald, Kling, also substantially in Hofmann, who, however, would attach εἰ καὶ ἐγνώκαμεν κ . τ . λ . to ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν … σάρκα , and thus separate it only by a comma,—a course by which, owing to the following contrast ἀλλὰ κ . τ . λ ., the sentence is without sufficient ground made more disjointed.
Paul had known Christ κατὰ σάρκα , so long as the merely human individuality of Christ, His lower, earthly appearance (comp. Chrysostom and Theodoret), was the limit of his knowledge of Him. At the time when he himself was still a zealot against Christ, and His persecutor, he knew Him as a mere man, as a common Jew, not as Messiah, not as the Son of God; as one justly persecuted and crucified, not as the sinless Reconciler and the transfigured Lord of glory, etc. It was quite different, however, since God had revealed His Son in Paul (Gal_1:16), whereby he had learned to know Christ according to His true, higher, spiritual nature ( κατὰ πνεῦμα , Rom_1:4).[233] Comp. also Holsten, z. Ev. d. Paul, und Petr. p. 429, who, however, refers the Χριστόν , which denotes the entire historical person of the God-man, only to the heavenly, purely pneumatic personality of the Lord, which had been pre-existent and in this sense was re-established by the resurrection. Klöpper, p. 66, has substantially the right view: the earthly, human appearance of Christ according to its national, legal, and particular limitation. The Judaistic conception of the Messianic idea was the subjective ground of the former erroneous knowledge of Christ, but it is not on that account to be explained with many (Luther, see his gloss, Bengel, Rückert, and others): according to Jewish ideas of the Messiah; for, according to what precedes, κ . σ . must be the objective standard of the ἐγνώκαμεν . In that case ΧΡΙΣΤΌΝ cannot be appellative, the Messiah (especially Baur, I. p. 304, ed. 2, and Neander, I. p. 142 f.), but only nomen proprium, as the following εἴ τις ἐν Χριστῷ shows. Olshausen, who rightly, as to substance, refers Κ . Σ . to the life of Christ before His resurrection, deduces, however, from ΕἸ ΚΑῚ ἘΓΝΏΚ . that Paul even before his conversion had seen Christ in his visits to Jerusalem, which Beyschlag also, in the Stud. u. Krit. 1864, p. 248, and 1865, p. 266, gathers from our passage and explains it accordingly, and Ewald, Gesch. d. apost. Zeitalt. p. 368, ed. 3, thinks credible. This is in itself possible (though nowhere testified), but does not follow from our passage; for ἐγνώκ ., in fact, by no means presupposes the having seen, but refers to the knowledge of Christ obtained by colloquial intercourse, and determined by the Pharisaic fundamental point of view,—a knowledge which Paul before his conversion had derived from his historical acquaintance with Christ’s earthly station, influence as a teacher, and fate, as known to all.[234] Besides, the interpretation of a personal acquaintance with Christ would be quite unsuitable to the following ἈΛΛᾺ ΝῦΝ Κ . Τ . Λ . It would be at variance with the context. See also Klöpper, p. 55 ff. According to de Wette, the sense is: “not yet to have so known Christ as, with a renouncing of one’s own fleshly selfishness, to live to Him alone,” 2Co_5:15. But in this way there would result for κατὰ σάρκα the sense of the subjective standard (against which see above); further, the signification of κατὰ σ . would not be the same for the two parts of the verse, since in the second part it would affirm more (namely, according to fleshly selfishness, without living to Him alone); lastly, this having known Christ would not suit the time before the conversion of the apostle, to which it nevertheless applies, because at this time he was even persecutor of Christ. And this he was, just because he knew him κατὰ σάρκα (taken in our sense), which erroneous form of having known ceased only when God ἀπεκάλυψε τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ (Gal_1:16). While various expositors fail to give to it a clear and definite interpretation,[235] others have explained it in the linguistically erroneous sense of a merely hypothetical possibility. Thus Erasmus: “Nec est, quod nos posteriores apostolos quisquam hoc nomine minoris faciat, quod Christum mortali corpore in terris versantem non novimus, quando etiam, si contigisset novisse, nunc eam notitiam, quae obstabat spiritui, deposuissemus, et spiritualem factum spiritualiter amaremus;” so in the main also Grotius, Rosenmüller, Flatt. For a synopsis of the various old explanations, from Faustus the Manichaean (who proved from our passage that Christ had no fleshly body) downward, see Calovius, Bibl. ill. p. 463 ff.
ἀλλά ] in the apodosis, see on 2Co_4:16.
γινώσκομεν ] sc. κατὰ σάρκα Χριστόν .
[233] According to Estius, the meaning is taken to be: “If we once held it as something great to be fellow-countrymen and kinsmen of Christ.” But the words do not convey this. Similarly also Wetstein, who makes the apostle, in opposition to the (alleged) boasting of the false apostles that they were kinsmen and hearers of Christ, maintain, “cognationem solam nihil prodesse;” et Christum non humilem esse, as on earth, sed exaltatum super omnes. Comp. Hammond, and also Storr, Opusc. II. p. 252, according to whom Paul refers to such, “qui praeter externa ornamenta et Judaicam originem et pristinam illam suam cum apostolis Christo familiaribus conjunctionem nihil haberent, quo magnifice gloriari possent.” An allusion to the alleged spiritualism of the Christine party, who had reproached the apostle with a fleshly conception of Christ (Schenkel, Goldhorn), is arbitrarily assumed.
[234] Certainly to him also had the cross been a stumbling-block, since, according to the Jewish conception, the Messiah was not to die at all (Joh_12:34); but we must not, with Theodoret, limit κατὰ σάρκα to the παθητὸν σῶμα of Christ.
[235] Hofmann, e.g., describes the knowing of Christ κατὰ σάρκα as of such a nature, that it accommodated itself to the habit of the natural man, and therefore knew Christ only in so far as He was the object of such knowledge.