Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - 2 Corinthians 5:17 - 5:17
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
2Co_5:17. Inference from 2Co_5:16. If, namely, the state of matters is such as is stated in 2Co_5:16, that now we no longer know any one as respects his human appearance, and even a knowledge of Christ of that nature, once cherished, no longer exists with us, it follows that the adherents of Christ, who are raised above such a knowledge of Christ after a mere sensuous standard, are quite other than they were before; the Christian is a new creature, to whom the standard κατὰ σάρκα is no longer suitable. The apostle might have continued with γάρ instead of ὥστε ; in which case he would have assigned as ground of the changed knowledge the changed quality of the objects of knowledge. He might also, with just as much logical accuracy, infer, from the fact of the knowledge being no longer κατὰ σάρκα , that the objects of knowledge could no longer be the old ones, to which the old way of knowing them would still be applicable, but that they must be found in a quality wholly new. He argues not ex causa, but ad causam. The former he would have done with γάρ , the latter he does with ὥστε (in opposition to Hofmann’s objection).
ἐν Χριστῷ ] a Christian; for through faith Christ is the element in which we live and mov.
καινὴ κτίσις ] for the pre-Christian condition, spiritual and moral, is abolished and done away by God through the union of man with Christ (2Co_5:18; Eph_2:10; Eph_4:21; Col_3:9-10; Rom_6:6), and the spiritual nature and life of the believer are constituted quite anew (comp. 2Co_5:14-15), so that Christ Himself lives in him (Gal_2:20) through His Spirit (Rom_8:9 f.). See on Gal_6:15. The form of the expression (its idea is not different from the παλιγγενεσία , Tit_3:5; Joh_3:3; Jam_1:18) is Rabbinical; for the Rabbins also regarded the man converted to Judaism as áøéä çãùä . See Schoettgen, Hor. I. pp. 328, 704 f., and Wetstei.
τὰ ἀρχαῖα παρῆλθεν κ . τ . λ .] Epexegesis of καινὴ κτίσις ; the old, the pre-Christian nature and life, the pre-Christian spiritual constitution of man, is passed away; behold the whole—the whole state of man’s personal life—has become new.[236] There is too slight a resemblance for us to assume for certain a reminiscence of Isa_43:18 f., or Isa_65:17; as even Chrysostom and his followers give no hint of such an echo. By the ἰδού of vivid realization, and introduced without connecting particle (“demonstrativum rei presentis,” Bengel; comp. 2Co_6:9), as well as by the emphatically prefixed γέγονε (comp. 2Co_12:11), a certain element of triumph is brought into the representation.
The division, according to which the protasis is made to go on to κτίσις (Vulgate: “si qua ergo in Christo nova creatura;” or τίς is taken as masculine: “si quis ergo mecum est in Christo regeneratus,” Cornelius a Lapide), has against it the fact, that in that case the apodosis would contain nothing else than was in the protasis; besides, the prefixing of ἐν Χ . would not be adequately accounted for.
[236] Not only in reference to sin is the old passed away and everything become new (Theodoret: τὸ τῆς ἁμαρτίας ἀπεκδυσάμεθα γῆρας ), but also—certainly, however, in consequence of the reconciliation appropriated in faith—in relation to the knowledge and consciousness of salvation, as well as to the whole tendency of disposition and will. Chrysostom and Theophylact unsuitably mix up objective Judaism as also included, and in doing so the latter arbitrarily specializes τὰ πάντα : ἀντὶ τοῦ νόμου εὐαγγέλιον · ἀντὶ Ἱερουσαλὴμ οὐρανός · ἀντὶ ναοῦ τὸ ἐσώτερον τοῦ καταπετάσματος ἐν ᾧ ἡ τρίας · ἀντὶ περιτομῆς βάπτισμα κ . τ . λ .