2 Corinthians 5:16Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Therefore from now on we know no one according to the flesh. Even though we once knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.

"Therefore from now on we know no one according to the flesh" (v. 16). If all have died and all have risen, and have died in the way the dominion of sin condemned them to die, and have risen through the laver of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, then he rightly says that we know "no one" of the faithful "according to the flesh."

What does it matter, indeed, if they are still in the flesh? The former fleshly life has already ended. We have been born again from above by the Spirit. We have come to know another citizenship, abode, life, and order, namely the heavenly.

"Therefore, from now on we know no one according to the flesh."

Since all who were deadened by sin have been made alive by Christ through Baptism, he rightly says: we know none of the faithful living in the flesh, that is, according to the old and fleshly life. For all who are regenerated by the Spirit lead a new and spiritual life.

"Even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer." He shows that in not living according to the flesh we have Christ as our guide. He says: although Christ too was once according to the flesh, now He is not according to the flesh.

What then? Did He lay aside the flesh from Himself? No. For as He came, so also He will come, and He came in the flesh and with flesh.

After the Resurrection the Lord had the same body that had endured sufferings, yet it no longer had human weakness within it. For we say that it no longer experienced hunger, weariness, or anything of this kind. From then on it was incorruptible, and not only this, but even life-giving.

For the body belonging to Life, that is, to the Only-begotten, was illumined with glory most befitting God, and is understood as the body of God.

Therefore, even if someone calls it divine, just as one calls what belongs to man human, he will not err in this fitting thought.

Christ, as man, since He is still with the body He assumed, prays to this day for my salvation, until He makes me god by the power of His becoming man. Yet "we know Him no longer according to the flesh" (2 Cor 5:16), by which I mean the fleshly infirmities and all that is ours except sin. Thus we also have an Advocate, Jesus Christ (1 Jn 2:1). This does not mean that He is humiliated for us before the Father and falls down in servile fashion. Rather, as man He suffered for us, and as the Word and Counselor He thereby persuades us to patience.

In order to shut the door against false christs who are to come, the Apostle said: "Therefore from this time on we know no one at all according to the flesh. Even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, now, if someone comes in His name, we no longer know such a Christ."

Just as before accepting the Passion the Lord, transfigured and glorified on the mountain, had the same body as before, though already in another glory, so after the resurrection His body had the same nature as before the Passion. Yet it was now in greater glory and in a more majestic form, in fulfillment of Paul's words: "From now on we know no one according to the flesh. Even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, now we know Him thus no longer."

This is truly so. With Christ's resurrection from the dead, the fleshly principle in Him has ceased, and so have the weakness of the body and the suffering of death. Until the cross there was suspicion of weakness in Christ. Afterward He manifested that in which they had not believed Him.

Having learned that death has been destroyed by the Master's death, we no longer recognize anyone among men as mortal. For although the Master Christ Himself had a body subject to suffering, after the Passion He made it incorruptible and immortal.

The Word of God is called flesh not only because He becomes incarnate, but also for another reason. God the Word, contemplated from the beginning simply as He who is with God the Father and as possessing clear and naked images of the truth concerning all created things, contains in Himself neither parable nor allegory, nor any narrative requiring allegorical interpretation.

But when God the Word came to men who could not touch naked intelligible realities with a naked mind, He spoke with them according to their custom. He becomes flesh, in which the variegated multiplicity of narratives, allegories, parables, and obscure sayings is combined.

Since Christ called those who do the will of the Father His brethren, and pointed to kinship according to the flesh, namely a kinship that has no kinship according to the spirit (Mt 12:49). Perhaps for this reason the Apostle also said, "Even though we once knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer" (2 Cor 5:16).

It is as though he were saying: if we, who believed from among the Jews, formerly boasted in kinship with Him according to the flesh, now we boast not in that, but in nearness to Him through the qualities we have acquired by virtue.

Therefore he also said, "Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ" (1 Cor 11:1). By this he expressed, as it were, this thought: I boast more in imitation than in nearness according to the flesh.

What is the meaning of the Apostle's saying, "Even though we once knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer" (2 Cor 5:16)?

The Master, having become Man for our salvation and having lived among men, wished to show His true Incarnation. Therefore, not only during His visible infancy was He nourished with milk, but when He came of age He ate, drank, grew weary, slept, was struck, was crucified, and so forth.

But after His Resurrection from the dead He is no longer subject to bodily weaknesses and necessary needs.

Therefore the Apostle says that we no longer understand Christ as suffering, weak, and mortal. For the power of His Godhead has conquered everything human.

When He was among men, He lived as a man, fulfilling the law by His life. When He died and rose incorruptible, He abolished the ordinances of the law and showed the way to heavenly citizenship. Therefore those who are baptized, as though dead, put to death bodily citizenship and, imitating the pure life in the heavens, are joined to one another.

From now on we know no one according to the flesh.

To know someone according to the flesh means to acknowledge in him those properties and distinctions by which people usually distinguish one another, such as origin, education, social position, and the like.

For the Apostle, as a Christian, such distinctions do not exist. He knows neither Jew nor Greek, neither wise man nor ignorant, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, but all in Christ.

We once knew Christ according to the flesh, but now we know Him thus no longer.

He once looked on Christ with fleshly eyes, when he persecuted His Church. Now, after his conversion, he looks on Him as Redeemer and as the true Son of God. Compare 1 Cor 2:2.

"From now on." From what moment of time? From the time after the Lord and Savior died for all and rose. From this time, he says, "we know no one according to the flesh."

Whom does he mean by "no one"? Perhaps he means no human being at all. Just as above "those who live" may be understood as all people, here too "no one" may mean no human being.

The Apostle looks at men according to the idea drawn from the divine economy of salvation. He says: we now understand all people not as flesh and blood, as born, living, and dead.

We understand them as persons appointed to receive within themselves the principles of divine life, as the pledge of resurrection and of most glorious life in incorruption. In this sense blessed Theodoret writes: