Why I Am Compelled2 (Part 2)

One For All...

A couple of weeks ago I started to answer this question…and it is one that I will continue to revisit and wrestle with not only this week but in the months to come. I included my typical vertical analysis of 2 Corinthians 5:13-21. As I wrote, 2 Corinthians 5 is key to the idea of this blog Compelled2: A Mission in Reconciliation. This week, I wanted to further explore this biblical foundation as I focus on verses 14-15. 

¹⁴ For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this:

                     that one   has died                 for all,

                                                          therefore all

                                   have died;

                  ¹⁵ and he           died                 for all,

                                                                  that those who live

                                                                 might no longer live

                                                                    for themselves

                                                              but for

                             him who                          for their sake

                                            died                         and was raised.

The Crucifixion by Georges Rouault

One died that all might live…but his death was not merely so we might live forever for ourselves, doing our own thing, seeking our own desires. No, it was for a much higher purpose, for a much greater person. How could we be the recipients of such extravagant love and not want to love Christ back? Paul was compelled/controlled by the love of Christ because he, and those with him, had concluded something about the death of Christ. Not only are we no longer the same person we once were (v.17) but we no longer live for the same fallen purpose. We now live for the one who died and was raised from the dead.

Our change in trajectory is not out of guilt, nor out of some mistaken (and heretical) idea that we can earn our way into God’s affection by our personal goodness. I would like to point out that we seriously overestimate our own goodness and underestimate God’s holiness and glory! The change comes as we begin to comprehend his love for us…along with the cosmically high price he paid for our ransom. 1 John 3:16 says, "By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers." This "laying down" of our lives happens not merely with words and an otherworldly focus, but in "deed and in truth" (v.18) as we work to bring the kingdom to all needing healing and justice in their lives.

Illustration by Norman Price &
E.C. Van Swearingen,
 from the book I had as a child

On a bit of a side note, as I look at the word patterns in the verses above, I wonder how can we miss seeing the famous motto from Alexandre Dumas' 1844 novel, The Three Musketeers, “One for all, and all for One”. Jesus Christ is truly the "one" who died for “all”, so now we, and all for whom he died, should faithfully live for him and not for ourselves. We do not do this by isolating ourselves from others in some craggy wilderness retreat, but in the world as members of the community of the redeemed. Obviously, the Musketeer example falls short in many ways, including their contextual readiness to take the life of another when challenged. Yet their motto and radical commitment to each other should inspire us, for if it isn't drawn from 2 Cor.5, then it is certainly in agreement with it.

 

"All for One..."

What does it mean to live for Him?
Certainly "living for Him" is a response to his love for us. It involves loving him back by keeping his commandments. But more specifically it is living in submission to, and thus participating willingly in, his great mission. His desires become our desires. His whole life was about the mission of reconciliation between God and man which has its roots back in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3. Actually, God had it in his heart even earlier (before the foundation of the world—Rev. 13:8)! The whole Bible is the story of God’s loving plan and faithful actions to reconcile the broken cosmos to himself.

Having been redeemed, ransomed, rescued, and raised in Christ, I am finding myself compelled to live into his wonderful mission of reconciliation until all for whom he died can comprehend his love for them, as Paul prayed so I am learning to pray,

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14-19 ESV).

One for all and all for one... not a bad concept indeed!