PASSAGE · BSB

2 Corinthians 5

8 positions in the corpus lean on this chapter. Cited verses are marked.

1Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is dismantled, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.

2For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling,

3because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked.

4So while we are in this tent, we groan under our burdens, because we do not wish to be unclothed but clothed, so that our mortality may be swallowed up by life.

5And God has prepared us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a pledge of what is to come.

6Therefore we are always confident, although we know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord.

7For we walk by faith, not by sight.

8We are confident, then, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

9So we aspire to please Him, whether we are here in this body or away from it.

10For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive his due for the things done in the body, whether good or bad.

11Therefore, since we know what it means to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is clear to God, and I hope it is clear to your conscience as well.

12We are not commending ourselves to you again. Instead, we are giving you an occasion to be proud of us, so that you can answer those who take pride in appearances rather than in the heart.

13If we are out of our mind, it is for God; if we are of sound mind, it is for you.

14For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all, therefore all died.

15And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and was raised again.

16So from now on we regard no one according to the flesh. Although we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.

17Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!

18All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:

19that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s trespasses against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

20Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ: Be reconciled to God.

21God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

Who leans on it

Jacobus Arminius on extent of the atonementSTANDARD ACCOUNTAFFIRMS°Christ died for all; the atonement's benefits are applied on faith.Athanasius on extent of the atonementPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°The language is relentlessly universal and the argument requires it — "in the stead of all," "the ransom of all," "the debt owing from all." Because the Word assumed a body of the same nature as everyone's, the death of …Athanasius on the final state of the lostPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°On the Incarnation 56 sets out the second coming plainly: Christ returns not to suffer but to judge all by what each has done in the body, and the two destinies are the kingdom of heaven and everlasting fire. Sober expec…Calvin on justificationPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°A verdict, not a transformation. 'To justify, therefore, is nothing else than to acquit from the charge of guilt, as if innocence were proved' (Institutes III.xi.3), and God does this not on proof of our innocence but by…John MacArthur on justificationPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Forensic imputation, stated with a direct, explicit denial of the infused-righteousness alternative: not a virtue infused into the believer, but a legal declaration built on the double imputation of the believer's sin to…Justin Peters on justificationPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Strictly forensic and explicitly imputational. God judicially declares the elect righteous; their sins are imputed to Christ and His righteousness to them. The statement names the alternative it is rejecting — infusion a…John Piper on justificationSTANDARD ACCOUNTAFFIRMS°Forensic imputation, defended at length against revisionist accounts.Westminster Confession on justificationPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°WCF 11.1 is unusually explicit for a confession: it denies infusion by name, denies that the act of believing is itself what is imputed, and names imputed obedience and satisfaction as the ground. Faith is the instrument…