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Here is the Greek text of this verse, with the crucial subordinate clause in italics. Don’t worry if you don’t know Greek. You’ll be able to follow along anyway. The key words are in bold print.
τοὺς γὰρ πάντας ἡμᾶς φανερωθῆναι δεῖ ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ βήματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ, ἵνα κομίσηταιἕκαστος τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος πρὸς ἃ ἔπραξεν, εἴτε ἀγαθὸν εἴτε φαῦλον.
Readers might be surprised to learn that the conceptual basis for the conventional translation of the subordinate clause in this key passage (NIV, subordinate clause in italics, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad”) derives from a lecture delivered nearly two hundred years ago by a famous English preacher that basically eliminates Jesus from having any substantive role in the judgment of his followers. Readers might also be surprised to learn that the highly problematic grammar of the underlying Greek text has never been rigorously examined by all the many scholars who have written about this passage in commentaries and other publications. Finally, readers should be aware that there is a fundamental theological problem with this text that, aside from a rather cursory treatment by one or two scholars, has never been seriously addressed.
Let’s take these problems in order. The conceptual basis for the generally accepted modern translation comes from F. W. Robertson’s Lectures on the Epistles to the Corinthians, Vol. II, Boston: Fields, Osgood, & Co., successors to Ticknor and Fields (1869), Source: http://www.fwrobertson.org, in which he observed (pages 317-319, lecture delivered in 1852) that “St. Paul does not say merely that he shall receive according to what he had done in the body, but that he shall receive the things done―the very selfsame things he did, they are to be his punishments.” A prominent commentator picked up on this notion of automatic requital for one’s deeds and expanded on it by noting (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians, The International Critical Commentary, Plummer, Alfred, Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark (1956) 152) that “the metonymy by which we are said to receive back what we have done is not a mere idiom, but ‘lies deeper in the identity of the deed and its requital’.”
Finally, the late Margaret Thrall in her renowned commentary (II Corinthians 1-7: Volume 1, ICC, Thrall, Margaret, T&T Clark, (1994, reprinted 2005)) cemented this notion in what has become a definitive treatment of the text by explicitly relying on Plummer’s analysis. This is true even though Harris in his equally authoritative commentary (The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, Harris, Murray J., NIGTC, Eerdmans (2005) 407) wrote that the presence of the article τὰdoes not denote”simply metonymy for ‘the consequences of,’ as though the κομίσασθαι were merely the outcome of some immanental process by which the reaping of consequences followed inexorably on the sowing of actions, for in this case the reference to an appearance and examination before the βήμα would be rendered superfluous.” (Emphasis added)
In other words, what has come to be the generally accepted translation of this key passage about judgment relegates Christ’s role in his own Judgment Seat to a mere ministerial act, much like a notary public certifying a document prepared by others. Yes, I didn’t believe it either until I researched the question.
Now, let’s move on to the grammar. Indeed, what prompted my initial interest in this whole topic was the awkward grammar of the underlying Greek text, which one of the leading commentators on 2 Corinthians belatedly acknowledged in a post to this very blog not long ago: “The grammar is so problematic, and my [commentary] fails properly to address it. Tom rightly points that one’s unexamined presuppositions about what the text says tends to predetermine the reading of the Greek grammar. If one assumes the interpretation is correct, one is less likely to probe as exhaustively as Tom has done the grammatical complications.” (his full reply to the short prelude that I wrote before publishing the full piece can be found here).
Why is the grammar so problematic? Well, for one thing, there are no close parallels in the Greek New Testament, the Septuagint, the early Church Fathers, and as far as I can tell in all extant ancient Greek writings, where two prepositional phrases appear back-to-back, all while bracketed between two transitive verbs, with a definite article preceding the first phrase and a relative pronoun serving as the object of the second preposition, each sharing a neuter plural. Why is that a problem? Well, if you translate it literally, what you get is a sentence (Thrall, 395) in which “[h]ere, what is ‘received (back)’ is one’s earthly activity,” which Thrall correctly concluded only makes “obscure sense.”
It does more than that, however. Indeed, this cumbersome phraseology is fully in accord with the absurd conceptual notion that equates “the deed and its requital” in a mechanical process in which sinners like us are immediately punished for our evil deeds by getting that very deed back in our own bodies, whatever that means, thus cutting Christ out of the process entirely.
By the way, just in case you were wondering, Thrall attempted to clean up the grammar by implying, through a rhetorical device known as ellipsis, the addition of the participle πεπράγμενα (things done, actions, deeds) immediately after the article τὰ, and also by implying an additional prepositional phrase (in exchange for). The result of this creative reworking of the text is that the passage now reads “one receives recompense (κομίσηται) in exchange for the things done (πεπράγμενα) in the body (διὰ τοῦ σώματος). By this clever device Thrall established the definitive grammatical treatment of the subordinate clause of 2 Cor. 5:10, one which all commentators since have tacitly accepted as, dare I say it, Gospel.
But that all sounds reasonable enough you might say. It does if you ignore a fundamental theological problem with the text, and here we arrive at our third point.
This problem was laid out quite concisely by one highly respected commentator (II Corinthians, The Anchor Bible, Furnish, Victor Paul, Doubleday (1984) 305) when he noted: “The troublesome phrase is the one that mentions the body. In addition to the syntactical problem, one should note that it is quite unique to have bodily existence mentioned at all when the topic is the last judgment, as it is here. Thus, the phrase [τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος] calls attention to itself both grammatically and conceptually.” (Emphasis added)
Well, so what, you might say. Isn’t scripture filled with difficult theological conundrums and ambiguities? It is, but here is the problem. The use of ellipsis to effectively add terms to an established text is only justified when we are already pretty sure what the text means; in other words, we know what the writer was attempting to communicate, and we’re just sort of clearing it up for the modern reader. But how can that be true here when the underlying Greek text itself seems to suggest that the physical body of us believers here on earth somehow relates to the Last Judgment, which is supposed to happen in some apocalyptic future way down the road when we no longer occupy our earthly bodies? You see what I mean.
So, what has happened then? Well, as the quote above from our commentator friend suggests, translators, commentators and other scholars simply brushed this whole confusing theological headache of a quandary under the rug, so to speak, by translating the passage in accordance with what they already believed the Last Judgment to entail. In other words, they took a big theological gulp and concluded that the phrase “in or through the body” and the following phrase “what they did” formed what grammarians call a “pleonasm;” that is, they decided that the two phrases were essentially redundant.
Yes, you read that correctly. All that was going on here in this complicated sliver of Greek text was that Paul was basically repeating himself. Let’s not be too harsh on our scholarly friends, however. That reading is possible, I guess. People often repeat themselves for emphasis. But maybe Paul wasn’t repeating himself here. Maybe this awkward phrase (the things through the body, τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος) standing out like a sore thumb in an otherwise straightforward text has some independent meaning wholly apart from the rest of the clause. You would never know it though by reading the conventional translations; and, what is worse, you would also never know that embedded within that translation is a conceptual and grammatical understanding that, as Harris noted, makes Christ’s appearance at his own Judgment Seat superfluous. By the way, even though Harris reached this perceptive insight as to the passage’s meaning (or more accurately what it did not mean), he did not go on from there to question Thrall’s elliptical treatment of the text, but instead wholly endorsed it.
So, what to make of all this? Is there a conspiracy at work? I am not a big believer in conspiracy theories, but there might be an unstated mutual understanding among translators and theologians going back many years of saying, in effect, let’s not rock the boat. In other words, they might be thinking, perhaps deep in their collective subconscious. something along these lines. We all know from reading our Bibles, and especially the Book of Revelation, that way out in the future somewhere there is going to be a Last Judgment in which we all, both believers and non-believers, show up; and so we can’t have this passage about Christ’s Judgment Seat suggesting something else; and so let’s just bury the conceptual, grammatical and theological problems within the text where no one can see them.
I am not suggesting that they intentionally engaged in this exegetical sleight of hand. I am sure they were quite sincere, and that it may well never have crossed their minds that there was another way to look at this passage. The problem is that there is another way to look at it; namely that Christ’s Judgment Seat represents a process that takes place in this life, bodily (that is, in and through our bodies), as we go about our daily lives. So, instead of theorizing about what might happen in the apocalyptic future (no doubt an intellectually satisfying endeavor), we would be forced to engage with the reality of Christ interacting with us in this life on an ongoing basis in a very personal and intimate way. To be sure, that sounds rather troublesome and may well get in the way of our other endeavors, these of a more worldly nature, to which we generally attach far more importance. Best to put all that nasty business of judgment off into the hazy future. After all, isn’t eschatology supposed to be about things that happen way out in the future? No, not necessarily if Christ’s final judgment of his followers takes place in this life.
Now, what other reasons could there be for sticking with a text that has so many obvious flaws? One reader of this blog made an interesting suggestion, and I will quote here his contention in full:
“Tom’s argument is very persuasive and well-presented and based on a deep and technical understanding of the relevant scriptures and the traditional arguments. Why is it, however, that no one has apparently thought of this for perhaps the last two thousand years? Is it because the religious/secular authorities want to base religion on works rather than faith? In other words, the elite powers want people to behave in conformity with what the ruling classes want and thus more likely ensure an orderly society and one more likely to comply with the wishes of the king or the government?”
This perceptive reader might be on to something. After all, no matter how hard preachers and scholars tell us that salvation is by faith and faith alone, it is nonetheless a message that is pretty tough to swallow when you’re looking at 2 Cor. 5:10 square in the face. Let’s quote the NIV text again: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.” That sounds a lot like you’re judged according to your works; and remember, this all takes place, we are told, at the Final Judgment at the end of the age where our eternal destiny, that is Heaven or Hell, is at stake and determined once and for all. That is a fairly hairy prospect if I do say so myself, and maybe something that preachers and politicians (and influencers to borrow contemporary terminology) throughout the ages have tried to impress on their respective audiences to keep them in line; while at the same time not burdening them with having to think about God actively engaging with them in this life. Oh, horror of horrors! Just a thought.
But what really happens if 2 Cor. 5:10 is read correctly as a judgment of believers that takes place in here and now? Well, first of all, we will have to trust Christ, because he is the one who administers this judgment venue. We will have to believe that he will guide us, and sometimes admonish us, in ways that are best for us; that is, in ways that will enrich our lives in this world and prepare us for the next.
If that is not enough to take in, guess what else happens. When we as believers shake off this mortal coil, do we have to wait around in some shadowy spiritual netherworld (think Purgatory or some Intermediate State) until God finally gets around to judging us? No, because Christ has already judged us, and thus there is nothing left to do but to be resurrected in our new, heavenly bodies in which we will spend eternity with our Lord and Savior and his unsearchable, unfathomable love. In the meantime, while we are still here on earth, we will need to focus our attention on Christ, for he is always with us, seeing us as we are, correcting us when necessary, nurturing us, purifying us, and most of all helping us. That sounds pretty good to me. That sounds like salvation by faith in the arms of a loving savior.
Finally, we arrive at our reader’s first and basic question. If I might paraphrase, it would go something like this. If 2 Cor. 5:10 really refers to a bodily judgment by Christ during this life rather than before some post-death apocalyptic tribunal, why hasn’t someone thought of it before, or is it just that you’re so smart? No, I am not so smart, and people have indeed thought of it before. In fact, they thought of it at the very dawn of Christianity. This quote is taken from the earliest known recorded Christian sermon outside the New Testament: Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers, Greek Texts and English Translations, edited and translated by Holmes, Michael W., Baker Academic (3rd ed) 2007, 2 Clement 9, 148,150 (translated by the author):
“And let none of you say that this flesh is not judged and does not rise again. Think about this: In what state were you saved? In what state did you recover your sight, if it was not while you were in the flesh? We must, therefore, guard the flesh as a temple of God. For just as you were called in the flesh, so you will come in the flesh. If Christ, the Lord who saved us, became flesh (even though he was originally spirit) and in that state called us, so also we will receive our reward in this flesh.”
While this statement was not explicitly tied to 2 Cor. 5:10 (indeed this sermon was delivered long before the Biblical Canon was even thought of much less established), its meaning is clear enough. Judgment, like pretty much everything else in Christian doctrine, such as salvation, the forgiveness of sins, sanctification, and the sacraments, takes place in this life while we are in our God-given bodies, rather than at some future apocalyptic venue. God gave us our bodies for a reason. Here, in these decaying and dying bodies, is where we “continue to work out [our] salvation with fear and trembling.” Phil. 2:12.
As further proof that this revised method of viewing judgment is nothing new, one of the earliest translations of the Bible into English rendered the passage in a quite similar way, the Coverdale Bible of 1535: “every one may receive in his body, according to what he hath done.” By the time of the King James translation, however, the passage had been modified to read in an entirely different way: “that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done.” This King James rendering no doubt set the tone for most of the translations ever since. Let us once again take a quick look at the NIV translation: “so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body”; while the highly respected NET Bible employs a similar treatment with slightly different wording: “so that each one may be paid back according to what he has done while in the body.”
Not all translators have been so easily intimidated, however. One modern translation reads far differently: “that each man will be paid in his body anything that was done by him”; and another: “so that each one may receive the proper things of the body, according to his behavior.” To find out which translations these readings are taken from, and also as an incentive to delve further into the topic, you will need to dip into my full exegetical article, at least through the opening pages (you can find this full exegetical article here).
Some might nonetheless continue to worry that without the threat of the loss of salvation, we sinners will revert to our old habits and go badly astray. This, again, reveals a lack of trust in Christ as he guides his people through the complexities of this life on our various individual paths to eternity; and so I would still answer in the same way, this time with a quote from Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”
Back to Margaret Thrall, who so far has had the final say on this passage. Here is what this brilliant commentator wrote in the preface to her renowned commentary (page xi): “What is presented here is one possible reading of 2 Corinthians. There are certainly other plausible interpretations, and other methods of studying the epistle. I offer my own understanding of it simply as a contribution to the continuing debate concerning this highly complex document.” Complex, indeed!
For an additional reason that perhaps why a thorough reexamination of the true meaning of 2 Cor. 5:10 has not been undertaken by preachers and scholars alike, until hopefully now, consider the possibility of a divinely embedded riddle discussed in an article published on this blog at the present link.
I will end with Jesus’s own words that he spoke to one of the frightened religious leaders of his time (John 3:12, NLT: “But if you don’t believe me when I tell you about earthly things, how can you possibly believe if I tell you about heavenly things?”
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