[13] If we are “out of our mind,” as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. [14] For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. [15] And 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.

2 Corinthians 5:13-15 NIV

Here in this passage, Paul says that “all died”. This represents the correct translation of the passage, as preferred to the reading of the King James, which holds, “then were all dead”. The King James proves to be an imprecise translation, textually, but what is Paul getting at?

Paul begins by talking about being “out of [his] mind”, and proceeds with his argument. What Paul is really doing is reversing his logic, speaking of things rather backwards.

His speech in 2 Corinthians 5:14 is to look at the truth which was well accepted, that “Christ died for all”, which is why the Corinthians were saved at all, being Gentiles, and uses it to prove a previous fact, that since Christ is the Savior of all men, then all men stand in need of a savior. He uses the fact of Christ’s death, accepted by the Corinthians, to show that all men need Him.

Although perhaps not the most obvious argument to today’s reader, it is borne out in the next verse, “…that those who live…”, where he shows the difference, contrasting those who are yet dead with those who are now alive. Just as since since Christ’s death was for all, therefore all died and were in need of salvation (dead in their trespasses and sins), those who believe and are saved, those that are now alive in Christ, should live for Him who died for them.

Did I mention Paul introduces this passage by saying “if we are out of our minds…”?

But, Paul rounds up the topic by clearly demonstrating what he means.

 [16] Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. [17] Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

2 Corinthians 5:16-17

Paul exhorts believers to no longer know people after the flesh, but after the Spirit. In the flesh, their bodies may be functioning, but those without Christ are dead, even while they live. Further, as Paul wrote, though outwardly they were wasting away, inwardly, they were renewed day-by-day. Truly, those who fell asleep in the Lord were not simply there by polite euphemism or mere kind language, but those who passed on in the Lord ahead are those risen first, together with the Lord.

For, those who are in Christ are a new creature, Paul writes. The old man of flesh, dead in his spirit, is removed, and the new man, the creation of God, has come.

Christians, those who believe and are alive, can know Him, and can know each other, no longer by the outward or the fleshly man, but can know by the Spirit, their born again nature, created in God in true righteousness and holiness.

Paul is, of course, not saying that all have died with Christ, as is evident by the next passages. Nor is Paul saying Christ only died for some, because he is using this argument for his “foolish” argument that all are dead in sins and are in need of Him who died.

So, without a whole lot of further complexities added, perhaps the best explanation of what Paul means in 2 Corinthians 5:14, saying “all have died”, is something like this,

 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:

2 Corinthians 5:14 KJV

Despite not being technically a precise translation, the King James language does actually correctly capture the sentiment Paul was conveying.  Perhaps the translators knew this, and did it intentionally?  I have no easy way to know.

But, Paul’s emphasis in this verse is about the love of God that compels, constrains, and beckons us to tell a lost world about their only savior. Paul’s writing is so that we, though our fleshly mind may want to look at the world and the things of the world and regard them as fundamentally “good”, that we no longer regard any that way. Rather, knowing no man after the flesh, we regard them as God does,we know those who are believers as those who are alive, those who are not as dead, for that is what they truly are, and those who come to belief no longer as what they were, but as a New Creation. This is who we are.