Seeing with Different Eyes

The apostle Paul spoke of seeing with different eyes. “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view” (2 Corinthians 5:16).

“From a human point of view” (literally: according to the flesh) refers to how the world the world trained us to view and think about others. We view others through the lens of some (generally unrecognized) set of expectations—religious belief and practice, moral codes, societal norms, social standing, economic status, political position, group identity, ethnicity, cultural traditions, etc. Using these expectations, we evaluate how the other conforms to them as well as how well they measure up to them. This way of viewing the other is a merit-based, deserving-oriented way of viewing others. It produces us-them, better than-less than thinking and relating.

Paul said he once viewed Jesus “from a human point of view,” that is, from his religious and cultural training. Paul considered Jesus to be someone who broke the law and failed to live by religious cultural norms. In his association with those who were ritually unclean and those who were social outcasts, Jesus challenged and undermined the clean-unclean distinctions upon which Paul’s religious culture was based. Jesus was a threat to Paul’s law-based identity and way of life. Even more, Paul saw Jesus as a threat to the nation’s security.

As a Pharisee, Paul understood the nation’s failure to live by the law as the reason for their experience of exile in Babylon. The exile was viewed as God’s judgment on the nation for their failure. Along with his fellow Pharisees, Paul was committed to keeping the law in order to avoid another experience of God’s judgment. They were determined to “get it right” this time. In Paul’s mind, Jesus and his followers, in their disregard of the law and Jewish religious traditions, once again put the nation at risk of God’s judgment. Thus, he was determined to eliminate that risk by destroying Jesus’s followers (Acts 9:1-2).

Paul viewed Jesus “from a human point of view”—through the lens of how his religion and culture had trained him to think.

How we view the other determines how we treat them.

 Paul viewed Jesus as one who disregarded the Jewish law and taught his followers to do the same. He viewed him as a threat to the nation. Thus, he persecuted the church.

All of that changed when Paul encountered the Risen Christ. Paul became a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). In this new creation, “everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God” (2 Corinthians 5:17-18). That old included viewing Jesus and others “from a human point of view.”

Being in Christ led Paul to see with different eyes. Through his encounter with the Risen Christ, Paul now knew Jesus to be the long-awaited Messiah—the Christ. This shift in how Paul viewed Jesus naturally led to a change in the way Paul treated him. Paul went from persecuting the church to serving Jesus as Lord. Paul’s identity became tied to being “in Christ” rather than to his obedience to the law. With the intensity with which he had previously persecuted the church, he lived as an apostle, proclaiming the good news of Jesus’s death and resurrection. He proclaimed the grace and forgiveness of God that is ours in Christ. Paul proclaimed Jesus as Lord.

How Paul viewed others changed, as well. In Christ, “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Old social distinctions yielded to the greater identification of being “in Christ” and beloved children of God. “In Christ, you are all children of God through faith” (Galatians 3:26).

The world has trained us how to think. That merit-based, deserving-oriented thinking shapes how we view others which, in turn, determines how we treat them. Being “in Christ” calls us beyond the way the world trained us to think. “Stop letting the world squeeze you into its mold,” Paul wrote. Rather, “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). Transformation comes as our thinking, under the guidance of the Spirit, is shaped by the character of God and the ways of God that Jesus taught. That Spirit-orchestrated transformation results in a shift in how we view others. We, like Paul, see with different eyes—eyes that see beyond social and cultural and ethnic distinctions; eyes that see others as beloved children of God.

What would it take for us, like Paul, to “regard no one from a human point of view?” As those who are “in Christ,” what is needed for us to see with different eyes?