📌2 Corinthians 5:16 — “Know no man after the flesh.”
This is one of Paul’s most transformative statements, buried quietly in a chapter overflowing with identity, reconciliation, and new-creation truth.
Here is the verse:
“Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh.”
(2 Cor. 5:16)
Paul is describing a radical shift in how he views all people — saved or unsaved.
Let’s unpack it.
1. “Know” means: evaluate, judge, perceive, relate to.
Paul is talking about your internal lens.
How you size people up.
How you interpret their behavior.
How you form opinions about them.
How you decide who they are.
He is saying:
“I no longer form conclusions about anyone based on outward appearance, personality, behavior, history, temperament, or natural identity.”
This is huge, because natural identity includes:
• race
• culture
• social status
• weaknesses
• strengths
• flaws
• reputation
• past sins
• family
• personality
• flesh patterns
Paul is saying:
“I refuse to define any person by their natural category.”
Already this is a revolution in relationships.
2. “After the flesh” means: according to human standards.
The flesh is:
• what you can see with the eyes
• what you hear with the ears
• what you pick up from behavior
• the natural, external, earthly identity
Paul makes a decision:
“I refuse to interpret people by the old nature, the natural person, their outward condition.”
Because the flesh:
❌ misjudges
❌ condemns
❌ exaggerates flaws
❌ is blind to destiny
❌ sees only what is temporarily true
❌ cannot discern calling
❌ labels people prematurely
The Spirit:
✔ sees who God made them
✔ sees who they are becoming
✔ sees grace
✔ sees destiny
✔ sees the new creation
✔ sees the eternal value
✔ sees beyond the wound
✔ calls things that be not as though they were
✔ discerns purpose behind behavior
Paul learned that the flesh cannot see truth — it only sees conditions.
The Spirit sees the person behind the condition.
3. Paul even admits: “We used to see Christ after the flesh.”
🟡This is stunning.
Before his conversion, Paul saw Jesus as:
• a troublemaker
• a failed rabbi
• a false messiah
• a dead man on a cross
But after revelation?
He saw:
• the Son of God
• the risen Christ
• the eternal King
• the fullness of God in bodily form
If Paul misjudged JESUS because of fleshly lenses…
…how much more will we misjudge PEOPLE?
This is why he says:
“We see Christ differently now —
and therefore we must see people differently too.”
When you see Jesus differently,
you see everyone differently.
4. This verse is the doorway into the New Creation reality in verse 17.
The very next verse:
“Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature…”
THEREFORE means:
“Because we no longer evaluate people by the flesh…”
…we now understand them as NEW CREATIONS.
Paul is saying:
“You can’t see people’s true identity
until you stop looking at them with old eyes.”
This is why many people never walk into their calling —
Someone keeps knowing them “after the flesh.”
This is why relationships suffer.
This is why churches misjudge.
This is why families stay stuck.
This is why healing takes so long.
Because someone refuses to see beyond the flesh.
Paul says:
“I will not do that anymore.”
5. **This verse is a manual for:
prophets, pastors, parents, counselors, intercessors, and leaders.**
Every person God ever uses learns to see like this.
To “know no man after the flesh” means:
• You don’t define someone by their worst day.
• You don’t assume their weakness is their identity.
• You don’t confuse their wound with their heart.
• You don’t let sin overshadow destiny.
• You don’t lock someone into their past.
• You don’t judge before God finishes the story.
• You don’t let behavior blind you to calling.
To know no man after the flesh means:
“I refuse to treat you as anything less
than the person God is forming.”
This is the core of redemptive ministry.
6. **The deepest truth:
Paul learned to see people the way Jesus sees him.**
Jesus never sees you:
• after your mistakes
• after your upbringing
• after your failures
• after your personality flaws
• after your limitations
Jesus sees:
• your redeemed identity
• your calling
• your future
• your gifting
• your Christ-nature
• your potential
• who you are IN Him
And Paul is saying:
“I’ve learned to treat people
with the same grace
Jesus used on me.”
This is the heart of the gospel.
7. In one sentence:
To “know no man after the flesh” means to stop seeing people naturally and begin seeing them prophetically — in the light of Christ and their God-given destiny.
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Eagle’s Way Ministries 