We need to understand that when the Letter to the Corinthians was written, there were no chapter-and-verse divisions. The entire text was continuous and coherent. Therefore, we must not read a single verse in isolation from the verses before and after it. The division into chapters and verses was added later. Thus, being pleasing to God must be viewed in light of the whole of chapter 5. If we observe 2 Corinthians 5 in its entirety, we will find the characteristics of a life that is pleasing to God.
First, a life that is blameless and without fault (vv. 9–10).
Second, a life that longs to meet the Lord (vv. 1–7). Paul says that if he could choose, he would rather leave this body and meet the Lord. He declares that his life journey is not based on sight, but on faith. He is not bound to what is seen, but to what is unseen. In 2 Corinthians 4, the previous chapter, Paul says, “We fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
Third, a life wholly devoted to God as Christ’s ambassador, namely to proclaim the message of reconciliation (vv. 14–15). If Jesus has died for us all, then we all have died. And if we live, we live for Him who died for us. This is the life of a Christian who truly experiences being a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17).
If a person lacks these three characteristics, it means they have not yet become a true Christian. They may adhere to the Christian religion, but have not truly become a Christian, for “Christian” means being like Christ. A blameless life, the awareness that this world is not our home, so that we long to meet the Lord, and a life fully devoted to God—these are the marks of a true believer. If we do not live fully for God, then we are not counted by God, even if we are pastors, church activists, synod leaders, or anyone else. If these three characteristics are absent, then we are not those whom God counts.
Paul possessed these three characteristics: holiness of life, longing to meet the Lord, and total devotion to God. That is why he could say, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” In this regard, Paul’s life becomes a model of a believer who has truly experienced reconciliation with God. Yet many Christians, including theologians, feel that they already possess reconciliation with God merely because they have a conceptual framework or a systematic theology of reconciliation.
In reality, reconciliation with God is built on conduct and inward moral qualities pleasing to God, in accordance with the characteristics mentioned: holiness of life, focus on meeting the Lord, and wholehearted devotion to God. For many years, many Christians have lived in a state of not being properly reconciled with God. Indeed, when someone becomes a Christian, they are not immediately required to live a holy, perfect, fully devoted life to God, longing for the Kingdom of Heaven. That requires a process.
However, if someone is biologically advanced in age—for example, 60 years old—and has followed Jesus for 40 years, they should by then display evident spiritual growth and increasingly please God. If not, and if they do not truly pay attention to the quality of their life because they have become accustomed to wrong patterns of living, then those wrong patterns will be regarded as the normal standard. This is what is called deviant normality.
The same thing happened when Christianity became the state religion during the Roman Empire. When Christians no longer experienced persecution, many began to live in a spiritually comfortable yet deviant way. Even today, many Christians live in such deviant normality. In the past, when Christianity was under persecution, the lives of believers were actually normal in God’s eyes. But when Christianity became comfortable, many instead lived abnormally before God.