<p>5:14- see on 2 Cor. 8:9.</p><p><i>For the love of Christ controls us</i>- The love of Christ (and this phrase is almost always used in the NT of the cross) must <i>constrain us</i> (2 Cor. 5:14); we must reflect upon it until with Paul we pray with bowed knees to know the length, and the breadth and the height, of that love of Christ (on Calvary) that passes our unaided human knowledge (Eph. 3:19). For this alone is what will drive our passivity from us; here at last is something to respond to with all our heart and soul. The image of soldiers in their time of dying has often been used afterwards as a motivation for a nation: &ldquo;Earn this&quot; is the message their faces give. And it is no more true than in the death of the Lord. &ldquo;The love of Christ&quot;, an idea elsewhere used of His death (Jn. 13:1; 2 Cor. 5:14,15; Rom. 8:32,34,35; Eph. 5:2,25; Gal. 2:20; Rev. 1:5 cp. 1 Jn. 4:10), <i>constrains us</i>; it doesn&rsquo;t force us, but rather shuts us up unto one way, as in a narrow, walled path. We cannot sit passively before the cross of the Lord. That &ldquo;love of Christ&quot; there passes our human knowledge, and yet our hearts can be opened, as Paul prayed, that we might know the length, breadth and height of it. The crucified Son of God was the full representation of God.</p><p>The Lord died as He did so that the love of God, the real meaning of love, might be displayed in a cameo, in an intense, visual, physical form which could be remembered and meditated upon. Observing the memorial meeting is the very least we can do to this end; and this itself is only a beginning. &ldquo;The love of Christ <i>constraineth us</i>&quot; (AV) not to live for ourselves, but unto him that died for us, and to show this by our concern for our brethren, in the context. Marvin Vincent has a telling comment on the Greek word translated &quot;controls&rdquo;: &quot;The idea is not urging or driving, but <i>shutting up</i> to one line or purpose, as in a narrow, walled road&quot; (<i>Word Studies Of The N.T.</i>). We shouldn't be driven men and women; we are not urged or driven by the cross, but shut up by it to one purpose. There are only two ways before us, to death or life; and we are shut up by the cross in that road to life. In this lies the sustaining and transforming power of the cross, if only we would meditate upon it. It is an epitome of every facet of the love of God and of Christ. There the Name of God was declared, that the love that was in the Father and Son may be in us (Jn. 17:26). The same word is used about the Lord in Lk. 22:63, where we read He was &quot;bound&quot;, constrained, limited in movement- as He was constrained for us in His final sufferings, we should likewise be for Him.</p><p><i>Because we have judged that in that one has died for all, therefore all have died- </i>If the classic idea of substitution were correct, then surely this should read &quot;One has died for all, therefore all have <i>lived</i>&quot;. But the death of Christ <i>for </i>us rather shows us how to <i>die</i> in a death like His, that we through identity with His death might share in His life. If we really think of the Lord's passion seriously, our thoughts will be punctuated with the realization: &quot;I would not have done that. I would simply not have held on&quot;. But in that He died for us all in Him, it is reckoned that we all died with Him the death of the cross. We are graciously counted as having died with Him in baptism (Rom. 6:3-5), and now we try to live this out in practice. And in appreciating this, inevitably our patience with our brethren will be the more thorough-going.</p>