Question:
What does it mean when it says that “we have known Christ according to the flesh”? Or what does it mean to regard someone according to the flesh? According to our flesh or according to their flesh?

Answer:
This question is asking for the meaning of 2 Corinthians 5:16. Verses 15 and 17 must be read along with verse 16 in order to understand the truth of verse 16. The entire human race was dead in sin before God and so Christ had to die if any were to have the life that God gives, by faith in Christ Jesus so as to be able to live unto Him. God’s work of redemption includes a new creation within those who have been redeemed by Christ. These are, therefore, able to live unto God. They have the glory before them which is now where their home is. They no longer belong to this world for they have been translated into the kingdom of the Son of His love (Colossians 1:13). They were in the flesh. Now they are in Christ.

Those who belong to this world we really do not “know,” for they are “after the flesh.” And that is all they are, flesh. They belong to this sinful age (world), are dead in sin and can only live according to their sinful lusts. They are doomed to eternal perdition. This is why we cannot really have any true friends among Adam’s race, who are the unsaved.

 

But those who have been redeemed by Christ, we know in a new way. They ARE Christ’s, a new creation in Him. Heaven is their home. They don’t belong to this age (world). And even though they are living on this earth with sin dwelling in them and with the possibility of committing sin, we don’t know them “after the flesh,” for sin has been judged and put away. We know them as God knows them: IN CHRIST, because the old things have passed away and everything has become new. This is because of being IN CHRIST, of course.
Our knowledge of believers then is what is according to the new creation and not the old. Ephesians 5:21 also teaches us this: “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.” We need to respect and accept what we see of Christ in one another.

However, when we consider all of this in relation to Christ, the question of sin in His Person must be left out, for sin never did nor could defile Him in any way. Yet, He came in the LIKENESS of sinful flesh and offered Himself as a sin offering to God and put away sin forever by the sacrifice of Himself. So He, the True Man, lived and died in this sinful world in a body of flesh and blood, but He never belonged to it just as we do not since we are in Him. And we will never know Him as a Man alive in this world as the disciples of the Bible once did, but never will again. “Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more.”
So this 16th verse is teaching us that we know Christ as glorified and one another as glorified together in Him according to God’s eternal purpose, and in no other way.Let the truth of this verse challenge us daily to walk only in the Spirit so that we may truly love one another for our common edification and encouragement, putting away all selfish interests.