2 Corinthians 5:6–17
“For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.” 2 Corinthians 5:10 (NRSV)
I grew up in an evangelical environment with a paradigm of punishment that largely matched the world around us. Despite the common refrain of being “in the world, but not of the world,” I heard in church environments and ‘secular’ environments alike that people were in prison because they deserved to be there. Prison was the just reward for committing crimes. When we visited those in prison, we did so to convert them to a more moral way of life – a moral way of life that also happened to be our particular interpretation of Christian faith.
Central to that same faith was the idea that Jesus washed away our sins. Jesus’ death on the cross took on the punishment God had in store for sinners. In the grand scheme of the cosmos, we were guilty criminals but Jesus gave us some sort of spiritual ‘get out of jail free’ card. That logic stopped there, however, and did not extend to material reality. In the culture I grew up in, there wasn’t a whole lot of second guessing whether somebody in prison deserved to be there or not, the atonement of Christ notwithstanding. We certainly didn’t discuss whether prisons should exist or not!
When I came to this passage in Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth, this statement about judgment jumped out of the page like it was written in neon lights. “For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.” It turns the paradigm of who is guilty and who is liable to judgment on its head. Whereas my context often considers someone who has committed a crime (a definition rife with prejudice enforced by the state) the one guilty or at least liable to judgment, Paul reminds us that we all appear before God accountable for what has been done in our bodies.
When Christians consider that judgment, we should consider prisons. How will we be judged by the record of incarceration in our midst? How will we be judged by the rampant abuse in our carceral systems? How will we be judged for condoning slavery in our prison systems?
Often, we are more afraid of the consequences of doing something about that sin than God’s judgment of it. The abolition of prisons often scares people more than the potential judgment of our permissive posture toward them. Yet, Paul has news for us. “We walk by faith, not by sight,” and we cannot fear the possibilities of a prison-free world more than the consequences of continuing a carceral state. Our savior was lynched by just such a system, and Jesus did not die so that our world could remain the same.
“Everything old has passed away,” Paul writes, “Everything has become new!” May that inspire us to see our carceral world as something that needs to die, so a better world can live.
Wesley Spears-Newsome (he/him/his)is a writer and Baptist pastor in North Carolina. You can find more of his work at wespearsnewsome.com.