We can extend the same argument today to whoever we tend to look down upon, whoever we find it convenient to dehumanize. Maybe it is a relative who disgraces the family name, or a neighbor who makes life awfully difficult, or a fellow Christian. But we just would rather avoid them or not be seen with them; we look on them with disdain. Paul is saying not to forget that you are operating in the flesh what is in the Lord. Remember how God looked upon you and your sin. Remember the mercy that looked upon you from the cross. For love’s sake, let our relationship in the flesh be what it is in the Lord.
When a couple is preparing for their wedding, a wise pastor will often counsel them to realize that there are not two, but three people who will be present in the future marriage. The third person is the Lord Jesus Christ. You find this language in all the Pauline marriage passages: It is for Christ's sake. It is under him that we minister selflessly, and love one another. It is an act of worship to Christ that we love each other as we are called to do in marriage. That principle holds true for all our relationships: Christ is present! I have often been challenged, frankly, by what Paul says very similar to his words to Philemon: from now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh (2 Corinthians 5:16). What a challenge! You find that the way you think about things, in the assessments you make, you are strictly worldly, maybe sinful—that the whole thought of union with Christ, the indwelling Holy Spirit, does not enter in. Paul says,
No, no, from now on I look upon Christ's Presence. He is looking at them a certain way so I can not look at it in the old way.In fact, that's where he continues to the more famous line: for whoever is in Christ is a new creature. The context is how we should be thinking about Christians, no longer in the flesh, for they are new creatures in Christ: Behold, the old is gone, the new has come.This is the argument Paul sends to Philemon and he sends to us today: that if Christ really is the third Person in all of our relationships, then surely we should honor him according to Paul's appeal, for love's sake: for this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation of our sins (1 John 4:10). And so it is for the sake of his love that believers are called to receive one another in love. And Jesus, by the way, speaking of his sovereign purpose he added one more royal principle, because he has an aim, a program that is going on in this world, too. He wants us to support that aim, and here is one way he said we must do it: by this, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:35).1
Richard D. Phillips
16 no longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.