“Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer” (2 Corinthians 5:16).
Prior to his encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus, it appears that Paul the Apostle regarded Jesus as just another human being- a deceptive human being who spread dangerous ideas to be sure, but certainly nothing more. However, that changed when Paul met the risen Lord. That ultimately led to an important shift in his perspective: “We are careful not to judge people by what they seem to be, though we once judged Christ in that way” (CEV).
Like many today, it seems that Paul once evaluated others (including Jesus) on the basis of external standards like status, background, lineage, and/or appearance. But following his conversion, Paul adopted a mindset that was far more aligned with both the Old and New Testament teachings on this subject…
“Always judge your neighbors fairly, neither favoring the poor nor showing deference to the rich” (Leviticus 19:15 NLT).
“Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment” (John 7:24 NKJV).
So even though Paul once made use of these external standards to inform his judgments and opinions of others, his relationship with Christ brought him to the realization that human value is not exclusively limited to those external qualities that others feel are good or desirable. Instead, the concept of human value is (or should be) based upon the idea of inherent human worth.
Unlike the kind of standard that assigns value to others based on who they are or what they can do, the concept of inherent human worth is derived from an important Biblical principle: “(Jesus) is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2 NIV). In other words, human value is inherited from the God who considered every human in the world to be important enough to sacrifice the life of His Son.
Any failure to recognize this concept of God-given inherent human worth is sure to lead to a number of serious ramifications…
“There are essentially only two viewpoints for man – human or divine. Man either sees everything from the limited, fallible, perspective of human wisdom, or from the infallible, revealed perspective of God in the Bible. The perspective of the unbeliever is limited to this world, by the limitations of this existence. He sees nothing beyond this existence. Everything is relative to this earthly experience. That is why human perspective alone leads to degradation, depravity and despair.” (1)
(1) The Bible Study Textbook Series, Studies In Second Corinthians (College Press) Paul T. Butler. [p. 164] Copyright © 1985 College Press Publishing Company https://archive.org/stream/BibleStudyTextbookSeriesSecondCorinthians/132Corinthians-Butler_djvu.txt