2 Corinthians 5:9-10:
“Therefore, we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”
The word for “judgment seat” in verse 10 is Strong’s #968, “the space covered by a step of the foot.” It comes from the root #939 “basis” (transliteration), which means “foot.”
What I saw in this verse is that we will sit at Jesus’ feet, having a conversation about what pleases Him, much like Mary sat at Jesus’ feet. The Greek translation comes to us through the lens of Greek culture. Jesus spoke in Hebrew and Aramaic, not Greek. He spoke to the the people in terms that they understood. The Hebrew language conveys / communicates relationally and experientially.
From the parable in Matthew 25, specifically verse 21:
“His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’
Again, this question arose within me…. “What pleases Him?
The Holy Spirit took me to Matthew 3:17: … and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.”
The Father is well-pleased with His Son. He is pleased with his Son because Jesus knows His Father. The word for knowing Him is an experiential, relational knowing, not an informational, intellectual knowing.
John 17:25: “O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. . .”
John 14:7: “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.”
John 14:17: “that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”
This is the same word used in Mary’s response to Gabriel (Luke 1:34) about not knowing a man. The word carries a personal, relational, ongoing experiential knowledge.
Matthew 7:23: “Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you.”
In this passage, the people are saying to Jesus / approaching Him based upon what they have done. His response is that He never knew them.
Knowing Him means to have a personal, intimate, dynamic, conversational ongoing relational experience with God. The Father placed us in His Son so that we may be in relationship with Him (the Father) as He is in relationship with His Son (Colossians 1:12-16; Romans 11:35-36). Jesus said that this would go on when He went to the Father because He would send the Comforter (the Holy Spirit; John 14).
So, in 2 Corinthians 5, when Paul says we make it our ambition to be pleasing to Him because one day we will sit at His feet, Paul is communicating the Highest priority of God (the Father, In His Son Jesus, and by the indwelling Holy Spirit) is that we may know Him. This relational intimacy is what pleases God.
