Christs life & ministry is revealing Christ - the New Creation...
2 Cor: 5:16-17 · Roger Henderson · Jul 2, 2017
2 Corinthians (2017), No. 25
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/410261634381777

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well, today we continue in chapter 5. These are the verses we're going to cover, but I'd like to go back and read the previous two verses. Could someone read in chapter 5, verses 14 through 18? In chapter 5 of 2 Corinthians. For the love of Christ constrains us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, they were all dead, and that he died for all, and that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again.

Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh, yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new.

And all things are of God, who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation, so that, with God being in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not impugning their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation, Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might regain the righteousness of God in him. Great, thank you Tom. The reason I wanted to go back, the last two verses that Bob covered last week, they're just really tremendous verses, for the love of Christ controls us, or actually It actually compels us or constrains us.

Having included this, that one died for all, therefore all died. I think we see that talk when it says, therefore. I think it was J. Frederick McGee or someone said, what's the therefore, therefore? So you always kind of look back to the previous verses. So I think that will somewhat explain this. Verse 16 is kind of an interesting verse, and we're going to go into it right away here. But therefore, from now on, we recognize no one according to the flesh. So therefore, so that from now on, we recognize no one according to the flesh.

The idea of recognize, let me just stop for a second. It seems like he wants to point out that the value of knowing Christ is paramount. And the fact that he's going to compare, apparently Paul knew about Christ, he knew about Christ, whether he actually met him, I don't know, there's this conjecture about that. I think it might simply refer to the time when there was a brief moment in time when, though unsaved, he recognized Jesus for who he was.

Right, well, and that's true, but this verse is kind of talking about, it seems like it said, from now on, we know, he says, we're not going to any longer consider him as just a good man, a good prophet. We're going to recognize him as for who he really is. Obviously in Damascus Road, he recognized him for who he really was. But it seems like this is referring back to a time period where we may have only evaluated him as maybe a good teacher, a good rabbi.

Actually, at one point he wanted to kill him. I mean, he was there with the cloaks. Apparently, Paul was there and he was collecting up the garments while people were, they weren't selling Christ, but they were. I'm reasonably certain that part of Paul's attitude was from what he got as far as secondhand information and whatever it's a bit firsthand information that he was. Jesus was a rabbi gone bad. Very possibly. Very possibly. What's that? A rebel, a rabbi? There we go, it could be. Okay, so Paul's going to make his case here.

He says, from now on, we recognize no one. So he kind of enlarges it and says the value of knowing a fellow, the value of seeing Christ in a fellow believer or knowing the person is saved is a paramount value. We recognize, or actually it could be no, because it's a Greek word for no, oida. So it happens to be in the perfect tense with the present meaning, to know or perceive, to have knowledge of. So it's talking about having knowledge of a person, according to, or with reference to. And I think flesh here, this is speaking merely, flesh is used in a whole bunch of different ways in scripture. In this case, I believe it's used just merely seeing a person, a human being.

And actually, Weiss kind of brings it across From this particular time onward, not even one individual do we judge upon the basis of human standards. As we look at our brothers and sisters in Christ, we see them as in Christ. We judge them according to their proper place. We're heavenly citizens. So Paul's saying we judge a person according to who he is, and he talks about we no longer even judge our Savior. We saw our Savior as just a good teacher possibly, or a teacher gone bad, but now we see him as our Lord. So he's going to make that case. even though we have known Christ according to the flesh.

This is the part that you say, well, when was that? I don't think you can actually come to any great conclusion about that. I think Verne possibly thought he could be part of the same. Remember that special place where Verne keeps pointing out to us in the temple mount there, and there's a special room that he keeps showing us each week?

So whether Paul was there and saw when Christ came before, who knows? We don't know. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh. So this is a different kind of know. This is the know of understanding, taking in knowledge, perceiving according to or with reference to. Yet we no longer know him in this way no longer. and who he has that we no longer know him as such. So I've actually kind of answered some of this, you know, what do these statements mean?

And I think basically Paul's pre-salvation interpretation of Christ contrasted with him knowing him as his Lord and Savior. So he said it's important to know who Christ really is. That's the most important thing. In fact, it's so important that when we see Christ in other people, that's the most important, I might think, a particular person has a great personality, but seeing Christ in them seems to be, that's really what is special about that person, having Christ in their life.

Okay, any other thoughts about this verse? It's a little bit cumbersome. Alright, so if not we're just going to go on. Here's a verse Randy claims. I'm always picking the great verses. This is just a marvelous verse. There's just so much in this. I'm thankful I get a chance to teach it. It's kind of apropos.

He just said the value of a person is Christ in their life. Now he's going to explain what it means to have Christ in your life. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, so that if anyone is in Christ so this is this case if you go through look at the Greek there are various conditions for if statements this is assumed to be true you some people you know you could you could say since Christ is therefore if since anyone is in Christ so that's a little bit cumbersome I think it's better just kind of assuming we said assuming that anyone is in Christ so he say we're going to talk about believers here Every believer has Christ in his life. So what does it mean to be in Christ? I have some things down there. So what do you think? It's the moment of salvation.

We're in. OK. OK. Good. Excellent. Excellent. OK. Go ahead, Tom. Yeah. Yeah. Well, all that we discussed is there in the scriptures describing what happens to a person the moment they become a Christian. OK. Boom, boom, boom. It's all there. But we may not realize it. Right. Well, it's a pretty interesting way.

Actually, I'm not sure in my understanding, I may have read that we're in Christ, but I never realized the significance of that statement until I came to Holly Hills. until we really kind of dug into what does that really mean and the impact of what that is. So I'm very thankful that I had a chance to understand the deeper understanding of what it means to be in Christ. And it's so wonderful. It's just such a wonderful, it talks about a relationship. It talks about who we are, what we have in our Savior. So actually, let's look at a couple of verses here. And what I want to show, Romans, let's do Romans 6, 3 and 7. Can someone read that? I'm sorry, excuse me. Thank you, Winnie. Thank you. 16, three and seven.

Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus. Greet Andronicus and Junia, my countrymen and my fellow prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me. Well, if you notice that he refers to these fellow believers, both male and female, as my fellow workers back in mercy in Christ. in Christ Jesus. That's who a person is. You're in Christ. If you were to go out on the street and tell people that I'm in Christ, they probably would look at you kind of strange. Unless they maybe were a believer, they might say, OK, amen, brother. They might agree with you.

But most people would find that a strange phraseology, just like they find it strange for a long time. Back in the 50s or something, being born again, that aspect was kind of made known to the general public and people, you know, they kind of went overboard. And then when was it born again? You know, actually, we find in the scriptures that that was pretty amazing statement that was understood either.

In fact, I actually have that reference here a little bit later on. And then actually, Paul refers to himself, actually have to turn to it and In chapter 12, which we'll get to at some point, he talks about, I know a man in Christ. He speaks of himself, I know a man in Christ. So he refers to himself.

It's an aspect, it's a truth about the believer that we are in Christ. And I like this definition. The idea of being in Christ is that of being in a living union with Christ. So you take that in, It's not just, okay, I'm in. We have a relationship that God is maintaining in us 24-7, whether we feel like we have a relationship with him or not. He says that we are in him and it's this living union that we have.

It's something that every believer possesses. It's not something that we that if we are especially prayerful, spiritual, or whatever, it doesn't make any difference. That's what's wonderful about these truths that God has revealed to us about ourselves. They're true of us, independent of how we believe. And it's a permanent possession that we have. Each little part is just another little gem about our relationship with our Savior. I think possesses has too many. I was one of the first.

Well, it's not double. It passed the spellchecker. Two spellcheckers. Bonnie said, she was looking through it and she said, it looks like a lot of S's and it passed the spellchecker, but you can't always trust the spellchecker, as I found out. Maybe you need another one on the end. That would help, that would really make a lot of sense. And maybe you're right, Tom, I don't know. Are you thinking it's just one S-P-O-S-E-S-S-E-S? Yes. So anyway, we'll see. Alright, thanks Tom. And that is a gift. Amen, amen it is. It's a wonderful gift that God has given us and it should frame all our thinking.

If we're in this living union, the problem is that we have a sin nature. And the sin nature doesn't fortify this fact. In fact, it works against it. It says, well, but God, you know, I really have done something. Five minutes ago I said something I shouldn't have said. You can beat yourself up big time. I mean, it's pretty easy to do that. The Lord doesn't want us to do that. He wants us to see ourselves for truly what we are.

We're in Him, in this relationship with Him that He's maintaining. If we say, I maintain that relationship, that's not going to be much good either. We're going to fail. He remains faithful. There's a verse that kind of goes through that and all the things that we might do. But the bottom line is, He remains faithful. And that's what we're to remember and count upon. Alright, so that's the beginning of this verse. Next part.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature or creation. Actually, it just says in the original, he is is not there, has been supplied. So it's basically, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, a new creature or a new creation. So you could, other translations, it could be rendered, taking the word creation, some like to kind of focus on that, some have said, let's make this, and they've supplied the words too, there is a new creation. So the fact that we're in Christ, for God to achieve that, he had to do something, and he made us a new creation in him.

And that's kind of the key part of this. And what's kind of neat about this is this word new. There's a couple of words for new in the Greek New Testament. There's new as to quality, which is what this word is, kainos. It's not new in time, but new as to form or quality. different from the old, contrasted with the old. There's another word for new called NEOS, which is with respect to time. So this says, we're a new quality, quote, creation. So a couple of places that this shows up, and there's actually a fair amount.

Let's read the one, let's read the one, 2 Peter 1. 2 Peter 3.13, can someone read that? And according to his promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Right, okay. So the new here, obviously if you think about it, God's not going to, you know, we don't get the next new heaven. It's a totally new heaven and a new earth. That's what God is going to do for it.

He's going to do for, you know, in his creative plan. So it's new in quality. So creature here, or creation, is the act of creating or the creative act in process. Like the English word for creation, it also signifies the product of the creative act. So one of the neat places here, which kind of really focuses on that, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. So think about this.

This is what we like to talk about, the fact that that our history has been terminated with Adam, because now our history is totally in Christ, created in Christ. And being created in Christ, we're available for God to use us for good works. And I left the rest of this verse off here, which he has planned these out for us. We don't have to thank them up. He has planned them out. We may walk in them. So God has created us in Christ Jesus. And it's for a purpose. To serve Him for good works. And then there's other verses. And here's the one Nicodemus I was talking about. In fact, let's just look at that for a second.

John 3.3. Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to him by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do the signs that you do unless God is with him. Jesus answered and said to him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

So you could think of the fact that created in Christ Jesus, another way to say that is that we've been born again. This is a new birth. It's a birth in Him. And then in Romans 6.4 it talks about the fact that even so we also walk in newness of life. Newness of life talks about this fact that this is a new quality life. like this word for creation or creature. This quote, I borrowed this quote from Chaffer. He says, The divine work in behalf of a saved person is nothing less than a new creation.

He has passed through the creative hand of God a second time and has become a new creature. The result is a new birth, a regeneration by the spirit, This new creation is organically related to Christ as a branch in the vine and as a member in its human body. So the believer is in Christ. He is created in Christ Jesus.

So I think that kind of captured a lot of the points. Other thoughts or questions? OK. All right, so let's go on. It keeps getting better. So we got through half the verse. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, He is a new creature or a new creation. So now we're going to talk about, well, what's happened here? What's happened to the person who's a new creation? We're going to talk about the old things and the new things.

So first, the old things. Old things passed away. Passed away is the idea to pass away, to perish. It's a past completed action. So there's a couple of verses here that kind of show the fact that this is, in James, it talks about, because the flowers of the grass, he shall pass away. Then Peter, it says, in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise. So what are the old things? What do you think the old things are talking about? In these verses I quoted here, it talks about the heavens, it talks about the flower, the grass. Grass lives for a time period and it dies. The heavens will pass away. We'll get a new heaven and a new earth.

So what old things Do you think he's talking, he says that we're a new creation in Christ. All things passed away. So what are the old things? I think that passed away and just, you know, what comes, what comes to your mind? The hard wire between ourselves and the sin nature.

Okay. Excellent. That's good. That's good. So, um, any other thoughts along that line? Well, Now, we have to be careful here, right? We still sin, right? As believers, we still sin. So, Tom's on absolutely the right track here. We still have a sinful nature, or old nature. That's another way to talk about it. So, let me just go ahead here and I'll tell you what... Actually, I had to find old to answer your question immediately. Old in relation to new isn't a big help. It just defines what the word is. So I like to think that all that we were in Adam. So in Adam, and Tom kind of pointed to that, in Adam we had no choice.

We could not achieve righteousness. We could not do anything that pleased God. If you look at the state of the unbeliever, he can't please God in any way. The only way that he can please God in a sense is by believing what God has done, coming to him, faith in Christ. any of his actions, all the things that Adam brings to the table.

So all those things are kind of in view there, about the old things. And then Hal has it, that's which we were enslaved to because of our union with Adam. We had no choice, there was no option. And the problem is, people outside of Christ, and I was the same way, I came to Christ when I was older.

I thought I led a pretty good life. I said, well, I've done some good things. God's going to have to take note of those too. And you're boastfully proud of being totally ignorant of what you're saying. When you become a believer, you say, that's a pretty dumb thing I said. How could I ever think that? But people do. They'll be very vehement about it. They'll say, well, how can a God love the world when people are dying? They'll make all kinds of statements, which they make not understanding what's going on, not understanding the significance of a fallen man and what's happened. So we were enslaved to Adam. We were enslaved to our sin nature.

But now, we have a new nature. We are a new creation in Christ, and we've been cut off from this sinful nature. It's still around, and that's actually another lesson. We've been cut off from that Adamic nature, we have a new nature. That's the wonderful news, that we have this new nature, and we're no longer connected to Adam. We have a new history, and it's in Christ. Okay, so now, old things have passed away, so here's the Behold, new things have come.

So it's actually that behold is kind of emphatic. According to Zodiates, you can render it lo and behold. It's wow. Lo and behold. So it calls attention. Behold, new things have come. And actually here, the verb here is actually have come. I underlined it. I didn't underline it in the handout, but it's underlined. That's a verb. It's this verb that is kind of a neat verb. It's ginome or ginomai.

It's the idea that we've come into a new state of being, something we weren't before. Just the definition of that verb, thinking about what we talked about before, we're in Christ, we're a new creation, it all kind of hangs together there. We have come into this new state of being, this new creation in our Savior.

Tom, you had something? I'm thinking of a kind of TV sound effect to kind of go with this. If we all grew up with TV in certain areas, maybe some of us more when the TV was new, we were still barely able to understand what's going on on the screen. But I thought of that sound effect. Behold, new things have come.

It is pretty amazing. Like I said, if you told someone that you've been created in Christ Jesus, they would say, and they weren't a believer, they would not understand that. That would seem like that's just, you know, you're making stuff up. No, God in his word has told us that.

So actually I point out the fact that that verb, have come, is a past completed action with abiding results up into the present. The perfect tense it's called. It's a permanent change. It can't be reversed. So this is the other part that we need to realize. We've been created in Christ Jesus. That can't be reversed.

And think of the heartache that many believers go through thinking that they can lose their salvation. Thinking that they can somehow by their actions, and they think, well, this is some bad action and I can change what God has done. And God says, no, you can't change that. You may not act of who you are, but this is the relationship I've established. And it can't be changed.

And this is the same, it's new again, it's this new in quality, same as before. Actually, I have an improved version of my little translation there. I think a better one. I have all things become new. Kind of trying to pull out what we just said here. All things have become new in quality. Kind of taking advantage of the fact of the new Kinos idea. All things have become new in quality. So the question comes up, what are the new things? We talked about what the old things were, right? That's all that we had in Adam. So what are the new things? All the things we have in Christ. Amen. Amen.

That's exactly. And that's a good way to remember it. I kind of kept that in my mind. I'm not sure. Maybe it was Mike, Vern, Hal, somebody. All that we were in Adam, we exchange that for all that we are in Christ. That's just a wonderful way to remember it. I like to always go, whenever it talks about new things, I want to go to my go-to list. And my go-to list is in small font. My go-to list is The Riches of God's Grave by Chafer.

It's just marvelous. We go over these in various classes here, but this is just maybe a handful of those. We've been redeemed. We've been reconciled. We're going to see that in just a few moments here. We've been reconciled. Forgiven all our trespasses. These are the new things that have come about because of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Forgiven all trespasses. Justified.

Made near. Once we're far off, we've been made near by the blood of Christ. Delivered from the power of darkness. Boy, just think about that. Some people suffer. Oh my goodness. Translated into the kingdom of the Son of His love. on the rock Christ Jesus, a gift from God the Father to Christ or to God the Son. Boy, that's just a mind boggling thing. Glorified. And that's just, there's 33 riches of God's grace, I only have a few there. I was just going to say, I was going to try to provide all of them, but I thought it would be better just to give you a sampling than to try to go through the whole list. I don't think this is the end.

When we say all that we are in Christ, there is so much more than just Schaeffer's list here. This is a beginning point, but it's a wonderful beginning point. Remembering all that we are in Adam, now we have all that we are in Christ. So now, we've finished with verse 17, and so I'll talk about these all things again. Now, all these things are from God. Could be and or but, but all these things are and.

None excluded, So there's nothing that we have in our new creation from him that he hasn't supplied. And he hasn't left one out. Ek, and so the word ek is a cool word, it's out of, and in this case it's out of God as a source. And we see that, can someone read 1 Corinthians 11-12?

As the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman. Even so is the man also by the woman, but all things of God. OK. And actually, you could render that, but all things are out of God as a source. So God is the author of all things. So what things is he referring to in the context? I believe we point back to verse 17, all those new things we saw in 17.

And actually, I find this is what's cool. I always like this. Maybe you've noticed that when I teach. I like to kind of make my case, and then I like to, well, let's see, how did Weiss translate it? I use Weiss all the time. How did Weiss translate it?

Well, he agrees with me. Or I mean, I agree with him. It's probably better I agree with him. But anyway, pretty cool. But the aforementioned things, but the aforementioned all things are from God as a source. I know. That correlation really helps. Alright, so now we're going to go into the topic of reconciliation. The last half of this verse through verse 20 is going to talk about just one of those aspects, those riches of God's grace. One of those things he's going to focus in on, reconciliation.

Who reconciled us to himself through Christ. So God the Father reconciled to change from enmity to fellowship, with regard to the relationship between God and man, it shows that primary reconciliation is what God accomplishes. Think about it. Can man reconcile himself to God?

Can I do anything? This is what the world thinks you can. The world thinks that if you do a bunch of good things, God is going to have to take notice of that. Scripture says the opposite. God has to do it because man is lost. Man is incapable of helping himself. And most people don't want to admit that. Actually, I think it even goes farther.

Unfortunately, many Christians think they still need to help God. The more we can realize that He doesn't need our help, He needs our faith, our trust. That's what He desires for us. our faith and trust in what he's done, what he's planned for us. He doesn't want our help, but he wants our faith and trust in him. And as we do that, his good works in that verse in Ephesians there, the good works he's planned for us, we'll walk in those good works.

So in Romans 5.10, what does that say?

Can someone read that, Romans 5.10?

For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. Right. So notice what I just mentioned. It says, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God. God was not waiting for us to do anything. We were His enemy, but He reconciled. He took the step. He reconciled his wounded enemies.

And this is kind of cool. You kind of notice in here as you look at this, it's us to himself. Us to himself. You're going to see that kind of show up in a bunch of different places. God desires. This is God's desire as we see in Acts. I'll just read part of that.

As many as the Lord will call to himself. That's when Peter healed the blind man. Then Peter talks a little bit. Verse 39 there, Peter says, as many as the Lord will call to himself. The Lord uses this kind of endearing term. He's calling people or reconciling people to himself. It's a very personal term, to himself. Like I say, I want to take my child to myself. You want to bring him to yourself to comfort him and show him what you've done on his behalf.

Only God can do this on man's behalf. We can't reconcile ourselves. And then the last part of this, so God reconciles us, the Father reconciles us, but he uses the Son by means of Christ. God is the author of reconciliation and Christ is the mediator. And God accomplished that, and talks about that. We're going to see more detail of that in verses 19 and 20 next week. More details about this.

But in those Ephesians and Colossians passages, it talks about, and might reconcile them, both in one body to God, through the cross, by having put to death the enmity. And then in Colossians it says, and through him, Christ, to reconcile all things to himself, there's that kind of special endearing term, having made peace through the blood of his cross. So it was the cross of Christ that changed, that allowed God to reconcile man to himself. God didn't reduce the penalty, if you will.

We need to be reconciled. And he didn't say, well, I'll just overlook, I'll just We'll actually have to be careful here because the word overlooks something that will come up in the next couple of verses here. We'll talk about that. God didn't say, well, oh, it doesn't matter. Your sins, we'll just forget about those. He said, no, those sins have to be paid for. Before you can have a relationship with me, those sins have to be paid for. And my son has agreed in the Hebrews passage here, Hebrews 13, the son would lay down his life And the Father would take it up again. So the Son agreed to go to the cross for us, to pay for our sins so that we could be reconciled. The One who reconciles us to Himself through the intermediate agency of Christ. And the very last part, what's cool is, okay, believers are now reconciled.

Well, then that becomes our ministry. That becomes a ministry. And gave us the ministry of reconciliation. God the Father gave us the ministry of reconciliation. So actually, here's another one. This is another richness of God's grace. This is another all things, right? So not only do we have the benefit of reconciliation, so don't ever think you don't have a ministry.

And God right here says you have a ministry of reconciliation. So I like what Constable had to say. However, all believers clearly share this ministry since God has reconciled us all. The word of reconciliation is the gospel message. So we are imploring, we're going to see a lot more detail next week on reconciliation and a lot more detail on what God has done. But the bottom line is that we have been reconciled, so we now have the information, we have the message of reconciliation and we can As the Lord allows us to talk with people, sometimes they don't want to hear and they say no. Whatever it is, we're His instruments and we can have that word of reconciliation. So it's just a wonderful, neat set of passages.

More to come next week. Any last thoughts or questions? Tom? For the bulk of the period in the last 10 to 15 minutes I heard a child disrupting the Sunday school class very vocally and there are still kind of leftovers from that. I'm thinking of reconciliation in that area and that's why I've been praying quietly while this has all been going on.

So actually, Tom, I had another solution. I would have walked and closed the back door. I think it was appropriate for the teacher to walk back and close the door anyway. Usually close the door. I apologize for interruption. It was bothersome. Thanks for the. I understand. And that's. But I'm always impressed. Vern handles it well.

Many times in the main service some people... Sometimes you just have to... When you have... We're going to have two more grandchildren. We're going to have four grandchildren. We're going to have to relearn the skills that we have with our three kids. So it's going to be fun. We can't wait for it. It's an exciting time. Let's just close then.

Thank you Father. Thank you so much Lord. Thank you for these marvelous passages Lord. Thank you that Lord as you're doing in the Christian life Father, thank you that we are in this living union with you Father and it can't be undone and you're maintaining it. You ask us just to trust you and believe you. Thank you for the ministry you've given us of telling others about the wonderful news of Christ. We ask it in His name. Amen.