Reconciliation is to Be a Testimony to the Grace of God
2 Corinthians 5:18-20 · Roger Henderson · May 22, 2022
Letters to the Corinthians, No. 108
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/41026164037876

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

Okay, well today is actually the third lesson on reconciliation. And now if you look at those first three verses in chapter 6, you may not think so. And probably you're not alone. In studying for this, not everyone connected the last part of chapter 5 with chapter 6. But I think all the good guys did. Not everybody.

So anyway, just food for thought there. So I label this reconciliation as to be a testimony to God's grace. Which is really a pretty powerful message. Okay, okay, so let's go on here. So the outline is just what we cover. This is the third message. The first message is verses 18 and 19. The message of reconciliation. Then last week we talked about being ambassadors for Christ. And basically ambassadors giving out the message of reconciliation.

And then that wonderful verse 21. I'm going to try to help you. You know, 21 seems like it's just kind of dropped in there. You think, well, 21 sounds like it's talking about a different thing. But I believe it connects with the whole message of reconciliation. So we'll try to talk about that. And then we're going to cover 1 through 3 in chapter 3. And the next week, Mike's going to pick up.

And actually, the way that McCauley, Chester McCauley diagrams it, it continues on. The message of reconciliation continues on. But it's the life of Paul, the apostle. His life and his suffering demonstrates God's reconciliation. So it's kind of cool. A wonderful message. Okay, so I went back and I looked at my, you know, I've gotten into bubble charts now. I hope you guys are up for these. I got a couple of bubble charts here and I try to take 18 through 20 and put them in that format just to kind of mix it up a bit to keep you on your toes here. Okay, so we learned in verse 18 that God is the author of reconciliation.

And just for, you know, clarity's sake, remember reconciliation Reconciliation means, from Chafer, that someone or something is thoroughly changed and adjusted to something which is a standard. In this case, it's God's standard. It's through Christ's death on the cross that He made peace, that has given us God's reconciliation. God didn't change, but Christ's death on the cross changed a man forever. gather that, that changed mankind forevermore. Christ's death and resurrection of the cross changed the whole landscape of man before God.

And that's why these three messages are so important. Okay, first off in verse 18 it says, having reconciled us through Christ, through the death of Christ on the cross, and then the last part that talks about with that in view, person who has experienced reconciliation every believer who has put his faith and trust in the Lord Jesus is Now has a ministry. We don't have to wonder about what our ministry is We have this ministry of reconciliation and we're going to see that kind of ties. That's a key part That ties chapter 6 in with chapter 5 because it talks about the ministry and it's referring to this ministry of reconciliation So now we have verse 19 It says, God has kind of an interesting phraseology.

God was in Christ. And he's doing the following. Well, you say, well, wait a minute. Christ and God are the same. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They're all the same. Yes. But this phraseology is kind of, I think, wants to point out that this is something that the Godhead is all about. Reconciling man to himself. It says, God was in Christ. Doing the following. Reconciling the world to himself.

And the world here Just like in John 3 16 for God so loved the world and gave his only begotten son that whosoever Believed him should not perish but have eternal life It's all of mankind outside of Christ the entire world outside of Jesus Christ he's reconciled that and he reconcile us to it all mankind and and what's amazing is that reckoning he's not counting the trespasses of man and Against them those trespasses were laid on his son They were put on Christ and we're going to see that in verse 21 the extent which God did to lay those Those trespasses of the sins on Christ and then lastly we have another we have another aspect of the believers Ministry if you will having put in us the message of reconciliation and I like that there's a translation from Weiss which I like to go back to many times and And it and we surrenders that last part of that verse having lodged in us the story of reconciliation So I like about that is every single person sitting here today who knows Jesus Christ Has that message lodged within himself because he was reconciled we can now give that wonderful message To others we can't that message is in us and it's in us for a purpose and that's what chapter 6 is going to tell us don't let that wonderful message that you have that God gave you when you trusted Him as your Savior. Don't let that go to waste. Don't let that be in vain. That's going to be what chapter 6 is about there. Okay, then verse 20.

So now, based upon the fact that we have the ministry and we have the message, what does that tell us? We are ambassadors. Present tense. Every believer is an ambassador. You may not think of yourself as being an ambassador. You think of an ambassador as being some bigwig who got appointed by somebody and he's off in Timbuktu having a great time, ambassador to, you know, whatever, Fiji, right?

That sounds like a pretty sweet assignment. I'll sign up for that. Well, this is even more astounding. We are ambassadors. We are ambassadors on behalf of and in place of Christ. Kind of amazing. And that's that Greek word, huper, on behalf of and in place of. So, we basically, so I like this phrase that Merriman used. Christ is not here, right? He's with the Father. So we are His representatives. Christ is not here, so we are His representatives on behalf of Him and in place of Him.

And God is making an appeal. He's actually, this is a word that's used in several places, but it's the idea to beg. Actually, we're going to see beg show up, but it's another aspect of that. It's to urge. God is making an appeal by means of us. We are the instruments through which God makes his appeal to mankind. And this appeal is so important that he uses this word, we beg, we beg of you on behalf of Christ and in place of Christ.

That's the second time that Huppert is used in this couple of verses. We beg you to be reconciled to God. Reconciliation is provided to all mankind But all must accept it. And that theme is throughout scripture. Christ died for the sins of the world. And he did that while we were sinners. Christ died for us. So God takes the action in his son Jesus Christ.

He wants us to believe that he doesn't ask us to change or do anything He asks us to believe what he has done what he's accomplished And that's the message whether it's talking about in reconciliation or any aspect of scripture He does the action and we're to believe it the trust in him Okay Well, I couldn't I could not go through 21 again. I have to do it again So we're going to repeat a bit here But and I want to I want to kind of try to connect here a little bit and let me just I have three statements I want to make about verse 21. Let me just read it first He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. So how does that connect reconciliation? How does that fit in with the reconciliation story? Well, several people have... I have three statements. This verse, 21, is the how of reconciliation.

And the how meaning, this is what it took. It took Christ to be made sin for us. That's what it took. So it wasn't a trivial thing, it was an incredible thing that God did to His Son to allow us to be called the righteousness of God in Him. Another statement is, this verse embraces the whole grounds of the sinner's reconciliation. God being made sin for us, it completes the message of reconciliation. So that's the link, because this had to happen before we could be reconciled to God, before we could be made the righteousness of God in Him.

So I wanted to use the interlinear version here, and the reason I did that was because there are several words This is a new American standard, but in most Bibles they've added extra words to try to help you out, which are okay But I thought it would be appropriate to use exactly the words from the Greek so the first phrase in the Greek that comes first in the Greek text is that the one not knowing sin, so I believe Paul wants to establish here that our Lord Jesus Christ is was totally without sin, because it's key. He can't become the payment or be made sin on our behalf unless he's totally without sin. So we know this is a pretty familiar concept, and it kind of hinges on this word gnosko in the original. And gnosko is to be taking in knowledge, to come to know something, and it's a past point fact. And it's the idea we translates it. Hmm.

He who did not know sin in an experiential way Christ never experienced sin, you know, we we experienced sin all the time from from childhood, right? Think back and remember what was the first time maybe your mom or dad said you shouldn't have done that and You felt guilty or you experienced sin, right? You maybe it was a trivial thing. Maybe you you know in my case I bop my sister over the head with something I shouldn't have because she was my sister. Why not do that? And so I experienced sin and possibly the penalty for sin in that case were my parents. So we all have experienced sin.

Well Christ never experienced sin. He never had that situation. He never did something like that. And we have a whole bunch of verses here that talk about that. In Hebrews 5, in Hebrews 15b, The one who has been tempted in all things, as we are, yet without sin. So he was tempted in all things, but he never sinned. James talks about that. God cannot be tempted. He's not tempted by sin. And Christ was not tempted by sin. So that's a whole different thing in our mind. We're tempted all the time. He was never tempted.

In 1 Peter it says, Christ who committed no sin, Nor was any deceit found in his mouth and then at first John 3 5 And you know that he appeared in order to take away sins plural and in him there is no sin There is no sin. I believe that's no sin nature.

Oh, yeah, we get to study that shortly Bob Is that going to be it's a definite article in there? What what look it up? I'm sure we'll find out pretty quickly okay, therefore Christ is fully God and Fully man without a sin nature just a key aspect. I'm afraid there are many Believers that don't really understand the idea of a sin nature that have an inherent nature from Adam Fortunately here at Holly Hills. We talked about that a lot but many Many body of believers don't really comprehend the fact that he had no sin nature.

They want him to have a human nature. They somehow think by doing that they can make him more human. He had to be sort of like us. No, he was totally like us, but without sin. Okay, let's go on. So the second part of the verse is a challenging part. He was made sin on our behalf, literally.

He, God the Father, made And this word made is poieo, I think, to make a product. So it has in view the end result. You make something, and you display the end result. And it's a past point fact. So in Aristotle's tense, at a point in time, he was made sin. So Merriman, I added an amazingly part.

He just said, the product of sin. Amazingly, the product of what God made is sin, is Christ to be sin. So that's the amazing part, that God, it would take that to take care of the sin problem. So sin is harmatia, to miss the mark of God's righteousness. And here, there's no definite article. That means that there's no the before. He was made with no definite article. And that means, typically, it speaks to the character of a thing.

So Christ was made the thing sin itself. And only the Father could do this to the Son. Now, I like Constable's comment here. So complete was identification of the sinless Christ with the sin of sinners, Paul could say profoundly, God made Him to be sin. So what does this mean?

He was made sin on behalf of us. And many of our favorite writers, Coates says, we cannot understand what it was for him to be made sin. It boggles our mind. We say, how can a sinless God be made sin? It kind of blows our circuits. And the gospel says there's no sentence more profound in the whole Word of Scripture. So here's what we do know. We do know from various verses the aspects of Christ's interaction with sin.

First of all, we know from 1 Peter 2.24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross We know that and then we know also from Romans 3 Romans 3 Romans 8 3 God having sent his son in the likeness of flesh of sin and concerning sin condemned sin in the sinful nature so this is the whole idea he condemned sin and and this is a wonderful by condemning it and We are now separated from it. Because we've been baptized into Christ, we've been separated from our sin nature. We know that. And then this is like a third thing. I tried to put it, you know, He bore our sins, we're separated from our sin nature, the source of our sins. The third thing Christ had to do, and then we brings out the full power here of the huper, on behalf of us and instead of us, He was made sin.

So that really just sets up the whole last part of the verse that to make us the righteousness of God in Him, He had to be made sin. That had to happen. Even though we can't fully comprehend it, it's true because God has said it. So the purpose for God being made sin, we believers might become, this is Ginnome, to come into a new state of being, a state that never existed before, A person coming to know Christ was never this before.

He is now the righteousness of God in him. Christ being made sin on our behalf in our place has satisfied a holy God about the sin issue. Man becoming the righteousness of God in him has completed the reconciliation of man. That's the completion of that work and it's put in this whole context of these verses that talk about reconciliation. And if you think about it, that's what was required for us to have fellowship with the Holy God. We had to be on the same level. I like what Mike many times teaches. We had to be on the same level. We can't be on a different level. We have to be on the same level as God. And that's what it took to do that.

And then my paragraph from last week that I got a few comments about, I've repeated it again here. I think it's good. It's actually, I think it's Hughes that Constable is quoting. And I don't know the rest of his name, but anyway. So if you're interested, you can look in Constable, or I can get it for you if you want.

So it says, Paul has chosen this exceptional wording made sin for us in order to emphasize the sweet exchange whereby the sinners are given a righteous standing before God through the righteous one who absorbed their sin and his judgment in himself. I like that sweet exchange. It was a marvelous exchange, but it was a costly exchange, right?

It took him to be made sin for us. maybe in glory we'll fully understand that for now we we just have to kind of ponder that okay so today's verses we're moving into chapter six now and working together with him we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain for he for he says and this is a quote from the Old Testament At the acceptable time I listened to you, and on the day of salvation I helped you. Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation." Giving no cause for offense in anything so that the ministry, we're going to find out what that is, will not be discredited.

And that's what links it back to the previous part. One little point here, and it's not as obvious, The part from the Old Testament is, and I took this, I cut and pasted this on my computer, except it was all in caps, so I made it a little more readable. But the quote from the Old Testament is really, at the acceptable time I listened to you, and on the day of salvation I helped you. And then what Paul adds, he adds the behold part.

Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. At first I thought, what is that? But you look carefully, and we'll see that shortly here. So the quote from the Old Testament is that part in quotation marks. But he also, I'm not sure why the translator had a quotation for acceptable time again and day of salvation again. I don't know.

That's the new American standard. So anyway. OK, so let's start off with the first part. So once again, I decided to go with the inner linear. It was a little bit easier to point out the parts of it here. So I'm going to start with kind of the middle of the verse here.

But the part I want to talk about first is, in the inner linear it says, as one's working together with Him, also we urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain. The last part reads the same. So as one's working together with Him, also we urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain. Also we urge. So it turns out that's the main, you know, when you look at, you can look at scripture and you can look and you can find the action words, if you will, you know, what's happened, the verbs in there. And this actually, we urge you, is the main verb for 1 through 3.

And also kind of intensifies that. word which it stresses is also so it seems like that's connecting the previous part verse 21 from chapter 5 remember the chapter divisions you look in your Bible those are not inspired there's a story about the guy he was a circuit rider we've heard if you heard this story before you're probably so we repeat but he was he rode around on the horse so the thing is that they said every time he got a bump he made a chapter division either book that's another chapter division So, I don't know, that's a story, you know, probably not true, but anyway.

Sounds good for talking, but... So the chapter divisions are uninspired, so it's up to us as believers to look and say, well, this chapter 5 and chapter 6, is there information that he wants us to understand in the chapter 6, and then we'll see what's the next topic. So, just be careful as you read through your Bible, as you look to... When a chapter starts, a new chapter starts, it's not guaranteed he's not carrying over ideas from the previous chapter. Okay, we urge, so this is the main verb here, parakaleo, to admonish, to exhort, to urge one to pursue some course of action. So Paul's going to urge us to pursue a course of action here.

It's interesting. And there's a connection here, back to 520b, we beg you on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God. So here he's urging us, he was begging us back in verse 20, So they're not exactly the same words in the Greek, but they have a similar idea. He's urging us to do something, and he's going to tell us here shortly. But there's a connection here. So the question is, who is he urging? So we're going to talk about that. And there's different audiences in these two verses. So back in 520, I'll just repeat 520 again. I edited it. It was, as though God were making an appeal through us, we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

So in this case, I believe, as I taught in the little bubble charts, this is a world. This is a world of unbelievers. The men who God loved and Christ died for. So that being implored by Paul, we beg you as believers, be reconciled to God. But in 6.1, you here is co-laborers. So he's talking about us as believers. He's saying the one who are working together with him. We're co-laborers with Christ. He's begging us or urging us. Paul now sees himself as a co-laborer and us as well with God and further urging. He's urging us and we're going to see he's urging us that we've received this wonderful message of reconciliation By God's grace don't waste it.

Don't waste what you have It's like, you know, have you ever been given something maybe as a child, you know, and they say well don't don't waste that money Just on candy Johnny or Charlie or whatever, you know save something, you know, and God is telling here He says don't waste what you have. You've been given this wonderful Understanding you've come to know Christ and you're now a messenger of that message. You have that lodge within you don't waste what you have in you Okay So it says, and not to receive. Do not receive.

Receive here is to become a partaker of benefits, to accept deliberately. So all believers, we all have received God's grace. All believers in the Lord Jesus Christ have received the grace of God. And a verse that shows us that. It says, for by grace you have been saved through faith and not of yourself. It's a gift of God. So we've received God's grace. And it's a gift of God, and we live in this environment of grace. So grace is the operating principle of our life now.

And so we're to act in that sphere. And he says, do not receive the grace of God in vain. So in vain, or vain here is fruitless, without usefulness or success. So Merriman says this verse tells us how not to receive the grace of God in a fruitless manner. He doesn't want us to be fruitless. He wants us to bear fruit. So Marian says, and this is where I got the title for the message, you could say, Paul's saying here, to be continually a testimony to God's grace.

So if you think about it, what's happened is in the end of 5, he's talking about the world and believers, and now he moves to 6 and he's talking to believers and he's saying, you have this wonderful message, don't waste it, don't waste your opportunity.

And there's a cool The New English Bible, I didn't see this, this is by Macaulay, points this out. The New English Bible has this cool translation of this. You've received the grace of God, do not let it go for nothing. You've received the grace of God, do not let it go for nothing. Boy, that's really powerful. So we have everyone that knows Jesus Christ has this wonderful message. Don't let it go for nothing.

That doesn't mean you have to be some, you know, you don't have to come up here and preach and say, Roger, my turn this week. Can I come, please, please? Can I come? I want to, you know. No, you just do it wherever you're at. Whatever the Lord, wherever, you know, He takes you. Be that, you know, don't let it go for nothing. So it's really interesting that Paul would spend this time making sure that the Corinthians and us don't let this wonderful message of reconciliation go for nothing.

And it continues on. So now it's going to kind of talk about and working together with Him. So we kind of went to the middle of the verse, the last part of the verse, now we're coming back to the beginning of the verse. And it's working together with Him. So this is one word in the Greek, working together, and it modifies the main verb, urge. So we're working together with Him. And this is His urging. It's a word, synergel, to work together with someone, cooperate, to be a co-worker, a fellow laborer.

Sends God's appeal to the unsaved through heralds. Constable used this here. I kind of wasn't sure I wanted to use this, but I thought it was good. He has the idea of a herald. And what he's saying is, it's a proclaimer of God's word. A herald is someone who gives out God's word. Since the appeal to the unsaved is through heralds of the gospel, the herald, in a sense, is a partner with God in the working of bringing people to final reconciliation.

OK, so now we go on to the quote here. So this quote, I'll just read it again. Verse 2, for he says, at the acceptable time I listened to you, on the day of salvation I helped you, end of quote. Then Paul says, Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. So the first part of that verse is a quote from Isaiah 49 verse 8.

And it's where, if you look at that verse, you'll see that the Lord Jehovah, he's talking to the nation of Israel. And he's talking about restoring them. They're the ones, as a nation, they crucified the Lord Jesus. And they didn't want him. They didn't want God's plan. But now he's saying, my loving kindness, I love Israel and I'm going to restore them. And this is talking about the Millennial Kingdom. He's going to restore them in the Millennial Kingdom. So Paul now urges his readers, all believers, to respond quickly and positively to the grace given to them.

So now from the quote, he says, he says, an acceptable time. So what's that about? So there's two words there, time and acceptable. Time is a word, I won't try to pronounce it, I should. He uses this to signify a season, a time, a period possessed of certain characteristics.

The time or season in which God has given his favor, his goodwill. So McCauley has here, we live as believers in a wonderful season, the church age. Acceptable time, the parallel with Paul and the Corinthians ministry is obvious. So what Constable points out here, I won't read it all, he says, well, you know, the Corinthians were all upset about Paul's ministry to them, and there was all these issues that came up, and Paul was setting them straight. He says, don't get bogged down with that. Stay true to your ministry. Stay true to the ministry of reconciliation. Don't get bogged down by all the other issues. And so it says, at the acceptable time, I listen to you. Listen is to hear something first hand, to hearken, to answer prayer. God heard in his ear a plea and he gave the necessary help on the basis of grace.

So in a sense he gave it and he will give it to the nation of Israel in the millennial kingdom. He now wants to give it to us in the age of grace. In the day of salvation I helped you. So the day of salvation is actually a period of time. It sums up all the blessings bestowed by God on man. And we're going to see that salvation, as we know, has always been, if you even go back, Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Salvation has always been by grace through faith.

But now, if you think about it, let me just put the point out. Now, Merriman uses this term, optimum time. I kind of struggled a little bit with that, but the more I thought about it, I liked it. If you think about it, This is the optimum time in all of God's dealing with man, if you will. This is a church age. A church age is a time that we understand the totality of God's plan.

Christ's death on the cross, we have the complete word of God and his resurrection. The grace of God has never been more apparent than now. Do not receive it in an empty way. We have this wonderful blessing by understanding we have this completed word.

Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation. So the part that Paul added, it could be, lo and behold now, and this is a command according to Merriman. I didn't quite see that, but I'll trust him. The day of salvation. So Schaeffer says, the Apostle declares that now is the day of salvation. And is there referring to any moment within the church age. Remember the church age exists until we're raptured. So this is the optimum time that Christ may be received. This is the day of salvation.

So don't miss that. So Paul is saying don't miss being a herald for that, telling people about that. So verse 3, giving no cause for offense in anything so that the ministry will not be discredited. Giving no cause, giving no occasion for stumbling to anyone so that, whenever you see so that, that's kind of like if you have that kind of phraseology in your Bible, that kind of means that the purpose is following that. Giving no offense for anything so that, here comes the purpose.

The ministry so the purpose is the ministry so what ministry of this if you and something was interesting some people took different routes on this thing, but I it's key that the Because because we have the definite article The definite article V before that says this is a definite and specific ministry So you can say well is that was that his ministry to the Corinthians with that his ministry could make up all kinds of things but in context It's all this context of the last part of chapter 5. I believe it's the ministry of reconciliation that was given in 518. God who reconciled us through Christ gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That's the ministry he's talking about.

He doesn't want that to be discredited. That wonderful message about God's plan through reconciliation for mankind is not to be discredited. It will not be discredited. may not be found with blot or blemish and thus be censored. The ministry of reconciliation is to be protected by right living.

As we see many times, believers do themselves no favors by doing wrong. They may intentionally try to do wrong, but that doesn't help the cause of Christ. We all feel guilty about that when maybe our testimony wasn't what it should be. So this is Paul's reminder that That can affect the ministry that you're trying to give people, to beg them to be reconciled. Okay, a few last thoughts. Just one chart this week. Back to Chafer here. I kind of struggle with last thoughts. We have three weeks of reconciliation, so this is kind of a general overview of that.

By the death of Christ, on his behalf, the whole world Thoroughly changed in relationship to God. That's what I was talking about the whole world They do not realize that the whole world doesn't realize it, but they've been they've been changed in their relationship with God They don't have to they don't have to plead with God to accept them God Has accepted them through their son. They have to accept that they've been accepted.

That sounds kind of I Double talk, but that's what it is. God is never said to be the reconciler to man. God never changed. He's still a holy and righteous God, but man was changed by God's marvelous grace. He was changed through the death of Christ.

The world is so altered that it's positioned respecting the holy judgments of God through the cross of Christ that God is now imputing Is not is not impugning their sins done to them the huge point. He's impugning their sins to Christ They do not have to bear their sins. Just like the song said we bear our sins no more the first song we sang The world therefore the world is thus rendered savable so the world can be saved every man woman child can be saved Unfortunately, not every man woman child wants to be saved which is the sad part.

Okay, let's close in prayer. I We thank you, Father. We thank you so much for this wonderful message of reconciliation. We thank you that you desire that we know it and understand it. And as you give us opportunity, we share this wonderful message with those who don't understand it or have questions about it. In Christ's name, amen.