New Creatures

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

November 7, 2004

 

We've listened to speeches over the past months telling us of what we need. We need to be secure from terrorists. We need to see democracy spread to nations that currently live under repressive regimes. We need affordable healthcare. We need a stable social security system. We need a clean environment. In the political process, it seems that our needs get larger with each election year!

 

Yet, ultimately none of these things will fix the human predicament. None of them are bad for us. Each of these things can make life a bit more comfortable. But none of them are central to our existence as humans in God's creation. None answers the question of why we exist and what our purpose is while on earth. None of these things can put us into a better relationship to the Creator.

 

So many, if not all of the problems that our nation faces is due to sin in one manner or another. But politicians have no answers for the sin problem, at least not with party platforms. We're squarely faced with the reality that sin has separated us from God - that rather than God awaiting our beckoning calls for more comforts in life, He is at enmity with us. We're alienated from Him. Nothing that we do brings us any closer to the God that we've offended by our sin. As a matter of fact, apart from the work of His grace, we aren't even interested in being reconciled to Him.

 

And so we come to the Bible. What do we discover in its ancient pages? The whole message of Scripture points to man's need for reconciliation to God, and how God in Christ has done this for us.

 

I. Alienation from God

 

Until we understand our alienation from God, then the talk about the gospel, reconciliation and the cross mean nothing. Even though most will say, "Well, no one is perfect," in a half-admission of sin, it is still not considered to be too bad. Yet at the very root, sin is spiritual anarchy, treason against the Kingship of the Lord, rebellion against all divine authority, and spurning the divine will.

 

Can God just let that slide? A failure to understand His nature, focusing on a misunderstanding of His love and failing to recognize His justice, gets many off the hook of the Bible's teaching on sin and separation. A faulty view of God leads the way on this.

 

1. A faulty view of God, v. 16

 

Keep in mind that Paul has been correcting the Corinthians' view of God in the previous texts. Particularly, he refers to Christ as judge (v. 10) and this consequently leading to "knowing the fear of the Lord" (v. 11). Then the assertion of Christ's death and its effects (vv. 14-15) point to what is strange in the minds of the world. So what the apostle aims for is to explain that we cannot think of God in the way that the world thinks of Him. He cannot be known "according to the flesh."

 

Kata, the Greek term translated "according to," suggests the idea of "according to the standard of" - and in this case it is the standard of the flesh. Paul is using flesh in a negative way - flesh as opposed to Spirit; flesh that sees things only from human thoughts but fails to understand anything transcendent, majestic, eternal.

 

What did Paul (Saul of Tarsus) know about Jesus Christ prior to his conversion?

As Philip Hughes put it, "To have known Christ in this way was a guarantee of nothing. Great numbers had followed Christ in person who afterwards deserted Him and demanded His crucifixion" (201). But Paul only believed what the "flesh" could understand. As he had already told the Corinthians, spiritual things can only be understand by spiritual means (I Cor 2).

 

As long as a person allows the world to form his opinions on Christ, he will not find the message of the gospel to be of interest. I told you a few weeks ago about talking with the young lady at the U of M who said that she was a "pagan." She claimed to also believe in Jesus, but when I questioned her about Him, she denied that He is God. I began to quote Scripture's teaching about Christ, and she seemed stunned, as though she had not really considered that He is the one and only God, creator of the world, sustainer of the world, and as God He also invaded the world to become one of our race of humanity so that He might reconcile us to God.

 

2. Old things of sin, vv. 17, 19, 21

 

Paul describes the life of sin as "old things." It refers to another life standing in contrast to the new creation that is in Christ. Whatever this old life may be, it has put us in the position of needing reconciliation to God. That need itself points to estrangement, separation, alienation, enmity that cannot be bridged in by a mere "I'm sorry if I've done something wrong." It implies that something has arisen that has driven an irreparable wedged in a relationship, and only when the problem is removed can the relationship be restored. Yet many do not understand the gulf that exists due to sin. We see this in other relationships all the time. 

 

E.g.: After 14 years of denials, Pete Rose finally admitted he had bet on baseball games. He wrote:

"I'm sure I'm supposed to act all sorry or sad or guilty... . Let's leave it at this: I'm sorry it happened, and I'm sorry for all the people, fans, and family it hurt. Let's move on." [John Leo, U.S. News & World Report, May 10, 2004] Though he was a great player, he is not great in relationships. Rose fails to understand that the enmity created by his betting on games and then his denial of it cannot be removed by a simple, "let's move on."

 

Unfortunately, some want to treat their relationship to God like this. Rather than facing their enmity and need for reconciliation, they skip that, move on to attend church or do some kind of religious penance, and essentially say to God, "Let's move on."

 

But we cannot move on when there is enmity separating us. This is further noted by "transgression" in v 19 and "sin" in v. 21. Isaiah 59:1-8 gives a good description of our sinfulness and need for divine intervention (note how God takes matters in His own power in Isa. 59:15b-20).

 

II. Reconciliation by God

 

Very few marriages that end in divorce due to some issue of unfaithfulness are reconciled. Many of them perpetuate the enmity by bitterness and rancor throughout their days. Two individuals that had at one time been joined in marriage are now seemingly bitter enemies.

 

If we multiply that picture in our minds, we get a little of the idea of what takes place in reconciliation. We must go back to the Garden in Genesis 3 to see the separation that took place. Man, as he was created, rebelled against the Creator. The enmity began, as man hid himself from God and God removed him from the Garden and His Presence. That which caused the enmity must be removed before the relationships can be reconciled. We find the whole of Scripture weaving this "scarlet thread of redemption" as it has been called.

 

1. Originates in God, v. 18

 

"Now all these things [union with Christ, new creation, old passed away, new come] are from God," he asserts. Man does not initiate the work of reconciliation or the act of immediate conversion. Notice what he states is from God - "all these things." We are left with the unilateral work that takes place in order for reconciliation to occur. Man contributes nothing to bring about union with Christ or to make himself a new creature or to rid himself of his old way of sin or to begin a new life. "Now all these things are from God." As Geoff Thomas expressed it, "The staggering message of the New Testament is that reconciliation is a work of God. Here he is, the offended and injured party, the one sinned against, and yet he sets up the whole machinery of reconciliation... It is a work that does not draw within its scope human action. It does not enlist the assistance of men. It does not depend upon the activity of men" [http://users.aber.ac.uk/emk/ap/sermons/2cor26.htm].

 

We are the sinners. We brought about the alienation by our sin. We rebelled and persisted in our rebellion, excusing our sin. We moved further away from God. Yet, "all these things are from God who reconciled us to Himself through Christ." God not only originates the work but bears the full load of it by meeting the righteous demands of His justice through His Son. The price of reconciliation is immeasurable.

 

2. Work of reconciliation, vv. 18, 19, 21

 

The particular phrases of these passages help us to understand something of the work necessary to bring about our reconciliation.

            v. 18 "who reconciled us to Himself through Christ"

            v. 19 "namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself"

            v. 20 "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."

 

(1) Reconciliation is a one-sided divine act. It is not our faith that reconciles us but God does. Some think that the level of their faith determine whether or not they are reconciled. But reconciliation points to a particular point in time when God acted out of His mercy and divine benevolence with great purpose and compassion to remove the enmity between Himself and those whom Christ would redeem.

 

(2) Reconciliation depended upon the work that Jesus Christ did on our behalf - "through Christ." The whole weight of our eternal salvation rests upon Christ alone. Again, the unilateral nature of the work focuses on Christ, not "multilateral" - Christ and you.

 

(3) Reconciliation necessitated that God become part of the race that He would redeem. Here we find the Incarnation as foundational to reconciliation. As God, Christ gave infinite value to the sacrifice offered on our behalf; as Man, He was capable of bearing the wrath of God on behalf of His fellow members of the human race. "God-in-action on our behalf is essentially God-in-Christ. The unanimity of Father and Son flows from their eternal unity (Jn. 10:30), and on the fact that Christ acting for us is no less than God acting for us hangs the whole efficacy and security of our salvation" [Philip Hughes, 208].

 

(4) Reconciliation crossed the span of the globe and the scope of time with cosmic effects. "Reconciling the world to Himself," points to the boundaries of race and culture and nationality and time that Christ accomplished for us. But further, the reconciliation of the cosmos indicates that all of creation is affected, which is what Paul expands on further in Romans 8:18-25. All of the creation is bound up with the effects of the Fall, and therefore, all of the creation will ultimately profit by the effects of Christ's reconciling work. Hughes, "So in man's restoration the whole created order (cosmos) will also be restored. What the first Adam dragged down the second Adam raises up" [209].

 

(5) Reconciliation brings us to God as He "reconciles [us] to Himself." "God is still viewed as the end as well as the beginning of reconciliation: it is He who reconciles, and He does it to Himself" [Hughes 208].

 

(6) Reconciliation demanded that the Sinless One, "who knew no sin," be made sin on our behalf. The language of substitution rings clearly throughout this passage. "The One who did not know sin on our behalf was made sin," he writes literally. "There is no sentence more profound in the whole of Scripture," writes Philip Hughes, "for this verse embraces the whole ground of the sinner's reconciliation to God and declares the incontestable reason why he should respond to the ambassadorial entreaty" [211].

 

Being without sin qualified Christ to stand in our stead before the justice of His Father. Again, Hughes strikes this clearly in his comments:

Only He who had completely and uninterruptedly obeyed the law of God was fitted to suffer the punishment due to those who have willfully disobeyed that law. Only He who was entirely without sin of His own was free to bear the sin f others. And only God-become-Man could achieve this unblemished victory over Satan and death for our fallen and rebellious race... As Bengel says, He alone, who did not know sin, had no need of reconciliation, whereas we, who did not know righteousness, were bound to be destroyed unless reconciliation were found [213].


Why the stark language, "He made Him...to be sin on our behalf"? Because, only as He became sin could the Father justly fling the full measure of His wrath against His own spotless Son. As "sin" the Son became the object of His Father's wrath and for our sakes, as our substitute, the Son received the judgment due to us for our sin.

 

3. Fruit of reconciliation, vv. 17, 19, 21

 

What happens as a consequence of Christ bearing the wrath of God for us on the cross?

 

(1) We are declared to be "a new creature" or "new creation." The point is that what sin robbed in the original creation, Christ has restored in the act of reconciliation.

 

(2) The newness of the new creature is stated: "the old things passed away; behold, new things have come." All that characterized our lostness, alienation from God, estrangement, enmity has "passed away." The "old things" refer to all that has been affected by sin and under the curse of sin; all that meets with God's condemnation; all that causes us to be termed rebels. The tense of the verb "passed away," shows that it is done with finality. It is not passed away only to be dredged up again later. The work of Christ covers it with finality and complete sufficiency. But even more, the old has been replaced by "new things." It expresses the constant newness of living in relationship to Christ. There is never cause for a Christian to be bored or dissatisfied with life since union with Christ regularly brings about new things in life.

 

(3) In v. 19, "not counting their trespasses against them," refers to the divine accounting method. The word can be translated as accounted to or reckoned to. It means that since Christ has borne away our sin in His own body by becoming sin for us, God no longer counts our sins to be our sins! He considers the debt owed Him due to sin to be fully met. That's why there's no longer condemnation for those in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:1)!

 

(4) But further, v. 21 tells us that due to what Christ has done, we not only have our sins addressed through Christ but that He exchanges His righteousness for our sin: "so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." We can approach God's throne because the same righteousness that belongs to God the Son now, in our union with Christ, belongs to us. The righteousness that God demands and which no man has ever been able to satisfy through adherence to the Law is now found in all that Christ has reconciled to God.

 

III. Ambassadors for God

 

Woven throughout this gospel explanation is a gospel calling: we are ambassadors for God.

 

1. God-entrusted ministry, v. 18

 

The reconciled to God through Christ have been given "the ministry of reconciliation." This does not mean that we are the ones that now reconcile people to God, but it is God entrusting us with the ministry of declaring Jesus Christ and His work of reconciliation at the cross. Why does God entrust us with this ministry, especially since we are not the most dependable of creatures?

 

(1) He chose to do it this way.

 

(2) We are displays of the effects of reconciliation. Who can speak better about reconciliation than one who is reconciled!

 

(3) We will be constantly reminded that "all these things are from God" as we recognize that we cannot save anyone.

 

2. God-endowed ministry, v. 19

 

The term used literally implies that God has "placed in us the word of reconciliation" (Greek tithami, to place or to put). He has given us a gospel message, winged by its effects and enabled by the indwelling Spirit. The "word of reconciliation" is none other than the gospel of Christ.

 

3. God-partnering ministry, v. 20

 

Amazingly, Paul pictures God making an appeal through the reconciled as though God has partnered with us in the work of gospel ministry. He heightens it by adding, literally, "we plead on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God." That is our plea with all that would hear us. We're speaking with great authority whenever we declare the gospel. We stand as a divine representative, an ambassador who understands the claims of his King and the message of the King.

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