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A New Creation
2 Corinthians 5:10-17
Introduction: In the conclusion of our text, Paul states, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” We must ask the question, What does that mean? What does it mean to be a new creation in Christ? We might think we know because that verse has so often been used apart from the context. So let’s discover how we are a new creation in Christ. That is the message of our text.
As Paul concluded his previous paragraph explaining why he and his companions do not lose heart, he said, “So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.”
Paul’s words sum up our life, don’t they?
- I am going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. You are going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. I will receive what is due for what I have done in the body. You will receive what is due for what you have done in the body. Now, take a moment and picture yourself before the throne. It is time to be judged. Listen to Isaiah 6:1-8. This is the reason, “we make it our aim to please him.” This is the reason we enter into the new covenant with him and have his laws written on our hearts, so that “he will remember our sins no more.”
- If nothing else turns us away from sin and toward righteousness, this plain statement ought to do it.
- Notice that the Isaiah picture expresses the same message as Paul. Since we must all appear before his judgment seat, the first thing that must happen is that we turn to God to deal with our guilt. But that is not all! We then turn to others: “Knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.” When Isaiah’s guilt was taken away and the Lord said, “Whom shall I send?” Isaiah had to answer, “Here am I, send me!”
- Where does that desire come from? In other words, why is it that we are not just concerned for our own salvation and leave it at that? Certainly, many are. There are churches everywhere that simply exist for themselves, and the Corinthian church fit into that category. I remember when I was younger an elder saying to me, “If we can only save the saved, we will being doing well.” So, what drives us to go beyond ourselves?
Knowing the Fear of the Lord
Obviously, the first answer to that question is based on our knowledge of the fear of the Lord. Who knows the fear [“terror” NKJV] of the Lord better than a Christian? We know of the great judgments the Lord has brought in the past: the Flood and the great nations of old – Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, and a slew of others. We also know of God’s condemnation of those who worshiped him differently than what he commanded (Cain, Nadab & Abihu, even King David and the ark of covenant).
Even in 1 Corinthians, Paul repeatedly corrected the church for even detailed ways in which they were violating Paul’s inspired patterns of worship.
- At least 9 times, Paul reminded them that what he taught them about how to worship was what he “taught everywhere in every church.”
- In 2 Cor. 11:4, Paul warned against anyone who preached a different gospel or a different Jesus.
- The challenge for us is how strongly we believe that people today who offer worship like Cain, Nadab & Abihu, or the whole Jewish nation who worshiped with “traditions of men,” are actually lost. In Rom. 10:1, Paul expressed sadness for them because though they had a zeal for God, it was not according to knowledge. He specifically said they were lost because they were “ignorant” of God’s righteousness.” Have we forgotten Matthew 7:21-23?
Vs. 11-12: “What we are is known of God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience…we are not commending ourselves to you again…that you may be able to answer those who boast of outward appearance and not about the heart.” What does this have to do with the fear of the Lord?
Notice the comparison Paul makes between being known by God and desiring that the conscience of the Corinthians would know the same. In other words, knowing the fear of the Lord, Paul lives by “open statement of the truth” (4:2). If the fear of the Lord drives him to live this way before God, the Corinthians should also have known that.
Therefore, Paul makes clear that he and those with him are not “commending” themselves (nor defending themselves, 12:19). The purpose is so the Corinthians will have a basis upon which to answer those who are always boasting about “outward appearance” (what is seen) as opposed what is in the heart (reality).
Things haven’t changed, have they? We live in a world of selfies, and if the Corinthian preachers had phones, they would have been posting themselves everywhere. What they looked like and their smooth oratory had nothing to do with character and the truth.
This should remind us of when God sent Samuel to the house of Jesse and thought that the firstborn would be the one chosen to be king. But the Lord said, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
Is this our concern – how we match up with the world? We might say, “Oh no, not me.” Well, “not me,” until it comes to my children. When it comes to our children, we tend to live through their successes, especially when they are accomplishing things that we wished we had been able to do. We can come alive when we see them better than the other kids in sports or music or grades. In other words, this is what it means to “boast in outward appearance and not about what is in the heart!”
For the Love of Christ Controls Us
If the first motivation for persuading others of Christ is the fear of the Lord, the second seems the opposite – the love of Christ controls/constrains us. But there is a clear relationship between the two motivations. The love of Christ is what has saved us from the judgment of God.
How the love of Christ affects us is determined by our appreciation of what the love has done for us. In Paul’s case, he was considered so radical as to be out of his mind. It is similar to the sinful woman pouring a year’s wages of fragrant oil on Jesus’ feet. Jesus’ explanation was, “She loved much because she was forgiven much.”
The point of the text is that to the secular culture, both then and now, Paul’s lifestyle appears abnormal and excessive. However, Paul affirms that such a lifestyle is exactly what God deserves even if it is viewed as crazy to the world. On the other hand, if Paul lives such an excessive lifestyle in his right mind, it is rational to save the Corinthians and the world. In other words, we either respond to God’s love with a life that is radical to the world, or we respond by persuading others because that is what a person in his right mind would do for those who are lost.
Now you and I might think that such a radical lifestyle would be only what Paul would do or only required by a man like Paul. But verses 14-15 make it clear that all of us are included. Since Jesus died for all, all have died so that we will no longer live for ourselves. This strengthens our reason for “persuading others.”
We are following the pattern of Christ. In order to save others, he died. Just as 4:10-12, we also die to ourselves in order to save others. If we are his disciples, we follow this pattern.
Ask the question, “For whom did Christ die?” He died for the ungodly, and that was us. Therefore, who will we lay our lives down for? Not the righteous, but the sinner, the ungodly. And again, if you think that is radical, it not only is radical, it is also what we professed that we would do when we were baptized into Christ. We died to ourselves and raised to live a new life for him.
Do we realize, to teach otherwise was the major false teaching of the Corinthian preachers!
Now go back to verse 14 and look at these words, “The love of Christ controls us.” You will notice some versions translate “constrains us.” The word carries the idea of “holding something fast.” The idea is that the love of Christ is the controlling factor in one’s life. The NEB translates, “Christ’s love leaves us no choice.” The love of Christ keeps us from self-seeking; it restricts us from any other lifestyle. – He died for us; we have no other choice but to no longer live for ourselves!
Therefore, We Regard No One According to the Flesh (16-17)
First notice that Paul starts both verses with the word, “therefore.” Therefore [because we no longer live for ourselves], and therefore [since we no longer regard anyone according to the flesh], we are a new creation.
No longer regarding anyone according to the flesh is the idea of no longer perceiving anyone according to a fleshly point of view. In other words, this is back to disregarding appearances – the worldly standards of importance or unimportance. This not only had to do with how we see one another as Christians, but especially how we persuade others. Remember, Paul said in 4:12, death is at work in us so that life can be in others.
This gives context to the “therefore” of verse 17. We are a new creation in how we look at the world and in our purpose. Paul will go on and explain that purpose in verses 18-21: “God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself and giving us the ministry of reconciliation.”
Conclusion: Who are we?
We are those who know the fear of the Lord and therefore persuade others.
We do this because the love of Christ controls us so that we no longer live for ourselves. We no longer perceive people from fleshly appearances and standards. And therefore we are a new creation; the old has passed away and the new has come.
Isaiah 66:18-23 “For I know their works and their thoughts, and the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and shall see my glory, and I will set a sign among them. And from them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away, that have not heard my fame or seen my glory. And they shall declare my glory among the nations. And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the Lord, on horses and in chariots and in litters and on mules and on dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord. And some of them also I will take for priests and for Levites, says the Lord. For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your offspring and your name remain. From new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the Lord.”