2 Corinthians 5: The New Creation
Thank you for listening to FirstDay. I am Patrick Cooley, pastor of Northport Methodist Church. Visit the podcast website at www.firstday.us. Please like and subscribe. And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Amazon, go ahead and give us a a 5 star rating and the review to really kinda help us, push up the, push up the way.
Patrick:So, Paul continues in chapter 5 informing the Corinthians of the outcomes that they should expect for following their decision or their choice to die to self and live in Christ. These things are the result of righteousness. Now up front, let me tell you that this chapter is one of the heaviest and most theologically and doctrinally dense chapters in the new testament. Some, the commentary here may seem to you incomplete and it it probably is incomplete Because these themes and teachings are fleshed out further by Paul in Romans. In fact, I'm starting to think that second Corinthians 5 should be required reading before tackling Paul's magnum opus.
Patrick:So he starts here in 2 Corinthians 5:1. For we know that if our earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal dwelling in the heavens, not made with hands. We sacrifice and are afflicted and face hardship and privation for the sake of the gospel. We experience these things in our physical bodies, hunger, pain, emotional stress, to identify just a few. The Christian who allows his or herself to die with Christ on the cross as to live in Christ, they'll find that their faithfulness will yield in them blessings and a new spiritual body, which far, far, is a former value than the hunger or pain or emotional stress that is faced when we have that hardship because we choose to act in faith.
Patrick:This is in keeping with Paul's earlier teaching on the resurrection in first Corinthians. Our earthly tent may also refer to our lives in general with Paul concerned with how we live our general everyday earthly lives upon what do we focus and what are our priorities in our day to day living as Christians. Verse number 2. Indeed, Paul says, we groan in this tent desiring to put on our heavenly dwelling, since when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. Indeed, we groan while we are in this tent burdened as we are, because we do not want to be unclothed, but clothed so that mortality may be swallowed up by life.
Patrick:Now the one who prepared us for this very purpose is God who gave us the spirit as a down payment. So we long for that spiritual body given at the resurrection, just like we long to live in God's kingdom. Either way, we will be clothed in Christ. When that time and state of being finally comes, we will find God to be our refuge and God's hand will cover us. Remember Psalm 116 from the last episode.
Patrick:As Paul has already explained to the Corinthians, the only way for a person to gain immortality is to die to self and be made alive in Christ. From this perspective, being unclothed means to be mortal and to be clothed is to be immortal, clothed in the glory and majesty of God or unclothed with the things and dwellings and ideas and thoughts and desires of the world. We know that this will be the outcome of our faith, that we'll be closed with glory and majesty because God has given us his holy spirit in Jesus Christ. Verse 6. So we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the lord.
Patrick:For we walk by faith, not by sight. In fact, we are confident that we would prefer to be away from the body and at home in the lord. Therefore, whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please god or to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may be repaid for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Is Paul speaking specifically here that that this is about our physical bodies?
Patrick:Or is this Paul speaking generally, about the kind of life that we are to live? Our own worldly one, or do we live in Christ's life? As with most biblely things, even though most Christians want it to be either or, it is probably a both and. Consider verse 6. Would you rather be here or in God's kingdom?
Patrick:Would I rather be in the kingdom than be here where I'm a struggle against my pride every day? Yeah. Duh. In verse 8, Paul tells us his preference that he'd prefer to be with God, but whether we are home or away, we make it our aim to be pleasing to him. This really leads us to verse number 10.
Patrick:We may long to be in God's kingdom like Paul, but the fact is we are still here. So let's let's spend a minute here in verse number 10. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may be repaid for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Therefore, since we know the fear of the Lord, we may we we try to persuade people. What we are is plain to God.
Patrick:And I hope it is also plain to your consciences. What Paul says to the Corinthians here is one of the most often ignored teachings in the whole of scripture. In our knee jerk reaction, to what we perceive to be a dogma in the Roman Catholic church, what has come to be known as works of righteousness, we protestants long ago decided that salvation was through faith alone. Some of you listening are going, yes, And some of you are going, no. But most of you are going, where is he going with this?
Patrick:Well, this is where. We Christians don't tend to like to dive into the deep end of our common faith. I guess it's called the comfort zone for a reason to put this as succinctly as possible. Paul says here that we are to be judged, not on what we believe, but whether we have faith, which is as stated in episodes past many, many times, it is belief in action. We must act on what we believe.
Patrick:And these actions declare what we believe. We may believe that God forgives. But if we are unforgiving to others, well, did we really believe? Think that the parable of the unforgiving servant. And Paul tells us in verse 11 that this is why he does what he does.
Patrick:What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is plain to your consciences, is what Paul says. So here in these opening verses, Paul, when he says to be present in the body is to be absent from the Lord, or to be absent from the body is to be present from the Lord. We use it a lot in funerals. And and we can look at it from a literal standpoint. Yes.
Patrick:That that he's talking about actual physical location of our our soul or our spirit. However, you know, whatever however you wanna work that out. I'm not entirely convinced that that's what Paul is talking about here based on these first, the remainder of these first eleven verses about being judged according to what we have done. I really think that Paul is saying if we live our lives focused on the things of the world, focused on the desires of the world, focused on, treating others in the same way that the world treats them. If we are in the body, if we, if our minds are on the things of the world, on the comforts of the world, on prestige, on all of those things, we are not in the presence of God.
Patrick:But on the other hand, if we are absent from the body, our minds and hearts are if they're focused on instead the things of Christ and the things of heaven and the things of righteousness, then we are present with the Lord, whether at home or away, our hearts are to be on the things of God. Our hearts and our choices and our actions are to be focused on the presence of God's kingdom here and now. So I I don't think Paul is talking about, well, as soon as we die, we are present with the Lord. I don't I don't think he's really talking about that to the Corinthians. I think he's actually saying to the Corinthians, have the priorities of Christ and the life of the Christ.
Patrick:And we know that we are in Christ and we know that we are striving for the right things and we are desiring the things of heaven because God has given us the Holy Spirit as a down payment in the life of Christ. Hope I'm not too confusing here. If you have any questions, by all means, connect at first day dot us. Or if you have my phone number, just give me a call. I I don't want us to take in other words, I don't want us to take this part too literally.
Patrick:Yes. I believe that when we are absent in the body, we are present in the Lord. But again, this is not a either or This is not an either or, this is a both and, I think. So verse number 12. We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you an opportunity to be proud of us.
Patrick:So that you may have a reply for those who take pride in outward appearance rather than the heart. For if we are out of our mind, it is for God. If we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ compels us, since we have reached this conclusion that one died for all and therefore all died. And he died for all, so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised.
Patrick:So I think even right here in this, the way Paul writes that out here in in verse number 15, I think that very much reinforces what I just said. That Paul isn't necessarily talking about the death event. That when we die here, we are present with the Lord in the hereafter. I really think looking at this at verse number 15, Paul is more than likely speaking about, do we live to the things of the world and the desires of the flesh, or do we live to the things of the spirit and the kingdom of God? So to die to the flesh, not literally die, as in call the ambulance and go to the morgue, but to mortify the flesh and the desires of the world and the things of the world, pride, power, prestige, place.
Patrick:All these things that the Corinthians have been striving for all of their lives. To lay aside and die to those things means that we are alive to the things of god. I really think he's focusing us in on that meaning of being absent from the body is being present to the Lord here at verse 15. Paul has not written this letter to provide the Corinthians with evidence of his apostolic authority. Instead, he has written to them to provide them with an example for or or better a counter argument to those Christians who wear their belief on their sleeves.
Patrick:Those who do what they do to set themselves apart the way the world does. Perhaps even to those who try to, do the ministry of Christ commonsensically or or as the world would do ministry. These Christians live for themselves. Whereas in verse 15, we hear Paul declare the necessity to die to self. So that those who live should no longer live for themselves.
Patrick:Why we do what we do is as important and as necessary as what we choose to do. This message is in line with what he has already written to the Galatians that we no longer live, but it is Christ who lives within us. What we do is important, but why we do it is equally as important. So there are Christians in the church that do what they do. They do Jesus y things.
Patrick:They they talk. They they talk the talk. They even apparently walk the walk. But the reason why they do these things is for themselves. It's it's worldly.
Patrick:It's fleshly. It's to set themselves apart. It's it's to say, hey, I'm a better Christian than you are. Paul says, that's not the way this is supposed to be. We have died to self.
Patrick:Everything we do should be to the kingdom of God. To me, verse 15 here is the standout. And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised. Much of Paul's soon to be written letter to the Romans is dedicated to explaining what the apostle means here. And I can't wait to get there.
Patrick:Jesus died so that we might be able to live for something greater than ourselves. I just preached a sermon focusing on, Zechariah chapter 8. I believe it is. And his repeated use of the descriptive name of God, Elohay Zavod or the Lord God of hosts or the Lord God of armies. And how purposeful and and the fact that that name for God draws out and draws out this this incredible focus on purpose, that everything that God does as the God of armies is is for a purpose, is for a mission, is for a reason.
Patrick:It's not just because God wants us to sit around in fields all day and and, you know, the great picnic in heaven. You know, it's it's it's wonderful to picture God, picture Jesus skipping through the fields with the lamb under each arm. Oh, whistling and and all those things, you know, transcendent, you know, like hearts of space on WBHM. I remember I remember growing up listening to that. This this kind of ethereal plucking of strings.
Patrick:There's a reason, Paul says, that god has done what he has done. There is a reason why Jesus died. It's so that we might be able to live for something greater than ourselves, to live for it with purpose and with focus and with drive. Verse number 16. From now on then, we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective, even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective.
Patrick:Yet now we no longer know him in this way. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a the he is a new creation, and the old has passed away, and see, the new has come. Everything is from God who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. And he has committed that message of reconciliation to us.
Patrick:In certain Christian traditions' parlances, this passage is about being born again. It is the central verse being, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away and see the new has come. And Galatians 6:15, the only other place that uses this term new creation, he writes, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything. What counts is the new creation.
Patrick:His Paul's message then was that only Christ matters to him and should be the only thing with which the Galatians are to concern themselves. May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. That is Galatians chapter 6 number verse number 5 14. This is a message tailor made for the Corinthians. And Paul writes this in the verse immediately preceding his statement about the new creation.
Patrick:So what is his meaning here in Corinthians? What we learn in verse 19 is that in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. In Christ, what it means to be human is made new. And this transformation happens for the whole world. So for whom did Jesus die and who did he take to himself?
Patrick:Well, Jesus took everyone to himself. He died, John says in 1st John, he was the propitiation for our sins, but not for our sins alone, the church, but for the sins of the whole world. Paul states here in Corinthians that through the cross, he no longer lives to the world. His faith and desires and thoughts and actions are meaningless. And through that same cross, the world no longer lives to Paul.
Patrick:The desires and works of the world are pointless. Everything he did before for himself is meaningless. Everything the world desired and did before the cross is now pointless. Jesus' death changed the world and freed the world from the power of Adam's sin. It freed us from the power of pride.
Patrick:Subsequently, how we respond to God's acts on the cross matters and gives gravitas to verses 1011. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may be repaid for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Therefore, since we know the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade people. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your consciences. So when we take what Paul just says here to the Corinthians and we pair it with what he had already said to the Galatians, what we once were, we are no longer.
Patrick:Everything has changed. So it's not just me. I'm just not the new creation. Everything has been created new because of the cross. What was once important, the things of the world, the things of the flesh aren't anymore because we have been crucified and I have been crucified with Christ Jesus.
Patrick:The things I used to do, the self righteous things I used to do are meaningless. The desires and hopes of the world are no longer, carry any weight because of the cross. Creation has changed. I have changed. The world has changed because of the cross.
Patrick:For it is no longer I who live, he says in Galatians, Christ lives in me. So considering all of this, verse 17 is likely not about an individual person's conversion experience, when he or he or she accepts Jesus as savior. Rather, it's about the unilateral act of God's mercy executed on Christ's cross for all people everywhere and for all time expunging the sin and the subsequent death and estrangement from god that we inherit from Adam. So we no longer have the convenience of knowing anyone from a worldly perspective even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective. Yet now we no longer know him in this way because we have been made new by the cross, and that perspective has been changed.
Patrick:We can now be judged for what we have done in the body because God changed us and has committed the message of reconciliation to us. So, yes, we have changed. So this statement about a new creation, we have been changed. But in our being changed, in being changed into the image of Christ, being changed into Christ's purpose, the whole world has changed. So now how we deal with other people is we can't look at other people through the same eyes that we once did.
Patrick:We now must look at other people and at the circumstances at world, the the the the things of the world, the circumstances surrounding us, the context, our relationships, the way we interact with people, the people we love and know, as well as our enemies, as well as strangers. The cross has changed all of that. And so now we can be judged, because we are now, required to view these people and these circumstances and all of these things and happenings through the eyes of Jesus Christ. For we no longer live, but it is Christ that lives in us. We have been freed from the stain of Adam's pride, the way that Adam engaged the world with Adam being or becoming the center of the world, pride.
Patrick:Well, the cross of Christ has now expunged the guilt of Adam. Adam's pride has been taken away. The self focus of our lives on how I engage the world, how I deal with sin, all of these things are now no longer present, for Christ has freed us from them. And now Christ has charged us with the message of reconciliation. Now my life can no longer be focused on myself, but must be focused on the message of bringing all people I encounter into the kingdom of God.
Patrick:It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me. It is an incredible and deep and powerful thing to think about what Paul is saying here to the Corinthians. Our focus as Christians must not be and can no longer be on ourselves, on whether or not we are going to heaven or escaping from the fires of hell. Heaven and hell should no longer matter to us as Christians, Paul says. For the cross of Christ has brought us into the mission of building the kingdom of God.
Patrick:Uh-oh. I'm starting to sermonize here. That's supposed to be sermonizing here. Sorry. Paul says in verse number 20, therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ.
Patrick:Since God is making his appeal through us, We plead on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us. So that in him, we might become the righteousness of God. God wants everyone in the world to live in the way that is befitting the new creation that has its genesis because of Jesus Christ's work on the cross. Jesus' reconciling work on the cross freed the world from the penalty of Adam's sin.
Patrick:This was the act of god's great mercy, so that the world no longer thinks about itself, but is free to think about the other. Verse 21 is repeated from Galatians 313. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. So this is not a novel teaching to the Corinthians. He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus.
Patrick:So that by faith, we might receive the promise of the spirit. That's Galatians 3 14, but rather one that is central to the Corinthians ending their old lives and moving forward into a new one. So let me do a a a super reader's digest summary of second Corinthians 5. Christ took upon himself the sin of the world and brought all of us into a place where we can have a relationship with God. Jesus became sin for us so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God.
Patrick:We become that righteousness when we choose to live in a new way, in the same way that Jesus does. In this, whether we have taken up the new life or not, we will be judged because God made him to be sin to change us and make us responsible for sharing the message of reconciliation. There's the reader's digest version of 2 Corinthians 5. There will be disagreement. You will have Christians saying that this is the wrong perspective.
Patrick:But reasonably, I don't think they have a leg to stand on. Jesus, as Paul as John says in first John, took upon himself the sins of the entire world. Jesus transformed everything. Whether we say yes to the cross or no to the cross, in Christ, there is a new creation. What we are judged on, brothers and sisters, and will be judged on is this, is our lives post cross post the cross, is our lives, are they still focused on ourselves?
Patrick:Or are our lives now focused on Christ Jesus and what Christ Jesus has called us to be and do in this world? That's what we're going to be judged on. Not whether or not we believe, but whether or not we have taken the opportunity because of the gift of Christ and his gift on the cross, are we living as the righteousness of god or not? Is the focus of our hearts on ourselves and our loved ones going to heaven? Or are our hearts focused on that incredible mission of reconciling the world to the life of Christ?
Patrick:Thank you for listening to FirstDay. Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or would like a 1 on 1 conversation about this incredible, incredible thing that Paul has just said in second Corinthians 5. Thanks for listening. Blessings, and goodbye for now.