2 Corinthians 5:18-21 ~ 20190210 ~ Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org
02/10_2 Corinthians 5:18-21; God's Reconciling Work ; Audio available at: http://www.ephraimbible.org/Sermons/20190210_2cor5_18-21.mp3
2 Corinthians 5:18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
Intro: Regeneration, Justification, Reconciliation
This passage is about reconciliation. Reconciliation is a key biblical concept. In fact this section at the end of 2 Corinthians 5 is rich in the massive bedrock truths of the gospel.
Verse 17, which we looked at last week, points to the new creation, which includes us being part of that new creation through regeneration or new birth.
Verses 14, 19, and 21 point us to substitution; that Christ died for us, in our place, and in him we died, so that he no longer counts our trespasses against us; instead he credits us with his own perfect righteousness. We looked at verse 14 three weeks ago, and I hope to spend more time savoring the truths of verse 21 together next week.
Verses 18-20 is one of the key passages in the bible on reconciliation, and that's what I hope to unpack and celebrate together today. All these foundation truths are interwoven together in this rich passage.
2 Corinthians 5:17 new creation/new birth/regeneration
2 Corinthians 5:14, 19, 21 justification/substitution/imputation
2 Corinthians 5:18-20 reconciliation
All This is From God
Verse 18 begins 'now all this is from (lit. out of) God. So we should ask 'All what?' This points us back to the previous verses.
2 Corinthians 5:14 ...the love of Christ ... that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. ...17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, ...new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
All this is from God. God's love, that one died for all. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”(Rom.5:8). Substitution, justification, all this is rooted in God's love, put on display in Christ. Christ died for us, his death was our death; we died in him. All this is from God.
Now those who are in Christ are instances of new creation. The new creation has broken into this old one. We have become part of the “...new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2Pet.3:13). The new birth, regeneration, new creation is all of God. God is the creator, the grand architect. '...God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give ...light' (2Cor.4:6).
All this is from God. All this originates in God. All this has its source in God. This is God's action, God's activity. God is the one who sent his only Son to take my name and die my death. God is the one who unites me to Christ. God is the one who justifies me, who puts my sin on his Son, who considers the old me to have died with Christ as the wages of my sin. God is the one who creates me new in Christ, who regenerates me, who 'has caused us to be born again' (1Pet.1:3). God is the one who brings about substitution, justification, new creation, reconciliation. All this is from God. Paul wants us to know that all this is God's work, and God's alone.
Reconciliation is Personal
God has reconciled us to himself through Christ. Reconciliation is a relationship term. Reconciliation assumes the personality of God. It tells us first of all that God is a personal being; he can know and be known; he can enter into relationships, and he desires a relationship with us.
Reconciliation Overcomes Hostility
Reconciliation also assumes that something is wrong in the relationship. The need to be reconciled assumes enemy status; reconciling means changing hostility or animosity or enmity into friendship. In the beginning, God created all things very good, and he walked with man in the garden, enjoying fellowship. But sin destroyed that relationship; we destroyed God's good created order. We refused to submit to his benevolent rule and took the authority to ourselves. We questioned his character, dishonored his good name, and transgressed his good command. We committed high treason, bringing death and the curse into his good creation. And so we had to be put out of his good presence. No more walks with God in the cool of the day. We deserved to die. We became children of wrath, allied with the serpent. We became God's enemies. And God became our enemy.
Colossians 1 describes our relationship:
Colossians 1:21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,
Alienated. There was that in us that estranged us from God; that severed our relationship with him, as Isaiah describes our situation:
Isaiah 59:2 but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.
James puts it in even more intimate relational terms; he says we violated our covenant relationship; we slept around.
James 4:4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
To align ourselves with this world system is to become God's enemy.
Ephesians 2 puts it more in terms of our ejection from God's presence:
Ephesians 2:11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, ... 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
Reconciliation Overcomes Inability
Separated from Christ... alienated... strangers... having no hope and without God in the world. This is the kind of situation that requires reconciliation. But it also describes our powerlessness to remedy the relationship. We had no hope. We couldn't fix the damage we had created. A simple 'sorry' wouldn't do. Reparations had to be paid, but the wages of sin is death, and if death is defined as separation from God, then that doesn't leave us any options for reconciling ourselves to God.
There was nothing we could do to effect reconciliation, to actually make it right, to fix the relationship. Only once is this word 'reconcile' used in the New Testament to describe something between people, in 1 Corinthians 7, where a wife who separates from her husband is told to remain single or be reconciled to her husband. Every time this word is used in the context of our relationship to God, it is God who is active, bringing about the reconciliation.
2 Corinthians 5:18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself
God through Christ reconciled us to himself. All this is from God. Reconciliation is rooted in God's desire to be reconciled to us, his creation. Reconciliation comes about through the finished work of Christ.
Reconciliation is Built on Justification
Romans 5 in many ways overlaps with our passage in 2 Corinthians. Romans 5:6-10 describes us as weak, ungodly, still sinners, enemies. We were God's enemies.
Romans 5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Paul in Romans 5 describes the work God performed to accomplish our reconciliation as our being 'justified by his blood' and 'saved by him from God's wrath'. We transgressed, we slept around, and God is justly angry, his wrath is hot. Justification is the verdict of not guilty. Justification is more than forgiveness. Forgiveness says that the judge finds you guilty but he shows mercy. He releases you from the debt. You are a condemned criminal, and an unpunished criminal. You have been released from your debt. Justification goes further. Justification tries you in court, and there is no evidence to convict you. Your name is cleared. You walk free, not as a forgiven criminal, but as righteous. This can only happen because of the great exchange. Christ stepped forward and took my name. He took my guilt, my punishment. He died in my place. And the guilty me died with him. Now I bear his name, a perfect name. I stand spotless, clean, justified before him, tried and found innocent; fully cleared.
Reconciliation is built on justification and substitution. The adulterous me was executed. That is what we saw in 2 Corinthians 5:14; that because Jesus died in my place, I am considered dead. This is what we see in 2 Corinthians 5:21;
2 Corinthians 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
There is so much more to say about that one verse (and I plan to spend more time on it next week), but for now notice that it is the foundation of our reconciliation. It is what God did to reconcile us to himself. It is what God did to remedy our sin problem. He put our sin on Christ, and he puts Christ's righteousness on us.
Reconciliation Requires Imputation
In verse 19 he puts it this way; God was 'not counting their trespasses against them.' The word 'count' is an accounting term; to reckon, count, consider, or credit, to impute; its a balancing the books term. Paul uses it this way in Romans 4.
Romans 4:4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.
How does your employer expense payroll? Does he take a tax deduction for your wages, saying it was a charitable donation? No, that would get him in trouble with the IRS. You worked, and he owes you your wages. They have to be counted as wages, not as a gift.
Romans 4:5 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,
God credits or accounts righteousness to the one who was not righteous as a gift, received by faith. A righteousness that wasn't earned can't be counted as wages. It has to be counted as a generous gift. He goes on:
Romans 4:6 just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: 7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; 8 blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”
This connects back to 2 Corinthians 5:19
2 Corinthians 5:19 that is, in Christ God was ...not counting their trespasses against them,
Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. But our trespasses do stand against us. They show up on our record. How can God not count our trespasses against us? This is where verse 21 comes in; God reckoned or imputed, credited our sins to Christ's account.
The transfer of my sins to Christ's account and the transfer of Christ's righteousness to my account is what makes it possible for me to be reconciled to God. As Romans 5 puts it 'being enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son; through him we have now received reconciliation.' We receive reconciliation as a gift, bought for us by the death of God's only Son. 'Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.' (Rom.5:1). Our reconciliation, our peace with God is rooted in justification, God's crediting or imputing a righteousness to us that was not ours.
Active and Passive Reconciliation
And notice that this reconciliation is presented to us as a completed action. It came from God, he accomplished it through Christ, he reconciled us to himself.
2 Corinthians 5:18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;
God through Christ completed the work of reconciliation at the cross.
God is still active in reconciling the world to himself.
2 Corinthians 5:19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
This can't mean a universal salvation as some attempt to read it. Reconciling the world cannot mean every individual is reconciled whether they like it or not; that makes nonsense of the text. Paul refers to 'the reconciliation of the world' in Romans 11:15 in response to the rejection of Israel, meaning that the gospel is now going global, not just among the Jews. It is only those who are in Christ, Jew or Gentile, only those who believe against whom the Lord does not count their trespasses. This is why the word, the message of reconciliation was entrusted to the apostles.
2 Corinthians 5:20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
This is a word for the world! God has done the work of reconciliation. All this is from God. It is all of grace. God is active in reconciling. We are commanded here not to reconcile, but to be reconciled; we are passive – receiving by faith God's reconciling work. Or in the language of Romans 5:11 'through Christ we have received reconciliation.' 'Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
'We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.' Are you? Are you enjoying relationship with this personal God? Have you received by faith his finished reconciling work? Are you blessed, because the Lord no longer counts your sins against you? If you will only acknowledge your need, cry out to him in simple trust, he will reconcile you to himself; and you too will be entrusted with the message of reconciliation for the world! 'We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.'
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Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org