2 Corinthians 5

Epistle for June 16, 2024

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

There is an old saying among Bible students — When you see a therefore in the text, you need to ask yourself, what is it there for?

In this case, the text picks up the previous discussion in 2 Corinthians 5:1-5 concerning the hope of eternal life. Paul first boldly states the promise that physical destruction means merely that the Christian will receive a permanent home in heaven. He uses metaphorical language from his trade as a tentmaker, recognizing that tents are only temporary homes for pilgrims and travelers:

For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens (2 Corinthians 5:1).

Furthermore, he wrestles with the Christian dilemma — longing to be home in the heavenly dwelling, the believer groans and wishes to be home with the Lord. Nevertheless, Paul reminds the Corinthians that they have already received assurance about their future through the Holy Spirit:

Now he who made us for this very thing is God, who also gave to us the down payment of the Spirit (2 Corinthians 5:5).

That is, the Christian has a sense of assurance — a credit or down payment in this life as a promissory note for the future hope.

Therefore, Paul is saying as our passage picks up, the Christian has confidence because of the guarantee that the Spirit has given. He also returns to his perennial theme of faith, recognizing that there is a difference between the now and the not yet of the heavenly dwelling:

for we walk by faith, not by sight.

The believer’s assurance of heaven is grounded in faith alone.

Interestingly, Paul seems to present a kind of dualism between the body and spirit. Those who walk by faith are:

willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord.

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with God’s trumpet. The dead in Christ will rise first (1 Thessalonians 4:16).

Is Paul here suggesting a disembodied life after death? We should note that he says very clearly in 2 Corinthians 5:4:

For indeed we who are in this tent do groan, being burdened; not that we desire to be unclothed, but that we desire to be clothed, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

In other words, the dead may be away from their physical body, but they will have a heavenly body.

In any event, he uses this opportunity to remind the Corinthians that there is still a moral demand on their lives in this life:

Therefore also we make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be well pleasing to him.

He reminds them that there will be a day in court for all people:

For we must all be revealed before the judgment seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

Our lectionary reading skips from verse 10 to verse 14. Verses 14 to17 address the implications of the new reality introduced by Christ:

For the love of Christ constrains us; because we judge thus, that one died for all, therefore all died. He died for all, that those who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who for their sakes died and rose again.

The believer’s identity is now shaped by the love of Christ because the believer no longer lives for themselves but for Christ. Identification with Christ means dying with him to sin and self, and being raised to new life in him.

Paul also suggests that there is a new relationship not only with Christ, but with everyone. Paul says:

Therefore we know no one after the flesh from now on. Even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know him so no more.

The Greek word for flesh (sarx) may describe the body, but the metaphor here is deeper. Paul seems to mean that the flesh is human nature as opposed to the spirit. Therefore, once there is a new relationship with Christ, the believer’s understanding of Christ and of other people transcends mere human limitations. The believer now sees the world from a spiritual perspective.

Paul thus declares:

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.

The believer really lives in the world, but not of the world and sees the world through a new lens as a new creation in Christ.

APPLY:

Obviously I have merely touched on a debate going on today concerning the New Testament view of eternal life, immortality and heaven.

On the one hand, I’m tempted to simply say, “We’ll know by and by.” But that would be a little cowardly.

The issues are a little too complicated to explore here. One group believes that at death even believers experience a kind of “soul sleep” until the day of judgment and the general resurrection. Others believe just the opposite, that the day of judgment happens for each of us personally when we die, and we are immediately received by Christ through his grace.

Perhaps there is a “middle way” here that is supported by Scripture. Why must it be either/or? Why not both/and?

Paul declares in Philippians 1:21-22:

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.But if I live on in the flesh, this will bring fruit from my work; yet I don’t know what I will choose.

His expectation of immediate union with Christ suggests that he will experience eternal life upon his death.

Moreover, Jesus tells Martha:

I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. Whoever lives and believes in me will never die (John 11:25-26).

Perhaps the answer to this paradox, between the immediacy of eternal life and the promised resurrection and embodiment at the end of the age lies in a third way.

Paul himself makes it clear:

flesh and blood can’t inherit God’s Kingdom; neither does the perishable inherit imperishable (1 Corinthians 15:50).

Moreover, earlier in the same passage, he points out that the resurrection body will be a body, but a transformed body:

The body is sown perishable; it is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is also a spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:42-44).

The body that we will have in the resurrection will be a transformed, glorified body — perhaps not unlike the body in which Jesus appeared after his own resurrection? He was obviously not merely a ghost — he could be touched, he could eat, he still bore the scars of his torture — and yet his body seemed also to transcend time and space, appearing and disappearing at will!

In any event, whatever our speculation, Paul makes it clear what our primary business is in this life:

Therefore also we make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be well pleasing to him [i.e., the Lord].

And that is the same conclusion Paul comes to in his own journey — that though he might prefer to be home with the Lord, the Lord has a mission for him to accomplish. And so do we!

RESPOND:

I find speculations about heaven and the afterlife and judgment day fascinating — up to a point. It’s when we Christians begin to insist that we know exactly what it will all be like, when the end will come, and all the events leading up to that day, that I begin to get uncomfortable.

How can any of us know what lies ahead? We have been given the down payment of the Spirit which gives us the assurance of our salvation and eternal life. As Paul says:

We walk by faith, not by sight.

In the meantime, we are to live lives that are pleasing to God in the here and now. Moreover, we are to live as a new creation in Christ!

Lord, I thank you for all the benefits that you have given us, including the promise of eternal life. I long to be united with you forever, but I know that you have a purpose for me here in this life. And so for now, as your Word says, ‘I walk by faith, not by sight.’ Amen.

PHOTOS:

Background texture for “Therefore. What’s it there for?” is “Chalk Board” by Dave Linscheid is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Epistle for March 27, 2022

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

All letters are written as a kind of dialogue in which the reader only has one half of the conversation. That is especially true in the case of 1 & 2 Corinthians.

In this key passage, we have a snippet of the Apostle Paul’s explanation of his ministry and message to the Corinthians.

He declares to the Corinthians that:

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.

He is describing a change of perspective that can only be explained spiritually. As we recall Paul’s own biography, we can certainly see the source of his dramatic change of perspective. Prior to his conversion, he was legalistic, arrogantly convinced of his own righteousness, and determined to destroy any who disagreed with him. Following his conversion, his basis for hope was grounded in grace, he knew he depended on the righteousness that comes by faith in Christ, and his one goal was to reconcile others to God.

All of this is because he himself had become what he describes so eloquently in this passage — a new creation.

The spiritual change that occurs when someone comes to true faith in Christ is so radical that it can only be described in this way:

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!

The renewal of one who is in Christ is so complete, it is like a new world. Not only has their perspective on life changed, everything has become new!

So radical is this change that Paul says elsewhere it is like a death and a resurrection:

Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4).

The source of this radical change is from God. This is in stark contrast to Paul’s previous life, when his life and character all depended on his own legalistic accomplishments and achievements.

Paul expands on the source of this newness of life:

All this is from God, who 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 entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

There is a lot of meaning packed into this long sentence. First, that the new creation derives from God, through the reconciling work of Christ. This has to be unpacked.

Reconciliation means to bring two different sides together, as when we might say we must “reconcile” the numbers in our bank statements — to make the numbers of two columns square with one another.

In this case, the metaphor of reconciliation goes even deeper. The root of the Greek word for reconciliation means to literally “exchange one thing for another.”

This has poignant meaning in this passage. As we will see in verse 21, Jesus himself is the agent of exchange between ourselves and God. Because Jesus offers himself as the agent of reconciliation, he takes our sin upon himself and gives us his own righteousness. Therefore the believer is counted as righteous, and united with God.

A second powerful message embedded in this passage relates to the nature of Jesus. When Paul says that:

in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,

he is saying that Jesus is not merely an agent of God, he is God.

Paul makes this clear also in Colossians:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation . . . For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross (Colossians 1:15,19-20).

Paul tells the Corinthians that a crucial effect of Christ’s ministry of reconciliation is to make Paul and his cohorts ministers of reconciliation as well. Paul uses a term borrowed from statecraft:

So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

Paul depicts himself as a representative from the heavenly kingdom, speaking on behalf of God to the “enemies of the state” whom he entreats to become citizens of that same heavenly kingdom.

Finally, he returns to the character of Christ and frames this profoundly paradoxical statement:

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

It has been established that Christ is one with God. And here we are reminded of his sinless nature. But the astonishing claim is that the one who is without sin has become sin, so that believers might become righteous.

This returns to the imagery of reconciliation as a trade, an exchange. Christ trades his righteousness to the believer, and the believer trades his/her sin to Christ!

Without saying so, Paul has touched on the deep mystery of the cross. On the cross, Christ becomes sin as the perfect sacrifice. This is a fulfillment of the foreshadowing of the sacrifices that were required in the Old Covenant:

When anyone offers a sacrifice of well-being to the Lord, in fulfillment of a vow or as a freewill offering, from the herd or from the flock, to be acceptable it must be perfect; there shall be no blemish in it (Leviticus 22:21).

The background of Paul’s thought-world is Jewish. The sacrifice that is acceptable to God must be perfect; only God is perfect; therefore, Jesus must be God. And only Jesus is capable of becoming the perfect sacrifice that takes sin on himself and conveys perfect righteousness to those who identify with him by faith.

APPLY:

What a message with which we have been entrusted! That God has entered into this world through Christ and recreates us. This re-creation is grounded in Christ’s work of reconciliation, through this profound mystery — that the sinless one has become sin and given us the greatest exchange possible.

And what a trade! He takes our sins, and gives us his perfect righteousness! This is the real miracle of reconciliation — that Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us not because we deserve it, but because of the unbelievable love that he has for us!

It would be as though we gave him filthy toilet paper, and he gave us precious jewels in exchange! There is no greater “bargain” in all the universe!

And more than that, as Paul points out, we as Christians have the opportunity to participate in this ministry as we, like Paul, become ambassadors for Christ and ministers of reconciliation.

What a miraculous bargain! What a momentous message to share!

RESPOND:

One of my earliest sermons more than 30 years ago was based on this passage. I remember finding an excerpt from a story that seemed to my mind to illustrate the new life that comes through faith in Christ.

It was a children’s book by Margery Williams called The Velveteen Rabbit. The scene is set in a children’s nursery, where stuffed animals have consciousness and can talk.

The Velveteen Rabbit is worrying about what for him is an existential question — “What does it mean to be real?” So he asks one of the older creatures in the nursery, the Skin Horse:

“What is REAL?”

The Velveteen Rabbit mistakenly thinks that being REAL means having mechanical parts and things that make a stuffed animal move. The Skin Horse corrects his misunderstanding:

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

When we come to Christ in faith, we are reconciled to God and are made new creatures in Christ. We have become REAL.

Lord, I am flabbergasted by the mysteries of your grace! That you would empty yourself and become one of us, even taking upon yourself my sin, and giving me your righteousness in exchange, so that I might become a new creation! No words can express my gratitude. My prayer is that you might use me as your ambassador so I can share with others what you have done for me. Amen.

PHOTO:
“My Life for Yours” by John is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.

Epistle for June 13, 2021

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

There is an old saying among Bible students — When you see a therefore in the text, you need to ask yourself, what is it there for?

For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens (2 Corinthians 5:1).

Now he who made us for this very thing is God, who also gave to us the down payment of the Spirit (2 Corinthians 5:5).

That is, the Christian has a sense of assurance — a credit or down payment in this life as a promissory note for the future hope.

for we walk by faith, not by sight.

The believer’s assurance of heaven is grounded in faith alone.

Interestingly, Paul seems to present a kind of dualism between the body and spirit. Those who walk by faith are:

willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord.

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with God’s trumpet. The dead in Christ will rise first (1 Thessalonians 4:16).

Is Paul here suggesting a disembodied life after death? We should note that he says very clearly in 2 Corinthians 5:4:

For indeed we who are in this tent do groan, being burdened; not that we desire to be unclothed, but that we desire to be clothed, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

In other words, the dead may be away from their physical body, but they will have a heavenly body.

In any event, he uses this opportunity to remind the Corinthians that there is still a moral demand on their lives in this life:

Therefore also we make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be well pleasing to him.

He reminds them that there will be a day in court for all people:

For we must all be revealed before the judgment seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

Our lectionary reading skips from verse 10 to verse 14. Verses 14 to17 address the implications of the new reality introduced by Christ:

For the love of Christ constrains us; because we judge thus, that one died for all, therefore all died. He died for all, that those who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who for their sakes died and rose again.

Paul also suggests that there is a new relationship not only with Christ, but with everyone. Paul says:

Therefore we know no one after the flesh from now on. Even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know him so no more.

Paul thus declares:

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.

The believer really lives in the world, but not of the world and sees the world through a new lens as a new creation in Christ.

APPLY:

Obviously I have merely touched on a debate going on today concerning the New Testament view of eternal life, immortality and heaven.

On the one hand, I’m tempted to simply say, “We’ll know bye and bye.” But that would be a little cowardly.

Perhaps there is a “middle way” here that is supported by Scripture. Why must it be either/or? Why not both/and?

Paul declares in Philippians 1:21-22:

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.But if I live on in the flesh, this will bring fruit from my work; yet I don’t know what I will choose.

His expectation of immediate union with Christ suggests that he will experience eternal life upon his death.

Moreover, Jesus tells Martha:

I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. Whoever lives and believes in me will never die (John 11:25-26).

Perhaps the answer to this paradox, between the immediacy of eternal life and the promised resurrection and embodiment at the end of the age lies in a third way.

Paul himself makes it clear:

flesh and blood can’t inherit God’s Kingdom; neither does the perishable inherit imperishable (1 Corinthians 15:50).

Moreover, earlier in the same passage, he points out that the resurrection body will be a body, but a transformed body:

The body is sown perishable; it is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is also a spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:42-44).

In any event, whatever our speculation, Paul makes it clear what our primary business is in this life:

Therefore also we make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be well pleasing to him [i.e., the Lord].

And that is the same conclusion Paul comes to in his own journey — that though he might prefer to be home with the Lord, the Lord has a mission for him to accomplish. And so do we!

RESPOND:

How can any of us know what lies ahead? We have been given the down payment of the Spirit which gives us the assurance of our salvation and eternal life. As Paul says:

We walk by faith, not by sight.

In the meantime, we are to live lives that are pleasing to God in the here and now. Moreover, we are to live as a new creation in Christ!

PHOTOS:

Background texture for “Therefore. What’s it there for?” is “Chalk Board” by Dave Linscheid is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Epistle for March 31, 2019

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

All letters are written as a kind of dialogue in which the reader only has one half of the conversation. That is especially true in the case of 1 & 2 Corinthians.

In this key passage, we have a snippet of the Apostle Paul’s explanation of his ministry and message to the Corinthians.

He declares to the Corinthians that:

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.

All of this is because he himself had become what he describes so eloquently in this passage — a new creation.

The spiritual change that occurs when someone comes to true faith in Christ is so radical that it can only be described in this way:

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!

The renewal of one who is in Christ is so complete, it is like a new world. Not only has their perspective on life changed, everything has become new!

So radical is this change that Paul says elsewhere it is like a death and a resurrection:

Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4).

The source of this radical change is from God. This is in stark contrast to Paul’s previous life, when his life and character all depended on his own legalistic accomplishments and achievements.

Paul expands on the source of this newness of life:

All this is from God, who 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 entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

There is a lot of meaning packed into this long sentence. First, that the new creation derives from God, through the reconciling work of Christ. This has to be unpacked.

In this case, the metaphor of reconciliation goes even deeper. The root of the Greek word for reconciliation means to literally “exchange one thing for another.”

A second powerful message embedded in this passage relates to the nature of Jesus. When Paul says that:

in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,

he is saying that Jesus is not merely an agent of God, he is God.

Paul makes this clear also in Colossians:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation . . . For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross (Colossians 1:15,19-20).

So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

Paul depicts himself as a representative from the heavenly kingdom, speaking on behalf of God to the “enemies of the state” whom he entreats to become citizens of that same heavenly kingdom.

Finally, he returns to the character of Christ and frames this profoundly paradoxical statement:

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

This returns to the imagery of reconciliation as a trade, an exchange. Christ trades his righteousness to the believer, and the believer trades his/her sin to Christ!

When anyone offers a sacrifice of well-being to the Lord, in fulfillment of a vow or as a freewill offering, from the herd or from the flock, to be acceptable it must be perfect; there shall be no blemish in it (Leviticus 22:21).

APPLY:

It would be as though we gave him filthy toilet paper, and he gave us precious jewels in exchange! There is no greater “bargain” in all the universe!

And more than that, as Paul points out, we as Christians have the opportunity to participate in this ministry as we, like Paul, become ambassadors for Christ and ministers of reconciliation.

What a miraculous bargain! What a momentous message to share!

RESPOND:

It was a children’s book by Margery Williams called The Velveteen Rabbit. The scene is set in a children’s nursery, where stuffed animals have consciousness and can talk.

The Velveteen Rabbit is worrying about what for him is an existential question — “What does it mean to be real?” So he asks one of the older creatures in the nursery, the Skin Horse:

“What is REAL?”

The Velveteen Rabbit mistakenly thinks that being REAL means having mechanical parts and things that make a stuffed animal move. The Skin Horse corrects his misunderstanding:

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

When we come to Christ in faith, we are reconciled to God and are made new creatures in Christ. We have become REAL.

PHOTO:
“My Life for Yours” by John is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.

Epistle for June 17, 2018

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

There is an old saying among Bible students — When you see a therefore in the text, you need to ask yourself, what is it there for?

For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens (2 Corinthians 5:1).

Now he who made us for this very thing is God, who also gave to us the down payment of the Spirit (2 Corinthians 5:5).

That is, the Christian has a sense of assurance — a credit or down payment in this life as a promissory note for the future hope.

for we walk by faith, not by sight.

The believer’s assurance of heaven is grounded in faith alone.

Interestingly, Paul seems to present a kind of dualism between the body and spirit. Those who walk by faith are:

willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord.

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with God’s trumpet. The dead in Christ will rise first (1 Thessalonians 4:16).

Is Paul here suggesting a disembodied life after death? We should note that he says very clearly in 2 Corinthians 5:4:

For indeed we who are in this tent do groan, being burdened; not that we desire to be unclothed, but that we desire to be clothed, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

In other words, the dead may be away from their physical body, but they will have a heavenly body.

In any event, he uses this opportunity to remind the Corinthians that there is still a moral demand on their lives in this life:

Therefore also we make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be well pleasing to him.

He reminds them that there will be a day in court for all people:

For we must all be revealed before the judgment seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

Our lectionary reading skips from verse 10 to verse 14. Verses 14 to17 address the implications of the new reality introduced by Christ:

For the love of Christ constrains us; because we judge thus, that one died for all, therefore all died. He died for all, that those who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who for their sakes died and rose again.

Paul also suggests that there is a new relationship not only with Christ, but with everyone. Paul says:

Therefore we know no one after the flesh from now on. Even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know him so no more.

Paul thus declares:

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.

The believer really lives in the world, but not of the world and sees the world through a new lens as a new creation in Christ.

APPLY:

Obviously I have merely touched on a debate going on today concerning the New Testament view of eternal life, immortality and heaven.

On the one hand, I’m tempted to simply say, “We’ll know bye and bye.” But that would be a little cowardly.

Perhaps there is a “middle way” here that is supported by scripture. Why must it be either/or? Why not both/and?

Paul declares in Philippians 1:21-22:

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.But if I live on in the flesh, this will bring fruit from my work; yet I don’t know what I will choose.

His expectation of immediate union with Christ suggests that he will experience eternal life upon his death.

Moreover, Jesus tells Martha:

I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. Whoever lives and believes in me will never die (John 11:25-26).

Perhaps the answer to this paradox, between the immediacy of eternal life and the promised resurrection and embodiment at the end of the age lies in a third way.

Paul himself makes it clear:

flesh and blood can’t inherit God’s Kingdom; neither does the perishable inherit imperishable (1 Corinthians 15:50).

Moreover, earlier in the same passage, he points out that the resurrection body will be a body, but a transformed body:

The body is sown perishable; it is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is also a spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:42-44).

In any event, whatever our speculation, Paul makes it clear what our primary business is in this life:

Therefore also we make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be well pleasing to him [i.e., the Lord].

And that is the same conclusion Paul comes to in his own journey — that though he might prefer to be home with the Lord, the Lord has a mission for him to accomplish. And so do we!

RESPOND:

How can any of us know what lies ahead? We have been given the down payment of the Spirit which gives us the assurance of our salvation and eternal life. And we walk by faith, not by sight.

In the meantime, we are to live lives that are pleasing to God in the here and now. Moreover, we are to live as a new creation in Christ!

PHOTOS:

Background texture for “Therefore. What’s it there for?” is “Chalk Board” by Dave Linscheid is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Epistle for March 6, 2016

START WITH SCRIPTURE:

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

All letters are written as a kind of dialogue in which the reader only has one half of the conversation. That is especially true in the case of 1 & 2 Corinthians.

In this key passage, we have a snippet of the Apostle Paul’s explanation of his ministry and message to the Corinthians.

He declares to the Corinthians that:

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.

All of this is because he himself had become what he describes so eloquently in this passage: a new creation.

The spiritual change that occurs when someone comes to true faith in Christ is so radical that it can only be described in this way:

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!

The renewal of one who is in Christ is so complete, it is like a new world. Not only has their perspective on life changed, everything has become new!

So radical is this change that Paul says elsewhere it is like a death and a resurrection:

Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4).

The source of this radical change is from God. This is in stark contrast to Paul’s previous life, when his life and character all depended on his own legalistic accomplishments and achievements.

Paul expands on the source of this newness of life:

All this is from God, who 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 entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

There is a lot of meaning packed into this long sentence. First, that the new creation derives from God, through the reconciling work of Christ. This has to be unpacked.

Reconciliation means to bring two different sides together, as when we might say we must “reconcile” the numbers in our bank statements – to make the numbers of two columns square with one another.

In this case, the metaphor of reconciliation goes even deeper. The root of the Greek word for reconciliation means to literally “exchange one thing for another.”

A second powerful message embedded in this passage relates to the nature of Jesus. When Paul says that:

in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,

he is saying that Jesus is not merely an agent of God, he is God.

Paul makes this clear also in Colossians:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation . . . For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross (Colossians 1:15,19-20).

So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

Paul depicts himself as a representative from the heavenly kingdom, speaking on behalf of God to the “enemies of the state” whom he entreats to become citizens of that same heavenly kingdom.

Finally, he returns to the character of Christ and frames this profoundly paradoxical statement:

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

This returns to the imagery of reconciliation as a trade, an exchange. Christ trades his righteousness to the believer, and the believer trades his/her sin to Christ!

When anyone offers a sacrifice of well-being to the Lord, in fulfillment of a vow or as a freewill offering, from the herd or from the flock, to be acceptable it must be perfect; there shall be no blemish in it (Leviticus 22:21).

APPLY:

What a message with which we have been entrusted! That God has entered into this world through Christ and recreates us. This re-creation is grounded in Christ’s work of reconciliation, through this profound mystery: that the sinless one has become sin and given us the greatest exchange possible.

And what a trade! He takes our sins, and gives us his perfect righteousness! This is the real miracle of reconciliation: that Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us not because we deserve it, but because of the unbelievable love that he has for us!

It would be as though we gave him filthy toilet paper, and he gave us precious jewels in exchange! There is no greater “bargain” in all the universe!

And more than that, as Paul points out, we as Christians have the opportunity to participate in this ministry as we, like Paul, become ambassadors for Christ and ministers of reconciliation.

What a miraculous bargain! What a momentous message to share!

RESPOND:

It was a children’s book by Margery Williams called The Velveteen Rabbit. The scene is set in a children’s nursery, where stuffed animals have consciousness and can talk.

The Velveteen Rabbit is worrying about what for him is an existential question: “What does it mean to be real?” So he asks one of the older creatures in the nursery, the Skin Horse:

“What is REAL?”

The Velveteen Rabbit mistakenly thinks that being REAL means having mechanical parts and things that make a stuffed animal move. The Skin Horse corrects his misunderstanding:

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

When we come to Christ in faith, we are reconciled to God and are made new creatures in Christ. We have become REAL.

PHOTO:
“My Life for Yours” by John is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.

Epistle for June 14, 2015

START WITH SCRIPTURE:

2 Corinthians 5:6-10

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OBSERVE:

There is an old saying among Bible students: When you see a therefore in the text, you need to ask yourself, what is it there for?

Furthermore, he wrestles with the Christian dilemma – longing to be home in the heavenly dwelling, the believer groans and wishes to be home with the Lord. But the Spirit has been given as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. That is, the Christian has a sense of assurance, a credit or down payment in this life as a promissory note for the future hope.

Interestingly, Paul seems to present a kind of dualism between the body and spirit: the believer would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

This is fascinating because we are told by most Biblical scholars today that the Bible knows nothing of immortality separated from the resurrected body. The normal understanding of eternal life, they tell us, is always embodied, beginning on the day of resurrection when all shall be raised: For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first (1 Thessalonians 4:16)

Is Paul here suggesting a disembodied life after death? We should note that he says very clearly in 2 Corinthians 5:4, while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

In other words, the dead may be away from their physical body, but they will have a heavenly body.

In any event, he uses this opportunity to remind the Corinthians that there is still a moral demand on their lives in this life: So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. He reminds them that there will be a day in court for all people before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

APPLY:

Obviously I have merely touched on a debate going on today concerning the New Testament view of eternal life, immortality and heaven.

On the one hand, I’m tempted to simply say, “We’ll know bye and bye.” But that would be a little cowardly.

Perhaps there is a “middle way” here that is supported by scripture. Why must it be either/or? Why not both/and?

Paul declares in Philippians 1:21-22 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far. His expectation of immediate union with Christ suggests that he will experience eternal life upon his death.

Moreover, Jesus tells Martha “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;and whoever lives by believing in me will never die(John 11:25-26).”

Perhaps the answer to this paradox, between the immediacy of eternal life and the promised resurrection and embodiment at the end of the age lies in a third way.

Paul himself makes it clear that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable (1 Corinthians 15:50). Moreover, earlier in the same passage, he points out that the resurrection body will be a body, but a transformed body: The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:42-44).

In any event, whatever our speculation, Paul makes it clear what our primary business is: we make it our goal to please [the Lord], whether we are at home in the body or away from it. And that is the same conclusion he comes to in his own journey – – that though he might prefer to be home with the Lord, the Lord has a mission for him to accomplish. And so do we!

RESPOND:

How can any of us know what lies ahead? The scriptures have been given us to remind us of our assurance, the Spirit’s deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. We live by faith, not by sight. And in the meantime, we are to live lives that are pleasing to God in the here and now.

Perhaps we all do well to take to heart the words of the Psalmist:

My heart is not proud, Lord,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have calmed and quieted myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.

 PHOTOS:

Background texture for “Therefore. What's it there for?” is “Chalk Board” by Dave Linscheid is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.