2 Corinthians 5
McGeeCHAPTER 5THEME: God’s comfort in the ministry of martyrdom for ChristIn this section on the comfort of God, we have seen God’s comfort in the glorious ministry of Christ (ch. 3). How wonderful that He is an unveiled Christ whom we declare today! Also we have seen God’s comfort in the ministry of suffering for Christ (ch. 4), and now we shall see the comfort of God in the ministry of martyrdom for Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:1
I want you especially to notice what Paul is saying here. He says, “For we know [not we hope or we expect or even that we believe] that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” This is a positive “know.” He knows because of the fact that the Spirit of God has made it real to him. The word for “tabernacle” is skene, which means “tent.” That is the same word that was used for the wilderness tabernacle of the Old Testament in the Septuagint, a translation of the Old Testament into the Greek. The Old Testament tabernacle, the Mosaic tabernacle, was a skene, a tent. It was a flimsy sort of thing. This verse has always been a big question mark to me. I have never been too dogmatic about the interpretation of it. But I have now come to the conviction that what he is talking about here is not a temporary body. For many years I thought that God would have sort of a temporary body for us when we got to heaven. It would be like taking your car to the garage for repair work and having a loaner to drive until it is fixed. I thought that the Lord would give us a temporary body until our new body was given to us. I never liked that idea, but it seemed to be what Paul was saying. Now I don’t believe he is referring to a temporary body, because he says it is “eternal in the heavens.” He is talking about that new body that we are going to get. We need to realize that there is an outward man and an inward man. Paul talked about that in the preceding chapter. The outward man perishes, but the inward man is renewed day by day. A great many people misunderstand that. I had a letter from a man who said the Bible is filled with contradictions, and he said, “I can prove there are contradictions. You talk about So-and-So having gone to be with the Lord, and then you talk about the body that is going to be raised and say that the person is going to be raised from the dead down here. Now that is a contradiction.” This man has missed the entire point. The body is put in the grave, but the individual, the real person, has gone to be with Christif that individual is a believer. The things that are seen are temporal. Maybe you have seen me and maybe you haven’t. When I go to other areas for speaking engagements, some folk drive long distances because they have heard me on the radio and they want to see me. A family in Ohio drove fifty miles just to see how I looked. But actually they didn’t see me, they just saw the house, this old tent, I live in. I’ll be very frank with you, this old tent is becoming very weak, and it is flapping around.
Solomon described old age in Ecclesiastes: “In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, and the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low” (Ecc_12:3-4). The “keepers of the house” are the legs, and my old knees are beginning to tremble. “The strong men,” which are my shoulders, are bowed. My wife tells me to stand up straight, and I tell her I can’t stand straight. “Those that look out of the windows” are my eyesI am wearing trifocals now. “The sound of the grinding is low"I don’t hear as well as I used to hear. This is old age taking place in the outward man. The things that are seen are temporal. Also, there is an inward man, and the inward man is spiritual. It is difficult for us to understand that. God is a person, but God is not a physical, a material Being. God is a Spirit. “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” I hear people say they don’t like getting old. My friend, I am enjoying it. I am really enjoying my retirement from a church because I am doing now what I want to do, and it is wonderful to be able to do that. My doctor has told me, “I want you to do what you want to do.” When my wife tells me to do something, I say to her, “Look, my doctor tells me to do what I want to do, and I don’t want to do this thing that you want me to do.” Sometimes I can get by with that, but not always! Seriously, it is wonderful to know that every passing year brings me closer to Him. I am going to see Him someday; I am going to see the face of the Lord Jesus, the One who loved me and gave Himself for me. I rejoice in that prospect. To be very frank with you, I don’t have as much conflict with the world, the flesh, and the Devil as I used to have. I think they’ve given up on me. This old house is getting old. Someone asked President Adams how he felt after he had become an old man. He answered, “I feel fine. This old house that I live in is really getting feeble. The shingles are coming off the top and the foundation seems to be coming out from underneath, but Mr. Adams is just fine, thank you.” My friend, we have a house eternal in the heavens. This body of ours will be sown a natural body, but it will be raised a spiritual body. He is going to give us a new body up yonder.
2 Corinthians 5:2
I’m groaning in this body. One just can’t help but groan. Several years ago I built a study up over my garage, which is right next to the house. I couldn’t study in my office at the church; so I transferred my study to this room above the garage. Sometimes, when I start down the steps in the morning, I notice that it isn’t as easy as it was some years ago. I used to come bounding down those steps in the morning, but now I groan with every step. My wife tells me, “You ought not to groan like that.” I remind her, “It’s scriptural to groan. Paul says we groan in this house, and I’m going to groan while I am in this house of mine.”
2 Corinthians 5:3
This is interesting. One of these days Jesus is going to call His own out of the world. We will be caught up to meet our Lord in the air, and we are going to stand before Him. What will it be like for us? We will be clothed in His righteousness. We will not be found naked. Not everyone will be clothed in His righteousness when they are raised from the dead. Christ “…was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Rom_4:25)that is, our righteousness. But some folk have not accepted His righteousness. They have rejected Christ. Therefore, there is a resurrection of the just and of the unjust. Paul mentions this in Act_24:15, “…that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust.” Jesus said the same thing in Joh_5:29. “And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” My friend, you are going to stand in His presence someday. Will you be clothed in the righteousness of Christ? Are you accepted in the Beloved? This is a good time to mention that the Bible does not teach only one judgment day, but many judgments. (1) There was the judgment which Jesus Christ bore on the Cross. It is because Jesus bore this judgment for us that He could say, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation [judgment]; but is passed from death unto life” (Joh_5:24). (2) There is self judgment. We are told in 1Co_11:31, “For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.” (3) Also there is the chastisement of God for the believer. The Lord takes us to His woodshed. “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth” (Heb_12:6). (4) The works of the believer are to be judged, as we will see later in this chapter. (5) The nation Israel is to be judged. (6) The gentile nations are to be judged. (7) Fallen angels are to be judged. (8) Finally, there is the judgment of the Great White Throne. All the lost ones are brought there. They will appear naked.
They will not be clothed in His righteousness. They will be judged according to their works, which is the way they wanted it to be.
2 Corinthians 5:4
If you feel like groaning, you just groan, my friend. It’s scriptural. We are burdened. Yes, we are. That is why we groan in these bodies. It is not that we are worried about being unclothed; we know that we shall be clothed with the righteousness of Christ. If He is our Savior, He is our only hope.
2 Corinthians 5:5
The earnest of the Spirit implies there is more to follow. He has given us the Holy Spirit down here in these weak bodies with all our feebleness, all our frailty. The Holy Spirit is just the earnest. Earnest money is the down payment. Christ has purchased us, and the Holy Spirit indwelling the believer is the down payment. One of these days we will move out of this old house and we will meet the Lord in the air. How wonderfully this opens up such a vista for us.
2 Corinthians 5:6
We are at home in the body. I like this body of mine. I still have a scar on the side of my temple where I fell against the bed when I was learning to walk. Down through the years I have gotten used to this body of mine, and I feel at home in it. However, as long as I am at home in this body, I am absent from the Lord.
2 Corinthians 5:7
How could Paul be so sure that when we leave this body we will be present with the Lord? Paul says that we walk by faith. We take God at His Word. I would rather take His Word than anyone else’s word. Faith is taking God at His Word. We are living in these bodies, and we are absent from the Lord.
2 Corinthians 5:8
A better translation would be “at home with the Lord.” It contrasts being at home in the body with being at home with the Lord. Remember that the soul does not die. The soul never dies; the soul goes to be with Christ. It is the body that is put to sleep. It is the body that must be changed. Remember that there will be a generation that will not go through death, but their bodies will still need to be changed. “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed….
For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1Co_15:51, 1Co_15:53). It is the body that goes to sleep and it is the body that is raised. Resurrection does not refer to the soul or the spirit. The English word resurrection is the Greek word anastasis, which means “a standing up.” It is the body which will stand up. Knowing these things, we walk by faith.
2 Corinthians 5:9
The Greek word philotim that is translated “labour” literally means “to esteem as an honor"to be ambitious. It is the same Greek word which is translated “study” in 1Th_4:11: “And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands….” Be ambitious to mind your own business! In the verse before us it is translated “labour"we should be ambitious, we should labor, in such a way that we will be accepted of Him. This is not ambition to become a great somebody. We are accepted in the Beloved. Paul makes this clear in Ephesians, “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved” (Eph_1:5-6). Being accepted in Christ is my standing before God. God sees me in Christ, and He is made unto me all that I need: wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption (see 1Co_1:30). He is my perfection. God sees me in Christ, and I am complete in Him. You cannot add anything to completeness. When a person has 100 percent, that person has all of it. We who are believers have Christ, and we are accepted in the Beloved. Accepted in Christ is the standing that all believers have before God. To be accepted of Him is a different thing. This has to do with our state and refers to the way we live our lives. Do we live for Christ? Are we ambitious to be accepted of Him? To be ambitious to be accepted of Christ certainly does not mean that we are to crawl over everybody and step on them in order to get to the top. I am afraid we have people in Christian work who are like that because they want to make a name for themselves. Dr. G. Campbell Morgan tells how he wrestled with this problem. He was a school teacher when he was called as a minister. It was a very solemn moment for him. He felt that the Lord was saying to him, “You have been set apart definitely for the ministry of the Word.
Now do you want to be a great preacher, or do you want to be My servant?” The first thought that Dr. Morgan had was, I want to be a great preacher. That ought to be a wonderful ambition, but after a while the Lord began to press it in upon him, “Do you want to be a great preacher, or do you want to be My servant?” Finally Dr. Morgan came to it. He saw that he had to make a choice. Finally he said, “O blessed Lord, I would rather be Thy servant than anything else.” He was willing to be an obscure preacher.
May I say that in my opinion God made G. Campbell Morgan not only His servant but also made him a great preacher. Sometimes we think that our ambition ought to be to do something great for God. God says that He wants us to be His servants. That’s all. You and I need to come to the place where we can say, “Lord, just take me and make me and break me and do with me what You will.” God gave this word through Jeremiah: “And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not …” (Jer_45:5).
That’s putting it plain enough, isn’t it? My friend, are you trying to get great things for yourself? Oh, there are a lot of ambitious laymen and a lot of ambitious Christian workers and a lot of ambitious Christiansbut with selfish ambition. Do you really want to be God’s servant? If you do, then you can accomplish something for which He will be able to reward you. To be honest with you, I’m beginning to become just a little worried about this.
I want to make sure that I am His servant.
- I am going to have to stand before Him someday and give an account of my serviceand so are you. This should motivate us to serve Him acceptably.
2 Corinthians 5:10
This is the judgment seat, literally, the bema. There is still a bema in Corinth, and when we were there on tour, we took pictures of the ruins of it. This was the place where the judges of the city would meet the citizens and would judge them for certain thingsthere was no question of life or death. At the judgment seat of Christ only believers will appear. It is not a judgment of the believer’s sins, which Christ fully atoned for on the Cross. The judgment is to see whether you are going to receive a reward or not. When Paul says, “We must all appear,” remember that he is writing to believers. All we believers will be judged, that we may receive the things done in the body. We will be judged on the way we lived the Christian life, how we have lived in these bodies down here. When we go into His presence, we will be finished with these old bodies. The question He will ask is how we used these bodies. How did we live down here? Paul faces this question when he writes to the Philippians. He says in Php_1:21, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Then he talks of his desire to go to be with Christ but also of his desire to live longer so that he can minister to the Philippians. He wants to stay so that he can preach the gospel of Christ a little longer. I had the same reaction the first time I had surgery for cancer and there was not too much hope for me. You see, I felt like the little boy years ago in my southland. The preacher asked one night, “How many want to go to heaven?” Everybody put up his hand except that one boy. The preacher looked down at him and said, “Don’t you want to go to heaven?” The boy answered, “Sure, I want to go to heaven, but I thought you was gettin’ up a load for tonight.” Like that boy, I didn’t want to go right away when I had the cancer. Paul didn’t want to go. He said he wanted to stay in his body and preach a little longer. He wanted Christ to be magnified in his body that he might be accepted of Him and that he might receive a reward. This is the way I feel. I want to stay in this body and do as much for the Lord as I possibly can. Here is the first motivation for believers: We are all going to appear before the judgment seat of Christ, and we will answer to the Lord for our lives. We are going to give a report to Him. Let me make it very clear that this is not the Great White Throne judgment of Rev_20:11-15 where only the unsaved will stand. If you are a believer, your name is written in the Book of Life, and you have eternal life. However, you will stand before the bema, the judgment seat of Christ, to be judged for rewards. You and I will stand before Him. This should motivate us to serve Him acceptably. Then when we come into His presence, He will be able to say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” 2. The fear of the Lord urges us to persuade men.
2 Corinthians 5:11
I think the word terror could better be translated “fear.” There is a great deal said in the Bible about the fear of the Lord. We are told that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (see Pro_9:10). One of the tenets of liberalism is that we don’t need to be afraid of God. They characterize God as a sweet, indulgent old man whom you can treat most any way. Liberalism teaches the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man, which is one of the most damnable doctrines abroad today. Do you know that the Word of God says: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb_10:31)? Let us not give ersatz bread to the people. Let us not preach a watered-down, sunshiny gospel.
Our God is a holy God, a righteous God. It is this holy God who loves you. It is this holy God who wants to save you. But, my friend, if you don’t come to God His way, you will have to come before Him in judgment. “Knowing therefore the terror [fear] of the Lord, we persuade men.” There is many a pulpit from which is never preached a sermon on hell. There are few sermons on punishment, few sermons on judgment. As a result, God’s judgment is almost a lost note in Protestantism today.
The Lord Jesus said that He had come to seek and to save that which was lost. My friend, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. We need to fear the judgment of God. We need to recognize that we are going to be held accountable to Him.
2 Corinthians 5:12
In other words, if you are declaring the full counsel of God, you can do it in a loving manner. You don’t have to bring down thunder and lightning. However, we need to recognize and we need to state very clearly that men are lost. If we do say that, we are not commending ourselves; that is, we are not trying to become popular. I am always afraid of the soft-soap type of thing we hear today. There is so much today that goes the way of psychology, how to become a well-adjusted human being. May I say to you that if you are without Christ, it is not a psychological adjustment that you need. You are a hell-doomed sinner, and you are on the way to hell. What you need is Christ! It may not make me popular to say this to you, but it is the Word of God. We don’t commend ourselves to you. We don’t want you to glory in us. The important thing for us to do is to declare the whole counsel of God. Our motivation to get out the Word of God is a recognition of God’s judgment. That is the thing that would arouse many a sleepy church member today. Missionaries come and tell about the needs out yonder. May I say that there is a real need in this land of ours. The United States is one of the greatest mission fields today. People in our land are on the way to hell. You rub shoulders with them every day.
2 Corinthians 5:13
Paul says that the people may think he is crazy. That is all right. He is doing this for God. Or some people may think he is soberwell, it is for their sakes that he is sober. 3. The love of Christ constrains us.
2 Corinthians 5:14
“Constraineth us” is a phrase that has been misunderstood. The thought has been that the love of Christ restricts us or straps us down. That is not the meaning of the word that Paul is using here. He says it is the love of Christ that is pushing us out. It is the love of Christ that is motivating us. It is the love of Christ that causes us to give out the Word of God. The love of Christ constrains us. “Because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead.” It was this that sent Paul out to the ends of the earth with the message of the gospel. “Because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead.” Mankind is under the sentence of death. When Adam was yonder in the Garden of Eden, he was our federal head; he was the head of that old creation. That old creation was on trial in Adam. God told him, “…Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen_2:16-17). Adam deliberately disobeyed God. He came under the sentence of death, and when he did that, he took the entire human race down with him, for all were represented in him. You and I have been born into a family of death. All mankind now is under the sentence of death. Someone has said, “The very moment that gives you life begins to take it away from you.” When David wrote, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death …” (Psa_23:4), he was not referring to the end of life; he was saying that all of life is like walking down through the great canyon of death, which gets darker and narrower until, finally, we must go through that doorway of death. Dr. Ironside used to illustrate this in an unusual way, and I’ll give you my version of his very wonderful illustration. Behind my home is a lovely range of mountains called the San Gabriels. Mount Wilson is in this range, and on top of Mount Wilson is the Hale observatory. Now let’s think of Mount Wilson as representing Paradise, the place where God put man when He first created him. Adam had everything that was good for him, but there was one thing that God told him he was not to do.
Adam was a sinless man and he faced a choice. God had asked him not to do one thing, and that was the very thing which Adam did. He fell. We call it the fall of Adam. He came tumbling down off that high mountain and landed way down in the valley where we are today. After he had fallen down into the valley he began to bring into this world a race of people.
They don’t come into this world way up yonder where Adam had been on the mountaintop, on the plane where he had been when he was innocent, but down in the valley, the place to which Adam fell. The Lord Jesus Christ came to this world all the way from heaven. He was the absolutely sinless One. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. He came down here to save sinners. He came down from heaven, but He didn’t go to the mountaintop. There are no people thereHe couldn’t find any man on that plane of holiness.
They are all in the valley. They are all dead in trespasses and sins. So what did He do? He came down into the valley. He came down into the place of death where all men are. “And that he died for all.” Because men were dead, He went down into death, and now He brings believers up with Him in resurrection life. Does He take them back up to the mountaintop where Adam had been?
No, He takes them with Him into the heavenlies. We who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are now seated in the heavenlies. He has “…raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph_2:6). “If one died for all, then were all dead.” He took our place. And those who believe on Him are risen with Him. They are not risen so they can be put back on the mountaintop and come tumbling down again. No, He takes them all the way up to the heavenlies. Christ took our place. And if we are going to live, it is going to be by faith in Himthat those through faith “should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.” Christ died, not only that we should be delivered from death and judgment, but also that we should be brought up from our state of death into newness of life. Now our lives should be devoted to Him that we should live henceforth to the glory of God. For the child of God this puts a whole new interpretation on the human family.
2 Corinthians 5:16
Now we do not know men “after the flesh.” Now we see men through different eyes from those we used when we belonged to the world. Out in the world there are only lost men. I know a Ph.D. who teaches at Cal Tech in Pasadena. He is a brilliant fellow, but he is a lost man because he is not in Christ. I know a man from the gutter; he is also a lost man because he is not in Christ. “Henceforth know we no man after the flesh.” That is to say, we do not evaluate men according to their racial background or their social background or their color. We know that according to the old nature they are all lost in sin. But Christ died for all of them. Christ died for the Ph.D. and He died for the man in the gutter. He died for all. James writes about this in the second chapter of his epistle. He says it is wrong to give the honored place to a rich man who comes into your midst with a ring on his finger and with fine clothing on his back while you give the poor fellow a place to stand in the back. Why is that wrong? Because as the children of God we are to look upon the whole human family as sinners for whom Christ died. Even the line between Jew and Gentile has been erased. All in the human family are sinners before God. The only solution for all is the gospel of Jesus Christ. We do not recognize any man after the flesh. All are on the same level. “Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.” I believe that Paul did know Christ after the flesh. I think that he was present at the crucifixion of Christ. I can’t imagine that brilliant young Pharisee not being present at the Crucifixion in Jerusalem. Jesus Christ walked on this earth over nineteen hundred years ago. He was born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth, walked in Galilee, began His ministry in Cana of Galilee, went to Jerusalem, died on a cross there, was buried outside the city in Joseph’s tomb, rose again the third day, appeared to those who were His own, and ascended back into heaven. We don’t know Him anymore as the Man of Galilee, friend. There is no man of Galilee today. At Christmastime there are a great many people who make a trek to Bethlehem. The place is crowded. What are they looking for? Are they looking for the Babe? He isn’t there! Jerusalem is crowded with tourists at Eastertime. Our risen Lord isn’t there. You see, we don’t know Him after the flesh anymore. Right now, at this very moment, He is up yonder at God’s right hand. He is the glorified Christ. “Though we have known Christ after the flesh,” now we don’t know Him that way anymore. We are not identified with the One who walked on this earth over nineteen hundred years ago; we are identified with Him who is in glory. That is why it says that we have died with Him and have risen with Him and are now in Christ Jesus in the heavenlies.
2 Corinthians 5:17
Here we have a tremendous statement. Allow me to change the word creature to the word creation. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation.” We hear this verse often at testimony meetings. People will quote this verse and tell about their conversion. They say they no longer indulge in certain bad habits that they had before their conversion, and they consider this change in their habits to be a fulfillment of this verse. If you and I are a new creation in Christ Jesus, what are the old things that have passed away? Remember that we have talked about all mankind living at the bottom of the hill where all of us are sinners. Now that we have trusted Christ, those old relationships have passed away. We are no longer identified with Adam. We are no longer identified with the world system. We are now identified with Christ. We have been baptized into the body of believers and we belong to Him. The old things have passed away, and the new thing is this new relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. We are now in a relationship with the glorified Christ. Let’s be very practical about this. You may ask, “I know that is a wonderful verse, but how may I know absolutely that I am a new creation in Christ?” Listen to what the Lord Jesus said: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (Joh_5:24). Have you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you trust Him? If you do, He assures you that you have eternal life and will not come into judgment; you have passed from death unto life. This makes you a new creation, no longer subject to judgment and death. You have passed into life. Do not try to base your confidence on experience. You are a new creation because Jesus says so. The basis is the Word of God. You no longer belong to the old creation that fell in Adam. The new creation stands in Christ Jesus, and you are in Him if you are putting your trust in Him. You and I stand in the place of danger and temptation; we may fail in many, many ways, but the wonderful truth is that the Lord Jesus Christ has redeemed us and we are a new creation in Him. Now Paul is going on to talk about that.
2 Corinthians 5:18
The ministry of reconciliation is actually God’s call to lost men everywhere to come to Him with all their sins, all their burdens, all their problems, all their difficulties, and to be reconciled to God. I want to spend some time here to look at this matter of reconciliation. The word is used twice in this verse, twice in the next verse, and once in the following verse. Verse 2Co_5:21 doesn’t have the word in it, but it sums it all up. This is a most important subject, and we are in a very important section here. First let me state that reconciliation is not the same as salvation. Reconciliation goes a step further. It is more than having our sins forgiven and divine justice being satisfied. Reconciliation involves a changed relationshipcompletely changed. It means to change something inside out and upside down and right side up. “If any man be in Christ he is a new creation.” Notice that there is the Godward side of reconciliation. He is the One who did the reconciling. “God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ.” It is repeated in the next verse.
2 Corinthians 5:19
Reconciliation is the ministry of changing completely. But who is changing completely? God is never changingHe is the same yesterday, today, and forever. It says that God has reconciled us to Himself. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.” It is the world that has been reconciled. God has reconciled the world. As we look at the world, we can see that it is going on its sinful way. “We have turned everyone to his own way” (see Isa_53:6). But it is through Christ that the world is reconciled to God, through the death of Christ. This marvelous ministry of reconciliation is the work that Christ has done. Let me call in another passage of Scripture concerning this. “And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight” (Col_1:20-22). Compare this with Php_2:10 in which it says that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth"under the earth” refers to hell. I want you to notice in the passage in Colossians, when it is speaking of reconciliation, only heaven and earth are mentioned. Hell is not reconciled to God. Although every being in hell will bow to Him, only those in heaven and earth are reconciled.
In what way are they reconciled? “And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight” (Col_1:21-22). The death of Christ is what reconciled the world to God. Notice that God is not reconciledHe has not changed. But the world has been put in a different position. Why? Because Christ died. You see, when Adam sinned back there in the Garden of Eden, a holy God couldn’t reach down and save him. God had to do something about his sin. God had to judge man. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die …” (Eze_18:20). God had told Adam, “…for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen_2:17). Adam did die spiritually on that very day, and nine hundred years later he also died physically. When he died spiritually, he became alienated and separated from God; and he had no capacity for God. That is the condition of the world, and God had to judge that. Now that Christ has died, the position of the world has been changed. Today God has His arms outstretched to a lost world. He says to a lost world, “You can come to Me.” The worst sinner in the world can come to Him. Today it doesn’t make any difference who you are, you can come to Him. Because Christ died, a holy God no longer deals with us in judgment, but now He reaches down to save all those who will come to Him. Jesus Christ bore all that judgment on Himself so that now the world is reconciled to God. You don’t have to do anything to win God over. God is not waiting around the corner to hit you over the head with a billy club. God is not angry with you. God does not hate you. God loves you. Christ did not come to charge man’s sins against him but to pay man’s debt. The woman taken in adultery is an illustration of this (see Joh_8:1-11). The Lord Jesus said to that crowd of hypocritical religious leaders, “…He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” Then Jesus wrote something in the sand, wrote something on the earth. It is interesting that in Jer_17:13 it says, “…they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.” It tells us that they leftbeginning with the old Pharisees and then down to the younger ones. The older ones had more sense than the young fellows who hung around a little longer. I think probably one of the old fellows had had an affair with a woman over in Corinth. He thought nobody knew about it, but of course the Lord knew all about it. Perhaps Jesus just wrote down the name of that girl, and when the old Pharisee looked down and saw that name written on the ground, he said, “I just remembered I have another engagement,” and he tore out of there in a hurry. Before long they were all gone except oneonly Jesus Christ was left.
The only One who could have thrown a stone at her did not throw a stone. He asked, “Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more” (Joh_8:10-11). “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” Jesus was not shutting His eyes to her sin, but for all that sin He was going to the Cross. The condemnation was to fall on Him, and because she trusted Him, He could send her away uncondemned.
2 Corinthians 5:20
Who is an ambassador? Webster says an ambassador is a minister of the highest rank accredited to a foreign government or sovereign as the official representative of his own government or sovereign. “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ.” We are in a foreign landPeter says that we are pilgrims and strangers down here. Paul says, “For our conversation [citizenship] is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Php_3:20). Since our citizenship is in heaven, we are ambassadors down here. When one government sends an ambassador to another government, it means they are on friendly relations. God is still friendly with this world. He has sent us as His ambassadors. One day He will call His ambassadors home. Then judgment will begin. When man sinned, God in His holiness had to turn away from the world. But God loved man, so He sent His own Son to die on the Cross. Now God can hold out His arms to the world and say, “You can come.” We are His ambassadors. As His ambassadors, we are to tell folk, “God will save you!” All God is asking any man to do is to come to Him. God will not try to get even with you. He doesn’t want to punish you. He doesn’t want to lay a hand on you. He invites all people everywhere to come to Him. This is a great day. We have the privilege of saying to you, “Be ye reconciled to God.” All He asks you to do is to turn to Him. How can He do this? It is because Christ bore it all for us. On Him almighty vengeance fell That would have sunk a world to hell, He bore it for a chosen race, And thus becomes our hiding place. God is reconciled. You don’t need to do one thing to win Him over. You don’t have to shed tears to soften the heart of God. He loves you. He wants to save you. Why?
2 Corinthians 5:21
Jesus Christ took my place down here. He, who knew no sin, came that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He has given me His place, clothed in His righteousness, He took my hell down here so that I might have His heaven up yonder. He did that for me. Christian friend, have you been able to get out this wonderful Word to anyone else? Whoever you are, wherever you are, however you are, what are you doing today to get this Word of reconciliation out to a lost world? God is reconciled. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He feels toward you just as He did the day Christ died on the Cross for you and for all mankind. This is what the world needs to hear from you. The world is reconciled to Him, but they will have to turn around and by faith come to Him. Let’s get this word out, my friend.