There
Is Such a Thing As a Spiritual Makeover
[2
Cor. 5; 11-21]
This
week we will finish up Second Corinthians chapter 5. When we left off
at verse 10 last week, I elaborated on the fact that “we walk by
faith and not by sight”, ending with the warning that we will all
someday stand before “the judgment seat of Christ”. We can't
always trust our human instincts and senses. They can and do decieve
us. But we can always trust Jesus completely. Today as we continue
our study of the apostle Paul's writings, we will begin at verse 11.
“Since,
then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men.
What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your
conscience. We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but
are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can
answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than what is in
the heart. If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if
we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ's love compels
us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all
died. And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live
for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again.”
(2 Cor. 5, verses 11-15, NIV)
When the apostle Paul wrote that “we know what it is
to fear the Lord”, he was referring to the wrath of God towards
those who deliberately disobey Him. To me, the word 'fear' is one of
the few places in my New International Version of the Bible where the
translation leaves a little bit to be desired. I think a better word
choice would have been to 'revere', or maybe be awestruck by, the
majesty of the Lord and the unconditional love of his Son, Jesus
Christ. While it's also true that people of good conscience
everywhere know the consequences of refusing to believe in God or in
his Son – and thus fear eternal punishment – in no way should we
interpret this as being raw fear of Almighty God in the human sense.
As the apostle John wrote in his letters to the church, “God is
love”, meaning in modern English that God is the very definition of
love. Fear, then, is not of God at all, but instead comes from satan
because of its negativity. Anyone who says you must fear God simply
doesn't understand the loving nature of God. In my opinion, fear is
not healthy unless there is a clear and present danger to life,
health and well-being.
Such
people, Paul wrote, “take
pride in what is seen rather than what is in the heart.”
Instead of walking by faith instead of by sight, they are doing the
reverse. Their decision making is based on emotions and feelings,
leaving logic and spirituality behind in the dust. Christ's love,
Paul wrote, “compels us” to have faith in Him and to follow Him.
By yielding to the pure love of Christ, we put Him in charge of our
life. Putting Christ in charge means we put Him in the driver's seat
and surrender control to Him. It means we let go and let God. In
order to be able to do this successfully, we must make ourselves
humble enough to admit that we can't do everything ourselves without
any help from higher places. That's simply not the way God made us.
That's also what it means to be 'born again', as Jesus taught
Nicodemus in chapter 3 of John's gospel. We who were formerly
children of the earth must be born again as children of the Holy
Spirit. Paul continues with his commentary, working toward this same
theme, beginning in verse 16.
“So
from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we
once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if
anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new
has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through
Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was
reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men's sins
against them. And He has committed to us the message of
reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God
was making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf:
Be reconciled to God. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us,
so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor.
5, verses 16-21, NIV)
We
should be seeing other believers from a Spiritual rather than a
worldly viewpoint, because all have been reborn “of the water and
the Spirit”, to quote the Lord. To me, this means becoming a
completely new person. If anyone is in Christ, Paul wrote, he/she
“... is
a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
That is exactly what happened to me when I accepted Jesus as my Lord
and Savior back in 1992. I became an entirely different person than I
was before my encounter with Christ, although for me the change has
been happening gradually, having been an ongoing process within
myself spanning many years rather than happening all at once. For me,
then, Christianity and my faith are a journey, not a destination.
Paul
then finishes what later became chapter 5 of 2nd
Corinthians by writing on the reconciliation of mankind to God
through the supreme sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This reconciliation
came in two steps. The first was mankind's reconciliation to God,
which occurred when Jesus died on the cross and then rose from the
dead. The second step was God's reconciliation to man – which could
not occur until the first step was completed – on the day of
Pentecost when the apostles and other followers received the Holy
Spirit. Today in the early 21st
century, we similarly reconcile ourselves to God in 2 steps, first by
embracing the salvation of Jesus and being baptized with water, and
the second step being when we become “born again” with the
baptism of the Holy Spirit. Since we already studied the gifts of the
Spirit in earlier lessons, I will skip over that for now.
Once
complete reconciliation has taken place between Christ and ourselves,
it is our responsibility as members of the Bride of Christ to become
representatives of Him, as Paul wrote, “We
are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God was making His
appeal through us.”
It isn't so much that we are charged with this responsibility so we
can then perform our Christian duties “as best we can”. Instead
we are to yield to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit which all
genuine Christians have, allowing Him to work through us instead of
doing it ourselves. Whether people meet us in public or in private,
they will know that we are the real deal because they will literally
be able to see Christ at work within us while it emanates from
without. When we are walking in the Spirit, allowing Christ to work
through us becomes like a second nature.
Also, reconciliation to Christ does NOT mean being
religious. You have no doubt noticed that religiosity is the
exclusive domain of church denominations. The problem with
denominations is they teach their version(s) of the Bible as being
the only true and correct interpretation to the exclusion of
everything else. This is not only completely wrong, it is apostasy
for any church to knowingly teach wrong or distorted interpretations
of the Scriptures. This is why the apostle Paul, when he wrote what
became the Book of Romans, stated, “I become all things to all men
so that by all means I might save some”. That's also the real
underlying reason that God allowed various faiths and denominations
to spring up through the centuries. God uses the various versions pf
the Scriptures to spread His faith, knowledge and goodness as far and
wide as He can. Keep that in mind as you continue your studies, and
make as great an effort as you can to be ambassadors for Christ.
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