BEGINNING [OR BEGINNING AGAIN]
Going the Distance -- Part 1
January 9, 2011
Isaac Butterworth
2 Corinthians 5:16-6:2 (NIV)
5:16 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. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 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. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
6:1 As God’s fellow workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. 2 For he says, “In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.” I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.
It is a new year, and we find ourselves hoping that it will bring new possibilities and new opportunities. Some of us make what we call New Year’s Resolutions. We hope to start over in some area of our lives. We may want to change our diet or adopt a new exercise program. We may want to conquer old habits and choose different behaviors. In any case, we use the beginning of a new year to begin something new or to begin again in a new way. We may even want to start over with God.
When we want something different, we are hoping for a change of some sort. Every scratch betrays an itch. Every desire for something new reveals a dissatisfaction with the old. The current state of affairs is intolerable. So, we long for a preferable future.
Second Corinthians 5 is a perfect text for a new year. In verse 17, it says, ‘The old has gone, the new is here!’ And that is hopeful, isn’t it? Especially when we understand what ‘the old’ and ‘the new’ are. Paul wrote these words, of course, and he wasn’t talking about the ‘old year’ and the ‘new year.’ He was talking about the old creation and the new creation, an old order and a new order.
In another place Paul talks about the whole creation being ‘subjected to frustration’ and in ‘bondage to decay’ (Rom. 8:20, 21). And that’s certainly the creation as we know it, isn’t it? I mean, isn’t that the way it is with the natural order of things? Just look with me at three examples of this frustrating bondage: one, our experience of ourselves; two, our relationships with others; and, three, our perception of God.
In the old order of things, we experience alienation in all three areas. We live self-centered, self-indulgent lives, but we never gain any satisfaction from such self-preoccupation. Jesus once said that ‘whoever wants to save his life will lose it’ (Mk 8:35), and, on another occasion, he said, ‘The man who loves his life will lose it.’ And grasp as we will at keeping intact some scrap of ourselves, we suspect that Jesus is right, that we have lost something dear.
In our relationships with others, we see the ways of the old creation, the old order of things, and how it leads to estrangement. We rely on...what? manipulation, deception, coercion, indifference, and all kinds of other strategies to get what we want or what we think we need. But all we really get is a feeling of isolation and the fear that we may really, after all, be alone in this world. And we were not created for that -- an idea that we’ll return to in a few minutes.
As for God, we reject him as he is, and we remodel him to suit our ends. We want him to be a kind of cosmic Santa Claus and fulfill our every desire. If he seems unwilling or unable, we forsake him and try to get our needs met elsewhere. If he makes demands on us, we resist him or treat him with indifference. Some of us believe in him; some of us don’t. And some of us who do relegate him to the inessential, the negligible, the dust bin of hopes that didn’t quite pan out.
That’s the old order, the old creation. But it wasn’t always that way. Go back to Genesis. Go back to the beginning, and what you’ll see is, when God put the finishing touches on creation, he stepped back and looked at it, and ‘it was good’ (Gen. 1:25); in fact, ‘it was very good’ (Gen. 1:31). So, what happened? How did it get distorted? How did the good creation become the ‘old’ creation? How did it become ‘subjected to frustration’ and in ‘bondage to decay’?
It was sin that did it. It was finite, creaturely humanity presuming to grasp at infinite, creator-like, divinity. It was Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit, and we, their descendants and heirs, have been doing it ever since. What is forbidden us is forbidden not because it is any threat to God. What could threaten God? It is forbidden because it is a threat to us and, for that matter, to the whole created order. If we replace God with self at the axis of our lives -- and that is exactly what we’ve done -- we spin out of control. And nothing works the way it was created to work.
God must be at the center. Else, everything else is off center. That is why Paul speaks in 2 Corinthians 5 about being reconciled to God. In our natural state, in the old order of things, in the creation corrupted by human self-centeredness, we are alienated from God. We are at enmity with the truth about God and the truth about ourselves, and we must be reconciled...both to the truth and to the one God who embodies truth.
But, because of our corruption, we aren’t about to be reconciled. We aren’t about to take the first step, nor could we if we wanted to. So God made the move. In verse 18, Paul says, ‘God...reconciled us to himself through Christ,’ and in verse 21 he writes, ‘God made him [that is, Christ] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’
The key words here are ‘in him,’ just as, in verse 17, the key words are ‘in Christ.’ ‘If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation’ Paul says; ‘the old has gone, the new has come!’ It is ‘in Christ’ that the old order gives way to the new order. It is ‘in Christ’ that we find ourselves rescued from the old creation with its patterns of self-defeat and self-destruction. It is, as Paul says, ‘gone.’ And, as surely as ‘the old is gone,’ in Christ ‘the new has come’ (v. 17). And we are restored to the newness that was once ours in Eden. Only, it is better this time because it is more sure, and it is more sure because it is ‘in Christ.’
‘In Christ’ we take our proper place in relation to God. As we honor his limits, we discover our freedom. As we humble ourselves, he exalts us. As we trust him, we obey him, and , as we obey him, he proves worthy of our trust.
‘In Christ’ our relationships with others take on a new quality. Because ‘in Christ’ we have been shown mercy, so ‘in Christ’ we show mercy. Because ‘in Christ’ we have been loved unconditionally, so ‘in Christ’ we love others without condition.
Is not this the preferable state for which our hearts long? Do we not yearn for God’s ‘new creation’ when we see it cast in bold relief against the old? Do we not desire to exchange sin for righteousness, guilt for innocence, weariness for rest, despair for hope, frustration for satisfaction, reconciliation for enmity? Do we not sense deep down that it is for this that we were created in the first place -- not to live as adversaries either of God or of our neighbor but, rather, to live in peace, in God’s perfect shalom, reconciled both to God and to one another?
Yes, this is what we want! This is what we long for. But how can it happen for us? Only ‘in Christ.’ ‘In Christ’ alone. ‘If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.’ And we should not expect our deliverance from the old to the new to come in any other way than ‘in Christ.’ But what in heaven’s name does that mean? Just this:
To be ‘in Christ’ is to be identified with Christ, and, more specifically, it is to be identified with him in his death and resurrection. In Romans, chapter 6, Paul says, ‘If we have been united with [Christ] in his death, we will certainly be united with him in his resurrection.... If we died with Christ, we believe we will also live with him’ (vv. 5, 8).
And what that means is this: To possess ourselves truly, we must give ourselves to God. To gain Christ, we must ‘consider [everything else] as loss’ (Phil. 3:7). To enter life, we must go through death. There is no resurrection without crucifixion, and we cannot live in the ‘new creation’ without dying to ‘the old.’ ‘Count yourselves dead to sin,’ Paul wrote, ‘but alive to God in Christ...’ (Rom. 6:11). And I am confident that those last two words, ‘in Christ,’ will not be lost on you.
To begin with God -- or to begin again -- is to start with Jesus, who said, ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross’ (Mk. 8:34). And there can be no mistaking the cross for anything other than an instrument of death -- can there?
As I draw close to the end of my remarks today, let me ask you this: What must die in your life so that old ways may be abandoned for new life in Christ? Is the beginning of this new year a good time for you to remove yourself from the place of central priority in your life, around which everything else must revolve? Is the beginning of this new year a good time for you to come down from your fabricated throne and kneel before him who is truly your king, so that you may ‘seek first [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness’ (Matt. 6:33)? Is the beginning of this new year a good time for you to forsake manipulation and dominance, deception and other destructive strategies in your relationships, so that you may ‘follow the way of love’ (1 Cor. 14:1), which Scripture describes as ‘the most excellent way’ (1 Cor. 12:31)? Is the beginning of this new year a good time for you to die to the old order of things so that the new creation may come to life in you?
Paul ends the passage of Scripture we have been studying today with these words. He says: ‘As God’s fellow workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain.... I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation’ (2 Cor. 6:1, 2). Here we are, at the start of a new year. And I would simply say to you: Now is the time to begin with God...or to begin again.
