A few weeks ago we talked about the masks we as Christians put on that sometimes hides our true selves from one another. But those who do not know Christ also put on masks—to hide themselves from an awful reality that they don’t want to face—that we as humans are evil at the core.
We distract ourselves from this fact by being busy with really good things and by “hiding out in the creation” as Adam did, and hope that the good makes up for the bad things we do. In our heart of hearts, though, we fear that someday we will have to account for what we’ve done.
In Revelation 20:11 we read: “Then I saw a great white throne and One seated on it. Earth and heaven fled from His presence, and no place was found for them.” One day we will stand before the Almighty God. When that happens there will be no more distractions and nothing more to hide our true selves from God.
Hebrews 4:13 No creature is hidden from Him, but all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account
At that point there will be no excuses. God and you will be able to see clearly all of your words, deeds, thoughts, and motivations. At that point you will either stand on what you have done, and be sent away from God’s love forever—or you can have someone else’s deeds stand in for yours.
That person, of course, is the same One who will sit on the throne.
John 3:17-18 For God did not send His Son into the world that He might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
We’ll talk more about how that works in a few minutes. But given that only those who have the life of Jesus given to them will have eternal life, what should that do to us who already believe? That’s what we find in the second half of chapter 5 of 2 Corinthians.
11 – 12
Paul knew his motivations before God were pure and he hoped he was an open book to them as well. He was motivated by wanting people to be reconciled to God, not for greed or other selfish motives.
Showing off and using external impressiveness was just the sort of thing that was getting the Corinthians in trouble. Paul will not stoop to that level but with his focus on the gospel and the eternal state and health of people, he hopes that the Corinthians will also grab ahold of that mentality and leave the outward impressiveness behind.
13
There are a couple of ways to interpret this verse but I think the best way in my mind according to the flow of thought is that the word “out of our mind” means “to be insane.” It’s the same word used of Jesus by his family in Mark 3:21 , and used by Festus when he called Paul “mad” in Acts 26:22-24 . Paul’s willingness to undergo trials and also not try for outward impressiveness might have seemed foolish to the Corinthians. But God’s ways are not our ways. The message of the cross seems foolish (1 Corinthians 1:21 ) to the world, but Paul is not concerned with how he is perceived outwardly but the reality of what is going on inwardly and his mission from God.
So he might seem “mad” to those around him, but he also hopes he seems very “sane” when it comes to speaking from his heart and the heart of God to them.
14 – 15
The word “compel” means “to hold fast.” Paul cannot deviate from sharing the love of the cross even if it seems foolish. The reality is that everyone on earth is cursed by sin and that the love of the Father compelled Him to send Jesus to the cross to bear all of those sins.
Paul wrote to the Galatians:
Galatians 2:19-21 I have been crucified with Christ; 20 and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
Because of Christ’s love that drove Him to the cross, we now change our allegiance. Instead of living for the self, we live for the One who died. He gives us life and new values and new purpose and a new spirit in His resurrection.
16
Paul used to look at Jesus as a Pharisee and a Jew—as a rebel man who claimed He was Messiah. But after meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus, Paul’s opinion changed: Jesus IS the Messiah. His opinion about others changed as well. No longer were there Jews and Gentiles, but now all need to come to die and belong to Jesus as one.
Next he goes on to explain this wonderful change:
17
The problem with the false teachers is that they were trying to exist in the church using the thinking of this age. Paul points out here that when you grasp Jesus, when you put your weight down on Him and His sacrifice for the evil in you, you become part of an entirely new order. I love how the Life Application Commentary puts it:
“Christians are brand-new people. The Holy Spirit gives them new life, and they are not the same anymore. Christians are not reformed, rehabilitated, or reeducated -- they are recreated (a new creation), living in vital union with Christ (Col 2:6-7 ). At conversion, believers are not merely turning over a new leaf; they are beginning a new life under a new Master.”
(from The Life Application Commentary Series copyright (C) 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000 by the Livingstone Corporation. Produced with permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.)
The old ways of thinking: external obedience and external impressiveness are gone. Obedience comes from the Spirit living inside of you—changing you, motivating you, altering your mind. You are also now citizens of a different country. You are here on a work visa—or perhaps more specifically, a diplomatic visa, which we’ll get to in a moment.
18 – 20
The source of this new life isn’t from our efforts, but it’s all God’s. The false teachers had a ministry of self-fulfillment and gratification. In Christ we have the same job description as Jesus—reconciling man to God through the cross.
The message of reconciliation includes 1) Our relationship with God was broken (Genesis 3 ). 2) We continued to provoke hostility to God by rebelling against Him (Genesis 4ff). 3) Someone (God) made an overt gesture to repair the relationship (through the cross) so that “proper, friendly, interpersonal relations” could be restored (Louw and Nida Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament).
You are now an ambassador of that message. The word means “an authorized agent.” God has specifically given us the job of sharing this good news in all that we think, do and say. Again, you are an ambassador—it doesn’t mean that you show your credentials in the face of every stranger on the road, but you should know that to everyone and in every situation you need to act in a way that reflects positively on your King.
So how did that reconciliation happen? Paul concludes the chapter with one of the most amazing verse in the Bible to explain:
21
There are at least three ways of looking at this verse. Either 1) Jesus became a sinner on the cross. 2) That He became a sin offering (ie the Old Testament sacrificial system) or 3) that He bore the consequences of our sins.
Jesus didn’t sin, of course, but Jesus became accursed (Galatians 3:13 “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us”). Jesus was the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29 ). And:
1 Peter 2:24 He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness;
Whichever is more right—the effect is the same. He traded His life for our death so that He could take away our evil and give us His purity (righteousness).
Conclusions
Our problem as people is three-fold:
We underestimate the extent of the evil in us
Jeremiah 17:9-11 he heart is more deceitful than anything else and desperately sick—who can understand it? 10 I, the Lord, examine the mind,
I test the heart to give to each according to his way, according to what his actions deserve. 11 He who makes a fortune unjustly is like a partridge that hatches eggs it didn’t lay. In the middle of his days his riches will abandon him, so in the end he will be a fool.
We underestimate the peril we face
Back to Revelation 20 . Those that hate God and refuse to let Jesus take away their evil will end up in a place John describes as a “lake of fire.” It’s symbolic language, of course, but it is symbolic of something very real and worse than the symbols can convey. It won’t be a place where people will regret their choice, but a place that they will hate God for all of eternity while also in some form of suffering.
I know there are books out there today that discount the existence of hell. But if the Bible describes it (and does in some detail) then I believe it at face value. Basically by default we are in league with Lucifer and will go where he goes unless we opt out by the one way God made: the sacrifice of Jesus.
We underestimate the cost of the sacrifice of Jesus the Messiah
God blamed Jesus for your sins on the cross.
God killed His Son to get you.
It is such a simple yet awesome truth:
John 3:16-21
"For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world that He might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. 18 Anyone who believes in Him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the One and Only Son of God.
19 "This, then, is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who practices wicked things hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed. 21 But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God."
Doesn’t this make you want to make yourself available as an ambassador? I’m not talking about selling everything and becoming a missionary (unless God calls you to that). But being an ambassador starts with realizing your job title and living as a representative of your King. It should help us make choices that put on the new character and put off the old (Colossians 3:1-10 ).
