Christ’s Ministry Through Paul Is True and Not Yes and No
2 Corinthians 1:15-20 · Roger Henderson · Nov 14, 2021
Letters to the Corinthians, No. 83
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/410261639386728

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well, good morning. Okay, we're gonna continue on in chapter one here. And today's lesson is a lot of yeses and nos. And it's interesting, you know, in preparing for this, one commentator pointed out how God is able to use a man's life, he used Paul's life in many ways. And so this controversy over his yeses and nos The Lord's going to take opportunity to teach us about the immutability of God, how God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, how He doesn't change. And so in the midst of this yeses and nos, we're going to see a wonderful truth that's going to come out. So it's pretty cool here. So I've labeled today's lesson, Christ's ministry through Paul is true and not yes and no. So a lot of yeses and nos, as I said.

So here's the outline, kind of a combination I took from Hal and then some of my own stuff. Pretty simple. I'm going to review briefly the I should have had our brother read the first from 12, but I didn't. I should have talked to him first. Anyway, we're going to review 12 and 14, Christ's life is out from God's grace and not human wisdom.

Then we're going to talk about how Paul explains, he's going to explain his travel plans. And it may seem, you think, this is a trivial thing. I mean, how can we get a big controversy over his travel plans? And if you notice, I'm going to, Paul's going to quote his, he's going to give us an itinerary for his travels.

At the very end, he's going to say, if the Lord wills, or if the Lord permits. Well, guys, I mean, we had a brother, when Bonnie and I were in England, who would, he would announce, it would be like Courtney announcing the upcoming dinner, and he would say, if the Lord wills. Well, our whole life is if the Lord wills, and so, I don't know, you say, how could that happen? But it did, and Paul will so graciously explain that.

And we're gonna see that particularly in verses 18 through 20, where he talks about the fact that Christ's faithfulness is never yes and no, but yes and him. Just some tremendous ideas here. But first I'd like to briefly go over what we did last week in 12 through 14.

So Paul starts off, for our proud confidence, is this, the testimony of our conscience. And we see that the kind of heart of this verse is we have conducted ourselves. So Paul's gonna, in answering these questions about his conduct, he's gonna say this is how we conducted ourselves. So Paul tells that he was glorifying God in his conduct.

He had a clear conscience about that. And then the last part of the verse, the main subject and verb here is we conducted ourselves And he uses this word anastrepho. It indicates one manner of life. This is how he conducted his life. And I like what Constable says about this.

Paul's motives resulted from God's grace at work in his life. He viewed all of his life from this perspective, seeking not to advance self, but the cause of Christ. So Paul felt he was totally true, totally consistent with what God had appointed him to do was to preach the gospel, take it to the Gentiles was his ultimate goal at this point in his life. So we go on and he states in here, there's four prepositional phrases I mentioned last week that talk about how he conducted his life.

He conducted it in the world and especially toward the Corinthians. He had a heart for these believers. He loved these believers and he agonized over their shortcomings and the trouble they had in their church. And it was especially for them. It was to the world but especially to the Corinthians.

And then secondly, it was in simplicity and this is where I kind of took there's some textual issues with holiness and simplicity seems to fit better so I went along with that. Simplicity is the idea of a single purpose, not having double motives. Boy, that's so into the point of what Paul's, he had no double motives. He was straight on, straight preaching the gospel. and it was in sincerity of God, or godly sincerity, and the sincerity's idea of pure, like the sun, and this is one of the attributes of God, as I mentioned before. It's God's attribute of being immutable, or faithful and true, and we're gonna see that played out as we go on with the rest of the lesson here.

And then we have, the third one is not in fleshly wisdom, or cleverness, And fleshly here is this word sarkicos, carnal. Schaefer says basically it's being the entire unregenerate man, this fleshly nature. And the believer in Christ has a sin nature and he can fall under that influence of that.

So Paul says, I didn't do that. But what's interesting is a really good definition of this fleshly wisdom is given in James here. It says, this wisdom of man, this fleshly wisdom, is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, and demonic. So Paul says, he's rejecting the human viewpoint. He said, that's not how I live my life.

But he said, I did live my life, but in contrast to that, I live my life in the grace of God, in the total sphere of God's grace. A couple of really good verses that kind of talk about living the Christian life is in the sphere of God's grace, under God's grace. It's a very familiar verse in Romans. For sin shall not be master over you, for you're not under law, but under grace. And then in 521 it says, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So the believer, and Paul says I'm operating in this grace umbrella, that's how I live my life, that's how I conduct my life. So then he goes on and he says, for we write nothing else to you than what you read and understand.

I hope you will understand until the end. And this is kind of a, I'll call it a sleeper verse. This has a really cool part in it and I mentioned it last week again. It talks about reading and understanding God's word. So let's just kind of get into it here.

It says we, Paul, write to you nothing else or no other thing than what you read and understand. So he's going to tell them here that as we read his letters, which are now scripture, and we understand it, it is what it says it is. Scripture doesn't pretend to be something else. It doesn't pretend to be some kind of code. Even though people have tried to make God's Word into code, there's all these theories about code, there's secret messages written in scripture. You know, God's Word is God's Word.

Paul says you can read it and you can understand it. And it was true for the Corinthians, and that was one of his points. What I've given you, you can read and understand. There's no hidden meanings. So there's two cool words in the original language here. They're both gnosko, to know, but one is anagnosko, which is the idea to know by reading. And the second one is epigenosco, to have full knowledge.

So he says you can read and understand God's word, you can fully come to know. I used Bill last week, Speckman, as an example of fully known. Bill fully knows Zoom, probably more than he wants to know Zoom. He fully knows it because he's lived with it. And what Paul's saying here, these believers, and we, can fully know God's word.

Paul's letter to the Corinthians was being read and understood. And we can do that today. And Macaulay, I listened to Macaulay on this topic, and he spent a long time talking about just read God's word. Don't try to, you know, read it. And you can understand, it's understandable. So, kind of a lesson for today. And I like what Constable said, kind of closing out this idea here. It says, Paul wrote some things that were hard to understand, and some things that were ironical. But he did not write one thing and mean another. He wrote just what he said.

And so Paul goes on to say, basically, I hope or trust, and the idea that he, his desire was, and I use his verse for trust, but I trust that you will realize that we ourselves do not fail the test. And he wanted that I hope or trust you will understand And this is a fully known word. You will fully know until the end. So Paul's desire here was that you won't change your mind.

I wrote these letters to you and it's just what I meant and you won't sometime down the road think there was some other meaning I had behind that. I wrote to you what was on the page there. And the end, I think, refers to the, he wanted to be able to live out their lives understanding what he had written to them, which is now God's word. It is God's word in the scriptures that we have.

And then the last verse from last week is this one that talks about, just as you also partially didn't understand us, that we are your reason to be proud, as you are ours in the day of our Lord Jesus. Kind of interesting thing here, which I hadn't thought much about, that the mutual respect, Paul had a great respect for the Corinthian believers, they came to know Christ and they lived the Christian life, and they had a respect for him, and this verse talks about that. just as part of you did have full knowledge of us. So I think the idea here is, and I kind of struggled a little bit, was the fact that they, not everyone caught on to this, not everyone understood this. So what did they know? They knew what the last part of this verse says, that, so what follows is what they knew, that we, Paul and Timothy, are your reason to be proud, or to glory, and you are ours, you also are ours, the reason to be proud.

This is our identity with one another in glorifying God. And actually it's in the day of our Lord Jesus. So the point here is that when the Lord comes, this relationship between teacher and his students and believers, that relationship glorifies God, for they both saw that they glorified God for having a teacher like Paul, and Paul glorified God that men and women heard his word and came to him. So they had a mutual understanding of that fact.

Okay, so that's hopefully a short review, a little longer maybe than you wanted, but anyway, okay, so now, today's verses. In this confidence, I intended at first to come to you so that you might twice receive a blessing, that is, to pass your way into Macedonia and again from Macedonia to come to you and to come to you, and by you be helped on my journey to Judea. Therefore, I was not vacillating when I attended to do this, was I?" So 17 has two questions in there, and we'll talk about that. He asks him two rhetorical questions. He says, was I vacillating when I attended to come to you, was I?

Or what I purposed to do do I purpose according to the flesh, so that with me there will be, and this gets a little bit wordy here, get to be yes, yes and no, and no at the same time. So you got a full yes, a yes and no, and a full no. But as God is faithful, our word to you is not yes and no, for the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was preached among you by us, by us, and he kind of qualifies who us is, by me, Paul, Silas, and Timothy, was not yes and no, but yes and him. For as many are the promises of God, in him are yes. There through, also through him is our amen to the glory of God through us. Okay, like I said, a lot of yeses and nos.

Hopefully we'll sort through those. Okay, so now he refers back, in this confidence, referring back to verse 12, we just read, the witness of our conscience, I intended at first to come to you. So Paul's gonna, at this point, he's gonna say, okay, let's just kinda step back for a second. Let's just review what my intentions were. We're gonna start with that point. In our discussion here, we're gonna start with what my intentions were.

So Paul's conscience was clear about his original plan to come to Corinth. So he's at Ephesus writing the letter to the Corinthians who are across the sea there, and they're in Corinth, and he's writing a letter to them. And he says, here is my original plan. And we see his original plan, we study that in 1 Corinthians. And here's his original plan. He states that in verse 5 of chapter 16, 5 through 7. So here's Paul's original plan. But I will come to you after I go through Macedonia, for I am going through Macedonia, and perhaps I will stay with you. Notice he has perhaps, it's not like I'm, you know, perhaps I will stay with you, or even spend the winter.

Doesn't sound like that's a real firm travel plan, right? If somebody wrote you and said, well, we're coming to Denver, perhaps we'll spend the winter, maybe we'll go skiing, You know, it sounds pretty normal. So that we may spend, so that you may send me on my way, wherever I may go. Pretty, you know.

For I did not wish to see you, just in passing. So he wanted to spend some time with him. For I hope to remain with you for some time. if the Lord permits." So this is one of the messages that got them into this tizzy, if you will, about, well, you said yes and you said no. And what's been pointed out is that these were not just, these were not his friends that were complaining.

They were his antagonists. They were people that were For whatever reason, they were not on Paul's side. They were out to get him, so to speak. So they started talking about, well, Paul's a vacillator. In fact, one commentator said that they, that was a nickname that Paul actually had at one point in time. He was the vacillating one. Paul the Apostle, you vacillate. You say yes, you say no. Make up your mind, Paul. And that was his detractors, his antagonist. Okay, so we go on here. I intended to first come to you, let's continue that idea here.

So Consul points out, evidently, he was not able to make the trip. There's no evidence in the New Testament that he ever followed that itinerary. So he never actually followed that itinerary. But he's gonna talk about that itinerary again here in 2 Corinthians.

He had first intended, with a purpose that, that you might twice receive a blessing. That you may have a second bestowment of grace. So now, after verse 15, he's going to explain his travel plans again. Okay? So verse 15 talks about, you know, I tended first to come to you, and we talked about what his original plans were. Now in verse 16, he's going to tell us what his, he's going to reiterate those plans.

So here we have a picture of that area. So if you notice at the, let's see, it'll be your, I gotta turn around here, your right, it's my right and your right, I'm getting, Ephesus is on the right, Corinth is on the left, and there's a C there, a G and C, and if you notice up to the north there of them, there's Macedonia. So Paul says here, he first says, That is, and he explains it, he wants to pass your way into Macedonia. So he's going to travel across the sea there, probably not in a motorboat, probably by sail.

He's going to arrive in Corinth, right? It's going to take him a little while to do that. Then he gets to Corinth. So he'll get a chance to see him first in Corinth the first time, right? Then he's going to travel on up to Macedonia, and then he says, again from Macedonia to come to you. So he has a return leg. He comes back down from Macedonia, back to Corinth, and at that point he says, by you to be helped on my journey to Judea. So it's like, you know, three parts.

He travels to Corinth, spends some time with them, and that's his first blessing with them or time with them. Then he travels to Macedonia, returns back from Macedonia to Corinth and sees them again, and then he travels on to Judea with their help. Because it wasn't like they had to, they could stock up, and he got provisions from the people that helped him to travel on to Judea. Okay, so that was his plan. So now he goes into an explanation.

Therefore, I was not vacillating when I intended to do this, was I? So he asks these two questions. So actually, in these two questions, the assumption is Paul wants them to agree that the answer should be no. He presents a question, and the assumed answer is to be no. But also, it seems like within the question is that he's addressing the charge that was leveled against him. Okay, so let's look at this. Therefore, or now because, I, Paul, was not vacillating when I intended to do this, was I?

Are we stashed at having this desire under these circumstances? Did I not exhibit fickleness of mind, did I? He said, I didn't do that. I planned to come to you. That was my best intention, but that wasn't the Lord's plan. It didn't work out. I wasn't vacillating. That was just the way it was.

And vacillating is the idea to be inconsistent. Thickleness is a possible translation. Some translations have that. Intended is to wish or desire. Because I changed my mind, Amplified has, because I changed my original plan, was I being unstable and capricious? Can I never get to change my mind? Anyway, so the expected answer is no, I was not.

Question number two. are what I purpose to do, do I purpose according to the flesh? And this term according to the flesh, we see it in a lot of Paul's writings. And one particular place is where the believer, the believer's lifestyle is not to walk according to the flesh, but to walk according to the Spirit. So that's Paul's desire in his whole life was to walk according to the Spirit, not according to the flesh.

Let's answer the second question. So actually, the answer to the second question is no as well. I didn't put that in there. So his intended answer to the second question, I wasn't purposing according to the flesh, and the answer would be no. So then the last part of the verse, he talks about, he gets into this dialogue about his yeses and nos.

And he says, so that it were to purpose that, with me, Paul, there will be yes, yes and no and no at the same time. He says, actually I may have put the no in the wrong place here. He puts the scenario in and he says if I was vacillating, it wasn't my purpose to say one thing and then be vacillating between yes and no and then no. The answer to that question is no. I was not vacillating. I wasn't yes and yes and no or no. And it turns out that actually in the original, in the inner linear, it has, it kind of combines it, so then there may be with me yes, yes or no, no, which seems a little bit easier to read, so I'm not quite sure why the translators necessarily chose yes and put the commas in there, but the original has yes, yes or no, no and no, no. So Constable kind of tries to sum this up a little bit.

There's a strong likelihood that Paul was actually quoting some of the phrases used against him. The article lightness or vacillating, yes, yes, and no, no, can be understood to be lightness of which I am being accused. contrary yeses and noes which you fault me for. So they're focused on the fact that he changed his mind. And he says, you know, it's okay if I change my mind. But they were intent upon pointing that out to him.

So what's interesting here, as we move on to verse 18, it's almost like Paul says, okay, let's just step back for a second. You know, we could argue, I could show you from 1 Corinthians, I could show you where it said, according to the will of God, I could show you that. But Paul doesn't do that. He steps back and says, okay, let's look at this for a second.

Let's think about the message I was bringing to you. I was bringing to you a message about God the Father and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And let's step back and look at the character of God and see if what I'm telling you about God and His Son, the Lord Jesus, is accurate. So he steps back and says, but as God is faithful, our word to you is not yes and no. It's not vacillating. He says, if God is faithful, in essence, if God is faithful, I am faithful, I'm a faithful servant of Him.

And he's gonna show them that. But what's interesting is, there's an untranslated conjunction in this passage. I didn't spot it, you know, I didn't see it, but other people have, and so it's kinda cool. We'll see that in a second here. So Paul will now identify himself with the faithfulness of God. And that's what makes these next 18, 19, and 20 so special. They're gonna focus on God's faithfulness, his character. We're gonna see God, and this is actually one of the, a cool place in Scripture where you wouldn't think it would show up, but it's going to show about God's faithfulness to who He is.

And if He is faithful, the Lord Jesus Christ is also faithful. So he says, but as, or in contrast to, what they say about me, God is faithful. Or in the original, faithful comes at the beginning of the sentence. Faithful is this word, pisteuo, reliable or true. Faithful is one of the attributes of God.

So here are the seven attributes of God that people usually talk about. This is the list that my brother Hal uses, other people use this list. So God is holy, which means He's righteous and just. He's infinite, and there are three parts of that. He's omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. Thank you. He's self-existent. He's love. And here's the one that we're talking about today. He's immutable. So we're really talking about God's immutability. He's faithful and true. And then He's spirit and He's sovereign. So we're going to focus on God's immutability here.

And it's the first word in the sentence, faithful. So you could render this in the inner linear is supplied, and I left the but off at the front of the sentence. Faithful is God, and here's this untranslated conjunction, that the word of us to you is not yes and no. So how does it help us? It turns out that this untranslated word is hati. It's in respect to. So you could translate this, and this is from our brother Ron, Ron Merriman.

Faithful is God in respect to this, the word of us to you is not yes and no. So that little conjunction ties the sentence together. It says God is faithful in respect to this, the word of us to you is not yes and no. So God is gonna be faithful. He's not gonna be vacillating. So the subject here is the word of us to you is not yes and no, not vacillating.

So we see Merriman went through some really cool things which I wanted to kind of share, just some attributes of God in terms of his faithfulness, reliability of God. God is faithful, that is he is certain and consistent. He proves himself to be true to his character and his promises. God makes promises to man so that he can prove himself to be consistent.

Just think about our Bibles. You know, we have the Old Testament. Think about all the promises God's making in the Old Testament that are fulfilled in the New Testament. You know, all the His Son coming as a child, being born in a manger, all that was prophesied in the Old Testament. So God is in the business of promising things and then fulfilling them to show that He's a consistent God.

His true ministers, that would be Paul, will manifest His true character. Just as God is true, so our words are true to you. And that's what Paul's saying. Just as God is true, our words, Paul's words, are true to you, Corinthians. Okay, so that was verse, that was verse 18, now verse 19. And this is really, this gets it, and so now what's gonna happen here, we're gonna continue on with this idea of God being true and faithful, his immutability, but he's gonna say, well, you know, my son is just like me. If you've seen me, you've seen the father, basically. So we're gonna get that, he's gonna say, Paul will say, since the father is true, his son is true.

So the subject here is for the Son of God, Christ Jesus. So you could put actually an equal sign in there. So let's just think about that for a second. A couple of verses here that talk about the Son of God is Christ Jesus. Just a beautiful verse in Matthew 16, 16.

So the question here is, remember this is Simon Peter's talking with the Lord, with the Lord Jesus. And the Lord Jesus asks him a question. He says, who do you say the Son of Man is? And this is Simon Peter's answer. So Simon Peter answered, you are the Christ, the son of the living God.

And then, this is just really cool, what does verse 17 say? And Jesus said to him, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal to you this, but my Father who is in heaven. I thought that was just, you know, I read this hundreds of times, but just, it just kind of hit me. Well, wait a minute. You know, understanding that Christ is a son of the living God, we read that and we understand it because we know him. And what he's saying is that's a truth that is fully revealed to you when you know him, when the Spirit of God shows you that. Let's read 17 again.

Jesus said to him, blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. Just really amazing. And then the other verse I have here is also in Matthew, right before his crucifixion. So Jesus is before the high priest here, but Jesus kept silent. And the high priest said to him, I adjure you by the living God that you tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God. And his response is, you have said it yourself.

So pretty, pretty amazing verses. And this is just one of many, many verses that, you know, when you've seen me, you've seen the Father, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. So we would expect that he would have the same attributes, and he does, as the Father.

So Paul says, for the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was preached, or having been preached, among you Corinthians, by us. So now he's gonna tell us who the by us is. It's by me, Paul, Silas, and Timothy. And so, I think this is constable, I didn't actually put it down, but Silas was, I'm sorry, Silvanus was Silas who, Silvanus was Silas who was with Timothy, joined Paul in Corinth shortly after his arrival there and helped him and found the church along with Priscilla and Aquila. was not yes and no, but yes and him.

It's kind of a cool little verse. So here's another case where this is kind of amplification. The original interlinear, we have it reading as follows, but not yes and no, but yes and him. it has always been, yes, in him. There's a lot of words for, so they replaced the is, it's not actually a bad translation, but it's translating this word ginome or ginomai, and it means, in this case, I think it means to, simply to be or to exist, so is wouldn't be bad, but it has always been really makes it even more potent.

We're saying, and it's in, actually it's in the, I think it's the perfect, perfect indicative. So it's saying that Jesus Christ is always yes. He is the full on yes. He's always the truth. And so here's a verse that came to mind. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

So what we're gonna see here is that in this yes and no word play here, if you will, whenever we see the word yes, that's gonna identify the faithfulness and truthfulness of God, both the Father and the Son. And so Paul's gonna spend more time on that. So the verse said, it has always been yes in him. And here's some other verses that, other ideas along with that. Christ as a son is like his father.

He is consistently true to his word. Christ is the embodiment of truth. And this is one I just really, we all really love this one. This is fantastic. Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. So if you look at the definite article there, the, he is the singular way, there's no other way. He's the singular truth, that's kind of our point today. And he's the singular life. There is nothing in him or his word that is worthy of doubt.

So you see what Paul's doing here? He steps back and he says, let's look at the character of God. Don't look at me and what you perceive as to be my yes, no, my vacillating. Let's look at God's character. If God's character is one of not changing, true and faithful, and his son is the same way who I preach, that's who I am.

I'm representing them. I'm the minister of that. So Paul is saying we preach a faithful and true Christ to you. So wrapping up here, for as many are God's promises in him is yes. He is a mighty yes Christ. He is positive truth. This is from Merriman. He is yes of truth.

God's promise in Christ are all yes, true. So I like a couple verses here that talk about this kind of talking about the promises and he being truth. It says, for I tell you, for I tell you that Christ the Messiah became a servant and a minister to the circumcision, the Jews. in order to show the truthfulness and honesty by confirming, verifying the promises given to our fathers. In Ephesians it says, with a view to the administration suitable to the fullness of times. That is, the summing up of all things in Christ. Things in heaven, things on the earth, in Him.

Therefore, through him is our amen to the glory of God through us. Therefore, through him is the amen, therefore, so he gives a conclusion here, through him Christ, he's the God and Christ are the amen God. So we see that from several verses in Deuteronomy, it says that the faithful amen God, Jehovah the faithful, the God of Isaiah, the God of truth, the God of Amen. And if God is faithful, His testimonies and precepts are sure, are Amen. So you could add a lot more. If you look in the Gospels, you'll see that the word Amen is used by Christ. It's used when He says, you know, either verily, verily, or truly, truly.

That's actually Amen, Amen. So, in fact, actually, there was a message, you can give a whole sermon on amen. Some brother did, and I first kind of scratched my head. I didn't listen to the whole message. I thought, boy, that's a lot for one word. My topic for today is amen. Well, you can do it. There's a lot of verses that talk about amen. So, anyway.

So, our God, he's the true God. He is the amen God. For glory to God through us. God is faithful and we are faithful to God through Christ. Okay, just a couple final thoughts from Constable. God is faithful in the fact that the gospel which is proclaimed by his messengers is not a gospel of duplicity, misleading statements, and of promises which are not fulfilled. The truth asserted is that Christ, the Son of God, had not been manifested among them or experienced by them to be unsatisfying or uncertain, but in Him was yes, that is, He was the simple truth. In Him, i.e., in Christ, was truth. He proved Himself to be all that was affirmed of Him."

So a lot of cool ideas here. Hopefully it wasn't too much yeses and nos and things like that. Yeah, Monty said, Roger, you got a lot of yeses and nos in this thing. I said, yeah, there are a lot of yeses and nos. Hopefully you got the true in him, the yes in him.

Okay, let's pray then. Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for your marvelous word. We thank you that, Lord, that you are able to take just the situations in Paul's life and able to show us the truths about your immutability, how you change not, the same yesterday, today, and forever. We thank you for your, we can trust that you're the faithful and true God. We ask it in your son's name. Amen.