Second Corinthians 1:21-24 God Is Establishing Us in Christ and So Much More
2 Corinthians 1:21-24 · Roger Henderson · Nov 21, 2021
Letters to the Corinthians, No. 84
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926192594985

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

Well, good morning. Well, we are coming to the end of chapter one, but I think as it was observed there, the last two verses of chapter one really belong in chapter two. So with that in mind, I kind of changed change horses in the middle of the stream, I don't know what's the right term. I decided not to do those two verses and leave them for Mike. So, but I'm just not, we're gonna, we read them, that's good to read and it's interesting. So we'll talk a little bit about those verses.

So I've labeled this message, God is establishing us in Christ and so much more. So this, you know, this message really could be something that was done in Mike's class because we're gonna talk a lot about the Holy Spirit today. And it's really interesting that Paul in these verses, we're gonna first start back in verse 18. He actually talks about a lot of the doctrinal points of our wonderful God and Savior and the Holy Spirit. A lot of key points are mentioned in here. And it's interesting how God uses a letter between Paul and the Corinthian church to teach us about who he is. that he's a faithful God, and that he's a God that loves us, and what the Holy Spirit has done in our lives. So it's really interesting how he uses that letter, and these are letters that were written between Paul and the churches, you know, across his 13 letters, but he uses so much of that to tell us so many wonderful things about himself, about our God and Savior.

So let's kind of get into it here. Here's a brief outline. So basically, I wanna go back and look at chapter, verse 18 again, and look at God's faithfulness. I wanna talk about his faithfulness to his promises in 19 through 20. And then part of the main part I wanna talk about really is the faithfulness of God to his work, the work of the Holy Spirit. And that's basically covered in 21 and 22. And I'm gonna leave 23 and 24 for Mike. He'll start that next week.

And it kind of goes very well with the, Paul's description of his painful visit to Corinth, and just his whole loving motivation. You know, Paul was really, you know, in his, you know, he went to Corinth, many people were saved as a result of his ministry, his preaching about the Lord Jesus Christ. So those people became very special to him. And he traveled there, he planned to travel, but then he's gonna explain actually why he didn't go there in verses 23 and 24, and then on into chapter two.

So let's look at today's verses. Okay, let's start with the first three here. 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, me and Silvanus and Timothy, was not yes and no, but yes and him. For as many are the promises of God in him, they are yes, therefore also through him is our amen to the glory of God through us. Now, 21 through 24. Now, he who establishes us with you in Christ and anoints us as God, who sealed us and gave us the spirit in our hearts as a pledge, But I call God as my witness to my soul, that to spare you I did not come again to Corinth.

Not that we lord it over you, over your faith, but you are workers with us for joy, for your joy, for in your faith you are standing firm. Okay, so let's start off with verse 18. So what we see here in verse 18, I'll just go through the first four points I want to make.

He starts off with a contrast, you know, in contrast to what, you know, the Corinthians were saying, Paul, you're vacillating. That's where we get this idea of yes and no. It's this idea that, Paul, you say you're going to come and you say you're not going to come. And you go back and forth on that, Paul. So the people that had something against Paul, his detractors, his ones that thought ill of him, they use that apparent inconsistency, his yes and no, as a tool to prod him, so to speak. So what Paul does, he kind of steps back a moment, he says, well, let's think about that.

The God I'm telling you about, the God who made the world, the God whose son is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is a faithful, he's a faithful, the second point, he's a faithful God, reliable, absolutely true. So Paul's gonna identify himself rather than arguing about that he said yes or no, he's gonna say, let's look at our faithful God, let's look at his characteristics and I wanna show you that I'm in line with him, I've identified with that God who's faithful. And we're gonna see here that faithful is one of God's characteristics.

So I borrowed a chart here from our brother Hal from back in the, I'm not sure when this was done, probably in the, maybe the 90s possibly. So he has a little fortress here, and this is a LISS, L-I-S-S. So what our brother Hal has done here, he's taken, he has his LISS, and each of the first letters there is an attribute of God. So this was an ancient Irish fortress, Elis, L-I-S-S.

So first of God's characteristics that he's holy, he's righteous and just. Second, he's infinite, he's omnipotent, omniscient, he knows all things, he omnipresent. And then thirdly, he's self-existent, he doesn't need anything from anyone, he exists totally within himself and he's eternal. And fourthly, he's love, which is grace and mercy.

And then we have the one that we're gonna talk about today. He's immutable, which is a big, you know, one of those 30 cent words, 30 cent words, $30 words, 30 million words, I don't know, whatever. Whatever that expression is. But that's basically talking about his faithfulness and being truth. He's both faithful and true. And then he's spirit and he's sovereign.

So those, Those seven things are what's typically presented as the attributes of God. So we're gonna talk about his faithfulness today. So the first verse or the B part of this verse says that God is faithful in respect to this. So in respect to the word of us to you is not yes and no. So Paul says, the word of us Paul to you Corinthians is not It's not vassaling, it's not yes or no. So, as I showed you last week, Merriman had a few comments about that. God is faithful, that he is certain and consistent. He proves himself to be true to his character and promises. God makes promises to man so that he improve, that he's consistent.

And then we see that throughout scripture. So many times God will make a promise. My son will come, he will be born in Bethlehem. And all the promises that we see, especially at Christmas time, a lot of the promises that we see were fulfilled in the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. His true ministers will manifest his true character. Just as God is true, so our words to you are true.

So that's what Paul was saying. He's saying, since God is true, and that's the one I'm telling you about, you can trust my words because I am following a faithful God. Okay, so let's go on here. Verse 19. For the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was preached among us by preached among you by us. So Paul's now gonna say, since the father is true, his son is also true.

So this phrase for the Son of God, Christ Jesus, that's like an equation, if you will, it's equating the Son of God with the Lord Jesus Christ. And though that probably isn't, you probably don't think that's much of an issue. Historically, that has been an issue.

Who is Jesus Christ? And that's what Christ asked Simon Peter. He says, Simon, who do men say that I am? And Simon Peter answered, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus said to him, blessed are you Simon Barjona. because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my father who is in heaven.

And it always strikes me when I read that, it's interesting. And you think, well, that's a no brainer. We all know that Jesus Christ is the son of God, but as I mentioned, people stumble over that. And this verse tells us that the true understanding of who Christ is comes to us only as we come to know him. And it's revealed to us, he says in this case, by my father in heaven.

So it's a marvelous verse. Who was preached or having been preached among you Corinthians by us. And that was why the verse goes on by me, Paul and his companions, Silvanus and Timothy. And Silvanus was Silas who was with Timothy and joined with Paul in Corinth shortly after his arrival there. and helped found the church along with Priscilla and Aquila. And that was from Constable that said that.

Okay, so the last part of verse nine. So actually there's a, if you look at the word, it sounds like back in the 90s when, remember all the controversy about what does is mean? We had a president that had a problem with is. And so this is actually an interesting point.

So in this case, the verse reads, was not yes or no, but yes in him. So actually the word is there, can be translated, it's ginome, ginomi. It means something to exist. And it's in what's called the perfect tense. So it's a past completed action with abiding results. So you could render that.

And I'm using interlinear again. I still haven't got Karen her interlinear. I actually, I found it in print, but it doesn't have all the bells and whistles. So I didn't, I'm sorry. I'm still working on it. Hopefully before you go, I'll find you an interlinear.

Okay, so the interlinear has that little phrase there, it has, was not yes and no, but it has always been, picking up the perfect tense, he's always been, yes and him. So it's saying that, it's using the idea of yes as being truthful, The Lord Jesus Christ is always yes. He's always truthful. There's never a doubt. He's always been truthful. He'll always be truthful.

So we see that in a beautiful verse here in Hebrews 13.8. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Christ as a Son is like His Father. He is consistently true to His Word. And Christ, if you think about it, Christ is the embodiment of truth. In fact, He is defined as the truth.

Remember in John 14.6, He says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. I'm the singular way to God, I'm the singular truth, and I'm the singular life. So He is the very definition of truth. Paul's saying that we preach a faithful and true Christ to you.

So that kind of ends verse 19. Verse 20. For as many as are God's promises in him is the yes. So this is from Merriman. He is the mighty yes Christ. And by using that word yes, I mean it might seem a little clumsy, but because of this idea of vacillating, he kind of says he's always true, so he can never be vacillating. So he says he's the yes Christ, he's a true Christ. He is positive truth. He is the yes of truth. God's promises in Christ are always yes, true. So the promises referred to here, this is from Constable, are evidently ones that have found their fulfillment in Christ.

You know if you have the opportunity to search through your Bible with some kind of search, you can use the Blue Letter Bible which is an online Bible, you can go there. You can search for phrases and you can search the phrase in Christ or in Him And you'll see you'll get like hundreds of hits, hundreds of places in scripture where you'll see the little phrase, in Christ. And many times those are associated with promises that God has made. So I just picked a few here. The first one is 1 John 4.

John 1.4, in him was life and life was the light of men. Maybe a little bit more to the point. 3.15, so whoever believes in him will have eternal life. That's a wonderful promise. Whoever believes in him will have eternal life. And then 3.18, He who believes in Him is not judged.

And you can go on, you can just, I thought about having a whole page full of these and I kind of backed away, I've been accused of over having too much, too much detail sometimes and so I tried to be a little less detailed maybe and a little more, a few verses and you can think about them.

So these are one of, these three are one of many instances in scripture of in Christ or in Him. Okay, therefore, as through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us. So the Interlinear has this, and the reason I did the Interlinear here, you might say, well, it's not much different than what you have in the New American Standard. The only difference is it has a definite article. It's pointing out that through Him, He's the Amen, another name for Christ.

Amen, actually, if you notice here, Amen, the Greek and the English, It's the same word. They didn't translate it. There are words like baptism, baptizo. The word's untranslated. It's just what it is in the original language. Amen is amen. And it's the idea of let it be. Beatles got that from... I don't know about that. Okay, so in Deuteronomy he's a faithful Amen God. In Isaiah, the God of truth, the God of Amen.

And then actually I didn't show this last week but in Revelation it talks about Christ as the Amen and this is his letter to Laodicea. Remember Laodicea was a church that was not hot or cold, they just were kind of lukewarm, he didn't do much, he just sat there, didn't do anything. Okay, so he says, to the angel of the church in Laodicea write, the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God says this. And then he says, you're not hot or cold, you're lukewarm, So actually this is something I hadn't noticed that I noticed this week going through this again.

When God says amen, it has the idea he's declaring something. It is and it shall be so. And we see in scripture when man says amen, when we say amen, you say so let it be or let it be so. We're affirming what God has said. When God says it, he's declaring that it's so and we agree with that by saying amen. And the last part is, for the glory to God through us. So as we are faithful to God through Christ, we bring glory to God.

Okay, so now, I'm gonna do an overview in the middle of the presentation. You're like, what's going on here? Okay, well I'm trying to contrast the first 18 through 20. In 18 through 20, we had three points we just made. God is faithful. The son of God is Jesus Christ, and he's true. and we talked about God's promises in Christ. Well now we're gonna transition in 21 and 22, we're gonna talk about God is establishing us in Christ, just a wonderful truth, God the Holy Spirit's anointing, God the Holy Spirit's sealing, God the Holy Spirit as a pledge.

And something to keep in mind here, I didn't notice this until kind of late in the game, you know, I study, I say too much, that's my problem, that's my, I study and I never stop, there's never a quitting point. Monty says, Roger, are you finished yet? I never quite answer that question until we have to get in the car and drive here on Sunday morning, that's when I'm finished. Anyway, I wouldn't recommend that though.

Okay, what I want to point out here, God is establishing us in Christ, so the question is in the context, and keep in mind, I want to answer the question, Which person of the Trinity is he talking about, God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit, or maybe all of them? So keep that in mind as we go through here, and I'll try to answer that question. We'll get to it pretty quickly here though. So 21 starts out, now he who established us with you in Christ, that's the first phrase.

So we're gonna see in here four participles, And you might say, well, Roger, what's a participle? English was not my forte in school. I struggled with that. That's why I are an engineer, right? Courtney can identify with that, and other engineers can too. Math and science, I could do well in those, so I didn't. English, I struggled. Fortunately, I met Vani, and she's amazing in all language and all grammar and everything else like that, along with a lot of other things too. So basically, a participle is a verb used as an adjective. So it's gonna have the characteristics of a verb in some sense, but it's gonna describe something too. So there are four participles that show up in 21 and 22.

And Merriman says these are divine acts of God on behalf of every believer. So the first one will be in the present tense. So it's the idea he's continually establishing us. And the remaining three are in the aorist tense. It's a past point fact. It's accomplished for every believer and it was accomplished and realized once we trusted in him. So it starts off, he starts off with now or but, so he continues the explanation of God's faithfulness toward believers. But he's gonna express it in the terms of what God has accomplished for us through, okay, he says, he God who establishes us with you Corinthians in Christ. So the word establish, and I won't try to pronounce it, is to make firm or strengthen, is present tense, continuous action.

He's continually establishing us. And note here that I didn't notice this until I listened to Merriman here. He says, it's with you. So Paul and the Corinthians are being established together and it seems like also they're being established one with another. So their relationship with God and between themselves are being strengthened here. So some more thoughts on establishing. Christ is the one who keeps on establishing us or strengthening us. Notice that this grace blessing is in Christ.

So many truths we see in Scripture, it will say, in Christ, in Christ. And we see that, what it tells us is that's how we live the Christian life. We don't live the Christian life outside of Jesus Christ. We live it in Jesus Christ. And there's several verses, at least one key verse that talks about that. Or you could say, in our living union with Christ. So this verse 220B, just the B part of that, kind of describes that. It describes the Christian life as follows.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God. And it goes on. So we live the Christian life by Christ living in us. And our part is a faith response to what He's done. We abide with Him, we walk with Him, we exercise our faith toward Him, our trust. That's how we live the Christian life.

So these blessings that we have and the strengthening that happens are while we're in Christ. Another verse that may be a parallel verse possibly is Colossians 2, 7a, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him, and constantly being established in your faith. And it's the same established word we had, I just told you about, and it's the idea, once again, it's present tense, constantly being established.

Okay, so let's just go back and think about, just for a second. So I want to go back and kind of think about this for a second. So, one of the questions is, and I, Who is the he? Who is the he who is establishing us? And so I think we're gonna answer that. I'm not gonna answer it again. I'm gonna talk about it, not answer it. But think about what we're gonna see in the rest of the verses. We're gonna see something about what God is doing. And the question is, which person of the Trinity is in focus here? I think I've already kind of given it away. Okay, and he who anoints us is God. So the Old Testament picture was this of anointment.

In 1 Samuel 6.13, remember this is the occasion, hopefully you're readers of the Old Testament or you learned it in Sunday school maybe. This is a picture where Samuel, God told Samuel to go out and find, he wanted, you know Saul had some big problems, so he said, you're out of here, Saul.

And so he goes to David's family, Benjaminites, I think it is. And he has seven brothers, eight children all together. And so he goes through all the seven brothers. And eventually he finds that the Lord says, David is the man. David is the man I've chosen to lead Israel.

So the verse goes like this. Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and God told him to do this. God said, take a horn of oil and anoint him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David. So the picture here is that he pours this oil out. He anoints him by this oil.

So the question is, what does that anointing look like? Do Mike and I come to each of you in the body here and we pour some oil on your head? Is that what we do? No, that's not the picture, obviously. Okay, so anointing, the word in the New Testament is chiro. set apart for service and the ministry of God, the ministry of Christ by the gift of the Holy Spirit. It's a past point fact.

It happens to every believer the moment you believe. The moment you put your faith and trust in Christ, you are anointed. You don't feel some oil coming down your head. It happens, that's one of those marvelous blessings we have when we come to Christ. Remember, we have a class where we look at the riches of God's grace, 33 things that happen to a person once he believes, and this is one of those.

So in 1 John 2.20 it says, but you have, we have it, you have an anointing from the Holy Spirit, from the Holy One, and you all know.

So Chafer says here, therefore it is implied that every Christian being anointed is indwelt by the Spirit, indwelling and anointing are in reality the same thing. So every believer has the Holy Spirit and that Holy Spirit is in a sense the anointing that we have. He is the anointing. The Holy Spirit is given to guide us into all the truth. That's a verse, okay?

And the second one, who God also seals us. So a seal, here's a picture I found basically of a seal on like a scroll. A seal in the Roman world signifies ownership, authenticity, and security. So the seal, the word for seal here is, I'm not gonna pronounce that either. It's in the middle voice, which shows that the sealer, the Holy Spirit, is intimately interested in who he's sealing. And it's a past point fact, so you could say having been sealed, having been sealed for himself. So we see another verse that talks about that.

Ephesians 1.13, in him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, so you see what happens before you can be sealed. You listen to the gospel of truth and you believe that, you trust it in that, and what happened?

Here's another blessing that we have without, we don't realize it, you are sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise. So the Holy Spirit is intimately involved in the salvation of men and intimately involved in the gift that they receive. It is the very presence of the Holy Spirit in the believer which constitutes the seal. So both those first two, the anointing and the sealing, it's really the Holy Spirit coming into their lives. And that's kind of important to realize, something I hadn't thought about in a while, but it's really critical that you see that the Holy Spirit is the seal, He also is the anointing. Thus the seal of God, in addition to the promises of God, guarantee the the believer's eternal security.

So we see all these wonderful truths, they kind of stack up, if you will. We see all these, I'm sealed, I'm anointed, I'm blessed with every spiritual blessing, all these wonderful truths that stack up that guarantee the believer that he's eternally secure in God. And then lastly, God gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge.

So the fourth one is didomai, didomai. Spoken of God as the author or the source of what one has or receives. The idea is to give, to grant, bestow. Once again, a past point fact, it's a reality. You receive that the moment you believe. And so here's a couple uses of this word.

In 2 Corinthians 5.5 it says, he who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us the spirit as a pledge. Then in Romans 5, 5-5b, the love of God, which has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit, was given to us. God has given us the Holy Spirit once, once and for all, to every believer. So let's think about the pledge for a second. The pledge, and this is interesting, this word pledge, arbon, arbon, The pledge was earnest money put down as a deposit and guarantee for the consummation of the contract. Unfortunately, I haven't had much experience with putting pledges down, because I can't get to that point yet.

We're looking for a house. I have the opposite problem. I could sell my house tomorrow, but I've got to find a house to buy. And to find a house to buy, in Denver, in the area, you have to be the first there with the money, or the first there with the most money, or the first there with cash.

And we haven't done that yet, so I haven't been able to put my pledge down. Well, pledge in the real estate world, I asked Mike for advice on my pledge or my earnest money. I said, well, Roger, you can put your earnest money down, but when they do the inspection, you can say, hey, I don't like your roof, I don't like your plumbing, I don't like your whatever, and you can get out of the deal. Well, this word in the original, when you put down the pledge money, it was a done deal.

It was guaranteed to happen. And that's what's so wonderful. This pledge that we have, that the Lord's given us from the Holy Spirit, is a pledge that cannot be broken. Once that was accomplished, it's a done deal. It's God gave us a token payment, guaranteeing the payment in full of our salvation. So here's another wonderful blessing that we have that God has given us that guarantees our salvation. Which token payment is a spirit in our hearts.

In the New Testament, a pledge is used of only that which is assured by God to believers. So notice here that actually in the verse that we just covered here, the picture of the Trinity, we see God the Father in verse 18, God is faithful. We see the God, God the Son, Christ Jesus in verse 19. And then we see the Spirit in our hearts in 22.

Okay, so just now to answer my question, I have my summary, but I wanted to, let's go to the summary here. Actually, no, I have more thoughts. Excuse me. More thoughts. Okay, let's do the thoughts first. So, if you think, you know, this is a very, this passage is a very uplifting passage because it says that God has done something on our behalf, not based upon our actions, not based upon all the old ladies we helped across the street, not based upon how much we've given, how much, what do we think of our lives?

Totally based upon one thing, our trust and faith in the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Totally based upon that, these are the things that He's given us. Each one of the four parts in this passage speaks to security. The truth is asserted that the presence of the Spirit in the believer's heart is a foretaste of a knowledge-surpassing experience of divine blessing yet to be enjoyed in glory. The passage breathes no intimation of uncertainty, either about the present blessings or about a future consummation.

Okay, I have final thoughts, and they're from Schaefer as well. Okay, to answer your question, I was reading, kind of a late, I was reading J. Vernon McGee down last night about, hmm, I should have gone to bed, but it was, I don't know. I go to bed early, I was about 10, I'm reading, and J. Vernon McGee says, you know the passages, those passages, 2 Corinthians 1, 21 and 22, they have a picture of the Holy Spirit, he just went on and on about how marvelous it was about the Holy Spirit, and he says, you know, in that first part of the verse it says, he who establishes us, he says, well who is that? Think about it, read the rest of the passage.

That's the Holy Spirit too. That's all about the Holy Spirit. So all that's about the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He's establishing us. He's sealing us. He's a pledge. So it's just marvelous. It's a marvelous passage. So here's some final comments by Chafer.

The four immediate results of the Spirit's indwelling are here suggested. The baptism with the Spirit places the believer in Christ, thus each child of God is said to now be established in Christ. Likewise, by the giving of the Spirit, God has anointed us. Again, God through the Spirit has sealed us and the Spirit himself is the seal. Isn't it interesting how these words, the picture in the Old Testament was one thing, but the picture we now have, the person of the Holy Spirit is the seal.

He is the anointing. It's just amazing. So also, it is here said to have given us the Spirit as an earnest. and since an earnest is a part of the purchased money, or property, given in advance as security for the remainder, the Spirit is seen to be the earnest of the whole heavenly inheritance, which belongs to every believer through infinite grace." You know, just amazing, amazing passages.

So let's just close. We thank you, Father. Thank you for our time today, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have. and our Savior. Thank you for the wonderful ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives and we thank you that we didn't do anything. We simply believe. We simply trusted in what you've done and you provided these wonderful blessings that we have and the wonderful security that we have in our Savior. We ask it in His name. Amen.