Second Corinthians 5:11-15 Controlling Love
2 Corinthians 5:11-15 · Mike Doyle · Apr 24, 2022
Letters to the Corinthians, No. 104
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261926465194

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

So today we're going to work from 2 Corinthians chapter five, 11 through 15, but I thought I'd back up and maybe start in 10, because it sort of fits together. Actually, I could start in nine, but I'll start in 10. Roger covered verse 10 the last two weeks prior to Easter.

So verse 10, for we must all appear, before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed or received for his deeds in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest to God, and I hope that we are made manifest also in your conscience. We are not again commending ourselves to you, but are giving you an occasion to be proud of us so that you will have an answer for those who take pride in appearance and not in heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God. If we are of sound mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died. And he died for all so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf.

Those are the verses that we're gonna cover today, 11 through 15. Notice it says that, Therefore knowing the fear of the Lord. This word know is an interesting word. We need to know the Lord in order to understand the scriptures. And an intimacy with him which is a little bit greater than just knowing him in order to understand his sayings and his ways.

So we do have now union with him. in a heavenly marriage, Revelation 19, and the Lamb is public and declares relationships that have already been established. We've already been established in Christ. The testimony of this timeframe is preparedness for Christ's coming. You ever think about that, that that's really what we're doing? We are preparing for the coming of Christ, because the next great event in human history is gonna be the rapture. We're getting ready for that. So it's devotedness tells us, tells on people, that is the result of acquaintance.

J.B. Stoney said, look at him. One hour, it's a very interesting phrase. One hour of looking at him, beholding his glory, will do more for you than two hours of reading the word. Well, I'm not sure I agree with him because reading the word is how you behold him. But look to Him, when you pick up your Bible to read it, you're really looking for intimacy with Christ. The spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. So, I think it's an excitement of one to God. To the Hebrews, the big excitement was for the priest to go into the Holy of Holies.

For us, it's beholding the glory of the Lord Jesus. So, The whole testimony now is that we're waiting for Christ. That's what we're up to. Okay, therefore knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest to God, and I hope that you are made manifest also, that we are made manifest also in your conscience. Where did this knowledge of this fear of the Lord come from? It came from verse 10.

We all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ. And as Rodgers really did a great job of showing what a gracious and wonderful thing that the behemoth's gonna be. It's the judgment seat of Christ. The fact that any of us have to face judgment, or someone's gonna review our behavior and rule on whether it was good or bad, creates a little intrepidness in us, I think.

But once you've done, once you've been before the Lord Jesus, and bared your soul to him, and then you begin to realize, well, wait a minute, he didn't accuse me or condemn me for things done in the flesh that were bad. He only rewarded me for things that are good. But I had to go before him. I had to be before him in terms of the judgment. And that in and of itself is a difficult thing because we're exposed, for lack of a better way to put it. But I discovered by God's grace that I was exempted from judgment. I now participate in everlasting life. That's all I do.

He has in the Lord Jesus a perfectly efficacious Savior, meaning that he's done it all for me. He's standing before the judgment seat, assumes the character and manifestation and in no way of trial with the awful possibility of destruction. And God didn't compromise at all with any of us. When he saved us, he already knew about us and who we were in the flesh. And we stand now before him in the glorified Christ.

But we had to give an account. Well, that has an effect on us. There's no condemnation there, but I had to give an account. Now, when you think about what God is doing here with us, it's difficult, I think, in my eyes or in man's eyes, but it suits God perfectly.

Because his grace and his glory are showered on me all because of what Christ did. And he harmonizes with the testimony of the Holy Spirit to me. The seal of the Holy Spirit can never be broken. and it is for God's glory, not for mine necessarily. It's a perfect blessing for me as a believer.

Everything should stand out in the light and he himself should know, even as he is known, you and I should know exactly how God views us. So at the Bema, there's merciful care of the overruling power of God and all of our ways we're learning that we owe everything to God's grace. The resources and activities of that grace, of our checkered history and experience, and even as saints, and the boundless patience of God at the last, as well as the rich mercy at the first, even now. What a comfort for us we have.

You can renounce the dishonesty in your natural heart, and you all know it's there. We are in the light of God and have no guile in the Spirit, as those who know Him, who by redemption can and will impute nothing to us. This is true to faith now that we believe in Him who suffered once for us For what reason that he might bring us to God? Not a cloud, not a spot.

The blood of Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. It is perfect love. And perfect love casts out all fear. We love him, why? Because he first loved us. We don't shrink back, but we welcome the light that shines on us. We welcome the light that makes everything visible. We have been, as the verse says, and are manifested to God. He sees us. So it has an effect on you and I as believers. It makes us qualified. for the sharing of the inheritance of the saints.

And where are those saints? They're in the light. There's nothing hidden. There's nothing dark. Because we don't walk in darkness anymore. We're in the light. We once did walk in darkness, but now we walk in the true knowledge of God. We walk in the light even as he is in the light.

So this verse 11, the one word in this verse that scares believers is the word fear. Reverential fear according to Vine's expository dictionary. Reverential fear of God as a controlling motive of life in matters of spiritual and moral conduct. But Vine says not a mere fear of his power and his righteous retribution but a wholesome dread of displeasing him, a fear which banishes the terror that shrinks from his presence and which influences the disposition and attitude of one whose circumstances are guided by the trust in God through the indwelling spirit of God. Maybe put it another way, the referential fear of God will inspire a constant carefulness in dealing with others.

In other words, I think the word we use in contemporary English is awesome. God is so awesome that when you're with him and you deal with other believers, you wanna be very, very careful because of how awesome he is. It confirms the necessities of the universality of the manifestation of reverential fear.

For there's no reason to soften it down, you don't need to, the fear of the Lord, because there is no force of persuading men if you do soften it down. If it does not mean the heart of the saint urged in love by the tremendous sense of divine judgment impending on neglected yet guilty sinner, think about that. If we stand before God in any way and we recognize that he has every right to condemn us because of our behavior, yet he doesn't, and we're awed by him because he loves us, we wanna tell other people about that.

We don't wanna soften it down. We want them to know that if Christ isn't believed in, you've got a huge problem. And it's not just that you're gonna be fined. The fact is is that that if you've ever studied through Revelation, which we're doing on Tuesday now, what's gonna happen to this world is incredible. And think about a person in your life that isn't a believer that you love. What are they headed to? Where are they going? It's not gonna be fun.

There are times, though, that when what is always true in our position can be applied powerfully, in fact, in our condition, whom God gives in quiet time. Sometimes the Lord will show us in a quiet time some issue that's either ego-based or self-love based or flattery based. It shows a weakness in self-judgment. And he'll show us that and at the same time give us assurance of his unchangeable favor to us. And it's all because of what he did in Christ. We're not in the ego fix-up business. God is in the replacement business. He recreates us in Christ.

So it's a great gain to us when we have a time like that on the earth. Though the process might be imperfect, greater still if more of it shows if I habitually am walking in darkness. How full of a blessing when everything is shown in love and in light with Christ. That's a real benefit.

So he says, knowing therefore this fear of the Lord, this awesomeness of Christ, what does he do? He persuades men. We have been manifested to God and I hope we have been manifested to your conscience also. Deep and loud and consistent the call for those who believe to stir those who don't believe. While the day of grace lingers. Short time. It's getting shorter all the time. That they may not be unwarned about the judgment which will be theirs. can't be, their ruin can't be fixed.

To persuade men on the one hand of the wickedness and recklessness and the danger of sin, but on the other hand of the reality, the freeness of the fullness and certainty of salvation in Christ. Knowing His love, we realize for them what unbelief easily forgets until it's too late. and would therefore be a more serious the call to repentance in the light of the gospel of grace. We are freer because we have been and are manifested to God. Our guilt is gone. We're justified. We are children of light. We did once live in darkness, but we now live in the light of the Lord.

And because of that, we speak. and we speak what we know, and we press a remedy, a deliverance, one that we have proved, or to maybe put it better, that God has proved to us. We are already manifested to God, so let it ever be so profound it wakens no alarm for ourselves, but it does awaken anxiety for men, for all in their natural state who do not have Christ. So, knowing therefore the fear of the Lord, a motive was that judgment with the reverential fear of the Lord for men to preach the gospel. Preaching the gospel sometimes, I would say more times, is not done by words. It's done by the way we live.

People can see it. They can see the gospel. They can see the grace that we live under. and more because of a clear conscience before God. It is all out before God and I trust it is before you. So what Paul is saying, I've stood before God. He's seen all that I am. I don't have to look back. I can behold the glory of the Lord Jesus and I hope also I and this life is manifested to your conscience. The judgment to the lost was sure and speaks fully about it. We don't have any problem with the fact that we were under judgment.

But Paul could only say, I hope so. I hope also, not because it should have been doubtful, but because a non-believer's condition was not at all what he could wish for. Everybody we know and even unbelievers that we don't know, when we start thinking about the alternative to being with Christ for all eternity is such a scary thought that somehow we hope and we pray that they would get the message. The Corinthian saints, though, thought in a measure restored and restoring had not dealt with Paul as mature believers should deal with them.

Our love should always be able to count on others' love. But he had to say of them, the more abundantly that I love you, the less he was loved. So Paul felt, as we have seen, that he maybe could appeal to their conscience now that self-judgment was begun in the Corinthians. We have been and are manifested to God and I hope also to have been manifested in your conscience. I don't think we realize how much of a testimony we are just by the way we live. But when you think about it though, it's kind of seem antagonistic to men who are enjoying self complacency.

But it is really what every saint walking in the truth with integrity of heart is entitled to say. Whatever an enemy might insinuate, a blessed state or a statement doubtless, but what does not grace give to an impact in the Christian? And when strife and self-feeling are rebuked, and silent conscience cannot but approve what is of God, even in those who most insulted like the apostle. That's from William Kelly. In this confidence of love, he had written to and quickly guards the sheep from any misleading information, and for this and for their sakes rather for his own, An insult indeed injures, not the assailed, but those who are influenced by it.

So then he says in verse 12, we are not again commending ourselves to you, but are giving you an occasion to be proud of us, so that you will have an answer for those who take pride in appearance and not in heart. There were those who, while ingratiating themselves with the Corinthians assembly, their motives were to elevate their own reputation and lower the apostle's reputation, were blinded by the enemy to attribute to him their own devious ways. Paul loved the saints with a pure conscience and unselfish heart, and he counted on their confidence now that grace had begun to work to restore them. He did not seek to commend himself by what he said in his ministry, so neither did he again by appealing to their conscience as to his ways.

When you translate this with another, with a different translation, he was giving them an occasion to boast about him. The Weymouth translation says, we're not again commending ourselves to your favor, but we are furnishing you with a ground of boasting on our behalf. so that you may have a reply ready for those with whom superficial appearances are everything, and sincerity of heart counts for nothing. We all have friends that are superficial, I like that word, and things that come out of them are not sincere of heart, but it's all about appearances.

For on the one hand, holiness and truth go together. Concern for God's glory and the love of his children on one side. On the other hand, there are those, however, nice in his presence aimed at undermining the apostle. We're saying not the master, but their own self. I'm sorry, we're serving not the master, but their own self. Their own natural ambitions and their own natural desires.

I think we see that a lot within the body of Christ where people, it's always about them. It's never about the Lord Jesus really. But was he not inconsistent and impulsive? At one time so ecstatic that nobody could follow his moves? At another time so calm to chill his brethren and curtail his liberty?

He says, not so. Verse 13 says, if we are beside ourselves, it is for God. If we are sound of mind, it is for you. Cold as the heart that knows that no joy before God as one thinks of his grace in Christ. What's interesting, this phrase, are beside ourselves, was them accusing Paul of being crazy.

This is a term that says, well, this guy's out of control. Well, Paul can come down to the most ordinary questions of a daily walk. He can regulate the relations of a husband and wife. He can regulate the relations of a master and a slave, or employer and employee. He can prescribe the walk of a weak man. And he can encourage a woman who has a taste in fancy clothes.

There's only one name but one which draws out and accounts for both feelings, raising the heart above all that is seen temporal, yet giving the liveliest interest and the smallest detail of life that now is. And he who bears that name is the Lord Jesus Christ. People think that Paul was crazy because he made extravagant claims about Christ. They thought he was a fanatic with which one Paul dedicates himself to his service. No one was more dedicated than the Apostle Paul. Even in Mark chapter three, verse 20 and 21, Mark remarks about the Lord Jesus.

He says, and he came home and the crowd gathered again to such an extent that they would not even eat a meal. And when his own people heard this, they went out to take custody of him. For they were saying, he has lost his senses. He is beside himself. He's crazy.

For if we are beside ourselves, Paul said, it is for God if we are of sound minds for you. So he shows his enthusiasm on one side, but he can sit and talk calmly and manifest the life of the Lord Jesus. So what's the answer to dealing with someone who has this intensity about him, but also has a calmness about him, verse 11 and 12. He knew the fear of the Lord, the awesome fear of Christ, and he persuaded men. But he was manifested to God. He said, I hope I'm manifested to your conscience. And not, again, commending ourselves to you, but giving you occasion to be proud of us.

And then he says a really cool verse, he says, for the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died. So what's the real motive of why Paul does what he does? It's the love of Christ, that's his motive. Chester McCauley said this can mean a couple of things. First, the love we have for Christ. If it were in what he calls the objective genitive case, that would be the meaning, our love for Christ. Paul has fallen under the dominating control of his love for Christ. But then he says it also can be a subjective genitive. In that case, it would be that the love of Christ has for us. Macaulay says, can it be both? He says, yes, one doesn't exclude the other. So which is it? How do we decide?

I think this verse 14 decides it for us, for the love of Christ controls us. having concluded that this, that one died for all, then all were dead. How did Christ prove that he loved us? He died for us. The love of Christ controlling us has two aspects to it. It motivates us to go forward, but it constrains us from going too fast, too far. It keeps us right on track perfectly all the time. So again, the word control means to be hemmed in, without options, not having any choices.

There's not options but to serve him. That's what Paul said, I only have one option and that's to serve our dear Lord. And that's what the death of Christ does for us. If you look at Luke 22, 63, now the men who were holding Jesus in custody were mocking him and beating him. The word holding there is the same word as control here, holding him. Christ's love for us has incarcerated us, so to speak. We have no choice but to serve him. So the love of Christ controls us.

We've concluded from that that one died for all, therefore all died. What would be the use of going down into death if men were not all there in that horrible place? We talked about it last week. There is this place called death. and we're all born into it and we can't get out of it. It's impossible for us to get out of it ourselves.

So what happens? The Lord Jesus went there and opened up the way out and took us out with him. The epistle to the Romans takes up the conduct of men and we find there with my conduct and Christ's work. In Ephesians, it takes up the condition of men and then there, is a new creation. To come out of that place of sin requires a new creation. There was no more worthless conceit than man's unimprovable-ness. Improvable-ness. Men cannot improve themselves. It's impossible to do. We don't need more intellectual culture. We don't need a distant hope of further moral training. That's what you get when you go to a psychiatrist. He had judged this that if one died for all, since that's true, then all were dead, separated from God, couldn't get back. Christ's death for all is a proof that it was all over with Adam, with mankind.

If he went down in grace to the grave, it was just because men were already there and could not otherwise be delivered. He went into the place where death reigned. For what reason? To rescue those who couldn't rescue themselves. In this way of death, Christ is here known. One died for all because all were under death, under it. For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded, oops, wrong verse. And he died for all, purpose clause, that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf. Two basic conclusions here. Since Christ died for all, and he died for you and me and our place, all have undergone death. By implication, there would be no double jeopardy. You don't have to die twice. spiritually.

I have died having concluded this, that one died for all. It's about my death. And that's what identification truths are really all about. That I was crucified with Christ. I did die. I did get separated. And I did get rescued out of that place of death. The thing about death is that it leaves no options. If I'm rescued out of there, I don't have an option when I come out. I have to live for him.

He died so that I would no longer live to myself. No longer is a time expression that marks the day that Paul understood what the cross really meant. No more living for Paul. No more living for Mike. No more living for me. It's now to live for Christ alone. So, drawing a conclusion, therefore, short of this is the judgment of the Christian as Paul sees it.

If there's no denial of the fatal effects of sin, if death is seen and owned to be written on all men, the death of Christ, though so unsparingly in its importance, becomes the ground of deliverance. Because, why? He died for all. All those who live because of Him should never live for themselves, but only to Him.

The same time, it's no less appropriate here that we're talking about spiritual death. not physical death. We're probably, unless the rapture happens, we're probably all gonna physically die, but really, what is physical death? It means I get to check out of the last remnants of what had to do with death, and I get to be home with the Lord. I get to leave. It's my ticket out of here.

There is then life in him risen, and it's not in him only, but in those who believe. because he is our life. And such is the meaning of those who live, not merely those alive on the earth, though this is implied, of course, but living his life in contrast to all those that are dead.

I used to say that people would talk about death as though it was a corpse in a box someplace, and I said, no, If you go out, if you go over to Colfax Avenue and just sit on a bench over there and watch what happens, you're watching death. Death moves, has a life, turn on the news at night, what are they telling you about? This is what death did today. It's a solemn judgment of faith that all are dead.

Whatever appearance may say, it is, it is, It's no less sure but happy judgment that Christ died for all, that those who live shouldn't live to themselves. True love according to God tells us that all are dead, but in faith of Christ's death seeks that others too might believe and live, and that those who live should live to Christ. We observe that Christ's resurrection is associated only with those who live. If Christ died for all, he earnestly sought all and he preached to all. Thus Paul sees death come in for all and judgment awaiting men as such. And because this was the fact for all, Christ died for all.

Promises don't do you any good. They don't benefit anything. So complete is man's ruin. Otherwise, we would have a living Messiah, not one who suffered death. Only a Savior who died could meet the case, and he died for all purpose, that we wouldn't live to ourselves anymore. The death of Christ closes the door. not for him only who died, but for those that by and in him live on the world and on man. Not all men, sadly, but only those who live, really live to him, who have died and risen with him. Amen? Amen.