Second Corinthians 5:14-18
2 Corinthians 5:14-18 · Mike Doyle · Mar 1, 2015
Specials, No. 17
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49264575244

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

Good morning. Were you all privileged to get all the photographs that Verne sent in the emails? Well, there was one that sort of I laughed at. It shows it shows Courtney standing here and Verne standing over here and they're standing on these pylons and Courtney's holding his hands up in the air and Verne is standing over here and he's just standing here. And the captain had something to do with, well, this is where a certain building was built. You know what struck me? This is the legalist. This is the guy living under grace. So we're going to talk today about the new creation. In verse 17 that Courtney read, it says, Behold, all things have become new. Everything's new to us. And it's a result of Christ's work.

Now, a lot of what we're going to talk about today has to do with positional truth. And I want to take a minute and talk a little bit about position, condition and principles and a few things like that, because I think it will help us understand these verses. Positional truth is based on a principle. So the first question is, what's a principle? It's not the person who heads your high school. It's a basic truth or it's a law or it's a rule concerning the functioning of a natural phenomenon or a mechanical process.

It operates the same way every single time. It's primary. A principle of modern physics is the principle of gravity. It operates the same way every time. So are there such things as spiritual principles that operate the same way every time? Answer, yes, there are. And so all natural and spiritual life and growth is based on the principle of position. It can be summed up in a single word, and the word is source. It's the point, or the origin, or the beginning. It's where it originates. So, where did we originate? We all came from Adam, right? That's our source.

And the principle that he is, through our physical birth, we entered the human race. We have a position. And that position is in Adam. And from him, we derive characteristics, we derive source of the kind of life we have. We are really the product of our position. So in spiritual birth, it's the same way. When we're born again, or born anew, into the risen Lord Jesus, He now becomes our source. In Him, we are positioned before the Father. We live and move and have our very being in Him. So all men can be divided up into two categories and it has to do with their source.

Is their position in Adam? Or are they positioned in the Lord Jesus Christ? There's no middle ground. You're in one or the other. If you happen to be in Adam, there's a few scriptures that probably would make you a little nervous. 1 Corinthians 15 22 in Adam all die Ephesians 2 3 by nature you're the children of wrath John 3 16 which is born of the flesh it is flesh it's what you are how about the source of the Christian life you change positions the source changes your source now is perfect It's the Lord Jesus Christ.

He had been eternally established in the presence of the Father. Can't be changed. When we receive Christ as our personal Savior, the Holy Spirit caused us to be born into Jesus Christ. We were recreated into this brand new position that we enjoy. And we are established, and that was established by the work of Christ at Calvary. So a couple of things about position. One, it's unchangeable. It can't ever be changed. It's the perfect work of God. He did it for the believer.

Next to that is this other term called condition. What does condition mean? It refers to the changing, imperfect, condition of one's soul moment to moment. When I'm walking around today, I enjoy this position I have in Christ, but my condition may not reflect it at all. I may not demonstrate any characteristics of the position that I enjoy.

So the question is, which one is real? Which one is reality? In the Sunday School class on faith, we're talking about the things of God, the essence of faith. The things of God are reality. My condition or what I think about them may or may not be reality. My condition fluctuates. The problem that I think we have as believers is the fact that we put a lot of faith in my experience and my condition or how I feel about something is more real than what the Word of God tells me my position is.

So the next element that moves into this is the element of faith. It gives me that secure position. And it enables me to adhere to the principles that are governing that position in my spiritual life. And it secures the daily benefits that are offered to me in the position that I have. Faith is the vehicle by which I enter into all of that.

The Lord Jesus in his wisdom, and God in his wisdom, puts us through experiences which I would call divine training and development. And it's to the end, to put it as simply as I can understand it, to the end it is that my condition would line up perfectly with my position. that I would function exactly like what my source is, who is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And God tells us in his word that that is exactly what he's up to all the time. In Romans 8, 28 and 29, he says we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. If you're positioned in Christ, you have been and I have been called according to God's purpose. for whom he did foreknow he predestined to be, what, conformed to the image of his Son.

His Son is our position. There's a conformity process that goes on moment by moment so that we might be like Christ, who is our source, who is our position. So in Romans 5, 1 and 2, Paul says, therefore, having been justified by faith We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we also have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand. Not going to stand, we do stand there right now. We have obtained by grace a position before God in the Lord Jesus Christ right now. And we exalt in the hope of the glory of God.

Or Colossians 2.10 says, And in Him we have been made complete position. And He is the head over all rule and all authority. So let's talk about a couple of verses that would maybe contrast or show the difference in position and condition. In 1 Corinthians, Paul says to the Corinthians, to the church of God which is in Corinth, to those who have been sanctified, set apart, already done, in Jesus Christ, They are saints by calling, who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.

I thank my God, always concerning you, for the grace of God which has been given to you in Christ Jesus. I already have it. And that in everything you were enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you. So that you are lacking in no gift, you've got it all. Awaiting eagerly the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ who will confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful through whom you were called into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ.

Position, position, position, position. This is who I am, who I am, who I am. Now listen to what he says a few verses later. This is condition. For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you. And I, brethren, could not speak to you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink and not solid food, for you are not yet able to receive it. That doesn't sound like position to me. It's condition. Within the same first couple of chapters of 1 Corinthians is this contrast between a position that a believer enjoys and the condition that he may find himself into.

In 1 Corinthians 4.18, Paul says to these positioned believers, now some of you have become arrogant. as though I were not coming to you. Or in 5.2, he says, and you have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst. So, just to review, as we go through things and as you read the Word of God and as you study and hang out with believers, I think it's important that we should keep in mind, what are we talking about?

Are we talking about position? Are we talking about condition? And what's the principle involved? The principle involved is that if I have a principle of position, it can't be changed, and that's who I am. My condition can be floating all over the place, but the reality is in my position, not my condition.

So in the scriptures we've just read, or Courtney just read out of the NIV, I'll be reading out of the New American Standard just so we can clear it up. Verse 18 says, Now all these things are from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ.

So I think everything starts with understanding what reconciliation really is. If you look at Vines dictionary, it says to change from enmity to friendship, to reconcile. Reconciliation is the removing of everything that is between me and God, or maybe put it a better way, it is the removing of everything that's between God and the sinner, who I used to be. Reconciliation means that someone or something has been thoroughly changed and adjusted to something which is a standard or a principle. In the Old Testament use of the word reconciliation, most of the time, and probably all the time, the word reconciliation really meant atonement.

But in the Word of God in the New Testament, by the death of Christ on its behalf, the whole world is thoroughly changed in its relationship to God. Understand that? A little difficult. But God is never said to be reconciled to man. Man is said to be reconciled to God. What it means is that his position has been altered, respecting the judgments of God through the cross of Christ, that God is now not imputing their sin to them. The world is rendered savable. That's the change. That's the change. And each of us individuals, and each individuals are in a position now to be saved by God because of the work of Christ on the cross.

First Corinthians 5.17, Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things have passed away. Behold, everything has become new.

It's a position wherein the Word of God says the soul of the believer who is in Christ is totally changed. The general relationship or the basis of salvation can be offered to man now, which is namely that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself. And that the mental attitude or the trust of the individual heart when he sees and accepts by faith the value of the death of Christ, his attitude changes. Verse 20 says, therefore we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were making an appeal through us, we beg you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God. It's there for the taking. So if the position of the world has changed before God, it's through the death of Christ. God's own attitude towards men can't be the same as it was before.

He's prepared now to deal with souls in the light of what Christ has accomplished. This might seem that God has changed, but it's not a reconciliation on God's side, it's a reconciliation on man's side. God, on the contrary, believes completely in the work of what Christ has done, and he accepts it. So he continues being just, but at the same time, he can justify the sinner who believes in and accepts the Savior. That's what reconciliation is.

I think one of the biggest problems we have as believers is we don't have a handle on the distance between the sinner and God. We don't really know how far that distance was. We could say, well, I think it's because of my sins, and that would sort of describe it, but not as accurately is if you went to the root of the matter, and I'm sure it's caused a lot of us unhappy times, it's really the sin nature. It's the flesh that we have. It astounds us to really come to grips with the scriptures that says, the flesh profits nothing. Or, they that are in the flesh, they can't please God. They can't do it. They may want to, but they can't.

And then before the flood, God said, all flesh has come before me. And so he sends the flood. So to span that distance, it took the cross of Christ to complete it. Verse 14, for the love of God of Christ controls us, having concluded that one died for all, therefore all died. And he died for all so that they who live might no longer live to themselves, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf.

I've got a couple of quotes here from some authors I admire. One is T. Austin Sparks. He says, It is for want of a complete and adequate realization of the meaning of the cross that so many Christians are carnal, or try to live for God out of themselves. This goes on to the root of every present weakness and poverty of spiritual life. There's much prayer for revival and much effort for the deepening of the spiritual life. The only answer to this is a new knowing of the cross, not only as to sins and a life of victory over them, but as to Christ has supplanted the natural man.

We'll talk a little bit more about that as we go on. William Newell says, we are apt to think that what we have done is very bad, but we ourselves are not so bad. God is taking pains to show us that we ourselves are wrong, fundamentally wrong. I would say we were wrong, fundamentally wrong.

The root trouble is the sinner He must be dealt with. Our sins are dealt with by the blood, but we ourselves are dealt with by the cross. The blood procures our pardon for what we have done. The cross procures our deliverance for what we are. Now Paul can say, based on that information. In the next verse he says, therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh. We still walk around in flesh and we do our battle in the flesh.

But think about who was it that Paul, when Paul met the Lord Jesus Christ, who did he meet? He didn't meet the pre-crucified Christ or the buried Christ or the resurrected Christ, he met from the very beginning the glorified Christ from the heavenlies.

That was his first exposure, his first introduction to Christ himself. Does that change things for him and his understanding? And it would certainly change my understanding as if my first exposure to the Lord Jesus Christ was the character of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ manifested in all of his glory in front of me. The first glimpse is the glorified man, so there's a change in position there. I think another misunderstanding about the new creation is that if we haven't grasped the distance of the reconciliation, The other thing that we have trouble is, is that how does God affect this reconciliation if I come from Adam, the first man? The first man's got to be removed. It seems really simple. When you first take a look at it, there's another man to replace him.

And the new man to replace him is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. If we are to have a new position before God, then the one whom we have that position in must be before God. So the Lord Jesus Christ now, we think about up until the time of Christ's work, his coming to the earth and his work, God dealt with mankind based on Adam, because everybody that he dealt with was from Adam. Now we have a new man. The new man is the Lord Jesus Christ.

And those of us who are in him, we have a new source. And God now not only deals with me and you as believers from that source, but he deals with the whole world now from that source. Like I said before, he renders the earth savable. Now, if you look at verse 16, it says, even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him in this way no longer. Wow.

The Lord Jesus went down into death and he was raised from the dead and it's on the ground of the risen and glorified man that we are justified. We have a brand new position and the position is the glorified man, new man, kind and quality. Our new position is given us if we believe on him that raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.

And then Paul says, and he died for all, so that they who live might no longer live unto themselves, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf. If I'm functioning out of my condition, and Adam is the source of my life at any given moment, I'm living for me, and only me. If I'm living positioned in Christ, And He is before me as an object of my love and my faith. I'm living for Him only because of my new position.

It's very difficult, I think, for us as believers to understand that the Lord Jesus died and rose again for one reason here, that we don't live under ourselves anymore. Well, I know what you're thinking. If I don't live under myself, how am I going to pay my bills? How am I going to function in the environment that God has put me in? Which would say that, well, I don't believe Christ can pull it off. I don't believe, really, my faith isn't strong enough in who I am in Christ, that He is who He says He is.

And what happens is, as time goes on and the work of the Spirit conforms us to His image, we begin to find out the sovereignty of God, that what He says He means, And that everything he tells us about our position in him, which works into our condition, is true. And there is no responsibility that's left undone. Because most of the responsibilities God calls us to be as believers, we can't do anyway. We are dependent on him to function and to carry out what he has called us to be.

Now, if we see Christ in the grave, the one desire we have is that he be out of the grave, that he be resurrected. Is he? Yeah. He was delivered for our offenses, and he was raised for our justification. So therefore, we arrive at this statement of new position, verse 17. Therefore, if any man is in Christ, if that's true of you, your position, You are a new creation. Brand new creation. Not made over. Brand new creation. Old things have passed away.

Remember what we said when we first started. All natural or spiritual life or growth are based on the principle of position. It can be summed up in one word, which is source. I know that some understand this doctrine to mean that old things are going to get improved, that I'm going to get better. I've got to say, no way. I wish I knew how to say, may it never be. Old things have passed away. Behold, new things have come. New here means new state of being or newness of kind, brand new.

So you hear information like this, and what do you think? Well, it's kind of in-depth. But it introduces another proclamation in verse 18, where Paul says, now all things are from God. New source. So I think as we proceed now, we're going to see more and more the beginnings of reconciliation here. It's been completed, and it's been completed by the resurrection of Christ.

Having said all of that, if you're like me, every once in a while I go to God and say, well, I don't quite understand this. How about proof? It seems a little arrogant, maybe, to go to God and say, how about some proof? How about some confirmation? You know what I think the confirmation is? It's in Romans 5, 5.

Hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit was given unto us. The only bond between me and God is the Holy Spirit. And in Romans 8, 9, he says, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he's none of his. Well, I do and you do. It's not none of his, but it's none of him. For this reason, he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. We only have one responsibility as we are introduced to positional truth, and that's to believe it. We have no other responsibility. We belong to the Lord in whom also after you have believed you were sealed. The Spirit of God is our link between who we are sitting here in a pew and the Lord Jesus Christ in the heavenlies.

And the Lord Jesus talked about the Spirit in John 4.14 when he says, whoever drinks of this water I give shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give shall be in him a well of water springing up unto everlasting life. The really great thing I think to grasp here is that the flesh is gone before God, positionally, and that the only link with Christ is the Spirit of God. There can't be any other link.

So in dealing with the Holy Spirit in the verses I just read in Romans 5.5, what's the very first thing that the Holy Spirit does in a believer's life? The very first thing is to assure us that God loves us. He says, our hopes do not disappoint us because the love of God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who's been given to us. I think a lot of times we're held back from that because we're occupied with our own feelings. The unmistakable mark of the Holy Spirit working in a believer's life is that the love of God is before you. You know that he does. And it's the God of the universe who loves you and gave himself for you.

Probably one of the best illustrations in the Gospels anyway, or in the New Testament, is the story of the prodigal son. What was the thing the father wanted to impress on the prodigal son when he came back? He wanted to impress him that he loved him. That's what he wanted to show him. That I love you, my son.

So when we've recognized that the first impression the Holy Spirit is going to make in our hearts is that God loves me. And that's really what the gospel is. Everything has been cleared out of the way on God's side. He has received me on the ground of what another man did, the Lord Jesus Christ, and did it to God's own pleasure. He has accepted us in Christ. As in Christ, I begin to understand, because of the work of the Spirit, God loves me. Not because I'm anything, He just loves me. So, is this acceptance before God a position or a condition? It starts out as a position. We are in Christ before God. It's a wonderful new position to be accepted in the Beloved, to be graced in the Beloved.

So God now, with open arms, can receive the prodigal son, he can receive Saul of Tarsus, or the Philippian jailer, or you and me. I can't repeat often enough that God has cleared away everything that's between him and us. and that the first thing that divine power does in our souls is to tell us how God feels about us. He loves us. It's the great impression that God wants to make on every one of us, is that He loves us.

So hopefully we can see where the gospel has set us in our position. With everything being cleared away, The man in the flesh is gone from the eye of God, another man is before him who is Christ, and we're in him, the new man, and we have received the Holy Spirit. Now, the one last thing I want to talk about a little bit is, what does it mean to be in Christ? If we know what reconciliation is from our position, we know that we've been separated from the man in the flesh. positionally.

We know that the Holy Spirit's been given to us. We know that. We are on brand new ground, all new ground. And we are part of the new creation. When we understand that we're in the new creation, we can understand reconciliation. We can understand that God loves us. We can rest in the fact that we have been separated positionally from everything that's not pleasing to God. So we find out that we're in Christ. I must say that we hear that term a lot, especially in an environment like Holly Hills, that we're born in a new position, we're in Christ, and that kind of thing.

But we see ourselves, at least initially, as being an atom. Wayne and I were having a talk one day and I said, How do we see ourselves? Do we see ourselves before the cross or after the cross? Do I see myself as a Christian looking up at the cross? And that was the thing that when I was saved out of Catholicism, the Catholics have this thing called a crucifix in which there's a cross and Jesus is still there. Well, once I understood that my position before the Father is in the resurrected Christ, then my position is after.

He's not up there anymore. He was buried. He rose again. He's now seated in the heavenlies, and I'm in Him. It changes perspective. I can see things from a different perspective now. Everything that was displeasing to God about me is gone, and I'm accepted before Him.

So, is positional truth reality? When you read in the Word of God about your position in Christ, is that what's real? Or is it how I feel about Him? I can remember as a young believer going to Bible studies, and we would get into these doctrinal discussions, and someone would say, well, you believe what you want to believe, and I'll believe what I want to believe. Our doctrine's different. And I thought, well, that can't be right. There's only one truth, and what's the perception? What's real here? Is it my subjective opinion of what the truth says, or is it the truth itself? And whether I have an opinion or a positive or negative reaction to it matters not.

J.D. was talking this morning about the Word of God, how it comes to you, and you have to make a decision. You have to decide whether you accept it or reject it. Same way with believers. Here comes this positional truth at you. What do we do with it? What do you do in Christ? I either have to accept it. If I don't accept it, I automatically reject it. So I can say to God, I believe you. I don't fully understand, but because you said it in your word, I believe you.

And as you enter by faith into a truth like in Christ, the Spirit of God will confirm you in that truth so that your condition begins to line up with your position. So our position, the work of the Holy Spirit in our life teaches us that our position Is designed or our condition by the Holy Spirit working in us is designed to line us up with our position When a man believes in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ does his position change well, I think it does Because you can be cruising along through Romans and then you get to Romans 8 1 and it says that therefore now There's no condemnation for them. They're in Christ Jesus. Well, you're walking around with this big rain cloud over your head and and you're getting wet all the time because you are believing in the fact that your sinfulness somehow ruins your position before Christ, and it doesn't. And this verse tells you, those who are in Christ, there can't be any condemnation. It's like Newell said, we're apt to think that what we've done is really bad, but we're not so bad. Our position is that if any man be in Christ, he's a new creation.

Old things have passed away. Now you can sin and harm your fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ, but you cannot affect that position no matter what you do, because this reconciliation wasn't your idea to start with. It was God's idea. So, I knew for quite some time that all was gone before God in the cross of Christ. I kind of knew it in my mind, but it wasn't really gone before me.

And the reason was because I was occupied with my own flesh and my own... I was trying to improve myself. I can remember thinking, well, now that I'm a Christian, what do you do? How do you act? I thought, oh, well, I'll just watch these other Christians, watch what they do, and then I'll do what they do. and then I'll be acting like one of you. And you find in churches, you know, there's sometimes behavior patterns that are set up that are unique to that church. Little phrases and buzzwords and, you know, I've told the Borg Ward story. See me afterwards if you want to hear it. The issue is, I'm supposed to look and see how Christians function. But I kept looking at the wrong guy. I kept looking at me, and I kept looking at you. When in fact, the Spirit of God was directing me through the Word to look and behold the Lord Jesus. What did that do for me?

That conformity process would begin. And I would see, wait a minute, if I'm who the Word of God says I am, then I need to function in my condition, just like what my position says I am. That is something beyond my ability to pull off. That's why it takes some time.

So when we discover that we're in the Spirit and not in the flesh, and we're being led by the Spirit, we are the sons of God. We are living in the fullness of grace. You could not be the sons of God But we could not be sons but being of God. You couldn't be a son otherwise. Or being in Christ. We have to be a new creation to be what the Word of God tells us we are. So I think it's a great deliverance. when the Spirit of God shows us that the flesh doesn't profit anything, that since we live in the Spirit, let's walk in the Spirit, let's trust Him, let's just by faith rest.

Now, if you're like me, and you are, because I know all of you, we fail in one of two ways that I've noticed, because this is the way I fail. I either fail like a Corinthian, or I fail like a Galatian. I go back to the flesh. I either get legal or I get really carnal. So at that point I only have one person that I can depend on and that's the Spirit of God.

To do what? To move me back into so my condition is lining up with my position so that the fellowship that I have lost because I've been acting like a Corinthian can be restored. So, I'll give you an example. Let's say you're like me and you have a quick temper.

If I walk in the Spirit, I'll be kept from it. My temper's not improved, but there's a power that's far greater in me who is the resurrected Christ, His life, that keeps me from doing the things that I would do. Our body is the Lord's. We're under new government. Our new source and our new position keeps us from those things that we have been so used to doing, which are called sins.

How did God restore or how did Paul restore the Galatians? You know how he did it? He showed them that they had been crucified with Christ. And he said, nevertheless, I live. But the life I live now, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." He taught them that they were crucified with Christ, and the life that they lived in the present was by crucifixion, and they had to walk by faith in the facts of their position.

What did he tell the Corinthians? He said to the Corinthians, if we know we are in Christ, not only are we accepted in the Beloved, but it's a wonderful day when we see that we are in liberty, that we're free. So I come back to Christ always, I come back to my position. Paul had the Lord Jesus in front of the Corinthians. He said, look, Behold the Lord Jesus. Behold Him. And behold His glory. And what will happen is the transformation process into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ will take place.

So I would encourage us as we go forward to understand when you open up your Bible to read it, especially in the New Testament, Paul's epistles, Peter, James, and John, Look for your position, and then recognize your position as reality. That's who we really are.

And what God expects us to do with that information is just believe Him. Just believe Him. And it's a principle. It works and functions the same way every time. God's put a principle in place that He intends to conform us to the image of His Son. Our job, we only have one job, and that's to believe Him. That's it.

Let's pray. Father, how we thank you for the grace that we live under, how we thank you for the position that we enjoy in the Lord Jesus Christ, and how thankful we are that you have taken it upon yourself to conform us to our position, which is the only position we could enjoy that would be pleasing to you, Father. We thank you. We pray in your Son's precious name. Amen.