16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians 6
1As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. 2For he says,
"In the time of my favor I heard you,
and in the day of salvation I helped you." I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.
Dig Deeper
Life for married couples is markedly different before and after having children. Any parent knows that once you have children, everything changes. No longer can you run quickly to the store whenever you want, you can’t go catch a quick movie together on a whim, keeping the house clean takes on a whole new challenge, and you can forget about getting a solid night’s sleep for a long time. Once you have children you realize that life has changed radically and you simply can’t live as you did before; you see the entire world in different terms.
This is what Paul wants the Corinthians to understand. Christianity isn’t just a new religion among many, or a new philosophy in the marketplace of ideas. Christ has come into the world and opened the door to a whole new reality. Becoming a Christian means entering into that reality and realizing that nothing will ever be the same again. Life has changed radically and we simply can’t live as we did before.
The difference in how Christians view the world is whether we do so from a worldly (literally "according to the flesh") point of view, which refers to the corruptible present age that is passing away, or from our new position in Christ. One who has entered into Christ, stands on the precipice of the new creation and must begin to live that way. Paul is setting up an interesting contrast here. He no longer sees things from a worldly point of view. He no longer looks at the things that are seen, but the implication is that his critics do. They look at things that are worldly and value them. It is the Lord, however, that knows the heart of people. Once we have entered into Christ, we can begin to see things from His point of view rather than the world’s. Paul is not just criticizing the position of his critics, though, he also identifies with them. They have looked at his suffering and rejected him as a true messenger of God. When one looked at Paul according to the flesh, all they could see was weakness and signs of being cursed by God. Paul knows what that feels like because he once viewed Christ’s suffering on the Cross as evidence of weakness and being cursed by God (Deut. 21:23). Once Paul was confronted by the risen Messiah on that road to Damascus, however, he realized that rather than being cursed by God, Jesus had taken the place of man and become a curse for us. He realized that Christ was the suffering servant who bears the iniquities of the world (Isa. 53:4-5, 11-12). Paul had seen Christ as a pretender because of his suffering and now he is being seen as a pretender because of his own suffering on behalf of Christ. Paul changed his method of viewing Christ and the world, but his opponents have not. If they truly understood who Christ was and what he came to do, they would have no problem recognizing Paul as a minister of Christ.
If anyone has entered into Christ, says Paul, there is a new creation. Paul doesn’t just limit this to the individual as the NIV implies, although that’s certainly part of it (the original language literally and abruptly says, "If anyone is in Christ, new creation). Those who enter into Christ enter into the new creation of God’s age to come. We begin to live the future in the present, worldly age. Christ walked straight into death, and walked out the other side. He took on mankind’s biggest enemy and turned it into a doorway of the age to come. To enter into Christ, then, is a result of laying down our life in the present age at baptism (Rom. 6:3,4; Gal. 3;27), so that one becomes part of the church, the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13, cf. 1 Cor. 12;12-31; Rom. 12:4-8; Col. 1:18, 24; 2:16-19; 3:15; Eph. 1;23; 4:4-16; 5:23).
When we are in Christ we are a new creation but we are also a part of the new creation and are charged with living out the reality of that new creation. This is a summary of Paul’s entire ministry. God is not waiting to destroy His creation and make a new one out of nothing, He has been working all along to reconcile His originally perfect creation back to the way it was supposed to be. God’s work is about rescuing His entire creation (Rom. 8:19-22) not just human beings. Anyone who has entered into Christ takes on this mission of reconciliation as ambassadors of the true king of the world. Ambassadors was a term used in correlation with Roman delegates who represented the Empire in foreign lands and governed on the behalf of the Emperor. They were there to show foreigners how to live the ‘Roman way’. As Christ’s ambassadors, we represent the true king and have been commissioned to showing the rest of the world what it looks like to live in God’s age to come. This will look quite differently than those around us, but we need to be confident in those differences rather than ashamed because of who it is that we represent. Roman ambassadors were certainly not ashamed of representing Caesar and we should not shrink back from representing the Messiah. The NIV adds "you" in verse 20 which changes the meaning of the sentence slightly. Paul is not specifically imploring the Corinthians, what he is saying is that the mission of his ministry (and ours) is to implore the world, based on what Christ has made available, to be reconciled to God. Because the sinless one, took on the sin of the world, we are not just to tell people about it, we are to embody it. We are to become the righteousness of God. Our job as ambassadors is to demonstrate by our lives what it means to be a part of God’s reconciled creation.
In verse 1, of chapter 6, Paul now does turn his attention specifically to the Corinthians. They are God’s fellow workers (this demonstrates the problem of adding "you" to verse 20 as it implies that the Corinthians have not been reconciled to God if read in that way) and Paul wants them to hold onto God’s grace that has been given so freely to them. They are standing right in the doorway of the new creation, as Paul demonstrates with his quote from Isaiah 49:9. God is answering and say yes to all of the prophecies concerning his new creation and the day of salvation (2 Cor. 1:20). They were right there experiencing it and Paul doesn’t want them to lose sight of that and walk away. They were in the day of salvation, don’t waste it. The message for us, then, is the same. We have entered into the doorway of the new creation and we need to not waste that opportunity.
Devotional Thought
Do you make the most of your opportunity to enter into the new creation and enjoy the day of salvation or are you more likely to become paralyzed by a worldly point of view? The age to come is available in Christ now. If you haven’t entered in, what are you waiting for? If you have, are you making the most of it? If not, what keeps you from doing so?
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