As usual with Paul, mysticism, vision, turns into action, as 2 Corinthians continues. Or, we might equally say, faith comes together with works. The next chapters are deeply practical, enlivening one `private’ area of our lives after another.
It starts with a heart-orientation. Paul’s grasp of eternal reality includes a deep awareness that `we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ’ (5:10). Faith in heaven is far from being an opiate. The sense of the reality of the other world, the awe-inspiring thought of explaining to our loving Father how we used the lives and abilities he gave us (`Each of us will give an account of themselves to God’, Rom 14:12), gives profound urgency (among other things) to evangelism: `Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade people!’ (5:11). (Lord, please help me grasp that this is not a fable; renew in me this sense of urgency!)
I had a few hours a while ago in a dull airport, waiting for a flight to Lithuania; and (as this section was in the mix) it seemed an opportunity to skim through chapters 6 to 13. Speed-reading like that is always good for getting the flow, seeing how or why one section or idea leads into the next; and this time I found myself wondering why there was this big emphasis on the gospel, here and in 5:18-6:2. Was it that all the criticisms were still weighing on Paul, and one on his mind at this time was that he’d been far too passionate about evangelism? Does this underlie his keenness to explain just why evangelism is such a glorious task, in chapter 3? It does seem as if he needs to explain (5:11-15) why he’s such a man of passion: `If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God… for Christ’s love compels us!'(vv13-14).
It may be. But then the next question comes: what can fuel such a glorious passion?
Surely it’s a sense of the hugeness of the gospel. Let’s follow the flow. A theme (or a vision) running through 5:14-17 is the implications of the cross; `the gospel’ in its broadest, most far-reaching sense. `Christ’s love compels us’; if Christ has died for all, says Paul, all of us have died, with him, to ourselves, and to our world (vv14-15). (Paul explores this remarkable reality even more fully in the first part of Romans 6, as we’ve seen: see eg https://petelowmanresources.com/latest-romans-68-3-something-dramatic-happened-when-you-were-born-again/ .) Everything has changed; since our new birth we are finished with our old existence; nothing is to be viewed from the world’s perspective any more (v16). Radical holiness, in short, which will be the theme of 2 Cor 6:14 onwards. Paul has glimpsed something colossal here: `If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!'(v17). God’s heavenly `new creation’ has broken into our world, and it takes shape in our actions now, and leads us triumphantly towards the `everything new!’ of Rev 21:5. Our gospel of the cross, then, that colossal act of love, death and resurrection, is about complete transformation, such as we also saw thrilling Paul in 3:18. And this, by definition, must have sweeping consequences, as salvation spreads from the `deposit’ of the Spirit now within us (5:5), outwards through the various components of our personality. The cross has implications without limit for us – `He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them’ (v15)…
It’s quite a gospel. What we’re proclaiming is complete `re-creation’, into a God-oriented rather than self-oriented life; becoming the way we were created to be (v5)! But what does my having `died'(v14) and risen into newness with Christ mean for my own life, right now? This `gospel’ challenges my entire being and existence. All my emotions, my imagination: to re-orientate from being `self-centred’ to being `Christ-centred’, finding their place in the `new creation’. Each of my values, my dreams, my ambitions: ditto. My use of time and gifts and money, my lifestyle, my marriage and career plans: likewise. Quite an agenda to think about, to seek to recognize and assess. (Lord, thankyou for the cross and the `new creation’; please help me work consciously on finding your next steps for me, by your Spirit…)
Here is true `transformation’. To be born again, as Romans 6 taught us, is to die with Christ and to begin an entire new life with him. Through the cross, everything is becoming new; holiness is indispensable. My heart-commitment to this `re-creation process’ is basic to the gospel. It’s a big part of what `repentance’ means…
So in our next posts we’ll explore six key re-creation life-areas that Paul gets passionate about…
