IDENTITY OF LOVE

2 Corinthians 5:16–21 CSB

16 From now on, then, we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective. Even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective, yet now we no longer know him in this way. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come! 18 Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. 19 That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God.” 21 He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

In chapter 5 of second Corinthians Paul focuses on the theme of reconciliation or the reuniting and the transformative power of Christ love now I wanna start right there and kind of lay the basis for I think Paul's thoughts on this but kind of something that I've been seeing and thinking all throughout this identity series the Bible tells us the God made us in his image and So what exactly does that mean because we all look different well there's different races different hair color different eye color different shapes sizes we're all different but what does the Bible tell us Christ is it tells us that he is love and I believe that's Part of what it meant That he made us in his image that we are to be the love become the love the God is so that's why we all look different and we are different but when we become who Christ has called us to become our main image will be love we can all look different but have the same identity and that identity is the love of God love transforms love heals love rebukes love chastens and we see all of these things in God so leading up to verse 17 the verse we're gonna spend the most time on Paul starts out and verses 6 and seven of chapter 5 talking about living by faith and not by sight Paul encourages believers to focus on eternal things rather than temporary earthly matters which is something that we learned over in colossians he was telling them the exact same thing to have their mind on things set above and then in verses 14 and 15 Paul talks about how Christ love compels us he emphasizes that Christ love should motivate us to live for him as Christ died for all and then leading into verse 16 Paul talks about the new perspective that we should have Paul explains that in Christ we no longer view people from a worldly perspective instead we see them as new creations we see them who God intends them to be not who the world has conformed them to be that's why God is so amazing because he's always seeing us as this finished version of who he created us to be not this version of who we are right now now does that mean that we allow people to act however they want and tear things down and disturbed things just because we know that God made them to be better no but what it means is is that our heart should always be in a posture of trying to help them to see what their true identity is because when we're living in our true identity we will always be Kingdom minded and we will always be striving to love just as Christ loves. So Paul starts off verse 17 with the word therefore and we always want to ask what's that there for therefore when he says therefore in this scripture it's connecting the verse to the previous thoughts about living for Christ and seeing other through the lens of Christ love like I was just talking about seeing others through the lens of who they were created to be not who they are right now which is not easy to do. If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation if you are a Christian you have been born again of imperishable seed and share in the divine nature God has brought about a spiritual transformation inside of you and your identity is tied to your new birth you are no longer who you once were the oldest passed away therefore you are called to live according to your new identity.

When a new world is born, a new way of living goes with it.

This is true in so many stages of life. It is true when a couple have their first baby; a whole new chapter has opened in their lives, and nothing will be the same again. They have new responsibilities; everywhere they go, they see things with new eyes. It is true when people who have lived in a small and badly equipped house move into a large and well-appointed one. No more trips out of the back door to get running water. No more piles of washing in the living room armchairs. And it is true when people move from one country to another. A new language needs to be learnt. New laws apply. If you speak the old language, and live by the old laws, you won’t fit in. You won’t know what’s happening.

But that, Paul implies, is what the Corinthians are still doing. He is still appealing to them to see the world with the new eyes of the gospel, instead of expecting everything, particularly his own style of apostleship, to conform to the fashions and customs of the world they were used to. The old world was a ‘merely human’ world. Paul uses one of his favourite phrases for this, which literally means ‘according to the flesh’; but he doesn’t mean ‘flesh’ as in ‘physical body’. He means ‘flesh’ as in ‘old, corruptible, passing away’. A new world has come about, through the death of Jesus in the ‘flesh’ in that sense, and the resurrectionof Jesus in a new body, gloriously physical but not corruptible. The challenge of the gospel is to live cheerfully in that new world. Paul’s challenge to the Corinthians is to recognize that that’s what he’s doing.

He begins by describing, in sweeping terms, the view from where he now is. He is on the threshold of the new creation itself, and everything looks different because everything is different. When he looks at other people, other Christians, himself, anyone, he sees them in a new way from how he did before. When he looks at the Messiah, he sees him, too, in a new way; there was a time when all his dreams of a Messiah were concentrated on ‘purely human’, that is, ‘fleshly’, ideals—a Messiah who would conquer the enemies of God, build the Temple of God, establish a ‘purely human’ kingdom. All such dreams must come to dust; that’s what the Messiah’s death and resurrection have taught him. The way to the true kingdom is through death, and out the other side into God’s new world.

So: put together what he’s learnt about other people and what he’s learned about the Messiah, and what do you get? Verse 17, one of his great summaries of what Christianity is all about. In the Greek language he was using, he said it even more briefly: ‘If anyone in Messiah, new creation!’ The ‘new creation’ in question refers both to the person concerned and to the world which they enter, the world which has now been reconciled to the creator.[2]