2 Corinthians (Program #13) – The Ministers of the New Covenant (6)

At the beginning of chapter 5 in 2 Corinthians Paul the apostle speaks in a strange way.

1 “For we know that if our earthly tabernacle dwelling is taken down, we have a building from God, a dwelling not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens.”

Well, we may consider that we have understand this at least in parts. But listen to:

2 “For also in this we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our dwelling place from heaven,”

3 “If indeed, being clothed, we will not be found naked.”

Actually what Paul is expressing here is his deep longing and desire to be raptured.

Rapture, is a topic today that fascinating millions today even unbelievers are intrigued by this topic as we’ve seen by the tremendous popularity of recent series of novels on this subject.

But what is most often missed by Christians considering rapture it that it’s linked not just to our initially salvation but much more to our growth and maturity in the divine life. For as we grow and mature, our longing for this day deepens as we can clearly seen in Paul’s words.

4 “For also, we who are in this tabernacle groan, being burdened, in that we do not desire to be unclothed, but clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.“

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2 Corinthians (Program #11) – The Ministers of the New Covenant (4)

2 Corinthians makes a marvelous contribution to the New Testament because it describes so vividly the experience of Christ not from a doctrinal prospective but from the details of how the apostle Paul and his co-workers gain Christ experientially.

In fact chapters three and four may be the top chapters in the whole Bible in the experience of Christ. especially as this experience relates to how the genuine ministers of the New Covenant are produced. What we see in these chapters is that what these ministers preach, teach and minister is not based on what they have heard, studied or learned but upon what they themselves had been constituted with.

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2 Corinthians (Program #10) – The Ministers of the New Covenant (3)

The apostle Paul speaking about himself prior to his salvation refer to himself as the chiefest of sinners or the foremost of sinners, yet this one who had been the great persecutor of the church eventually becomes the chiefest among the apostles.

How did God accomplish such a reconstitution of Paul?  Was it His miraculous work transforming him in an instant? Or was it the constituting work of the Spirit over many years?

2 Corinthians chapter 4 is the key chapter in providing answers to this profound question.

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2 Corinthians (Program #8) – The Ministers of the New Covenant (1)

All believers have their favorite verses, verses that just seem to minister particularly to us in our situation. But one verse that deserves to be on every list is 2 Corinthians 3:18, listen to the apostle Paul in this marvelous verse,

18 “But we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.”

Why is this verse so particularly important? Because it brings us face to face with the Lord Jesus in an intimate and personal way. But also in a way where by we are infused, transfused even transformed by Christ Himself as the very life giving Spirit.

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2 Corinthians (Program #6) – The Ministry of the New Covenant (2)

Metaphors play an important role in Scripture. Webster says a metaphor is the use of one set of words to describe or illustrate a similar point.

John uses the technique when he speaks of Jesus approaching him in the gospel. “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Surely he wasn’t saying that Jesus was a literal “lamb”. But the metaphor or picture gives us a much richer and clearer understanding.

The apostle Paul was also very fond of metaphors, particularly when conveying his deepest thoughts in teachings. We see it used intensively in 2 Corinthians. For example in 2 Corinthians chapter 2:14 he says “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in the Christ”  Here, the metaphor is the triumphant possession of captured and vanquished folks after a Roman battle. And Paul says that we, the believers had become such vanquished ones in the train of the victorious Christ.

Now, we come to another marvelous metaphor in the very next chapter, chapter 3 of 2 Corinthians begins this way:

1-3 “Are we beginning again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as some do, letters of commendation to you or from you? You are our letter, inscribed in our hearts, known and read by all men, Since you are being manifested that you are a letter of Christ ministered by us, inscribed not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tablets of stone but in tablets of hearts of flesh.”

Living letters of Christ. This is our topic today.

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2 Corinthians (Program #4) -Introduction (4)

Have you ever noticed a married couple that’s been together for a long long time and they know each other so well that they seems to be an unspoken communication between them. It seems that the one can tell how the other feels just by a glance into their face. This is really a blessed state of marriage to arrive at. But more importantly it demonstrate a very special intimacy and knowledge of one another. It is just this kind of tender and intimate knowing that the apostle Paul was referring to in 2 Corinthians chapter 2:10 “But whom you forgive anything, I also forgive; for also what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, it is for your sake in the person of Christ;”

This phrase “in the person of Christ” can also be translated as “in the face of Christ” and it implies the most intimate knowledge of another person.

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2 Corinthians (Program #3) -Introduction (3)

The apostle Paul after his strong rebuke and dealing with the Corinthians in his first letter had good reason to visit the city at his first opportunity. It would had given him the chance to answer first hand any misunderstandings and to sue any lingering stinging from his rebuke.

In the realms of public relations or human wisdom he surely would had taken this way. But Paul’s living was not directed by such things as “PR” in human wisdom. And though he was criticized by some of the Corinthians for delaying his coming after he told them of his desire to come.  We see the real reason for his delay. The reason was the Lord Jesus Himself. And Paul’s first concern which was not to live just a Godly life, but to live Christ, to live in perfect oneness with Him. This is the pattern that Paul had become not just to the Corinthians but to all of us.

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2 Corinthians (Program #2) -Introduction (2)

The apostle Paul was a remarkable person. He was used by the sovereign God to unveil much of the New Testament revelation. He also performed wondrous miracles and was a mighty evangelist. Yet in the book that had been understood to almost be his autobiography, he tells us that his only boast was in the singleness or sincerity or purity with which he and his co-workers lived and served the faithful God by living Christ. Listen to his words to the church in Corinth in 2 Corinthians chapter 1,

12 “For our boasting is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in singleness and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you.”

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2 Corinthians (Program #1) -Introduction (1)

The apostle Paul’s first epistle to the believers in Corinth was of sixteen chapters and was full of his strong rebuke and argument with the church there. In that letter he subdued them and defeated them. Now in his second letter just as a parent would spend a long period of to comfort and encourage a child that had received the strong chastisement. Paul minsters to comforting ointment and the encouragement of love. Listen to his opening words in his cherishing epistle :

1:1-3 ” Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy the brother, to the church of God which is in Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassions and God of all comfort;”

This is a very subjective book, 2 Corinthians, where by Paul brings the Corinthians back to the experience of Christ and is a book that can lead us to experience Christ as well.

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1 Corinthians (Program #55) -Dealing with the Collection of the Gift and Conclusion

In his first epistle to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul dealt with eleven serious problems that had overtaken the church there. Then in chapter 15, the next to the last chapter, after dealing with all of these matters specifically he points them to the unique solution to all the problems both of the church life and our human life and that is the reality of the resurrection life of Christ as our portion, the new creation. That brings us to the conclusion of the book, Chapter 16.  And as he begins this final chapter its’ almost as if he puts the Corinthians on the test, the most vigorous of tests to see if his words concerning living in the reality of the resurrection had penetrated. He challenges them on the matter of money and material possessions. And this matter of money is still testing all of His believers even today.  We will fellowship this and see the sweet conclusion to the book of 1 Corinthians.

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