A New Creation in Christ Becoming God's Righteousness (1)

0:00We praise the Lord for thy great plan that we might well in place, may be." Welcome to Life City of the Bible with witnessly, presented by Living Stream Ministry. These life studies explore every book in the Bible from the perspective of the believers' enjoyment and experience of God's divine life in Christ through the Holy Spirit. These messages unveil how the scriptures can be living in more than mere doctrine to man. Today, we bring you recorded excerpts of witnessly's original speaking, along with some of our own comments and thoughts. If you have questions, please send an email to radioatlsn.org. Now, let's join today's program. The New Testament ministry described in the epistles of Paul is characterized as the ministry of reconciliation and the ministry of the Spirit, while the old covenant ministry is called the

1:04ministry of death and the ministry of the letter. The apostles, according to 2 Corinthians chapter 5, and ultimately the believers as well become ambassadors of this new covenant ministry of reconciliation. This is 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 20. On behalf of Christ then, we are ambassadors, as God entrates you through us, we beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. What is it to be fully reconciled to God, according to this verse? Well, we will explore the new Testament ministry of reconciliation on today's program. We're happy as always to have Ron Kangus in the studio again. Ron, good to see you today. Good to be here. And at the outset, I would point out concerning 2 Corinthians 5-20, where Paul is exhorting, beseeching his readers

2:07to be reconciled to God. That word was not spoken to unbelievers, still under the judgment of God on their sins, who need to be reconciled and brought back to God initially. That word was spoken to the saints in the church and Corinth. Paul is speaking to believers. He is indicating to the believers that they, the believers need to be reconciled to God. The very fact that Paul would say this and that the dear believers would need this indicates clearly, even emphatically, that there is more than one aspect of reconciliation, more than one step or stage of being reconciled to God.

3:08It's very crucial that sincere believers, seeking believers, ardent students of the word, pay attention to this in what sense and for what reason do the believers in Christ need to be reconciled to God from what do they need to be reconciled and what is the result of that aspect of reconciliation. This we need to consider soberly and with much exercise in the Lord's word and in the Lord's presence. Before we get into specifics, Ron, on the matter of reconciliation, let me ask you this question as an opener. The ministry, and we've touched this before in the life study of 2 Corinthians, the ministry as it's referred to or called in the New Testament, is not just a general kind of Christian work or anything done in the name of Christ, but in the context of the New Testament as Paul put it forth, it was a very specific ministry, wasn't it?

4:14It is so specific that it is called the ministry or this ministry. And a parallel verse is in Ephesians 4 where the believers are being perfected unto the work of the ministry. This is very different from the common religious understanding of a multiplicity of diverse ministries. What we have here is the unique, the one ministry of the new covenant. There is only the ministry, this ministry. Acts 1 reveals the same thing when one of the apostles was no longer there. He had a portion in that ministry that had to be filled. So the basic thought is just as there was one category of ministry in the Old Testament. Now in the New Testament, there is the ministry,

5:23this ministry, the ministry of the New Testament. This one ministry had in the New Testament many ministers, but all these ministers, all these serving ones, had a portion in the one ministry. This is drastically different from the array of what is called ministries today that on the one hand are not really reconciled to one another. And on the other hand, it is questionable whether they are carrying out the ministry. So we need to reread the New Testament, especially 2 Corinthians, and reconsider from the pure word of God what Paul means, what God means by the ministry. We touched this very same portion in 2 Corinthians 5 a number of weeks ago earlier on in this

6:27life study of 2 Corinthians. I was very impressed with that message and I was happy to see that in the printed life study, Witnessly came back to it again. No doubt there was some burden there to repeat this matter because as we saw then and as we'll see again today, the matter of reconciliation is not so simple, is not just a matter of the Lord dealt with our sins on the cross thereby opening the way for us to have fellowship with God, but there really are two steps or stages to reconciliation, aren't there? There are two stages and this is where light needs to dawn on us from the pure word of God. Well, let's join Witnessly with the first portion of his fellowship today and then we'll have a chance to come back and talk about that. Here's Witnessly.

7:42To God. Be right concept to God. Who are to be right concept to God? Not the sinners, but the believers who happen already. Red concept to God partially. In the first chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul says the current believers are they've been called by God into the fellowship of his son. The two books sue us that the current believers, after being reconcepted to God partially, steal the leaf in their flesh. They still lived in our men. Between them and God, steal a separation of the natural man. That is the flesh. steal a separation of the flesh between the half reconciled believers and God.

8:44Full reconciliation is to bring you not only from sin, but also from your outermen, from your flesh, from your natural being, to God, even to be one with God. Ron, in your comments a moment ago, you brought out the matter of subjective experience. And I think that's really well illustrated here. Of course, in our initial reconciliation, there is an objective dealing with the record of sin that is once and for all and never needs to be reaccomplished. But subjectively, we need this further reconciliation, don't we? Based upon our being reconciled to God objectively from sins, we need to go on to have a subjective experience of Christ's reconciliation in the second stage of subjective

9:47experience in this context means this is an experience of Christ that affects not merely our standing, it affects our being, our makeup, our constitution. This is the point that requires our attention. We know from 1 Corinthians 15, R. Paul says, price died for our sins, according to the scriptures. We know from Romans 5, 10, where Paul speaks of our being reconciled as an accomplished fact. And in 2 Corinthians 5, the first aspect of reconciliation is addressed to the world that is to all the unbelievers who have not been reconciled to God from their sins through the redemptive death of Christ. So, of course, the gospel initially is proclaimed to them, the glorious news that Christ bore our sins in his body on the cross. He paid the price that we

10:53regularly deserved. He died in our place. God accepted his death on our behalf. Our sins have been forgiven. God has forgotten them. We may have pieced toward God. We are justified by grace through faith. We have access to God in Christ through his redemption. This is the beginning. It's not the full end. Otherwise, Paul would never have appealed to believers, to the saints in the church, in Corinth, to be reconciled to God. Paul realized that now the believers need another aspect of reconciliation. Why? Because there is something other than sins that is keeping us from truly being fully in the Lord's presence of being absolutely one with him, of being able to

11:57fellowship with him in glory as signified by the Holy of Holies. And what is it? Well, we may use different terms. I would begin by saying it is we ourselves, ourself, our flesh, our natural constitution, just what we are as an old creation. In other words, our being, our flesh, that is still a barrier between us and God. An apostle like Paul could be an ambassador for Christ, and God would appeal, would speak through him as his representative to us, because Paul had been fully reconciled to God not only from sins, but from the self, the flesh, the old man, the natural constitution, the old creation. This involves the subjective application of the cross through the

13:04spirit, to our very being. It is not objective like Christ dying for our sins, bearing our sins, dealing with them decisively. Now we ourselves in our being are the problem. So we need the application of the cross to ourselves to our being to really break through so that what we are in ourselves apart from Christ is no longer a barrier between our access to God and our oneness with him. This is desperately needed by believers everywhere today. We've only begun, praise the Lord for that beginning. Christ died for our sins. Now we need to see He also died for us, the persons. And now we, the persons need to be able to say with Paul, I have been crucified with Christ.

14:09Ron, some weeks past, witnessed Lee pointed out in Hebrews. We even have a reference to the fact that there are two veils in the tabernacle. That tabernacle picture and temple picture are really helpful in understanding this, isn't it? We're brought into the first veil at the moment we received Christ, justifying us eternally with God as far as our sin problem is concerned. But there is the need of the second veil to be removed. It's in this context that we come to, I think one of the verses that's perhaps either least expounded or possibly most misunderstood in the whole New Testament. I'd like to read it. It's verse 21, 2 Corinthians chapter 5. Him who did not know sin, he made sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in him. The perfect spotless Christ in some sense according to the word of God became sin.

15:13We'll touch that once again in this coming section. Before you were saved, you were in a condition which is all the time condemned, Beggar. God cannot justify that. There was nothing right. There was no righteousness. But hallelujah, after you got saved, you got into a situation that God can justify and that can be termed righteousness. But you'll be honest. You can realize, yes, on the one hand, you got in a condition. You got in a state that can be termed righteousness yet something still not so right. There's still some separation between you and God. Even though you are in creation in Christ, yet I don't have the assurance to say that you are God's righteousness.

16:17Until the cross works on you further, you believe me. If not today, the littest in the New Jerusalem, God would boast to his emisitant, look at the entire condition. Nothing but righteousness. You know you have a new earth, everything has been brought back to God in full. Everything has been set in a good order. Everything has been headed up. Everything is set in factory to God. God can justify every effort that is righteousness. Ron coming back to our comparison of the objective and subjective. On the one hand, objectively, we have Christ as our righteousness, now as we approach God. But in the New Jerusalem,

17:19He pointed out eventually, if not now, even our subjective condition enters into righteousness, doesn't it? This is an important distinction, and let me approach it by a brief reference to the two veils, a signified by the two veils in the tabernacle. There's a veil that leads into the holy place. A believer who is reconciled to God from his sins may spiritually speaking, enter into this realm to have some experience and enjoyment of Christ. But there is a second veil separating the holy place from the holy of holies where the glory of God is. When Christ died on the cross, this veil in the temple was torn from top to bottom, indicating that the way into God in the holy of holies is now opened. We know from Hebrews that that veil signifies Christ

18:27flesh that was rent for us so that we may be fully brought into God as He revealed in John 14 that where I am, you also will be. Now we come to 2 Corinthians 5. Objectively, we are reconciled to God from our sins through the death of Christ on the cross for our sins. So we are declared righteous in Christ before God. But at this juncture, there is no intrinsic change to our being. As a result of the second aspect of reconciliation, wherein what we are in ourself, in our flesh, in our natural constitution is dealt with that barrier is broken through. The issue of this reconciliation, which brings us fully into God, in glory, in the holy of holies, to become one

19:33with Him, filled with Him, saturated with Him, transformed by Him, sanctified, renewed, conformed to the image of Christ as the firstborn son of God, eventually glorified in Him. These are all subjective changes in our being. The result is that in Christ, we will not only be justified objectively, we actually, in our entire being, will be the righteousness of God. It is a mistake to wrench 2 Corinthians 521 out of its context, and just assume this belongs with Romans 3 through the first half of Romans 5, and that it applies merely to objective justification. That is not the significance of this verse. Our future is, as the result of being fully

20:37reconciled to God, one with Him, saturated with Him, we will in fact become the righteousness of God in Christ. If we don't believe it now based upon the word, the time will come when we will believe it. This will be our eternal reality in Christ. Ron, we've talked about these two stages. In our third section today, we're going to see the second stage developed further, but also referred back to is the first stage, which we see in 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul says, for I delivered to you, first of all, that which also I received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. Whereas here, in 2 Corinthians 5, it says, for the love of Christ constrains us, because we have judged this, that one died for all, meaning that He died for us,

21:37and here are the two stages or aspects. Once again, here's witness Lee. Justified by God, hallelujah, all the new covenant ministry, to bring us back to God, to such an extent that we may become God's right. Our album in, our natural man, is totally sin. Christ was made flesh, Christ was made sin, and He wasn't Christ, and He brought this flesh there,

22:44and He brought the sin there. That means he brought you there. You know that, you and I may become something else. Hallelujah. In this one, you and I may become the righteousness of God. This is the issue. This is the result. This is the ultimate consummation of God's salvation, and this is the result that the ministry of the new covenant would work out. Have you got it? Hallelujah. There are some marvelous verses in the New Testament that tell us, Christ became something. In John 1, it says, he became the flesh. Here we have, He became sin. Of course, in 1 Corinthians 15,

23:44He also became the life-giving spirit. But all of these becomeings are so that we might become something, aren't they? Let's summarize the central point this way. Our first problem was our sins. That problem was solved when Christ died for our sins. As a result, we are reconciled to God objectively and are justified by grace through faith, and then Christ can be in the presence of God. But we have another problem, a deeper problem, and that is what we are. We are a flesh of sin. Our entire being was damaged by the fall. The word of God is very precise. John 114 says the word that is God became flesh. Romans 83 says God sent His Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin and concerning sin. Because the Lord was in the likeness of the flesh of sin,

24:51having the flesh but without sin in the flesh, on the cross He could die in our place and in a very real sense be made sin for us. So He died for us who are sin in our being. In this way, He opened the access for us to be reconciled to God in the second step. So He died for our sins that we can be reconciled to God in the beginning. He died for us being made sin for us that we might be reconciled to God fully and absolutely. And the result of this is that we actually become in Christ, the righteousness of God. Our sins have been forgiven and forgotten. The problem of indwelling sin has been dealt with now in our experience. The Spirit is applying the effectiveness of Christ's

25:54death to our being so that in our actual experience we will be reconciled to God, one with Him, and become in Christ the righteousness of God. The genuine New Testament ministry has the result of not just encouraging this reconciliation, but actually bringing us to God each and every time. I really enjoyed our time today, Ron. I hope you can come back soon. I always look forward to this, Chris. We just have enough time left to give you our toll-free number and invite you to contact us. It's 1-888-Life Study. That's 888-543-3788. For Ron Kangus, this is Chris Wilde. Please join us again next time as we continue the Life Study of Second Corinthians. Thank you for listening to Life Study of the Bible with Witnessly,

27:06brought to you by Living Stream ministry. Witnessly spent seven decades in the 20th century speaking Christ, 1st in Asia, and then North America eventually all over the world. The culmination of those 70 years of ministry was his Life Study of the Bible, an exhaustive exposition of the entire scriptures. This unique commentary focuses on how Christ can be life-to-man in an experiential and practical way. These programs encapsulate Witnessly speaking in just 26 minutes. But to get the complete riches, visit LifeStudy.com. From there you can read all of the Life Study messages in their entirety, or download any of our more than 1700 audio programs at no cost. Again, that website is LifeStudy.com. Thanks for listening.