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Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 5:16-21
In 5:16-21 we see that the apostles have been commissioned with the ministry of reconciliation for the Lord’s new creation. After speaking concerning the qualifications of the ministers of the new covenant in chapters three and four, Paul tells us of his longing to be raptured and of his ambition to please the Lord, not by working for Him but simply by living to Him. Spontaneously such persons have a ministry to bring others fully back to the Lord. This is the ministry of reconciliation.
According to the context, the ministry of reconciliation was a commission given to the apostles. As those who were mature and ready to be raptured, the apostles were commissioned by the Lord to bring others back to God in full. This is complete and thorough reconciliation.
In 2 Corinthians 5 we see that reconciliation has two steps. Fallen human beings cannot be fully brought back to God simply by the first step. The second step is necessary. As Paul speaks of his ministry of bringing others back to God, he spontaneously presents a clear view of the two steps of reconciliation.
These steps are typified by the two veils in the tabernacle. There was a veil separating the Holy Place in the tabernacle from the Holy of Holies. There was another veil, called the first veil in Hebrews 9, at the entrance to the tabernacle. In our translation of Exodus, we speak of this first veil as the screen. The function of a screen is to keep out negative things (such as insects) and to allow the positive things to come in. The second veil, the veil separating the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies, is called a veil, not a screen. The area outside the tabernacle was the outer court. According to typology, the outer court typifies the world. Hence, the tabernacle in the outer court signifies God’s dwelling place in the world. In the world there is a place where God dwells, and that place is the tabernacle.
The entire human race is in the world, outside the tabernacle. But whenever a person repents and desires to return to God, he comes to the altar. The altar signifies the cross, where Christ died for our redemption. In the Old Testament, sacrifices were offered to God for atonement. But in the New Testament Christ died on the cross for redemption. In the typology of the Old Testament there was atonement, but in the fulfillment in the New Testament there is redemption. In the outer court there was also a laver, with water used for washing. Once a person had repented, had been redeemed, and had experienced the washing, he could enter the Holy Place. This is to be reconciled to God. Therefore, passing through the first veil signifies the first step of a sinner and a rebel being brought back to God and being reconciled to Him.
The believers at Corinth once were sinners and rebels, but they had been reconciled to God. However, they were still in the Holy Place, not in the Holy of Holies. Paul’s purpose in 1 and 2 Corinthians was to bring these believers into the Holy of Holies.
In The Economy of God I pointed out that the outer court corresponds to Egypt, that the wilderness corresponds to the Holy Place, and that the good land, the land of Canaan, corresponds to the Holy of Holies. For the children of Israel to come out of Egypt and enter into the wilderness is equal to leaving the outer court and coming into the Holy Place. This was precisely the situation of the Corinthian believers. As the children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness, so these believers were wandering in the soul, in particular in the mind. Because they were wandering in the Holy Place of the soul, Paul wrote these two Epistles for the purpose of bringing them into the spirit, where Christ is. The spirit is also related to the good land and the Holy of Holies.
The believers at Corinth had experienced the first step of reconciliation, but they had not experienced the second. They had not been reconciled to God in full. As there was a veil between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, so a veil still remained between the Corinthians and God. According to Hebrews 10:20, this veil is the flesh. The flesh was the veil that kept the Corinthian believers away from the direct presence of God in the Holy of Holies.
Paul and the other ministers of the new covenant, those who had been constituted of the processed Triune God and who were mature in life, were no doubt in the Holy of Holies. They lived in the spirit, and they were ripe, ready to be raptured. Their only goal was to please the Lord by living to Him. Spontaneously, being such persons, they were able to bring others thoroughly back to God. For this reason, at the end of chapter five Paul indicates that they, the ministers of the new covenant, are those who seek not only to reconcile sinners to God, but also to reconcile the believers to God in full. These ministers of the new covenant were qualified to bring back to God anyone who had not been fully reconciled to Him.
As long as we have not been brought back to God fully, we need someone like the apostles to bring us back to Him. It does not matter whether the distance between us and God is great or small. We need to be reconciled to God entirely. The ministry of the new covenant is to bring people back to God in a full and thorough way; it is to reconcile us to God entirely and completely.
Second Corinthians 5:16 says, “So that we, from now on, know no one according to flesh; even if we have known Christ according to flesh, yet now we know Him so no longer.” Since the apostles judge that Christ’s death makes us all, through His resurrection, a new man, a man not according to flesh, they from now on would know no one according to flesh. They did know Christ in this way, but now they know Him so no longer.
To know others according to the flesh is to know them according to the old creation. But to know others according to the spirit is to know them according to the new creation. Formerly, as Saul of Tarsus, Paul knew Christ according to the flesh. He regarded Him merely as a Nazarene. The Jewish people all knew Christ in this way, according to the flesh. But after his experience on the way to Damascus, Paul’s concept changed from knowing Christ according to the flesh to knowing Him according to the spirit. He also learned to know the saints not according to flesh, but according to spirit.
Verse 17 says, “So that if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, they have become new.” This confirms what is mentioned in verse 16. The apostles would know man no longer according to flesh, because anyone who is in Christ is a new creation. The old things of the flesh have passed away through the death of Christ, and all has become new in Christ’s resurrection. To be in Christ is to be one with Him in life and in nature. This is of God through our faith in Christ (1 Cor. 1:30; Gal. 3:26-28).
The old creation does not have the divine life and nature, but the new creation, the believers born again of God, does (John 1:13; 3:15; 2 Pet. 1:4). Hence, they are a new creation (Gal. 6:15), not according to the old nature of flesh, but according to the new nature of the divine life.
The words, “Behold, they have become new,” are a call to watch the marvelous change of the new creation. The word “they” refers to the old things.
Paul, on the one hand, regarded the Corinthians as the old creation, because they were still living in their flesh. Nevertheless, on the other hand, Paul regarded them the new creation, for he knew that they were in Christ. Because they were in Christ, the old things had passed away, and they were a new creation.
Verse 18 continues, “But all things are of God, Who has reconciled us to Himself through Christ and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation.” The “all things” here refer to all the positive things mentioned in verses 14 through 21, of which God is the Originator and Initiator. It is of God that Christ died to save us from death that we may live to Him. It is of God that we become a new creation in Christ. It is of God that Christ was made sin for us that we may become God’s righteousness in Him. It is of God to reconcile the world to Himself. And it is of God that the apostles are made ambassadors of Christ, commissioned to represent Him for reconciling men to God, that they may become God’s righteousness and a new creation for the fulfillment of God’s eternal purpose.
Paul had the assurance that the apostles had been fully reconciled to God. They had experienced both steps of reconciliation and therefore were in the Holy of Holies. God had reconciled them to Himself through Christ and given them the ministry of reconciliation. Because they had been brought back to God, they had the ministry of reconciling others to God. In this Epistle Paul was not seeking to reconcile sinners to God. Rather, he was seeking to bring the believers into a full experience of reconciliation. He was seeking to bring them not from the outer court into the tabernacle, but to bring them from the Holy Place, where they were lingering, into the Holy of Holies.
In verse 19 Paul says, “How that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not accounting their offenses to them, and putting in us the word of reconciliation.” The word of reconciliation is the word for the ministry (v. 18).
In verse 20 Paul goes on to say, “On behalf of Christ, then, we are ambassadors, as God entreating you through us; we beseech you on behalf of Christ, Be reconciled to God.” Paul’s use of the word “ambassadors” indicates that the apostles are commissioned with a definite ministry; they represent Christ to accomplish God’s purpose.
In verse 19 it is the world that is reconciled to God; in verse 20 it is the believers, who have already been reconciled to God, who need to be reconciled to God further. This clearly indicates that there are two steps for men to be fully reconciled to God. The first step is as sinners to be reconciled to God from sin. For this purpose Christ died for our sins (1 Cor. 15:3) that they may be forgiven by God. This is the objective aspect of Christ’s death. In this aspect He bore our sins on the cross that they might be judged by God upon Him for us. The second step is as believers living in the natural life to be reconciled to God from the flesh. For this purpose Christ died for us — the persons — that we may live to Him in the resurrection life (2 Cor. 5:14-15). This is the subjective aspect of Christ’s death. In this aspect, He was made sin for us so that we might be judged and done away with by God in order that we may become the righteousness of God in Him. By the two aspects of His death, He has fully reconciled God’s chosen people to God.
We have indicated that these two steps of reconciliation are clearly portrayed by the two veils of the tabernacle. The first veil is called the screen (Exo. 26:37, lit). A sinner was brought to God through the reconciliation of the atoning blood to enter into the Holy Place by passing this screen. This typifies the first step of reconciliation. The second veil (Exo. 26:31-35; Heb. 9:3) still separated him from God who is in the Holy of Holies. This veil needed to be rent that he might be brought to God in the Holy of Holies. This is the second step of reconciliation. The Corinthian believers had been reconciled to God, having passed through the first veil and having entered into the Holy Place. Yet, they still lived in the flesh. They needed to pass the second veil, which has been rent already (Matt. 27:51; Heb. 10:20) to enter into the Holy of Holies to live with God in their spirit (1 Cor. 6:17). The goal of this Epistle is to bring them here that they may be persons in the spirit (1 Cor. 2:14), in the Holy of Holies. This is what the apostle means by saying, “Be reconciled to God.” This is to present them full-grown in Christ (Col. 1:28).
I wish to emphasize the fact that the words, “Be reconciled to God,” in 5:20 were spoken not to rebels and sinners in the outer court, but to believers in the Holy Place. Paul seems to be saying, “Corinthians, dear believers in Christ, you need to be reconciled to God further. You may say that you have already been reconciled to Him. Yes, you have been reconciled, but you have been reconciled only halfway. You have the first step of reconciliation. Now you must go on to the second step and be fully reconciled to God. You have been reconciled to God from the outer court to the Holy Place. But God is not in the Holy Place; He is in the Holy of Holies. You have been reconciled to God through one veil, but there is still another veil separating you from God. This veil is you yourself, your flesh, your natural life. As I have already told you, you Corinthians are still fleshly. As long as you are in the flesh, you are not in the Holy of Holies. Because the veil of the flesh, the veil of the natural life, remains with you, you are not yet in the Holy of Holies. Corinthians, my burden is to help you realize that this second veil has already been riven and that you must deny your flesh and crucify it. Thus, to you who have been partly reconciled to God, I issue this word: Be reconciled to God in full.”
Verse 21 says, “Him Who did not know sin He made sin on our behalf, that we might become God’s righteousness in Him.” Paul had the boldness to say that God made Christ sin on our behalf. Since Christ knows everything, how can Paul say that He did not know sin? Christ did not know sin in an experiential way by contact or personal experience (see John 8:46; 1 Pet. 2:22; Heb. 4:15; 7:26). In the Bible the word “know” often has a deeper meaning than to know something merely in a mental way. According to Matthew 7:23, the Lord Jesus will one day say to those who work lawlessness, “I never knew you.” This does not mean, of course, that the Lord had no knowledge of them. The principle is the same in 2 Corinthians 5:21. In experience, in direct contact, the Lord Jesus had nothing to do with sin, and He did not know sin.
Sin came from Satan as the rebel against God (Isa. 14:12-15), entered into man (Rom. 5:12), and made man not only a sinner, but sin itself under God’s judgment. Hence, when Christ became a man in flesh (John 1:14), He was made sin (not sinful) on our behalf to be judged by God (Rom. 8:3) that we might become God’s righteousness in Him.
In order to understand what it means to say that God made Christ sin on our behalf, we need to read John 1:14 and Romans 8:3. John 1:14 says that the Word, which is God Himself, became flesh. Flesh refers to fallen man. When Christ became a man, man had already fallen. This fallen man is the flesh. Thus, when Christ became man, He became flesh. When we put John 1:14 together with 2 Corinthians 5:21, we see that when Christ became flesh, He was made sin. In the sight of God we, as fallen flesh, are actually sin. We are not only sinful and are not only sinners — we are sin itself. Because Christ became flesh, in this sense He was made sin on our behalf.
Romans 8:3 says, “God sending His own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin, and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” Yes, Christ was made sin. But in this verse we are told that He was in the likeness of the flesh of sin. This means that He was made in the form of sin. This is what is signified by the type of the brass serpent. When the children of Israel were bitten by serpents, they received the poisonous nature of the serpent. In the sight of God, they all became serpents. Therefore, God told Moses to hang a bronze serpent on a pole. This bronze serpent is a type of Christ dying on the cross as our substitute. As John 3:14 clearly indicates, this serpent on the pole was a type of Christ lifted up for us. As that serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so Christ was lifted up on the cross. Furthermore, as the bronze serpent had the form but not the poisonous nature of a serpent, so Christ had the form, the likeness, of the flesh of sin, but He did not actually have the nature of sin. He had the form of the serpent, but He did not have the serpentine nature.
For us to experience the first step of reconciliation, it was necessary for Christ to die for our sins. In 1 Corinthians 15:3 Paul declares, “Christ died for our sins.” But in order for us to be reconciled further, even fully, to God, it was necessary for Christ to die also for us, not only for our sins. For Christ to die for our sins is one thing, but for Him to die for us is something else. Christ died for our sins so that our sins may be forgiven by God and taken away. Christ also died for us so that we may be terminated. Christ’s dying for our sins accomplishes the first step of reconciliation, and His dying for us accomplishes the second step.
Paul has this second step in mind when he says, “One died on behalf of all” (5:14). According to this verse, Christ died not for sins; He died for persons. The objective aspect of Christ’s death involves His dying for our sins. But the subjective aspect of Christ’s death involves His dying for us. This subjective aspect enables the believers to be reconciled to God in full. Furthermore, in the objective aspect of His death Christ bore our sins. However, in the subjective aspect He became sin. Today there is much teaching among Christians about Christ dying for our sins and bearing our sins, but not much is said about Christ being made sin on our behalf.
Since we, as fallen human beings, are sin, for Christ to be made sin actually means for Him to become us. The subjective aspect of the death of Christ puts us to death. According to Romans 8:3, God condemned sin in the flesh. This means that He condemned us; He condemned the natural man. Furthermore, the veil, the natural man, the natural life, the flesh, was cleft through the subjective aspect of Christ’s death. When sin was condemned and when the veil was rent, we were terminated. As a result, the second veil was taken away and we may be fully reconciled to God. Therefore, we should not remain in the Holy Place; we should come forward into the Holy of Holies. Moreover, we should no longer know one another according to flesh, but we should know one another according to spirit.
Paul’s concept in this chapter is to show us that the apostles, as ministers of the new covenant, are those who can spontaneously bring others back to God fully and thoroughly. I would ask you to compare the situation of the new covenant ministers with that among Christians today. Some are brought back to God only in name. They are in the outer court. The situation of others is better. They have been brought back to God in the Holy Place. The genuine, saved, blood-washed, and Spirit-regenerated Christians have all been brought into the Holy Place. However, many still live in the flesh, in the natural life, and some still live in gross sin. Those who are in the outer court can bring others into the outer court, no further. Likewise, the genuine Christians who are in the Holy Place have been brought there by some who were already in the Holy Place. They have been reconciled to God to this extent, but not to the full extent. How far can you bring another person? How close can you bring others to God? It depends on how much you have been reconciled to Him. Those who have been brought to God by you cannot advance further than you have advanced. If you have entered the Holy Place, you can bring others there. If you are at the entrance of the Holy Place, you can bring others to the entrance. But if you are in the center of the Holy Place, you can bring others there. The point here is that we can bring others only as far as we ourselves have gone.
This is Paul’s thought in chapter five. Here Paul seems to be saying, “We apostles have been brought into the Holy of Holies. God has reconciled us to Himself fully and thoroughly. Therefore, spontaneously He gives us a commission to reconcile others to God fully and thoroughly. Because we have been reconciled to Him to this extent, we can help others to be reconciled to the same extent.”
The ministers of the new covenant have been reconciled to God to the uttermost. All the veils are gone, and there is nothing between them and God. They have been reconciled to God completely and also thoroughly constituted of the Triune God. They behave according to their constitution. They live a crucified life for the manifestation of the truth and the shining of the gospel, and they are mature, ripe, and ready to be raptured. Their only aim, their only ambition, is to please the Lord by living to Him. These are the ones who can bring others back to God thoroughly. Because they are in the Holy of Holies, they can bring others there also.
Eventually, those who have been brought back to God in the Holy of Holies will enjoy Christ to the uttermost and even become the righteousness of God in Him. Paul speaks of this in 5:21 where he says, “That we might become God’s righteousness in Him.” Righteousness issues from God for His administration (Psa. 89:14; 97:2; Isa. 32:1), which is Christ to be our righteousness (Phil. 3:9; 1 Cor. 1:30), making us God’s righteousness in Him, not merely righteous before God. Through His redemption, man as a sinner, even as sin, is made God’s righteousness, reconciled to the righteous God, and a new creation living to Him for God’s eternal purpose. The apostles are commissioned to minister such a Christ, with all the glorious issues of His marvelous achievement, to His believers who are His members to form His Body. Praise and glory be to Him forever!
The phrase “in Him” means in union with Christ, not only positionally, but organically in resurrection. We were enemies of God (Col. 1:21) by becoming sin, which came from the one who rebelled against God. Christ was made sin for us by becoming one with us through incarnation. God condemned Him in flesh as sin for us, through His death, that we might be one with Him in His resurrection to be God’s righteousness. By this righteousness, we, the enemies of God, could be and have been reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:18-20; Rom. 5:10).
In the organic union with Christ, those who have been brought thoroughly back to God are made the righteousness of God. They not only become righteous; they are the righteousness of God. This means that they not only become righteous persons, but they become righteousness itself.
God desires to have a people on earth who are not only righteous persons; He wants a people who, in the sight of God, the Devil, the angels, and the demons, are the very righteousness of God. To be made righteous before God is one thing; to be God’s righteousness is another thing. To become the righteousness of God is the highest enjoyment of the Triune God in Christ.
In Adam we fell so low that we became sin. Not only were we sinful before God — we became sin itself. But now in Christ, having been brought thoroughly back to God, we may enjoy Christ to such an extent that in Him we become God’s righteousness. What a salvation! What a reconciliation! To have this enjoyment is to be on the peak of God’s salvation, to be on the peak of our holy Zion.
