It isn't necessary, of course, for every Christian to become a theologian or to be a well-studied academic in order to understand the truths of the gospel. But it is essential that every believer thoroughly comprehend their faith, thoroughly comprehend what it means to be in Christ. So there are some basic elements that are absolutely critical. For instance, you really need to have a good clarity about who humanity is and was in their perfection. In other words, who was Adam and Eve in the garden prior to the fall? What was it about them? What was the divine design? Man in his perfection. Secondly, we have to understand the nature of the fall itself and what that did to man in his fallenness. What does it mean to be a fallen creature? Thirdly, of course, we want to be very clear about what it means to be a person in redemption, man in his redeemed state. And then, of course, finally, man in his ultimate glorification as a result of that redemption. So those four things are absolutely important for you to get clear about. Again, you don't have to be a scholar. You don't have to be an academic. You don't have to read 12 books a day. or even 12 bucks a year, but you do need to be well taught. Sanctification and the working out of your salvation comes through good teaching as it is applied to your heart, mind, and will by the Holy Spirit. So those four things are really critical, important to you. Let me just remind you again. Number one, who was man before the fall? Two, what became of man after the fall, the nature and character of man after the fall. Number three, who is man in his redeemed state? And then four, who is man in his glorified state when that is fully realized at the return of our Lord, the new heaven and the new earth and the consummation of all things? Now today, I want to talk to you specifically about the nature of reconciliation. the nature of reconciliation. And to do that, we're going to turn to 2 Corinthians 5. 2 Corinthians 5, we're going to look at verses 15, excuse me, 17 through 21. 2 Corinthians 5, verses 17 through 21. Reading, quote, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. Namely, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not counting their transgressions against them. And he has committed to us the word of reconciliation. So then, we are ambassadors for Christ. As God is fleeting through us, we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made him who knew no sin on our behalf, so that we might become to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him." End quote. Call that the great exchange, that last verse there. He made him, Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Well, the first thing we notice in this text is that the word or some form of the word reconciliation is used five times, five times in this passage. Clearly, Paul is addressing the issue of reconciliation. What it is, who reconciles, how is it applied, and what does it mean? Let's take a few observations. The first thing we learn in verse 17 is, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, now we've learned that when we read therefore at the beginning of the verse, we should pause, shouldn't we, to consider what the therefore is there for. So in other words, the verse is calling us to be clear about the context of our subject passage. So let's look at the context, and for that we go back up to verse 11. So then, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we have been made manifest the God. And I hope that we have been made manifest also in your consciences. We are not again commending ourselves to you, but are giving you an opportunity to boast of us, so you will have an answer for those who boast in appearance and not in heart. For if we are out of our mind, it is for God, or if we are right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died. And he died for all, so that they who live would no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf. Therefore, from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh, even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him in this way no longer. And then we get to our text. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come. The balance of our context begins, of course, in verse 1 of chapter 6. And working together with him, we also plead with you, beyond pleading with you to be reconciled, not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, at the acceptable time I listened to you, and on the day of salvation I helped you. Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. Giving no cause for anything, for offense in anything, so that the ministry will not be discredited. but in everything commending ourselves as ministers of God in much perseverance and afflictions, distresses, hardships, beatings, imprisonments, disturbances, labors, sleeplessness, hunger, purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in unhypocritical love, in the word of truth, in the power of God, by the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left, by glory and dishonor, by evil and good report, regarded as deceivers and yet true, as unknown and yet well known, as dying and yet behold we live as punished and not put to death as sorrowful but always rejoicing as poor but making many rich as having nothing and yet possessing all things end quote well there's a lot there a lot there to unpack And it's very important that you grasp what's going on here. So what's happening in general is that Paul is speaking to the Corinthians who have become enamored by a group of false teachers who are pretty much declaring that Paul is mad, that his gospel is crazy, he's lost his mind, and that the Corinthians should listen to these men instead. And so Paul is making somewhat of an apologetic here. He's making an argument for his gospel and for he and his associates, and explaining himself to them out of mercy for them. Paul did not feel the need to explain himself just because he wanted to preserve his standing in the community, but because the gospel itself was at stake. He's explaining himself, he's defining himself in his ministry, in his gospel, in such a way that they will be reminded of the gift that they have been given in the gospel. And the fact that the gospel, although counterintuitive to human thinking, is nonetheless the truth. and that the gospel that they're hearing from the false teachers is, in fact, just the same old worn-out, works-righteousness, man-centered, legalistic, and ego-elevating religiosity that led them down the path when they were yet Gentiles. So now he's appealing to them, and he's saying to them, first of all, that God is a reconciler. The pagan gods even the God of the Jews by this time in their apostate Judaism, was someone to be feared, someone not to be trifled with, someone to appease, someone to offer sacrifices and to look for ways to be reconciled with on their own basis. There were shrines, there were temples, There were ways of evoking the blessings of the God. But no one ever dreamed that those gods would be reconcilers. Even the way the Judaism, the apostate Judaism of that time, had represented Yahweh as being their God, God who was, if you will, even Jewish in himself, to the point where the Jews claimed him for their own and treated the Gentiles as dogs and outsiders and strangers. whom their God could only come to their God through Judaism. Well, so Paul is coming along now with this wonderful message of reconciliation. That's what I want to talk with you about for a few minutes here. The message of reconciliation. God is a reconciler. And this is what separate Paul apart from all the other Gentile religions and the teachings of the Judaizers. Remember, Corinth, as a Greek city, came under the influence of Hellenistic Greek philosophy, of course, but there was also a very strong Jewish presence, and even the influence of Roman paganism, since it was in part of the Roman Empire at that time. And so there was a lot of religiosity going on. But when Paul came proclaiming the gospel, he proclaimed the gospel of God, of Yahweh, the one and only true God who had come into the world and through his son, Jesus Christ, become flesh, incarnate man, yet fully God, who had offered himself at the cross and was raised from the dead in reconciliation power by the Father, and that the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the day of Pentecost as a pledge that sealed us for redemption, sealed our redemption. But here Paul's speaking specifically of God as a reconciler. He reconciled you to himself, and this is what I want you to be able to see today. God reconciled himself to you, or you to him, however you want to look at it. God reconciled himself to you, reconciled himself to you, and you to him, before you were ever born. The gospel of reconciliation is of an accomplished fact that occurred long before you were born. So God has reconciled you to himself. A lot of people believe that they reconciled themselves to God by believing the gospel. A lot of people erroneously believe, a lot of Christians erroneously believe that they reconciled themselves to God by believing the gospel, and therefore, in the final analysis, it was up to them. They were the reconciler. They reconciled themselves to God. But that's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches it was the other way around. It wasn't you who reconciled yourself to God by believing, but you believed the message of reconciliation which God accomplished in Christ long before you heard the gospel. It was applied to you by the gift of faith. So what I'm saying to you today is that it is popular in evangelical circles still to believe that somehow salvation is kind of a universal offer, that is a standing offer, a standing gift to mankind for whosoever will tap into it by their own free will and volition and therefore achieve reconciliation, much like you go to a grocery store and buy something off the shelf. None of it has your name on it, but you make it yours by taking it off the shelf and purchasing it. It's a weak analogy, but I think you get my point. You get the point that it isn't salvation and reconciliation is not something that you accomplish by believing. Rather, reconciliation is something that occurred before you ever believed. God reconciled you to himself. And he then applied that reconciliation when you heard the Gospel, and the Holy Spirit moved upon your heart, mind, and will, and you, through the gift of faith, also imparted by a work of the Spirit, were enabled, through your mind, will, and heart, to believe. and were reconciled. The reconciliation that was purchased by the Father through the finished work of Christ was applied to you. Now, I hope you can catch the nuance there. Because the false teaching is very subtle. You'll hear preachers tell you, oh yes, yes, yes, yes, you believed and you were saved. And that's true. But why did you believe? Was it because something inherent within you? Yes, you are reconciled to God in Christ. But when did that reconciliation occur? It occurred, first of all, in the mind of God in eternity. The Father then sent the Son into the world to accomplish salvation on behalf of those whom He chose before the foundation of the world. It was a fully effectual, fully secured reconciliation by His death and resurrection. that the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, the power to bring that message into the world and apply it to the hearts and minds and wills of those whom the Father has chosen, was brought about. So God is the reconciler, not ourselves. Yes, we believe and yes, we must. Yes, it was true. Before we believed, we were not justified. As far as our standing with God, though, however, we were justified by the death and resurrection of His Son. That justification was purchased for you. That reconciliation was purchased for you. But it became experiential. It became existential. It was applied to you, but not even something then that originated in you. it was applied to you by the Spirit, by the gift of faith imparted by the Spirit when you heard the gospel. So you see, God is the reconciler. He reconciled you to himself long before you were born. And this reconciliation purchased on your behalf was applied to you at the time you heard the gospel of your reconciliation, and then were granted repentance and faith. And because this reconciliation was secured for you, you in particular, by the way, before the creation of the world, secured by Christ's death and resurrection, it is evident reconciliation had no basis of merit or attractiveness in you. It is solely, wholly the gift of God. Now why is that important? Because you have glorious ground for assurance. You have glorious ground for rejoicing because your standing with God is now and ever will be grounded in something apart from you. I once heard of a Catholic priest who said he could not believe that he was saved because that would be presumptuous, that he hoped to be, but he couldn't believe he was saved. And he couldn't believe he was saved because he thought no one, including himself, could check all the boxes necessary to be assured that justification was his. And I think it was James White who was interviewing this Catholic priest. And Dr. White responded to him, well, you're right. No one can check all the boxes to ensure and be assured in themselves that they are justified. No one can meet all the requirements for justification. But I know one who has. Speaking, of course, of Jesus Christ. So you see, our reconciliation is grounded not in ourselves, not in our works, but in the finished work of Christ. We can even go so far as to say that, yes, justification and reconciliation is by works, just not our own. It is in the work of Christ that we rest, not our own works. It is in the mind of the Father in eternity who chose us in Christ to be blameless and holy before him in love. He predestined us to be to the adoption of sons. All these things occurred outside and apart for any works of merit, any opportunity to do good or bad during your lifetime. So God is not a passive observer of your life, waiting for you to do something to reconcile yourself to Him. Rather, He has reconciled Himself to you. The proclamation of the Gospel is of a reconciliation that has been accomplished on your behalf. And then you are enabled by the gift of the Spirit to believe it, and to receive it, and to have it applied to you, and then to rejoice in it. And because it is the gift of God, you cannot lose it. You may wander, you may fall into sin, but God will recover you, discipline you, and restore you. But he will never abandon you. He will never leave you, turn you over back to the evil one, into sin and death. So God is not a passive observer in your life. If you wander, he will seek you out and bring you back. That's the story of the Good Shepherd. If you sin, he will convict you into repentance. If you fall into a pattern of sin, he will discipline you like any good father, but he will never give you back to your former state. You will never be able to slide back into Adam, into sin and the control of the evil one. You are his child forever. And you are his child today because of what he has accomplished. God is a reconciler. And the great message of the gospel is that he has reconciled us to himself through Christ. And he has given us the ministry of reconciliation. He doesn't give us the power of reconciliation. I can't reconcile anybody to anyone, let alone God. But he's given us the ministry, meaning the administration of the proclamation of the good news that God in Christ has reconciled us to himself. He has done so and he is not counting our transgressions to him. Let me read that text one more time. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not counting their transgressions against him, And he has committed to us the word of reconciliation. So then, we are ambassadors for Christ. As God is pleading through us, we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. In other words, Paul is saying, don't go back to some false gospel that teaches you that you haven't yet been reconciled, that it's possible for you to be reconciled. but it's up to you to reconcile yourself. Don't go back to that. Don't go back to that teaching that was becoming popular again in Corinth, a false gospel. And a false gospel, I might say, that is ever growing in its popularity again today in the world. that Christ somehow died and rose again just to make salvation possible, and that it's up to you to complete the circle. And if you don't, then everything he's done will be in vain. What kind of horrific teaching that is? Well, I can tell you what kind. It's a worldly teaching. It's a satanically perverted gospel. Because the good news is, God has indeed reconciled us to himself. For he made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. And so we do not receive the grace of God in vain. Rather, we apply it, we walk in it, we rejoice in it, and we communicate it to others warmly, kindly, lovingly, clearly, firmly, so that they too may know the glory of the gift of reconciliation that was accomplished fully in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Amen.