Feb 4, 2018
by: Jack Lash Series: 2Corinthians: Paul's Most Underappreciated Epistle | Category: NT books | Scripture: 2 Corinthians 1:21–22
- Introduction
A. Review: Paul is writing to try to re-win them because some other supposedly Christian leaders have come to town and have demeaned and undermined Paul.
B. 2Corinthians 1:21–22 And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, 22 and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.
II. Things God teaches us in these verses:
A. We are established in Christ. 2Cor.1:21–22 “And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ.”
1. What is a Christian? Not just a subtle shift in one’s beliefs or in one’s Sunday morning habits
a. Immigration: Out of the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of His glorious light (Col.1:13)
b. Adopted into a new family
c. Transplanted — Set to discard Vinca in my back yard
2. We are not rootless like the world. We are anchored to a Rock.
a. As Christians, we care about the homeless. My son lived among the homeless for several months across the south. He said that every homeless shelter he ever came into contact was Christian.
b. But, there is a kind of homelessness which we care about much more than this.
c. It is spiritual homelessness.
d. You see, as Christians we have a home! We are established in Christ.
B. Being established in Christ is a continuing process.
1. And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, 22 and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.
2. Notice the tenses here. Three things are accomplished past actions. But establishing is a continuing process.
3. And as we grow, we are being more and more established in Christ.
4. It takes time to grow deep roots.
5. 100 year lawns in England
6. Transplanted red maples
C. We are established in Christ BY GOD.
1. One of the things emphasized in the Bible is that salvation is of God.
a. Paul said in his first letter that "BY HIS DOING you are in Christ Jesus" (1Cor.1:30).
b. And the point is made many other times (e.g. Eph.2:4-5, 8-9; John 6:44, 63; Rom.9:16).
2. 1:21 And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us...
3. God is the One who establishes us in Christ. The Scriptures are absolutely clear about this.
4. Why is God so concerned to tell us that salvation is of Him? There are at least three reasons:
a. So that God and not man gets the glory for salvation (1Cor.1:29).
b. So we may have comfort knowing that the author of our faith is also the finisher of our faith (Heb.12:2).
c. So that we will have the confidence to pray for the lost (Rom.10:1).
5. How blessed are our eyes, that they see, and our ears, that they hear, when so many others are blind and deaf to Christ (Matt.13:16). We are no better than them. He has mercy on whom He has mercy. And the objects of His mercy ought to live life as a celebration of His free gift of salvation in Christ Jesus.
D. We are established in Christ TOGETHER.
1. 1:21 "And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ."
2. When God establishes people in Christ, He does not establish them alone. He establishes them with others. He "establishes us with you in Christ."
3. No believer is an island. We are in this together.
4. One of the greatest gifts every believer is given is the connection we enjoy with other believers.
5. We are all part of one body. God has chosen to reveal His powerful love by creating a people who love one another in the way He has loved them. Denying our togetherness in the body of Christ is tantamount to denying Christ Himself.
6. He appeals to this to try to cement his relationship with the Corinthians believers.
a. This is what we need to remember when we are tempted to separate from our brothers and/or sisters in Christ. We are one. We are eternally related.
7. One of the most profound realities of your life is that God has made you a part of the community of Christ.
E. Not only has God established us in Christ but He has confirmed and cemented this by giving us His Spirit. Paul uses three extraordinary kinds of language to communicate this.
1. The Spirit as seal – 1:21-22 "Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us."
a. We know from other places Paul uses this language that He’s referring to the gift of His Spirit.
(1) E.g. Eph.1:13 “...having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise”
(2) Eph.4:30 “do not grieve the Holy Spirit, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”
b. The Holy Spirit as seal is the language of designating ownership.
(1) A seal in the ancient Roman world was a stamped imprint (usually on melted wax) which was used in business transactions to designate ownership and authenticity, thus guaranteeing protection. (See Rev. 9:4.)
(2) God’s seal means that this person has been set aside by God, this one belongs to Him, and that He will return to take possession of him/her.
(3) Putting your name on your food in the fridge
(4) It is the equivalent of God’s name being put on something to designate that it is His.
c. The Holy Spirit is God’s mark upon His people, His sign that “this one is Mine, and no one can snatch him out of My hand.”
2. The Spirit as guarantee – “who also gave us His Spirit as a guarantee.”
a. We know that there is a great day coming for those in Christ Jesus. There will be a new heavens, a new earth, new bodies, the renewal of all things. There will be no more death or tears or barriers or weakness or curse or pain or sin. (See Rev.21:1–5 and 22:3–5.) We will dwell in full intimacy with Christ as His bride, beholding and enjoying His glory forever. This is our inheritance. Christ has acquired it and when it is time, we will inherit it. The hope of Christianity is not in this present world, but in the world to come. We live in this world in the joy that there is a far greater world coming (see Eph.1:18; 1Peter 1:3–5; Col.1:12; 3:24).
b. The giving of the Spirit is a guarantee that we belong to the age to come.
c. It is as if the Holy Spirit is an engagement ring God has given His people as we await our great wedding day when He returns.
d. Do you realize how valuable this is?
e. Do you know what fear accompanies the process of dying for most?
f. Death is ugly. Death is scary. A lot of people don’t want to even be around someone who’s dying.
g. But the MOST ugly part is the terror that most experience as they face the prospect of meeting their Maker.
h. Those who know that in Christ they are citizens of heaven, those who have the Spirit which cries out “Abba, Father” within us, those who know that to die is gain, it’s completely different. The physical side of dying may still be ugly but the rest is actually quite beautiful.
3. But I saved the most extraordinary language for last, even though it’s used first.
a. 2Corinthians 1:21 It is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us.
b. In the English this doesn’t sound too amazing. But in the Greek it’s another matter.
c. You know that the Greek word CHRISTOS (Christ) means “anointed one,” as does the Hebrew word MASHIACH (Messiah).
d. The word ’CHRISTOS’ is actually a form of a verb: the anointed one? It is derived from the verb (CHRIO) which means anoint. That verb is the one used here in v.21 where it refers to us: “God has anointed us.”
e. In the OT, priests, prophets and kings were ordained to office by being anointed with oil. Jesus was to be the Messiah/Christ/anointed one but was never anointed with oil. Rather, He was anointed with the real thing: Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit at the Jordan after being baptized by John (Acts 10:37-38).
f. And then after returned to the Father, Jesus began to anoint His people with the Holy Spirit, beginning at Pentecost. The same Spirit who was in Him is now in us.
g. This doesn’t mean, of course, that we’ve been made the Christ. Some teachers have actually moved in this direction. But this is the only place where Paul uses this kind of language, so we must be careful not to wander off into dangerous territory by taking this one statement too far.
h. He’s the light of the world and we’re the light of the world, but we’re not the light of the world in the same way that He is. And so He’s the anointed One and we’re anointed ones, but we’re not anointed ones in the same way that He is the anointed One.
i. But it does mean we’ve been given the Spirit as Christ was given the Spirit.
j. And it means that we’ve been anointed to fulfill a special calling as God’s representatives, as God’s spokesmen, as God’s priests.
k. And it means that we are no longer to live not by our own power, but by His: "I’ve been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me." (Gal.2:20)
l. Apart from Him we can do nothing! (John 15:5) But He has sent His Spirit into our hearts that we might be live not according to human strength but according to divine power.
III. Application
A. Glorious things of us are spoken here!
1. God establishes us in Christ. God has anointed us with His Spirit, who is a seal and guarantee that we are His and that we will receive all that He has promised.
2. In His great love, our Father has lavished upon us treasure beyond imagination in His Son!
B. What does all this have to do with their undermining of Paul’s apostleship? Well, that’s not entirely clear. Maybe Paul just got carried away talking about Christ’s salvation, as he sometimes does.
1. Or maybe these new Corinthian converts were taking the Christian faith too lightly. As if it was a small thing. As if it was just another club to join or philosophy to adopt or movement to participate in or cause to advocate.
2. Maybe Paul is responding to their contempt of him by trying to help them realize that when you come to Christ you take on a whole new identity; you become part of a heavenly people, an eternal kingdom.
3. And so the way you think about and treat fellow believers and especially the ones Christ sent to bring His gospel to you needs to be consistent with this new identity. You can’t just dismiss someone because you don’t like his/her style. You can’t just undermine a leader because you think you could do a better job.
4. In Matthew 19:3-12 Jesus was asked about divorce.
a. 6-8 “What God has joined together, let not man separate.” They said, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” He said, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.”
b. I would suggest that the same thing can be said about divorcing ourselves from the church or from our fellow believers or from the leader who God used to proclaim Christ to us.
c. It was not supposed to be like this. From the beginning it was not so. It happens because of the hardness of our hearts.
C. You see, it’s more than that glorious things of me are spoken or glorious things of thee are spoken. It’s also that glorious things of WE are spoken. (Poetic license)
1. It’s not just who we are as individuals. It’s who we are corporately as the people of God, the bride of Christ. Christ doesn’t have many brides. He’s not a polygamist. He has one bride. It’s us together. He has established us with one another in Christ.