Presented to Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 01 Jan. 2012
By Captain Michael Ramsay
New Years is often the time when we look back on the year and there are often quizzes to see how much we remember of the significant events that occurred in the world, our country and our community. In that spirit here is a New Years Day Quiz for you.
EVENTS IN OUR WORLD (answers below)[1]
1) A tsunami swept through this country?
2) What did these two cities have in common in 2011: London and Vancouver?
3) Who is the new General of the Salvation Army in 2011?
EVENTS IN OUR COUNTRY
1) Who is famous for the following quote from last year? “My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”
2) Famous Wedding this past year where the honeymooners visited Canada?
3) Who won the Grey Cup in 2011?
EVENTS IN OUR COMMUNITY
1) Which bank was robbed here on January 7/11?
2) Who won this riding (Swift Current) in the provincial election?
3) What member of this congregation spoke her first words and took her first steps this year?
Baby is still doing a lot of firsts. She just had her second Christmas this year. There is a lot to look forward to for our little one. The Scripture that we are looking at today, 2 Corinthians 5:17, says, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
As well as quizzes, New Years Day is the time when many people make resolutions: where we promise to make changes, to do something new. People decide to turn a new page, turn over a new leaf and make a new start. Because of this, Susan suggested that today we look at 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” I think this is something worth considering on a day like today when many people are considering new starts; when we are turning the page on a new calendar year. So let’s take a look at this verse in the context of 2 Corinthians here.[2]
We know who wrote this letter, 2 Corinthians, right? The Apostle Paul. Who did he write it to? The Corinthians. This is one of two of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians that we have in our Bibles. Scholars think that he wrote at least four, maybe more. He probably wrote this 20 or so years after Christ rose from the grave. Now, do we know where Corinth is? It is in Greece and Grecian Corinth was an important city in the Roman Empire of the first century. Paul is writing this letter to a congregation probably about the same size as the group of folks we have gathered today and presumably they are all saints. They are all Christians to whom Paul is writing. This letter addresses a number of different things: the joy Paul feels for their response to an earlier letter, the troubles he has suffered, why he has had to change his travel plans; he is also asking them to forgive another, telling them not to be yoked with unbelievers, and explaining the joys that come from suffering for the Gospel, teaching about grace, dealing with opposition in the church, and telling them to get ready for his arrival in Corinth. It is not as focused as some of his epistles; Paul really does chat about quite a few different things in this letter to the Corinthians.
In this letter, in our verse for today, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul writes, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” “Therefore if anyone is in Christ…”: This phrase refers to anyone who is a Christian or as the New Testament more commonly refers to us, saints. We know what a saint is, right? The Greek word ‘saint’ in our Bibles is derived from the same word as ‘holiness’. In the New Testament ‘saint’, simply put, just means ‘Christian’.[3] A Christian saint is contrasted with a ‘sinner’. So in the apostolic letters in the New Testament there really are just two choices in this regard. You can be either a Christian saint or you can be a sinner.[4] As Paul’s letter reads ‘if anyone is in Christ’ it is saying that for all of us saints, for all of us Christians, we are a new creation – the old is gone, the new has come for all of us! This is exciting. When we hand our lives over to the Lord, it is like a changing of the guard; a new, fresh set of eyes now guards the prize. It is like those New Year’s pictures we see with the old year being ushered out as the new baby year comes marching in, full of energy and a big smile on his face. Paul is saying, like with the changing of the page on the calendar when the year is renewed; so when we each turn the page on our life, giving it to Christ, we are holy (cf. Leviticus 19:2, 1 Peter 1:16).[5] We are renewed (cf. Isaiah 42:9, 43:19-20).[6] The old has gone. The new has come.
This is good news. At New Years we often make resolutions to turn over a new leaf, to do something different and something new. How long, stereotypically, do these resolution usually last in our contemporary Canadian culture? Not very long… The Apostle Paul is telling these Christians who are reading and listening to his letter and he is telling us as well that we don’t need to abandon our new life in Christ like others might abandon a hasty New Years resolution. Paul says, much to the contrary, that we have died to sin and we are now alive in Christ (cf. Romans 6:1,11; 8:10; Ephesians 2:1; Colossians 2:13). He is speaking to Christians here and he is encouraging us to keep on, keeping on. And He is not just speaking in global, nebulous terms. He is telling us specifically how our lives should be different now that we have turned the page to our new life in Christ. Let us look back a bit in this letter to the Corinthians to see how our lives looked Before Christ and compare them to what they look like now, Anno Domini, in the years of our Lord. I think it will serve us well to look through this letter to see exactly what Paul means by this new creation versus that old creation.
If we turn back to Chapter 4, we can see what he is talking about. The Apostle Paul talks about how we have changed. Paul says of the old self, 2 Corinthians 4:2: “Rather, we have renounced [those] secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” Paul says that our old selves were selfish. Our old selves used deception and distorted the word of God. This is interesting because as our country, moves further and further away from our salvation, I have noticed this same thing appear here quite a bit – honesty seems to be a sad casualty of the secular evolution of our nation. In the week after Christmas here I read a couple of articles on the CBC website and in the Globe and Mail, talking about the Pope and the Queen’s Christmas messages and about how the Third World has been turning to Christ en mass. One article in the Globe and Mail by Margaret Went asks,[7]
“What’s the fastest-growing religion in the world today? It’s Christianity. You can be excused if you guessed wrong. For the past decade, the Western world’s attention has been transfixed by Islam. But in sub-Saharan Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, it’s Christianity that’s on the march. Today, Christianity claims 2.18 billion believers – a third of the world’s population. By 2050, Christians will outnumber Muslims 3 to 1.”
Praise the Lord for, 2 Corinthians 5:17, “… if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
But there is a sad note: you should of read the hatred towards everything Christian that people wrote in the comment section underneath this article about the worldwide growth of our faith. I have come to expect a certain level of anti-Christianity from CBC message boards but I was floored by how much hatred and prejudice there is against Christians and the Bible in the Globe and Mail as well. I even reported as hate speech a few of those comments that the Globe and Mail and CBC moderators allowed. It was that bad. People are misquoting the Bible and blaming Christ and Christians seemingly for every conceivable evil in the world – and they were doing this during the Christmas season in articles about Christians and Christianity. The Apostle Paul tells us 2000 years in advance of this that this is what people do. This is what people -who are not saints living out their salvation- do. Paul says that before we were saved, we deceived and we distorted the truth to make our point. That is what some of those commentators were doing.
Paul says, that prior to turning the page to the new creation, we are blinded by the god of this age. That is the devil and this is how the devil works. He blinds people to the abundant truth of God’s through all kinds of deception. Just open the news headlines in any given western country’s papers in any given year in the 21st Century. How many scandals are there, involving the elected leaders of the world, our country and various provinces? We have a political system with which the devil feels right at home. It all boils down to a popularity contest every few years. I will tell you how much this old creation dishonesty and deceitfulness has become: we, Canadians, have become so used to our leaders deceiving us and distorting the truth that less and less people are even bothering to vote – why bother if people are just lying to us? It is not only in our leaders that we see the old creation represented in North America today. We also see this on TV. I am shocked by the kind of deception and shameful ways that are extolled by our media and entertainment industries. This all filters down to our individual lives to and then back up into our society as a whole. I can’t tell you the number of times I have heard people justifying a ‘white lie’: cheating on our taxes, not declaring our income, or lying about our age: young people trying to be older; elders appearing to be younger. Deception has grasped our society as the god of this age, 2 Corinthians 4:4, has blinded the non-believing heart. This is what old creation is like without reconciliation with God and without Christian renewal.
The Apostle Paul says, 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” Paul says that we can turn the page on all this as we are made anew, like the year is made anew.[8] This is important – being a new creation. We, the New Year, the new creation, as we are reconciled with Christ, we are completely differently from the old.[9] Paul writes, 2 Corinthians 2:15-16, “For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life.” This is cause for happiness because we are the fragrance of life for some and this is cause for sadness because we are the smell of death to others. Some people really hate Christians. Some people really hate Christ and that is becoming a viewpoint that is more the norm than the exception in our country in this century and this is sad. Even sadder still, I think, is the fact that this ‘old creation deception’ that we have been talking about can even be seen in the churches. Actions consistent with the old creation can be seen in the churches where the new creation is supposed to be flourishing. How many of us have heard people complaining and planting seeds of discontent? How many of us have ever been tempted to act like life Before Christ instead of living Anno Domini, in the year of our Lord? How many of us have been tempted to keep on sinning, and thus like the author of the sermon to the Hebrews says, trample on the body of Christ (Hebrews 10:29)? We don’t need to do this: Paul encourages us that God wants is to be reconciled to us all. God wants us all to experience His new creation. “… it is the privilege of all believers to be wholly sanctified, and that their whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (TSA doc. 10) Christ died on the cross and rose again from the grave so that we can die to sin and rise again to salvation. So let us do that. Let us turn the page on the old creation and in this New Year let us instead experience all the joys of the New Creation. 2 Corinthians 5:17, for “…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
In a couple of months, we are going to start a sermon series here looking at the Salvation Army doctrines. I am going to do my best to try and find some good speakers and big name people to share with us their thoughts and feelings on the doctrines. I ran across this holiness test from O&R posted on www.armybarmy.com this week. I think it is a good one for us to try to answer ourselves to see if we are taking full advantage of the holiness of salvation that is available to us all.
TEST FOR SELF-EXAMINATION: ORDERS AND REGULATIONS FOR SOLDIERS.
1. Am I habitually guilty of any known sin? Do I practise or allow myself in any thought, word, or deed, which I know to be wrong?
2. Am I so the master of my bodily appetites as to have no condemnation? Do I allow myself in any indulgence that is injurious to my holiness, growth in knowledge, obedience, and usefulness?
3. Are my thoughts and feelings such that I should not be ashamed to hear them published before God?
4. Does the influence of the world cause me to act, feel, or say things that are unlike Christ?
5. Do my tempers cause me to act, or feel or say things that I see afterward are contrary to that love which I ought to bear always to those about me?
6. Am I doing all in my power for the salvation of sinners? Do I feel concern about their danger and pray and work for their salvation as if they were my children?
7. Am I fulfilling the vows I have made to God in my acts of consecration or at the Penitent Form?
8. Is my example in harmony with my profession?
9. Am I conscious of any pride or haughtiness in my manner or bearing?
10. Do I conform to the fashions and customs of this world or do I show that I despise them?
11. Am I in danger of being carried away with worldly desires to be rich or admired?
Let us pray.
---
[1] WORLD: 1) Japan, 2) Riots, 3) General Linda Bond; COUNTRY: 1) Dr. Jack Layton, 2) The Royals William and Kate, 3) BC Lions; COMMUNITY: 1) BMO, 2) Hon. Brad Wall, 3) Heather and Cecilia
[2] Philip E. Hughes, ‘2 Corinthians Introduction’, 1803, in NIB Study Bible. Edited by Kenneth L. Barker, Grad Rapids, Michigan, USA: Zondervan, 2002.
[3] W.E. Vine. . 'Holiness, Holy, Holily.' In Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Word. (Nashville, Tennessee: Royal Publishers Inc., 1939), 555.
[4] Cf. John D.W. Watts. 'Holy.' In Holman Bible Dictionary, general editor Trent C. Butler. Nashville, Tennesee: Holman Bible Publishers, 1991), 660. W.E. Vine. 'Holiness, Holy, Holily.' In Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Word. (Nashville, Tennessee: Royal Publishers Inc., 1939), 555.
[5] Captain Michael Ramsay, 1 Peter 1:16 (Leviticus 19:2): God says, “…be holy because I am holy”, presented to the Swift Current Corps (13 February 2011). Available on-line at http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2011/02/1-peter-116-lev-192-god-says-be-holy.html
[6] J. Paul Sampley, The Second Letter to the Corinthians (NIB X: Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 2000), 94.
[7] Margaret Wente, 'God's far from dead in the global South' in the Globe and Mail, Dec 29, 2011 3:19PM EST. Available on-line: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/margaret-wente/
[8] Cf. N.T. Wright, On Becoming the Righteousness of God: 2 Corinthians 5:21 (Originally published in Pauline Theology, Volume II, ed. D. M. Hay: Augsburg Fortress, Minneapolis,1993, 200–208. Reproduced by permission of the author.) Available on-line: http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Becoming_Righteousness.pdf
[9] Cf. Rev. Dr. Leslie Milton, ‘14th March 4th in Lent – Joshua 5:9-12; Psalm 32 (11); 2 Corinthians 5:16-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32’, in The Expository Times: Journal of Biblical Studies, Theology and Ministry, (Vol. 121: No. 5: Feb, 2010), pp. 241-242.
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