The exchanged Life

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21God made him who had no sin to be sin[a] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

I would like for us to go through this verse phrase by phrase so that we could get the full impact of it. There are four points that we can pull out of this passage:

1. Verse 16: "So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. "

We Christians have been made complete in Christ. We are forgiven, redeemed, made spiritually alive, and we stand in the righteousness of Christ, totally accepted.

But that is not how we see each other. We still look at each other as sinners, blacksliders, cheats, homosexauls or what ever the world calls us. The apostle Paul is telling us here that from now on as we mature in our identity in Christ we should not regard each other from these kind of world view point.

A baby is born with everything that that baby will ever have on them. Ten toes, ten fingers, two eyes, two nostrils, one mouth etc. But that baby is not fully mature, and with the passage of time the baby grows and matures but nothing is added to the baby, the baby does not grow extra toes of fingers or an additional mouth.

Same with us Christians, God has a lot of maturing to do in us yet. We ought to see each other with a sign on our foreheads; ”UNDER CONSTRUCTION”. It would remind us to be more tolerant and forgiving toward one another. Until then, we are guaranteed that God “who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phillipians1:6).

Apostle Paul is encouraging us to see one another as God sees us.

2. Verse 17: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! "

"Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life." Romans 6:3,4

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."Galatians 2:20

Salvation is not about us changing our lives, it is about God making us into a new creation.

But a good question arises, if I am a new creation and Jesus Christ took away all my sins, why do i still do some of the dumb things I used to do?

Let us try to answer that.

When we are born again what part of us is born again? [] our spirits of course. we still have the same body that we had before we were born again and for most of us that body is getting worse by the day. Neither are our souls born again, that is, our mind and emotions. We still think some of the same old thoughts that we used to think before we became born again. That is why the bible says do not be conform to patterns of the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Once we come to Christ by faith, our old nature is gone and God gives us a new nature. Our old nature is our Adamic nature. That sin nature dies and we are created anew in Christ with a Christ nature housed in this same old body.

3.Verse 18: "All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:"

"All these is from God". Salvation like creation is all God and nothing that we do or don't do. We accept it in faith or we reject it, but there is nothing we can add to it. All these is from God; our righteousness, sanctification, justification, perfection, completeness. All these are from God and it is by His Grace that we have all these. Paul reminds us that Grace is a gift so that no one can boast.

Do you realize that man is the last thing that God created? Someone jokingly said that if God had created man on the first day, man would have taken credited for some of God's creation. I think it is just part of our nature, it is difficult for us to just accept that God has done it all for us, we feel like we need to help God in some way. But the apostle Paul reminds us here that these is all from God.

Now let us continue with the second part of verse 2 Corinthians 5:18 and talk a little about reconciling.

Reconciliation is an accounting term; for a business person to reconcile their books means that the accounts payable must be equal to the accounts receivable. So say someone owed this business person and year after year they were not able to pay back the business person. This would be a problem to the business person because they would not be able to balance their books. So say this goes on for a few years and the business person decided to cancel the debt. By canceling the debt they will able to reconcile their books. That is what God did to us, God in His love and mercy canceled the debt that we could not pay and in so doing He reconciled His books.

"As Christians we are continually trying to change our lives but the call of God in our lives is not for us to change our lives but for us to experience the exchanged life. Christianity is not a self-improvement program. It isn’t a recycling project. It is resurrection! It is new life! And it is expressed in terms of a total exchange of identity. Jesus Christ identified Himself with us in our spiritual death in order that we might be identified with Him in His resurrection. We give Christ all that we were – spiritually dead, guilty sinners – and Christ gives us all that He is – resurrected life, forgiveness, righteousness, acceptance."

4. Verses 20,21

understanding what reconciliation is and understanding that God has canceled, totally wiped off the debt that we owed, God has balanced His books by canceling the debt that we could not pay, the apostle Paul is begging us here to cancel that sin debt from our own books (our minds). The Holy Spirit through the apostle Paul is begging us here to wipe away sin from our conscience, because God does not remember them any more.

God has reconciled His books by wiping away our sins as if they never existed and so He is begging us to wipe it out of our books also. He is not dealing with us on the basis of sin anymore. He is now dealing with us on the basis of life.

Then verse 21 to me is a complete summary of the gospel..... God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

This is the exchange that God made for us and until we experience this exchange we will never experience a changed life. This is what Christianity is all about. God wants us to experience the exchange of our sins for Christ's righteousness.

Jesus Christ did not only die for our sins but became sin for us, He took on all our sins, every single sin that we could think of or have thought of or will ever think of or do, Jesus Christ took them on Himself and they were all nailed on the cross. But He did not just leave us with nothing, He gave us His righteousness in place of our sins.

This is the great exchange, Christ died to take away all our sins and he was resurrected so that the life that resurrected him from the grave could resurrect us from our state of spiritual death.

In conclusion let me quote from one of my favorite books; 'Classic Christianity' by Bob George:

"1 Peter 2:24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. "

We do not only need to learn to say no to sin, but to say yes to the Lord Jesus Christ who indwells us, to not only consider ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Whatever you and I may be struggling with, the answer is the same. It is only through a total exchange that we will begin to see the change we desire"