2 Corinthians 3:1-6
ted phillips
October 15, 2017
10/15/17
Ted Phillips
2 Corinthians 3: 1-6
I want to ask you if you would turn to the book of 2 Corinthians. We have finished up the book of Titus. I want to look at the first four or five verses of 2 Corinthians chapter 3 this morning. And let me begin by reading verses 1 through 6: “Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some, letters of commendation to you or from you? You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men; being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” Just by brief intro to the book of 2 Corinthians, a little bit of background, let me say the church at Corinth, if you read through both epistles that Paul wrote to the Corinthians, they proved to be a great challenge to the Apostle Paul. They were a church that struggled with the flesh a great deal, they struggled with worldliness, which means they struggled with sin, and in fact amongst them there was a very grievous sin. Not surprisingly, they also struggled with Paul himself, and they did so in many ways. One area of struggle was Paul’s apostleship. They questioned his qualifications as an apostle. We see this referenced in both letters, in fact 1 Corinthians 9:1 & 2, Paul makes this argument, having been accused of not being qualified, he says, “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen the Lord Jesus? Are you not my work in the Lord? If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.” As it turns out, this questioning by the Corinthians was an attitude that they had picked up from false teachers who had become an influence in the Church. And of course, these men, they flat out opposed Paul and everything he stood for, and one of the ways they did this was they questioned his credentials. And adding to this, these men themselves, they carried letters of commendation with them everywhere they went, letters by third parties to bolster their own credibility. And this was not an uncommon thing back then, and it’s not an uncommon thing today. People have letters of recommendations to hand out at times, especially in the area of employment. But some of the Corinthian saints, they were impressed with these letters of commendation that these men carried, and so they began to question Paul’s legitimacy as an apostle. There are many things that give status to a person in an unbelieving world, and this certainly is one of them. Credentials, something that says that I am somebody. And some of the Corinthian saints were obviously impressed at the status of these letters of recommendation conferred upon these false teachers. They were impressed, and in some respects, as you read this, you get the impression that they were even captivated by this, because this was something that was an ongoing issue. And of course, so much so, even that they would question Paul who had labored among them selflessly, but in reality they were taken in by that which was worldly. In the passage that we’re looking at this morning, this passage before us, Paul answers these accusations against him. If you notice in 2 Corinthians 3:1 he says, “Are we beginning to commend ourselves again?” In other words, in defending ourselves, are we being prideful? Am I being prideful? Are we doing just what the false teachers are doing? And of course the answer to that is a resounding no. Paul did not make an effort to lift himself up, he did not fill his epistles with self praise. You and I can verify that ourselves, just by reading the different epistles he wrote. This was not true, this was not Paul’s way. And then Paul asked the question, he says, “Do we need, as some,” and he’s referring of course to the false teachers, he says “do we need as some letters of commendation to you or from you. Do we need to produce for you letters of recommendation from others that would somehow verify for you our qualifications?” This is Paul’s question for them. That somehow would impress you. And then Paul answers his own question in verse 2, he says, “You Corinthians,” he says, “you are our letter.” You’re our letter of recommendation, our letter of commendation. And as he stated back in 1 Corinthians, he says, “you are my work in the Lord.” Your very lives communicate and testify to the validity of the work that we have done among you, the work that I have done among you. Your lives testify that that work is indeed of the Lord. You once were dead in sin, and you are now alive in Christ, you are a letter that is not just read by a few, you are a letter, as he says here, known and read by all men. Your lives are visible to all, you’re an open book as to who you are and what you are. What’s interesting is Paul does not stop there, he goes on further in verse 3, and he makes a statement that settles really any further question, and this statement he says, “it has been shown that you indeed are a letter of Christ.” Now this statement goes to the very heart of the matter between Paul’s ministry and the ministry of the false teachers. What made the Corinthian saints Paul’s letter of commendation was the very fact that they themselves first and foremost were a letter of Christ. The false teachers didn’t have a letter like that, in fact they could not because they did not teach the truth. There is no one they could point to who had sat under their teaching, and had been set free from the bondage of sin. So this is Paul’s argument, and if you think about it, how in the world could the Corinthians refute such an argument that he lays before them? Such visible proof they themselves are. This statement that we have here in verse 3, what I want to submit to you this morning is that this is a statement of great significance, and its not because it settled the argument between Paul and the false teachers, it’s not a statement also that applies only to the Corinthian saints. This is a statement that defines who and what all Christians are. And also defines one of the great purposes of God in redeeming men and women who were once lost in sin, every believer is in effect an epistle of Christ. I want to take the rest of our time this morning and I want to consider this statement, to consider what it means for you and I to be letters of Christ, to be epistles of Christ. And one of the questions we will answer along the way here is what do people see when they come in contact with someone who is indeed a letter of Christ? Paul states that as letters of Christ, we are known and read by all men. What is conveyed to those with whom we come in contact? When we walk down the street, or in the store, when we are at work, when we are in our neighborhoods with our family, friends? What impression is made on their minds after having spent time with us? Getting to know us even a little bit? So I want to share some observations and some thoughts that have come to my heart, to my mind in this passage. The first one is, what it means to be a letter of Christ is we become a demonstration of His saving work. I want you just to listen as I read for you 1 Thessalonians 2: 13 and 14, and Paul says to the Thessalonians, he says, “For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the Word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the Word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe. For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you also endured the same sufferings at the hands of your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews.” The word of God is active, and it is effective, as some of the old timers say, it is efficacious, it is powerful. The work that the truth of God’s Word performs in the life of a guilty sinner is the work of justification. The one who was once under the just condemnation of God is now made righteous, in fact he is now given the righteousness of Christ, something that we looked at not too long ago. But not only is the work of justification performed, the work of sanctification is also effected in the life of the one who is made righteous. If you notice, how Paul continues in verse 14, he says, “for you brethren having heard the Word and having the Word of God implanted in their hearts,” he says, “you brethren became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus.” The Thessalonian believers had followed after the Godly example of their brethren, the outward lives of the Thessalonian believers began to demonstrate the work that had been accomplished within them. The saving work of Christ is always demonstrative, it’s always demonstrative, what has been accomplished within the heart by the truth of the Gospel expresses itself in our outward lives. That’s a foundational truth that we find in God’s Word and I think its one that we cannot overemphasize enough. I want you to turn with me then to 1 Corinthians 6: 9-11. It was not all that long ago that we looked though this passage, were kind of covering some old ground this morning. But this passage adds a great deal of insight I think in what it means to be a letter of Christ. So in his first letter, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, Paul writes, “or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the Kingdom of God and such were some of you.” All of the Corinthian believers were completely lost in sin. Every one of them was in need of a Savior, but as you can see from this list, many of them it appears, had lived lives that were given over to some of the most vile of sins. Men and women whose lives were as Godless as can be, and Paul reminds them, such WERE some of you. Past tense, such WERE some of you. That is the past, he says, that is what you were. In verse 11 he says, “but you were washed, he says, “you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” What a testimony those lives were to the power of God’s saving work, to the power of His grace. Men and women who had been held captive by the most enslaving of sins, the most vile of sins, had been cleansed, had been set free. I want you to think just for a moment of the residents of Corinth, those who had been acquainted with the believers at Corinth prior to their conversion. What a difference they must have observed in these people, an unmistakable difference. A Divine transformation was unfolded before their very eyes, and not just one person, but many. There could not have been a more clear picture of the saving power of God. That is being a letter of Christ. And what a letter it is, it is a living epistle of how the old things have passed away and new things have come to be. You know, we can talk all day long to a dying world about the Gospel, and we should, its paramount that we do, people desperately need to hear the truth and we should take every opportunity that the Lord gives us to do so. But just as important, people need to see the truth, people need to SEE it, they need to see lives that are not only consistent with the truth, but lives that demonstrate what God in Christ has accomplished in the heart. They need to see the same sacrificial love that God has demonstrated to you and I. They need to see that the joy of the Lord is indeed our strength. They need to see that we have a hope that is not set on this world but is set on things above and it’s a hope that does not crumble when adversity comes. They need to see kindness and patience. They need to see goodness in the face of difficulty, and even in the face of opposition, these are things they need to see. I think one of the things that we need to realize, to a number of people, you and I will be the only Bible that they will read. I don’t know if you’ve ever considered that, but your life, your life while demonstrating the saving power of Christ will be the only source of Truth that some people will EVER come in contact with for all of their life. As people read the living letter that God has made you, whether they admit it or not or whether they would even recognize it, they’re confronted with the saving power of God’s grace, and not even a word is spoken. We just live our lives in Christ. But to be a letter of Christ means that we are to be a demonstration of His saving work, a demonstration of the transformation that has been made in the lives of those who were once enslaved to sin. To be a letter of Christ also means that the world needs to see that He Himself IS that transformation, that Christ Himself is that transformation that has taken place within us. You know, the relationship that we have with the Lord Jesus Christ is the most unique one. The book of John in chapter 14:19-20 refers to this relationship. The Lord was speaking to His disciples, and He says, “after a little while, the world will no longer see Me. But you will see Me because I live, you will live also. And in that day, you will know that I am in the Father,” and then notice what He says, “and you in Me, and I in you.” What a wonderful promise the Lord gives to us here, that He gives to His disciples, “you in Me and I in you.” What the Lord is referring to here, of course, is our union with Him. That’s how Scripture describes our relationship with Him. 1 Corinthians 12: 13 tells us that by one Spirit, the Spirit of God, we are all baptized, that means we are all placed into one body, into the Body of Christ. But this union goes deeper still. Being united with Christ, believers also share in His death. Romans 6:5 tells us this very thing, it says “we are united with Him in the likeness of His death.” That is why Paul was able to say in Gal 2: 20 that “I am crucified with Christ.” And that is also true of you and I as well, isn’t it? We have been crucified with Christ and along with Paul we can say it is no longer I who live, it is no longer I who live, the old self with its pride and its self centeredness and its self will has been put to death. The old self has been rendered powerless. So we can also say along with Paul, it’s no longer I who live but Christ Who now lives within me. I think that is what the Lord meant when He said “you in Me and I in you.” Through the Spirit of God, Christ has taken up His abode in us. There is nothing in us that glorifies God more than when our lives communicate His Christ, the Christ that dwells within us. If you think about it, any resemblance we are of Him, it is Him and not us. And that is who the world needs to see, they need to see Him and not us. Being a letter of Christ is not about us, it’s about Him. In fact, I would say it this way: He IS the letter. It is not you and I. This was Paul’s great desire, and he expresses it to the Corinthian saints in the second letter to them just a chapter over from where we are. In 2 Corinthians 4:10, Paul says “always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our own body.” And he goes on in verse 11 and he says, “for we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake.” And the purpose again is so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. You know what I find remarkable here is Paul’s willingness to surrender his identity over to Christ. That is why he constantly endured hardship and persecution, it was so Christ would be seen in him, that Christ would be seen and not him. I think more than anything that this is what it means to be an epistle of Christ. It is when our identity gets lost in Him. The “I” that I was, was put to death and Christ shines forth. This is such a big issue today in our society, how many times do you hear people say that I have to be me? That is the world’s focus. And Paul said it must be Christ and NOT me, it’s the exact opposite. When you think about this, this goes back, really, to God’s eternal purpose. When you look at Romans chapter 8, and you read that God, before the foundation of the world, before anything or anyone was created, He predestined us to be conformed unto the image of His Son. As amazing as that in itself is, one of the grand purposes of this is that the world would see Christ, that they would see Him and learn of Him through the very lives of those He has redeemed. I want to share one last observation then that I think is very important, and it is that being a letter of Christ involves fellow laborers. A few weeks ago we looked at the fact that each one of us is to be a fellow laborer, each one of us has been uniquely equipped by the Spirit of God to minister to the spiritual needs of one another in the Body. And what we see in these verses it that laboring in this way contributes to each other being a letter and an epistle of Christ. In fact, it is a necessity that we do so. That is the way in which the Lord has designed the Church, each member is a sanctifying instrument in His hands. As a fellow laborer to the Corinthian believers, Paul had a part in making them letters of Christ, in fact He had a very significant part in this. I want you to notice in verse 3 what Paul says, “being manifest that you are a letter of Christ cared for by us written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts.” Paul was used by God in what was a Divine work. It was a work that was carried out by the Spirit of the living God. But as a letter of Christ, the Corinthians, as it says here, were cared for by Paul and those who were fellow workers together with him. It’s helpful to know that the basic meaning of this phrase was: “ giving to somebody what was necessary to sustain physical life”. This word is frequently used in the Gospels to mean setting food before somebody, so in other words, what it refers to is giving them that which sustains physical life. With that in mind, we can see that in the context of verse 3, it is referring to the fact that Paul and his fellow workers served the Lord, and they served the Corinthian believers, and they served them by giving to them what was necessary to sustain spiritual life. And I would remind you, that is what fellow workers do. They serve spiritual food, they serve spiritual sustenance to their brothers and sisters in Christ. And by doing so, they contribute to one another being a letter of Christ. I’m not sure if you ever thought about it quite like this, but this is God’s design, and His desire is to use you and me in the lives of one another, to write a book on the pages of our hearts, so to speak. A book that only has one purpose, and its purpose is to reveal Christ to a world that so desperately needs Him. As you think about it, every one of us, like Paul, should have letters of commendation that can be seen by all men. And those letters would be one another. They would be the ones who the Lord has given us to minister to, to serve spiritual sustenance to, those who we have in our hearts, those to whom we have poured out our very lives. I want you to turn with me back just one chapter to 2 Corinthians 2, just at the end of the chapter, verses 14-17. The topic that we’ve been looking at is one that Paul actually began to address at the end of chapter two, so were going backwards in a sense, but what Paul has to say here about his own ministry I think is very profitable for us as we look at this. Just before he gets to verse 14 of 2 Corinthians 2, in the previous verses he mentions that he had had a setback at Troas and then he writes this in v 14, he says, “but thanks be to God Who always leads us in His triumph in Christ. And manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one an aroma of death to death, and to the other, an aroma of life to life, and who is adequate for these things? For we are not like many, peddling the Word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God we speak from Christ in the sight of God.” If you notice in verse 15, there is a reference made to God leading us in triumph. It seems very likely that Paul is using some imagery in this verse to make his point. He’s giving his readers a picture of something that they were actually familiar with, and that picture is of a parade of sorts. In Rome, it was not uncommon for Rome to give a parade in honor of a general who had besieged a city, had conquered a country, whatever it was. It was a triumphant procession where the general would proceed through the city while on a chariot, and what followed behind him were those whom he had conquered. Any kind of spoil, of course, went along with it. What followed next were the soldiers that had fought with him, who had shared in this conquest with him. And then trailing behind those soldiers, were incense bearers, men who would carry a stick with a little pot at the top where incense would burn. And in their wake, they would leave an aroma of this incense that became a symbol of that victory. It became a symbol of the victory of this general. So the picture we have here is of God Who is victorious in His saving and sanctifying work. He’s the general, so to speak here. And He’s leading both those whom He has conquered in Christ and those also who are conquering with Him. And the thing we see here really is one of the great paradoxes of the Christian life. We, as God’s people are both the captives of Christ and also conquerors together with Him, being led by God in His victory. As those who are captives of Christ, God Who leads us through the world as those whose sin and rebellious lives have been conquered by the knowledge of Christ. We’re trophies of God’s victorious power in Christ, a demonstration of His power to save. Then as those who are conquerors together with Him, just like the aroma of the incense bearers symbolizes victory, God makes known through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. It’s an amazing thing if you think about it. Notice verse 15, it says, “for we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved, and among those who are perishing.” You see, not only are we letters of Christ, but we are also a fragrance of Christ. It’s a fragrance of Christ that is pleasing to God, and it’s pleasing to Him as a sweet aroma of the knowledge of His own Son, of His beloved Son. And as it says here, one who was made manifest by our very lives. What we also see here is that it’s also a fragrance among the world, both to those who are being saved and to those who are perishing. It seems to me that one of the things that we have to learn from this passage, one of the implications, before we can triumph with the Lord in His work, before we can be an effective worker for the Kingdom, God must triumph over us. God must have victory over us. That’s the only way. Our will must be broken. Our wills have to be broken. “To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, who trembles at My Word, to this one I will look,” says the Lord. It is when our arrogance and our self love, all of which are rebellion against God, it is when those are defeated by the convicting work of His Spirit, it is then that we can be used of the Lord. And that is when we become the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Christ to a sinful world, and to each other as well. This reminds me of a statement that Paul made again later on to the Corinthians in this epistle, he said, “the love of Christ controls me.” What Paul is saying is that It holds me captive, that’s what he’s basically saying. It has defeated my pride and its defeated my fleshly desires. And as a result, Paul was able to serve the Corinthians with a whole heart, with all of his heart. Christ is indeed most seen when we are conquered first and foremost by Him. In closing, I want to take you back to chapter 3 of 2 Corinthians, verse 3 and what I want you to see here is that the Holy Spirit plays a vital role in making you and I letters of Christ. Verse three says, “being manifested that you are a letter of Christ cared for by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts.” We’re told here in this verse in no uncertain terms that this letter of Christ is not of human origin. It’s not written with ink, it’s not written on tablets of stone as the law was, and Paul certainly was not making the Corinthians into little clones of himself. The Holy Spirit Himself inscribes the truth of the knowledge of Christ onto human hearts, making our lives a message of Divine truth. But what I want you to also notice here is how the Holy Spirit is referred to in verse 3, notice it says that He is the Spirit of the living God. The God that we serve is indeed a living God, isn’t He? And the significance of this is that the Spirit, His Spirit, is alive, even active within us, in each one of us. And what I think that means to you and I is that the letter of Christ that we are, it’s a letter that is not finished, it’s a letter that is still being written. The Holy Spirit is still at work. It’s a living letter written with the Spirit of the living God, and He is continuing His work, He is continuing to engrave the knowledge of Christ upon our hearts day by day and week by week. And as He does so, we are to become a more legible letter of Christ. And if you notice in verse 5, this is our adequacy as well, as fellow workers’. Notice what Paul says in verse 5, he acknowledges that he is not adequate for this ministry, and certainly neither are we. He says, “not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.” How true that is, our adequacy is from God alone.
Let’s bow our heads together this morning as we close. Our gracious Father, what a privilege it is to look into Your Word. What a privilege it is to realize that You have disclosed Yourself to us. You have revealed to us Your very Son in the pages of this book. Father, not only that, You have inscribed the very knowledge of Him upon our hearts with Your Spirit, with the Spirit of the living God. Father, I pray it would be our desire this morning that this letter that you are making us, that you are writing upon our hearts, it would become more and more legible day by day. That those who see us on a regular basis, even those we come in contact with one time, Father that they may see that we are unmistakably letters of Christ, that they may see Him. That they may see that we have a hope, a hope of glory, which is Christ Himself. Father what a wonderful privilege you give to us to be used in this way, to be used as instruments in Your hand. Father, I pray that we would also be aware of the fact that Your desire is for us to be fellow laborers together, and that in order for us to be effective, in order for us to labor for the Kingdom, Father, we need to be conquered first, our will needs to be broken, our pride needs to be done away with, as well as our self centeredness. Father, I pray that we would gladly release these things over to Thee. And Father I would pray that we would gladly surrender to You our own identities, so that when people see us, they do not see Ted Phillips, but they see the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, I thank You again for Your Word, the truth of Your Word. I pray that You will by Your Spirit use this in the days to come, to continue to make us into, mold us into the image of Your own Son, and we pray these things in Christ’s Name, Amen.
Ted Phillips
2 Corinthians 3: 1-6
I want to ask you if you would turn to the book of 2 Corinthians. We have finished up the book of Titus. I want to look at the first four or five verses of 2 Corinthians chapter 3 this morning. And let me begin by reading verses 1 through 6: “Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some, letters of commendation to you or from you? You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men; being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” Just by brief intro to the book of 2 Corinthians, a little bit of background, let me say the church at Corinth, if you read through both epistles that Paul wrote to the Corinthians, they proved to be a great challenge to the Apostle Paul. They were a church that struggled with the flesh a great deal, they struggled with worldliness, which means they struggled with sin, and in fact amongst them there was a very grievous sin. Not surprisingly, they also struggled with Paul himself, and they did so in many ways. One area of struggle was Paul’s apostleship. They questioned his qualifications as an apostle. We see this referenced in both letters, in fact 1 Corinthians 9:1 & 2, Paul makes this argument, having been accused of not being qualified, he says, “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen the Lord Jesus? Are you not my work in the Lord? If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.” As it turns out, this questioning by the Corinthians was an attitude that they had picked up from false teachers who had become an influence in the Church. And of course, these men, they flat out opposed Paul and everything he stood for, and one of the ways they did this was they questioned his credentials. And adding to this, these men themselves, they carried letters of commendation with them everywhere they went, letters by third parties to bolster their own credibility. And this was not an uncommon thing back then, and it’s not an uncommon thing today. People have letters of recommendations to hand out at times, especially in the area of employment. But some of the Corinthian saints, they were impressed with these letters of commendation that these men carried, and so they began to question Paul’s legitimacy as an apostle. There are many things that give status to a person in an unbelieving world, and this certainly is one of them. Credentials, something that says that I am somebody. And some of the Corinthian saints were obviously impressed at the status of these letters of recommendation conferred upon these false teachers. They were impressed, and in some respects, as you read this, you get the impression that they were even captivated by this, because this was something that was an ongoing issue. And of course, so much so, even that they would question Paul who had labored among them selflessly, but in reality they were taken in by that which was worldly. In the passage that we’re looking at this morning, this passage before us, Paul answers these accusations against him. If you notice in 2 Corinthians 3:1 he says, “Are we beginning to commend ourselves again?” In other words, in defending ourselves, are we being prideful? Am I being prideful? Are we doing just what the false teachers are doing? And of course the answer to that is a resounding no. Paul did not make an effort to lift himself up, he did not fill his epistles with self praise. You and I can verify that ourselves, just by reading the different epistles he wrote. This was not true, this was not Paul’s way. And then Paul asked the question, he says, “Do we need, as some,” and he’s referring of course to the false teachers, he says “do we need as some letters of commendation to you or from you. Do we need to produce for you letters of recommendation from others that would somehow verify for you our qualifications?” This is Paul’s question for them. That somehow would impress you. And then Paul answers his own question in verse 2, he says, “You Corinthians,” he says, “you are our letter.” You’re our letter of recommendation, our letter of commendation. And as he stated back in 1 Corinthians, he says, “you are my work in the Lord.” Your very lives communicate and testify to the validity of the work that we have done among you, the work that I have done among you. Your lives testify that that work is indeed of the Lord. You once were dead in sin, and you are now alive in Christ, you are a letter that is not just read by a few, you are a letter, as he says here, known and read by all men. Your lives are visible to all, you’re an open book as to who you are and what you are. What’s interesting is Paul does not stop there, he goes on further in verse 3, and he makes a statement that settles really any further question, and this statement he says, “it has been shown that you indeed are a letter of Christ.” Now this statement goes to the very heart of the matter between Paul’s ministry and the ministry of the false teachers. What made the Corinthian saints Paul’s letter of commendation was the very fact that they themselves first and foremost were a letter of Christ. The false teachers didn’t have a letter like that, in fact they could not because they did not teach the truth. There is no one they could point to who had sat under their teaching, and had been set free from the bondage of sin. So this is Paul’s argument, and if you think about it, how in the world could the Corinthians refute such an argument that he lays before them? Such visible proof they themselves are. This statement that we have here in verse 3, what I want to submit to you this morning is that this is a statement of great significance, and its not because it settled the argument between Paul and the false teachers, it’s not a statement also that applies only to the Corinthian saints. This is a statement that defines who and what all Christians are. And also defines one of the great purposes of God in redeeming men and women who were once lost in sin, every believer is in effect an epistle of Christ. I want to take the rest of our time this morning and I want to consider this statement, to consider what it means for you and I to be letters of Christ, to be epistles of Christ. And one of the questions we will answer along the way here is what do people see when they come in contact with someone who is indeed a letter of Christ? Paul states that as letters of Christ, we are known and read by all men. What is conveyed to those with whom we come in contact? When we walk down the street, or in the store, when we are at work, when we are in our neighborhoods with our family, friends? What impression is made on their minds after having spent time with us? Getting to know us even a little bit? So I want to share some observations and some thoughts that have come to my heart, to my mind in this passage. The first one is, what it means to be a letter of Christ is we become a demonstration of His saving work. I want you just to listen as I read for you 1 Thessalonians 2: 13 and 14, and Paul says to the Thessalonians, he says, “For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the Word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the Word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe. For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you also endured the same sufferings at the hands of your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews.” The word of God is active, and it is effective, as some of the old timers say, it is efficacious, it is powerful. The work that the truth of God’s Word performs in the life of a guilty sinner is the work of justification. The one who was once under the just condemnation of God is now made righteous, in fact he is now given the righteousness of Christ, something that we looked at not too long ago. But not only is the work of justification performed, the work of sanctification is also effected in the life of the one who is made righteous. If you notice, how Paul continues in verse 14, he says, “for you brethren having heard the Word and having the Word of God implanted in their hearts,” he says, “you brethren became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus.” The Thessalonian believers had followed after the Godly example of their brethren, the outward lives of the Thessalonian believers began to demonstrate the work that had been accomplished within them. The saving work of Christ is always demonstrative, it’s always demonstrative, what has been accomplished within the heart by the truth of the Gospel expresses itself in our outward lives. That’s a foundational truth that we find in God’s Word and I think its one that we cannot overemphasize enough. I want you to turn with me then to 1 Corinthians 6: 9-11. It was not all that long ago that we looked though this passage, were kind of covering some old ground this morning. But this passage adds a great deal of insight I think in what it means to be a letter of Christ. So in his first letter, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, Paul writes, “or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the Kingdom of God and such were some of you.” All of the Corinthian believers were completely lost in sin. Every one of them was in need of a Savior, but as you can see from this list, many of them it appears, had lived lives that were given over to some of the most vile of sins. Men and women whose lives were as Godless as can be, and Paul reminds them, such WERE some of you. Past tense, such WERE some of you. That is the past, he says, that is what you were. In verse 11 he says, “but you were washed, he says, “you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” What a testimony those lives were to the power of God’s saving work, to the power of His grace. Men and women who had been held captive by the most enslaving of sins, the most vile of sins, had been cleansed, had been set free. I want you to think just for a moment of the residents of Corinth, those who had been acquainted with the believers at Corinth prior to their conversion. What a difference they must have observed in these people, an unmistakable difference. A Divine transformation was unfolded before their very eyes, and not just one person, but many. There could not have been a more clear picture of the saving power of God. That is being a letter of Christ. And what a letter it is, it is a living epistle of how the old things have passed away and new things have come to be. You know, we can talk all day long to a dying world about the Gospel, and we should, its paramount that we do, people desperately need to hear the truth and we should take every opportunity that the Lord gives us to do so. But just as important, people need to see the truth, people need to SEE it, they need to see lives that are not only consistent with the truth, but lives that demonstrate what God in Christ has accomplished in the heart. They need to see the same sacrificial love that God has demonstrated to you and I. They need to see that the joy of the Lord is indeed our strength. They need to see that we have a hope that is not set on this world but is set on things above and it’s a hope that does not crumble when adversity comes. They need to see kindness and patience. They need to see goodness in the face of difficulty, and even in the face of opposition, these are things they need to see. I think one of the things that we need to realize, to a number of people, you and I will be the only Bible that they will read. I don’t know if you’ve ever considered that, but your life, your life while demonstrating the saving power of Christ will be the only source of Truth that some people will EVER come in contact with for all of their life. As people read the living letter that God has made you, whether they admit it or not or whether they would even recognize it, they’re confronted with the saving power of God’s grace, and not even a word is spoken. We just live our lives in Christ. But to be a letter of Christ means that we are to be a demonstration of His saving work, a demonstration of the transformation that has been made in the lives of those who were once enslaved to sin. To be a letter of Christ also means that the world needs to see that He Himself IS that transformation, that Christ Himself is that transformation that has taken place within us. You know, the relationship that we have with the Lord Jesus Christ is the most unique one. The book of John in chapter 14:19-20 refers to this relationship. The Lord was speaking to His disciples, and He says, “after a little while, the world will no longer see Me. But you will see Me because I live, you will live also. And in that day, you will know that I am in the Father,” and then notice what He says, “and you in Me, and I in you.” What a wonderful promise the Lord gives to us here, that He gives to His disciples, “you in Me and I in you.” What the Lord is referring to here, of course, is our union with Him. That’s how Scripture describes our relationship with Him. 1 Corinthians 12: 13 tells us that by one Spirit, the Spirit of God, we are all baptized, that means we are all placed into one body, into the Body of Christ. But this union goes deeper still. Being united with Christ, believers also share in His death. Romans 6:5 tells us this very thing, it says “we are united with Him in the likeness of His death.” That is why Paul was able to say in Gal 2: 20 that “I am crucified with Christ.” And that is also true of you and I as well, isn’t it? We have been crucified with Christ and along with Paul we can say it is no longer I who live, it is no longer I who live, the old self with its pride and its self centeredness and its self will has been put to death. The old self has been rendered powerless. So we can also say along with Paul, it’s no longer I who live but Christ Who now lives within me. I think that is what the Lord meant when He said “you in Me and I in you.” Through the Spirit of God, Christ has taken up His abode in us. There is nothing in us that glorifies God more than when our lives communicate His Christ, the Christ that dwells within us. If you think about it, any resemblance we are of Him, it is Him and not us. And that is who the world needs to see, they need to see Him and not us. Being a letter of Christ is not about us, it’s about Him. In fact, I would say it this way: He IS the letter. It is not you and I. This was Paul’s great desire, and he expresses it to the Corinthian saints in the second letter to them just a chapter over from where we are. In 2 Corinthians 4:10, Paul says “always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our own body.” And he goes on in verse 11 and he says, “for we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake.” And the purpose again is so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. You know what I find remarkable here is Paul’s willingness to surrender his identity over to Christ. That is why he constantly endured hardship and persecution, it was so Christ would be seen in him, that Christ would be seen and not him. I think more than anything that this is what it means to be an epistle of Christ. It is when our identity gets lost in Him. The “I” that I was, was put to death and Christ shines forth. This is such a big issue today in our society, how many times do you hear people say that I have to be me? That is the world’s focus. And Paul said it must be Christ and NOT me, it’s the exact opposite. When you think about this, this goes back, really, to God’s eternal purpose. When you look at Romans chapter 8, and you read that God, before the foundation of the world, before anything or anyone was created, He predestined us to be conformed unto the image of His Son. As amazing as that in itself is, one of the grand purposes of this is that the world would see Christ, that they would see Him and learn of Him through the very lives of those He has redeemed. I want to share one last observation then that I think is very important, and it is that being a letter of Christ involves fellow laborers. A few weeks ago we looked at the fact that each one of us is to be a fellow laborer, each one of us has been uniquely equipped by the Spirit of God to minister to the spiritual needs of one another in the Body. And what we see in these verses it that laboring in this way contributes to each other being a letter and an epistle of Christ. In fact, it is a necessity that we do so. That is the way in which the Lord has designed the Church, each member is a sanctifying instrument in His hands. As a fellow laborer to the Corinthian believers, Paul had a part in making them letters of Christ, in fact He had a very significant part in this. I want you to notice in verse 3 what Paul says, “being manifest that you are a letter of Christ cared for by us written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts.” Paul was used by God in what was a Divine work. It was a work that was carried out by the Spirit of the living God. But as a letter of Christ, the Corinthians, as it says here, were cared for by Paul and those who were fellow workers together with him. It’s helpful to know that the basic meaning of this phrase was: “ giving to somebody what was necessary to sustain physical life”. This word is frequently used in the Gospels to mean setting food before somebody, so in other words, what it refers to is giving them that which sustains physical life. With that in mind, we can see that in the context of verse 3, it is referring to the fact that Paul and his fellow workers served the Lord, and they served the Corinthian believers, and they served them by giving to them what was necessary to sustain spiritual life. And I would remind you, that is what fellow workers do. They serve spiritual food, they serve spiritual sustenance to their brothers and sisters in Christ. And by doing so, they contribute to one another being a letter of Christ. I’m not sure if you ever thought about it quite like this, but this is God’s design, and His desire is to use you and me in the lives of one another, to write a book on the pages of our hearts, so to speak. A book that only has one purpose, and its purpose is to reveal Christ to a world that so desperately needs Him. As you think about it, every one of us, like Paul, should have letters of commendation that can be seen by all men. And those letters would be one another. They would be the ones who the Lord has given us to minister to, to serve spiritual sustenance to, those who we have in our hearts, those to whom we have poured out our very lives. I want you to turn with me back just one chapter to 2 Corinthians 2, just at the end of the chapter, verses 14-17. The topic that we’ve been looking at is one that Paul actually began to address at the end of chapter two, so were going backwards in a sense, but what Paul has to say here about his own ministry I think is very profitable for us as we look at this. Just before he gets to verse 14 of 2 Corinthians 2, in the previous verses he mentions that he had had a setback at Troas and then he writes this in v 14, he says, “but thanks be to God Who always leads us in His triumph in Christ. And manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one an aroma of death to death, and to the other, an aroma of life to life, and who is adequate for these things? For we are not like many, peddling the Word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God we speak from Christ in the sight of God.” If you notice in verse 15, there is a reference made to God leading us in triumph. It seems very likely that Paul is using some imagery in this verse to make his point. He’s giving his readers a picture of something that they were actually familiar with, and that picture is of a parade of sorts. In Rome, it was not uncommon for Rome to give a parade in honor of a general who had besieged a city, had conquered a country, whatever it was. It was a triumphant procession where the general would proceed through the city while on a chariot, and what followed behind him were those whom he had conquered. Any kind of spoil, of course, went along with it. What followed next were the soldiers that had fought with him, who had shared in this conquest with him. And then trailing behind those soldiers, were incense bearers, men who would carry a stick with a little pot at the top where incense would burn. And in their wake, they would leave an aroma of this incense that became a symbol of that victory. It became a symbol of the victory of this general. So the picture we have here is of God Who is victorious in His saving and sanctifying work. He’s the general, so to speak here. And He’s leading both those whom He has conquered in Christ and those also who are conquering with Him. And the thing we see here really is one of the great paradoxes of the Christian life. We, as God’s people are both the captives of Christ and also conquerors together with Him, being led by God in His victory. As those who are captives of Christ, God Who leads us through the world as those whose sin and rebellious lives have been conquered by the knowledge of Christ. We’re trophies of God’s victorious power in Christ, a demonstration of His power to save. Then as those who are conquerors together with Him, just like the aroma of the incense bearers symbolizes victory, God makes known through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. It’s an amazing thing if you think about it. Notice verse 15, it says, “for we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved, and among those who are perishing.” You see, not only are we letters of Christ, but we are also a fragrance of Christ. It’s a fragrance of Christ that is pleasing to God, and it’s pleasing to Him as a sweet aroma of the knowledge of His own Son, of His beloved Son. And as it says here, one who was made manifest by our very lives. What we also see here is that it’s also a fragrance among the world, both to those who are being saved and to those who are perishing. It seems to me that one of the things that we have to learn from this passage, one of the implications, before we can triumph with the Lord in His work, before we can be an effective worker for the Kingdom, God must triumph over us. God must have victory over us. That’s the only way. Our will must be broken. Our wills have to be broken. “To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, who trembles at My Word, to this one I will look,” says the Lord. It is when our arrogance and our self love, all of which are rebellion against God, it is when those are defeated by the convicting work of His Spirit, it is then that we can be used of the Lord. And that is when we become the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Christ to a sinful world, and to each other as well. This reminds me of a statement that Paul made again later on to the Corinthians in this epistle, he said, “the love of Christ controls me.” What Paul is saying is that It holds me captive, that’s what he’s basically saying. It has defeated my pride and its defeated my fleshly desires. And as a result, Paul was able to serve the Corinthians with a whole heart, with all of his heart. Christ is indeed most seen when we are conquered first and foremost by Him. In closing, I want to take you back to chapter 3 of 2 Corinthians, verse 3 and what I want you to see here is that the Holy Spirit plays a vital role in making you and I letters of Christ. Verse three says, “being manifested that you are a letter of Christ cared for by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts.” We’re told here in this verse in no uncertain terms that this letter of Christ is not of human origin. It’s not written with ink, it’s not written on tablets of stone as the law was, and Paul certainly was not making the Corinthians into little clones of himself. The Holy Spirit Himself inscribes the truth of the knowledge of Christ onto human hearts, making our lives a message of Divine truth. But what I want you to also notice here is how the Holy Spirit is referred to in verse 3, notice it says that He is the Spirit of the living God. The God that we serve is indeed a living God, isn’t He? And the significance of this is that the Spirit, His Spirit, is alive, even active within us, in each one of us. And what I think that means to you and I is that the letter of Christ that we are, it’s a letter that is not finished, it’s a letter that is still being written. The Holy Spirit is still at work. It’s a living letter written with the Spirit of the living God, and He is continuing His work, He is continuing to engrave the knowledge of Christ upon our hearts day by day and week by week. And as He does so, we are to become a more legible letter of Christ. And if you notice in verse 5, this is our adequacy as well, as fellow workers’. Notice what Paul says in verse 5, he acknowledges that he is not adequate for this ministry, and certainly neither are we. He says, “not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.” How true that is, our adequacy is from God alone.
Let’s bow our heads together this morning as we close. Our gracious Father, what a privilege it is to look into Your Word. What a privilege it is to realize that You have disclosed Yourself to us. You have revealed to us Your very Son in the pages of this book. Father, not only that, You have inscribed the very knowledge of Him upon our hearts with Your Spirit, with the Spirit of the living God. Father, I pray it would be our desire this morning that this letter that you are making us, that you are writing upon our hearts, it would become more and more legible day by day. That those who see us on a regular basis, even those we come in contact with one time, Father that they may see that we are unmistakably letters of Christ, that they may see Him. That they may see that we have a hope, a hope of glory, which is Christ Himself. Father what a wonderful privilege you give to us to be used in this way, to be used as instruments in Your hand. Father, I pray that we would also be aware of the fact that Your desire is for us to be fellow laborers together, and that in order for us to be effective, in order for us to labor for the Kingdom, Father, we need to be conquered first, our will needs to be broken, our pride needs to be done away with, as well as our self centeredness. Father, I pray that we would gladly release these things over to Thee. And Father I would pray that we would gladly surrender to You our own identities, so that when people see us, they do not see Ted Phillips, but they see the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, I thank You again for Your Word, the truth of Your Word. I pray that You will by Your Spirit use this in the days to come, to continue to make us into, mold us into the image of Your own Son, and we pray these things in Christ’s Name, Amen.