Why Paul Said "We Know Christ No More" — 2 Corinthians 5:16

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Good to see everybody, and we're going to go right back in the studio here to 2 Corinthians chapter 5, and now we're going to jump in again where we left off at verse 16. And again we like to invite our television audience to do the same thing, get your Bible and follow along with us, because after all I've stressed over and over, I don't want anybody to go by what I say, but hopefully be able to search the Scriptures and see if these things are so. And it's the Word of God that is the final authority. You know, I always have to remember years and years ago, in fact it was when Iris and I were first married, and we had a young couple come into our fellowship who were from diverse denominational backgrounds, and as a result they naturally were having some problems in the home. And I guess it was the Lord's way of getting me ready for all of this, but anyhow the pastor asked me if I would just go out to that farmhouse one night a week and just teach those two people one-on-two. Well I'd never done anything like that before, and I was green as grass, but you know sometimes you plunge in where angels fear to tread. And I'll never forget the rude awakening I got as I began to point out some things from this book, that the young lady, and of course that was what I was, I was a young man, we were all the same age. And this young lady said, now hold it Les, I have always been told that my church is my only authority, not that book. Well how are you going to overcome something like that? But we did, and both those people came to know the Lord, and they've walked with the Lord ever since. And I suppose if they ever hear my program, they'll know who I'm talking about. But you see the whole idea of my teaching is not that you go by what I say, but to learn what does the Bible say. And as I've stressed so often, it's just as important to know what the Bible does not say. Because a lot of times we've got the misconception of what it says, and it's not even in there. So anyway, we're going to again just teach and hopefully point out what the Scripture really says, and a lot of times people have just simply glossed over it in their reading and not seen what it really says. Let's just drop right in at 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 16 where we left off in our last program. Now remember whenever Paul uses the word wherefore or therefore, he's wanting you to reflect back to what he has just said. And again for just a half second of review, remember he has just stressed the fact that Christ died for all, and since He died for all, every last human being was dead in trespasses and sins until they're brought out of that deadness by an act of God, when we believe the Gospel. Now then he says in verse 16, wherefore. Because that's all been accomplished, henceforth. Now remember he's talking about his death, burial and resurrection. He's not talking about John the Baptist, he's not talking about Bethlehem, or any of these other things. He's talking about the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, henceforth. Since that time we know no man after the flesh. Now who in the world is he talking about? Well, let's read on, just another line. "...Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now this side of his death, burial and resurrection, we know him no more." Now what's he driving at? Well come back with me to I Corinthians chapter 1, and you want to remember as I've said so often, Paul was constantly up against opposition of one kind or another, and some of it probably sounded real good. It's just like today. I know people can throw arguments at me that sound real good, and maybe they put me on the defensive for a little bit, but when I have to stop and think, and come back. But what does the Word say? That makes all the difference in the world. Now here's what Paul was up against, I Corinthians chapter 1 verse 12. Now this I say, that every one of you, the whole congregation, now of course they didn't have thousands in that little congregation in Corinth, but however many there were, every one of you said, well I'm of Paul. Someone else said, no I'm of Apollos. Still others said I'm of Peter, that's who Cephas is, and there were others who said, well I'm of Christ. Well what did they mean by that? Well I'm going by what Jesus said. Sound familiar? My, I hear it all the time. Why do you emphasize Paul? I'm not going to go by what some man says, I'm going to go by what Jesus said. Well now wait a minute. You've heard me say it often enough. I said it in the last program, and the one before that. Everything that Jesus said was under what circumstances? The Law. And so what Jesus said, yes there are places where we can make application. Of course we can, it's the Word of God. But for the most part, everything He said were to people living under the Law. For example, when the lepers were healed and cleansed by His own miracle, what did He tell the lepers to do? Go show yourself to the priests. Alright, are you going to tell me that that's what I have to do now if someone has been healed of a disease, or they're suddenly well again? Alright, now to confirm this, you go to the priests? What priest are they going to go to? There is no temple worship today. We're not under the Law. And in order to make it so profoundly certain that we are no longer under the Law, God prompted the Roman Army to destroy the temple. Now have you ever stopped to think, what would have happened to Christianity if the temple would have kept right on operating? I don't think it would have ever gotten off the ground. There would have been so much profound Jewish opposition, that after all the temple was still viable, the priesthood was still viable. This is the only place to worship, and God knew that. And so what did He have to do? He had to have the temple totally destroyed, the priesthood was uprooted, Israel was sent out into the nations of the world, so that there was no temptation whatsoever to hang on to temple worship. And so this is what Paul is coming back to even here. He said, "...since the death, burial, and resurrection, and since the revelation of the gospel of the grace of God..." And we'll go back to Galatians 1 in just a minute and look at that. But since all that has been now revealed, he says, "...henceforth we do not know Christ after the flesh." We are no longer going by the things that he taught to Israel under the Law. But we have this whole new revelation. Now what am I talking about? Galatians 1. Galatians 1. My, if this doesn't lay it out so plainly, and this is what I have to constantly in my own ministry come up against, where people say, will now less, I�m not going to go by what some man like Paul says, I�m going to go by what Jesus said." And so they keep everything that they teach and everything they preach back there in the four Gospels in Christ�s earthly ministry, and that Beloved was before His death, burial and resurrection. It hadn�t happened yet. The Twelve didn�t even know that He was going to die, and after He was crucified they had no idea that He was going to be raised from the dead. Why? Because you see that was something that God was going to reveal back here, especially now to this Apostle. And now you have Galatians 1, dropping in at verse 11. Galatians 1, but I guarantee or certify you, brethren, that the Gospel which is preached of Me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ, who is now in glory. And he says, you�ve heard of my manner of living in times past in the Jews� religion, and how that beyond measure I persecuted the assembly of God, and wasted it of those Jewish believers there at Jerusalem. Prophet, at verse 4, in the Jews� religion, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers, but when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen Gentiles, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood, neither did I go up to Jerusalem to them who were apostles before me, but I went into Arabia, we know from Acts chapter 15, three years he was in Arabia, receiving all of these revelations from the Ascended Lord that he could now take to the Gentile world. Now what is all this in here for? To show us that as soon as God saved this Jewish religious zealot, He did not permit him to have contact with the twelve. He purposely kept him from them, and sent them instead down to Mount Sinai in Arabia to give him these revelations, because you see, had Paul gone back to Jerusalem, what do you suppose the twelve would have drummed into him? Well what they'd been preaching, that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel, the Son of God. Yes He was crucified, but God raised Him from the dead, and He's still willing to be the King of Israel if Israel will only repent. But you see God says, no no Paul, that's not where I want you to learn. I'm going to show you these things from my own position in heaven. And so He revealed the whole sphere of doctrine that we call grace, and it was completely separated from Judaism, and yet an extension of it. Now you know I'm always talking progressive revelation in Scripture. Everything is progressive revelation. Well the same way here, just as soon as Paul receives these revelations, that doesn't cancel everything that's gone before, it builds on it. And so as the Abrahamic covenant was given and brought Israel to the place of now having the Messiah come, well does that cancel the Old Testament? No, it was all fulfilled. And then when Israel according to prophecy rejected the Messiah, then God saved this man and said, I'm going to send you far hence to the Gentiles. Well now Jesus didn't teach anything like that. Jesus certainly never taught the twelve to go out to the Gentiles with the gospel based on His death, burial, and resurrection. He couldn't. It hadn't even happened yet. And I wish people could see that. Jesus never told those twelve, go out and preach my death, burial, and resurrection for salvation. But this man, the Apostle Paul, that's all he knows. Now I was thinking of another one, I think last night in my waking hours. I do more studying laying on my pillow than any place else. And again the thought came last night, and I've never taught this before, but I'm going to give it to you today. Do you know that there is no earthly headquarters for the Body of Christ? It's Heaven. But the one place on earth from which Christianity did begin was not the Church at Jerusalem, but where? Attioch. 150-200 miles north of Jerusalem was the place from which Paul and Barnabas were first commissioned by the Holy Spirit to go to the Gentiles up there in western Turkey. Not Jerusalem. I want people to think about that. Why didn't he just go back to Jerusalem, learn everything from the twelve, and then have Jerusalem be the place that they would jump off into the Gentile world? Oh, because God wouldn't have it. He wouldn't have it. And so even when there was a jump off place and a Zoodo headquarters, I don't like to call Antioch the headquarters of the Church by no stretch of the imagination, but it was the place from which Paul and Barnabas left. It was the place to which they went back. It was the place from which later Paul and Silas left again to go to the Gentile world, and again they came back to Antioch. Not Jerusalem. See? Why? Well all of this is to show us that God is just keeping Judaism and Christianity so far apart, even though they're connected by virtue of their beginnings. And that's what we have to understand. Now coming back to II Corinthians chapter 5, maybe I've made my point, and this is why the apostle now can write by inspiration, "...yea, from henceforth we know no man after the flesh," and you know He's talking about Jesus in the next statement, "...yea, though we have known Christ in the flesh, yet henceforth we know Him no more." And yet I ask people to analyze most of your preaching today, and where is most of it coming from? Christ's earthly ministry. Now there's nothing wrong with a certain amount of that. Absolutely I'm in agreement with that. We have to understand the story of Bethlehem. We have to understand the virgin birth. It's good for us to know all of the miracles that Christ did in the midst of the Jews to prove that He was who He said He was. It's good to understand what led to His crucifixion, absolutely. It's good to know how they responded to the resurrection there in John chapter 20 and 21. But that's not Gospel. The Gospel comes out where Paul now comes on the scene, and he says, "...Christ commended His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, and He gave Himself for us." That's all the man knows. That's all he knows, the preaching of the cross. So now this is why he's stressing it in verse 16, "...though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth we know Him no more." Now that's loaded. Why does the Holy Spirit prompt him to say, we knew Christ in the flesh? I think they were almost identically the same age. We know that Jesus was 30 when He began His earthly ministry, He was 33 when He was crucified. We know that the Apostle Paul, or Saul of Tarsus, was one of the key men of the Sanhedrin, and no doubt was in his 30's as well. I think they were almost the same identical age. And so as Saul of Tarsus, that Pharisee of the Pharisee, was hearing all about the miracles that this Jesus of Nazareth was performing, and every time old Saul would hear about more Jews following after the Messiah from Nazareth, it infuriated him. It just totally infuriated the man, because he was defending now his religion. First he has to defend his religion, and then he has to defend his apostleship, the poor guy had a lifetime of fighting, didn't he? But here he had to defend his religion, and he started out to stamp out every Jew that had embraced Jesus as the Messiah. But oh now, now he knows Jesus for who He really is. And you remember I always like to show that from Acts chapter 9. Come back a moment, because again as we had our all day seminar last Saturday, had several make the comment, well they just never saw the impact of this. But here it is in his conversion account, written by Luke in Acts chapter 9. And most of you know the account, and I'm sure most of you listening to me on television, you know all about this account on the road to Damascus. And as he journeyed, verse 3, suddenly there shined around about him a light from heaven, from above. And he fell to the earth, and he heard a voice saying, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? Now the voice of course is also coming from heaven, and so the pronoun me strikes the man, well it must be God speaking. And so Saul responds, Who art thou Lord? Now you want to remember the word Lord in the Jewish vocabulary was that which replaced Jehovah. They didn't want to even voice that word. And so in his mind he's saying Jehovah, but with his lips he says Lord. And so put it in that light. Who art thou Jehovah? And how does Jehovah answer? I'm Jesus. Now how would you like to have been in his shoes? Because it was Jehovah that he was serving, it was Jesus that he was trying to stamp out, and then to suddenly realize what? They're one and the same. And it blew his mind. It blew him blind. That's what it amounted to. He ended up blind, see? And so they had to lead him by the hand into Damascus. But oh, once Saul of Tarsus saw who Jesus really was, he became that unstoppable dynamo that carried Christianity to the Gentiles. Oh, he had his times of discouragement. We saw that a few weeks ago. He was nigh unto death, and he was burdened with all the care of those Gentile believers. But they couldn't stop him until finally Nero had to take his head off. That's the only thing that stopped him. All right? But don't lose sight of the fact that when he speaks of knowing Christ in the flesh, back here in now 2 Corinthians chapter 5 once again, that though he knew Christ in the flesh, he knew all about Him. I don't think he ever had a visible confrontation with Him. There's nothing in Scripture to indicate that. But my, listen, he knew what was going on in Israel. He knew what was going on up in Galilee. And I have to think that at times he was on the outer perimeter of some of the crowds that were following Jesus, and it was just burning him up. Because he thought, remember, that he was an imposter. He was a blasphemer. He was a false teacher. And it was just destroying the religion of the God of Abraham. But oh, once he was confronted on the road to Damascus, the man did a total 180-degree turn, and so now he can say, henceforth, henceforth we know Him no more. Oh, if we could just get people to realize this. There's nothing wrong with studying Christ's earthly ministry. Don't misunderstand me. But listen, that is not where it's at for us. Where it's at for us is that which follows His death, burial, and resurrection from the dead. All right, now then let's go on to verse 17. Therefore, therefore, since we're no longer hanging on Christ's earthly ministry, but we're hanging everything on His death, burial, and resurrection, now then, verse 17, therefore, if, conditional, even though all the sins of the world have been paid for, yet their salvation is conditional, therefore if anyone be in Christ, he is a new creation. Now I had somebody jump me for using the word creation instead of creature, but nevertheless in the Greek they're the same identical word, but creation fits our English better than creature, because we're not just made a new creature, we are a whole new creation of God. That's what makes a believer a believer, and unless we've experienced it, we're not a believer. But there has to be that new creative work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. So if we are in Christ, now again I have to use the Scripture, and I've used it before, and I'm sure everybody is aware of where I'm going to go, back to I Corinthians 12, verse 13. I Corinthians 12, verse 13, for by one Spirit, capitalized, the Holy Spirit, for by that one Holy Spirit are we all, every believer, not just the best or the most spiritual, or those who have had a particular experience, but every believer is baptized into one body. Whether we be Jews, or Gentiles, bond or free, we have all been made to drink or partake of that one and the same Spirit. So how do we get into Christ? By believing the Gospel, and let the Holy Spirit do His work, and He places us into the Body of Christ. So we're a new creation, we're a work of God, and as I mentioned in the last program, remember that that part of us that has to deal with eternity is invisible. And you and I, or any other human cannot touch the invisible. Only God can deal in that area. And so in the area of the invisible, God has done a work of creation. Now you remember I had the circles on the board more than once over these last series of lessons, and I always depict the old nature, remember, and the new nature. Well the old Adamic nature had to be crucified. He had to be put to death. Now again that's a spiritual realm. That's an invisible part of us, and so only God can do that. Only God could put our old Adam to death in that crucifixion with Christ. Now the same way, only God can give us then that new creative personality, the new nature, because again it's in the area of the invisible. And so we are a new work of creation, which God alone can do, and then look at this change in modus operandi. Every believer is suddenly going to have a change of appetites, a change of lifestyle, a change in behavior, a change in attitude. Why? Because we're a new person. We're different than what we were. Now that doesn't give us a halo around our head. That doesn't make us sinless or anything like that, but we are now the result of a creative work of a Creator God, and we have a whole new concept in life. I'll never forget years ago, a young man who was my same age, who spent every Saturday night in the tavern and the bar, and came to my class one night, and as we were sitting having a cup of coffee together, he said, Les, why don't I ever see you in the bar on Saturday night? And I said, for the same reason. I don't see you in church on Sunday morning. Well that's exactly the way it is. They have their lifestyle, they have their appetites, and it is so totally different from ours. It's as different as daylight and dark. And so you see, this is why I question professing Christians who see nothing wrong with doing everything the world does. Hey, there's got to be a change in attitude. There's got to be a change in behavior. And if there isn't any change, then I have to doubt that anything has happened, because this says it all. That if we are the work of a creative act of God, then old things are passed away, those old appetites, and everything becomes new and different. That's the first thing I look for. I never say anything about having led someone to Christ, or brought someone to a knowledge of salvation, until I see that change in lifestyle. And when you see that change in lifestyle, and you see it's genuine, you bet. Then I can just shout to the heights of heaven, this person has come to know the Lord. This person has experienced what it is to be born again. And without it, then I have to doubt that there has been anything genuine. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.