2 Corinthians chapter 5, and I
want to begin reading at verse 16. I realize that I'm beginning
right in the middle of the chapter, but I trust I won't do any violence
to the context. But I want to speak to you this
morning on the subject found here in these three verses, 16,
17, and 18. Wherefore, henceforth, know we
no man after the flesh. We recognize no man. We esteem
no man after the flesh. Yea, though we have known Christ
after the flesh, yet now, henceforth, know we Him no more. Therefore,
if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. All things have
passed away. Behold, all things are become
new, and all things are of God." And we'll stop there. Know we
no man after the flesh. Now, it's easy to understand
why the Apostle Paul made this statement, if you and I will
remember, who he's writing to. He's writing to the Corinthians,
to the Greeks, these brilliant thinkers. These theologians,
if you were anybody that knew anything, if you were a renowned
philosopher, you were from Greece, you were from this area of Corinth,
they gloried in their wisdom, they gloried in their abilities,
they gloried in their thinking, they gloried in their degrees.
These men were somebody. Paul tells us in chapter 8 and
verse 18, he says this, seeing that many among you glory in
the flesh. They glory in the flesh. And
here in verse 12 of this chapter, in the last portion, he says,
there are some who glory in appearance and not in heart. They glory
in appearance. They boast in who they are. They
boast in what they are. They boast in their titles and
so on. I would imagine in this Corinthian
church that it had become rather large at this time. The Lord
told Paul, I've got many people in this place. And I would imagine
this was one huge congregation, or there were many congregations
scattered throughout this large city. But these wise men from
Corinth, these philosophers, these mighty men, these rich
men, began to attend their worship service. And you can almost imagine
what happened when they were ready to begin their worship
hear this renowned philosopher come in and he sits down on the
back seat and somebody whispers to the pastor, do you see that
man? Do you realize who is in our
service this morning? This man is known all over this
part of the world. Are you going to permit him to
speak? Are you going to let him speak to us? Don't you imagine
he really has something to say? He's a brilliant thinker, you
know. Don't you imagine that happens?
You begin to realize why Paul made this statement, we know
no man after the flesh. And I imagine the Corinthian
church, and we've got some evidence of this, that they had begun
indeed to recognize these men. They had begun indeed to desire
their presence in the worship service because of who they were. Now, let's be honest about it. Aren't we all guilty of this?
Don't we look upon men And because of who they are, because of the
titles that they hold, or some degree that they've earned, or
some position that they have, we have a tendency to esteem
them, to reverence them, and it bleeds over into the kingdom
of God, into the worship of God. You remember when the Lord sent
Samuel down to anoint a king He sent him down to one of Jesse's
sons. Jesse had several sons, and the
Lord sent Samuel down to anoint one of them as king, and he said,
I'll show you which one when you get there. Well, the firstborn
appeared before Samuel, and he was a tall, dark, handsome fellow. And Samuel got out his little
horn of all, and he was ready to point it on this boy's head.
He said, Surely the Lord's anointed this before me. This is the one. Just look at it. And he got his
little horn and was ready to dump it on his head and proclaim
him to be king of Israel. And the Lord said, Stop right
there. Here's your problem, he said, Samuel. You look upon the
outward You're looking upon this man's countenance. You're looking
upon his outward beauty. You see as man sees. But I don't look that way. Flesh doesn't impress me, he
said. Men's height or men's titles
or men's attainments do not impress me. And don't let them impress
you. You look upon the outward, I
look upon the heart. God is not impressed with flesh. And while you and I should reverence
men and respect men for whatever position they hold in this world,
flesh and blood does not inherit the kingdom of heaven. It has nothing to do with the
Kingdom of God. Paul wrote to these same Corinthians
in the first letter that he wrote to them. And he told them about
this very snare that they were going to get themselves into
if they weren't careful. And he says it like this in chapter
1. He says, you see your calling,
brethren. that not many wise men after
the flesh, not many noble, not many mighty, are called." Look
at the philosophers, he said. How many of them have God called
to salvation? Look at the mighty Roman generals
that come through there. You know some of them, he said.
Let me ask you this question. How many of them have been called
to repentance? How many of them know the Lord
Jesus Christ, he said? God is not calling many of these
wise men. Flesh profiteth nothing. Does it? Has it ever profited
you in your spiritual walk with the Lord? It never has, has it? The flesh profiteth nothing. The book that Clarence read from
this morning to us in Zechariah 2, verse 13, makes this wonderful
statement. The Lord tells us in that book
that He's going to come and deliver His people. It's by a new birth. He's going to give us the righteousness
of another. He's going to do it. He's going
to save. He's going to send the prisoners
out of the pit wherein there's no water. And He wants us to
know that flesh has nothing to do with it. So He makes this
statement in chapter 2, verse 13. Be silent, O all flesh, before
the Lord. Be silent before the Lord. For He is raised up out of His
holy habitation. I go someplace. and preach. And there's a couple of doctors
there in the congregation. A man asked me, he said, are
you intimidated by those doctors? Intimidated? Why would I be intimidated
by doctors? That's a worldly position. That's
flesh. They're needful. They're essential. Thank God for our doctors. But
intimidated by them? No, I preach the gospel to them. And Paul goes farther than this.
Not only does he say we know no man after the flesh, but he
emphasizes that, doesn't he? We know no man. Well, that includes everybody,
doesn't it? We talk about the wise and the
mighty. We don't know those men. We don't
recognize those men after the flesh. Well, what about the common
people? What about that poor man? What
about that man that's living in poverty? What about that moral
man? A man that's just like us? You
know, sometimes we look at people that's on the verge of poverty,
or he's in poverty, and he's dependent upon the charity of
other people. And sometimes we're apt to think,
because he's been somewhat humble through his natural circumstances,
he's at a great disadvantage, so surely that man is going to
receive mercy. Surely that man is going to be
easy taught. But then when we begin to speak
to that poor man, that uneducated man, that common man, what do
we find? Well, he's got the same nature
as the rich man. He got the same nature as the
mighty man. We know no man after the flesh. When you and I come here this
morning, it's not because of who you are in this world or
what you've attained or what you've not attained. It doesn't
matter if you're wise or unright, rich or poor, male or female,
mayor or king or a peasant. We don't recognize you for who
you are or who you are not. The flesh profiteth nothing. What's happening in our day?
You see it in your newspapers all the time. Almost every Saturday we have
a religious page. And you find in there that so-and-so
will be speaking in the morning service. Well, who is this so-and-so? Well, he's a great athlete. Does he know the gospel? Well,
we're not concerned with that. He's recognized, you know. He's
an important person. Everybody knows him. We've got
our politicians. They speak now in our churches.
Why do they do that? Because of who they are. Because
of what they are. What if they were in Paul's day? What would he say? He'd run the
politicians out of the pulpit. He'd tell the athletes to go
back to the sports. They have no part nor lot in
this. We recognize no man after the
flesh. We put our confidence in flesh,
brothers and sisters, we'll be disappointed. We will be disappointed. I don't care whose flesh it is.
I don't care if it's wise flesh or ignorant flesh. I don't care
if it's religious flesh or open and profane flesh. I don't care
if it's moral flesh or sinful flesh. If we put any confidence,
if we recognize flesh, we will be disappointed. We know no man
after the flesh. I think one of the best examples
I could give you in this, and I think this is why this happened
to leave us, An example of this very thing. You remember one
time when our Lord Jesus was preaching. Preaching a very important
message. You find it, I think, in Mark
3, if I'm not mistaken. Preaching on the sin against
the Holy Spirit. And His mother and His brethren
were without. They couldn't get in. And they
were calling for it. They were standing outside calling
for it. And they came in and stopped
the service. This one fellow did. They stopped
the service. And they said, your mother is
out there calling for you. I tell you, the Lord's mother
could be very bossy. She could be very protective.
She tried to be. You find that in the Scripture.
His brethren didn't even believe him. Not at first. They thought
he was nuts. And they said, it's time for
you to quit preaching. And you come on. Son, it's time for you
to quit talking to these people and you come back to the house
with me and your brethren. In other words, you need to recognize
me for who I am. I'm your mother and these are
your brethren. And he sent this message back
out to them. He said, Who is my mother? Who
is my brethren? And he pointed down there, Peter
and John and Matthew. And the man that he'd healed
of leprosy. The man that he'd raised up, set him by the pool
of Bethesda. He said, there's my brother in
there. Who's my mother? He pointed down at Mary Magdalene.
The woman who was a sinner in the town. The woman who touched
him with the issue of blood and he healed her. And he said, there's
my sisters. And there's my mothers. Was he disrespecting his mother? Was he denying his brethren?
Not at all. But what he is saying is this.
These fleshly relations mean nothing. They mean nothing. Have you ever heard of someone
leaving the gospel because it didn't jive with his mother's
traditions? Well, that's not Christianity,
brothers and sisters. We know no man after the flesh. If my brethren do not believe
the gospel, it makes no difference. Do I leave the gospel and follow
them because they're my brethren? Do I obey my Father earthly over
my Heavenly Father? We know no man. No man. One is our Master. And that's
not our earthly father. That's Christ the Lord. And we
learn from one. And that's not our earthly mother.
That's Christ the Lord through His Word. Isn't this one little
statement so important? We know no man. I don't care
if he's a Baptist preacher. I don't care if he's the Pope
of Rome. We know no man. after the flesh. And I tell you, you let me err
from the truth. I'm your pastor. That's my title. That's what some of you call
me. But let me err from the truth and you'll show me right quick
how much honor you're going to bestow upon me. You'll show me
right quick. You're not going to follow me
just because I'm the pastor. You follow me as I follow Christ. You follow me as I preach you
the truth. Who I am and my title means nothing. My wife is not to follow me because
I'm her husband. She's to follow Christ. He's
the Lord and Savior. See what I'm saying? We know
no man after the flesh. Now, look in the last part of
this, and boy, he's going to give us the ultimate example
of this. Yea, though we have known Christ
after the flesh. Were Paul actually knew Him in
the flesh? I'm not for sure. Were he just
saying some of you here knew Christ after the flesh? Maybe
he was saying that. Many men were still alive in
this day that followed the Lord Jesus Christ. They heard Him
preach. Heard the words of His mouth.
They saw Him with these physical eyes. They witnessed His resurrection. Paul said over 500 of them did. So there was a time when there
was a sense in which they knew Christ after His flesh. But look
at this. Henceforth, know we Him no more."
Paul is even going so far here to say the physical presence
of Jesus Christ would not profit you now. That's what he's saying. We don't even know Christ after
the flesh anymore, he said. If we don't know Christ after
the flesh, why would we regard these philosophers and these
politicians and mighty men. We don't even know Christ after
the flesh anymore, he said. Our Lord Jesus told his disciples
one day, he was preaching to them about his flesh being meat
indeed and his blood being drank indeed. And it offended those
who were following him. He said, you're misunderstanding
me altogether. He said, My flesh, here's what
he said. He said, the words I preach unto
you, they're spirit and they're life. My flesh profits nothing. In other words, he said, if you
came up here and began to eat my flesh, that wouldn't profit
you. If you could actually drain some
blood from my body and drink it, that wouldn't profit you.
It's not a living Christ that profits us. It's a crucified Christ that
prophesies. This is My body which is broken
for you. Now that's profitable. But you
can't get to that physically. That's gotten to by faith. This
is My blood of the new covenant which is shed, which is shed. As long as the blood ran through
His veins, He couldn't redeem anybody. He'd have to be poured
out He'd have to be shed without the shedding of blood. There's
no remission of sin. No, it's not the physical person
of Christ, brothers and sisters. Oh, if I could just see Him,
it wouldn't do you a bit of good. How many saw Him and yet did
not believe? How many saw Him do great miracles,
preach great sermons, and yet they did not believe? You cannot
see Him physically and thank God for it. Thank God for it. You know, the Lord Jesus told
His disciples, He said, it's expedient for you that I go away. If I don't go away, if I don't
go to the cross, and I don't ascend back to my Father, and
pray to Him to send the Holy Spirit, you're going to be in bad shape
the rest of your life. That's what He said. See, a physical Christ can't
get in your heart. He just can't do it. That's impossible.
He can dwell among us and He can dwell with us. His physical
presence did that. But He cannot dwell in your heart
physically. But when He prayed for the Comforter,
the Holy Spirit, to come back, where does He dwell? In the heart. In the heart. God has sent forth
the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Father, Father. Now that's profitable. That's
profitable. You and I are more blessed, we
are more blessed to see Jesus Christ by the eye of faith than
we are to see His physical presence. More blessed. If you see him
through the eye of faith, you're saved. There's all kinds of people
who saw him in the flesh and never did know him. Thomas, because you've seen me,
you believe. I had to show you the hole in
my side before you believed. I tell you, Thomas, somebody
that's more blessed than you are, that's that person who has
never seen me. And yet He believes me. He's
never seen me with these eyes, but He's seen me by the eye of
His understanding, by faith. Look what Paul said in 2 Corinthians
4, in verse 18. Here's what he says. While we look not at the things
which are seen, but at the things which are not seen." What a wonderful
statement. We look at the things which are
not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the
things which are not seen are eternal. We don't even know Christ
after the flesh. Why don't we take these poles
and put these little crosses on them? Why don't we put pictures
on the walls? We don't look at things like
that. We see differently, don't we?
We see through the eye of faith. We live right now, Brother Larry
told us this morning, we wait for the hope of righteousness
by faith. We look to Christ now by faith. We see Him through
the eye of our understanding. We see Him through His Word.
And we hope to be with Him someday. But we're glad that He's not
physically with us right now. If Christ was here right now,
you wouldn't be hoping, would you? You wouldn't be hoping to
be with Him someday. He's already with you physically.
No, it's right the reverse. We're absent from Him now, and
we live by faith and hope that we're going to be with Him someday. So Christ's physical presence
don't improfit us now. Not in this world, brothers and
sisters. The next time we see Him physically, we'll be just
like Him. We'll be just like Him. That's
the hope. That's the hope. We know no man after the flesh. Flesh and blood cannot inherit
the Kingdom of Heaven. Our Lord's Kingdom is a spiritual
Kingdom. That's what Paul said. Flesh
has nothing to do with it. You don't come to Him with your
body. You come to Him with your heart.
You don't worship Him with these members. You worship Him with
your spirit. You serve Him and the gospel
of His Son spiritually. My kingdom is not of this world.
My kingdom is a spiritual kingdom in its very nature. And all flesh
can do is just be still, be silent, O flesh. You've got nothing to
do with this. Don't you know who I am? Yeah,
we know who you are. Yeah, we do. We know who you
are. Oh, politicians and scientists
and wise and mighty, we know who you are. You're just like
us. You're sinners. We're talking
about a spiritual kingdom, aren't we? Well, how do we get into
this kingdom? Verse 17. Look at this quickly. We know no man after the flesh.
We're not of the flesh. Here's the way we get into this
kingdom. We get into it by new birth, by being made new. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he is a new creature. I love the way the apostle says
this here. He said, we know no man after the flesh. It don't
matter who you are after the flesh. We don't know any man
after the flesh. It don't matter. It just don't
matter. You're nothing. But, he says, if any man, no
matter who he is, he may be a wise man, he may be a mighty man,
or he may be just a nobody, a common man. But if any man be in Christ,
we recognize that man. He is something, boy. If he's
in Christ. Any man. Oh Bruce, you just don't
know. But are you in Christ? Oh, I'm
the sorriest man. But are you a new creature? And
you count. You count. You remember Brother
Don used to give this little illustration. He did it here
one time. He got his paper up, put a bunch of zeros on it. Remember
that? Put a whole page of zeros on it and say, now, what have
you got there? You've just got a bunch of zeros. What is the
zero? It's nothing. You can have a
million zeros and it counts for nothing. But put a one in front
of it. Put a one in front of it. That's
something now, ain't it? You're in Christ. He's made you
a new creature. Boy, that counts. That counts
then, doesn't it? How do you and I get into this
natural world? There's but one way to get into
this natural world, and that's by being born into it. You can't
get into it any other way. It's by means of your mother
and your dad. You have to be conceived and
get into this natural world. How do you get into a spiritual
world? How do you get into a spiritual
kingdom? How do you get into supernatural work? By birth. The same way. I love the way the Holy Spirit
says this. He doesn't say, if any man be in Christ, he is a
changed creature. He doesn't say that, does He?
If any man be in Christ, he's an improved creature. But he
says, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, a new creation. He never existed before. He's
been created. I love this commentator that's
made this statement. This is why you've got to be
careful of these commentaries. He said, he is equivalent to a new
creature. He says, when you consider Him,
it's as though He were a new creature. I love the way the
Holy Spirit says it better, don't you? He is a new creature. He's not equivalent to. He is. It's not as though He were. He
is. You look back, your Honor, at the first man that this world
ever knew. And God is farming him. Shannon,
out of the dust of the earth, got a bunch of clay and farmed
him. And then he breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life. And he became a living soul.
Let me ask you a question. Had that man ever existed before? Was he the equivalent of a new
person? Or was he a new person? Had any
of his parts existed before? No. He was fresh from the hands
and the breath of his Creator. That's what the Holy Spirit is
saying here. If any man be in Christ, he is
new. God has made him new. He never existed before. He's new. He has a new life. He has new desires. He has new
loves. What is it that makes a man a
Christian? Well, he just gets up one Sunday
morning and decides he'll start coming to church. And he realizes
he needs to read his Bible more. And he wants to start trying
to pray some. And he wants to become a moral man. No, brothers and sisters, that's
not what makes a man a Christian at all. God makes a man a Christian.
And He doesn't do it by remodeling him. He doesn't do it by making
him moral. He does it by making him new. He's a new creature by new birth. That's the way He does it. This
is so encouraging. This is one of the most encouraging
verses in all the Bible. Do you realize what this really
is stating? Let me say it like this, and
I've said it to you so many times, but there may be somebody here
this morning that thinks just like I used to think. All through
my teenage years I was miserable. And I can't explain this, and
it wasn't there by nature, but I began to have this desire to
be a Christian. I think one of the things that
was bothering me and made me want to be a Christian, I started
carrying the guilt. I started going to bed thinking,
God's going to kill me tonight. I can't face Him like this. I
got tired of being reminded of that over and over and over.
And I thought, I want to be a Christian, but I can't be a Christian. Did
you ever think that way? I can't be a Christian. Why can't
you be a Christian? Well, it's this lust. I keep thinking, I
can overcome this. I can do this. I know I can't
be a Christian being like I am now, but I can do better. I can overcome this. But I never
could, you see. I never could. I had habits.
Sinful habits. I can't get away from these. This world is too delirium to
me. I can't resist it. If somebody had come to me
and said, you know what you need? You need to join a monastery.
That would just suit a fellow like you, because it gets you
out of the world, you know. Your world is the problem. You
look at the world and you look at this person and that person.
Or you see this and you go to lust and envy and you get mad
and you hate. If we could just get you out
of the world and get you into a monastery by yourself, surrounded
by religious books and religious people, there you could be a
Christian. I tell you, if somebody had come
to me and told me that, I'd have been in a monastery. But you
know what would have happened when I went into that monastery?
I'd have took my whole problem in there with me. The problem wasn't the world.
The problem was me, you see. I'd have took my lust in there
with me. I'd have took my unbelief in there with me. I'd have took
my pride in there with me. I'd have took my enmity and darkness
in there with me. What did I need to be a Christian? I needed for God to give me a
new birth. I needed for Him to change my
heart and give me a new heart and a new spirit. That's what
I needed. No, you can't be a Christian
until He makes you a Christian. He changes the inside, you see. You want to know Christ? You
want to love Him? You want to hate the sin you
now love? You want new desires, new motives? A new will? A new life? Then you've got to be a new creature.
That's the way God makes us Christians, you see. It ain't by reformation. Oh, you won't believe the change
in you. If He makes you new inside, you won't believe the change.
Everybody else will recognize it. It will be a change. But
the Lord Jesus said, first, cleanse that which is within. A new heart
will I give you. A new spirit will I put within
you. Oh, dear soul, everything will
be different then. Do you want to be a Christian? Do you want
to follow Him and love Him and know Him? I hope you do. I hope
you do this morning. I hope you come to the place
where the Lord brought me. But I tell you what, the only
remedy is for Him to save you. You don't need a reformation,
you need a great Savior. You don't need to turn over a
new leaf, you need a Creator to make you new. That's what
Christianity is. It has nothing to do with the
flesh. Don't he go on to say that? All things are of God. All things of this new creature
are of God. What did you have to do with
the first birth? You really didn't have anything
to do with it. You didn't choose who your mother or dad was. You
didn't choose where you were to be born. You didn't choose
when you were to come into this world. You had nothing to do
with the new birth. You were passive in it. This may shock you, but the new
birth is just as passive as the first birth. And I tell you, one of the most
difficult positions to come to and reach is this, when we lay
passive before Him and say, Lord, save me. Lord, give me a new
heart. Give me a new spirit. I cannot
save myself. I cannot regenerate myself. Save me. Make me new. And you'll lay there until He
does it. Whatever repentance has to do with it, you'll say,
grant it to me. Whatever faith has to do with
it, and we can argue about that, but it's Him that gives it. All
things are of God in this new creature. Of His own will begot He us.
Of His own will begot He us. Oh, aren't you thankful to yourself?
When you were dead in your trespasses and sins, aren't you thankful
that He came to you? Just as He came and formed the
first man and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.
The Lord of glory by His Spirit came to you and He made you new. Those spiritual eyes that you
see with, those spiritual ears that you hear with, that heart
of love that you have for Him now, the feet that you follow
Him with, it's all of Him. It's all of Him. And we ascribe to Him the glory
Thank You, Lord. Thank You. Let's pray.