Until we are wholly one with the Lord, being in Him and allowing Him to be in us absolutely, we shall continue to need the ministry of reconciliation, the ministry with which Paul was commissioned. Paul was commissioned with the work of bringing the believers into God in a way that was absolute and practical. Once we see this, we are qualified to understand the last part of chapter five and the first part of chapter six. As we have pointed out, the conjunction “and” at the beginning of 6:1 indicates that chapter six is a continuation of the last part of chapter five.
I urge you not to cling to your old, limited concept of reconciliation. You may have studied religious books or spiritual books and feel that you have the proper interpretation of reconciliation. But I would encourage you to take in this new, fuller understanding of reconciliation and see that to be reconciled is to be brought into God and that the ministry of reconciliation is the ministry of bringing others into God.
There were many problems among the believers at Corinth. All those problems were signs that those believers were not absolutely in God. In many particular matters they were not in God. Although they had been saved and born of God, they were not living in Him. For this reason, concerning many items in their daily living, they were outside of God. Therefore, Paul was burdened to bring them into God. This is to reconcile them to God.
Not only were the apostles commissioned with the work, the ministry, of reconciliation, but in bringing others into God they worked together with God. They knew that by themselves they could not bring anyone into God. They did not have this ability, this capacity. They needed to do this work with God.
In the past many of us said that we were working for the Lord. But when you are working for Him, did you have the sense that you were working with Him? There is an important difference between working for God and working with Him. Even in our human living, working with another person is different from simply working for that person. Let us take the example of a wife cooking a meal for her husband. A wife may enjoy cooking for her husband; however, she may not like to cook a meal with her husband. Instead, if her husband were to come into the kitchen and try to prepare the meal with her, she might say, “Please let me cook this meal for you. Don’t come into the kitchen to bother me. Sit down and rest until your food is ready.” This indicates that the wife prefers to cook for her husband, but not with him. The same may be true of working for the Lord. Often we like to work for the Lord, but we do not want to work with Him. Our attitude may even be that the Lord should stay in heaven while we work for Him on earth. If we work in this way, we shall not be able to reconcile others into the Lord. Because we are not in the Lord ourselves in a practical way in our work, we cannot reconcile anyone else into the Lord. Only by working with the Lord can we reconcile others into Him.
To work together with God means that we are in Him. When we are in Him, we can bring others into Him. Only a person who is in God can bring others into God. If you are not in Him, you certainly cannot bring anyone else into Him. Our closeness to God is the measure of the result of our work. If we are far away from God, we cannot bring others close to Him. The extent to which we can bring others to God and into God is always measured by where we are with respect to God. If we are those who are one with God, then we can bring others to the very place where we are. Therefore, if we want to bring others into the Lord, we must first be in Him ourselves. The more we are in Him, the more we can reconcile others into Him. May this matter be deeply impressed upon us!
In the latter part of 6:1 Paul says to the Corinthians, “We also entreat you that you do not receive the grace of God in vain.” This entreating is the work of reconciliation, as mentioned in 5:20.
Paul entreated the believers at Corinth not to receive the grace of God in vain. Grace is the resurrected Christ becoming the life-giving Spirit to bring the processed God in resurrection into us to be our life and life supply that we may live in resurrection. This means that grace is the Triune God becoming life and everything to us. By this grace Saul of Tarsus, the foremost of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15-16), became the foremost apostle, laboring more abundantly than all the apostles (1 Cor. 15:10). The grace of God always brings us back to Him. According to the context of 6:1, not to receive the grace of God in vain means not to remain in any distraction from God, but to be brought back to Him.
In 6:2 Paul goes on to say, “For He says, In an acceptable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I helped you; behold, now is a well-acceptable time; behold, now is a day of salvation.” The phrase “well-acceptable time” refers to the time of our being reconciled to God, in which He well-accepts us. Salvation in this verse, according to the context, refers to reconciliation. Reconciliation actually is full salvation.
In chapter five Paul speaks of reconciliation, and in chapter six, of salvation. Hence, the salvation mentioned in 6:2 actually refers to reconciliation. Only when we the believers, the saved ones in Christ, have been fully reconciled to God are we fully saved. Until then, we are only partially saved; we have not yet been saved in full.
In 6:1-13 we see a picture of a person who has been fully saved. We prove our full salvation by having an all-fitting life. In these verses Paul is a pattern of a believer who has been fully saved, a pattern of one who lives an all-fitting life. In the next message we shall consider the details of this life.