Brethren, working together with him, we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says, “At the acceptable time I have listened to you, and helped you on the day of salvation.” Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. We put no obstacle in any one’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, tumults, labours, watching, hunger; by purity, knowledge, forbearance, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honour and dishonour, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
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The great Paul now begins to urge these newly enlightened Christians to strive towards being at one with Christ. Indeed, Paul speaks for all when he declares that Christ who was sinless, took on the sins of mankind and in that sense, became sin on our behalf so that we might be reconciled to God. Indeed, in that way, we become co-workers with the Lord in that we are together for our salvation: we, with our true faith and our works in the Lord, and the Lord, in reciprocity, bestowing his mercy upon us. Mercy is a priceless commodity and as a priceless commodity is to be treasured beyond measure or price, preserved, valued and received in never-ending joy. Yet, we forget quickly its value. We do so because it is not tangible – something that we can see or touch or smell – so we quickly devalue its worth. The upshot is that we lose mercy. It evaporates like mist. If flies away like the wind – and the irony is that we are totally oblivious to this. That is why Paul exhorts the faithful not to receive mercy in vain.
This in turn obliges us to be ever vigilant in our relationship with God and our fellow man. Have we been faithful to the teachings of Christ? Have we been cognisant of the needs of our fellow man? Have we been sufficiently reflective upon our own spiritual development? All these questions lead us in the direction of being desirous of and alert to being at one with Christ. For if we do not do these things it is better to have never received mercy at all than to lose that mercy after having attained it. Christ himself says something similar in John’s gospel when he declares: “if I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.” In other words it is better to not know the way, the truth or life because then you can plead ignorance. If, however, once you know the true path, you deliberately reject it then you are in fact deliberately rejecting Christ.
It is a promise of God, through the prophet Isaiah, that God will answer the prayers of all at an acceptable time – and the acceptable time is the day of salvation. So Paul now begins to urge that the acceptable time, the day of salvation is now. It is now because Christ has appeared and lived among men. The day of salvation has dawned. There is no question of when because the when is now. So all must be prepared for the coming of the Lord.
Paul points out that the role of the teacher, pastor, and leader is to conduct themselves in the Lord in such a way that they themselves do not cause any dissension or schism. The reason for that is that as ambassadors of Christ, pastors are there to gather the flock and protect it and lead it to safe pasture. If anyone falls away then they fall away as a result of their own lack of faith and cannot blame anyone but themselves for their loss. The pastors will of course pray to God that those who have lost themselves will be found and returned back to the fold.
Pastors are to bear all things for the sake of the Lord. Pastors will be confronted with a wide variety of people ranging from aggressive nonbelievers, through the vast range of various levels of faith and understanding of the flock and will suffer persecution for their efforts. They will be confronted with tumults, tribulations and various forms of distress. These things happen not only to test the mettle and resolve of the flock but also to challenge faith leaders. How many times are we confronted with stubborn people who are hard of heart and always right? It challenges our faith and our abilities when the kindness that is offered is reciprocated with contempt and tribulation. Why bother is a thought that must cross the mind of every faith leader in the face of stubbornness and fractiousness.
It is in those situations that we are called upon to show our true worth as Christians. We are called upon to show patience. We are called upon to show kindness to those who are unkind. We are called upon to work for those who may not be grateful for the time and effort that we you put in. But that is fine. We are not working to assist our fellow man. What we are doing is that we are working as a manifestation of our love for God and we declare that love through the doing of good works. So we do not do it for the object of our effort but for the Lord and that way we become the hands and feet of the Lord.
Paul exhorts us to love in the Holy Spirit, to love the word of truth through the power of God and that we are by God’s love both in the right-hand and left-hand. In this way we are ready to do battle with those that oppress and malign the faith. It may ultimately be that we are obliged to die for our faith. Indeed, we may be called upon to announce our life or to announce our faith. There is the nub and paradox, for it is by dying that we live. Consider the antinomy: death in the Lord is life in the Lord and life and commitment in this world leads to everlasting death by self-condemnation and being cut off from the Lord.
The Christian has this promise: we may be sorrowful in this world but we will rejoice. We may be poor in this world but rich in spirit which in turn acts as a light and beacon to those struggling. Our presence enriches those who are endeavouring to grow closer to Christ. Indeed, we may have nothing that this world values and yet for all that, we possess everything because we are the inheritors of the promise and can have all the assurance that even if we cannot see things physically we know that we are the children of God and God will care for all his children.
