“Imagining Knox”: A
Reformation Style Critique of the Sermon on 2 Corinthians 5
Last week was a big day in the life of Woori Yallock Presbyterians, for a sermon was preached by none other than the State Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria. The congregation enjoyed his praises for the beautiful trees and surrounding landscape, many stories from his ministry, all generously topped with a very light dusting from 2 Corinthians 5.
Before offering my reflections, let me share an experiment I attempted — I imagined, for a few minutes, that I was John Knox — the Reformer who trembled before the holiness of God more than he trembled before queens.
I asked how such a man, whose very bones burned with the
conviction that God is not mocked and sin is not trifled with, might respond to
the sermon preached on 2 Corinthians 5. And as I listened again, letting Knox’s
instincts guide my ear, it became painfully clear that it is not my tone that
condemns this sermon; it is the sermon’s own words that condemn themselves.
Knox’s first objection would surely fall upon the handling of judgment itself, for Paul’s warning in this chapter is anything but gentle.
Now, it is true that elsewhere Scripture describes a form of judgment in which a believer may “suffer loss” and yet “be saved, though as through fire” (1 Cor 3:15). But that is not what Paul is speaking of in 2 Corinthians 5. In Corinth’s first letter, the issue is the testing of ministerial labour and the quality of one’s work.
In this passage, however, Paul speaks of something far more searching: “the things done in the body, whether good or evil.”
The preacher collapses these two distinct biblical categories into a single, harmless idea of “how we used what God has given us.” Yet Paul’s concern here is not the evaluation of ministry output but the moral disclosure of a life — the full unveiling of embodied righteousness or embodied sin before the judgment seat of Christ.
The fear of the Lord (v.11) accompanies this judgment, not the mild anxiety of a performance appraisal. Whatever rewards Scripture may teach elsewhere, in this text Paul’s emphasis falls upon the holy scrutiny of a God who exposes every deed and weighs every motive. To blur these judgments into one harmless review is not careful theology but a flattening of Scripture that dilutes its terror and empties its urgency.
When a sermon removes sin from judgment, it removes dread from the Judge. The preacher’s own words betray him: he speaks of judgment while stripping it of meaning.
The problem worsens when he describes sin. The sermon says, “Jesus paid the price for our sin and rebellion,” yet never once defines sin, exposes sin, or applies sin to the hearers. This is the soft double-speak Knox would not endure. To name sin without unveiling its horror is to show the people a sword still safely in its scabbard. Worse still is the handling of Christ’s substitution. The preacher quotes the sacred text, “He made him who had no sin to be sin for us,” and immediately rushes into a cheerful illustration about an underground carpark and a boom gate. Such triviality, I imagined, would have driven Knox to tears. For in Scripture, the making of Christ “to be sin” is the deepest mystery under heaven. It is the place where divine wrath, covenant justice, and redeeming love meet in blood. And the sermon reduces it to a malfunctioning gate buzzer.
Even more telling is the sermon’s insistence that human beings must “activate” what Christ has done. The preacher declares, “We have to do something about Jesus dying for us,” and later, “We get to decide how we will respond.” These are not slips; they are structural. They reveal a theology in which the cross is an offer waiting upon human willpower. Knox would have thundered that the cross is not a product awaiting customer engagement. It is the sovereign act of God reconciling enemies to Himself. But in this sermon, the cross becomes a tool, salvation becomes a choice, and sin becomes little more than an unfortunate stain Jesus has made available to cleanse — if we will simply push the spiritual buzzer.
And what of enmity with God? The apostle Paul grounds reconciliation in this bedrock truth: “While we were enemies, we were reconciled.” Yet the sermon never once admits that we were enemies of God. It speaks instead of people “choosing not to follow Jesus,” as though unbelief were a lifestyle preference, not cosmic treason. It tells the listener, “Choose to please God,” rather than, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” This is not the language of ambassadors for Christ. It is the language of a moral trainer offering spiritual improvement. Knox would have called it a counterfeit comfort.
The sermon routinely replaces divine confrontation with therapeutic uplift. Consider the line, “Jesus gives us courage in spades.” True enough — but courage is not the central burden of 2 Corinthians 5. The burden is that sinners must flee the wrath to come and be made new in Christ. Or take the preacher’s phrase, “God’s love compels us because He died for us.” This is biblical language drained of biblical content, because the sermon never explains what wrath, curse, or divine justice this love answers. It speaks of Christ’s death without ever making clear what that death accomplishes beyond emotional encouragement.
Another line in the sermon exposes the same doctrinal softness. At 00:19:01, the preacher declares that God purposed His Son to suffer “to redeem us from a godless eternity.” Knox would have recoiled at such language, for Scripture nowhere speaks of a “godless” eternity. Hell is not the absence of God but the dreadful presence of His holiness in judgment — “the wrath of the Lamb” (Rev 6:16), “everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord” (2 Thess 1:9). To recast eternal judgment as mere separation or divine absence is to strip hell of its terror and the cross of its necessity. Redemption is not rescue from cosmic loneliness but deliverance from the righteous wrath of God against sin. Strike, I thought, Knox wouldn’t be able to cope with this.
Even the key phrase “new creation” is mishandled. Paul uses it to describe the radical ontological transformation wrought by the Spirit — the death of the old man and the resurrection of the new. But the sermon treats new creation as the chance to “start again,” as though the gospel were a divine reset button rather than a miracle of regeneration. Once more, the sermon betrays itself by refusing to say what Scripture insists upon: that sinners must die and rise in Christ.
Knox would not have needed to invent charges; the sermon supplies them. It trivialises substitution with anecdotes. It hollows repentance into decisionism. It softens judgment into divine encouragement. It speaks of sin without preaching sin. It offers Christ as comfort but not Christ as Lord. And worst of all, it proclaims reconciliation without ever unveiling the hostility that makes reconciliation necessary. It is a sermon that comforts the sinner before he is awakened, soothes the conscience before it is pierced, and assures the hearer of comfort before the danger has been shown.
And so, after imagining Knox, I must finally step out of his boots and stop my daydreaming.
And since I am not John Knox but a rather timid 21st-century Christian with a mild anxiety disorder, unresolved father issues, and repayments that reproduce faster than rabbits, I confess I did find comfort in this sermon. For if the preacher is right, one day even my mortgage, my car lease, and the psychological rubble of my childhood will be swallowed up by life — and frankly, that sounds marvellous.
The sermon may be viewed online at
