2 Corinthians 5[:19]: “He gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”
2 Corinthians 5[:19]: “He gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”
(II) “2 Cor. 5[:19–20]: ‘God gave us the ministry of reconciliation. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ.’ Those who are sent out as ambassadors with the power to reconcile the king’s enemies with the king himself cannot perform their duty correctly unless they investigate the guilty people themselves, what they have done, how severely they have offended the royal majesty, what satisfaction they are prepared to pay, etc. Therefore the power to reconcile carries with it the power to investigate the cases of the guilty.”
We respond. That ministry of reconciliation was flourishing in the Old Testament, too, and yet Bellarmine himself says that no specific enumeration of sins was necessary in the Old Testament. In Baptism we are reconciled to God, for Baptism is a “pledge of the good conscience” (1 Pet. 3:21), yet even Bellarmine says that no specific enumeration of sins is required in confession before Baptism. Therefore the hypothesis of the argument—that ambassadors cannot reconcile subjects to the king unless they are first informed about all the offenses—is false. But even if it were concluded that this is required in reconciliations among people, it still would not follow that the same thing is necessary in the reconciliation of people with God. Ministers reconcile people to God through their preaching of the Word, as the apostle testifies in the same passage. Nowhere has Christ ordered them to demand an enumeration of all sins from the truly repentant and to impose certain penalties upon them. Rather, He commanded them to absolve people of their sins and to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins among them. Again, nowhere have Christ and the apostles taught by their own example that a specific enumeration of sins must be demanded from those who are to be reconciled. It is enough to see signs of genuine repentance in the fallen, whether they confess their sins in general or in particular. The publican confesses in general that he is a poor sinner (Luke 18:13), and yet he is reconciled to God.