Ambassadors For Christ
AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST
2 CORINTHIANS 5:18-21
Paul writes of the glorious interchange of our sin and Christ’s righteousness. How can we keep such a message to ourselves?
This is center and heartbeat of Paul’s gospel with its thoughts of humanity’s separation from God because of sin, and the work of God in Christ’s death of putting away everything that meant separation on his side, so that he might come and preach peace to guilty sinners.
God entrusts to his servants “the ministry of reconciliation” (5:18), centered in the reconciling “word,” or message (5:19). They are his ambassadors (5:20), calling on people to accept what God in Christ has done for their salvation. The core of the gospel is in 5:21. This was a divine act in which, by God’s appointing, our condemnation came on the sinless Christ, that there might no longer be any condemnation for us. Christ’s suffering was so great that he realized the full divine reaction against sin in the human race which he had become part of.
This is the doctrinal content of Paul’s preaching of the cross (1 Corinthians 1:18), but the objective work of God in Christ needs a subjective application to sinners; the intermediate link is the ministry of the word, and what is contained in 5:20 is the turning point.
It is important to grasp the sense of this verse. It is not so much that God calls on us to set aside our hostility to him and be at peace; rather the emphasis falls on objective atonement. He invites us to enter into the peace with himself that he has made by the sacrifice of his Son. The reconciliation, on his side, is complete, for Christ’s work is accomplished. The gospel call therefore is to receive the benefits of reconciliation and believe that God has at tremendous cost, through the death of his sinless Son who took the sinner’s place and died under his curse, put away everything that on his part stood between you and peace (Romans 5:6-11).