Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord we persuade men, but have been manifested to God, and I hope also that we have been manifested in your consciences.
Paul has just written about the judgment seat of Christ. Now he tells the Corinthians what that sight does to him: it sends him out to persuade people, and it keeps his own life open before God. (Where the ESV reads "the fear of the Lord," older translations read "the terror of the Lord" — the wording the writers below use.)
The dread in this verse is not the believer's dread. The same judgment seat looks different, depending on who stands before it.
This holds no terror for believers. They have boldness for that day, because Christ is already our righteousness. God has taken us into favour in Him, and we share in all that love of which He is the Object. When that day comes, we will be in bodies of glory like Him. But what about those who must appear there naked, with no righteousness, with no shelter from the wrath they are heirs to? The apostle thinks of them as that throne comes before his eyes, and it is with them in view that he calls it the terror of the Lord. It was no terror to him, but to those appearing there without Christ.
Notice what the thought of judgment does not do to Paul. He looks straight at it and then turns outward.
Then he considers judgment. He calls it the terror of the Lord, looks it full in the face, and knows it. He states that we shall all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ. And then — what? Does he tremble or think of himself? Not at all; he persuades men. Its terror produces no effect of terror at all on his own mind. It was a judgment which, as such, affected others.
One writer warns that this motive for service is under attack:
Satan seems determined in our day to remove this motive for service altogether. Never has the coming judgment been made to sound so mild, or even been openly denied. But this deals falsely with people, and it turns us into tools of the enemy. Paul kept the future before his eyes, with all its huge and dreadful outcomes. It made him even more eager in his work for Christ among people.
Persuading has two sides, and the preacher can speak of both because he has proved the remedy himself.
How deep and loud and constant is the call for believers to wake up those who do not believe, while the day of grace lasts! They must not face that judgment unwarned, for it will be their ruin beyond remedy. The call is to "persuade men" — on the one hand of the wickedness, the folly, and the danger of sin; on the other of the reality and freeness, of the fulness and certainty, of salvation in Christ... We speak what we know and press a remedy, a deliverance, we have proved.
Persuasion is also a limit. It is as far as any servant can go.
Under-servants, even one as great as the apostle Paul, cannot go beyond persuading people; only the Spirit of the living God can work so effectively in the hearts of men as to "compel them to come in."
The second half of the verse turns from others to Paul himself.
The light has come in now, and an upright Christian delights in the light of God. He does not wait for the judgment seat of Christ to declare his motives... A Christian should be perfectly transparent. If not, he is unlike Christ. You may read me through and through, says Paul; I have nothing to conceal, all is out now.
Darby points to the tense Paul uses, and to what it does now.
The thought of that day brings him into God's judgment as a present thing, in a way that sanctifies him. We are, he says (not shall be), manifested to God. This is a most important effect: in practice it is simply being brought into the presence of God to judge ourselves, and to judge good and evil as they will be judged in that day.
The two clauses are not stated with equal confidence, and the difference is deliberate.
He could speak with certainty about being made manifest to God. About being manifested to the consciences of believers he could only speak in hope, because disturbing influences might be at work in them. At best that could only be partial, while to God, I repeat, they were already fully manifest.
- Terror — the judgment seat gives the believer boldness. For anyone who stands there without Christ, it is terror.
- Turned outward — that sight made Paul fear for others, not for himself. It moved him to persuade, not to tremble.
- Persuasion — he pressed home the danger of sin and the freeness of salvation. He spoke of a deliverance he had proved himself.
- Limit — a servant can only persuade; the Spirit alone compels people to come in.
- Manifested — Paul already lived in the light of that day. He was open before God, judging himself now as he will be judged then, and he hoped others could read him the same way.
[For] we do not again commend ourselves to you, but [we are] giving to you occasion of boast in our behalf, that ye may have [such] with those boasting in countenance, and not in heart.
Paul has just said that he is open before God and, he hopes, before the consciences of the Corinthians. Now he explains why he keeps talking about himself. He is not rebuilding his own reputation. He is handing them something to use against rivals whose credentials were all on the surface.
Paul will not press his authority on people whose hearts are not convinced. He describes what he wants instead:
If his testimony and consistent way of life do not make him clear to their consciences, he has no wish for their approval on any lower ground. He will not demand obedience to his apostolic authority unless their hearts are sincerely convinced. Like the Master whom he served, he did not seek the praise of men. Others did. They preached and served Christ in name only, and had no glory in view but their own. So he insists here and elsewhere on his own teaching and manner of life. He does this to give his fellow believers a balance, so they can weigh such claims at once in practice.
A life lived openly before God needs no self-advertising. It also gives his friends an answer for his critics:
Since his life spoke in this way, there would be no need to commend himself. Still, he trusted that his life would give them occasion to glory on his behalf. That would answer those who gloried in outward appearance before men, while lacking the pure and hidden motives of the heart before God.
The boasting Paul names had a face at Corinth. One writer pictures a man with natural and social advantages who traded on them:
A certain man seems to have gained attention. From nature and from circumstances he had far more than the apostle, and this moved the saints at Corinth. He was, as we would say today, a gentleman. He had a fine appearance and an independent fortune. He had many advantages of that kind. The Corinthians were under that evil influence, and to some extent it had misled them. They were looking at things by outward appearance. They were putting up with a man who boasted of himself and lorded it over them. He used the low, worldly advantages he had from nature and circumstances to make himself somebody.
Older translations render the word for "outward appearance" as face or person — the front a man puts on. Against it stands the heart, where love for God's people and care for His glory live:
He had written to them in this confidence of love, and he quickly guards the sheep from anything that would mislead them. He does this for their sakes rather than his own. A slander does not injure the person attacked, but those who are influenced by it. He did not commend himself by what he said about his ministry, and he was not doing it again by appealing to their consciences about his ways. He was only giving them occasion for boasting, as he says, "on our behalf, that you may have it with those who boast in face and not in heart." On the one hand, holiness and truth go together, with care for God's glory and love of His children. On the other hand, those men were pleasant in his presence but aimed at undermining the apostle. They were serving not the Master but their own appetite.
Both kinds of boasting are heading somewhere. Paul's own glorying went in another direction:
Paul had to speak in this way about the work God gave him. Yet his glorying was not in this, but "in the Lord." They too must take this to heart. For if a man commends himself today, he may find at the judgment seat of Christ that he has no such commendation.
The same contrast shows up in everyday life. What the world gives only reaches the face:
Worldly joys put gladness into the face. The rich Corinthians "glory in appearance and not in heart." But the Spirit of God puts gladness into the heart. Divine joys are heart joys.
- Face. The rivals at Corinth boasted in appearance — fine looks, money, social standing. What the eye could see was swaying the saints.
- Heart. Paul's answer is not a better front but a hidden motive: love for God's people and care for His glory. God sees it first.
- Balance. He writes not to praise himself but to hand the Corinthians a measure. With it they can weigh showy claims and reject them.
- Occasion. He wants them boasting on his behalf. The defence of his ministry then comes from their own conviction, not from his demand for obedience.
- Verdict. Self-commendation may collect praise now and find nothing at the judgment seat of Christ. The only safe boast is in the Lord.
For whether we are beside ourselves, [it is] to God; or are sober, [it is] for you.
Some who watched Paul saw a man carried away, others saw him calm and practical. In this verse he owns both, and gives each its own direction: one toward God, the other toward the people he wrote to.
One writer states the objection people made, then names what holds Paul's two sides together.
But was he not inconsistent and unpredictable — at one moment so ecstatic that no one could follow him, at another so calm that he chilled his brothers and cut short their liberty? Not so. Cold is the heart that knows no rapture before God as it thinks of His grace in Christ. Paul's heart was not cold. Bursts of praise break into his closest reasoning. But the same Paul can come down to the most ordinary questions of daily life, can regulate the relations of husband and wife, or of master and slave, can prescribe for a weak man, and check a woman's taste in dress. There is one name, and only one, which draws out and accounts for both feelings. It raises the heart above all that is seen and passing, and yet gives the liveliest interest in the smallest detail of life now. And He who bears that name is both God and man in one person.
"Beside ourselves" started as other people's label for Paul. One writer turns the accusation inside out.
The apostle Paul was marked by a very fervent zeal. It produced in him a great desire to be acceptable to the Lord, to be open and honest with fellow believers, and to persuade people in view of the coming judgment. His zeal was such that sometimes it carried him clean outside himself, and men labelled him as fanatical, as Festus did when he called out, "Paul, you are out of your mind." But Paul was no fanatic. When he was beside himself, it was "to God." God was the Object before him. He was outside himself because God was so truly inside — "whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" (1 John 4:16).
The second half of the verse is not a lower setting of the first. Both take Paul off his own hands. (Where these writers say "sober," the ESV has "in our right mind.")
If we are "beside ourselves," it is to God. If we are "sober," it is for your sake. There is a power which takes us, as it were, out of ourselves, where God is in divine energy, but there is a calculation of love which is divine too. He was in God's presence in power through the Holy Spirit, but the love of God working in him made him think of others — two blessed ways of being delivered from self.
The verse also draws a line between God's presence and human company.
Even the wise Paul could speak of being beside himself toward God and sober for others. Here the related thought is discretion. Before God and to Him, the heart may rightly go out in ecstasy. But when we think of people, and even of the saints, a more guarded feeling is right on our part.
One love drives both states — the rapture and the careful planning.
But Paul was not always in an ecstasy Godward. He also knew well how to look out with sober-minded wisdom on the interests of his Lord. Then he cared in a calculating way for the people of God, the Corinthians among them. And in this, as much as in the other, the love of Christ was the power that worked within him and constrained him. That love was shown in His death. It pressed on Paul in his love toward God and His saints, and it guided his judgment.
Holding these two together is not natural. One writer names the only place it happens.
It is hard to hold together the energy of the Spirit and the sober spirituality that follows the word. We find this, like every blessing, only near to God.
The first half may be the harder to grasp, and one writer says why.
We may find it hard to understand this being "beside ourselves," and harder still to explain it. That may be because it is an experience we hardly know, if at all. We may move in circles where zeal like Paul's would be judged unspiritual, and bad manners as well. How great then is our loss!
- Charge — Paul answers people who thought him unpredictable. One name accounts for both his rapture and his calm. It lifts the heart above what is seen, and still cares about husbands, wives and dress.
- Godward — "Beside ourselves" was an outsider's label, like Festus's. Paul was outside himself because God was inside him.
- Manward — Being sober is not less spiritual; it is love calculating for others. Ecstasy toward God and sober care for people are two ways of escaping self.
- Discretion — Before God the heart may overflow. Among people, a more guarded manner fits.
- Power — The love of Christ drives both states. We learn to hold them together only near to God. Where people call such zeal fanaticism, the loss is ours.
For the love of the Christ constrains us, having judged this that one died for all, then all have died;
Paul has just spoken of the judgment seat and of persuading men. Now he names the power behind it all. Three questions follow. Whose love is meant? What does that love make a person conclude? And what does that conclusion say about the human race?
The phrase could mean our love for Christ. Commentators read it the other way. The ESV says the love of Christ "controls" us; the older translation these writers used says it "constrains" us. One writer draws out that word by setting it against the chain Paul wore as a prisoner.
With Paul the love of Christ was not a constraint from chains outside, as when he was chained to a soldier. It was a constant hold of Christ on the heart, saying, "I am led captive by Christ; that love of His binds me like a chain and makes me go as a captive wherever He wants." It was not Paul's love but Christ's.
The verse does not say that love made Paul feel something. It says love brought him to a verdict: "we have concluded this". Love and thinking belong together here, because Christ showed that love in a death, and Paul had to read that death rightly.
Christ expressed that love in His death, and it pressed on Paul in two ways. It moved his affections toward God and His saints, and it also guided his judgment. Because that love held him, he could judge rightly what that death meant.
The reasoning runs backwards from the cross to the condition it met. If Christ had to go into death for people, that tells you where those people already were.
He had judged this: if one died for all, then the all died, or were dead. Christ's death for all is the proof that it was all over with mankind. If He went down in grace to the grave, it was just because men were already there, and there was no other way to deliver them. This is how Christ is known here: not as a living Messiah reigning over the living, but as One who died for all, because all were under death. So this is a question about all mankind, not about Israel only.
It is easy to read the verse as though the cross created the death it speaks of.
Christ's death for all does not put all there, it proves that all are there, and if that is true, then that is our condition — DEAD.
Commentators differ over the second half of the verse. Some read it as believers having died with Christ. Others say it describes the state of all mankind. One writer gives his reasons for the second reading.
If all had died through Adam, then Christ's descending into death for them all is how we know love. The apostle judged that if one died for all, it was because death was the condition of all. What makes this the undeniable sense to me is that he speaks of "those who live" as a portion taken out of them. If it were the saints dying with Christ, they would be the same people.
If all are dead, who then are "those who live"? The same writer answers.
There is life in Him risen, and this not in Him only, but for those who believe. He is our life. And this is the meaning of "those who live": not just those alive on earth (though that is implied, of course) but living by His life, in contrast with "all dead".
This kind of constraint does not work like pressure. It gives the heart an Object outside itself to live for.
If His deathless love has constrained us to apply the truth of the cross to ourselves, we shall also be drawn to find in Him an Object outside ourselves. He so commands us and so absorbs us that we cannot help living to Him... We shall not love because we ought; we shall not serve because we should. There is no legal, servile bondage here. We shall love, we shall serve, we shall live to Him because we cannot help it.
The verse also puts a question to the reader.
In the light of this Scripture we may well challenge our hearts as to the motive that drives us in all our service. Is it the love of Christ that constrains us, or is it the love of self? Are we living to ourselves, or are we living "to Him"?
- Love, not duty — the power at work is Christ's love for us. It is His hold on the heart, not a chain from outside.
- Love that thinks — that love does more than stir feeling. It guides the judgment, so that a person reads Christ's death correctly.
- The verdict — His death for all does not put men under death. It proves they were already there. This is a question about all mankind, not about one nation.
- The exception — "those who live" are not just people who are alive. They live by His risen life, a company taken out of the "all dead".
- The result — those held by that love serve because they cannot help it. The question left is simple: self, or Christ?
and he died for all, that they who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who died for them and has been raised.
Paul has just said that One died for all. Now he shows the aim of that death. It reaches everyone, and it gives those who live a new direction for their lives.
The verse holds two truths at once, and there is a way to lose each one. One writer sets the two mistakes side by side:
Some narrow the "all" for whom He died down to the elect, and they lose the first truth. Others see the special blessing, and also the responsibility, of the saints — those who live — and they lose the second. He died for all. He was raised again so that those who believe would be justified, and they had life in Him as a result. The purpose was that they should live no longer to themselves, as they once did in their sinful folly, but to their Saviour who died and rose.
The phrase does not simply mean people who are still breathing:
So there is life in Him as risen, and not for Him alone, but for those who believe. He is our life. That is what "those who live" means. It is not just those alive on earth, though of course that is included. It means those living by His life, in contrast with "all dead."
The small word "to" carries the weight of the verse. One writer unpacks it by describing the way an unconverted person weighs everything:
What is the significance of this little preposition "to"? We have been brought to God. In our unconverted days we did live to ourselves, and in the nature of things we could not do anything else. Dominated by sin as we were, we had "self" as the great end and object of our existence. Think of it. Of course it was so! How did we judge everything in our unconverted days? Like this: Does it please me? Does it suit my taste? Do I like that? Will it advance my interests a little? Will it make a big man of me?
Paul mentions only the death when he speaks of all. For those who live, he adds the resurrection — "rose again" in older translations:
The whole subject is the power of life in Christ as triumphant over death. So when he applies it, he does not say merely "who died for them," as when he speaks of all, but "rose again" also. It is the power and fulness of a new thing for those taken out of death through Christ's going down into it.
Living to Christ is not a duty forced on the believer. It is a response that His love draws out:
When a person knows the constraining love of Christ, it frees him from being taken up with self. That love "surpasses knowledge," and its pull makes the Christian Christ-centred. Every one of us, from the youngest to the oldest, is tested here. Is it self or Christ? … We shall not love because we ought; we shall not serve because we should. There is no legal, servile bondage here. We shall love, we shall serve, we shall live to Him because we cannot help it.
Christ's claim on us reaches ordinary things — a plan, a thing we buy, an hour of work:
We are His, for He has redeemed us with His own precious blood, and so He claims us for His own. What a searching, practical test this supplies! Do I plan this or that? Is it then for Christ? Do I desire anything? Is it for Christ? Am I busy in service? Is it for Christ? Can I look round my home and say of everything I see, It is for Christ? So "for Christ" gives us a principle for the whole of our daily lives. It should rule everything, guiding us in all our works and ways. It makes nothing of self and nothing of man, but everything of Christ.
- Death — for all. The reach of the death is as wide as the human race; narrowing it to believers loses one half of the verse.
- Life — for those who live. "Those who live" are not simply everyone alive. They live by Christ's own life, in contrast with a world that is dead.
- Self — dethroned. To live "to yourself" is to make self the point of your existence. You judge everything by whether it pleases you and advances you.
- Christ — risen, and now the object. Paul adds the resurrection only where believers are in view. Their life is a new life that came up out of death.
- Love — the constraint. Duty does not turn a life around; Christ's love does. It frees us from self, and it shows in one question: is this for Christ?
So that *we* henceforth know no one according to flesh; but if even we have known Christ according to flesh, yet now we know [him thus] no longer.
Paul has just written that one died for all. Now he draws the result, and the verse opens with "therefore." The death of Christ has scrapped the whole scale by which he once sized people up, and it has changed the way he knows Christ Himself.
The first word links this verse back to what Paul has just said. The surprise is where the change has taken place.
Verse 16 grows out of this, as the first word, "Wherefore," shows. Christ is no longer among us in the life of this world, and we now live in connection with Him, so a new order of things has come in. Even Christ Himself is known by us in a new way. Paul had not been among those who knew Christ "according to flesh" while He was on earth. But even if he had been, he would know Him that way no longer. We also know no one according to the flesh. That is not because people are no longer in the old condition; most of them are. It is because of the inward change worked in ourselves.
The phrase points to a set of hopes: a Messiah alive on earth, come to bless people here.
A living Messiah, and all the hopes tied to His coming here on earth, have passed away for the Christian. This does not mean the Messiah will never return. But the sphere and character of our own relations are different: they rest on death and resurrection, and they are seen on high… The One we know as our centre of union, the object of our souls, is Christ risen and glorified.
What ended is a condition, not a Person. And it ended because God passed sentence on it.
Even Christ has not taken up again the life He laid down. He has not gone back to His former state on earth. That is over. The Christ we know is One who is in resurrection in the glory of God. A far higher condition, you say. It certainly is. But the former one has passed away, and it passed away in the very thing that confirmed God's sentence on it.
If the old way of sizing up a person is gone, something must replace it.
The apostles had already died with Christ, and they gloried only in His cross. So they had lost their natural fellowship with flesh. Risen with Him, they see natural things with changed eyes… People are known, then, as "of God" or "of the world," as "within" or "without," as brothers loved in Christ, or as strangers, if not enemies, to the truth of God… and the only standard of comparison is Christ.
Some stretch the verse into a refusal of ordinary family ties. It does not reach that far.
Once we grasp what it means that no one, not even Christ, is known any more according to the flesh, we will see that this in no way touches our natural relationships. God's will placed us in those relationships towards one another. In fact, the letters that bring out our full place in the risen Christ are the very ones that fully recognise those relationships.
What the verse does end is the pulling of rank on the basis of blood. One writer notices a telling silence in the New Testament letters themselves.
Is it not significant that James, the author of the Epistle that bears his name, does not claim that he is the brother of our Lord? He had certainly learned the lesson that "even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard Him thus no longer."
We lose nothing by this. The disciples themselves show why.
His disciples spent those few years in His company, and it was a wonderful experience. Yet they had not received the Holy Spirit, so at the time they understood very little. Only later, when they had lost His presence among them but gained the presence of the Holy Spirit, did they truly grasp what they had seen and heard.
- Cause. The "therefore" reaches back to the death of Christ for all. That death, not a change in people, ended the old way of knowing.
- Christ. What has passed is a condition, not a Person. He has not gone back to His former state on earth, and the Christ we know is in resurrection glory.
- Us. The alteration is inside the believer; most people are still in the old condition, but we no longer read them by it.
- Others. New categories replace the flesh: of God or of the world, within or without. Christ is the only standard.
- Limits. This does not dissolve family ties. It only dissolves the claim that blood gives standing, as James shows.
So if any one [be] in Christ, [there is] a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold all things have become new
The verse turns on two small words: "in Christ." Paul is not describing a person who has improved. He is describing a whole new order of things that starts when someone is joined to the risen Christ. That raises an obvious question: why does the old life so often still look and feel the same?
Every human being stands on one of two grounds, and where you stand is decided by which head you belong to.
Everyone is either in Adam or in Christ. Someone who is not a believer is still under Adam as his head. He is in the flesh, and that is where he stands before God... An unbeliever is linked with Adam, shares fallen Adam's life and nature, and belongs to the creation that God placed Adam over. Where he stands before God, he is in Adam.
The wording matters. One writer draws attention to how Paul says it.
The first mention of new creation in the New Testament is in 2 Corinthians 5:17, where we find that everyone "in Christ" is brought into it. It is "new creation" in this verse rather than "a new creature," and Paul's language here is very forceful and emphatic. He leaves out the verb altogether and exclaims, "So then, if anyone in Christ — new creation!" like a man exulting in a glorious fact.
It would be easy to read the verse as a warm way of saying "your sins are gone." One writer presses that it claims something larger.
Paul does not say, "If anyone is in Christ he is pardoned — his sins are forgiven — his debts are paid." All of that is true. But the words of the verse go much further. It declares that a man in Christ is a new creation altogether. The old nature is not pardoned. It is set aside, along with everything that belongs to it. God brings in a new creation, and not a shred of the old is in it.
Two events stand behind the verse: one ended the old, one began the new.
The cross of Christ was God's judgment that ended the first man. The resurrection of Christ — Christ as the risen Man — was God's new beginning, in line with His eternal purposes... He glorified God about the sins and the sin of Adam and his race, the first man who was held responsible. Now, risen and glorified, He Himself is the Beginning.
If the new has come, why do a Christian's home, job and family look unchanged? One writer answers that these relationships will end, but we are still in them for now.
As we walk through the world with our responsibilities, we deal with the old order. We have parents, children, husbands, wives, masters, servants, and so on. We are to live in these relationships to the glory of God. But this will all come to an end... in the meantime we are in them, and we are to walk in them so as to please God. The life of Jesus is to come out in us down here; we are to walk as He walked. But in the life of Christ, as made alive together with Him, we are apart from everything belonging to the old.
One writer adds a careful limit. The verse does not mean the flesh — the old sinful nature — can no longer stir in a believer.
The cross ended the old man in God's judgment. The believer has put him off and is done with him. Even so, we still have the flesh to trouble us. We are not in it, but we cannot say it is not in us. We feel its presence keenly. If we are not watchful, it will soon lead us into sin.
- New position. Everyone stands either in Adam or in Christ. There is no third ground. The verse speaks only of those in Christ.
- New order. Read the phrase as "new creation," not just "a new creature." Paul exclaims over a whole new sphere, not a repaired person.
- New basis. The cross ended the first man in God's judgment. The resurrection of Christ was God's new beginning, and the new creation comes from Him.
- New scope. This goes beyond pardon. God does not forgive the old nature and keep it. He sets it aside, and what replaces it has nothing of the old in it.
- New walk. We still live inside old relationships and still carry the flesh. So walk as Christ walked, knowing God has finished with the old.
and all things [are] of the God who has reconciled us to himself by [Jesus] Christ, and given to us the ministry of that reconciliation
Everything in God's new order comes from Him, and it reaches us through the death of His Son. The verse holds two gifts: a finished reconciliation, and a ministry given to those who have received it.
The verse opens, "All this is from God" — older translations read, "all things are of God." That shuts the door on any human share in the new creation.
This is a work of God in which man can have no share. There is no human material to enter into it. All of that had already gone in death before this work was done… It is a work absolutely and entirely of God. It is a new creation, and its character is that "all things are of God." The great thought in the passage is that everything of man has disappeared from view, and only what is of God is now seen.
This is not the first creation repeated. There, too, all was of God — but of God as Maker.
In the old creation, all things were "of God," it is true; but they were of God who created them. But in the new, all things are "of God, who has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ." All these will bear witness to redemption. There we will trace the blood of the Lamb of God, and not simply the power of the hand of God.
The verse says God reconciled us to Himself. Commentators press this direction hard, because the reverse is never written.
The testimony of Scripture is as clear as possible. It never speaks of God being reconciled to us. "If while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son" (Rom. 5:10). It does not say that God was reconciled to us. The death of Christ was essential to the reconciliation. But man was the enemy of God, and man needed to be reconciled.
So the first move was God's, and it was never a change in His heart.
God never needed to be reconciled. It was we ourselves, in whom there was enmity, who needed to be reconciled… The very God we had sinned against took the first step on His own side. He put all our offences away. He has now placed us before His face, justified and reconciled through our Lord Jesus Christ. God is the Reconciler. We are the reconciled.
Reconciliation is not only a fact about God's side. The person reconciled feels the difference.
The simplest thought in reconciliation is this: where there was distance there is now nearness. Here is the wonderful effect in the soul. A person was once very aware of moral distance from God. Now he can come to God knowing that the distance is gone, and be at home in His presence.
The verse says God reconciled us "through Christ." Writers place the work at one point, and the ministry at another.
Only death could reconcile to God those whom sin had made His enemies. Their condition is mortal because of sin. So the work of reconciliation was complete at the cross. There the suffering Redeemer bowed His sacred head and said, "It is finished," in the act of death. The ministry of reconciliation began when the Lord's first apostles, in the power of the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, preached forgiveness and acceptance in His Name — first at Jerusalem, and to the very men who had murdered Christ.
The same God who reconciled also gives the ministry — and not to one group of Christians only.
It is not the apostle alone who could say this, nor only some class among Christians: "He has given us the ministry of reconciliation." He has brought us to Himself and made Himself known to us. By that very fact He has also given us power to make known to others what fills our own souls, and to bring others to Him. We have received the reconciliation. What we received is not for ourselves alone. We received it to minister with it.
The message is grace, so the messenger must carry grace.
It was God who first reconciled him to Himself by Jesus Christ, and then gave him the ministry of reconciliation. It was the ministry of reconciliation. The one who carried it was not to clothe himself with the repulsiveness of God in judgment. He was to clothe himself with the attractiveness of God in grace.
- Source. "All this is from God" — in the new creation God uses nothing of man, and only what is of God is seen.
- Direction. God is the Reconciler and we are the reconciled; Scripture never says God was reconciled to us.
- Basis. The reconciliation comes "through Christ" — finished at the cross, when He said, "It is finished."
- Result. Where there was moral distance there is now nearness — a person can be at home in God's presence.
- Gift. The One who reconciled also gives the ministry. We do not keep what we received; we pass it on, in the attractiveness of grace, not the repulsiveness of judgment.
how that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their offences; and putting in us the word of that reconciliation.
God Himself came in Christ, met a hostile world with grace, and handed the same message to His servants. That raises hard questions: how could trespasses go uncharged, and why must anyone still be told to be reconciled?
God did not send a messenger. He came Himself, in Christ, to where people were.
In Christ "the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily." Here I see God come into the world — God's side of things towards us — all the fullness of God, love and light, in bodily form. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses." He never said "Come to Me" until He had come to them. He did not wait in heaven and say, You get right and then come up here; but He came in sovereign grace where and when they were wrong.
To reconcile is to bring people back into right relations with God. "Not imputing" means not charging their sins to their account.
God was seeking in His Son to bring men back into right relations with Himself. The Lord Jesus did not charge people's trespasses to them. To the poor sinner of Luke 7 He said, "Your sins are forgiven." To the woman caught in sin, in John 8, He said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more." Peter bound the sin of Ananias and Sapphira on them. Paul charged the sin of Elymas the sorcerer to him, and handed others over to Satan. But the Lord Jesus, while He was here, did not charge the trespasses of sinners to them, even though He rebuked the proud Pharisees and scribes. Grace marked His mission.
Uncharged sins do not vanish. Someone still has to answer for them.
Adam was responsible for the guilt that has estranged man from God. We may say then that man was responsible to remedy this. But he could not: sin's enmity is too much for him. But God was in no way responsible to do so. In pure love and grace He laid the perfect foundation of reconciliation for all the world, by the gift of His own Son. The only way our trespasses could be "not imputed" to us was by the blessed sacrifice of Calvary, where they were imputed to Christ instead.
The offer was real. Man's answer to it proved something about human nature.
The blessed Saviour was "reconciling," acting toward this gracious end, during His life. He was rejected. If men had received Christ, the result would have proved that evil could be repaired. Now we know the truth is the opposite. But God first put the matter to man's responsibility, and then showed that repair was morally impossible.
Rejection did not cancel the offer.
The world murdered Him. But His coming announced a great amnesty on God's part, and that amnesty is still in force. It is still the time, the day of salvation, and God's ambassadors are still here proclaiming the fact.
The verse describes an attitude God took. It does not say the world is now reconciled.
Notice, first, there is no statement here of the world having been reconciled. The apostle is speaking about the attitude God took in Christ, when Christ came into the world. What Christ was doing when here, he says, we are doing as His representatives, "in His stead," now that He is no longer here. But that attitude is one of begging men to be reconciled — not telling them they are.
Three things flow from God's coming in Christ. The third is where the verse ends.
"Reconciling," "not imputing," and "committing to us the word of reconciliation." Without this last, the work of grace would have stayed incomplete in its application. For this same Jesus, who in His coming here below was reconciling and "not imputing," needed to be "made sin" for us, to die and go away. Once the work was finished, it still hung waiting to be applied. God crowned this glorious work of His grace by committing to man "the word of reconciliation."
The verse names "the world" as the object. No one can argue their way outside that.
No one under heaven can put himself outside the range of this most precious ministry. Before the reader can shut himself out from the application of all this grace to himself, he must prove that he does not belong to the world. This he cannot do, and so he must see that God is begging him to be reconciled.
- God came. He did not wait in heaven for people to improve. The fullness of God arrived in Christ, on our ground, in grace and not in judgment.
- God withheld. Jesus forgave sins and refused to condemn, while other servants of God did charge sin to the guilty.
- God paid. Christ took our trespasses to His own account at the cross. That is the only way they could stay off ours.
- God still asks. The verse states an attitude, not a finished result. Scripture never says the world has been reconciled. That is why God still pleads with people: be reconciled.
- God sends. He crowned the finished work by placing the word of reconciliation in human hands. Its object is the world, so no one can prove the message leaves them out.
We are ambassadors therefore for Christ, God as [it were] beseeching by us, we entreat for Christ, Be reconciled to God.
Just before this, Paul says God reconciled people to Himself through Christ. Then He put the message in the hands of His servants. Verse 20 turns that message into a plea. Two questions shape it: who is the plea for, and who is making it?
Older English versions add the pronouns "you" and "ye" here, printed in italics. Commentators note that they are not in the Greek at all.
While He is away, the grace of God sends His servants as ambassadors for Christ. In Christ's place they beg the poor world to be reconciled to God. Notice that the "you," twice repeated in italics, and the "ye" should be left out. Putting these pronouns in limits the truth to believers, whereas the appeal is to the world.
Some read the verse as a daily call to Christians. William Kelly rejects that:
The apostle here gives the gospel message in his short formula — a sample "word of reconciliation." … Reconciliation nowhere has an aspect toward saints. It is really the word of reconciliation in the gospel message: we are told how to address the world of sinners. Reconciliation, like justification, is an absolute work. It has no degrees.
The call is not for God to change His attitude. The movement runs one way only.
There is no such thought in Scripture as that of reconciling God: it always speaks of reconciliation to God. … So the reconciling of the world still goes on, with Christ absent and others acting in His place. But it is not atonement. And just because the reconciliation is going on, it is not finished.
The natural expectation would be the reverse — the guilty party begging the offended one. Here it is turned around.
The apostles were in a special way "ambassadors for Christ." They carried a message of such love. Through them God Himself entreated mankind to be reconciled to Him. You would expect man to be the one begging God for mercy. But God instead urges man to accept now the mercy He has so graciously offered to all. So we see His love not only in the wonderful sacrifice of His own Son to bear our sins. We see it also in His patient grace and pleading with men to receive His love.
An ambassador speaks for someone who is not there. Christ is absent, so others stand in His place.
The dignity is indeed great. They do not represent Levites, or priests, or even the high priest. They represent Christ dead and risen, and they do so in the aspect of divine grace — God as it were (it was not fitting to speak in absolute terms) beseeching through us. We entreat on behalf of Christ, or in His place: be reconciled to God. … The grace of God and of Christ is stamped on every word.
The ambassador has no weight of his own to trade on.
They make no claim of their own on the world's respect. Their dignity lies only in the message they carry.
Commentators differ over how far the title stretches. Some see it reaching to every believer:
When the Apostle wrote, "We are ambassadors for Christ," he was probably thinking of himself, his fellow workers and the other apostles. They were in a special sense entrusted with the Gospel. Yet his words apply to every believer. The church of God is like a divine embassy in a hostile world. Each of us has to remember that we are part of that embassy. Our attitude toward people must match the word of reconciliation we carry.
Others are more cautious:
If he is an ambassador, he is an ambassador to somebody. Only the apostles could go as absolute ambassadors. There are not ambassadors now in quite the same way, but in some degree.
An embassy is also a signal. Its presence says that peace is still on the table.
Two or three hundred years ago in Europe, countries had a custom. When one went to war with another, it called its ambassador home before landing a single cannon on foreign shores. … As long as the Parisians saw the English ambassador walking their streets, they knew there was still another chance for peace. Relations had not ended, and war was not yet decided. But as soon as he began to pack and asked the French government for his passport to leave, they knew war was decided.
- Sent. Christ has gone, so God sends His servants — men speak, but God Himself entreats.
- To the world. The added "you" and "ye" narrow the verse. The plea goes to those not yet reconciled, since believers already are.
- One direction. Scripture never speaks of reconciling God; the change asked for is on man's side, not God's.
- Beseeching, not demanding. The ambassador brings no claim of his own, only grace — God urging people to accept the mercy He has already offered.
- For now. While the ambassadors are still there, the offer of peace stands. Their recall would mean it has closed.