2 Corinthians 5:14–20

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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".

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.

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"?

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.

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."

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

"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."

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

They make no claim of their own on the world's respect. Their dignity lies only in the message they carry.

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.

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.

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.