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2 Corinthians 5:14-21
Reconciliation is a wonderful word. If you have experienced it, you will agree. It’s a word that describes two people, or two groups of people, who were angry at each other, who were fighting, who were enemies, finally coming together. They don’t just agree to disagree, by they actually become friends. It’s a term we use to describe fighting spouses who are headed for divorce resolving their differences and having deeper love and a stronger relationship than they did before. They have reconciled. How fitting then, that God, who pictures himself as our bridegroom and us as his bride would use the term reconciliation for the relationship that we have with him.
Of course, if God uses the term reconciliation for the relationship that we have with him the clear implication is that we needed reconciliation, that our relationship was on the rocks and that we were headed for divorce. The Bible makes it clear that the cause of the rift in our relationship with God was all on us. It pictures us as an unfaithful wife, someone who is never satisfied with the perfect love and care that God gives and is always looking for something different, something better. For Israel it was Baal worship with its ritual prostitution, looking to someone or something other than God to provide rain. For us today it is often putting God on the back burner so that we can enjoy the pleasures of the world for a while, thinking God will always be there when we need him like a genie in a bottle; or, as Paul says he did, looking at Christ according to the flesh, only as a great teacher, or only for what we can get from him for our lives on earth.
Yes, because of our wayward ways, because of our taking him for granted, because of our desire to only get what we want from God, we were separated from God. That’s what sin does, it separates us from God. Without reconciliation the separation would be made final and permanent on the last day when God would say, depart from me you who are cursed to eternal fire.
Despite our sins that gave God every right to give us a certificate of divorce and eternal separation from him, God still loved us. He didn’t want us to be separated from him forever and to suffer the fires of hell for all eternity. He knew we wouldn’t, couldn’t, do anything to reconcile ourselves to him, so he took action to reconcile us to himself.
Paul explains it beautifully. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. God became one of us. He came into the world to reconcile the world to himself. He did is by making him, who did not know sin, become sin for us. He laid the sins of the world on his sinless son, Jesus. One died for all; therefore, all died. He considered Jesus the representative of the whole human race. Instead of giving all of us a certificate of divorce and eternal separation he gave it to Jesus. Jesus was forsaken by the Father while he was on the cross. Because he was the representative of the whole human race, when he received he punishment for sin and died God considered the matter closed. Every sin had been paid for. He does not count our trespasses against us because he counted them against Jesus in our place. In Jesus we have become the righteousness of God. He doesn’t see our sins that would separate us from him. He sees righteousness. Because we are righteous in Jesus, we are reconciled to God and he takes us back as his bride as if we had never strayed.
As you read these words of God, don’t miss the words ALL, and WORLD. Jesus died for ALL. God reconciled the WORLD to himself in Jesus. Just as there is no room for anyone to say that they have not sinned, for ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; so there is no room for anyone to say that Jesus didn’t die for them, or that God doesn’t want reconciliation with them. What God did in Jesus he did for ALL, for everyone. That means he did it for YOU.
You have been unfaithful to God. You deserve to have him banish you from his presence forever. But instead he has sacrificed his only perfect son so that, in him and all he did in your place, you are now seen as righteous. God has reconciled you to himself in Christ. How does that affect you?
Paul explains how it affected him. He became new. He looked at life in a completely different way. His motivation was completely different. Instead of always thinking about what was in it for him, about how what he said or did would benefit him, he now thought about how what he said or did would benefit Christ and his kingdom. Those who realize that they have been reconciled to God in Christ, who realize that in Baptism they have been united with Jesus in death and resurrection, they no longer live for themselves, but for him who died in their place and was raised again. They live a new life. The love of Christ compels them. When they see that he loved them so much, even when they were unfaithful to him, that he was willing to die in their place, they can’t help but love him in return and do all they can to show their love and thankfulness.
Paul says that one of the things that Christ’s love compels him to do is to regard no one according to the flesh. When he looks at people he doesn’t see their color or ethnicity; he doesn’t look for what makes them different so that he can judge himself better than others. He doesn’t look at them for what they might do for him, or as a means to a selfish end. He sees them as sinners for who Jesus died because one died for all. Christ’s love compelled him, as it does us, to struggle against judging ourselves better than others, to struggle against prejudice and class warfare, and see everyone we meet as equally sinners and equally saved by Jesus.
Just imagine how much reconciliation would take place in the church, in the home, in the world, if we as Christians who know these things, would remind ourselves every day of what God has done for us in Jesus, and then, as a new creation in Christ, let Christ’s love compel us to regard no one according to the flesh; to see everyone as equally sinners and equally saved by Jesus.
Paul reminds us that those who, by God’s grace, realize that they have been reconciled to God, have been given a ministry. We who know what God has done for the world have been called to let the world know what God has done for them. God has given us a message. He has made us his ambassadors.
That word ambassador is perfect isn’t it? An ambassador is a representative of whoever sent them. They aren’t sent out to represent themselves, to do things for their own advantage, but to represent and do things for the advantage of the one who sent them. They don’t have their own message to present. They are only authorized to share the message that the one who sent them has given them. We are ambassadors for Christ. He is sending us out as his representatives in our homes and at our work, everywhere we go in the world. It’s not a job, it’s a 24-7 calling. God is making an appeal through us. As Peter says, we are always to be ready to tell people about the hope that we have in Christ. We are to try to make opportunities, and to take every opportunity we have to plead with others, on Christ’s behalf, as his representative, Be reconciled to God. Realize that you are separated from God and in danger of having that situation made permanent when Jesus returns in judgment. But God reconciled the world to himself in Jesus. Jesus died for all, that means you. He placed the punishment you deserve for your sins on Jesus. God no longer counts your sins against you. Believe it!
What a blessing and privilege it is to be an ambassador for Christ! What a joy to know that you have been reconciled to God in Christ, that in Christ you died and rose again, you are a new creation, you have been renewed in your thinking so that you no longer view God or people selfishly, only looking for what you can get from them. What a blessing to be able to see everyone as a soul for whom Jesus died and rose again, and to be compelled by Christ’s love for you and for them to beg them on Christ’s behalf, to be reconciled to God.
