Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5:20.

For a servant of the Word, and for the church itself, the proclamation of atonement is a matter of the heart and an honorary task.

It is no coincidence that in the form for the ordination of ministers of the Word in God’s church, the main purpose and task of preaching and the confession of atonement is indicated and recommended! The well-known texts from 2 Corinthians 5 are mentioned as clarification. As the preaching of propitiation has dominated Paul’s life, so should it be the case with us as well.

In Corinth heretics have discredited such preaching. These false teachers are trying to put not only Paul’s message but also the apostle’s personality in a bad light.

The proclamation of atonement is considered to be too commonplace. To a certain extent Paul corroborates the last part of this accusation: “I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:1, 2). This gospel preaching is, however, “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power”. For Paul has received the Spirit who is from God. This is why he speaks the words that the Spirit teaches, carrying spiritual truths. And so he may confess along with his co-workers: “But we have the mind of Christ” (v. 16)!

Paul is sincere in his intentions, confessing and seeking the honour of God and the well-being of the church. He therefore summons the Corinthians to the judgment seat of Christ. For we must all appear before to him. Thus it becomes clear that Paul is preaching in the presence of God. He knows very well that he will have to give account of his ministry to the Lord. Knowing the fear of the Lord, therefore, he moves people to faith. He urgently calls for the necessity of reconciliation with God. It is of the utmost importance to him that those who hear the gospel can meet the Judge without fear.

In addition to this aspect, there is also the love of Christ that urges Paul to preach the atonement. The love of Christ urges him to seek and to save that which is lost. That love shines. That love is delightful and it is to be praised forever.

Paul has totally been taken in by this love. He has come completely under the spell of Christ’s love. The mercy of his Master drives the apostle to go out into the world to tell others of this love, to bring many to Christ, to call people to put their faith in the Saviour.

“See things in the proper way”, Paul says. Christ Jesus himself did not want to be the celebrated man, popular, like the heretical spirits in Corinth wanted to be. Not at all. He wanted to serve. He desired to suffer. For him it was worth his life. “Being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8). For what purpose? To give us in return: forgiveness of sins, peace with God, and eternal life.

Because of him, there is salvation and blessing for many, for his church. Death has been swallowed up in victory and new life has been prepared. Therefore, whoever is comprehended in Christ Jesus, whoever belongs to him by faith, is a new creature, a new creation. The old has gone and see: everything has become new. This entirely different situation, this rebirth, is from God. For God the Father acted through his Son. “All these things are from God who has reconciled us to himself. For in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:19). Paul cannot stop thinking about it, cannot stop expressing himself, and cannot prevent himself from singing about this great miracle. Jesus Christ, who was so horribly insulted by us, took the initiative to reconcile us with himself! God wants the relationship between the people and him to be good again. He wants to lift the state of war.

On our part we wanted to leave everything the old way. We are irreconcilable. We made contact with God impossible. Yet we get to meet with God the Father, who wants to renew all things and make it whole and good! The atonement comes from him, not asked for and undeserved. And this really is not simply a cheap bargain! The reconciliation, the great change, came about through Christ. He has not been spared. His Father has given him over to give us everything with him. “Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by righteousness” (Isa. 1:27). Although we were enemies we are reconciled to God through the death of his Son! He died in his time for the ungodly. It shows that God does indeed love his enemies and that he has no desire for their death. “We are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (Rom. 3:24, 25).

Between the old and the new stands the cross! The ransom has been paid. The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sins. God’s incomprehensible love for sinners has become visible, audible, and even tangible in the One who was crucified. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). This reconciliation has cosmic dimensions. In every corner of creation, the work of the Mediator comes victoriously to light. There is atonement through satisfaction! For Jesus took over the guilt and rejection of us people and obtained God’s mercy through his atoning blood. That is how sinners are justified; how enemies become friends and children; how those who were doomed to death are now destined for life. This mighty fact of salvation, enshrined in Christ’s cross and resurrection, is proclaimed in the preaching. The gospel of atonement, the diakonia, the ministry of it, has been given to us. It was given to Paul and to others, who now report the Good News of the God who saves us.

God employs the ministers he has called to preach the gospel entrusted to them, the Gospel of his grace that needs to be heard all over the world. This is a great task, an enormous responsibility. It is a mighty and joyful privilege as well. God has instructed his servants to report his atoning action in Christ worldwide, in our own environment, in our own family circle. The message is also to encourage other people to believe in Jesus Christ. To tell and explain that God is good, willing to forgive and full of mercy! In that way we are ambassadors of Christ. “There is a special dignity for God’s servants, that they are sent to us with such a command from God, yes, that they teach us about the Fatherly love of God for us” (Calvin).

In Paul’s day this was something special. For in the world of those days, in Greece, a serving or ministering task was considered something inferior. Plato, a Greek philosopher, wondered: how can a person be happy if he has to serve someone else?

In the kingdom of God, however, the opposite applies. It is the highest honour to be served by grace and to serve the great Giver, to be a witness of his love for others. The diakonia, the ministry of Christ himself, is the source and power, the motive for our service. So we boast of God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received reconciliation. Paul likes to call himself a slave of Jesus Christ. He confesses and puts in practice, even with death before his eyes: “but I respect nothing nor keep my life for myself, that I may fulfill my course with joy and complete the service which I have received from the Lord Jesus to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak” (see Eph. 6:20).

That is how we are ambassadors. A word is used that indicates the official task of the emperor’s representative. This servant had the mandate and the power of attorney to make known the wishes and the word of the emperor. Woe to him or her who did not take him seriously, or who would ignore his words and become disobedient.

:We are ambassadors”, says the apostle Paul. Not of the self-preserving emperor in Rome, but of Christ, of him who loved us first and who wants to achieve our salvation. We are envoys not with display of power, but we come in service! We come also with authority; with authority that has been assigned — the high authority of him who sent us.

Being ambassadors sent by Christ means: sent in the place of Christ, representing him, having been commissioned by Christ to testify. An honourable task that keeps us small. We do not come with our word, on our own initiative, for our own name and fame. We have to speak his Word. We need to speak highly of the Lamb of God. Christ himself is speaking through us. “Whoever hears you, hears me, and those who reject you, reject me.”

An envoy does not speak to make an impression on the people. He is and remains strictly bound to the mandate that he received from his Master. He has to speak the words of eternal life, to pass on the Word of God. This requires the intercession of the church. Paul therefore asks: “Pray also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel” (Eph. 6:10). That serves as a blessing for the congregation who confesses, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns’” (Isa. 52:7). The priestly service of atonement, his ministry, continues through these ambassadors of Christ, and he continues the prophetic service, i.e., the preaching. What joy! Christ preaches all the time. That is why hearing the preaching is a vital necessity, a much-needed blessing. God speaks to you through the preaching with his own voice. We cannot do without the preaching of Christ’s life and death. Paul makes this clear by adding, “We implore you on behalf of Christ” (2 Cor. 5:20).

That does not mean: as if it would not be real. The reverse holds true — it is reality. You may translate: since God prayed through us. It is stirring that this is said of the Almighty. God calls, admonishes, prays.

That was something that an imperial envoy, let alone the emperor himself, would never do. It would be too humiliating. But here is expressed the incomprehensible praise of grace: “God humbles himself” (Calvin). Here we see the condescending goodness of God! Here we find how God was moved with an inward mercy. Again, God is in action in the “style of the cross”. He wants to be a “supplicant”. That is how much he himself is moved by our destiny.

All unbelief, all disobedience in opposition to him, can never be excused. “See that you do not refuse him who is speaking” (Heb. 12:25)!

This is also what has to characterize the ministers of the Word: we pray because of Christ. That continues. This is a modest, gracious expression, but yet how penetrating and solemn. We pray. The prayer is addressed to the hearers. Their mind, their conscience, their heart become touched by it. And again: it is because of Christ, in his commission, and toward his honour and service. At the same time, it is humiliating for us that it happens this way. This calling, this prayer, points to our unwillingness, our impotence. If it depends on us, there is no way back to God. We do not pray! Does that prayer on Christ’s behalf accomplish anything? Is it not a futile effort? No. God — take note of that Name — is calling. So he knows where to go with our sin and guilt, with our need and our spiritually dead condition, with our enmity. God does not only speak; he also does what he says. His Word is loaded with so much force, with such might, that his calls are heard and believed. His prayer is understood clearly. Christ has affirmed it under oath: “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live” (John 5:25).

How is this possible?

It is in the proclamation of atonement in which God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are involved. The Spirit is there when the Word is administered. He who was present at creation, at salvation, is there also at the re-creation, in order to apply the eternal covenant and testament of grace. He opens the treasures of God in Christ; he glorifies the Mediator and shares his benefits with us. He provides for those who are destitute. He allows us to benefit from Christ’s fullness—the Father wants it this way! We are allowed to share in the joy.

So when God’s Word is preached, the Spirit is sowing in the field of the church of God. He spreads the good seed with open hands—seed to which the blood of the atonement is fixed. The fruit is guaranteed in advance! “My Word...shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isa. 55:11). And as at creation when the Spirit put all things in order, where he adorned it, so it will come to order anew, with growth and prosperity, producing fruit.

He sends out the invitation: for Christ’s sake, be reconciled to God!

The Spirit does not command us to say: people, you are reconciled, whether you know it and want it or not.

The preaching is not a memorandum of a certain state of affairs.

In the preaching a struggle takes place — a struggle of life and death. In the words “Be reconciled to God” you feel the high tension of eternity. It is a matter of life or death, of succeeding or succumbing. Jesus himself says, “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24).

Faith in Christ is therefore the only way God has determined for us to be saved.

Let yourself therefore be reconciled to God. Let it come to the point of the complete reconciliation. That is how it is stated literally.

You may be inclined to say: if God has been reconciled, should we still need to reconcile ourselves with him? Yes! The one includes the other.

Let us therefore accept the reconciliation that has been accomplished. Do not resist God and his love any longer. Come to the Saviour to personally share in the atonement with God. Repent and believe the gospel!

The invitation of Christ is pressing and urgent. You cannot get away from it; you cannot haggle or argue about it. If you still choose to do so, then your godlessness, your lovelessness and your unwillingness speak volumes. If you want to keep your sins, if you want to save yourself, know that this is the greatest foolishness. That irrevocably means your death.

The Spirit takes away all excuses and makes you fully responsible toward God and the Lamb. Where the Spirit breaks through our self-preservation, when he marks our own righteousness as worthless and to-be-rejected, he gives us sight and faith in the Mediator. His righteousness is complete and it is granted to you heartily. The Spirit honours his name as our Comforter, and he will not rest before he brings us to Christ and keeps us with him. With him, that is to say: united in him and safe with him. Then wrath, alienation and enmity are covered by his blood; burned as if by fire. There will be the rustling of the gentle silence after the acquittal and reconciliation with God. Fellowship has been restored between God and his child. Then what about new sin and infidelity? “My little children...if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:1, 2). Are you satisfied with My Lamb? Then make use of him and his blood daily, until sin and all disruption of the relationship will belong to the past forever.

The proclamation of atonement according to the Scriptures is directed in full desire to the coming of the Lord. This will be fulfilled. We may hear it being said, with a loud voice: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing” (Rev. 5:12)!

Every creature, wherever he or she may be, joins in: “To him who sits on the throne and the Lamb, be blessing and honour and glory and might forever and ever!”

Reconciliation leads to eternal worship! Amen.