2 Corinthians 5:20

2Co_5:20

Now, then, we are ambassadors for Christ.

Of the nature and use of the gospel ministry as an external mean of applying Christ

First, Christs ambassadors commissionated. Now, then, we are ambassadors for Christ. Secondly, their commission opened; wherein we find, first, the work whereunto the ministers of the gospel are appointed, to reconcile the world to God. Secondly, their capacity described: they act in Christs stead, as His vicegerents. He is no more in this world to treat personally with sinners. Thirdly, the manner of their acting in that capacity; and that is by humble, sweet, and condescending entreaties. Doct.: That the preaching of the gospel by Christs ambassadors is the means appointed for the reconciling of sinners to Christ. First, we will open what is implied in Christs treaty with sinners by His ambassadors or ministers.

1. It necessarily implies the defection of man from his estate of friendship with God. If no war with heaven, what need of ambassadors of peace? The very office of the ministry is an argument of the fall.

2. It implies the singular grace and admirable condescension of God to sinful man.

3. It implies the great dignity of the gospel ministry. We are ambassadors for Christ.

4. Christs treating with sinners by His ministers, who are His ambassadors, implies the strict obligation they are under to be faithful in their ministerial employment (1Ti_1:12).

5. It implies the removal of the gospel ministry to be a very great judgment to the people. The remanding of ambassadors presages an ensuing war.

6. And, lastly, it implies both the wisdom and condescension of God to sinful men in carrying on a treaty of peace with them by such ambassadors, negotiating betwixt Him and them. Secondly, we are to consider that great concernment about which these ambassadors of Christ are to treat with sinners, and that is their reconciliation to God. First, that God should be reconciled after such a dreadful breach as the fall of man made is wonderful, No sin, all things considered, was ever like to this sin; other sins, like a single bullet, kill particular persons, but this, like a chain-shot, cuts off multitudes which no man can number. Secondly, that God should be reconciled to men and not to angels, a more excellent order of creatures, is yet more astonishing. Thirdly, that God should be wholly and thoroughly reconciled to man, so that no fury remains in Him against us (Isa_27:4) is still matter of farther wonder. Fourthly, that God should be freely reconciled to sinners, and discharge them without the least satisfaction to His justice from them, is, and for ever will be, marvellous in their eyes. For though Christ, your Surety, hath made satisfaction in your stead, yet it was His life, His blood, and not yours, that went for it. Fifthly, that God should be finally reconciled to sinners, so that never new breach shall happen betwixt Him and them, so as to dissolve the league of friendship, is a most transporting message. In the last place, we are to inquire what and whence is this efficacy of preaching to reconcile sinners to Christ. First, this efficacy and wonderful power is not from the word itself; take it in an abstract notion, separated from the Spirit, it can do nothing: it is called the foolishness of preaching (1Co_1:21). Secondly, it derives not this efficacy from the instrument by which it is ministered, let their gifts be what they will. Thirdly, but whatever efficacy it hath to reconcile men to God it derives from the Spirit of God, whose co-operation and blessing gives it all the fruit it hath. First, admire and stand amazed at this mercy. I will praise Thee, O Lord, saith the Church (Isa_12:1). Though Thou wast angry with me, Thine anger is turned away, and Thou comfortest me. Secondly, beware of new breaches with God. God will speak peace to His people and to His saints, but let them not turn again to folly (Psa_85:8). Thirdly, labour to reconcile others to God, especially those that are endeared to you by the bonds of natural relation. Fourthly, Let your reconciliation with God relieve you under all burdens of affliction you shall meet with in your way to heaven. (John Flavel.)

Ambassadors for Christ

1. The dignity of an ambassador is measured--

(1) By the grandeur of the power he represents. Compare a minister from Paraguay with one from Prussia. The former may have more personal wealth and dignity of character than the latter; but how difficult their official dignity! The apostles official exaltation was the very loftiest in the world.

(2) By the grandeur of the State to which he is sent. An ambassador to Russia is a greater personage than one to Liberia. Now; Paul was sent, not to one State or kingdom, but to the world.

(3) By the subjects about which they are commissioned to treat. Compare the Treaty of Ghent with the settlement of the Alabama Claims. The object of the apostles mission was not to make peace between contending nations, not to adjust spoliation claims, but to restore a world of rebels to their prime allegiance, and to wrest from hell its illgotten spoils.

2. The apostle says, We are ambassadors for Christ.

3. Behold here an evidence that God delighteth not in the death of the sinner. Not content to commission a body of men simply to announce, He condescends to plead through them (Eze_18:23-32; Isa_1:18; 2Pe_3:9).

I. Let us analyse this wonderful divine solicitation. It assumes--

1. A state of alienation from God on your part and offence on His.

2. That God has been propitiated.

3. That without the sinners own consent the interposition made by Christ can be of no avail.

II. How is mans aversion to reconciliation to be accounted for?

1. While conscious of sin, they are really unconscious of peril. When danger is realised no man is indifferent. Hence the necessity for preaching about law and hell.

2. Sinners love their sin. Sin has its pleasures. You see no pleasure in holiness. Admit that the life of the sinner reconciled is a gloomy journey, nothing to compensate him for the life of revelry that he is to abandon. Is it not better to experience temporary unhappiness for the sake of immortal bliss? Now God, who knows the unsatisfying nature of sinful pleasures, beseeches you by us, Be reconciled to God. (J. W. Pratt, D. D.)

Ambassadors for Christ

I. The office in which the ministers of Christ appear.

1. An ambassador holds an office of distinguished honour. He represents the king who sends him. Ambassadors may, or they may not, be talented men. It may be of importance to the sovereign that they should be so; but they are not to be respected for their talents, but for their office, and any disrespect shown them in a foreign court is levelled at the office. Now all this is true of the ministers of Christ. Christ accounts every kindness shown to them as shown to Him, and every unfriendly act towards them as done to Him. Talents and piety commend ministers; but it is their office which is the ground of their honour.

2. The ambassadors is an office of important trust. They are not sent to make laws, but simply to convey instructions. Now the apostle says that he was put in trust with the gospel, and God requires in stewards that a man be found faithful. They have, therefore, simply to deliver that to the people which they have received of the Lord Jesus.

3. This office is one requiring great skill, diligence, and labour. What tact, and ingenuity, and application does it often require to conduct the kings business at a foreign court! And oh! how much more to negotiate the affairs of Christs kingdom among them! Who is sufficient for these things? To the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews, etc.

II. The object at which they aim--that men may be reconciled to God.

III. The message they have to deliver.

1. It is free.

2. Full.

3. Final.

IV. The manner in which their object is to be prosecuted. Not by compulsion, not by punishment, but we pray you--God beseeches you by us.

1. Such a mode answers to the character of God and His gospel. God is love; His gospel is goodwill toward men. Methinks it is very easy to be reconciled to love.

2. The method corresponds with the character of man. Men are more easily drawn than driven. Love wins the heart, when terror would often drive it away. (J. Sherman.)

God beseeching sinners by His ministers

Man became Gods enemy without the slightest provocation; but man did not make the first overtures for peace. Consider--

I. The ambassadors of reconciliation.

1. They themselves were once enemies to God. God might have sent angels to you, and you might have been awed by their glory; but their sermons must have been unsympathetic compared with ours, for they could not know your misery as we do.

2. They are now reconciled, and therefore can speak not theoretically, but experimentally. They were reconciled, too, by Jesus Christ, in the same way as other sinners. Again, Paul tells us--

3. They have a message to deliver which has been given to them. Their mission is not to invent a gospel. I send my servant with a message, and if she, in her wisdom, alters my message to suit her own views, I discharge her, for I want some one who will bear my message, and not make one of her own. God would have His ministers be like transparent glass, not like painted windows, which colour all the rays after their own nature.

II. The subject-matter of our message.

1. That reconciliation is only to be obtained towards God on the ground of substitution. You cannot reconcile yourself to God by lamentation on account of your past sins, by any future arduous service, nor by any ceremony of mans invention, or even of Gods ordaining. This is the plan:--Men were all lost and condemned; then Jesus took upon Himself our manhood, that He might be our brother; and in His death He bore the burden of human sin.

2. That this reconciliation was not apart from God, but that God was in Christ. You must never fall into the idea that God is revengeful, and that the death of His Son was necessary to pacify the Father. God was love before Jesus died. The substitution made on Calvary was a substitution provided by Gods love. It is not Jesus, a stranger, who hangs there to gratify the Fathers vengeance; it is God who, in one of His Divine Persons, bears the penalty which justice demanded of sinful men.

3. That in consequence of Gods having reconciled the world to Himself in Jesus Christ, He is able now to deal with sinners as if they had never sinned. Not imputing their trespasses unto them. The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Aye, and something more. God treats us who are reconciled to Him as if they were full of good works; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

4. That the atonement of Christ is for the world (Joh_3:16).

5. That there is nothing whatever needed in order to their reconciliation and acceptance with God, except what Christ has already wrought out.

III. The manner in which this message is to be delivered. The text tells us very plainly--

1. By beseeching and praying men. We are not merely to convince the intellect; neither are we alone to warn and threaten, though that has its place.

2. By beseeching men as though God did beseech them. Now how does God beseech them? Read Isa_1:4.; Eze_33:11; Jer_44:4; Hos_11:8.

3. By praying souls in Christs stead--i.e., we are to preach as if Christ were preaching. That would not be in a light or trifling manner, or in a cold official style, but with melting eyes and burning heart. Sometimes He prayed--

(1) By setting before them the evil of their ways. For which of these works do you stone Me? And so I inquire, For which of Gods works are you His enemy? Are you His enemy because He keeps you in life, gives you your food, or sends you the gospel?

(2) By showing them the uselessness of their rebellion (Luk_14:31). Why will you be Gods enemy when you cannot win the battle?

(3) By displaying the result of their sin, as He did when He stood on the brow of the hill and looked down on Jerusalem. Remember the passages where He speaks of dividing the sheep from the goats, where He treats of the virgins who had no oil in their vessels with their lamps. Whoever puts the doctrine of hell into the background, Jesus never did.

(4) By pleading the love of God--e.g., in the parable of the prodigal son, And, oh, how tie implored man to be reconciled, in such words as, Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest; Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.

4. By bringing this matter home and pressing it. We pray you in Christs stead, be ye reconciled to God. It comes to this with you: God says to you--

1. Throw down your weapons; why dost thou contend with thy Maker? What has Christ done that thou shouldst not love Him? What has the Holy Ghost done that thou shouldst resist Him? What wilt thou gain by it in time or in eternity?

2. Accept the Lord Jesus. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The Christian ambassador

I. The character that becomes ministers as ambassadors for Christ.

1. Intelligence. No wise prince would employ as his representative at a foreign court a man destitute of good sense and of acquired knowledge; otherwise the interests of the empire might be compromised, and the lustre of the sovereigns reign tarnished. Surely, then, the care of souls, every one of which is more valuable than worlds, ought only to be entrusted to men gifted by nature, whose minds have been roused by cultivation, and whose conduct gives evidence that they have been taught by God.

2. Attachment to Christ and His cause. In the early stages of society ambassadors were chiefly chosen from among the personal friends of the prince, and, being often bound to him by the ties of consanguinity or marriage, afforded the best guarantees of fidelity and zeal. And so love to the Saviour, arising from the heartfelt power of His religion, and from the workings of a devoted gratitude, is the highest qualification of a Christian minister.

3. Fidelity. When an envoy is sent to a foreign court he bears with him not only credentials, but written instructions, defining the conditions on which a treaty of peace may be ratified; and should he exceed his instructions the treaty so negotiated would not be sanctioned by his king. And so when ministers entreat sinners to be reconciled unto God, they should always remember that they are acting for Christ, and should only propose salvation in the manner and on the terms in which it is offered in His gospel. Thus saith the Lord should be distinctly attached to all their announcements.

4. Zeal. The man to whom is committed the dignity of a prince and the interests of an empire should subordinate every personal feeling to the glory of his sovereign; and so the ambassador for Christ should spend and be spent in his Masters cause.

5. Wisdom. The ambassador of an earthly monarch behoves not only to maintain a courteous deportment, but to mark, with eagle glance, the ever-shifting relations of the kingdoms with which he negotiates, and to adapt his policy to their changing circumstances; and so the minister of Christ requires to display much wisdom, both in maintaining an inoffensive conversation and adapting his lessons to the existing state of society.

6. Diligent and persevering exertion. A superficial observer, who gazes on the splendid attire and retinue of an envoy, and who observes his attendance upon the levees and gala-days of royalty, is apt to imagine that his duties are light and his post nearly a sinecure; but a person who peeps behind the curtain, who notices the thousand channels by which he gleans information, his anxious consultations with confidential advisers, his sleepless nights, devoted to unravelling the mysteries of the passing masquerade, and his frequent interchange of correspondence with his sovereign--the man who looks to the details of all these labours must admit that his employment is most arduous and harassing. In the same manner, many suppose that the station of a minister is one of indolence; but those who survey their ministrations in the sanctuary, their diligence in study, their hours devoted to prayer, their painstaking visitations, and their sympathy with the sick, must admit that the employment is most harassing, and need feel no surprise that so many fall as martyrs who devote themselves with zeal to the duties of this profession.

7. Great dignity. If the envoy of an earthly monarch, whenever he presents his credentials, has a portion of the respect due to his sovereign awarded to him, so the man, however humble, who acts for Christ as the legate of the skies, derives a dignity from his office before which all worldly honours sink into insignificance.

II. The motives which should rouse us to increased zeal.

1. Should souls perish through our negligence, their blood will be required at our hands.

2. The example of the apostles should stimulate us to exertion.

3. The example left us by the Luthers, Calvins, and Knoxes, of the reforming era, and by the fathers of this Church at a later period, should rouse and ashame us.

4. Were the motives derived from religion forgotten, patriotism and humanity should rouse us.

6. It becomes us to recollect that our lots have been cast in critical and perilous times, which demand from us extraordinary zeal and watchfulness. (J. Brown, A. M.)

A merciful embassy

There has long been war between man and his Maker. Our federal head. Adam, threw down the gauntlet in the garden of Eden. From that day until now there has been no truce between God and man by nature. But though man will not make terms with God, God shows His unwillingness any longer to be at war with man. He Himself sends His ambassadors. Consider--

I. The ambassadors. All nations, with one accord, have agreed to honour ambassadors. Strange, then, that all nations and all people should have conspired to dishonour the ambassadors of God! But the ambassador of God may be very welcome to some of you, who have bitterly felt your estrangement, and are prepared by a sense of ruin for the good tidings of redemption. Ambassadors are welcome--

1. To a people who are engaged in a war which is beyond their strength, when their resources are exhausted and the peril of defeat is imminent. Ah, man! thou hast bid defiance to the King of heaven, whose power is irresistible. How canst thou stand against Him; shall the stubble contend with the fire? Happy for thee that terms of peace are proclaimed. Wilt thou not gladly accept what God proposeth to thee?

2. When the people have begun to feel the victorious force of the King. Certain cities have been taken by the sword and given up to be sacked. Now the poor, miserable inhabitants are glad enough to get peace. Doubtless there are some here who have known the power of God in their conscience. Surely you will rejoice to hear that there is an embassage of peace sent to you.

3. To those who are labouring under a fear of total and speedy destruction.

4. If the people know that he brings no hard terms. When a certain king sent to the inhabitants of a town that he would make peace with them provided he put out their right eyes and cut off their right hands, the ambassador who brought those tidings could not expect a cordial welcome. But there are no hard terms in the gospel. They are simply, Believe and live; not Do, and live; not Feel this, and live; but simply Believe, and live. And should not the fame of the King increase the zest with which the embassage is received? No temporary peace is proposed that may presently be broken, but a peace that shall stand for ever and ever. This peace is proclaimed to all men. Whosoever believeth in the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. None are excluded hence but those who do themselves exclude.

II. The commission of peace which God has entrusted us to proclaim--To wit, that God, etc. Let us open the commission. Our commission begins with the announcement that God is love, that He willeth to forgive. Our commission goes on to disclose the manner as well as the motive of mercy. God has been pleased to give His only-begotten Son that He might stand in the room of those whom God has chosen. Thus the justice of God should be satisfied, and His love flow over to the human race. But the proclamation needs something more to give us any satisfaction. Are there any tidings in it for you and me? Well, our message goes on to announce that whosoever in the wide world will come to Christ shall forthwith be at peace with God. Though only some will accept it, the preacher is not warranted in showing any partiality. When Charles II. came back to England there was an amnesty, except for certain persons, and these were mentioned by name--Hugh Peters and others were proscribed; but there is no exception here.

III. The duty we have to discharge--As though God did beseech you by us, etc. Then we have not merely to read our commission, but to beseech you to accept it. Why?--

1. Because You are men, not machines.

2. Your hearts are so hard that you are prone to defy Gods power and resist His grace.

3. You are unbelieving, and will not credit the tidings. You say it is too good to be true that God will have mercy on such as you are.

4. You are so proud and self-satisfied that you will sooner follow your own righteousness and cling to your own works than accept a peace already sealed and ratified, and now freely proffered to you for acceptance.

5. You are careless. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

As though God did beseech you by us: we pray You in Christs stead, be ye reconciled to God.--

The arguments by which men should be persuaded to reconcile unto God

Man hath an indisposition God-ward, which doth expose him to the greatest danger.

1. That the motion of reconciliation begins with God.

2. Though the motion of reconciliation begins with God yet God expects our concurrence and consent. Reconciliation is never accomplished without us.

3. God in this motion of reconciliation accommodates Himself to humane principles, which are two: intelligence and freedom. To show you wherein this reconciliation doth consist, and whereby you may come to be reconciled to God.

(1) Rectify your wrong apprehension of God. To lay aside false opinion, this is the first; but it will not be the last. We find in ourselves, that if we have had wrong apprehension of a person, if we have a better representation of him, we begin to change in our minds. Wrong apprehensions of God are very mischievous; they, keep us off from Him, at the greatest distance. The first step to reconciliation is to lay aside wrong apprehension.

2. Let your affections be inflamed toward God, for this is due order; let understanding go before and affections follow after. If we apprehend God to be good and lovely, we cannot but adore, love, and magnify Him; the second will follow upon the first.

3. Be reconciled to God by savouring the things of God. Through reconciliation we come to harmonise with the nature, and mind, and will of God: to think of things as He thinks; to relish them as He doth. Friends that are of a familiar acquaintance, they come so to harmonise, that you may know one by the other.

4. Be reconciled to God by imitating Him in acts of goodness, acts el mercy, acts of love.

5. Let us direct all our intentions towards Him.

6. Acknowledge His grace and goodness in Christ. Now to apply this-1. This doth highly recommend religion to us, in that it is a reconciling principle.

(1) The reconciliation of man to God.

(2) The reconciling of man to man. (B. Whichcote, D. D.)

Reconciliation with God

I have a special errand; I bring a message from the King. When the President of the United States sends a message to the national legislature it takes precedence of all other business. When the ambassador of England or Germany presents his credentials, he has behind him the authority and prestige of a mighty empire. How much more authoritative the voice of him who is the ambassador of the King of kings. I have no theory to propound, but only the command of nay Master. I beseech you on the behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God. Notice:--

I. How positions here are reversed. It is not the rebel pleading for pardon, but the King asking the rebel to fling down his weapons; not the returning prodigal seeking the father, but the loving Father entreating the return of the wayward son. A son once quarrelled with and stole from his father, then fled to London, where he wasted his substance in sin. A detective discovered him in a haunt of vice--health and money gone. The father was notified, and hastened to the wretched abode. He climbed to the attic, and found his sick son in a broken, troubled sleep. He bent over him and was recognised. My poor boy, Ive come for you; will you go home with me? Go home! yes, if youll forgive me, father. He lifted up the invalid, and took him home repentant and forgiven. So God says to you, Poor son, daughter, come home, come home!

II. The cause of this conroversy. Sin; it affects the whole nature. If I should let fall a single drop of ink into this glass of water it would discolour the whole. There is also a penalty to be met. Christ becomes our substitute. It is His grace that bridges the gulf between us and heaven.

III. The one condition of reconciliation--that is, submission to Gods government. Unconditional surrender is the message. We remember how the large-hearted Lincoln pleaded, be ye reconciled. But he held to the one condition, yield! SO God says, Put away the evil of your doings. You cannot pass over this bridge till you have left at the gate your evil ways and thoughts.

IV. The fruits of this reconcilement are sweet and precious. You may be lying like a rosebush beaten by the blast and pelting rain. Your heart is crushed and bleeding, but as the sun comes and talks, as it were, with the flower; covers its petals with warm kisses and lifts it up to drink in the sunshine, and to be beautiful again, so will He give you beauty for ashes and joy for heaviness when you repentingly and lovingly open your heart to Christ. Conclusion.

You have heard of the Highland mother whose daughter had long led a reckless life in Edinburgh, sunk in sin. Her eyes were opened. She returned home to the but by the hillside, finding her way in the darkness. The daughter entered and found her old mother crooning over the ashes of the fire. The penitent was clasped in her mothers arms. I came home in the dead of night and found the cabin door unlocked! Its never been looked since you went away, for I didna ken when you might come back. So God keeps the door of mercy ajar and waits to welcome you. Think of that Saxon word, well-come--that is, It is well for you to come. To stay away is hell! (T. L. Cuyler, D. D.)

Reconciliation to God

I. What ministers, as Christs ambassadors, are to do in order to sinners being reconciled to God.--They are not to be silent, but to speak; and as they are ambassadors of Christ, He should be the principal subject of their ministrations. But more particularly--

1. In order to sinners reconciliation to God, it is necessary for ministers boldly to declare

(1) The natural enmity of their hearts against Him. Every sin is an act of rebellion against God.

(2) That though the groundwork of our reconciliation was laid in the eternal counsels of God, yet that it is actually brought about in time (Eph_2:13).

(a) The law being fulfilled, and justice satisfied in the person of Christ, the offended Deity now says, Fury is not in Me, This is reconciliation on Gods part, with respect to which we have nothing to do but to cordially embrace it.

(b) Reconciliation on our part is begun and completed by the grace of the Spirit. He slays the enmity of the heart, subdues the obstinacy of the will, and sanctifies the carnal affections, so that we are made to resign ourselves up to Him as our lawful Sovereign, and at the same time choose Him as our supreme good.

2. Christs servants are likewise to declare that there is need of a farther reconciliation in those who are already reconciled to God. Be ye particularly reconciled

(1) To the absolute sovereignty of God. Deny Him not that right which you yourselves exercise in disposing your favours as you please.

(2) To the providences of God, so as neither to quarrel with Him for what He has done, nor prescribe to Him what He shall do.

(3) To all the requirements of God. His laws are founded upon the highest reason, as well as enforced by the highest authority.

(4) To the methods of Divine grace, and the way of salvation by Jesus Christ. Be ye then reconciled to the gospel, as a mystery far above your comprehension: yet a mystery of godliness, the manifest design of which is, to make you more like God, and meet for heaven.

3. Ministers are faithfully to denounce the terrible judgments of God against those who live and die unreconciled to him. They are to tell their hearers that if reconciliation do not take place in this world, it will not in the next.

II. The manner in which ministers thus treat with sinners about their reconciliation to God.

1. With a perfect unanimity. However various their gifts and abilities may be, yet the subject of their ministrations is the same.

2. With warmth and affection. We not only direct and exhort, but we pray you (Act_20:31).

3. With spiritual power and authority, as though God did beseech you by us.

4. With meekness, gentleness, and all the means of persuasion, We beseech you.

Conclusion.--The subject teaches us--

1. The dreadful corruption and depravity of human nature. Nothing worse can be said of the devil than that he is an enemy to God.

2. The necessity of a Divine change; not a change of the conduct only, but of the inward frame and temper of the mind.

3. How much are we indebted to the Lord Jesus Christ, without whom this reconciliation never would, nor ever could have taken place! (B. Beddome, M. A.)

On reconciliation

I. This earnest entreaty of the apostle supposes alienation from God, and enmity against Him, as the natural character of mankind. That they are naturally averse from God may be proved from the general tendency of their desires and affections. The desire of knowledge is natural. The philosopher, the scholar, the artist, are all in earnest pursuit of knowledge. But of what kind?--on questions and speculations which natural objects suggest, and which are all of temporary importance. In no class of men, indeed, do we perceive a natural desire after the best of all knowledge, the knowledge of God, and of the gospel of His Son, Jesus Christ. That knowledge is the last and the least desired. Again, we are all desirous of happiness; but where is it generally sought? Look at the young, and you find them pursuing their happiness among trifles and amusements that are ever shifting with the hour. Look at those of maturer age, in what do they place their happiness? In pursuits as idle as the play of children, but more dangerous. Again, we take much pleasure in social conversation. We are made for society, and the social principle belongs to our nature. If then no alienation from God has taken place, the most delightful topics of conversation would be His nature, His works, our relation to Him, the duties we owe to Him, and the blessedness of communion with Him. Our experience, however, tells us that these are by no means the favourite themes of social conversation.

II. The possibility, notwithstanding mans natural enmity, of his reconciliation to God. Observe what wisdom and grace appear in the exact adaptation of the gospel to our actual condition! If reconciliation be proposed at all, it is not for the inferior and offending party to determine the way. God well knew that His wisdom alone was adequate to this. But in making known the purposes of His grace, how conspicuous does His wisdom, how glorious does His majesty, appear! His offended justice requires satisfaction, and His truth declares that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. But further, in this work, in this combination of might, wisdom, and grace, we see each Person of the Godhead harmoniously engaged.

III. That our text suggests the leading object of the Christian ministry--to beseech men to be reconciled to God.

1. We beseech you by the imminent dangers of a state of enmity against God.

2. We beseech you by the mercies of God.

3. We beseech you by the blood of Christ shed for the remission of sins. Think of the costly sacrifice made for this gracious purpose.

4. We beseech you by the promised influences of the Holy Spirit, be ye reconciled to God. We know that your own efforts cannot effect this object; but we call upon you to put into diligent use the means with which Divine grace has furnished you.

5. Finally, we beseech you, by the awful importance of eternity, and the value of your never-dying souls. (T. Lewis.)

Reconciliation with God, mans truest interest

I. I shall endeavour to prove that a state of sin is a state of hostility against God; that the impenitent offender is at enmity with God. That obstinate sinners are the enemies of God, we have His own unerring word for our confirmation. This is the very name which He gives them, speaking by the prophet Isaiah, I will avenge Me, says He, of Mine enemies, and render vengeance to Mine adversaries. Nor is He unjust in branding them with this title, since their constant practice proves them to be no other, for they live in a direct opposition to His will, in a presumptuous violation of His laws. But the greatest instance of enmity is when we enter into a strict alliance with avowed adversaries. The first and greatest enemy of God is the devil, and the wicked man is entered into a close covenant with him. A second enemy of God is the world, and therefore the apostle positively assures us that the friendship of this world is enmity with God. But how dear and tender a union is there between this and the wicked man! A third enemy of God is the flesh. I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind. Friendship is generally founded upon a resemblance of dispositions, and enmity is often caused by a contrariety of humours. But what inclinations can be more opposite than those of God and the sinful man? Holiness and justice are the delights of the one; uncleanness and iniquity the darlings of the other.

II. To inquire into the dismal consequences of being Gods enemies, and having Him for ours.

1. By considering the nature and probable effects of this enmity. How is it possible to taste any enjoyment of our lives, our fortunes, or any other friendship, whilst we thus continue out of favour with our God.

2. From the consideration of our own weakness and infirmity, and the vast power and ability of our formidable enemy, we may learn how miserable a thing it is to be at enmity with our God. We cannot resist His anger.

3. The great misery of this condition will yet further appear if we consider that he who has God for his enemy is thereby deprived of the only cordial which can sweeten the bitterness of this present life. For what is there that can carry a man comfortably through all the troubles and disappointments of this turbulent world, but a sober consideration of his living under the protection of Almighty God?

III. The invincible necessity which lies upon us of complying with the advice which the apostle here gives us, That we should, be reconciled unto God. Having just laid before you the miserable consequences of continuing in a state of enmity with God, one would think any other arguments useless. Shall the traitor at the gallows need to be importuned to accept of pardon and be restored to his Princes favour? One would think there should need no entreaty in such a case.

1. The infinite condescension of Almighty God in vouchsafing to make such a passionate address to us, should prevail with any grateful and ingenious soul to lay hold of the reconciliation which is offered by his God.

2. We should be prevailed with to be reconciled to God, because no just reason or pretence can be alleged for our continuing to stand out in hostility against Him. The causes which are wont to occasion our continuance in any enmity are either our hopes of victory, or our despair of peace, or the difficulty of the terms of our reconciliation, but none of these hindrances can fairly be pretended as the obstruction of our agreement with Almighty God.

3. We ought heartily to close with a reconciliation to our God, because otherwise we shall be unable to resist those enemies which we must expect to encounter in this troublesome world.

4. Let us reconcile ourselves to God, because then we shall be sure of such a friend as is able to deliver us out of all distresses, and to impart to us both temporal and eternal advantages. When once we have entered into a friendship with Him, we are placed beyond the reach of any other enemies; for who is he that will harm you if ye be the followers of that which is good? (N. Brady.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

20. We are ambassadors—They have an embassy from the government of God to the rebellious anarchy of men.

For—May, intrinsically, mean either in behalf of or in the stead of. The context here indicates the latter meaning. An ambassador is the representative and substitute of his sovereign. And so it is God who beseeches by us. As Christ died in our stead, (2Co_5:14,) so we are ambassadors in his stead.

We pray—A striking thought that God’s ambassador prays, in his stead, to man for reconciliation. A powerful proof that God has, in a true sense, done all he can, and man must do the rest.

Be ye reconciled to God—A passive active. Take that course by which God will reconcile you to himself. Take one path and he will; take the other path and he never will, the blame being your own.

5. Consequent style of apostolic appeal to men to be reconciled, 2Co_5:20 to 2Co_6:2.

These appeals, in the second person plural, must not be mistaken for exhortations by Paul to the Corinthian Church to be reconciled to God. They are a statement to the Corinthians what is the hortatory result, that is, what the resultant mode, of exhorting men, derived from the scheme of reconciliation exhibited in 2Co_5:14-19. Their appeal to the world (2Co_5:19) is, Christ has died to reconcile you, therefore be ye reconciled. And this ye is addressed, not to the Corinthians, but to the world.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2 Corinthians

THE ENTREATIES OF GOD

2Co 5:20.

These are wonderful and bold words, not so much because of what they claim for the servants as because of what they reveal of the Lord. That thought, ‘as though God did beseech,’ seems to me to be the one deserving of our attention now, far rather than any inferences which may be drawn from the words as to the relation of preachers of the Gospel to man and to God. I wish, therefore, to try to set forth the wonderfulness of this mystery of a beseeching God, and to put by the side of it the other wonder and mystery of men refusing the divine beseechings.

Before doing so, however, I remark that the supplement which stands in our Authorised Version in this text is a misleading and unfortunate one. ‘As though God did beseech you’ and ‘we pray you’ unduly narrow the scope of the Apostolic message, and confuse the whole course of the Apostolic reasoning here. For he has been speaking of a world which is reconciled to God, and he finds a consequence of that reconciliation of the world in the fact that he and his fellow-preachers are entrusted with the word of reconciliation. The scope of their message, then, can be no narrower than the scope of the reconciliation; and inasmuch as that is world-wide the beseeching must be co-extensive therewith, and must cover the whole ground of humanity. It is a universal message that is set forth here. The Corinthians, to whom Paul was speaking, are, by his hypothesis, already reconciled to God, and the message which he has in trust for them is given in the subsequent words: ‘We then, as workers together with God, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.’ But the message, the pleading of the divine heart, ‘be ye reconciled to God,’ is a pleading that reaches over the whole range of a reconciled world. I take then, just these two thoughts, God beseeching man, and man refusing God.

I. God beseeching man.

Now notice how, in my text, there alternates, as if substantially the same idea, the thoughts that Christ and that God pray men to be reconciled. ‘We are ambassadors on Christ’s behalf, as though God did beseech you by us, we pray on Christ’s behalf.’ So you see, first, Christ the Pleader, then God beseeching, then Christ again entreating and praying. Could any man have so spoken, passing instinctively from the one thought to the other, unless he had believed that whatsoever things the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise; and that Jesus Christ is the Representative of the whole Deity for mankind, so as that when He pleads God pleads, and God pleads through Him. I do not dwell upon this, but I simply wish to mark it in passing as one of the innumerable strong and irrefragable testimonies to the familiarity and firmness with which that thought of the divinity of Jesus Christ, and the full revelation of the Father by Him, was grasped by the Apostle, and was believed by the people to whom he spoke. God pleads, therefore Christ pleads, Christ pleads, therefore God pleads; and these Two are One in their beseechings, and the voice of the Father echoes to us in the tenderness of the Son.

So, then, let us think of that pleading. To sue for love, to beg that an enemy will put away his enmity is the part of the inferior rather than of the superior; is the part of the offender rather than of the offended; is the part of the vanquished rather than of the victor; is the part surely not of the king but of the rebel. And yet here, in the sublime transcending of all human precedent and pattern which characterises the divine dealing, we have the place of the suppliant and of the supplicated inverted, and Love upon the Throne bends down to ask of the rebel that lies powerless and sullen at His feet, and yet is not conquered until his heart be won, though his limbs be manacled, that he would put away all the bitterness out of his heart, and come back to the love and the grace which are ready to pour over him. ‘He that might the vengeance best have taken, finds out the remedy.’ He against whom we have transgressed prays us to be reconciled; and the Infinite Love lowers Himself in that lowering which is, in another aspect, the climax of His exaltation, to pray the rebels to accept His amnesty.

Oh, dear brethren! this is no mere piece of rhetoric. What facts in the divine heart does it represent? What facts in the divine conduct does it represent? It represents these facts in the divine heart, that there is in it an infinite longing for the creature’s love, an infinite desire for unity between Him and us.

There are wonderful significance and beauty in the language of my text which are lost in the Authorised Version; but are preserved in the Revised. ‘We are ambassadors’ not only ‘for Christ,’ but ‘on Christ’s behalf.’ And the same proposition is repeated in the subsequent clause. ‘We pray you,’ not merely ‘in Christ’s stead,’ though that is much, but ‘on His account,’ which is more-as if it lay very near His heart that we should put away our enmity; and as if in some transcendent and wonderful manner the all-perfect, self-sufficing God was made glad, and the Master, who is His image for us, ‘saw of the travail of His soul, and,’ in regard to one man, ‘was satisfied,’ when the man lets the warmth of God’s love in Christ thaw away the coldness out of his heart, and kindle there an answering flame. An old divine says, ‘We cannot do God a greater pleasure or more oblige His very heart, than to trust in Him as a God of love.’ He is ready to stoop to any humiliation to effect that purpose. So intense is the divine desire to win the world to His love, that He will stoop to sue for it rather than lose it. Such is at least part of the fact in the divine heart, which is shadowed forth for us by that wonderful thought of the beseeching God.

And what facts in the divine conduct does this great word represent? A God that beseeches. Well, think of the tears of imploring love which fell from Christ’s eyes as He looked across the valley from Olivet, and saw the Temple glittering in the early sunshine. Think of ‘O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! . . . how often would I have gathered thy children together . . . and ye would not.’ And are we not to see in the Christ who wept in the earnestness of His desire, and in the pain of its disappointment, the very revelation of the Father’s heart and the very action of the Father’s arm? ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ That is Christ beseeching and God beseeching in Him. Need I quote other words, gentle, winning, loving? Do we not feel, when looking upon Christ, as if the secret of His whole life was the stretching out imploring and welcoming hands to men, and praying them to grasp His hands, and be saved? But, oh, brethren! the fact that towers above all others, which explains the whole procedure of divinity, and is the keystone of the whole arch of revelation; the fact which reveals in one triple beam of light, God, man, and sin in the clearest illumination, is the Cross of Jesus Christ. And if that be not the very sublime of entreaty; and if any voice can be conceived, human or divine, that shall reach men’s hearts with a more piercing note of pathetic invitation than sounds from that Cross, I know not where it is. Christ that dies, in His dying breath calls to us, and ‘the blood of sprinkling speaketh better things than that of Abel’; inasmuch as its voice is, ‘Come unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.’

Not only in the divine facts of the life and death of Jesus Christ, but in all the appeals of that great revelation which lies before us in Scripture; and may I say, in the poor, broken utterances of men whose harsh, thin voices try to set themselves, in some measure, to the sweetness and the fulness of His beseeching tones-does God call upon you to draw close to Him, and put away your enmity. And not only by His Word written or ministered from human lips, but also by the patient providences of His love He calls and prays you to come. A mother will sometimes, in foolish fondness, coax her sullen child by injudicious kindness, or, in wise patience, will seek to draw the little heart away from the faults that she desires not to notice, by redoubled ingenuity of tenderness and of care. And so God does with us. When you and I, who deserve-oh! so different treatment-get, as we do get, daily care and providential blessings from Him, is not that His saying to us, ‘I beseech you to cherish no alienation, enmity, indifference, but to come back and live in the love’ ? When He draws near to us in these outward gifts of His mercy, is He not doing Himself what He has bid us to do; and what He never could have bid us to do, nor our hearts have recognised to be the highest strain of human virtue to do, unless He Himself were doing it first? ‘If thine enemy hunger, feed him. If he thirst, give him drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head.’

Not only by the great demonstration of His stooping and infinite desire for our love which lies in the life and death of Jesus Christ, nor only by His outward work, nor by His providence, but by many an inward touch on our spirits, by many a prick of conscience, by many a strange longing that has swept across our souls, sudden as some perfumed air in the scentless atmosphere; by many an inward voice, coming we know not whence, that has spoken to us of Him, of His love, of our duty; by many a drawing which has brought us nearer to the Cross of Jesus Christ, only, alas! in some cases that we might recoil further from it,-has He been beseeching, beseeching us all.

Brethren! God pleads with you. He pleads with you because there is nothing in His heart to any of you but love, and a desire to bless you; He pleads with you because, unless you will let Him, He cannot lavish upon you His richest gifts and His highest blessings. He pleads with you, bowing to the level, and beneath the level, of your alienation and reluctance. And the sum and substance of all His dealings with every soul is, ‘My son! give Me thy heart.’ ‘Be ye reconciled to God.’

II. And now turn, very briefly, to the next suggestion arising from this text, the terrible obverse, so to speak, of the coin: Man refusing a beseeching God.

That is the great paradox and mystery. Nobody has ever fathomed that yet, and nobody will. How it comes, how it is possible, there is no need for us to inquire. It is an awful and a solemn power that every poor little speck of humanity has, to lift itself up in God’s face, and say, in answer to all His pleadings, ‘I will not!’ as if the dwellers in some little island, a mere pin-point of black, barren rock, jutting up at sea, were to declare war against a kingdom that stretched through twenty degrees of longitude on the mainland. So we, on our little bit of island, our pin-point of rock in the great waste ocean, we can separate ourselves from the great Continent; or, rather, God has, in a fashion, made us separate in order that we may either unite ourselves with Him, by our willing yielding, or wrench ourselves away from Him by our antagonism and rebellion. God beseeches because God has so settled the relations between Him and us, that that is what He has to do in order to get men to love Him. He cannot force them. He cannot prise open a man’s heart with a crowbar, as it were, and force Himself inside. The door opens from within. ‘Behold! I stand at the door and knock.’ There is an ‘if.’ ‘If any man open I will come in.’ Hence the beseeching, hence the wail of wisdom that cries aloud and no man regards it; of love that stands at the entering in of the city, and pleads in vain, and says, ‘I have called, and ye have refused. . .. How often would I have gathered . . . and ye would not.’ Oh, brethren! it is an awful responsibility, a mysterious prerogative, which each one of us, whether consciously or no, has to exercise, to accept or to refuse the pleadings of an entreating Christ.

And let me remind you that the act of refusal is a very simple one. Not to accept is to reject; not to yield is to rebel. You have only to do nothing, to do it all. There are dozens of people in our churches and chapels listening with self-satisfied unconcern, who have all their lives been refusing a beseeching God. And they do not know that they ever did it! They say, ‘Oh! I will be a Christian some time or other.’ They cherish vague ideas that, somehow or other, they are so already. They have done nothing at all, they have simply been absolutely indifferent and passive. Some of you have heard sermons like this so often that they produce no effect. ‘It is the right kind of thing to say. It is the thing we have heard a hundred times.’ Perhaps you wonder why I should be so much in earnest about the matter, and then you go outside, and discuss me or the weather, and forget all about the sermon.

And thus, once more, you reject Christ. It is done without knowing it; done simply by doing nothing. My brother! do not stop your ears any more against that tender, imploring love.

Then let me remind you that this refusing the beseeching of God is the climax of all folly. For consider what it is,-a man refusing his highest good and choosing his certain ruin. I am afraid that people have been arguing and fighting so much of late years over disputable points in reference to the doctrine of future retribution that the indisputable fact of such retribution has lost much of its solemn power.

I pray you, brethren, to ask yourselves one question: Is there anything, in the present or in the future condition of a man that is not reconciled to God, which explains God’s beseeching urgency? Why this energy and intensity of divine desire? Why this which, if it were human only, would be called passionate entreaty? Why was it needful for Jesus Christ to die? Why was it worth His while to bear the punishment of man’s sin? Why should God and Christ, through all the ages, plead with unintermittent voice? There must be some explanation of it all, and here is the explanation, ‘They that hate Me love death.’ ‘Be ye reconciled to God,’ for enmity is ruin and destruction.

And finally, dear friends, this turning away from Him that speaketh from Heaven, of which some of you have all your lives been guilty, is not only supreme folly, but it is the climax of all guilt. For there can be nothing worse, darker, arguing a nature more averse or indifferent to the highest good, than that God should plead, and I should steel my heart and deafen mine ear against His voice. The crown of a man’s sin, because it is the disclosure of the secrets of his deepest heart as loving darkness rather than light, is turning away from the divine voice that woos us to love and to God.

Oh! there are some of you that have heard that Voice too often to be much touched by it. There are some of you too busy to attend to it, who hear it not because of the clatter of the streets and the whir of the spindles. There are some of you that are seeking to drown it in the shouts of mirth and revelry. There are some of you to whom it comes muffled in the mists of doubt; but I beseech you all, look at the Cross, look at the Cross! and hear Him that hangs there pleading with you.

Before the battle there comes out the captain of the twenty thousand to the King with the ten thousand, who in His loftiness is not afraid to stoop to sue for peace from the weaker power. My brother! the moment is precious; the white flag may never be waved before your eyes again. Do not; do not refuse! or the next instant the clarion of the assault may sound, and where will you be then?

It is vain for thee to rush against the thick bosses of the Almighty buckler. ‘We beseech, in Christ’s behalf, be ye reconciled with God.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

5:20 The great privilege of believers is to be Christ’s ambassadors (cp. Eph 6:20). • God is making his appeal through us: Paul doesn’t say that he speaks for God; rather, God speaks his word through us. • Christ’s redeeming work for sinners opens the way for them to “Come back to God!” and be reconciled with him (see Rom 5:1-11; Eph 2:11-22; Col 1:15-23). Christian witness has this appeal at its heart. Paul was also appealing to the rebellious Corinthians to come over to his side (see 2 Cor 6:1).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

2Co 5:20. Ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ, for Christ) Christ the foundation of the embassy sent from God.—πρεσβεύομεν· δεόμεθα, we are ambassadors, [we pray], we beseech) two extremes, as it were, put in antithesis to each other, which relate to the words we have acted without moderation [whether we be beside ourselves, 2Co 5:13]. In antithesis to these, the mean between those extremes is, we exhort [παρακαλοῦμεν, not as Engl. Vers., We beseech], ch. 2Co 6:1, 2Co 10:1, which appertains to the σωφρονοῦμεν, we act with moderation [whether we be sober, 2Co 5:13]. Therefore the discourse of the apostle generally παρακαλεῖ, exhorts; since the expression, πρεσβεύομεν, we are ambassadors, implies majesty, the expression δεόμεθα, we beseech, intimates a submission, which is not of daily occurrence; ch. 2Co 10:2, [comp. 1Th 2:6-7]. In both expressions Paul indicates not so much what he is now doing, as what he is doing in the discharge of all the duties of his office. Ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ, for Christ, is placed before the former verb [though after the latter verb], for the sake of emphasis; comp. the preceding verses. Presently after, the latter verb is placed first for the same reason.—καταλλάγητε, be ye reconciled).

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co_5:20. For Christ, therefore, we administer the office of ambassador, just as if God exhorted through us. This double element of the dignity of the high calling follows from the previous θέμενος ἐν ἡμῖν τ. λόγ. τῆς καταλλ. If, namely, it is the word of reconciliation which is committed to us, then in our embassy we conduct Christs cause (ὑπὲρ Χ. πρεσβ.), seeing that the reconciliation has taken place through Christ; and because God has entrusted to us this work, our exhortation is to be regarded as taking place by God through us (ὡς τ. θ. παρακαλ. διʼ ἡμ.). On ὑπέρ with πρεσβ. in the sense specified, comp. Eph_6:20 and the passages in Wetstein and Kypke. The opposite: πρεσβ. κατά τινος, Dem. 400, 12. The usual interpretation, vice et loco Christi, which is rightly abandoned even by Hofmann, and is defended on the part of Baur by mere subtlety, runs counter to the context; for this sense must have followed (οὖν) from what precedes, which, however, is not the case. If the notion of representation were to be inferred from what precedes, it could only furnish us with a ὑπὲρ θεοῦ.

Observe the parallel correlation of Christ and God in the two parts of the verse. The connecting of ὡς τοῦ θεοῦ παρακ. διʼ ἡμ. with δεόμεθα ὑπὲρ Χ. (Hofmann) would only disturb this symmetry without due groun.

δεόμεθα ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ κ.τ.λ.] specification of the contents of the πρεσβεία, and that in the form of apostolic humility and love: we pray for Christ, in His interest, in order that we may not, in your case, miss the aim of His divine work of reconciliation: be ye reconciled to God; do not, by refusing faith, frustrate the work of reconciliation in your case, but through your faith bring about that the objectively accomplished reconciliation may be accomplished subjectively in you. Rückert wrongly holds[240] that the second aorist passive cannot have a passive meaning and signifies only to reconcile oneself (see, on the contrary, Rom_5:10; Col_1:21); that Paul demands the putting away of the φρόνημα τῆς σαρκός, and the putting on of the φρόνημα τοῦ πνεύματος; and that so man reconciles himself with God. In this view, the moral immediate consequence of the appropriation of the reconciliation through faith is confounded with this appropriation itself. The reconciliation is necessarily passive; man cannot reconcile himself, but is able only to become by means of faith a partaker of the reconciliation which has been effected on the divine side; he can only become reconciled, which on his side cannot take place without faith, but is experienced in faith. This also in opposition to Hofmann, who says that they are to make their peace with God, in which case what the person so summoned has to do is made to consist in this, that he complies with the summons and prays God to extend to him also the effect, which the mediation constituted by God Himself exercises on the relation of sinful man toward Him.

The subject of καταλλάγητε is all those, to whom the loving summons of the gospel goes forth; consequently those not yet reconciled, i.e. the unbelieving, who, however, are to be brought, through Christs ambassadors, to appropriate the reconciliation. The quotidiana remissio which is promised to Christians (Calvin) is not meant, but the καταλλάγητε is fulfilled by those who, hitherto still standing aloof from the reconciliation, believingly accept the λόγος τ. καταλλαγῆς sent to them.[241]

[240] See against this, also Weber, v. Zorne Gottes, p. 302 f.

[241] Thereby is completed in their case the task of the apostolic ministry, which is contained in the μαθητεύσατε, Mat_28:19.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co 5:20 . ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ οὖν πρεσβεύομεν κ . τ . λ .: we are ambassadors therefore, sc. , because to us has been committed the Ministry of Reconciliation, on behalf of Christ , as Christ’s representative (see on 2Co 5:15 above for the force of ὑπέρ ), as though God were entreating by us ( cf. 2Co 6:1 and see on 2Co 1:4 ). The construction of ὡς followed by a genitive absolute is found also at 1Co 4:18 , 2Pe 1:3 . δεόμεθα ὑπέρ Χρ . κ . τ . λ .: we beseech you on behalf of Christ, Be ye reconciled to God . The imperative καταλλάγητε is much more emphatic than the infinitive καταλλαγῆναι (see crit. note) would be; all through we perceive the Apostle’s anxiety that the Corinthians should turn from the sin which beset them, whatever it might be in any individual case ( cf. 2Co 2:16 , 2Co 4:1 , 2Co 6:1 , 2Co 11:3 ). Note that the appeal, “Be ye reconciled to God,” is based on the fact (2Co 5:18 ) that God has already “reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ”.

2Co 5:20 to 2Co 6:3 . AS CHRIST’S AMBASSADOR HE ENTREATS THE CORINTHIANS TO BE RECONCILED TO GOD.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

for Christ . . . in Christ's stead--The Greek of both is the same: translate in both cases "on Christ's behalf."

beseech . . . pray--rather, "entreat [plead with you] . . . beseech." Such "beseeching" is uncommon in the case of "ambassadors," who generally stand on their dignity (compare Co2 10:2; Th1 2:6-7).

be ye reconciled to God--English Version here inserts "ye," which is not in the original, and which gives the wrong impression, as if it were emphatic thus: God is reconciled to you, be ye reconciled to God. The Greek expresses rather, God was the RECONCILER in Christ . . . let this reconciliation then have its designed effect. Be reconciled to God, that is, let God reconcile you to Himself (Co2 5:18-19).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 20. We are ambassadors for Christ] Ὑπερ Χριστου - πρεσβευομεν. We execute the function of ambassadors in Christ's stead. He came from the Father to mankind on this important embassy. He has left the world, and appointed us in his place.

Ambassador is a person sent from one sovereign power to another; and is supposed to represent the person of the sovereign by whom he is deputed. Christ while on earth represented the person of the Sovereign of the world; his apostles and their successors represent the person of Christ. Christ declared the will of the Father to mankind; apostles, c., declare the will of Christ to the world. We are ambassadors for Christ.

As though God did beseech you by us] What we say to you we say on the authority of God our entreaties are his entreaties; our warm love to you, a faint reflection of his infinite love; we pray you to return to God, it is his will that you should do so; we promise you remission of sins, we are authorized to do so by God himself. In Christ's stead we pray you to lay aside your enmity and be reconciled to God; i.e. accept pardon, peace, holiness, and heaven; which are all procured for you by his blood, and offered to you on his own authority.

"What unparalleled condescension and divinely tender mercies are displayed in this verse! Did the judge ever beseech a condemned criminal to accept of pardon? Does the creditor ever beseech a ruined debtor to receive an acquittance in full? Yet our almighty Lord, and our eternal Judge, not only vouchsafes to offer these blessings, but invites us, entreats us, and with the most tender importunity solicits us not to reject them." The Rev. J. Wesley's notes in loc.

This sentiment is farther expressed in the following beautiful poetic version of this place, by the Rev. Charles Wesley:-

"God, the offended God most high,

Ambassadors to rebels sends;

His messengers his place supply,

And Jesus begs us to be friends.

Us, in the stead of Christ, they pray,

Us, in the stead of Christ, entreat,

To cast our arms, our sins, away,

And find forgiveness at his feet.

Our God, in Christ, thine embassy

And proffer'd mercy we embrace;

And, gladly reconciled to thee,

Thy condescending mercy praise.

Poor debtors, by our Lord's request

A full acquittance we receive;

And criminals, with pardon blest,

We, at our Judge's instance, live."

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

20. As if God did beseech you This is of no small importance for giving authority to the embassy: nay more, it is absolutely necessary, for who would rest upon the testimony of men, in reference to his eternal salvation? It is a matter of too much importance, to allow of our resting contented with the promise of men, without feeling assured that they are ordained by God, and that God speaks to us by them. This is the design of those commendations, with which Christ himself signalizes his Apostles:

He that heareth you, heareth me, etc. (Luke 10:16.)

Whatsoever you shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven, (Matthew 18:18,)

and the like.

We entreat you, in Christ’s stead. Hence we infer, with what propriety Isaiah exclaims,

How blessed are the feet of them that preach the Gospel! (Isaiah 52:7.)

For that one thing, that is of itself sufficient for completing our felicity, and without which we are most miserable, is conferred upon us, only through means of the Gospel. If, however, this duty is enjoined upon all the ministers of the Church, in such a way, that he who does not discharge this embassy is not to be regarded either as an Apostle, or as a Pastor, we may very readily judge from this, as to the nature of the Pope’s entire hierarchy. They are desirous, indeed, to be looked upon as Apostles and Pastors; but as they are dumb idols, how will their boasting correspond with this passage of Paul’s writings. The word entreat is expressive of an unparalleled commendation of the grace of Christ, inasmuch as He stoops so low, that he does not disdain to entreat us. So much the less excusable is our depravity, if we do not, on meeting with such kindness, show ourselves teachable and compliant.

Be reconciled. It is to be observed, that Paul is here addressing himself to believers. He declares, that he brings to them every day this embassy. Christ therefore, did not suffer, merely that he might once expiate our sins, nor was the gospel appointed merely with a view to the pardon of those sins which we committed previously to baptism, but that, as we daily sin, so we might, also, by a daily remission, be received by God into his favor. For this is a continued embassy, which must be assiduously sounded forth in the Church, till the end of the world; and the gospel cannot be preached, unless remission of sins is promised.

We have here an express and suitable declaration for refuting the impious tenet of Papists, which calls upon us to seek the remission of sins after Baptism from some other source, than from the expiation that was effected through the death of Christ. Now this doctrine is commonly held in all the schools of Popery — that, after baptism, we merit the remission of sins by penitence, through means of the aid of the keys, (Matthew 16:19,) — as if baptism itself could confer this upon us without penitence. By the term penitence, however, they mean satisfactions. But what does Paul say here? He calls us to go, not less after baptism, than before it, to the one expiation made by Christ, that we may know that we always obtain it gratuitously. Farther, all their prating as to the administration of the keys is to no purpose, inasmuch as they conceive of keys apart from the Gospel, while they are nothing else than that testimony of a gratuitous reconciliation, which is made to us in the Gospel.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(20) Now then we are ambassadors for Christ—The preposition “for” implies the same representative character as in 2Co_5:14-15. The preachers of the Word were acting on behalf of Christ; they were acting also in His stead. The thought or word meets us again in Eph_6:20. “I am an ambassador in bonds.” The earlier versions (Tyndale, Geneva, Cranmer) give “messengers,” the Rhemish “legates.” “Ambassadors,” which may be noted as singularly felicitous, first appears in the version of 1611. The word, derived from the mediæval Latin ambasciator, and first becoming popular in the Romance languages, is found in Shakespeare, and appears to have come into prominence through the intercourse with France and Spain in the reign of Elizabeth.

We pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.—It will be seen, in this conclusion of the language of St. Paul as to the atonement, how entirely, on the one hand, he recognises the representative and vicarious character of the redeeming work of Christ; how entirely, on the other, he stands aloof from the speculative theories on that work which have sometimes been built upon his teaching. He does not present, as the system-builders of theology have too often done, the picture of the wrath of the Father averted by the compassion of the Son, or satisfied by the infliction upon Him of a penalty which is a quantitative equivalent for that due to the sins of mankind. The whole work, from his point of view, originates in the love of the Father, sending His Son to manifest that love in its highest and noblest form. He does not need to be reconciled to man. He sends His Son, and His Son sends His ministers to entreat them to be reconciled to Him, to accept the pardon which is freely offered. In the background there lies the thought that the death of Christ was in some way, as the highest act of Divine love, connected with the work of reconciliation; but the mode in which it was effective, is, as Butler says (Analogy, 2:5), “mysterious, and left, in part at least, unrevealed,” and it is not wise to “endeavour to explain the efficacy of what Christ has done and suffered for us beyond what the Scripture has authorised.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

20. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ] Literally, we undertake an embassy (legatione fungimur, Vulgate; usen message, Wiclif). Tyndale, followed by Cranmer and the Geneva Version, render, are messengers in the roume of. The Rhemish characteristically renders by legates. The signification ‘in the room of,’ for ὑπέρ, is doubtful. It is perhaps better to render ‘for’ with the A.V. (Vulgate, pro). Cf. Eph_6:20. An ambassador represents the monarch from whom he is sent, in all matters relating to his mission. What the nature of the mission was, and what the powers of the ambassadors, is stated in the remaining words of the verse.

as though God did beseech you by us] See notes on ch. 2Co_1:3. God may be said rather to exhort or encourage than to beseech (as if God monestith bi us, Wiclif). This, then, was the object for which the full powers of the ambassadors were given, an object still more clearly defined in what follows. Cf. Mal_2:7; Gal_4:14.

we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God] Rather, we intreat on behalf of Christ (sec above). First there was the encouraging tidings that there was ‘henceforth no condemnation’ to those who accepted the reconciliation offered through Christ (or perhaps the exhortation to accept it, see last note), and next the still more urgent entreaty on Christ’s behalf that they would accept it.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For he hath made him to be sin for us,.... Christ was made of a woman, took flesh of a sinful woman; though the flesh he took of her was not sinful, being sanctified by the Spirit of God, the former of Christ's human nature: however, he appeared "in the likeness of sinful flesh"; being attended with infirmities, the effects of sin, though sinless; and he was traduced by men as a sinner, and treated as such. Moreover, he was made a sacrifice for sin, in order to make expiation and atonement for it; so the Hebrew word signifies both sin and a sin offering; see Psa 40:6 and so Rom 8:3. But besides all this, he was made sin itself by imputation; the sins of all his people were transferred unto him, laid upon him, and placed to his account; he sustained their persons, and bore their sins; and having them upon him, and being chargeable with, and answerable for them, he was treated by the justice of God as if he had been not only a sinner, but a mass of sin; for to be made sin, is a stronger expression than to be made a sinner: but now that this may appear to be only by imputation, and that none may conclude from hence that he was really and actually a sinner, or in himself so, it is said he was "made sin"; he did not become sin, or a sinner, through any sinful act of his own, but through his Father's act of imputation, to which he agreed; for it was "he" that made him sin: it is not said that men made him sin; not but that they traduced him as a sinner, pretended they knew he was one, and arraigned him at Pilate's bar as such; nor is he said to make himself so, though he readily engaged to be the surety of his people, and voluntarily took upon him their sins, and gave himself an offering for them; but he, his Father, is said to make him sin; it was he that "laid", or "made to meet" on him, the iniquity of us all; it was he that made his soul an offering for sin, and delivered him up into the hands of justice, and to death, and that "for us", in "our" room and stead, to bear the punishment of sin, and make satisfaction and atonement for it; of which he was capable, and for which he was greatly qualified: for he

knew no sin; which cannot be understood or pure absolute ignorance of sin; for this cannot agree with him, neither as God, nor as Mediator; he full well knew the nature of sin, as it is a transgression of God's law; he knows the origin of sin, the corrupt heart of man, and the desperate wickedness of that; he knows the demerit, and the sad consequences of it; he knows, and he takes notice of too, the sins of his own people; and he knows the sins of all wicked men, and will bring them all into judgment, convince of them, and condemn for them: but he knew no sin so as to approve of it, and like it; he hates, abhors, and detests it; he never was conscious of any sin to himself; he never knew anything of this kind by, and in himself; nor did he ever commit any, nor was any ever found in him, by men or devils, though diligently sought for. This is mentioned, partly that we may better understand in what sense he was made sin, or a sinner, which could be only by the imputation of the sins of others, since he had no sin of his own; and partly to show that he was a very fit person to bear and take away the sins of men, to become a sacrifice for them, seeing he was the Lamb of God, without spot and blemish, typified in this, as in other respects, by the sacrifices of the legal dispensation; also to make it appear that he died, and was cut off in a judicial way, not for himself, his own sins, but for the transgressions of his people; and to express the strictness of divine justice in not sparing the Son of God himself, though holy and harmless, when he had the sins of others upon him, and had made himself responsible for them. The end of his being made sin, though he himself had none, was,

that we might be made the righteousness of God in him; not the essential righteousness of God, which can neither be imparted nor imputed; nor any righteousness of God wrought in us; for it is a righteousness "in him", in Christ, and not in ourselves, and therefore must mean the righteousness of Christ; so called, because it is wrought by Christ, who is God over all, the true God, and eternal life; and because it is approved of by God the Father, accepted of by him, for, and on the behalf of his elect, as a justifying one; it is what he bestows on them, and imputes unto them for their justification; it is a righteousness, and it is the only one which justifies in the sight of God. Now to be made the righteousness of God, is to be made righteous in the sight of God, by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. Just as Christ is made sin, or a sinner, by the imputation of the sins of others to him; so they are made righteousness, or righteous persons, through the imputation of his righteousness to them; and in no other way can the one be made sin, or the other righteousness. And this is said to be "in him", in Christ; which shows, that though Christ's righteousness is unto all, and upon all them that believe, it is imputed to them, and put upon them; it is not anything wrought in them; it is not inherent in them. "Surely in the Lord have I righteousness and strength", says the church, Isa 45:24 and also, that the way in which we come by this righteousness is by being in Christ; none have it reckoned to them, but who are in him, we are first "of" God "in" Christ, and then he is made unto us righteousness. Secret being in Christ, or union to him from everlasting, is the ground and foundation of our justification, by his righteousness, as open being in Christ at conversion is the evidence of it.

Next: 2 Corinthians Chapter 6

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.

Ver. 20. Ambassadors for Christ] And therefore sacred persons, not to be violated on pain of God’s heavy displeasure: "Do my prophets no harm." They that would annihilate the ministry, go to pull the stars out of Christ’s hand; and they will find it a work not feasible.

As though God did beseech you] God’s grace even kneels to us. En flexanimam suadae medullam; who can turn his back upon such blessed and bleeding embracements?

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Now then we are ambassadors for Christ - We are the ambassadors whom Christ has sent forth to negotiate with people in regard to their reconciliation to God, Tyndale renders this: “Now then are we messengers in the room of Christ.” The word used here πρεσβεύομεν presbeuomen, from πρέσβυς presbus an aged man, an elder, and then an ambassador) means to act as an ambassador, or sometimes merely to deliver a message for another, without being empowered to do any thing more than to explain or enforce it - Bloomfield. See Thucydides 7, 9. An ambassador is a minister of the highest rank, employed by one prince or state at the court of another, to manage the concerns of his own prince or state, and representing the dignity and power of his sovereign - Webster. He is sent to do what the sovereign would himself do were he present. They are sent to make known the will of the sovereign, and to negotiate matters of commerce, of war, or of peace, and in general everything affecting the interests of the sovereign among the people to whom they are sent.

At all times, and in all countries, an ambassador is a sacred character, and his person is regarded as inviolable. He is bound implicitly to obey the instructions of his sovereign, and as far as possible to do only what the sovereign would do were he himself present. Ministers are ambassadors for Christ, as they are sent to do what he would do were he personally present. They are to make known, and to explain, and enforce the terms on which God is willing to be reconciled to people. They are not to negotiate on any new terms, nor to change those which God has proposed, nor to follow their own plans or devices, but they are simply to urge, explain, state, and enforce the terms on which God is willing to be reconciled. Of course they are to seek the honor of the sovereign who has sent them forth, and to seek to do only his will. They go not to promote their own welfare; not to seek honor, dignity, or emolument; but they go to transact the business which the Son of God would engage in were he again personally on the earth. It follows that their office is one of great dignity, and great responsibility, and that respect should be showed them as the ambassadors of the King of kings.

As though God did beseech you by us - Our message is to be regarded as the message of God. It is God who speaks. What we say to you is said in his name and on his authority, and should be received with the respect which is due to a message directly from God. The gospel message is God speaking to people through the ministry, and entreating them to be reconciled. This invests the message which the ministers of religion bear with infinite dignity and solemnity; and it makes it a fearful and awful thing to reject it.

We pray you in Christ’s stead - (ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ huper Christou). In the place of Christ; or doing what he did when on earth, and what he would do were he where we are.

Be ye reconciled to God - This is the sum and burden of the message which the ministers of the gospel bear to their fellow-men; see the note on 2Co 5:19. It implies that man has something to do in this work. He is to be reconciled to God. He is to give up his opposition. He is to submit to the terms of mercy. All the change in the case is to be in him, for God cannot change. God has removed all the obstacles to reconciliation which existed on his part. He has done all that he will do, all that needed to be done, in order to render reconciliation easy as possible. And now it remains that man should lay aside his hostility, abandon his sins, embrace the terms of mercy, and become in fact reconciled to God. And the great object of the ministers of reconciliation is to urge this duty on their fellow-men. They are to do it in the name of Christ. They are to do it as if Christ were himself present, and were himself urging the message. They are to use the arguments which he would use; evince the zeal which he would show; and present the motives which he would present to induce a dying world to become in fact reconciled to God.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Be not deaf to this voice, harden not your hearts, suffer yourselves to be moved to the charity of God: it is immense, it is infinite. (Bible de Vence)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The apostle here giveth us a true notion, not only of apostles, which were the first and principal ministers of the gospel, but of all other ministers; teaching us what all ministers should be, and what all true ministers of the gospel are. They

are ambassadors for Christ. There is by nature an enmity between the creature and God; he naturally hateth God, and God is angry with him. Those that were sometime alienated, and enemies in their minds by wicked works, Christ hath reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, Col 1:21,22; he hath purchased a reconciliation for them. But yet, till they have received Christ as their Lord and Saviour, they are not actually recovered to God by him. God does by men, as great princes do by such as they are at enmity with; he sends his ministers to them, who are his ambassadors; and as all ambassadors represent the person of him whose ambassadors they are, and speak in his name, and as in his stead, persuading to peace; so these speak as in Christ’s name, and in God’s stead; their business is to beseech men to be reconciled unto God, to lay down their arms, and to accept of the terms of the gospel for peace and reconciliation.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Now then. It is, then, on Christ"s behalf that we are ambassadors. This excludes all secondary aims. St. Paul uses the same expression in Eph_6:20, adding with fine contrast that he is "an ambassador in fetters." As though God did beseech you by us; rather, as if God were exhorting you by our means. In Christ"s stead; rather, we, on Christs behalf, beseech you. Be ye reconciled to God. This is the sense of the embassy. The aorist implies an immediate acceptance of the offer of reconciliation.

Ambassadors for Christ.

Even among the members of the Corinthian Church there were those who had offended the Lord by their inconsistency and who needed to be reconciled. How much more was and is this true of mankind at large! There is no denying the need of a gospel and of a ministry of reconciliation.

I WHO ARE CHRIST"S AMBASSADORS? Probably the language is most justly applicable to the apostles only, inasmuch as their commission and credentials were altogether special. An ambassador owes his importance, not to himself, but to the power he represents, the message he bears. The preachers of Christ are all heralds, if they cannot be designated ambassadors. They may learn hence the dignity of their office and their personal unworthiness and insufficiency, and they may be admonished as to the imperative duty of fidelity.

II BY WHAT COURT ARE THESE AMBASSADORS COMMISSIONED? They are the ministers of the King of heaven, and their authority is that of the King"s Son. Thus their mission is one entrusted by a superior power and authority; and not only so, it is from an offended and outraged power. This appears when we consider

III TO WHOM THESE AMBASSADORS ARE SENT. Properly speaking, an ambassador is one accredited to a power sovereign and equal to that from whom he comes. But in this case the resemblance fails in this respect, inasmuch as the ministers of the gospel address themselves to offenders, to rebels, to those who cannot treat with Heaven upon equal terms, or any terms of right.

IV WHOSE SUBSTITUTES ARE THESE AMBASSADORS? They act "on Christ"s behalf," "in Christ"s stead." The Lord himself first came upon an embassage of mercy. He has entrusted to his apostles, and in a sense to all his ministers, the office and trust of acting as his representatives, in so far as they publish the declaration and offer of Divine mercy.

V WHAT IS THE COMMISSION WHICH THESE AMBASSADORS ARE SENT TO EXECUTE? It is an office of mercy. Their duty is to publish the tidings of redemption, the offer of pardon, and themselves to urge and to entreat men that they accept the gospel and thus enjoy the blessings of reconciliation with God. T.

Ambassadors of Christ.

I THE DUTIES OF AMBASSADORS OF CHRIST.

1. Negative.

1. Not to originate their message.

2. Not to think lightly of their mission.

3. Not to seek their own glory.

4. Not to aim at their own comfort and pleasure as a chief object.

5. Not to depart from their instructions. Not to add to them nor take away.

1. Positive.

1. To go where they are sent.

2. To communicate the mind of their Lord.

3. To defend his honour.

4. To be influenced by the welfare of his kingdom.

5. To make their Master"s business pre-eminent.

6. To strive in every way to qualify themselves for their work.

7. To endeavour to do their work in the best possible way.

8. To endure loss and suffering rather than the interests of their Master"s kingdom should be prejudiced.

II THE MESSAGE OF THE AMBASSADORS OF CHRIST.

1. That God loves men.

2. That he has given Christ for men. A vast proof of love! The first stepwas on God"s side. Whilst we were enemies Christ died for us.

3. That Christ willingly gave himself for men. The death of Christ wasperfectly voluntary.

4. That by the death of Christ God has provided the means for the perfectreconciliation of the world to himself. In the death of Christ God does reconcile; i.e. he removes every obstacle to reconciliation. Justification is fully prepared for the sinner. Christ was made sin for us (ver. 21). He bore our sins. Our sins were imputed to him. God"s justice was satisfied. Christ is made our Substitute, and this so perfectly that what we are is imputed to him, and what he is is imputed to us. He takes our sins; we take his righteousness. No hindrance to complete restoration thus remains, except hindrance which may lie in the human heart itself.

5. That God earnestly invites men to be reconciled to him. Amazingcondescension! The climax of Divine love! "As though God were entreating" (ver. 20).

III HOW THE MESSAGE IS TO BE CONVEYED.

1. With courtesy.

2. With intense earnestness. It is momentous. What issues depend upon its acceptance or rejection!

3. With zealous pleading.

IV HOW AMBASSADORS OF CHRIST ARE TO BE REGARDED.

1. As speaking on behalf of Christ.

2. As declaring the mind of God. H.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ-we beseech you in Christ's stead - Herein the apostle might appear to some "transported beyond himself." In general he uses a more calm, sedate kind of exhortation, as in the beginning of the next chapter. What unparalleled condescension and divinely tender mercies are displayed in this verse! Did the judge ever beseech a condemned criminal to accept of pardon? Does the creditor ever beseech a ruined debtor to receive an acquittance in full? Yet our almighty Lord, and our eternal Judge, not only vouchsafes to offer these blessings, but invites us, entreats us, and, with the most tender importunity, solicits us, not to reject them.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Observe here, 1. The minister’s office and employment declared: they are ambassadors for Christ; ambassadors from God to man, and as ambassadors they have their mission, their commission, from a great Prince, about great concerns; they must be faithful to their instructions, they are inviolable by the law of nations, and their embassy must be received upon pain of displeasure.

Where let us remark the wonderful goodness and wisdom of God, in appointing men of the same level with us, and not angels superior to us, to dispense the mystery of reconciliation to us. As God deals more familiarly with us in this way, (for we cannot bear the voice of God, or the sight of angels,) so there is more certainty in this way, because ministers must deceive their own souls, if they deceive us: and and herein God magnifies his own power, and lets us know, that the efficacy of the gospel is from him the Author, and not from man the dispenser.

Observe, 2. The minister’s duty discovered: in God’s name, and Christ’s stead, to entreat, beseech, and persuade sinners to become reconciled unto God.

Here note, 1. That God and man were once friends.

2. That God and man are now enemies.

3. That man, and not God, first made the breach of friendship, and occasioned that unhappy controversy, which is now depending between God and man.

4. That though man was first in the breach, yet God is the first in the offer of reconciliation.

5. That therefore it is the highest duty and chiefest interest of man to accept of terms of peace and reconciliation with God.

6. That in order to all this, the great duty incumbent upon the ministers of the gospel, is this, with all earnestness to press upon people the doctrine of reconciliation, and to use all arguments with them, to persuade them to become reconciled unto God.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God .

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

20. Then we are ambassadors. We have God's message, are his authorized messengers, and speak for God, beseeching you for Christ, and in his name, to be reconciled to God by repentance and the obedience of faith.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

we are appointed as representatives of Christ

This can be stated in active form. AT: "God has appointed us as Christ's representatives" (See: Active or Passive)

representatives of Christ

"those who speak for Christ"

Be reconciled to God

This can be stated in active form. AT: "Let God reconcile you to himself" (See: Active or Passive)

He made Christ become the sacrifice for our sin

"God made Christ become the sacrifice for our sin"

our sin ... we might become

Here the words "our" and "we" are inclusive and refer to all believers. (See: Inclusive "We")

He is the one who never sinned

"Christ is the one who never sinned"

He did this ... the righteousness of God in him

"God did this ... the righteousness of God in Christ"

so that we might become the righteousness of God in him

The phrase "the righteousness of God" refers to the righteousness that God requires and which comes from God. AT: "so that we might have God's righteousness in us through Christ" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

translationWords

appoint

Christ

God

reconcile

sacrifice

sin

righteous

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

20, 21. He sets forth his work as an ambassador from God. See Lightfoot’s Ordination Addresses, pp. 47 ff.

20. Ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ. First with emphasis. On behalf of Christ, therefore, we are acting as ambassadors, as though God were intreating by us (2Co 1:19, 2Co 9:11). Comp. for the construction of the last clause ὡς μὴ ἐρχομένου μου (1Co 4:18); also Heb 13:17 and Jas 2:14: and for the meaning of the whole ὑπὲρ οὖ πρεσβεύω ἐν ἁλύσει (Eph 6:20) and Lightfoot’s note on Phm 1:9.

δεόμεθα ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ, καταλλάγητε τῷ θεῷ. We beseech on behalf of Christ, Become reconciled to God. We have the change from παρακαλῶ to δέομαι again 2Co 10:1-2: comp. 2Co 8:4. As in 2Co 5:14-15, ὑπέρ is ‘on behalf of’: ‘in Christ’s stead’ (A.V.) is probably wrong in both places; and both must be translated alike. ‘Become reconciled’ is better than ‘be ye reconciled’ (R.V.), as (1) expressing the tense, (2) as avoiding the emphasis on ‘ye,’ which is not in the Greek at all.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

We are ambassadors [πρεσβευομεν] . Only here and Eph 6:10.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.