We have set aside today as a service in which we will commission several individuals who will be doing mission work this summer. It is a service, therefore, that puts much excitement into my heart as I think not only about praying for these men and women today but about all that we will hear upon their return. As I began thinking this week about sending off these men and women to go as ministers to others, I thought to myself that one of our main needs this morning is to ensure that those whom we send out are equipped with a deep understanding of the cross. Therefore, this morning I want to call our attention to 2 Corinthians 5:11-21 and I want us to see this morning why we have a message of the cross to preach, what occurred in the cross and was the outcome of it, what is now our task as a result of being beneficiaries of God’s work in Christ, and what we need to do even this day.
In a sense, this message is long overdue, for as we have been looking at worship, the cross is the foundation, content, and hope for worship. However, it is definitely fitting today as those who are sent out from us this summer should arm themselves with the determination of Paul as he proclaimed, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). So what must we understand to rightly understand the cross?
Paul comments in verses 18-21, “All this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself … That is in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself … For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (emphasis added).
Notice in all of these verses that the subject is God. Therefore if God had not acted toward us, we would have no hope. The initiative of the cross was God’s, not ours.
This point is so crucial because we must not have a picture of God’s work through Christ as beginning with a reluctant God being persuaded to give his Son for a rebellious people who were begging him to do so. That is to say, man never said to God, “Please do something so that we might know you and be your children.” Rather, God is the one who initiated sending his Son to the cross. Yes, even though it was God’s wrath that was quenched in Christ on the cross, it was God’s grace and love, his initiative, that sent him there.
And this is the way that it has always been. In Leviticus, it is God who says, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life” (Leviticus 17:11). Thus, men are given the sacrifice to make atonement by God himself.
Again, in Job, as God’s wrath burns towards Job’s friends, we read that it is God who provides atonement for them. God says, “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly” (Job 42:7-8). Thus, God is the one whose wrath is burning and yet God is the one who initiates and makes possible atonement for them.
It is the same with the cross of Christ. “God put [him] forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (Romans 3:25). And it is assured in this passage as (again) Paul assures us, “All this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself … That is in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself … For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (emphasis added).
Therefore, a main key in having a deep understanding of the cross and of God’s saving work wrought therein is understanding that it is God’s initiative and work that brings about this work of reconciling us to God.
The main thing this text reminds us that Christ’s work accomplished was that we have been reconciled to God. Paul writes in verses 18-19, “All this if from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that is in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” (emphasis added).
But why was reconciliation necessary? It is because sin distanced us from God and made us his enemies. Yes, without Christ, in our sin and rebellion we are enemies of God. Paul writes in Romans 5:10, “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” and again in Colossians 1:21, “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.”
Thus, we were God’s enemies as much as he was our enemy. That is, not only were we rebels and disobedient toward God, but God’s wrath was burning toward us as well. Thus the picture of reconciliation as we read in our text this morning is not God saying, “Come on, quit being mad and evil.” Rather, the cross was a way to change us, ridding us of our sin, and to appease God’s wrath which burned toward us. Only in both those things occurring could we be rightly reconciled to God. Therefore, reconciliation demanded nothing less than the death of Christ.
One author has written: “Whatever may be the case with other acts of reconciliation, Scripture is clear that the reconciliation between God and man could be brought about only by the death of the Son of God. Accordingly we may discern a substitutionary element, for as Büchsel says, ‘The reconciliation comes into existence through the death of Jesus (Rom. 5:10), which here obviously not only benefits us, (being) a revelation of the love of God (Rom. 5:8), but is a substitution for us (2 Cor. 5:20, 14f.).’”1
And he is right. If true reconciliation occurred from Christ’s death, then Christ had to be our substitute, paying for our penalty, atoning for our sins, and appeasing God’s wrath. Indeed, that is what did happen, as Paul writes in 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” So Christ is our substitute, paying our penalty and bringing about all which is needed for us to be reconciled to God.
But, wait, one might say, “This explains how God’s wrath was dealt with, but what about changing me from that which demanded God’s wrath?” Here we must see that reconciliation occurred not simply because Christ paid for our sin but also because Christ’s righteousness was applied to us. It is as verse 21 says, “… that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Therefore, as we place our faith in Christ, we find that he is our substitute, taking our sins, and we are new creatures (verse 17), having our sins removed from our account and being credited with a righteous standing before God, earned for us by Christ.
Christ has accomplished all this for those who believe in his saving work on the cross. That’s why Paul sees that which saves us as a union with Christ, writing “in him” and “in Christ” in his description of how we can be new creatures and righteous before God (verses 17 and 21).
But there is one other thing that is brought about in the life of a believer from Christ’s reconciling work for us on the cross. And we must understand this as well if we are to understand the transforming power of the cross.
Paul writes in verses 18-20, “All this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that is in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us, we implore you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God.”
As God sent Christ to reconcile the world to himself, so now we are sent to proclaim that message to men so that they might be reconciled to God as well, becoming new creatures in him and righteous before him. That is the setting of Matthew 28:18-20 as Jesus says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. God therefore an make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Therefore, just as much as union with Christ has made us righteous, new creations, and reconciled to God, it has made us messengers of that reconciliation. We no longer live for ourselves, as we have been unified with him in his death, as Paul writes in verses 14-15, “For the love of Christ controls us because we have concluded that one has died for all therefore all have died and he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” Therefore, our thought and practice must be, “for me to live is Christ,” and as I said at the beginning of this series, that is worship.
Thus we must see ourselves as tools which God will use to bring about the application of his righteousness, new creation, and reconciliation. Reconciliation is not our work, Christ has done it, but it is the message of that work that we must proclaim to men, as Paul writes, “We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us” (1 Corinthians 4:7).
So, to be his child means to live a life of worship and part of that is speaking the message of reconciliation.
Therefore, in light of this reality, let me urge you to strive to do the following:
1) Understand the work of Christ’s atonement as deeply as you can that you might be a formidable messenger of reconciliation. Read and pray over the Word.
2) Speak the hope of new creation, reconciliation, and righteousness to men that is found in the atoning work of Christ. Speaking the gospel is a difficult thing to do at times, but it is through speaking the Word that faith comes and through faith that one is saved.
3) Finally, pray for God to work. He’s not left us alone in this work, for Paul reminds us that it is “God making his appeal through us,” even as Christ reminded us that he would be with us always. Therefore, pray for God to work in men’s hearts as you speak his message of reconciliation.
Let’s worship by proclaiming the message to all men that has made our worship possible – the reconciliation brought by the cross of Christ. To him be glory forever, Amen.