2 Corinthians 5:20; Ambassadors for Christ

2 Corinthians 5:20 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.

The benefit of the Christian faith needs to be explained. This is God’s only way of salvation for mankind. William MacDonald said well, “Paul is not here telling the Corinthians to be reconciled to God. They are already believers in the Lord Jesus. But he is telling the Corinthians that this is the message which he preaches to the unsaved wherever he goes.”

MacDonald further explained, “An ambassador is a minister of state, representing his own ruler in a foreign land. Paul always speaks of the Christian ministry as an exalted and dignified calling. Here he likens himself to an envoy sent by Christ to the world in which we live. He was a spokesman for God, and God was pleading through him. This seems a rather strange language to apply to an ambassador. Usually, we do not think of an ambassador as pleading, but that is the glory of the gospel, that, in it, God is actually on bended knee and with tear-dimmed eye begging men and women to be reconciled to Himself. If any enmity exists, it exists on man’s part. God has removed any barriers to complete fellowship between Himself and man. The Lord has done all he can possibly do. Now man must lay down his arms of rebellion, must cease his stubborn revolt, and must be reconciled to God.”

May the Lord help us to bear this message. Amen.