“Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
– 2 Corinthians 5:20
Passage Explained
As I set out to create a picture based on this text, my main goal was to understand what it meant for Paul to be an “ambassador for Christ.” When we think of ambassadors, we think of people who represent a different country in foreign lands and who exert something of the authority of their home country in foreign territory. Is that what Paul has in mind here? In order to answer this question I had to consider more of the surrounding context, stretching from verse 14 to 21 of chapter 5. Before explaining the picture, I will quickly go over Paul’s ambassadorial role as set out in these verses.
An Ambassador For Christ?
First, we see that God is the initiator and prime actor in the reconciliation of the fallen world to Himself (v.18-19). The world was set at odds with God at the fall and the entirety of redemptive history has been the story of YHWH working to restore His creation to communion with Himself. This renewed fellowship was climactically achieved in the person and work of Christ in whom God has reconciled—and will finally reconcile—all things to Himself (2 Cor.5:19, Col.1:20). Jesus died for all people so that all people might be considered dead to their sin and alive in relationship to God through Christ (2 Cor.5:14-15, 21, Rom. 6:11). This renewed spiritual life is, Paul implies in verse 17, the first fruits of the New Creation.
However, though the power and seal of whole-world reconciliation was achieved in Christ’s death and resurrection, it is now being carried out in the as-yet-un-reconciled world by agents who have themselves been reconciled to God through His son. Part of God’s plan of universal reconciliation to Himself is for those whom He has reconciled to turn around and labor by grace to see the un-reconciled become the reconciled. Paul—like his fellow workers—became an ambassador to the un-reconciled by being reconciled to God through the sin-bearing, self-giving, relationship-restoring love of Christ (v.21). We might then say that the “country” from which Paul is an ambassador is “Reconciled to God” or “New Creation,” while the country to which he ministers is called, “Un-Reconciled to God,” or the “Old Creation.”
But what is Paul’s role as an ambassador of reconciliation to the un-reconciled? He tells us what the work of such an ambassador is in verse 20, and he tells us the motivation for that work in verse 14. Let me address the motivation briefly before examining the work itself.
The Motivation of an Ambassador
In verse 14, Paul tells us that the love of Christ “constrains” him in his work as an ambassador. The idea here seems to be that Paul has been so struck, so pierced, so indelibly marked by the love of Christ, that he cannot but live to draw others into his experience of that love. Just as a hurricane might forever bend a tree in the direction of its winds, or an earthquake might permanently alter the course of a long standing river, so too the good cataclysm of God’s love for Paul in Jesus has irreversibly changed this man. From now on Paul is bound to spend his life calling others to share the joy of his reconciliation with God, not out of a sense of duty or repayment but because the love of Christ has re-made the foundational nature of his being so that his joy is rooted in seeing others folded into this blood-bought communion.
The Ministry of an Ambassador
The relationship-restoring love of Christ, then, is Paul’s motive as an ambassador, what then is his work? It is—as I’ve already implied—simply to see others drawn into the gladness of knowing and loving God in Christ. It’s as if the Triune God was a melody and the universe was a harmonic variation of the same tune, design to communicate the beauty of the original melody. Well, at the fall the entire universe splintered into cacophony with each note out of tune with the others and all of them in dissonance with the original melody. But with Christ, the original melody entered into the chaos of the shattered song. And with His death and resurrection the true music swallowed up the dissonance into itself and began to irreversibly draw the entirety of the song back into harmony with the melody of God’s glory. Paul—and all believers—are like individual notes that have been brought into harmony with the true melody. Having been thus reconciled, their joyful task is now to sing out the true melody so that all the dissonant notes around them will also be woven into the True Song of fellowship with God, in Christ, by the Spirit.
Paul understands his ministry of reconciliation as an extension of God’s reconciliation of the world to Himself in Christ (2 Cor.5:20). The ambassador of Christ, then, continues the world-reconciling work of Jesus, proclaiming nothing but Jesus and doing so in the power of the Spirit of Jesus. As one reconciled to God through the blood of the Son and entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation (the word of the cross, the gospel, 1 Corinthians 1:18ff, 15:1-5), Paul can truly view his call that the Corinthians be reconciled to God through Christ as God Himself making the appeal—as can those who have been entrusted with the same gospel ministry as Paul.
This, then, is what it means for Paul to be an ambassador for Christ: It means that He has been reconciled to God through the cross work of Christ and is now a living member of the New Creation who stands in right relationship to the Creator. Having been reconciled to God by such a love, Paul turns—compelled by that love—to the as yet un-reconciled and appeals to them to join him in the joys of restored fellowship with the Father in the Son. The love of Christ draws us into fellowship with God with the result that we, compelled by this love, turn and seek to draw others into fellowship with God in Christ.
Picture Explained
1 Corinthians 5:18-19 make it clear that God has reconciled the world to Himself through Christ, for this reason the hand of the risen Jesus is featured prominently in the image. The darkness and chaos of un-reconciled creation are being drawn into the wound in Christ’s hand because He performs His reconciling work by bearing the sin, suffering and curse of the un-reconciled world in Himself (2 Cor.5:21). The hand of Christ is surrounded by golden light and the green hills and mountains of the New Creation because through His work the New Creation has already dawned even as we await its final consummation upon His return (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Not only is the wound of Christ swallowing up the sin and darkness of the world, but the Ambassador—representing Paul and his co-workers—is reaching out from this wound toward the un-reconciled world. The Ambassador is brilliant white and clothed in a red garment as a picture of the righteousness of God imputed through the sacrificial love of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21). Only one who has been thus reconciled to God in Christ can now turn and be an ambassador of reconciliation for God in Christ. The un-reconciled world is represented as a skeleton since knowing and loving God in Christ is the essence of true life (John 17:3), and to be opposed / un-reconciled to God is the essence of death (Ephesians 2:1-3).
Lastly, the reaching hand of the reconciling Christ is visually echoed in the reaching hand of the Ambassador because when a Christian pleads with the lost to be reconciled to God through Christ, it is truly as if God Himself were the one making the appeal (2 Corinthians 5:20). May the Lord give us all His own burden to see the un-reconciled drawn into the joy of fellowship with Him through Christ!
