God reconciles the world through the ministry of the Spirit

Sermon for the week of Easter 4

2 Corinthians 5:14-21

We’ve been talking in Bible class recently about atonement and reconciliation. Well, we have both of them before us this evening in St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian Christians. “One died for all.” That’s atonement. “Be reconciled to God!” That’s, obviously, reconciliation. And what is it that ties the one to the other, the bridge between the atonement Christ made on the cross and the reconciliation of the sinners for whom Christ died? The answer? The office of the holy ministry, the ministry of reconciliation—the same ministry we talked about on Sunday morning, where Jesus promised the help of the Holy Spirit, who would work effectively through His chosen ministers. Let’s take a brief look at these verses, where we find that God reconciles the world through the ministry of the Spirit.

For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died. And He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. The “us” here is Paul and the other ministers of the Gospel. What compels them to preach? What compels them to face one hardship after another, many of which Paul lists in this epistle? What compels them to even risk their lives, and give up their lives, in order to keep going out and preaching the Gospel? “The love of Christ compels us,” Paul says. If Christ loved the world enough to die for the world, then clearly He also wants the world to hear the Gospel and be reconciled to Him. And if Christ loved us enough to die for us, and if He has also made us alive by sending His Spirit, in the Gospel to bring us to faith, then how can we not face the hardships that go along with the ministry? How can we not take the Gospel to the world? How can we not preach? We must do these things! Because we no longer live for ourselves, but for Him who died for us and rose again. Every Christian must live for Christ, in every vocation. And for a minister whom Christ has sent out to preach, living for Him means carrying out his God-given ministry in the world, no matter the cost.

Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. In other words, since Christ died for all, and we live to serve Christ, we don’t care about external, fleshly attributes. It doesn’t matter if a person is Jewish or Gentile, old, young, rich, poor, male, or female. It doesn’t matter what country a person is from, or what the color of his skin happens to be, or what language he happens to speak. These are all earthly things, fleshly things. And we who are in Christ, we believers, and, in Paul’s case, we ministers, refuse to think of people that way anymore, as if those fleshly things were their most important quality. The most important thing now is being “in Christ,” which is what happens when a person hears the Gospel, repents of his sins, and believes in Christ. He is grafted into Christ, baptized into Christ. He is a “new creation.” All the old things about that person have passed away, not into non-existence, but into non-importance. Christ died for all, made atonement for every human being, and wants all men to be saved. That’s, by far, the thing that matters most about any person.

Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. All these things come from God—the atonement Christ made, bringing people to spiritual life through faith, and remaking that person into a new creation. The apostles themselves were among the first to receive those gifts. Paul isn’t speaking about all people in this verse; he’s speaking about the order of things for himself and the other apostles and ministers. God “has reconciled us to Himself and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” The same ones who were reconciled to God have been given this ministry of reconciling others to God. Paul’s own story is well-known. He was an enemy of God when he was persecuting the Church. But God found him on that road to Damascus and converted him, bringing him to repentance and faith in Christ, and having him baptized by Ananias. And then God immediately made him a minister to the Gentiles. Each minister had own story of being reconciled to God when the Gospel of Christ was preached to him. And then each one of them, once they were changed from God’s enemies into His beloved children, was also given a ministry, an office, an official calling to go and reconcile others to God by preaching that same Gospel to them.

that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. God was in Christ. “The Father is in Me,” Jesus said, “and I in Him.” What Jesus does, the Father does. So when Jesus called out to the world, “Repent and believe the good news!,” that was God Himself calling out. When Jesus, through His preaching, brought sinners to repentance and faith, and forgave them their sins, and reconciled them to Himself, He was reconciling them to God. When Christ reconciled the Jewish tax collectors and sinners to Himself, they were being reconciled to God. And as you know, Jesus didn’t restrict His reconciling ministry to the Jews only. God was in Him, reconciling the world to Himself, inviting all people, Jews and Gentiles, to believe in the Lord Jesus and be reconciled to God through Him.

But that ministry of reconciliation didn’t stop with Jesus. He appointed the apostles to carry out the exact same ministry. “As the Father has sent Me,” He said on Easter Sunday, “so I also send you.” And so Paul says, Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us. “We” does not mean all people. It’s doesn’t even mean all Christians. We refers to the apostles, to the “sent ones,” to the ministers sent out with the authority of Jesus Himself to speak in His name and to act in His name, as official ambassadors of Christ, to forgive sins to the penitent, to reconcile sinners to God, in the stead, in the place of Christ.

We implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. This is the word of reconciliation that has been going out since the Day of Pentecost: We, God’s appointed ministers, implore you, the people of the world: Be reconciled to God! How? By confessing your sins, and by believing in the One, Jesus Christ, who knew no sin, who was sinless and righteous, who was “made sin” for us all, that is, who took our place as sinners under God’s wrath and received the punishment we all deserve—who gave His life as the atoning sacrifice for our sins—so that we might be brought into Him through faith, clothed with Him through Holy Baptism, and so be counted righteous in the sight of the righteous God.

This is, and has always been, the way in which God reconciles the world to Himself, through the ministry of the Spirit. All of us here have been made the righteousness of God through that same ministry. All of you have been reconciled to God through this ministry, and are no longer counted as His enemies, but as His beloved sons and daughters. This is the ministry you support with your prayers, with your offerings, with your attendance at these services where the ministry is carried out, and with your ongoing encouragement. You may not see or understand most of what God is doing in this world, but this much you have to believe: God is reconciling the world to Himself through the ministry of the Spirit, and He will see to it that the work continues, until every one of the elect, of those who will believe the Gospel, is reached with the Gospel, until His Church is completely built. Amen.