Our  passage shows us, that in Christ we have:

1. A New Motivation (the Love of Christ)
2. A New Transformation  and a
3. New Purpose (Reconciliation)

The first step to resolving a dispute is asking the other person for forgiveness, but no one enjoys taking that initial step. Whether it is a conflict between a husband and wife or a brother and sister, the first step toward reconciliation is difficult because no one wants to admit that he or she was wrong.

This passage points out that God has graciously taken the first step—in fact, the first stride—toward reconciliation with human beings. This in no way implies that God is somehow guilty or at fault. Ever since Adam and Eve’s rebellion in the Garden of Eden, people have consistently rebelled against God, ignoring his ways and depriving him of the worship he deserves (Romans 3:23). God has done nothing wrong. In fact, he has only given people chance after chance to return to him. Although all human beings have persisted in their rebellion, God has not destroyed them. Instead, he has provided everything to sustain life—from the air they breathe to the rains that make their crops grow (Matthew 5:45). Through his only Son, God the Father has reached out even further to his rebellious people. Through Christ’s death, God canceled our debts and forgave our sins (Colossians 2:13). He even places his Holy Spirit in our hearts so we can live according to his perfect ways (Galatians 5:16–18). Through Jesus, God has taken the initial step toward reconciliation, and he offers the free gift of salvation to all people. Anyone can come to accept his free gift (Ephesians 2:8–9; Revelation 22:17). Take advantage of God’s free gift. What a profound truth and great news!

5:14     For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. ^NIV  What motivates you? Everything that Paul and his companions did was to honor God. Not only did fear of God motivate them (see 5:11), but Christ’s love controlled their actions. The Greek word for “compels” means “to hold fast.” In other words, the love of Christ was motivating them to certain courses of action. They knew that Jesus, out of his great love, had given up his life for their sakes. He had not acted out of his own self-interest, selfishly holding on to the glory of heaven that he already possessed (Philippians 2:6). Instead, Jesus had willingly died on the cross.

Jesus died for all because on the cross he—the perfect Son of God—bore the curse that lay on all sinners. Thus, when Christ died on the cross, God saw all sinners, along with their sins, die on the cross (John 3:16–17; Romans 5:8). That is why those who accept this truth and believe in Jesus can receive God’s forgiveness for their sin.

5:15     And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. ^NIV Because Christ was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, to die for all, those who believe in Jesus should be willing to abandon their old, selfish ways in order to live for Christ (Romans 6:6–14; Galatians 2:20; Colossians 2:20). Like Paul, we should no longer live to please ourselves. We should die to ourselves and live for Christ, who is alive today and interceding with God on our behalf (Romans 6:22).

5:16–17           So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. ^NIV At one time, Paul had evaluated Jesus from a worldly point of view—in Greek, literally, “after the flesh,” meaning “according to human standards.” As an educated Jew, Paul was looking forward to the Messiah. But the Jews of his time were looking for a political Messiah, a powerful person who would free them from Roman rule. Instead, Jesus had died, even suffering the Romans’ most cruel punishment: crucifixion. Because Deuteronomy 21:23 says “anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse” niv, the Jews considered dying on a cross a sign of God’s disapproval. According to human standards, Jesus was an insignificant man who died like a criminal—not a person who deserved worship.

Paul’s encounter with the risen Christ on the Damascus road radically changed his thinking (Acts 9:1–15). All of his learning and all of his training under the teachers of the law and the respected Gamaliel had not led him to the truth. The wisdom of the world had not pointed him to the Savior of the world (see 1 Corinthians 2:1–16 for Paul’s explanation of why God circumvented human wisdom in his plan of salvation).

Only this personal encounter with Jesus convinced Paul that he needed to reevaluate his own life in light of what Jesus had accomplished on the cross. Jesus had given up his life for others—not only for the Jews, but also for the Gentiles (see Acts 10:34–44 for Peter’s discovery of this). As a Pharisee, Paul had strictly followed Jewish law and its traditions, which limited contact with unbelieving Gentiles (see Acts 10:12–16, 28–29 for Peter’s reaction to entering a Gentiles’ house). In light of Christ’s work, however, Paul abandoned those scruples and began calling Gentiles to faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 11:13; 15:16). He regarded everyone—both Jew and Gentile—as completely unworthy sinners before God (Romans 3:9). Anyone who acknowledged this fact, repented, and believed in Jesus as their Lord and Savior would enter the Christian community, whether Jew or Gentile (Ephesians 3:6). Paul no longer was looking on the outward appearances—whether a person was from a certain ethnic or racial origin. Instead, he evaluated people through Christ’s perspective.

 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! ^NLT Christians are brand-new people. The Holy Spirit gives them new life, and they are not the same anymore. Christians are not reformed, rehabilitated, or reeducated—they are recreated (a new creation), living in vital union with Christ (Colossians 2:6–7). At conversion, believers are not merely turning over a new leaf; they are beginning a new life under a new Master.

In addition to recreating individual Christians, Jesus is incorporating them into an entirely new order. This new creation that Christ has begun constructing through his work on the cross includes the community of faith and all of creation (see Romans 8:20–21; Ephesians 1:9–10). This recreation of all the earth was something the prophet Isaiah had predicted (see Isaiah 65:17). An important aspect of this completely new creation is how people are reconciled to their Creator and even to other people. The distinction between Jew and Gentile is abolished. In its place is the new creation (see Galatians 6:15). Everything old has passed away. The old order of sin and death has gone; the selfish, sinful human nature has been dealt a death blow (see Galatians 5:16–21, 24). Old ways of thinking, old distinctions, have been abolished for those who are in Christ. In its place, the new has come. To draw attention to the coming of this new order, Paul announced it with the word “see.”

5:18     All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. ^NIV This new creation is not of any human doing. God himself has begun the work. Only God can allow people to approach him. Only God can satisfy his own righteous demands. Only God can save. God is the Author and Finisher of salvation (see Hebrews 12:2). God brought his people to himself—in other words, reconciled us—by blotting out our sins (see also Ephesians 2:13–18) and making us righteous. When they trust in Christ, believers are no longer God’s enemies. Through Christ’s self-sacrificial work on the cross, God has made believers part of his family. Jesus died in our place so that we might enjoy fellowship with God (1 Corinthians 15:3).

Because believers have been reconciled to God, we have the privilege of encouraging others to accept God’s free gift, to become reconciled as well. This is called the ministry of reconciliation. Since Paul experienced reconciliation through Christ, it became his mission to preach that message: “For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Romans 5:10 niv). Today, the church owes it to the world to keep on spreading the message.

5:19     For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. This is the wonderful message he has given us to tell others. ^NLT This is a quick summary of what his “ministry of reconciliation” entails. God had given Paul and other Christian evangelists the wonderful message of how God through Christ saves sinners. Just in case the Corinthians had forgotten the heart of Paul’s message to them, he repeated it to them: Christ was reconciling the world to God by no longer counting people’s sins against them. Paul used a Greek word for “counting” that was commonly used when a Greek spoke of calculating the debt of a person. Thus, God was no longer calculating people’s debt to him; instead, he was actively giving them more: the precious gift of salvation.

The Greek word for “sins” (paraptomata) literally means “fall beside,” in other words, a “failing.” Paul used it to express anything that deviated from God’s ways. But God, through Christ’s death on the cross, was bringing back all people—Jews and Greeks alike—who had fallen (Romans 5:10; Ephesians 2:14–17). Although we were enemies of God, Christ reached out to us, saving us from certain destruction. He even washed us in order that we might approach God with clean hearts (Colossians 1:21–22).

5:20–21           We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. ^NIV Ambassadors are official representatives of one country to another. In the first century, an ambassador was an elderly man of high rank who would travel to another country with messages from the monarch of his country. These messages might be simply congratulations at appropriate occasions, or it could be an official censure. Paul described himself and his coworkers as Christ’s ambassadors, representatives of Christ to the world (5:19).

Paul was a spokesmen for God. The message he preached was, in fact, God’s appeal to the world. Paul obtained his authority to preach from God himself. God had not given this authority to Paul because he was an especially gifted speaker or had the right credentials. God simply had chosen Paul to deliver God’s appeal. If Paul ever deviated from God’s message, he would lose his authority to speak (see 1 Corinthians 12:3).

What was Paul’s message that he had to deliver on Christ’s behalf? It was to be reconciled to God. Paul phrased this command in the passive tense. He wasn’t commanding people to reconcile themselves; they were incapable of doing that. Instead, Paul was announcing that they could be reconciled to God and that they should accept God’s free gift of reconciliation. Paul did not announce this message halfheartedly. He implored—even urged and pleaded—everyone who would listen to him to accept God’s free gift of salvation. It was extremely urgent, for it would change their eternal destiny.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us. ^NIV Although Jesus was completely innocent, God made him who had no sin to be sin for us. There are three views on what Paul meant by this: (1) Jesus was made a sinner when he died on the cross. This, of course, is not true. Jesus did not break the law at any point. He could not be a sinless sacrifice (Hebrews 7:26) and a sinner at the same time. Rather it was “for us” that he bore the consequences of our sin: death. (2) Still others have seen this as a reference to the Jewish sacrificial system. God made Jesus (1 Corinthians 5:7), although perfect and unblemished, into a sin offering for all humanity (see Romans 3:25; Hebrews 13:11–14). Although Paul does teach that Christ was a sin offering for us, and the Greek word for “sin,” hamartia, can also be used for sin offering, it would have been confusing for Paul to say “he who had no sin offering became a sin offering.” (3) Most likely the meaning is that Christ bore the consequences of, or punishment for, our sins, as stated in Galatians 3:13:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” (niv)

In other words, God made Jesus, who was completely innocent and perfect, identify himself with sin so he could take it away.

In life, rarely will anyone claim perfection. Sin is a part of life, so much so that many people simply expect to encounter dishonesty, self-centeredness, and greed in other people. If they don’t, they are surprised. That is why many people in Jesus’ day expressed surprise at Jesus’ life. They could not find anything wrong with him (see Pilate’s words in Luke 23:4–22, the centurion’s words in Luke 23:41–48, and God’s testimony in Matthew 3:17; 17:5). The disciples, Jesus’ closest friends and followers, did not find any evil in his actions (see Peter’s testimony in 1 Peter 2:22 and John’s testimony in 1 John 3:5). Here Paul used the Greek word meaning “to know” in a personal way in the expression had no sin. Thus Paul was asserting that Jesus never knew what it meant to sin: He always followed God’s ways.

 So that in him we might become the righteousness of God. ^NIV Jesus bore the consequences of believers’ sin for their sakes. Since Jesus, who was perfect and innocent, took on the penalty of sin—death itself, Jesus can now give those who believe in him his righteousness. His perfect righteousness can cover our corrupt and imperfect lives. When people trust in Christ, they make an exchange—their sin for his righteousness. Believers’ sin was placed on Jesus at his crucifixion. His righteousness is given to believers at their conversion. This is what Christians mean by Christ’s atonement for sin.

If it were not for the reality contained in 5:21, all of Christianity would be wishful thinking, a “hope so” religion. Here, Paul clarified the eternal transaction whereby each believer is passed “from death to life” (John 5:24 niv). How grateful we should be for God’s kindness to us!

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Sources

^NIV Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version^®. NIV^®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

^NLT Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

^[1] Bruce B. Barton and Grant R. Osborne, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Life Application Bible Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1999), 351–360.