Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 2 Corinthians · About this commentary
Ambassadors of Reconciliation
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
16 Therefore we know no one according to the flesh from now on. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no more. · WEB
One word appears five times in three verses and always runs the same direction, and the letter's central sentence describes two transfers that trade places.
Therefore we know no one according to the flesh from now on. The standard by which Corinth had been grading him — presence, delivery, credentials 2 Corinthians 10:10 — is declared obsolete. And he applies it against himself first: even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no more.
Verse 17 states why the old measures cannot apply: if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The phrase occurs once in this letter, and what follows is not improvement but replacement — the old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.
Then the word that governs the paragraph. Some form of reconcile appears five times in verses 18 to 20, and its direction never varies.
God reconciled us to himself. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. The subject is always God and the object is always people. Nothing in the passage reconciles God to anyone, and nothing suggests he needed it — which locates the whole difficulty on the human side of the breach.
How it was done is stated as an omission: not reckoning to them their trespasses. An accounting term, and the ledger is not balanced but left unposted.
What is then handed over is a job, twice: the ministry of reconciliation, and the word of reconciliation. The message and the office arrive together.
Verse 20 names the office in terms that sit oddly with a defense of authority: we are therefore ambassadors on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
An ambassador carries the full weight of the one who sent him, and this one begs. And the appeal is addressed to the party that has to move, which is the point of the whole direction of the word.
Verse 21 is the sentence the letter is built on: for him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Two transfers, opposite in direction, in one clause. Neither party in the exchange receives what it brought. And the phrasing is not that he was made a sinner or guilty but sin — the abstract standing in for the whole, matched on the other side by the righteousness of God rather than merely righteous people.
settled What this mark means