Brief Bible commentary on 2 Corinthians 5:4-21
The love of Christ overwhelms us whenever we reflect on this: that if one person has died for all, then all have died. The reason Christ died for all was so that the living should live no longer for themselves but for Christ, who died and was raised to life for them. And so from now on, we don’t look on anyone in terms of mere human judgment. Even if we did once regard Christ in these terms, that is not how we know Christ now. And for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation. The old order has passed away; now everything is new! All of this is from God, who ransomed us through Christ—and made us ministers of that reconciliation. This means that through Christ, the world was fully reconciled again to God, who didn’t hold our transgressions against us, but instead entrusted us with this message of reconciliation. This makes us Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making the appeal directly through us. Therefore we implore you in Christ’s name: be reconciled to God. For our sake, God made the One who was without sin to be sin, so that by this means we might become the very holiness of God.