“Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:20b-21)
As we enter into the season of Lent 2024, we would do well to remember that Jesus has called each believer to be His ambassador, to be His instrument of love, truth, and wisdom to our unsaved loved ones, friends, and neighbors. And here we see in Paul’s letter to the Corinthian believers, that the message we must preach is the mercy of God in Christ Jesus, mercy that He is extending through us to all who are enslaved by sin and the darkness of the devil’s lies. And in these days of chaos and division, the number of these is so very great. So the call is urgent.
The message we must proclaim is serious: all human beings are sinners, condemned to eternal separation from God. But the good news is that Almighty God has reconciled all humanity to Himself, not we to Him. This is a concept that is quite foreign to billions in or world, especially those who follow popular cultural ideas and religions which indicate that humans can do certain acts and deeds to make themselves right with god, whatever form they may think he or it takes.
God the Holy Spirit will work through the message we proclaim set free those captive to such lies. God is the one in Christ Jesus who has acted to bring about reconciliation. Jesus became our sin-offering on the altar of God just as the Jews of old would offer a lamb in their place on the Temple altar. God placed all the sin of the whole world on Jesus so that He experienced our punishment. He suffered so that we humans could participate in the benefit of His sinless perfection and obedience. God the Father identified His Son Jesus with humanity in our alienation, our sinfulness, and our lost state so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. He takes our sin. We are given His righteous nature. We become new creations so that when God sees us, He sees us in Christ as perfect. And that is what we must proclaim. Now is the time as the chaos of sin’s darkness envelops our world.