Reconciled to God, Now Ambassadors of that Reconciliation
From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 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 5:16–21 ESV
The context of this passage is that Jesus died for all that would turn from their self-lives and live for Him. Because anyone anywhere, with just the slightest internal repentance, can believe and begin a life of faith in Christ, we are to judge nobody. So we don’t judge by outward appearances.
Once we begin to regard people according to Christ’s purchase of them, we can begin the grand work of reconciling person to person. Think about how we regard people, how we size them up. If it is by their sin or by something they’ve done wrong against us, Jesus has taken that over. Now when you judge or look at them, in reality, that sin isn’t there but they are covered in Christ’s righteousness – His perfection.
You see this happening in Jesus’ friends on the gospels. Jesus brings together Levi(Matthew) who is an aristocrat-traitor-tax collector and the impulsive, overtaxed, blue-collar, fisherman named Peter. Drop in a couple of Israeli nationalists end-timers (Philip and Nathaniel) and a Greek named Steve and you don’t have a melting pot, you have a test tube of explosives!
But they weren’t holding onto their old ways or holding each other’s ways against them. They became ambassadors for Christ. Having every evil thing covered over by Christ, they were able to join together and become one in heart and mind (Acts 2). It’s fun to hang out with a bunch of people that are like-minded about the same hobby, interest, experience, etc. but when the Body of Christ comes together and the only thing we have in common is Christ, the Kingdom has come and God’s will is being done.
Reconciliation doesn’t happen on accident. We will not drift into it by letting it happen. No ambassador stays home and waits for visitors. Let us act on the reconciliation that God has worked on our behalf, and pass that news on to others.