§§ 2 Cor 5:20-21. Conclusion from what precedes concerning 2 Corinthians 5:20–21
“For Christ, therefore, we are ambassadors, as though God were exhorting through us.” Paul means to say: since it is the preaching of reconciliation that has been entrusted to us, and since this reconciliation has been won for the world through Christ and first proclaimed by him, therefore we are ambassadors for Christ and in Christ’s place (ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ), we represent his person and his cause; and since it is God who has transferred this office to us, it is also God who exhorts through us.
And now follows the exhortation: “We beseech you in Christ’s stead: be reconciled with God,” that is, by faith and repentance appropriate to yourselves the reconciliation which God has won for the world in Christ. For this purpose, however, the goodness and mercy of God are to be set before you; hence verse 21: “Him who knew no sin, he made to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” The καί, which the Recepta places before ὑπὲρ, is very weakly attested; moreover, the abrupt manner of expression here also fits well with the heightened emotional movement of the Apostle.
τὸν μὴ γνόντα ἁμαρτίαν (“him who knew no sin”) is to be understood from the practical point of view, that is, of Christ’s sinlessness; and the μή, as a particle of subjective negation, refers to the conception of God (Winer, p. 430): precisely because Christ was sinless, God made him to be sin; for only the sinless one was suited to bear the sin of all.
ἐν ἁμαρτίᾳ ποιεῖν does not here stand, as often, for the Hebrew חַטָּאת in the sense of “sin-offering” (Augustine, Ambrose, Erasmus, and others), nor yet merely as an abstract for the concrete = ἁμαρτωλός (“sinner”). God did not merely cause Christ to appear as a sinner (as a supposed transgressor), but this is stronger: he made him the representative of sin, upon whom the guilt of the sin of the whole world was laid, as it were a personified sin, so that in his death sin might die in its totality, and that we in him might become perfectly righteous before God. Compare κατάρα in Galatians 3:13.
The δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ is the righteousness which God gives, which therefore also alone is valid before him (cf. Romans 1:17). Paul here uses the strong expression γενώμεθα δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ instead of γενώμεθα δίκαιοι θεοῦ or ἔχωμεν δικαιοσύνην θεοῦ, in order to set the contrast with ἁμαρτία most sharply in relief; at the same time, however, also to express that in Christ we are truly and inwardly justified, that righteousness becoming, as it were, the inmost essence of those reconciled through him.
2 Cor 6:1 ff.
The first verses of this chapter, vv. 1–10, attach themselves without any interruption very closely to what precedes. As ambassadors and συνεργοί (co-workers) of Christ, Paul exhorts the Corinthians not to receive the grace of God in vain; and in order to give this exhortation greater emphasis, and at the same time also to complete his self-defense, he returns to his conduct in the administration of his apostolic office.
“As co-workers we also exhort you that you do not receive the grace of God in vain.” As to the connection of thought with what precedes, it is most naturally understood thus: the καταλλαγή (reconciliation) of 2 Corinthians 5:18–20 stands in the relation of advancement to περισσεύειν in 5:20, and the exhortation here expressed, μὴ εἰς κενὸν δέξασθαι, corresponds and coincides exactly with the earlier plea, καταλλάγητε τῷ θεῷ. Thus: “As Christ’s ambassadors we beseech you: be reconciled with God, who has given us in Christ the true sin-offering; but as co-workers we also exhort you at the same time, that you may not receive this grace of reconciliation which God offers you in Christ in vain, that is, without effect in faith, which would be the case if your subsequent life did not correspond to your faith.”
From this line of thought, as it presents itself naturally, it appears first that the ἡμεῖς in συνεργοῦντες refers to Christ, so that we have to supply Χριστῷ, and not with most interpreters to Θεῷ (according to 1 Corinthians 3:9) or to others with ὑμῖν or ἡμῖν Χριστῷ. Then it appears that we are best to take the μὴ with δέξασθαι, as often with verbs of exhortation, from the preceding action from which one is exhorted, to which one is exhorted. Thus the Vulgate, which has recipiam, and many interpreters translate: “that you may not have received,” after Erasmus: ne committatis, ut, semel a peccatis exemti, in pristinam vitam relabentes in vanum receperitis gratiam Dei. So also Estius.
2 Cor 6:2. The exhortation just expressed is now grounded by the Apostle incidentally in a parenthesis: “For he (God) says: ‘In an acceptable time I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.’” This passage is cited exactly from Isaiah 49:8 according to the LXX. There Jehovah speaks to his “servant,” that is, to the Messiah, who is conceived as pleading and suffering for sinful humanity: “In the day of favor (Hebrew רָצוֹן, that is, when the time of grace has come, when the promise is fulfilled) I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you,” and in you, at the same time, all humanity groaning under the bondage of sin.
The preterites in the Hebrew and the aorists in the Greek are not to be taken with some as futures, but rather the speaking God looks upon what is future as already accomplished. — To this quotation Paul adds for exhortation: “Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” Now therefore the moment has come of which the prophet spoke; do not let this moment, this now, pass you by unused, without receiving in faith, fruitfully, the grace of reconciliation which is offered to you in Christ. The compound εὐπρόσδεκτος (cf. 8:12; Romans 15:16, 31) is stronger than the simple δεκτός. Thus Estius: ecce nunc tempus, non dico acceptum, sed acceptissimum.
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