We Are Ambassadors for Christ

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 5:20–21 ESV

How clearly and brilliantly Paul lays out this case, that his mission, and our mission as Christians, is not for our defense, nor really for our cause. It is rather for Christ, for His cause and His glory. We are His ambassadors, not our own.

The background of this passage was the situation in the church of Corinth that was divided due to petty ego issues of the leaders. Some felt that their positions in the church where given to them so that they may exalt themselves and elevate their own reputations among people. They desperately needed God’s perspective on this matter, that they were to be, and we are to be, ambassadors for Christ, conveying His matchless love for people.

It is not about us. It is all about Him.

There is immeasurable potential for the individual in Christ. Since God has made Christ to be sin, even though He had committed no sin, neither did He know sin in His heart, now every person who believes, who is enlightened by the gospel and converted by the Spirit, becomes the very righteousness of God. As we read in Romans, in the gospel a righteousness is revealed that comes to us by faith and by faith alone. It is “from faith to faith” (Rom. 1:17).

So in denying our rights and taking up the cause of Christ, we have enhanced our status by immeasurable bounds. If we represented ourselves, we would have our own small little world, our own narrow self interests, our own reputation, or our family and friends to promote and protect. It would all inherently be about us and not about anything else — certainly not for the cause of or for the glory of Christ.

But neither would it be for the salvation of the sinner. Our goal would simply be to get people under our control for whatever benefits we think we could derive from them. And we would do that by trying to convince them that we could help them also in some manner. Not to say that we humans cannot help one another, for certainly we can, and some manner of helps can even be life-saving in nature.

But the whole gospel enterprise would then slide off into mere humanism or politics or public policies or psychologies — not eternal salvation, not God’s incredible grace to us through Christ, not the righteousness of Christ bestowed to the guilty sinner on the basis of grace, not conversion of heart and soul by the Holy Spirit, and not a joined-in and shared united mission as God’s ambassadors.

By being identified as “ambassadors” we have not lowered our rank at all, rather it is an incredible elevation for those who live and serve in this spirit. It is a privileged and exalted position to be an ambassador for the King of Kings and Lord of Lord, for the Savior of the whole world! Albert Barnes observed:

An ambassador is a minister of the highest rank, employed by one prince or state at the court of another, to manage the concerns of his own prince or state, and representing the dignity and power of his sovereign. — Webster. He is sent to do what the sovereign would himself do were he present. They are sent to make known the will of the sovereign, and to negotiate matters of commerce, of war, or of peace, and in general everything affecting the interests of the sovereign among the people to whom they are sent. At all times, and in all countries, an ambassador is a sacred character, and his person is regarded as inviolable, he is bound implicitly to obey the instructions of his sovereign, and as far as possible to do only what the sovereign would do were he, himself present.

When we have put aside our self-interests and taken up the message and cause of Christ — and I do not believe we can take up His cause until we have laid down our own — then we have been elevated to the highest position imaginable. And we are armed with the greatest message imaginable — forgiveness, reconciliation, grace, sonship, eternal life, and a new and eternal spiritual existence.

Sometimes, as it is in political alliances in this world, as Christ’s ambassadors we are sent to negotiate and proclaim the peace and salvation offered through Him to guilty sinners, and perhaps these sinners have sinned against us. Imagine a political ambassador sent to negotiate the end of a war or the establishment of peace, and he himself had lost his son in that war. His personal feelings would be of no account or no matter for consideration. He would represent the government that sent him and negotiate the terms that they dictated. That is the way it is for us as well.

So our feelings, our emotions, our fears, our concerns, our personal experiences — none of these are matters of eternal importance. We are privileged to receive and to share the bountiful grace of God in Christ toward all people — and we are responsible to do it as well. But in putting aside our personal feelings, and taking up the position of ambassadors for Christ, we also experience inner spiritual blessings that are immeasurable. We receive the peace of God that transcends all human understanding, the joy of the Lord, the joining into the eternal purposes of God in Christ Jesus, and the elation of seeing the salvation achieved through Christ being received by human beings.

As Christ said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).