2 Corinthians 5:20-21

2 Corinthians 5:20 to 2 Corinthians 6:10. Paul proceeds to expound and apply the relationship between himself and his converts based upon this ministry. He acts in Christ's stead when he beseeches men to allow themselves to be reconciled to God. And what Paul did for Christ, God did through Christ. Once more he points to the supreme illustration and proof of God's will to reconcile men. He had treated Christ, the Son of His love, though He had no experimental knowledge of sin, as though He had sinned and deserved the punishment of death. And He had done this for man's sake, in order that he might participate in the Divine righteousness. The strange expression made him to be sin is probably due to Paul's shrinking from saying made him a sinner, which would also have been open to misconception; for the same reason, in Galatians 3:13 he says, Christ was made a curse, when cursed would have been in accordance with the citation from Deuteronomy which follows.

It is the grace, the undeserved mercy, of God that is offered in this message of reconciliation, and while Christ's ambassadors, as fellow-workers with God and Christ, entreat the world to accept that grace, they entreat those who have already accepted it (you) to ensure that their acceptance be fruitful. (In a parenthesis he illustrates by a quotation from Isaiah 49 the blessed character of the moment.) Accordingly the apostles so shape their conduct that they may approve themselves to men as nothing less than the agents and emissaries of God. The quality of endurance is exhibited in severe experiences arranged in three triplets, with which we should compare the list in 2 Corinthians 11:23; then follows the enumeration of many other qualities of the ministry. It is further distinguished by a message which springs from truthfulness, and by the use of weapons of righteousness alike for offence and defence. In the antitheses that follow (2 Corinthians 6:8 f.) the injurious representations are to be understood as the opinion of Paul's opponents. It is they who regard him as obscure, as moribund, as chastised by God. In 2 Corinthians 6:10 both members of each antithesis probably represent the genuine experience of the apostle.