“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new,” 2 Corinthians 5:17.
Paul describes our resurrected bodies in full detail as being released in Christ as better than ever before. In 1Corinthians 15:46-58, Paul makes it plain that in Christ our bodies will be better than we can imagine, without sickness or disease. In verse 55 he asks death, “Where is your sting? Grave, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But we are going to be better than we can imagine because of our releasing. Thanks be to God, which gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ, that our bodies will be better than we can imagine because we are in Him and He is in us.
“By His power to rule all things, He will change our sinful bodies, our vile bodies and make them like His own glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself,” Philippians 3:21.
We know that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. This is why we walk by faith, not by sight. There, we are away from the Lord. So we would rather be absent from the body. This is our reconciliation, our atonement, our redemption between God and humanity, that we would be present with the Lord. This is the life that we live to bring honor to God. Paul says everything I do and my companions is to bring honor to God.
We are lead by the love of Christ to do the will of God. Christ died for us, so that we would also be dead to our old lives—no longer living to please ourselves, but to please God. It is Christ who died and rose again for us. This is why we are committed to the will of God. We are new beings on the inside and the Holy Spirit is working in us to keep us at the place of new life. The Holy Spirit is our guarantee that God will give us everlasting bodies. We are not turning over a new life; we are in a new life. We are a new creation for we are in Christ. God has brought us back to Himself by making us His righteous children. We are no longer strangers, foreigners, or enemies of God.
Verse 20 tells us we are ambassadors for Christ: “…as God did beseech you by us, that we pray you in Christ’s stead. We have been sent to speak for Christ. God is calling to you through us that you will speak His word.
You are His ambassadors, Christ’s ambassadors. To be an ambassador is to be reconciled to God to do the work of Christ. We don’t need title holders. We need word speakers. God made Christ (who knew no sin) to repent your sins for you, so that you might be made whole in the righteous image of God Himself. When you realize this, you will become what Jesus is: God’s ‘word speaker.’
He did it for you. Now what will you do for Him? Will you be an official representative for Christ and speak the word of reconciliation to the world? Will you fulfill the grant commission as Christ’s ambassador?
