The Chosen Key Word in this Chapter is “Ambassador” it comes from the Greek Word “presbeuo” which means “to serve as an ambassador.”
Paul describes exactly what happens to a person the moment they come to Christ, and the mission that follows. Welcome to Bible Life Basics Chapter Reviews, I am Chris and this is 2 Corinthians 5.
Paul compares the believer’s earthly body to a temporary tent, knowing that if it is destroyed, they have “a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,” and describes genuine longing to be clothed with this heavenly dwelling, not wanting to be found naked, but to have mortality swallowed up by life, with the Spirit given as a guarantee of what is to come. He explains that while living in the body, believers are absent from the Lord, walking by faith rather than sight, yet remain confident and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord.
Paul explains that whether present or absent, his aim is simply to be pleasing to Him, since everyone must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, to receive according to what they have done, whether good or bad. Knowing “the terror of the Lord,” Paul persuades others, though he insists God already knows his heart is genuine, not seeking to boast in outward appearance, since “the love of Christ constraineth us,” reasoning that Christ died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.
Paul explains that believers no longer regard anyone merely by outward, worldly standards, since anyone in Christ is “a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” He describes God reconciling the world to Himself through Christ, not counting people’s sins against them, and committing to believers “the word of reconciliation,” making them “ambassadors for Christ,” “presbeuo” in Greek, as though God Himself were pleading through them, “be ye reconciled to God,” explaining that God made Christ, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, “that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
Paul’s description of believers as ambassadors reframes the entire Christian life as a representative mission, carrying God’s own message of reconciliation to a world He is actively reaching out to. That single phrase, the love of Christ constrains us, captures exactly what should motivate that ambassadorship, not obligation, but genuine, compelling gratitude.
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