‘But all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses, and having committed to us the word of reconciliation.'
Having been tightly grasped by the love of Christ, and having experienced the powerful effect of the word of the cross, and having been made one with Him in His death and resurrection (2 Corinthians 5:14-15), we see both men and Jesus from different perspectives to what we had before (2 Corinthians 5:16), and we have become new creatures in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). And now he stresses that all this is of God.
‘All things are of God.' Whether it be our salvation in Christ, the newness of our thoughts, or the new creatures that we have become. All that happens to us spiritually (‘all things'), is because God has taken the initiative and reconciled us to Himself through Christ Jesus.
Alternatively he may simply be making a general declaration that everything (‘all things') that happens is of God, and especially His reconciling work.
Either way he is declaring that it was God and God alone who brought about the means of reconciliation and, as a result, our reconciliation to Him. It was God Who took the initiative, through Christ, as a result of which the consequences he has described followed. Paul probably has very much in mind the way that God arrested him on the Damascus road (Acts 9). His mad career was brought to a sudden halt by the sovereign power of God, Who reconciled him to Himself. Yet in the end it is true for all who come to Him. He chooses whom He will reconcile, and then brings about the reconciliation (indeed in one senses has already brought it about) through Christ (see Ephesians 2:13-18; Colossians 1:20-22). All we can do is respond to His initiative, as Paul did.
The need for ‘reconciliation' suggests that there is enmity and hostility to be dealt with (Colossians 1:21). Once Paul had not thought of himself as hostile to God. He would have sworn that he was God's true servant. That was why he had persecuted the Christians. But God had been forced to show him that his attitude to Christ demonstrated his enmity against God. He was rejecting what God really was. He was at enmity with God's demands (compare Romans 8:7; Ephesians 2:15-16; James 4:4). The same is true for all men. They may have a general belief in God. But their hearts are not with Him. Their hearts too are at enmity with Him as is proved by their lives (Romans 1:18 following). All therefore need to be ‘reconciled' if they are to know God (see Romans 5:10). And that does not just mean that they are willing to be reconciled, it means that somehow God has to become reconciled to them and what they are.
For God is ‘hostile' to us because of what we are, because of our sinfulness and rebellion. It is not that He wishes enmity, it is that in us there is that which arouses His abhorrence, that which He cannot overlook, because it is contrary to His nature. So the result must be that God has a moral antipathy towards us because of our sin. That being the case provision has somehow to be found for the removal of sin, that sin which is abominable in God's eyes, for while our sins are still reckoned to us God cannot be reconciled to us because He is holy and just. But through His death Christ has made it possible for our sins not to be reckoned to us, simply because once we believe in Him they are reckoned to Him. Thus can we be reconciled to God, and He to us, by believing in Him.
And having reconciled us to Himself God has now given to us the ministry of reconciliation. Are we now reconciled to Him? Then He wants the offer of reconciliation to be taken to others. It is not for us, and for us alone. There are more whom He would call. And what is the message? It is that ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses (misdeeds, that in which men fall short)'.
‘God was in (or ‘through') Christ.' This may mean that God was actually acting in Christ, that Christ was to be seen as God at work. But had the incarnation been specifically in mind we might perhaps have expected reference to ‘Jesus'. So if we translate ‘in' the emphasis is more on God being in Christ in His pre-incarnation being (1 Peter 1:20), predetermined to die from the foundation of the world (Acts 2:23) as the One determined from the very beginning, although resulting in the incarnation and crucifixion. Alternatively we may better see it as meaning that God was Himself acting ‘through and in Christ' in His work of redemption.
The offer now being made to ‘the world' makes it clear that God has established a means of reconciliation which is open to the whole world. If man was to be reconciled to God, brought back into acceptability and friendly relations with Him, a means which made that reconciliation possible must be established. It was not just a matter of man laying down his arms. What he had done in the past, which had aroused God's antipathy to sin, had somehow to be dealt with. And it was in Christ that God did all that was necessary for that reconciliation to be made possible, so that it could be offered to men and so that their sins might not, if they believed in Christ, be ‘reckoned against them'. He dealt with the cause of enmity, the law of commandments contained in ordinances (Ephesians 2:1; Romans 7:11) which pointed the finger at us and our sin, by bearing the punishment in His own Son. He Himself paid the price of sin (1 Corinthians 6:20; 1 Peter 1:18-19; Titus 2:14). He made a way of atonement, of ‘at-one-ment', a means by which what was contrary to Him could be removed (Romans 3:24-25; 1 John 2:1-2), so that we could come to Him. And He accomplished it through the death of His Son.
It should be noted that elsewhere Scripture makes perfectly clear that all will not be reconciled. The point is not that all will be reconciled, but that what He has done is qualitatively sufficient for such reconciliation, yes, more than sufficient. If need be it would have been sufficient for a thousand universes. It is infinite compared with the finite. So if men refuse it they only have themselves to blame.