Optional Memorial: Our Lady’s Saturday
From: 2 Corinthians 5:14-21
The Ministry of Reconciliation (Continuation)
[16] From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even
though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus
no longer. [17] Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has
passed away, behold, the new has come. [18] All this is from God, who through
Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; [19]
that is, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their tres-
passes against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. [20] So
we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We beseech
you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. [21] For our sake he made him to
be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of
God.
*********************************************************************************************
Commentary:
14-15. The Apostle briefly describes the effects of Christ’s death, a death he un-
derwent out of love for man; elsewhere at greater length (cf. Rom 6:1-11; 14:7-9;
Gal 2:19-20; 2 Tim 2: 11) he goes into this doctrine which is so closely connec-
ted with the solidarity that exists between Jesus Christ and the members of his
mystical body. Christ, the head of that body, died for all his members: and they
have mystically died to sin with and in him. Christ’s death, is moreover, the price
paid for men—their ransom which sets them free from the slavery of sin, death
and the devil. As a result of it we belong no longer to ourselves but to Christ (cf.
1 Cor 6:19), and the new life—in grace and freedom—which he has won for us we
must live for his sake: “None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to him-
self. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord [...]. For to
this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and
of the living” (Rom 14:7-9).
“What follows from this?”, St Francis de Sales asks. “I seem to hear the voice
of the Apostle like a peal of thunder startling our heart: It is easy to see, Chris-
tians, what Christ desired by dying for us. What did he desire but that we should
become like him? ‘That those who live might live no longer for themselves but for
him who for their sake died and was raised.’ How powerful a consequence is this
in the matter of love! Jesus Christ died for us; by his death he has given us life;
we only live because he died; he died for us, by us, and in us; our life then is no
longer ours, but belongs to him who has purchased it for us by his death: we are
therefore no more to live to ourselves but to him; not in ourselves but in him; nor
for ourselves but for him” (”Treatise on the Love of God”, book 7, chap. 8).
“The love of Christ controls us”, urges us: with these words St Paul sums up
what motivates his tireless apostolic activity — the love of Jesus, so immense
that it impels him to spend every minute of his life bringing this same love to all
mankind. The love of Christ should also inspire all other Christians to commit
themselves to respond to Christ’s love, and it should fill them with a desire to
bring to all souls the salvation won by Christ. “We are urged on by the charity
of Christ (cf. 2 Cor 5:14) to take upon our shoulders a part of this task of saving
souls. Look: the redemption was consummated when Jesus died on the Cross,
in shame and glory, ‘a stumbling block’ to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles (1
Cor 1:23). But the redemption will, by the will of God, be carried out continually
until our Lord’s time comes. It is impossible to live according to the heart of Je-
sus Christ and not to know that we are sent, as he was, ‘to save sinners’ (1 Tim
1:15), with the clear realization that we ourselves need to trust in the mercy of
God more and more every day. As a result, we will foster in ourselves a vehe-
ment desire to live as co-redeemers with Christ, to save all souls with him”
(”Christ Is Passing By”, 120f).
16-17. “Even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view”: Paul
seems to be referring to knowledge based only on external appearances and on
human criteria. Paul’s Judaizing opponents do look on things from a human point
of view, as Paul himself did before his conversion. Nothing he says here can be
taken as implying that St Paul knew Jesus personally during his life on earth (he
goes on to say that now he does not know him personally); what he is saying is
that previously he judged Christ on the basis of his own Pharisee prejudices;
now, on the other hand, he knows him as God and Savior of men.
In v. 17 he elaborates on this contrast between before and after his conversion,
as happens to Christians through Baptism. For through the grace of Baptism a
person becomes a member of Christ’s body, he lives by and is “in Christ” (cf.,
e.g., Gal 6:15; Eph 2:10, 15f; Cor 3:9f); the Redemption brings about a new crea-
tion. Commenting on this passage St Thomas Aquinas reminds us that creation
is the step from non-being to being, and that in the supernatural order, after origi-
nal sin, “a new creation was necessary, whereby (creatures) would be made with
the life of grace; this truly is a creation from nothing, because those without
grace are nothing (cf. 1 Cor 13:2) [...]. St Augustine says, ‘for sin is nothingness,
and men become nothingness when they sin’” (”Commentary on 2 Cor, ad loc.”).
“The new has come”: St John Chrysostom points out the radical change which
the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ has brought about, and the consequent
difference between Judaism and Christianity: “Instead of the earthly Jerusalem,
we have received that Jerusalem which is above; and instead of a material tem-
ple we have seen a spiritual temple; instead of tablets of stone, holding the di-
vine Law, our own bodies have become the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit; instead
of circumcision, Baptism; instead of manna, the Lord’s body; instead of water
from a rock, blood from his side; instead of Moses’ or Aaron’s rod, the cross of
the Savior; instead of the promised land, the kingdom of heaven” (”Hom on 2
Cor”, 11).
18-21. The reconciliation of mankind with God—whose friendship we lost through
original sin—has been brought about by Christ’s death on the cross. Jesus, who
is like men in all things “yet without sinning” (Heb 4:14), bore the sins of men
(cf. s 53:4-12) and offered himself on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for all
those sins (cf. 1 Pet 2:22-25), thereby reconciling men to God; through this sa-
crifice we became the righteousness of God, that is, we are justified, made just
in God’s sight (cf. Rom 1:17; 3:24-26 and notes). The Church reminds us of this
in the rite of sacramental absolution: “God, the Father of mercies, through the
death and resurrection of his son has reconciled the world to himself [...].”
Our Lord entrusted the Apostles with this ministry of reconciliation (v. 18), this
“message of reconciliation” (v. 19), to pass it on to all men: elsewhere in the
New Testament it is described as the “message of salvation” (Acts 13:26), the
“word of grace” (Acts 14:3; 20:32), the “word of life” ( 1 Jn 1: 1). Thus, the Apos-
tles were our Lord’s ambassadors to men, to whom St Paul addresses a pres-
sing call: “be reconciled to God”, that is, apply to yourselves the reconciliation
obtained by Jesus Christ—which is done mainly through the sacraments of Bap-
tism and Penance. “The Lord Jesus instituted in his Church the sacrament of
Penance, so that those who have committed sins after Baptism might be recon-
ciled with God, whom they have offended, and with the Church itself whom they
have injured” (John Paul II, “Aperite Portas, 5).
21. “He made him to be sin”: obviously St Paul does not mean that Christ was
guilty of sin; he does not say “to be a sinner” but “to be sin”. “Christ had no sin,”
St Augustine says; “he bore sins, but he did not commit them” (”Enarrationes
in Psalmos”, 68, 1, 10).
According to the rite of atoning sacrifices (cf. Lev 4:24; 5:9; Num 19:9; Mic 6:7;
Ps 40:7) the word “sin”, corresponding to the Hebrew “asam”, refers to the ac-
tual act of sacrifice or to the victim being offered. Therefore, this phrase means
“he made him a victim for sin” or “a sacrifice for sin”. it should be remembered
that in the Old Testament nothing unclean or blemished could be offered to God;
the offering of an unblemished animal obtained God’s pardon for the transgres-
sion which one wanted to expiate. Since Jesus was the most perfect of victims
offered for us, he made full atonement for all sins. In the Letter to the Hebrews,
when comparing Christ’s sacrifice with that of the priests of the Old Testament,
it is expressly stated that “every priest stands daily at his service, offering re-
peatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ
had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand
of God, then to wait until his enemies should be made a stool for his feet. For
by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (Heb
10:11-14).
This concentrated sentence also echoes the Isaiah prophecy about the sacrifice
of the Servant of Yahweh; Christ, the head of the human race, makes men sha-
rers in the grace and glory he achieved through his sufferings: “upon him was the
chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed” (Is 53:5).
Jesus Christ, burdened with our sins and offering himself on the cross as a sa-
crifice for them, brought about the Redemption: the Redemption is the supreme
example both of God’s justice—which requires atonement befitting the offense—
and of his mercy, that mercy which makes him love the world so much that “he
gave his only Son” (Jn 3:16). “In the Passion and Death of Christ—in the fact
that the Father did not spare his own Son, but ‘for our sake made him sin’—abso-
lute justice is expressed, for Christ undergoes the Passion and Cross because
of the sins of humanity. This constitutes even a ‘superabundance’ of justice, for
the sins of man are ‘compensated for’ by the sacrifice of the Man-God. Neverthe-
less, this justice, which is properly justice ‘to God’s measure’, springs complete-
ly from love, from the love of the Father and of the Son, and completely bears
fruit in love. Precisely for this reason the divine justice revealed in the Cross of
Christ is to God’s measure’, because it springs from love and is accomplished
in love, producing fruits of salvation. The divine dimension of redemption is put
into effect not only by bringing justice to bear upon sin, but also by restoring to
love that creative power in man thanks to which he once more has access to
the fullness of life and holiness that come from God. In this way, redemption in-
volves the revelation of mercy in its fullness” (John Paul II, “Dives In Misercordia”,
7).
*********************************************************************************************
Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.