2 Corinthians 5.11-21 — The Freedom of Dependence

Reconciliation.

A word of importance, sobriety, and hope. In its essence there is a before and an after. Something once broken is healed. What was separated is brought near. Those who stood as enemies are made friends. And yet, how easily we walk away from fractured things. We know something of what repair may require. Time. Energy. Sacrifice. The lowering of ourselves enough to ask forgiveness or the vulnerability required to receive it. There are moments when preservation seems safer than reconciliation, and the flesh is quite willing to make that choice.

Flesh will pursue preservation, not reconciliation.

Reconciliation Comes from God

But God.

Paul writes, “Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:18). Reconciliation is from God. Before there is a ministry entrusted to us, before there is an ambassador sent, before there is a plea upon our lips, there is something God has done.

He reconciled us to Himself through Christ.

Who else could offer such a salvation? Could man afford the atonement required for another man’s redemption? The blood carried to the cross would already be stained. Sinful humanity could not provide the spotless sacrifice reconciliation required.

So from the Father came His spotless Son.

What Human Eyes Could Not See at the Cross

Those spectating the cross saw a man hanging on a tree. Some saw a defeated man whose time had run out and whose curtain had fallen. They had watched Holy walk among them. They had heard Him speak. They had seen the works of God before them. Yet human sight could not behold what was actually happening there.

They could see the cross. They could not see reconciliation’s work.

But they could not see the sin of the world being laid upon the sinless One. They could not see the full judgment that sin required falling upon Christ. But there was One who saw in full because it was His doing, His plan, His joy.

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

“God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19).

“I Can Do Nothing from Myself”: The Dependence of the Son

And this is where another phrase deserves to linger.

“I can do nothing from Myself” (John 5:30).

Before such surrender is ever spoken from our lips, it was spoken by the Son of God and Son of Man. Are there any more powerful words of incarnation’s humility and submission? The incarnate Son walked in the freedom of utter dependence upon His Father. He saw what the Father was doing. He heard from the Father. He spoke what the Father gave Him to speak. He did not seek His own will, but the will of the One who sent Him.

“I do what I see the Father doing” (John 5:19).

“I speak as the Father has told Me” (John 12:50).

“I do not seek My own will” (John 5:30).

There is a beautiful consistency to it.

The Freedom Found in Dependence

And perhaps there is a freedom here that we often miss. We tend to imagine dependence as limitation. We imagine freedom as control, as knowing what will happen, determining what should happen, and possessing enough strength to make it happen.

But listen again to the Son.

“I can do nothing from Myself” (John 5:30).

The future did not need to be carried by Him because it rested with His Father. The plan did not need to be seized because it belonged to His Father. The time, place, and occasion remained with His Father. Christ knew the plan, but He did not assume the plan in His incarnation.

There is rest in that kind of surrender. The mind does not need to win every battle. The will does not need to control every outcome. Even the emotions may become settled beneath the confidence that what belongs to the Father remains safely in the Father’s hands.

And this dependent, obedient Son walked all the way to the cross. Reconciliation required death, and flesh will fight its grave to the end. No fallen human being could accomplish redemption’s call. Only One without the seed of sin could offer Himself in perfect obedience.

Christ did.

A New Creation and a New Breath

And His obedience did not end in the grave.

With His last breath, what appeared to human eyes to be defeat became the place where sin’s power, shame, and condemnation were answered. Then the Son rose, and the life that came from the grave became the life into which those who believe are brought.

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Not the resuscitation of the flesh. This is a new breath of life. A breath always intended but never experienced before by the one who believes. A heartbeat found in Christ that beats with His life.

We must learn to walk with this new breath. Those first movements of faith may feel uncertain, but the life itself is not uncertain. Its source is Christ. Faith learns its first step in Him, and those first steps begin to mature into following Him. Sometimes that following looks like running after Him. Sometimes it looks like staying still before Him.

But we are no longer standing where we once stood. We do not stand in shame.

In Christ, we stand reconciled.

We stand clothed in the righteousness of the One who loved us and gave Himself for us. The old life with its controlling ambitions, appearances, and self-preservation is passing away. “The love of Christ controls us” (2 Corinthians 5:14). We no longer live for ourselves, but “for Him who died and rose again on their behalf” (2 Corinthians 5:15).

The Ministry of Reconciliation Entrusted to Us

And this new creation has a word, a pleading, a witness.

“He has committed to us the word of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:19).

He “gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18).

Then Paul writes words that should stop us for a moment: “God is pleading through us” (2 Corinthians 5:20).

How is that possible? We are not “part 2” of God’s plan.

From eternity past, the Father’s heart has held one plan and one means through whom that plan would be fulfilled: His Son. God’s reconciliation plan remains the same on both sides of the cross.

Before the cross, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19). After the cross, the plea of reconciliation continues in His Son through His Spirit who now lives within those who have been made new.

The Father willing, Christ obeying, the Spirit witnessing, and us participating.

“Not I, But Christ”

This is where “Not I but Christ” (Galatians 2:20) becomes more than a phrase upon our lips. His yoke of surrender is now ours. The dependence we see in Christ becomes the freedom in which we learn to walk with Him. We participate as new creations whose very breath comes from Christ.

What else could that breath say?

Could it boast in the flesh? Could it draw attention to appearance as if that is where beauty resides? Could a life that exists only because of Christ make itself the center of the story?

No. This breath draws its life from Christ and not self.

And so the ambassador’s plea rises naturally from the life he has received: “We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20). This is not the voice of someone standing above another person. It is the witness of someone who knows reconciliation had to come from God because he could never produce it himself.

The reconciled become ambassadors of reconciliation. The new creation carries the word of the One who made it new. Faith’s hearing becomes tuned to the Word of God. Faith’s sight begins looking for God’s activity to join. Faith’s heart learns to abide in Christ, filled with the life that comes only from Him.

The plan remains the Father’s. The life remains Christ’s. The witness is carried by the Spirit.

And we participate.

The breath Christ has given becomes a breath that pleads for another to come and live.

“Be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20).

We do not manufacture reconciliation. We live in the reconciliation God has given us in Christ. We do not carry the future. We abide in the One who holds it. We do not create the life or the witness. We receive His life and follow where He leads.

Sometimes that following is running after Him.

Sometimes it is staying still before Him.

But always, it is dependence.

“Not I, but Christ” (Galatians 2:20).

May the fear of the Lord rise within us as we behold, believe, and live in God’s ministry of reconciliation to us. And may this new breath He has given us spend itself gladly bearing witness to the Son in whom reconciliation, righteousness, and life have become ours.