“Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading
through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God”
– 2 Corinthians 5:20 –
An ambassador is a representative of a country to another country, or for an international organization, with a residence in the capitol of the foreign country. Diplomatic agents are divided into four classes, and the ambassador corresponds to the highest class.
As of the end of 2019, the ten countries with the most embassies in the world were China, with 276 embassies, the United States with 273, France with 267, Japan with 247, Russia with 242, Turkey with 235, Germany with 224, United Kingdom with 222, Spain with 215, and Brazil with 205.
There are three Hebrew words which mean ambassador: messenger, envoy, and interpreter. Paul presents himself as an ambassador for Christ – in chains (Eph. 6:20) – and considers that all believers ought to be ambassadors as well. An ambassador is a representative, an envoy, and an interpreter of the interests of the nation he or she represents.
- The nation we represent is heaven,
- The King is our Lord, and
- the mission entrusted to us is to reconcile and restore friendly relations between entities which became enemies due to sin.
Ambassadors do not have their own message or their own mission. Both their message as well as their mission are given to them by the One who commissions and sends them. Therefore, everything comes from God. He takes the initiative of salvation, sends His Son, send the Holy Spirit, sends the ambassador, and produces the growth and fruits of the labor.
This reconciliation happens in three timeframes:
Past: We have been reconciled because of Christ’s substitutive death.
Present: We are being reconciled by Christ’s mediation.
Future: We will be reconciled definitively when the Lord returns.
Who has the responsibility to proclaim this glorious message? Paul teaches us that all believers are ambassadors, and spokespeople for the King. At this time, we have “embassies” from heaven (meaning places to gather, or churches) in 212 of the 235 countries in the world to reach 7.223 billion inhabitants, and we do not have embassies in twenty-three countries, which have 215 million inhabitants. In both groups the work of the ambassadors is not yet completed; that is, each one of us as Christians has a lot of work yet to do as representatives of the King of kings.
Soon, the final kingdom will be established.
All the faithful ambassadors on the Earth will be designated
as perpetual ambassadors in heaven. It is time to stop
sleeping in the barn. We must rise up for the harvest,
thankful that God has chosen us for salvation.
“If God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him” – Spurgeon. –
Thank you Lord, for chosing us. We are a chosen generation…