2 Cor. 5:20. Therefore we are ambassadors on behalf of Christ, and as though God Himself were exhorting through us; on behalf of Christ we ask: be reconciled to God.
"On behalf of Christ," that is, sent in place of Christ. For what He intended to do, we have now received, and as through Him the Father called us, so now through us He calls you to be reconciled with Him. He did not say: reconcile God to yourselves, but be reconciled with Him. For you are hostile toward Him, not He toward you, for God is also Father. He, as though He had sinned against them, sends to them so that they might forgive Him. O the riches of mercy and condescension!
2 Cor. 5:21. For He made Him who knew no sin to be a sin offering for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
I, he says, do not recall everything—that you dishonored the Benefactor, that He did not concern Himself with vengeance, that on the contrary He Himself was the first to desire reconciliation: is not what He has now done sufficient for you to be reconciled with Him? What then did He do? He delivered to death for our sake His own Son, "who knew no sin," that is, the One who is righteousness itself, as though He were a sinner and evildoer, for "cursed before God is everyone who hangs on a tree" (Deut. 21:23), and "He was numbered with the transgressors." And he did not say "made" Him a sinner, but "a sacrifice for sin," which means more. For what purpose then was this done? So that we might be justified, not by the works of the law, but by the grace of God. For the righteousness of God consists in this: when one is justified by grace, when no stain can be found. Therefore he did not say: that we might become righteous ourselves, but "the righteousness" of God, pointing to the superabundance of grace.