II CORINTHIANS 5:20,21
20Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.
21For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
I wonder whether it's not impossible for this being made the righteousness of God to be linked to the mention of reconciliation, and to the positive 'be reconciled' of verses 18-20, rather than it necessarily needing to be a continued explanation of the ambassadorial nature of the apostleship of Paul and his team.
But that aside, if being 'made the righteousness of God' meant not just that God makes a believer righteous with His own righteousness (as part of the action of individual reconciliation), but also that Paul's ambassadorial apostolic ministry embodied God's righteousness (and if righteousness is a status which could knowingly be attributed to God due for example to His faithfulness to His covenant) - then in a similar way, could the fact that we are 'elect' mean not just that God elects this individual or that but that believers in Jesus somehow embody God's election?
So, a concept in which rather than God selectively shining a torchlight of election down from heaven onto this individual and that individual wherever they happen to stand here or there on the ground, but a picture something like that the sunshine is lighting up this part of the ground, while another part of the ground is in shadow of the clouds, and a person steps out from the shadow he's under and into the sunny area where the sunlight now shines on him too - and thus he has joined the company of others there who together embody the election.
20Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.
21For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
I wonder whether it's not impossible for this being made the righteousness of God to be linked to the mention of reconciliation, and to the positive 'be reconciled' of verses 18-20, rather than it necessarily needing to be a continued explanation of the ambassadorial nature of the apostleship of Paul and his team.
But that aside, if being 'made the righteousness of God' meant not just that God makes a believer righteous with His own righteousness (as part of the action of individual reconciliation), but also that Paul's ambassadorial apostolic ministry embodied God's righteousness (and if righteousness is a status which could knowingly be attributed to God due for example to His faithfulness to His covenant) - then in a similar way, could the fact that we are 'elect' mean not just that God elects this individual or that but that believers in Jesus somehow embody God's election?
So, a concept in which rather than God selectively shining a torchlight of election down from heaven onto this individual and that individual wherever they happen to stand here or there on the ground, but a picture something like that the sunshine is lighting up this part of the ground, while another part of the ground is in shadow of the clouds, and a person steps out from the shadow he's under and into the sunny area where the sunlight now shines on him too - and thus he has joined the company of others there who together embody the election.
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