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Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
(2 Corinthians 5:20 NASB)
We are Christ’s ambassadors. God is using us to speak to you: we beg you, as though Christ himself were here pleading with you, receive the love he offers you—be reconciled to God.
(2 Corinthians 5:20 The Living Bible)
Thus Paul begins by stating a fundamental aspect of apostleship, namely, “we represent, on Christ’s behalf …” Greek. ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ … πρεσβεύομεν, which, it should be noted, matches δεόμεθα ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ.
Paul, however, not only “represents … implores on behalf and in the place of” Christ; he also sustains “weaknesses … on behalf of Christ” (2 Corinthians 12:10). As Christ’s envoy Paul not only speaks for the One he represents; he also replicates his sufferings. The use of ὑπέρ in culturally identifiable terms relative to the ancient envoy or delegate, and with such a clear meaning as “on behalf of,” “in the place of,” is very significant for the meaning of the word in more controversial passages relating to the death of Christ.
The clear substitutionary/representational meaning in 2 Corinthians 5:20 must also apply in 2 Corinthians 5:14, 15, and verse 21. Here Paul expresses the well-known role of the “apostle” within Judaism, the shaliaḥ. According to Mishnah Berakoth 5.5, “A man’s agent is as himself.”, whereby an envoy from the Sanhedrin or High Priest would “represent” to a distant synagogue decrees and judgments of the sender, with the authority of the sender.
Appropriate to a Greco-Roman readership, Paul states this in the culturally familiar terms of a group of envoys representing a nation or of a legate representing the emperor. Such delegates—Jewish or Greco-Roman—came with the authority of the sender, in his place, to secure his interests. It is this role that Paul is reasserting to the Corinthians.
He is an envoy of Christ, the Messiah of God; Paul is his apostle. In that period, to reject the representations of an envoy was to reject the one who sent him. Philo, who represented the Jewish community in Alexandria to Emperor Gaius and who knew firsthand what it was like to be an envoy, commented, “for the sufferings of envoys recoil on those who sent them” (Embassy to Gaius, 369).
To ignore Paul at this point would have been to ignore the Christ on whose behalf he spoke. (New International Commentary on the New Testament)
The Greek word rendered on behalf of in the NASB is ὑπέρ [5228]
Thayer’s Greek English Lexicon defines it as:
1) in behalf of, for the sake of
2) over, beyond, more than
3) more, beyond, over
The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament states:
It has been shown already that the sense “on behalf of” is sometimes very close to “in the place of,” “instead of,” “in the name of”. In all probability the word has the representative sense in Paul’s saying about baptism for the dead, 1 Corinthians 15:29…
This dictionary then goes on to give two other examples.
Speaking about Onesimus in Philemon 1:13 Paul says:
whom I wished to keep with me, so that on your behalf he might minister to me in my imprisonment for the gospel; (Philemon 1:13)
In 2 Corinthians 5:14,15 there is a play on the two related senses of υπερ.
For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)
Ιn verse 15, “Him who died and rose again on their behalf” has the primary sense of on behalf of or in favor of, like that in 1 Corinthians 15:3 “Christ died for our sins”.
But in the more forensic expression “that one died for all”, the sense, “in the place of”, is more dominant, as is shown by the development of the thought in the following clause, “therefore all died”.
The representative sense “in the name of someone,” which is close to the substitutionary meaning, occurs in 2 Corinthians 5:20. As a preacher of the gospel the apostle is an authorized transmitter of the divine message and hence a representative of Christ. The urgent call of the apostle as he invites men to believe is this a call which the exalted Christ Himself issues.
The New World Translation renders the verse:
Therefore, we are ambassadors substituting for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us. As substitutes for Christ, we beg: “Become reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5:20)
The study Bible note explains:
substituting for Christ: Or “instead of Christ; in the name of Christ.” After Christ was resurrected to heaven, his faithful followers were appointed to act in his place, as “ambassadors substituting for Christ.” They were first sent to the Jews and then to people of the nations, all of whom were alienated from the Supreme Sovereign, Jehovah. These anointed Christians serve as ambassadors to a world not at peace with God.