Thy Kingdom Come: The Embassy. Part 3 of 3

An invasion force without a mission becomes an occupying army.

And occupying armies eventually become the thing they replaced. They accumulate power, they protect their own interests, and they forget why they came.

The church has done this more than once. More than we would like to admit.

So Paul; writing from a prison cell to a church in Corinth that was doing exactly this, tells them something that reframes how we interpret the Kingdom.

You are not an occupying army.

You are an embassy.

An embassy sits on foreign soil. A unique political structure. Surrounded by the laws and culture and authority of another nation. But legally and politically it is not subject to that nation’s jurisdiction. The ground it stands on belongs to the country it represents. The people inside it operate under the laws of the country that sent them.

An embassy is a piece of one kingdom existing inside the borders of another.

Paul says to the church:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:17–18)

A new creation. Not something renovated or acceptable as is. New. The kingdom that the ascension enthroned and Pentecost deployed is now present in the person of everyone who is in Christ.

You are a piece of the new creation existing inside the borders of the old one.

You are an embassy.

And the embassy has a message.

In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:19)

Not counting their trespasses.

The Greek word, logizomai, is an accounting term. To credit to an account or to record a debt. God is NOT recording the trespasses. He is NOT keeping a ledger of what is owed. The account has been zeroed. The debt absorbed and the record cleared. Amazing.

And He has entrusted to us the message of that reconciliation.

Which means the embassy has a specific message. And it isn't "shape up and maybe God will consider reconciling with you. You must achieve the minimum standard of spiritual qualification before approaching". The message is this: God has already reconciled, in Christ, at the cross. The account has been zeroed. Come home.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:20)

Ambassadors for Christ; not ambassadors for our tradition or our theological tribe or our cultural preferences. For Christ, the enthroned one. The one whose Spirit was poured out on all flesh. The one in whom God was reconciling the world to Himself.

And here is the extraordinary thing. God is making His appeal through us. The king is not simply sending a message through the ambassador. The king is making His appeal through the ambassador. The voice of God; the same voice that called to Adam in the garden, that spoke from the burning bush, that declared this is my beloved Son, is making its appeal through the mouths and lives and presence of ordinary people who carry the ministry of reconciliation.

This is what the gods of the nations never had. Because it only makes sense if the one sending the ambassador is the one who already paid the cost of the reconciliation. You can only say not counting their trespasses if you are the one who absorbed them. You can only say come home if you are the one who already went after them.

The gods of the nations sent no one. They waited for tribute. They demanded compliance. They rewarded the powerful and ignored the rest.

The enthroned Christ sends ambassadors. Into every territory. To every nation. To the dry bones. To the servants. To the daughters. To the ones the powers decided were beneath divine attention.

The message is the same to all of them.

God was in Christ reconciling. He is not counting anything against you. Be reconciled.

This is the trilogy complete.

The ascension took the throne and the gods of the nations indicted and defeated. Christ is seated far above every name and authority in heaven or on earth.

Pentecost deployed the presence. The was Spirit poured out on all flesh. The dry bones standing on their feet and the languages of every nation reclaimed.

The embassy carries the message. New creation present in the old one. That God is making His appeal through ordinary people in ordinary communities carrying the most extraordinary message the powers have ever heard.

And the message, the one that only makes sense because of the cross, the one Paul wrote from a prison cell, the one the gods of the nations could never say because they never paid the cost, is the simplest and most dangerous thing in the world:

God is not counting anything against you.

Be reconciled.

Thy kingdom come.

"Such Is the Kingdom of God", Oil on mix medium, by Daniel Bonnell, 2020.