9. Ambassadors for Christ

The office is given before it is described, and it is given by God. Paul writes: "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. But all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation; namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses, and having committed to us the word of reconciliation. We are therefore ambassadors on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God" (2 Cor 5:17-20). The order stands in the text. God reconciles. God gives the ministry. God commits the word. The ambassadorship follows the new creation and rests on the reconciliation God has Himself accomplished; the ambassador does not appoint himself, and the message is not his to compose.

The sending stands under Christ's authority and no other. "Jesus came to them and spoke to them, saying, 'All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age'" (Matt 28:18-20). The going is commanded by the One who holds the authority, and the teaching is bounded by what He commanded. The necessity of the sent man stands in Romans: "How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in him whom they have not heard? How will they hear without a preacher? And how will they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: 'How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the Good News of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!'" (Rom 10:14-15). The chain has no link that man supplies from himself: no sending, no preaching; no preaching, no hearing. And the preacher is not the content of the preaching. "For we don't preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake" (2 Cor 4:5). The readiness required of the ambassador is an answering readiness, with the heart's allegiance settled first: "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. Always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, with humility and fear" (1 Pet 3:15).

The walk is prescribed as exactly as the office. "Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God" (Rom 12:1-2). The instruction in the walk is grace itself: "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to the intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we would live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age; looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good works" (Titus 2:11-14). The manner of the walk is lowliness: "walk worthily of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and humility, with patience, bearing with one another in love, being eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph 4:1-3). What grows in such a walk is named as another's fruit, not the walker's production: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law" (Gal 5:22-23). And the walk carries a public mark by which the disciples are known: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35).

The speech is prescribed as exactly as the walk. Scripture is the voice; opinion is not. "If anyone speaks, let it be as it were the very words of God. If anyone serves, let it be as of the strength which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen" (1 Pet 4:11). The charge to the preacher names the word and nothing else as the matter: "preach the word; be urgent in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort with all patience and teaching" (2 Tim 4:2). The standing of the speakers is fixed at servant and no higher: "Who then is Apollos, and who is Paul, but servants through whom you believed, and each as the Lord gave to him? I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase" (1 Cor 3:5-7). The manner of the speech is grace: "Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one" (Col 4:6). And where a conclusion is drawn rather than written, it is named as drawn; inference is marked as inference, and is never dressed in the clothing of a text.

The first rule follows. A promise meant for believers is not given to an unbeliever without the condition Scripture attaches to it. The promise of John 6 stands with its condition inside it: "All those whom the Father gives me will come to me. He who comes to me I will in no way throw out" (John 6:37). The not-throwing-out is spoken to the one who comes, and the coming belongs to those the Father gives. The promise of John 10 is spoken of a defined company: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me" (John 10:27). The hearing, the being known, and the following mark the sheep to whom the words are addressed. To detach the promise from its condition and hand it to one who neither comes nor hears is to say what the text does not say.

The second rule follows. No man presents his own words as God's. The sentence on that act is written in the Law: "But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die" (Deut 18:20). Jeremiah names the thing from God's side: "Don't listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They teach you vanity. They speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of Yahweh" (Jer 23:16). "I didn't send these prophets, yet they ran. I didn't speak to them, yet they prophesied" (Jer 23:21). "'Therefore behold, I am against the prophets,' says Yahweh, 'who each steal my words from his neighbor. Behold, I am against the prophets,' says Yahweh, 'who use their tongues, and say, "He says"'" (Jer 23:30-31). The vision of a man's own heart, spoken under God's name, stands under God's stated opposition. The commanded opposite is the ambassador's whole speech: to speak, when one speaks, "as it were the very words of God" (1 Pet 4:11), by men who are "ambassadors on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us" (2 Cor 5:20). Speaking His word as His oracles is not a permission granted to the bold; it is the command laid on the office, and it is the only speech the office has.