“Now 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”.
(2 Corinthians 5:20)
Man is reconciled to God, when he embraces the offer which is made to him in the name of God. Whosoever embraces the offer made to him in the name of God, has in Christ a reconciled God. Whosoever does not embrace this offer, has a wrathful God, because he has rejected the reconciliation brought about by Christ.
We must always try to reduce the things regarding the Kingdom of God to their most elementary proportions. Then we will understand best what their real meaning is. For man does not so easily and quickly see what really matters. We are full of delusion, semblance, belief only for a while and superstition and we must be purified and cleansed from all this. Such cleansing takes place through the Word. To embrace the offered reconciliation means to believe in Christ.
Just a few words about faith. Faith in Christ presupposes the offer through the Gospel of the reconciliation brought about by Christ.
Where this offer of Christ through the preaching of the Gospel is lacking, there is only darkness. This is shown by the word often quoted by me: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light” – do you hear it? – “to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). Indeed, if Christ were not offered to us through the preaching of the Gospel, nobody would have the freedom to embrace Him, for “A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven” (John 3:27).
(From: Meditations, 23 January. Sermon on 2 Corinthians 5:20, 22 March 1928 in Rotterdam.)