It is clear to Paul that the Kingdom and remaining in it are inseparable from the relationships that bind each of His followers to Christ...
It is clear to Paul that the Kingdom and remaining in it are inseparable from the relationships that bind each of His followers to Christ, but those relationships themselves are possible only when a person remains in Christ to the end and completely as a poor one - in the spiritual sense of the word in which the prophet Isaiah of Jerusalem had already spoken of poverty. And in this sense of the word, poverty carried through to the end is nothing other than becoming nothing, even to the point of physical death, if such death is required for witness. And for the Messiah, it means going as far as complete, unreserved, and unconditional immersion in the sinful life of the fallen world, into whose depth He had to bring the fullness of the Kingdom that was contained in Him.
And the evil of the sinful world really does take the Messiah Himself captive: it cannot penetrate the depth of His heart or His human nature, free from the power of sin, but it was able to bring Him to the cross. The One who knew no sin came under the power of sin, became sin for our sake - this is how Paul describes it. Such is the Messiah's poverty carried through to the end, a poverty without which the Kingdom would not have entered the world, because the Messiah Himself could not have entered the world in any other way than as a poor one.
And this is understandable: any other kind of entry would have meant submission to the laws of the world that lies in evil. Not to submit to them meant to leave the world; but to leave the world and at the same time remain in it means to die. Such a path for the Messiah, bearing within Himself all God's fullness, all the fullness of the Kingdom, could end on earth only with the cross. And with the resurrection, of course, too - but that is already the reality of the Kingdom, not of the fallen world. The Kingdom to which the fallen world can belong only to the extent that, being transformed, it ceases to be fallen.
And we Christians become participants in this process, as the apostle reminds us. If we are alive and remain in this world, it is only insofar as the world itself has already ceased to be fallen, insofar as it has already managed to be transformed and become part of the Kingdom. If the Kingdom were not in the world, nothing would remain for us but to die. Or to live as the righteous lived while awaiting the Kingdom in pre-Christian times. If, of course, we are Christians not only in name.
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5:20 Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ - we beseech you in Christ's stead - Herein the apostle might appear to some "transported beyond himself." In general he uses a more calm,sedate kind of exhortation, as in the beginning of the next chapter. What unparalleled condescension and divinely tender mercies are displayed in this verse! Did the judge ever beseech a condemned criminal to accept of pardon? Does the creditor ever beseech a ruined debtor to receive an acquittance in full? Yet our almighty Lord, and our eternal Judge, not only vouchsafes to offer these blessings, but invites us, entreats us, and, with the most tender importunity, solicits us, not to reject them.
5:21 He made him a sin offering, who knew no sin - A commendation peculiar to Christ. For us - Who knew no righteousness, who were inwardly and outwardly nothing but sin; who must have been consumed by the divine justice, had not this atonement been made for our sins. That we might be made the righteousness of God through him - Might through him be invested wi th that righteousness, first imputed to us, then implanted in us, which is in every sense the righteousness of God.