“Our commission is to tell this message to all and every man in the world. And upon this ground, that reconciliation is to be obtained from God for them, to entreat them to be reconciled.
And when men accordingly seek it, as thus revealed to them, though by us, it is as if God had done it:
“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. For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”(2 Cor. 5:20-21)
‘As though God,’ and, ‘I in Christ’s stead,’ says the apostle.
And this, my brethren, is to preach the gospel unto men, which is the best news that ears ever heard, or tongues were employed to utter, which took up God’s thoughts from eternity, and which lay hid in His breast, which none but He and His Son knew, which, if it were but for the antiquity of the story of it, it is worth the relating, it being the greatest plot and state affair that ever was transacted in heaven or earth, or ever will be.”
–Thomas Goodwin, “The One Sacrifice,” The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Volume 5 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 1862/2006), 5: 482.
