Second Corinthians Bible Studies

First, Paul wrote that the old things had come to an end. He used a generic expression, literally the old things. But in this context, that must refer to the old way of life, the way the universe was before Christ - humanity living only under condemnation because the payment for their sins and the means of reconciliation with God had not yet been enacted in history. This also means all of the old way of the flesh - living life as if God does not exist or matter. All of this has ceased to exist in any meaningful, effective way, because Christ has indeed come and made atonement and reconciliation. We can never go back to a time when Christ has not died and risen from the grave. That universe no longer exists, and it will never exist again. And for those in Christ, their personal lives have irrevocably changed. They have been changed by God's Spirit, and their old lives are no longer a viable option, even if it seems tempting at times.

This is the positive side of the new reality which Paul was asserting. He began with the word translated behold. This word is a prompter of attention, which serves to emphasize whatever follows. It is as if Paul said, pay attention, because what I am about to say is especially important!
And what Paul said was that new things had come to be. Like in the previous proposition, Paul used a simple, ambiguous adjective as a substantive - new things, which could be translated in a number of ways. It could mean that new things have come into being, or that things (meaning all things mentioned in this context) have become new. In the context of what Paul was saying, both of these ideas are true. It is just a question of what Paul was intending to state. His emphasis in the context is that for those in Christ, everything has changed. So, in a sense, everything has become a new thing, a new reality. And new is the same word that he used earlier in the verse to say new creature.
For the Christian, upon conversion, our lives are completely changed, because our relation to God has completely changed. And even our nature is changed by the new birth. And so, consequently, our relation to everything else has changed. So, in a sense, everything is new to us, and we can interact with everything in a new way, because everything has changed for us, even if, in a strict sense, the things and people around us did not change when we were converted. And the reason is that at our conversion, we came to realize and experience the fact that the entire universe changed because of the work of Christ. And the life of the next age has invaded this age, which we began to live when we were united with Christ.

In the New Testament, the concept of reconciliation, and the act of reconciling, implies a story with these four events: 1) There was some sort of existing relationship between the parties, which was accurately described as friendly, or, at minimum, not adversarial. 2) One of the parties did something that was offensive and/or harmful to the other party, thus breaking the previously good relationship and causing the resulting state of enmity, where there once had been friendly relations. 3) One of the parties then took the initiative and did something to take away, pay back, fix, or otherwise cover and/or remove the original cause for enmity. And 4) because the cause of enmity had been removed, the relationship was restored at least to its original standing. There was no longer any enmity hindering the relationship and peace had been restored.
In this verse, God is said to be the One Who has done the activity of reconciling, and has so restored the relationship between Him and us through Christ. We had broken the relationship by our sin. But Christ had atoned for our sin, and so, taken away the cause of offense and enmity, and so, had restored the relationship between God and His people. God had restored the relationship between Himself and His people. We did not restore the broken relationship, but God has taken the initiative on His own and has made peace where there once was enmity by the covering of our sins which Christ accomplished on the cross.

Not only has God reconciled His people to Himself, but He is also the One Who has given the ministry of reconciliation. This means that God has made provision, as will be elaborated in the following verses, for this reconciliation to be actualized in the lives of more and more people throughout history, and around the world. Paul first applied this reality to explaining and validating his own ministry. That is - Paul was doing what he did because God was the One Who initiated the ministry of reconciliation and called Paul to play his part in this ministry. But this also applies, in various ways, to every faithful evangelist and pastor throughout history. The faithful proclamation ministry of the church exists and does effective work only because God has planned and initiated the ministry of reconciliation.

There are four profound ideas packed into this theologically loaded proposition: 1) Jesus knew no sin, 2) God acted to make Jesus to be and/or experience something, 3) Jesus was made to be/experience sin (or possible be a sin offering), and 4) He did this on our behalf.
First, Jesus is described as the One not knowing sin, or the One Who did not know any sin. The clear implication is that Jesus was completely sinless - He never sinned at all. Hebrews 4:15 says that He was tempted in every way, just like we are, yet He was without sin. He experienced temptation, and He obviously knew what sin is. But He never experienced sin in the sense of committing sin or even having the desire to sin. He did not have a natural bent toward sin and selfishness that is standard for the rest of humanity. He knew no sin at all, and therefore, was not under the punishment of sin, and had no liability to death and God's wrath.
But God made Him to be something that was not the natural consequence of Who He was or what He had done. Paul specifically highlighted God's action in this. God undertook, on His own initiative to bring about a change of state for Christ. He caused Christ to become something and/or experience something that He was not and/or had not yet experienced. It was God's intention and plan to transfer something to Christ (from us) that was not His. This is one part of the great exchange.
And what God made Christ to be and/or experience is sin. This passage is somewhat elliptical, and can be stated in a few different ways. But the point is that somehow Christ was equated with sin. It meant that Christ was considered and treated as the sinful, guilty One (even though He wasn't by nature). It means that Christ suffered the effects and punishment of sin (which He did not deserve). It means that Christ identified with our sin when He gave Himself as a sin offering. Like Paul wrote in Romans 8:3, God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. Similarly, in Galatians 3:13, Paul wrote that Christ became a curse for us.
And all of this was done on our behalf. It was for us, and four our benefit that Christ took on our sin. That means that our sin was taken away from us. And the punishment and guilt of our sin was taken away from us. And therefore, those who are united with Christ by faith are no longer under the guilt and punishment of our sin, because He has taken it away in this great exchange. And the further benefit for us is stated in the other side of the great exchange, which is related in the next proposition.

This proposition tells the (partial) purpose for the previous one. The intention behind Jesus becoming sin on our behalf is so that we would become the righteousness of God. These two ideas go together as the two connected parts of the great exchange. They are inseparable, and no one can genuinely experience the one without the other. One without the other would be incomplete and unfinished.
And the result in the lives of God's people, when this purpose is fulfilled, is that we actually become the righteousness of God. This is more than just a legal fiction or outward status. It is a change of actual status and character and legal relationship with God. And it is so much more than just returning to a neutral state of no longer having our sins counted against us. It is the positive state of being in the same legal/relational status with God that Christ rightly has. It is not just the forgiveness of past sins, but the status of righteousness that permanently covers past, present, and future sins. In the great exchange, we actually become righteous.
And what we become is the righteousness of God. Righteousness is a legal word which means to be in right relationship with a standard of right and wrong. Because of our sin, we are not righteous on our own - just the opposite. But because of the great exchange, the righteousness of Christ, Who knew no sin, is imputed to us. That is, we are given His righteousness - His righteous standing before God's moral standards. This does not mean that our behavior is perfectly righteous after we are reconciled to God. God's work of sanctification consistently works to make us act more in line with His character, with the actually righteousness which we have. But we never perfectly reach God's standard of righteous behavior in this life. God's work of sanctification, whereby He transforms us to live more and more in a righteous manner, is connected with His making us positionally righteous by His work of justification. These two works are closely connected, but they are distinct. Justification is a change of our status by being given the status of Christ's righteousness, the righteousness of God, which, by nature, is foreign to us. Like Paul wrote in Romans 8:4, ...He condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us.
And this new status of becoming the righteousness of God only happens in Him. We are never righteous independent from Christ, because it is His righteousness that is imputed to us. As we are united with Christ by faith, we experience the great exchange. It is similar to a marriage union, in that when a marriage takes place, the two people become one legal entity. The debts of one are now the debts of both, and the assets of one are now the assets of both. In a similar way, when we are in Christ, He takes the penalty for our sin, and we receive His righteousness and all the benefits that go with it. That is the great exchange. And it truly is great.

This proposition is one short idea, literally, being workers together. In First Corinthians (16:16) this word was used to describe the people who were working together to serve the churches. But in this context, the point seems to be that Paul is claiming to be working with God, to be taking part in the ministry of reconciliation that he had written about. Paul was claiming that he was working along with what God was doing in the ministry of reconciliation. And this is the setup for the next verses, where Paul will command his readers to respond in a certain way, based on the fact that the command from Paul is not just from Paul. But because Paul is working with God, being sent as an ambassador, and minister of reconciliation, the command is coming from God Himself, through Paul.

This could possibly be translated as Scripture says because the subject of the verb is ambiguous - He/it says. But in light of the fact that God is the One speaking in the Old Testament passage Paul was quoting, it is best to understand this phrase as referring to God directly speaking in the Old Testament passage, and thereby continuing to speak to Paul's contemporary readers through his quote of the earlier writing.