More Thoughts on the Text
It is remarkable that Paul should appeal to the very people he calls a “new creation” to be reconciled to Christ.
This is because the community’s status as the new creation is not an assured possession but something that must constantly be worked at. To renew that status is the work of the apostolic ministry—the “ministry of reconciliation,” as Paul calls it.
God’s saving act in Christ and the ongoing work of the apostolic ministry are not to be separated. The second is an extension of the first, part of the same salvation history.
This salvation history is inaugurated by an event in which “for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin.” This bold affirmation can best be understood in the light of the Marcan-Matthean word from the cross: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Here Jesus enters the deepest consequences of human sin—our alienation from God. He takes his stand where we are as sinners, under the wrath of God, alienated from him, so that we may become what he, Jesus, is—the righteousness of God.
The Greek Fathers were really saying the same thing when they asserted that Christ partook of our human nature in order that we might become partakers of his divine nature.