removed, there is no possibility of holiness and love. It is vain to attempt to secure the favom- of God by being holy; we must enjoy his favour before we can be holy. See Rom. 7, 56. As the apostle here ascribes our holiness to our being reconciled to God, he must of necessity refer to the reconciha- tion of God to us ; i. e. to his being propitious, ready to re- ceive us into his favour and to manifest to us liis love. And hath given to us^ i. e. to the apostle and to other preachers of the gospel, for the thing given was not something peculiar to the apostles but common to all preachers, viz., the ministry of reconciliation^ i. e. the office and duty of announcing this reconciliation. It is therefore the peculiar duty or special' design of the ministry to proclaim to men that God, justly offended by their sins, can be just and yet justify those who come to him by Jesus Christ. This is the cmyycAtov, or glad tidings, which our blessed Lord has commissioned his disciples to announce to erery creature under heaven.
19. To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciUng the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them ; and hath committed unto us the word of recon- ciliation.
This verse is an explanation and confirmation of what pre- cedes. According to our version, and to the common inter- pretation, it is an explanation of the last clause of v. 18, i. e. of the " reconciliation " there spoken of. ' He hath given to us the ministry of reconciUation — because God was reconciling the world unto himself, &c.' To this it is objected by Meyer and others, that the position of the word ^ed? {God) requires the emphasis to be thrown on that word ; and secondly, that the two following clauses must, in that case, explain the mode of that reconciUation. Paul would then say, ' God was recon- ciling the world unto himself, having committed to us the word of reconciliation.' But our reconciliation to God is not the ministry of reconciliation. The former does not consist in the latter ; nor is the first the consequence of the second. This verse therefore is referred to the first clause of v. 18. ' All things are of God, &c., because God was reconciling, &c.' The words ys on, rendered to iceY, mean here seeing that^ or because. They are equivalent to the simple on. The expres- sioh'is explained either as a pleonasm, or as the mixture of two constructions, w? -S^coO ovro^ and on ^cds kan.