Addendum:

What Now Are We To Do?

Having received so great a salvation, being reconciled to God and justified freely by the blood of His dear Son, and having received Christ’s life and nature, Paul says we believers, in this day of "the dispensation of grace of the grace of  God," are given the blessed ministry to carry the "message of reconciliation."

“Reconciliation” speaks of the rejoining of two parties who have become estranged, separated, or alienated. Adam’s sin was so great that only the violence of the cross and the shedding of Christ's innocent blood would do to make that reconciliation be “just.” No Adamic man’s blood is adequate since “all have sinned” and there are “none righteous.” Only the blood of the righteous Son of God, who came as the man, Jesus of Nazareth, is sufficient to reconcile God and man, justly. The debt has been paid, so man is redeemed, made just, and reconciled by Jesus’ shed blood.

2 Cor 5:18-21 (AMP) But all things are from God, Who through Jesus Christ reconciled us to Himself [received us into favor, brought us into harmony with Himself] and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation [that by word and deed we might aim to bring others into harmony with Him]. It was God [personally present] in Christ, reconciling and restoring the world to favor with Himself, not counting up and holding against [men] their trespasses [but cancelling them], and committing to us the message of reconciliation (of the restoration to favor). So we are Christ’s ambassadors, God making His appeal as it were through us. We [as Christ’s personal representatives] beg you for His sake to lay hold of the divine favor [now offered you] and be reconciled to God. For our sake He (God) made Christ [virtually] to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in and through Him we might become [endued with, viewed as being in, and examples of] the righteousness of God [what we ought to be, approved and acceptable and in right relationship with Him, by His goodness].

Have you ever realized that the great news is that all the sins of the whole world have been paid for? John 1:29 (KJV) The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.  According to 2Cor 5:19 above, the sins of the world are canceled and not now being held against the lost of the world at this moment…so long as they are still alive. It is only upon death and at the final Great White Throne Judgment that the evil works of the lost will be counted (Rev 20:13b).

God has made it so easy for the lost to simply “receive Him” – by which they may stand clean though His shed blood… all that is required is to have faith in Christ’s blood in order to be reconciled to God the Father for eternity. We now have this wonderful message of the pure grace of God, apart from works (Rom 4:6, Eph 2:8-9). That grace was in Christ as the acceptable sacrifice, reconciling the world to the Father.

The Jews in the Gospels received a “great commission” toward the Diaspora, the lost sheep for the house of Israel , from Jesus of Nazareth. It concerned the promised Messianic Kingdom. Far greater now, we of “the body of Christ,” per v20, have the greatest commission as proclaimed by Paul to “the Church, which is His body” – we have been given “the ministry of reconciliation.”

Being now citizens of heaven (Philippians 3:20), we are the Lord’s ambassadors to bear the message of reconciliation – to proclaim God’s forgiveness of sin “through faith in His (Christ’s) blood.”  

Rom 3:23-26 (NIV) for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished-- he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

We should note that in Rom 3:25b (above) that God had only left that sins that were previously committed while living in accord with The Law, unpunished, but now we see, from verses Rom 3:23-26 as a whole, that we today are justified freely by grace, in the redemption that comes to us by Christ’s sacrifice, through having faith in His blood that cancels our sins (2Cor 5:19 above).