that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s trespasses against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
Verse 19. To wit. Greek, ωςοτι, namely. This verse is designed further to state the nature of the plan of reconciliation, and of the message with which they were intrusted. It contains an abstract, or an epitome of the whole plan; and is one of those emphatic passages in which Paul compresses into a single sentence the substance of the whole plan of redemption. That God was in Christ.
19. God was in Christ. Some take this as meaning simply — God reconciled the world to himself in Christ; but the meaning is fuller and more comprehensive — first, that God was in Christ; and, secondly, that he reconciled the world to himself by his intercession.
In these words the apostle gives us a short but full account of the grand doctrine of a sinner's reconciliation unto God by the death of Christ, which is the principal subject and substantial part of the gospel. Where observe, 1.