Soteriology
By Jerry Batson, Th.D.
Special to The Alabama Baptist
The idea of reconciliation is familiar to us from ordinary relationships. People become at odds with one another but then something happens to bring them together again. We say they have reconciled. Married couples may separate, only to get back together later. When that happens we commonly say they are reconciled. Differences are put away or bridged. Whatever it was that separated people is buried or overlooked and counted of no importance any longer. If the differences come back to mind, people are able to say, “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Ruptures in personal relationships were a concern to Jesus. He put it like this: “If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift” (Matt. 5:23–24).
Reconciliation is not only a need that occurs in human relationships; it is an absolute necessity in a person’s relationship with God. In this instance reconciliation speaks of a permanent change in a believer’s relation with God, a change in which separation because of sin is replaced by a new relationship in which we have full fellowship with Him.
Prior to experiencing salvation, we are at enmity with God. Reconciliation defines enemies as becoming friends. It speaks of estrangement becoming fellowship. The need for reconciliation with God is as wide as the human race, for all have sinned.
One result of sin is separation from God. For our separation from God to be bridged we need someone to bring about reconciliation. God alone is that Someone. He sent His Son to be the cause that had the effect of reconciliation.
As Christians we are recipients of this truth as expressed in 2 Corinthians 5:18–19, “Now all things are of God who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.”
The Bible is quite clear to tell us we do not reconcile ourselves to God. Nothing we can do or that we can become on our own will suffice to reconcile us to God. He is the author of reconciliation and His Son is the agent of that reconciliation. Colossians 1:19–22 tells us clearly that it pleased God to send His Son in human flesh “that in Him all fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself … and you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in His sight.”
‘Reconciled to God’
Romans 5:10 declares it simply: “When we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son.”
Something in human nature might cause some to object, saying that to their knowledge they have never felt themselves to be an enemy of God. Of course the need for reconciliation is not based on how we might feel; it is based on how God counts us to be. God in His absolute purity and perfection counts sinners to be estranged from Him. Reconciliation is a necessity from God’s point of view. If God is “of purer eyes than to behold evil” (Hab. 1:13), how much more is He of a purer nature than to gather uncleansed and unforgiven humans into fellowship with Himself? Reconciliation is a universal human need and God’s gracious provision.
EDITOR’S NOTE — Jerry Batson is a retired Alabama Baptist pastor who also has served as associate dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University and professor of several schools of religion during his career.
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