The idea of reconciliation is familiar to us from ordinary human or social relationships. People get at odds with one another, but then something happens to bring them together again. We say that they have reconciled.
Married couples may separate, only later to get back together. When it happens, we commonly say that they are reconciled. Differences are put away or bridged. Whatever separated people is buried or overlooked and counted of no importance any longer.
Ruptures in personal relationships were a concern of 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 your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matt. 5:23–24).
Full fellowship
Reconciliation is not only a need that occurs in human relationships, it is also 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 due to sin is replaced by a new relationship in which we have full fellowship with Him.
The need for reconciliation with God is as wide as humanity, for all have sinned. One result of sin is separation from God. For our separation from God to be bridged, we needed someone to bring about reconciliation. God alone is that Someone.
God sent His Son to effect reconciliation. As Christians, we are recipients of this truth as expressed in 2 Corinthians 5:18–19a, “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.”
Author and agent
The Bible is quite clear to tell us that 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.”
Romans 5:10a declares it simply, “When we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son.”
Gracious provision
Something in human nature might cause some to demur, 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. Reconciliation is a universal human need and God’s gracious provision.
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