Reconciliation - what is it?
We preachers have a habit of sometimes using terms that many people, especially new Christians or visitors simply do not understand. After a sermon I gave recently, I was reminded of the need to define terms when someone came to me and asked me to explain the word "reconciliation". It's a good question, and if a person has that question, it may be relevant to others. Therefore I would like to dedicate this program to the biblical concept of "reconciliation".
Throughout much of human history, the majority of people have been in a state of alienation from God. We have enough evidence in the reports of human failure to get along, which is simply a reflection of alienation from God.
As the Apostle Paul said in Kolosser 1,21-22 He wrote: “Even you who were once alienated and hostile in your evil deeds, he has now reconciled by the death of his mortal body, so that he might present you holy and blameless and unstained before his face.”
It was never God who had to be reconciled with us, but we had to be reconciled to God. As Paul said, alienation was in the human mind, not in God's mind. God's answer to human alienation was love. God even loved us when we were his enemies.
Paul wrote the following to the church in Rome: “For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, now that we have been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life” (Romans 5:10).
Paul tells us that it doesn't end there: "But all this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. For God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting people's trespasses against them..." (2Kor 5,18-19).
A few verses later, Paul wrote how God reconciled the whole world to himself in Christ: “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” (Kol 1,19-20).
God has reconciled all human beings through Jesus, meaning that no one is excluded from the love and power of God. For everyone who ever lived, a seat was reserved on the tablet of God's banquet. But not all have believed in God's Word of love and forgiveness, not all have accepted their new life in Christ, put on the wedding gowns that Christ has prepared for them, and taken their place at the table.
That is why the ministry of reconciliation is at stake - it is our job to spread the good news that God has already reconciled the world to himself through the blood of Christ, and that what all human beings must do It is to believe the good news, turn to God in repentance, take up your cross and follow Jesus.
And what a wonderful message that is. May God bless us all in his joyful work.
by Joseph Tkach
