Shortly before the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, he warned his disciples that until the end of this period of human history, there would be wars and rumors of wars (Matt. 24:6). History has shown that Jesus was no false prophet—war has been the norm rather than the exception throughout human history ever since that time (and even before then as well). In fact, a convenient way for historians to trace the history of a kingdom or a nation is to move from one war to the next!
Late last year, I had the opportunity to tour the Museum of French Military History in Paris while I was visiting some missionaries, and let me tell you, it was a huge museum because France has a lot of military history! The French have been almost constantly at war with someone throughout their entire existence as a nation. In fact, most of the European continent has been a battle zone since the times of the Roman Empire.
Even the relatively short history of the United States has been characterized by war. I think we had a couple of decades in the 1800’s where we were at peace, but the last 115 years in particular has seen war after war after war! We can trace our history from the Spanish-American War to World War I to World War II to the Korean War to Vietnam to the Cold War to the Gulf War and now to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
With this kind of track record in the world, its no surprise that so many people are willing to give up almost anything for peace. But so far in history, the story of humanity has been a lack of peace. And while this has been true of human beings’ relationships with each other, the same could be said for our relationship with God as well. According to the Bible, when we are born, we all receive the desire for sin that first tainted humanity when Adam and Eve rebelled against the Lord. So at least initially, our relationship with God is characterized by a lack of peace.
But is there any hope of resolving this situation? Can we find peace with God that will restore our relationship with Him? Today we’re going to discover this hope as we look at the meaning of the word “reconciliation.” This is a great theological term that describes one of the things that Jesus accomplished for us in His death and resurrection. So today we’ll take a look first of all at what this word means, and then we’ll take a look at the implications of this idea both for our relationship with God and our relationships with other people.
I. What does the word “reconciliation” mean?
As we look at what the word “reconciliation” means in the Bible, what we find is that it has the same meaning as it does when we use it in common conversation. This isn’t always the case with these theological words. More often than not, if we still use the word in normal conversation, we use it with a slightly different meaning than the Bible does. But that’s not the case here, which makes it easy for us to understand what this word means.
The word “reconciliation” describes the restoration of peace in a relationship that has been broken. And so, we might speak of a husband and wife being reconciled after they’ve worked through some differences in their relationship, or we might talk about two old friends being reconciled when they patch things up after a fight.
So when Scripture says that we are “reconciled” to God, it means that our broken relationship with Him has been repaired; we have been restored to the relationship of peace and friendship that humanity once had with God prior to the Fall. We can see this clearly in Colossians 1:21–22. In these verses Paul writes, [READ vv. 21–22]. In v. 21, Paul describes a time when we were alienated or estranged from God, which means that we were separated from Him, and we were actually hostile to Him in our minds because of our desire to do evil deeds.
But notice that Paul says this condition is formerly true of us, and the difference is that in v. 22 Paul states that we have been reconciled to God through the death of Jesus Christ. So now for those who have accepted Jesus, we are no longer alienated or separated from God; we are no longer far from Him, but now we are near to Him. And we no longer have hostility in our relationship with Him—instead, we now enjoy peace and friendship.
What a wonderful reversal of fortunes! Friend, let this fact sink into your soul—God feels no hostility toward you! Some believers still feel like God sits in heaven eagerly waiting to punish them for something, but nothing could be further from the truth. As Paul put it in Romans 8, God is “for” us—He is on our side! When God looks at you, He looks at His own child, with eyes of compassion and love. When He looks at you, He doesn’t see the tattered rags of your sin—He sees the robe of righteousness that Jesus has supplied for us.
And notice from these verses who it was that took the initiative to restore our relationship with God. Was it us, or was it God? It was God, wasn’t it? God broke down the barrier that divided us. This belief is one of the central doctrines that makes Christianity different from all the other religions in the world. Every world religion believes that there is something in the human condition that makes us estranged from the divine being (whatever they believe that divine being is). But in every other religion, the responsibility is on us to make peace with the divine being; we are responsible to somehow bring ourselves back into harmony with the divine.
But friends, that idea is a lie from Satan, who is a deceiver and the father of lies. He has turned the truth upside down to hide from us the fact that there is nothing we can do to repair our relationship with God. Our sin is so offensive to God that there is nothing we can do to remove that offense. But God in His infinite love took the initiative to restore our broken relationship with Him by sending His Son to pay for our sins by dying on the cross so that we could once again have peace with God.
That is the glorious idea of reconciliation, that God has picked up the pieces of our broken relationship with Him and has made it whole once again. So we have seen what the word “reconciliation” means, and we have seen that it really captures well the work that Jesus has done in our behalf. But we also see in Scripture that our reconciliation with God is supposed to lead us to be reconciled with others. So the second question we need to deal with today is this:
II. What does our reconciliation with God mean for our relationships with other people?
A. Our relationship with other believers should also be one of peace and friendship (Matt. 5:21–24)
If our relationship with God is now one of peace and friendship, our relationship with God’s children should be the same. According to Scripture, when we accept Christ, God adopts us into His own spiritual family. This makes us spiritual brothers and sisters with everyone else who believes in Jesus. And just as you don’t want hostility in your family, God doesn’t want hostility in His family either.
Let’s take a look at what Jesus had to say in Matthew 5:21–24 [READ vv. 21–24]. Now there is much that we could say about vv. 21–22, but I want to focus your attention on His command in vv. 23–24. Jesus was speaking to Jewish people at a time when they still offered animal sacrifices, and he tells them that if they are in the middle of offering a sacrifice, and they remember that they’ve done something to offend a brother, they should stop what they’re doing, make things right with their brother, and then they can offer their sacrifice.
What this tells us is that God considers living at peace with each other to be more important than performing acts of worship. This should be no surprise, because God said this through the prophets over and over again in the Old Testament. God was often upset with the people of Israel because they were sinning against each other and then performing acts of worship as though nothing was wrong.
In our society today, we’ve come up with numerous ways of handling conflict that we think are acceptable. Perhaps one of the most common methods we use to deal with conflict is simply to avoid other people. If we do something that offends someone else and our relationship becomes strained because of it, often times we just avoid each other. And we justify this behavior by saying, “Hey! We don’t get into fights anymore! He has his circle of friends, and I have my circle of friends, and we just keep our distance from each other.”
Friends, let’s not think that God is deceived by our little charade. If we choose to simply avoid someone after we sin against them, what we’re really avoiding is God’s clear command to confess our sin to them and ask for forgiveness! We should seek for reconciliation with someone if we have sinned against them. It is certainly true that they might reject our efforts to make peace, but their response is on their own shoulders. Our choice must be to seek for peace when we have sinned against others.
But sometimes, divisions in the body of Christ are much more superficial. The idea of reconciliation teaches us that…
B. Our cultural and racial differences should not disrupt our peace and friendship with other believers (Eph. 2:14–16)
Sometimes differences in the body of Christ come up over things as petty as racial differences. But the idea of reconciliation reminds us that in heaven we will be part of a choir from every tribe, tongue, and nation that will be singing the praises of our Lord.
Notice what Paul writes in Ephesians 2:14–16. In these verses he is talking about how the death of Jesus abolished any wall of separation between Jews and Gentiles. There was a lot of racism that existed between Jews and Gentiles at this time, but for believers there is to be no room for racism whatsoever because of our reconciliation in Christ [READ vv. 14–16].
In our corner of the world, we encounter people from several different minority groups who have immigrated here to the United States. Anytime cultures collide like this, there is going to be some uneasiness as people get to know each other, but I’m sure we all hear emotions expressed at times that amount to nothing more than sheer racism against another group of people. Friends, we need to make sure that no such hatred exists in our hearts. We cannot allow something as superficial as race to cause us to be hostile to others—especially if someone from another race embraces the Lord Jesus as we do. There should be no such divisions in the body of Christ, and we must make sure that we never feed such divisions by our own words and actions.
In fact, from a biblical perspective, it would be best if we stopped talking about different races of people at all, because there is only one race—the human race. According to the Bible, all humans are descended from Adam and Eve, and then again from Noah and his wife after the Flood. We may have different languages and cultures and nationalities, but we are not from different races. So let’s make sure that we do not perpetuate racial distinctions, particularly within the body of Christ.
Finally, as the Bible speaks of reconciliation, it reminds us that we have a mission to accomplish.
C. Our mission is to bring other people into a relationship of peace with God (2 Cor. 5:17–21)
Since we now have peace with God, we are given the privilege of calling all other men to lay down their arms and receive the King’s offer of a pardon. Let’s read what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17–21 [READ vv. 17–21].
God the King has not only gladly welcomed us back into His kingdom, but He has also made us His royal ambassadors, His representatives to all those who are not at peace with Him. And what a great honor this is! Theoretically, God could have allowed angels to spread the Gospel. He could have sent a hundred million angels out into the world to pay a personal visit to every man, woman, and child on Earth.
But who better to deliver the King’s terms of peace than us, the very ones who used to be on the wrong side of the conflict? Remember, we were alienated from God and hostile toward Him in our minds, but He reconciled us to Himself, and now He has sent us back to our fellow rebels to tell them that the King offers peace, to proclaim that the King will not only accept them back into the kingdom, but will welcome them into the royal family!
Friend, if you have never accepted God’s terms of peace, I pray that you will today. You must understand that you were born into this world in a state of hostility toward God because of the sin that has tainted all of us. Your relationship with God is broken, but God sent His own Son to undergo in your place the punishment that you deserve by dying on the cross. God then raised Him from the dead to show that the price for sin had been paid, and that there was now hope of eternal life for those who would place their faith in Jesus as their Savior. Those are the King’s term of peace—if you will accept Jesus as your Savior, your relationship with God will be restored; you will be reconciled to God, to live no longer as His enemy, but as His child and friend. If you will accept Jesus, you can know that peace in your life today, and know that you will be warmly welcomed into heaven after this life.
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