Conversion v / Reconciliation
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.
(Col.1:19-20)
His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.
(Eph.2:15-16)
Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.
(Matt.5:23-24)
It is likely that this is the subject in this series that will cause the most soul-struggle and Scripture-searching. We will have to navigate passages and themes that few of us have genuinely confronted, and which often provoke not just discomfort, but anger and grief. This is, in part, why we study the Bible in community. It stops us ignoring the parts of the Bible we find difficult or unpalatable, even shocking or traumatic. And it means we can work these things through in a context in which we can be supported and loved, as we engage meaningfully with painful and destabilising aspects of the Bible’s teaching.
That may sound a very melodramatic way to open a meditation on what happens when we become a Christian. Isn’t the question of our reconciliation with God something to be enjoyed, and celebrated? Indeed it is, but the problem comes into focus when we push behind the end result, and ask what it is about our relationship with God prior to our becoming a Christian that means we need to be reconciled in the first place.
The language of reconciliation presupposes a prior state of alienation (Col.1:21). The deep question concerns the nature of that alienation. I tentatively suggest that we often imagine the state of affairs to be one of passivity: ‘we just sort of grew apart’. We tend to accept we are alienated from God, but counter that with the idea that God still loves us, and that our relational distance from Him is rooted in lost-ness, perhaps distractedness, or simply an ignorance about who God is. How does this measure up with what the Bible teaches?
The Bible’s teaching is altogether more powerful and graphic, emotive and specific. Our alienation from God is active, not merely passive. The Bible uses powerful words like enemies, hatred, rebellion and vengeance (see e.g. Deut.32:39-42; Jer.9:7-9; Is.63:10; Nah.1:2; Ps.5:4-7, 7:11-17; 11:4-7, 94:1-3; Rev.19:11-14 etc.). It is worth reading those passages carefully and meditatively. What is perhaps unexpected is that they speak of God as our enemy, not just of us as God’s enemies. In other words, when the Bible speaks of reconciliation, it is two-fold. God is reconciled to us as much as we are reconciled to God. By virtue of our sin and rebellion, God is alienated from us as well as our being alienated from God; we had become God’s enemies and He had become our Enemy. Of course the two are not equivalent. God’s enmity is just and holy, ours to Him is unjust and sinful.
Our temptation is to simply and reflexively deny that such passages mean what they seem to say. Perhaps they are an allegory without any concrete interpretation… or poetry without any definite meaning… or a perspective on God that is simply incorrect, or inadequate, or that is to be dismissed because it ‘conflicts’ with His love. I’m not sure any of those responses would do justice to God’s self-revelation.
God’s love is not something that continues unaffected irrespective of our attitude to Him, and the behaviour that flows from that. It is something that finds concrete expression in the Father’s decision to send His Son, to bear His judgement in our place, precisely so that we could be reconciled to Him, and in Christ to be loved now as those adopted into His family (Jn.3:15-16; I Jn.4:10-11). This is how God reconciles us to Himself (II Cor.5:18, NB the Bible never speaks of humanity reconciling God to them). The removal of God’s holy hostility and animosity toward us through Christ’s death becomes the ground of our peace with Him.
As one theologian puts it, ‘While it is true that Christ would not have died for us if God had not loved us, it is equally true to say that God would not be to us what He is if Christ had not died. That is to say that God could not have been reconciled to us, and could only have continued in His holy hostility toward us had Christ not died for us’ (Reymond, 650).
Questions
Do you think this is a fair representation of the Bible’s teaching? How does it make you feel? Why do you think you feel as you do? How does it affect your thinking about your own conversion? …about evangelism?
How do you think this should affect how we preach the Gospel?
How do you reconcile passages that speak about God’s hatred, vengeance and His designation of sinful humanity as His enemies, with the love of God?
Read Rom.5:1-11
How does ‘justification’ (see study 4 in this series) relate to our being reconciled to God (5:1-2)? …and how does that relate to our being saved from His wrath (5:9)? Does it matter that we know the answer to questions like this?
How does our belief about being justified and reconciled affect our interpretation of adversity and suffering (5:3-5)?
On the basis of this passage, what would you say to encourage someone who thought that suffering and struggle in life called into question the reality of God’s love for them?
Why does Paul talk about us as having been ‘powerless’ when Christ died for ‘the ungodly’ (5:6)? How does this observation highlight the nature of God’s love for us, and underline how different it is from human love (5:7-8)?
Do you agree with Paul that before we become Christians, it is right to speak of us as God’s ‘enemies’ (5:10)? How does this observation highlight the nature of God’s love?
Why does Paul say we shall be ‘saved through His life’ (5:10)?
Why does Paul think that the doctrine and experience of reconciliation should cause us to ‘boast in God’ (5:11)? What would that look like?
Memory Passage:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: be reconciled to God.
II Cor.5:17-20
For further reflection:
When Jesus teaches us to love our enemies, He is not calling us to walk a path He has not trod before us. He understands the cost. The ‘Prince of Peace’ stands in the place of a humanity at war with God, and exhausts the reality of God’s hostility against them. Christ’s death on the cross has not per se removed humanity’s hostility to God, but it has addressed His alienation towards us. We had an enemy in God that needed to be slain. In being slain, Christ slew God’s hostility. In Christ, God took the initiative to reconcile us to Himself. Again, that is what it means to speak of God’s love (Jn.3:16; I Jn.4:9-10).
And now He teaches us to be like Him (Matt.5:44). We are to be those who take the costly initiative to bring about reconciliation (Matt.5:23-24). As we were thinking when considering forgiveness, we may not be able to fully effect reconciliation, but as far as possible, this is our posture and goal (we are reconciled to one another fully only in Christ, Eph.2:14-16). It is in this context that we are call to ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (Matt.5:48). Perhaps this is the most like God we can become. This is why it is so important that we appreciate the nature of our alienation. For then are we in a position to understand not only what God has done for us in Christ, but what we are in turn called to do for others through Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and with he love and support of the Church.
In such insight end experience lies our answer to the colossal divisions that scar human society. Such division and alienation is rooted in sin: greed, jealousy, self-preservation, inequality, and strife. Such can only be dealt with in the cross, and in our conversion. Then we can offer a better way… but only in Christ.
