Bible Subjects: Reconciliation

 •  4 min. read  •  grade level: 8
 
WE read in Col. 1 of reconciliation, present, and to come. The believer is already reconciled to God (ver. 21); the things in heaven and earth will be (ver. 20).
In our natural state, as born into the world, we are in ourselves alienated from God; moreover, we were actively enemies to Him in our minds by our wicked works. Both in our fallen nature, which is sin, and in the activities of our sinful nature, we are at enmity to God. Indeed, the very seat of man's intellectual power is the citadel of his hostility to God—heart, will, understanding, all are opposed to God. Yet God Himself, in His infinite grace, has effected the reconciliation of His people to Himself: "You hath He reconciled." God has now brought us into friendship with Himself. The work of the cross of God's Son alone meets God's judgment of what we are in the flesh, and thereby God brings us into absolute reconciliation with Himself.
This reconciliation is the believer's present portion. The grand purpose of the gracious work of Christ for us on the cross will be seen in the day to come, when He will present us to God, holy, blameless, and irreproachable; but not even then will the reconciliation be more perfect than now! When we have no sinful nature left, and when our bodies will be bodies of glory like Christ's, the reconciliation will be no more absolute or perfect than now, though we have the flesh in us, and are constantly doing that which is blamable and reproachable; for the basis of the reconciliation is the death of Christ.
The future reconciliation refers to "all things... whether things in earth, or things in heaven." Christ's glory will be seen in His bringing close to God the things which were in themselves afar off. We but little consider the far-reaching value of the blood of Christ, and how that blood-shedding will bring to Him glory on glory. Observe, the things under the earth, the infernal things, will not be reconciled. Every knee shall bow to Christ Jesus the Lord; but, while all must submit to His authority, things in earth and in heaven only shall be reconciled to God. There is present reconciliation for sinners now through grace, but no future reconciliation for such as in this life refuse God's grace.
Again in Rom. 5 we read of reconciliation as present: —"Our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation" (ver. 11) (not atonement). We have now received. Well, indeed then, may we joy in God Himself, who is our God, the source of all our marvelous privileges and the fountain of our blessings. We joy in Him through our Lord Jesus Christ, for He has revealed God to us, and He has died to bring us to God, and through Him all the blessings flow to us.
If the death of God's Son has changed us over from being enemies to God, "much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life" (ver. 10). His death has effected the wondrous state of friendship which is ours by grace; and now that He who died for us lives for us, much more shall we be saved by His life. Christ is a mighty Saviour; He was crucified through weakness, but the weakness is now exchanged for power. Ours in a pilgrimage to heaven: we are failing and often sinning on the road; we need His power saving us every step of the way. Our souls, thank God, are saved, and our sins washed away by the blood of Jesus, but such frail and sinning creatures as we are stand in daily need of the might of the living Lord Jesus Christ to bring us all the journey along. And as surely as He has died for us, and as surely as He will present us before His God holy and blameless, so surely will He save us all the way homewards.
As we think of the wondrous favor into which the death of God's blessed Son has brought us, these words: "much more," relating to His saving power as the living Saviour; are exceedingly restful to our hearts. Let us seek a better acquaintance with our living Lord Jesus Christ; we may form some ideas of the value of His work, accomplished eighteen hundred years ago for us; but let every little apprehension given to us by the Holy Spirit of what that work is only lead us the more to delight in Himself, our living Lord.