Except in 1 Samuel 29:4, and 2 Chronicles 29:24, the Hebrew word is kaphar, which is more than sixty times translated “to make an atonement;” and this rendering suits sufficiently well in the places where “reconciliation” is read in the AV (Lev. 6:30; Lev. 8:15; Lev. 16:20; Ezek. 45:15,17,20; Dan. 9:24). In the New Testament the last clause of Hebrews 2:17 should be translated “to make ‘propitiation’ for the sins of the people.” Elsewhere the word translated “reconciliation” is καταλλαγἠ, and kindred words, signifying “a thorough change.”
By the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross, God annulled in grace the distance which sin had brought in between Himself and man, in order that all things might, through Christ, be presented agreeably to Himself. Believers are already reconciled, through Christ’s death, to be presented holy, unblameable, and unreproveable (a new creation). God was in Christ, when Christ was on earth, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing unto them their trespasses; but now that the love of God has been fully revealed in the cross, the testimony has gone out worldwide, beseeching men to be reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:19-20). The end is that God may have His pleasure in man.
Christ also abolished the system of the law that Jew and Gentile might be reconciled together unto God, the two being formed in Christ into one new man (Eph. 2:15-16). Reconciliation will extend in result to all things in heaven and on earth (Col. 1:20); not to things under the earth (the lost), though these will have to confess that “Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10-11).