Twice in this passage we see a form of the word reconcile. Reconcile, or reconciled, is one of those Christian words that we hear so often in the church in regards to salvation and yet perhaps we really aren’t exactly sure what it means. However, it’s a word that you may have also heard outside of the church. It’s used for instance, in divorce proceedings. There usually is some sort of effort to reconcile both parties, the husband and wife. And what that means is that they come to an agreement, they make up, they resolve their differences that had driven them apart, so that they can come back together.
In fact that is how it is used in 1Cor. 7:11 which says, “(but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not divorce his wife.”
But it also has a financial meaning, which is often used in relation to balancing your checkbook. To reconcile, means to make one account consistent to another. The bank sends out your statement, and you take your checkbook and compare it in light of the bank statement (which is always the correct one, of course). And so you make whatever corrections are necessary to make your check book correlate to the bank.
Now both of those variations on the meaning of reconcile should help us to get a grasp on it’s theological implications. To be reconciled to God speaks of a man being made right with God, his account with God being corrected in light of what God’s justice requires.
When Paul speaks though to the Colossians about reconciliation with God, notice that he first shows us the standard of righteousness which is in Christ Jesus. In vs 19, Paul says that in Christ all the fullness of deity dwells. He has just given in the preceding verses a liturgy of Christology, all the attributes of Christ which make up HIs deity. And so he says in 19 that in Christ is all the fullness of deity. So Christ is the righteous standard of God in every respect. And if we are going to be made right with God, then Christ is the standard by which we are reconciled. He is the statement, so to speak, that we balance our checkbook against.
And so Paul says that God is pleased in vs 20, that “through Him (that is Christ) to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross.” God reconciles all things to Himself through Christ. So not only is Christ God, as we saw in vs 15-19, but He is able to save. And we see that Christ is able to save in vs20-23. He is able to reconcile men to God.
Salvation, or being saved, is another of those Christian words that we use very often, but perhaps not always understood. Because when the Bible speaks of salvation, there are at least 6 terms that are often used to speak of salvation. I want to review them with you for a moment. Five terms used in salvation; and the first one is justification. In justification the sinner stands before God as a guilty sinner and is declared righteous. Abraham was justified by faith, and so are we.
The second term used to describe salvation is redemption. In redemption, the sinner stands before God as a captive slave and is granted freedom by a ransom, or a payment. That’s redemption. The third term that is used to describe our salvation is forgiveness. In forgiveness, the sinner stands before God as a debtor, and the debt, having been paid, is forgiven, wiped clean.
Fourth is the term we are looking at today; reconciliation. In reconciliation, the sinner stands before God as an enemy and through peace offering of Christ becomes a friend of God. Fifthly, is the term adoption, which also describes our salvation. In adoption the sinner stands before God as a stranger and is made His child.That’s adoption. And sixth, regeneration. That which was dead has been given new life. So to summarize our salvation; We stood before God as the guilty sinner, and He declared us righteous. We stood before God as a captive slave, and He granted us freedom. We stood before God as a debtor, and He forgave us. We stood before God as an enemy, and He made us a friend. We stood before God as a stranger, and He called us His child. We stood before God as dead in our sins, and we were given newness of life.
Now all of those speak of different aspects of our salvation, but today we are going to focus on reconciliation because that’s what Paul is addressing in this passage. And there are four aspects of reconciliation that Paul gives us here in these verses. The four aspects of reconciliation are the plan of reconciliation, the means of reconciliation, the aim of reconciliation, and the evidence of reconciliation.
First, let’s consider the plan of reconciliation. Vs 20 “and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, [I say,] whether things on earth or things in heaven.”
Now the key phrase there is “through Him to reconcile all things to himself.” So God reconciles all things to Himself through Christ. All things can be taken to mean all of creation. And there is a sense in which as a result of Christ’s atonement all of creation will be restored to rightness with God. All of creation is under the curse of sin. We live in a fallen world. But the apex of creation is man. When man sinned all of creation bore the curse of that sin. And in like manner, when man is reconciled to God through Jesus Christ then the rest of creation will be reconciled as well. As Romans 8:19 says, “For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.” And then in vs 21 it explains, “that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.”
All of creation is waiting for the reconciliation of God with man. Sin corrupted the universe. It destroyed the peace between one creature and the other, between all creatures and God. But the plan of God is that through Christ, the universe is going to be reconciled. It’s going to be restored to a right relationship to God. So that as Peter says in 2 Peter 3:13 “But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.”
Now when Paul says that all things will be reconciled that does not mean that everyone will be saved, and that even fallen angels will be restored. But what it means is that sin will be done away with, those who have chosen to live in sin will be sentenced to eternal punishment banished forever from the presence of God, and those angels who have fallen will be cast into the Lake of Fire, no longer to tempt or deceive or bind men. But it also means that those creatures, and every creature on earth and in heaven will bow the knee, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And sin and death will be done away with, and only righteousness will dwell in the new heavens and new earth.
In vs21 he specifies who is reconciled; “And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.” The Bible makes it clear that in our natural, sinful state we were enemies of God. It says in Rom. 8:7 that we were hostile, that means to be at war with God. It says “because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able [to do so,]”
And James uses a variation on that term, hostile, to designate the world as an enemy of God. James 4:4 You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” But through reconciliation, Paul says, you who were enemies of God have been made the friends of God. God made peace through our Lord Jesus Christ by His death on the cross.
Eph. 2:12 says, “remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace.” This was the plan of God from before creation, to create a people for Himself, who are like Him, for fellowship and communion with Him, and who will enjoy Him forever.
So that is the plan of reconciliation. Now that brings us to the means of reconciliation. Paul says how it was accomplished in vs 20; “And having made peace through the blood of His cross.” How did Christ reconcile man to God, who were His enemies, and make peace? He made peace between God and man through the blood of His cross. He is speaking of a peace offering, a sacrifice. Now when the scripture speaks of the blood it is not referencing some sort of mystical power in the actual blood of Jesus Christ. We should not view the actual blood of Christ in some superstitious manner. But what Paul means when he speaks of the blood of Christ or the blood of the cross is simply the death of Jesus Christ. Blood refers to the violent manner in which someone or something dies, not in some power of the actual element.
We see the parallel between the blood of the cross and and death for instance, in Rom 5:10 which says, “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” So we were reconciled through the death of Christ. Not by some mystical element of the blood, but blood being representative of the sacrificial death of Christ.
In verse 22; it says it another way, “In the body of His flesh through death.” The death of the substitute Lamb of God was the way that God dealt with our sin, so that we might be reconciled to Him. The justice of God had to account for sin, and we had to pay the debt of sin, the penalty for sin. But Christ offered Himself as a substitute for us, and by dying on the cross he satisfied that debt.
So the means of reconciliation was to offer Christ as as sacrifice and a substitute for our sin, so that our sins are forgiven, and we receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ. By the death of Christ we are made right with God.
Then Paul addresses the goal, or the aim of our reconciliation. And we find the goal of our reconciliation in the second part of vs 22, “yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.” In order to have complete reconciliation with God, there are three areas in which God has to make right. We must be holy, blameless and beyond reproach.
To some extent these might look like synonyms. But perhaps there are some aspects of each that have a particular meaning which might be instructive for us. Holy refers to our relationship with God. Blameless has to do with ourselves. And beyond reproach refers to our relationship with others. There has to be a holiness between us and God. There has to be a faultlessness within our own selves. And we have to be above reproach in our relationship to others.
Now when we are justified by faith in what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross, then we are made holy, blameless and beyond reproach. But Paul adds an important little phrase, “before Him.” In other words, we are holy, blameless and above reproach in HIs sight. He sees us in Christ. God sees the righteousness of Christ in us. It’s what we sang about this morning in the hymn the Solid Rock. “Dressed in His righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.”
An important verse in this regard is found in 2 Cor. 5:21. We will be looking at this verse this coming Wednesday night in our Bible study in 2 Corinthians. But it fits so well into what we are talking about this morning. It says, “(God) made (Jesus), who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” In salvation, God transfers our sin upon Jesus, and transfers Christ’s righteousness to us. So that when God looks at us, He sees Christ’s righteousness. He sees us as Christ is; holy, blameless, and above reproach. That’s why Paul can say in Romans 8: 1 that now there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
Now that phrase “In Him” also indicates our position before God. In practice we may not always be holy in all we do, or blameless, or above reproach. But positionally, we are in Christ. And so God sees us as dressed in Christ’s righteousness.
Paul says in Ephesians 5 that we are the bride of Christ, which will be presented without spot and without blemish. And on that day, when the bridegroom appears, when sin will be done away with, when all things become new, when creation is reborn without corruption, when we will be given a new, glorified sinless body, then we will become in practice what we are now in position. Holy, blameless, and without reproach.
Now let’s look at the last point, which is the evidence of our reconciliation. Vs.23, “if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.”
Notice that Paul says if you continue. That’s the first evidence of someone who has been reconciled to God. If you continue in the faith. If you continue to walk by faith and not by sight. If you continue in the faith firmly established. That means you haven’t deserted the faith. You haven’t believed some higher level of intellectualism which denies the truth of the gospel. Steadfast, means to tie your ship firmly to the anchor so that you are not tossed here and there by every wind of doctrine. This was really the danger in the church at Colossae. It was in danger of being shipwrecked by false doctrines that denied the deity of Jesus Christ.
In Luke 8:13, is the parable of the sower. And as Jesus explains the parable, He says ““Those on the rocky soil are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no firm root; they believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away.” What does to fall away indicate? It means they were never saved. True Christians will continue. In John 8:30 it says, “Many believed on His name. But Jesus said, ‘If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of mine.’” The evidence of a true Christian is he continues in the faith.
Listen to 1 John 2:19, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. But they went out from us, that it might be made manifest that they all are not of us.” And then in verse 24, “As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. This is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life.” Who gets eternal life? Those who continue. And one more, John 6:66. “As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.” True Christians continue.
And notice what they are to continue in; “not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.” The gospel is the message of Christ, the gospel of salvation. The gospel which Paul was preaching. They were to continue in the faith and hope of the gospel. That is what we are preaching. In 1Cor. 1:21 it says, “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” There is a lack of gospel preaching today in the modern church. People don’t want to hear about sin, about salvation, about sanctification. So the modern pastor teaches about relationships, about finances, about receiving material blessings. But God’s message is the message of Christ crucified. It’s the message of the cross, the gospel of reconciliation.
Now, in closing, I would like for you to look at a summary of the gospel of reconciliation which is found in 2 Cor. 5. This passage which we are “coincidentally” studying right now in our Wednesday night Bible study parallels and summarizes this gospel of reconciliation for us. It’s like a series of bullet points, and I will not expound on them at this time, but just set them out as principles of the gospel of reconciliation.
Number one, it transforms men. Verse 17, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” The gospel transforms people into a new creation.
Number two; it appeases God’s wrath. Verse 21, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” Christ bore our sins, so God could give us righteousness. It satisfies the wrath of God.
Number three; it comes through Christ. Verse 18, “Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.”
Fourth, it is our ministry. End of vs 18, “He gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” And the end of vs 19, “He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.” This is our ministry. To tell the world that Christ has died to reconcile us to God, that we might become the children of God, and inherit eternal life in Christ.
Vs. 20, “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” From time to time I hear Christians ask what kind of ministry opportunity can I get involved in at your church? I want to participate in some sort of ministry. And usually they are thinking of something along the lines of a homeless ministry, or a children’s ministry, or maybe a music ministry. But God has already given us a ministry. That being the ministry of reconciliation, where we act as ambassadors for God, representing Christ to a world that is at enmity with God, and giving them the word of reconciliation; that God has sent Jesus to die as our sacrifice and substitute so that we might be made right with God and receive the righteousness of God. Our ministry is to go to the lost, the unsaved, those that have not yet trusted Jesus Christ by faith and believed in the work that He did on the cross to pay my penalty, so that we might be given the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
That is our ministry. That is our responsibility. I pray that you accept that position of ambassador of the kingdom of God, and carry out that office, pleading with those that are at enmity with God to accept the peace of Christ, so that they might be reconciled to God.
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