Basic HTML Version
Not once is God said to be “reconciled.” The enmity is alone on our part. It was we who
needed to be “reconciled” to God, not God to us, and it is propitiation, which His
righteousness and mercy have provided, that makes the “reconciliation” possible to those
who receive it.
When the writers of the NT speak upon the subject of the wrath of God, “the hostility
is represented not as on the part of God, but of man. And this is the reason why the
apostle never uses
[a word used only in Matt. 5:24, in the NT] in this
connection, but always
, because the former word denotes mutual concession
after mutual hostility [frequently exemplified in the Sept.], an idea absent from
” (Lightfoot,
:
,
7
8 $
, p. 288).
The subject finds its great unfolding in 2 Cor. 5:18-20, which states that God
“reconciled us (believers) to Himself through Christ,” and that “the ministry of
reconciliation” consists in this, “that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto
Himself.” The insertion of a comma in the
KJV
after the word “Christ” is misleading; the
doctrine stated here is not that God was in Christ (the unity of the Godhead is not here in
view), but that what God has done in the matter of reconciliation He has done in Christ,
and this is based upon the fact that “Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our
behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” On this ground the
command to men is “be ye reconciled to God.”
The verb is used elsewhere in 1 Cor. 7:11, of a woman returning to her husband.¶
2.
(
1
, 604), “to reconcile completely” ( , from, and
No. 1), a stronger form of No. 1, “to change from one condition to another,” so as to
remove all enmity and leave no impediment to unity and peace, is used in Eph. 2:16, of
the “reconciliation” of believing Jew and Gentile “in one body unto God through the
Cross”; in Col. 1:21 not the union of Jew and Gentile is in view, but the change wrought
in the individual believer from alienation and enmity, on account of evil works, to
“reconciliation” with God; in v. 20 the word is used of the divine purpose to “reconcile”
through Christ “all things unto Himself … whether things upon the earth, or things in the
heavens,” the basis of the change being the peace effected “through the blood of His
Cross.” It is the divine purpose, on the ground of the work of Christ accomplished on the
cross, to bring the whole universe, except rebellious angels and unbelieving man, into full
accord with the mind of God, Eph. 1:10. Things “under the earth,” Phil. 2:10, are
subdued, not “reconciled.”¶
3.
(
1
, 1259), “to effect an alteration, to exchange,” and hence, “to
reconcile,” in cases of mutual hostility yielding to mutual concession, and thus differing
from No. 1 (under which see Lightfoot’s remarks), is used in the passive voice in Matt.
5:24, which illustrates the point. There is no such idea as “making it up” where God and
man are concerned.¶
B. Noun.
(
)
, 2643), akin to A, No. 1, primarily “an exchange,” denotes
“reconciliation,” a change on the part of one party, induced by an action on the part of
another; in the NT, the “reconciliation” of men to God by His grace and love in Christ.
The word is used in Rom. 5:11 and 11:15. The occasioning cause of the world-wide
proclamation of “reconciliation” through the gospel, was the casting away (partially and