What is reconciliation?
Question 07028
Before anyone can be reconciled, there must have been a separation. The New Testament does not soften what that separation looks like: human beings, by nature and by choice, are at enmity with God. Not merely distant from Him, not simply ignorant of Him, but opposed to Him. Reconciliation is the doctrine that addresses this hostility and describes how it has been resolved, at enormous cost, entirely by God’s initiative.
The Problem: Enmity with God
Romans 5:10 states it plainly: “while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.” The word Paul uses for enemies does not describe a neutral estrangement but active hostility. Colossians 1:21 adds that before Christ, people were “alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds.” The hostility is not merely emotional; it is expressed in moral conduct, in the practical orientation of the will away from God and toward self and sin.
This enmity is not one-directional. Scripture also describes God’s wrath against sin as genuine and active. Romans 1:18 speaks of “the wrath of God” revealed from heaven against “all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” God is not indifferent to human rebellion. He cannot be. A God who was unconcerned about moral evil would not be the God of Scripture. The hostility runs in both directions, and any account of reconciliation that fails to reckon with God’s wrath against sin will misrepresent what the cross achieved.
The Resolution: Christ’s Death
2 Corinthians 5:18–21 is the central passage on reconciliation. “God… through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” Three things deserve attention here.
Reconciliation is entirely God’s initiative. Paul does not say humanity reached out to God; he says God reconciled humanity to Himself. The hostile party was not God; God was the One who moved toward the hostile party. This is the grace at the heart of the gospel. The estranged, hostile creature did not soften first; the Creator, through the cross, made it possible for the hostility to end.
The mechanism is the non-counting of trespasses. The reason God can receive the rebellious sinner is that the trespasses that caused the enmity have been dealt with. At the cross, the full weight of those trespasses was placed on Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21). The judicial basis for the enmity was removed. Reconciliation is not an act of divine amnesia; it is an act of divine justice in which the penalty was genuinely paid.
The result is a ministry: “we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” Reconciliation has been achieved objectively at the cross, but it must be received personally. The appeal of the gospel is the invitation to receive what has been made possible.
The Scope of Reconciliation
Colossians 1:20 suggests a cosmic dimension: “through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” The reconciliation Christ achieved at the cross has implications beyond individual human salvation. The creation itself groans under the effects of the fall and awaits its own liberation (Romans 8:19–21). The disruption that sin introduced into the created order will ultimately be resolved. The new earth of Revelation 21–22 is the final expression of a cosmic reconciliation that begins at the cross.
So, now what?
The believer who has been reconciled to God has received a ministry. They know what it is to have been at enmity with God and to have had that enmity ended at the cross, not by their own effort. That knowledge shapes how they relate to others who are still alienated, still unaware that the means of peace has been provided. The appeal of the gospel is one reconciled person pointing another to the only place where genuine peace between humanity and God has ever been possible.
“While we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.” Romans 5:10
