Reconciled! How sweet the thought ! Differences overcome. Bitter feelings assuaged. Misunderstandings removed. Separation bridged over. Calm after the storm. Peace after war. In all human relationships there is no sweeter sensation than is found when the spirits of two persons flow together after the cherishing of enmity toward each other. It does not matter then what the cause was, nor how long the difference persisted, nor how fiercely the battle raged, nor yet how wide the separation—all these are lost in the glow of reconciliation.
I once had a neighbor who was at enmity with a blood relative. For years they avoided crossing paths when they could, looked daggers at each other when they chanced to meet, hurled unbecoming epithets the one to the other when they spoke. Then a common sorrow brought them together at the graveside of a mutual friend. The solemnity of that hour, the contemplation of the fact that one day each of them also must lie low in a dusty bed, brought them to their senses, and one of them found grace enough to say to the other, "Let us bury the hatchet." The other answered. "Yes, if we bury it handle and all." Result—they were reconciled, and became faster friends than ever before.
I suppose the saints who will sing the song that not even the angels can learn, will sing it in sweeter tones and with deeper joy than if they had never sinned or felt the thrill of reconciliation after separation from God. Oh, how terrible that separation, but how sweet the reconciliation! Yet nothing but a complete change of heart can ever bring it about.
Now in the preceding study we found that "complete change" is the basic idea in the word reconciliation—the New Testament word for "atonement" in the Old. Paul gives us one instance of its use in human relationships, when he writes : "Let not the wife depart from the husband: but and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband." A young mother once left her husband, who later stole away their boy. This completely changed her heart, and she set out on long journeys to find her husband and boy, and did not rest until they came together again reconciled. A love was born in her heart that made their home happy ever after. Nothing but a great change of spirit could have effected so blissful a result.
It will help us much to trace this meaningful word through its uses in the New Testament—this word katallagee, great change; or katallasso, to make a great change. We first encounter it in Romans 5:10: "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." This passage is wonderfully enlightening. "We were reconciled to God." This is a clear case of one-sided enmity. 'Man was reconciled to God, not God to man. God was never an enemy to man, and therefore never needed reconciling to man. Man was an enemy of God, and needed reconciling to God. But it was not in man's power under the bondage of sin to reconcile himself to God. It took a greater act than he could perform to effect so great a change.
How was it done ?—"reconciled to God by the death of His Son." In other words, the great change in man's relationship to God was effected by an act outside of himself—the death of the Son of God. As Jesus died of a broken heart because of sin, so the effect of such a death is to break the heart of the hardened sinner. That act of reconciliation was a completed act—completed on the cross of Calvary. God's part was done, and done forever. But man was not saved by that act. He was reconciled, but not saved—reconciled by death, but to be saved by life—His life. God's act of reconciliation broke down the wall of partition that separated man from God, thus effecting a great change in their relationship; but man must come to God and lay hold of His life before he can be saved.
This is why we hear the plea in 2 Corinthians 5 :20 : "Be ye reconciled to God." A man is reconciled to God only when he accepts the great change brought about in his relation to Him by the death of His Son, and lays hold of the life thus made available. When he accepts the great change effected on God's part in his behalf, and lays hold upon His life, then comes about the great change in his own life that means salvation. A beautiful picture is drawn by the apostle in his discourse on reconciliation in this chapter. Contemplate this marvelous scene: "God was in Christ, reconciling the world [the sinner] unto Himself." Man took no part in this. God did it all "when we were enemies," and did it in the death of Christ. When that was done, it could be truthfully declared that cojhat ii reconciled us to Himself," though we were yet sinners. (See 2 Cor. 5:18.)
Now look at the other side of the picture in verse 19: He "hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation," or "the word of reconciliation." But the "us" in this instance (verse 19) is different from the -us" before the reconciliation (verse 18), when we are still sinners. The "us" of verse 19 refers to those who have accepted the reconciliation wrought out on the cross, and have become "ambassadors for Christ," as they are called in the next verse. As ambassadors they (we) are to minister the word of reconciliation. How ?—"We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God."'
The apparent contradiction of terms in these verses need not trouble us. "God . . hath reconciled us to Himself," yet we are prayed to "be. . . reconciled to God." Ah, what a difference! God reconciled us while we were yet sinners and had no part in the reconciiiation. Then He sends to us those who have accepted the reconciliation He made, and have become His ambassadors, and these bid us who are yet sinners to accept that reconciliation. When we do that, the .great change comes about in us that is so effectively denoted in the great word katallagee, otherwise reconciliation, or the atonement in effect.
It is said in Holy Writ that "the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." Rom. 8:26. It would seem that this same Spirit, working through the writers of the New Testament, has sought to make appeal to sinners more effective by presenting the atonement in a varied and most attractive way. First we have the Old Testament idea of atonement literally carried over in several passages in the New—the idea of havino-6 our sins covered with His righteousness. Then, with one of the great steps in the atonement plan historically fulfilled in the cross, our minds are led a step forward in contemplation of the great change wrought by the act of reconciliation in "the death of His Son," and our acceptance of that act for personal salvation. In this conception, atonement is viewed from the standpoint of man's relation to God—separated from Him by sin and in need of deliverance.
But the Spirit brings the matter to us in a third way; namely, by presenting Jesus as sent "to be the propitiation for our sins." John 2:2 and 4:10. (See also Romans 3:25.) This word, hilasmos, linked up in its root meaning to the Old Testament word for atonement, views the matter from the standpoint of God's relation to man—by what means He should effect salvation of the sinner. It represents Jesus as the means, as the great Impersonation of the atonement, of reconciliation. In other words, He is our great Atoner, our great Reconciler, our Propitiater in the presence of a merciful God.
How strikingly this great office of Intercessor fulfills that outstanding prophecy of Daniel 9:24, that a part of His mission should be "to make reconciliation for iniquity." This passage is one of the notable exceptions in the Old Testament to the well-nigh uniform rendering of kaphar as "make an atonement," and might well be rendered thus here as one of the steps toward entering upon the priesthood for the covering of sin with His righteousness in the ministry of the heavenly sanctuary. In the Septuagint, it is rendered by its almost uniform exilaskomai, extend mercy, appearing in the Old Testament and carried over to some extent into the Greek of the New.
How unalterably predetermined and fixed were these great landmarks of prophecy. How definitely and accurately each one was reached on time. Their high significance is recognized and emphasized by the many-sided aspects in which the Spirit strives to have us grasp their import. These all center in the person and work of our great Intercessor in the courts above.
He is there today in the sanctuary devoting Himself unceasingly to the work begun by Him at the cross. He is pleading for you. He is pleading for me. He will never be satisfied till He has made "an end of sin," till He has completed His work of atonement "for iniquity," till He has brought in "everlasting righteousness" in the earth and in all the universe of God.
What shall you and I say to all these wonderful things? What is our response to so gracious a provision by Him who loved us and gave Himself for our sins? Surely those who have never accepted such grace will bow the head and breathe the prayer, "God be merciful to me a sinner." In other words, more literal, "God cover my sin;" "God make His reconciliation effective in me," and I shall be "reconciled to God." Yea, and we who have accepted the provision and felt the great change in heart and in life, shall we not prefix the more intensive apo to that meaningful word katalla gee, and experience a fuller surrender, a complete transference from a state of bondage in sin to a state of joyful liberty in Christ Jesus?
