Repent, Reconcile, Renew: Reconciliation

Repentance, reconciliation and renewal are three important elements in the Christian life. God’s kindness draws us to Him, leading us to repent. Through repentance we become reconciled to God by the atoning blood of Jesus Christ. Once we are reconciled, the Holy Spirit works in us to renew our minds by the process of sanctification.

All three of these processes involve change. In repentance we change our minds about sin. Rather than being a source of pleasure and liberation, we understand it is the cause of alienation from God and eternal punishment. In being reconciled to God we experience a change in our relationship with God. We change from being His enemies to being His children. As the Holy Spirit renews our hearts and minds, we change from being selfish to embracing lives of obedience and service.

When Adam sinned in Genesis 3, he was separated from the intimate fellowship he had enjoyed with God. Jesus briefly experience separation from His Father when He took upon Himself “our transgressions, … our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5). He “who knew no sin [became] sin on our behalf” (2 Corinthians 5:21) becoming “a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13).

Jesus separation from His Father caused Him to cry out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46; quoting Psalm 22:1). At the moment of His death, when Jesus’ completed His work to be the propitiation for our sin (1 John 4:10) His relationship with His Father was restored. Luke records Jesus final words as, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46.)

Jesus’ death and resurrection also restored our relation with God, “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” (Romans 5:10).

While it was painful for God to see Jesus suffer, “it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Jesus, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself” (Colossians 1:19-20).

Likewise Jesus, “for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2). The joy that Jesus held onto while enduring the cross was the opportunity for the reconciliation of all people to God.

We are called as believers to share the good news of reconciliation with all people. “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” (2 Corinthians 5:18-19).

Just as Jesus reconciled us God, He reconciles into one body and one church all people that place their faith in Him. Ephesians 2:14-16 describes how through the cross God reconciles all believers into one body – the church. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).