Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 | Date: July 11, 2021 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

The Nature of Reconciliation

I was very interested to hear the deacon’s announcement today about requesting help for painting the building and inviting anyone, everyone. Sounds scary. I think maybe we might add something to that: that when you choose a section to paint, it will have your name on it. You will be held responsible for it.

I’m sorry, 2 Corinthians chapter 5. We have been tracing out in this part of the series the nature of Christ’s work. We saw that he came on a mission of rescue to accomplish redemption for his people. We’ve been trying to seek out what the Bible teaches us about the nature of that redemptive work. We began by seeing that it was a work of sacrifice. We saw that it then has the nature of a substitutional sacrifice, that Christ was the substitute for sinners. We saw then, going a little deeper, that his atoning work must be spoken of in terms of propitiation, and that is that he satisfies divine wrath against sin. We saw also that it is a work of justification. We are justified in his blood. And now today we look at the work of reconciliation: reconciled to God.

2 Corinthians 5, I’ll begin with verse 18. Paul here has been speaking of the work of Christ for him and the transforming work that has done in the life of Paul and those for whom Christ died. It has transformed them entirely, making them nothing less than, verse 17, a new creature or a new creation in Christ. All this, verse 18, all this is from God who 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, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Let’s bow for prayer. Our Father, it’s been good for our souls to explore the many dimensions of the great work of Christ for us. It has given us a deeper appreciation of the value of Christ. It’s given us a greater realization of our great need in its many dimensions. We see because of that then the greatness of the work of Christ for us. We pray that you will give us again today a deeper understanding of it. Help us through this. We pray to become better worshipers, to learn better what it is to praise Christ in a way that is worthy of him and for the work that he has done for us. And may it also in turn make us more faithful servants until he returns for us, we pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

One of the leading entailments of our sin is that it has estranged us from God. It has rendered us estranged from God. That is, because of our sin not only are we guilty and deserving of condemnation, but we’re alienated now from God. Out of sorts. Relationship ruined. An antagonism exists, and we see something of that at the very first outset of sin in Genesis chapter 3. For Adam’s part, he ran and hid from God. For God’s part, he expelled him from the garden. This antagonism, this estrangement, alienation is the state of every man and woman born in sin. Isaiah 59 in verse 3 sums it up: “Your iniquities have separated you from your God. Your sins have hidden his face from you.”

And this is not, as I’ve already mentioned, just estrangement in the sense of making us strangers, but it has specifically the form of enmity and antagonism on both sides. From our side, there’s rebellion, there’s anger, there’s hatred. The Bible uses all of that language with reference to man toward God. Romans chapter 5 and verse 10, perhaps most famously: “when we were enemies,” that is when we set ourselves in opposition to God. That’s how Paul characterizes the pre-conversion state of every man and woman: enemies of God. Romans chapter 8 and verse 7: “the carnal mind is enmity,” hostility against God. That is not just in our behavior but in our inward disposition set against God and an enmity with him. Paul picks it up in Colossians chapter 1: “enemies in your mind by wicked works.”

Now this matter of human enmity or hatred toward God is not something that’s generally acknowledged by those who are lost. You ask them about it, they’ll probably say something like, “Oh, I don’t hate God.” Now, we have an increasing number that will say that today, but generally speaking, those outside of Christ aren’t going to say they hate God. Jonathan Edwards, in his sermon on Romans chapter 5 and verse 10, as found in his works—as characteristic of Edwards, he analyzes this down to the bottom. And I’ll just give you a couple of observations that he makes. You say you do not hate God, you who are without Christ. You say you do not hate God. Well, let’s look at the evidence. And he begins to pick it apart.

One, by nature, we have a low esteem of God. We count him unworthy of our love, unworthy of our devotion. We do not serve him as he deserves. We have a low esteem of God. Number two, we prefer to keep a distance from God. We are not, by nature, inclined to seek God in prayer and commune with him. Three, our wills are contrary to the law of God. We are not, by nature, loyal subjects of God’s sovereign rule. Quite the opposite. Number four, we are enemies against God in our affections. When life doesn’t go our way, the immediate response is: “Why does God let this happen? Why does God allow these evil things to happen?”

Jesus says in John chapter 5 verse 43, “I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my father’s name and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you’ll receive him.” That’s a revelation of the heart of man toward God. Jesus said it with regard to his disciples: “I’ll send you out.” And he said, “They’re going to hate you for it. And they hate you because they hate me. If they didn’t hate me, they wouldn’t hate you. But I’ve chosen you out of the world. I’ve made you mine. And that’s why they hate you.” This is a revelation of the antagonistic affections that man have toward God.

Number five, Edwards says, we are enemies in practice. That is, we knowingly transgress the law of God. We want to. John unpacks this a bit in John chapter 3: “Men, this is the condemnation that comes into the world. Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.” Their affections and their activity, all of their preference is anti-God and away from God and against God. So in our heart and in our actions, we hate God naturally. What he demands we hate. What he forbids, we love. And when he threatens us for disobedience, we hate him for that too.

So the evidence is plenty. We don’t have generally characterized people without Christ—they’re not characterized by prayer, faithful church attendance, seeking God in his word, Christian fellowship, love for other believers. There’s generally no fear of God before their eyes, as Paul says. Their loves and their pursuits are all against God. You see this when you witness. It might even be a friend or a loved one. You may have a friendly relationship. You might have a loving relationship. Press the gospel a little bit and you see the rising tensions and even antagonism against God. The Psalms are replete with that kind of vocabulary about men and women without God. “Those who hate you” is the constant refrain.

So from our side, there’s rebellion, there’s anger, there’s hatred. More importantly, from God’s side, God is not indifferent to all of that. After all, he deserves our love, he deserves our loyalty. We owe it to him to worship him as he deserves. And when we do not, there is a kind of holy revulsion on God’s part against us. The Bible uses words like “abomination.” And in fact, the Psalms here are very, I think, instructive in this regard. Not only do the Psalms tell us, like in Psalm 45 and verse 7, God hates wickedness, but we find it much more personal than that in the Psalms. Psalm 5 verse 5, for example: “God hates all evildoers.” Psalm 7 verses 11 to 13: “God is a righteous judge and a God who feels indignation every day.” Psalm 11 verse 5: “his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.”

We find that language all through the Psalms, probably dozens of times over. God’s hatred and God’s wrath against those who are sinners. We have a saying that’s common today: “God hates the sin but loves the sinner.” Now there’s enough truth in that to be confusing. Because there is a broad sense in which we can say, as John says, God loved the world. And we can say with the psalmist, God’s loving kindness, his compassion is over all of his works. And yet there is not the same love at all that he has toward those who are in Christ. In fact, the Psalms are given to us in one respect just to remind us of that: that God hates the wicked. His soul hates the wicked. He feels indignation every day.

And in fact, the Old Testament has something like 20 different Hebrew words used hundreds of times to express God’s wrath against sinners. Wrath, fury, hate, anger is kindled, the wrath to come. All of this kind of language is used of God with reference to sinners. And in fact, as I’ve already mentioned, it’s impossible for it to be otherwise. God is a holy God. He is a righteous God. We owe it to him to honor his majesty as he deserves, and when we don’t honor God and worship him and serve him and submit to him as he deserves, it is only right for him to be revulsed by it, repulsed by it, and to be angry and seek then finally to rectify that matter, whether in judgment or in mercy.

So that’s the relationship that exists between God and every person outside of Christ. Both God and men at enmity with each other, alienation, estranged from one another, humanity in rebellion, and God determined to judge. That’s the relationship. I’ve said it many times through this series that the gospel takes the hard questions head on. That’s not what you hear in contemporary religion today. In contemporary religion, it’s while God loves the sinner, it is God is a loving God, God is willing to let bygones be bygones, and somehow in the mix of it all, God surrenders something. And that’s not what we find in the scriptures.

So how do we rectify this problem of alienation and estrangement and enmity between God and man? Well, the answer is found in this doctrine of reconciliation that we’re going to look at this morning. Reconciliation, of course, has to do with the restoration of friendship and fellowship after estrangement. Here two people have been estranged, at odds with one another for whatever reason. They’ve been reconciled, brought back into fellowship with one another, and peace is established. That’s what Paul is talking about here in 2 Corinthians chapter 5.

Notice verses 18 to 21 again. “All this is from God, who 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 and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God, making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Now notice in verse 18, Paul characterizes his gospel work as the “ministry of reconciliation.” It’s a broad, all-inclusive term. What is the gospel ministry that I have, Paul says? It’s a ministry of reconciliation. I have a ministry in which I bring peace to sinful men, where men and God—men and women in their sin on the one hand, God on the other—are brought together in peace and in fellowship with one another, restoring fellowship. That, he says, is my ministry: to bring men and women back to fellowship with God. Now, there’s no change in God in any of that, but we have a change of relationship between God and men through the gospel ministry of the work of Christ.

That’s a huge theme in the New Testament. Let me give you a couple of statements in the New Testament that speak of reconciliation in this broad, all-inclusive category describing the goal of the death of Christ. Ephesians chapter 6, verse 15, Paul characterizes his gospel as the “gospel of peace.” What is the gospel for? It is a message that brings peace between God and men. There was enmity, estrangement, hatred, antagonism, alienation, but through the gospel, peace is established.

Colossians chapter 1 verses 19 to 22: “For in him all the fullness [that is in Christ, all the fullness of God] was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things to himself, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” And here’s how he describes the reconciliation: “You who once were alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.” Again, he’s speaking of the work of Christ in broad terms and he speaks of it as reconciliation. Here through the work of Christ, peace is established and those who once were alienated are brought into fellowship with God.

1 Peter 3, verse 18: “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” There’s reconciliation. The righteous one suffering in the place of the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God and establish peace between us. Well, Paul says, that’s my gospel. It’s a gospel of reconciliation, a gospel that sets man right with God and establishes fellowship with God again.

So how does that work? And he describes that for us here in verses 18 and following. How does the work of Christ establish peace with God? The short answer is: it removes the obstacle that created the alienation. But let’s see how Paul describes it here.

First, It Was A Divine Act

First of all, he says, and make no mistake about this, it was a divine act. He states it twice over. Look at verses 18 and 19. “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself.” That is, this reconciliation does not result from anything on our side. This is God’s work through Christ.

Now that’s an important factor in this to note because God is not a third party in the dispute. Not at all. Now when we speak of reconciled people being reconciled today, we still use the word. People who’ve been at odds have been reconciled together. Often what happens in personal disputes is that some third party, presumably a disinterested party, neutral, comes in and convinces both sides to make nice. “Okay, shake hands, it’s over.” Pastor Greg and Pastor Boyd are at odds with one another and fighting. I have to step in. A third party, presumably neutral, and convince them to make nice and to put down their rebellion against each other. That’s never happened, by the way.

Or if we have warring nations, they engage in peace talks. Often a third party comes in. We find this often in the Middle East and the United States trying to act like a third party coming in, negotiating the peace. Both sides make concessions and decide to lay down their arms. That’s not what happens in this doctrine of reconciliation at all. It is by no means the case here. God himself is at work to establish reconciliation, and all of it comes from his side. It’s his initiative. God in Christ, God sending his Son, and on his initiative, sending his Son, God at work through him to establish peace. In grace, God takes up the cause himself, and at a cost only to himself, he removes the obstacle that gave rise to the estrangement and alienation and enmity. “All this is from God,” he says.

So the picture here, and this is important to see, it is not of God as unwilling but God the Son forcing his hand. You’ll hear that sometimes in popular preaching: God determined to judge, determined to judge, and the Son intervenes. “No, you can’t judge because I’ve died for the…” That’s not the biblical picture. We have seen it over and again in this, that God put his Son forward to be a propitiation for his sins, for their sins. And here we have the same thing: that God in Christ made the move. It’s all his initiative. It is all his doing that he establishes peace through the work of Christ. So one, this is a divine act. This reconciliation is something that God does.

Second, Peace Is Established By The Non-Imputation Of Sin

Number two, notice peace is established by—and this is verse 19, I’ll say it this way—by the non-imputation of sin. Notice verse 19: “in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself.” How? “Not counting their trespasses against them.” And there’s our imputation word again, the bookkeeping term that we saw last time in the Great Exchange. That here we have sinners who have sinned against God. Because of that sin, they’re at enmity with God. And now to reconcile men to God, God in Christ doesn’t impute their sins to them. He doesn’t credit that to them, count it against them.

Now how in the world can he do that? We saw this last time with David in Psalm 32: “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not count sin.” So here’s my record of sins and God doesn’t count it against me. But God is a righteous judge. How does that happen? And so Paul tells us again, and here’s the third point. This was a divine act. This peace was established through the non-imputation of sin.

Third, There Is The Great Exchange

How does he do that? Well, thirdly, there is the great exchange that we talked about last week. That’s verse 21. “For our sakes he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” He made him, Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin for us. I’ve said it how many times before: what an awful statement. God the Son made sin, constituted sin, constituted the great sinner, representing sinners, making him our substitute to bear the punishment of our sin. He made him to be sin, and then the other half: “that we might become the righteousness of God in him,” the other side of the exchange.

He takes our sin—our sins charged against him instead of against us. Not counted to us, but counted to him. In exchange, his righteousness counted to us. This is what Paul says—we saw this last time in 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 30: “Christ is made unto us righteousness.” Paul has that hope when he stands before God in judgment: “I’ll be found not having my own righteousness, but the righteousness of God that is by faith in Christ.” My sin, not charged to me, but charged to Christ, and his righteousness charged or credited to us.

So justification—we’re back to that doctrine again, the doctrine of justification—our sin made Christ’s, his righteousness made ours. And because of this great exchange, Paul says here, the whole problem of alienation and enmity is removed. Why is it now that at this point we can be reconciled to God? Answer: because that which caused the enmity, namely our sin, has been dealt with. It has not been charged to us. It has been charged instead to Christ. And God has reconciled us to himself by removing the obstacle of fellowship, our sin, through Jesus Christ in his saving work.

So these two doctrines then are related: justification and reconciliation. Justification is the legal acquittal, dealing with our guilt, the declaration of righteousness because of the great exchange, and then reconciliation takes it a step further. It’s the restoration of those who are justified into fellowship with God, and peace between us is established. It’s a reconciliation; it’s something of a relational blessing of the atonement. And it’s a blessing that rests on our judicial justification that we saw last week. Estrangement, alienation, enmity, no longer possible because that which caused it has been removed.

Paul hints of this in Romans chapter 5 and verse 1: “having been justified by faith, we have peace with God.” Because of justification, we are reconciled. Now we’ve learned several times, particularly in Romans chapter 3, in those later verses in the chapter that we’ve looked at three or four times now. But now also here we see something of the mechanics, if we can call it that, the mechanics of the atonement. How does it work? What’s the logic of the atonement? And there are some passages that spell that out for us. And here we have the same thing. We have one, substitution. He was made sin for us, implied. He satisfied divine wrath, propitiation. As a result, we are justified. The guilt has been removed and we’ve been declared righteous in Christ. And now because justified, we’re reconciled to God and made friends again. God has dealt with the sins that aroused his wrath and now having removed the sins in Christ, he’s established peace.

Isaiah the prophet, in his great prophecy of the suffering servant, Isaiah 53, in verse 5, speaks of this exactly when he says, “the chastisement of our peace was upon him.” By his punishment in our place, God was satisfied, our sin was removed, and peace is established. And that’s one of the dimensions of the title for Jesus that we find in Isaiah chapter 9 when he’s called the Prince of Peace. This is one dimension of the peace that he establishes.

Now here in 2 Corinthians 5, as I’ve already mentioned, Paul speaks of reconciliation as an all-embracing category of gospel work. Look again at verse 18. “All this is from God, who 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, entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.” Now notice here that the gospel work, the message of reconciliation, is grounded in a work that has already been accomplished in Christ. Verse 18: God, through Christ, reconciled us to himself and then gave us the ministry of reconciliation. He says it again in verse 19. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself. There’s reconciliation accomplished and established, “entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”

That is to say, because reconciliation has been established, we then have this ministry of the gospel: “be reconciled to God.” Reconciliation has been established in Christ through his death, and now we take the message out and say, “You may be reconciled to God.” He’s offered terms of peace. He’s accomplished reconciliation through the work of his Son. Come to his Son and be reconciled to God. The work of Christ establishes reconciliation, and now on the ground of that, we have this message of reconciliation, he says. Verse 20: “Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ.” Therefore, because of all of this, we are ambassadors for Christ. God making his appeal to us, we implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

So God has established reconciliation—peace—through the death of Christ for sin. And now the gospel goes out announcing the great work of Christ by which men can be brought to peace with God. And through Christ and coming to him, we are brought into fellowship with the God whom we are offended. The doctrine of reconciliation.

Now can you see what this means for the Christian and how we ought to think about this? Peace with God has been established and in fact now in our own experience we have come to Christ and in him we have experienced reconciliation with God. We are reconciled to God and in fact this goes on both sides. On our side, there’s no more antagonism toward God. We love him. We call him Father. On his side, God has a heart toward us in love. And in fact, the New Testament writers take this doctrine of reconciliation to an unimaginable length, all the way to the doctrine of adoption. We are called sons in Christ. Not only is peace established, but actually brought into the family, into God’s love in Christ. The enmity is gone, no sense of alienation on our side, no antagonism on God’s side, no fear of God’s condemning wrath. Peace has been established.

This is one of those words—another one of these big vocabulary words I’ve been pressing through the series—that you want to get into your head and deep down into your heart. Peace, fellowship with God has been established by God through Christ and there is nothing to add to it. So for any man or woman concerned about his sin, we go and we say with full confidence: “Peace has been established. Come to Jesus and come to fellowship with God.” What a wonderful doctrine this is to assure the hearts of every believer. God is no longer against me. God is for me. Peace, fellowship has been established.

I want you to see how Paul reasons this way in Romans chapter 5. Look at Romans chapter 5 and verse 10. Romans 5 and verse 10: “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son,” notice the thinking there, “While we were enemies, we were reconciled. Much more, now that we are reconciled,” we are at peace, we have fellowship with God, “shall we be saved by his life.” So what Paul is doing here is reasoning from the doctrine of reconciliation to assurance on the part of the Christian, of Christian security and assurance. And he says, if when we were enemies—antagonism on both sides—if when that state of affairs existed, God reconciled us to himself in Christ, if he would do all of that for us while we were enemies, then how could you possibly imagine that now that we’re friends we could ever be lost?

You see the logic of that? It’s marvelous. He’s thinking, I think, of that concerned Christian who’s thinking, “Maybe I’ve sinned it away.” Or maybe he’s thinking about that timid soul Christian who goes to pray and feels like he just doesn’t have a right to be there. And Paul says: think, think, think, think, think, think, think here. Think like a Christian. Think like someone who knows the gospel. When you were enemies, God made you his friend in Christ. Do you think now that he could ever let you go? And Paul says, take this doctrine and use it. Use it to your own soul’s encouragement, enrichment, and assurance.

John Wesley caught this, and I think he caught it very well, in that hymn that we love to sing. Maybe we can sing it this morning if you don’t have another one picked out. Hint, hint. He captured this very well. “Arise, my soul, arise. Shake off thy guilty fears. The bleeding sacrifice in thy behalf appears.” It’s what? Okay, okay, good, good. Now there’s one stanza of that hymn that I would have written differently. I won’t say that he got it wrong, but in one stanza he reverses the biblical language. The biblical language always is the other direction: we are reconciled to God. I won’t say he’s wrong because the concept is surely there in the New Testament that God was antagonistic toward us and now we are reconciled together. The word the Bible, New Testament would use for that would be: God is propitiated. Because he is satisfied, we in turn are reconciled to him. We were the offending party, not God, and so the language is always that one direction. We are reconciled to God.

Well, with that nitpick aside, he gets it very well: “My God is reconciled. His pardoning voice I hear. He owns me for his child. I can no longer fear. With confidence, I now draw nigh and Abba, Father, Abba, Father, cry.” That’s the doctrine of reconciliation. Christ has taken our place. He’s paid the debt. Because guilt is gone and taken by our substitute, we are justified. And now because sin has been removed, that sin problem has been dealt with thoroughly, we now are brought into fellowship with God, reconciled to him forever. Amen. Let’s pray.