Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

RECONCILIATION

To “reconcile” or bring about “reconciliation” is to restore harmony or friendship between two entities formerly divided. In the biblical tradition, reconciliation denotes the fundamental fact of a restored relationship, either between human persons, among various elements in the cosmos, or between humans and God.

This biblical idea assumes that relationships have indeed been broken, as the narrative of Gen. 3 so poignantly relates. In that story, moreover, all relationships of human existence stand in need of reconciliation: relations between creatures and their Creator, gender relationships made hostile by the effects of sin, and the relationships between human creatures and the earth itself which have been marred as well by the sin of the garden.

The covenant people of Israel understood reconciliation primarily in a cultic sense whereby “sin offerings and guilt offerings” would restore the harmony between themselves and God, a harmony which had been broken by sin and covenant violation. Heb. kāpar, “to cover, make atonement,” conveys the intent of these cultic offerings (Lev. 8:15; 16:1-34; Ezek. 45:15, 17, 20) to purify and restore the people’s relationship with God. In the OT acts of reconciliation or atonement are performed by the people through the mediation of the priests.

In the NT reconciliation also denotes a changed relationship in which formerly estranged persons or elements experience a restored harmony. Christians should seek reconciliation between themselves and any estranged community member, especially before offering a gift at the altar (Matt. 5:24) or going to settle disputes before a magistrate (Luke 12:58).

The Pauline tradition, however, develops the theme of reconciliation more fully than any other biblical texts. Paul can use the term “reconciliation” in a very human way, as in 1 Cor. 7:11 when urging spouses to be reconciled with one another. But, for Paul, the dominant emphasis falls not on efforts at human reconciliation but on what God has done in the world, through Christ. This Pauline conviction appears especially in 2 Cor. 5:14-21; Rom. 5:8-11; 11:15 (cf. Col. 1:20-22; Eph. 2:12-17).

Christ’s death and resurrection have redefined and restored all relationships in the “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17); God, now, has become the perfect Reconciler. Through Christ, God has restored all people to a right relationship with the divine Creator and has summoned every believer to cooperate in this “ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:18). The whole cosmos now stands reconciled before God, invited into this reconciliation: “in Christ God was reconciling the world” (2 Cor. 5:19). In Romans Paul draws on the sacrificial language of his Jewish heritage to understand Christ’s atoning death as the perfect act of reconciliation (Rom. 5:10-11) effected by God, in and through Christ.

Finally, Colossians and Ephesians draw the implications of God’s act of reconciliation to their cosmic heights. In Christ, God was reconciling “all things, whether on earth or in heaven” (Col. 1:20) so as to enable a “holy and blameless and irreproachable” offering (v. 22). For the author of Ephesians, the fundamental religious division between Jew and Gentile has finally been reconciled; Christ has himself become the “peace between us” (Eph. 2:14). The effect of this reconciliation is nothing less than the creation of a “new humanity” (Eph. 2:15) built on Christ, the one who “fills all in all” (1:23).

Bibliography. R. J. Schreiter, Reconciliation: Mission and Ministry in a Changing Social Order (Maryknoll, 1996).

Barbara E. Bowe

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

RECONCILIATION

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)