Reconciliation

The reconciliation God made

The New Testament word is katallassō (καταλλάσσω), to change enmity into friendship. Paul gives the fullest account:

All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s trespasses against them.

2 Corinthians 5:18–19

Reconciliation starts with God, not with us. Nor did it wait for us to turn back: "when we were enemies of God, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son" (Romans 5:10). God did not count our sins against us but laid them on Christ, who knew no sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). So reconciliation goes hand in hand with justification: those declared righteous have peace with God.

Now that reconciliation is announced as an appeal. Paul pleads, "Be reconciled to God" (2 Corinthians 5:20). John Wesley marvelled at God's condescension in that verse: "Did the judge ever beseech a condemned criminal to accept of pardon?" Wesley And it overflows into human relationships. Christ "has torn down the dividing wall of hostility" between Jew and Gentile (Ephesians 2:14); Jesus told his hearers, "First go and be reconciled to your brother" (Matthew 5:24). Paul even says that God was pleased through Christ "to reconcile to Himself all things" (Colossians 1:20).

Who is reconciled to whom?

The New Testament always speaks of God reconciling the world to himself, never of people reconciling God. Some therefore understand reconciliation chiefly as the ending of our hostility to God: God loved us from the start, and it is we who must change. Many others hold that something changed on God's side as well. Matthew Henry writes that the unregenerate heart is at enmity with God, "and God is justly offended with him" Matthew Henry. Wesley glosses Paul's words ‘to himself’ with "So taking away that enmity, which could no otherwise be removed than by the blood of the Son of God" Wesley. Many theologians hold the two together: reconciliation was accomplished by God at the cross, and it is received by each person through faith. The related idea of the sacrifice that turns away wrath is treated under propitiation.

The Catholic and Orthodox churches also teach a sacrament by which baptised believers who have sinned are reconciled to God and the church; Catholics call confession the sacrament of reconciliation. Most Protestant churches teach confession of sin directly to God and to one another, while Lutheran and Anglican traditions have kept private confession and absolution. For the cross on which reconciliation was made, see atonement and the lesson The cross and atonement; for reconciliation between people, see How is forgiveness possible?