What is reconciliation?

"Reconciliation" is a word that has been around a long time. 

In general, it means that two parties who were enemies lay aside their hostility and become friends. In the first century, as the Apostle Paul was starting churches and telling people from all walks of life what God was doing in Jesus Christ, he used the word "reconciliation" to describe it. For him, that word meant several things:

God is reconciling people to Himself in Christ

In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul is talking about the work that he does as a preacher and a church planter. He says that God first reconciled Paul and other believers to Himself in Christ. Because Jesus died and rose again, God no longer counts sin against people who place their trust in Him. He reconciles people to Himself.

He also gives us the ministry of reconciliation: that is, we become ambassadors for Christ, imploring people to receive this reconciliation.

God is reconciling the church in Christ

Paul uses the word again in Ephesians 2, talking to Jews and Gentiles. These two racial groups were hostile to one another, because they were divided by culture and by religion. But because both Jews and Gentiles are in Christ, they are by definition one body. Paul is not just telling people of different races to get along. He is saying that we just are one already. Christ has done it by reconciliation. It is now our job to live into the reality that, across cultural, racial, national and socioeconomic lines, we are one family. In the New Testament, there is no such thing as a Jewish church and a Gentile church in the same town, or a rich church and a poor one in the same town. That would have been unthinkable. 

God is reconciling the world to Himself in Christ

In Colossians chapter 1 Paul uses the word "reconciliation" one more time. He says that when Christ died he did not just aim to reconcile people to himself, but "to reconcile all things to Himself, whether on earth or in heaven" (Colossians 1:20). The world and its systems and structures will one day be under the reign and order of Jesus Christ. The church signals that reality to the world as we work to reform what is under our influence, seeking justice and righteousness in our communities.

Reconciliation means all of these things: individuals coming to faith, people becoming family across social and racial lines, and churches seeking justice in the name of Christ. This is what we want to be a part of.