RECONCILIATION (2 Corinthians 5:17-21) (Kent Smith Notes 8/4/24)

RECONCILIATION - (n)

AND

(to) RECONCILE - (v)

2 Corinthians 5:17-21

**********************************************************

Reconciliation

The action of reconciling

The state of being reconciled

Reconcile:

To make an exchange in accounting to get things to balance (checkbook)

To restore to a position of favor and friendship

To make an adjustment in how actions are accounted to balance the demands of justice

_________________________________________

THE RECONCILED STATE

The Necessary Condition If anyone is in Christ

The consequence: They are a new creation

The old things have passed away.

BENEFIT ONE: our past is no longer relevant

New Things have come.

BENEFIT TWO: A new relationship with God

These benefits are from God through Christ

**************************************************************

17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

18 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ.

Christians have been reconciled. (past tense) They exist in a perpetual state of fellowship with God, having been reconciled.

1. The old things have passed away

Our past is no longer relevant

2. New things have come.

A new reconciled relationship with God

3. These benefits are from God through Christ

____________________________________________

THE MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION

Our Ministry

Ministers (servants - ‘diakonos’) of reconciliation.

Our Model

God was reconciling the world through Christ.

Balancing accounts through the death of Jesus

Not counting our trespasses against us.

Our Mandate

God mad us messengers of His offer of reconciliation

******************************************************************

(and) CHRIST GAVE US THE MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION,

19 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.

We are beneficiaries of God’s MINISTRY to reconcile the world to Himself.

•HE sent Jesus to balance the account of sin in the world. (John 1:29 “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!)

•HE did not count our sins against us (but put them on Jesus)

•NOW WE ARE AGENTS OF THIS MINISTRY

God is our MODEL for the ministry of reconciliation.

•Jesus died a substitutionary death to balance the accounts of justice in our regard.

•God did not permit our past sins to diminish His love for us.

•God has consigned to us, and entrusted us, with sharing His message of Reconciliation.

This is His MANDATE to those who have been reconciled.

•We must share with others how they can be reconciled to God through faith in Jesus

•We must share with them the truth that God has balanced our account (AND THEIRS) through the death of Christ

•WE MUST SHOW GOD’S LOVE BY NOT HOLDING THE PAST SINS OF OTHERS AGAINST THEM, JUST AS GOD HAS NOT HELD OUR SINS AGAINST US.

Matt 12:31-32 AND SO I TELL YOU, EVERY KIND OF SIN AND SLANDER CAN BE FORGIVEN, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

God forgives even the blasphemy against Christ and Christianity, but NOT the blasphemy against the work of the Holy Spirit.

•NOTE:

•All the world’s sin debt is balanced in the death of Jesus. Jesus’s death is sufficient to cover all sins.

•There is only one sin that God does not forgive - that is the rejection of the Holy Spirit revealing the truth of God’s offer of forgiveness in Jesus Christ.

•Our message of forgiveness is a message of the free grace of God, and the work of Jesus to provide for our forgiveness by His death. His death satisfies the wrath of God against all sins, but one.

God offers free reconciliation by grace; that is a restoration of friendship with Him wherein we receive His favor.

___________________________________________

WE ARE AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST

(representatives)

GOD IS MAKING AN APPEAL TO THE WORLD THROUGH US

AS WE BEG OTHERS TO BE RECONCILED TO GOD THROUGH CHRIST.

**************************************************************

So, since we have been reconciled and have been given the message of reconciliation

20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

v. 21Our message: HE MADE HIM WHO KNEW NO SIN TO BE SIN ON OUR BEHALF, SO THAT WE MIGHT BECOME THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN HIM.

So that we might be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ.

The greatest threat to the successful exercise of the power of the gospel to save people from their sin is our unwillingness to love others regardless of their sin, and to share with them God’s love and grace toward them as He demonstrated in the life and death of Jesus Christ.

I beg you be reconciled to God today!

He has already done the work to balance the books of your sin through the death of Jesus Christ.

All your past sins are covered.

What God will not forgive is your rejection of His offer of forgiveness through Jesus’s death on your behalf.

If we presume that our goodness is sufficient to cover our sin, we forfeit a relationship with God.

If we presume that our good has outweighed our bad, we forfeit a relationship with God.

If we expect God’s grace and kindness to save us, while we reject acknowledging the truth about Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection as revealed by the Holy Spirit to our hearts, then we forfeit a relationship with God.

Before any of us were reconciled, we were enemies of God, separated from Him, and considered as children of wrath.

Eph 2:13-16 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ (reconciled).

For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one (reconciliation) and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity (separation), which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.

_______________________________________________