RECONCILIATION
Man having distanced himself from God, his Creator, by disobeying Him, the justice and holiness of God had to be vindicated.
The Lord broke fellowship with the sinner (Gen. 3:23-24), judging a world full of violence for sin in the Flood (Gen. 6:5-7) and leaving after Babel the nations to follow their own ways. (Gen. 11:8-9).
For Israel, it is in atonement that the possibility of reconciliation is shown. It is a propitiation: once atonement for sin had been made, and the blood of the victim was on the mercy seat, the Law was fulfilled, justice satisfied and vindicated, and God could freely display his mercy and love. .
The mercy seat (see MERCY SEAT) is the only given place where God can meet Aaron, who represents all the people (Ex. 25:22). The great Day of Atonement thus expressed in a symbolic and prophetic way the great amnesty that would one day be proclaimed with the coming of the Messiah (Lev. 16).
“God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). Through the cross, Christ took away sin, destroyed enmity, established peace, and reconciled men (Jews and pagans), not only with God, but also with each other (Eph. 2:16).
The reconciliation carried out at Calvary had effects even in heaven (Col. 1:20-22; Eph. 1:10). It is the same Jesus Christ who paid the price of our reconciliation, the wages of sin that demanded the vindication of divine justice to maintain his holiness.
From then on he can take the hand of the repentant sinner, and place it in that of the God of holiness and love in all justice (cf. Rom. 3: 23-25).
However, it is absolutely necessary for the rebel to recognize his guilt and accept “to be reconciled to God.”
Indeed, how can those who claim to have “never done anything wrong” be reconciled with God? The heart of Israel was “false and rebellious” (Jer. 5:23), and we are all by nature “sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2-3).
It is a supreme grace to know that “though we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son” (Rom. 5:10). And this act does not belong only to the past: he who wholeheartedly believes in Jesus Christ obtains reconciliation in a current and present way (Rom. 5:10-11).
Furthermore, God entrusts believers with “the ministry of reconciliation.” He makes them ambassadors of Christ, beseeching men everywhere to be reconciled to Him (2 Cor. 5:18-20).
This is not a simple proclamation of a universal salvation that all men already possess. Reconciliation is for all those who do not reject God’s provision for his salvation.
The tragic fact is that there are many who do not give the response of obedience of faith to God in Christ, and of whom, therefore, it can be said that the wrath of God remains on them (cf. Jn. 3:36 and Mt. 23:37).