RECONCILED!
“And
all things are of God, Who
has reconciled us to Himself
by Jesus Christ, and hath
given to us the ministry of reconciliation”
-see
II
CORINTHIANS
5:18-21 [KJV]
Sometimes
people say that Jesus came into the world to reconcile the Father to
us, but that´s nonsense! It
is not God who needs to be reconciled to man, instead, it’s the
reverse, man needs to be reconciled to God.
God has never changed. He was in the beginning what He is
today. He has no need to apologize. It is man, on the other hand, who
changed; it was and is man who sinned and sins. Man needs to be
reconciled. People need to be brought back to God. For
reconciliation, to take place, sin had to be wiped away. Which brings
us to Jesus.
Jesus was a man of prayer, but His prayers
could not wipe away our sins.
Jesus was a man of
compassion, but the combination of His tears and empathy could not
blot out the least of our sins.
Pure and holy as He was,
His presence could not take away our sins.
To remove our sin and
bring in reconciliation, He had to die! It took the pouring out of
His blood, for “the
life of the flesh is in the blood" [LEVITICUS
17:11].
Only by that stunning and awful death of Jesus could sin be put away
and man become reconciled.
Jesus was the holy, blessed,
spotless Lamb of God. He didn’t
come to die for the respectable and religious, but
for sinners.
He
came for those who were unfit for Him.
He died for the
ungodly. As Darvin Pruitt said, “The
Lord saves only the Un-People:
The
Unprofitable,
The Ungodly,
The Unrighteous,
The
Undeserving,
The Unlovable,
The Undone!”
Jesus
became our propitiation (an offering that takes away wrath). What a
breathtaking event. The sun shone till noon, and then darkness
plunged over the entire land until about three o’clock. In those
terrible hours, at the cross, atonement was made as the sinless
Saviour
exhausted the wrath of God on His people and offered Himself, as a
sacrifice to the Father. Nothing but His death could reconcile us to
God.
The basis of reconciliation, then, is laid in the
death of the Lord Jesus. Although we cherish the truth of the
incarnation, our confidence is not that He has come into the world.
Our confidence is in the Saviour's blood. Let me ask you a question.
Have you told yourself lately, “He
loves me; He gave His Son for me, I am reconciled to God by the death
of his Son?” [see
Romans 5:10].
Don´t ever be afraid to preach the gospel to yourself.
On
the cross, Jesus declared, "It
is finished."
That means all that is needed for reconciliation is wholly done.
There’s
not a single thing left to be accomplished. God reckoned Christ to be
what I am—sin,—that I might be made what Christ is—the
righteousness of God.
Reconciliation is now a matter of
righteousness: Since Christ has died for us and taken the wrath that
our sins demanded, it is righteous of God to give us that which is
due to Christ.
The Father is satisfied; more than that, He
is glorified [see
PHILIPPIANS
2:5-11].
There at the cross the sinless, pure and innocent Lamb of God was
executed because of our sin. Because of this, rebels are reconciled
to the Father.
Think of it, it is not merely that we go to
glory because of the mercy and love of God, but we go there because
of righteous grace. The person and work of Christ are perfectly
righteous. Sin has been condemned and its consequences paid for. The
Father has now committed unto us the word of reconciliation. What a
privilege to tell about these things!
And that´s the
Gospel Truth!
-Gospel report by preacher D. G. Miles McKee
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