Reconciled to God
Colossians 1:20-23
We can entitle our study for tonight, "Reconciliation to God," or "Reconciled to God", because that's precisely what Paul talks about. You will note that in verse 20 you see the word, about two or three lines down, "reconcile." At the end of verse 21 you see it again ‑‑ reconciled, past tense. This particular term, reconcile, is the verb reconciled, is the past tense of the verb and the noun is reconciliation, is a very important term in Christianity. You perhaps have heard about it in terms of the divorce courts and perhaps when a divorce is begun there is an effort on the part of the court to try to bring about a reconciliation, that is, to put two warring parties back together again. It also is used that way to speak of marriages that is being put back together in Greek days. It is a word that meant reconciliation, and the Greeks used it when they wanted to talk about their own marriage relationships; in fact, in Chapter 7 of I Corinthians it says, "If she depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. Let her husband not divorce her." And now there you have the same terminology that the word finds in our culture today.
But the word reconciliation goes far beyond a relationship between two human beings. It is used in the Bible to speak of a man's relationship to God in terms of the restoration of the right relationship between a man and God. Reconciliation, then, is God being reconciled back to man, or man, if you will, being reconciled back to God ‑‑ either way.
Now the term, the familiar term in the Bible is katallasso, and I only mention that because I want to make a distinction in a minute. And Katallasso means "to reconcile", among other possibilities. It can mean to change, or to exchange. It has been used in terms of exchanging coins. But basically, in the sense that we will use it in its figurative sense, it means to "reconcile". Now that particular term is used in the New Testament only twice in the reference between God and man; that is, reconciling God to man, that term is only used two times. It occurs in Il Corinthians Chapter 5 and verse 19. It is used in that sense there, and it occurs in Romans Chapter 5 and verse 10. And in both of those passages the general basic word reconcile is used when a man is reconciled to God, or when God and man end their battle and declare themselves partners again as they once were before the fall. But there is another term for reconcile that is used here in Colossians, Chapter 1. It is not katallasso that is used, it is apokatallasso and again I point out to you that whenever a preposition is added to the front of a word it intensifies the word, and so what you have here is the word reconciled intensified, so that it means thoroughly reconciled, completely reconciled, totally reconciled. And that is the terminology that is used here in Colossians; the word is different than the normal word reconcile. It has a greater intensity. And there is a reason for that, and I need to point that out to you.
When Paul is writing in Romans about reconciliation, and when he is writing in II Corinthians about reconciliation, he is not fighting against anything. He is not arguing against a false teacher. He is merely making the point of reconciliation, that's all. But in Colossians he is fighting a counter‑attack from false teachers. The false teachers that were really confronting the Church at Colosse had said that it could not be possible for a man to be reconciled to God by Jesus Christ alone. Now you remember that there were some issues that Paul is hitting in Colossians in relationship to false teachers, and the false teachers that had brought about the problems in Colosse had taught that there were a series of emanating spirits descending from God, that God sort of spawned an emanating spirit and then another one came and another one and another one and they just kept getting lower and lower and lower and lower and lower. And Christ was one of those descending emanating spirits; they were good at the beginning and then somewhere along the line they started getting less good and less good and less good and then bad and then worse and then worse and way down at the bottom is somebody like Satan, and that in order for a man to ascend to God he had to climb back up that escalating ladder of spirits. No one of those spirits could do the job. No one of those aeons, no one of those emanating spirits, no one of those angelic beings, if you will, was sufficient to reconcile man to God. Man had to ascend the ladder of many of those to reach God, and the point that Paul is making here is this: that there is total and absolute and complete and full reconciliation through that one who is Jesus Christ. That's the reason he uses a much more intense word.
So Paul is showing that Christ is God; in verses 15 through 19, and he closes that section: "For in Him should all fullness dwell, because that's what pleased the Father. He is God, He is not a spirit, and He is able, only and without any other assistance, to reconcile men to God." And that's the point that he wants to make. "Having made peace," verse 20 says, "through the blood of the cross, or His cross, by Him." There it is: "By Him, to reconcile all things unto Himself." That is God reconciling all things to Himself by Christ. You don't need to climb an ascending scale of angelic beings. There isn't some kind of escalating ladder of beings that you climb up to get to God. There is only one, and He is able to fully reconcile a man to God. Now we have already seen what Paul is doing here in this particular section in our discussions in the past. They had attacked the deity of Christ, they had attacked the sufficiency of Christ to save. So first of all, Paul has already cleared the area of any doubts about deity, and he cleared that in verses 15 to 19, and now he's going to say not only is He God, but He is able to save, and that was the second point of attack. So, from verse 20 to verse 23 he establishes Christ's sufficiency to save, to reconcile men to God.
Now I want to talk about the theology of reconciliation for just a moment, if I can, because it's needful that you understand it. In the New Testament, I'm trying to sum this down or draw this down to just the simplest way I can. There are probably five terms that summarize our salvation, and you ought to jot them down. Five terms that summarize our salvation. And you can talk about these five terms in various ways throughout the New Testament. They're illustrated and elucidated to us many times. Five terms, here they are, and I'll go over them again so you don't need to worry about writing them all at once. Justification, redemption, forgiveness, reconciliation and sonship, or adoption, same thing
All right, let's look at the first one. The first term that's used to summarize our salvation is the term justification. In justification, and I'm just going to say it briefly so stay in there, in justification the sinner stands before God as the accused and is declared righteous. In justification, the sinner stands before God as the accused and is declared righteous.
The second term is redemption. In redemption, the sinner stands before God as a slave and is granted freedom by a ransom. In redemption, the sinner stands before God as the slave and is granted freedom by ransom.
The third term that summarizes our salvation is forgiveness. In forgiveness, the sinner stands before God as a debtor and the debt, having been paid, is forgotten. In forgiveness, the sinner stands before God as a debtor, and the debt having been paid is forgotten.
Fourth, is reconciliation. And this is beautiful. In reconciliation the sinner stands before God as an enemy and becomes a friend. Peace with God is made. In reconciliation, the sinner stands before God as an enemy, and is led to peace as a friend.
Fifthly, the term sonship summarizes our salvation. In sonship, I love this, the sinner stands before God as a stranger and is made a son. The sinner stands before God as a stranger and is made a son. Think of it. We stood before God as the accused and He declared us righteous. We stood before God as a slave and He granted us freedom. We stood before God as a 0 debtor and He forgot our debt. We stood before God as an enemy and He made us a friend. We stood before God as a stranger and He called us a son. Now that sums it up, people. That sums up salvation.
Now let me come back at it again. I'm going to run by those terms again in a different way. Listen. Forgiveness deals with the fruit. Redemption deals with the root. You know what I mean by that? Forgiveness deals with the sins of our lives. He forgives them. Redemption deals with the root, the condition of our nature. As slaves to sin He frees us. We're no longer slaves to sin. Forgiveness deals with the fruit, redemption deals with the root.
Now reconciliation deals with our condition, and sonship deals with our position. Reconciliation deals with our condition. We become His friends, we experience fellowship. Sonship deals with our position. We become heirs and joint Heirs. Now listen forgiveness deals with the fruit, redemption with the root, reconciliation deals with our condition, sonship deals with our position and altogether it spells justification. Now you just had a course in soteriology in three minutes. And you didn't even know it (laughter). So you see, when you were saved, everything was taken care of ‑‑ fruit and root, condition, position. (Laughter) It's all been taken care of. And you call it all justification. It's great, isn't it? Zinzindorf said, and I agree, "No one is holier than a sinner who has received grace." Fruit and root, condition and position. No one's holier than a sinner who has received grace. Now out of those five glorious terms we're going to pick one. We could pick five and study them. We pick one because it's in the text ‑‑ reconciliation. And let's make it the theme, because Paul makes it the theme right here. And though the section is brief, boy, he covers it well. Four aspects of reconciliation.
Four aspects of reconciliation. The plan of reconciliation, the means of reconciliation, the aim of reconciliation and the evidence of it. The plan, the means, the aim and the evidence. This is exciting because this is like, it's like the song, "I Love to Tell the Story". It doesn't matter how many times you've told it before, and the song that says, "Tell Me the Old, old Story." It's just the reiteration of what it means to be saved, to be reconciled to God. The plan, the means, the aim, the evidence. Let's look at the plan. And we're going to be kind of jumping around in the text here and not necessarily going chronologically through it, and incidentally some of it in the Greek is inverted; that is, some of the Greek form of the verse is different than the English. The words are the same and the translation is basically the same, but some of the phrases have been switched around. So we'll just jump around and get the picture of it in total.
Number one, the plan of reconciliation appears in verse 20: "And having made peace through the blood of His Cross, by Him, to reconciled all things unto Himself; I say, whether they be things on earth or things in Heaven. And you that were once alienated, or estranged, and enemies in your mind because of wicked works, yet now has he reconciled." Now there you have the basic plan of reconciliation, and the key phrase is this; "... to reconcile all things unto Himself." And you'll notice after the phrase, the word "by him", you'll notice before the phrase the word "by him", and the "by Him" is reference to Christ and to Himself to God. God reconciles all things to Himself by Christ. We'll explain that.
Now I want you to see that that's a big subject, to reconcile all things Panta all things unto Himself. Now we can't explore all of this. I mean that would be so vast, but we'll just kind of pick out some major truth. Let's go back. God made everything good, right? God created and He looked on it and said, it's good. Made it all good. Made it for His pleasure. And He possessed it all, and He owned it all, and it was not estranged and man and woman walked in the garden in the cool of the day and they walked in the presence of the Lord. It was all very good. But sin entered and the world rebelled and the universe was cursed and alienated from God. And we live in a cursed earth. And our earth occupies a place in a cursed universe. Even the heavens are polluted, did you know that? They're occupied by Satan, they're occupied by His demons. God's going to clean it all up some day, and that's why when the Bible talks about the restoration of everything it calls it a new heaven and new earth. It's got to all be redone. It's in rebellion now. But the Bible says right here that God is going to reconcile everything back to Himself. If you want the simplest explanation, God is going to make friends with the universe again. That's the broad idea or reconciliation. God is going to end rebellion and make friends with the universe. It's going to come back into harmony. How's He going to do it? By Him. By whom? By Christ. Christ s the agent. He will carry out the reconciliation.
Now I want you to look for a minute at "all things", because that interested me when I read that ‑‑ to reconcile all things? You got to be kidding! You mean everything is coming back to God? That's right. And all of it by Christ, a totally redeemed universe. Fantastic. Listen to Romans 8:19. This adds help to that because it helps us to see what he's talking about; "For the earnest expectation of the creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of God." Did‑you know that all of the universe is waiting for us to be glorified because they're going to get in on it? The creation was made subject to vanity, in other words, the created world, plants, animals and so forth, the created world was made subject to vanity, not willingly. I mean, it certainly wasn't any animal fault. It was just man that fell and messed up everything, and it was Satan that fell and messed up everything, and the created world apart from man and angels had nothing to do with it; they were made subject to the curse unwillingly, But they're waiting, because the creation, verse 21 says, "...itself shall also be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."
When we get turned around and reconciled the whole creation's going with us, and the curse of the earth will be halted and there will be the glorious liberty of the children of God extending to the fact that the earth itself and the heavens around us and its planets that occupy it will all be released from the bondage of corruption and decay that they all suffer from. And you know that our universe is winding down, and you know that it's dissipating energy. The sun is dissipating energy, all the planets are dissipating energy, all the stars are, because the law of entropy is in operation in the entire universe because of the curse, and verse 22 the whole creation is groaning and having birth pains until now. They're waiting to be restored, they're waiting to be reconciled to God to know that kind of eternal existence with no loss of energy that they realized before the Fall. In Ephesians 1:10 it says: "That in the ages or the dispensation of the fullness of time He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in Heaven and which are in, earth, even in Him, again, it is because of Christ and it is by Christ that the whole universe comes back to God. The restoration of the entire universe.
Now this is a tremendous point, because the heretics in Colosse and Laodicea and Hierapolis the cities around that area, the Lycus Valley, those heretics were saying that the true analysis of the universe is dualistic, that spirit is good and matter is evil, and Paul is saying, forget it. Jesus Christ is not only going to reconcile man but He is going to reconcile the material universe to God. It's only temporarily suffering a curse; some day it will be reconciled to God. Sin ruined this universe. It destroyed harmony between one creature and the other, between all creatures and God. But through Christ the universe is going to be brought back, it's going to be restored to the right relationship to God. You can see that if you read the Book of Revelation. What happens during the Tribulation? The plagues that come during the Tribulation, they come out of the bowls and the trumpets and the seals, those judgments that come on the earth are judgments that come out of nature. For the most part, they come out of the world. Now some of them are demonic, but the majority come out of natural phenomena gone wild, and what happens is that in the Tribulation period the earth begins to disintegrate, the universe begins to fall apart, the stars fall out of the sky, the Heaven rolls up like a scroll, the planets plummet out of existence like plums on an untimely fig tree that is being shaken. The entire universe falls apart. The fresh water turns bitter, the grass burns up. The sun scorches the earth. The sun goes black and people freeze. It becomes totally dark. All these bizarre things that happen as the curse finally reaches its climax, the whole earth falls apart, Christ comes, sets up His Kingdom and at the end of that creates a new Heaven and a new Earth. That's the plan. That's the reconciliation of everything.
And you just need to read your Bible a little bit to find out what it's going to be like when there's a restored world. It tells us. I could give you a few that you're familiar with, but I'll just remind you. Isaiah 11 says, "The wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, a little child leads them and the cow and the bear shall feed, young ones lie together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and little babies will play with snakes and so forth and so forth. They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, and no more war, no more killings, all these things in a restored earth. Isaiah 35:9. Futherword no lion shall be there nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon. That's going to be the end of all ravenous beasts. Not going to be any more of that, any more in the restored earth. Sixty‑five of Isaiah, verse 25: "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the bullock and dust shall be the serpent's food, they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord." You see? There's going to be a total reverse of the curse, they're going to be animals there. Animals that somehow managed to get through the tribulation. And they'll go on into the Kingdom and man when the Kingdom hits they're going to be different animals. There's going to be a restoration of the animal world. And not only that but the earth and the solar system. Outside just the animal world here, the whole thing is going to take on dramatic changes.
The Lord will create upon, this is Isaiah.4:5 "The Lord will create upon every dwelling place of Mount Zion and upon her assemblies a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night. For upon all the Glory shall be a defense. There shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat and for a refuge and for a covert from storm and from rain." I mean, I don't know what all that means, but it's going to be something. Lights in the sky and things, super‑giant heavenly umbrellas that don't let the rain get on you and mess you up, and everything's going to grow like mad; food is going to flourish. In Isaiah 30 verse 26: "The light of the moon shall be like the light of the sun." Now think about that ‑‑ it's going to be just the same at night as it is in the daytime. When will we sleep, you say. (laughter) Well. And the light of the sun shall be sevenfold like the light of seven days. Super light. You know what that's going to do for crops? Oh, man. Just don't plant a garden. (laughter) When's that going to happen? In the day the Lord binds up the breach of His people and heals the stroke of their wound, the day of restoration. It's going to be an exciting world, I'll tell you; I'll be thrilled to be there.
In Isaiah chapter 60 verse 19: "The sun shall be no more thy light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto me and this of course goes into the eternal heavens; the Kingdom is where you're going to have the sun and the moon; and then in the final Heaven it's going to be the Glory of God, the everlasting light, "Thy God shall be the Glory and then the sun will be no more. So after the sun becomes seven times bright, the moon gets like the sun, the Kingdom ends then they go out of existence and God lights the universe. Fantastic transformation is going to take place. In Zechariah, I think, there's one more here. He talks about in the Kingdom around Jerusalem God says, "I will be a wall of fire, and I will be the Glory in the midst of it." The heavens are going to be different, the earth is going to be different, the animals are going to be different, the people are going to be different. A tremendous dramatic change is going to take place in this world in the reconciliation of the creation of God. When God makes friends with this universe again, things are going to happen like you never dreamed possible. It's going to be a world like it was before the Fall. I
t's going to be a world like it was before Adam sinned. And all of this is going to pass into the new Heaven and the new Earth.
I mentioned I think a week ago II Peter, but I have to go back there for a second. II Peter, 3:13, 1 love this: "Nevertheless, we look (according to His promises, because we believe His promises) we look for a new Heavens and a new Earth in which dwells righteousness." That's what I'm looking for. A new Heaven, and a new Earth, and if you were to go to the end of the book of Revelation, you'd get a little glimpse of it. John says in 21:1 "I saw a new Heaven and a new earth. The first Heaven and the new earth had passed away, and there was no more sea, and I, John, saw the Holy City New Jerusalem coming down from God out of Heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." I saw it, he says, I saw it. I, John, just plain old me, I saw it. Fantastic thing. "New Heaven and a new earth, and dropping into it was the new Jerusalem, the Crystal Palace of God."
Eric Sauer says in his book, The Triumph of the Crucified he says, "The offering on Golgotha, that's the death of Christ, extends its influence into universal history. The salvation of mankind is only one part of the world embracing counsels of God. The heavenly things will also be cleansed through Christ's sacrifice of Himself. A cleansing of the heavenly places is required if on no other ground than that they have been the dwelling of fallen spirits and because Satan their chief has for ages had access to the highest regions of the heavenly world." God's just going to clean the whole thing. The earth is going to be the capital of the universe, the dwelling place of God, the center of eternity. A new earth. Fantastic. Sauer says, and I love this statement, "The other side becomes this side. Eternity transfigures time. The earth, the chief scene of reconciliation, is reconciled itself and becomes the palace of the universal Kingdom of God forever. Fantastic.
Now you say, something bothers me about that "all thing" Colossians 1, What bothers me is "the all things", Nov there are some people that say, well that means "all things". And they turn out to be Universalists, who believe that in the end everybody's going to get saved and all the fallen angels are going to get forgiven, and we're all going waltzing into Heaven. What about fallen angels, are they going to be restored, are they going to be reconciled? No. What about fallen men, are they going to be restored, are they going to be reconciled? No. You see, you always have to interpret the Bible in the light of the Bible. When it says all things will be reconciled, it means all things for whom reconciliation is possible. If you read Revelation chapter 19 verse 20: "And the Beast was taken and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him received with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the Beast and them that worshipped his image and they were cast into a Lake of Fire burning with brimstone." They're not drawn to God, they ' re drawn into a Lake of Fire, chapter 20 verse 10, and the Devil joins the false prophet and the beast. He was cast into the fire, tormented day and night, listen, forever and ever. And whosoever, verse 15, was not found written in the Book of Life was also cast into the Lake of Fire.
When it says all things are reconciled, it doesn't mean fallen angels and unbelieving men, because it can only refer to those things which can be reconciled. But you know something? There is a sense, beloved, in which everything in God's universe will be reconciled, and I believe that Hell, if you can think of it this way, is a place outside God's universe, It is a place where God is not, Is that right? And since‑God is omnipresent, Hell is some place where God is not. Now that's just a technicality, don't think about that. (laughter) I see Ted over here going "wait a minute". (laughter) But everything that's in His Kingdom is reconciled to Him. The evil beings are stripped of their power, slammed into subjection by Christ's act of reconciliation; Christ's act of reconciliation, Colossians 2:15 says, that He spoiled principalities and powers on the cross. It says in Romans 16:20: and the God of peace will bruise Satan under your feet. The good angels, the redeemed men, will joyfully submit to the rule of God, the evil angels and the evil men will be cast outside the sphere of His rule, stripped of their power. So the reconciliation affects everything ‑‑ physical world, holy angels, holy men. It will even affect evil angels and evil men, as they will bow the knee... believe me... they will bow the knee to God, won't they? Not welcoming it, but despising it, nevertheless having to do it.
Now you know what I believe? I believe this verse teaches, where it says to reconcile all things. I believe the act of Jesus Christ on the Cross provided a forensic reconciliation for everybody. In other words, I think the death of Christ potentially can reconcile the entire universe, every creature in it. That has to be what it's saying. But I think it's only going to be valid to those who believe, don you? And 11 Corinthians 5:19 says this: "To wit, that God (listen to this) was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself," the cosmos. More than just believers. Christ in death made a forensic, that means a forum, a popular announcement, involving everybody. He made a provision for the entire world, and made a reconciliation for all, not just for the elect, but only those who come to Christ can claim that reconciliation. And so he said, that's the plan.
Now look at verse 21, and he stops talking in that generality and he gets very specific and he starts out, "And you (and he wants to show us some flesh and blood reconciled people) so he can get a kind of feeling for the plan) and you that were once alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works yet now has He already reconciled." You want to know what it's going to be like? Look at yourself. He reconciled you to Himself. ‑The living, breathing, reconciled Colossians were evidence enough that Jesus Christ was sufficient to reconcile men to God. You see?
Jesus can do it. Look at yourselves. He's done it to you. What have you needed other than Him? By Him you who were estranged and enemies because of your wicked works yet now has He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death. Did you need any other eon, did you need any other angelic spirit, did you climb some emanating ladder back to God? No, You are living, breathing proof that Christ is sufficient to reconcile men to God, and that is essentially what He's going to do some day when He reconciles the entire universe.
Now let's see what it tells us in verse 21 about reconciliation, "And you who were once alienated." You know before we came to Jesus Christ we were alienated. The word means estranged. Before you were a Christian you were alienated from God. You were estranged, you were cut off, separated. Ephesians 2:12 "At the time you were without Christ aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise having no hope without God in the world." But, and I love it, now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off are made near. Beautiful Jesus Christ came and found you, and drew you to God. You're living proof of the power that Christ has to reconcile and if He can reconcile you He can do what He said some day and reconcile the universe. Chapter 4 of Ephesians, verse 17, verse 18, He talks about the gentiles, He says, "They walk in the vanity of their mind (verse 18) having the understanding darkened, alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart who being past feeling have given themselves over to lasciviousness. Unsaved people are alienated from the life of God, cut off from Him.
Now I want to tell you something. It isn't due to ignorance. It isn't due to innocence. There's no such thing as an innocent heathen. There's no such thing as an innocent unbeliever. Look again at Colossians 1:21: "And you that were once alienated and enemies in your mind." Translate it this way: hostile in disposition toward God. Your own fault ‑‑ you were alienated because you hated God. You say, why did we hate God? You hated God vs. 21 because of your what? Wicked works. See what happens? Men love da