Reconciliation with God

“ Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery hast established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. ”

“ We are filled with fears, we are distrest in mind, nor can any solid comfort be felt, only as God is pleased to give us scriptural views of Christ—as the gift of the Father’s love, as every way suited to act for us with God, as our Mediator, being God with God, and man with man, well calculated to make an atonement, to bring God and man together, into a state of reconciliation ”

“ To make peace is the same thing as to reconcile; and the death of Christ—the shedding of His blood on the cross—was the method by which, in the infinite wisdom of God, the peace-producing reconciliation is secured. It was the voluntary self-sacrifice of Himself on the cross that constituted Jesus the grand reconciling Mediator of the universe. ”

“ Reconciliation, as the Scripture speaks of it, imports not any change in God, nor the externall good will or love of God, which remains in himselfe, and worketh not any change in the creature: but a blessing granted to us in time, that we who were the children of wrath by nature, should be the Sons of God by grace; we who were enemies, and hated in respect of the effects of wrath, and desert of sin, should be made friends and deare to God, the enmity being taken away by the bloud of Christ. And from hence we may learne how the new Covenant in many things hath the prerogative above the old. ”

“ As you are sinners, involved in a state of degeneracy, guilt, and condemnation, you need a Saviour who is able to absolve you from your guilt, and bring you into a state of reconciliation with God, and save you from the wrath to come. Such a Saviour I now proclaim to you; a Saviour who is able to save to the uttermost all that come to God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. On the merit of his obedience and death you must rely for pardon and eternal life ”

“ That in order to obtain this forgiveness or remission and reconciliation, men must have faith in God and in Jesus Christ, repent of and forsake their sins, be baptized for the remission of them, have hands laid upon them by authorized ministers for the reception of the Holy Ghost, and live a pure life, keeping the commandments of God and walking in holiness before him. ”

“ Experience proves, that most Christians live in security and postpone till death their reconciliation with God. By means of a late repentance, and largesses to the priesthood, their faults are expiated, and they are permitted to hope that Heaven will forget the accumulated crimes of a long and wicked life. ”

“ It is a mind resting on God as the God of grace reconciling sinners to Himself through the mediation of Christ, dispensing pardon, sanctity, salvation—a mind resting, after reconciliation, on His truthfulness, wisdom, almightiness, holiness—a mind resting on His rule and government over all the forces of nature and all the events of daily life, both national and individual. ”

“ The way we work out the atonement of the world, that is, the reconciliation of the world to God, is by being true to the vision of the truth as it comes to us, no matter by the pathway of what suffering, true as Jesus was true, true even when he thought his Father had forsaken him. ”

“ God had gone out of His way to make a great sacrifice in order to reconcile us when we were enemies, and therefore may be trusted to carry out the preliminary reconciliation into full spiritual deliverance or salvation by Christ's life. The greater effort carries with it the less. ”

“ That you be found of him in peace, in a state of peace and reconciliation with God through Christ, in whom alone God is reconciling the world to himself. All that are out of Christ are in a state of enmity, and reject and oppose the Lord and his anointed, and shall therefore be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and the glory of his power. ”

“ There too He is, through His manhood and His sacrificial death upon the cross, the unique author of the reconciliation with God. He is by His spirit the inherent life of the redeemed, and the goal of all their perfecting. There is, in fact, no divine quality, or attribute, or activity of God towards His creatures which is not His. In Him it pleased the Father that all the fulness of divine attributes and offices should dwell, and in Him as Son of God made man dwells all this fulness bodily. The divine attributes, that is, are not committed to a number of different mediators. ”

“ Our second need is peace of heart. The soul set free from the burden of condemnation and guilt soon finds the need of a new strength, new interests, new hopes. The past has been obliterated by mercy, but the present looms large with difficulty. Temptations to fear and discouragement arise, and the soul longs for peace. Peace with God by reconciliation must therefore be followed by the peace of God through restfulness of heart day by day. ”

“ It is we who are reconciled. It is God who reconciles. It is we who are enemies. The Divine patience loves on through all our enmity, and though perfect love meeting human sin must become wrath, which is consistent with love, it never becomes hatred, which is love’s opposite.
Observe finally the great means of reconciliation: “In the body of His flesh”—that is, of course, Christ’s flesh—God has reconciled us. Why does the Apostle use this apparently needless exuberance of language—“the body of His flesh”? ”

“ Is it possible for the religious man to feel that 'immersion of his entire being in the eternal tides ' which was spoken of earlier, and at the same time to keep a hold upon all the apparatus of truth which gathers round the evangelical idea of reconciliation with God? ”

“ From this time on, up to his complete recovery, conversations on the subject of religion were of daily occurrence; and I am happy to say that they resulted in deep and godly repentance on his part, which effected a reconciliation to his daughter and her minister forever.
My dear, unconverted friends, the enmity between you and your God, like the enmity of this father towards his daughter, is all on one side, and that is your side. No steps are needed to reconcile God to man. No such steps ever have been needed, because God holds no enmity in his heart towards men. ”

“ Through the Holy Spirit, sent as His advocate, He convicts men of sin, and brings them into harmony and union with God. His mediatorship involves a work of reconciliation. This is His fundamental work. The old theology was that Christ labors to reconcile God to men. Indeed, the world is not yet as free from the thought as the truth and the honor of God demand. Whatever may be true of the atonement, one thing is certain, it grew out of the love of God. "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." ”

“ Deal with thy neighbor now whilst thou art in the way with him. "Put thy house in order," and especially when you come to die. Let no worldly consideration, no thought of pride, hinder you from a perfect reconciliation with all men—a full payment of every debt—a free forgiveness for every wrong you have suffered. The few moments that remain to you, you will need to pray for God's forgiveness for your own sins. ”

“ To be at peace with God is the beginning of all true tranquillity, and that can be secured only by faith in Jesus Christ.
So, because He brings the reconciliation between man and God, because He brings the rectification of our relation to circumstances and men, because He brings the control of desires and passions and inclinations, and because He satisfies all the capacities of our natures, in Him, and in Him only, is there peace for us. ”

“ If you should not feel and search your own hearts, without doubt the Lord will. "And if you be found as deceivers, you will bring a curse upon yourselves, and not a blessing." This is a covenant of amity with God: reconciliation must go before friendship, you can never make friendship till you have made peace, nor settle love, where hostility is unremoved. ”

“ But without strength, without godliness, sinners, and even enemies, we are permitted in His boundless mercy to receive the reconciliation, to throw ourselves, with nothing between, into the arms of Him who has redeemed us, and as we are, and just as we are, trust Him at once for a full, complete, and all-sufficient justification before God. ”

“ Reconciliation supposes a quarrel, or breach of friendship; and sin has made a breach, it has broken the friendship between God and man. The heart of the sinner is filled with enmity against God, and God is justly offended with the sinner. Yet, behold, there may be a reconciliation; the offended Majesty of heaven is willing to be reconciled. And observe, 1. He has appointed the Mediator of reconciliation. He has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, v. 18. God is to be owned from first to last in the undertaking and performance of the Mediator. ”

“ Man, through his corruption, is at enmity with God; and God, through His righteousness, is at enmity with rebellious man. And as there is a double enmity through sin, so, likewise, is there a double reconciliation through Christ. God, His law being satisfied, is reconciled to the sinner; and the sinner, his heart being changed, is reconciled unto God.
The reconciliation of God to the sinner has been wrought out for us by the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the great work of God incarnate, and He wrought it alone, in His great sacrifice of propitiation. ”

“ The connection between peace and holiness is close and essential. It is impossible for anyone to understand consecration until they have experienced reconciliation. Holiness must be based on righteousness, and righteousness is only possible to those who have accepted the Lord Jesus as God’s righteousness through faith. So long as there is any enmity in the heart, or even any uncertainty as to our acceptance in Christ Jesus, holiness is an impossibility. May not the forgetfulness of this fact be the cause of surprise and disappointment at Christian Conventions from time to time? ”

“ He does not promise to be nearer to His people, even in the heavenly rest, than He declares Himself to be now, when we are in the midst of our struggle upon earth. He promises then to be with us and to be our God, and He assures us in the text that He is just the same now.
The words of the assurance, “I am with thee,” imply both reconciliation and companionship. Reconciliation, for He is not against us, but with us. Not separated by the barrier of unforgiven sin, but so completely reconciled, the law being satisfied that every barrier is broken down for ever, and He is altogether on our side. ”

“ But to interpret it simply of all men penitent, impenitent, believers, infidels, obstinate, separated from God by their evill works, is directly contrary to the Text, and hath scarce a second Author. No man is to be excluded from seeking the benefit of reconciliation: but from the benefit it self the Apostle excludes them that be not in Covenant, and in the state of grace, to whom only this spirituall blessing doth pertaine. ”

“ Wretched is the man, who makes so sad a choice as to prefer hell-torments to a friendly reconciliation. Our own experience would soon convince us, if we made the trial, that as by faith we enjoy solid peace with God (as the apostle assures us, Rom. 5:1) ; so by Christian love and reconciliation we enjoy peace with men, together with much ease and tranquillity of heart: whereas, on the contrary, a mind full of rancor and malice frets itself, and has no other reward to expect than the lashes of an unruly conscience. ”

“ A work of priestly mediation, which reconciles God to men,—notice here that the term “reconciliation” has its usual sense of removing enmity, not from the offending, but from the offended party;—a sin-offering, presented on behalf of transgressors;—a propitiation, which satisfies the demands of violated holiness;—and a substitution, of Christ's obedience and sufferings for ours.—These passages, taken together, show that Christ's death is demanded by God's attribute of justice, or holiness, if sinners are to be saved. ”

“ In our thought it is not a reconciliation of God which is aimed at. No sacrifice is necessary. No sacrifice such as that postulated is possible. Of the reconciliation of man to God the only condition is the revelation of the love of God in the life and death of Jesus and the obedient acceptance of that revelation on the part of men. ”

“ I know nothing about them; but this I know, that, if they are, Christ made them, and that if among them there be antagonism to God, it can be overcome by the cross. As to reconciliation proper,—in the heavens, meaning by that, among spiritual beings who dwell in that realm, it is clear there can be no question of it. There is no enmity among the angels of heaven, and no place for return to union with God among their untroubled bands, who “hearken to the voice of His word.” ”

“ When they passed between the parts, they were considered as having passed into the death, as it were, of the victim. Having died to sin, and put off the alienation, they were now in a state of reconciliation, a reconciliation admitted by a covenant relationship between them and God. They had passed into the covenant sacrifice which had made for them an atonement, and so at-one-ment took place. Now all this finds its fulfillment in Christ. Christ's death has met Divine justice and blended it with Divine mercy, so that in Christ God can be just and yet justify sinners. ”