A Remedy Comes Before The Sickness

And not only this, but we also celebrate in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.  Romans 5:11  NASB

Reconciliation – Reconciliation: noun:

1 the restoration of friendly relations: his reconciliation with your uncle | the colonel was seeking a reconciliation with his wife.

2 the action of making one view or belief compatible with another: he aims to bring about a reconciliation between art and technology.

3 the action of making financial accounts consistent; harmonization: the reconciliation process should be consistent with the business strategy.

Ah, we have a time problem in Greek (or in Hebrew, for that matter).  You see, in English reconciliation occurs after the conflict is settled, after negotiation, after peace is re-established.  So when we read this verse with the English definition in mind, we think that our relationship with God has been re-established because of something Yeshua did.  We had a conflict.  Yeshua settled it.  Now we’re on friendly terms with God.

But the Greek word for reconciliation (katallássō) does not have the same implications found in English.  In Greek, this is not a state that is achieved at the end of some negotiation.  Rather, it is a work that has been finished before the conflict began.

In the NT only Paul uses the term for the divine-human relation. God is not reconciled, nor does he reconcile himself, but he himself reconciles us or the world to himself (2 Cor. 5:18–19), while we are reconciled to God (Rom. 5:10) or reconcile ourselves to him (2 Cor. 5:20). katallássein denotes a transformation of the state between God and us and therewith of our own state, for by it we become new creatures (2 Cor. 5:18), no longer ungodly or sinners, but justified, with God’s love shed abroad in our hearts (Rom. 5:6ff.). God has not changed; the change is in our relation to him and consequently in our whole lives.^[1]

Did you understand?  We are not reconciled to God by anything someone else does, including the Messiah.  It is God who reconciles us to Himself through His own action.  He does the reconciling, and it was done long before anyone or anything else was part of the process.  Before we were sinners, before we even were, God reconciled creation to Himself by Himself.  Yeshua’s death and resurrection demonstrates what was already the case in terms we could not ignore.  This has an interesting implication.  We know that the Tanakh prohibits human sacrifice.  It also prohibits one man dying for the sins of another.  Christian theology has to explain how these prohibitions are ignored in the death of Jesus.  It does so by claiming that Jesus is God, and therefore the prohibitions don’t apply.  But, frankly, that’s nonsense.  Even Christianity claims Jesus is human.  However, if God is the one who reconciles us, then the death on the cross of the human Messiah isn’t about reconciling God and Man.  It’s not about forgiveness.  It’s about something else and it doesn’t violate any of the prohibitions in the Tanakh.  Of course, you’ll have to give up the Trinitarian Jesus, but you will gain a Messiah who didn’t break the Mosaic code.  And as Isaiah states: “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more” (Isaiah 43:25  NIV).

Topical Index:  reconciliation, katallássō, cross, forgiveness, Messiah, Trinity, Romans 5:11

^[1] Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged in One Volume (p. 41). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.