The first question that God put to Adam after he had eaten the forbidden fruit was, “Where art thou?” Adam was not only a guilty sinner, but he put himself, through his sin, at a distance from God; and every son of Adam is by nature at a distance from God. Moreover, it is not long until we learn that man is not only afar from God, but that he has a nature that is at enmity with God. This comes out very plainly in Cain who, because God had accepted Abel and his sacrifice, displayed his hatred of God by slaying his brother Abel. He did to Abel, a child of God, what he would fain have done to God; and this was clearly shown when the Son of God came into the world, and when, with wicked hands, they crucified and slew Him. And before He allowed them to take Him, He had to say, “They have both seen and hated both me and my Father.”
In spite of all the evil of man, God has set Himself to bring men back to Himself; and although man was excluded from Eden because of his sin, God showed even there that He would provide man with a garment that would make him suitable for His presence, even by clothing him in the one that died for him. To reconcile man to Himself. God must needs remove the distance into which man had gone, and He must take the enmity out of his heart. Man, who brought in both the distance and the enmity, was powerless to bring about reconciliation; but God undertook to accomplish this; and He has already done so, “For…when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son” (Rom. 5:10).
True reconciliation cannot be effected if enmity remains in the heart. We see this in the case of Absalom. There was no doubt about Absalom’s guilt: he had slain his brother, and had gone to Geshur, far from his father’s house. In process of time, David’s heart yearned over Absalom, and Joab took the occasion of the king’s weakness to secure his consent for the return of Absalom. But David, knowing that he could not righteously receive a murderer, kept his erring son at a distance, in his own house.
The words of Absalom make it plain that there was no repentance for what he had done, for he sent a message to Joab saying, “Now therefore let me see the king’s face; and if there be any iniquity in me, let him kill me” (2 Sam. 14:32). And how solemn it was when “the king kissed Absalom;” kissed an unrepentant murderer. This is not the manner of God’s reconciling sinners: He reconciles the guilty, but not until there is repentance.
It did not take long to manifest that the murderer of his brother was an enemy of the father who, unrighteously, had allowed his son to be reconciled. Had David acted faithfully towards Absalom, he would have saved himself all the grief that was the consequence of a reconciling kiss without repentance, for Absalom not only sought to wrest the kingdom fro his father, but also to take his life; and brought grave dishonour upon his father in his evil acts. When God reconciles, He not only does so in perfect righteousness; bringing repentant sinners near to Him in grace, but dispelling from the heart every bit of enmity.
If in the case of Absalom we see a false reconciliation; in Mephibosheth we have a beautiful picture of true reconciliation. Mephibosheth belonged to an alien house, and no doubt had hard thoughts of David in his heart while he dwelt far from David in the house of Machir, in Lodebar. There was evidently fear of David in the heart of Mephibosheth, for when he came into the king’s presence, David said to him, “Fear not.” The David spoke words that would banish his fear, when he said, “I will surely show thee kindness for Jonathan thy father’s sake, and will restore thee all the land of Saul thy father; and thou shalt eat bread at my table continually.”
Jonathan had asked of David long before, “And thou shalt not only while yet I live show me the kindness of Jehovah…but also thou shalt not cut off thy kindness from my house for ever…and Jonathan caused David to swear again” (1 Sam. 20:14–17). In faithfulness to his oath, David shows to Mephibosheth the kindness of God; that which is indeed a faint foreshadowing of the kindness that God now in grace shows to poor repentant sinners who trust in Him.
Mephibosheth had every bit of fear driven from his heart; he was brought from the distance; he received an inheritance; and he sat continually at the king’s table as one of the king’s sons. When David was compelled to flee from Jerusalem because of the enmity of Absalom, Mephibosheth was a mourner all the time of his absence, manifesting that there was not a bit of enmity remaining in his heart towards David, even if the wily Ziba lied in relation to this very matter.
Another beautiful picture of true reconciliation is found in Luke 15, where the Lord tells us of God’s dealings with the prodigal son. Having gone into the distance, and having come to the end of his resources, the awakening of the thoughts of his father’s goodness, brings the prodigal on the way to his father’s house. There was true repentance in his heart, and o his lips when he said, “Father I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.” What a contrast to the words of Absalom! The prodigal said, “I have sinned;” he had no doubt about it; but the proud unrepentant Absalom said, “If there be any iniquity in me.” The unrepentant says, “Let him kill me;” the repentant sinner, “I am no more worthy to be called thy son.”
All the grace of the father’s heart could flow out freely without restraint, for his goodness had driven out all enmity and fear. And the returned prodigal was assured of the Father’s love, His embrace and kisses driving from his mind any thought of having a servant’s place. The relationship of a hired servant might have satisfied the erring son, but nothing less than the best robe, the ring, the shoes and the fatted calf could meet the desires of the Father’s heart.
From Romans 5 we have learned that it was when we were enemies that God reconciled us to Himself by the death of His Son. All the enmity has been banished from our hearts by the knowledge of the love of God, made known in the death of His Son. In the cross we see what God’s love is, where “Christ died for the ungodly.” This is the love that God commends to us, and the love that He has shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which He has given to us. Every thought of enmity has been driven from our hearts by the knowledge of the love of God. Enmity and love could not remain together in the heart: the enmity had to go.
Reconciliation would have been impossible apart from the death of the Lord Jesus. It was not enough that the sinner should repent; God must be righteous in receiving the repentant sinner to Himself, and the cross displays how God is righteous in forgiving the sinner and receiving him with joy. The cost that God has paid is infinite, and this is indicated where we read that we have been reconciled to God “by the death of His Son.” God has given His own Son, the Darling of His bosom, to bring us into right relations with Himself. Well do we “joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation.”
Both Romans 5 and 2 Corinthians 5 emphasise that reconciliation is an accomplished fact. Having spoken of new creation in this latter Scripture, Paul writes that “old things are passed away; behold all things are become new; and all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ.” We have been brought into right relations with God that we might even now enjoy all that God has prepared in new creation for the blessing of His own. We have not been offered temporal blessings on earth, but the richest of divine blessings in Christ; things that are spiritual, heavenly and eternal. All that belongs to the old creation passes away, but the things of the new creation abide for ever; and these are given to those who are “in Christ,” and who thus have part in the new creation. When the prodigal returned, the Father gave him the “best robe,” something that did not belong to the portion of the elder brother it was quite distinct from the things of the inheritance that was divided between the two brothers; it belonged to the Father, but neither brother could lay claim to it on the ground of natural relationship: it belonged to the new creation.
To Paul was committed the ministry of reconciliation; a ministry that told of God’s overtures in grace to man in the Person of Christ. When Christ was upon earth, God was not imputing to men their trespasses; He was offering blessing in grace in Jesus. But men refused the grace of God in Jesus, proving that it was impossible to reconcile man in the flesh. This being so, God brought to light His hidden resources, giving His own Son to die on the cross, that through His death men might be reconciled. So that the basis of reconciliation has been laid in the death of the cross, where Christ who knew no sin, was made sin for us. Now that Christ has died, glorifying God in regard to the whole question of sin, God has sent out His ambassadors with the wondrous message, “Get right with God.” Men can now be reconciled by receiving the message of the Gospel, by accepting Christ who died on the cross to make us “God’s righteousness in Him.”
In Ephesians 2, where Paul writes of God’s dealings in grace with Jew and Gentile, we read of His having broken down the middle wall of partition between them, “Having abolished in His (Christ’s) flesh the enmity, the law of commandments in ordinances; for to make in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace.” Not only has God set the believing Jew in right relations with the believing Gentile, but He has brought them both into right relations with Himself, even as it is written, “And that He might reconcile both to God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.”
Not only have we been reconciled individually to God, but the whole Christian company, as one body, is here viewed in right relations with God. Although the one body has been formed by the baptism of the Spirit, the cross is the basis of its formation; for it was there that God was revealed in all the love of His heart; and it was there that all that we were in Adam has gone in the judgment of God. Every feature of the old man, whether Jewish or Gentile, has gone from before God’s eye in the judgment of the cross. The one body in which we have been reconciled is an entirely new conception and formulation, in which every feature is for God’s pleasure.
The Son of the Father’s love is viewed in Colossians 1 as the creator of all things, “visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by Him, and for Him.” While the whole creation comes within the scope of these words, special attention is called to the spheres of government and rule that exist in heaven and on earth. The kingdoms of the world are alienated from God at the present time, as are also many of the heavenly dominions. But the day is coming when every sphere of authority will be restored to its rightful owner. Christ will be King of kings and Lord of lords, the kingdom of this world becoming the kingdom of the Lord and of His Christ. Moreover, every heavenly intelligence that has fallen will be removed from his sphere of authority, receive his eternal judgment at Christ’s hands, and Christ will fill all things for God’s pleasure.
While God awaits the reconciliation of all things, the universe that He created for His glory and praise, He has even now reconciled those who believe in His Son, even as it is written, “And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now has He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight.”
Like Adam, we were alienated, in the distance from God by reason of our sins; like Cain, we were enemies because of our wicked works; but God has reconciled us through Christ. Observe carefully that it is not simply “in the body of His flesh,” for this might have meant through the incarnation, as some erroneously teach. It could not be apart from the incarnation; but the incarnation alone would not suffice to meet the claims of the throne of God; therefore do we read “through death,” for only through the death of Christ could our sin and ruin be met for the glory of God. In a day when men, darkened by the god of this world, endeavour to set aside the truth of Christ’s death, it behoves us to hold tenaciously this precious word, “through death.”
Nor does it only say “in His flesh,” but “in the body of His flesh.” It tells of Christ becoming man, having true human nature, and a body of flesh and blood. In His death sin in the flesh was condemned, and our old man has been crucified with Christ. All that we were as connected with Adam has been dealt with in Christ’s death; not only our guilt, but also our state; not only our nature, but the order of man in whom the old nature existed.
Then we see what reconciliation accomplishes in presenting us “holy and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight.” This we are in Christ now, and this we soon shall be with Christ, when He comes to take us into His Father’s presence. We are holy in nature, like God Himself, His sons and His children; like Him we are unblameable as having the life of Christ, and none can reprove us for Christ has glorified God in relation to all that we were, and He has brought us before the Father in all the acceptance of what He is in Himself.
R. 19.3.63