Messengers of Reconiliation (Bible Study #11)

Dear DJAN Friends,

We turn now to Paul and what is perhaps the best-known passage from his Second Letter to the Corinthians. Its emphasis on reconciliation is surely a timely word for our fragmented society.

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ [through Christ] God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:17-20).

Paul is not simply suggesting that the world looks different once we are baptized into Christ. He is declaring that, thanks be to God, the world is fundamentally changed. The promise we hear in Paul is not that individual souls will be saved out of the world, but that God will renew the world itself. Indeed, this new creation, accomplished through the ministry of Jesus Christ, is available now for those who will receive it. What does such renewal look like? The metaphor Paul uses is "reconciliation," and you can almost hear him shout the news: The estrangement of God from humans and humans from one another has been overcome! Through Christ, the sin (trespasses) that is at the root of such estrangement has been canceled. And we, the church, have been given the enormous privilege of being ambassadors–messengers–of this reconciliation. God has acted, and the task now is to demonstrate the new creation by living as reconciled people for whom the old divisions, such as that between Jew and Greek, have lost their power. Our calling is to say to the world "You are reconciled! Now, be what you are!" It is Good News for this, or any, era.

May God grant us understanding and commitment.

—Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon