COLOSSIANS 1: 20-23
RECONCILED THROUGH CHRIST
Having proclaimed the deity and work of Christ, Paul now reveals what it means to the people in Colossae. He thus returns to the thought of redemption. With joyful wonder the Apostle testifies to the Colossians believers that they too have become recipients of God’s marvelous act of reconciliation. They had been made acceptable to God and are challenged to continue striving forward in the truth that had saved them (CIT).
Reconciliation has a beautiful and significant meaning for those who have come to know Christ personally. Our passage calls to mind the great change that occurs in lives that have been reconciled with God. Anyone who calls to mind what they were [becoming] prior to experiencing God’s grace will joyfully celebrate and praise God for His transforming work of redemption. For the Son’s reconciling love gives persevering faith.
I. THE NEED FOR RECONCILIATION, 21.
II. THE MEANS OF RECONCILIATION, 22a.
III. THE RESULT OF RECONCILIATION, 22b-23.
Last week we saw that all God’s fullness is in Christ. The purpose of God’s fullness in Christ was reconciliation. As verse 20 teaches us, it only in and through Christ that we can we be reconciled to God. “and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.”
Having announced reconciliation as a [seventh] characteristic of the exalted Christ, the passage develops that theme. Verse 21 impresses on us the transforming power of reconciliation by reminding us of what we were like before we were redeemed. “And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds,”
Here we encounter three words of separation that describe people before they are save. First, they-we were alienated. Before we give our lives to Jesus, we are alienated from God. This means that we are separated from or estranged from Him.
Reconciliation is necessary because people are alienated (“cut off, estranged” apo-allotpios) from life and God (Rom. 1:20-23; Eph. 2:12; 4:18). We are alienated because we turned away from God and have been shut off from fellowship with God. [The prodical son was alienated (Lk. 15:21) from his father.]
Second, our minds were hostile toward God. Before conversion the Colossian believers were enemies or hostile to God in their minds as well as in their behavior, internally and externally. Sin begins in the heart (Mt. 5:27-28) and manifests itself in overt deeds (Gal. 5:19). People are outwardly hostile against God because of their inwardly hostility (eksthrous from εχθος). Our intellectual capacities were so distorted that we worked against God’s purposes.
Would you readily admit that before you came to Christ, that your mind was hostile toward God? What this is saying is that we were strangers to God’s ways of thinking and as a result of that, we lead a life of sin. Thus this hostility can manifest itself in outright rebellion against God to the subtle ways we ignored God in our everyday lives. We used our thinking ability to justify ourselves and our actions.
Romans 8:7 - 8 (NASB) “because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, (8) and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Our natural way of thinking set us against God.
Third, we were engaged in evil deeds. Sounds harsh doesn’t it? What are evil deeds? Everything we do that is in opposition to God’s will is considered an evil deed. Not just the extreme actions. An evil deed is ANYTHING that stands in opposition to what God has told us. We live for ourselves and not for God and His glory. The mind set on the flesh leads to deeds of the flesh.
To be preoccupied with sin is unhealthy. Yet, to forget who we are and who we have been is a doorway to spiritual pride and a roadblock to spiritual growth. To some degree we must sense in ourselves the capacity for every kind of sin, for this realization is necessary for continued spiritual development. Remember who you are.
We are not to glory in our past sins, but we must not forget them. If we are Christian, and if we are growing as Christians, we must realize we are what we are as Christians by the grace of God.
Martin Luther insisted that persons must confront their own sinfulness in all its ravaging depths before they can enjoy the comforts of salvation. There is truth in this. Though we need not be sullenly sin-conscious, we must always remember who we are: forgiven sinners. [Dunnam, Maxie. The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Vol 31. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982, S. 349]
Unless I have a keen sense of sin and separation it is not likely that I will continue to grow toward God (or) in Christ or be vibrantly alive in my reconciliation. We need to break through the contemporary disguises of sin. The subtlety of sin is that it always travels incognito. Though clearly identified and labeled in Proverbs 6: 16-19 and then in the fourth century as the seven deadly sins—pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust—these now parade in modern garb and are often given status by being cast in psychological company: self-expression, self-fulfillment, assertiveness, identity, taking care of my own being, the right of my own space, therapeutic enhancement. All these terms express deep emotional, psychological, even spiritual needs, but unfortunately they also become the easy snare of sin’s entrapment. With what ease we justify adultery and other non-Christian uses of sex by talking about self-expression and personal freedom. Without any sense of responsibility we become unavailable to others because we must seek our own space. We callously trample on the being and feelings of others because we want to assert who we are … and on it goes. Sex is reduced to lust; we become gluttonous as we move from one effort at satisfaction to another; our neurotic need to belong makes us envy, and our accomplishments fill us with pride.
If we are our own center of reference, if we want things to revolve around us or our understanding, we are separated from God. The emptiness we know, the feeling that we are driven, our lack of confidence, our fear of relationships and our fright of the future, our hoarding of ourselves and our talents, and our misdirected extravagance and waste of material resources—all these witness to the fact of sin and its tenacious pull upon our lives. Even when the strangle-hold of sin is broken, we do well to remember: “And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled” (v. 21).[Dunnam, Maxie. The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Vol 31. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1982, S. 349]
1st, The Need for Reconciliation,
II. THE MEANS OF RECONCILIATION, 22.
How can man have fellowship with God? Verse 22 indicates God’s terms of reconciliation with sinners. We can be reconciled to God only through the death of Jesus. “yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach”
These blessed words resound like thunder in our heart. The pivotal word “reconcile” is one of the most significant in the NT. It is a key to understanding what Christ has done for us. [He uses a group of words, all having basically the same meaning, to express the central experience of the Christian faith. William Barclay states that all these words are compound forms made from the simple verb allassein which means “to change.”]
In the New Testament, [with two exceptions (1Cor. 7:11 and Acts 7:26),] the word reconcile [katallassein (from allassein) and its related forms are] is always used to designate the restoration of the relation-ship between persons and God. [In 2 Corinthians 5:18–20, there is a series of uses of this word: “God has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus”; “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself”; “we pray you to be reconciled to God.” In Romans 5:11, he uses a noun form, speaking of Christ: “through whom we have now received our reconciliation (katallagē).” Some translate that “atonement,” which in English has the deep meaning of being brought together, at-one-ment. In Romans 5:10, Paul uses the same image he uses in the Colossian passages: “while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.”]
Please note that God has not been reconciled to a man, but man must be reconciled to God. [The major reconciliation passage (2 Cor. 5:18–20) speaks three times of God reconciling persons to Himself. God’s passionate yearning for His children’s return home is never abated; the fire of love burning in His heart is unquenchable, constant, and continuous. Nothing lessens that love or turns it into hate. God is that “hound of heaven”who pursues us down the nights and days, who “moves my soul to seek Him seeking me,” who loves us to the Cross. I am the one to be reconciled. I am the one to be moved to penitence and surrender.]
The meaning should be clear. Through what Christ did, the lost relationship between persons and God, can be restored. What did Jesus do? He died, judged in our place, for our sin on the Cross. Jesus “Paid it All” as the old hymn reminds us . . . [# 304, vv 2,3,4.]
[We are reconciled through Jesus’ death. The death must be understood in light of the person who died. Since the person was infinite, so His could be. It could include an infinite about of suffering and pain, and infinite amount of penalty and payment.]
Reconciliation with can be offered us because of the life and death of Jesus, the fullness of God in human flesh. Romans 6:23 states, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It is a gift given to us from God. He is the gift-giver. Thus He is the one who sets the terms for how to receive this free gift and then makes the offer to us. You did not purchase your gift so you cannot dictate the terms of acceptance. Your either accept it on His terms or you have rejected it. He will not give His indescribable gift to us on our terms. We must receive it on His terms, or He will not gift it to us.
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Notice also that in order to redeem humans, Christ Himself had to become truly human (1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 2:17). Thus Christ’s real physical body and death were necessary for man’s salvation (Rom. 7:4; Heb. 10:10). Man was alienated from God, Jesus lived in perfect harmony w/ God. We were hostile toward God, Jesus was a friend of God. Our actions were evil, Jesus did only the works of God.
The reconciled God justifies by grace the sinner who accepts the means of reconciliation. Those who surrender to Jesus and allow the Holy Spirit into their life to transform their relationship, mind, and behavior in order to bring them back to God. Have you done this... have you surrendered your life to Christ?
III. SOME RESULT OF RECONCILIATION, 23.
Verse 22 also tells us that the purpose of Christ’s death is redemptive. Christ died for you, “in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.”
“To present you holy in His sight” (before Him, kata-en-ōrion, lit. down in look, Lord looking down in our souls). Christ’s death is the basis for judicial justification (Rom. 3:21-26), and for progressive sanctification (Rom. 6-7). He cleans us and makes us holy as we follow Him.
So the result of Christ’s reconciling work is to present believers as “holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation. When you belong to God, you are something special, you have a special purpose. Holy, in this context means to set aside to be dedicated to God.
That does not mean you are sinless or perfect. But God has expunged our record and accredit to our account Christ’s perfect record (2 Cor. 5:21; 1 John 4:17). He pronounced us justified after we acknowledge our sinfulness, place our faith in Jesus as Savior, and surrender our life to Him as Lord.
Christians are not only holy and without blemish [amōmous; translated “blameless” in Eph. 1:4 & Phil. 2:15; “without . . . blemish” in Eph. 5:27 and “without fault” in Jude 24)] in Christ, we are also are free from accusation (anenklētous). This Greek word [is used five times in the NT and only by Paul (here and in 1 Cor. 1:8; 1 Tim. 3:10; Titus 1:6-7). It] connotes not only one who is free from all charges, but one against whom charges will not be recognized. Satan is “the accuser of the brethren” (Rev. 12:10, kjv), but Christ is our “Advocate” (1 John 2:1, kjv) before the Father. Therefore by the merits of Christ believers are free from every charge (Rom. 8:33). When you are in Christ, when Christ has become your head or Lord your are freed of every accusation of man and demon before God. The accused are beyond reproach and the condemned are freed, if they are reconciled with God.
Verse 23 states that this reconciliation in Christ comes only by an abiding or continuing faith. “if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.
The text is insistent that they must continue and confident that they will. They had a settled faith. It was established (grounded like a building on a strong foundation) and firm (hedraioi, “seated or settled;” 1 Cor. 7:37; 15:58), so Paul expects they would continue. [We are never to take a vacation from God.]
Because of Jesus’ work on the Cross, we can be presented to God as holy and blameless “if” we continue on in faith or reliance on Christ and His teachings. Therefore, I cannot in good conscience assure someone who walked forward at a crusade twenty years ago or was baptized several years back but has not continued in the faith that he will be presented to the Father as being holy and blameless.
Notice the hope, the confident expectation, which this gospel of reconciliation provides not only to them but also to the whole world—to every creature under heaven. This obvious figure of speech indicates the universality of the gospel and its proclamation, not that every person on the globe heard Paul preach. In Acts 2:5 this phrase describes a wide range of people from various countries without including, for example, anyone from North or South America (also Gen. 41:57; 1 Kings 10:24; Rom. 1:8). [Walvoord, John; Zuck, Roy; The Bible Knowledge Commentary. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1983, S. 675]. Yet Creation and conscious does preach to each individual the reality of God (Romans 1:18-22).
The hope the Gospel in its fullest sense is the expectation of ultimate, complete salvation that will belong to believers upon the return of our Lord [Vaughan, Curtis. The Expositor’s Bible Com. Vol 11. Regency. 1977. p 188]
In CONCLUSION / RESPONSE
When we are separated from God, it will affect every other area in our life in a bad way. A right relationship with God is the foundation for everything else we do in life.
Atonement for sin was absolutely necessary for until alienation, hostility and evil works were dealt with, there could be no reconciliation. [God cannot be reconciled with sin. Man must be reconciled to a Holy God in holiness.] We can now be offered holiness, blamelessness, and irreproachableness, in Christ Jesus.
To what are you clinging to establish your future? We need to believe in the promises of Scripture. We need to place our hope and faith in Jesus and the Word of God! We are to cling to the hope of the Gospel. When you accept Jesus, you are telling God that you are surrendering your life to Him on His terms! Are you ready to be reconciled to God through Christ?
If you have never really accepted Jesus as your personal Savior, would you do it right now? Do not delay or put it off. If you would like to receive Christ by faith, pray this simple prayer in your heart:
Dear Lord, I acknowledge that I am a sinner. I believe Jesus died for my sins on the cross, and rose again the third day. I repent of my sins. By faith I receive the Lord Jesus as my Savior. You promised to save me, and I believe You, because You are God and cannot lie. I believe right now that the Lord Jesus is my personal Savior, and that all my sins are forgiven through His precious blood. I thank You, dear Lord, for saving me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
If you prayed that prayer, God heard you and saved you. I personally want to welcome you to the family of God and rejoice with you. So please come forward at this time and share that with me. As we stand and sing... #...
