Emphasis in Reconciliation

Evangelicals love to quote and remember 2 Corinthians 5:7... (Maybe you have met one or two that have memorized the verse, as this verse is in every "Scripture memory" curriculum!) Yet evangelicals often miss the heart beat of 2 Cor 5:7 because they miss the beauty of the following 4 verses that don't encourage a new creation for the creation's sake, but rather a new creation for the purpose of reconciliation...

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The greek word for reconciliation is katalasso, a combination of two words... kata and lasso. Here is what Louw and Nida have to say about the word...

KATALASSO: to reestablish proper friendly interpersonal relations after these have been disrupted or broken (the componential features of this series of meanings involve (1) disruption of friendly relations because of (2) presumed or real provocation, (3) overt behavior designed to remove hostility, and (4) restoration of original friendly relations) — ‘to reconcile, to make things right with one another, reconciliation.


Louw and Nida also include a special note on the word that is worth reading...

Because of the variety and complexity of the components involved in reconciliation, it is often necessary to use an entire phrase in order to communicate satisfactorily the meanings of the terms in this subdomain. In some languages, however, reconciliation is often spoken of in idiomatic terms, for example, ‘to cause to become friends again,’ ‘to cause to snap fingers again’ (a symbol of friendly interpersonal relations in many parts of Africa), ‘to cause to be one again,’ or ‘to take away the separation.’ A particularly crucial element in terms for reconciliation is the assigning of responsibility for original guilt in causing the estrangement. Some terms, for example, imply that the individual who initiates reconciliation is by doing so admitting his guilt in causing the estrangement. This, of course, provides a completely untenable meaning for reconciliation in speaking of God reconciling people to himself through Christ. In a number of languages the contextual basis for an expression for reconciliation is often found in terms relating to the reconciliation of husbands and wives. Such expressions fit in well with many contexts in the Scriptures, especially in speaking of reconciliation of people to God, since God is frequently referred to as the husband and the believers as the wife.


Maybe a special emphasis on reconciliation has been missing... And maybe now is a better time than ever to practice this central gift of the Gospel.