Seeking Reconciliation
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Key Verse: “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him.” Selected Scripture: |
RECONCILIATION IS A KEY part of God’s plan for man, and is centered in his Son Jesus. It is he that is spoken of in our Key Verse in his prehuman existence. He was the first creation of God, and was subsequently used by God as his primary instrument in bringing forth all other creation, both in heaven and on earth. As a mighty angelic being he was God’s mouthpiece (Greek, Logos), spoken of by John as the Word [Logos] of God, “In a beginning was the Word, and the Word was with the God, and a God was the Word.”—John 1:1-3 (Wilson’s Emphatic Diaglott, interlinear translation)
In due time, man—the climax of the creative work of God and his Son—fell from his perfection and received the just penalty of death that had been declared would result if he disobeyed God’s commandment. God’s love, rather than simply releasing man from the just penalty of death, provided a means whereby a ransom would be paid through one who would take the sinner’s place in death. Such a plan would not violate God’s justice, but would confirm it, and also in love provide a means whereby man might have the opportunity to once again gain life, upon certain terms and conditions. It was God’s Son, not as the angelic Logos but as the man Jesus, who provided this means of reconciliation, who the Apostle Paul states “gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.”—I Tim. 2:6
The ransom provided by Jesus was, as Paul said, to be ‘for all’ in ‘due time’—in his coming kingdom of righteousness and peace, spoken of throughout the Scriptures. However, the immediate benefit of the reconciliation work of the ransom was to be to a special called-out class, those striving to walk sacrificially in Jesus’ footsteps. Indeed, those who would make up the church, together with their head, Jesus, would be the instruments of blessing to the rest of mankind, in their due time for receiving their portion of reconciliation. This twofold aspect of the work of reconciliation, as well as the headship of Christ Jesus over the church, are both spoken of in our lesson—“Having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. … And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.”—Col. 1:20,18
The rest of our lesson focuses on how we, as prospective members of the church, have been reconciled to God through the great ransom work done by our Lord Jesus. “You, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister.”—Col. 1:21-23