God’s Work of Reconciliation

GOD’S WORK OF RECONCILITION 
The Book of Acts continues in Chapter nine describing the growth of the church and the work of the Holy Spirit through the ministry of the Apostle Peter.

Acts 9: 31. Things then began to go peacefully in the churches throughout all of Judea and Samaria. The churches began to grow and multiply, walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. So the Apostle Peter began to travel throughout the regions roundabout.
He miraculously brings healing to a bedridden paralysed man and he then travels to Joppa and raises a woman named Dorcas from the dead. Peter then stayed on at Joppa for many days in the house of Simon the tanner.
The ministry of Peter continues into Chapter ten.

ACTS 10:1 A Centurion named Cornelius, had a vision in which he saw an angel of God who said to him, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have been received by God as an offering! Now send some men to Joppa, and summon a man named Simon Peter. 
Meanwhile Peter was praying on a rooftop and received a vision of a sheet containing animals, reptiles and birds and he was told by God to kill them and eat them. But Peter said ‘No Lord’ our Jewish laws declare these animals as unclean.
15 But the voice spoke again: “Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.” 

Peter was then told by the Holy Spirit that the messengers from Cornelius had arrived to ask him to come to the house of Cornelius the Centurion, and the next day Peter went with them to Caesarea. As Peter entered the home Cornelius fell at his feet to worship him. But Peter explained that he was just a man like Cornelius himself and even though he believed that he should not be entering the house of a Gentile, that God had told him that he ‘should no longer think of anyone as impure or unclean’.

Cornelius told Peter that God had spoken to him through an angel who directed him to call for Peter to come and he then said to Peter. ‘Now we are all here, waiting before God to hear the message the Lord has given you.”
34 Then Peter replied, ‘I see very clearly that God shows no discrimination or favouritism towards anybody regarding nationality or ethnicity, but everywhere on earth he accepts those who fear him and do what is right…Peter goes on to say.
36 This is the message of the Good News given to the people of Israel - that there is peace with God (eirene – a joining with God) through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. 
42 And he has ordered us to preach everywhere and to testify that Jesus is the one appointed by God to be the judge of all - of the living and the dead. 43 To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives (actively takes hold of) forgiveness of sins through his name.”44 Even as Peter was saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the message. The Jewish believers who came with Peter were amazed that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. 

Peter had just heard things come out of his mouth that he had never said before and never even thought of or believed before. In fact, just two days before he had thought and believed just the opposite, but he had now just witnessed the evidence of God reconciling the whole world to himself and inviting humanity into the saving work of Jesus for their lives. 
Peter had participated in the astounding message of ‘God’s Work of Reconciliation’.
2 Corinthians 5:19 God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their sins against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 we implore you on Christ's behalf, ‘be reconciled’ to God.’ 
Peter did not know that work of God as the message of Reconciliation and he didn’t ever teach about it as that, because that was the revelation that God gave to Paul as the foundational truth of Jesus bringing oneness with himself to all of humanity as ‘Christ in you the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27)’.

The word Reconciliation in the Bible is katalasso – that means a mutual change of two things to make one new thing. The supernatural miracle of God’s act of reconciliation for us is that he caused both himself and us to experience a change of Being. God became one of us – forever – now as the risen Christ in Heaven, and he has made us one with him within our hearts to become ‘partakers of his divine nature escaping the corruption that is in the world through sinful desires’ (2Peter 1:4).
We are in him, and he is in us - We are reconciled. 

Paul was the only Apostle that taught this, and it is not mentioned in the letters of any of the other Apostles, because Paul was set apart to bring that truth to the world of the non-Jews. The Gentile world had never been taught of the prophetic Scriptures and the understanding of the knowledge of God. Humanity in Adam was alienated from the life of God and ignorant of its truth - humanity was hostile to God (Romans 8:7).

Paul was sent to proclaim God’s remedy for this hostility of ours.
‘For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life’ (Romans 5:10). 
There needed to be a reconciled humanity in the earth before people could receive this great salvation that comes through a life yielded to the Lordship of Christ. 
2 Cor 5: 14. We have concluded this: that one man has died for all of humanity, and all have died (with him); and he died for all so that those who live (with him) might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was resurrected.

While Reconciliation is for everyone, without faith it can get twisted into a weird kind of universalism, because reconciliation deals with the here and now salvation of our soul in this life – not just an opinion of who is going to heaven and who isn’t. The multitude of opinions regarding the words universalism and predestination (both not mentioned in the Bible) dare us to judge people’s eternal future and we are warned to not judge in these things (Romans 2:1) because Jesus is the One appointed to be the judge of all. When Jesus was judged by the Jewish leaders he said woe upon you, religious leaders—hypocrites! For you tithe down to the last mint leaf in your garden but ignore the weightier things—justice and mercy and faith. (Matthew 23:23).
We are not to speculate on unfounded fringe issues but to build on a sure foundation of Gods saving work of justice and mercy through our faith and our faithfulness. 
Isaiah 45:22 look to me and be saved all the ends of the Earth.

Reconciliation also reflects Paul’s revelation of being ‘chosen in him before the foundation of the world’ (Ephesians 1:4), which tells us that we were chosen in the last Adam (Jesus) before the first Adam started to breathe - God had rescued us before we even fell - we were found before we were even lost. And we also need to know that God holds us to account to not neglect such a great salvation. We had nothing to do with God’s work of Reconciliation and had no say in it. Jesus invaded the world of Adam and did something for us behind our backs that we weren’t even aware of. It is only by faith that we can discover that we have been reconciled to God and can obey his word to ‘be reconciled’. 

Sin was Adam’s work, and we didn’t have any part to play into what Adam did to us either. We weren’t there and had no say in it, we just inherited it and trudged along with it. ‘Therefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed onto all men, for all have sinned’. (Romans 5:12)
We had an inheritance in Adam - Mankind had inherited a distorted conscience - the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil – a knowledge limited to our self-centred perspective of what life was all about. 
That was our life in Adam – and we didn’t need faith to walk that life. Our lack of trust towards God was too great an obstacle for our hearts to reach him. God had to reach us by putting away our estrangement from him and to bring peace and oneness with himself through Jesus. It had to be all his work. 

We now have an inheritance in Jesus – a life in Christ – a life that allows us to live above sin – and we need faith to walk that life.
Therefore, we need to be told we are forgiven, and that we need no longer be separated because of the feelings of guilt and shame about our sinful behaviour, which makes us hide from God and cover up in front of each other. We need to have a new mindset – metanoia – which means repentance, that acknowledges that God is not at odds with us, and we no longer need be at odds with him (now reconciled). 

Paul is telling us that our total life experience is to be one of seeing ourselves as being part of the very life of God, and an extension of his life into this world. We are also told by Paul to become the messengers of Reconciliation, which means that when we present the Gospel, we present forgiveness of sin first and then oneness with God (God’s work of Reconciliation) and then the saving work of our souls through the life of Jesus within us and then the impartation of his life into our world around us. All this requires a radical new mindset (repentance) which brings about a radical new life of faith. 

OR the message of condemnation - Repent from your sins (God hates sin) – say the sinners prayer – ask God for forgiveness so you don’t go to hell – Invite Jesus into your life because he died for your sins - stop sinning – pray - read your Bible and go to church.