Reconciled

 DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS

RECONCILED

Rom 5:9-11

9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! 10 For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

NIV

Since we have been rendered just or innocent by the blood of the Lamb, which is certainly an excitingly wonderful thought. To simply ponder on the fact that no matter how rotten of a person we were, the blood of the Lamb has been applied to our lives and God has rendered us innocent. That is he does not count any of our sin against us, we are free from any penalty whatsoever, we have been acquitted of all charges. Although God’s wrath is going to be poured out on the sinful world at some point, we do not need to be concerned because we have been saved from God’s wrath through our faith in Jesus Christ. Paul makes this statement about the fact that we were reconciled to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. The Greek word translated as reconciled can have two meanings, both of which could be applied in this context. First, it means to change, which if we only took that part of the definition, we could say that God changed our status from enemies of God to friends or children of God. The rest of the meaning of the Greek word carries the idea of exchanging, such as a coin for another of the same value. This would mean to us that we, being the creation of God, that is the whole of mankind, have always been of value to God. Yet while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Our value has not changed in the sight of God; however, he has exchanged us for another person of the same value. He has changed, or exchanged, our lives that were destined for destruction to lives destined for eternal life in the paradise of God. How can joy not consume our being? We have so much to be joyful for because we are now in the right relationship with God because we have been saved through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have the promise of eternal life. It is interesting this Greek word Paul uses for us having now received reconciliation is a different form of the Greek word, he used for us having been reconciled. The base of this word is still the same as to exchange something of equal value, however, this word also can be applied as restoration to favor in the sense of an adjustment of a difference. Having kept a checkbook at one time, we had to reconcile the difference between us and the banks' amount in our account, thus we reconciled to the bank. Now our account has been reconciled with God. Our lives have gone through an adjustment of the difference from being in debt to being in favor with God. We once owed our debt, and now through our faith in Jesus Christ, we are in favor with God, reconciled to God, by God.