A Theology of Reconciliation
Wayne Grudem defines reconciliation (in the theological usage of the term) as a necessity to overcome our separation from God caused by our sin: “To overcome our separation from God, we needed someone to provide reconciliation and thereby bring us back into fellowship with God. Paul says that God ‘through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself.’ “ ~ 2 Cor. 5:18-19 (Bible Doctrine, p.. 255).
To be reconciled to God is to be brought back into right relationship with him. That is the biblical basis and example of how we are to relate to one another. I believe, to have real reconciliation on a human level, it must be rooted in the vertical reality, and model, of our reconciliation with God.
The following are summary statements of the theology of reconciliation. They are followed by brief explanations of how this theology begins to apply to our horizontal relationships. These are not original with me; they are a small portion of a lecture presented in 2003 by Robert Schreiter, at the New College of Edinburg University in England. Schreiter’s topic concerned the implications of reconciliation for missions. In it, he gives us an excellent outline from which to understand biblical reconciliation, and from which to begin to think about how it affects our life with each other. (It is a bit lengthy for a blog post, but I believe well worth the read.)
1. Reconciliation is first and foremost the work of God.
Christians believe, of course, that salvation comes from God and not from our efforts. In thinking of reconciliation in that light, what becomes apparent—especially in social situations after conflict—is that the magnitude of the damage which has been done is ultimately beyond any human effort at correction. Only God has the perspective that can ultimately sort everything out. Thus, Christians hold to the idea that it is God who through Jesus Christ brings about reconciliation, not ourselves. We are but agents of God’s activity—“ambassadors for Christ’s sake” in Paul’s words in 2 Cor 5:20. For this reason, reconciliation is as much a spirituality for Christians as it is a strategy. It is only by living in communion with God that we can come to recognize the action of God toward reconciliation in our world. To assume that reconciliation is something which comes entirely from our efforts results in the psychological and physical burnout so common among those who work in post-conflict situations.
2. God’s reconciling work begins with the victim.
The common-sense understanding of reconciliation goes something like this: the wrongdoer repents of the wrongdoing and seeks forgiveness of the victim. The victim forgives the wrongdoer and then there is reconciliation. Laudable as this sense of reconciliation may be, there is a problem with this scenario: too often the wrongdoer does not repent. Sometimes the wrongdoer believes that nothing has been done wrong at all (think of the justifications given for totalitarian rule: to save the nation from subversive elements, and the like). In some instances the wrongdoer is no longer even present, and so cannot repent and seek forgiveness (Take for example the now deceased alcoholic parent whom the adult child wishes to confront). Where does all of this leave the victim? Is healing for the victim dependent upon the wrongdoer, and the wrongdoer’s capacity to come to repentance? A Christian understanding would answer “no.” Rather, God begins by healing the victim. This is done by restoring the humanity of the victim which had been wrested away in the act of wrongdoing. This is in line, first of all, with the Christian understanding of a God who looks out for the widow and the orphan, the stranger and the prisoner. The healing God works in the victims makes it sometimes possible for the victim to forgive the wrongdoer even before any repentance takes place. There was evidence of this in some of the testimonies made before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. Not all victims are able to do this, nor should undue expectations be placed upon them. But we have to be able to account for how such forgiveness can and sometimes does take place without any action by the wrongdoer. I believe that this possibility reveals the very heart of the Christian understanding of reconciliation.
[Note: This is where Bob Kellemen's work is so beneficial to us. His current series "The Journey: Forty Days of Promise, Celebrating the Legacy of African American Christianity," and his book "Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction" give us excellent examples of how we can learn from these victims.]
3. God makes of both the victim and the wrongdoer a “new creation.”
To be healed of the trauma of the deed, or to be forgiven for what one has perpetrated, does not mean that things return to how they were before the conflict or the trauma arose. That would be to trivialize the extent of the damage that evil does. In both instances—healing and forgiveness—the victim and the wrongdoer find themselves in a new place, a place which they could not have anticipated. Healing comes as a surprise. Reconciliation is more than having the burden of the past lifted. It is the “new creation” of which Paul speaks in 2 Cor 5:17. For this reason, it is the vision of a new creation in the heart of the healed victim which provides the surest guide to reconstruction of a society after conflict. It provides a view which cannot be achieved by extrapolating from the status quo ante (how things were before the evil occurred), nor by imagining the symmetrical opposite of the evil now overcome.
4. The Christian places suffering inside the story of the suffering and death of Christ.
Suffering is not of itself ennobling; by itself it is destructive of the human person. It is only when that suffering is brought into a new social space and with wider relationships that it can become ennobling and even redemptive. For Christians, this is done by placing their suffering within the framework of the sufferings of Christ. This is captured in another Pauline text, in Phil 3:10, where Paul says that he wishes to know Christ and be conformed into the pattern of Christ’s death, so that somehow he, too, might come to know the power of Christ’s resurrection. It is the belief in the power of the resurrection—a power which is more than the opposite of death, a power which comes from the living God—that makes the suffering more than the destruction of an individual person in society. For the Christian working toward reconciliation, such placing of one’s own suffering in such a framework can help give meaning to otherwise meaningless suffering.
5. Full reconciliation will happen only when God will be all in all.
The hymns at the beginning of the Letters to the Ephesians and to the Colossians remind us that any reconciliation we now experience will be incomplete. God is still working it out in Christ. This understanding, coupled with the first point about reconciliation made above (i.e., that God is the author of reconciliation) reminds us not to depend too much on our own capacities. We may experience frustration at how far the reconciliation we experience now can go, but we are hereby reminded that it is God who is our hope, drawing us forward even when things around us look utterly intransigent or even impossible. Here we experience the profound difference between optimism and hope: optimism arises out of our capacities and estimation of what we can do; hope comes to us from God, and provides a much broader horizon.
I think this last statement is what separates a biblically informed view of reconcilation from all others . . . Here we experience the profound difference between optimism and hope: optimism arises out of our capacities and estimation of what we can do; hope comes to us from God, and provides a much broader horizon.
Tomorrow I will examine the application of this theology of reconcilation to our personal relationships.
Blessings
3 John 8
Bill H.
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