If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:17-19).
Commentary and explanation. Reconciliation is one of the most precious gifts of the work of salvation, that God carries out for us through Christ. We saw the introductory text for this Step in Step 58 "b". We are going to try to understand now, what the Scripture wants to teach us when it says, that we were reconciled with God.
Reconciliation is a characteristic word of the New Testament. The closest words to reconciliation in the Old Testament are atonement and expiation, since through them God and the sinner were reconciled, "in light of the sacrifice of Christ", as we said in Step 55. The atonement of the Old Testament is too far from the reconciliation of the New Testament.
Reconciliation is also very close to justification, which we studied in Chapter IX, Steps 47-50; but it is also different since reconciliation adds some characteristics not included exactly in the concept of justification.
Justification and reconciliation: both are free, by grace, through the merits of Jesus Christ, and we say that by both we have the justice of Christ, the righteousness of God; but reconciliation tells us a little more.
Reconciliation creates a new relationship of mutual trust and good will between God and the believer; the enmity for sin is canceled, and a new climate of friendship and peace is settled. The relationship God-believer comes into a phase that didn't exist before.
The idea of reconciliation is that of reestablishing that grade of friendship that God wanted to have with mankind, and that was lost because of sin. What sin destroyed, reconciliation rebuilds. It is a complete and radical change: When we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son; having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life (Romans 5:10).
It is enough to read the quotation of this Step, to realize that all the characteristics of reconciliation are there. There is a new order, Paul says, when he affirms that "old things have passed away" and that all things are new. That is why whoever is in Christ is new also, is a new creature.
The change consists in passing from a condition of enmity to a status of friendship, good will, understanding and mutual love; God "becomes" friend and partner with man; they are not far from one another, divided, but united into a relationship of love and peace. Because of justification we had the righteousness of God with us; because of reconciliation our relationship with God is at a level of friendship and good will.
And now, all things are of God, from God, and carried out through Christ. This "of God" means that it comes from God as a gift, by grace; and "through Christ" because God was "moved" by the sacrifice of Christ. It is clear then that everything is from God's goodwill, not from man. Only by faith can man access this grace.
The biblical quotation tells us also the way reconciliation was carried out; it says that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them. In view of the sacrifice of His Son, God does not impute their trespasses to men. Reconciliation therefore has its origin in God, and its motivation in the sacrifice of Christ.
In Ephesians 2:14-18, the Scripture talks about another reconciliation, the one between Jews and Gentiles in the body of Christ. Up to the cross, both races were divided and antagonistic; but now, He Himself (Christ) is our peace, who has made both one... and through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father (Ephesians 2:14, 18).
Colossians says with the same meaning that now He (Christ) has reconciled... through the blood of His cross... to present you holy, and blameless, and irreproachable in His sight (Colossians 1:21, 20, 22).
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But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 6:11).
Commentary and explanation. When the believer approaches God through faith, God forgives, God justifies, God reconciles, God sanctifies. What is holiness or sanctification? Let us see.
The word sanctification in the Scriptures is a synonym of consecration or dedication to God. A holy thing is something that has been put aside for God. The victims offered in sacrifice in the Old Testament, as well as the utensils of the temple, and the temple itself, in Jerusalem, were holy or sanctified, because they were things set apart for God.
The Scripture also calls the persons holy, when they are set apart for God, as for instance, the priests of the Old Testament were called holy. Christians, all the elected, were chosen to be holy (Ephesians 1:4); and they are called holy in the Scriptures, because they have been put aside for God.
To call a Christian holy is very common in the letters of the Apostles; some of them are addressed to all saints in Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:1); or, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints (1 Corinthians 1:2); or, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling (Hebrews 3:1).
All these mean that every human being baptized is already sanctified and holy, because he or she has the holiness of Jesus Christ, who loved the church and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it (Ephesians 5:25, 26). Every believer shares the holiness of Christ, who sanctified us through His sacrifice: We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 10:10; cfr 13:12).
But this holiness inherent to the Christian does not mean, by itself, that the Christian has moral qualities; it means simply that Christ has come up to him and that he is marked as a possession of God. In this sense, every Christian is holy, although unfortunately the lives of many of them does not correspond many times to that holy character that we carry ourselves.
We should distinguish, however, between being holy or sanctified, and to grow in sanctity. Being holy or sanctified is a status, is the position that every Christian has by the fact of being tied to Christ, and being set apart for God. To grow in sanctity is a process, is a way; a Christian is growing in holiness as long as his moral conduct is improving. The New Testament talks about this process of sanctification very often. Let us see it.
As He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, "Be holy, for I am holy" (1 Peter 1:15, 16). The command for Christians is this: be holy in your way of living; that was also God's command in the Old Testament (Leviticus 11:44).
Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth... you must put off all these: anger, wrath, malice... put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man... according to the image of Him who created him... as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind... This is just a partial quotation of Colossians 3:5-12. We must put off evil from us and we must put on the new man, according to the image of Christ (v. 10).
We find the same advice in Ephesians: Put off the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts... and put on the new man which is created according to God, in righteousness and true holiness (Ephesians 4:22, 24). Dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord, is the way Romans expresses it (6:11).
And Thessalonians says: May your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:23).
We could multiply the biblical quotations. The Scripture reminds the believer that he is holy, that is, that he is put aside for God; he should not live for himself neither for the world. For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's (Romans 14:7, 8). And He (Christ) died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again (2 Corinthians 5:15).
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Whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified (Romans 8:30).
Commentary and explanation. The final stage of the process of salvation is glorification. This is the definitive and eternal stage: God from the beginning chose you for salvation, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth... for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Tessalonians 2:13, 14).
But, according to Scriptures, glorification has its beginning here on earth, during time. As we say that we are saved, and at the same time we say that we are still in the process of salvation; so we say that we have been glorified and we are still expecting a more complete glorification.
We may say then, that glorification has two stages: one present, in which we are now glorified; and the other one future, which is coming, when we will be fully glorified. In this Step we are going to talk about the present glorification.
The biblical quotation for this Step, from Romans 8, is a short and beautiful resumé of the whole process of salvation. It started with the call and election or predestination, followed by justification and glorification; this is the whole process.
In this Step we want to emphasize that the quotation says: Whom He justified, these He also glorified, past tense, as a consummated fact, like the other three, predestined, called and justified. Literally speaking, all are consummated facts. The question that arises is this: Why does the Scripture say that we are already glorified? Which is this glorification Paul is talking about?
In order to understand why Paul says that we are already glorified, we have to put ourselves in Paul's situation, and try to understand what Paul was experiencing in his life, when he talked that way.
For Paul there is such an intimate union between Christ and the believer, that the two become like one entity, one body. You are the body of Christ, he says to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 12:27); there is a kind of identification between Christ and the believer. Based on that identification of the believer with Christ, he can attribute to the believer what already has happened to Christ; if Christ is now glorified, he may say that the believer is also glorified.
Paul had a vivid and real experience of this identification with Christ, to the point that he said: For me, to live is Christ (Philippians 1:21); and in another place, he says: It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me (Galatians 2:20). If he experienced in himself such a kind of identification with Christ, there is no surprise that he had experienced also the glorification of Christ in his body. That is why he said that the believers have been glorified.
Following the same perspective of Paul experiencing some identification with Christ, he says: If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new (2 Corinthians 5:17). For Paul "the new creation" was a real experience; everything which is temporal does not count for him; I count them as rubbish (Philippians 3:8); everything is new for him; it is as if he does not live on earth; our citizenship is in heaven, he says later (Philippians 3:20). When life is looked at and experienced that way, you can well say that the believer has been glorified.
When Paul talks about resurrection, he refers to the resurrection of Christ and to the resurrection of the believer, with almost equal terms. Talking about Christ, he says that he does not cease to pray in order that they understand the working of His (God's) mighty power which He worked in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places; he says this, in verses 19 and 20 of chapter 1; and a little below, in chapter 2:6, he says almost the same of all believers: raised us up together (with Christ), and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. This means that, for Paul, the believer as well as Christ is raised up, because this is the fact when the believer is born again to a new life.
Because of this identification of the believer with Christ, Paul may say that the believer has been glorified: He predestined us, He called us, He justified us, He also glorified us (Romans 8:30).
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Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is (1 John 3:2).
Commentary and explanation. The end of our call and election is glorification; our call to be sons of God is directed to a final aim: glorification. The God of all grace called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus (1 Peter 5:10); the term and aim of our Christian vocation is eternal glory.
Although Paul talks as if we are already glorified in Christ (Step 67), we all know by our own experience that full glorification has not come yet but is coming; that is the teaching of the Scriptures.
According to the text from 1 John at the beginning of this Step, the greatest and most beautiful part of glorification has not been accomplished yet: It has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that we shall be like Him (God). It is difficult to think in a degree of glory greater than this: to be like God; but this is the promise. When the Scripture says "we know", it is because it is something about which we are completely sure.
Paul says also in his own words: Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him (1 Corinthians 2:9; Isaiah 64:4). It is such a great glory, that it is impossible for man to imagine it.
That is why Paul exhorts us to set our mind on things above, not on things on the earth, for our life is hidden with Christ in God; and when Christ who is our life appears, then we also will appear with Him in glory (Colossians 3:2-4).
According to Paul's words, when Christ our Savior appears, He will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body (Philippians 3:21). To be like the body of His own glory: that is the aim.
Our glorification is intimately bonded to Christ's. With glorification something happens that is similar to what happens with resurrection: we will rise up, because Christ rose up, and we are one with Him; it is not possible that the Head, Christ, rises up, without the members rising up too. With glorification the same thing happens: we will be glorified with the glory of Christ; it is not possible that Christ has the glory of the Son, without all the sons of God sharing the same glory; as sons of God, we will share the glory corresponding to those who are sons of God.
Paul says: If indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together (Romans 8:17). Our glory is together with Christ, because together with Him we are the heirs, that is, co-heirs; we will inherit together the glory of the sons. This is the consequence of being sons of God: If a son, then an heir of God through Christ (Galatians 4:7).
Paul keeps explaining the process of the inheritance and glorification. God gives us His Spirit to guide us and make us His sons: As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God (Romans 8:14). And, if He makes us sons, He should make us heirs also: And if children, then heirs (v. 17); and if we are heirs, it follows that we should be co-heirs with Christ: And if children, then heirs —heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ (v. 17). The glory of Christ is, then, our inheritance.
The conclusion that Paul draws from this is: I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us (Romans 8:18). "I consider" means here I am certain and sure of this: the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
Let us remember what he says talking about resurrection: The body is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:42, 43). And another one: Whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance (Colossians 3:23, 24).
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