Results of Reconciliation

Good morning. First of all, the handout today, I ran across it in my studies this week, probably the best outline that explains reconciliation. So I thought if I can get it printed on two sides of one sheet of paper, I'd use it as a handout. So it's not going to follow what I'm going to do today, but it's something you ought to have in your library, or you should have that kind of information if you ever have a question about reconciliation. It's really, and Chester McCauley put it together. So this morning, I want us to think about how the Spirit of God has been engaging us here with the greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ. not in lieu of His blessings to you, but in His just greatness, who He is, how great He is.

And so, the blessings to you may be incredibly incredible. You could cease not to talk about them. But what this scripture is gonna, which we've been studying the last few weeks, is the greatness of Christ, Him alone. We've seen the greatness of Him in connection with the creation. We have seen the greatness as the head of the body, the church. His greatness, in fact, is the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in Him. Imagine that, the fullness of the Godhead.

His greatness as one in whom reconciliation has been produced. He's the reconciler. So what I did, probably repeating what Jim read, the verses are really interesting, starting in 20. And through him, nobody else, to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross. And through him I say whether things on earth or things in heaven. And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet has he now reconciled you in his fleshly body through death in order to present you before him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.

That's what he's doing. If indeed you continue in the faith, firmly established, steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, of which I, Paul, am made a minister. So, when you take a look at these verses, you kind of see that this focuses, I can't repeat that word enough, on him and not what he can do for you. This is him.

And so we have the outcome here of us being crucified with Christ, as in Romans 6, from the first verse of Colossians 1 onward, We have the meaning of the resurrection of Christ. What does that do? What is it? And who did it? And that which it secures to which the Holy Spirit calls us in the risen Christ.

So just a little quick review about reconciliation. The definition is to adjust something to a specific standard. So yeah, next question is, what do you think the standard is? The standard is which men fail to meet, and that's our problem as human beings. We fail to meet the standard. So we've gotta be adjusted, so to speak, to the standard.

And the standard is the glory of God. So when you go home today and look in the mirror, understand you're not looking at the glory of God. You're looking at you. But you've been adjusted so that someday you will be able to do that. Therefore, if you have any other, therefore we have another holy distinct step by him to reconcile all things to himself because he's the standard.

All the fullness dwelling in him was insufficient for us, but it brought God to man, but it didn't bring man to God. Does that make sense? His reconciling everything to himself meant that he went out and reconciled all of us, but it didn't bring you to me. It didn't bring you to him.

So it was a continued delight of the whole Godhead to dwell in Jesus as a man. But man was so far gone that he could not deliver him. Sin just can't be gotten over. You can't lift up the rug and sweep it under and say, okay, you're reconciled. That is not how it works. And the reason it doesn't work that way is because God is righteous. He's holy, he's good, and he never changes, never.

We talked about that in Sunday school. Even with God himself coming down to earth in Christ's person, his unselfish goodness, his unwearied, patient love for us, not anything found in Christ, nor altogether could dispel sin or righteously recover the sinner, just because he was here, just because he was here doesn't bring us to him. He's come to us, but we haven't been brought to him.

So my thought about this is that enter the adjustment by God in Christ to the standard of God's glory. That's what reconciliation is. God adjusted mankind in Christ to the standard of God's glory. That's what he did. So it became transparently a question of reconciliation and what's the key issue through the blood of his cross. Without the blood of his cross, there's no reconciliation, none at all. All things are to be reconciled. As we see, peace has been made, how? By the blood of his cross.

So I think it's probably sweet and assuring to us to think that all has been done to secure the gathering of all things in and around Christ. So if you stick with him, you find out that what he's after is to reconcile everything to himself. That's what he's doing. So now it becomes a question of the time suited to God's wisdom for the manifestation of Christ, because that's gonna happen. To show the whole creation that Christ is the head of all things, and he's the reconciler, as far as the successful completion of the work is concerned, there's nothing more for him to do. He's done it all. It's complete.

Meanwhile, God is calling the saints who are to share all along with Christ. The only reason he delays, we talked about this last week, he's waiting because he's patiently calling, he doesn't, everybody, every human being that ever will, he's given them a chance and he has all of those that are gonna be with him, he's waiting for them to come in. When the last one is in, he's not gonna wait. We're going to be gone and a lot of trouble is going to happen here on the earth.

As it says in Romans 8, all creation groans waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. The creation itself is groaning because the reconciliation hasn't been done, but it hasn't been manifested yet. So it groans. The body of Christ is the first fruit of the work of Christ. Everything has been subjected to vanity because of sin. Nothing works out the way God designed it to be. It always comes short. The design never really works, is probably the best way to say it.

But God has taken upon himself the burden of sin and he's made peace by the blood of his cross. That's how he did it. When you realize that everything's done, God has done everything through Christ, Christ is paid, the work is accepted, be a little tough if the work wasn't accepted, so that they too may say, all things are ready. Everything's ready, it's all in place. And like I said, he waits, he's long suffering because he wants to get every last one of us in that he can.

So the darkness and weakness will disappear when our Lord comes for his saints, for the world is appearing with them and glory is a critical time. The revelation of Christ and the revelation to the church from heaven is not the epic of the rapture, which comes first. The revelation is the manifestation of the bridegroom and the bride then glorified before the world.

We've talked about this before. The rapture will happen, there'll be this period of time, and then there will come a day that the Lord Jesus will come to the earth in all of his glory and every one of you will be with him and you will manifest his glory, his glory. I mean, if you ever think about that thought for a minute, wow, is that, yeah, okay. Is that right? Yeah, it is right. That's what he's gonna do. And it's already planned for, boxed up, done, waiting for just a couple of things. So, and you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works.

So if he looks back, And it shows that a sinful past filled with the hostility towards God is no barrier to the possibility of reconciliation. I don't care what you've done or who you are or who anybody is, it's not a barrier to the reconciliation that Christ has manifested. Sin represents the need for salvation. but it's not a barrier to salvation. Do you see that? I don't care how sinful you are, it's not a barrier to what God has done in Christ. God can never change his mind about what he's already done. Christ didn't withhold his saving work because men did not deserve it. He didn't deserve it to start with. Nobody deserves it.

We'll talk a little bit about that as we go on. So in this contrast, the reconciliation of all things just hasn't been manifested or accomplished yet. It will be. The foundation is all laid, but it hasn't been applied. So meanwhile, it is applied to us who believe. That's a really good thought. It is applied to you and me, and to us who were in this fearful condition. When you read a verse like this, I can really identify with this, but look at this.

Yet he has now reconciled you in his fleshly body through death, you the sinner. Observe the body of his flesh. The incarnation itself could not benefit man. Just because Jesus became a man and came to the earth, what good is that? He lived a holy life, the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in him now bodily, what is that to you?

Why is that not, why is that not a, see why can't I say, well he was here so I must, I must be able to avail myself of his salvation. Guilty man must be through the death. It was not that though Christ's birth or living energy, but through death, not by his doing, divinely blessed as all was, but it was by his suffering, his suffering death.

That's how he reconciled us. The fact that he became a man and walked around for 33 years doesn't reconcile anything, but his death does. as death does. And I want you to observe something. It says the body of his flesh. The incarnation itself did not. It has no benefit to us at all. The fullness of the Godhead. But the expression the body of his flesh or through death show the means whereby reconciliation is accomplished. Now, just for a second.

I gave you a definition of that it was to adjust something to another standard. So God's problem is that the mankind that he loved, he had to adjust creation to another standard, his standard of holiness, so that it would render man savable. Before the death of Christ, Man wasn't even saleable, but you might say to me, well, gee, look at that, Abraham and all those guys, you know, God counted them righteous. Why did he do it that way?

Well, because he knew the cross was coming. I like to look at it, it's like when you go out and use your MasterCard, you're gonna pay the bill, but you get the product today. So he saved Abraham and all the Old Testament saints knowing that there was gonna come the day he had to pay. And the day he had to pay was the day of the cross. So he could save them and us.

So the reason I think he refers to Jesus as fleshly bodies because one of the problems in Colossae was the intrusion of Gnosticism. So let me give you just a little, look at Gnosticism, and Gnosticism tried to deal with a basic problem. The basic problem was that God is holy, and he can't be the author of a creation that isn't holy. So how do you reconcile those two?

They believed that evil was present in the world, and God cannot create evil. They somehow didn't read the rest of the story, did they? They believed, they held that matter was evil and God is good and the two can't touch each other. So what they did was, they had this, they devised what they called eons and emanations coming from God. Now here's how they did it.

With each passing generation, less and less of divine quality until contact with evil became possible. In other words, they went from Adam to me. By the time they got to me, I was so evil that I didn't have any contact with the creator anymore. So with each passing, less and less divine quality.

Out of this error, another doctrine also emerged. They worshipped angels. Second, they didn't believe that Christ was a creator because he couldn't create anything evil. So the third thing is that they didn't believe Christ came in the flesh. And fourth, they perverted Christianity by turning it into an asceticism.

In other words, you had to really suffer physically to demonstrate that you were separating from the flesh. So, you know, last week we talked about the fact that the Lord Jesus came in the flesh to be identified as a new man when he rose from the dead. It isn't your suffering that saves you, it isn't your asceticism that saves you, it's the death of Christ. That's the incident that, if you believe in that, it will save you.

So, maybe as we go on through the rest of the talk, Book of Colossians, we'll see more and more of this sort of Gnosticistic idea and asceticism sort of sleeping in. That's why in the first verses that Myles covered and I covered a part on why there's so much emphasis on who the person of Christ is, because religion, and especially Gnosis or any place, any other kind, what do they try to do? There's you and the Lord Jesus Christ united, right? But they slide something down in there, oh, asceticism, and legalism, and saints that you need to pray to, and all of these other things.

And what happens between you and Christ? The more they put there, the wider it gets. The farther apart you are. You're in Christ. Don't let anything ever come between you and Christ, including me, any religion, any denomination, any world system of fixing up yourself. It's you in Christ because you're in him. Now, verse 20 says the blood of the cross brings in much more the idea of a price is paid.

There was a price. There was a price. His death is more suitable as the ground of our reconciliation, because reconciliation had a price. 22a says, in the body of a flesh through death, contradicts the notion that incarnation was a means of reconciliation. See, the Gnostics were trying to say that, well, Jesus came and he lived a holy life, and if you imitate that, then you'll end up reconciled through the same kind of life, but you've got to get really ascetic to do it. So it brings in a moral consideration and shows that most solemn vindication of God, the righteous basis of our remission and peace and clearance and all charges and consequences of sin, that's the problem we have. So the blood of the cross.

Now, what's he gonna do? This is the cool part of the verse. To present you holy, blameless and unreprovable in his sight. Wrap your mind around that, that the God of the universe is gonna take you, each one of us, and he's gonna present us in this place that we talked about last week where all fullness dwells. He's gonna present you and me holy, unblameable and unreprovable in his sight. He's gonna do that.

So presentation by the Lord Jesus before the fullness of a holy God, this means to stand beside us or to exhibit or to offer or to recommend or substantiate or to be at hand. In other words, it isn't I'm showing up with my lawyer It's the fact that I'm in Him and I'm there because I'm in Him. To bring before and present, to prove, to provide, to show, as holy, unblemished, unapprovable in God's sight, who sees everything. Those synonyms all came out of Strawn's Talking Greek and Hebrew Dictionary.

I find the words to present, what do they point for? What do they point to? If you think in your mind, God is gonna take me and he's gonna present me to himself this way. What is he doing? He's glorifying us. That's what he's doing. He has decided that God's estimate of the goal for the believer is glorification. We're all headed there, glorification. And it is interesting to note that Paul makes that his goal, he's not merely satisfied just to save men, Paul taught that the whole aim of what God was doing was to glorify them with himself, with himself.

Not a little bit, but all in him. So I brought a question in mind. Is there a difference between justification and reconciliation? Is there, think about the question. Justification is that I am cleared from every charge. In Christ we are justified from all things.

Romans 8.33, who shall bring an accusation against God's elect? It is God who justifies. That's my side of the ledger. Reconciliation is for something. We are reconciled, why?

So that we might be presented holy, blameless, and unreproachable before the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So that place we talked about last week, where the fullness of the glory of God is, that's where we're going. And we're gonna be understanding that we belong there. There's nothing to keep us from being there now.

It's more than salvation. This is introduction into where all fullness dwells. How do you like that? I think that's pretty cool. I'm headed to a place where all fullness dwells and I'm going to be accepted there and there'll be no negatives about me at all. I think it kind of sets your heart free that you can be presented in the fullness of the Godhead faultless. in a faultless condition through which has been affected by God himself through Christ. Blessed as the death of Christ is so that God himself can find no flaw in us or charge against us, which is the meaning here, so perfectly successful is this death of Christ in our favor.

The words to present point to glorification. So when you see that word, present, it points to glorification, not salvation. You're gonna get presented. This is God's ultimate goal for every believer, every single one in this room. You like it or not, you're all gonna be with me, and I'm gonna be with you, and it's gonna be great.

So, I want to give an example of this, and I didn't put a slide up, but if you look at, you don't have to go there, but look at Luke chapter 15, and it's the story about the prodigal son. And towards the end of that story, in verse 20, and he got up and came to his father, but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion to him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said, Father, I have sinned against heaven, In your sight, I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his slaves, quickly, bring out the best robe, put it on him, put a ring on his finger and the sandals on his feet and bring the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry. For this son of mine was dead and has come to life again and he was lost and he's been found and they began to be merry.

What we see in Luke 15, what I've just talked about goes so far beyond that. If the Father God could cover me in kisses, it wouldn't be as cool as being suitable to be in the Godhead with him. You see the difference? To be holy, unblameable, and unreproachable, and to be with him for all eternity. in him, where he is. So reconciliation is more than being covered with kisses. The prodigal is brought into the embrace and love of his sonship.

Reconciliation, on the other hand, is the basis on which the whole pleasure of the Godhead can be carried out on the basis of all the blessings in Luke 15. Fullness, I found a really cool quote from Charles Coates. Fullness is that which is adequate to bring out all that is in the person of the Godhead. So that creation and reconciliation and the assembly as the body will serve to bring out the fullness of the Godhead as moving into the activities of love.

These things are not yet reconciled, but the persons are. That is, the saints are in the most blessed position, conceivable as regards their being cleared of every moral stain. They can be presented before the presence of the Godhead, holy, unblameable, and irreproachable.

I think that's a really good quote. So, verse 23, now it gets interesting. This great word if. if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established, steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, which I, Paul, was made a minister." So after these truths, following these truths, we come now to what we might call the test for the Colossians.

If you talk to people, you find out they're occupied with their own failures mostly, inconsistency or defects. That all shows that they are not in the faith of reconciliation. If you're in the faith of reconciliation, what are you thinking about? You're thinking about where you are, positioning where you're going to be actually all the time now. You kind of, in conversation, give yourself away when you start talking about the woes of the way, when the word of God says, well, you're holy and unblameable before me.

If indeed. If indeed you continue in the faith firmly. Now this is a first class conditional clause, which means since. Since indeed you continue in the faith firmly established, et cetera. Verse 23 shows the evidence that one has received Christ's reconciling work is continuing in the faith. If you are one of these reconciled ones, you are continuing in the faith. The true test of genuine truth is stability and endurance.

The fact is that practically, let me get that up, The fact is that practically many of us do not abide in the faith, that's true, and we get moved away from the hope of the glad tidings so that the blessings of reconciliation is not enjoyed. We went over this in Sunday school this morning. I thought it was really good. JD did a great job.

Faith in the gospel occupies us entirely with Christ. not some of Christ and some of self, but altogether Christ. We're not to be moved away from the faith of the glad tidings of the hope of the gospel. So if you look at this and this question, what is continuing in the faith? What is that? It's interesting because faith here is the faith of the wonderful person of Christ. Yeah, the doctrine's involved, but we're talking about a person.

It's hard for us in our minds, because we have such conflict with the sin nature, to come to the understanding that the Lord Jesus is so magnificent that he could occupy my thoughts all the time. All the time. And that because he is who he is, I would be fulfilling every responsibility he ever had for me in any role he wants me to play here on the earth. Or not to be moved away from him.

And that's what Paul is saying. If the Lord Jesus is not the center of what you're thinking about or what you're focused on, then you're open to somebody else coming in and taking that space. So, if you continue in the face. As we stated earlier, They had the faith, let me just do that, the faith here is the faith of this wonderful person of the reconciliation and the fullness of Christ which has produced in him. That's in you.

We're not to be moved away from the faith of the fullness produced by him. We're not talking about a little bit of Christ, a Thursday Christ and a Sunday Christ. We're talking all the time, fullness. The chapter here is that he had faith in the glad tidings and had brought them into Christ, this would assure us that they did stand in the good of the reconciliation of God. Let me try to reiterate what we talked about this morning.

We really had an issue about this word if, that if you deny God, he will deny you, because that's what 2 Timothy says, right? So, If you're operating out of the flesh, the old man, are you in agreement with God? You're not. You deny everything he has to say. If you're abiding and walking in Christ, you agree with him.

So the point is this, that if I'm operating in the flesh, I cannot expect God to be agreeing or communicating with me in Adam at all. Because as far as he's concerned, what's his attitude about Adam? He left him behind on a cross and resurrected to newness of life. So it isn't, the Christian life isn't a little bit of Adam and a little bit, or a little bit more.

That may be the experience, but what he's after is that it's all Christ all the time. And he's the God of the universe, and if he says, if you trust me about that, It will be your life. I will be your life. Although we have an if here, which is an if of fulfilled condition, if you take a hard look at the verse, we do continue, if we really are the saints of God, we do.

But it is well to consider this exhortation unless there be anyone an attachment to something else and not to the Son of God. And that's really our problem all the time. I'm attached to something other than Him. And as soon as that happens, chaos ensues. There's no rest.

Well, we said a hope of the gospel. What is the hope of the gospel? It's the glorification. I shall be like Christ. So here I am at night, I'm thinking, I'm praying, Lord, boy, I really want to be like you. What should I be saying? I'm going to be like you. That's going to happen. I'm going to. I shall be. No, I'm going to be. And it's your good pleasure that I am, because you're going to do it.

And I trust you about that. If you receive the reconciliation, a divine person is right here before us, another man, and we are going to be like him on the same footing as he is before God. Same, no difference. I often think that the first thoughts in waking up were, gee, I guess I am gonna be like Christ. It's pretty cool, isn't it?

When one has the light of it, that one is very careful about allowing anything in there that's not of him. It's always, all this was brought in to take the Colossians away from the allowances of the flesh. Now, you know, I'm as aware as anybody of what it's like to allow the flesh to intrude into my life.

And every time it does, which is a lot, the only way out of that is to trust God about what he tells us is true of me and him and me and him. So let me sum up. when we are called to walk and to live by faith, what we're really called to do is just to see what God has to say and just believe Him.

And granted, you're gonna suffer for that, you're gonna be attacked for that internally, externally. I don't think we as Christians know what suffering really is, as talked about in the word of God. But when God says something, He means it. and he intends to carry it out in your life. Now, you may not get it all here, but you know what?

Every single one of us is gonna be face-to-face, totally acceptable in the environment of the fullness of the Godhead with him. No argument, that's just the way it is. Pull us close. Father, how thankful we are for your work I guess we're more thankful for just who you are and what you decided that because you loved us, that you were gonna take us out of Adam and put us in the glorified Lord Jesus, your son, and that we would be able to, starting now, behold the glory of the fullness of the Godhead in the face of Jesus Christ. So our desire is to continue to grow, to know him, to abide in Him and just to stay where You put us, Father. We thank You for the grace that we live under. We pray in Your Son's name. Amen.