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Christ's sinless sacrifice resulted in reconciliation with God. His sacrifice enabled God to justify us, that is, to consider us sinless in a legal sense. We were still sinful, but because we accepted Christ's sacrifice, His blood covered us. Thus, under His righteousness, we are allowed now to have access to God. Having access, we can be forgiven by God and made clean. Because of that, we have the opportunity now to have eternal life, and we are saved, then, by His life being lived in us. So do we see what reconciliation produced? It did not produce just justification. Reconciliation produces life. If we follow this thought through, reconciliation becomes more than just bringing us back to equal footing. It enables us to go on—to perfection, let's say. We can go on to the type of life that God lives. If we are not reconciled with God, then we have stalled our salvation process, which is not good. We never want to do this but to be always moving forward. Reconciliation thus becomes very important in the spiritual sense of our eternal salvation. We see here a principle that when we become reconciled, we can then move on in life—and, in a spiritual sense, towards eternal life. This works in principle in the same way in our personal problems with others. We have gone from being enemies, hostile to God, to being children of God—and, thus, able to be saved through Christ living in us. As Paul says in verse 11, that should bring us great joy. Joy is another result—another fruit—of reconciliation. We are no longer under the burdensome cloud of being at odds with another. When reconciliation occurs, it is a relief to be able to breathe clearly and without stress, unlike when the relationship was antagonistic.
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