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What the Bible says about Cost of Reconciliation
(From Forerunner Commentary)

We would normally read and expound these scriptures in the context of Passover. We normally think of Passover in terms of being reconciled to God. However, Passover and the Day of Atonement are inextricably bound in that both of them involve reconciliation.

Atonement, though, supplies answers and solutions to problems not resolved by Passover. The Passover is personal in nature, providing reconciliation of the individual to God and the beginning of unity with man in the church with Christ. It is through Passover that we learn the price of redemption and reconciliation—xno less than that of the Creator, Jesus Christ.

Atonement, however, is universal in nature and provides reconciliation of the world to God—all of mankind at one with God and each other through Christ. Passover shows Satan defeated, but still free to work out his nefarious schemes to produce confusion and division, as well as rebellion against God. Atonement, on the other hand, shows Satan defeated and punished by banishment—no longer free to do anything but to bewail his lot.

The emphasis in I Peter 1:17-21 is on the cost of reconciliation, which is vital to God's purpose because a major portion of our desire to obey God comes from our sense of obligation to God and Christ in appreciation for how much was paid for us to be free.

We will never feel this until we begin to understand that this was done for us as individuals. If only one person had ever sinned in all of God's creation, it still would have taken the life of the Creator to get him free from the wages of his sin.

He did it for us! It is easy for us to escape responsibility for His death when we conclude, "Well, He did it for all of mankind." Indeed, He did, but he did it for us as individuals too. This is the path that a person has to take in his thinking to recognize the cost that was made for us and to come to a sense of obligation. We ought to respond if only out of thanks for what He did. We owe our lives to Him.

People have been willing to give virtually everything to someone who saved their lives from drowning, snatched them out of the way of a speeding automobile, or saved them from some other kind of painful death. At Passover, we rehearse that, understanding that Jesus Christ saved us individually.



Hebrews 4:15

Our Savior's perfect, sacrificial life and death were not merely displays of His righteous prowess. God the Father required Christ's unblemished life and death so that the law's legal requirement—that there is a price for every person's sins—could be satisfied once for all by His shed blood (II Corinthians 5:15; Hebrews 9:28).

Furthermore, only a sinless Jesus Christ, as the antitype of the unblemished sin offering (I Peter 1:19; Leviticus 9:3; John 1:29), could appeal to God the Father as our Advocate without compromising His righteousness or law (Job 8:3; Deuteronomy 32:4), thereby atoning for the repentant person's sins and reconciling him or her to God (Psalm 51:1-4; Romans 3:25-26; I John 2:1-2).

Martin G. Collins
What Is Propitiation? (Part One)


 




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