Helmut Thielicke once said that, “the history of the world is the story of humanity without a Father.” This is true at a very profound level. We stand in need of reconciliation with the God of the universe. This has been true since the fall. Every gospel motif or theme helps us understand something about the nature of God, the need of man, and the necessary action God must take if we would be rescued.
The theme of reconciliation taps into the image of the family and the setting of the home. It is relational to the core. Our sin separates from our Father and our home. Reconciliation is the gracious activity of the Triune God to mend all thats been ruptured. It is God in pursuit of the orphan and the homeless—-that is the entire world. There are three dimensions to reconciliation in the New Testament. There is a vertical dimension, a horizontal dimension, and a cosmic dimension. In the next three posts we will explore all three.