Cosmic Reconciliation

In the last two posts the theme of reconciliation has progressively widened. We have moved from the reconciliation of the individual to the reconciliation of members in community. In this post the theme of reconciliation breaks all parameters as it touches every corner of the universe. God’s peacemaking mission is larger than the individual and the community. It includes the globe. Look at this important text in Colossians.

“For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him” (Colossians 1:19-21).

The Creator has come in the flesh. All the fulness of deity dwells bodily in the man Christ Jesus. Only the Creator could create the cosmos and only the Creator can recreate the cosmos. The work of reconciliation is the work of mending every fracture in the whole created order. The claim of this text is nothing short of astounding. The cross changes the universe.

It is by the blood of Christ’s cross that he makes peace and accomplishes reconciliation with all things. It is by the cross that the whole world will be set right. The groaning creation will be liberated because of the cross-work of the Son. Every living being, whether willingly or unwillingly, will be properly subject to the King of Kings. There will be no inch of world that is not transformed by the cross of the Lord Jesus.

James Dunn summarizes this facet of reconciliation. “The vision is vast. The claim is mind-blowing. It says much for the faith of these first Christians that they should see in Christ’s death and resurrection quite literally the key to resolving the disharmonies of nature and the inhumanities of humankind, that the character of God’s creation and God’s concern for the universe in its fullest expression could be so caught and encapsulated for them in the cross of Christ.”

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