Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Psalm 38; Colossians 1:15-23"making peace by the blood of his cross..."
This passage in Colossians is amazing, it is dense and critically important in understanding Jesus and his relation to creation and the creation’s restoration and sustenance - sometimes called "The Cosmic Christ."
Today, I am stuck on the word (in Greek it’s one word) “making peace.” God was not only pleased to dwell in him fully, but through Jesus also to reconcile to himself all things, whether in heaven or on earth. This work of "reconciliation” is explained with a synonym as “making peace by the blood of his cross.” It is further described as Paul writes, “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…” Peace making, or reconciliation, is always between parties that are alienated and even hostile – by definition; this is every human beings status with God and God's people outside of Christ (Romans 5; Ephesians 2).
He did this “in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven…”
When Jesus says, in Matthew 5:9, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God,” somehow indeed it ties in with his mission and work that he accomplished on the cross. The word in Matthew 5:9 is the noun form of the verb “making peace” in Colossians 1:20. Each one is the only occurrence in the Bible.
Last night in a study group we took a whirlwind tour of 1 Peter, in order to note in particular his references to the Sermon on the Mount, especially Matthew 5:10-16. We saw a call to follow Jesus’ example of humility, of trust in God, of never returning evil for evil, or countering force with force. Peter alludes repeatedly to Isaiah 53 (1 Peter 2:22-25), the great suffering Servant passage, principally to call us to follow in his steps as the living out of his substitutionary suffering to forgive and reconcile and heal us. His point seems to be that we are to live out the very way that has restored and healed us.
If indeed we have been reconciled to God (and to God’s people) by Jesus and the blood of his cross, if we are a part of this reconciliation of all things – then we are “ambassadors of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:17-21), we are “peacemakers.” We do this by proclaiming the gospel in all creation (Colossians 1:23) in word and deed, by living lives “holy and blameless and above reproach” (v.22). We do this, as Peter says, by not repaying “evil for evil, or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you have been called...” (3:9).
We who have been blessed with “grace and peace” (Colossians 1:2) are to live lives of grace and peace, to bless others with these blessing of the gospel, in our attitudes and our actions, in every proclamation of our lips and lives.
~ ~ ~
Those who seek my life lay their snares;
Those who seek my hurt speak of ruin and meditate treachery all day long.
But I am like a deaf man; I do not hear,
Like a mute man who does not open his mouth.
I have become like a man who des not hear,
And in whose mouth are no rebukes.
But for you, O LORD, do I wait;
It is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.
For I said, “Only let them not rejoice over me,
Who boast against me when my foot slips!…
Those who render me evil for good
Accuse me because I follow after good.
Do not forsake me, O LORD!
O my God, be not far from me!
Make haste to help me,
O Lord, my salvation!
(Psalm 38:12-22)
No comments:
Post a Comment