From Forgiveness to Reconciliation, Part 1: Be Reconciled!

We previously spent 5 blogs speaking about the nature and need for us to be forgiving people; to have the gospel cultivate a disposition of forgiveness within us. While forgiveness is important and foundational for our growth and maturity in Christ, there is something else we need to pursue that builds on the foundations that forgiveness lays. Reconciliation. We will speak about this in our next couple of blogs. We’ll look at Matthew 5 here. Then 2 Corinthians 5. Then speak about some of the practical outworking of pursuing reconciliation.

Let’s get into Matthew 5, just after the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount, then get after some initial conclusions.

21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. 23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. 25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. 26 Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.”

This is a dense bit of teaching. Jesus restates the law “You shall not murder” (v 21), then forbids an inner attitude that leads to murder. Once again we see him attacking the attitudes that are present in the inner person that can lead to the outside act of murder. Jesus first forbids murder, then challenges us to eliminate all dispositions that would feed the act of murder, then tells us to go beyond the inner self and seek reconciliation with those who have offended us. (vv 22-24) This progression is important.

One commentator summarizes Jesus’ teaching thus:

The command: You shall not murder; murderers are liable to judgment.

Furthermore: Whoever is angry at a brother deserves judgment.

Furthermore: Indeed, anyone who calls a brother “worthless” or “fool” merits fire.

Beyond that: If a brother is angry at you, go, be reconciled.

Beyond that: If an adversary is angry at you, go, be reconciled.

We won’t get into the details of all that is going on here, instead, we will focus on Jesus' solution to preventing anger from growing in us against either our brother or an adversary -- be reconciled.

Let’s begin with the brother. These are people who are fellow believers, people who go to church with us, as well as friends, neighbors, etc. Jesus instructs us to be at peace with our brothers, to eliminate any anger or contempt we may have for them -- love, patience, grace, forgiveness will all be necessary in order to do that.

If a scenario arises in which we become angry at our brother, we need to recognize how serious that is. It is so important that worship itself can wait. The matter is so urgent that we should leave our worship of God, wherever we are doing so, and go and reconcile ourselves with our brother.

Notice Jesus does not say who is in the wrong in this situation -- us or them. The one who is angry may have been truly sinned against, he may have been merely offended, or it may have been a trivial action that led to the anger felt. But the origin of the anger matters nothing to Jesus. If the relationship is damaged, the one who senses it needs to abandon whatever he is doing and seek reconciliation.

This same teaching applies even to the adversary. This is where things get tough. Once again, we notice that who is right and who is wrong in the conflict is irrelevant. Jesus focuses entirely on the need for a solution to the troubled relationship. Jesus tells us we need to set aside our anger, pride, and hurt and pursue peace even with our enemies.

The goal, then, when someone has wronged us is not merely to forgive (as important as we have seen this to be), but to pursue reconciliation. Reconciliation seeks to restore, as much as is possible, a broken relationship. Because of this focus, reconciliation is dependent on the other person’s attitude, actions, and willingness to reconcile. Forgiveness occurs outside of the relationship we have with an offender. But for reconciliation to happen both sides must work toward it. The offended party must forgive -- as God commands. The offender must repent -- as God commands. Both parties need to pursue a restoration of relationship -- as God commands.

This is really, really hard. There are many of us that have been severely wronged and simply getting to a point of forgiveness of the offending person is a long, difficult, and constant spiritual battle. Yet, the command of Christ still stands -- be reconciled to your brother and your adversary.

The kind of relationship that results from our pursuit of reconciliation will be determined by both parties involved and the grace of God poured into it. The relationship may become better, it may become neutral, it may continue to be nonexistent. So much of where things go after reconciliation is initiated is dependent on the other party. So much can go wrong in this process. When trust has been broken, wrong committed, reconciliation is a long road that takes a lot of sacrifice. An unwillingness to forgive prevents reconciliation. An unwillingness to repent prevents reconciliation. An unwillingness to reciprocate prevents reconciliation. But pursue reconciliation we must. We need to be sure that relationships aren’t broken because we are living in disobedience against our Lord and Savior. Notice the consequences of not going so in vv 25-26.

As I mentioned this is going to cost us. We’ll see how much in the next couple of blogs on the topic. As one commentator notes, “To make peace, it is necessary to do hard things: confess sins, admit mistakes, silence self-justifying talk, and learn to turn away wrath (Proverbs 15:1; 29:8).”

We’ll get into some of these things in the future.

Soli Deo Gloria