There is no dispute, then, that, in St. Paul's use, and generally, the word KaraWay-jf/ denotes a change from enmity to friendship. The differenceiS in regard to reconciliation in the gospel relate to two other points. (1) On whose side does the change from variance to friendship take place — on God's side as well as man's, or on man's only ? Is God as well as man the subject of the reconcilia- tion, or is man only reconciled ? (2) By what means is the reconciliation effected ? On the first point, the view is very widely held that the recon- ciliation is on the part of man only (Ritschl, Kaftan, Cambridge Theol. Essays, pp. 206, 217, etc.) ; God needs no reconciliation. God is eter- nally propitious to the sinner : it needs only that the sinner change his thoughts and his dispositions towards God. Yet it is very doubtful if, on exe- getical grounds, even in regard to the use of the word, this can be sustained. God, indeed, is repre- sented by St. Paul as already reconciled in Christ, i.e. everything is done on His side which is neces- sary for the restoration of the ungodly to favour. All that is needed now is the reciprocal reconcilia- tion of men to God (Ro 56-8, 2 Co 5i8-2i). But it is still implied that a reconciliation was needed on God's side as well as on man's, and it is declared that this has been accomplished once for all in Christ's Cross (Col 121-22). it is on the basis of God's reconciliation to the world in Christ, that the world is now entreated to be reconciled to God (2 Co 520). This, which is the view taken of the meaning of St. Paul's expressions by the majority of exegetes, is the only one which fully satisfies the connexion of the Apostle's thought. Sinners, it is implied throughout, are, on account of their sins, the objects of God's judicial wrath. They are ix^poi, a word which, both in Ro 51° and IFs^ is used in the passive sense of objects of wrath (cf., in latter passage, the contrast with dyawriToi, ' be- loved'). As Prof. Stevens, who disagrees with St. Paul, explains it : ' between God and sinful man there is a mutual hostility. Sinners are the objects of God's enmity (Ro 51" 112«), and they, in turn, are hostile to God (Ro 8^ Col 121). Hence any reconciliation (KaraWayri) which is accom- plished between them must be two-sided ' (Christ. Doc. of Salv. p. 59, cf. his ITieol. of the NT, p. 414). 'Quite similar is the view taken by Weiss, in his Bib. Theol. of the NT, i. p. 428 ff. (Eng. tr.) ;
harles Scribner .s Sons
RECONCILIATION
REDEMPTION
475
by Denney, in his Romans, on 59«', and Death of Christ, p. 143 ff. ; in art. ' Reconciliation ' in Hast- ings' DB, etc. St. Paul's own explanation of his words, ' God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself,' by the clause, 'not reckoning unto them their trespas.ses' (2 Co 51^), makes it clear that the reconciliation intended is on God's side. If tliis is granted, the second question is already answered — By what means is the reconciliation effected ? For the Apostle's consistent doctrine is that it was by Christ's death for our sins that God was reconciled to the world (see Rkoemi'tiox).
The objection, however, will not unfairly be urged— Does it not conflict with a worthy view of God's character, and detract from the grace of salvation, to think of God as at ' enmity ' with any of His creatures, and needing to be propitiated or reconciled ? Can such a thought have any real place in a Gospel of Christ ? It may be observed, first, that St. Paul did not regard his doctrine as casting- any shadow on the love of God ; rather, it is to this love he traces the inception and carrying through- of the whole work of man's salvation. The crowning proof of God's love is just this fact that Christ died for us (Ro 5-'). If this seems a paradox, it is to be remembered, next, that dis- pleasure against sin, and even the assertion of holiness against it in the form of wrath, are not incompatible with love to the sinner, and with the most earnest desire to save him. In human rela- tions also there are cases in which a very genuine displea.sure requires to be removed before relations of friendship can be restored (cf. Mt 523- -'4^. If God cherishes displeasure at sin at all — and would He be God if He did not ? — then there must be a measure of reconciliation on His side, as well as on man's, even if it be conceived that repentance on man's part is sufficient to bring it about. But this is the whole point — Does repentance suffice to repair the broken relations of the sinner with a Holy God ? And does repentance of the kind required spring up spontaneously in man, or is it not called forth by God first meeting man with a display of His own reconcili^ig love ? That this is the truer and more Scriptural view cannot be doubted, and it throws us back on what it may be necessary for God to do in approaching a world yet ungodly with the message of His grace. That God has come to the world in the way of a recon- ciling work by His Son is certainly no abatement from the love on which depends the possibility of a salvation for the world at all.