NEVER A BUSY SIGNAL

When Jesus cried “It is finished”, God’s gavel sounded in the courtroom of heaven, and man’s reconciliation to God was decreed eternal universal law. This word “reconciled”, to change, is often misunderstood as man’s “doings’, repentance, etc., but nothing man does effects reconciliation. God reconciled the world, and mankind as a subset, to Himself through the death of Jesus, the sinless one, as an act of pure grace.   Reconciliation embodies transformation, a change of state between God and man. Prior to reconciliation man is destitute and doomed, alienated and disconnected from God, and separated from Him by an insuperable gulf, the abyss of sin, with no way to establish communications. After reconciliation the gulf is breached and communication restored between God and man.

Now this is what is so awesome about reconciliation, the vital crux of the matter: God paid the debt our sin demanded through the sacrifice of His beloved Son. He settled the accounts, filed the docket and decreed the case closed. Under Roman law a criminal’s crimes were documented on a clay tablet called a Certificate of Debt. Upon completion of his sentence the Greek word “Tetelestai” was inscribed across the Certificate of Debt and the tablet was hung around the person’s neck to accompany him as proof he had served his sentence and was released from any further legal penalty. “Tetelestai” is what Jesus screamed into the courtroom of eternity on the cross: “It Is Finished.” Tetelestai literally means “Paid In Full”; our debt to God is finished, paid in full. This is the most significant word ever spoken anywhere, anytime by anyone throughout time eternal.

Reconciliation then is a vicarious unilateral act whereby the God who judges is also the God who reconciles and pays with self-sacrificing love the sin debt justice, the administration of His Law, demanded. Reconciliation is by Christ’s death, and salvation is by His resurrected life. God repaired the phone line so he could call us to Himself, but we must answer the call. When we “believe in our heart that God has raised Him from the dead, we will be saved.”  Oh, and He never quits calling.    (Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5: 17-19; Col. 2:13-14; Rom. 10:9)