Reconcilable Differences

Spirituality Column #146
August 25, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Reconcilable Differences
By Bob Walters

Reconciliation (n) – To go back; to end a separation.

The most important thing we can do in this life is to reconcile ourselves to God.

With unquestioning faith in Christ – faith that He is Who He says He is, does what He says He does, and sits where He says He sits at the right hand of God – we have that reconciliation (John 14:6). And with that, our salvation: eternal life and communion with God in Heaven.

How we arrive at that faith is always a personal story. How we use it, show it, walk it and live it are all sources of enormous Christian doctrinal debates. For example:

Are you Calvinist (salvation is predestined) or Ariminian (salvation is a function of our free will)? Is Justification (grace of God) enough, or is Sanctification (second work of grace, i.e., our works in life) required for salvation? Can we lose our salvation? (Hebrews 11. Ohhhh! Hebrews 11.)

A firm answer to these or many other questions can split a church.

For the record, I believe faith is an ongoing thing – an act of the will – and that we have to live the best way we know how by the light of Christ in the Bible, the wisdom God gives to humanity, and the quickening of our souls by the Holy Spirit.

“Unquestioning faith,” though doesn’t mean “no more questions.” We all have a zillion questions for God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit … like, for starters, “How does this whole Trinity-thing work?”

Unquestioning faith is more like when a fire truck pulls up to a fire. We have unquestioning faith that the big red vehicle spraying water is a fire truck, even if we have endless questions about how the truck works, how the fire started, and how much damage the fire did.

But let’s not get lost in a “fire truck” metaphor – “fire” as final judgment; trying to extinguish hell, Satan, etc. Comparing Jesus to a fire truck isn’t the point.

Reconciling ourselves to God is the point, and that happened when Jesus Christ went to the Cross to defeat death, erase sin and secure our salvation.

God expresses and exhibits great anger at mankind’s sin in the Old Testament, but exhibits great love and forgiveness of our sins, through the divine and human person of Jesus, in the New Testament.

That, unquestionably, is reconciliation. With faith, it’s ours.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) started to get lost in the fire truck metaphor.