Christ the Reconciler and Divider

Man has shown he can solve many of his problems. He has developed microphones and subways and contraceptives and flea collars and erasable bond. He can have his air conditioned and his face “lifted.” Awaiting his beck and call are computers, tranquilizers, telephones, and—sometimes—vending machines. He can fly now and pay later, protected during his trip by vaccines and traveler’s checks. True, he is still haunted by gigantic problems of poverty, disease, pollution. But he is confident that, given a little more time and a lot more money, he can find cures for these and other remaining ills.

There is one basic problem, however, that he shows few signs of solving: conflict between human beings. Despite all the efforts of idealists, reformers, and even revolutionaries, conflict continues between individuals, between classes, and between nations, thereby contributing to many of man’s other problems.

Men have been wondering for centuries about this apparently ineradicable tendency to fight. Immanuel Kant blamed man’s irrational loyalties and desires: all would be well if only man could order political and international affairs more rationally. Karl Marx held that the cause of the trouble was class conflict arising from the unequal distribution of wealth: let everybody be reduced to one class with the whole economic mechanism owned by all, and everything would become peaceful. Friedrich Nietzsche attributed the constant struggle to “the will to power.” Others have named other causes. But they all have missed the point. Man’s tendency to fight his fellows springs from the depths of his own personality. Each one of us is an egotist who wants to play God, at least in his own little world. We seek to be free to do our own thing without being constrained by either man or God. The problem is, in a word, spiritual; strife in economic, political, and social spheres usually is rooted in man’s spiritual condition.

Behind man’s conflicts lies his alienation from God, his separation from his Creator, Sustainer, and Lord, the true center of his being. In his sinful desire to be God, man has declared his independence. He has cut himself adrift on a sea for which he has no map. And the Pole Star, the sovereign God, is clouded from his sight by his own rebellion and by God’s wrath against his sin. Knowing God, as Paul says in Romans 1, man yet denies him, rebelling not only against his Lord but also against his own true self. He suppresses the knowledge of God and of his own creaturely nature, bringing dire consequences to himself and to all around him.

That man’s denial of God affects the whole creation is very evident in his self-assertive destruction of the environment. Furthermore, because of man’s rebellion, God’s judgment rests upon all of creation. But sin’s most obvious consequences appear in man’s relations with man; when men no longer submit to and trust God and when they assume that no one else does either, trust between “neighbors” disappears. And, as Max Lerner pointed out in one of his syndicated columns, where trust disappears, society breaks into universal conflict. Unbelieving, disobedient man then seeks to force stability by setting up some sort of dictatorship to overcome the disintegration he has caused. Only the grace of God restrains man from destroying himself and his world.

Into this situation came Jesus Christ, the Word of God, the express image of God’s person, the Creator, the Sustainer and Ruler of all things (John 1:1 ff.; Col. 1:15 ff.). He came not for some economically, socially, or politically revolutionary purpose but to reconcile the world to God. He came to satisfy the demands of God’s justice and at the same time to remove the cloud between man and his Creator and turn man back to the true center of his life, the sovereign Triune God. Only Christ could accomplish this, for he alone was and is both God and man. By Christ’s life, death, and resurrection God reconciled the world unto himself.

Yet man refuses to accept God’s offer. The idea that he must humble himself before God, acknowledging that he is a sinner who can be reconciled to God only by divine grace, is unappealing. Man prefers to think he can earn God’s acceptance. But the Holy Spirit has been sent to open man’s eyes to his condition before God and to the availability of God’s offer of reconciliation. When the Spirit effectively calls a man, he is “born again” as a new creature, for he then returns to his true condition and status as God’s child, giving to Christ the preeminence in all things (1 Pet. 2:25). Reconciliation to God is thus completed in and through the gift of the Spirit.

But this is only the beginning of a process. Before regeneration, a man’s life is off center for he considers himself the hub of his own existence. But Christian man recognizes and accepts his position not only as a forgiven sinner but also as a creature of God placed in this world to serve Christ his Lord. The world around him is no longer a chaos of random happenings; it is all part of God’s creation, operating according to his plan.

This realization changes the Christian’s attitude toward his fellow men. Faced with the fact that all men are his neighbors whom he is to love as himself, he accepts the need to be trustworthy, doing to others as he would have them do to him. He also recognizes that, since God in his grace still preserves and maintains in all men some vestiges of the divine image, men should trust one another, for only then can any form of society exist.

Yet true fellowship and mutual trust in the highest sense are possible only between those who together acknowledge and serve Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. As Paul pointed out to the Ephesians, Christ has broken down the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile; all partitions dividing those who are in Christ have fallen, for they are all one body in him (Acts 15:17 ff.; Eph. 2).

This should have very practical effects. Not only to fellow Christians but also to unbelievers, the Christian should manifest the love of Christ in his life and deeds. In so doing he may win some to Christ (1 Cor. 9:19 f.). But even if he does not, his attitudes and his actions will have a healing effect on human relations. By his influence he will be a peace-maker, a true sign that he is a child of God (Matt. 5:9).

He must go beyond merely manifesting an attitude, however. As a citizen, an employee or an employer, a son or a daughter, a husband or a wife, the Christian should work for reconciliation, for “peace on earth to men of good will.” As the salt of the earth, Christians should work to overcome all causes of discrimination and to help all those in need. The Christian, because of the love of Christ in his heart, should be the Good Samaritan of the world (1 Cor. 13).

The Christian never reaches sinlessness in this life. He still has attached to him the graveclothes of his old nature with its egotism, selfishness, pride, and rebelliousness. Constantly faced with temptation, he repeatedly disobeys and comes short of God’s perfection. The result is continual conflict with God. Consequently his reconciliation to God, while in principle complete in Christ, is never fully achieved; he must continually repent of his sins and seek anew God’s forgiveness.

The imperfection of the Christian’s life leads not only to transgression of the divine law of holiness but also to conflict with other Christians. Conflicts appeared among Christ’s disciples while he was on earth and among his followers after his ascension, and, as most of us know well, they have continued in the Church down to the present. Bitter quarrels often break out in churches and other Christian groups because of Christions’ egotism, pride, greed, and fear. Yet Christians should always strive for reconciliation with one another, for they are members of one family. Harmonious relations will require confession and repentance toward each other, steps that are very difficult for our stubborn hearts. With the help of the Spirit and the grace of God, and with constant prayerful attention to maintaining a loving attitude, conflicts can be reduced and reconciliation increased.

At the same time Christians must live in a world that rebels against Christ’s universal lordship. However successfully they manifest the love of God to man, the world will rarely appreciate their effort. To the unbeliever Christ is simply a usurper seeking to take over a world that rightfully belongs to man. Still, by the influence of their words and lives, Christians may stimulate a certain amount of external reconciliation between man and man, yet at any time the rebel world’s suppressed hostility and aggressiveness, sometimes sparked by Christian boldness and sometimes by Christian’s lack of tact, may break forth in opposition to—even persecution of—those who represent Christ and his rule in this world.

The outcome is constant, unresolvable conflict between the people of the Kingdom and those who reject Christ’s lordship. While many Christians, stressing Christ’s office as the Prince of Peace, insist that whenever the Gospel is preached peace will result, this has not proved to be so. Although those who believe will find peace with God that changes their attitude toward others, Christ promised his people not peace but tribulation in this world (John 15:18 ff.; 16:33). Furthermore, he told his disciples he had come to bring not peace but a sword that would divide even families. Therefore, throughout the whole of history the Gospel has brought both reconciliation and conflict (2 Cor. 2:16; 1 John 2:15 ff.; 3:1).

This ambivalence will be resolved only at the end of history, at the final reconciliation when every tongue shall confess that Christ is Lord, and the restored creation will be submitted unto the Father, that God may be all in all (Phil. 2:10; 1 Cor. 15:24). And yet the Scriptures never speak as though this means that all men will be accepted by God. The rebels will be cast into outer darkness—the darkness of knowing their own stupidity and futile rebelliousness. Though forced to acknowledge Christ as Lord, they will be separated from him forever.

Those who have known and accepted his gracious reconciliation, on the other hand, will experience its fullness in the completeness of God’s eternal grace. And all creation, restored and healed, will show forth the glory of the Triune God. Reconciliation will finally have won out over conflict.

W. Stanford Reid is professor of history at Wellington College, University of Guelph, Ontario. He received the Th.M. degree from Westminster Theological Seminary and the Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.