Have you ever felt alienated from someone? This feeling comes from someone breaking a relationship. You become isolated and estranged. It is an awful feeling to be at odds with someone you love. When this happens, it begins to consume you, and it can cause great stress and anxiety. There is no relief until someone makes reconciliation possible and reaches out to the other person. In the biblical account of Joseph in Genesis chapters 37-50, we find the jealousy of his brothers caused them to alienate him from the family. If it had not been for his brother Reuben, the other brothers would have killed him. I can only imagine how Joseph felt as his own brothers sold him into slavery. The loneliness must have been almost unbearable. Alienated from his father and the rest of his family for 24 years. However, God blessed Joseph and used him for the physical salvation of his own family. The alienation turned to reconciliation.
Colossians 1:22 states that those in the church at Colosse were at one time alienated from God. This word alienate is parallel to being an enemy of God. Paul is making a contrast between their past lives and their present ones. When they were unsaved their thinking was corrupt. This thinking perverted their moral and intellectual powers and set them up as their own authority. Because of sin, their understanding was perverse and alienated from God. He reminds them of where they were, where they had come from, and how God viewed them before salvation. Then he turns the corner to remind them of their freedom from their past life because of their reconciliation with God.
Colossians 1:21 “And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled”
Before salvation, we were in the same condition as those Paul was addressing. Most today do not realize they are at odds with the greatest enemy they could ever imagine, the Holy, Living, God! Apart from Christ, we are His enemy, and if we do not become reconciled, we will face eternal judgment when we die.
Romans 5:10 “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”
Thank God he did not leave us there! He saw our depravity, yet He still loved us. Not only were we alienated from God, but He was alienated from us! Sin separates us from God, and there can be no fellowship with Him when we are unsaved. Because of His love for us, He reconciled us to himself by giving His Son to die for our sins. When we repent and place our faith in Jesus, Jesus’ righteousness becomes our righteousness, and He presents us holy and unblameable to His Father. No longer is their alienation.
Colossians 1:22 “In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:”
His death was the means of reconciliation because it removed the obstacles that separated us from God. Why would Jesus, God in the flesh, suffer death because of us? Some would argue it was all because of love, but I think verse 22 gives us more insight. If it were just love, there would have been no need for a gruesome death like Jesus experienced. It was God’s holiness that separated us from Him. To enter Heaven, we must be presented as holy, unblameable, and unreproveable to God. When Jesus, the perfect one, took our place, God’s wrath was satisfied. The sin debt was paid for those who repent and place themselves under the blood of the perfect one. Holy means separated from sin. God has always been holy, and always will be. It is an attribute that he will not violate, and anything that enters Heaven must be holy!
I Peter 1:15-16 “But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.”
Unblameable means to be without blemish. Christ, because of His sacrifice, presents us as perfect. No stain or blemish will be present when He presents us to the Father. All impurities will be gone!
Ephesians 5:27 “That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”
One day, just as Joseph was reunited with his family, we will be reunited with our heavenly family. The entire work of Christ was to allow the Redeemer, and the redeemed, to stand before God. Jesus will present us to His Father as completely recovered from the ruins of the fall. When we enter Heaven one day, all our sins will be gone, not a stain of sin will remain, and no longer will we fight with temptations that plague us here. All of this, because when we were enemies, alienated from God, he made a way for us to be reconciled to himself, holy, without any blemish of sin, and free from any accusation.
Revelation 1:5 “And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,”
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