God and Sinners Reconciled

            While working the other day to the classic sounds of “jingle all the way,” “thumpety-thump-thump” and such, abruptly I heard, “God and sinners reconciled.” The bustling restaurant kitchen kept on bustling. The guests, dining and conversing, didn’t noticeably notice. The words were lost in the song as it played on, “Joyful, all ye nations rise, join the triumph….”

            But I noticed. The most profound theological reality had been passed by like a blurry tree beside a freeway. To the world, they were just words—like “six geese a-laying”—meaningless but necessary to a traditional Christmas tune.

            I suppose it’s natural for people to hear truth and not hear it.

           

But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14).

                                                                                                                

Of them Jeremiah prophesied:

Hear this now, O foolish people, without understanding, who have eyes and see not, and who have ears and hear not (5:21).

            Yet, by God’s grace, I noticed. “God and sinners reconciled.” Do you realize what this means? It means little unless you know something about God and about sinners.

God is holy, holy, holy. Paul described Him this way:

The King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see (1 Timothy 6:15-16).

            His is altogether unlike us.

But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6).

            Yet somehow the mysteriously perfect Mind of God brought the two together through Jesus.

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21).

When we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son (Romans 5:10).

And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled (Colossians 1:21).

When I speak of the reconciling of God and sinners, I feel like a small fish explaining the meaning of all the globe’s water. It’s just there. I don’t know why or how.

I just know I’m in it.

            Next time you hear, “God and sinners reconciled," fall on your face. Or at least pause for a second and take it in.