Without blemish and free from accusation

Colossians 1:15-23 (TNIV) -

15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,

20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—

23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

My thoughts -

We've gone over how we were, in our sins, God's enemies several times by now. And yet, every time I read it it blows my mind again. We were God's enemies, and we were reconciled to God not through any act of our own but through God's own act of sacrifice.

We don't like the word sacrifice very much. It implies a couple of things that we don't care for. The first is that it implies giving something up. When you hear about budget cuts or some form of fiscal "tightening of the belt" usually someone will throw around that "we're all making sacrifices". In essence, we have to give some things up. And we don't like to do that.

The other thing that it implies is rather barbaric. We have an image of a loving God, or at least we like to. That this loving God sent His Son to be a sacrifice to atone for our sin is rather galling to a lot of us if we really think about it. That's pretty hard core. It would be like me, to settle a dispute with my neighbors I'm feuding with, sending my son Josh over there to be killed so that they and I can be reconciled. What the heck kind of a loving father would do that to his child? That's crazy! That's vile! It turns the stomach.

And yet, that is what we believe. Sort of. You see, God isn't human. Jesus isn't, to God, like Josh is to me even if we think of Jesus as God's son. God isn't like me, either, although I'd like to be more like God. When we speak of God we are limited by our human understanding and can really only use metaphors. We can't fully comprehend this Triune God. It baffles the mind that three can be one. That Jesus is God, that Jesus was God, that Jesus will always be God even though Jesus was fully human is a mystery to us. I try and I try but I can't fully wrap my head around the idea.

But that is what Paul is reaffirming here, too. Look again starting at verse 15:

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Jesus predates the universe. Before anything was Jesus is God. That Jesus was fully human, that Jesus lived and loved and taught and yes, died for us is what makes all of this even more mind blowing. God, the Eternal God, the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, that which is Life Itself became one of us and yes, died for us so that we, God's enemies, could be reconciled to God and so that we could know the peace that can only come through that reconciliation.

So we are now reconciled. Through Jesus, though our sins are many, we are, as it says in verse 22 "without blemish and free from accusation". That's amazing isn't it? Okay. We can stop there, right. God did the work. God sacrificed and it's all good. We're reconciled. Nothing more here, right? Paul did write verse 23, too, didn't he?

if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

Reconciliation is the beginning of the relationship, not the end. God did the work to get us to the starting point. Without reconciliation we cannot know God and we cannot live for God but that reconciliation is not the end game. We are reconciled to God through Christ for a purpose. We are reconciled so that we can live through and for Christ. We are reconciled so that we can be what we were created to be.