38 LA S RUTAS D E SAN PABLO

The Bible also describes salvation as reconciliation which repairs people‟s relationship with God (Rom 5:10-11; 2 Cor 5:18-21; Eph 2:16; Col 1:20-22). People are changed from enemies to friends with God. And even more than friends, God says that he adopts people as his own children (Romans 8:15; Ephesians 1:5). People are now in his family, with rights, responsibilities and a glorious inheritance (Rom 8:16-17; Gal 3:29; Eph 1:18; Col 1:12).

In this respect, reconciliation is the restoration of peaceful relationships between individuals or groups once at enmity. More often than not a mediator or negotiator is needed. Paul used this practice to explain the cross. First, God took the initiative in reconciling sinners to Himself; in other words, despite our sin, God still loved us. Secondly, God used a Mediator through whom reconciliation was possible. He “reconciled us to himself through Christ” (2 Cor. 5:18, NIV); Paul continues to say God “was reconciling the world to himself in Christ” (vs. 19, NIV). This implies an unbridgeable distance between God and humans, one that required a Mediator. Thirdly, the object of reconciliation is defined as “us” and the “world.” God “reconciled us to himself through Christ” (vs. 18, NIV). The verb is in the past, indicating that the action it expresses is complete. This is crucial in a way because it suggest that believers enjoy the benefits and fullness of reconciliation right now. Concerning the world, we read that “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ” (vs. 19, NIV). In this case the context indicates that the reconciliation of the world is still in progress; it is not, as it is with believers, a completed event.

Fourthly, reconciliation as a process is defined as “not counting men‟s sins against them” (vs. 19, NIV). Sin was the barrier that made it impossible for God to reconcile humans to Himself. Hence, we were by nature objects of His wrath. But He decided to allow His love to flow freely toward us by removing the barrier of sin.

Consequently, from the divine perspective, reconciliation is the removal of that barrier.

Sin is seen as a barrier separating humanity from God (Isa. 59:2), a barrier that humankind was able to erect but is quite unable to demolish. But the truth on which the Bible insists is that God has dealt with the problem. He has made the way whereby sinners may find pardon; God‟s enemies may find peace. Salvation is never seen as a human achievement. In the Old Testament sacrifice has a large place, but it avails not because of any merit it has of itself (cf. Heb. 10:4), but because God has given it as the way (Lev. 17:11). In the New Testament the cross plainly occupies the central place, and it is insisted upon in season and out of season that this is God‟s way of bringing salvation. People are saved from “wrath,” that is, from God‟s judgment of sin (Rom 5:9; 1 Thess 5:9). People have been separated from God by sin, and the consequence of sin is death (Rom 6:23).

Biblical salvation in this case refers to people‟s deliverance from the consequence of sin and therefore involves the removal of sin. Sin is a transgression of law and rebellion against God. It can also be said as any action that harms the relationship we have with God and or another person. It is choosing to act in a way that pulls us away from God. God designed us to respond to Him in a way that is in agreement with His nature and sin breaks that connection, refuses that gift, and rejects God. This is the rejection of God. Since all sin is the rejection of God, His authority, and His preference, sin automatically excludes us from His presence. Aulén (1931:147) views sin in the classic type of atonement as an objective power standing behind men (and women) and the Atonement as the triumph of God over sin, death and the devil. The direct personal relationship between God and the sinner is obscured. Therefore, sin in this view is treated as an impersonal force and so weakens the idea of a direct relationship between God‟s work and humanity.

God‟s initiative to restore the relationship with humanity implies walking together with God. The Latin word conciliar means to come together or to assemble. This can

be referred to as conflict resolution, the restoration of broken relationships, and the act of coming together of those who have been separated from each other by a difference to create a community again. This refers to the act by which people that have been apart and split off from one another begin to stroll or move together again. With Conradie (2013:21):

The term reconciliation may be used with respect to different kinds of relationships. These can be more or less intimate, narrower or broader in scope. Any relationship between two individuals is of course embedded in a complex network of other relationships in families, institutions, communities and in the wider society. This is important to recognize, if only because what reconciliation might entail would not be the same for all cases. It depends on the nature of the prior relationship.

Ideally reconciliation might become the lever for a true transformation of society. The longing for sincere and consistent reconciliation is without a shadow of doubt a fundamental driving force in our society, reflecting an irrepressible desire for peace. But reconciliation cannot be less profound than the division itself. The longing for reconciliation and reconciliation itself will be complete and effective only to the extent that they reach-in order to heal it-that original wound which is the root of all other wounds.

Therefore every institution or organization concerned with serving people and saving them in their fundamental dimensions must closely study reconciliation in order to grasp more fully its meaning and significance and in order to draw the necessary practical conclusions.

The term reconciliation and the concept of penance are closely related. Penance means the inmost change of heart (mostly relevant in intimate personal relationships) under the influence of the word of God and in the perspective of the kingdom of God. Penance also means changing one‟s life in harmony with the change of heart, and in this sense doing penance is completed by bringing forth fruits worthy of

penance: It is one‟s whole existence that becomes penitential, that is to say, directed toward a continuous striving for what is better. But doing penance is something authentic and effective only if it is translated into deeds and acts of penance. In this sense penance means, in the Christian theological and spiritual vocabulary, asceticism, that is to say, the concrete daily effort of a person, supported by God lose his or her own life for Christ as the only means of gaining it; an effort to put off the old humanity and put on the new; an effort to overcome in oneself what is of the flesh in order that what is spiritual may prevail; a continual effort to rise from the things of here below to the things of above, where Christ is. Penance is therefore a conversion that passes from the heart to deeds and then to the Christian‟s whole life. In each of these meanings penance is closely connected with reconciliation, for reconciliation with God, with oneself and with others implies overcoming that radical break which is sin. And this is achieved only through the interior transformation or conversion which bears fruit in a person‟s life through acts of penance. Reconciliation, therefore, in order to be complete requires liberation from sin, which is to be rejected in its deepest roots. Thus a close link unites penance and reconciliation. It is impossible to split these two realities or to speak of one and say nothing of the other.

In biblical understanding, to speak of reconciliation and penance is for humanity to rediscover, translated into their own way of speaking, the very words with which our saviour and teacher Jesus Christ began his preaching: “Repent, and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15). That is to say, accept the good news of love, of adoption as children of God. In the Old Testament, 2 Maccabees speaks of God being reconciled to his people through their prayers (1:5; 7:33). In Pauline teaching, reconciliation is founded in God, who is seen as one who reconciles or one who makes reconciliation through Jesus Christ. What is fundamental is the issue of change, change of attitude from hostility to amity, of God towards humanity, of humanity towards God, and of individuals towards each other. This can also be extended to imply the exchange of

peaceful relations that marks the end of enmity. It is the restoration of relationship or peace as in the case of husband and wife (1 Corinthians 7:11).

There are four main dimensions of reconciliation in the biblical conception. 2 Corinthians 5:19 accounts that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation”, in that we see: Reconciliation with God, reconciliation with self, reconciliation with neighbors and the human community, and reconciliation with nature

Within the Christian context, Conradie (2013:18) indentifies three ways in which the discourse on reconciliation may be used. These he lists as;

 Reconciliation with God following alienation as a result of what is re-described

as “sin”, understood as a broken, radically distorted relationship with God;

 Reconciliation through being one with Christ in the body of Christ (the

Church);

 And the ministry of reconciliation through the Holy Spirit in church and society

Reconciliation with neighbours is taken as a prerequisite for reconciliation with God. The gospel according to Matthew 5:24 records that “leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift”. Here Jesus challenges his followers to take an active part in reconciliation, which can effectively be realized in a cultural context. Scripture invites humanity to make every effort to attain it. It also tells that it is above all a merciful gift of God to humanity. The history of salvation, the salvation of humanity as well as of every human being of whatever period, is the wonderful history of reconciliation: the reconciliation whereby God, as Father, in the blood and the cross of his Son and through the power of the Holy Spirit made humanity, reconciles the world to himself and thus brings into being a new family of those who have been reconciled.

Pope John Paul II writing a pastoral message to the Bishops, Clergy and all the faithful in the mission of the Church today said:

Reconciliation should be of the whole human family and of the conversion of the heart of every individual, of his or her return to God. Personal conversion is the necessary path to harmony between individuals. When the church proclaims the good news of reconciliation or proposes achieving it through the sacraments, she is exercising a truly prophetic role, condemning the evils of humanity in their infected source, showing the root of divisions and bringing hope in the possibility of overcoming tensions and conflict. She is changing a historical condition of hatred and violence into a civilization of love. She is offering to everyone the evangelical and sacramental principle of that reconciliation at the source, from which comes every other gesture or act of reconciliation, also at the social level.

And Orobator (2013:490) accounts that:

There can be no true and lasting reconciliation if the roots, sometimes centuries old, of conflicts and injustices are not healed, if the relationships between factions and ethnic groups aren‟t healed, if the hearts of persons are not regenerated.

The fact of the matter is that conflicts are seen in the relationships between individuals and groups, and also at the level of larger groups: nations against nations and blocs of opposing countries in a headlong quest for domination. At the root of this alienation it is not hard to discern conflicts which, instead of being resolved through dialogue, grow more acute in confrontation and opposition.

Reasons that cause division range from most widely differing kinds: from the growing disproportion between groups, social classes and-countries, to ideological rivalries that are far from dead; from the opposition between economic interests to political polarization; from tribal differences to discrimination for social and

religious reasons. Among the many other painful social phenomena of the present day, one can be noted.

The trampling upon the basic rights of the human person, the first of these being the right to life and to a worthy quality of life, which is all the more scandalous in that it coexists with a rhetoric never before known on these same rights. Hidden attacks and pressures against the freedom of individuals and groups, not excluding the freedom which is most offended against and threatened: the freedom to have, profess and practice one‟s own faith. The various forms of discrimination: for example, racial, cultural and religious. Violence and terrorism, the use of torture and unjust and unlawful methods of repression, the stockpiling of conventional or atomic weapons, the arms race with the spending on military purposes of sums which could be used to alleviate the undeserved misery of peoples that are socially and economically depressed. An unfair distribution of the world‟s resources and of the assets of civilization, which reaches its highest point in a type of social organization whereby the distance between the human conditions of the rich and the poor, becomes ever greater. The overwhelming power of this division makes the world in which we live a world shattered to its very foundations.

Moreover, the church, without identifying herself with the world or being of the world, is in the world and is engaged in dialogue with the world. It is therefore not surprising if one notices in the structure of the church herself repercussions and signs of the division affecting human society. Over and above the divisions between the Christian communions that have afflicted her for centuries, the church today is experiencing within herself sporadic divisions among her own members, divisions caused by differing views or options in the doctrinal and pastoral field. These divisions too can at times seem incurable.

However disturbing these divisions may seem at first sight, it is only by a careful examination that one can detect their root: It is to be found in a wound in humanity‟s inmost self. In the light of faith this is called sin: beginning with original sin, which

all humanity bear from birth as an inheritance from first parents, to the sin which each person commits when freedom is abused.

Nevertheless, this detects in the very midst of division an unmistakable desire among people of good will and true Christians to mend the divisions, to heal the wounds and to re-establish at all level an essential unity. This desire should arouse in many people a real longing for reconciliation.

In this image of salvation, the focus is on the past and in each of these cases the present problem cannot be resolved without identifying the roots of that problem.