![]() ![]() All men need to repent to women, giving up assumed patriarchal privileges, and women should express their forgiveness when such repentance is expressed. Therefore, until we learn that horizontal reconciliation must walk side-by-side in seeking reconciliation with God, we shall not participate in the New Creation. The lectors were asked not to read that verse when the work of copying was done. In all probability, the erasing or deliberately omitting the verse happened in the official scriptoria. So the verse, ‘Father forgive them…’ (Luke 23:34) has gone missing in many important manuscripts. For the early Christians so involved in a massacre against the Jews, the prayer of Jesus from the cross-recorded in Luke was an embarrassment. The Christian Church indulged in it from the moment they became powerful. Hitler was not the first persecutor of the Jewish people. As soon as they became the state church under Constantine, they immediately started persecuting the Jews. The early Church had experienced severe persecution from the time of Domitian until the time of emperor Diocletian for nearly two hundred years. But the Church has not learned this lesson of forgiving and asking to be forgiven. The Christian Church teaches forgiveness, recognizing Christ’s death as having paid their punishment. This is why Jesus taught us to pray, “Forgive us as we forgive.” Reconciliation is the sign of the New Creation. It is not as if those who followed Jesus and hailed him as king did not need to be reconciled with God. ![]() This is how God was reconciling the world to Godself through Christ. Jesus offers forgiveness on behalf of the oppressed to the oppressors. However, Luke did not see fit to record this cry and instead depicts Jesus as one who prays for the forgiveness of those who were responsible for his crucifixion. It was an affirmation of faith as Jesus, in all probability, was meditating on the psalm, which ends with praise and thanksgiving. It was not a cry of dereliction, as usually understood. Jesus the Son of Man gathers into himself all the oppressed (the sinned against) of the world.Īccording to Matthew and Mark, Jesus identified himself with the oppressed and cried the cry of the Psalmist of Psalm 22 on the cross. The title “Son of Man” is derived from being the representative of all people who were oppressed. Jesus, by this self-understanding, indicated without saying so that he represented all the oppressed of human history. Therefore if God reconciled the estranged human community to Godself in Christ, the question arises, how did Christ first and foremost effect repentance and reconciliation within the community of humankind? For an answer to this question, we need to turn to Jesus’ self-understanding as the Human One (Son of Man). No one could approach God without first getting reconciled with those who had been offended and hurt by the devotees (Matthew 5:23-24). Instead, God would be reconciled with the world only as humans are reconciled among themselves. The simplistic and age-long answer is that God reconciled the estranged world by offering forgiveness through the death of Christ on behalf of all humans. Our concern in this study is to see how that reconciliation with the world takes place in Christ. How did that happen? Paul is talking about the whole world and not of just a few elected for salvation. God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Godself (2 Corinthians 5:17-18). We pray in the Name of Jesus who prays with us for our renewal. We repeat the Lord’s Prayer without meaning what we say. Forgive our pride and arrogance that make it difficult to seek forgiveness from those we have hurt. Lord, forgive our adamant refusal to be a forgiving people. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. Bible Study: Repentance, Forgiveness, and ReconciliationĪ biblical reflection based on 2 Corinthians 5:17-18įormatted for printing 2 Corinthians 5:17-18 ![]()
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