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that we shall be misunderstood, but we hope to make our meaning clear in subsequent
issues, but when we read that Christ died for all we must not assume that Scripture means
that He made an atonement for all, that He shed His blood for all, and that He became a
curse for all. The death of Christ goes back to Adam, and while it also is spoken of as
"for sins," it deals particularly with the original state of man as covered by the sin and
death brought in by Adam. Adam was not begotten nor born, he was created, and the
aspect of truth revealed through the apostle Paul does not deal with re-birth so much as
with new-creation. To make this possible, the enmity, the distance which originated in
Adam, and which was magnified by the giving up of the nations and the choice of one
nation, emphasized in the case of that one nation by the almost endless round of
ceremonies, sacrifices, ordinances, commands, fasts and feasts, must be put away. The
message of reconciliation accomplishes this. At the death of Christ the veil in the temple
was rent. The veil prevented access. Scripture teaches us that the veil which prevented
access typified "His flesh" (see Heb. 9: 7-10, 10: 20). Reconciliation was accomplished
"by the body of His flesh through death," and reconciliation consequently knows Christ
after the flesh no longer. We anticipate the teaching of Eph. 2: here by pointing out how
this truth is sustained in verse 15 in the words, "the enmity in His flesh."
Based upon the reconciliation accomplished by the death of His Son is a "much
more." There is something beyond reconciliation. Something that goes deeper than the
removal of estrangement, of the clearing away of moral, ceremonial, and spiritual
barriers. The death of Christ was for all, all without reference to their faith, knowledge or
capacity to know. Reconciliation has been effected. Salvation, however, in the epistle to
the Romans is not on the same level. The gospel "is the power of God unto salvation to
every one that believeth" (1: 16), "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and
shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved"
(10: 9). The same may be said of justification. While reconciliation is accomplished by
the death of God's Son, irrespective of knowledge or faith, justification is
"through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Whom God hath set forth to be a
propitiation through faith in His blood. . . . the justifier of him that believeth in
Jesus. . . . justified by faith. . . . Abraham believed God and it was reckoned unto him
for righteousness. . . . now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to
him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up
Jesus our Lord from the dead" (Rom. 3: 24 - 4: 24).
No one but he who has some theory that necessitates otherwise can fail to see the
force and emphatic place given to faith in connection with justification. Reconciliation
has mad justification a possibility; reconciliation is not a future goal, but a basis upon
which God rests the gospel committed to Paul. Rom. 5: 12-21 demands close study, and
we hope to return to it and consider its bearings upon reconciliation presently. We then
may be able to understand the better the meaning of the expression in verse 11
concerning receiving the reconciliation, and the parallel in II Cor. 5:, "Be ye
reconciled to God."
Rom. 11: must, however, be considered before we close this article, for there we find
the apostle's words, "reconciling a world," explained. Here again the whole passage
demands more elaboration than it is possible at the moment to give it. We will just point