After their successful July 1969 landing on the moon’s surface, the lunar module, named “Eagle” blasted off the surface of the moon carrying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to dock with Columbia, their command module piloted by Mike Collins. Only after Eagle had reconnected to Columbia were the three astronauts able to return to earth. Another way to describe their reconnecting is to say the two ships were once again “reconciled” to each other.

God reconnects people to himself through the doctrine of reconciliation. The apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.” Sin separated man from God, just as Eagle was separated from Columbia. But what brought man back to God was not the power of rockets. It was the power of God accomplished through Christ Jesus.

As the Apollo astronauts were safely brought back home via their “reconciled” spacecrafts, so those in Christ are brought safely to God through Jesus. The Bible teaches us in Colossians 1:22-23 “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– if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.” The effects of sin are nullified through God’s reconciliation of man to himself.

But the doctrine of reconciliation not only reconnects man to God, it also is the avenue through which man reconnects to man. It is because we have been forgiven by God that we are to forgive others; as Ephesians 4:32 tells us to “be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” As God holds nothing against those who have been reconciled to him through Christ, we are to do everything we can to be reconcile to others because of that same Christ.

Dana Arledge, Phil Meade, Will Uminn, Kevin Farmer