The Rising Sun of Righteousness

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The Rising Sun of Righteousness

Reflections upon Malachi 4:1-3
by Bob Burridge ©2010

I sometimes enjoy getting up early enough to see the sun rise. There’s something different about it’s coming up than the reverse where it’s going down. Probably played in reverse on a video recording we might not be able to tell the difference. Both are astoundingly beautiful and declare God’s glory with profound eloquence. What’s different about the sunrise is that when the sun is just coming up it sets the stage for the work day ahead. The darkness we slept in evaporates away.

The day doesn’t come all at once. It stretches out from the darkness slowly showing us its power to erase the night. The shadows that hid things we might trip over slowly shrink until by noon time they’re next to nothing at all. As the morning turns bright we can see to get on with our work. There’s a freshness in our hearts as the new day starts. There are all sorts of possibilities ahead.

The Prophet Malachi uses this as an analogy to encourage God’s people in Malachi 4:1-3 (That’s 3:19-21 in the Hebrew text); He had just warned the unrighteous who were oppressing God’s people.
Then he said,

“For behold, the day is coming,  Burning like an oven, And all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up, Says the Lord of hosts, ‘That will leave them neither root nor branch. But to you who fear My name The Sun of Righteousness shall arise With healing in His wings; And you shall go out And grow fat like stall-fed calves. You shall trample the wicked, For they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet On the day that I do this,’ Says the Lord of hosts.”

The wings of the sun are its rays as they reach out to touch the darkness. God’s power to purify and to conquer evil will heal the victims of God’s enemies. It will make his people grow strong and become victors over their enemies.

This verse had a special application in the life of the great Presbyterian leader Archibald Alexander. He was born in 1772 in a cabin made of square logs in South River, Virginia, not far from Lexington. Three years later his family moved to the Forks to be closer to the Lexington area because his father had a mercantile business. When the Revolutionary War came in 1776, all mercantile businesses were suspended. His father became a deputy sheriff working with his own father in the new county that formed.

Though he lived in the rough lands just being settled Archibald had a good upbringing. When he was seven he had memorized the entire shorter catechism. He had already started studies in Latin and had become an expert swimmer and horseman. On his eleventh birthday his father gave him his own rifle. He would spend days on his own out in the mountains gathering up stray cattle for his father.

He loved to tell about his childhood in those early days of Virginia. He often told the story about how the boys then all grew their hair long. The style was to wear it tied in a long dangling queue down their back, but Archibald’s hair was very thin so it made a very skinny little queue of hair. The boys sometimes laughed at him and teased him about it. One day they started calling him “My Lord Pigtail”. But Alexander was more concerned about the “Lord” part than the “Pigtail” part. He complained to the head master at school that he believed the boys were breaching the third Commandment about using the Lord’s name in vain. That, he admits, drew even more ridicule than his skinny little tail of hair.

As a teen he struggled to understand God’s grace better. He read sermons and tells of taking his Bible out into the wilderness to read and pray. He got to a point of deep despair when he simply cried out to God for help and to save him. He said that at that moment God worked on his heart opening the wonders of salvation to him. He wrote of it saying, “The whole pan of grace appeared as clear as day.”

Soon after that he made a public announcement of his faith in Christ alone, at age seventeen. Even after this he still struggled with uncertainty fearing that he was worthy. As he came to the Lord’s table he feared that he would eat and drink damnation to himself.

Then he heard a sermon that changed his outlook. It was delivered by the old Presbyterian Scholar and Pastor, William Graham (not to be confused with the more recent evangelist “Billy Graham”).

The sermon was from this text in Malachi 4:2

But to you who fear My name, The Sun of Righteousness shall arise With healing in His wings; And you shall go out And grow fat like stall-fed calves.

He later wrote of it this way,

“The preacher compared the beginnings of true religion in the soul to the rising of the sun; sometimes with a sudden and immediate clearness, sometimes under clouds, which are afterwards dispersed. As he went on, it occurred to me with great distinctness, that the Sun of Righteousness began to rise on me, though under a cloud. When conversing with Mr. Mitchell in Bedford, I was relieved from despair by the persuasion that Christ was able to save even me. This shows how seldom believers can designate with exactness the time of their renewal. Now, at the age of seventy-seven, I am of opinion that my regeneration took place … in the year 1788.”

After surviving a serious illness in 1790, he began to spread God’s word whenever he could. He took on a pastorate in 1794 of the “Cub Creek Church” in Virginia. He was pleased that in his congregation there were 70 blacks at the Lord’s Table. His reputation for sound reasoning, excellent scholarship, and passion for Christ spread. In 1797 he became president of Hampden Sydney College, mainly set up to train ministers.

He struggled for a while with the issue of infant baptism. He read a book by the reformed Baptist, John Gill and refused to baptize babies. But though the arguments were well presented he saw some serious inconsistencies. He spent a long while researching one line of argument after another, primarily carefully examining all the Bible texts used by the Baptists. He later realized that Gill worked from some unsupportable assumptions. Archibald returned to his more reformed view of Baptism and never wavered.

In 1807 he pastored a church in Philadelphia. While there he helped found the Philadelphia Bible Society. It was in 1812 that the General Assembly called him to become the first professor of a new seminary they wanted to start up in Princeton, New Jersey. He was the only professor then. There were only 3 students who met in his home.
The next year there were 9 students and Princeton Seminary grew from there. It’s tragic that in later years liberalism crept in slowly until it took over that Seminary. Other schools were started about that time. One was called Harvard.

Archibald Alexander left us with a mass of great works and teachings which have been foundational still in a sound Bible education. We who continue in his heritage are the more conservative of the present Presbyterians.

His simple comments on Malachi 4:2 have always impressed me. Often when God’s righteousness comes to our hearts with victory it takes some time for the wings of the sun to stretch out and bring light to all of the soul. Patience with ourselves, with God, and with others is important.

What gets us through is the infallible promise that in Christ we are fully redeemed even though we may have a lot of growing to do, and that even when the battles seem harsh against us victory is as certain as noon day itself. God will cause his sun of Righteousness to dispel all the shadows, to destroy all the enemies, and to make his people grow stronger and stronger.

If you doubt that call out to God in simple undone humility. Cry out for help. It will come.

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Practical Sovereignty and Samuel Davies

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Practical Sovereignty and Samuel Davies

Genevan Institute for Reformed Studies
by Bob Burridge ©2010

God’s sovereignty isn’t just a detached curiosity for theologians. It’s a practical and vital truth for us all to appreciate and cling to every day. It gives meaning to things hard to understand. It restores our awareness that we’re loved even when life seems to become cold and harsh.

If you imagine the world as independent of a god who is really God, then you have a universe uncertainly limping along from one meaningless event to another. With that view the weak give up and drop out, or are simply consumed by those stronger. The successful overindulge themselves and get bored with it all, while those who don’t know how to get ahead feel oppressed and confused. The ambitious only know to be moral so they can get ahead, and the lazy complain and expect others to do the work while they waste away. If there is no Sovereign God, then chaos takes all purpose and certainty away.

It’s not at all like the world in John Lennon’s admittedly beautiful and captivating song Imagine where a godless society has no religion and everybody just gets along. That song leaves out a most fundamental fact: humanity is fallen in Adam and needs a Savior.

Without a Savior we are blind yet think we see perfectly well. John Lennon was a musical genius and quite intelligent in many ways. But he like all the rest of us in our natural state wasn’t able to see the real world that’s all around us.

In that fallen estate, we see a fake, a deception. Our fallen soul tells us we can control it our own way. But we also sense a futility because for all these years of man on earth our basic condition is no better. We are miserable, lost and doomed if there is no God who has a purpose in it all, and if there is no Savor to deliver us from ourselves and join us back with God again.

But the good news is: there is such a God and there is such a Savior! Just as we all fell in Adam, Jesus came to represent his people to pay their penalty for them. He didn’t just take away guilt and leave us blandly neutral. He lived a perfectly righteous life and promised to credit that righteousness to anyone who would put their trust in him for deliverance from sin and its debt.

In Ephesians 2:1 the Apostle Paul wrote, “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins”

Having a loving God who’s totally Sovereign and who has a firm and perfect plan puts all of life in a different dimension. The truth isn’t just a better anchor for the soul. It’s the only anchor.

The 18th century American Presbyterian minister Samuel Davies had a practical grasp of this. He didn’t preach a lot directly on the doctrine of predestination. He said to his people, “… my present design is to speak to your hearts about an affair which you are all concerned and capable to know, and not to perplex your minds with a controversy of which not many of you are competent to judge.”

But he was always clear about the truth of the gospel. He never made sinners think they could believe without God’s grace transforming them. He told them they would spend all eternity in damnation if they didn’t believe, and that they can’t believe if left on their own. He pointed out that they were well aware of this fact if they were honest. So he challenged them to come to God as broken helpless sinners pleading for Salvation in Christ alone.

The life of Davies is an astounding testimony of the blessing God offers when his truth is told. He was born November 3rd, in Delaware in 1723, 53 years before our country declared its independence. His mother told him he was named after the Samuel of the Bible because she asked the Lord for him. He later said that her prayers were used by God in blessing his life and ministry.

When he was 15 by God’s grace he made an open profession of faith in Christ, and became a communing member of the Presbyterian Church. He worked seriously as a student, mastering the classics and Christian Theology.

In 1746 when he was about 23 years old he had become very frail and weak physically. He married and was soon ordained as an evangelist to minister in the backwoods of Virginia. First he had to be licensed to preach. For that he had to go to the Governor of Virginia. At the time the only legal church was the Anglican Church of England. Others were classified as dissenting churches and were technically illegal. But Davies so impressed the Governor that he was the first non-anglican licensed in Virginia. He worked throughout his life to promote legal tolerance for all denominations.

In 1747, just a year after his marriage, his wife died giving birth to his first son who also died. He was deeply grieved and went through a hard time of adjusting to the loss. He hardly slept and let his health go even more. Some thought he would certainly die.

Through all this he kept on and worked all the harder. He didn’t minister to just one little church. There were five congregations without pastors. He rode alone on his horse studying along the way to preach in each one.

Soon that grew to seven churches in six counties. Then it grew to 14 churches. The closest meeting house was in Hanover County and held 500 people. It overflowed when he came there to preach. Soon they had to meet outside under the trees in the words for shade and shelter.

As he traveled on his circuit, he stayed in homes where he taught every night, even gathering a large number of slaves whom he taught to read and to believe. He opened his own home to teach them, to teach anyone who would come. These slaves numbered over 300 converts in the first few years. It became common to see them carrying Bibles and reading the puritans. A visitor to Hanover said it was “like the suburbs of heaven” there.

In 1752 he was sent to England to raise money for the College of New Jersey, a Presbyterian school which later became Princeton University and Seminary.

While in England, he was invited to preach at the Royal Chapel before King George II. This was quite amazing since he was considered there to be a dissenter from the Church. But Davies was known as one of the greatest orators of all times. Patrick Henry often attended his sermons and credited Davies with teaching him oratory. Davies spoke with a commanding voice, yet solemn and dignified. He told the truth plainly and clearly aiming at the poor slave as well as the educated noble.

While he was preaching, he saw King George making quiet comments to those around him. Davies stopped and stood in silence for a moment. Then he looked at the king and said, “When the lion roars, the beasts of the forest all tremble; and when King Jesus speaks, the princes of the earth should keep silence.”

The king took the comment well. Later the king explained to him that he meant no disrespect. He was just so taken in and astonished at the eloquence and solemnity of Davies, that he had a hard time not commenting to those around him.

Back in Virginia Davies organized the first Southern Presbytery in 1755 with 5 other ministers.

In 1759 Davies was drafted by the Presbytery and the College Board to become president of Princeton after the death of Jonathan Edwards. He served for 18 months then died in 1761 at the age of 37.

It’s said that he preached his own funeral message at Princeton on the New Year’s Day before he died. His text was Jeremiah 28:16, “This year thou shalt die.”

He warned that some of those present will with high probability meet death that year. He said “Perhaps I may die this year… It is of little importance to me whether I die this year or not; but the only important point is that I make a good use of my future time, whether it be longer or shorter.”

He died one month later on February 4th leaving behind his second wife and 5 children. He also left an unmatched, though often overlooked, legacy of a godly ministry.

He saw the root of his ministry in telling the hard truth of the gospel to everybody. He was horrified that most churches were teaching little morality lessons and giving false hope. He didn’t want anyone to think that they were able to decide for Christ for themselves. They needed to know that they had no hope in their own efforts, but in Grace alone.

He commented on such texts as Ephesians 1:11-12

“In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.”

He explained, “I cannot be persuaded God has made such a world as this, without first drawing the plan of it in his own omniscient mind. I cannot think he would produce such a numerous race of reasonable and immortal creatures, without first determining what to do with them. I cannot think the events of time, or the judicial process of the last day, will furnish him with any new intelligence to enable him to determine the final states of men more justly than he could from eternity.”

God’s Sovereign power is that vital and practical anchor for your soul. His promises alone grip the real ground that holds you fast through life’s turmoils and trials.

One of the hymns he wrote for his people is Great God of Wonders. It’s a song of God’s pardoning grace, a grace unparalleled, rich and free. Look up the words. Better still, find the music and sing it with an awe-stricken heart.

The Meaning of Imputation

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The Meaning of Imputation

Genevan Institute for Reformed Studies
by Bob Burridge ©2010

Imputation: The act of assigning a condition, standing, or value. When it relates to persons, the new condition is credited to them, and accounted as being fully theirs. The sin of Adam was imputed to us long ago. The righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed (credited) to all those redeemed by him on the Cross of Calvary. There our sin was imputed to our Savior where the demands of its guilt were satisfied before God forever.

(Note: The Bible quotations in this article are from the New King James Bible unless otherwise noted.)

We’re often warned about the dangers of living on credit. The basic idea of credit is something very familiar to us in our society today. It’s when you are made able to spend someone else’s money on things you aren’t able to pay for yourself. It’s based on the assumption that you will soon be able to pay them back, and pay them for the privilege of the loan.

In economics this can be dangerous if it is handled unwisely. No one really knows what the future will hold. The assumption is made that the borrower’s income will be able to pay back the loan in a reasonable time frame, and will also be able to pay the price charged for the loan.

There’s a Greek word for that crediting of something to someone’s account. The word is logitzomai. It’s found in several New Testament passages. But the context isn’t about economics. It’s about righteousness.

James 2:23 “And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. ”

The word translated “imputed” is that Greek word logitzomai. The righteousness of Abraham didn’t come from his own pure motives, efforts, or works. It was credited to him by God through his faith. He believed that God would provide what he didn’t have and couldn’t obtain.

It wasn’t only James who talked about this imputed righteousness. Paul used the same example of Abraham to make the same point in Romans 4.

In Romans 4:11 he said, “And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also”

It wasn’t Abraham’s own act of circumcision that made him righteous. That was just a sign of what God had already credited to him.

Then in that same chapter Paul said, “(22) And therefore ‘it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ (23) Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, (24) but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, (25) who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.”

The words “accounted” and “imputed” in this passage are that same word, logitzomai. The faith God puts into our hearts by grace turns from it’s own merits to the merits of Christ.

Then again in Galatians 3:6-9 Paul wrote, “(6) just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ (7) Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. (8) And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, ‘In you all the nations shall be blessed.’ (9) So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.”

The word for “accounted” is again the word logitzomai.

We have no righteousness of our own, yet we are credited as being righteous. The reason we can’t earn this standing on our own is that is another imputation that took place back in Eden. The sin of Adam was imputed to all who would descend from him by natural conception. Jesus was born by supernatural conception so the sin of Adam was not credited to him. He was born without that debt of sin. As our perfect representative he paid the penalty we all owe.

God’s word directly teaches that sin together with its consequences passed upon all of the human race by Adam’s sin. Romans 5:12 “… through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned”, and 1 Corinthians 15:22 “For as in Adam all die …”

Adam’s guilt was imputed to his posterity in a way similar to the manner in which Jesus Christ’s righteousness is imputed to his people by grace, and their sin is imputed to their Savior.

Charles Hodge defines it, “to impute is to attribute anything to a person or persons, upon adequate grounds, as the judicial or meritorious reason of reward or punishment.” (Systematic Theology. vol 2, pg 194)

The wonderful truth is that we who are redeemed have Christ’s righteousness imputed to us. It’s credited to our account as if it was our own.

No one can ever pay back the debt he owes for his sins. Only Jesus could pay that infinite debt. Our sins were credited to him as if they were his own.

That’s the message behind this name of God in Jeremiah 23:6. He is THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. Only dressed in the righteousness of our Savior, that which is credited to us, can we be God’s children.

Unlike the crediting that takes place in economics, we are never expected to pay back what’s credited to us. We could not. Jesus paid the debt in full for us.

Critics of this idea often say that this makes us unconcerned about doing what’s good. They assume that if it is not our good deeds that make us right with God, then we will have no reason to do good at all, since we already have righteousness in Christ. But there are things not taken into consideration by these critics. They fail to understand the motivation that drives the redeemed human heart.

It is our grateful love for the Loving Redeemer that stirs us to want to live for his glory. The pride that imagines that anything we do is pure enough to make us innocent before God is destructive, self-centered, self-deceptive, and arrogant. It is not a reliable motive for obedience.

The best motive that stirs us to honor God in our thoughts and lives is a humility that admits its own poverty, weakness, and total unworthiness. The person who understands that his righteousness can only come by the imputation of that which belongs to his Savior, is the one who can truly appreciate the fact of this amazing grace.

Those who come to see their own unworthiness, and to trust in Christ’s work alone for salvation, are the ones who are thankfully humbled before God and before others. They engage in humble and faithful worship. They struggle hard to obey out of gratitude with no delusions of earning their salvation. They busily evangelize telling others, all kinds of others, both the good and the evil, that in spite of their own record, their own successes or failures, there is hope in the promise of God in the work of Christ.

They will stand before God as holy children, dressed in the purest of righteousness, the righteousness of the perfect Savior. They can be confident that in spite of their sins, their inexcusable crimes and evil, they are loved and counted as heirs of eternal blessing with Christ.

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The Meaning of “Selah”

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The Meaning of “Selah”

By Bob Burridge ©2010

When you read the book of Psalms you come across the term “selah” 71 times. Few who read the Bible have any meaningful idea about what that means. There are different views about the exact purpose of the word in the Psalms.

The first place you find it is in Psalm Three where it occurs in verses two, four, and eight. The word always stands alone at the end of a sentence. This makes us believe that it is a musical instruction rather than a word to be translated literally as part of the message of the Psalm.

The word “selah” appears to be related to the Hebrew word “salal” which is used in sentences where it means to lift up, or to exalt (for example Proverbs 4:8). If this word is a musical direction in the Psalms it probably means a lifting up of the voices or instruments either in pitch or in volume.

The ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint) uses the word “diapsalma” to translate “selah”. This combines the word “psalm” (a song sung to musical accompaniment) with the prefix “dia” which is a preposition primarily meaning, “through”. Literally it simply means “through the Psalm”. This does not give us much help, and probably indicates that the Septuagint writers were not sure what to do with this expression.

Technical musical instructions are there for a purpose. Arrangers, composers, and lyricists try to use the elements of music to create an emotional setting for the words and message of the song. There must be some reason why this word is included in the inspired text of the Book of Psalms.

If this word is inserted in the Psalm where pitch or volume is increased, it must mark a moment where special attention is to be drawn to what has just been said or sung. Probably we are wise to pause for a moment when we come to the word selah, and focus on what we just read before moving on. We lift up our thoughts to the Lord in consideration of the point made in the words leading up to it.

When reading Psalms out loud to others at home or in worship many prefer to not say the word “selah”, but to pause a moment instead. When Psalms are set to music it is wise to highlight the music for the words leading up to this musical instruction by raising the pitch of the melody, or by increasing the intensity of the arrangement in some way.

In Psalm Three, David uses this word to mark an end to a special point he was making. In verse two he had just explained the trouble he was facing from his enemies who mocked him saying there was no help for him in God. Then in verse four he uses this word after he cried out to Jehovah and was heard by him. Finally in verse eight he concludes the Psalm attributing his salvation and blessing to God.

God’s word has a lot that impresses us. Every thought is amazing when we consider that it is God himself communicating to us. At times the Bible crystallizes a particular idea for us to consider. That appears to be the purpose of the word “selah” in the Psalms. When you come across that word, take a moment to consider the weight of what has just been said, and lift your thoughts to exalt our God as the sovereign, and gracious Redeemer of his people.

The Meaning of Propitiation

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Watch the Propitiation Video Presentation

The Meaning of Propitiation

By Bob Burridge ©2010, 2016

The word propitiation is not commonly understood by the average reader of the Bible. The New Testament uses the word only a few times. The noun form is only found in two verses, both are in First John (1 John 2:2 and 4:10). The verb form “to propitiate” is also just found in two verses (Luke 18:13 and Hebrews 2:17). A related word is translated various ways in the New Testament.

The English verb, “to propitiate” means to appease an offended person. Propitiation is when an offensive or upsetting matter is dealt with in a way that satisfies the offended person. The goal is to restore the relationship broken by the offense.

In the New Testament the Greek word translated “propitiation” is hilasmos (ἱλασμός). The verb form is hilaskomai (ἱλάσκομαι), and the related word mentioned is hilastaerion (ἱλαστήριον).

In Hebrews 9:5 “hilastaerion” is translated as “Mercy Seat”. It is the covering over the Ark of the Covenant in the ancient Tabernacle of Israel. In the Old Testament the Hebrew word for that covering is caporet (כּפּרת). It simply means the “covering”. The “the Mercy Seat” was a slab of pure gold, almost 4′ long and a little over 2′ wide. It was laid as a covering over the Ark of the Covenant that contained the tablets of God’s law. The law exposed the reality of our sins against the moral principles. The covering symbolically represented how God would cover our guilt through the promised Redeemer.

The Latin word for this covering of the ark is “propitiatorium” the root of our word “propitiation.” The Latin verb “propitio” meaning “to appease.”

When the priests of the Old Testament offered sacrifices they were symbolically covering over sin (Leviticus 4:35 10:17 16:30). In this sense, propitiation is a covering over sin to hide that which is offensive to remove God’s anger as the offended party.

As faithful high priest Jesus is the covering over the sins of his people. He is their propitiation. He did what the priests of the Old Testament could only symbolize. The effectiveness of the ancient sacrifices was based upon the future work of Jesus, the great Propitiator. He paid the debt by dying in place of the repentant sinner. His work covers their guilt to satisfy God’s justice, and turn away God’s wrath. That wrath was poured out on him and satisfied God’s demand for justice toward his people.

1 John 2:2 is often taken out of its context. It is talking about Jesus Christ when it says, ” … he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

This verse is not saying that the sins of all people were covered by the work of Christ. It corrects an error. Some Jews thought they were the only ones to have a Propitiator. Here John says that Jesus was not just the propitiation for the Jews. He is the only propitiation God provides for the whole race of humans. This included even those who were not Jews. Not all Jews were included in the work of the Savior, but not all non-Jews were included either. The point is that all people from all the nations of the world need to turn to him as the only possible propitiation for sin. There is no other hope.

The work of Christ is represented by a variety of English words today. These words all have technical meanings drawn from Scripture. In early English these words were much more common in use.

1. Atonement is making amends for a wrong done, for a loss or injury caused. This is a more general term and must be used cautiously because it includes the whole process of making us right with God through the work of Christ.

2. Expiation is the actual satisfaction of a wrong, making atonement for it. Expiation is particularly the effect of satisfaction upon the sinner’s guilt.

3. Propitiation is the appeasing of the one offended by covering the cause of his anger. Propitiation speaks primarily to the effect of satisfaction upon God as the offended party.

4. Reconciliation is our restored fellowship with God resulting from the removed offense. The New Testament verb is katallassein (καταλλάσσειν). The noun form is katalagae (καταλλαγή). It means to exchange, to change a person from enmity to friendship. This works in both directions: We are reconciled with God, and he with us.