EDITORIAL: "Conflict And Reconciliation"

The hurt of broken relationships is significant, and it affects us all. We are asked to pick up the cross of Jesus as our own experience; to not merely be vaguely associated with His death and new life, but to actually insert ourselves into His very death and rising again. We may think that our lives are wonderfully comfortable compared to what He went through; yet without minimizing His suffering and pain, I suggest that we can also minimize our sufferings. We should be able to say with Paul that we are indeed co-crucified with Him. For most of us, this co-crucifixion isn't in terms of literal pain or violent persecution for His sake. So in what terms, then, are His sufferings articulated in us? Surely, therefore, in our mental suffering with Him. Thus Paul can quote a prophecy of Christ's crucifixion and apply it to our sufferings as a result of bearing with our weak brethren (Rom. 15:1-3).

All the hurts which come from interpersonal contact within the ecclesia have led some to retreat from ecclesial life into an isolated existence; occasional attendance, visiting websites, a few emails. Yet we are to approach the ecclesia from the viewpoint that we are here to give rather than to receive. The ecclesia is designed by God to be the arena in which we learn to show patience, forgiveness and the love which gives for no return. Thus the idea of not resisting evil and offering the other cheek (Mt. 5:39) we normally apply to suffering loss from the world without fighting for our rights. Yet Paul took this as referring to the need to not retaliate to the harmful things done to us by members of the ecclesia (Rom. 12:16,17; 1 Cor. 6:7; 1 Thess. 5:15). Paul evidently expected believers to have a pretty rough ecclesial life. Perhaps we ought to warn new converts about this; for all too many have joined us with high expectations, only to become bitterly disillusioned after a few years by the behaviour sometimes within the ecclesia. It's a strange paradox - for the unity of the ecclesia, the radical love between believers, is what attracts unbelievers to Christ. But then they soon find that the body of Christ is seriously divided and dysfunctional, and this has led many in recent times to fall away. Whilst on one hand the ecclesia is the body of Christ, we still have to separate out church from God, the Lord Jesus personally from those who are in Him. There are weeds sown among the wheat; that's a fact, which we inevitably sense, but it's equally a fact that we are unable to discern who's who. Seeing we cannot make the ultimate judgment, we must simply accept all those truly baptized into Christ as our brethren, and feel towards them as brethren. For the ultimate divide is between the believer and the world not between believer and believer. Paul's letters are a great example of this; yet his positive approach to his brethren didn't mean that he personally could no longer tell black from white or right from wrong. Our parents drummed into us from childhood: "Because they do it, doesn't make it right". And that's simply so.

Telling The Lord

But what, then, are we to do when brethren... refuse to speak to us, divide our families, cause others to stumble; and all the other long list, the endless sentence, which we could now write or come out with? How are we to feel, how are we to cope with it? When the fellow believers saw the unreasonable attitude of a brother against another, they were "vehemently distressed" (AV "very sorry" doesn't do justice to the Greek; Mt. 18:31). Matthew uses the same Greek words to describe how distressed the disciples were to learn that there was a betrayer amongst them (Mt. 26:22). That extent of distress can destroy men and women. So "they came and told their Lord all that was done". The parable suggests there was no response from the Lord to the grieving servants. He called the offender to Him, asked for an account, and punished him. This speaks of how we shall be called to account at the Lord's return. But until then, there's silence from the Lord. But that silence is to develop our faith and perspective in the day of judgment. If there were bolts of fire from Heaven in response to our prayers, there would be no faith required, no longing for the Lord's return, no trust in His ultimate justice. The Greek translated "told" means 'to declare thoroughly'. Tell the Lord every detail of what happened, how you feel; what colour shirt he was wearing, exactly how she looked at you - just as children artlessly retell every detail of a hurtful event. When they saw "what was done", they came and declared thoroughly to their Lord "what was done" (Mt. 18:31). The double repetition of the phrase suggests we should indeed tell all the details to Him; but not more, and stripped of our interpretation of them.

More Practical Advice

• The doing of right often leads us into conflict. Conflict situations shouldn’t always be read by us as meaning that we are guilty. Go out into this world and try to serve and help people and you won’t be met with open arms. Those whom you try to assist will so often turn against you. Only those who sit on the sidelines and don’t get involved avoid this kind of conflict. But this kind of conflict is what the cross of Christ was and is all about; that was the ultimate facing of the issues which there are between God and us. No papering it over nor avoiding the crux of the matter. The Lord Jesus came to gather fruit from Israel to God’s glory; to sit down with God’s people at the Kingdom banquet, because all things were ready. Whilst the crucifixion was foreknown by God and predicted by the Lord Jesus, this takes nothing away from the fact that it need not have happened. Jesus didn’t come to die, He came to be accepted. But Israel rejected Him. The pain of that rejection and crucifixion was all because the Father and Son had bothered to get involved with this ungrateful and rejecting world. If we are to carry even something of the cross of Jesus, we are going to have to experience rejection and the conflicts involved with that. “As much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men” (Rom. 12:18) surely suggests that Paul saw conflict with others as arising due to others’ attitudes over which we have no control.

• It’s easy to take false guilt for the fact others don’t understand us. We are candles lit to give light, and we shouldn’t “cover” that light (Lk. 8:16). Yet the same Greek word occurs again in 2 Cor. 4:3, where we read that our Gospel is ‘covered’ or “hid” to those who choose not to see it. Others’ attitudes to us can therefore result in our light being covered and not get through. The fact others fail to perceive us for who and how we really are can in some cases be their fault and not ours.

• Have a Kingdom perspective. In Lk. 12:13-21 we encounter the Lord being asked to get involved in a conflict between two brothers over an inheritance. The Lord’s response was to tell the parable of the rich fool - a parable which ought to be seriously worrying for every one of us, rich or poor. He put the immediate argument between the brothers in the perspective of eternity; the eternity we may miss because we got too distracted with the immediate argument of the moment. And the Lord’s basic message in this case was: “Be rich toward God. Give Him whatever you have”. This cut right across the issues of life’s unfairness, missing out on wealth, not getting our share of respect... to the essential question which should have made both brothers feel uncomfortable. Had they - have we - given all they had to the Lord’s cause? We can surely analyze our own conflicts, at our own pace, in the light of eternity; and regain perspective, even if our opponent fails to do this.

By Grace We Stand

We must also never forget our own need for grace. Paul progressively realized the depth of his own failures and need for grace. In his early letter to the Corinthians, he speaks of himself as the least of the apostles (1 Cor. 15:9); some years later, he tells the Ephesians that he is "less than the least of all saints" (Eph. 3:8); but as he faced his end, he wrote to Timothy in his final maturity that he felt the chiefest of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). Yet the letters to Timothy show a growing assurance that he believed he truly would live eternally in God's Kingdom. And in Paul we are to find our own pattern of growth (1 Tim. 1:16). You, me... we shall live for ever. And ever. And ever. We who are but water, bones, complex chemicals. We who are so very weak. For ever and ever. And the quality of that eternity is wonderful beyond words; for "we shall be like Him". And God... just thought this up for us, decided to bring us into existence so He might lavish His grace upon us throughout the eternal ages to come (Eph. 2:7). We cannot get even a moment's glimpse of that future which awaits us without being moved to show grace, compassion, acceptance; and without knowing that we ought to be giving our lives to thinking up how we can in our turn lavish grace upon others. We will not live through those eternal ages alone. We will spend them in community. There's only one man who has ever resurrected to live for ever, and that's the Lord Jesus. Our experience of this will be insofar as we are "in Him", in His body. But His body isn't just us; it's all the others baptized into Him. If we reject them, won't forgive them, won't tolerate them, don't want to fellowship them... we are signing ourselves out of the hope of salvation

Reconciliation: Radically Important

Picture a judgmental, unforgiving brother or sister whom you know, who’s always stirring up strife by their intolerance of others; yet remember their constant Bible reading, preaching, writing, unworldliness, clean living, constant attendance at meeting, hall cleaning... how their lives are simply full of their commitment to their understanding of the Lord. And think of this person standing before the Lord at the day of judgment and being condemned. Maybe he was the Secretary, or she was the secretary’s wife; the Bible School speaker, the writer. And they are told: ‘Go away. I don’t know you. You rejected my weak little brothers and sisters. You drove them from My table. You criticized and beat them down, some never to rise again. You demanded, demanded, demanded... conformity to how you understood things, to your standards of spiritual achievement in a few areas. When you yourself seriously failed Me, disobeyed Me, and yet you never really worried about that’. That well known face, with tears flowing down the cheeks and teeth banging against each other in rage, forehead contoured as never before as he thinks of his loyalty to his clauses, his points, his constitution, his denomination; the emails and articles he laboured so long to write in defence of the faith... is ushered to death in the lake of fire. His committee members, friends, family who told him ‘You did the right thing there...’ are all strangely absent, and he walks unusually alone, as we watch, maybe reciting 1 Corinthians 13 to ourselves. Now I’m not saying this is how it will be; I’m sure God’s grace is big enough to cover very much self-righteousness and very, many blind spots. But... it might be. And, according to plain Bible teaching... it may very well be.

The Christian life is likened to a man on his way to his judge along with his adversary (Lk. 12:58); he ought to settle his differences with his brother before he arrives, for this judge will be extremely hard upon those who refuse to be reconciled to their brethren. This would suggest that the Lord foresaw that getting along with our brethren would be a major part in the development process of His people; and as they draw closer to the day of meeting with Him, the more urgent is the need to settle their disputes, as He will be unsympathetic towards them. The Lord prefaces this parable by appealing for His people to ‘judge righteously’ because His judgment is about to come (Lk. 12:57 Gk.). By forgiving our brother, we are judging righteously; we are in essence deciding our own judgment which is to be revealed at the Lord’s return.

Duncan Heaster