About Reconciliation

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● Gen 32:6-7 . . The messengers returned to Jacob, saying: We came to your brother Esau, and furthermore he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him. Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed

Long story short: roughly twenty years previous, Jacob tricked his father Isaac into giving him a blessing intended for Esau; which caused bad blood between the brothers.

● Gen 27:41-42 . . So Esau bore a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him; and Esau said to himself: The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.

But Jacob fled to the land of Rebecca's brother Laban before Esau had a chance to act. So, here we are twenty years later and God has ordered Jacob to return. So; Jacob arranged a peace offering if perchance it might reconcile their differences.

● Gen 32:13-15 . .Then he selected from what he had with him a present for his brother Esau: two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, thirty milking camels and their colts, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.

God did something similar with us; only in reverse, viz: in our situation God the offended party would be Esau, and we the offending party would be Jacob; only it would be God reaching out with a peace offering instead of Jacob and the offering would've really gone the extra mile because God offered us His own next of kin, i.e. His one and only heir apparent; thus proving how anxious God is to restore peace between Himself and mankind.

● John 3:16-17 . . For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send His son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be spared through him.

● 1John 4:10 . . This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

● 2Cor 5:18-19 . . God reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, to wit: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. (cf. Rom 5:10, 1Cor 5:18, and Col 1:21)
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