Theme: Reconciliation to God

Exegetical note
After spelling out the effects of justification in the first few verses of this passage, Paul returns in vv. 6ff. to talk about justification itself in terms of the image of reconciliation, which presupposes that the state of sin is one of estrangement. Paul makes it clear in v. 10 that it is we who are reconciled to God by virtue of the Christ, rather than vice versa (as certain later theories of atonement suggested), presumably because alienation was h…