Communion and Conformed to Another [Person]  

Partaking of communion identifies our conformity with the Person of Christ, specifically at the cross. Paul would say, “I’m co-crucified with Christ, no longer I…”   Paul expands on this reality at the end of 2 Corinthians 5 where we will begin with verse 17…

2Co 5:17  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 

2Co 5:18  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 

Let’s pause for a moment and zero in on what it means in English “to reconcile.” The Mariam-Webster dictionary says that reconcile word means to restore to friendship or harmony, to settle or resolve, to make consistent or congruous, to cause to submit to or accept something unpleasant, to check a financial account for accuracy.

However, the underlying Greek word has a very different shape of meaning (semantic domain). If we were to bubble-diagram the English word for reconcile and the Greek word, which is put in English letters as katallassó, we would discover that they are two rings that only overlap in part of their meaning. This Greek compound word of kata and allassó literally means “down according to change” or “down exactly at the level of other altered.” You can see how the meanings can overlap.

Then we look at the context to see it relative to God through Christ. “In Christ” speaks to a new creation. Therefore, whatever reconciliation means, it must be relative to that. In fact, it is reconciliation in the sense of “correspondingly altered and changed” in the context of the person of Christ! It is not merely being brought not “harmony” (AMPC) or “making peace” (BBE, CEV) or “restored relationship” (GW) without any corresponding change to the person of Christ. The primary and intended meaning is conformity to the Person of Christ, then secondarily it would be harmony, peace, and relational restoration as a consequence.

The Jonathan Mitchel New Testament JMNT has it right: “transforming us to be completely other [than we were] (or: bringing us into another place or state of being; changing us to correspond with other [perceptions and conceptions]; altering us to be conformed to another [person]; changing us from enmity to friendship…” it is this type of reconciling.

So, let’s re-read this and use that terminology, specifically “conformed to another [person]” and be sure to emphasize “Christ” as you read it or say it out loud.

2Co 5:17  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

2Co 5:18  All this is from God, who reconciled “conformed” us to himself through Christ (His Person) and gave us the ministry of reconciliation “conforming to another Person”:

2Co 5:19  that God was reconciling “conforming” the world to himself in (the Person of) Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us The Word of reconciliation “conforming to this other Person”. 

2Co 5:20  We are therefore Christ’s (This Other Person’s) ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to “conformed to the Other Person relationally with” God. 

2Co 5:21  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

You see, conformity to the Truest Human, Jesus in His role of Messiah, Anointed One, Christ allows what is of Him qualitatively to be shared with us (1Co 1:30). And we might even ask, what is righteousness? Righteousness is nothing abstract, but “the way it should be, with well-ordered living and right thinking” sourcing from God and of His Person. Taking communion is serious business! By taking communion we agree to, vow, and bow to the conformity to the Person of Christ at His putting away of Adam (the old man of the old creation, the life we are all born into). Don’t take communion in an unworthy manner – in a manner that is not along this axis or judged on this balance scale… of conformity to The Person (1Co 11:27).