The New Testament was written in the Greek language as spoken by ordinary people in everyday life. A problem that faces readers of English translations is that many key Greek words are translated by English words that have become religious words. These religious words are an obstacle to understanding what the writers of the New Testament were saying.
One example is the Greek word καταλλάσσω, which is translated as “reconcile”. This word now has a religious meaning, which English readers assume they understand.
katallasso was actually a common commercial and social term before it picked up any special theological weight. Its ordinary senses:
To exchange money or change currency
This was probably the most basic, literal use — like exchanging one currency for another, or exchanging coins for goods. It is a money-changer's word.To exchange or barter goods
More broadly, swapping one thing for another in trade.To make up/patch things up after a quarrel
This is the extended, very natural everyday sense — used of friends, spouses, or business partners who had fallen out and then settled their differences and were on good terms again. Like two people "made up" or "patched things up" after a fight.Diplomatic/political reconciliation
Also used of cities, states, or factions ending hostilities and restoring normal relations —a peace-treaty sense.
So in plain, secular Greek, if you heard someone say a version of katallassō, you'd most likely think of:
- a money-changer at a market stall, or
- two people who'd had a falling-out and were now friends again.
Understanding this made me ponder why Paul chose to use this word to describe our relationship with God.
One commentator said, “The word carries the everyday logic of 'swapping something for its opposite' — enmity swapped for friendship, one currency swapped for another. The New Testament writers borrowed this ordinary 'settling accounts / making up' language to describe humanity's relationship with God being switched from hostile to friendly — but the underlying word itself was just common marketplace and social vocabulary, nothing inherently religious”.
Apart from Romans 7, where the reference is to a broken marriage, the word katallasso and the related noun are used intensively in two passages.
Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the service of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their wrongdoings against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God (2 Cor 5:18-20).
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we also celebrate in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation (Rom 5:10-11).
I think that katallasso was a strange word to choose for what Paul was describing in these verses. Several things stand out.
Unlike barter or money changing, the exchange is not equal. God had very little to gain from the transaction, and humans had everything to gain.
When two people have fallen out, the one who was in the wrong has to eat humble pie in order to put things right. Yet in both Romans and Corinthians, it is God who takes the initiative. He is the subject of the verb, whereas humans are the object. God takes action, and humans are the recipients. That is not the normal process of katallasso.
The reconciliation took place while we were still enemies of God. This is unusual, because the usual first step towards reconciliation between enemies is for both sides to let their enmity go. In contrast, God did not wait for us to give up our enmity towards him. He took decisive action without waiting for humans to seek peace.
In normal usage, katallasso is used when two estranged parties (friends, spouses, business partners, even warring cities) made peace and restored normal relations. For that to happen, both sides have to concede and give up things that they had been hanging onto. God did something quite different. The difference was Jesus. He died, acting as a human, to put things right and restore the relationship between humans and God.
People reading Paul’s letter would have been jarred by the use of katallasso for what happened, because it is so different from the usual exchange/putting right. They would get a sense of how shocking God’s actions were. In contrast, we assume that the word is a perfect description of our reconciliation of God.
Paul said that we are ambassadors for Christ. This is consistent with the diplomatic meaning of katallasso. We are envoys for God, proclaiming the diplomatic settlement with the world that Jesus established to end hostilities between the parties.
Intensified Form
In Colossians and Ephesians, an intensified form of the verb is used. — ἀποκαταλλάσσω (apokatallassō). This word does not seem to have an "everyday" meaning because, it doesn't really show up in ordinary secular Greek writing — it appears in Paul's letters to the Ephesians and Colossians, and barely anywhere. It seems to have been a rarer, more emphatic meaning rather than common marketplace vocabulary.
This is how the word is built up:
apo- ("away, back, fully") + kata- (intensifying) + allassō ("to change")
The prefix stacking suggests something like
- to change back completely
- to restore fully to a former state
- to thoroughly patch things up
- to fully restore the relationship, leaving nothing outstanding.
- completely made up — like nothing ever happened
The three occurrences of this form of the verb occur in Ephesians and Colossians, which deal with cosmic-scale reconciliation (all things, the universe) rather than the more relational/interpersonal reconciliation language typical of καταλλάσσω in Romans and Corinthians.
Ephesians 2:16 – "and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity."
Colossians 1:20-21 – "and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross... And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you..."