Atonement = God Dealing With Sin
Atonement is the reason for Jesus coming and dying on the cross for us. It’s God’s answer to human SIN. So it’s important that we understand it!
God’s plan to save us didn’t start in the New Testament. Sending Jesus wasn’t a ‘plan b’ that God settled for when humanity sinned.
Sending Jesus was always a part of God’s plan.
The Old Testament sets the scene for how important Jesus is going to be.
Peter says in Acts 2:23 that Jesus’ death was according to ‘his prearranged plan.’ He knew it would happen.
He says later on in 1 Peter 1:20 that ‘God chose him [Jesus] as your ransom long before the world began’.
God planned it all to demonstrate his love for us (Romans 5:8).
There is nothing ‘hit or miss’ about salvation. The death of Jesus was not a tragic mistake, but God’s set purpose.
All the events that led up to Jesus dying on the cross were under God’s control.
When Pilate said to Jesus that he had the power to free him or crucify him, Jesus replied,
You would have no power over me at all unless it were given to you from above. (John 19:11)
God was in charge, not Pilate.
Old Testament Pictures
There are many Old Testament pictures that find there fulfilment in Jesus Christ and his death, but perhaps the most important are the Passover and the Day of Atonement.
The story of the Passover in Exodus 12 illustrates that that the shed blood of the lamb saved God’s people from his judgment.
God promised them,
When I see the blood, I will pass over you.
That is, ‘My judgement will not touch you.’ (verse 13)
Paul, in the New Testament links this ‘passover lamb’ which was slaughtered to avert God’s judgment, to Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 5:7)
The Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16 is a beautiful picture of the meaning of the death of Jesus.
Hebrews 9 and 10 are thrilling reading as the apply it to the cross.
Several things took place on The Day of Atonement, one of the key things talked about are the two goats mentioned in verses 7-10.
One was killed and its blood was taken by the hight priest into the Most Holy Place and sprinkled on the mercy seat. This symbolised the turning away of the wrath of God from humanities guilt.
Mercy instead of judgment is experienced.
The other goat, called the ‘scapegoat’ was brought to the high priest who laid his hands on the animal’s head and confessed the sin of the people. Symbolically, the sins were transferred to the scapegoat and it was sent into the desert, portraying the taking away of the sin of the people.
All this was symbolic. The were, says Hebrews 9:10,
External regulations applying until the time of the new order.
That new order came with the Lord Jesus Christ. The death of our saviour is the only sacrifice that God now recognises.
When Jesus died on the cross, he did what both the goats symbolised.
Jesus took our place (substitution), and he turned God’s wrath away from us, by letting it fall on himself (propitiation).
Substitution
When we take communion, we’re told that the body of Jesus is broken for us, and his blood was shed for us (1 Corinthians 11:23-26).
This tells us that Jesus died in our place. He became our substitute, he is the passover lamb, the scapegoat and the innocent victim who dies in the place of the guilty.
Propitiation
This is another big word that means that on the cross, bearing our sin and guilt, Jesus faced the wrath of God instead of us.
In Jesus’ death, God was able to pass judgment on sin, but also make away for us to be right with him.
Blood
Another word the Old Testament pictures keeps bringing up is ‘blood’.
The New Testament writers keep telling us that we are saved by the blood of Jesus (Acts 20:28; Romans 3:25; 1 Peter 1:19; 1 John 1:7).
As they do this they are borrowing the language of the Old Testament sacrifices. And the point is that it’s not just his death that matters, but the sacrifice of his life.
He didn’t die of natural causes or of an accident. Jesus was killed as a sacrifice for sin.
For more on what Christianity teaches, check out the other topics in our ‘Bitesize Theology’ series:
God; Jesus; The Holy Spirit; The Trinity; Sin
Inspired by Peter Jeffery, ’Bitesize Theology’, Evangelical Press, 2000
