Jesus is The Atonement

Atonement originally meant “at-one-ment” or “at one with,” to be in harmony with someone. In Christianity, atonement refers to the needed reconciliation between sinful man and woman and the holy God. 

In Wikipedia, a human definition states that atonement is the concept of a person taking action to correct their own previous wrongdoing, offense, or injury. The person knows they have done wrong and they want to mend the wrong. To correct it, they might either take direct action, take equivalent action to do good in return for others, or express feelings of remorse, like apologize for what they did. They hope by doing any of these things they can atone for or undo the consequences of the wrong act because if you do something wrong there are usually consequences. 

Consequences are a part of God’s divine legal system too. God has great wrath against sin. God says eternal death is the consequence when we sin against God or break one of His laws. The sin causes a break and builds a barrier in our relationship with Him. It separates us from Him. Because of God’s love for us, He desires that we be reconciled to Him; so He created a very specific and necessary path to reconciliation.  

Many trying to correct something on their own that they have done wrong; but in God’s system no one can do anything to atone for their own sins. Everyone is born with a sin nature due to Adam’s first original sin. Everyone has sinned against God’s law, it is like the sin is on you and you can’t take your sinful nature off yourself. A sinful person can’t correct or remove his own sin no matter how hard they try. There is nothing he or she can do to atone for their sin and reconcile their relationship to God. So that is why God sent His only beloved Son, Jesus, into the world so that we can be at one with God, in harmony with God. Jesus Christ was God’s solution to our problem of sin. We could not atone for our sin so Jesus atoned it for us. 

The Atonement, purged our sins and reconciled us to God. God’s wrath for sin was forever satisfied by His Son’s death. It was God’s requirement for us to avoid the eternal consequences of death and to enter into eternal life with Him. We did not have to do anything. It was a gift from God by grace to all who will receive and accept it. [Rom 5:11] “We were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son.” [I Peter 3:18] “For Christ died for sins, once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.”

We will never know what it was like to have the compressed all-encompassing weight of all the sins of the world placed upon Him. He took away my sin and died the death I deserved. Even though He knew why He was hanging there on the cross, He was also human and He deeply felt the absence of God because of the sin He was enduring in that moment. He was in physical agony due to the beating of His body. He was mentally abused in that He was unwarrantedly mocked, falsely accused, betrayed and slandered. He was emotionally exhausted and in spiritual anguish. There has never been a more terrible death. God’s wrath against us was turned away from us and directed toward Him.  

[I Peter 2:24] “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness.”  Jesus dies for our sins, the innocent for the guilty.

Oswald Chambers says, “The Atonement means that God can put me back into perfect union with Himself, without a shadow between…It does not matter who or what we are, there is absolute reinstatement into God by the death of Jesus Christ and by no other way.”

Will we accept by faith Christ’s atonement and acknowledge that it was our sin that He bore in our place? When we believe, repent and put our trust in Him, we receive God’s free gift and then there is no more barrier between God and us. Will choose today to ask Jesus into your life and be reconciled to God. 

Transcript

It is believed that the English word atonement originated in the 1500s and was used instead of the latin word meaning reconciliation in bible translations. Atonement originally meant “at-one-ment” or “at one with,” to be in harmony with someone. In Christianity, atonement refers to the needed reconciliation between sinful man and woman and the holy God. Atonement is closely associated to forgiveness, propitiation, sorrow, remorse, repentance, reparation, and guilt. 

In Wikipedia, a human definition states that atonement is the concept of a person taking action to correct their own previous wrongdoing, offense, or injury. The person knows they have done wrong and they want to mend the wrong. To correct it, they might either take direct action, take equivalent action to do good in return for others, or express feelings of remorse, like apologize for what they did. They hope by doing any of these things they can atone for or undo the consequences of the wrong act because if you do something wrong there are usually consequences. God set it up that way and He also created a pathway to reconciliation.

For example, if you say something hurtful to someone, the consequences are that you will cause a break or barrier in that relationship. In order to mend it, you most definitely are going to have to say you are sorry and ask for forgiveness. Maybe then you might want to buy the person a gift or do a service for them to make atonement so they won’t be angry with you any more and you can restore the relationship. 

There are consequences set up in our American legal system too. For example, if you break a law you will either pay a fine or you could go to jail, depending on the offense. So, if you are before a judge and found guilty of theft and are being sentenced, you may want to appeal to the judge by admitting your guilt, saying you are sorry, promising to never do it again, asking if you can do community service instead of jail time, or agreeing to pay any fines with interest if necessary. There is never any guarantee in our worldly systems and relationships that the offended party or the judge will give you leniency; but wisdom suggests that the best course of action to get the least amount of consequences, is to acknowledge your sin and ask for mercy.

Consequences are a part of God’s divine legal system too. God has great wrath against sin. God says eternal death is the consequence when we sin against God or break one of His laws. The sin causes a break and builds a barrier in our relationship with Him. It separates us from Him. Because of God’s love for us, He desires that we be reconciled to Him; so He created a very specific and necessary path to reconciliation. It is a path that satisfies the righteous wrath of God. Without this appeasement (or called propitiation) all people are justly destined for eternal punishment.

The above definitions and examples of atonement were about people trying to correct something on their own that they have done wrong. But in God’s system no one can do anything to atone for their own bad actions and sins. Eph. 2:9 says, “it is not by works, so that no one can boast.” Everyone is born with a sin nature due to Adam’s first original sin. Everyone has sinned against God’s law, it is like the sin is on you and you can’t take your sinful nature off yourself. A sinful person can’t correct or remove his own sin no matter how hard they try. There is nothing he or she can do to atone for their sin and reconcile their relationship to God. We cannot purify ourselves. We cannot make ourselves holy. We cannot save ourselves. So that is why God sent His only beloved Son, Jesus, into the world so that we can be at one with God, in harmony with God. 

[I John 3:4-5] “Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that He appeared so that He might take away our sins. And in Him is no sin.”  You see in God’s system, only a sinless, pure, and holy person can atone for the sins of another. And the only sinless person who ever lived on the earth was Jesus Christ. He was blameless. Jesus Christ was God’s solution to our problem of sin. We could not atone for our sin so Jesus atoned it for us. God’s grace reconciled mankind to Himself through the atonement of Jesus. 

During our study, we will discuss how Jesus reveals Himself in the word through OT prophesies and NT accounts. We will study about how Jesus reveals Himself through how He lived and the things He taught. And then we will see how He reveals Himself in our hearts today.

Jesus reveals His Atonement in the Word.

Everything God set up in the OT lead to and pointed to Jesus. In order to understand what happened when Jesus came to save the world, God put into place an organized sacrificial tradition and practice for the Jewish people. One of the most holy religious days of the year in the Jewish calendar is called Yom (day) Kippur (Atonement) or Day of Atonement. What happened on this day symbolized how Jesus’ death on the cross would atone for our sins. As God orchestrated this holy day, it was a shadow representing what was to come through His Son, Jesus.  

Here is how it was done as described in the OT. Once a year, the high priest went into the Most Holy Place and performed different rituals, one of which was a description of what is called substitutionary atonement. In Lev 16:21-22, it says the high priest was “to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the desert…The goat will carry on itself all their sins.” An interesting side note is that this goat is called the Scapegoat. Then in Lev 16:30, it says, “on this day, atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. Then, before the Lord, you will be clean from all your sins.” God promises and assures the repentant OT Israelites that their sins would be forgiven.”

This shows what happened with Jesus when He died on the cross. All the evil and wicked sins of the world were transferred to a perfect, sinless, blameless Jesus. [2 Cor 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.” [Heb 2:17] “For this reason, He had to be made like His brothers in every way, in order that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that He might make atonement for the sins of the people.” NIV commentary says that, in order for Christ to turn aside the wrath of God against guilty sinners, He had to become one with them and die as a substitute for them. And through faith, we can be assured in our repentance that our sins are forgiven through Jesus Christ too.

His substitutionary death, which was The Atonement, purged our sins and reconciled us to God. God’s wrath for sin was forever satisfied by His Son’s death. It was God’s requirement for us to avoid the eternal consequences of death and to enter into eternal life with Him. We did not have to do anything. It was perfectly done, once for all, completed by Jesus. It was a gift from God by grace to all who will receive and accept it.

Jesus reveals His Atonement to the World.

Oswald Chambers says in his devotional My Utmost for His Highest, “The Death of Jesus Christ is the performance in history of the very Mind of God. There is no room for looking on Jesus Christ as a martyr; His death was not something that happened to Him which might have been prevented: His death was the very reason why He came.” Phil 2:6-8 says, “Who being in very nature God”…was “made in human likeness”… and ”He humbled Himself and became obedient to death.” Jesus knew that God sent Him to the world to make substitutionary atonement for the believer’s sin. 

[Rom 3:25] “God presented Him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith.”

It is incredible to me to think that He lived knowing His destiny. Even John the Baptist knew Jesus would atone for the sin of the world. In John 1:29 it says, “John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’” Jesus saw men sin around Him and against Him and He knew He would bear their sin in years to come. Sometimes we want to know our future, but if we knew it was going to be horrible, would we be able to cope with that knowledge and boldly move forward toward that destiny? I believe that since Jesus had the very nature of God, that Jesus hates sin as much as the Father does. And He loves us as much as the Father does too. When it says in John 3:16 that “God so loved the world that He gave us His Son,” I believe that Jesus came to earth in agreement with God’s plan on how to reconcile mankind to God and He was in agreement that He would be the one to atone for their sins. Calvary proved how much Jesus hated sin and loved us.

[Rom 5:11] “We were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son.” [I Peter 3:18] “For Christ died for sins, once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.”

We will never know what it was like to have the compressed all-encompassing weight of all the sins of the world placed upon Him. All guilt, shame, grief, wickedness, and sorrow. He took away my sin even though I was guilty and He died the death I deserved because of my sin. At one point, while Jesus hung on the cross, He said, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Even though He knew why He was hanging there on the cross, He was also human and He deeply felt the absence of God because of the sin He was enduring in that moment. It was excoriatingly painful because He had never been separated from God before. He was in physical agony due to the beating of His body. He was mentally abused in that He was unwarrantedly mocked, falsely accused, betrayed and slandered. He was probably emotionally exhausted. And in spiritual anguish due to experiencing the abandonment of God. There has never been a greater more terrible death in every way possible. God’s wrath against us was turned away from us and directed toward Him.  

[I Peter 2:24] “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness.”  Jesus dies for our sins, the innocent for the guilty.

Jesus reveals His Atonement in our hearts.

Adam’s choice to sin made everyone guilty before God, without hope. But then Jesus stepped in, making atonement for sin. This is the bible’s central message. Atonement was made possible by the substitutionary death of Christ on our behalf. The Atonement should have an affect. It should move us to live holy lives in obedience, service, and prayer. We should be filled with thanks and adoration for all that we receive because of the Atonement of Jesus. We could have never made ourselves right with God on our own. Because Jesus removed all of our sin, we are cleansed and free from our sinful nature.

Oswald Chambers says, “If the one central point, the great exerting influence in my life is the Atonement of the Lord, then every phase of my life will bear fruit for Him…If I am trying to be right with God, it is a sign that I am rebelling against the Atonement. I cannot make myself right with God, I can only be right with God if I accept the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ as an absolute gift. Am I humble enough to accept it?...The Atonement means that God can put me back into perfect union with Himself, without a shadow between…It does not matter who or what we are, there is absolute reinstatement into God by the death of Jesus Christ and by no other way.”

Will we accept by faith Christ’s atonement and acknowledge that it was our sin that He bore in our place? When we believe, repent and put our trust in Him, we receive God’s free gift and then there is no more barrier between God and us and all hope of eternal life is ours in abundance. I pray that you will be moved by all that Jesus did for you through the power of His Atonement and that you will choose today to ask Jesus into your life and be reconciled to God. 

Living a radical life for Jesus means believing Jesus is The Atonement.