As mentioned, this post begins the first in a series of posts which will focus on a single image of the atonement event, drawn from Scripture. I aim to keep them short and simple. Before I begin the first one, a few words on what precisely Christians understand by the word “atonement” might be helpful.
“That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15.3b-4)
First of all: the atonement event involved the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Crucifixion was probably invented by the Persians in 500 BC and was outlawed by the Roman Emperor Constantine in 300 AD. Although the Persians came up with the torturous death machine of crucifixion, the Romans perfected it. Under Roman power, crucifixion was the most painful mode of execution reserved for the most despised members of society; slaves, the poor and Roman citizens found guilty of the worst high treason. Throughout history, crucifixion has remained the most brutal, agonizing form of torture and death. In the twentieth century, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, German soldiers crucified Jews in Dachau by running bayonets and knives through their legs, shoulders and testicles. Under the leadership of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge performed crucifixions in Cambodia. The pain of crucifixion is so horrendous that there was a word invented to explain it – excruciating – which literally means “from the cross”.
Christianity affirms that in the year 33 AD, Jesus of Nazareth was publicly crucified under Pontius Pilate, the Roman Procurator of ancient Palestine.
Second: the atonement (at-one-ment) means that Jesus, our God, became man to restore the relationship between God and humanity. A crucial factor enabling such a reconciliation was the death of Jesus upon the cross. The death of Jesus was a substitutionary death. John Stott (The Cross of Christ): “The concept of substitutionary death may be said, then, to lie at the heart of both sin and salvation. For the essence of of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. Man claims prerogatives which belong to God alone; God accepts penalties which belong to man alone.” A substitutionary death: on the cross Jesus substituted himself for man, bearing the penalty our sins deserve. Our sins entailed his death. Jesus atoned for our sins by dying in our place."
Third: such a death was a propitiation. Throughout the Scriptures, the price of sin is death. If we sin, we should die. However, Jesus the sinless one dies in our place “for our sins”. Indeed, Jesus atoned for our sins in accordance with the promises of Scripture. In the Old Testament, the Day of Atonement was one of the most central events. According to the book of Leviticus, the Day of Atonement (the most important day of the year) was intended to deal with the sin problem between man and God. On that day, two healthy goats were chosen; two goats without defect and therefore fit to represent sinless perfection.
The first goat was a sin offering; the High Priest slaughtered this goat as a substitute for sinners who rightly deserved a bloody death for their many sins. The High Priest then sprinkled the blood of the goat on the mercy seat on top of the Ark of the Covenant inside the Most Holy Place. The goat took the guilt of the sin of the people; its blood represented life given as payment for sin. This meant that the dwelling place of God was cleansed from the defilement brought about by the transgressions and sins of the people of Israel. God’s just and holy wrath was satisfied. This Old Testament ritual sacrifice brought about propitiation; God’s wrath was propiated, or taken from the people of Israel, on account of the sacrificial goat standing in their place. This is precisely what occurred on the cross; the death of Jesus propitiated the wrath of God, taking it from off of us. The substitutionary, propitiatory death of Jesus rescued us from the wrath of God – just as the goat saved Israel of old from the just wrath of God. The Levitical sacrifice of the goat was a prefiguring of Jesus’ death on the cross.
Fourth: the death of Jesus brought about expiation. According to Leviticus, the High Priest would then take the second goat and lay his hands on the animal while confessing the sins of the people. By doing so, the High Priest was acting as the mediator and representative between the people of Israel and their holy God. The goat, known as the scapegoat, would then be sent away to wander in the wilderness away from the sinful people of Israel, symbolically taking their sins with it. Precisely like the scapegoat, the atoning death of Jesus brought about the expiation of our sin. By dying in our place, Jesus expiated, or took away, our sin so that we might be made clean.
These Levitical images of the High Priest, slaughter and scape-goat are all given by God to help us more fully comprehend Jesus’ work for us on the cross.
“He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53.5).
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God” (1 Peter 3.18).
Luther called the momentous event of the atonement “the great exchange”, the day when the sinless One became sin for us: “For our sake he [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5.21).
Mark Driscoll writes: “…the sinless Jesus so thoroughly took our place that he became the worst of what we are – rapists, thieves, perverts, addicts, liars, gluttons, gossips, murderers, adulterers, fornicators, homosexuals, and idolators. Importantly, Jesus’ work on the cross was not just a bookkeeping transaction in the divine economy. Jesus actually took to himself our sin with all its horror and shame (Hebrews 12.2-3).”
The shocking reality of the atonement should not be lost on us: God was crucified. We affixed him to a cross. Ancient records speak of the victims of crucifixion writhing and convulsing involuntarily in sheer agony, a pool of sweat, urine, faeces and blood gathering at the foot of the cross as their bodies wilted under the shock of excruciating pain. Crowds gathered and mocked the victims, spitting at them and shouting insults. And so it was with the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the One who was substituted in our place. He died the death of a crucified brigand, a condemned criminal; cursed by God and cursed by man.
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us – for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’” Galatians 3.13 (quoting Deuteronomy 21.23).
Mark Driscoll again: “As our sin was laid upon Jesus and he became the most heinous of beings, Jesus Christ was literally cursed by God on the cross. He came under the judgement of God the Father and God the Spirit as nothing less than the ugliness of damnable evil. Again we see the substitutionary reality: it was our sin and our condemnation, but it was Jesus, the sinless one, who took our place and in so doing took our sin and condemnation so that we could live a new life with a new nature by a new power free from sin and condemnation.”
Even in dying, the utter selflessness of Jesus is eveident in the words he muttered from the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23.34). Jesus did not revile his mockers or declare his innocence but interceded for the very people who were putting him to death.
God loved us with an intensity that moved him to pro-offer his own Son as an atonement sacrifice to bring us to himself; the Son willingly and manfully endured the death our redemption would require – a death of excruciating pain and unbearable trauma. An unspeakable, divine love; our redemption secured at an unthinkable, unfathomable cost. Because of the substitutionary death of Jesus, we stand forgiven at the cross.
Signing off -
The Scribbling Apprentice
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