More on the Atonement

The Hebrew word for atonement means "covering." Leviticus 16 describes the Day of Atonement. According to God's instructions, Aaron was to sacrifice a goat after cleansing himself and to do so in a specific manner. A second goat, the scapegoat, was also part of the ceremony. Aaron was to place both hands on the goats head, confess all of Israel's sins, and then send the goat into the wilderness. The purpose of this was "to deal" with the sins of Israel and the estrangement from God that they have created.

In the New Testament John the Baptist refers to Jesus as "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." This is one way of understanding atonement which is further explained in Hebrews 9: expiation. Expiation means cleansing through a sacred rite. We need to be cleansed, and in this understanding we are cleansed through the blood of Christ.

Another term that is used to understand the atonement is propitiation. Propitiation has to do with appeasing the wrath of God. The idea is that God hates sin and it instigates God's wrath. However, by Jesus dying on the cross, his blood saves us from God's wrath (Romans 5:9).

Another way of understanding the atonement is that it is substitutionary: Christ's life was given for our life. I Peter 2:24 says, "He himself [Jesus] bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live fro righteousness." He died in our place. You can combine understanding with either expiation or propitiation.

The ransom theory says is a close cousin of the substitutionary theory. According to this theory, which some scholars believe is the oldest of all of them, Satan has a claim on humanity because of the fall. Jesus' death on the cross and his shed blood is understood as the ransom that was paid to Satan to liberate humans from their bondage.

The Christus victor theory understands the atonement as fundamentally about Christ's conquest of evil. Colossians 2:15 says, "He [Jesus] disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it [the cross]."

I don't think that any one theory can capture adequately all that happened on the cross. As I said in a previous blog, the concept contains an excess of meaning. What happened on the cross was huge and has implications for the whole world. It demonstrates the depth and breadth of God's love for humans.

Someone commented on my previous blog about the atonement asking if the Jews hadn't gotten it all wrong and that Jesus showed them the "right" way. That was a common interpretation until mid- 20th century. I don't believe that is accurate, however. As a Christian I would say that God has brought his grand rescue operation to its climax in Jesus. As New Testament scholar N.T. Wright notes in his book, Simply Christian,

Christianity is all about the belief that the living God, in fulfillment of his promises and as the climax of the story of Israel, has accomplished all this--the finding, the saving, the giving of new life--in Jesus. He has done it. With Jesus, God's rescue operation has been put into effect once and for all. A great door has swung open in the cosmos which can never again be shut (p. 92).

Israel is God's covenant people and God's intent was to bless the world through them (Genesis 12:1-3). As followers of Jesus, Christians believe that God has blessed the world through Israel and must fully in Jesus. The heart of Israel's faith--Torah and temple--are embodied in Jesus. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, I didn't come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. The sacrificial system that happened in the temple is embodied in Jesus death on the cross.