Cross My Heart Meditations for Holy Week Monday: Atonement
Suppose we found ourselves standing in the central square of an ancient Roman city. Looking around, we might marvel at the people, the customs, and especially the remarkable buildings and monuments. We’d notice a Temple, the Marketplace, a Law Court, and rows of dwellings the throngs around us called home. Paul stood in such cities, and he used each of these places to describe the work of salvation that Jesus accomplished through his death on the cross. “Atonement” was centered on temples, “redemption” on the marketplace, “justification” on the courts, and “reconciliation” on the family and home. Let’s briefly consider each in turn this week as a way of preparing for Good Friday.
Reading - Romans 3:21-26 (NIV)
21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
Today we will look specifically at “Atonement,” which occurs in Romans 3:25.
In his very fine book "The Atonement,” author and pastor Jeremy Treat writes, “Herein lies the paradox of the gospel. The self-giving love of God transformed an instrument of death into an instrument of life. The cross is the great reversal, where exaltation comes through humiliation, glory is revealed in shame, victory is accomplished through surrender, and the triumph of the kingdom comes through the suffering of the servant.” Today, we’ll look at the vertical beam of the cross.
“Atonement” is an English word invented by Bible translator and martyr William Tyndale (1490-1536). He crafted the word to translate the Hebrew word “Kippur” and the Greek word “Hilasterion.” We pronounce this word with a long “O” sound, but Tyndale probably said it with a short “O” sound, like the word “one,” which is the root at the center of the new word. Pronouncing it that way just this once helps us understand what he was getting it. “At-One-Ment” describes something that has happened to join back together two estranged figures; the separated parties have been reunited and are one again. That’s the core idea.
But there’s much more to this because the reason for the separation in the first place was the behavior of one of those parties that caused the relationship to be severed, and something had to be done to re-establish the bond that was broken.
The concept is illustrated in the Old Testament story of Jacob’s reunion with his brother Esau in Genesis 32. Jacob knew that Esau was angry with him, and their necessary separation from one another had lasted decades. Now, returning home, he wonders if Esau might still want him dead for the offenses Esau believed Jacob had committed against him. Before meeting him, Jacob sends a gift ahead of himself, a treasure he calls a “Kippur,” a sacrificial offering to turn away Esau’s wrath so they can be reconciled. The Scriptures say Jacob said to himself, “I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterward I shall see his face. Perhaps he will accept me” (Gen 32:20). “Appease” is “Kippur,” the atonement Jacobb offered Esau for his offense. He hoped that it would take away Esau’s anger, paving the way for their reconciliation.
It’s the same word Moses uses to describe the sacrifice offered to God by the Priests on “The Day of Atonement” when Israel confessed their sins to God and presented the blood of this offering on the “Kippur” in the Holy of Holies (see Leviticus 16). The “Kippur” was also translated as “Mercy Seat,” the throne of God above the Ark of the Covenant. That’s where the High Priest placed the blood on the great and holy day.
Read Romans 3:25 again. Paul wrote that the blood of Jesus Christ shed for us on the cross is the “atonement,” the offering for sin that receives the wrath due to the offending party in the broken relationship. Jesus the Priest offers his own blood as the Lamb of God, the sacrifice of atonement for sin.
Yet it is precisely here that we notice a twist in the tale: Christ offers the atonement, but he’s not the offending party in the relationship - we are! Shouldn’t we then be the ones offering the atonement? Astonishingly, God intervenes and makes the atonement himself. We don’t offer this sacrifice; Christ offers his own blood as a substitute and sacrifice on our behalf. It was our offense, but Christ the sinless Savior made himself the atoning sacrifice so that God and sinners could be reunited.
God’s wrath against sin, his just and undying hatred of, resistance to, and punishment of sin in all of its forms, was satisfied in the sacrificial offering, the Kippur, of Jesus’ blood on the cross. Christ gave his life for our own to receive in himself the punishment for sin that we deserved and take away every impediment that stood between us and God.
In this sacrifice, we see God’s justice but also his love. At the cross, He justly punished sin (God always acts according to his nature, and he’d mercifully “passed over” all the previously committed sins - Romans 3:25). At the Cross, his love is revealed as well because God became the sacrifice his justice demanded. In the Cross, God looks with mercy and love on us - helpless sinners - and becomes the sacrifice of atonement to take away our sin, absorbing in himself all of the punishment that should’ve been ours. The blood of Christ has fully and completely satisfied the demands of God’s justice, and, as we will see, the perfect spotless righteousness of the Lamb of God has been counted to us. No wonder we can rejoice in the Lamb of God who has taken away our sins by his atoning sacrifice.
Let’s read (or sing!) the words of this great hymn by Stuart Townend and Keith Getty to help us meditate on and celebrate the atoning sacrifice of Christ on our behalf.
In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
Here in the love of Christ I stand.
In Christ alone! – who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe.
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied –
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.
There in the ground His body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain:
Then bursting forth in glorious day
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me,
For I am His and He is mine –
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.
No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand:
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.
Here’s a link to the song help you sing along if you wish to do so.