The Biblical narrative opens with God creating. God’s creation is beautiful and peaceful. A few pages into the story, wickedness in the form of violence is all over the place.
When we pollute the environment, we introduce death into God’s pristine creation. We destroy habitats; animals and plants die. We pollute the water and air; people get sick and die. We plunder the earth for fossil fuels, the planet warms, and catastrophic events wipe out towns.
When we dehumanize, hurt, or kill other human beings (all of whom are created in God’s image) we introduce death into God’s good world. One person dehumanizing others is hurtful. A person with great power dehumanizing others results in policies that rip apart families, devastate healthcare systems, and perpetuate poverty. When a large group of people dehumanizes another group of people, wars kill multitudes.
Sin injects death into the cosmos.
God loves all of creation, including every human being. God does not want us hurting and killing each other.
The grand narrative of scripture is all about humans injecting death and God rescuing us from the consequences of our collective sin.
God’s great rescue project is called atonement.
An elderly Apostle John wrote a sermon in which he said:
1 John 1:5This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; 7 but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. 2:1My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, 2 and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
When the Bible speaks of the blood of Christ, it is referring to his death on the cross. In the passage above, John speaks of Jesus’ death on the cross as accomplishing three things.
- 1:7 the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin
- 1:9 If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins
- 2:1b we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, 2 and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
Jesus’ crucifixion:
- Cleanses us
- Imparts forgiveness
- Atones for our sins
We know what it means to be cleansed. To be cleansed is to be purified, made clean, sanitized. Jesus’ death cleanses us, makes us pure, scrubs away the sin so thoroughly that it is as if the sin had never occurred.
We know what if means to be forgiven. If you forgive me, you’ve released me, you’re not holding anything against me, you’ve let go of any resentment or desire for revenge. God is not holding anything against us, has no resentment towards us, and no desire for revenge.
But what does “atonement” mean? It’s not a word we use much in modern English, yet it is vital in the Bible. Atonement is the heart of the gospel.
The English word “atonement” means “at-one-ment” – a means or way to bring two people together, repair a relationship, bring about reconciliation. So far, so good, but the Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek (and a little bit of Aramaic), not in English.
John, like Jesus and all the other original followers of Messiah, was Jewish. As a Jew, he was steeped in the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament). So, when he wrote about atonement, he had the Hebrew word kippur in mind. Kippur means to cover, purify, restore, repair, renew, take away the consequences of wrong, absorb the cost, cover the debt, and restore a damaged relationship.
John translated the Hebrew kippur into Greek as hilasmos (ἱλασμός). Hilasmos refers to an atoning sacrifice.
All the pagan religions understood atoning sacrifice. Their mythologies differed, but they all believed that the gods created humans to be their slaves, to do their dirty work. Humans were to house and feed the gods so the gods could enjoy their hedonistic leisure. In exchange, the gods gave the humans good harvests and helped them slaughter their enemies.
To keep the fields producing and enemies at bay, humans built temples for the gods to live in, ziggurats so the gods had steps to come down on, and sacrificed animals to feed the gods.
If a nation or tribe lost a battle or experienced a drought, they assumed the gods were mad at them, so they sought to appease them by sacrificing more animals or even other people. Pagan people believed that they had made the gods so furious that they might kill them. The only way to calm the gods down was to give them their pound of flesh. Here, kill my child rather than me.
Sadly, that scenario has been folded over into Christianity. We were taught that God is furious with us because we violated his commandments. In fact, God is so angry, he wants to kill us. Instead, God kills Jesus, takes his wrath out on him to appease his anger. Satisfied, God lets us off the hook. However, if we don’t believe that, God will torture us forever.
It was explained to me this way: I’m on trial. The Holy Spirit is my defense attorney. God the Father is the judge. Satan is the prosecuting attorney. I am found guilty and sentenced to death, but Jesus jumps up and says, “kill me instead.” So God kills his son, gets his pound of flesh, calms down, and sets me free.
That view of God is diametrically opposed to what the Bible reveals about the nature of God. That view comes directly out of paganism. It makes God a monster.
Everything Jesus says and does in the New Testament refutes that view. God is exactly like Jesus. There is nothing unchristlike in God. God is all-forgiving and unconditionally loving.
The whole purpose of those sin-sacrifices in Leviticus was to teach us that God loves us, is not mad at us, and has no desire to kill us. The process of offering those sacrifices reminded the people that sin is serious, it introduces death into God’s good world. When that innocent animal bled out, it graphically illustrated the point. My sin has real world consequences. My choices matter. Bad choices lead to more death, decay, and destruction.
God became human, incarnate, and went to the cross where he absorbed in himself all the consequences of sin, not only for us, but for the whole world. Jesus Christ the righteous … is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
As I gaze meditatively into the passion of Christ, as I look at Jesus on the cross, I see nothing but divine love. I see a God who is so loving that he never gives up on me. All my sin, all your sin, was focused like a laser-beam into Jesus. He absorbed all the sin, all the iniquity, all the transgressions, and all the death and destruction that sin causes, into himself. By so doing, he conquered death by dying.
His resurrection is absolute proof of that.
The Word in Focus with Dr Larry Taylor 
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