The English word “atonement” comes from an
Anglo-Saxon word, “onement,” with the preposition “at”;
thus “at-onement,” or “at unity.” In some
ways this word has more in common with the idea of reconciliation
than our modern concept of atonement, which, while having “oneness”
as its result, emphasizes rather the idea of how that unity is
achieved, by someone “atone-ing” for a wrong or wrongs
done. Atonement, in Christian theology, concerns how Christ achieved
this “onement” between God and sinful humanity.
The
need for atonement comes from the separation that has come about
between God and humanity because of sin. In both Testaments there is
the understanding that God has distanced himself from his creatures
on account of their rebellion. Isaiah tells the people of Judah,
“Your iniquities have separated you from your God”
(59:2). And Paul talks about how we were “God’s enemies”
(Rom. 5:10). So atonement is the means provided by God to effect
reconciliation. The atonement is required on account of God’s
holiness and justice.
Old
Testament
In
the OT, the sacrificial system was the means by which sins were
atoned for, ritual purity was restored, iniquities were forgiven, and
an amicable relationship between God and the offerer of the sacrifice
was reestablished. Moses tells the Israelites that God has given them
the blood of the sacrificial animals “to make atonement for
yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for
one’s life” (Lev. 17:11). In essence, this is the basic
operating principle for atonement in the OT—the offering of the
blood of a slaughtered animal in place of the life of the offerer.
However, there have been significant scholarly debates regarding
whether this accurately portrays the ancient Israelite understanding
of atonement.
The
meaning of “to atone.”
First, there is disagreement over the precise meaning of the Hebrew
word kapar (“to atone”). Among the more popular
suggestions are these: to cover, to remove, to wipe out, to appease,
to make amends, to redeem or ransom, to forgive, and to avert/divert.
Of late, one very influential theory is that atonement has little or
nothing to do with the individual offerer, but serves only to purify
the tabernacle or temple and the furniture within from the impurities
that attach to them on account of the community’s sin. This
theory, though most probably correct in what it affirms,
unnecessarily restricts the effects of atonement to the tabernacle
and furniture. There are, to be sure, texts that specifically mention
atonement being made for the altar (e.g., Exod. 29:36–37; Lev.
8:15). But the repeated affirmation for most of the texts in
Leviticus and Numbers is that the atonement is made for the offerer
(e.g., Lev. 1:4; 4:20, 26); atonement results in forgiveness of sin
for the one bringing the offering. As far as the precise meaning of
kapar is concerned, it may be that some of the suggested meanings
overlap and that a particular concept is more prevalent in some
passages, and another one in others.
There
has also been debate over the significance of the offerer laying a
hand on the head of the sacrificial animal (e.g., Lev. 1:4; 3:2).
This has traditionally been understood as an identification of the
offerer with the sacrifice and a transference of the offerer’s
sins to the sacrifice. Recently this has been disputed and the
argument made instead that it only signifies that the animal does
indeed belong to the offerer, who therefore has the right to offer
it. But again, this is unduly restrictive; it should rather be seen
as complementary to what has traditionally been understood by this
gesture. Indeed, in the rite for the Day of Atonement, when the
priest lays his hands on the one goat, confesses Israel’s sin
and wickedness, and in doing so is said to be putting them on the
goat’s head (Lev. 16:21), this would seem to affirm the
correctness of the traditional understanding. The sacrifice is thus
best seen as substitutionary: it takes the place of the offerer; it
dies in his stead.
The
relationship between God and the offerer. Second,
granted that the word kapar has to do with the forgiveness of sins,
the question arises as to the exact effect that it has on the
relationship between God and the offerer. The question here is
whether the effect is expiation or propitiation. Does the offering
expiate the sin—wipe it out, erase it, remove it? Or does it
propitiate the one to whom the sacrifice is offered? That is, does it
appease and placate God, so that the threat of God’s wrath is
removed? In one respect, the distinction seems artificial; it seems
logical that expiation naturally results in propitiation. On the
other hand, the modern-day tendency to deny that God could possibly
be a God of wrath makes the question relevant. In any case, there are
certainly, in both religious and nonreligious contexts, passages
where something like “appease” or “pacify”
appears to be a proper rendering of kapar (Gen. 32:20; Exod. 32:30;
Num. 16:46–47; 25:1–13; 1 Sam. 3:14). The effect of
atonement is that sins are removed and forgiven, and God is appeased.
In
conjunction with this last point, it is also important to note that
there are a number of places where it is said that God does the
kapar, that God is the one who makes atonement. Deuteronomy 21:8
calls upon God, literally, to “atone [NIV: “accept this
atonement”] for your people, Israel.” In Deut. 32:43 God
will “make atonement for his land and people.” Psalm 65:3
(ESV) states that God “atone[s] for our transgressions”
(ESV). Hezekiah prays in 2 Chron. 30:18, “May the Lord,
who is good, pardon [atone for] everyone.” In Ps. 78:38 (ESV),
God is said to have “atoned” for Israel’s iniquity.
Psalm 79:9 (ESV) asks God to “atone for our sins for your
name’s sake.” In Isa. 43:3 kapar is translated as
“ransom,” and God says to Israel that he gave “Egypt
for your ransom.” In Ezek. 16:63 God declares that he will
“make atonement” for all the sins that Israel has
committed. It may be that in most of these passages “atone”
is to be understood as a synonym of “forgive.” However,
as many commentators have noted, in at least some of these passages,
the thought is that God is either being called upon to take or is
taking upon himself the role of high priest, atoning for the sins of
the people. It is important to remember God’s declaration in
Lev. 17:11 that he has given to the Israelites the blood of the
sacrificial animals to make atonement for their sins. Atonement, no
matter how it is conceived of or carried out, is a gift that God
graciously grants to his covenant people.
That
leads to a consideration of one particularly relevant passage, Isa.
52:13–53:12. In this text a figure referred to as “my
[the Lord’s] servant” (52:13) is described as one who
“took up our pain and bore our suffering” (53:4). He was
“pierced for our transgressions” and “crushed for
our iniquities” (53:5). “The Lord has laid on him the
iniquity of us all” (53:6). And then we are told, “Yet it
was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,”
and that “the Lord makes his life an offering for sin [NASB:
“guilt offering”]” (53:10). There are many issues
with regard to the proper interpretation of this “Servant Song”
(as it is often called), one of them being whether the term
translated “guilt offering” should really be thought of
along the lines of the guilt offering described in the book of
Leviticus (5:14–6:7; 7:1–10). But if the traditional
Christian understanding of this passage is correct, we have here a
picture of God himself assuming the role of priest and atoning for
the sins of his people by placing their iniquities and sins on his
servant, a figure regarded by Jesus and the apostles in the NT to be
God’s very own son, Christ Jesus.
New
Testament
The
relationship between the Testaments.
When we come to the NT, four very important initial points should be
made.
First,
God’s wrath against sin and sinners is just as much a NT
consideration as an OT one. God still considers those who are sinful
and unrighteous to be his “enemies” (Rom. 5:10; Col.
1:21). Wrath and punishment await those who do not confess Jesus
Christ as Lord (John 3:36; Rom. 2:5; Eph. 2:3). Atonement is the
means of averting this wrath.
Second,
salvation is promised to those who come to God by faith in Christ
Jesus, but there is still the problem of how God can, at the same
time, be “just” himself and yet also be the one who
“justifies” sinners and declares them righteous (Rom.
3:26). God will not simply declare sinners to be justified unless his
own justness is also upheld. Atonement is the way by which God is
both just and justifier.
Third,
as we saw in the OT that, ultimately, God is the one who atones, so
also in the NT God is the one who provides the means for atonement.
It is by his gracious initiative that atonement becomes possible. If
Jesus’ death is the means by which atonement is achieved, it is
God himself who “presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement”
(Rom. 3:25). It was God himself who “so loved the world that he
gave his one and only Son” (John 3:16). God himself “sent
his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John
4:10). God “did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us
all” (Rom. 8:32). Additionally, Christ himself was not an
unwilling victim; he was actively involved in the accomplishing of
atonement by his death (Luke 9:31; John 10:15–18; Heb. 9:14).
Fourth,
the atoning sacrifice of the Son was necessary because, ultimately,
the OT sacrifices could not really have provided the necessary
atonement: “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats
to take away sins” (Heb. 10:4).
Portrayals
of Christ’s work of atonement.
It has become common of late to refer to the different “images”
or “metaphors” of atonement that appear in the NT. This
is understandable on one level, but on another level there is
something misleading about it. So, for example, when the NT authors
speak of Christ as a sacrifice for sin, it is not at all clear that
they intend for the reader to take this as imagery. Rather, Christ
really is a sacrifice, offered by God the Father, to take away sins,
and to bear in his own body the penalty that should have been placed
on the sinner. Christ’s sacrifice has an organic connection to
the OT sacrificial system, as the “full, final sacrifice.”
The author of Hebrews would not have considered this to be imagery.
In fact, a better case could be made that, from his perspective,
Christ was the real sacrifice, and all the instances of sacrifice in
the OT were the imagery (Heb. 10:1). So as we look at the different
portrayals of Christ in his work of atonement in the NT, some of
these may best be categorized as imagery or metaphor, while others
perhaps are better described as a “facet” of, or a
“window” on, the atonement. It should also be noted that
the individual portrayals do not exclude the others, and in some
cases they overlap.
• Ransom.
Some passages in the NT speak of Christ’s death as a ransom
paid to set us free (Matt. 20:28; Mark 10:45; 1 Tim. 2:6; Heb.
9:15). The same Greek word translated “ransom” in these
passages is rendered as “redeem” or “redemption”
in other passages (Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14). Other forms of the same word
are also translated “redeem” or “redemption”
in Gal. 3:13–14; 4:5; Titus 2:14; Heb. 9:12; 1 Pet.
1:18–19; Rev. 14:3. A near synonym of these words is used in
Rev. 5:9; 14:4, referring to how Christ “purchased”
people by his blood. In most of these cases the picture is that of
slaves who have been ransomed, redeemed, or purchased from the slave
market. Sometimes this is referred to as an “economic”
view of atonement, though this label seems a bit crass, for the
purchase is not of a commodity but of human lives at the expense of
Christ’s own life and blood. To ask the question as to whom the
ransom was paid is probably taking the picture too far. But those who
are ransomed are redeemed from a life of slavery to sin and to the
law.
• Curse
bearer. In Gal. 3:13–14, noted above, there is also the picture
of Christ as one who bore the curse of the law in our place. The
language is especially striking because rather than saying that
Christ bore the curse, Paul says that Christ became “a curse.”
This is an especially forceful way of saying that Christ fully took
into his own person the curse that was meant for us.
• Penalty
bearer. Closely related to “curse bearer,” this portrayal
depicts Christ as one who has borne the legal consequences of our
sins, consequences that we should have suffered; rather, because
Christ has borne the penalty, we are now declared to be righteous and
no longer subject to condemnation. This idea stands behind much of
the argumentation that Paul uses in Romans and Galatians, and it also
intersects with the other portrayals. Passages representative of this
picture are Rom. 3:24–26; 4:25; 5:8–21; 8:32–34;
Gal. 3:13–14; Eph. 2:15. It is also what should be understood
by Peter’s description of Christ’s death as “the
just for the unjust” in 1 Pet. 3:18 (NASB, NET), as well
as in 2 Cor. 5:21, where Paul states that Christ has become “sin
for us” so that we might become the “righteousness of
God.”
• Propitiation.
There are four passages where the NIV uses “atonement” or
“atoning” in the translation to reflect either the Greek
verb hilaskomai or related nouns hilastērion or hilasmos. This
is the word group that the LXX regularly uses to translate the Hebrew
verb kapar and related nouns. There has been much debate about the
precise meaning of the word in these four NT texts, in particular, as
to whether it means to “expiate” (“remove guilt”)
or to “propitiate” (“appease” or “avert
wrath”). The better arguments have been advanced in favor of
“propitiate”; at the very least, propitiation is implied
in expiation. The wrath that we should have suffered on account of
our sins has been suffered by Jesus Christ instead. Although the
specific word is not used, this is the understanding as well in those
passages where it is said either that Christ died “for our
sins” (1 Cor. 15:3), “gave himself for our sins”
(Gal. 1:4), “bore our sins” (1 Pet. 2:24), or that
his blood was poured out “for the forgiveness of sins”
(Matt. 26:28; cf. Eph. 1:7).
• Passover.
In 1 Cor. 5:7 Paul states that “Christ, our Passover lamb,
has been sacrificed.” Although the Passover has not
traditionally been thought of as a sacrifice for sin (though many
scholars would argue that it was), at the very least we should
recognize a substitutionary concept at play in Paul’s use of
the Passover idea. A lamb died so that the firstborn would not. The
Gospel of John seems to have the same understanding. Early in the
Gospel, Jesus is proclaimed as the “Lamb of God, who takes away
the sin of the world” (John 1:29). And then in his account of
Jesus’ passion, John narrates that his crucifixion was
precisely at the same time as the slaying of the Passover lambs (John
19:14).
• Sacrifice.
This theme has already been touched on in the other portraits above,
but it is important to recognize the significance of this concept in
the NT and especially in the book of Hebrews. There, Christ is
portrayed as both sacrifice and the high priest who offers the
sacrifice (2:17; 7:27; 9:11–28; 10:10–21; 12:24). He
came, not as some have argued, to show the uselessness of the
sacrificial system, but rather to be the “full, final
sacrifice” within that system, “that he might make
atonement for the sins of the people” (2:17).
Of
course, it is not just the death of Christ that secures our
redemption. His entire earthly life, as well as his resurrection and
heavenly intercessory work, must also be recognized. But with regard
to the work of atonement per se, Christ’s earthly life,
his sinless “active obedience,” is what qualifies him to
be the perfect sacrifice. His resurrection is the demonstration of
God’s acceptance of Christ’s sacrifice (he “was
raised to life for our justification” [Rom. 4:25]). But it was
particularly his death that provided atonement for our sins.
