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Atonement

What was Our god doing on the cross?. It produces a search for understanding of one of the crucial events of human history, perhaps the crucial event. The complete New Testament focuses on the death, burial, and resurrection, events prior to and flowing from it, its theological significance and ethical implications. We'll focus on the deep significance from the atonement, as explained from three perspectives: the dynamic, subjective, and objective views.

Dynamic view The dynamic view sees Christ's death and resurrection because the climax of a cosmic conflict with Satan as well as the demonic forces of evil. Christ came since the Second Adam (Romans 5:18-19), winning the contest that Adam failed. He also came since the new Israel, faithfully keeping submitting to God rather than to Satan as the first Israel tried (Matthew 2:15; 4:4; etc.). Just after His baptism, the Spirit "drove" (Greek: ekballei) Him in to the wilderness so that He might confront Satan (Mark 1:12). His victory there was only one of what must have been many battles, for Luke records that Satan left Him until "an opportune time" (Luke 4:13).

During His ministry Jesus offered His power to cast out demons as a demonstration that He was stronger than Satan. Although He described Satan as a "strong man," He claimed the ability to "bind" the strong man and despoil his possessions (i.e., people who were demon-possessed). His ability to cast out demons "by the finger of God" He presented as proof the arrival of God's kingdom in the world (Luke 12:20-22). Jesus got His disciples involved in the warfare; their successful preaching, healing, and exorcism mission He afterward referred to as the fall of Satan from heaven (Luke 10:18).

Satan was behind the betrayal of Jesus by Judas (John 13:2, 27), his abandonment from the other apostles (Luke 22:31-32), along with his trial and murder (John 8:40-41, 44). Jesus recognized Satan as His principal enemy, as well as before His death, He was so confident of victory which he spoke of it as a fait accompli (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11, 32). As soon as before His death Christ Himself uttered the triumphant words, "It is finished" (John 19:30; compare Luke 12:50). The glorious resurrection is proof that His death would be a victory and not a defeat (Revelation 3:21).

In the confrontation with false teaching at Colossae, Paul is the cross and resurrection as a triumph over spiritual enemies. The Colossians were in danger of being deceived by a syncretistic blend of Judaistic legalism, Hellenistic philosophy, and Eastern mysticism. Apparently the heretical teachers were not advocating a rejection of Jesus, however they denied Him the primacy and only intermediary beings. "Go beyond Jesus to greater realities," they may have taught. Paul replies that there is nothing beyond Jesus Christ, in whom God's fullness dwells. He it really is Who "disarmed the powers and authorities, [making] a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross" (Colossians 2:15).

Not merely did Christ conquer Satan, demons, principalities, and powers. Younger crowd conquered death (Acts 2:24; Revelation 5:5-6). Paul uses militaristic terms to discuss the resurrection, e.g., "destroyed" and "victory" (1 Corinthians 15:24-26, 54-56).

Because Christ has triumphed as our representative, we be part of His triumph (hence the super-conquerors of Romans 8:37). In Ephesians 4:8 Paul applies Psalm 68:19 to Christ's triumph, picturing Christ as a conquering general returning to Rome for any victory parade: "When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men." The ensuing passage explains the gifts He gave are the offices for building up the church. The captives are bypassed, but Colossians 2:15 seems an appropriate commentary.

In 2 Corinthians 2:14, Paul states that "God... always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and thru us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him." In cases like this the apostles (see 1 Corinthians 4:9), and possibly all Christians, are probably the type of following along behind--themselves conquered, and yet joyously sharing in the victory celebration. Our struggle against Satan and demonic forces continues (Ephesians 6:12). As they is victorious, we also can be victorious (Revelation 3:21; 1 John 2:14-15; 4:4; 5:4-5).

Subjective view It is true that we are the subjects of His daring rescue (Colossians 1:13-14), but we also participate. This is the subjective nature with the atonement: it transforms us. When we are united with Christ through faith-repentance-baptism, God's Spirit begins the process of transforming us from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18).

The Spirit, Himself the guarantee that this beginning will reach its intended end (Ephesians 1:13-14), starts to produce His fruit inside our hearts (Galatians 5:22-23) as we cooperate by "walking inside the Spirit" and being "led by the Spirit" (Romans 8:4, 14; Galatians 5:16). The metamorphosis isn't automatic; it takes constant mental concentration as we count ourselves dead to sin and alive to God (Romans 6:11). It also requires continual moral striving, once we refuse to let sin dominate us, yielding the members of our bodies to righteousness instead of to sin (Romans 6:12-13).

This is a battle we fight, yet Paul assures us, "[S]in could have no dominion over you" (Romans 6:14). The struggle leads to holiness and the end is eternal life (Romans 6:22). When Christ returns, on the eschaton, the Spirit will have performed His work in us: "[W]e shall be like Him, for we shall see Him while he is" (1 John 3:2).

Though this really is work that changes us from inside and in which we ourselves participate, the credit still belongs to God, because it is His work being done in us and through us. He is the one that provides it to completion on that day (Philippians 1:6). Meanwhile, we image Christ these days. He was our representative in the cosmic conflict; we are His representatives inside the existential struggle against the world, the flesh, and also the Devil.

Objective view Yet Christ's death is a lot more than what he did for (hyper) us (see Mark 14:24; Luke 22:19-20) and what he is doing in (en) us (see Colossians 1:27). It also involves what He did rather than (anti) us (see Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45)---the objective look at the atonement. In fact, many think that the substitutionary nature of the atonement is an essential aspect of all.

Several types of the substitutionary atonement result from Genesis. The word used in 1 John 3:12 to explain Cain's murder of his brother will be the word for "slaughter" (Greek: esphaxen), as with the offering of a sacrifice. This has led some to view our planet's first murder, recorded in Genesis 4:8, as the offering of a substitute sacrifice. In effect, Cain may have said, "So, You didn't like my vegetables as a possible offering? Let's see how You such as this! (slash)." The murder certainly involved the shedding of his brother's blood, for it cried out from the ground against the perpetrator (Genesis 4:10).

If the angel stops Abraham from stabbing Isaac to death, Abraham finds a ram caught inside a nearby thicket that he can offer instead of (Septuagint: anti) his son (Genesis 22:12-13). The passage assumes that some sacrifice has to be offered, and the one is replaced from the other.

abductions - More than a hundred years later, when Joseph's testing of his brothers developed a crisis situation involving the enforced servitude of Benjamin, Judah stepped forward and freely offered himself instead for his brother (Genesis 44:18-34, especially not the Septuagint's utilization of anti in v. 33). In cases like this also, some substitute must be provided. There was no chance of mere escape from the demands from the master.

Yet all three of these are one-for-one substitutions, similar to the "eye-for-eye" provisions of the Law. Christ's sacrifice (one for a lot of) is more like the sin offering in behalf of all people or the sacrifice of the goat on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 4:13-21; 16:15-19). He's the "atoning sacrifice for our sins, and never only for ours, but also for the sins from the whole world" (1 John 2:2). He's the "Lamb of God, Who removes the sins of the world" (John 1:29).

One for the world? How can that be just? Its justice depends upon the identity of the Sacrifice. A single human deserves infinite punishment as a result of sins. Adding the punishment of another human adds no more than was there already (for infinity plus infinity equals infinity). The same holds true for "the sins of the [whole] world." The slaughter of the Infinite One for these sins beings one infinity into contact with the other--just payment.

Our sins brought us under the curse of the law, but Christ became a curse for us by hanging about the tree (Galatians 3:10-14). Because of Christ's death, God surely could effect what Luther called a "happy exchange": i was the subjects of God's just condemnation, the objects of His righteous wrath, however the sinless Christ became "sin" for us, so that we might become God's righteousness by Him (2 Corinthians 5:21). God established Him since the propitiation, the appeasement, so that the all-consuming fire of His wrath could be diverted to Him as opposed to destroying the rest of us humans (Romans 3:25). As Isaiah said, "The LORD has laid on him the iniquity people all" (Isaiah 53:6).

Must we choose? resurrection - Dynamic, subjective, and objective--must we select from them? No! By its very nature the atonement is greater than any one metaphor or perspective can contain. We have to always be answering, "Yes, and much more besides." Like astronomers surveying the universe, the harder we study it, the greater vast it becomes. Our lack of ability to fully comprehend its dimensions does not nullify what we can understand, nor does it rob us of the amazement we sense at what we know was accomplished.