Atonement

Blood that atones

The English word was made from ‘at one’: atonement is what makes estranged parties one again. In the Old Testament the key verb is kipher (כִּפֶּר), ‘to atone’. It is often linked with the idea of covering, though scholars debate its origin. The law says that God himself gave the blood of sacrifice as the way of atonement:

For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for your souls upon the altar; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.

Leviticus 17:11

Each year on the Day of Atonement the high priest entered the Most Holy Place with blood, and God promised, "on this day atonement will be made for you to cleanse you" (Leviticus 16:30). But the blood of animals was a shadow. Christ "entered the Most Holy Place once for all by His own blood, thus securing eternal redemption" (Hebrews 9:12).

Christ died for us

The New Testament explains his death with more than one picture. Jesus came "to give His life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45), the language of redemption. Paul calls him the sacrifice of propitiation (Romans 3:25); he says that while we were enemies we were brought into reconciliation with God through his death (Romans 5:10), and that on the cross Christ disarmed the powers, "triumphing over them by the cross" (Colossians 2:15). Peter puts the heart of it simply:

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.

1 Peter 3:18

All of it begins in God's love: "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). Matthew Henry writes that "Nothing could be clean to a sinner, not even his religious duties; except as his guilt was done away by the death of a sacrifice, of value sufficient for that end" Matthew Henry.

The Nicene Creed confesses that Christ was crucified ‘for us’, but the church never fixed one official theory of how the cross saves. Irenaeus and many Fathers stressed Christ's victory over sin, death and the devil Irenaeus, Against Heresies; Anselm in the eleventh century, the satisfaction rendered to God's honour Anselm, Cur Deus Homo; the Reformers, penal substitution, Christ bearing the penalty due to us; Abelard in the twelfth, the love that turns our hearts Abelard, Commentary on Romans. In the twentieth century Gustaf Aulén called the victory picture the ‘classic’ view of the Fathers Aulén, Christus Victor.

Where the traditions differ

They weigh the pictures differently. Orthodox theology puts first Christ's victory over death and the healing of human nature. Catholic theology since Thomas Aquinas has explained the passion as merit, satisfaction, sacrifice and redemption together Aquinas, Summa Theologiae. Many evangelicals hold penal substitution to be the centre on which the other pictures rest, and many Christians in every tradition read the pictures together.

They also differ over the extent of the atonement. The Reformed Canons of Dort teach that Christ's death is more than sufficient for the whole world, yet was appointed to redeem effectually those the Father gave him Canons of Dort, head 2. Wesleyans and Lutherans, with the Catholic and Orthodox churches, teach that Christ died for every person, citing "not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:2). Both views confess that his death is sufficient for all, that the gospel is to be offered to all, and that those who believe are saved. See also the lesson The cross and atonement and Why did Jesus have to die?