The Sacrifice of Jesus: Understanding Atonement Biblically

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The death and resurrection of this one man is at the very heart of the Christian faith. For Christians it is through Jesus's death that people's broken relationship with God is restored. This is known as the Atonement. What is the atonement? But God commends his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” ( Romans 5:8). After his assassination in 27 BCE, Julius Caesar was soon proclaimed divine and accepted among the gods of the state, officially allowing for the initiation of his worship. Later in the first century CE, this type of Emperor Cult gradually developed in the whole Roman Empire as a unifying and politically stabilizing force. However, it gave rise to the custom of praying to the divinized Caesars. But now apart from the law the covenant faithfulness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This covenant faithfulness 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 made covenantly faithful freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as an expiatory/cleansing sacrifice, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his covenant faithfulness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his covenant faithfulness at the present time, so as to be covenantly faithful and the one who makes covenantly faithful those who have faith in Jesus.

a href="https://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Sacrifice+of+Jesus%3a+Understanding+Atonement+Biblically.-a0290417795 Romans 3:21-26 could be summarized in this way, substituting all the Greek cognates for righteousness [ dikaiosynē] for “moral perfection”:For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” –Mark 10:45 The prominent ideas in Old Testament sacrifice are sin, guilt, and judgment on the one hand and satisfaction, expiation, forgiveness, and reconciliation on the other. Sacrifice in Old Covenant Context

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed” ( Isaiah 53:5). He did not mean in the present instance to censure their joy in their success, but only to make it subordinate to another rejoicing, and to prevent its growing to excess.” What will Adam and Eve do at that moment when they feel their emptiness? What will happen when their brokenness cries out to them? What happens when your eyes are open to not only your brokenness but also the shame and guilt that come with sin?Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our LORD Jesus Christ” ( Romans 5:1). It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” ( Galatians 5:1). Although the victory approach became less popular in the eighteenth century amongst Enlightenment thinkers - when the idea of a personal Devil and forces of evil was thrown into question - the idea was popularised again by Gustaf Aulén with the publication in 1931 of Christus Victor. The "sacrifice" of Jesus is one of the most central doctrines in Christianity-- and one of the most controversial, especially in contemporary debate (and after the appearance of films such as The Passion of the Christ). The implications of a violent parent and the necessity of innocent suffering are profoundly troubling to many people. Are they nevertheless necessary elements of Christian theology? Have you ever stepped in and intentionally and willingly taken the punishment for something that someone else has done, knowing full well that you yourself are not guilty? If so, or even if not, this only begins to give us an understanding of what substitutionary atonement is.

For us, atonement is the difference between true life, and death; between peace, and misery; between guilt, and forgiveness. Atonement means everything. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace” ( Ephesians 1:7). Self- atonement does not work. We can never pay for ourselves because self-sufficiency and self-reliance is part of the problem. When Adam and Eve looked outside of God for provision that is when their trouble began. So also, we must look to God alone to make this sacrifice on our behalf. Only Christ could make the perfect sacrifice. On the one hand, then, we may speak of the Old Testament sacrifices as prospective, anticipating and symbolizing the saving work that Christ would actually accomplish in his death (Heb. 9:9; 10:1; cf. Col. 2:17). To say the same another way, the writer to the Hebrews specifies that the older sacrifices were in fact “copies” of the “true” sacrifice that Christ offered (Heb. 8:2, 5; 9:23-24; cf. 9:11-12). That is, Jesus’ sacrifice is the “original,” the reality – ultimately, his sacrifice was not patterned after the Old Testament sacrifices; rather, they were patterned after his coming sacrifice – the true sacrifice of which they were but a distant shadow. Hebrews on the Sacrifice of Christ

Christians believe that Jesus was far more than a political radical. For them the death of Jesus was part of a divine plan to save humanity.