The Atonement.

Watchman, What of the Night- 

1981 May-- XIV 5(81) -- LET'S TALK ABOUT THE ATONEMENT - I -- The word - atonement - is an English word coming from "atone," a word in Middle English meaning - at one. So we can say that atonement means simply to be at one again with a person from whom we have become estranged. When applied to theology, it indicates the reconciliation between God and man, and man and God. There is only one thing that has separated between God and man, and man and God, and that is sin.

In the case of man's alienation from God, the Scripture states it very simply - "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." (Rom. 3:23) Paul summarizes the condition of man by quoting from the Old Testament -    

As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." (Rom. 3:10-12)

With God, the alienation was forced upon Him by man's actions, not by any action initiated by Him. Isaiah declared - "Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear." (Isa. 59:2)

 God is holy and righteous. The Psalmist sang that "righteousness and judgment are the basis of His throne." (Ps. 97:2 Heb.)

Sin - rebellion - on the other hand had challenged the very foundations of the government of God. Justice demanded that the traitors be executed. There is, however, another aspect to the character of God. His holiness and His righteousness emanate from a heart of love. Love devised an atonement that would meet the demands of justice, and thus secure the Throne, and would provide a means for the healing and restoration of the traitor.

Before we can understand the atonement devised by God, we must understand the sickness of man. All sin represents degrees of insanity. We continue in our rebellion because "the whole head is sick." (Isa. 1:5) Sin originated with a created being whose mind became deranged. The prophet stated of Lucifer under the symbolism of the king of Tyrus - "Thou has corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness." (Eze. 28:17) How could a created being ever think that he could destroy an immortal God, and take His place? But once in the pathway of insanity, this arch-traitor led our first parents into sin by a derangement of their thought patterns, a subversion of the higher nature to the lower. The atonement must bring healing to the mind, and restoration of the glorious character lost through this deceptive derangement.

There is, however, that judicial aspect of judgment with which God had also to

p 2 -- deal so that He could be at-one-ment with sinful man, and thus effect the healing of man. "The wages of sin is death." (Rom. 6:23) But who would be willing to die as a substitute, and who could die in such a capacity so that the demands of justice might be met? There was only One, and that was the Son of God. To Abraham who was bringing his "only son" as an offering to God, the Spirit encouraged his heart so that he could say to Isaac - "My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering." (Gen. 22:8) And He did! "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." (John 3:16) "The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all . . . His soul [was made] an offering for sin." (Isa. 53:6, 10) Thus the first great question of the Atonement found an answer - How can God be just, and yet justify the sinner? (See Rom. 1:16-17; 3:24-26) We can, therefore, from the viewpoint of God - and only from that viewpoint - speak of the Cross as an atonement. The Cross is an atonement only in this phase of the relationship - God becoming at one with man. In the cross man is provided by God what could be called a "second chance," but which is in reality an opportunity to escape his corporate involvement in the first choice made for him by the father of the race, for "by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation." (Rom. 5:18)

The significance of this atonement with man on the part of God is illustrated in covenant-history. Israel was assembled before Mount Sinai. They had heard the voice of God proclaim His law amid thunderings and lightenings. They listened carefully as Moses read "the book of the covenant" which he had prepared under the direction of God. To what they heard, Israel responded - "All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient." (Ex. 24:7) In this book of the covenant had been written as its preamble the requirement of God for singleness of worship on the part of Israel. It read - "Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven. Ye shall not make with Me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold." (Ex. 20:22-23) Within forty days following the ratification of this blood covenant, and the solemn commitment of Israel, they gave their adoration to the "golden calf" of Egyptian devil worship. They repeated the sin of Adam and Eve in giving their loyalty and allegiance to the enemy of God.

The reaction of God to this apostasy was swift. Moses was immediately informed by God as to what was happening in the camp below, and was told that He no longer considered them His people. (Ex. 32:7) Moses after returning to the encampment of Israel from his dialogue with God in the Mount, removed the "tabernacle" of meeting without the camp. (Ex. 33:7) Then he told the people - "Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the Lord, peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin." (Ex. 32:30) The result of this interceding of Moses, and the exchange that took place between him and God is given in God's final answer to Moses' pleadings - "The Lord said to Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel." (Ex. 34:27) Israel's commitment was not secured to this covenant. It was a covenant by which Moses stood as surety for Israel's compliance, and through which God could once more become atonement with Israel. It was a "type" covenant of the "atonement" achieved by Christ for man to effect God's reconciliation with man. God became at one again with humanity in Christ Jesus. Even, as God talked with Moses face to face (Deut. 34:10) so Christ in His glorified humanity is in the very presence of God to speak for man. (Heb. 4:14-15)

The fact should not be overlooked that at the time when Israel was forfeiting

p 3 -- their rights as God's people in the worship of the golden calf, and demonstrating the inability of man to keep any covenant to which mentally he would agree, God was giving to Moses "the plan" by which man can become at-one with God. The sanctuary and its services, which were to operate as "types" under a type-covenant, were being revealed to Moses. (See Ex. 24:18-32:1)

This second aspect of the atonement - man becoming one with God begins at the same point - the Cross. Here his healing begins for in the Cross he comes to see the real significance of where his mental derangement will lead. If God had only the judicial aspect of the atonement in mind to effect the redemption of man - justification - Gethsemane would have sufficed. There the cup was accepted, and there the blood first touched the ground. (Luke 22:44) Thus Gethsemane could have become the antitypical Altar. Why then the Cross? The Cross brings to our poor deranged and dull senses that sin is the will to kill God. Jesus had told the Jews that the lusts of their father the devil they would do. Being a murderer from the beginning - desiring to kill the Immortal Potentate, Satan would have them do that very thing to God's Son in whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwelt. (John 8:44) When we truly perceive what sin really is, our thinking is rearranged, and we see in Him whom we have pierced, our Sacrifice and Substitute.

However, with the healing of our thought processes, we are still short of the glory of God. We are still just as unable to meet the judicial requirements of God as stated in His law, as we were before we found our place at the foot of the Cross. But He who became our Sacrifice and Substitute speaks to us, and says I will be your Mediator - your Priest. I will accomplish your atonement with your God. And so "of Him are [we] in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." (I Cor. 1:30) "Wisdom" - for by the Cross we see the real meaning of sin; "righteousness" for by His righteousness God is able to declare "the remission of sins that are past." (Rom. 3:25); "sanctification" for by His sanctification the truth is to be inwrought in our lives (John 17:19); and "redemption" for by that redemption our vile bodies shall be changed into the likeness of His "glorious body" (Phil 3:21); - yea all this is for us by Jesus Christ that "in all things He might have the preeminence." (Col. 1:18) But in this divine process whereby we become atone with God and see His face again (Rev. 22:4), there are specific acts to be performed on both the part of the priest and the individual. These conditions were outlined in the types of the earthly sanctuary which foreshadowed the work and ministry of our great High Priest as He makes atonement for us in the sanctuary of the heavens.

In the Court -- The principle article of furniture as far as the individual was concerned was the Brazen Altar. On this Altar was offered the sin offering. While the disposition of the blood varied with the status of the sinner, the process by which it was presented, and the ultimate result reflecting back on the sinner was the same. The one presenting the animal of the sin offering must bring it "to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord." (Lev. 4:4) Then he would "lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering and slay the sin offering" before the Lord. (Lev. 4:29) With this ritual the participation of the sinner ceased. But in his participation, he had performed two very meaningful acts.

p 4 -- First, he had presented a substitute to meet the demands of justice, and secondly, he himself slew the substitute.

At the point when the victim was killed, the priest took over. He either ministered the blood directly before "the veil of the sanctuary" (Lev. 4:6), or he partook of the flesh of the sin offering. (Lev. 10:17) Through the priestly act, atonement was made, and forgiveness was extended to the sinner. (Lev. 4:20) Again this ritual tells us something. The atonement of man with God was not made until after the sacrificial substitute was offered. The result of the atonement was forgiveness - judicial in its results, because the sinner had just as much a potential to sin after the sin offering was presented as he had before its presentation. The forgiveness extended had only one effect upon him - he could rest in the consciousness of freedom from the guilt caused by his sin. He stood before his God as though he had never sinned. The victim had borne his sin, and had been accepted in his place.

The Hebrew word translated "atonement" in describing the ritual of the sanctuary is kah-phar. It means literally "to cover." Its first use in Scripture had to do with Noah's ark. There God commanded Noah - "Make yourself an ark of gopher wood, and cover it inside and out with pitch." (Gen. 6:14 RSV) In the sanctuary service as pertaining to the sin offering, the priest made the "covering." The sin of the sinner was open - he confessed, and was deserving of death, but had presented a substitute. By the means of the blood of the substitute, the priest had in turn "covered" his sin. In the reality, Jesus became both Substitute, and Priest, one following the other. As the great High Priest over the house of God, He has effected the judicial atonement - whether individual or corporate - covering the sins of all who "come unto God by Him seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them." (Heb. 7:25)

If in the sanctuary service, the ritual of the Court had been all that was to be performed, and the first apartment into which the priest went with the blood of the sin offering was a vacant vestibule, then we might conclude that the "new theology" had some merit. But the Scripture plainly teaches that beyond the judicial atonement was much more to be performed by the priests on behalf,of the sinner directly effecting his final atonement with God. There was the Holy Place, not vacant and meaningless, and the Most Holy Place, where the final decree regarding sin and sinners was prefigured each year in the great Day of Atonement. These we shall discuss in the next thought paper, God willing.