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Atonement

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

Dynamic view The dynamic view sees Christ's death and resurrection as the climax of a cosmic conflict with Satan as well as the demonic forces of evil. Christ came as the Second Adam (Romans 5:18-19), winning the competition that Adam failed. He also came because the new Israel, faithfully keeping submitting to God as opposed to to Satan as the first Israel tried (Matthew 2:15; 4:4; etc.). Just after His baptism, the Spirit "drove" (Greek: ekballei) Him into 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).

Throughout his ministry Jesus offered His power to cast out demons like a demonstration that He was stronger than Satan. Although He described Satan as a "strong man," He claimed the opportunity to "bind" the strong man and despoil his possessions (i.e., those 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 on the planet (Luke 12:20-22). Jesus got His disciples mixed up in 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 by the other apostles (Luke 22:31-32), as well as his trial and murder (John 8:40-41, 44). Jesus recognized Satan as His principal enemy, and also 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 his confrontation with false teaching at Colossae, Paul is definitely the cross and resurrection as a conquer spiritual enemies. The Colossians were at risk of being deceived by a syncretistic mixture of Judaistic legalism, Hellenistic philosophy, and Eastern mysticism. Apparently the heretical teachers weren't advocating a rejection of Jesus, but they denied Him the primacy in favor of intermediary beings. "Go beyond Jesus to greater realities," they could have taught. Paul replies that there's 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 just did Christ conquer Satan, demons, principalities, and powers. Younger crowd conquered death (Acts 2:24; Revelation 5:5-6). Paul uses militaristic terms to go over 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 like a conquering general returning to Rome for any victory parade: "When he ascended on high, he led captives in the train and gave gifts to men." The ensuing passage explains the gifts He gave will be the offices for building up the church. The captives are bypassed, but Colossians 2:15 seems suitable commentary.

In 2 Corinthians 2:14, Paul says that "God... always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and thru us spreads everywhere the fragrance from the knowledge of him." In cases like this the apostles (see 1 Corinthians 4:9), and perhaps all Christians, are probably those types 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). Because He 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 participate. This is the subjective nature of the atonement: it transforms us. While we are united with Christ through faith-repentance-baptism, God's Spirit begins the entire process of transforming us from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18).

The Spirit, Himself the guarantee that beginning will reach its intended end (Ephesians 1:13-14), begins to produce His fruit within our hearts (Galatians 5:22-23) as we cooperate by "walking within the Spirit" and being "led by the Spirit" (Romans 8:4, 14; Galatians 5:16). The metamorphosis just 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 individuals our bodies to righteousness instead of to sin (Romans 6:12-13).

It's a battle we fight, yet Paul assures us, "[S]in will have no dominion over you" (Romans 6:14). The struggle contributes 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 because he is" (1 John 3:2).

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

Objective view Yet Christ's death is much 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). Additionally, it involves what He did as opposed to (anti) us (see Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45)---the objective view of the atonement. In fact, many feel that the substitutionary nature of the atonement is the most important aspect of all.

Several types of the substitutionary atonement come from Genesis. The word used in 1 John 3:12 to spell it out Cain's murder of his brother is the word for "slaughter" (Greek: esphaxen), as in the offering of a sacrifice. This has led some to view the earth's first murder, recorded in Genesis 4:8, since the offering of a substitute sacrifice. In essence, Cain may have said, "So, You didn't like my vegetables as a possible offering? Let's see how You similar to 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).

Once the angel stops Abraham from stabbing Isaac to death, Abraham finds a ram caught in a nearby thicket that he can offer in place of (Septuagint: anti) his son (Genesis 22:12-13). The passage assumes that some sacrifice has to be offered, and the one is replaced through 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 usage of anti in v. 33). In this instance also, some substitute needed to 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, just like the "eye-for-eye" provisions of the Law. Christ's sacrifice (one for most) is more like the sin offering in behalf of all of the people or the sacrifice from 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 with the whole world" (1 John 2:2). He could be the "Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world" (John 1:29).

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

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

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