The Atonement of Jesus: Defined
I was once asked to explain
the atonement of Jesus Christ on the cross from an atheist as a self-proclaimed
agnostic sat within earshot to the discussion. I told of my understanding of
the atonement and was received with astonishment. The two laughed at what I
understood to be a beautiful doctrine; it was mocked as barbaric.
It is no wonder, then, that the atonement of Jesus Christ
has been much misunderstood throughout the ages. When most American
Evangelicals are approached with the question, “why did Jesus die on the
cross?”, the answer will most often look something like this: “to die for my
sins.” But this is not a full, theological answer. Others have reasoned that
God can just forgive sin and Jesus’ death on the cross was not necessary. R.W.
Yardbourgh says of this, “Recently
M. Winter has argued that the crucifixion was, in fact, unnecessary. All humans
must do to be reconciled to God is ask sincerely. Moral conversion is enough.”[1] But
this is not a sufficient answer either; there had to be a reason for the
atonement of Jesus Christ. Why would Christ be “made flesh” (John 1:14) if God
could just forgive sins?
Some
time ago, Dr. John Piper wrote a book called “Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to
Die.” I suppose that dying for sin is one of those reasons. As seen in the
title of the book, there could be a myriad of theologically sound reasons why
Jesus died on the cross (at least 50!).
The question, then, is what is the best answer for the
question, “why did Jesus die on the cross?” I propose that a quick reading of
Romans 3:21-26 will give an excellent answer to this question. But again, the
theological richness of this passage is lost on most laymen and women who read
through the book of Romans. The complexity contained within the third chapter of
the book of Romans made Tommy Nelson of Denton Bible Church, located in North
Texas, to say that “if the bad guys ever come for you, and they are going to
take your bible, what you do is you take your bible and you turn to Romans
3:21-26 and you tear this out and memorize it. Because this is the summit of
your bible… it’s been said you can tell the intelligence of a Christian by the
notes he has on Romans 3:21-26.”[2]
I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Nelson, and I believe
that the watered-down versions of the atonement we see today are representative
of the cheapening of the Gospel message seen in post-WWII Evangelicalism. It is
my intention to answer this question, “why did Jesus die on the cross?” This is
not a simple answer however. It begins in the Old Testament; the sacrificial
system as seen in Leviticus represents an archetype for Jesus’ death on the
cross. The discussion will then move to defining what different atonement
theories there are to gain a historical perspective on the shifting answers of
theologians before arriving at what the reformers called, “substitutionary
atonement.” I present substitutionary atonement (as do most Evangelicals) to be
the most correct interpretation of the question of Jesus’ death on the cross
and the most credible evidence is seen in Romans 3:21-26. I will then examine
this passage in particular, exposing its richness and depth. By the end, the
reader will have a clear answer on the reason why Jesus died on the cross.
Our
quest begins at the root of atonement in the Old Testament. What is atonement
and why was it necessary? Many are aware that sacrifices happened in the Old
Covenant and were prescribed in the law of the ancient Hebrews, but many more
are clueless as to why this was necessary. This must be fleshed out to gain a
foundational understanding of the original question.
Two necessary elements are
required for atonement: a transgression and a person whom the transgression was
committed against. In relevant nomenclature, this means atonement requires a
sinner and God who we have sinned against. R.T. Kendall says, “More
specifically, the notion of atonement assumes that the relationship between
human beings and God is fractured, but can be temporarily restored by religious
rituals. The verb (kāpar) literally
means ‘to cover’; atonement is envisioned as covering over sin and thus
cleaning it up.”[3]
It is crucial
at this point to understand the holiness of God. Holiness literally means
“separation.” Separation from what though? One commentator said:
God’s holiness is what separates Him from
all other beings, what makes Him separate and distinct from everything else.
God’s holiness is more than just His perfection or sinless purity; it is the
essence of His “other-ness,” His transcendence. God’s holiness embodies the mystery
of His awesomeness and causes us to gaze in wonder at Him as we begin to
comprehend just a little of His majesty.[4]
This does little justice to what God’s
holiness pragmatically looks like. God is so pure, so transcendent, and so
perfect, that words alone cannot express this attribute of God. The prophet
Isaiah got a small taste of God’s holiness in a vision contained in Isaiah 6;
this made him fall on his face in reverence for the King of Kings, saying, “Woe
is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst
of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Is. 6:5)
This
definition of God’s holiness is the cause for the sixteenth chapter of
Leviticus; in this chapter, God, through the messenger Moses, prescribes the
ritual cleansing entitled the “day of atonement” or “Yom Kippur”. Because of
God’s holiness, He is perfect in every way. His perfection descends to His
other attributes, such as the justice of God. God’s justice requires punishment
when wrongs have been committed (called “sin” throughout the bible). The nation
of Israel was required to make atonement for the sin of the previous year as a
way to temporarily restore the relationship between holy God and sinful man.
The ritual contained there is complex and a full discussion of the garments and
ceremony will not be discussed at depth.
The
importance lies within the elements that compose the atonement: the sins of the
nation of Israel incite the wrath of God upon the nation; the nation’s
relationship with God is broken because of sin; reparations cannot be made to
appease God, or the debt in which is owed to God cannot be repaid; the only
solution to this is the death of the human in which the sin proceeded from;
instead of the death of people, God instituted a system where there would be a
substitute. Eberhard Jüngel makes this
process very clear:
It must first be remembered that
atonement is something different from making reparations. Atonement is for when
reparations cannot be made. The idea of atonement presumes that there is a
transgression which cannot be paid out,
a kind of debt that simply cannot be reckoned in ledgers and balanced like
other debts. It is not possible for such a transgression, such a debt to be
cancelled out by human debtors. It
remains there. Any extinction of the debt can only come with the extinction of
the debtor. It is not some thing, no
matter how much, but their lives that
they must give in order to atone for their debt. So ‘for those humans,
atonement means a readiness to die’. However, so that they might not die, these
debtors bring an atoning sacrifice,
which takes their place. Thus an atoning sacrifice is another sacrifice which substitutes for the life of the one who has
deserved death.[5]
L.L. Morris rather succinctly says this about
the process: “It is clear
that in the OT it was recognized that death was the penalty for sin (Ezk.
18:20), but that God graciously permitted the death of a sacrificial victim to
substitute for the death of the sinner.”[6] It must be remembered that
God is holy and humans, no matter how hard we try, are not. Therefore,
atonement is necessary to continue the relationship between man and God.
The Old
Testament sacrifices demonstrate a type of what was to come in Jesus Christ.
The book of Hebrews is often said to be understood in the context of Leviticus.
Hebrews 10:4 tell us of the Old Testament sacrifices: “But in these sacrifices
there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of
bulls and goats to take away sins.” In this, we see that the Old Testament
sacrifices were not a permanent solution to sin. As expressed earlier, the
purpose of the atonement in this dispensation was a temporary solution to a
permanent problem: sin was covered to maintain the relationship but it was not
taken away. For this, a more perfect sacrifice was necessary; one that would
require God’s intervention in human affairs.
Throughout historical
theology, the question of why Jesus died on the cross has been mired in
controversy. In general, there are three major views that require our
attention: 1) the “ransom theory” (dating back to Origen and other church
fathers); 2) the “moral influence” theory (dating back to Abelard, 1079-1142);
3) and the “penal satisfaction” view (dating as far back as Anselm of
Canterbury [1033-1109] but upheld by the reformers).[7] Each one of these views will be held up to
scrutiny in order to engage the question at large.
The church fathers largely
accepted the ransom theory of atonement. This essentially is the theory that
focuses on passages like Mark 10:45: “For even the Son of Man came not to be
served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Jordan Henderson says, “The early church fathers follow the New
Testament writers in focusing on ransom as the chief metaphor to describe the
atonement. Christ’s death is seen as a ransom paid on behalf of sinful humanity
for their redemption.”[8] A
ransom could be defined as “a sum of money demanded
or paid for the release of a captive.”[9] Obviously the church fathers did not think that money could be paid to
release a man from sins, but rather Jesus Christ replaced the monetary analogy.
But to whom was this ransom paid? God?
No, the ransom was paid to Satan. Irenaeus
discusses this when he said:
So again, on the other hand, it was
necessary that through man himself he should, when conquered, be bound with the
same chains with which he had bound man, in order that man, being set free,
might return to his Lord, leaving to him (Satan) those bonds by which he
himself had been fettered, that is, sin.[10]
This seems incongruous to us in the 21st
century, but in the early days of Christianity, it held weight for almost a
millennium. Dr. Henderson says, “In the Western fathers, the ransom theory is
seen much more in terms of God’s justice in His transaction with the devil.”[11]
The problem
with this theory is that it makes the business end of the transaction not
between God and Jesus, but between God and Satan. When considered against the
Old Testament sacrificial system, this seems to hold little weight. God’s wrath
was against the sin of the nation that could only be reconciled by the high
priest. It is interesting, then, that Hebrews 8 speaks of Jesus as being
superior to the high priest; Jesus mirrored an element of the priestly lineage
(Hebrews 7) and therefore mankind was reconciled to God by Christ’s earthly
ministry, death on the cross, and subsequent resurrection. It would seem that
we must postulate, at this point, that a substantial doctrine of the atonement
that does not commit error must make the transaction of substitution between
God and Christ (and not between God and Satan as the ransom theory proposes).
While the
ransom theory is replete with problems, it did not get overturned as the
dominant theory of atonement until the medieval French scholastic philosopher
Peter Abelard proposed the so-called, “moral influence theory.” If the ransom
theory says that a transaction took place between God and Satan, the moral
influence theory denies that a transaction was even necessary.
Abelard
maintained an overemphasized view of God’s love that would satisfy the liberal
theologians of today. According to Abelard, the death of Christ was such a
momentous event of Christ’s love towards us that we cannot help but be drawn
toward it. In our repentance, we are transformed by the death of Christ without
a long and drawn out explanation of sin or atonement. It is curious that this
was even considered a healthy alternative to the ransom theory. Franklin
Johnson says, “According to this, the sole mission of Christ was to reveal the
love of God in a way so moving as to melt the heart and induce men to forsake
sin.”[12]
It is
obvious, as we have seen, that this theory does not do justice to the Old
Testament sacrificial system and therefore must be rejected. Where is the
reverence for a holy God? Where is the satisfaction for God’s wrath against
sin? When reading Abelard, one might confused him for the liberal theologians
of the 20th and 21st century, not the medieval
philosopher. By necessity in the arguments laid out, we must reject this theory
as well.
The most obvious
answer to the best explanation for the atonement then, lies with “penal
satisfaction”, or substitutionary atonement. A most basic definition of
substitutionary atonement could be what Charles Ryrie proposed:
“Substitutionary or vicarious atonement simply means that Christ suffered as a
substitute for us, that is, instead of us, resulting in the advantage to us of
paying for our sins.”[13] Notice
the striking similarity of this language in reference to the Old Testament
sacrifices. In order to describe this doctrine to it’s fullest, we now turn to
Romans 3:21-26.
The
book of Romans is one of the most important documents available to Christians
today. The Apostle Paul begins his letter with a greeting and details of his
future plans. In verse 16, he says he is not “ashamed of the Gospel of Christ”
before suddenly shifting directions in verse 18. From Romans 1:18-3:20, Paul
paints a bleak picture of humanity. The message within this passage could be
summed up succinctly in Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God.”
We
have already examined the holiness of God and his perfection versus the
imperfection and sin of man. To take this one step further, follow this logic:
if God is holy in everyway (perfect in every attribute), how can man get to
holy God? There is no way to do enough good things to reach holy God because
you already stand condemned as a sinner based on your pedigree of being human
(Rom. 5:12-14), not to mention the sin accumulated over a lifetime. No amount
of asceticism or good works can get you to holy God. Only through forgiveness
of sins can one truly reach the heights of holy God. But God cannot just
forgive sins (as in the moral influence theory); this violates His perfect
justice. This predicament is precarious, but not impossible.
In
verse 21 of Romans 3, Paul talks about the “righteousness” of God. What is this
righteousness? As mentioned, God is perfect in all His attributes. The root
word of “righteousness” is the word “right”. Therefore, righteousness is the
act of doing right all the time. Paul demonstrates that the “righteousness of
God has been made manifested apart from the law.” This means that there is a
way to salvation that does not require following a set of rules and obligations
that we would ultimately fail to keep because of sin. Paul says this
righteousness is through faith in Jesus Christ “for all who believe.” This
means that we can have the same righteousness Jesus exhibited on earth if we
believe in Him by faith. John Stott says, “If God justifies sinners freely by his grace, on what ground does he do
so? How is it possible for the righteous God to declare the unrighteous to be
righteous without either compromising his righteousness or condoning their
unrighteousness? That is our question. God’s answer is the cross.”[14]
This
process is called “justification” and it is a word that Paul uses in verse 24:
“and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in
Christ Jesus.” The avenue in which one can “become holy” is through a process
called justification. Justification is a word that conjures up pictures of a
courtroom: you stand condemned by the judge (God) for your crimes (sin). The judge
is about to read off your sentence when Jesus Christ steps in to take your
place for you. In this way, the judge can declare you “not guilty”. This satisfies
the justice of God (who can not just let you “off the hook” by forgiving you,
because this violates His justice) but at the same time, allows you to have a
relationship with Him. This is accomplished through faith (a discussion that
would be best saved for a different time).
Verse
25 says, “whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received
by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine
forbearance he had passed over former sins.” It is here that we come to one of
the most conclusive passages about the atonement. And within this passage, one
finds answers to the question, “why did Jesus die on the cross?”
The
word “propitiation” has crucial significance here. Dr. Leon Morris says of
this, “…propitiation means the removal of wrath…”[15] Dr. Stott agrees: “to ‘propitiate’ somebody means to placate
his or her anger, and it seems to them an unworthy concept of God (more heathen
than Christian) to suppose that he gets angry and needs to be appeased.”[16] The idea is simple: God’s wrath descends on
sin; this is in line with His character; He is holy. Therefore, in order to
“justify” man, a way to reconcile men to Himself, He must present a
substitution. Much like the Old Testament sacrifices, this atonement placates
the wrath of God.
This is not as simple as it seems
however. Jesus was no ordinary sacrifice. It was Anselm who postulated the
intricacies of the atonement that the reformers clung to. He said that it was
only suitable that if the wrath of God was upon humanity, a human should
rightly be representative of the human race. Therefore, only a man could
accomplish for man the satisfaction of God’s wrath. On the other hand however,
we have seen that man is incapable of doing what is right (Rom. 3:23).
Therefore, only God could effectively accomplish what man is unable to do.
And that is why the sacrifice of
Jesus on the cross is so beautiful: it is in the hypostatic union, or the union
of both 100% man and 100% God, where God’s humanity and God’s perfection meet to
be the perfect sacrifice as described in Hebrews 10:1-7. The reason Jesus died
on the cross was to satisfy the wrath of God for sin. In doing so, God is now
able to extend a hand of adoption, through faith, because of His grace.
Dr. John MacArthur said it best:
Then comes the
death of Christ. And what does the death of Christ say? If it says anything in
the universe, it says God is righteous. What do you mean by that? I mean, sin
had to have a punishment, right? So you
see it is at the cross where God's justice and God's mercy have kissed each
other, at the cross. Why? Because the penalty was paid but we were spared
from the paying by the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ, so that God's
mercy can be extended to us with no loss of His justice. That's why I say
primarily, the death of Jesus Christ is for the sake of God, to preserve God
from accusation that He is unjust, because the glory of God is the reason for
everything. Let me tell you, folks, you've just plumbed the depths of the
meaning of Calvary's cross. God was satisfied (the writer’s emphasis).[17]
The plain fact, as
demonstrated, is that Jesus died for God: Jesus died as the perfect substitute for the wrath of God upon sin. And
in doing so, we can be justified, or declared “not guilty” through faith. This
is of primary importance when answering the question, “why did Jesus die on the
cross?”
Dr. John Piper has my utmost respect. What I have tried
to accomplish here is one of the primary reasons to answer our original
question. What his book, “Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die” says about the
atonement is not that Jesus died for a number of different reasons (although
that may be true), but simply that the atonement is much more complicated than
putting it in a box and expecting one or two reasons to answer the whole. When
Christians say, “Jesus died for my sins,” they are expressing a correct answer
only to a point. It is reductionist to say this is the full story. What is of
greater significance to answer is how this is possible when trying to resolve
the dilemma of sinful man to holy God. I understand that what has been
accomplished thus far is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the
atonement; I hope I have faithfully answered the question that began this
quest, “why did Jesus die on the cross?”
Bibliography
Got Questions Ministries. Got Questions?
Bible Questions Answered. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2002–2013.
Henderson, J. Jordan. “Substitution.” Edited by
John D. Barry, David Bomar, Derek R. Brown, Rachel Klippenstein, Douglas
Mangum, Carrie Sinclair Wolcott, Lazarus Wentz, Elliot Ritzema, and Wendy
Widder. The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012,
2013, 2014, 2015.
Irenaeus of Lyons. “IrenÊus against Heresies.”
In The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, edited by
Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. Vol. 1. The
Ante-Nicene Fathers. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885.
Jüngel, Eberhard. Justification : The Heart
of the Christian Faith. Edinburgh;
New York: T&T Clark, 2001.
Kendall, R. T. Understanding Theology,
Volume One. Ross-shire, Great Britain: Christian Focus, 1996.
MacArthur,
John. “How Christ Died for God, Part 1” (mp3). Sermon, Grace Community Church,
Sun Valley, CA, April 18, 1982. Accessed November 13, 2015. https://www.gty.org/resources/sermons/45-31/how-christ-died-for-god-part-1.
Morris, L. L. “Atonement.” Edited by D. R. W.
Wood, I. H. Marshall, A. R. Millard, J. I. Packer, and D. J. Wiseman. New
Bible Dictionary. Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity
Press, 1996.
Morris, Leon. The Epistle to the Romans.
The Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B.
Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press, 1988.
Rodrigues, Adriani Milli. “Atonement.” Edited
by Douglas Mangum, Derek R. Brown, Rachel Klippenstein, and Rebekah Hurst. Lexham
Theological Wordbook. Lexham Bible Reference Series. Bellingham, WA: Lexham
Press, 2014.
Ryrie, Charles Caldwell. Basic Theology: A
Popular Systematic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth. Chicago, IL:
Moody Press, 1999.
Soanes, Catherine, and Angus Stevenson, eds. Concise
Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Stott, John R. W. The Message of Romans:
God’s Good News for the World. The Bible Speaks Today. Leicester, England;
Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001.
Yarbrough, R. W. “Atonement.” Edited by T.
Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner. New Dictionary of Biblical Theology.
Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000.
[1]
R. W. Yarbrough, “Atonement,” ed. T. Desmond
Alexander and Brian S. Rosner, New
Dictionary of Biblical Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press,
2000), 392.
[2]
Thomas
Nelson, “The Greatest Paragraph in the Bible” (sermon, Denton Bible Church,
Denton, TX), accessed November 13, 2015, http://www.dbcmedia.org/sermons/the-greatest-paragraph-in-the-bible--pauls-assertion-of-justification/.
[3] Adriani
Milli Rodrigues, “Atonement,” ed. Douglas Mangum et al., Lexham Theological Wordbook, Lexham Bible Reference Series
(Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).
[4] Got
Questions Ministries, Got Questions?
Bible Questions Answered (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2002–2013).
[5]
Eberhard
Jüngel, Justification : The Heart of the
Christian Faith (Edinburgh; New
York: T&T Clark, 2001), 158–159.
[6] L. L.
Morris, “Atonement,” ed. D. R. W. Wood et al., New Bible Dictionary (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 1996), 102.
[7]
R. T.
Kendall, Understanding Theology, Volume
One (Ross-shire, Great Britain: Christian Focus, 1996), 114.
[8] J.
Jordan Henderson, “Substitution,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham,
WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015).
[9]
Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson, eds., Concise
Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
[10]
Irenaeus of Lyons, “Irenæus against Heresies,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed.
Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The
Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 550.
[11]
J. Jordan Henderson, “Substitution,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham,
WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015).
[12]
Franklin Johnson, Chapter V: The Atonement, vol. 3
(Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2005), 65.
[13] Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide
to Understanding Biblical Truth (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1999), 329.
[14]
John R. W. Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for
the World, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 2001), 112.
[15] Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans, The Pillar
New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans;
Inter-Varsity Press, 1988), 180.
[16]
John R. W. Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for
the World, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity
Press, 2001), 113.
[17]
John
MacArthur, “How Christ Died for God, Part 1” (mp3 of sermon, Grace Community
Church, Sun Valley, CA, April 18, 1982), accessed November 13, 2015, https://www.gty.org/resources/sermons/45-31/how-christ-died-for-god-part-1.
