I know this is a subject that can upset emotions. Let's try to be kind to each other. Let people have their say, listen to each orher and try to be understanding while replying. After all we are brothers and sisters in Christ, and we should try to act accordingly. So if you get upset, take a break and come back when you are calm and can respond constructively.
John 13:35
By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.
There are a few words that is used to describe Jesus sacrifice for us.
- Atonement
- Reconciliation
- Propitiation
- Mercy seat
Any more?
1. How would you describe each of these words?
2. What verses would you use to describe the objective side of the atonement? By objective side I mean what is done (to us, to the world or to God) before we have faith.
I think I started a similar thread some time ago, yet I didn't get the answer I was looking for.
Christ love,
P
This is a huge topic and I have enough notes on the subject to write a big book.
Atonement is one of those religious concepts which is best understood through experiencing it, then trying to explain it. Unfortunately, the new Christian is filled with ideas about atonement prior to experiencing it, so they are brain washed into trying to feel something that does not happen and quenching what should happen.
One of the advantages the Jews before Christ’s sacrifice had with atonement was personally going through the atonement process for very minor sins (unintentional sins). Lev. 5 explains why and what sinner goes through in the atonement process and might be a good place to start, since Lev. 4-5 is where we first have atonement being described. There is also the advantage of the Lev. 5 atonement being for the individuals personal and for actual sins.
We might be able to take the atonement process for very minor sins and extrapolate up to what it could be like for rebellious disobedience directly towards God requiring death for the sinner with no atonement possible under the Old Law.
It would be best to imagen yourself as a first century (BC) Jewish man who just accidently touched a dead unclean animal. If you are real poor you are going to have to work an extra job help someone else for money to buy a sack of flour. If you live in the city and have money you are going to have to go out and buy a lamb and some grain to feed it. You are not a shepherd, so you will have to drag or carry a balling, thirsty and hungry lamb to the altar. You get up early to hike into Jerusalem wait in line for hours to hand the flour or lamb to the priest and watch them go through their part of the atonement process which if you all did everything right will result in God forgiving you and you feeling forgiven.
There is more to what and why this happens which we can find in Lev. 5:
5…they must confess in what way they have sinned. (which we need to do in the atonement process)
6 As a penalty for the sin they have committed… Here the reason for atonement is given “as a penalty” (punishment but better translated disciplining).
If the sacrifice was made as a “payment” for a sin: these sins are all the same and God considers all people the same, so the sacrifice would need to be the same (a lamb for all or doves for all or flour for all) but the sacrifices are not the same. The different values of the sacrifices, is an attempt to equalize the hardship/penalty (disciplining) on the sinners and does not suggest a payment being made to God especially a payment to forgive a sin. God does not need a bag of flour to forgive sins.
The intention of the sinner going through all this, would be, all the benefits that come from being Lovingly disciplined.
We really need to go through every verse relating to atonement and sacrifice to gleam a true understanding, but you asked for other word used to describe Jesus’ sacrifice:
Jesus, Paul, Peter, John and the writer of Hebrews all describe Christ torturous, humiliating murder as a ransom payment.
When we talk to nonbelievers, we are not trying to get them to believe some book, words, doctrine or philosophy, but we want them to accept through faith Jesus Christ and Him crucified. If that nonbeliever trust (has faith) in Christ and Him crucified a child is released and allowed to enter the kingdom where God the Father is, but if the nonbeliever refuses for lack of faith in Jesus Christ and Him crucified, a child is not set free to go to the Father.
Does this not sound very much like a kidnapping scenario with a ransom being offered?
“Jesus Christ and Him crucified” is described in scripture as the ransom payment?
Would the sinner holding a child of God out of the Kingdom of God describe a kidnapper?
“Jesus Christ and Him crucified” is a huge sacrificial payment, like you find with children being ransomed?
God is not a criminal undeserving kidnapper holding His own children and satan is not changeable nor has he the power to hold God’s child back from God, so the unbeliever is the only excellent fit for the kidnapper in the atonement process. Are at least some of the unbelieving sinner the same person who goes to be with God or do some unbelieving sinners experience a new birth to become a new person which can now enter the Kingdom?
Verse we need to really review heavily would be Ro. 3:25, Psalms 22, Is. 53, and lots more, but all the “theories” of atonement right now have huge issues, but the Bible explains it with lots of thinking or experience.
That is my intro.
