WHAT IS MEANT BY “ATONEMENT” AND WHY IT MATTERS?
Sometimes we say things like “You’ll have to atone for those sins”. Actually, hardly anyone uses that word anymore. It means “to make amends or reparation for wrongdoing” (Webster’s New World Dictionary). It represents a kind of pay-back for having done something wrong to someone. In the Bible, more correctly, in the Old Testament (the Hebrew Bible), this notion was introduced to explain people’s efforts to convince God not punish people for their wrong-doings or sins. Kind of like buying off your parents so they would not punish you for having done something wrong.
It should be clear that the Hebrews, more specifically Moses in the Book of Exodus, borrowed this idea from pagan religions for how to persuade the gods not to punish people too harshly for their disobedience. The entire Hebrew theology revolves around the idea of making amends to Jehovah so he will not punish his people too harshly for their sins. It was the Apostle Paul, especially in his Letter to the Roman Christians, who transferred this idea to the death of Christ as the sacrifice to God the Creator for the sins of the whole world.
Thus, it is clear that the whole idea of atonement in the New Testament rests upon a faulty premise borrowed directly from the Hebrew theology of the Old Testament. As a matter of fact, there is scarce indication in the Gospels about God being “appeased” and turned away from punishing humanity because of its gross sinfulness. Jesus never speaks of himself and his mission in these terms. However, unfortunately a good deal of Christian history and theology has revolved around trying to understand and apply this clearly pagan notion that the Hebrew leaders borrowed from the religious world around them, namely the Babylonians, Persians, and Egyptians.
In the very popular and powerful Christian hymn “How Great Thou Art” there is a line which goes: “When I consider that God his Son not sparing, sent him to die I scarce can take it in. That on the cross he bled and died to take away my sin.” These phrases capture perfectly the confusion at the heart of Christians misunderstanding of the New Testament view of the meaning of Jesus’ death on the cross. In the Gospels Jesus never speaks of his death in these terms. He never sees himself as becoming a sacrifice to God to pay Him off for the sins of the world. On the contrary, Jesus saw himself as doing God’s will in his own human incarnation. There is no indication that he is “buying God off” to pay for our sins.
The whole beauty and power of Jesus’ death on the cross lies in the fact that he did this of his own freewill and with God’s blessing, not as a means of providing a pleasing sacrifice of blood with which to appease God the Father. Paul’s application of Jesus’ death on the cross, which he may well have witnessed, to the Old Testament notion and process of atonement, in which a lamb’s blood is used to appease an angry God, is totally foreign to the Gospel narratives.
In the Gospel stories we see Jesus going willingly before Pilate and the Jewish religious leaders and in no way trying to defend himself against their accusations. Indeed, all the way through the trials and crucifixion story Jesus remains calm and essentially silent. This does not indicate that he is a “lamb being delivered to the slaughter”, but rather that he is willing to die, not for a vengeful divinity, but in order to embody and display the love of God in his forgiveness of and hope for the human race, including the Hebrew people. On the cross Jesus was not “paying God off” for our human sins, but rather was revealing the depth of God’s love for humanity by forgiving them outright for their waywardness.
Jesus seems to have spoken just twice during his final ordeal. Once he said: “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing” and again “My God, why have you forsaken me”. This latter phrase comes as the first verse of Psalm 22, which is the standard Hebrew Psalm recited by devout Jewish people when they think they are about to die. None of Jesus’ behavior and remarks in his final hours in any way suggest that he was “paying God off for the sins of the world.” Rather, they reveal one who is being killed unjustly for revealing that God is loving and faithful in relation to humanity and who reveals God’s love and forgiveness.
A book which develops these themes more thoroughly is Christus Victor by the Swedish theologian Gustaf Aulen. He describes what he calls the “classic” idea of the atonement as stressing the “dramatic” force of the New Testament notion of the atonement in these words: “It’s central theme is the idea of the Atonement as a Divine conflict and victory. Christ – Christus Victor- fights against and triumphs over the evil powers of the world, the tyrants under which mankind is in bondage and suffering, and in Him God reconciles the world to himself.” (p. 4) Aulen distinguishes this classical view from both the traditional, conservative view, according to which Christ “pays off” either God or the devil with Jesus’ death and the liberal view that Jesus life and death are both meant to provide an example to humankind of how we should live.
Finally, another important thinker who has given a similar account of the atonement is Donald Ballie in his really fine book God Was in Christ. “From the Greek word used to correspond with the Old Testament ‘atonement’ means, simply, reconciliation. Moreover, the New Testament does not speak of God being reconciled to man, but of man being reconciled to God, and of God as the Reconciler, taking the initiative in Christ to that end…for the love of God is the starting point.” p. (p. 187)
I am hopeful that these ruminations will put the idea of a so-called “substitutionary atonement” to rest. God is the redeemer, not the payee. The whole scheme and execution of human salvation was and is initiated and executed by God. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself” (2 Corinthians 5;19) My God, how great thou art.