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Some Christians today are nervous about the Atonement. They think that we can know little or nothing about how God has been righteous and yet he "justified the ungodly" (Rom. 4:5) at the same time. Especially because of the doctrine's associations with "the wrath of God" and "punishment" and other harsh language, they would prefer to leave the question of How? in the sphere of theory and speculation, if it is to be handled at all.

About such people theologian James Denney said, "They profess to believe in the fact of the Atonement, but they despair of finding any theory of it. There are even some who glory in this situation; it is not with despair, but with triumph, that they find in the very heart of the gospel a mystery which is simply insoluble, in the very focus of revelation a spot of pure impenetrable black."

Mystery is all well and good, but I fear that the hesitation to be clear in this doctrine robs us of something important. We may not want to go too far, but surely we may go as far as the Bible itself takes us. When we do, we have the joy of learning from the Lord himself something of how the death of his Son has brought forgiveness and redemption. We cannot understand it all, but what he gives us illumines all the rest, and gives us a proper and an amazing sense of satisfaction that at heart of the universe, there is a just and gracious God.

Let us remember who Jesus is. Paul says that the rulers of this age "crucified the Lord of glory"; they put God to death. We know that the one they crucified was the man Jesus Christ, but we know too that he was both God and man. In his coming and in his life and in his death, we do not see the fragmentation of God but the work of God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Lord who has saved us is the Prince of Peace, mighty to save. It is God himself who has taken this action. He has identified himself with us so absolutely that we see in him the revelation that God understands our sin-induced griefs from within: "A man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering…he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows" (Isa. 53:3-4).

Then let us note that to describe what he has done, the Scriptures use the category of sacrifice. The old sacrifices of bulls and goats could not take away sin, though they point with utmost clarity to our need to have our sins removed through blood-shedding. But now, "Just as man is destined to die once, and after that face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people" (Heb 9:27). This was a sacrifice of himself; he made it by his choice; so great and all-sufficient was it that it has never and can never be repeated, not even sacramentally. We cannot add to it or supplement it.

Three great words help us to understand the significance of this sacrifice.

1. Substitution. It was as a substitute that Jesus made this sacrifice; he took the place of those who were condemned. Certainly he acted on our behalf, as our representative in regard to sin. But he acted on our behalf precisely because we are powerless to do it ourselves. In that case, to act on our behalf is to act as our substitute, to act in our place: "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man," says Paul, "…while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." To die for another person requires that one must die in the place of that person—it is the only way my death for him or her can make sense. In our case, since the wages of sin is death, and since we are sinners, and since Christ has rescued us, it must be by the exchanging of his death for ours: "One died for all, and therefore all died" (2 Cor. 5:14).

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March 2004, Vol. 48, No. 3