Expiation

What does it mean when the Bible says that we have been pardoned by God? Here are two classic definitions from American legal history:

First, in 1833, Chief Justice John Marshall, in a landmark decision, described a pardon as “an act of grace … which exempts the individual on whom it is bestowed from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed.”

Second, in 1866, the Supreme Court gave another famous definition of a pardon: “a pardon releases the punishment and blots out of existence the guilt, so that in the eye of the law the offender is as innocent as if he had never committed the offense … A pardon removes the penalties and disabilities and restores him to all his civil rights; it makes him, as it were, a new man, and gives him a new credit and capacity.”

Christian Philosopher William Lane Craig offers this as a marvelous description of a divine pardon. “‘If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation ….’ The pardoned sinners’ guilt is expiated, so that he is legally innocent before God.”

When you get a chance to be saved, you gotta grab it.

—Bear Grylls, popular star of the Discovery Channel's Man vs. Wild, in a commercial promoting the Alpha Course

Pastor and Author Matt Woodley writes in a blog post titled "Evangelized by the Pizza Man”:

My friend Emilio owns a tiny pizzeria that makes the best New York pizza on Long Island. Emilio hates "organized religion." Above the stove where he sticks the orders, he also collects small newspaper clippings about flawed and fallen ministers. I call it his "rack of shame." Every time I come in for pizza, he leans over the counter, slides a few clippings on to the counter, and whispers, "Hey, look at this. This padre walked off with $80,000. This pastor slept with three church members. This guy abused little boys for twenty years. Okay, do you get why I don't need your church?" Then, with a triumphant flair, he sticks the articles back on his "rack of shame."

A few months ago, fed up with his clergy-bashing, I blurted out, "What does this prove, Emilio? So priests and pastors do despicable things. What if I started a rack of shame for people in your profession and then declared that I will never eat pizza?" Actually, over the next few weeks I tried rummaging through newspapers looking for articles about pizza guys doing nasty things—spitting in the bread dough or using cheap Ragu instead of homemade sauce—but apparently pizza guys live pretty clean lives.

Finally, after a month or two of bickering back and forth, I came to Emilio and said, "I need to order two slices of cheese, and I need to ask your forgiveness."

He bristled and shot back, "Is this a joke or a trick?"

"No, really, Emilio, I'm truly sorry for being a jerk and for arguing with you—and I want the cheese slices, too. The truth is that ministers do screw up. We can be pretty decent people; but sometimes we're frauds and hypocrites. Sometimes I'm a sham."

Emilio immediately softened, and we've actually become friends. But I didn't say this as an evangelism strategy. I said it because it's true and it's the gospel. I love the line that summarizes the gospel this way: "We are more flawed than we'd ever dare to admit; we're more loved than we'd ever dare to imagine." I'm not sure why it's so hard to get this simple truth. I qualify for the cosmic rack of shame, but through God's infinite mercy, Jesus took my place on the rack and set me free.

Emilio, my outraged, anti-clerical, unchurched, pizza-making friend, helped me see the gospel again. I guess he evangelized me. I guess I have to be more careful: Jesus keeps sneaking up on me. I never know where he'll pop up next!

If you go over to Scotland, or anywhere there are lots of sheep, sooner or later you're going to see a very unusual sight. You'll see a little lamb running around the field, and you'll notice this lamb has what looks like an extra fleece tied around its back. In fact, you'll see there are little holes in the fleece for its four legs and usually a hole for its head. If you see a little lamb running around like that, that usually means its mother has died.

And without the protection and nourishment of a mother, any orphaned lamb will die. If you take the orphaned lamb and try to introduce it to another mother, the new mother will butt it away. She won't recognize the lamb's scent and will know the new baby is not one of her own lambs.

But thankfully, most flocks are large enough that there is a ewe that has recently lost a lamb. The shepherd will skin the dead lamb and make its fleece into a covering for the orphaned lamb, then he'll take the orphaned lamb to the mother whose baby just died. Now, when she sniffs the orphaned lamb, she will smell the fleece of her own lamb. Instead of butting the lamb away, she will accept it as one of her own.

In a similar way, we have become acceptable to God by being clothed with Christ.

At the height of his stardom, Mel Gibson realized he was empty. He had achieved everything he ever hoped for—except a sense of purpose. Gibson felt he was drowning in fame, wealth, drink, and despair. This led the one-time "Sexiest Man Alive" to his knees and back to God. In a Reader's Digest interview, Gibson told Peggy Noonan,

There was a time in my life when I was really searching. I was asking all those Shakespearean Hamlet questions: "What's on the other side? Why am I here?" I might have looked like I'm living the high life, making movies and jetting around the world, but true happiness resides within. I was spiritually bankrupt, and when that happens, it's like a spiritual cancer afflicts you. It starts to eat its way through, and if you don't do something, it's going to take you. So I simply had to draw a line in the sand.

This 12-year pilgrimage led Gibson to the Gospels and the passion of Christ. He was able to realize what Jesus did on the cross. Gibson understood his need for the sacrifice, and described it to Noonan this way:

The purpose of the sacrifice (of Christ) was to expiate the transgressions of all mankind…. These are the testimonies from the Gospels, and they speak of love. They speak of ransom, and a complete forgetting of self, for the sake of all others, which is really the height of heroism. Jesus became the whipping boy so that we have a chance, because we can't make it on our own.

In two full pages of advertisement, the Japanese government declared its desire to right wrongs committed in World War II. The Asian Women's Fund, led by former Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, placed the ads to announce the offer of atonement payments to "comfort women." During the war women were forced to provide sexual services to members of Japan's wartime military. In an effort to make atonement, the organization sent donations, messages, and a letter of apology from the Prime Minister to hundreds of former "comfort women."

Murayama says, "We hope these projects have helped to remove at least some portion of the permanent scars these women bear. I consider it essential that we Japanese maintain a firm conviction that we must never violate the dignity of women again, as we did in our treatment of 'comfort women.'"

Do not expect God to cover what you are not willing to uncover.