From Enemies to Friends 2:
Atonement: What it is! God Makes Us One with Him

Quesnel, British Columbia, August 8, 2009

Strange ideas…

I came across an interesting greeting card recently. In bright yellow and orange, it looks like the outside of a box of washing powder. It’s entitled “Sin Remover” with a halo above the letter “S”! The promotional blurb says it’s “with super soul-saving agent,” and “ultra-sanctifying.” In fact it’s “guaranteed eternal!” And in a backwards nod to previous ways of trying to achieve the removal of sin, it states it is “now with self-flogging action.”

And we can smile at such absurdities… Yet they betray an underlying, almost subconscious idea of what we’re looking for—some “magical substance” that will take care of our sense of dirtiness and sin, that will make us clean and good once more.

Is this the answer to “Why did Jesus have to die?” Some divine detergent that takes care of our sin dirt? In some of the imagery we’ve used, it almost could be taken that way. We speak of being cleansed from sin and washed in the blood (though the latter in actual experience does not make things physically clean!) As if there was some physical substance that would work on removing the physical substance of sin. And already that’s a misunderstanding, for if we see sin as “spiritual dirt” then we look for some “spiritual cleanser” to fix it—and we also assume that basically we’re OK, just a bit dirty and in need of external cleaning, when in reality we’re rotten to the core!

And if God is to us some “cleansing agent” then we objectivize him, and do not look for any personal relationship—we just want the “Sin Remover” stuff. If all we are looking for is cleanliness, or a not guilty verdict, or legal absolution, then why do we need anything like an actual personal God in our lives? In fact too many answers to our question are just that—mechanical, legal, or transactional, just taking care of some perceived “problem,” whether it’s spiritual dirt or legal status or sin debt.

This realization of the terrible damage done to God’s character and reputation by some ways of understanding the cross have led to many attempts to reconsider what is said. Most recently in the Guardian newspaper (April 11, 2009) Giles Fraser, vicar of Putney in London wrote:

No, Jesus is not a blood sacrifice to appease a vicious God. The story is not an endorsement of the idea that sacrifice brings peace with God but an attack on it. “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” Jesus insists, going on to side with the scapegoats themselves. The Gospel is clear... I am with the one cast out. He became one with the rejected and the cast out. And thus he suffered the same fate. This is not to endorse sacrificial theology but to condemn it.

The Problem with Atonement Stories

Others stretch the concept to charge that penal substitution language amounts to "divine child abuse"—where an angry, cosmic Father beats up his meek and helpless Son—hardly the biblical imagery of the relationship of the Father and the Son. David Neff

“I want to tell you a story.” The minister smiled at his young congregation. “It’s about little Jimmy and a boy they called Big Tom. Now these two boys were in the same class at school back when I was a boy. Jimmy was a short, thin little boy,” (the smiling minister crouched down to demonstrate); “while Big Tom was a really big guy who was really rough.” (He stretched himself up as tall as he could and threw back his shoulders). “See!”

“Now there was a rule at school that all children caught thieving would be caned. Not pleasant, it’s only fair to be punished, isn’t it? Now one day Jimmy forgot his lunch at home, so when it came time to eat he was very hungry. And when nobody was looking he grabbed Big Tom’s lunch and ran off to hide and eat it. What a thing to do!” He paused for effect.

“Big Tom soon found out that his lunch was missing and went and told Teacher. Teacher went out looking and found little Jimmy eating Big Tom’s lunch. So Teacher called the class together and told them that the thief had been found. Well, well.”

By now the smile had gone, and the minister was looking very severe. His eyes swept the audience to make sure he had their full attention. He continued: “Teacher asked Jimmy if he had anything to say before he was punished. But Jimmy knew he’d done wrong and shook his head. So Teacher went to the cupboard where the cane was kept and took it out. He made sure it was nice and whippy. Then he told Jimmy to bend over. There was no time for him to put books down his trousers or anything like that.” The audience grinned feebly, eyes wide open.

“Then just before Teacher started, Big Tom stood up. ‘Teacher’, he said, ‘Would it be alright if I took the punishment for Jimmy. See I’m much bigger and I don’t want him to get hurt.’ So Teacher agreed and soon Big Tom was bending over in Jimmy’s place.” The minister checked. The story was going well—they were all listening intently.

“Teacher lifted up his arm as high as he could and whipped the cane down. Boy, that really hurt. Teacher did it again and he seemed pleased. Teacher was very enthusiastic about making sure the punishment hurt.” He stopped to let the thought of pain sink in.

“Again and again the cane came swishing down, and Big Tom shouted in pain. But in the end it was over, and then little Jimmy came running up to Big Tom and said, ‘Thank you, oh thank you for taking my punishment for me. I will love you forever and you will be my best friend.’” The minister’s smile returned.

“So you see children, that’s what Jesus does for you. Isn’t it marvelous that he takes our place and gets the punishment we deserve.” He turned and sat down, another dramatic story told that made the point most effectively.

No, I’m not making all this up. It did really happen—I heard the story myself. But yes, I did wonder. Had he really said that Big Tom was a really big guy who was really rough? How did that square with the nature of Jesus, I wondered. And what about Teacher, the thinly-disguised God the Father figure in the story? Taking perverse delight in punishing? Had he really meant that? God the Father heaping painful punishment on God the Son, and being glad about it? What justice was there in the whole process? How could this be a description of the God who is truth and right?

My doubts grew as I thought it through. Jimmy only appreciated Big Tom because he’d escaped punishment. Is that to be our response to the God of love? Why had Big Tom acted in such an unpredictable way for a rough kind of guy? What had been his motives for “standing in” for Jimmy. And all this over one lost lunch?

In the end I shuddered. For whatever “good” point had been put across must surely have been outweighed by the avalanche of bad. While the demonstration of Jesus’ love is surely commendable, it must be rightly expressed. We must see why he did it. We must understand what this “substitution” was for. And we must be very sure that in uplifting Jesus we are not at the same time denigrating the Father.

For is God really that sadistic Teacher figure, pouring out his wrathful punishment upon his Son? Is he determined to avenge himself by means of this Law enforcement? Is he right to so willingly accept the sufferings of the innocent as “payment” for the guilty?

Or are Father and Son united in their attitude of love towards us, nature and character one, working together for our salvation? Others have had similar concerns. Note this:

I recall a particularly disturbing incident during my early days of adult faith when I was watching a televised Mass. In his homily, the priest told a story about a father who worked the controls at a railroad drawbridge. One day the father’s only son, a young boy, came to play. The father warned him about playing near the machinery below, then went about his business. After a while a boat approached, so he opened the drawbridge to let it through. He then received word that a train was coming very soon and that he should close the bridge so it could pass over the stream. At that moment he looked out of his window and saw his son (his only beloved son!) playing near the control machinery below. If he closed the bridge, he would crush his son; if he didn’t close it, a train full of people would fall into the river and drown. You can guess how the story ends.

I was bewildered and infuriated! How could my beloved Jesus and his Father be mixed up in such a gruesome business? How could a Catholic priest tell such a story over television? To make matters worse, I heard the same story from the pulpit the very next week (apparently, it was making the rounds). It was then that I decided that theologies of substitutionary atonement did not answer my deepest questions about the crucifixion, although I didn’t have anything to take their place. Philip St. Romain M.S., D. Min., The Meaning of the Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.

Meaning of atonement

Husbands and wives: have you missed any anniversaries/birthdays lately? What did you do you make up for it? How did you propitiate the righteous anger of your offended spouse? How did you atone for your sin?

I have plenty of personal examples of times I had to “atone.” I had to “atone” for pulling sister’s hair by saying I was sorry and being nice to her the whole day—she really enjoyed having me as her “slave”! Then there was the cricket ball smashed window in the conversatory. I had to atone for that one by paying for the broken window out of my pocket mone. Once I thought it would be a good business proposition to send my sister out to sell flowers down our street. I had to atone by giving the money back and the flowers!

The word atonement was first used in 1513; it was soon employed by Tyndale in his translation of the Bible in 1526. The word atone, from which atonement looks like it was derived, did not come along until 1555, through “back formation” from atonement.

So what did it mean? The story you’ve heard is true: atonement really means at-one-ment. The idea of being at one, in harmony. It is a “made-up” word, formed by running at and one together, as the rather free writers of the time were fond of doing. To quote An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English: “atone. Originally to reconcile, from adverbial phrase at one, and preserving the old pronunciation of the latter word, as in only, alone.” That’s why we say “atone” and “at one” differently today, which disguises their commonality. But in reality, and when they were first used, they meant the same thing. (The original pronunciation of the word one continues in the words only [one-ly] and alone [all-one]).

The Shorter Oxford Dictionary describes the word atonement: “the condition of being at one with others; concord, agreement.” There is no concept here of some necessary paying of penalty, of appeasement or placating a hostile person. It is simply “one-ness”. The same source gives a further definition: “3. Spec. in Theol. Reconciliation or restoration between God and sinners. 1526 (Tyndale).” and then adds the note “Atonement is variously used by theologians in the sense of reconciliation, propitiation, expiation. (Not so applied in any version of the N.T.)”—an interesting “theological” comment from a work not particularly concerned with religious matters!

Martyr John Philpot asked in 1554, “What atonement… is there betwixt light and darkness?”revealing the “harmony, unity” meaning.
Take the word “appease” for example. It is because of its use in legal payment metaphors of the atonement and because of historical situations that it has now changed in meaning. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary gives the meaning now as:

1: to bring to a state of peace or quiet : calm; 2: to cause to subside : allay; 3: pacify, conciliate ; especially : to buy off (an aggressor) by concessions usually at the sacrifice of principles.

The first meaning is the original, as can be seen from how the word was first formed—originally from the Latin through Norman French, meaning to make more at peace. So as originally used, just like the word atonement, it meant a bringing to harmony, to achieve peace. But as it became associated with bringing peace between us and God through the at-one-ment, in the same way as atone began to mean “to make amends, to pay for misdeeds,” appease  began to mean to “buy off, to placate hostility”—buying off God and placating his hostility! This third meaning is now the primary use of the word appease. This is also because of historical use—particularly the Munich agreement of 1938 between British prime minister Neville Chamberlain and German leader Adolf Hitler.

In trying to deal with the aggressive actions and demands of Hitler, most European leaders tried to avoid conflict and war through a policy of “appeasement.” In other words, they were trying to keep the peace. But in so doing, they sacrificed principle and the wellbeing of others. The breakup of the country of Czechoslovakia at the insistence of Hitler was the price paid for this appeasement. This “peace at any price” attitude was discredited when it did not stop Hitler’s aggressive ambitions (and in the view of some historians, actually encouraged it). The German invasion of Poland in 1939 eventually brought the policy of appeasement to an end and World War II began.

Bearing in mind this historical scenario it’s not surprising that the term appease then became very much associated with placating a hostile aggressor. And following the idea that Jesus appeased a hostile God the Judge, it’s not hard to work out that following this logic then God has the character of Adolf Hitler!

In the words of historian David Dilks: “The word in its normal meaning connotes the pacific settlement of disputes; in the meaning usually applied to the period of Neville Chamberlain premiership, it has come to indicate something sinister, the granting from fear or cowardice of unwarranted concessions in order to buy temporary peace at someone else’s expense.”

The terms “propitiate” and “propitiation” are frequently associated with answers to the question “Why did Jesus have to die?” Here the original Latin meaning is to “make favorable.” While such an idea may indeed be appropriate when dealing with heathen gods, wanting them to act favorably to the worshiper, is this the meaning to be transposed to God as revealed in Jesus? Here the meaning problem is to do with pagan associations. If Jesus is “making God favorably inclined” towards us through his sacrifice on the cross, this clearly contradicts Biblical statements that indicate it was because of God’s love that Jesus came, not to cause God to love us.

We need to return to the original meaning of atonement and to “set right” what has been done to this beautiful word which describes so well what Christ came to achieve—the one-ness of all Creation (John 1:4), being one that they may be one (John 17:21),  and the re-uniting of human beings back to God (John 17:24).

Not through asserting that someone is right when that person clearly is not, but through the transforming power of God which is shown so clearly on the Cross. We are made one with God by God himself, not through some legal machinations. Our need is not primarily to be forgiven (although that is also important) but to be changed—from rebellious enemies into trustworthy friends. That is the goal of the at-one-ment.
The term reconciliation is one of the best ways of understanding the original concept of atonement. This is the emphasis of the gospel: to be brought back into harmony, agreement and oneness with God by God; not so much by the provision of legal ‘title deeds’ but through a restored relationship based on love and trust—for that is what was broken by the Fall. Such a view is inherently non-legal, since friendship is not based on the observation of rules and requirements. Love cannot be required, only pleaded for.

From enemies to friends

Our message is that God was making the whole human race his friends through Christ. 2 Cor. 5:19 TEV.

As we consider how God turns us from enemies to friends, we’ll look at some foundational Bible texts, along with others that have often been misunderstood. In this way we’ll gain a much clearer understanding of how God makes us one with him!

The source and initiative of the atonement is God. He’s the one doing it:

All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends and gave us the task of making others his friends also. Our message is that God was making the whole human race his friends through Christ. God did not keep an account of their sins, and he has given us the message which tells how he makes them his friends. Here we are, then, speaking for Christ, as though God himself were making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf: let God change you from enemies into his friends! 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 TEV.

The word translated “changing from enemies friends” is also translated “reconcile.” This is essential to change enemies into friends—there has to be a way of bringing them together in harmony so that they can become one.

The problem is with our enmity, our estrangement from God. It’s not that God is our enemy, we are his enemies. That’s where the problem lies, and that’s the situation that needs to be changed, reconciled. It’s because of the way we are:

And so people become enemies of God when they are controlled by their human nature; for they do not obey God’s law, and in fact they cannot obey it. Romans 8:7 TEV.

We’re the rebels, we’re the one who want to go our own way, we’re the ones who turn our backs on God. We treat God as our enemy, and we treat each other that way too because of our sinful nature. Jesus comes to change all that, and makes it clear:

You have heard that it was said, “Love your friends, hate your enemies.” But now I tell you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may become the children of your Father in heaven. Matt. 5:43-45 TEV.

Why? Because that’s what God does, that’s the kind of person he is! Jesus comes to earth, to his own, but his own receives him not. In other words, we reject him, and treat him not as friend but as enemy. Throughout his life he works to demonstrate the truth about God, and how we should live. That’s important not just because of the stories in the gospel accounts, but because the atonement is in Jesus life, not just in his death! For example, Jesus reveals how enemies operate:

Here is another story Jesus told: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away. When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew.
“The farmer’s workers went to him and said, ‘Sir, the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds! Where did they come from?’
“ ‘An enemy has done this!’ the farmer exclaimed.
“ ‘Should we pull out the weeds?’ they asked.
“ ‘No,’ he replied, ‘you’ll uproot the wheat if you do. Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles, and burn them, and to put the wheat in the barn.’ ”Matt. 13:24-30 NLT.

What enemies do? They spoil things, they act malevolently and deceptively. Who is the enemy in the Biblical picture? It is Satan the Accuser, the Enemy who seeks to make everyone else in the universe into God’s enemy too… That has been our choice—to identify with the world and its value system which is opposed to God’s principles, and we place ourselves in opposition to God, wanting to be enemies to him

Don’t you realize that friendship with the world is hatred to God? So those who want to be friends of the world make themselves enemies of God. James 4:4 FBV.

But God refuses to accept this situation. He continually intervenes to try and win us back to love and trust him, and turn us from enemies to friends. He does not treat us as enemies, for he loves us from the beginning, and still now.

He first loved us. 1 John 4:19 KJV.

God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. Romans 5:8 NLT.

Consequently:

For if when we were his enemies God made us his friends through the death of his Son, we can be absolutely sure he will save us through the life of his Son. But that’s not all—now we can rejoice because of what God has done through our Lord Jesus Christ to make us his friends. Romans 5:10, 11 FBV.

Note that we’re made friends through Jesus’ death, but we are saved through his life! In this we move from atonement in potential to atonement in reality. This action is of God through Jesus to make us his friends—so that we can be together in harmony, united—which is what atonement means. Not just between us and him—but also between us and ourselves!

For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups. Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death. Eph. 2:14-16 NLT.

For everyone on this planet the offer is made—be reconciled to God, become friends of God. In order for this to happen God needs to change us from people who do evil into those who do good:

At one time you were far away from God and were his enemies because of the evil things you did and thought. But now, by means of the physical death of his Son, God has made you his friends, in order to bring you, holy, pure, and faultless, into his presence. Col. 1:21, 22 TEV.

Sadly not everyone wants this. Some prefer to treat God as their enemy, and want to live apart from him. They are “enemies of the atonement”:

 I have told you this many times before, and now I repeat it with tears: there are many whose lives make them enemies of Christ’s death on the cross. Phil. 3:18 TEV.

Tragic. Yet in a universe of free will, this is what happens. Not everyone will be saved, for God’s love is so great it allows of rejection.

Universe-wide reconciliation

Here we see the bigger picture. For up to now we have been primarily concerned about ourselves, and our salvation—God changing us from enemies to friends. But there is much more than just our salvation at stake. The conflict between God and Satan has a cosmic aspect to it—for the war began in heaven (Rev. 12:7). Even those angels that remained loyal to God surely had many questions, and in God’s wisdom he chooses to work not from claims but through demonstration. So the Cross answers far more than just issues about our situation—it impacts the whole universe-wide controversy over God and his actions raised by Satan the Accuser. So God chooses to make his nature clear, and explain himself and his character through the gift of himself. In this way he reconciles the whole universe:

Through the Son, then, God decided to bring the whole universe back to himself. God made peace through his Son’s blood on the cross and so brought back to himself all things, both on earth and in heaven. Colossians 1:20 TEV.

In fact this might read better “both those on earth and those in heaven.” At which point some may object that those in heaven do not need the atonement—understood as paying some penalty or making amends. But that is not the original meaning—for the word was first used to describe true at-one-ment, and you cannot be truly at one until the controversy is settled and the questions answered. (The NIV uses the term “reconcile”—and in fact the word is actually “completely reconcile,” showing the total extent of the reconciliation needed).

This is confirmed in Ephesians where God’s plan is shown to bring together everything on earth and in heaven:

In all his wisdom and insight God did what he had purposed, and made known to us the secret plan he had already decided to complete by means of Christ. This plan, which God will complete when the time is right, is to bring all creation together, everything in heaven and on earth, with Christ as head. Ephesians 1:8-10 TEV.

This plan was very clearly not just for us, but for all the intelligent beings of the universe as God vividly portrays his true nature and character through what is happening here:

God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was his eternal plan, which he carried out through Christ Jesus our Lord. Ephesians 3:9, 10 NLT.

So it’s for everyone, and everyone means more than Planet Earth. The TEV puts it this way: “in order that the angelic rulers and powers in the heavenly world might learn of his wisdom in all its different forms.” Jesus died to bring peace even in heaven, for that’s where the war over God and his character began! For in the end:

Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth… Phil. 2:10 TEV.

How? Colossians makes it clear:

In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.  Col. 2:15 NLT.

Jesus wins the victory over who is right, who is telling the truth, who is trustworthy. Through his life and death and resurrection he demonstrates the truth about God as he truly is, and completely defeats the Enemy and his accusations. His victory is not based on power and might, but through his totality of love and forgiveness and healing, vividly revealed at the Cross. As a result, Jesus draws everyone—and he means everyone:

When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself. John 12:32 NLT.

But how?

How does God do this? Perhaps we can begin by asking how we turn enemies into friends—what do we do? In our answers we begin to see that there is no mechanism to this. For we’re talking about repairing a broken relationship, which is what God is doing. Ideas of payment and price and punishment really don’t work here. We certainly don’t want to make it seem as if the problem is with God—the problem lies with us. Nor is the problem the breaking of rules that have brought an imposed penalty. We need to understand what went wrong if we’re going to understand how God makes it right…

Keeping these thoughts in mind, let’s look at some Biblical images of at-one-ment, realizing that some of our presuppositions may be wrong. What the Bible doesn’t say is as important as what it does say. To some it’s a surprise to discover texts that not there: “Christ our substitute,” “The Father executes the Son,” “God imposes the death penalty,” “God needs the blood,” “God demands payment before he can forgive,” etc. etc.

Let’s begin with a classic verse that many use to support the idea that on the Cross Jesus was punished for our sins. A quick look at different translations reveals that there is already some debate as to the meaning of the verse:

Christ was without sin, but for our sake God made him share our sin in order that in union with him we might share the righteousness of God. 2 Cor. 5:21 TEV.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Cor. 5:21 NIV.

For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ. 2 Cor. 5:21 NLT.

So what is really happening here? Is Christ the sin offering? Or is he sharing in our sin (whatever that may mean)? Is he being made “sinful”—which means full of sin? The Greek literally says that God made Christ, who didn’t know sin, to be sin for us. This is a long way from saying that Christ was punished by God in our place, as some have read the verse. Certainly in seeing Jesus on the Cross we see the end result of sin—what it causes, and what its consequences are. Jesus willing demonstrated the inevitable end of sinners. But this is demonstration, not actuality in the sense that Jesus was truly turned into a sinful being. For if he was, and suffered the fate of a sinner, he would die and remain forever dead. No: this is God saying, “See what happens! You do die, I was not lying in the Garden of Eden, and sin causes this death as I stated. I am not inflicting punishment, just allowing the consequences of sin to lead to their inevitable result. Unless you accept my offer of healing salvation, you will all die like this as a consequence of sin.”

Frequently Biblical images of blood are used to “explain” the meaning of the death of Jesus. However they do not take us much further in terms of discovering how this achieves at-one-ment, and wrongly understood, can take us further away from God. Let’s examine a few examples:

For by the blood of Christ we are set free, that is, our sins are forgiven. Ephesians 1:7 TEV.
The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from every sin. 1 John 1:7 TEV.
God offered him, so that by his blood he should become the means by which people’s sins are forgiven through their faith in him. God did this in order to demonstrate that he is righteous. Romans 3:26 TEV.

We must remember the context in which much of the New Testament is written—referring back to the Old Testament sacrificial system and the use of blood. In fact Hebrews contains by far the most references to blood in the New Testament, and is explaining the old system in the new context. So the concepts used owe much to the former system of “dealing” with sin. However as Hebrews (10:4) makes clear, the blood of bulls and goats could not actually take away sin. Why not? Because sin is not a substance to be dealt with, but an attitude, a way of thinking, a broken relationship with God that leads to wrong acting. However God reveals through the sacrificial system that sin kills, and that was the primary lesson to be learned. Blood only cleans symbolically, and blood is a symbol for life. Spilled blood is death. So for the phrase “the blood of Jesus” we should read “Jesus’ death.”

The real question is “who is the blood for?” In pagan sacrifices it was to persuade the god to be favorable. However we do not worship a pagan God, but a God who loves us. He does not need to be persuaded. It was “For God so loved” that Jesus came. It was not in order to induce him to love us. So Jesus’ death, his blood, is not a precondition for God’s love or forgiveness.

Like the Old Testament sacrificial system, the blood is for us. It shows us what sin does (it kills), and that eventually God will come as Jesus to show us exactly that! By the Cross then we are set free—free from the inexorable results of sin as we choose God who can heal and save us. The “blood of Jesus purifies us”—it does not purify God! It convinces us to come to God and be changed, remade in his image, to be made pure once again. By the Cross we look for forgiveness as we have faith—trust—in this wonderful Savior. God does this to demonstrate he is righteous—and not some unrighteous God who would demand the death of an innocent to pay the sinful debts of the guilty!

Jesus gave his life for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live. Gal. 1:4 NLT.

That’s what we need to be saved from—we don’t need to be saved from a hostile God! Here we need to observe that because of some faulty atonement ideas even some translations can betray presuppositions as to what the death of Jesus achieved, and how. In many ways Romans, the clearest explanation of how God turns us from enemies into friends, is also the most problematic when it comes to this issue of reading into the text our assumptions. Take just one example

He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. Romans 4:25 NIV.

This makes it seem that someone (God?) handed Jesus over to be deliberately killed to deal (pay?) for our sins. But this is not actually what the text says. It says he was “betrayed”—who did the betraying? It was us! And the word “for” in “for our sins” actually is “because.” So the verse would be better translated “He was betrayed because of our sins…” In fact both the TEV and NLT do use the word “because,” though they stay with “handed over.” I believe it would better to translate the verse this way:

Jesus was betrayed because of our sins, and was raised to life to make us right. Romans 4:25 FBV.

The text in Galatians 3:13 is also used to imply that God was punishing Jesus on the Cross as the means of forgiving us. But once again the text does not say that. Look at two translations:

But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” Gal. 3:13 NLT.

But by becoming a curse for us Christ has redeemed us from the curse that the Law brings; for the scripture says, “Anyone who is hanged on a tree is under God’s curse.” Gal. 3:13 TEV.

This text parallels the one we already looked at in 2 Cor. 5:21 about Jesus being made sin who knew no sin. However the “curse of the Law” is that sinners die. Only if you believe that God is the one who imposes the penalty on sin and carries out the punishment could this text imply that the Father metes out punishment (undeservedly) on his Son. Rather it is God himself who is saying “I’m showing you what sin does!” Otherwise you have the strange legal “fiction” of God punishing God to satisfy God. The truth is:

For Jesus also suffered because of sins, the sinless one for the sake of sinners, so he could bring us to God. 1 Peter 3:18 FBV.

Jesus is the one who brings us to God—we’re the ones who are estranged, enemies, and need to be brought back. We could deal with many more verses, but the same principles applies—look for the meaning, and make sure you do not bring in existing assumptions as to how this works, or what the problem and solution are. Just one last example from Isaiah, often used to emphasize punishment as an imposed penalty for our wrongdoing that Jesus experienced from God on our behalf:

All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
the sins of us all. Is. 53:6 NLT.

All of us were like sheep that were lost,
each of us going his own way.
But the Lord made
the punishment fall on him, the punishment all of us deserved. Is. 53:6 TEV.

Once again we have two very different interpretations in the translation of the same verse. The TEV sadly is much more of an assumption as to what is said. Nowhere in the original is there the aspect of punishment. It is simply that our sins are placed on the “suffering servant” by God. In this way the verse parallels 2 Cor. 5:21, which we have already considered. The effects of sin are being demonstrated, and the intrinsic consequences revealed if we do not accept God’s healing salvation. What’s under consideration here is sin and its fatal consequences, not punishment from a wrathful God. We could further ask if sin can truly be “transferred,” since it is not an object or substance but a mentality, a way of thinking and living, a broken relationship of distrust that alienated us from God. Can we say that our wrong thinking and wrong actions themselves are transferred to Christ? Surely it is rather the results of what we have said and thought and done—these results that lead so inevitably to death. Jesus takes on himself the consequences of our sinful thoughts and actions to show us what they do, and that we will die as a result.

On the Cross Jesus shows us what sin really is as he cries out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” The sense of separation, of losing that precious, close, loving and trusting relationship—this is what truly kills, as surely as being separated from the source of life itself. Our sinful lives are lived in separation from God, and the sure result is ruin and death—not because God imposes this as a sentence of doom, but because of ourselves we cannot live, and we refuse God, the only one who can give us life.

But now the way that God makes us right has been demonstrated—a way that isn’t to do with the law, even though it was spoken of by the law and the prophets. God’s right nature transforms everyone who believes and trusts in Jesus Christ. It doesn’t matter who we are: everyone has sinned and is a long way from reaching God’s glory. God’s free and gracious gift is to make us right through the salvation of Christ Jesus, whom God presented to bring about reconciliation as we trust in him. He shed his blood to demonstrate his character of being and doing right, for in his mercy he overlooked sins in the past. Now at this time God proves he does what’s right, and that he makes right those who trust in Jesus. Romans 3:21-26 FBV.


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From Enemies to Friends: The Stunning Good News of How God Wins Us Back (The Atonement in the Context of the Great Controversy) fetf2.doc

© Jonathan Gallagher 2009