Topic : Atonement

Literally, “at-one-ment,” the making at one of those who have been separated. The word is used of Christ’s dying to bring God and sinners together. Sin had separated them (Isa. 59:2) and made them enemies (Col. 1:2); it was thus a very serious matter. A many-sided act was required to remove that sin; words like redemption and reconciliation bring out significant aspects of Christ’s saving work. Whatever had to be done about sin, Christ’s death did, and thus opened up salvation for sinners.

The Shaw Pocket Bible Handbook, Walter A. Elwell, Editor, (Harold Shaw Pub., Wheaton , IL; 1984), p. 347

An item in the May 2, 1985, Kansas City Times reminds us of a story you may be able to use in an evangelistic message. The item had to do with the attempt by some fans of O. Henry, the short-story writer, to get a pardon for their hero, who was convicted in 1898 of embezzling $784.08 from the bank where he was employed.

But you cannot give a pardon to a dead man. A pardon can only be given to someone who can accept it. Now, for the story.

Back in 1830 George Wilson was convicted of robbing the United States Mail and was sentenced to be hanged. President Andrew Jackson issued a pardon for Wilson, but he refused to accept it. The matter went to Chief Justice Marshall, who concluded that Wilson would have to be executed. “A pardon is a slip of paper,” wrote Marshall, “the value of which is determined by the acceptance of the person to be pardoned. If it is refused, it is no pardon. George Wilson must be hanged.”

For some, the pardon comes too late. For others, the pardon is not accepted.

Prokope, Vol. 11, #5

One might ask, “How could one man pay the penalty of eternal condemnation for so many sins by so many people in just a few hours on the cross?” He could do it for two reasons. Jesus was infinitely valuable and could take the place of an infinite number of people. And because He was infinitely righteous, He could pay the penalty for an infinite number of sins.

Joe Wall, Going For The Gold, Moody, p. 29

In relation to God the Father.

1. To do God’s will: Hebrews 10:7,9.

2. To demonstrate God’s love: John 3:16; Romans 5:8; I John 3:16; 4:10.

3. To reconcile us to God: Romans 5:9-11; II Corinthians 5:18-19; Ephesians 2:16; Colossians 1:20-22.

4. To bring us to God: I Peter 3:18; Hebrews 2:9-13.

5. To demonstrate God’s righteousness: Romans 3:24-26; II Corinthians 5:21.

In relation to the devil.

1. To destroy the power and works of the devil: Colossians 1:13; 2:15; Hebrews 2:14-15; I John 3:8.

In relation to the law: Galatians 3:13-14; 4:5; Romans 7:1-6; 10:4.

In relation to sin.

1. To bear our sins: I Peter 2:24.

2. To take away sin: John 1:29; Hebrews 9:26-28; 10:4, 11; I John 3:5.

3. To be a final sacrifice for sin: Hebrews 7:26-27.

4. To be the propitiation for our sins: I John 2:2; 4:20.

5. To cleanse us from all sin: I John 1:7; Revelation 1:5.

6. To forgive us of our sins: Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14; 2:13-14.

7. To redeem us: Galatians 3:13-14; 4:5; I Peter 1:18-19; Titus 2:14; Revelation 5:9-10.

8. To save sinners: I Timothy 1:15; Hebrews 7:25.

In relation to the believer’s future.

1. To perfect us forever: Hebrews 10:14.

2. To give us eternal life: John 3:14-16; Romans 6:22-23; I John 5:6-13.

3. To save us from wrath: Romans 5:9.

The Biola Hour Guidelines, What We Believe, by David L. Hocking, (La Mirada, CA: Biola Univ., 1982), pp. 21-22

“Where is God?” inquired the mind:
“To His presence I am blind. . . .
I have scanned each star and sun,
Traced the certain course they run;

I have weighed them in my scale,
And can tell when each will fail;
From the caverns of the night,
I have brought new worlds to light;

I have measured earth and sky,
Read each zone with steady eye;
But no sight of God appears,
In the glory of the spheres.”

But the heart spoke wistfully,
“Have you looked at Calvary?”

Thomas C. Clark

Quoted by John Gilmore in Probing Heaven, Key Questions on the Hereafter, (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1989, p. 97

Jesus! whose blood so freely stream’d
To satisfy the law’s demand;
By Thee from guilt and wrath redeem’d,
Before the Father’s face I stand.

To reconcile offending man,
Make Justice drop her angry rod;
What creature could have form’d the plan,
Or who fulfill it but a God'

No drop remains of all the curse,
For wretches who deserved the whole;
No arrows dipt in wrath to pierce
The guilty, but returning soul.

Peace by such means so dearly bought,
What rebel could have hoped to see'
Peace, by his injured Sovereign wrought,
His Sovereign fasten’d to a tree.

Now, Lord, Thy feeble worm prepare!
For strife with earth, and hell begins;
Confirm and gird me for the war;
They hate the soul that hates his sins.

Let them in horrid league agree!
They may assault, they may distress;
But cannot quench Thy love to me,
Nor rob me of the Lord my peace.

Olney Hymns, William Cowper, from Cowper’s Poems, Sheldon & Company, New York

There is a fountain fill’d with blood
Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see
That fountain in his day;
And there have I, as vile as he,
Wash’d all my sins away.

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its power,
Till all the ransom’d church of God
Be saved, to sin no more.

E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream
Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die.

Then in a nobler, sweeter song,
I’ll sing Thy power to save;
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue
Lies silent in the grave.

Lord I believe Thou hast prepared
(Unworthy though I be)
For me a blood-bought free reward,
A golden harp for me!

’Tis strung and tuned for endless years,
And form’d by power divine,
To sound in God the Father’s ears
No other name but Thine.

Olney Hymns, by William Cowper, from Cowper’s Poems, Sheldon & Company, New York

The Saviour, what a noble flame
Was kindled in His breast,
When hasting to Jerusalem,
He march’d before the rest;

Good will to men, and zeal for God,
His every thought engross;
He longs to be baptized with blood,
He pants to reach the cross!

With all His suffering full in view,
And woes to us unknown,
Forth to the task His spirit flew;
’Twas love that urged Him on.

Lord, we return Thee what we can:
Our hearts shall sound abroad,
Salvation to the dying Man,
And to the rising God!

And while Thy bleeding glories here
Engage our wondering eyes,
We learn our lighter cross to bear,
And hasten to the skies.

Olney Hymns, William Cowper, from Cowper’s Poems, Sheldon & Company, New York

Hail Sovereign Love that first began
The scheme to rescue fallen man
Hail matchless, free eternal grace
That gave my soul a hiding place.

Against the God that built the sky
I fought with hands uplifted high
Despised the mention of His grace
Too proud to seek a hiding place.

Enwrapped in thick Egyptian night
And fond of darkness more than light
Madly I ran a sinful race
Secure without a hiding place.

But thus the eternal council ran
Almighty Love, arrest that man
I felt the arrows of distress
And found I had no hiding place.

Eternal justice stood aview
So to Sinai?s fiery mount I flew
But justice said with frowning face
?The law is not hiding place.?

Thus I wandered ?lone and feared
Till mercy?s angel soon appeared
And led me at a placid pace
To Jesus for a hiding place.

On Him Almighty vengeance fell
That would have sent a world to hell
He bore it for a sinful race
And thus became our hiding place.

Should sevenfold storms of thunder roll
And shake this globe from pole to pole
No thunderstorm can daunt my face
For Jesus is my hiding place.

A few more days at most
Will land me on fair Canaan?s coast
Where I shall sing the songs of grace
And see my glorious hiding place.

Jehoi­da Brew­er

His blood is so sufficient
He tells us in His word
On the mercy seat in heaven
It was put there by our Lord.

It stops the accuser of the brethren
As he walks before the throne
Our God just points to the blood
And Satan knows He cares for His own.

It’s sufficient for any situation
To nourish, to cleanse, and keep.
Oh, magnify your name my Lord
My soul with rapture leaps.

Can my sins though oh so many
Make this blood of no avail
Once I’ve named the name of Jesus
In my heart, I cannot fail.

His word has proclaimed it
The work begun in me
Will someday be completed
When His dear face I see.

And when I dwell in heaven
As the ages roll along
Oh, that precious blood of Jesus
Will be my victory song.

Author unknown

An Englishman by the name of Ebenezer Wooten had just concluded a preaching service in the village square. The crowd had dispersed, and he was busily engaged in loading the equipment. A young man approached him and asked, “Mr. Wooten, what must I do to be saved?”

Sensing that the fellow was trusting his own righteousness, Wooten answered in a rather unconcerned way, “It’s too late!”

The inquirer was startled. “Oh don’t say that, sir!”

But the evangelist insisted, “It’s too late!” Then, looking the young man in the eye, he continued, “You want to know what you must DO to be saved. I tell you it’s too late now or any other time. The work of salvation is done, completed, finished! It was finished on the cross.” Then he explained that our part is simply to acknowledge our sin and receive by faith the gift of forgiveness.

Our Daily Bread

Some of the problems of Christianity strike me as being so blatantly rational-belief-destroying that there is almost a sense of farce in seeing its devotees trying to wriggle from under them. Chief among these is the problem of explaining how somebody’s death two thousand years ago can wash away my sins. When you combine this with the doctrine of the Trinity and the implication that the sacrificial lamb is God Himself (or Itself) and that this therefore makes things all right with this self-same God, the rational mind boggles.

Michael Ruse, professor of philosophy and zoology at the University of Guelph, Ontario, who was raised a Quaker, in “From Belief to Unbelief and Halfway Back, Zygon, Vol 29, March 1994, p. 31

Who can estimate the value of God’s gift, when He gave to the world His only begotten Son! It is something unspeakable and incomprehensible. It passes man’s understanding. Two things there are which man has no arithmetic to reckon, and no line to measure. One of these things is the extent of that man’s loss who loses his own soul. The other is the extent of God’s gift when he gave Christ to sinners…Sin must indeed be exceeding sinful, when the Father must needs give His only Son to be the sinner’s Friend!

J.C. Ryle in Foundations of Faith

Why did the Father will the death of his only beloved Son, and in so painful and shameful a form? Because the Father had “laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6). Jesus’ death was vicarious (undergone in our place) and atoning (securing remission of sins for us and reconciliation to God). It was a sacrificial death, fulfilling the principle of atonement taught in connection with the Old Testament sacrifices: “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Heb. 9:22; Lev. 17:11).

As the “last Adam,” the second man in history to act on mankind’s behalf, Jesus died a representative death. As a sacrificial victim who put away our sins by undergoing the death penalty that was our due, Jesus died as our substitute. By removing God’s wrath against us for sin, his death was an act of propitiation (Rom. 3:25; 1 John 2:2,; 4:10 --”expiation,” signifying that which puts away sin, is only half the meaning). By saving us from slavery to ungodliness and divine retribution for sin, Jesus’ death was an act of redemption (Gal. 3:13; Eph. 1:7; 1 Pet. 1:18-19). By mediating and making peace between us and God, it was an act of reconciliation (Rom. 5:10-11). It opened the door to our justification (pardon and acceptance) and our adoption (becoming God’s sons and heirs -- Rom. 5:1,9; Gal. 4:4-5).

This happy relationship with our Maker, based on and sealed by blood atonement, is the “New Covenant” of which Jesus spoke in the Upper Room (1 Cor. 11:25; Matt. 26:28).

Your Father Loves You by James Packer, (Harold Shaw Publishers, 1986), page for December 27

Commenting on this verse Martin Luther wrote: “All the prophets did foresee in Spirit that Christ should become the greatest transgressor, murderer, adulterer, thief, rebel, blasphemer, etc., that ever was or could be in all the world. For he, being made a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world is not now an innocent person and without sins…but a sinner.” He was, of course, talking about the imputing of our wrongdoing to Christ as our substitute.

Luther continues: “Our most merciful Father…sent his only Son into the world and laid upon him…the sins of all men saying: Be thou Peter that denier; Paul that persecutor, blasphemer and cruel oppressor; David that adulterer; that sinner which did eat the apple in Paradise; that thief which hanged upon the cross; and briefly be thou the person which hath committed the sins of all men; see therefore that thou pay and satisfy for them. Here now comes the law and saith: I find him a sinner…therefore let him die upon the cross. And so he setteth upon him and killeth him. By this means the whole world is purged and cleansed from all sins.”

The presentation of the death of Christ as the substitute exhibits the love of the cross more richly, fully, gloriously, and glowingly than any other account of it. Luther saw this and gloried in it. He once wrote to a friend: “Learn to know Christ and him crucified. Learn to sing to him, and say, ‘Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness, I am your sin. You have taken upon yourself what is mine and given me what is yours. You became what you were not, so that I might become what I was not.’“

What a great and wonderful exchange! Was there ever such love?

Your Father Loves You by James Packer, (Harold Shaw Publishers, 1986), page for October 20

As we look at the cross and interpret it, with the help of the Holy Spirit, and in the light of what the Bible says about it, we see many truths that are basic to personal religion:

• God condones nothing but judges all sin as it deserves, which Scripture affirms and my conscience confirms to be right.
• My sins merit ultimate penal suffering and rejection from God’s presence (conscience also confirms this), and nothing I do can blot them out.
• The penalty due me for my sins was paid for me by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in his death on the cross.
• Because this is so, through faith in him I am made the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21): i.e., I am justified. Pardon, acceptance, and sonship become mine.
• Christ’s death for me is my sole ground of hope before God.
• My faith in Christ is God’s own gift to me, given in virtue of Christ’s own death for me: i.e., the cross procured it.
• Christ’s death for me guarantees my preservation to glory.
• Christ’s death for me is the measure and pledge of the Father and Son’s love for me.
• Christ’s death for me calls and constrains me to trust, worship, love and serve.

Your Father Loves You by James Packer, (Harold Shaw Publishers, 1986), page for April 5

The government of Polish Prime Minister Jaruzelski had ordered crucifixes removed from classroom walls, just as they had been banned in factories, hospitals, and other public institutions. Catholic bishops attacked the ban that had stirred waves of anger and resentment all across Poland. Ultimately the government relented, insisting that the law remain on the books, but agreeing not to press for removal of the crucifixes, particularly in the schoolrooms.

But one zealous Communist school administrator in Garwolin decided that the law was the law. So one evening he had seven large crucifixes removed from lecture halls where they had hung since the school’s founding in the twenties.

Days later, a group of parents entered the school and hung more crosses. The administrator promptly had these taken down as well. The next day two-thirds of the school’s six hundred students staged a sit-in. When heavily armed riot police arrived, the students were forced into the streets. Then they marched, crucifixes held high, to a nearby church where they were joined by twenty-five hundred other students from nearby schools for a morning of prayer in support of the protest. Soldiers surrounded the church. But the pictures from inside of students holding crosses high above their heads flashed around the world. So did the words of the priest who delivered the message to the weeping congregation that morning.

“There is no Poland without a cross.”

Chuck Colson, Kingdoms in Conflict, pp. 202-3

Alila stood on the beach holding her tiny infant son close to her heart. Tears welled in her eyes as she began slowly walking toward the river’s edge. She stepped into the water, silently making her way out until she was waist deep, the water gently lapping at the sleeping baby’s feet. She stood there for a long time holding the child tightly as she stared out across the river. Then all of a sudden in one quick movement she threw the six month old baby to his watery death.

Native missionary M.V. Varghese often witnesses among the crowds who gather at the Ganges. It was he who came upon Alila that day kneeling in the sand crying uncontrollably and beating her breast. With compassion he knelt down next to her and asked her what was wrong.

Through her sobs she told him, “The problems in my home are too many and my sins are heavy on my heart, so I offered the best I have to the goddess Ganges, my first born son.”

Brother Varghese’s heart ached for the desperate woman. As she wept he gently began to tell her about the love of Jesus and that through Him her sins could be forgiven.

She looked at him strangely. “I have never heard that before,” she replied through her tears. “Why couldn’t you have come thirty minutes earlier? If you did, my child would not have had to die.”

Each year millions of people come to the holy Indian city of Hardwar to bathe in the River Ganges. These multitudes come believing this Hindu ritual will wash their sins away. For many people like Alila, missionaries are arriving too late, simply because there aren’t enough of these faithful brothers and sisters on the mission field.

Christianity Today, 1993

During the Middle Ages there was a popular story which circulated about Martin of Tours, the saint for whom Martin Luther was named. It was said that Satan once appeared to St Martin in the guise of the Savior himself. St. Martin was ready to fall to his feet and worship this resplendent being of glory and light. Then, suddenly, he looked up into the palms of his hands and asked, “Where are the nail prints?” Whereupon the apparition vanished.

Theologians tell a story to illustrate how Christ’s triumph presently benefits our lives: Imagine a city under siege. The enemy that surrounds they city will not let anyone or anything leave. Supplies are running low, and the citizens are fearful. But in the dark of the night, a spy sneaks through the enemy lines. He has rushed to the city to tell the people that in another place the main enemy force has been defeated; the leaders have already surrendered. The people do not need to be afraid. It is only a matter of time until the besieging troops receive the news and lay down their weapons.

Similarly, we may seem now to be surrounded by the forces of evil -- disease, injustice, oppression, death. But the enemy has actually been defeated at Calvary. Things are not the way they seem to be. It is only a matter of time until it becomes clear to all that the battle is really over.

Uncommon Decency, Richard J. Mouw, pp. 149-15

For family devotions, Martin Luther once read the account of Abraham offering Isaac on the altar in Genesis 22. His wife, Katie, said, “I do not believe it. God would not have treated his son like that!”

“But, Katie,” Luther replied, “He did.”

The Wycliffe Handbook of Preaching & Preachers, W. Wiersbe, p. 191

At the cross, Jesus drove out Satan, “the prince of this world” (John 12:31-33.

Today Satan is a usurper. The cross passed initial judgment on him. His claims were destroyed; his claimed authority was invalidated. His defeat was so complete that he has lost his place and authority. The Greek word ekballo means “to drive out, expel.” The cross doomed Satan to ultimate expulsion from our world, though he is still active and desperate in his anger and futility. He is the archon, the ruler of this age only until God enforces the judgment of the cross after Christ’s return.

At the cross, Jesus “disarmed the powers and authorities” (Col. 2:15). The word disarmed is from the Greek apekoyo, a double compound meaning “to put off completely, to undress completely and thus render powerless.” At the cross, Christ undressed all demon authorities. It is a picture from the ancient oriental custom of stripping the robes of office from a deposed official. At the cross, the leaders and authorities of Satan’s forces and kingdom were stripped of their authority and honor. They now have no authority to oppose, intimidate, or harass you.

But that is not all; there is even more in this picture. Paul says Christ “made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (v.15). This again is an illustration taken from ancient history. When a conquering emperor returned from a great victory, he was often given a triumphal procession. The victor and his army marched through streets lined by cheering thousands. While the musicians played, chariots and soldiers carried the looted treasures of the defeated king, and he and his general or other selected prisoners were led in chains, their shame openly displayed.

The Greek word edeigmatisen means “to make a public exhibition.” During the interval between Christ’s death and resurrection, when He announced (ekarussen) Satan’s defeat at the cross to the evil spirits in prison (I Peter 3:19), in symbolism Christ marched triumphantly through the spirit prison, with Satan and his demonic rulers chained in inglorious defeat behind Him. He made a public spectacle of their defeat, says Paul, and now every demonic being knows his cause is defeated forever, his satanic lord’s authority stripped from him, and his own doom waiting for the appointed time (Matt. 8:29).

At the cross, Satan and his unclean spirits were destroyed (Heb. 2:14). The word destroy is from the Greek katargeo, which means “to put out of action, to make useless.” It is used repeatedly to show how through the death and the return of Christ (parousia), the powers of destruction that threaten man spiritually are put out of action. In I Corinthians 15:24, this includes all dominion of demonic authority and power. In verse 26, death itself will be the last enemy to be rendered useless. All these are “coming to nothing,” including Satan himself (Heb. 2:14) and his demonic leaders (I Cor. 2:6).

Source unknown

Pakistan in 1947. A fellow Hindu approaches to confess a great wrong. “I killed a child,” says the distraught man. “I smashed his head against a wall.”

“Why?” asks the Mahatma (Hindu for “Great Soul”).

“They killed my boy. The Moslems killed my son.”

“I know a way out of hell,” says Gandhi. “Find a child, a little boy whose mother and father have been killed, and raise him as your own. Only be sure he is a Moslem--and that you raise him as one.”

Feb 1992, Reader’s Digest, p. 106

In evil long I took delight,
Unawed by shame or fear,
Till a new object struck my sight,
And stopp’d my wild career:

I saw One hanging on a Tree
In agonies and blood,
Who fix’d His languid eyes on me.
As near His Cross I stood.

Sure never till my latest breath,
Can I forget that look:
It seem’d to charge me with His death,
Though not a word He spoke:

My conscience felt and own’d the guilt,
And plunged me in despair:
I saw my sins His Blood had spilt,
And help’d to nail Him there.

Alas! I knew not what I did!
But now my tears are vain:
Where shall my trembling soul be hid'
For I the Lord have slain!

A second look He gave, which said,
“I freely all forgive;
This blood is for thy ransom paid;
I die that thou may’st live.”

Thus, while His death my sin displays
In all its blackest hue,
Such is the mystery of grace,
It seals my pardon too.

With pleasing grief, and mournful joy,
My spirit now if fill’d,
That I should such a life destroy,
Yet live by Him I kill’d!

John Newton, 1725-1807

I read about a small boy who was consistently late coming home from school. His parents warned him one day that he must be home on time that afternoon, but nevertheless he arrived later than ever. His mother met him at the door and said nothing.

At dinner that night, the boy looked at his plate. There was a slice of bread and a glass of water. He looked at his father’s full plate and then at his father, but his father remained silent. The boy was crushed.

The father waited for the full impact to sink in, then quietly took the boy’s plate and placed it in front of himself. He took his own plate of meat and potatoes, put it in front of the boy, and smiled at his son. When that boy grew to be a man, he said, “All my life I’ve known what God is like by what my father did that night.”

J. Allan Peterson

In his book Written in Blood, Robert Coleman tells the story of a little boy whose sister needed a blood transfusion. The doctor explained that she had the same disease the boy had recovered from two years earlier. Her only chance for recovery was a transfusion from someone who had previously conquered the disease. Since the two children had the same rare blood type, the boy was the ideal donor.

“Would you give your blood to Mary?” the doctor asked.

Johnny hesitated. His lower lip started to tremble. Then he smiled and said, “Sure, for my sister.”

Soon the two children were wheeled into the hospital room—Mary, pale and thin; Johnny, robust and healthy. Neither spoke, but when their eyes met, Johnny grinned.

As the nurse inserted the needle into his arm, Johnny’s smile faded. He watched the blood flow through the tube. With the ordeal almost over, his voice, slightly shaky, broke the silence. “Doctor, when do I die?’

Only then did the doctor realize why Johnny had hesitated, why his lip had trembled when he’d agreed to donate his blood. He’s thought giving his blood to his sister meant giving up his life. In that brief moment, he’d made his great decision.

Johnny, fortunately, didn’t have to die to save his sister. Each of us, however, has a condition more serious than Mary’s, and it required Jesus to give not just His blood but His life.

Thomas Lindberg

Christian Theology in Plain Language, p. 114

We trample the blood of the Son of God if we think we are forgiven because we are sorry for our sins. The only explanation for the forgiveness of God and for the unfathomable depth of His forgetting is the death of Jesus Christ. Our repentance is merely the outcome of our personal realization of the atonement which He has worked out for us. It does not matter who or what we are; there is absolute reinstatement into God by the death of Jesus Christ and by no other way, not because Jesus Christ pleads, but because He died. It is not earned, but accepted. All the pleading which deliberately refuses to recognize the Cross is of no avail; it is battering at a door other than the one that Jesus has opened. Our Lord does not pretend we are all right when we are all wrong. The atonement is a propitiation whereby God, through the death of Jesus, makes an unholy man holy.

Oswald Chambers

• God requires satisfaction because He is holiness, but He makes satisfaction because He is love. - A.H. Strong

Em Griffin writes, in MAKING FRIENDS, about three kinds of London maps: the street map, the map depicting throughways, and the underground map of the subway. “Each map is accurate and correct,” he writes, “but each map does not give the complete picture. To see the whole, the three maps must be printed one on top of each other. However, that is often confusing, so I use only one ‘layer’ at a time.

“It is the same with the words used to describe the death of Jesus Christ. Each word, like redemption, reconciliation, or justification, is accurate and correct, but each word does not give the complete picture. To see the whole we need to place one ‘layer’ one top of the other, but that is sometimes confusing--we cannot see the trees for the whole! So we separate out each splendid concept and discover that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.” - John Ross

Source unknown

In his little book On Christian Truth, Harry Blamires suggests that we think of the human race aboard a hijacked jet-liner flying through time. “God himself directed its takeoff from the divine control-tower. The initiator of all evil, whom we call the Devil, managed to get a boarding pass.” When the plane reached its cruising altitude, the Devil produced his weapons, threatened the pilot, and took control of the aircraft and all its passengers. Thus the plane hopped on fearfully through history from airport to airport till “it was caught on the tarmac at Jerusalem, an outpost of the Roman empire, in the reign of Tiberius Caesar, where the Son of God offered himself as sole hostage in exchange for the passengers and crew.”

Christian Theology in Plain Language, p. 115

Did Christ finish His work? How dangerous it is to join anything of our own to the righteousness of Christ, in pursuit of justification before God! Jesus Christ will never endure this; it reflects upon His work dishonorably. He will be all, or none, in our justification. If He has finished the work, what need is there of our additions? And if not, to what purpose are they?

Can we finish that which Christ Himself could not complete? Did He finish the work, and will He ever divide the glory and praise of it with us? No, no; Christ is no half-Savior. It is a hard thing to bring proud hearts to rest upon Christ for righteousness. God humbles the proud by calling sinners wholly from their own righteousness to Christ for their justification. - John Flavel

Source unknown

Jesus Christ, our blessed Savior,
Turned away God’s wrath forever;
By His better grief and woe
He saved us from the evil foe.

Christ says: ‘Come, all ye that labor,
And receive My grace and favor’;
They who feel no want nor ill
Need no physician’s help nor skill.

As His pledge of love undying,
He this precious food supplying,
Gives His body with the bread
And with the wine the blood He shed.

Praise the Father, who from heaven
Unto us such food hath given
And, to mend what we have done,
Gave unto death His only Son.

If thy heart this truth professes
And thy mouth thy sin confesses,
His dear guest thou here shalt be,
And Christ Himself shall banquet thee.

John Huss

• c.f. Hebrews 10:5-7 in file, J.M. Boice. Story of Czar Nicholas I of Russia and man deserving punishment.
• Extent of: Bib Sac, 137:548:310, L.S. Chafer
• Anselm’s view of: Bib Sac, 135:540:333, J. Hanna
• For Whom Did Christ Die?, R. Lightner, Walvoord: A Tribute, Donald Campbell, ed., Moody, 1982, p. 157.