READ: Colossians 1:19-23
Continuing with our series on the things “We Believe”, we come this morning to the death of Jesus: ‘WE BELIEVE IN JESUS’ ATONING DEATH”. As we do so, we are right at the heart of our faith; right at the centre of Christianity.
What other religion exults in the death of its leader? Christianity is UNIQUE. We sing songs of blood. The most central (and cherished) symbol of our faith is the Cross - have you ever thought about that? Our symbol is an instrument of torture! What would we think of a society whose unifying logo was a RACK or a GALLOWS, and yet essentially it’s the same thing. Oh, we tend to make our crosses smooth, and put them under soft lighting to make them warm and attractive, but the reality is that the Cross speaks of cruelty and violent death.
We have made this Cross our banner, our rallying point, our badge of honour. Wherever you go in the world you will find Christians meeting under a cross, wearing crosses; we have them in our homes and businesses, on our cars, and even as bookmarks in our Bibles.
And if someone were to come from a far off land, or a desert island, having never heard of Christianity before, and it was explained to them what a cross is, then we’d have to forgive them if they felt that this is all a little obscene! That it is offensive to decorate our churches, our homes and our cars with an instrument of torture.
Paul writes, in 1 CORINTHIANS 1:18 . . .
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
He goes on in the same passage (vv22-25) to say:
“For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
The Cross is a the centre of our faith because it was on the Cross that Jesus died to atone for our sin. Without the Cross there IS NO saving work - we are cut off from God - we have no religion! WITHOUT THE CROSS!
And so we wear our crosses, and we sing our anthems, and we glory in the Cross - and we dare not get away from it (no matter who is offended) . . .
“On a hill far away stood an old rugged Cross,
The emblem of suffering and shame.
And I love that old Cross,
Where the Dearest and Best,
For a world of lost sinners was slain.”
“When I survey the wondrous Cross,
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
For bid it Lord that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God,
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.”
We, the Church of Jesus Christ, believe in Jesus’ atoning death. We preach Christ, and Him crucified.
All right, let’s look at it, this morning, from this passage we have read in Colossians chapter 1. We’re zeroing in on verses 19-23. And from these verses I note three things about the saving Cross-work of Christ:
- Jesus died an ATONING death.
- Jesus died a RECONCILING death.
- Jesus died a JUSTIFYING death.
Firstly, then:
1. JESUS DIED AN ATONING DEATH.
[READ vv19-20 . . . (NB) “having made peace through the blood of His Cross”
We talk about Jesus’ “ATONING” death - or “the Atonement” - but what does the word “atonement” mean? Webster’s Dictionary defines it this way: to atone is “to make amends”; atonement is “reparation for an offence”.
Let me illustrate the meaning of atonement for you on various levels:
i) A little boy every day on his way home from school passes an apple orchard. One particular apple tree is very close to the fence, and so every day he jumps the fence and pinches two or three apples to eat on the way home. After a couple of weeks of doing this the owner of the orchard notices the rather bare-looking tree by the fence, and so that afternoon, when the boy pays his usual visit, the owner is lying in wait and catches him red-handed. He marches the boy home to his parents. (How many of you have ever been “marched home” to your parents by a stranger? It’s humiliating isn’t it? Of course, it’s never happened to me!). So the owner of the orchard and the boy’s parents come to an agreement. A week later school holidays start, but this boy is not off playing with his friends - HE SPENDS TWO WEEKS WORKING IN THE ORCHARD. At the end of that time, he has made amends - he has made reparation for his offence - he has ATONED for his wrongdoing. That is the basic meaning of the word “ATONEMENT”.
ii) On a far more serious note, when an adult commits a crime they may be put in jail. They may be confined for months or even years. When, finally, they have served their sentence we say that they have “PAID FOR THEIR CRIME”. They have ATONED for their wrongdoing in the eyes of society.
iii) OR, if a company does something which leads to an employee or a bystander being injured - they may be directed by the courts to pay compensation. $100,000 . . . $200,000 . . . perhaps more, depending on the extent of the injury. They make reparation - THEY ATONE for their negligence.
Are you getting the picture of the word “atonement”? Of course, there are some crimes that are so heinous in society’s eyes that we wonder whether they can ever be fully atoned for. We’ve all read to stories of psychopaths who have committed multiple aggravated murders. And we are shocked and angry. And we think: “Even if he spends the rest of his life behind bars - even if his life is taken from him - it doesn’t seem enough. It doesn’t make reparation! How can he ever ATONE for what he has done - the suffering he has caused the victims and their families.
Now here is the problem for us. Several weeks ago we talked about “The Fall of Man”. Man had been declared sinful by God. We are all sons and daughters of a rebellious race, and have been born in sin - born separated from God.
Because He is the perfection of purity and holiness, God is INFINITELY MORE OFFENDED by our sin than we could ever be by the sins of the worst mass murderer. And in His sight we can never ATONE for our sin. Anything we TRY to do to make reparation is like us dressing ourselves up in filthy rages to come before God - that’s what the Bible says.
We sing the song: “He paid a debt He did not owe, I OWED A DEBT I COULD NOT PAY! I needed someone to wash my sins away”. Someone to atone for me! Someone to make reparation with God on my behalf, so I can be acceptable in His presence again.
BUT THAT’S WHERE JESUS COMES IN! Read those words in our text (v20) again: “. . . having made peace through the blood of His Cross”. The atoning death of Jesus has made reparation for our sin, and brought peace again for us with God.
The atonement involves three things:
A.) SACRIFICE. As we read through the Old Testament we find it is full of SACRIFICES. The blood of countless animals is shed - bulls and lambs, goats and birds. HEBREWS 9:22 says” “according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin”.
Right from the very first sin in the Garden of Eden, where God slew an animal and clothed Adam and Eve, the stream of sacrificial blood flowed for centuries. When Moses received the Law from God and built the Tabernacle, and commissioned the priesthood, those priests would daily be making sacrifices to God on behalf of the people because of sin. Every kind of sin imaginable had its prescribed sacrifice. And every year, on the Day of Atonement, the nation of Israel would come to a standstill as the High Priest went into the Holy of Holies to sacrifice on behalf of the people.
But listen to what HEBREWS goes on to say in chapter 10 verse 1: “For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect”.
Verse 4: “For it is NOT POSSIBLE that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins”.
Verse 11: “And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, WHICH CAN NEVER TAKE AWAY SINS”.
All those God-ordained sacrifices of the Old Testament (the rivers of blood that was shed), could NOT deal with sin. They were a “fore-shadowing” of the great sacrifice that God has provided for Himself in His own Son, Jesus.
Jesus is “the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world”. Always this was in the heart and mind of God. To give His Son as the only effective sacrifice for sin.
When John the Baptist saw Jesus coming to be baptised, he said: “Behold! The Lamb of God WHO TAKES AWAY the sin of the world”. At last, the sacrifice the world has been waiting for - blood that can cancel sin - THE BLOOD OF JESUS!
Jesus was qualified to be the eternal sacrifice because:
i.) He is part of the race. He is one of us. Human. It’s not “sheep sin” that needs to be dealt with, it’s not “cattle sin” - so those sacrifices do not accurately represent us. It’s HUMAN sin that must be dealt with.
ii.) He Himself is without sin. God has always required a sacrifice without blemish. No other man can be the sacrifice - WE ARE ALL SINNERS. All blemished. Jesus knew NO sin. It is the JUST dying for the UNJUST.
iii.) He is eternal. To deal with sin once and for all eternity, we must have an eternal sacrifice. ONLY JESUS - the eternal God - fits the bill.
Jesus meets the requirement of God to atone for our sins by His death on the Cross. And that brings us to the second thing that the atonement involves:
B.) SUBSTITUTION. Jesus actually dying a “vicarious” death - that means death ON OUR BEHALF, in our stead.
This is important because there are some (the liberal theologians again) who assert that the Cross did not so much ACHIEVE anything real on our behalf - but was simply a demonstration of Gods love. And when we look at the Cross and see this immense love, we are inspired to live a life pleasing to God.
Friends, the Cross IS most definitely a wonderful demonstration of God’s love - but it’s not enough to just say that. Jesus ACCOMPLISHED something real on the Cross - a transformation took place (a legal transaction). Jesus cried out: “It is finished.” - something was DONE. He had become our substitute. Died in our place.
[ILLUSTRATION: If I am drowning in a raging torrent and someone dives in and saves me (pushes me to the bank) and loses their own life in the process - then they have demonstrated their love for me. And I would be overwhelmed by it, and ever grateful for it.
But if I am sat on the bank of the river - seeing the raging torrent but not really in any personal danger - and if someone should dive into the water to demonstrate their love for me, then I don’t really understand that. It’s pointless. It hasn’t accomplished anything.]
And that’s the problem, you see. The liberal theologian doesn’t see Jesus as achieving something real as our substitute, because they don’t see us as too bad. We’re not drowning in a raging torrent of sin and death. We just need a good example and we’ll pull ourselves together.
1 JOHN 1:8-9 has the answer to that: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”.
How does He forgive and cleanse? How can a Holy God do that? Surely He can’t sweep our sin under the carpet?! NO He can’t. He forgives and cleanses us on the basis of Jesus’ substitutionary death. He died in our place. The just for the unjust.
The third thing that the atonement involves is:
C.) SATISFACTION. We’ve already hinted at this idea of satisfaction this morning. Since God’s most fundamental, most unifying attribute is holiness, it is necessary that He should be given some satisfaction to remove the outrage of sin.
THE BLOOD OF JESUS SATISFIES THE JUSTICE OF GOD. God cannot free the sinner until the demands of justice are satisfied. God must visit sin with punishment. God will not clear the guilty without a substitute. Only through Jesus’ death could justice be satisfied, and the sinner go free at the same time.
But not only does Jesus’ blood satisfy the justice of God, but also JESUS’ BLOOD SATISFIES THE LAW OF GOD. We are incapable of meeting the demands of God’s law - but Christ has met the demands of the law on our behalf. So ROMANS 10:3 states: “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes”.
So, Jesus’ blood satisfies both God’s JUSTICE and His LAW.
There is one final thing I need to mention about SATISFACTION, and it is this: Jesus’ death paid a RANSOM for us. It is correct to say that we have been “ransomed”. Jesus Himself said (in MARK 10:45): “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many”.
This word “ransom” however, has gotten people into difficulty because they have wondered about WHO the ransom was paid to. Some have supposed that Jesus’ blood was a ransom paid to Satan to purchase man back to God from his possession.
But Satan is not the grieved party! It’s true that Satan has fearsome influence in this world - but he does not have a LEGAL CLAIM over men. If people end up in hell it is NOT because they are the property of Satan LEGALLY, but because they are in rebellion against God. Their allegiance is with Satan.
Understand this: THE RANSOM THAT GOD PROVIDED BY THE BLOOD OF JESUS was paid to Himself! God in marvellous grace SATISFIED His own wrath by sacrificing His Son.
Folks, there we have it. The atonement involves three things:
A.) SACRIFICE.
B.) SUBSTITUTION.
C.) SATISFACTION.
CONCLUSION:
We’ve studied some profound truths this morning. Let’s just apply this to our living today, for a moment.
1. JESUS’ DEATH ON THE CROSS MUST BE APPROPRIATED BY EVERY INDIVIDUAL PERSONALLY.
2. ALL OTHER EFFORTS TO JUSTIFY OURSELVES MUST BE ABANDONED AS FUTILE. They are offensive to God: ALL WORKS (charity, religion, etc.); ALL OTHER MEDIATORS (priests, etc.).
3. “Those who have been forgiven much, LOVE MUCH”. Jesus put His love for you into ACTION. He lived for you and died for you. LIVE AND DIE FOR HIM.
Amen.
