The Depth of Christ's Substitutionary Atonement

But the idea of substitution is so deeply rooted in the whole Biblical concept of redemption that to eliminate substitution from our theology and from our Christology is, in my judgment, simply to discard the Scriptures altogether. Karl Barth, who carried no brief for classical orthodoxy, once made the observation that, in his judgment, the single most important word in all of the New Testament is the Greek word huper, which means in behalf of, in behalf of, indicating a redemption that is accomplished vicariously, a redemption that is accomplished for us by someone else. [00:02:03]

Now, again, the New Testament looks at Jesus, and among the titles that are given to Jesus in the New Testament is the title the "Last Adam," or the "new Adam," wherein Christ becomes a representative in an analogous way to the manner in which Adam was our first representative. And the New Testament labors the point that in the fall of one man ruin and death came on the world, and through the other man's obedience redemption came to us. [00:03:02]

And so we see this concept of representation in the New Testament with respect to the role of Jesus as the successful Adam, the last Adam, who does for us, for His people, what the first Adam failed to achieve. But also if we go back to the Old Testament and see how the whole concept of atonement works out in Israel by an elaborate system of ritual and ceremony that God commanded of His people in terms of the annual Day of Atonement in which several animals were involved. [00:03:48]

In the first place, the high priest who was selected and alone able to offer the sacrifice required of God to atone for the sins of the people, before he himself could offer the sacrifice, had to offer sacrifices of his own in order to qualify to act as a priest for the rest of the people. And then, of course, in the drama of the atonement ritual in the tabernacle and in the temple there were involved two distinct animals. [00:04:38]

On the one hand there was the scapegoat, and you recall how in the Old Testament situation that one of the rites associated with the Day of Atonement was when this goat was brought to the priest, to the high priest, and the high priest then laid his hands on the back of the goat symbolizing the transfer or the imputation of the sins of the people to the goat and then the goat was driven out into the wilderness, outside the camp, outside where the presence of God was experienced in blessing. [00:05:19]

The other part was the slaying of the lamb whose blood was then sprinkled upon the mercy seat, which was the lid of the Ark of the Covenant, which was the throne of God, which was found in the Holy of Holies. And in fact the language that is used there is that that mercy seat was called 'the reconciliation', because there the blood that was spilled indicated the manner or the means by which God would be reconciled to His people. [00:06:04]

And yet in the New Testament we are reminded that these substitutes that were used in the ceremony of the Day of Atonement in the Old Testament were but shadows of a reality that would come later. The author of Hebrews tells us that the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sins, so that the value of those atoning sacrifices in the Old Testament was restricted to there being a dramatization or illustration of an authentic atonement that was yet to come. [00:06:49]

And the substitution aspect was seen that what God was saying to the people of Israel, "You have sinned; you have committed capital offences against me, and the law requires your death, but I will accept in the place of your death the death of a substitute symbolized by the death of these animals that were provided in the sacrificial system of Israel. [00:09:41]

Now, in this substitutionary action there are two distinct aspects to it that the Scriptures speak of. They speak of propitiation, and they speak of expiation. Let's start with the second one first. These two words sound very similar and they are except for the prefixes are different. And if we look at the first one, expiation, the prefix 'ex' means from or out of. [00:10:10]

And what is in view with the concept of expiation is the removal of guilt from a person where it is moved away from him and transmitted to some distance. And it's what I would call the horizontal dimension of atonement. Now, in the Old Testament, again, we see it in the drama of the scapegoat. The sin of the people is transferred to the goat and then the goat takes the sins away. [00:10:47]

Now, propitiation has to do with the vertical dimension, and this takes us back to our previous lecture where in the act of propitiation God's justice is propitiated or satisfied, that the moral obligation that we owe for our sins is paid to God in the vertical dimension, and so in this case God's justice is satisfied. He is placated. He is fully satisfied with the price that has been paid by our substitute. [00:12:50]

Verse 13, "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us," pro nobis. He has become a curse for us for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs upon the tree: that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus." When Paul probes the depths of the atonement, He goes to the concept of the curse. [00:21:05]