the atonement of jesus christ

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia:

All the symbols, doctrine and examples of atonement in the Old Testament among the Hebrews find their counterpart, fulfillment and complete explanation in the new covenant in the blood of Jesus Christ (Matthew 26:28; Hebrews 12:24). By interpreting the inner spirit of the sacrificial system, by insisting on the unity and holiness of God, by passionate pleas for purity in the people, and especially by teaching the principle of vicarious suffering for sin, the Prophets laid the foundation in thought-forms and in religious atmosphere for such a doctrine of atonement as is presented in the life and teaching of Jesus and as is unfolded in the teaching of His apostles.

The personal, parabolic sufferings of Hosea, the remarkable elaboration of the redemption of spiritual Israel through a Suffering Servant of Yahweh and the extension of that redemption to all mankind as presented in Isaiah 40 through 66, and the same element in such psalms as Psalm 22, constitute a key to the understanding of the work of the Christ that unifies the entire revelation of God’s righteousness in passing over human sins (Romans 3:24 f). Yet it is remarkable that such a conception of the way of atonement was as far as possible from the general and average Jewish mind when Jesus came. In no sense can the New Testament doctrine of the Atonement be said to be the product of the thought and spirit of the times.

However much theologians may disagree as to the rationale of the Atonement, there is, as there can be, no question that Jesus and all His interpreters in the New Testament represent the Atonement between God and men as somehow accomplished through Jesus Christ. It is also an agreed fact in exegesis that Jesus and His apostles understood His death to be radically connected with this Atonement.

1. Jesus Himself teaches that He has come to reveal the Father (John 14:9), to recover the lost (Luke 19:10), to give life to men (John 6:33; 10:10), to disclose and establish the kingdom of heaven (or of God), gathering a few faithful followers through whom His work will be perpetuated (John 17:2 ff; Matthew 16:13 ff); that salvation, personal and social, is dependent upon His person (John 6:53 ff; 14:6). He cannot give full teaching concerning His death but He does clearly connect His sufferings with the salvation He seeks to give. He shows in Luke 4:16 ff and 22:37 that He understands Isaiah 52 through 53 as realized in Himself; He is giving Himself (and His blood) a ransom for men (Matthew 20:28; 26:26 ff; compare 1 Corinthians 11:23 ff). He was not a mere martyr but gave Himself up willingly, and voluntarily (John 10:17 f; Galatians 2:20), in accordance with the purpose of God (Acts 2:23), as the Redeemer of the world, and expected that by His lifting up all men would be drawn to Him (John 12:31-33). It is possible to explain the attention which the Evangelists give to the death of Jesus only by supposing that they are reflecting the importance which they recall Jesus Himself to have attached to His death.

2. All the New Testament writers agree in making Jesus the center of their idea of the way of salvation and that His death is an essential element in His saving power. This they do by combining Old Testament teaching with the facts of the life and death of the Lord, confirming their conclusion by appeal to the Resurrection. Paul represents himself as holding the common doctrine of Christianity at the time, and from the beginning, when in 1 Corinthians 15:3 f he sums up his teaching that salvation is secured through the death and re surrection of Jesus according to the Scriptures. Elsewhere (Ephesians 2:16, 18; 1 Timothy 2:5; compare Acts 4:12) in all his writings he emphasizes his belief that Jesus Christ is the one Mediator between God and man, by the blood of His cross (Colossians 1:20; 1 Corinthians 2:2), removing the sin barrier between God and men. Peter, during the life of Jesus so full of the current Jewish notion that God accepted the Jews de facto, in his later ministry makes Jesus in His death the one way to God (Acts 4:12; 1 Peter 1:2, 18, 19; 2:21, 24; 3:18).

John has this element so prominent in his Gospel that radical critical opinion questions its authorship partly on that account, while the epistles of John and the Revelation are, on the same ground, attributed to later Greek thought (compare 1 John 1:7; 2:2; 3:5; 4:10; Revelation 1:5; 5:9). The Epistle to the Hebrews finds in Jesus the fulfillment and extension of all the sacrificial system of Judaism and holds that the shedding of blood seems essential to the very idea of remission of sins (9:22; compare 2:17; 7:26 f; 9:24-28).