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There are numerous views on the atonement. For a very good reason. The cross speaks to us in so many ways and the language used is often as diverse as the views. No doubt the cross holds a kaleidoscope of meanings. Some of these are wondeful views and thoughts, others paint a darker picture.
The person who seeks to understand the atonement will likely become quickly overwhelmed by the vast array of atonement views, and the various names and descriptions by which these views are taught. It would impossible to properly summarize and explain all the atonement views along with their subtle differences and perspectives in a blog, I mean there are 7 major ones and more than 9 total. All of them use the same bible but view certain verses a different way and yet regardless of your atonement theory or view they all still believe that Jesus is the one that brought the atonement to mankind. Yet I have seen leaders no longer speak to someone that views the atonement different then them and call someone a false teacher and a heretic even though they are all called “Atonement Theories.”
Is the atonement important? Absolutely, but before you go on the attack at least study the other views thoroughly and what you may find is that there is truth in each one and that there is not one theological system that is completely correct. However, I will take a moment to look at the prominent view for the first 1,000 yrs of church history and then changes that took place to change that view. Before marching headlong into new, or better yet, ancient territory lets first define Atonement. Lots of pastors like to define atonement by saying it means “at-one-ment.” That is, atonement is how we become “one” again with God. According to this definition, sin causes a division between us and God, and atonement is how that division is healed so that we regain unity, or “at-one-ment” with God again.
I don’t mind this sort of explanation too much, but I think it gives the wrong impression about atonement and so sets the whole discussion off on the wrong foot. To say that atonement brings humanity back into unity with God implies that there was a disunity or division between God and humanity that needed to be mended. This division or separation is usually thought to be the result of sin. God, we are told, is so holy and righteous that He cannot be in the presence of sin or even look upon it, and so because we are sinners God separated Himself from us until the sin issue was taken care of in Jesus Christ. I have major difficulties when atonement teachings are presented this way. From Genesis 3 onward, I do not ever see that God has separated Himself from humanity because of sin.
The problem with this idea is that we left God; He did not leave us. Despite our feelings, there was never any chasm or gap between God and humans that needed to be crossed. Sin makes us feel like God has abandoned and forsaken us, but the truth is that He has never done so. This is what Jesus came to reveal.
So the atonement is a reconciliation. It is a restoration. It is agreement and concord and fellowship. But it is not God finally doing something about sin so that He can move back toward us, He has always been facing us. It is God finally showing us that He has never left us or forsaken us, but has always been walking with us in our pain and suffering and rebellion. The atonement is not God bringing us back into “at-one-ment” with Him, but showing us that He has always been “at-one-ment” with us. I am not in opposition to the “at-one-ment” idea many hold, as long as we recognize that it is not something new in our relationship with God, but is something that has always been true, though we did not recognize it.
Christus Victor
Christus Victor view is the most common Non-Violent view of the atonement, While Non-Violent views of the atonement may not be in the majority today in Western Christianity, various versions of the Non-Violent view were the most dominant views (and possibly the only views) for the first 300 years of the church (Christus Victor). Non-Violent views of the atonement continued to be in the majority up until at least 1100 A.D. and maybe even until the 16th century when the teachings of the Reformers swept through Europe.
Western Christianity is starting to see some shifting in recent years as many pastors, teachers, and scholars now believe that a Non-Violent atonement best presents the full sweep of biblical history and makes the most sense of everything the Bible says about what God was doing in Jesus Christ through the cross. Among these pastors, teachers, and scholars are C. S. Lewis, N. T. Wright, Greg Boyd, Eugene Peterson, Richard Rohr, Brian McLaren, Michael Hardin, Derek Flood, Brian Zahnd, Walter Wink, J. Denny Weaver, Brad Jersak, and numerous others. As for myself, though I was taught Penal Substitution growing up and in Bible College also. Though I believed and taught Penal Substitution when I was a pastor, over the past ten years I have become fully convinced of the Non-Violent view of the atonement.
The basic idea of the Non-Violent view of the atonement is that while Jesus did indeed die a violent death on the cross, it was not God who put Jesus there, but humans. Jesus “stepped in front of the bullet,” but humanity, not God, held the smoking gun. In this way, the death of Jesus on the cross does not reveal a God who is angry at sin and must punish it through the torturous death of His only Son, but instead reveals a God who has always loved, always forgiven, and always borne the brunt of our sin on Himself. In dying as He did “for our sin” (or because of our sin), He revealed to us once and for all that God is love and in Him there is no violence at all.
Though the death of Jesus on the cross was violent, this violence does not reflect divine violence, but human violence. The crucifixion was also the means by which Jesus defeated the oppressive powers of sin, death, and the devil. (This is why some refer to this view as the Christus Victor view; Christ was victorious over sin, death, and the devil.) Such things held us captive, and the incarnation of Jesus was a rescue operation to deliver us from this bondage. So the Non-Violent view of the atonement can be viewed through the Christus Victor themes of Christ’s non-violent victory over sin, death, and the devil.
Penal Substitution
The Penal Substitution view of the atonement was initially developed by a medieval theologian named Anselm (1033–1109), and then later refined by various Reformers such as John Calvin (1509–1564). The Penal Substitutionary view of the atonement has beliefs and practices of the medieval feudal system as its foundation, such as the feudalistic conceptions of honor, authority, sanctions, and reparation.
Jesus. Most people in the days of Jesus (as now) believed that God was angry at sinners and that God’s honor and justice demanded substitutionary blood sacrifices to satisfy and appease God’s wrath toward sin. Such a view of God was popular then (as now) because it fits within the human preconceived notion that God is angry with us about our sin and demands that we somehow pay Him for our numerous affronts to His righteousness and holiness. But this was not the view of Jesus. To the contrary, through His life and teachings, Jesus sought to deliver the world from such a view of God.
What did Jesus teach instead? Through His ministry, teachings, parables, actions, and miracles, Jesus taught that God had nothing but love for all people, that God freely forgives all people of all their sins, that the sacrificial system was not needed to gain God’s forgiveness, that God did not desire the blood of bulls and goats in order to love or forgive, that the temple was not God’s sacred space, that the priesthood was not the divinely-ordained mediator between God and men, and that God was just as much in love with our enemies as He was with us. The religious people then (as now) could not handle such a dismantling of their entire theological framework, and so killed Jesus. They didn’t kill Jesus simply because they thought Jesus was wrong. No, they killed Him because they viewed Jesus as a blasphemer who directly challenged the honor and holiness of God, and their theology demanded that blasphemers like Jesus be put to death. The honor of God had to be defended. So while we often say that Jesus died for sin, it might be more accurate to say that Jesus died for religion. It was not sin that killed Jesus, but religion. Jesus was killed “in the name of God” by those who sought to protect God’s honor and righteousness against the “blasphemous” and “heretical” teachings of Jesus.
So to summarize, Penal Substitution says this: God loves us. But we sinned. God hates sin. Sin requires punishment. That punishment is death. Not just physical death, but eternal death. But remember, God loves us! So He sent Jesus to be punished in our place. Now God can truly love us again. The basic idea is that while God does love us, sin is in the way of that love. The way God dealt with sin is by sending His innocent Son to die for us in our place.
In Penal Substitution, God is presented as merciful and loving, but also just. And since sin demands payment, someone had to pay, and since humans could not, God stepped in and, through the death of Jesus, paid the debt of sin. I will admit that this initially sounds very clean and tidy … as long as you do not really think about the words and ideas being used. It is said that God is merciful and forgiving, but justice demands payment for the debt of sin. When you actually begin to think about the basic definitions of these words, you come to realize that God cannot be both merciful and forgiving, while at the same time allow justice to demand payment for the debt of sin. Why not? The two sets of ideas are mutually exclusive. If the death of Jesus satisfies the debt of human sin which was owed to God, how then can God be said to be merciful and forgiving? If the debt is paid, mercy and forgiveness are meaningless. If mercy and forgiveness are extended, then the payment of a debt is not required. In other words, there can be either the payment of debt, or mercy extended; but not both. Payment and mercy are, by definition, mutually exclusive.
Instead, Jesus revealed that God is not angry at sin and freely forgives without any need for blood sacrifice. Those who thought that God required blood sacrifice were those who crucified Jesus in the name of God. Those who today believe that God demands blood sacrifice do not side with God and Jesus regarding the crucifixion, but side with those who crucified Jesus to appease an angry God. The basic idea of the Non-Violent view of the atonement, The one held for the first 1,000 yrs of church history is that while Jesus did indeed die a violent death on the cross, it was not God who put Jesus there, but humans. Jesus “stepped in front of the bullet,” but humanity, not God, held the smoking gun.
If we look back at the Genesis story we see after the “fall,” Adam and Eve hid. Why did they hide? Because they were afraid (Gen 3:10). Sin introduced fear into our relationship with God and fear of God causes us to hide from Him. Note that in the Genesis account, after Adam and Eve sin, God still comes to walk with them in the cool of the day. God is not offended or angered by their sin; He did not come into the Garden to punish Adam and Eve. Instead, God came to walk with them. Though they had sinned, He still desired fellowship with sinful humanity. It is Adam and Eve who hide from God, and the first spoken words of sinful humanity in the Bible to God are “I was afraid.”
Yes, there were disastrous consequences of sin, but these consequences were not a punishment; nor did they come from the supposed anger of God, for God was not angry with them. The greatest lie of sin is that God is angry at us because of our sin, and that when we sin, we cannot be with God, but must hide from Him.
What is God’s response to our sin? He loves. Period. God loves us in our sin. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Even in the midst of our sin, while we are sinning, God loves us infinitely, enough to send His Son to rescue us from sin. We see this from the very first sin. In the Garden of Eden, though God knew full well what Adam and Eve had done, He went out looking for them, calling for them, to walk with them and be with them (Gen 3:8–9). And even though they had sinned, He still stood with them, told them what the consequences of their sin would be, and even took steps to protect them from the worst of these consequences (Gen 3:17–24). God is not angry with us because of our sin. He never has been angry at us and He never will be. Even though God is not angry at us for our sin, we can say that God is angry at sin. Why? Because sin hurts us. Sin has disastrous, devastating, and destructive consequences, and because God loves us so much, He does not want to see us hurt by sin. Instead, He seeks to protect us from sin. But when we sin, God is not angry at us, but is angry at sin for how it hurts us. His feelings toward us are nothing but love, forgiveness, and friendship. Rather than punish us for sin, God desires to protect us from sin and its consequences.
The three great lies of sin are: God is angry with us for our sin, sin disgusts and offends God and so He stays away from us, and God demands repayment for a debt of sin. Seeing these three lies of sin helps us understand how Jesus was victorious over sin. Through His life, teachings, and death on the cross, Jesus exposed all these lies of sin for what they were. Jesus defeated sin by emptying it of its deceitful power over humanity. He taught us and showed us that God is not angry with us about our sin, but has always loved us. He showed us that the reason God wants us not to sin is not because God is disgusted by sin, but because we are damaged and hurt by sin, and God does not want those He loves to be hurt. Furthermore, God showed us in Jesus Christ that there is nothing we can do and nothing He wants us to do in order to repay Him for our sin. There is no debt of sin which is owed to God. He forgives us, loves us, and accepts us freely, by His grace. All of this is what Jesus taught through His life, His ministry, and especially, through His death on the cross. Jesus was victorious over sin by exposing the three main lies of sin.
When talking about the atonement many have a Calvinistic idea but this has not always been. As I have stated, since the 1100s, the emphasis has primarily switched from the earlier concept of forgiveness to the concept of punishment, again mainly due to the formalization of Calvinism in the 1500s. The Penal Substitution view of the atonement was initially developed by a medieval theologian named Anselm (1033–1109), and then later refined by various Reformers such as John Calvin (1509–1564). The Penal Substitutionary view of the atonement has beliefs and practices of the medieval feudal system as its foundation, such as the feudalistic conceptions of honor, authority, sanctions, and reparation.
Thus, the Church has adopted the concept of a courtroom scene where an angry Father God is judge and demands payment for the debt of sin, and Jesus steps in, as the perfect man, and says, “I will die in their place to pay for their sins.” This concept of the courtroom, which historians refer to as “the legalization of Christianity,” was invented by John Calvin, who had a background in law. Because of his legal mindset, Calvin saw the Father as a judge instead of a father, and he perceived the gospel message through a legal lens instead of a relational lens.This was the origin of Penal Substitution. The problem with penal substitution is it honestly does not represent God correctly. What do I mean?
In Penal Substitution, God is presented as merciful and loving, but also just. And since sin demands payment, someone had to pay, and since humans could not, God stepped in and, through the death of Jesus, paid the debt of sin. I will admit that this initially sounds very clean and tidy … as long as you do not really think about the words and ideas being used. It is said that God is merciful and forgiving, but justice demands payment for the debt of sin. When you actually begin to think about the basic definitions of these words, you come to realize that God cannot be both merciful and forgiving, while at the same time allow justice to demand payment for the debt of sin. Why not? The two sets of ideas are mutually exclusive. If the death of Jesus satisfies the debt of human sin which was owed to God, how then can God be said to be merciful and forgiving? If the debt is paid, mercy and forgiveness are meaningless. If mercy and forgiveness are extended, then the payment of a debt is not required. In other words, there can be either the payment of debt, or mercy extended; but not both. Payment and mercy are, by definition, mutually exclusive.
Closely connected to this idea is the idea of an angry God. If sin has to be punished, it follows that God must be very angry that His holy Law was continually being violated. Thus, the years of humanity’s sinful defiance of God had built up a great deal of wrath, which eventually culminated at the cross, where Jesus suffered the wrath of God in our place. As those who benefit from Jesus’ suffering, we should be sad He suffered the wrath of God but also thankful He took our place. He stood between us and the angry, judging Father and took the punishment we deserved. This is especially easy for people to accept if they have an angry father in the natural, because it fits with their experience of what a father is like. Even for those who have good earthly fathers, the concept of an angry God causes them to emotionally distance themselves from God instead of wanting to draw near. So to summarize, Penal Substitution says this: God loves us. But we sinned. God hates sin. Sin requires punishment. That punishment is death. Not just physical death, but eternal death. But remember, God loves us! So He sent Jesus to be punished in our place. Now God can truly love us again. The basic idea is that while God does love us, sin is in the way of that love. The way God dealt with sin is by sending His innocent Son to die for us in our place. Again, mutually exclusive ideas- payment of debt or forgiveness/mercy extended?
Many have said, even as I once did that God the Father poured out all of His wrath on Jesus on the cross, which means God has no wrath toward us. He took it all out on Jesus, and therefore, He is never upset with us.
Here is the problem. The subject of God’s wrath comes up repeatedly in the New Testament, which does not make sense if God took out all of His wrath on Jesus on the cross. Instead, if we look back at the gospel accounts and ask, “Where do we see God pouring out wrath on the cross?” the answer is, we don’t. The New Testament does not connect wrath to the cross. The wrath of God was not present or involved in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in any way.
Jesus was manifesting the reality of what the Father has always been like, loving and forgiving. God has always been this way, however He was belief. That veil is removed in Christ and when we murdered Him he showed us Who He has always been- Love, Mercy, Forgiveness. What did Jesus teach instead? Through His ministry, teachings, parables, actions, and miracles, Jesus taught that God had nothing but love for all people, that God freely forgives all people of all their sins, that the sacrificial system was not needed to gain God’s forgiveness, that God did not desire the blood of bulls and goats in order to love or forgive, that the temple was not God’s sacred space, that the priesthood was not the divinely-ordained mediator between God and men, and that God was just as much in love with our enemies as He was with us. The religious people then (as now) could not handle such a dismantling of their entire theological framework, and so killed Jesus. They didn’t kill Jesus simply because they thought Jesus was wrong. No, they killed Him because they viewed Jesus as a blasphemer who directly challenged the honor and holiness of God, and their theology demanded that blasphemers like Jesus be put to death. The honor of God had to be defended. So while we often say that Jesus died for sin, it might be more accurate to say that Jesus died for religion. It was not sin that killed Jesus, but religion. Jesus was killed “in the name of God” by those who sought to protect God’s honor and righteousness against the “blasphemous” and “heretical” teachings of Jesus.
Simply, Jesus fulfilled the types and shadows of the Old Covenant by becoming a covenant sacrifice to make a new covenant. Much of what the Church has believed in recent years regarding the atonement is wrong:
1.Jesus did not die in our place as a substitute.
2.Jesus did not pay the “penalty” for our sin.
3.Jesus did not receive the wrath of God.
Let me explain the above statement by going back to the Old Testament Types and Shadows of the Atonement.
What is missing from most modern thought on the atonement is a proper starting place. Many scholars only go back to the historical views of the atonement in the Church, trying to determine who was most logically right. Was it Calvin? Anselm? The early Church fathers? They debate between these views that started after the cross rather than going back to the types and shadows that led to the cross. If we want to properly understand the atonement, this is the real question we must ask: What are the types and shadows pointing to — punishment or forgiveness?
The Old Testament contains three main types and shadows of the atonement:
1-Abraham Offering Isaac
2-The Passover Lamb
3-The Atonement Sacrifice or Atonement Lamb
These three pictures were given to the Jews as types and shadows, so that when AD 30 arrived, and they were standing at the foot of the cross, they would know how to understand what had just happened and help future followers get a grip on what took place, which was literally a new Exodus.
1. Abraham Offering Isaac
In the story of Abraham and Isaac, Isaac went with his father and was bound. Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac. Then the angel stopped him, showing him a ram to sacrifice instead. According to Galatians 4:21–31, Isaac, as the promised seed and the son of promise, was a picture of the new covenant and Jesus. Likewise, Hebrews 11:17–19 talks about how Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son, believing that if he died God would raise him from the dead. Clearly, this is a parallel of the Father and Son. Thus, we can see that Isaac (not the ram) was the type and shadow of Jesus in this story. The ram is not an integral part of the story.
As a type and shadow of the atonement, what does it tell us about the nature of the atonement? The sacrifice of Isaac was a covenantal offering. In that day, this was a normal part of showing allegiance to a god, who would demand the life of one’s firstborn as proof that one was really the god’s covenant partner. So, in keeping with the norms of Abraham’s day, God asked him to sacrifice his son to test his allegiance (or at least this was Abrahams thought process). However, He interrupted the sacrifice and provided a substitute ram in Isaac’s place. In other words, He was declaring that He is not like the other gods, and He is against child sacrifice. This God doesn’t do that.
In summary, in this first type and shadow of the atonement, we have two important lessons. First, sin was not being punished, and Isaac was not standing in as a substitute sacrifice for Abraham. Second, it related to the approving of Abraham and Isaac’s covenant relationship with God.
2. The Passover
The next type and shadow of the atonement is the Passover. We see this clearly in the New Testament, as in Paul’s statement: “Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch — as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7). Jesus also made this clear to His disciples when He used the Passover meal to prophesy His death and resurrection in what became the Eucharist or Holy Communion (see Luke 22:19–20). Jesus was the Passover Lamb.
Another important player in this story, was Egypt. Israel was enslaved in Egypt, and through Moses, God had just unleashed nine plagues upon Egypt. The angel of death was the tenth and final plague in which all the firstborn children and animals died.
However, God made provision for the Israelites so that their firstborns would not die. To cause the angel of death of “pass over” them, the Israelite families had to kill a lamb, put the blood by the door, and eat the meat together in a covenant meal. We see the importance of the meal in the command to those with small families to join together with others so they had enough people to eat the meal. The point of all this was to show that those who had the blood were in relationship with God. Those who did not have the blood did not have relationship with Him. He was marking the Israelites as His people through the covenant meal, and the blood at the doorway was a sign that death would not touch them, that God would protect them. What we do not see here is wrath or justice or vengeance. The lamb died to enable the covenant meal, which showed the relationship the people had with God.
When people try to force substitution into the picture, the lamb is said to replace the firstborn child. Instead, what we find here is the ancient rite called a covenant meal. God’s relationship with the Israelites had nothing to do with punishment. Instead, He was rescuing them from slavery and protecting them during the plagues brought upon their oppressors. God’s wrath toward the Israelites, as mentioned previously, did not come into play until Exodus 20 and the initiation of the kinship covenant. God didn’t tell Israel, “I am very offended with you, so you better kill a Passover lamb and smear its blood on your doorposts; otherwise, I will kill you!” God wasn’t aiming His wrath at Israel, and the Passover lamb didn’t turn His wrath away. Just as with the first picture of the atonement, the Passover does not relate to punishment of sin but to covenant relationship.
3. The Atonement Lamb
Third is the Atonement Lamb, explained in Leviticus 16. Under their kinship covenant with Him, God gave Israel these guidelines for atonement. The high priest, Aaron at the time, was to sacrifice a bull as a sin offering to cover his own sin. Then he was to take two lambs, one as a sacrificial lamb and one as the scapegoat. The high priest would then slit the throat of the sacrificial lamb and drain its blood. The high priest was then to take this blood into the holy of holies, to the ark of the covenant, and sprinkle this blood on the lid of the ark of the covenant, which would atone for Israel’s sin over the previous year. In other words, it was a once-a-year day of atonement sacrifice. Afterward, when Aaron left the holy of holies, his hands would still have blood on them from the first lamb. So, he was to put his hands on the head of the scapegoat lamp and declare the rest of the sin of Israel onto that lamb. Then the lamb would be taken into the wilderness and set free. Both of these offerings, the sacrificial offering and the sacrificial offering and the scapegoat offering, took place on the day of atonement. In this way, one lamb was the covenant sacrifice that covered the sin of the people, while the other lamb carried away the sin of the people. They were two different pictures.
Hebrews 10 shows us that Jesus fulfilled two of the roles in this type and shadow of the atonement. He is the high priest, but unlike Aaron. Not only is He the great high priest, but He is also the atonement lamb. So, as the high priest who did not need to be cleansed by a bull, He took His own blood, as the lamb who was slain, into the heavenly tabernacle and put His blood on top of the ark of the covenant in heaven (see Rev. 15). Jesus is very different from Aaron, in that He is perfect and able to perform both roles as priest and lamb.
The lamb was not a substitute for human sacrifice. In other words, the meaning was not: Aaron should die, but the lamb will take his place. In fact, the lamb was not even a sacrifice for Aaron; it was the sin offering of the bull that cleansed Aaron so he could carry the blood of the lamb into the holy of holies. The idea of a substitutionary sacrifice simply finds no place in this picture. Instead, what we have here is a covenantal sacrifice. The sacrifice provided forgiveness of sins, not punishment for sins. No punishment or wrath was put on the lamb. Thus, we see that Jesus, as the great high priest and the sacrificial lamb, was offered as a covenantal sacrifice to restore relationship between God and humanity. This was not needed on Gods part it was needed on our part because we believed God needed or wanted sacrifice although He really didn’t.
Many people think the atonement means Jesus was paying the debt of our sin. However, this completely contradicts the types and shadows of the atonement in the Old Testament. Israel never could pay the debt of their sin. As covenant partners with God, they could and should have been destroyed, except for the pardon God continued to extend to them year after year. The sacrifice of the lamb did not serve to satisfy God’s wrath toward their sin. Instead, the sacrifice of the lamb was an act of faith in God and His promise to forgive them. Within the temporary covenant Israel had asked for, God created a way for them to make this sacrifice in faith and receive forgiveness based on what Jesus would do in the future. The Israelites could perform the type and shadow of the atonement, coming in faith to Him as their covenant partner, and receive God’s forgiveness every year.
Jesus did not just fulfill the type and shadow of the old covenant. The type and shadow was implanted in the old covenant, which the people called for — the old covenant that veiled God and misrepresented His heart. Even inside that awful system, God implanted a type and shadow — the day of atonement — that would point to His Son. Thus, the cross itself, the death of Jesus as the covenantal lamb, was the establishment of the new covenant. Jesus became Isaac, the Passover Lamb, and the Atonement Lamb of a new covenant. His blood was shed to seal a completely new deal, in which He has fulfilled the promises to David and Abraham and destroyed the old covenant. Hebrews 8:13 states this clearly: “By calling this covenant ‘new,’ he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.” He took away the old covenant and put the new covenant in its place.
God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ. God the Father was on one side of the equation, and God the Son was on the other side of the equation. Scripture reveals the Father actually entered into the Son. God Himself is in Christ reconciling the whole world to Himself. In other words, the Father did not abandon the Son or abuse the Son with His wrath. The Father was fully in the Son, and together, Father and Son reconciled the world to Himself. Colossians 2:9 echoes this when it says that in Christ dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily. They were all in it together.
In summary, the one view of the atonement that fits the biblical pictures is that Jesus fulfilled the types and shadows by becoming a covenant sacrifice to make a new covenant.
What happened at the cross was the establishment of the new covenant of forgiveness (for those who have a mortgage you know there is a difference in loan forgiveness and loan repayment) and the removal of the old covenant and the old system. He caused it to become obsolete and outdated, and He removed it in order to introduce and establish the new covenant. Thus, Jesus died to establish a new covenant of forgiveness, to ransom us from the Law, to become cursed for us, and to cancel our indebtedness to the old covenant and to show us who and what the Father has always look like.
At the cross Jesus does not save us from God; at the cross Jesus reveals God as savior! When we look at the cross we don’t see what God does; we see who God is! The sacrifice of Jesus was necessary to convince us to quit producing sacrificial victims, but it was not necessary to convince God to forgive. To forgive sinners is the nature of God. When Jesus prayed on the cross for the forgiveness of his executioners, he was not acting contrary to the nature of God; he was revealing the nature of God as forgiving love. The cross is not what God does; the cross is who God is! The cross is not about the satisfaction of an omnipotent vengeance. The cross is about the revelation of divine mercy. In Christ we discover a God who would rather die than kill his enemies. Once we understand that God is revealed in Christ (and not against Christ), we realize what we are seeing when we look at the cross. The cross is where God in Christ absorbs human sin and recycles it into forgiveness.
Volumes have been written on the atonement. This small blog post will barely scratch the surface. My hope is that beneath the scratches you will see some new (old really) ways of seeing the cross, understanding the atonement and the amazing love of God as no doubt His love and life, His cross and resurrection hold a kaleidoscope of meanings for us all.