In Charles Todd’s wonderfully well-written fiction series, Inspector Ian Rutledge struggles with PTSD that includes something he did for which he cannot forgive himself. Who cannot identify with this? Guilt holds the human heart in a prison, one that often has invisible bars yet seriously affects life.
A hymn begins with this question: “What can wash away my sin?” The dictionary calls this washing as atonement with two definitions: #1: reparation for an offense or injury as in “She wanted to find a way to make atonement for her sins” and #2: the reconciliation of God and humankind through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.
Rutledge already knows that he cannot find a way to do this himself. In nonfiction, I know the same reality. Only definition #2 works. The OT describes it over and over as involving the sacrifice of a perfect lamb before a holy God who will accept that sacrifice only because the sinner is looking in faith toward a future day when God Himself will provide a Lamb, a Messiah, who will ATONE for all sin for all humanity. The next line of the song is, “Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”
Scholars debate whether the root meaning of atone is “to cover,” “to ransom,” or “to wipe clean/purge” yet the last one seems most appropriate in the OT. The activities involving this are too many to describe here but the general understanding is that God told the people to atone for sin with the blood of a lamb. Much of their spiritual health depended on them faithfully taking this seriously. When the sacrifices became a ritual only, God’s anger brought judgment on His people.
The NT word for atone means “to have mercy on, to make atonement for, propitiate.” It means God forgives, turns aside His anger. By grace, sins are forgiven and people are reconciled with God.
Atone and propitiation both involving gaining or regaining the favor of one offended. 1 John 2:2 and 4:10 say this: “(Jesus) is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world . . . . “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
Romans 3:25. “(Jesus) whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.”
The words translated atone and atonement used in the NT are strongly related to OT usage. Briefly put, Jesus is the person/place where God passes over our sins without punishing them because of Christ’s sacrifice. Two nouns and one verb point to Jesus as the priest who makes the atonement sacrifice, who is Himself that sacrifice, and even the place where atonement occurs. Everything I need for forgiveness, for the removal of God’s anger, and for atonement and reconciliation with Him is found in Jesus.
GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. What could be more incredible than having sin forgiven and guilt removed! Knowing that Jesus washed away my sin by shedding His blood and dying for me is the most liberating and wonderful reality! Even in fiction, when I read how people struggle with guilt I want God to open their hearts to this good news: Jesus atoned for all sin and sets us free from guilt and shame. Finding this freedom might not be how authors want their stories to play out, but it is certainly the will of God that no one should perish — He deeply loved this world so much that He sent His only Son to atone for our sin and wash away all that guilt so we could be reconciled to Him and set free from sin’s awful power. Thank You, Jesus.
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