ZA MAGAZINE // seek truth.

In January, 2008 a movie was released that received wide critical acclaim and eventually seven Oscar nominations. The movie followed a young girl that made a mistake in judgment which drastically altered the course of many lives, something that she regretted forever. She then spent the rest of her days doing good works and completing different types of public service so as to correct for her mistake through good deeds.

Despite the movie’s non-religious nature, it’s title is very much a religious term, albeit one that is not often used: Atonement. The Biblical concept of atonement is called propitiation (pronounced propisia’shon), which is the subject we will now look at.

The movie got it somewhat right: Propitiation is a sacrifice of some kind to correct for an error or errors, yet true atonement or propitiation is not someone doing some nice things in order to rectify a bad situation. In fact, true propitiation is the most powerful correction of the most devious and disgusting errors ever done by anything. Let’s look at it.

As Christians we believe that God is perfect in every way, without wrong. We (if we are truly ‘saved’) also believe that we are just about the furthest thing from that perfection (or we were at least!) and that nothing of our own doing can get us any closer to being good and being declared perfect. As the Apostle Paul says in his letter to the Romans: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

In order to understand what comes next, we need to go back to the Old Testament to describe how the system was then.

So, as we all know God created all things, including Adam and Eve, who deliberately disobey Him and do something that had never been done before: Sin. As a result a curse is placed upon mankind that all will be slaves to sin. In other words, every person from then-on will not be able to resist messing up every day. And because God is perfect and desires to stay that way, He cannot come into contact with something imperfect without defiling Himself.

It’s like someone who wears very nice white pants all the time (Benny Hinn, perhaps?) and cannot take these white pants into any filthiness because they are so perfectly white that they will surely get soiled if they touch anything bad. If the white-pants-wearer even kneels down on one little spot of mud to pick something up, the whole knee is no longer white and it will take some serious work to get it back to its pristine state, right? It’s the same with God. He is perfect and just in every way, therefore He doesn’t mess with sin. If something wants to get close to God, the stain of sin it has must be removed first.

Back in the Old Testament the way that sin was taken care of was religious sacrifices of animals. The people that worshiped God in the Old Testament had to get certain animals (with a lamb being the most important) and give them once a year to this one dude called the High Priest who would take the animal and then slaughter it in a very ritualistic way, believing that the death of the animal had satisfied God and would make the person offering the animal sinless, pure, and okay in God’s view. The animal couldn’t have any defects or blemishes either, so that nothing except for perfection would be offered up to God. The Scripture that supports the ritual states: “without the shedding of the blood there is no forgiveness for sins” (Hebrews 9:22). In other words, something had to die in order for something else to live. That is truly what a sacrifice is.

One major downside about the Old Testament form of sacrifice: Everyone knew that it didn’t erase sins, it only covered them. The New Testament book of Hebrews shares: “It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (10:4).

Something clearly needed to be done in order for sins to be truly taken away or else no one would ever be able to know God, as no one could approach Him in His perfection unless a new system came to be.

Enter, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Saviour of Mankind, Messiah, Lord of Lords and King of Kings, or Jesus for short. See, when Jesus first came into the public eye, a famous man named John the Baptist said: “Look, the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). It’s no coincidence that John said ‘Lamb of God’ when pointing people to the approaching Jesus. Jesus was prepared to become like a lamb from the Old Testament that would be offered as a sacrifice. Except this time the sacrifice was going to remove all sin and wasn’t just going to last for one year. This sacrifice was for good!

Please remember that the people listening to John were technically still part of the Old Testament, so they had been doing the same thing so tediously every year with their animal sacrifices, hoping and asking for some kind of alternative so that they may actually know God. Imagine hearing that a human being was about to enact the new system by himself becoming the sacrifice! This was one of the most momentous times in history! Finally, real freedom from sin, errors washed away, not just covered up. Amazing!

And so through Jesus’ perfect life and excruciating death a new way is made in which there is no more need for the ritual of animal slaughter, yet sins are truly eradicated and man is made right in God’s view. Paul says that Jesus was “set forth to be a propitiation” and that He was and is “the justifier of him which believes” (Romans 3:25-36). Jesus stepped up, paid the price for sins with His death, and then whoever puts their faith in Him for salvation can be made perfect and just. And if a man is perfect and just, then He can now go before God and be accepted!

In other words: Man can now put on the white pants, too.

Photo credit goes to “illustir.”