His Atonement

How can a Holy God dwell in the presence of a sinful and rebellious people?

The answer for the Old Covenant people was a system of atoning sacrifices, with the Day of Atonement at its heart. Both the vocabulary of atonement and the fate of the scapegoat in Leviticus 16 depict the propitiation of God's wrath by the substitutionary death of an animal. This anticipated the work of Jesus the Messiah (the Christ) in the New Covenant, where God's wrath against all his people was propitiated by the once-for-all sacrifice of His only begotten Son.

At the first Passover, the Jewish people (the Israelites), were delivered from the wrath of God's judgement on their idolatry. It was through the substitutionary death of a lamb, whose blood marked out the Israelite households, that their firstborn sons were spared. These events occurred at a key turning point in salvation history, and were integral to God's faithfulness to His covenant with Abraham.

The ongoing celebration of the Passover, served to implant the notion of salvation through penal sacrifice in every faithful Israelite mind. The New Covenant depicts Jesus' death as the fulfilment of the Passover; He suffered in the place of His people in order that they might be marked out by His blood and thus spared from God's wrath.

Jesus the Messiah (the Christ), is the 'lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world', in doing so, He unites us to Himself, by His Spirit, through faith, so that our sins and guilt are imputed to Him, and we are credited with His righteousness and receive all the other benefits of His atonement.

Jesus' atonement is the central aspect of God's redeeming work in the Messiah, fully integrating His justice and truthfulness, mercy, holiness and love, and forms the basis of our reconciliation with God. It highlights the Messiah's victory over Satan and over all evil powers. It emphasises that God gave His Son for His enemies (Romans 5:10), and deepens our appreciation of God's love, and leads to the indwelling presence of God, within His people.