S. THE ATONEMENT

THE ATONEMENT Dr. W. A. Criswell Rom 5:11 08-08-54 In your Bible, turn to Rom 5:1-21. Rom 5:1-21. Rom 5:1-21 and the message tonight, is in Rom 5:11. You will find the word in that verse that is used nowhere else in the New Testament. It is used only there. That is in the Bible you are holding in your hand, the King James-Authorized Version. Now, let me read the context. The ninth verse-“Much more being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him” [Rom 5:9]. Tenth verse-“For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life” [Rom 5:10]. That was the message this morning-If when we were lost, condemned, guilty undone sinners, Christ died on the cross and therein made reconciliation, justification atonement, found forgiveness. Brought salvation for us in his death. If He did that in his death, how much more certainly shall we be finally delivered at the gates of glory because Christ rose again. He lives. He lives. Being reconciled, how much more than shall we be saved, guarded, kept delivered by his life. And this is the sermon tonight, The next verse-“And not only so, but we exalt in God-we glory in God-through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement” [Rom 5:11]. And the word is the“atonement.” No other place in the Bible will you find it, The Atonement.

Atonement-it is one of the great words of our language. What does it mean? What does it refer to? The Greek word katallage that is translated here “atonement,” is used in eight other places in the Bible-all of the instances by the apostle Paul. It is used twice here in the tenth verse. “For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled”-translated “reconciled”-“to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled”-there it is again-“we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received”-and there is that word again, they translated it here-“the atonement” [Rom 5:11].

Now, may I read one other context in that word katallage-one other place you will find Paul using it several times. In the fifth chapter of the second Corinthian letter it is used several times. Listen to it: And all things are of God, who hath reconciled-there it is again-us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation-there is the exact word again, “reconciliation”- To wit, that God was in Christ reconciling-there it is again-the world unto himself, not imputing the trespasses unto them; and hath committed the word of reconciliation-there it is again.

Now, that we are ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’ stead, be ye reconciled to God”-and there it is again [2Co 5:18-20]. So let us go back over here and let us look at that word. If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have received. And the word atonement simply means “reconciliation.” The word everywhere else is translated “reconciliation”-the word “atonement.” Where did they get that word “atonement”? I say it is one of the great words of the English language. It has come to have a tremendous theological significance. If you ever go to school and study systematic theology or biblical theology, one of the tremendous subjects that you will study will be the theology of the atonement. It has had a history in the theological word for two thousand years. And I suppose this room would hardly hold the books that have been written on that one word, the atonement-the atonement. But it means reconciliation. And they translate it reconciliation everywhere else as Paul uses it. By what did they mean by translating it atonement here? That is an interesting thing. That word atonement is built together out of two little simple words with a suffix. The word is a-t, “at”; o-n-e, “one”; and then the suffix, ”ment.”-at-one-ment.

Back yonder in 1611, when this Bible was translated, the word reconciliation and “at-one-ment” were synonyms. They meant the same things. “At-one-ment”-here is a man and there is a man and they differ. But when they are reconciled, they are “at one” again. And in the English language, that word at-one-ment, it came to mean reconciliation. At-one-ment-and the English pronunciation of it atonement-at-one-ment. The differences have been resolved. They are not angry any longer. They are no longer estranged. They are together. Atonement has been made. At-one-ment has been accomplished. Reconciliation has come to pass. And that’s the meaning of the word here.

Now, may I read once again? “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the reconciliation; by whom we have received this atonement” [Rom 5:10-11]. Now, isn’t that a strange way of saying it?-“through our Jesus Christ, by whom we have received, we have received the atonement.” Who is it reconciled? For whom is atonement made? Is the reconciliation on our part? Or is the reconciliation on God’s part? Who is it that is estranged? Who is it full of wrath and anger? Who is it that poses a tremendous judgment against those who have violated his holiness? Who is it that is atoned, propitiated, made favorable? Who is it that is reconciled?

Now, when you answer that question, you are going to walk into a theological world. There are those who say the reconciliation is on the part of man. God doesn’t need to be reconciled. He is already reconciled. And I will speak of that in a moment. But in that theological world, I do not go. To me, it is another word for infidelity and unbelief. I go into this theological world-according to the Scripture, they say that “we receive that reconciliation.” We receive that atonement. It is something done for us. And that means that the one who is atoned, the one who is propitiated, made favorable. And the one who is reconciled is God. And the theological basis for that is this: that the one who is angry and the one who is full of wrath and the one who holds in his hand-a terrible judgment upon those who have done wrong-is God. In the prison of the justice and the righteousness and the burning and the fire and the judgment of Almighty God, all of the wicked are lost. All of the wicked are lost.

Now, why is it that a lot of theologians hold away from that? Simply because they are not willing to admit that God is a God of wrath and must be propitiated. That God is a God of justice and sin must be atoned for. That God is estranged from the human race and must be reconciled to the man that’s lost. The modern theologian refuses to accept that. But I do not know of a clearer revelation in God’s Book than this: that the wrath of God is at enmity, warring like a war that burns, against the sin of mankind. And unless there is atonement made, propitiation made, all mankind shall fall into hell-into the bottomless pit where we stand condemned before the judgment of a holy and a righteous God. The reconciliation is in God. There has to be a basis of peace for God to accept a sinful man. God in his holiness, in his justice, in his purity-God in his heaven will not deign to accept a man in his guilt and in his sin. He will not. And the judgment of death is upon all of our sins and we have sinned. There has to be a basis of peace, there has to be a basis of reconciliation between God who is offended and whose wrath burns against iniquity and all of us who are condemned in our sin. And that reconciliation was made by the Lord Jesus Christ and we receive it as a gift from God. It is God who reconciles. It is God who is atoned. It is God who is propitiated. It is God for whom some basis of peace had to be made in order for the Lord to forgive us our sins. The atonement is in God and we receive it as a gift from heaven.

What is a preacher? A preacher is none other somebody than a man who stands and proclaims to the world. “God is conciliated to man. God is reconciled to sinful man. Now, sinful man, be ye reconciled to God. Accept from his hands forgiveness, reconciliation, atonement, salvation.” That is what it is for a man to preach. He preaches that God has been reconciled. Now come, receive from God’s hands that forgiveness, that reconciliation, that atonement. We rejoice in God. We exalt in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received the atonement. Now I say when I go that way, I walk into an altogether different theological world than if I go that way. So let us look just for a moment-for there is no other way for you to learn God’s Book and, God’s Word and God’s revelation. There is no way for you to learn it quite as effectively as to listen to the critic who objects to the things that we say-God’s Word reveals. And then look at it. So we’re going to look at it tonight. The objection of the modern intellectual theologian to this preaching that I am preaching to you tonight that it is God who is reconciled. That the atonement is in him. That the reconciliation is in him. That God’s wrath must somehow be propitiated lest we all die in his presence.

All right-the first objection. The first objection of the theologian, some of them to that is this: that, that kind of a reconciliation, that kind of an atonement, is altogether unnecessary. It is unnecessary. They say that God is already reconciled to mankind. They say that God is a God of love. God is a God of mercy. God is a God of patience and longsuffering and loving kindness. And all that a man has to do in order to be forgiven of his sin is to come to the Lord God in repentance, in contrition, in tears and confess his sins to God and a loving God will forgive him of his sins and that is all that is necessary. You do not need to crawl. You do not need Christ. You do not need atonement. You do not need the blood. You do not need the agony of Gethsemane. God is a God of love. And if a man will repent, his tears and his penance and his confession will count for righteousness, that’s all it takes. That’s the first objection. This atonement on the cross by Jesus Christ is unnecessary.

All right what about that? What about that? If I know God’s word at all; God’s word is this: that no matter how much a man may cry, how much he may mourn, how long he may confess, how deep may be his own repentance; it is never enough. It never suffices for the covering up of the sin of his life. You cannot atone, make reconciliation, do propitiation unto God by your tears or crying or confession or penances. It does not cover your sin. The first story you read in the Bible is a parable of that and it never changes all the way through. When our first parents sinned, they knew they were condemned and ashamed of their God. And they made for themselves aprons of fig leaves and covered their nakedness. And when the Lord God saw them, they were ashamed and abashed and condemned and guilty. They had transgressed and they were lost. “In the day that thou eat thereof thou shalt surely die” [Gen 3:4]. And they died spiritually and later died physically. And they covered themselves with aprons of fig leaves. And the Lord looked upon it and, if what a man could do would suffice to the covering of his shame and his sin, God would have been delighted to walk with the man and his wife as they covered themselves with their fig leaves. But the Lord said: “It is not enough. It is not enough. It does not suffice.” And somewhere in the Garden of Eden, He took an innocent animal and slew it and that is the first pouring out of blood. He took an innocent animal and slew it and the ox drank up its blood. And he made coats of skin to cover up the man and his wife. And the shedding of blood, for the remission of sins has been the same, same, same story and revelation of God through all of the centuries and through ages. “The life is in the blood” [Lev 17:14]. And I have given it unto you for your souls to make atonement for your soul-“When I see the blood, I will pass over you” [Exo 12:13]. It is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul. It is the blood for the new covenant shed for the remission of sins. “These are those-these are they who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood, in the blood of the lamb” [Rev 7:14]. Glory be to him who hath redeemed us by his own blood. There is never any deviation of that through all of the word of God.

Well, why, Preacher, why? Why is it for a sinful man cannot come before God and by his tears and by his repentance and by his confession, why cannot he be saved? Why isn’t that enough without the cross and without the death and Jesus. Why can’t it be? Here is a judge on the case. And he is to administer justice in the state. And the judge has a son. And he loves his son. And the son has transgressed and violated flagrantly a statute on the law books of the land. And the judge sits on the bench. And the boy, a culprit, says in the presence of the judge, his own father. And the father loves the son. And the son weeps before the father. I have sinned. I have done wrong. I have transgressed. I have in cold blood, I have framed my friend. And the boy is repentant and he weeps and cries and he confesses. Does that keep the judge from opening the statute book? If that judge lets that boy go, every citizen of the state would rise and say: Justice has been violated. Had it been some other boy, he would have been sent to the electric chair. But in dealing with his own son, justice is violated. Love and mercy in the heart of the father has overwhelmed his sense of what is right and just.

You could not have justice, nor could you have statutes, nor could you administer the law of the land. If by the boy’s tears and his penitence he stood there and the guilty was set free. There are statutes in God’s Book. There are rules in God’s Book. There are judgments in God’s Book. And God says: “the soul that sins shall die.” In the day that you sin, thou shalt surely die. How shall we live? By our tears, they never suffice. By our confessions, they never suffice. By our repentance, they are never sufficient. The law of God must be honored. It is blood. It is death. In is penalty. And in the penalty of Christ, in the death of the Lord Jesus, in the cruel blood of the corpse, blood justice and God’s moral government is honored and upheld. And we are debt-free because of our substitute, the death, the suffering of our savior who paid that price for us.

All right, that leaves for the second objection. But Preacher, what an irrational thing-what an irrational thing, what an unreasonable theology. Do you mean to stand in that pulpit and tell me: I who am a reasonable, rational man-are you trying to tell me that Jesus Christ took the penalty and the judgment of all of our sins and that in his death all of our sins were atoned for? The whole penalty was paid? Are you trying to say that? I am trying to say that. You know what basis? This is the basis-this is a basis; on the basis-on the basis that Jesus is more than a man. On the basis that Jesus is God. And on the basis that the death of the Lord Jesus was of infinite merit and of infinite value. And that the punishment and the suffering and the agony and the death of the Son of God will do the penalty, the crown of penalty upon all of the judgments and all of the sins and all of the people and all of the world. It has that merit and that value.

Preacher, my soul, my soul, [I] do not see that. Then may I illustrate it? It is the same way that the Lord Jesus told it to you. In the camp of Israel the people were dying. They were bitten by fiery serpents. They had transgressed the law of God. And the Lord sent-did you hear that? God said, the Lord sent it was a judgment on the people. The Lord sent fiery serpents and they bit the people and the people were dying [Num 21:6]. And they cried to Moses saying: What shall we do and how shall we live for we are bitten by these fiery serpents and we are dying [Num 21:7]. And God said to Moses: Take a brazen serpent, take a serpent of brass and raise it in the center of the camp and it shall be that if a man is bitten by the serpent, if he’ll look, he’ll live [Num 21:8].

Why didn’t God say to Moses: Moses, take a dead serpent, and put him on a pole in the midst of the camp. Had Moses done that-killed one of those venomous, fiery, tenuous poisonous things; slain one of those things and put it on a pole and raise it up in the midst of the camp-had Moses done that, it would have been just another snake that deserved to die. It would have been there just as a reminder how many other snakes there were that were still alive. But the Lord God said to Moses: Make a representative snake, a representative snake, dead, limp, with its fangs extracted, and raise it up on a pole in the midst of the camp. It represents the death of sin. It represents all that sin could ever do to hurt and destroy. It has been destroyed itself. It is on the pole, limp, lifeless, dead, its fangs extracted-a representative. And in the looking in the face and it would heal. A man bitten by the serpent could be faced. The Lord Jesus Christ is not just another man. He is not just one of us. He is not a man who deserved to die for his own sin. The Lord Jesus Christ-and the rest of this chapter is about that-He is the representative man. He is the head of the spiritual reign. As Adam is the head of the natural man and in Him we die, so Christ is the head of the spiritual man and in Him, we live. And in that spiritual man, the head of the race, the representative man, the man without spot or blemish, God of very God, He was made to do sin for us. He took upon Him all of the wrath and all of the sickness and all of the penalty of all of our sins. He gathered it to Himself. And on the cross he died your death. He paid our penalty. If He was just another snake that died, if He was just another man that was crucified, if He was just another somebody, that deserved to die for His own sin, then there is no atonement made and we are still lost. But Jesus Christ was God. And in the merit of His atoning grace and in these grace advocacy of His blood and his suffering and His death, there is virtue come out; there is strength and power to make atonement to pay the price of the judgment upon all of the sin of all of the world. It is not I that could die nor anybody else that could die. I just deserve to die for my own sin. And every other man would deserve to die for His own sin. But in Christ, God died. God died. Infinitude-infinity; the God, the very God, He died and in that death, atonement was made for all of the wrath, all of the judgments, all of the sin of all of the world. It depends upon who did the thing. If it was a man, it was irrational. If it was God, oh, my soul. What does it mean for God to die for the world?

Another-Preacher, that thing is an incredible mystery. I do not understand it. Therefore, I cannot accept it. I not only saw, but we rejoiced in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received the atonement. You see, the atonement. Preacher, it is an incredible, an incredible mystery. I cannot accept it. I cannot believe it. It is beyond me. I do not see. I cannot grasp. I do not understand it could be for me. I cannot accept it. That granted-the atonement of Christ, the propitiation of the wrath of God in Christ, the assumption of the suffering of all of our sins in Christ, the atoning death of our savior equal to all of the penalty of all of the sins of the world-it is granted, it is an incredible mystery. No man can grasp it. No man can fathom it. No man can understand it. But my, brother, it does not have to be a barrier to faith. It is beyond a man’s rational, intellectual grasp. Because I cannot enter into its final secret-because I cannot stand in this pulpit and explain it fully-is no barrier to the fact of its reality, of its power, of its great virtue. After all, it is just a part of the whole pattern of the revelation of God that I see all around me. There is no part of God, nor any thing that God has done that ultimately my poor finite mind can ever completely grasp or contain. It is all a mystery around me. But that does not mean it is any less real, and it does not mean it is a barrier to faith.

Tell me, is not everything around you then a mystery beyond our grasp? Isn’t it? No man can reach it and encompass it-the starry skies above us, these universes that float in space-is there a man that could stand up here in this pulpit and say: Brothers and sisters, listen to me. I will explain to you the mystery of the universe. I know where it came from. I know where it is going. I know its yesteryear and I know its destiny. Floating out there in the Milky Way. Floating out there through the siderial hemispheres, floating out there in the infinitude. And we among them. That mystery I cannot enter into it. It is God’s-a part of God. I cannot enter into the mystery of anything that God does. Those flowers. Where were they hidden down there in a little seed? Where did they come from? What made that stem grow and turn green, and the caliph open and on the inside that little bud? And who painted the petals that golden yellow? And who dipped his pen and painted those beautiful leaves? Where did it come from and how did it grow? I cannot see. I cannot grasp. I cannot get it. It is just one thing again in the hands of Almighty God. In my soul, my spirit, on the inside of me, who made it? What makes it live? Love? Feel? Desire? Want? Long? Remember? Who is “I”? Where did “I” come from? This mystery on the inside of the house that is called you? How do you enter into it? How do you explain it? Where did we come from? Who created us? What of our future and our destiny? What about the tomorrow? And I live like that. My every day is like that. Everything I touch is like that. The whole world is like that. Finally, how can I enter into the secret of the personality of God? Where did we come from? He always was and I cannot understand it. And how is it that He made out of nothing this universe? By fiat, He said it and there it is. I cannot grasp it. I just worship in His presence. So is the mystery of the atonement of the Son of God. You are not talking about a man when you are talking about Jesus. You are talking about God. God, the very God, the God who made this world and who created us. We are talking about Him, “For when we were yet without strength, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet maybe for a good man, some would dare to die. But God commended his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”-in my stead [Rom 5:6-8]. As a king may die for his people, as a soldier may fight for a battle and die on the battlefield, as a chief may lay down his life for his clan; so Christ, God’s Son and, God, the very God through Christ died for us. We are now justified by His blood. We shall be saved from God’s wrath, God’s penalty against sin. Through him, for if “we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we rejoice in God”-we exalt in God-“through the Lord Jesus Christ, through him now we have received that atonement” [Rom 5:10-11].

What lies back of it? What was the love that prompted Jesus to come into this world? What was the passion that moved the soul when he volunteered to pay the penalty for our sins? And to die in our stead? How do you enter into it? How do you sit down and discover its secret? To do it is to begin to understand the heart of God. I just see a little reflection of it just once in a while. Like this, sitting in the midst of a great group, of half-naked, so darkened, mind filled with superstition and ignorance, sitting in the midst of a great group of half-naked savages…

[end of transcript]