Salvation Series I - Part 5 - The Atonement
22:22
I am grateful that the Lord has taken us this far. My heart leaps for joy with the knowledge that you are understanding the mystery of Christ. And now we are at the core of the mystery - the atonement.
Before we delve into the divine atonement let us briefly go over some of the things God taught us above about our Lord and saviour as He walked this earth.
Jesus was the son of God and the son of man. He was the son of God because He had the seed of God in Him - God was His Father, and he was the son of man because Mary supplied him with a body, soul and spirit. He was born as man with the Holy Spirit in Him. His soul and spirit were hidden inside of God and God dwelt in the flesh.
We learnt that Jesus' flesh was not sinful like Adam's was after the fall. There was no devil in Jesus, in fact God was the power over His flesh. Jesus was able to live His whole life without sin because God was in His flesh.
We all know that Jesus died for the sins of the world but we must truly understand what God did at the arrest of Christ.
Luk 4:2&9-11
2 Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing:and when they were ended, he afterward hungered...
9 And he (the devil) brought him (Jesus) to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence:
10 For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee:
11 And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Jn 7:30
Then they sought to take him:but no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come.
Jesus was protected of God throughout His entire life. He could not see death until the time appointed. Many times in His ministry people attempted to harm him but God so had it that he would not be harmed until his arrest. Jesus lived 33 1/2 years untouched by the physical threats of the devil. However upon His arrest, He was beaten, spat upon, his beard plucked, he was whipped and abused. Do we see the sudden change in events? Consider the following
Is 53:1-12
1 Who hath believed our report?
and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant,
and as a root out of a dry ground:
he hath no form nor comeliness;
and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He is despised and rejected of men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief:
and we hid as it were our faces from him;
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Jesus moved from a position from being the great prophet and chosen Messiah, to being arrested beaten and scorned. He was beaten out of shape and no one desired to look upon Him.
4 Surely he hath borne our griefs,
and carried our sorrows:
yet we did esteem him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted.
He was seen as a cursed man, the crucifixion was the proof to Israel that he was cursed of God. Little did they know that He had taken on the curse of death for their sins and sake.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities:
the chastisement of our peace was upon him;
and with his stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned every one to his own way;
and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth:
he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb,
so he openeth not his mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment:
and who shall declare his generation?
for he was cut off out of the land of the living:
for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
9 And he made his grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death;
because he had done no violence,
neither was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief:when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied:
by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many;
for he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
because he hath poured out his soul unto death:
and he was numbered with the transgressors;
and he bare the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
What amazing grace. Isaiah tells in detail all that our Lord went through upon his death. In following with the mystery we must understand this. Remember that we learnt that Jesus' flesh was not sinful? However we know that it was by His death that He paid for the sins of the world. The sins of the world were placed on His flesh and then His flesh was destroyed of the Father. Isaiah lets us know then that it was from the moment he was arrested (he was taken from prison and from judgment) unto his death (he was cut off out of the land of the living) that the sin was placed on his flesh.
God gave us a type/shadow of Christ in the Old Testament day of atonement. Let us look at this to help us to understand Jesus as the atonement for the world.
Lev 16:5-10
5 And he shall take of the congregation of the children of Israel two kids of the goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering.
6 And Aaron shall offer his bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and make an atonement for himself, and for his house.
7 And he shall take the two goats, and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
8 And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat.
9 And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the Lord 's lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering.
10 But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness.
...
Lev 16:17-22
18 And he shall go out unto the altar that is before the Lord, and make an atonement for it; and shall take of the blood of the bullock, and of the blood of the goat, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about. 19 And he shall sprinkle of the blood upon it with his finger seven times, and cleanse it, and hallow it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel.
20 And when he hath made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat:21 And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness:22 And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited:and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.
Scapegoat - an innocent person or animal which takes on the sins of others.
Atonement - at-one-with.
God used the day of atonement to give a detailed depiction of Christ. We can see exactly how an atonement is performed. There were 3 goats, one was burnt, one was killed for sin and one was atoned and carried away. Christ is these 3 in 1.
THE 3 GOATS
1. The Scapegoat - Verses 21-22 outline how the atonement is performed. The high priest prays the sins of all Israel upon the live goat and then the goat is carried away into the wilderness, so far that it cannot find its way back. Likewise God placed the sins of the world upon Jesus Christ and by his death, burial and resurrection he took away the sins of the world, never to be returned.
2. The Sin Offering - His death was an offering for the sins of the world as portrayed in Isaiah above.
3. The Burnt Offering - Jesus' soul went to hell for 3 days and nights to end the transgression of mankind.
Jesus is our atonement. He was made at one with the sins of the world. God placed all the sins of the world upon His flesh, and tore it to pieces. By this God was ending sin. He was destroying sin once and for all, and so fulfilling the prophecy - His heel was bruised in death but also by death He bruised the head of the devil - He ended sin.
Dan 9:23-26
23 At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to shew thee; for thou art greatly beloved:therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision.
24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks:the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself:and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
This is an awesome plan of God. However there is an aspect that I would love for us to see and understand. If we do, we will see the amazing love of the Father.
Let us remind ourselves of the make-up of Christ. He testified in John 17 that the Father was in Him and He was in the Father. We know that to mean that God was in His flesh and His soul was in God. We know therefore that God was the one that was touching (in) his flesh, not his soul.
1Co 15:45
And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
Adam was a living soul, because his soul was made alive because it was in a body. In other words, it was the presence of the soul in the flesh that brought the soul alive. The soul was a living soul because he had a body to express himself through here on earth. However Jesus is a quickening spirit. The word quick means alive, and quickening means life-giving. Let us remember that it was not the soul of Jesus that was touching the flesh, but rather Jesus' soul was touching God (meaning it was inside of God); God however was touching the flesh. (see Fig 3.)
His body was not alive by the soul being in it, but it was God that had His body alive. On the other hand, the soul was not alive because it had a body to express itself in, but it was alive because it was in God and God is a Spirit of Life.
I hope you are following here.
Here we can understand the life of Jesus Christ.
Now we know why Jesus could be beaten beyond recognition, even unto the point where he could see all his bones but still carry the cross. His body could not die until God left it, because God is a Spirit of Life.
Luk 23:46
And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit:and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.
The Holy Ghost had to leave his body in order for it to die.
Seeing that it was God who was in the flesh of Jesus all His life, the great love of the Father is revealed. God, who is invisible, was able to handle and love on man through the body of Jesus Christ.
The other aspect is this. Do we remember when sin had entered the flesh of Adam what happened to him? Because his soul was in a sinful body, he was susceptible to the sin that his soul was in. Now let us bring this knowledge over to the crucifixion. If God was not in the flesh of Jesus Christ, His soul would have been susceptible to the sin that was placed on His flesh; but rather it was the will of the Father to stay in the flesh of Jesus and bear the sins of the world, while keeping the soul of Jesus from sin. God cannot sin, so because he was in the flesh, even though the sins of the world were placed on the flesh, they had no effect on Him. Jesus' soul was therefore safe and preserved by His Father.
Jesus' holy body became a body of sins because the sins were placed upon the flesh; and the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23), he therefore died for us all.
Here is an image of Jesus' atoned flesh.
(Important to note, that God did not place the devil upon Jesus flesh, but rather he placed the sins of the world upon His flesh - sin is the strength of the devil)
Jesus was the son of God and the son of man. He was the son of God because He had the seed of God in Him - God was His Father, and he was the son of man because Mary supplied him with a body, soul and spirit. He was born as man with the Holy Spirit in Him. His soul and spirit were hidden inside of God and God dwelt in the flesh.
We learnt that Jesus' flesh was not sinful like Adam's was after the fall. There was no devil in Jesus, in fact God was the power over His flesh. Jesus was able to live His whole life without sin because God was in His flesh.
We all know that Jesus died for the sins of the world but we must truly understand what God did at the arrest of Christ.
Luk 4:2&9-11
2 Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing:and when they were ended, he afterward hungered...
9 And he (the devil) brought him (Jesus) to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence:
10 For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee:
11 And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Jn 7:30
Then they sought to take him:but no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come.
Jesus was protected of God throughout His entire life. He could not see death until the time appointed. Many times in His ministry people attempted to harm him but God so had it that he would not be harmed until his arrest. Jesus lived 33 1/2 years untouched by the physical threats of the devil. However upon His arrest, He was beaten, spat upon, his beard plucked, he was whipped and abused. Do we see the sudden change in events? Consider the following
Is 53:1-12
1 Who hath believed our report?
and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant,
and as a root out of a dry ground:
he hath no form nor comeliness;
and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He is despised and rejected of men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief:
and we hid as it were our faces from him;
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Jesus moved from a position from being the great prophet and chosen Messiah, to being arrested beaten and scorned. He was beaten out of shape and no one desired to look upon Him.
4 Surely he hath borne our griefs,
and carried our sorrows:
yet we did esteem him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted.
He was seen as a cursed man, the crucifixion was the proof to Israel that he was cursed of God. Little did they know that He had taken on the curse of death for their sins and sake.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities:
the chastisement of our peace was upon him;
and with his stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned every one to his own way;
and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth:
he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb,
so he openeth not his mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment:
and who shall declare his generation?
for he was cut off out of the land of the living:
for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
9 And he made his grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death;
because he had done no violence,
neither was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief:when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied:
by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many;
for he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
because he hath poured out his soul unto death:
and he was numbered with the transgressors;
and he bare the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
What amazing grace. Isaiah tells in detail all that our Lord went through upon his death. In following with the mystery we must understand this. Remember that we learnt that Jesus' flesh was not sinful? However we know that it was by His death that He paid for the sins of the world. The sins of the world were placed on His flesh and then His flesh was destroyed of the Father. Isaiah lets us know then that it was from the moment he was arrested (he was taken from prison and from judgment) unto his death (he was cut off out of the land of the living) that the sin was placed on his flesh.
God gave us a type/shadow of Christ in the Old Testament day of atonement. Let us look at this to help us to understand Jesus as the atonement for the world.
Lev 16:5-10
5 And he shall take of the congregation of the children of Israel two kids of the goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering.
6 And Aaron shall offer his bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and make an atonement for himself, and for his house.
7 And he shall take the two goats, and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
8 And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat.
9 And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the Lord 's lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering.
10 But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness.
...
Lev 16:17-22
18 And he shall go out unto the altar that is before the Lord, and make an atonement for it; and shall take of the blood of the bullock, and of the blood of the goat, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about. 19 And he shall sprinkle of the blood upon it with his finger seven times, and cleanse it, and hallow it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel.
20 And when he hath made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat:21 And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness:22 And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited:and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.
Scapegoat - an innocent person or animal which takes on the sins of others.
Atonement - at-one-with.
God used the day of atonement to give a detailed depiction of Christ. We can see exactly how an atonement is performed. There were 3 goats, one was burnt, one was killed for sin and one was atoned and carried away. Christ is these 3 in 1.
THE 3 GOATS
1. The Scapegoat - Verses 21-22 outline how the atonement is performed. The high priest prays the sins of all Israel upon the live goat and then the goat is carried away into the wilderness, so far that it cannot find its way back. Likewise God placed the sins of the world upon Jesus Christ and by his death, burial and resurrection he took away the sins of the world, never to be returned.
2. The Sin Offering - His death was an offering for the sins of the world as portrayed in Isaiah above.
3. The Burnt Offering - Jesus' soul went to hell for 3 days and nights to end the transgression of mankind.
Jesus is our atonement. He was made at one with the sins of the world. God placed all the sins of the world upon His flesh, and tore it to pieces. By this God was ending sin. He was destroying sin once and for all, and so fulfilling the prophecy - His heel was bruised in death but also by death He bruised the head of the devil - He ended sin.
Dan 9:23-26
23 At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to shew thee; for thou art greatly beloved:therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision.
24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks:the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself:and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
This is an awesome plan of God. However there is an aspect that I would love for us to see and understand. If we do, we will see the amazing love of the Father.
Let us remind ourselves of the make-up of Christ. He testified in John 17 that the Father was in Him and He was in the Father. We know that to mean that God was in His flesh and His soul was in God. We know therefore that God was the one that was touching (in) his flesh, not his soul.
1Co 15:45
And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
Adam was a living soul, because his soul was made alive because it was in a body. In other words, it was the presence of the soul in the flesh that brought the soul alive. The soul was a living soul because he had a body to express himself through here on earth. However Jesus is a quickening spirit. The word quick means alive, and quickening means life-giving. Let us remember that it was not the soul of Jesus that was touching the flesh, but rather Jesus' soul was touching God (meaning it was inside of God); God however was touching the flesh. (see Fig 3.)
His body was not alive by the soul being in it, but it was God that had His body alive. On the other hand, the soul was not alive because it had a body to express itself in, but it was alive because it was in God and God is a Spirit of Life.
I hope you are following here.
Here we can understand the life of Jesus Christ.
Now we know why Jesus could be beaten beyond recognition, even unto the point where he could see all his bones but still carry the cross. His body could not die until God left it, because God is a Spirit of Life.
Luk 23:46
And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit:and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.
The Holy Ghost had to leave his body in order for it to die.
Seeing that it was God who was in the flesh of Jesus all His life, the great love of the Father is revealed. God, who is invisible, was able to handle and love on man through the body of Jesus Christ.
The other aspect is this. Do we remember when sin had entered the flesh of Adam what happened to him? Because his soul was in a sinful body, he was susceptible to the sin that his soul was in. Now let us bring this knowledge over to the crucifixion. If God was not in the flesh of Jesus Christ, His soul would have been susceptible to the sin that was placed on His flesh; but rather it was the will of the Father to stay in the flesh of Jesus and bear the sins of the world, while keeping the soul of Jesus from sin. God cannot sin, so because he was in the flesh, even though the sins of the world were placed on the flesh, they had no effect on Him. Jesus' soul was therefore safe and preserved by His Father.
Jesus' holy body became a body of sins because the sins were placed upon the flesh; and the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23), he therefore died for us all.
Here is an image of Jesus' atoned flesh.
 |
| Fig 5. This is the make-up of Jesus from the moment He was arrested to the point of His crucifixion. |
(Important to note, that God did not place the devil upon Jesus flesh, but rather he placed the sins of the world upon His flesh - sin is the strength of the devil)
 |
| Fig 6. An image of Christ on the cross. |
Part 6/8
1 comments
Amazing truth. I am falling asleep yet I'm awakened by this mystery. What a Mighty God we serve.
ReplyDeleteI just had to stop to leave this comment...moving along to prt 7 & 8.