THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST.

Atonement means cover, covering, to cover. Whereas propitiation is the same as Atonement in the New Testament.

(Romans 3:25) whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

(Hebrew 2:17) Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.

(1 John 2:2) and he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

(1 John 4:10) Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

The Levitical offerings “covered “the sins of Israel until and in anticipation of the cross but not “take away” (Hebrews 10:4)

Passing over God’s righteousness was never vindicated until in the cross. Jesus Christ was set forth to be a propitiation. It was the cross not Levitical sacrifices, made full and complete Redemption. The Old Testament enabled God to go on with a guilty people because those sacrifices typifies the cross.

To the offeror they were the confession of his deserving death and expression of his faith.

To God they were the shadows of good things that were to come of which Christ was the reality. (Hebrew 10:1)

The atonement of Christ as foreshadowed by the Old Testament sacrificial types, has the necessary elements  in that; it was substitutionary that is to say the offering took the offeror’s place in death.

It honored the law in that the sacrificial death was an execution of the sentence of the law. The atonement was also sinless. (1Peter 1:19)

The atonement is a promise that sin shall be forgiven ( Leviticus 6:7) As can be seen, it served as a Peace offering, expressing of fellowship and that was the highest privilege of the believer ( Exodus 29:33)

The blood is for atonement and has to do first with Sin( Romans 3:23) and our standing before God. God overlooks what we have done but because he sees the blood.

In the Old Testament, the Word blood is used in connection with the idea of atonement.

In the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16), the blood was brought from the sin offering and brought into the Most Holy place and sprinkled seven times. The mercy seat was sprinkled with atoning blood.

On that day, the sin offering was offered publicly in the court of the tabernacle. Except the High Priest, no one else entered the tabernacle. It was he alone who took the blood and going into the Most Holy Place, sprinkled the blood there to make atonement before the Lord, why because the High Priest was a type of the Lord Jesus in his Redemptive work. (Hebrew 9: 11-12) and so in figure he was the one who did the work.

The act of going into the tabernacle, Holy of Holiest as by one act in presenting the blood to God as something he had accepted, something which he could find satisfaction. It was a transaction between the High Priest and God in the sanctuary away from the eyes of men who were to benefit by it.

The Lord required that. The blood is therefore in the first place not for ourselves but for him.

SHALOM.