Imagery for the Atonement

On Easter Sunday, we have an opportunity not only to reflect on what Christ has done for us but also the effect of Christ’s death and resurrection. At the most basic level, we confess that Jesus saved us by his death and resurrection, but that requires further elaboration. From what were we saved and in what way were we saved? The next layer of explanation points to atonement as the way in which we were saved by Christ. As we remember and reflect on Christ’s atoning work for us, it is worthwhile to consider the imagery that Scripture uses to communicate the idea of atonement. As we think about atonement, it is important to recognize that the richness of the idea means that one single image cannot exhaust our understanding of it. Therefore, the imagery of victory is complementary to propitiation, ransom to satisfaction, penal substitution to suffering example. The balance of this reflection will introduce some of this imagery for the atonement as fodder for future meditation.

First, there is the imagery of Christ as victorious in battle. The tenth plague of Exodus provides shape for this imagery as God is victorious over the so-called gods of Egypt. The writer to the Hebrews describes the sorry state of humanity apart from Christ as slavery to the fear of death, and writes, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, [Jesus] himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Heb 2:14-15 ESV). Appealing to N. T. Wright’s argument in Jesus and the Victory of God, Douglas Kelly writes, “Wright lists a large number of scriptural texts that predict the coming victory of the Lord on Zion as a new exodus, to finish for his people what the first exodus began. That greater exodus was accomplished in principle in the victorious death of Christ on Calvary.”[1] Thus, one image of atonement in Christ’s victory in battle against the powers and principalities of this present evil age.

Second, there is the imagery of Christ’s propitiation, or turning away of God’s wrath. Lest we think that our primary foe is the devil, the imagery of propitiation reminds us that we, in our sin, are our own worst enemy, for our sin is rebellion against God and consequently a choice for death as it elicits the wrath of God against us. In short, God is holy and cannot wink at sin; sin must be judged. “Hence, to remove his own wrath in a way fully consistent with his own holy character, God instituted, from the earliest strands of the Old Testament, sacrifices.”[2] These sacrifices pointed to the requirement that life must be paid to turn away the wrath of God for sin, which Christ accomplishes through the shedding of his own blood. So, Paul writes, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (Rom 3:23-25a ESV). This image also encompasses the image of penal substitution in that Christ is the substitute who bears the penalty for our sins.

To give one last image, Christ is the ransom price for our sin.[3] The language of economics is used to express the significance of the atonement at times. In the Lord’s Prayer, we are taught to pray, “Forgive us our debts” (Matt 6:12 ESV). A debt is that which is owed to someone, and Paul uses the language of debts negatively in opposition to Abraham’s faith (Rom 4:1-8). Christ freed us from infinite indebtedness to the Father, as he teaches in the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matt 18:21-35). This language of redemption extends beyond being freed from something. Paul reminds us that we “were bought with a price,” which means that we must glorify God in our bodies and actions (1 Cor 6:20 ESV).

Even the imagery of ransom is inseparable from the other images. In his farewell speech to the Ephesian elders, Paul speaks of “the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood” (Acts 20:28 ESV). Here we are reminded that the redemption price for God’s own possession (cf. Eph 1:14 NAS) was the selfsame blood of the cross that turned away God’s wrath; the blood of Christ “redeemed us from the curse of the law” (Gal 3:13 ESV) and brought about “forgiveness of our trespasses” (Eph 1:7 ESV).

In the end, I hope that reflecting on a few images of atonement will enrich your celebration of Resurrection Sunday.

[1] Douglas F. Kelly, Systematic Theology: The Beauty of Christ, A Trinitarian Vision (Fearn: Christian Focus, 2014), 2:440.

[2] Kelly, The Beauty of Christ, 2:428.

[3] The following is drawn from Kelly, The Beauty of Christ, 2:436–37.