Atonement

  • The Drama of Redemption

    Psalm 85:10

    Today’s passage contains the beautiful imagery of justice and peace (or mercy, as other translations put it) kissing each other. Our Father graciously restores peace between Himself and us in Christ Jesus. This peace is permanent, for it is ...Read More

  • The Need for Atonement

    1 Corinthians 2:1–5

    In other religions, such as Islam and Judaism, God simply waves sin away, not requiring payment for transgressions in order to forgive. This idea betrays a view of a Creator who is not really all that holy, who ultimately is ...Read More

  • Once for All

    Hebrews 9:23–28

    If Christ’s sacrifice of Himself was insufficient to save us and must be offered again and again, then we have no hope of salvation. A sacrifice that has to be repeated is a weak and ineffectual sacrifice that cannot ...Read More

  • Freedom Through Christ’s Blood

    Revelation 1:5b

    Baptism reminds us who believe that we are washed clean of our sin on account of the blood of Christ. His death atoned for our guilt, enabling God to forgive us without compromising His justice. When we see the water ...Read More

  • Justice Satisfied in Another

    Romans 8:3–4

    The hymn “Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness” reminds us that for every believer in Jesus, His blood “a full atonement made.” We can trust the Lord because He is just and always fulfills His promises, even His promise to punish ...Read More

  • The Preaching of Peace

    Ephesians 2:17

    Peace between God and humanity is not a given. It took the sacrifice of God the Son to achieve it, and it requires personal faith in the Son of God for us to enjoy it. Are you at peace with ...Read More

  • No Longer Far Off

    Ephesians 2:13

    The longer we are Christians, the easier it can be to forget the greatness of our salvation and the incalculable price that our Father paid to adopt us as His children. Yet we must never allow ourselves to consider the ...Read More

  • Christ Our Passover

    1 Corinthians 5

    Christ’s sacrifice as the ultimate Passover gives us a knowledge of sin and its effects, freedom from its power, and confidence to mortify it that the old covenant saint did not fully enjoy. Consequently, we can cast out the ...Read More

  • The Lord’s Passover

    Exodus 12:1–32

    Though not himself a Christian, Lord Alfred Tennyson captures the pervasiveness of sin in his poem “The Holy Grail”: “In me lived a sin / So strange, of such a kind, that all of pure, / Noble and knightly in me twined ...Read More

  • Bearing Our Iniquity

    Isaiah 52:13–53:12

    Though the costs we incur to forgive are real, they by no means approach the high price Jesus had to pay to extend His grace to us. We should therefore forgive others willingly, refusing to hold the full cost of ...Read More

  • The True Love of God

    1 John 4:10–12

    Dr. Joel Beeke writes in his Epistles of John that “the great motivation for practical, Christlike living is the doctrine of the cross; hence, every failure to love can be traced back to a failure to understand the cross. When ...Read More

  • Atoning for Iniquity

    Daniel 9:24–27

    Discussions of Daniel 9 often focus on calculating years, the delay of the seventieth week, and so on. All should agree, however, that the number 490 is at least partly symbolic of God’s determination in the fullness of time ...Read More

  • The Day of Atonement

    Leviticus 16

    The requirement for the people to afflict themselves on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:29–34), a shorthand reference to self-examination and repentance, was a clear sign that the sacrifices on that day would be effectual only when the ...Read More

  • Cleansing the Temple

    2 Chronicles 29

    Hezekiah’s sin offerings did not effect the cleansing the people needed, but we can still learn much from his zeal to restore true worship. The most important reformation that ever takes place in the life of the church is ...Read More

  • Bearing Our Sins in His Body

    1 Peter 2:22–25

    Our lives and worship are transformed forever when by grace we realize that while God owes us nothing but wrath, He has executed His wrath not on those who trust Christ but on Jesus Himself. We should be the most ...Read More