A scripture to read is 2 Corinthians 5:11-21.
There is a word we use a lot this time of year — especially as we get closer to Easter. We use it in our songs, in our prayers, in our conversations about what Jesus did on the cross. The word is atonement.
Now if I asked you to define it, most of you could give me a solid answer. You would say something like, “It’s about forgiveness,” or “It’s about what Jesus did to pay for our sin.” And you would be right.
But I want to show you something today that I think is going to open this word up in a whole new way. Atonement is actually an English word — based on a Hebrew word. ATONEMENT appears over 80 times in the Old Testament as a translation of the Hebrew word “Kaphar” ( meaning to cover or reconcile).
KAPHAR describes the ritual covering of sins and restoration of harmony with God. It appears most often in the OT in Leviticus, referring to sacrifices made for sins (see Leviticus 17:11). In the New Testament, the actual word does not appear often but the concept does, and shows up in words like reconciliation and redemption through Jesus Christ (see Romans 5:11, I John 4:10)
But their MEANING is rooted in the concept of ATONEMENT.
In English, when the suffix “MENT” is added to a word, it gives us the idea of a “state of being.” For example: retirement, resentment, commitment, disappointment or improvement are common words with “ment” at the end.
The word ATONEMENT is another, and it is built from three smaller pieces. At. One. Ment. At-one-ment. Atonement. It is referring to the state of being made “at one”. Atonement makes us “at one with God!”
It is the overcoming of separation. It is the making of peace with…. the Creator. It is the closing of a gap. the healing of a broken relationship.
That one word carries the entire weight of what we are talking about today. What Jesus accomplished on the cross was not just a legal transaction in a heavenly courtroom. It was God’s great act of bringing together what had been torn apart. Restoring what had been broken in our life. Reclaiming what had been lost as we lived apart from God and for ourselves.
WHAT ATONEMENT REALLY MEANS
God acted on purpose to overcoming evil and restoring creation’s purpose. So today I want us to look at what atonement really means — what the cross really accomplished — and why, just a short time before Easter Sunday, we are going to celebrate not just a moment in history, but the guarantee of a future that nothing can take away.
Let’s start at the beginning. Not the beginning of the gospel story — the beginning of the creation story.
When God made this world, he made it good. Genesis tells us that over and over again — good, good, very good. God created a world full of potential. Full of beauty. Full of purpose. He made human beings in his image, breathed life into them, and put them in a world designed to flourish.
This was not just a beautiful garden — Eden was paradise – the beginning of everything God intended his creation to become. But something went wrong!
Sin entered the picture, and when it did, it did not just affect individual people — it fractured everything. It fractured the relationship between human beings and God. It fractured the relationship between people and each other. It fractured creation itself. The potential for good that God had built into this world got buried under the weight of evil, suffering, sickness and death.
And so we come to Isaiah 53:4-6. Listen to what he writes — seven centuries before Jesus ever walked into Jerusalem: “Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.”
Isaiah saw someone coming, someone who would absorb the full weight of what sin had done.
Someone who would carry our weaknesses, bear our sorrows, and be pierced for our rebellion. And Paul picks up that same truth in Romans 3:23 — “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.”
So God acted – on purpose and out of His great love for you and me, and sent His only son to earth!
What mission did God give Jesus?
Now let’s get specific. What exactly did Jesus come to do? The New Testament gives us four powerful images of the mission of the Son — and together they paint a picture that is bigger and more beautiful than any one of them alone.
The first image is salvation — or protection. Luke 2:11 tells us what the angels announced the night Jesus was born: “The Savior — yes, the Messiah, the Lord — has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!” The word Savior carries the idea of one who protects, who shields, who delivers from harm. Jesus came to protect us from the ultimate consequence of sin — separation from God, both now and forever. He stepped between us and what we deserved.
The second image is deliverance — or rescue. Paul writes in Galatians 1:4 that Jesus “gave his life for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live.”
I love that word — rescue. It is an active word. AS IN RESCUE SQUAD. It is a word that implies danger, urgency, and someone who deliberately goes in to get you out. Jesus did not offer help from a safe distance. He came into the middle of our situation and pulled us out.
The third image is redemption — or freedom from enslavement. Romans 3:24 says, “Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.” The word redemption carries the idea of buying someone back — as in freeing a slave. Sin had put us in chains we could not break ourselves. No amount of effort, no amount of trying harder was going to get us free. Then Jesus paid the price that bought our freedom.
And the fourth image is new life — or new birth. Jesus said it himself in John 10:10: “My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” The cross does not just deal with what is behind us — it opens up something entirely new ahead of us.
Jesus did not come to forgive us and leave us exactly where we were in the muck and mire of life. He came to give us a whole new kind of life. A transformed life. A Metamorphosis, like that which turns a cocoon into a beautiful butterfly. A life that begins to reflect what God always intended for his creation. Protected. Rescued. Freed. Made alive.
Those are the Four dimensions – of One magnificent salvation. At the cross is where God closed that gap. Now we come back to that word. At-one-ment. The overcoming of estrangement.
The Story Isn’t Over Yet
Just weeks from now we are going to gather to celebrate Easter. I hope you are planning to attend the church of your choice, or come to our church. I want you to come into that morning knowing exactly what you are celebrating.
You are not just celebrating a miracle — though it was absolutely a miracle. You are not just celebrating an empty tomb — you are celebrating the proof that everything we have talked about here today is true.
The cross was the turning point. The resurrection was the confirmation. And the new creation is the destination.
John, the apostle, was given a vision near the end of his life. He was old, exiled on an island, cut off from the churches he loved. And in that place of isolation, God pulled back the curtain and showed him the end of the story. And in Revelation 21:5, the One sitting on the throne (God) speaks to John and to us.
He says simply — “Look, I am making everything new.”
Not “I made everything new.” Not past tense. Present tense. Active. Ongoing. Right now, in the middle of this broken world, God is already at work making things new. The cross set it in motion. The resurrection proved it was real. And one day, it will be complete in ways we cannot yet fully imagine.
So come to church Easter Sunday and celebrate this miracle. Today we talked about the why of the cross — the depth and the scope and the beauty of what atonement truly means. On Easter Sunday, we gather to celebrate the victory that proved it all to be true. The story is not over. In fact, the best is yet to come!
A reminder: Our FOOD PANTRY is available to everyone – there is no financial pre-qualification. Come by the church office on Monday, Wednesday or Friday from 9-12 for a free bag of food!
Craig Valley Baptist Church, next to Bibo’s at 171 Salem Ave in New Castle, welcomes you to visit and share in the forgiveness we have experienced. We meet Sundays at 11AM, with an upbeat service of music, sharing and preaching. You don’t need to dress up, and you won’t be asked to speak, so just come and hang out and meet new and old friends! Questions? Call 540-864-5667 or email pastor@cv-bc.com.
Pastor Scott Gabrielson
