What is the meaning ofatonement?

A great deal of unhappy modernistic capital has been made out of the meaning of the English word, AT-ONE-MENT, treating it as no more than two parties coming to an agreement. If the English word were the exact translation of the Hebrew word employed, then the meaning of the English word - ATONEMENT - would be significant. As a matter of fact, this not being the case, we must fix our attention on the meaning of the Hebrew word translated atonement in our Bible. The Hebrew word employed is Kaphar, which means to cover. It is only by the death of Christ, by His atoning blood, that sin is covered, and its consequences averted. So we read, "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered" (Hebrew, Kasah) (Ps. 32:1). "Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of Thy people, Thou hast covered (Hebrew Kasah) all their sin" (Ps. 85:2). Kaphar and Kasah both mean to cover. "It is the blood that makes an atonement [Hebrew kaphar] for the soul" (Lev. 17:11). How beautifully the New Testament answers to all this, "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7).

The essence then of atonement is, firstly, a work or satisfaction presented to God according to, and perfectly glorifying, His nature and character about sin by sacrifice; and secondly, the bearing our sins; glorifying God even where sin was and in respect of sin (and thus His love is free to go out to all sinners); and giving the believer, him that comes to God by that blood-shedding, the certainty that his sins are all gone, and that God will remember them no more.

Our passage gives us clearly its Scriptural meaning and usage. That which makes atonement, or covering, for the soul is that which ransoms the soul. But why this necessity of ransom? Because the soul is forfeit owing to sin. And what is the nature of the forfeit which lies upon the soul because of sin? The extreme forfeit of DEATH. That which ransoms the soul, by lifting the forfeit that lies upon it, is therefore the only thing that makes atonement.

Atonement in its primary meaning is the vindication of the claims of the throne of God in regard to human sin. This stands out very clearly in the High Priest's procedure on the Day of Atonement in Israel as described in Leviticus 16. First he carried into the holiest the blood of the bullock for himself and for his house; then he presented the blood of the goat for the people of Israel; but not until these things were accomplished was the scapegoat dismissed with all the sins of the people upon its head. God was considered first, then man.

He who is our Advocate on high is also "the propitiation for our sins." This fact brings us back to the rock foundation upon which all rests. By His propitiatory sacrifice every claim of God against us has been met, and He takes up His advocacy with the Father upon that righteous basis. His propitiation has settled for us as sinners the eternal questions which our sins have raised. His advocacy now settles the paternal questions which are raised. when as children of God we sin.

Propitiation is what we may call the Godward side of the death of Christ. It is concerned with the most fundamental matter of all; the meeting of the Divine claims against sin. The meeting of the sinner's need must be secondary to that. Hence when we have the Gospel unfolded by Paul in the epistle to the Romans, we find that the first mention of the death of Christ is "a propitiation through faith in His blood" (Romans 3:25). We do not get substitution clearly stated until reaching Romans 4:25, we read of Him as "delivered for our offences."

Being the Godward aspect of His death the widest possible circle is in view — "the whole world." When the substitutionary side is stated believers only are in view: it is "our offences," or, "the sins of many." But though only believers stand in the realized benefits of the death of Christ, God needs to be propitiated in regard to every sin that ever has been committed by men, in regard to the whole great outrage which sin has wrought. He has been thus propitiated in the death of Christ, and because of this He can freely offer forgiveness to men without compromising in the smallest degree one feature of His nature and character.

The second point above referred to is clearly stated in verse 11. "For the life of the flesh is in the blood and I have given it to you upon the altar, to make an atonement for your souls: for IT IS THE BLOOD THAT MAKETH AN ATONEMENT FOR THE SOUL." The connection between the two points is deeply interesting. When man duly takes his place as one possessing no title whatsoever to life — when he fully recognises God's claims upon him, then the divine record is, "I have given you the life to make an atonement for your soul." Yes; atonement is God's gift to man; and, be it carefully noted, that this atonement is in the blood, and only in the blood. "It is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul." It is not the blood and something else. The word is most explicit. It attributes atonement exclusively to the blood. "Without shedding of blood there is no remission." (Heb. 9:22) It was the death of Christ that rent the veil. It is "by the blood of Jesus" we have "boldness to enter into the holiest." "We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins." (Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14) "Having made peace by the blood of his cross." "Ye who were afar off are made nigh by the blood of his cross." "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin." (1 John 1:7) "They washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." (Rev. 7) "They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb." (Rev. 12)

The atonement is another thing; in it God's nature is met, and this is the point. I have nothing about man's nature; God's nature has been dishonoured by sin, and He is there sitting with things before Him which He will not stand. This is the fact, and therefore the blood is put under His eye; that is, Christ has done it, and God says, "When I see the blood, I will pass over"; but sin is all considered in the lump, so to speak here. When we find nature and conflict with nature, it is a question of the Holy Ghost. This applies to nature only in the way that it applies to sin at large.

Now, in Scripture, "covering" is atonement — i.e., expiation, putting away of sin. To atone is caphar, to "cover" only in an intensive form, which is of striking significance and beauty. Atonement is covering of the completest kind.

Now I deny that the Hebrew or Greek words, properly so translated, ever mean "to be at one-ment," to be or bring into concord. The true force is expiation, as rightly given even in the modern Jewish version of Dr. Benisch. And such is the actual (if not the old) meaning of the expression "atone for" in our language. How it came to acquire a force so remote from its alleged original composition, is an interesting inquiry for such as study the sources and changes of language; but it is outside a question of orthodoxy. It does not touch the point disputed, that is, whether atonement, in scripture doctrine, means at-onement? It ought to have been seen that, if the derivation of words could decide such a matter, we must look into the Hebrew and Greek originals. Now neither of these means to be at one: the Hebrew idea being, as I suppose, that of covering (i.e. sins); the Greek, that of appeasing or propitiating (i.e. God), or expiating sins. Loose statements may be found in old and modern writers on divinity: but the question is, What saith the Scripture?

In the Authorised Version, "atonement" occurs but once, and there mistakenly; for the Greek is καταλλαγη, and means there, as everywhere, "reconciliation" (so given in the margin). The proper word for "atonement" is ἰλασμος, with its kindred forms and compounds: it is translated "propitiation" in 1 John 2:2; 1 John 4:10. The interchange of these two expressions in our version of the Old and New Testament has given a convenient handle to Socinians, with whom it is a favourite statement, as I cite from one, that "Atonement always means, in the Bible, making two or more persons at one or agreed." My answer is, that, though the term is occasionally applied as a metaphor to human things, "atonement" never means there what Socinians say it always means. It is very often, for example, used of iniquities, where obviously such a term is no sense at all. The truth is that reconciliation is properly toward man, propitiation or atonement is toward God; and both are found by faith in the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The great truth of atonement, we shall find, does not depend on the meaning of a word. We will bring Scripture to show that it can only mean the real expiatory death of the holy substitute, the Son of God.