Atonement

2018-01-28

An atonement, in a generic sense, is a reparation and making things right when a wrong has been committed.

Then there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David enquired of the LORD. And the LORD answered, It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites. (2) And the king called the Gibeonites, and said unto them; (now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; and the children of Israel had sworn unto them: and Saul sought to slay them in his zeal to the children of Israel and Judah.) (3) Wherefore David said unto the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? and wherewith shall I make the atonement, that ye may bless the inheritance of the LORD? (4) And the Gibeonites said unto him, We will have no silver nor gold of Saul, nor of his house; neither for us shalt thou kill any man in Israel. And he said, What ye shall say, that will I do for you. (5) And they answered the king, The man that consumed us, and that devised against us that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coasts of Israel, (6) Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the LORD in Gibeah of Saul, whom the LORD did choose. And the king said, I will give them. (2 Samuel 21:1-6)

A famine was in the land because the previous king Saul had slew the Gibeonites (2 Samuel 21:2), whom Israel had sworn to not harm (2 Samuel 21:3; see Joshua 9:15). David wanted to make it right with the Gibeonites; he wanted to make atonement (2 Samuel 21:3). The death of Saul’s kin were the terms of the Gibeonites, and David accepted those terms (2 Samuel 21:6).

The sin offering and offerings concerning sin make atonement for the sins of Israel. We see this in these verses: Exodus 29:33, 36-37; 30:10; Leviticus 4:20, 31, 35; 5:6, 10, 13, 16, 18; 6:7; 7:7; 8:34; 9:7; 10:17; 12:7-8; 14:18-21, 31; 15:15, 30; 16:6, 16-18, 24, 27, 30, 32-34; 17:11; 19:22; Numbers 5:8; 6:11; 8:12, 19, 21; 15:25, 28; 28:22, 30; 29:5, 11; 1 Chronicles 6:49; 2 Chronicles 29:24; and Nehemiah 10:33.

Of note is Leviticus 17:11: “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 blood is what makes atonement for our sin before God. Sin requires the payment in blood; the animal dies in place of the human being to make it right before God.

The word atonement appears once in the New Testament:

For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. (Romans 5:10-11)

With Christ, we have been reconciled to God by Christ’s blood; we have been made right with God.