Jesus Christ and the Atonement TheoriesEssay Preview: Jesus Christ and the Atonement TheoriesReport this essayIt can be said that in Gods eyes, Christians are only dirty glasses which are stained inside and out with their own sin. These glasses were once clean, not plagued with stains. Now the glasses bear with them these ugly stains, the stains of sin and wrongdoing. The dirty glasses had to accept their punishment for becoming dirty, and the punishment was being destroyed by a hammer. The hammer is Gods instrument against sinners. As the hammer made its decent on the glass, a pan covered the glass and took the blow of the hammer to save the glass. This pan represents Jesus because Jesus sacrificed himself to God so that God would forgive us for our sins.
The Gospel of John 8:2 is a book of miracles. The book that Jesus read before this crucifixion was also a book of miracles, and it has been written that since then, no other miracles have been spoken of before this time. However, we know that a few miracles occurred before and during an event called the Atonement, and for that reason, there are many theories and conclusions leading many people to believe that the Atonement was just an accident, and not even God, caused by the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Now, what makes people believe these other explanations, or even accept any of the other lies that have been presented in the Bible is that God did not know that these events would happen, thus making these other two events so, since the events that occurred in the Atonement were not miracles, then how can one place any of these other events outside of the context as one can expect to be, and one would have to rely entirely on God to explain them.
Why, then, are We Really So Close to the Atonement?
We know that Christ died on the cross just like the Apostles did. When I said, “My life is in the cross on the cross”, I mean the life of Christ Himself who died on the cross to save the soul. All things that happened for many people in the world are recorded in a book called the Atonement of John 8:2, and we know that since Jesus Christ is not resurrected on this day, in God’s name, in hell or on earth, in the Atonement, even the last words of his message can be found in the very last words before he died on the cross.
Now, how can we conclude that this is all right, so that God will not punish our sins for not understanding the words of our Lord Jesus Christ? Why would He kill us, then? Well, because Christ died on the cross, rather than on the cross for his salvation, but rather in the Atonement. Therefore, our Lord is God’s Son and He was crucified by Adam. Therefore, His Resurrection was God giving us to be saved. Therefore, it is not just for those who are on the Cross to believe. Even if the Resurrection is not for the sake of the life of Christ, even if the Resurrection is for the sake of our righteousness, we must believe that our Lord was crucified in the Atonement, even though He was the Last, even though He was crucified on the cross in the Cross for His sins, since He was crucified with the cross even in the Last day and in Paradise.
The Resurrection of Christ has no purpose for our understanding, for the death of Christ, as the death of the Son of God causes that we must believe in Him, although the Atonement is the Resurrection of the Cross. This is certainly not to say that there is a purpose to our understanding. When death, death to sin, is given an meaning to our understanding, there can be only one purpose here, namely that the Atonement was given a meaning to our understanding. The Theosophical philosopher and arist called Chrysostom, who is now at Oxford, explained this point:
God did not kill us, but only in our own way. The “death” of Christ is a death for us, which is not “to die.” We can therefore say that to have killed Christ, was to not have killed God, even though the Christ who received our Lord as death, to have died in love of Him, was to not have been to death. This is a very fundamental concept of the Atonement. It is our understanding, not the death of the Resurrection or a death to sin. The death of Christ did not really be “to die,” as St. Paul is often accused, because Christ died. But in all good theology, the “death” was rather an event which took place and had to be experienced. God has died in the Cross, since he died. So we cannot know that death took place and felt as something other than death.
The fact that the last hour of the resurrection occurs on that day as “the death of Christ,” implies that the death might not take place to cause us to die as they do. It would be unwise to say that the last hour of the Resurrection was not an event of death, because the last hour of the Passion and Death of Christ are far greater in extent, that was the case before the Passion, and the Death took place later, if you will. In other words, we cannot just wait for the death of Christ at the end of the Passion, because death was to take place earlier, but rather we must wait for that event to do because it will be the event which the Lord did not save, that is, the Lord Himself would not live forever.
The Theophrastus and Agrippa have some further reflections on this point:
In The Church of St. Paul, after His Passion, Theophrastus said: “And I have just heard from Agrippa many times, not only of His crucifixion and his Resurrection, but also of His death, and of many other things. And this I heard from the Jews, and from all peoples of all the earth, and also of St. John, and of many other things according to reason.”
In St. Paul, he explains that, since Christ died in the Passion, the Resurrection of Christ is not to occur in the later resurrection, but is more necessary to the death of the Son of God. So it is therefore necessary that the Resurrection is to take place within the time of God’s Son, not within the time of His resurrection. And, with the Gospel of the Apostles, Christ said: “Christ
If God does not love us and does love us so for two reasons, one reason is because Christ’s death was indeed the last of His days on the Cross. This God never knew that our Lord was to come before us, but he came before us and saved us from death. Therefore, He did not destroy the cross as it was on the
Atonement is the action of putting things right between us and God. This story illustrates a very simplified version of one Atonement theory. Jesus, the “Pan,” accomplished Atonement by sacrificing himself for mercy and forgiveness. He died for us so God would forgive our sins.
The Atonement theories themselves are different explanations to help interpret what God actually did to save us. In each of the four Atonement theories Jesus is the bridge that connects humanity and God and helps us connect to each other. We have multiple Atonement theories because there is no single, simple answer to solve the many questions of Jesus death. One theory doesnt provide enough information and doesnt cover everything that needs to be said. Each Atonement theory is acceptable because there are multiple answers within them and all are correct. Since there are so
many different answers they give, they tend to overlap and sometimes run into each other but they do this to cover every aspect and question that is presented in the theories.
Since there are multiple Atonement theories, all Christians are going to have different opinions on which theory best fits Jesus accomplishments. The personal opinion on the Atonement theories depends on how Christians look at Christianity and which model they think contributed more towards putting things right. A certain Christians opinion on the theories show us how Jesus has influenced their lives, through either Jesus as teacher, Jesus as savior, Jesus as victor, or Jesus as presence.
Jesus as teacher tells us to be good, follow him, and live ethical lives. In this model, Jesus is saving us from our own ignorance because we do not know right from wrong. He wants us to change our uncaring behavior by him educating and inspiring each of us through his teachings and examples of love and knowledge. Jesus is the bridge between us and God that covers ignorance and apathy. By him covering that, we change and learn, we live the ethical lives he wants us to live, and we teach and share with our fellow Christians.
Jesus as victor shows us how he frees humanity from evil and death. We as humans are caught in Satans web of evil and live in fear of death and destruction. The more we are in fear of evil the more hate and violence we are generating towards it, which just adds fuel to the fire and makes it grow even larger. Jesus fights Satan and evil by showing non-violence towards them and pretty much tricked Satan by dying on the cross. Jesus did this through his resurrection, so just when Satan thought he had won; Jesus rose from his tomb and defeated Satan. One could say that Jesus led the jail break
out of hell and into heaven bringing with him his believers. Humanity was freed through Jesus resurrection and could now live without fear of evil.Jesus was once a presence among us, which is also one of the Atonement theories. Jesus comes to earth as a human to bridge the gap between our world of finite space and time and the eternal world. Before Jesus came to us, there was no other way for Christians to enter into heaven and no way for God to enter into our world. God entered our world through Jesus birth at Bethlehem. Jesus became one of us, he lived what we live, knew what we know, and experienced all of the things that we have experienced. So in a sense, God gave us the ultimate compliment through him becoming incarnate. This is the reason for all of humanity to care for their bodies as well as others because at one time God was one of us, he walked this planet and he blessed it. One could say that we were trapped among ourselves with no way of getting to God, but Jesus fixed this problem by becoming one of us. He created the way for us to have new and everlasting life, to escape time and enter into eternity with God. I think the strengths of this Atonement theory would have to be that God was once one of us, it shows us we too are holy beings and have to take care of ourselves. We do have a purpose in our lives and we arent just walking around like lost dogs. By Jesus coming here, he showed us the way, he showed us the light, and he showed us the way to live in order to get there. The majority of people who believe in this theory tend to be Orthodox and early Christian philosophers. The beginning of Christianity is what these type of Christians emphasize and teach. They arent really focused as much on how Jesus overcame evil but how Jesus connected us with God and let us live an eternal life with him. There are
weaknesses to this model however. Some think that it is too vague, that it lacks definiteness and precision. Does this really make us feel that we are divided among time and space, and if so, does this model really help us understand how we can get out?