Going deeper
Atonement
In plain words
What Jesus did on the cross to put right everything that broke between us and God.
Something is broken between people and God. We have done wrong, and wrong has a cost. The good news is that Jesus paid that cost Himself. When He died on the cross, He took the punishment we deserved, so that we could be forgiven and brought back to God. Atonement is the word for that: God making us one with Him again, at His own expense.
Go further Growing
Isaiah says the servant was pierced for our transgressions and the punishment that brought us peace was on him (Isaiah 53:4-6). Peter says Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God (1 Peter 3:18). At the centre is substitution: Jesus stood in your place. A common misunderstanding is that a kind Son had to calm down an angry Father. In fact the whole Trinity planned this out of love.
This changes how you deal with guilt. You do not pay God back with good behaviour or bad feelings. When you sin, you confess it and trust that the price is already paid in full (2 Corinthians 5:21). That frees you to change out of gratitude, not fear.
Go deeper Going deeper
The Hebrew kipper, to cover or make atonement, runs through the sacrifices of Leviticus. The Greek hilasterion, mercy seat or atoning sacrifice, appears in Romans 3:25, where God shows Himself both just and the one who justifies. The sacrifices pointed forward. Hebrews says they were shadows and that Jesus offered Himself once for all.
The Bible uses several pictures for the cross. Penal substitution: Christ bore the penalty of our sin. Victory: on the cross He disarmed the powers and triumphed over them (Colossians 2:13-15). Example: He shows us self-giving love to follow. Christians have long held these together, and many evangelicals see substitution as the heart that gives the others their meaning.
My verses
Surely He took on our infirmities and carried our sorrows; yet we considered Him stricken by God, struck down and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.
For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.
God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God presented Him as the atoning sacrifice through faith in His blood, in order to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance He had passed over the sins committed beforehand. He did this to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and to justify the one who has faith in Jesus.
When you were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our trespasses, having canceled the debt ascribed to us in the decrees that stood against us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross! And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.