The Necessity of the Atonement

"None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." 

Romans 3:10-18, 23

In my post last week, I defined the atonement as, “God killed His perfect Son to save hate-filled rebels from the wrath they deserved from Him”. Over the next few posts on the atonement, I want to work through this definition, piece by piece, and understand the full depth of the atonement made by Jesus. 

Today we begin where we must begin. We begin with the very first question, was the atonement of Jesus necessary?

The simple answer to this question is yes. I would hope the obvious answer to this first question is yes. The atonement of Jesus was very necessary, if God was going to save His people. But the necessity of the atonement must be understood in its full truth. The necessity of the atonement of Jesus was for 3 very specific reasons. 

First, the atonement was necessary because of the nature of man. The verses listed at the beginning of the post show the core of humanity. Humans are sinful. Humans are totally sinful. All of humanity is totally depraved in their nature. No human seeks after God. No human does good before God. No human is righteous in nature. No human fears who God is. All humans sin because they are sinners in nature. As my definition of the atonement states, humanity is "hate-filled rebels" of God. Sin but more importantly, the sin/depraved nature of humans makes the atonement necessary. 

"Sin is essentially the resolve, the mad, utterly blameworthy, but nonetheless utterly firm resolve, to play god and fight the real God", as J.I Packer states. Sin is an unbelief about God. Sin is an action that goes against God. Sin is cosmic treason against God. Sin is a defiant act towards God. As Packer also states, "sin wishes that God didn't exist at all". Sin is the problem of humanity. Yet sin as an action comes from the very core of the human nature. Sin is done because sin is the nature. As someone once said, "we sin because we are sinners, not we are sinners because we sin". The very nature (fallen, dead, depraved) of humanity is the first reason that the atonement was necessary. 

Second, the atonement was necessary because God is holy. The reference point, the beginning point, and the starting point of defining and looking at sin, must always begin with a holy God. God defines sin as anything done against or contrary to His nature. God's nature is one of holiness. God is without sin. God never does a sin. God is clean, pure, free from sin. God as holy, means He is pure and far removed from sin. God as a holy, morally good being (all the time) means sin can't be in His presence and a sinful being must be far removed from His presence. 

God is also perfectly just. The Bible continually links God's holiness and His justice together. God as just means he must always punish the sin does against Him. God as just means he can't look over or brush sin under the rug. God as just means He will always act fairly and give everyone what they deserve. God as just means when His holiness is made dirty because of sin (of humanity), He must deal out punishment and payment for the sin done against Him. This means the second reason the atonement was necessary was because of God's perfect nature of holiness and justice. 

Both the first and second reasons for the atonement, lead to the third reason for the atonement. Third, the atonement was necessary was because God's perfect wrath against human nature had to be satisfied. The human sin nature demanded the just wrath of God. The holy nature of God demanded the dirt of human nature must be cleansed. The justice of God demanded the payment for sin done against God. The wrath of God had to be satisfied for God to save His people (more on the satisfaction of the atonement in a future post). Simply put, for God to remain perfect, He had to receive a payment for the sin of His people done against Him, to bring them salvation. 

God, to remain perfect God, must receive satisfaction for the sin done against His holiness. God receives this payment when a person satisfies His wrath for their sin. Therefore, the place called Hell exist. In hell, a sinner will satisfy the wrath of God for their sin, for all eternity. But God decreed and elected a people to save from this eternal wrath. So, a substitute must stand in the place of the elect to satisfy this wrath of God. Enter Jesus Christ, the only perfect substitute for the elect to meet the demand of God's wrath being satisfied. The atonement was necessary so that God could remain perfect in His holiness and justice, yet perfectly receive satisfied payment for the sin of the elect done against Him. Thus, the atonement was necessary for the salvation/reconciliation of a holy God to a "hate-filled rebel". 

There are multiple other connections and reasons for the necessity of the atonement of Jesus. But every other necessary reason for the atonement, goes back to one of these three larger reasons. Humans are sinners in nature. God is a holy just God in nature. A holy just God demands satisfaction for the sinful nature of humanity. So, the atonement was necessary for these reasons. 

But here is the point I want to leave us with today. God did not have to plan the atonement. God did not have to send Jesus. Jesus did not have to die. Jesus did not have to act as a substitute and satisfy His Father. As much as the atonement was necessary for these 3 reasons, a holy God could have chosen to not save a single person by the atonement. Yet, God loved the elect so much, He chose (before anything else in time) to make a way to save His loved children. Because God, in love, chose to save a people for Himself, he planned, from eternity past, to send Jesus to atone for the sin of the elect. Because God is love, He fulfilled the three necessities of the atonement through the death of His very own Son, by killing Him on the cross and meeting the demands of His character and having His wrath against sin, satisfied. This leads to my next post asking the question, "why was the atonement so costly"?