Sermon Tone Analysis

The Atonement

Term to know: Atonement - to cover, cancel, or forgive

The Basic Motifs of Atonement

Sacrifice

Propitiation

Substitution

Reconciliation

The Cause for the Atonement

Genesis 2:16–17 (NKJV)

16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat;

17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

The penalty for sin is death:

Not only physical death (separation of the soul from the body)

but also spiritual death (separation of ourselves from God).

Christ came to earn our salvation because of God’s faithful love (or mercy) and justice.

God’s love is affirmed in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Term to know: Propitiation - The satisfaction of the righteous demands of God in relation to human sin and its punishment through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ upon the cross, by which the penalty of sin is cancelled and the anger of God averted.

Martin H. Manser, Dictionary of Bible Themes: The Accessible and Comprehensive Tool for Topical Studies (London: Martin Manser, 2009).

God’s justice is affirmed when Paul writes that God put forward Jesus “as a propitiation” (Rom.

3:25), that is, a sacrifice that bears God’s wrath so that God looks favorably toward us.

Paul says this was done “to show God’s righteousness” and also “so that he might be just” (Rom.

3:25–26) In other words, the sins God “passed over” or didn’t punish before Christ came to earth had to be punished somehow if God was to “be just.”

Therefore, someone had to take the punishment for those sins, and that someone was Jesus.

The penalty we owe to God was paid by Christ through his death on the cross.

In Jesus’ life and death, we find a full expression of God’s justice (sin is punished) and faithful love (God gave his own Son to bear the punishment).

Wayne A. Grudem, Christian Beliefs: Twenty Basics Every Christian Should Know, ed.

Elliot Grudem (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 72.

The acceptable payment had to be perfect, complete, and without fault.

Christ, the perfect Man, gave himself in our place, so that whoever believes in him will not die (physically and spiritually) but have everlasting life.

The Necessity of the Atonement

Jesus knew there was no other way for God to save us than for him to die in our place.

Jesus had to suffer and die for our sins.

Other means, like the sacrifices offered for sins in the Old Testament had no lasting value, for “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb.

10:4).

Jesus, “by means of his own blood,” secured “an eternal redemption” (Heb.

9:12), thereby putting away sin “by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb.

9:26).

Wayne A. Grudem, Christian Beliefs: Twenty Basics Every Christian Should Know, ed.

Elliot Grudem (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 72–73.

The Nature of the Atonement

1. Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice, thereby earning saints forgiveness of sins.

Guilt is removed and we are back to Adam and Eve’s state guilt-free but able to fall

2. Christ also lived a life of perfect obedience to God so that His righteousness would be counted for us who believe.

Jesus also lived a life of suffering.

He was, in the words of Isaiah, “despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isa.

53:3).

He suffered when he was assaulted by Satan’s attacks and temptations in the wilderness (Matt.

4:1–11).

He “endured from sinners” tremendous “hostility against himself” (Heb.

12:3).

He was tremendously grieved at the death of his close friend Lazarus (John 11:35).

It was through these and other sufferings that “he learned obedience” (though he never once disobeyed) and “became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him” (Heb.

5:8–9).

As Jesus drew closer to his death, his sufferings increased.

He told his disciples something of the agony he was experiencing when he said, “My soul is sorrowful, even to death” (Matt.

26:38).

When Jesus was crucified, he suffered one of the most horrible forms of death ever devised by man.

While he did not necessarily suffer more pain than any human being has ever suffered, the pain he experienced was immense.

Wayne A. Grudem, Christian Beliefs: Twenty Basics Every Christian Should Know, ed.

Elliot Grudem (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 73–75.

The Extent of the Atonement

1. Christ paid the penalty we deserved to pay for our sin.

2. Christ bore the wrath we deserved to bear.

3. Christ overcame the separation our sin caused between God and us.

4. Christ freed us from the bondage caused by sin.

Wayne A. Grudem, Christian Beliefs: Twenty Basics Every Christian Should Know, ed.

Elliot Grudem (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 75.

The atonement has made our salvation possible.

It is also the foundation of other major doctrines.

The doctrine of the church deals with the collective aspects of salvation, the doctrine of the last things with it future aspects.

The Resurrection

Term to know: Resurrection - A rising from the dead into a new kind of life not subject to sickness, aging, deterioration, or death.

Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub.

House, 2004), 1253.

The atoning death of Christ paid for our sins, but the process was not complete until he had defeated death by being physically resurrected in the same body

New Testament Evidence

All four gospels contain accounts of Jesus’ resurrection

Throughout the book of Acts, the apostles continually speak of Jesus’ resurrection, encouraging people to trust in him as the one who is alive and reigning in heaven.

The rest of the New Testament depends entirely on the assumption that Jesus is a living, reigning Savior who is the head of the newly formed church.

Simply put, one can find ample proof for the resurrection throughout the New Testament.

The Nature of Christ’s Resurrection

Christ’s resurrection was not a simple coming back from the dead as others had experienced (such as Lazarus in John 11:1–44).

Rather, when Jesus rose from the dead, he began a new kind of human life in which he had a perfect body that was no longer subject to weakness, aging, death, or decay.

When Jesus rose from the dead, he had a body that would live eternally, for Jesus had “put on the imperishable”; he had “put on immortality” (1 Cor.

15:53

Jesus’ new body was a physical body.

When his disciples saw him, they “took hold of his feet”

His disciples “ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (

In his new body, Jesus “took … bread and blessed and broke it” (

He also invited Thomas to touch his hands and side

The Bible is clear: Jesus physically rose from the dead with a body made of “flesh and bones” (

Wayne A. Grudem, Christian Beliefs: Twenty Basics Every Christian Should Know, ed.

Elliot Grudem (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 76–77.

Doctrinal Significance of the Resurrection

1. Christ’s Resurrection Insures Our Regeneration

Term to know: Regeneration - The radical renewal of a person’s inner being by the work of God’s Spirit.

Martin H. Manser, Dictionary of Bible Themes: The Accessible and Comprehensive Tool for Topical Studies (London: Martin Manser, 2009).

2. Christ’s Resurrection Insures Our Justification

Term to Know: Justification - declarative act that we are not guilty but righteous before God

3. Christ’s Resurrection Insures Our Future Perfect Resurrection Bodies

Christians Response to the Resurrection

Ascension Into Heaven

Ascended to a Place