Leviticus 17:11; I John 1:7; Romans 5:11
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 of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.
We also joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.
JAMES DENNEY (1856-1917): There is in truth only one religious problem in the world―the existence of sin. Similarly there is only one religious solution to it―the atonement.
EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): It should be recollected, that immediately after the fall of man, God was pleased to reveal a way, in which sinners might be reconciled, return to Him, escape the punishment which they deserve, and regain His forfeited favour. This way consists in repentance towards God, and faith in a Mediator of God’s providing, and reliance upon an atonement for sin made by that Mediator. This way of salvation was at first revealed to mankind in an imperfect manner, under a veil of types and shadows. This atonement, which Christ, the Lamb of God, intended to make in the fulness of time, was typically represented by the sacrifice of a lamb without spot or blemish.
JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): Isaiah had foretold, that the Lord would lay upon Him the iniquities of us all; that He was to be wounded for our transgressions, and by His stripes we should be healed, Isaiah 53:6. Here then we see the manifold wisdom of God: His inexpressible love to us commended; His mercy exalted in the salvation of sinners; His truth and justice vindicated, in the full satisfaction for sin exacted from the surety; His glorious holiness and opposition to all evil, and His invariable faithfulness to His threatenings and His promises. Considered in this light, our Saviour’s passion is the most momentous, instructive, and comfortable theme that can affect the heart of man.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The doctrine of the atonement is to my mind one of the surest proofs of the Divine inspiration of Holy Scripture. Who would or could have thought of the just Ruler dying for the unjust rebel? This is no teaching of human mythology, or dream of poetical imagination. This method of expiation is only known among men because it is a fact: fiction could not have devised it. God Himself ordained it; it is not a matter which could have been imagined.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Whoever would have imagined that sin was such a vile and dreadful thing in the sight of God that nothing but the precious blood of His own beloved Son could make an atonement for it!
C. H. SPURGEON: Through His blood there is forgiveness; and by reason of His vicarious satisfaction, guilt is put away, and the believer is “accepted in the Beloved.”
JOHN NEWTON: But if His substitution and proper atonement are denied, the whole is unintelligible.
EDWARD PAYSON: “Hast thou marked the old way, which wicked men have trodden?” Job 22:15.—It consists in rejecting the Mediator, and the atonement which God has provided, and substituting something else in their place. In other words, it consists in presumptuously attempting to approach God in a way of our devising, instead of that way which He has provided. The first wicked man who walked in this way, was Cain. While his righteous brother Abel, agreeably to God’s appointment, offered a lamb in sacrifice as an atonement for his sin, Cain presented nothing but a gift of the fruits of the earth, disbelieving the great truth, that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin; and showing that he did not regard himself as a sinner who needed an atonement. The consequences was such as might have been expected. The sacrifice of Abel, offered in faith and in obedience to the requisitions of God, was accepted; while the offering of the self-righteous Cain was rejected—a circumstance, which led him to murmur against God, to envy, hate, and at length murder his brother.
C. H. SPURGEON: Those who set aside the atonement as a satisfaction for sin, also murder the doctrine of justification by faith. They must do so. There is a common element which is the essence of both doctrines; so that, if you deny the one, you destroy the other.
EDWARD PAYSON: Soon after the death of the apostles, the Christian church began to apostatize from the faith, to forsake the way of life, and to walk in the way we are describing. They lost the power of Godliness, but multiplied its forms, and substituted ceremonies, as a ground of dependence for salvation. Hence the Christian church gradually degenerated into the Church of Rome. Neglecting Jesus Christ, the one Mediator between God and man, they prayed to angels, to the virgin Mary, and to departed saints, as mediators; and instead of relying on His merits and atonement, they substituted in their room penances, bodily austerities, superstitious observances, and the endowment of churches and monasteries, by which they vainly hoped to atone for their sin, and obtain the favour of God. In a way which is essentially the same, many walk at the present day. They depend for salvation on their religious services, their moral duties, their liberality to the poor, their orthodox sentiments, or on a profession of religion, while they neglect the atonement and intercession of Christ, the only sure foundation, the only way of access to the Father.
C. H. SPURGEON: Modern thought is nothing but an attempt to bring back legal system of salvation by works. Our battle is the same as that which Luther fought at the Reformation. If you go the very ground and root of it, grace is taken away, and human merit is substituted. The gracious act of God in pardoning sin is excluded, and human effort is made all in all, both for past sin and future hope.
ANDREW FULLER (1754-1815): The doctrine we teach must be that of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The person and work of Christ have ever been the corner-stone of the Christian fabric…If I really believe the record that God has given of His Son, that is the same thing as to think of His excellencies, in measure, as God thinks of them; and, in that case, I cannot but embrace Him with all my heart, and venture my everlasting all upon His atonement.
A. W. PINK: God is satisfied with the work of Christ, why are not you? Sinner, the moment you believe God’s testimony concerning His beloved Son, that moment every sin you have committed is blotted out, and you stand accepted in Christ! O would you not like to possess the assurance that there is nothing between your soul and God? Would you not like to know that every sin had been atoned for and put away? Then believe what God’s Word says about Christ’s death…There is only way of finding peace, and that is through faith in the shed blood of God’s Lamb. “It is finished,” John 19:30. Do you really believe it? Or, are you endeavouring to add something of your own to it and thus merit the favour of God?
