All About the Blood: Answering Questions About Atonement($7.99Value)

Description

Was God punishing Jesus for our sins on the cross? All About the Blood reexamines one of the most familiar assumptions in Protestant teaching about the atonement: that Jesus died because God needed to punish Him before He could forgive us. With careful attention to Scripture, especially Leviticus, Isaiah, Romans, Galatians, Hebrews, and 2 Corinthians 5:21, Skip Copeland argues that the biblical language of sacrifice, ransom, forgiveness, blood, resurrection, and priestly mediation tells a richer and more faithful story. This book does not diminish the necessity, horror, or glory of the cross. It seeks to let Scripture itself define what the cross accomplished. The Levitical sin offering remained holy; guilt was not transferred to the sacrifice; and the death of the animal provided the blood by which atonement was made. In the same way, Christ’s sacrifice is not presented as a penal replacement in which God punished the innocent Son instead of the guilty. It is the perfect, God-given blood by which the penitent are forgiven, redeemed, cleansed, and restored to covenant faithfulness. The chapters explore whether Jesus was punished for our sins, what satisfies the wrath of God, whether Jesus “paid the debt” of sin, how Jesus is our sacrifice, what it means that Christ died “for us,” and whether atonement is substitutionary in a biblical rather than penal sense. The book also examines Romans 3:25 and the debate over propitiation, expiation, the mercy seat, and atoning sacrifice, and it gathers substantial support for reading the second occurrence of hamartia in 2 Corinthians 5:21 as “sin offering.” Written from years of Bible-class study and theological reflection, All About the Blood offers a sustained challenge to penal substitutionary atonement while affirming the saving power of Christ’s death. Jesus did not die because God was unwilling to forgive until punishment was inflicted. Jesus died so that, through His blood, resurrection, and priestly exaltation, God could righteously forgive the penitent, redeem His people, cleanse them from sin, and finally judge all who refuse His mercy.