If you’ve read this far, well done. For many people the word “atonement” evokes thoughts of controversy, arguments about words, complicated terminology, or just plain boredom. But it shouldn’t be like that, because the Atonement is all about the means of our salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ. The Atonement is a very practical topic, with meaning in every facet of our lives. But perhaps you are one of those turned off by the subject. You can’t get your head around Paul’s arguments in Romans. You observe brethren arguing about it and even dividing over things you think shouldn’t make that much difference. Does any of that stuff have any real meaning in our daily lives? Well let’s analyze this topic, but from a different angle. This series of articles isn’t going to be an in-depth exegesis of Romans or Hebrews. It’s not going to go deeply into the Law and try to understand the types and contrasts with the sacrifice of Christ. Instead we’re going to look at how the Atonement was a living doctrine in the lives of people like Abraham and David. That’s because the Atonement is ultimately about life, about living as a son or daughter of God.
But first of all, as if to contradict what I just said, let’s have a look at Romans, Galatians and Hebrews, the three main books of the New Testament that delve into the Atonement. Did you know that these three epistles can all be summarized in just seven words found in one of the most obscure Old Testament books? If you were given the task of coming up with just one seven-word sentence to describe the atonement in practice, what would it be? Well let’s see what Habakkuk had to say:
“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith” (Hab 2:4).
The righteous shall live by his faith. That’s it; that’s the atonement in practice in a nutshell and the background to the three great treatises on the Atonement in the New Testament. Before we look at how this verse in used in those three epistles let’s first consider what the phrase really means, on a practical level, in this context. In fact the practical nature of the phrase in Habakkuk’s day was truly a matter of life and death rising far above any theoretical meaning that we might attach to it.
Habakkuk’s prophecy was a warning to the people of his day that they were about to be recipients of God’s judgment for their iniquity. The judgment would come at the hands of the Chaldeans mainly because of a problem that had arisen in the land:
“Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law is paralysed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted” (Hab 1:3-4).
There were two groups of people antagonistic to each other in Habakkuk’s day; the righteous and the wicked. This of course was not just true then but has been true since the beginning and is still true now. This antagonism is one of the keys to understanding the practical nature of the Atonement. The history of the world from the Bible reader’s point of view is about the conflict between righteousness and unrighteousness. This is true from the time that God said he would put enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman (Gen 3:15). I’m going to analyze several examples of these conflicts in this series, for instance between Cain and Abel, as well as Saul and David. The death of Christ is about abolishing one sort of person — the unrighteous, and encouraging the other — the righteous.
Coming back to Habakkuk the unrighteous were those who through destruction, violence, strife and contention, paralysed the law so that there was only injustice. A righteous person is someone who establishes true justice. Someone who defends the fatherless and widow, someone who is a person of integrity (Hab 2:4 NET), someone like Christ, someone like God (Psa 82:3-4, 6). In fact being like God is one of the central tenets of the Atonement (we’ll see this in the example of Abel) and shows the strong link between the sacrifice of Christ and God manifestation. Habakkuk himself goes on to record “for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Hab 2:14), or that God’s righteousness and justice will be established in all the earth when Christ rules on David’s throne. This righteousness was demonstrated at the cross of Christ (Rom 3:21-25) and it’s people who demonstrate this righteousness in their lives who will, as the prophet says “live by their faith.”
Habakkuk’s message to the righteous
So what was Habakkuk’s message to the righteous? They were the ones at the receiving end of the unrighteous and so God was giving them a way of escape from the justice he was meting out on those who paralysed the law. That’s because God is righteous, or just. Ezekiel tells us “the soul who sins shall die” (Ezek 18:4ff) and the Bible is the story of God’s righteousness and justice in how he deals with men and women. Habakkuk was told by God to warn the people about the impending invasion of the Chaldeans:
“I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint. And the LORD answered me: ‘Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay. Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith’ ” (Hab 2:1-4).
The people in Habakkuk’s day had a simple choice. They could listen to God or turn away from him. This is another vital part of the Atonement puzzle; do we listen to God? But more than that, do we trust God? That’s what faith is, trusting that what God say is true. And more than that, true faith is trusting what God says is true and doing something about it. The Atonement is about listening to God and obeying him. But not in the sense of reading a list of commandments and ticking them off one by one. That’s false religion and the Atonement is about changing us from people of law to people of principle-based faith. And the principle in Habakkuk was a simple one: the Chaldeans were coming and the people were being warned to flee!
The righteous would live by his faith. Habakkuk was told to “write the vision; make it plain on tablets” and the reason for this was “so he may run who reads it.” Another way of saying this is “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom 10:17). Do you react when you read the Bible? What if the Chaldeans were coming? Would you react then? If you saw Habakkuk’s message clearly written on tablets would you run when you read it? If you had faith then of course you would. You would believe what God had said and you would run, and you would live. This is what it means to be righteous, to trust that what God says is true and to act on it.
What has God said to us? He’s said that judgment is coming, and He has set a day for it (Acts 17:31). Do we believe Him? The righteous shall live by his faith and the cross of Christ demonstrates the righteousness of God and that we should trust in Him and not in anything else (Prov 3:5-6). When Jesus hung on the cross what could he trust in? In a short while he would cease to exist. He couldn’t trust in the flesh; it was nailed to a cross. He couldn’t trust in man, for even his own closest friends had forsaken him (Matt 26:56). There was only one person he could trust in and that was God. The death of our Lord is the supreme example of the righteous living by faith, for even in the act of dying he trusted what God had made plain upon tablets.
Romans, Hebrews, Galatians
Now let’s look at how Romans, Hebrews and Galatians take up the story. Each of these epistles quotes Hab 2:4 and the phrase “the righteous shall live by his faith” becomes the central theme. But each epistle is different and that’s because each writer is putting emphasis on a different word.
In Romans the apostle Paul is keen to stress that “the righteous shall live by faith.” Righteousness is the key word in Romans and Paul begins with showing that both Gentile (Rom 1) and Jew (Rom 2) are unrighteous because of their sin (Rom 3:23).
Let’s have a quick look at Rom 3 because here Paul uses an analogy we can all understand, that of a courtroom scene. The chapter begins with God himself being brought before the judge. Throughout history men and women have accused God of injustice. But as Ezek 18:4 says “the soul that sins shall die” and God has demonstrated throughout Scripture that he is fair and just in all his ways (Ezek 33). So the conclusion is “let God be true though everyone were a liar, as it is written, ‘That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged’ ” (Rom 3:4). Those are words taken from David’s Psalm 51 which he wrote after his sin with Bathsheba and when he came to a full realization of God’s righteousness and his own iniquity. When we come to the cross of Christ we have to say “God is right and I am wrong”.
The rest of Romans 3 is about man being brought before the judge with the accusation that he is unrighteous because of sin. The evidence is overwhelming (verses 10-18) and the verdict is guilty as charged (verse 19-20). But Paul ends this courtroom scene with God acquitting the faithful because of his grace (verses 21-24). And that is justification: declaring someone innocent despite their guilt. Why? Because of their faith, and God can work with someone who demonstrates faith and that faith can produce true righteousness.
In Hebrews the writer emphasizes “my righteous one shall live by faith” (Heb 10:38). The book of Hebrews is about the contrast between the old covenant, connected with the Law of Moses and its rituals, and the new covenant in Christ. The problem is that ritualistic religion can’t bring life. It can’t bring life now because it’s meaningless outside of a religious setting, and it can’t bring eternal life. Under the Law of Moses someone could offer a burnt offering, representing their dedication to God, but live a life of sin. We can partake of the bread and cup and do the same thing. Or we can have a theoretical understand of the Atonement, that it’s all about dealing with some legal issue for instance, and forget that Jesus said “take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). That’s why the epistle of Hebrews ends with what true living is all about. It’s about righteous people living by faith. Hebrews 11 follows the quotation from Habakkuk with a list of men and women who lived by faith, and not only that but their faith was about living beyond death according to the promises God had made. Again we come to the supreme example of living by faith in the person of Jesus Christ, who upon the cross demonstrated his trust that there was life beyond the grave.
Finally we come to Galatians where Paul emphasizes “the righteous shall live by faith” (Gal 3:11). Paul wants to emphasize faith because the Galatians wanted to return to the philosophy of salvation by law. All the way through the chapter Paul contrasts law with faith. He’s talking more about the principle of law rather than the Law of Moses itself (although he does use that as the obvious example) and the lesson for us is that life is not about following a list of rules. That can’t produce in us true righteousness, which is what God wants. It can’t produce people with an attitude and character which avoids destruction, violence, strife and contention. Someone basing their righteousness on law can be the most divisive, hateful person and yet keep the letter of the law. Once more we are brought to the cross of Christ, a man murdered by those who based their religion on law. What our Lord did on the cross was make an open show of where law-based religion leads (Col 2:15) and this will be one of the central themes of our continuing study in practising the Atonement. It’s about changing us from natural brute beasts to sons and daughters of the living God.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One