No subject has occasioned more tears and raw emotion than the meaning of the Lord’s sacrifice. Christ died in love and obedience, yet we find it necessary to surgically incise with semantic knives every nuance, every syllable of God’s resonating words on this subject.
Would God we would struggle, with equal determination, to learn its meaning for our daily living, for how we treat other people. And this, in the end, is the greatest source of heartache for each of us: the multiplicity of ways in which we fail to live the atonement, his atonement.
From First Peter
Peter writes in his first letter, with all the hollow-eyed wisdom of a man who has persevered through his mortal frailties to a demoralized and disoriented brotherhood. He writes of the Lord’s death, knowing he will die soon. And he teaches us, this man who denied Jesus as he walked through the valley of the shadow of death, that the Lord’s dying must be our own, every day.
He writes:
Servants (employees) be in subjection to your masters with all fear (of God); not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward (crooked, harsh, hard to deal with)…for even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps (I Pet. 2: 18- 25).
I must serve my employer as if I am working for God. The common injustices and indignities I suffer must be filtered through, and borne in light of, the suffering and death of my Lord. It is not always so with me. What a shock the full force of these words can be for us all. We “do the atonement” in our cubicles, classrooms, construction sites and executive suites.
How intrusive, how invasive Scripture is. It leaves no area of our lives unsinged, there are no private matters its searing edge will not cut and wound. These are hard words for people raised in the obsessive privacy of Western life. God does not “mind His own business,” but walks right into every locked room in our hearts and looks steadily into our reddened faces. Surely, none of us has escaped that feeling. Your place of labor is an atonement workshop.
In the family setting
Peter knew that the brotherhood’s survival, and its internal cohesion, was critically dependent on the willingness of every brother and sister to “do the, atonement.” He doesn’t let up.
The theme is continued into chapter 3:
Likewise (in the same way as Christ willingly suffered and gave His life without shouting about his rights, without fighting back) ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation (behavior) of the wives, while beholding your chaste behavior, coupled with fear (of God, not of the man) (I Pet. 3:1-6).
A woman does the atonement with her husband in submitting herself to him, as he must do to his employer (take note brethren). This is a matter of the individual heart, of the individual mind. It cannot be bullied into existence. No man with any wisdom at all, will stand over his wife and demand her subjection. Yet, many do this. God did not do this with Christ. His Son willingly yielded. No sister will fail to see the need to obey these words. They do not rely upon the quality or spirituality of the man, but are done in obedience to God, for God. The man benefits from her example. No men “deserve” their wives’ submission. She yields willingly, beholding her Lord’s yielding in his giving of his life for her sake.
Example of Sarah
To strengthen his point, Peter speaks of Sarah, who called the man who uprooted her from the security of home, who endangered her life and honor twice, “Lord” in spite of all his mistakes with her. Sarah “did the atonement;” it wasn’t an intellectual puzzle for her, but a way of life. Sarah’s daughters are in our ecclesias “doing the atonement” every time they struggle past painful ecclesial problems that erupt to offer a gentle message of hope and encouragement to those who are traumatized by a lapse in brotherly love.
Peter’s words refer to a husband who is “not in the truth,” an unbaptized men. But we can draw another exhortation conclusion. Many a wife in the truth has watched a brother-husband walk down the wide road that leads away from God. In desperation, many sisters have fallen prey to anxiety, to blinding fear that results in a kind of spiritual paralysis.
Perhaps Sarah did not fear. Perhaps she believed God was with her, when Abraham did not. In the days of Abraham’s failure, Sarah appears to have been the one who was spiritually anchored. Today, a sister who sees her husband slipping can do no better than to remain constant and faithful to him and to the truth, to God and to God’s ecclesia. She can, if possible, continue to do the readings, attend the meeting, even if he will not, and strive to maintain a godly attitude to him. It could turn him to God. Any man with even a remnant of a conscience will be moved to some action in the face of this kind of example. She will have saved his life by enacting the love of Calvary in her home.
Some situations, it is true, are irrecoverable. Yet, if things do not work out, the sister who tries to “do the atonement” will have pleased God, and have placed her feet in her Lord’s footprints. And soon she shall be in the kingdom.
A word to husbands
Peter then addresses husbands:
In like manner (as Christ, who suffered, and died leaving us an example that we should follow His steps) dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers be not hindered (3: 7).
What man can read these words without cringing? Men “do the atonement” by dwelling with their wives according to knowledge. Perhaps this could mean that all our biblical “knowledge” and understanding is of no value if it is not demonstrated where we dwell, in our homes, in every interaction we have with our wives.
The atonement is acted out in married life. We dwell with them and give HONOR to them. This word is used in chapter 2 at verse 17 in connection with a man’s responsibility to all men and to the king. It means “to value with the highest degree of respect, to value as precious, to revere and lift in one’s esteem.” This is how we must treat our wives; this is how we must treat the women around us and our sisters in the faith.
How strikingly out of step this principle is with the natural ways of flesh. A man cannot demand submission and honor his wife at the same time. He is not commanded to demand submission of her, this is her responsibility to look after. He is commanded to esteem her highly, to honor her as he would honor the king, all men, and Christ: “unto you which believe he (Christ) is precious (same word translated honor) (I Pet. 2:7).
My wife is Christ to me. I do not always treat my `Christ/wife’ with honor as I ought to. Do you, brother?
She is the weaker vessel, implying that we are both ‘essels (containers for faith, Christlikeness, godliness, the gospel). And she is not, as some foolish brothers maintain, weaker in spiritual things. Oftentimes sisters can be far stronger in spiritual things than the brethren around them. It can only mean that she is not as physically robust as the man, and that he must not overload and over task her, a thing we are prone to do as Christadelphian men.
Do you expect your wife to care for the children unassisted, keep an immaculately clean home, and to be calm and even-tempered at all times? If so, what’s wrong with you brother? And lest any man should ever imagine that Peter was hinting that she is less than him, he hammers the point home to the contrary by reminding us that we are “heirs together,” equals in our hope and in our value in God’s sight. Your wife is not inferior to you. Let us never view a sister as a second class citizen in the ecclesia. Let us realize the degree to which male chauvinism can indeed live in our carnal hearts. It can demonstrate itself in a callous disregard for the concerns or the suggestions sisters raise in our meetings, suggestions which are as valid and as useful as those offered by any brother.
Sisters are our equals. Yes, our roles differ. Men must guide and lead, and are to teach the mixed congregation. But we must honor our sisters. They do not fill all duties, not because they are unable to, but in loving obedience to Scripture. This differentiation in our roles will be entirely removed in the kingdom, will it not? This present order of things is an interim arrangement, the acceptance of which honors God in memorializing His edicts at the fall in Eden, and His directives through Paul.
Peter makes the point, if we do not honor our wives (and our sisters), God will not listen to our prayers. We must be united with our wives in prayer. Many couples kneel together and pray at day’s end after talking together about things which should be raised to the Almighty — a prayer of concerns, praise and request from them both. This requires unity, and a putting away of pride. Disunity and pride render our prayers invalid, and the brother bears responsibility for this, it seems.
We “do the atonement” at home, where charity must begin. This continues in the workplace, school, and in the ecclesia, so that we, men and women together, can fulfill Peter’s guidance to “Sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord…” (3:15 RV).
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One