In 1960 Don Richardson graduated from the Prairie Bible
Institute at Three Hills, Alberta.  He and his wife then began
preparations to sail half way around the world to a stone age
people in Irian Jaya. Their destination was a tribe of
headhunters who were unable to read or write. They knew nothing
about iron. All their axes and knives were made of stone. 

Shortly after Don settled with this tribe, an enemy tribe up the
river befriended a warrior from the tribe where Don lived. Let's
name the warrior Adam. The enemy tribe convinced Adam that he
could be the peacemaker between the two tribes.

Adam became proud of his exalted status with the enemies up the
river. They would receive him with great pomp and circumstance
and listened to every word Adam had to say. One day at a special
feast Adam was killed, roasted and eaten.

Treachery was their highest virtue.

Don and Carol Richardson worked hard to learn the language and
customs of the tribe they lived with. They were frustrated that
they couldn't get them to understand the story of Jesus coming
to earth to die for their sins.

The tribe loved the story of the crucifixion of Jesus,
especially the part about Jesus betrayal and crucifixion. At
this point they hung on Don's every word, waiting with eager
anticipation for the part where Judas gave Jesus the kiss of
betrayal. They shouted with glee and clapped for Judas.

Don and Carol prayed that God would show them a way to convey
the true message of Christmas in a form these people would
understand. Then one day the opportunity came in a manner they
didn't expect.

The tribe up the river attacked the tribe Don was living with.
For weeks they fought and killed each other. Finally Don said to
the leaders of the tribe, "If you don't stop fighting we will
leave your tribe."

They didn't want this to happen. They liked Carol's medical care
and Don's steel implements. Furthermore, the presence of the
white family gave them status. The chief of Don's tribe realized
that he had to pay the price of peace.

One day Don watched the warriors of the warring tribes form a
line opposite each other. The chief of his tribe took his
newborn son from the arms of his wife. She sank to the ground
wailing in uncontrollable grief.

Then the Chief walked down the line of his warriors and each of
them put their hands on his little first born child. With
determination and resolve the chief walked across the open space
between the two warring tribes. He stood face to face with the
enemy chief and placed his son in his enemies arms.

With the baby in his arms, the enemy chief walked down the line
of his warriors. In full view of the father and the father's
tribe, each enemy warrior placed his hands on the baby boy, 
Next the warriors turned and disappeared in the bush with the
infant. The baby was gone, never to be returned to it's grieving
parents.

The Richardson's wondered what the ceremony meant. One day the
chief said to them, "I offered my son as the peace-child for our
tribes. As long as my son lives there will be peace between our
tribes. If he dies, war will resume. Anyone who kills a
peace-child will himself be killed."

Don pondered the significance of the ceremony. In a flash of
insight he realized the Chief was giving him the cultural key
that would open this stone-age people to the truth about Jesus
Christ.

One day Don gathered the elders together and told them the story
of God's peace-child. Don spoke of the war that rages between
the kingdoms of this world and the Kingdom of God.

Next Don shared how God our Heavenly Father sent Jesus to this
earth as His Peace Child to make peace between God and man. 

Just as the warriors put their hands on the Chief's little son
as a sign that they accepted this little boy as their Peace
Child, so we by faith receive Jesus into our lives to show that
we are at peace with God. The difference in the stories is that
God's Peace Child lives forever.

Peace came about between the two fighting tribes because of the
child.  The child literally made them one people as long as he
lived.  

Our topic today is atonement.  The process by which God, through
Jesus Christ, defeated the great enemy, Satan, and made a way
for us to be reunited with our Creator.  

There are many theories of atonement.  The doctrine of atonement
was an underlying issue in many of the discussions during the
reformation.  The church taught that Jesus' work on the cross
was not quite good enough. 

Perhaps a few quotes will help establish that.

Penance is a sacrament of the New Law instituted by Christ in
which forgiveness of sins committed after baptism is granted
through the priest's absolution to those who with true sorrow
confess their sins and promise to satisfy for the same. It is
called a "sacrament" not simply a function or ceremony, because
it is an outward sign instituted by Christ to impart grace to
the soul. 

Caesarius of Arles: "If in tribulation we give not thanks to God
nor redeem our faults by good works, we shall be detained in the
fire of purgatory until our slightest sins are burned away like
wood or straw" (Sermo civ, n. 4).

Confession to a priest is an essential part of the sacrament of
Penance:

1493 One who desires to obtain reconciliation with God and with
the Church, must confess to a priest all the unconfessed grave
sins he remembers after having carefully examined his
conscience. 

It is therefore with good reason that the earlier councils --
e.g., Laodicaea (A. D. 372) and Carthage IV (397) -- teach that
satisfaction is to be imposed on penitents; and the Council of
Trent but reiterates the traditional belief and practice when it
makes the giving of "penance" obligatory on the confessor.
Hence, too, the practice of granting indulgences, whereby the
Church comes to the penitent's assistance and places at his
disposal the treasury of Christ's merits. 

According to Tertullian (De poenit., IX), "Exomologesis is the
discipline which obliges a man to prostrate and humiliate
himself and to adopt a manner of life that will draw down mercy.
As regards dress and food, it prescribes that he shall lie in
sackcloth and ashes, clothe his body in rags, plunge his soul in
sorrow, correct his faults by harsh treatment of himself, use
the plainest meat and drink for the sake of his soul and not of
his belly: usually he shall nourish prayer by fasting, whole
days and nights together he shall moan, and weep, and wail to
the Lord his God, cast himself at the feet of the priests, fall
on his knees before those who are dear to God, and beseech them
to plead in his behalf"

http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/healing.html

How does mankind get right with God?  We discussed it somewhat
last time.  We are hopelessly lost, and cannot repair the
situation ourselves.  Perhaps a few texts are in order.  

We will look at 3 words around this doctrine.  Ransom,
propitiation, and atonement.  

Mat 20:28  ""just as the Son of Man did not come to be served,
but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.""

To pay a ransom.  To free someone who has been kidnapped or
otherwise placed in a harmful position.  The ransom that Jesus
paid was for the entire world.

 Rom 3:25-26  "whom God set forth as a propitiation by His
blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because
in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were
previously committed, {26} to demonstrate at the present time
His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of
the one who has faith in Jesus."

Propitiation is both the placating of a vengeful God just as
well as it is the satisfying of the righteous judgment of that
Holy God, thereby making it possible for Him to complete mercy
without compromising His righteousness  or justice.

I hope this is not a feel-good word to you.  The sins that you
commit have definite drastic results.  God hates sin.  As long
as you are in sin, there must necessarily be separation.  

Left to our own passions and desires, we would merit nothing but
burning in Hell fire.  

As we have read before, All have sinned and come short.

But we are loved by God, and his greatest desire is that we and
this world be restored to it's original condition.  

Which brings us to the word atonement.

The word atonement gained widespread use in the sixteenth
century after William Tyndale recognized that there was no
direct translation of the concept into English. In order to
explain the doctrine of Christ's sacrifice, which accomplished
both the remission of sin and reconciliation of man to God,
Tyndale invented a word that would encompass both actions. He
wanted to overcome the inherent limitations of the word
"reconciliation" while incorporating the aspects of
"propitiation" and forgiveness. .... Although one thinks of the
Jewish Fast of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), the Hebrew word is
`kaper' ing `a covering', so one can see that `reconciliation'
doesn't precisely contain all the necessary components of the
word atonement. ... Tyndale thought that if translated as
"reconciliation," there would be a pervasive misunderstanding of
the word's deeper significance to not just reconcile, but "to
cover," so the word was invented.

The atonement is a doctrine found within both Christianity and
Judaism. It describes how sin can be forgiven by God. In
Judaism, Atonement is said to be the process of forgiving or
pardoning a transgression. This was originally accomplished
through rituals performed by a High Priest on the holiest day of
the Jewish year: Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). In Christian
theology, the atonement refers to the forgiving or pardoning of
sin through the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, which made possible
a reconciliation between God and creation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonement

Atonement is described variously in the Bible.  

Exodus 29:33  ""They shall eat those things with which the
atonement was made, to consecrate and to sanctify them; but an
outsider shall not eat them, because they are holy."

There were sacrifices of atonement, which took place on a daily
basis.  The morning and evening sacrifices were for atonement of
the whole nation.  Then there were individual sin offerings
which were offered by persons for their transgressions.  But the
greatest of all was the Day of Atonement.  This solemn occasion
held in it's services the whole plan of salvation.

Frances Turretin said:

The Priesthood of Christ, according to the Apostle Paul and the
types of the Jewish ritual, is divided into two parts: the
atonement which he made to divine justice, and his intercession
in heaven, (1 John 2: 2. Heb. 9: 12). The necessity of such an
atonement, which is the foundation of all Christian lifestyle
and all Christian hopes, must therefore be firmly established,
and defended against the fiery darts of Satan, with which it is
attacked by innumerable adversaries.  

He goes on to say: That of those who maintain its absolute
necessity; affirming that God neither has willed, nor could have
willed to forgive sins, without a satisfaction made to his
justice. This, the common opinion of the orthodox, is our
opinion.

The apostle Paul wrote:  

Romans 5:7  "For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet
perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die."

This substitution has several requirements.  

1.  Man has to die for man.  

Heb 2:14  "Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh
and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through
death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is,
the devil,"

2.  The process must be voluntary. 

John 10:17  "Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My
life that I may take it again.

3.  The substitute has to have power over his own life, so that
what he does with his life is his choice.

John 10:18  "No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of
Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it
again. This command I have received from My Father."

4.  The substitute must have the power to bear our punishment in
the fullness, in the case of the world, an infinite ability to
bear punishment.

1 John 2:2  And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and
not for ours only but also for the whole world.

5.  The substitute must have no sin in himself, or he would have
to die for himself not others.

Heb 7:26-27  "For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is
holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become
higher than the heavens; {27} who does not need daily, as those
high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and
then for the people's, for this He did once for all when He
offered up Himself."

Frances Turretin continues:  

Under these conditions, it was not unjust for Christ to
substitute himself in our room, while lie is righteous and we
unrighteous. By this act no injury is done to any one. Not to
Christ, for he voluntarily took the punishment upon himself, and
had the right to decide concerning his own life and death, and
also power to raise himself from the dead. Not to God the judge,
for he willed and commanded it; nor to his natural justice, for
the Surety satisfied this by suffering the punishment which
demanded it. Not to the empire of the universe, by depriving an
innocent person of life, for Christ, freed from death, lives for
evermore; or by the life of the surviving sinner injuring the
kingdom of God, for he is converted and made holy by Christ. Not
to the divine law, for its honor has been maintained by the
perfect fulfillment of all its demands, through the
righteousness of the Mediator; and, by our legal and mystical
union, he becomes one with us, and we one with him. Hence he may
justly take upon him our sin and sorrows, and impart to us his
righteousness and blessings. So there is no abrogation of the
law, no derogation from its claims; as what we owed is
transferred to the account of Christ, to be paid by him.

The Day of Atonement prefigured all of the above.  There was a
sacrifice of an innocent for the guilty.  There was a human
priest ministering the blood in the presence of God.  There was
the cleansing of the temple and the nation of their sins.  There
was the eventual destruction of the animal who symbolized the
being carrying all of the sin. 

This all done to demonstrate God's desire for restitution,
reconciliation, and more than that,  At-One-Ment.  

Our father wants His family to be together again.  He has paid
dearly for the possibility of that happening.  Everything has
been laid out.  The mansions are built.  The dinner is set.  The
blood has been applied.  

What is left?  Your response.  Do you want to be one with God? 
Do you want to love what He loves and hate what He hates?   Do
you want to experience His presence in your life?  He is waiting
for a yes.

If you have said "yes" before, do you desire to reaffirm that
decision today?

Just raise your hand.

If you have never said yes before, and would like to publicly
make that decision known, would you just raise your hand where
you are.