Point-of-View

For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through Him.  John 3:17  NASB

Should be saved – Why did Yeshua come?  Most believers will say something like, “To save us from our sins,” or “To forgive us so we can go to heaven.”  Because we are preoccupied with our own guilt, we tend to read gospel statements about His purpose as if they are exclusively about us, but if we pay close attention to the words, we find another focus.  John, for example, points out that the cosmos is in need of deliverance, not just human beings.  Paul says effectively the same thing: “the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of child-birth together until now” (Romans 8:22).  While there is no question that Yeshua forgives human beings, even His own declaration about purpose does not include this fact.  In conversation with Pilate, He replied, “You say correctly that I am a king.  For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth” (John 18:37).  Not a word about forgiveness, sin or guilt.  Rather, a bold statement about ushering in the Kingdom on earth.  Perhaps we are simply sin-myopic.  We see it everywhere so it overtakes our appreciation of the much bigger picture, that is, all creation needs salvation.

If we realize that atonement is not “at-one-ment” with God for us, but rather the removal of defilement that prevents the presence of God among His creation, then we may perhaps see that the purpose of the incarnation was not to provide us access to the Father.  That was already in place from the time of Adam, and, in fact, was a consistent experience of men and women since the time of Adam.  Human beings were not barred from God because of sin.  Forgiveness was available since before the foundation.  But God’s presence in and throughout the earth  was barred because of the consequences of disobedience, both human and angelic.  In other words, the God of life did not enjoy full presence in His creation because the creation contained the presence of death, the penalty for disobedience.  Atonement was required to wipe away this defilement in order that God and His creation, all of His creation, could be joined again in perfect harmony.  Back to the Garden, my friends, back to the Garden.

Now, if atonement is the wiping away of what defiles so that God and creation are reunited, then Yeshua’s death takes on cosmic proportions.  Through death, God conquers death and as a result, the defilement of death is removed from all creation.  God Himself executes the plan of full redemption.  That plan includes us, of course, but we are not the single focus of this monumental victory.  We may have been the cause (perhaps), but we are not the only players in this game.  You will recall that the pollution of sin once before affected the entire earth and it was necessary for God to even wipe away the vegetation in the Flood.  Why?  Do plants sin?  While plants have no moral consciousness, they are apparently subject to the corruption brought about by the sins of men.  The earth itself is caught up in the abomination of disobedience.  So the Flood comes to clean even the earth.  Temporarily.  Death still remained and until death was removed, the entire cosmos was defiled.  The permanent  solution to removing this defilement was the cross and the resurrection.

So atonement cleans.  It cleans the place that has been defiled so that God may enter and His presence become a reality.  Atonement washes away what prevents God’s presence.  And that must mean that atonement has to deal with death.

“That the world might be saved.”  Kosmos sothe – from the Greek verb sozo.  But here the verb is aorist, passive, subjunctive.  The saving action happens to the world.  The active agent is someone else – the Son.  And when it occurs (subjunctive), it is all over with – aorist – a completed action in the past.  The deliverance of the world doesn’t have to be repeated again and again.  Once this atonement is accomplished, nothing more needs to be done – ever.

That sounds like two other statements in the New Testament.  “It is accomplished,” (John 19:30) and “and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:12).

Topical Index:  atonement, defilement, world, sozo, cosmos, John 3:17