ATONEMENT IDEAS from Fleming Rutledge's The Crucifixion. (See here.)
“As a result of the original sin of Adam, the entire human race has been mired in sin and incurred the wrath of God.
God cannot overlook sin as though it had not occurred. Sin must be punished.
Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God, entered into the place of sinners and took the punishment on himself.
On the cross, particularly as shown in the cry of dereliction, Jesus submitted to the curse upon sin and underwent God’s judgment.
By deflecting the wrath of God onto himself, Jesus took it away from humanity.”
Rutledge writes:
The plain sense of the New Testament taken as a whole gives the strong impression that Jesus gave himself up to shame, spitting, scouring, and a degrading public death beyond the eyes of the whole world, not only for our sake but also in our place. (p. 529).
There is something deep in the human psyche that responds to the idea of substitution – someone who dies in my place so that I may live – and the loss of it from the preaching and teaching of the church [AKA progressive Christianity] would be grievous. (466)
