Have you ever made a deal with God?

Have you ever asked Him for something that you want really bad? What about when you’re in trouble? If you’re really in need of some supernatural help?

It’s interesting how many people all over the world, including in the West, pray for help. When talking about spirituality, whether about God, the universe, the spirits, Karma, etc., they view life as a set of cosmic scales governed by God.

Why do we do that? Who placed that in us? Why do we think like that? Why are humans different in this regard?

Christianity has a good answer for these questions. This human thought process is actually pointing us to something greater.

Restoration of a Broken Relationship

We were created to be in a relationship with God. Our sin has broken that relationship. It must be restored, which brings meaning to life and gives us the wholeness we long for.

Through Jesus, the relationship between humanity and God can be restored, individually through faith. But how?

To explain, we’re going to dig into some theology. Specifically related to sacrifice and atonement. To begin, we’ll look to the Old Testament.

“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.”

Leviticus 17:11

In the beginning, God chose to give His people the animal sacrifice method to atone for their sin. Two things happened when the sacrifice was given for atonement, expiation and propitiation.

• Expiation Defined: The prefix ex means “out of” or “from”. (The payment or penalty for sin is removed.)
• Propitiation Defined: The prefix pro means “for”. (God who is a perfect, righteous Judge is appeased.)

The difficult part of this first system is that humanity’s sin was too great. No amount of animal sacrifice could fully cover the gravity of our sin. So, God issued a change.

“What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.”

Isaiah 1:11

A new plan, including one final sacrifice and one final atonement, was about to be delivered to all people.

Enter Jesus: God’s Son, and the Perfect Sacrifice

Jesus Christ’s death would be a final sacrifice; the final expiatory and propitiatory atonement. Both are displayed at the cross.

Expiation: “Expiation is what is done to crimes or sins or evil deeds: Jesus provided the means to cancel or cleanse them.”

Propitiation: “Propitiation is something done to a person: Christ propitiated God in the sense that he turned God’s wrath away from guilty sinners by enduring that wrath himself…”

Leon Morris, The Atonement, 1983, BiblicalTraining.org

Paul explains God’s new process of Atonement to the early Roman church.

“For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”

Romans 3:22b-25a

Sceptics often push back in one of two ways. First, that sacrifice and atonement are irrelevant. Second, that God is love, doesn’t judge, and therefore atonement is not needed.

Sceptic Push-Backs:

Sceptics often push back in one of two ways: First, that sacrifice and atonement are irrelevant. Second, that God is love and does not judge, and therefore, atonement is not needed.

Let’s unpack both of these.

Push-back #1: The concepts of sacrifice and atonement are no longer relevant.

This is a very closed Western worldview. Outside the West, sacrifice and atonement are valid components to life and spirituality. Consider Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, East Asian Traditions, Traditional African, and Afro-American Cultures. All of them have sacrificial components, stating some form of atoning work.

This, of course, leaves out Christianity, to which 1/3 of the world’s population currently adheres. But even the West has forms of this that we choose to ignore.

Remember the opening concepts of cosmic scales, where Western culture is always looking to the universe or some other higher power when things go wrong in life? When human beings are in trouble, they’ll grasp for anything.

Consider social media when a natural disaster occurs, or when the pandemic first broke. Everyone was posting, “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims!”

What does thinking about them achieve? And why bother praying if the balance of good and evil is irrelevant?

Push-back #2: God is love and accepts everyone! Therefore, He doesn’t judge.

If this is true, does Hitler make it? What about the politicians that incited the Rwandan genocide? Suicide bombers? Murderers? Should these types of people be judged and punished for their terrible acts of violence?

Of course, this is where the push-back falls flat. We’re completely comfortable with God as Judge in this context, and we want His wrath to fall on those types of sinners.

Who gets to draw the line on sin? If God can’t determine what sin is, than who else could? We’re suddenly faced with the Biblical truth that we are all sinners and we all fall short

“We are so used to sinning; so accustomed to sin that we rarely ever even have the barest grasp of the gravity involved by defying God.”

R.C. Sproul

“He (Jesus) is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”

1 John 2:2

Jesus is the logical solution.

What if God did provide the solution to our sin problem? What if God is a loving judge? Our God has given us the atonement solution of the Gospel, displaying His loving character in the greatest capacity, through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Through Jesus, we can find meaning. We can feel whole, knowing that we are redeemed. Our sin is forgiven, and now we exist in and for a greater purpose. We rest in a restored relationship with God.

“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

1 John 4:9-10

The cosmic scales have been righted by Jesus!

Join the Conversation; Share Your Thoughts

• How have you felt like you’re hanging in cosmic scales, making deals with God to save you or help you?
• What is the greatest barrier to accepting that all your sins have been paid for by Jesus, on the cross?