Page 16 - TH200 Abundant Life A4 Final

Abundant Life in the Son: A Study of Salvation

To illustrate the importance of atonement and its place in salvation,
consider the following story. A father and his son had a vicious argument.
As a result, the son left home vowing never to return as long as his
father lived. The mother suffered greatly, for she dearly loved both her
husband and her son. Many months later the son received an urgent
message to return home because his mother was terminally ill. As the
son walked into the hospital room, he saw his beloved mother pale
and wasted in the bed. Both the father and the son looked silently at
their ailing loved one, knowing that she was near death. Using her last
reserves of strength, the mother reached out with one hand and took
the hand of the father; with her other hand she took the hand of her son.
Then in a final act of love, she brought the hands of the father and the
son together on her breast as she died.

Christ’s death on the cross was the means of bringing a holy God
together with sinful humanity. Through the cross, we have atonement
for sins. This means that the sins of people have been covered by the
death of a substitute, the penalty has been paid, and God and people
have been brought together.

Necessity of the Atonement

Sometimes when people consider the dilemma of humanity in utter
lostness and hopelessness, they tend to ask two questions. Why didn’t
God just forsake people in their sins? Or why didn’t God just declare
people sinless and upright? However, the Bible teaches that God is holy
and loving as well as righteous. He was unwilling for any person to be lost,
but He could not overlook people’s guilt or accept them in their sinful state.

In order to restore people to himself, God resolved the conflict
through the atonement. The
solution lay in the person and
work of the Son, who met all the
In the atonement, the requirements of righteousness.

purpose of perfect He did this both in His life as He
kept all the requirements of the
justice and divine love Law perfectly in our place and

was accomplished. also in His death as He died under
the penalty of the broken Law. In
the atonement, the purpose of

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