Death or Life

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"For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement." Romans 5: 10-11.

The writings of Paul as a whole, as well as all the rest of the Bible, make LIFE not death the cause of reconciliation or atonement and yet the fact remains that Paul once wrote "when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son."

That text, as Paul wrote it, did not mean what it is made to mean today. What did it mean? Here is the answer. In the Bible, sacrifice means the Love that gives the life. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son."

In all paganism sacrifice means the anger and wrath of the gods that demands a price and so takes the life of the victim.

According to the first and Bible definition of sacrifice, the death on the cross was a revelation of the Love of God to make the whole world, and angels, too, wonder and worship; and so to break down every barrier that sin had raised between the soul and God, and to turn the heart repentant back to Him. This is the way Paul understood SACRIFICE.

The doctrine of substitution changed this all around, and made even the death on the cross mean the wrath of God that demanded a price and needed to be appeased. Paul understood the sacrifice on the cross to be just such a manifestation of divine love giving the life, not demanding it of another, as would break down every barrier of prejudice and of misunderstanding, and turn the heart repentant back to God so that His life could dwell in us.

It was in this sense, and not at all in the substitutionary sense, that Paul wrote just once, "we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son." But even that once he quickly adds, "much more, being reconciled, "(our hearts having been turned back to God by this manifestation of His love) "We shall be saved by his life. You can see then, that salvation is reconciliation and oneness with God because all hate and evil and sin and everything unlike God have been taken out of our lives. The writings of Paul everywhere teach this fact, and that it is only the indwelling LIFE OF GOD that can thus save us and make us one with Him.

So while, as Paul meant it, it was all right for him to say "When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the Death of His Son", yet, as men say those very words today, they are absolutely false. And this is so for two reasons: First, the idea people have today of how we are reconciled by the death of Christ, is the false substitutionary idea, and just the opposite from what Paul meant by the same words. Paul meant that our misunderstanding of God and the hardness of our hearts toward Him were changed to understanding and love by this great manifestation of His love. By the same words people today mean that the price God demanded, or the price the law demanded has been paid and so that we can be let off from damnation and accepted of God.

Secondly: As men quote this text today, they make the idea of reconciliation cover the idea of salvation; and throughout the Bible, and in the other writings of Paul, the idea of reconciliation or of atonement does cover the idea of salvation, but as Paul used the word in this particular text, the idea of reconciliation by death did not cover the idea of salvation, but only the thought of the turning of the heart repentant, back toward God, a change of attitude on our part that permits God to save us. And we know this fact, for after Paul here speaks of our being reconciled by the death of His Son, he immediately adds, "much more, are we saved by his life."

So in the only place where Paul speaks of reconciliation by the death of Christ, he, himself, so limits the meaning of the word as he there uses it, as to make it mean only that change of attitude in our hearts toward God, which permits His divine life so to dwell in us as to make us one with Him.

Even here, the real atonement or reconciliation in the full meaning of the word is plainly by LIFE and not by death.

It is perhaps hardly necessary to say that the words for atonement and reconciliation are the same in the original, just as the thought expressed by the two English words are the same. In fact the original word, is never but once, in the New Testament, translated "atonement", and this translation is found in this text of Romans 5:11; but always elsewhere "reconciled" or "reconciliation."

And it is of even greater importance to note, that, when Paul uses the word "atonement" the only time it is used in our New Testament, he uses that word to mean, not something done for the whole world, once for all, when Christ died on the cross, but as representing a personal, individual experience, note it, "by whom we have now received the atonement" "now received" by faith, bringing the believer into rejoicing unity with God through Jesus Christ.

George E. Fifield