what does it mean to believe jesus died for our sins

Atonement and reconciliation

Actors enact the Crucifixion

The events leading up to the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus are well-told by the Gospel writers, as are stories of the Resurrection. But why did Jesus die?

In the stop the Roman authorities and the Jewish council wanted Jesus dead. He was a political and social problem-maker. But what made the death of Jesus more significant than the endless other crucifixions carried out by the Romans and witnessed outside the metropolis walls by the people of Jerusalem?

Christians believe that Jesus was far more than a political radical. For them the expiry of Jesus was function of a divine program to save humanity.

The decease and resurrection of this one man is at the very heart of the Christian faith. For Christians it is through Jesus's death that people's broken relationship with God is restored. This is known as the Amende.

What is the amende?

The word atonement is used in Christian theology to describe what is achieved by the expiry of Jesus. William Tyndale introduced the word in 1526, when he was working on his pop translation of the Bible, to translate the Latin word reconciliatio.

In the Revised Standard Version the discussion reconciliation replaces the word atonement. Atonement (at-one-ment) is the reconciliation of men and women to God through the expiry of Jesus.

But why was reconciliation needed? Christian theology suggests that although God'southward creation was perfect, the Devil tempted the first man Adam and sin was brought into the earth. Everybody carries this original sin with them which separates them from God, just as Adam and Eve were separated from God when they were cast out of the Garden of Eden.

So it is a basic thought in Christian theology that God and mankind need to exist reconciled. However, what is more hotly debated is how the death of Jesus achieved this reconciliation.

There is no single doctrine of the atonement in the New Testament. In fact, possibly more surprisingly, in that location is no official Church definition either. Simply offset, what does the New Testament have to say?

New Testament images

The New Attestation uses a range of images to draw how God accomplished reconciliation to the earth through the decease of Jesus. The most common is the prototype of sacrifice.

For example, John the Baptist describes Jesus as "the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world". (John 1:29)

Here are some other images used to draw the amende:

• a gauge and prisoner in a law court
• a payment of bribe for a slave'due south freedom
• a rex establishing his power
• a military machine victory

And here are some examples of how the New Testament explains the decease of Jesus:

'For the Son of Man himself did not come to be served merely to serve, and to requite his life as a ransom for many'.

Words attributed to Jesus in Mark 10:45

'Drink all of you from this', he said. 'For this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, which is to be poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.'

Words attributed to Jesus in Matthew 26:28

Well then, in the first place, I taught you what I had been taught myself, namely that Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the scriptures...

Written by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:iii

How have afterwards writers and theologians interpreted the Biblical accounts and theologies? In varied, and sometimes conflicting, ways.

Theories of the Amende

Theories of the Amende

Theologians have grouped together theories of the atonement into different types. For case, in Christus Victor (1931) Gustaf Aulén suggested 3 types: classical, Latin and subjective.

More than recently in his volume Christian Theology: An Introduction Alister E. McGrath groups his discussion into four fundamental themes merely stresses that these themes are not mutually exclusive. His four themes are:

• The cross as sacrifice
• The cross as a victory
• The cross and forgiveness
• The cross as a moral example

The cantankerous every bit sacrifice

The image of Jesus' death as a cede is the most popular in the New Testament. The New Testament uses the Former Testament epitome of the Suffering Servant (Isaiah 53:5) and applies it to Christ.

The theme of Jesus's death every bit a sacrifice is most fatigued out in the Letter to the Hebrews. The sacrifice of Christ is seen every bit the perfect sacrifice.

In the biblical tradition sacrifice was a mutual practice or ritual. In making an offering to God or a spirit, the person making the sacrifice hopes to make or mend a relationship with God.

St Augustine as well wrote on the theme of sacrifice:

By his death, which is indeed the one and most truthful sacrifice offered for us, he purged, abolished and extinguished whatever guilt at that place was by which the principalities and powers lawfully detained united states of america to pay the penalization.

Augustine - The City of God

He offered cede for our sins. And where did he discover that offer, the pure victim that he would offer? He offered himself, in that he could detect no other.

Augustine - The Metropolis of God

The cross as a victory

The New Testament frequently describes Jesus's death and resurrection as a victory over evil and sin as reprsented by the Devil. How was the victory achieved?

For many writers the victory was accomplished because Jesus was used as a ransom or a "bait". In Marking 10:45 Jesus describes himself as "a bribe for many". This word "bribe" was debated by later writers. The Greek writer Origen suggested Jesus'southward death was a ransom paid to the Devil.

Gregory the Great used the idea of a baited hook to explain how the Devil was tricked into giving up his concur over sinful humanity:

The bait tempts in social club that the hook may wound. Our Lord therefore, when coming for the redemption of humanity, fabricated a kind of claw of himself for the decease of the devil.

Gregory the Great

Although the victory approach became less pop in the eighteenth century amongst Enlightenment thinkers - when the thought of a personal Devil and forces of evil was thrown into question - the thought was popularised again by Gustaf Aulén with the publication in 1931 of Christus Victor.

Aulén wrote of the idea Christus Victor:

Its key theme is the idea of the Amende as a Divine conflict and victory; Christ - Christus Victor - fights against and triumphs over the evil powers of the world, the 'tyrants' under which flesh is in bondage and suffering, and in Him God reconciles the world to Himself.

Gustaf Aulén

The cross and forgiveness

Anselm of Canterbury writing in the eleventh century rejected the idea that God deceived the Devil through the cross of Christ. Instead he presented an alternative view which is oft called the satisfaction theory of the atonement.

In this theory Jesus pays the penalty for each individual'south sin in society to correct the relationship between God and humanity, a relationship damaged by sin.

Jesus'southward death is the penalisation or "satisfaction" for sin.

Satisfaction was an idea used in the early church to describe the public deportment - pilgrimage, charity - that a christian would undertake to show that he was grateful for forgiveness.

Only Jesus can make satisfaction because he is without sin. He is sinless because in the Incarnation God became man. The theory is thought out by Anselm in his work Cur Deus Homo or Why God became Human.

The cross as a moral example

Moral influence theories or exemplary theories incorporate a fourth category used to explain the atonement. They emphasise God'south love expressed through the life and death of Jesus.

Christ accustomed a difficult and undeserved death. This demonstration of love in plough moves us to repent and re-unites us with God. Peter Abelard (1079-1142) is associated with this theory. He wrote:

The Son of God took our nature, and in information technology took upon himself to teach us by both word and example even to the signal of expiry, thus binding the states to himself through love.

Peter Abelard

Abelard's theory and the call to the individual to respond to Christ'southward decease with love continues to accept popular appeal today.

...Our redemption through the suffering of Christ is that deeper honey inside us which not but frees us from slavery to sin, but also secures for us the true liberty of the children of God, in order that we might exercise all things out of love rather than out of fear - love for him that has shown us such grace that no greater tin exist establish.

Peter Abelard

Penal substitution

Penal substitution

Three crosses ©

Did Jesus have the punishment for humanity's sins when he died on the cross? That idea is called penal substitution and is summed up by Reverend Rod Thomas, from the evangelical group Reform, equally "When God punished he showed his justice by punishing sin but he showed his love past taking that penalty himself".

The debate

Jeffrey John, Dean of St Albans, disagrees with the theory of penal exchange and said and then in a radio talk given over Lent 2007.

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The Reverend Rod Thomas of Reform and Jonathan Bartley, director of Christian think tank Ekklesia and editor of the book Consuming Passion - why the killing of Jesus really matters, discussed Jeffrey John'southward words on the Today programme.

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