Theologically, we may define atonement in that way. We see in many churches the "Jesus loves you" signs and "God is love", all referring to how he sacrificed himself on the cross.
The question is: What was the ultimate cause that led to Christ's coming to earth and dying for our sins?
The Cause of the Atonement
To find the answer, we must trace the question back to something in the character of God himself. Here Scripture points out two things: the love and justice of God.
The love of God as a cause of the atonement is seen in the most familiar passage in the Bible: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" ( John 3:16). Im sure most of you all know that verse by memory, at least some part of it.
On the other hand, the justice of God also required that God find a way that the penalty due to us for our sins would be paid ( for he could not accept us into fellowship with himself unless the penalty was paid ). Apostle Paul explains that this was why God sent Christ to be a "propitiation" for us (Romans 3:25 NASB).
Big word? Propitiation is as follows: a sacrifice that bears God's wrath so that God becomes "propitious", or favorably disposed toward us. In simpler words, Christ was a sacrifice that bore the wrath of God so that we dont have to!
Therefore both the love and the justice of God were the ultimate cause of the atonement. It is not helpful for us to ask which is more important, however, because without the love of God, he would never have taken any steps to redeem us, yet without the justice of God, the specific requirement that Christ should earn our salvation by dying for our sins would not have been met. Both the love and the justice of God were equally important.
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