This is an article in the series on the atonement.
Summary
In the last few centuries, Atonement has come to mean making amends to propitiate wrath. To many, Atonement is what Christ did to reconcile the Father to us and soften His wrath.
But that was not the meaning of the word when it was put in the first English Bible. At that time, many centuries ago, “atonement” did not describe a process but meant to be in a state of unity: to be AT ONE.
The Greek word in the Bible that is sometimes translated as “atonement” also does not mean what atonement means today. That Greek word means ‘reconciliation’. The basic meaning is to establish friendship.
It was the forensic doctrine of salvation, which presents God as angry and the death of Christ as a sacrifice to pacify God, that slowly changed the meaning of “atonement” over the centuries.
Christ did not die as a sacrifice to pacify God. The blood of the Cross did not change how the Father feels about us sinners. God, because He loves us, sent His only Son to be “the Lamb of God.”
Introduction
Commonly, in the last few centuries, Atonement has come to mean making amends, paying a penalty to meet legal demands, to propitiate wrath, or to adjust one’s legal standing. To many, Atonement is what Christ did to reconcile the Father unto us and assuage His offended wrath. But that is not the original meaning of the term, and it is not the meaning of the word in the Bible.
Original Meaning
Dictionaries agree that the word Atonement is a made-up word, namely ‘at-one‐ment’. That’s how the word started. It was based on a verb, ‘to one’. Two people are fighting, and you are sent out to ‘one’ them. Not ‘win’ them; to ‘one’ them. And when you have succeeded in ‘one-ing’ people, then, hopefully, they would remain in a state of oneness. It is THE STATE of being ‘at one’ that is atonement, NOT THE PROCESS of ‘one-ing’ people. Atonement, therefore, means to be in harmony or unity. That is what Atonement meant when the Bible was first translated into English.
Katallasso
The only place you’ll find the word “atonement,” in the King James Version, is in Romans 5:10. But, in the Greek, it is the very common word ‘katallasso’. In this word, there’s no hint of making amends. It means ‘reconciliation’. Holman’s Bible dictionary defines this word as follows:
Reconciliation … specifically the reconciliation between God and humanity effected by the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. … The basic Greek word is usually translated as “to reconcile”. The basic meaning is to establish friendship.
Therefore Romans 5:10, in the NASB, reads:
“For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son.”
Why the Meaning Changed
There’s only one dictionary that really gives the history of the word, and that’s a multi-volume Oxford English Dictionary. It shows how, for a long time, it was used in its original sense of being at one, reconciling people to harmony; friendship is often mentioned, unity, and so on. Now, later on somehow, it was changed to mean ‘making amends, paying penalty’, and that’s the way it’s commonly used now.
It was the forensic doctrine of salvation that changed the meaning of “atonement” over the centuries. This doctrine teaches that somebody must pay for sins committed. It presents God as angry and the death of Christ as a sacrifice to pacify God. It was because the reformers had this understanding of the purpose of Christ’s death that the meaning of “atonement” has slowly changed over the centuries to “reparation for an offence or injury” (Merriam-Webster).
How we should understand Atonement
Christ did not die as a sacrifice to pacify God. It is not God that had to change. The blood of the Cross did not change how the Father feels about us sinners. The opposite is rather true, namely that the blood of Christ was the means by which the Father reconciled His creatures to Himself (Col 1:20). We must change. It is not God that is angry; it is His creatures that “were enemies” (Rom 5:10) and “hostile in mind” (Col 1:21). In the Bible, God is never reconciled to us; it is always us that are reconciled to God, through Christ (Col 1:20). God, because He loves us, sent His only Son to be “the Lamb of God” (John 1:29) to bring His people back to Him (John 3:16).
See the articles Christ’s death reconciled us to God and Why Jesus had to die for a further discussion.