Jesus' sacrifice on the cross

 Jesus' sacrifice on the cross is not what some atheists, anti-theists, unbelievers, and other assorted critics of Christianity make it out to be. They contend it had to have conveyed some sort of loss, or extended pain, or just makes no sense since Jesus knew he would come back from the dead. But those are all misunderstandings of what Jesus sacrifice was all about.

Christ’s atoning death must be seen against the background of the Old Testament sacrificial system. Before Christ’s atoning death it was necessary for sacrifices to be regularly offered to compensate for the sins that had been committed. These sacrifices were necessary, not to work a reformation in the sinner nor to deter the sinner or others from committing further sin, but to atone for the sin, which inherently deserved punishment. There had been offense against God’s law and hence against God himself, and this had to be set right.

The ‬Hebrew ‬word ‬most ‬commonly ‬used ‬in ‬the ‬Old ‬Testament ‬for ‬the ‬various ‬types ‬of ‬atonement literally means “‬to cover.‭” ‬One was delivered from punishment by the interposing of something between one’s sin and God. God then saw the atoning sacrifice rather than the sin. The covering of the sin meant that the penalty no longer had to be exacted from the sinner.

Simply put, a sacrifice was offered as a substitute for the sinner. It bore the sinner’s guilt. For the sacrifice to be effective, there had to be some connection, some point of commonality, between the victim and the sinner for whom it was offered.

The sacrificial animal had to be spotless, without blemish. The one for whom atonement was being made had to present the animal and lay his hands on it. This bringing of the animal and laying on of hands constituted a confession of guilt on the part of the sinner. The laying on of hands symbolized a transfer of the guilt from the sinner to the victim. Then the offering or sacrifice was accepted by the priest.

While the legal portions of the Old Testament typify with considerable clarity the sacrificial and substitutionary character of Christ’s death, the prophetic passages go even further. They establish the connection between the Old Testament sacrifices and Christ’s death. Isaiah 53 is the clearest of all. Having described the person of the Messiah and indicated the nature and extent of the iniquity of sinners, the prophet makes an allusion to Christ’s sacrifice: “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (v. 6). The iniquity of sinners is transferred to the suffering servant, just as in the Old Testament rites the sins were transferred to the sacrificial animal. The laying on of hands was an anticipation of the believer’s active acceptance of Christ’s atoning work.

Since Jesus is the fulfillment of the OT law his sacrifice must be understood in light of what those sacrifices were. Jesus Christ's sacrifice was that of standing in our stead, in our place, so God's wrath would be upon him and not us.