[Mad Dawg]

Okay. Then the various images help to talk a little about what is too large to grasp. None is proposed as adequate, none is proposed as a sufficient explanation. Rather they give some helps in understanding the quality of our estrangement from God AND the wonder He wrought in the Crucifixion.

I'm trying to avoid typing my world famous (yuh HUH) lecture on the 4 doctrines of the atonement,but I'll give you the bullet points:

1. "Classic or Dramatic" - Jesus kicks the devil's butt. See the end of Gibson's movie, the apocryphal (and deservedly so) "Acts of Pilate, and Aslan's crunching the White Witch in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
2. Substitionary or Propitiatory. Jesus pays the price of our sins (death) but since he doesn't owe it Himself, his paying is "applied" to us. Here it is the outrage against God's justice which is propitiated by Christ's self-offering. See the White witch's claim on Edmund's life and Aslan's offering himself to pay the debt.
3. Expiatory/sacrificial. "Are you washed in the Blood of the lamb? The Blood (= the life, "For the blood is the life") of Christ is made available to us to make up our deficiency of, well, of everything we need, life itself, goodness, clean-conscience-ness. Having forsaken the innocent nudity of Eden, we must be covered in our shame. The blood of Christ is the only apt covering (hilasmos). Vivified by that blood, we can bear the presence of God since out sin and shame are covered.
4. Exemplary. In his teaching and his life, Jesus overcomes our ignorance of what it is God wants from us. e.g. He teaches that God wants not just justice but mercy, the perfection of justice. In his infancy and his crucifixion he shows that power is not the opposite of weakness but comprehends weakness and that bliss is not the opposite of sorrow but comprehends sorrow.

NONE of these vague notions is adequate to the miracle. ALL of them help us catch a glimpse.

That's how I see it.

[Running On Empty]

This is a great post.

O the complexity of it all :-)

O the simplicity of it all
God is love and he who lives in love lives in God
God is love and he who lives in God lives in love

[RnMomof7]

Dawg, what does the propitiation/atonement/the cross mean to you?? How does it apply to your life?