by David Clayton
One doctrine which I have believed in for the past
thirty-two years is the doctrine of the “Final Atonement.” This is a
teaching which is unique to the Seventh-day Adventist movement and is
one which I believe has a solid biblical foundation. As we have focused
on Righteousness by Faith over the past two years, there has been
concern in some circles that our understanding of Righteousness by Faith
does away with this concept of the final atonement.
If the
Bible led me in this direction then I would have to accept it. But does
the truth of righteousness in Christ do away with the truth of the final
atonement? This is a very important question and will be our main focus
in this edition of Open face.
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Recently I was reading from.Daniel 9:24 and I stated
that this verse applied to the work which Christ would do. Somebody said
to me, “how do you know this is speaking about Christ?” Let us look at
what the verse says:
“ Seventy weeks are determined upon thy
people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make
an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in
everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and
to anoint the most Holy.” (Dan 9:24)
Who is this prophecy
referring to? It says, “seventy weeks are determined upon thy people.”
Since Daniel’s people were the Jews, then it is clear that this was
talking about the Jews. I am sure this prophecy is familiar to most of
us reading this article. We know that these seventy weeks referred to a
period of time which God allotted to the Jews, and that this seventy
weeks (which were actually 490 years) came to an end in AD 34.
Adventists believe that when Stephen was stoned to death in that year,
that this marked the end of the seventy weeks that God gave to the Jews
in which all these things were to be fulfilled.
For many years
I held to the belief that what God was saying was that during this
seventy weeks period of time, the Jews were supposed to stop committing
sin, to stop transgressing God’s laws and to become everlastingly
righteous. But as I look at the prophecy carefully today, I realize that
this cannot be correct. Let us look especially at one of the things
which was to happen which it was impossible for the Jews as a people to
accomplish: It says that reconciliation should be made for iniquity.
Look at that phrase. There is only one person in the universe who can
make reconciliation for iniquity. That person is Jesus Christ. No
ordinary man, no nation, no people can do this, Christ alone could
fulfil this prophecy. This prophecy was speaking of the work which
Christ was to do. Here again are the things which were to be done by the
end of the Seventy weeks:
a. A finishing of transgression
b. An end of sins
c. Reconciliation made for iniquity
d. The bringing in of everlasting righteousness
e. The sealing up of the vision and prophecy
f. The anointing of the most holy.
Some have insisted that this verse must be speaking of the Jews and
what God expected of them, rather than of the work of Christ. They
reason that if these things apply to the work of Christ then they must
have been fulfilled, because Christ cannot have failed. But they cannot
accept that these things have already happened, and especially that an
end has already been made of sins. It is easier to believe that God
expected these things of the Jews, who must have failed to accomplish
them, rather than to believe that Christ has already accomplished them.
Reconciliation for iniquity
But let us be faithful to what the Scripture says. There
are several verses which tell us that Christ has already fulfilled the
specifications of this prophecy. First of all, has Christ made
reconciliation for iniquity? What are we told in Romans 5:10?
For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of
his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
(Rom 5:10)
Notice what reconciled us to God, it was not
something that you or I did. It was the death of God’s son, something
outside of us, and independent of our actions. Our actions, or the
actions of the Jews have nothing to do with accomplishing this
reconciliation. Humanity is already reconciled to God, it is something
which is done and finished. It had nothing to do with what we do or how
we live; it was entirely on the basis of what God’s son did. We were
reconciled by the death of God’s son.
This truth is further emphasized in 2 Cor 5:18-19
And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus
Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit,
that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of
reconciliation. (2 Cor 5:18-19)
This verse is very clear; it says that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ . The next phrase says, “not imputing their trespasses unto them.” Now this word “impute” means not charging
their trespasses. This is difficult for many of us to understand. Some
find this very difficult to accept, even though it is stated so plainly
in the Bible. But it clearly says that in His Son, God was reconciling
the world to Himself.
The world was reconciled to God, the
entire planet was reconciled to God by the death of Christ. If we think
of it graphically, there was a wall. On one side was man, on the other
was God. The name of this wall was sin , and
it was a wall that stood between God and man. This wall has been
destroyed. What was it that destroyed it? It was the death of Christ,
the death of God’s son took away this wall and put it out of the way.
Jesus took our sins, not just those that we committed already but also
those which we will commit in the future. Every one was paid for by
Christ. If Jesus has paid for them, they cannot still be a problem to
God.
When I say this, somebody is sure to ask, “are you saying
that when I commit a sin it is not a problem?” I am not saying that,
but I am saying that as far as God is concerned, sin cannot stand
between you and Him anymore. But of course there is one thing that will
make your sin, still a problem, and what is that? It is if you do not believe
in what God has done for you through His son. If you cannot accept the
forgiveness and the enabling that is in Christ because you remember what
you have done and forget what God has done through His son, then for
you, sin is still a problem. The Bible says that God is not imputing the
trespasses of the world to them. It is not just the trespasses of
Christians, it is the trespasses of the entire world which is not
imputed unto them, God took it out of the way by the death of His son.
Now our problem is that we do not believe. Our real problem is not our
sin, but the fact that we cannot believe in the One who has dealt with
sins already.
An end of sins
What about the prediction that He would make an end of sins, did Jesus make an end of sins by A.D. 34?
In Hebrews 9:26, speaking about Jesus it says:
For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world:
but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin
by the sacrifice of Himself. (Heb 9:26)
I say again,
sin is not a problem to God, the Bible says that He took the sins of the
entire world upon Himself and what did He do? He took it to the cross
and He made an end of sin at the cross. What this means is that now
there is a human life in which sin does not exist and this life is ours
if we want it. The only condition is that we truly believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ. We have only to accept what God has done for us through
His son.
So it is clear that this prophecy was speaking about
Jesus, not about the Jews. It only related to the Jewish nation in a
secondary sense, because Jesus came from the Jews, He came from the line
of Israel, but it was in Jesus that sin was
brought to an end. The dominion of sin over humanity has been destroyed
because Jesus has “condemned sin in the flesh,” (Rom. 8:2) that is, in
human flesh. So sin has no more authority over humanity. He made
reconciliation for sins, He brought in everlasting righteousness. Now
there is a human life that is everlastingly righteous.
Our problem is that we have difficulty in believing that this life has
been given to us; that this life is our life. But to believe it is to be
set free. We need to understand that Jesus did not just die to pay a
price, but He died to provide a life for us that is without sin and that
is everlastingly righteous. If we can believe and receive what Christ
has done, we will be free from sin. Is that not what the Bible says?
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:32)
For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. (Rom 6:14)
Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in
him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. (1 John 3:9)
These verses are amazing, most people are afraid to accept what they
say because it makes a lie of their experience. but it is the truth of
the word of God and the only reason why we do not experience it is
because we cannot believe in what Christ has already done. The Bible
says He would make an end of sin, and He did. And so God does not impute
our trespasses unto us because Christ took them out of the way, He
nailed them to the cross.
In 2 Cor 5:20, it says,
Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by
us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. (2 Cor
5:20)
Here we see two parties involved, there is God and there
is man. There was a wall in the middle which God has taken out of the
way, but what is man’s problem? He will not accept what has been done.
God has been reconciled to man, but what about man? Man is not
reconciled to God. The barrier is entirely in man’s heart, not on God’s
side. Sin is not a problem to God because Jesus dealt with it and He
dealt with it completely and entirely.
When I understood this,
I recognized that I had been fighting an enemy that was dead. I had
been condemning myself for something that was not a problem to God. I
realized that my problem was that I would not believe in what God has
done in His Son and when I realized it, it brought a great release in my
soul. I felt that a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
Many of us are under a burden of sin because we are measuring ourselves
by what we do, we are seeing ourselves instead of seeing Christ, but
when we see Christ and we understand what God did for us in His son,
finally the weight is lifted, and we not only are free from sin’s
condemnation, but we find that the power of sin is also broken. Suddenly
those sins no longer have the power to crush and beat us down, suddenly
we find ourselves free. Now, this is what Jesus did, this is what the
Bible says He did.
