ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CUENet AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION DOGMATICS 2 LESSON 44 Captioning Provided By: Caption First, Inc. 10 E. 22nd Street Suite 304 Lombard, IL 60148 800-825-5234 *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. *** >> In this class and others I've run across a word that is clearly profound but difficult to fully comprehend. Now that you've been speaking, it occurs to me that perhaps it is through a christological understanding that the word will make sense. So let me ask: What does the word atonement mean? >> DR. DAVID SCAER: The word atonement has its meaning within itself. It means at the -- at-one-ment. Just put hyphens between the word at and one and ment and you come pretty close to what the word intends to say. The word atonement carries the idea of payment. We're going to discuss different ways of looking at the atonement. But let's take a look at this one first. And that is: What are you going to consider the most significant words in the Bible? I bet a Lutheran is going to say the most significant words in the Bible are "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life." That's okay. But one thing that -- I would like to just reevaluate that situation. That seems to be the words of the evangelist St. John providing an explanation for the work of Jesus. I would have to say that the most important words of Jesus about the atonement are the words which Jesus says. How Jesus defines himself takes precedence over any of the words of the Apostles. And how Jesus understands what he is doing takes precedence over also any other words which we can speak. I would like to call your attention to these words of the situation that Jesus describes in connection with the last prediction of his death. You may remember that there are two brothers. The sons of Zebedee. And they come and ask Jesus whether they can sit on the left and the right hand in his kingdom. And this is a marvelous way in which Jesus answers the question. He says, you know, "You don't have one question. You don't have two questions. First of all, I cannot give you a place on the left hand and on the -- and on my right hand. Because it is only the Father who gives out the gifts of grace." In fact, Jesus does not even exalt himself. The two brothers are asking Jesus to do something which he cannot even do for himself. Jesus does not exalt himself. But Jesus says, "There's something here which you were asked which I can give you. And that is I can give you the kingdom." And Jesus describes the kingdom by saying, "Are you able to drink the cup which I am able to drink" -- "which I am going to drink?" And they said, "Oh, yes, you bet. We'll take the cup. We'll take the kingdom." And of course, Jesus was referring to his own death. A death by which his blood would be sacrificially poured out. And in that section he describes what that death means. He says, "The Son of Man did not come to be waited upon." That's what it means. "I didn't come to live as a king. I came not to be served but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many." It is that word "ransom" that we want to look at. The word ransom appears in the New Testament in several ways. But it -- at the core of this word is a Greek word that would be translated -- transliterated into the English language by ***lytron. Lytron. It appears as a verb. It appears as a noun. It appears in combinations with other words. And it has the idea of payment. In order to set things right. It's background as the Old Testament. In the Greek version translation of the Old Testament it translates three different concepts. It has the idea, first of all -- it goes back -- it has the idea of buying the first born. You may remember that with the story of Jesus, that his mother and father, Mary and Joseph, had to perform the ritual of buying him back. Because the first born son belonged to God reminiscent of the exodus in which god took the lives of the first born boys in every home. But the Jews were spared that by having blood wiped on the doors, on the lentils of the doors and around the door, so when the angel flew over, they could see the blood indicating that a death had already taken place. So the Jews since then had to buy the first son back because the first son always belonged to God. They also had the idea of buying a relative back from slavery. If I have a brother or a cousin who is put into slavery because he didn't pay his debt, it would be my job as his blood relative to buy him back. And it also carries the idea of litigation. If there was ever a litigious society, it has to be the American society. If I hurt myself, it's somebody's fault. I think all of us live under the fear of being sued. If you do something wrong, you've got to pay. We all have homeowner's insurance. We have car insurance. We protect ourselves against litigation. In the Jewish world, if I -- if I damage somebody or damage somebody else's property accidentally, I would have to pay for it. If my bull got into a fight with your bull and killed it, I would have to pay restitution for the damaged animal. All of these ideas go into the concept of atonement, that there has to be some kind of payment. And Jesus says that. The Son of Man came not to serve -- "not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a payment for the benefit of the believing community. *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ***