Episode 146 - Atonement As Cosmic Justice And Healing

Evil feels abstract until it lands on our doorstep. We start by naming a harder truth: Scripture treats sin as a corrupting power that defiles not only individuals but the shared world we inhabit. If that is right, then atonement cannot be reduced to a change in human feelings or a shift in moral opinion. It has to be an act that confronts evil, condemns it, and cleanses what it has damaged, so that forgiveness becomes genuine closure rather than denial. 

From there we follow Paul’s dilemma in Romans: how can God be righteous while declaring sinners righteous and then making us righteous? We explore why divine rescue cannot come in a way that implies evil triumphs or simply “gets away with it”. The Bible’s vision is bigger than private spirituality. It is about the victory of good over evil being written into the very logic of the heavens and the earth. 

Numbers 35 becomes a key doorway. Bloodshed pollutes the land, and the text insists that atonement for murder cannot be bought with money. Then we trace the city of refuge and the startling detail that release is tied to the death of the high priest, hinting at a representative, priestly pattern. Leviticus adds the sobering image of the land rejecting corruption, and we connect that to the long biblical hope of a world that becomes the home of righteousness. 

Finally, we turn to Jesus: the divine-human one who runs towards death, breaks the devil’s grip rooted in the fear of death, and bears not only guilt and shame but judgement itself. If you have ever wondered why the cross matters for justice, reconciliation, and cosmic renewal, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review with the question you are still carrying.

The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore

Transcript

Why Sin Feels Smaller Than It Is

Rev Dr PRB 0:00

Welcome to the Christ-centered cosmic civilization. As we are now beginning to gather our thoughts together to conclude this long series about atonement, which has taken us in many directions. Let's say this: that sin, selfishness, and evil are things that we as sinners have grown comfortable with, partly because we commit them and do them, we don't appreciate the seriousness of them, we think of them in very one-dimensional or two-dimensional ways, whereas the full complexity and depth of what sin is, something that corrupts, defiles not only ourselves but those around us, and as we'll see, even the very fabric of reality around us is affected by our moral action, our immoral, our sinful actions. And so we only get upset about evil in the most extreme forms, or if it's done to us personally, and then we can then become extremely indignant and full of divine fury over even quite small sins done against us. But the very life of God and the character of the heavens and the earth depend on this deep opposition to evil and an unwillingness to see evil win. The Holy Father sends his son as the Holy One of Israel, filled with the Holy Spirit, and this living God cannot ever become comfortable with sin, selfishness, or evil in any way, and is committed to several things. It's yes, rescuing us. God so loved the world, and the world there in John's gospel is humanity in opposition to God, with all our evil, our corruption, our mortality, our guilt, our shame, all of it, personally and corporately, all of it, but God so loved us, humanity, even while we were still sinners, even while we were even in that terrible condition, God so loved us because he and therefore is determined to rescue us, but alongside this, and this is what Paul wrestles with in Romans, how can he be righteous as well as calling us righteous and then making us righteous? How can he do all that? So, yes, there's this commitment to the gospel that he created human beings to be his eternal bride and share in the divine nature. Humanity has become sinful, we are sinners for all kinds of reasons, and we don't want to explore that now, the full uh uh concepts of original sin and how how valid is that all of that. But we are all sinners, and so he what but he re determined to rescue us, even at the cost of his own blood. That's that that's the mission of God. But also alongside that, it's not it's not enough to merely rescue us in such a way that evil is wins in some way. He must rescue us because uh but he cannot do so in such a way that he is implicated in either the outright victory of evil, that evil is committed and got away with, or or evil has triumphed over goodness in some way. That cannot be the case, and again, you'll be aware in the book of Romans, Paul is very aware of this problem that at a superficial glance the gospel does look as if evil triumphs over good, and that sin is kind of promoted and excused and made little of and not taken seriously. And Paul several times returns to this to say no, no, no, no, not at all, that sin is utterly vanquished, condemned, and punished, actually, but we'll get to that as we go on. Now, this this notion then that he

Rescue Without Excusing Evil

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that the living God is determined to rescue us, but also is determined to vindicate goodness over evil, and the evil must be vanquished and condemned, such that as we've seen in the scriptures, this idea of visitation, the evil must be forced to receive back onto itself, the the the suffering, the pain, the corruption, the the death that it causes must be visited back onto itself. So how can you know that we could say this, and this is what we want to explore in this episode, that the very life of God and the character of the heavens and the earth depend on all of this. There has to be an intransigent, unrelenting, unwearying resistance to evil at the heart and foundation of all things, or else, and we see this in Jeremiah chapter 4, it's like creation itself starts to unravel because the whole of reality is woven together by a fabric of goodness and righteousness and truth and beauty, and for evil to be tolerated or kind of brushed under the carpet or allowed to succeed in some way is not a kind of moral accountancy that's only only shows up on a spreadsheet or is some kind of administrative problem. It's not that, it's something in the Bible that would strike at the fabric of creation itself and is intolerable to the heart and mind of the living God. So, how can evil be destroyed and defeated? Such that there is a heartfelt satisfaction that evil has been confronted, condemned, cleansed away, such that the consequences of sin have been visited upon the sinner such that it is possible to move on from evil to forgive and to forget. That's the goal of all this, so that humanity can be at peace and have fellowship with God and share in the divine nature, so that the evil that we have done has been so comprehensively confronted, condemned, cleansed, dealt with, that it is possible to move on, that there is closure, that that there can be genuine forgiveness and forgetting. Now, in numbers 35, there's a very deep insight into what is needed for great evil to be atoned for. It's dealing with killing the chapter as a whole, and the end of the chapter is specifically dealing with the sinful evil of murder. The chapter also includes unintentional killing, but we'll come to that in a moment. But let me read the the the concluding words from Numbers 35. It says this do not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer who deserves to die. They are to be put

Numbers 35 And Blood On The Land

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to death. Do not accept a ransom for anyone who has fled to a city of refuge and so allow them to go back and live on their own land before the death of the high priest. Do not pollute the land where you are. Bloodshed pollutes the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it. Do not defile the land where you live, and where I dwell, for I the Lord dwell among the Israelites. So nothing less than the blood of the murderer can atone for what they have done. And it is not right for their sin to be covered by mere money, a ransom payment. And the language is atonement here, quite specifically, in this chapter. Notice that it is not simply about human social convention or human legal opinions. The wording is important. The land itself is defiled by bloodshed and murder. And the land itself needs atonement to be cleansed from this moral corruption. And we'll examine that more in a moment. But notice that that, like for humanity to be at one with and at peace with and reconciled to the land that we're living on, the land that we're living on is so it's not just that the living God is indignant and angry and righteously furious about human sin. Even the land itself is disgusted. It's like the earth itself has a visceral reaction to eat sinful sin that is done upon it, and the land itself is defiled by sin. Now, when a person has unintentionally killed someone, they could go to a city of refuge and and they'd be safe there. And it would be wrong then to take their blood, to take their life as a uh because that that's not allowed in the city of refuge. But what they can what they must do, it says, is they must wait there, and they can't leave the city of refuge until the death of the high priest. And did you notice that in verse 32 of numbers 35? They can only go, they can't go until the death of the high priest. So, in some way, the death of the high priest could clear their guilt. The death of the one who represents them before God and before the people, when that happens, then this accusation against the person who was unintentionally killed, that is dealt with, atonement is somehow made. Let me just read again from verses 26 to 28. It says, if the accused ever goes outside the limits of the city of refuge to which they fled, and the avenger of blood finds them outside the city, the avenger of blood may kill the accused without being guilty of murder. But then verse 28 The accused must stay in the city of refuge until the death of the high priest. Only after the death of the high priest may they return to their own property. These are deep waters. Murder cannot be atoned for without the blood of the sinner. And atonement is implicitly made for an unintentional killing by the death of the representative high priest. And and this involves the very land itself. The reason I want to focus on this is to recognize

Cities Of Refuge And The High Priest

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something of the logic of crime and punishment in the Bible, and the sense that evil cannot be dis it cannot be just ignored, it cannot be bought off with mere money, it requires something more than that, and that there is a sense of the that if you've murdered someone, you yourself are subject to murder, and that the land itself recognizes something bad, something wrong, and that if sin is not if if if the consequences of sin is not visited back upon the source of sin, if the sinner is not made to bear the punishment or the consequences of their sin, even the land cannot tolerate that and is defiled by it, that there's something, there's a wrongness to it, that evil cannot be allowed to win. It must be confronted, condemned, and forced to bear the punishment or the consequences of what it's done. And the stability of the mountains, the trees, the land, even the stars depends on this victory, the vindication of good over evil. The victory of good over evil, and the evil is condemned and punished. Is su i in the Bible it's much, much bigger than merely human thought. And sometimes when people write about atonement, they write about it as if it's it's it's kind of something to do with human opinion and human perspectives on this, and that like it belongs to human perspectives from a primitive time or something, and that it is possible to not take this seriously, to simply think differently, and it will disappear the problem of sin and evil, or at least the punishment of sin and evil, or the or the the need to confront it and and and visit visit punishment upon it. Leviticus 18 28 is another example of this where it reveals that sin causes a kind of revulsion not only in the most holy God in heaven, but also in the earth beneath our feet. Frightening thought, isn't it? That the nations that were the nations that commit atrocities are alienated from the very land they stand on. And that human beings have been created to be have this kind of priestly role over all creation, and if we violate that, the earth kind of rejects us and won't have us, and there becomes a kind of alienation between ourselves and the the world, the very soil and the plants and the animals around us, they don't like us, but also just going back to what was in Numbers 35, the Lord says, It's important that you don't defile the land in this way, because uh it's where you live, and then the Lord adds, it's where I dwell, for I the Lord dwell among you. So this isn't just about the the the goal of everything is that the Lord God Himself will live among us, and that the go the end the whole goal is for heaven to come down to earth and for all to be united together. Jesus returns and the holy city of God descends, and in this new order of the universe that will come about, this will be the home of righteousness, as 2 Peter chapter 3 says. The home of righteousness where the Father, Son, and Spirit will live with us forever and ever. We'll be caught up into the we'll be we will live forever as the bride of God, and that the the creation is the family home, and so there's something in the fabric of this reality that will not tolerate sin that is not

When Creation Rejects Unatoned Sin

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atoned for, and in that sense of atonement, it's it's something to do with the c like sins being visited with the judgment, and it's it's it's it's a cosmic f uh matter as well as involving the living God. But this is repeated in Leviticus 20, verse 22. The Lord says, You shall, this is Leviticus 20, 22, you shall keep all my statutes and all my judgments and perform them, that the land where I am bringing you to dwell may not vomit you out. So here it's more positively stated. In the other one, if you do sinful things you will be vomited out, and unless that sin is atoned for, there will be no peace between the land is defiled. There can't be peace between the humans who live on the land and the land itself unless atonement is made. And then in Leviticus 20, 22, the it's it's stated in a more positive way that we we must live the life of God according to his word in order to avoid this defilement of the land such that the land vomits us out and cannot cannot bur our presence. So when we're talking about retribution and punishment of evil, we're not talking about arbitrary or abstract legal codes or some kind of theoretical moral government or human bigotry or anything like that. This is about the victory of good over evil, and it's written into the very fabric and logic of the universe. If evil goes on without it being judged, condemned, and punished, the very fabric of the heavens and the earth starts to unravel. The law states many times that evil and false religion cause the earth to become barren. The prophets state this also. They and they when they condemn nations, they'll say to the of this nation that the consequence of your sin and idolatry will lead your land to become a barren desert wasteland. It's in the prophets. And we need only look at the areas of the world today that have become dry deserts to see how this is true. So, when we are thinking of atonement, there is some sense in which the death of Jesus faces towards humanity, and we've explored that in earlier episodes that we are taught the truth of how much God loves us, how serious sin is, how we are to follow Jesus when we are also suffering and persecuted and martyred. But the human-facing dimension of the atonement is not at the heart of the work of atonement. The reason we're we're focusing on these verses is it's not about what, it's not about the effect upon humans, but it's the effect, like in the in some of the verses we've noticed, it's even an effect upon the world. And and we can see how the cosmic evils of death and the devil are overcome in the death of Jesus. In the book of Job, the devil assumes that nobody will stay faithful to goodness if their life and prosperity is through. Threatened. And the the devil really, as we're told, that's his great power is the fear of death. And he can draw humans into terribly sinful actions by this fear of death, the fear of aging, our mortality, our fleshly vulnerability. He uses that to draw us, drag us into this present darkness, and to live for this, the deceitful desires of this present age. That's true. But what we find in the death of Jesus, that even the immortal God will not cling on to his immortality. We run away from death in our sinfulness, but the perfect divine human runs towards death, determined to die in order to defeat the devil,

Jesus Bears Judgement To Defeat Death

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to have a victory over evil and close the mouth of death. So, yes, and we can't explore this now, but we must ultimately may return to it in a much later episode. But the it if it is the death of the high priest that can bring atonement to the land, and it is this blood shed that can atone for the land and remove the defilement of the land, how significant is it that the blood of Jesus and the water from his side also run down onto the land onto the earth beneath him? That is something for another time for now. But what we're beginning to see is that the death of Jesus, the death of God Himself, is addressing the visceral, heartfelt horror against evil that is written into the universe and is also intensely written into the heart and mind of God. Something is going on in the death of Jesus so that the weight and punishment of sin that must be visited back onto us is visited instead on the Lord God who became human for this very purpose. He drank the cup of divine wrath that would be our doom to drink. Again, so much biblical language is relevant here. Why does he do that? So that goodness is vindicated over evil, evil is confronted, condemned, cleansed, punished through the Lamb of God, taking upon himself the sins of the world, bearing not only the guilt and the shame, but even the punishment. So he bears, he becomes sin. And yes, the guilt, yes, the shame, but even the punishment. Even allowing the full weight of sin to be visited on him so that it does not need to be visited upon any of us.