`By Whom we have now received the atonement'

If this word refers to the sacrificial Offering of Christ, we know that WE do not receive that, but receive its

blessed consequences. The Atoning Sacrifice was offered to God. We note that the margin reads as an alternative

`reconciliation' with a reference back to verse 10. It is evident therefore that the translators of the Authorized

Version were perfectly familiar with `reconciliation', and yet deliberately used the word `atonement' instead. The

simple fact is that the word `atonement' was in common use three hundred years ago as an equivalent to

reconciliation, and was selected with deliberate intent to show the reader that gospel Reconciliation and atoning

Sacrifice are linked together. Perhaps all readers are not acquainted with Elizabethan literature, but most if not all

have access to Shakespeare. Here are a few examples of the obsolete verb `to at-one':

`He desires to make atonement between the Duke of Gloster and your brothers' (Richard III act 1. scene 3).

`Since we cannot atone you, we shall see Justice design the victor's chivalry' (Richard II act 1. scene 1).

`I was glad I did atone my countryman and you' (Cymbeline act 1. scene 4).

`What atonement is there between light and darkness' (Philpot).

In the estimate of God sin is only righteously covered when an atonement has been offered and accepted. The

justification of the believing sinner is emptied of all meaning, if by so doing God's holiness and righteousness be

compromised. The focus of this most important truth is at Romans 3:25,26 :

`Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare

... that

HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS

HE might be JUST, and the JUSTIFIER of him which believeth in Jesus'.

Romans 3 and 4 discusses this, and also the passage from Psalm 32 which speaks of the blessedness of the man

whose sin is covered. Under the law of conscience and the evidence of creation, the Gentile has been found

inexcusable (Rom. 1:20), but not only so, chapter 2 shows that the Jew too, with all the advantage of the written law,

is likewise inexcusable (Rom. 2:1). Neither the Jew nor the Gentile was found righteous, and the whole world

brought in guilty before God.

At Romans 3:21 we step out of the sphere of condemnation, into one of acceptance, out of the bondage of law to

the freedom of the gospel, and `But now' marks that mighty change. The section of Romans which opens at chapter

3 verse 21, closes on the same note in verses 27, 28:

Romans 3:21-28.

Choris Apart from law ... manifested

A 21

a Righteousness of God ... manifested

B 21,22

a Gratuitous justification

C 22-25

a Righteousness of God ... declared

B 25,26

Choris Apart from works of law ... justified

A 27,28

*

We leave this structural outline to speak for itself

*

This and other passages in Romans touched upon here, are given a fairly comprehensive examination in the book

Just and the Justifier.