Atonement

Welcome to the Days of Praise podcast, a daily devotional by the Institute for Creation Research. Atonement. Make thee an ark of gopher wood room shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. Genesis six fourteen. It may be surprising to learn that God's instructions to Noah concerning the Ark's design contain the first reference in the Bible to the great doctrine of atonement.

The Hebrew word used here for pitch is the same word translated atonement in many other places in the Old Testament. While the New Testament word atonement implies reconciliation, the Old Testament atonement was merely a covering with many applications. As the pitch was to make the ark watertight, keeping the judgment waters of the flood from reaching those inside, so on the sacrificial altar it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul, keeping the fires of God's wrath away from the sinner for whom the sacrifice was substituted and slain. The pitch was a covering for the ark, and the blood was a covering for the soul. the first assured physical deliverance, the second spiritual salvation.

However, not even the shed blood on the altar could really produce salvation. it could assure it through faith in God's promises on the part of the sinner who offered it, but the blood of bulls and of goats could never take away sins. Both the covering pitch and animal blood were mere symbols of the substituting death of Jesus Christ, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God. Through faith in Christ our sins are covered under the blood, forgiven by God and replaced by His own perfect righteousness, by all of which we become finally and fully reconciled to God. If you've enjoyed today's devotional, be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

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