Atonement is an extremely difficult, theological term. Some say it means "at-one-ment" (reconciliation) between God and humankind. How can "at-one-ment" be accomplished? What does it mean? Christians often use atonement without clarity and often with emphasis on one view of atonement only - the penal substitution theory. In fact, it is very complex idea. In the Hebrew Bible there is the Day of Atonement (yom kippur) when the sins of people (Jews) are forgiven or are cleansed through the sacrificial victims of animals. Much blood is sprinkled on the cover of the ark of the covenant, which is called the mercy seat (kapporeh) (Exodus 25:10-22; 37:1-9). Is this animal sacrifice or blood a propitiation for God's wrath? Or is it an expiation to correct some damage done? Indeed, it is not easy to understand the role of the mercy seat here in the Hebrew Scripture.

In Rom 3:25 Paul uses hilasterion, which is the Greek translation of Hebrew kapporeh which connotes two things in the Hebrew Scripture: covering and the cover of the ark. What does Paul mean by this reference of hilasterion to Jesus? Does Paul refer to this mercy seat? Then, is it for "covering" or "the cover of the ark of the covenant"? Or does hilasterion point to the pagan use of Hellenistic reference in which practice of propitiation is popular? Does Paul use the same image of sacrificial victims like on the Day of Atonement? Then in what sense? How does Jesus's death relate to hilasterion? What does this hilasterion have to do with the righteousness of God (as God's righteousness) (dikaiosune theou)? What is the role of "faith of Jesus" (pistis christou)? What about the role of faith shown by believers? As we see here, Paul's view of atonement is complexly difficult to understand.

Still, Hebrews presents a very different view of Jesus' death referred to as the perfect sacrifice that replaces the animal sacrifice of the old covenant. In it Jesus himself is the High Priest, who becomes a new covenant; we see here some kind of supercessionism in which a new covenant replaces the old covenant, which is out of context if we read "a new covenant" in Jer 31:31-34 in a historical, literary context, because a new covenant in Jeremiah is made with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not for later Christians. But Hebrews re-interprets the so-called "the old in a new context." Put different, Hebrews is a contextualized writing in a specific life context.

The complexity of view of Jesus' death (or atonement) does not cease here. The reasons for and meanings of Jesus' death in the four Gospels are still very different with each other. Each gospel's view of Jesus' death cannot be compatible with each other, as I briefly sketched in my recent article “Jesus’ Death in Context” in the Living Pulpit Vol.16 No 2 April-June 2007. The question is, What atonement are we talking about? Therefore, if anybody emphasizes only one view of atonement every time regardless of historical or interpretive contexts, s/he might end up falling into a pit because of blindness or arragance. A simple analogy might help. If any one climbs a mountain, one can see only one part of the scene though its view is still imperfect. How can we see the whole picture of the scene? Always impossible! However, a little hope is that we can have a critical dialogue with one another to get at approxmiation of the view. Sometimes, even the same person can take another route of the mountain and see the different view. If one person insists that the view of mountain is ABC, refusing to hear all other views from others, we would say for sure that such a person is either arrogant or nothing more than blind. The view of atonement is much more complex than that.

Thus far atonement and Jesus' death have been used exchangeably. However, it must be noted that the concept of atonement can be distinguished from the cause of Jesus’ death in a historical context. If atonement is to a theological reflection on the meaning of Jesus’ death, the cause of Jesus' death is to historical Jesus. This distinction is important because Jesus' life and death cannot be isolated from each other and in his world, whether of religion or politics. In that regard, historical, critical study about Jesus' crucifixion carries its weight even today.

Strictly speaking, however, we cannot distinguish history from theology. The question of "Why was Jesus killed? or Why did Jesus die?" is both a theological and historical question. It must be thus said that ultimately atonement is not a matter of abstract definition but a result of critical engagement both in a historical and theological context. Therefore, theology and history should be critically examined in all aspects of life of Jesus and his world, which involve the diversity of contexts, ancient and modern. In fact, contexts of Jesus do not stay there to be unlocked but invite us as readers to engage them as subjects, asking what Jesus' death means both in history and in theology. By this I mean meaning of atonement should be open-ended and need a re-construction time and again in diverse contexts.

Actually, we can see the diversity of views of atonement at work. With the Webster’s definition of atonement, “the reconciliation of God and humankind through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ,” the question is: Is the reconciliation possible through substitutionay punishment of Jesus instead of me so that God's justice might be satisfied (penal substitution theory)? Or is it through a propitiation of Jesus’ death to placate God’s wrath (propitiation theory)? Or is it through a deliverance from the Satan’s hold because the ransom is paid to Satan (ransom theory or in some sense like Christus Victor model)? Or is it through a moral renewal of believers because Jesus’ death invokes a sacrificial love for all (moral sacrifice theory), which takes serious the historical context of Jesus’ sacrifice as voluntary, costly love? Or is it still through something else? Each view has merit in a certain context but cannot exclude other views. Each view is partial and sometimes could be dangerous in another context. For instance, the merit of penal substitution is to remove guilty feelings and to recover a sense of re-connection with God. So this meaning is valid for an individual who suffers from isolation due to guilt or sins. However, in another context where some are abused wrongly by other people or by unjust systemic evil, the message of penal substitution does not work or could be dangerous to the degree that evils of wrongdoing are not confronted and that even those are condoned because there is no resistant messsage against the evils done. In this case, the typical message is that Jesus died insted of you; Jesus loved you until his death; so endure to the end. But because of this problem, some feminists oppose the positive value of Jesus’ death as an atonement, especially when the discourse of atonement does not resist the evils of killers and their society or any sort of evil system involved. In other words, the cross of Jesus also can be a symbol of victim (unwanted or unnecessary innocent death), which must be avoided rather than to be celebrated.

As such, one of the important shifts in modern scholarship lies in a more ethical reading of Jesus' death (the cross), largely by feminists and minority circle. I also critique the one-sided view of atonement in a movie review of the Passion of the Christ because the view of penal substitution theory is conducive to ethical blindness in a specific context of Jesus and today - especially in the context of so much violence and war, what is at stake is to protect life from unnecessary sacrifices or from needless victimization. We need to affirm the value of life from the image of the cross. Why do we not see the evil powers at work in Jesus' time and today? How can we live in the midst of unjust, unwanted, innocent sufferings of so many people?

In closing, ethical reading of Christ's crucifixion is also possible in Paul's letters such as 1 Corinthians. Paul’s metaphor of soma christou (Christ’s body) in 1 Corinthians can be understood as a broken, crucified body of Christ, which then can be identified with all forms of broken bodies in the world - especially in a Corinthian context in which people fight for hegemony (for contolling others, bodies of others). (See my book Christ's Body in Corinth: The Politics of a Metaphor, Fortress in Fall 2008).

*SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Yung-Suk Kim, "Jesus' Death in Context," The Living Pulpit Vol 16 No 2 Apr-June 2007.

*For a more diverse spectrums of atonement issues, see the current issue of the Living Pulpit.

Peter Schmiechen, Saving power: theories of atonement and forms of the church, Grand Rapids, Michigan : Eerdmans, 2005.

Stephen Phinlan, Problems with atonement: the origins of, and controversy about, the atonement doctrine, Collegeville, Minn : Liturgical Press, 2005.

Roy E. Gane, Cult and character: purification offerings, Day of Atonement, and theodicy, Winona Lake, Ind : Eisenbrauns, 2005.

Stokl Ben Ezra, The impact of Yom Kippur on early Christianity: the Day of Atonement from second temple Judaism to the fifth century, Tübingen : Mohr Siebeck, 2003.

Luke Timothy Johnson, "Rom 3:21-26 and the faith of Jesus," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 44 Ja 1982, p 77-90.