Atonement means reconciliation
The term atonement has many shades of meaning. One of the main concepts is that of reconciliation.
Before we accepted Christ as our Lord and Saviour we were alienated from God, separated from the life of God. We were not in God’s family. As soon as we accepted Christ, putting our faith in Him, the process of reconciliation commenced. It began in our inner man and will be completed when our body is raised from the dead into immortality.
Atonement brings us from alienation from God all the way to reconciliation to God. Our final level of reconciliation will be as complete as was true of our former level of alienation. We were alienated completely and we shall be reconciled completely. It is a perfect atonement, a perfect reconciliation.
The works of the devil separate us from God. When man sinned at the beginning he came under the authority and power of the wicked one. Over many thousands of years the nature of the adversary has been developed and revealed in mankind to such an extent that humans are conceived and born in sin.
Rebellion against God and His ways saturates our every fibber—we were born that way. The evil nature of people is not reconciled to the Father in a moment, although any person can gain forgiveness and come under the protection of God in the moment of receiving Christ.
The first step in the process of absolute reconciliation is the removal of the authority and the guilt of sin. This removal was accomplished perfectly on Calvary. Satan has no authority whatever over a human being who has asked Christ for salvation. At the moment of receiving Christ the individual passes from the authority of darkness to the authority of Christ.
God has provided the legal foundation for the change of authority. There is nothing anyone can do to prevent the change of authority from occurring when a human being fulfils the legal requirement by believing and being baptised.
At the moment of believing in Christ, the person is found to be not guilty, by the Judge of the court of Heaven. Therefore the authority of the wicked one is nonexistent as far as the believer in Christ is concerned. However, the Lake of Fire retains jurisdiction over sin whether found in a non-Christian or Christian.
What about the power of sin? So great is the power of sin over Christians that many churches deny that it is possible for the believer to overcome his sinful habits; although the Scripture states: "Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live in the appetites of the flesh" (Romans 8:12).
We understand that Satan uses the lusts of our fleshly nature, guiding and deceiving us into the "works of the flesh." The world, Satan, and our fleshly nature conspire against us as we attempt to live in a righteous, holy, and obedient manner. We love to obey God but sometimes we find it difficult to perform His will with a pure heart.
If we will cooperate with the Spirit of God He will come in judgment against the control that the world, Satan, and our fleshly nature have over our behaviour. The result of the Divine judgment will be the destruction of sin and the bringing of us into the fullness of resurrection life. Seen from this point of view, the judgment of God is to be greatly desired by the believer in Christ.
To the extent that we sin we have not been reconciled to God. It continues to be true, however, that our guilt has been removed and we are without condemnation as long as we are doing God’s will to the best of our knowledge and ability.
The fact that sin still retains some control over our behaviour is proof that a part of our personality has not as yet been reconciled to God. Our mortal body remains unredeemed. It is still under the power of the enemy. It is dead because of the sin that dwells in it.
Every part of our personality that has been reconciled to God obeys God promptly. The part of our personality that still is hostile toward God and seeks to compel us to live in the lusts of the flesh is under the judgment of God and will be destroyed.
Insofar as a part of us still lusts after the world, to that extent, and in that particular area of lust or rebellion, the atonement (reconciliation) made by Christ has not as yet accomplished its work in us.
The trumpet of Jubilee signalling release from servitude and restoration of property was sounded on the Day of Atonement, the Day of Reconciliation (Leviticus 25:9). The fact that the kingdom-wide fulfilment of the Day of Atonement, which is the thousand-year Kingdom Age, is still ahead for the Church of Christ, indicates to us that a more complete salvation and reconciliation to God than we have known will come to the Church in the future.
The thousand-year Kingdom Age that will begin when the Lord Jesus returns to earth will be a period during which the Church will become reconciled to God through Christ. It is the time of the marriage of the Lamb, the union of Christ with His Bride.
Mankind was separated from God originally by the working of Satan. The only manner in which reconciliation to God can be accomplished is by the destruction of all the power and influence of the devil, his authority having been destroyed on the cross of Calvary.
Since the route to reconciliation to God is destruction of the enemy, the way to bring about full atonement is war. Our complete redemption will have been accomplished when every trace of the kingdom of Satan has been driven from us by unrelenting war.
The Kingdom of Christ comes against the forces of darkness. Now we can understand why it is that the trumpet of Jubilee, the establishing of the thousand-year Kingdom Age, and the Day of Atonement are all associated with warfare and judgment. Peace and restoration can come to the nations of the earth only through Christ’s rule with a rod of iron.
The thousand-year Kingdom Age will be installed on the earth by the power of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and His Army. The saints will judge and cast out all the works of darkness. The peoples of the earth, particularly the Israel of God, will enter glorious liberty during the Kingdom Age. All the deliverance and glory is founded on the blood of the Lamb. It is the fulfilment of the Old Testament Day of Atonement.