Atonement

This is a book about blood.

Specifically, it is about the blood of Jesus Christ’s atonement. Atonement, a word coined by the sixteenth-century reformer and Bible translator William Tyndale, describes the solution to the offense toward God caused by human sin. It signifies the reconciliation and restoration between God and man provided by Christ’s death. The entire message of salvation comes close to being encapsulated in this one word.

And yet the doctrine of atonement is under attack.

Some “evangelical” books have recently sought to challenge our view of this central Christian doctrine. Some scholars have even shifted the emphasis away from Christ as sin-bearer to Christ as exemplar of God’s love—doctrines that, far from being mutually exclusive, are inseparable and dependent on each other. Few components of the Christian faith are currently as hotly debated as this one.

This book gathers some of the church’s best-known pastor-theologians to illuminate this important topic, from presentations given at the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology.

     The Necessity of the Atonement — J. I. Packer
     The Nature of Atonement: Reconciliation — John R. De Witt
     The Nature of Atonement: Propitiation — James M. Boice
     The Atonement and the Purpose of God — John R. Gerstner
     Sacrifice and Satisfaction — R. C. Sproul
     The Language of the Marketplace — James M. Boice
     Christ the Sin-Bearer — Sinclair Ferguson
     Preaching the Cross — Alistair Begg

Together these speakers present a strong defense for the atonement, prove its relevance to the health of the church, and highlight its importance in the midst of the controversy that surrounds it.