atonement

02
Apr
2026

A message for Holy Week

I came across a message in my files. For Holy Week, I’ll share this devotion that my father preached in the spring of 1998. It is fitting for a Good Friday observance, and for our contemplation at any time of year.

Christ’s words of forgiveness

by Donald C. Sellnow

Holy Week is the time of year we go up to Jerusalem with Jesus. For him, it was a journey to the cross. For us, it is a spiritual journey that reminds us how completely our Lord was willing to give himself for us. It is a demonstration of God‘s amazing grace.

We have made this journey to Jerusalem often over the years, as we have listened to the Passion history and found joy and strength in the gospel of our Lord. It is a journey we will want to make again and again so long as God gives us the opportunity to do so. 

When we go to Calvary, to stand in spirit beneath the cross of Christ, we  listen to our suffering Savior speak. He spoke seven times from the cross. His words tell us what his mission there was all about. His words give us guidance, comfort, and hope for our journey through this life to the life that never ends. The first words spoken by Jesus from the cross were words of forgiveness: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

It had been a long hard night for Jesus, from his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane to his trials before the Sanhedrin and Pontius Pilate. Now it was Friday morning and time for the execution of the death sentence imposed upon him. The Romans had not invented crucifixion, but they had perfected it as the cruelest and most hideous punishment they could devise. It was never inflicted on Roman citizens, but was reserved for slaves, pirates, and political or religious rebels—whose deaths were to be a public warning to others. On that Friday morning, the Son of God incarnate was crucified at the place called “The Skull” (Golgotha in Aramaic, Calvaria in Latin). Roman soldiers nailed his hands and feet to wooden beams and then lifted him up to hang him there on that cross, between two criminals, until he was dead, while they gambled for his clothes.

How did Jesus respond to what was done to him? We might expect someone in his situation to scream in anger, to curse his executioners, to ask God to rain down punishment on them. Who in the world would blame Jesus if he wanted revenge? Who would say that he wasn’t justified if he asked God to damn his abusers to hell? After all, he was innocent. He had been framed, falsely accused. He had been beaten, bruised, crowned with thorns and crucified—though he didn’t deserve any of it. Why not lash out at those who had done all of this to him? Why not vent his rage at them?

But wonder of wonders, the first words that Jesus spoke from the cross were not words of anger and revenge, but of love and pardon. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And let’s be sure that we know who Jesus means by “them.” “Them,” of course, means the soldiers who hammered spikes through his flesh to affix him to the cross. But it also includes the men higher up, such as Pilate and Herod and Jewish leaders and judges who condemned him. Peter, the apostle, later told his countrymen that they had crucified Christ, as they had clamored for his execution. “This man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed” (Acts 2:23). “You rejected the holy and righteous one …. You killed the author of life” (Acts 1:15). Jesus’ prayer, “Father, forgive them,” includes all of them—all who in any way brought the Messiah to the cross. And the Savior’s prayer includes also you and me. For what, after all, was it that laid the Lamb of God upon the altar of the cross? What was it that moved him to endure sufferings and crucifixion? It was the enormity of sin that we in this world had fallen into. Each of us says, along with the hymnist: “Ah, I also, and my sin wrought your deep affliction. This indeed the cause has been of your crucifixion.”*

“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Thus Jesus prayed for forgiveness for the soldiers who were carrying out orders, but didn’t know that they were crucifying the Lord of glory. Thus Jesus prayed for the people and their rulers who did not recognize him as the promised Messiah. Thus Jesus prayed for us, who also were by nature enemies of God and of Christ and his Spirit.

Not only do we see Jesus praying for our forgiveness, we also see him achieving our forgiveness, redeeming us by his sacrifice. We don’t have to wonder whether there are sins and offenses that remain on our record and separate us from God. Christ took upon himself every sin every one of us has committed. Hanging on the cross that day, he was enduring all judgment for the sins of all the world. He was taking our place. He was suffering for us, dying for us. “Upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).

What a great exchange we see taking place there at the cross! Jesus took on all of our infirmities, all of our weaknesses, all of our sins … and we got all the good, all the blessings, all the grace that brought us forgiveness, life, and salvation. One writer put it well when he said, “Jesus suffered, that we might be comforted. He was rejected that we might be accepted. He was separated from the Father, that we might be forever with him. He wore the shame of our sin and suffered the death of the cross that we might be rid of sin and shame forever. His garments were taken from him that we might wear the robe of his righteousness.” 

Jesus died that we might live. And so we say, “Thousand, thousand thanks shall be, dearest Jesus, unto thee!”**

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“Father, forgive them.” The Savior who spoke those words wants us to speak such words too. We find that hard to do. Our sinful nature rebels at the thought of forgiving others. We want to take revenge. It seems more natural to nurse a grudge, to keep score of someone else’s faults, to rub it in, to be spiteful, to find a way to get even. In the home, on the job, in our private and professional lives, in our immediate family and in the larger family of church and community, it isn’t easy for us to pray, “Father, forgive them.” We want the Father to forgive us our trespasses, but we struggle to forgive those who trespass against us.

Yet though forgiving isn’t easy, it is something we can do, through Christ. When we look at Christ on the cross, we see our sins and all of their consequences, and we know in faith that Jesus covered our sins with his holy, precious blood, and with his innocent suffering and death. In turn, the love of Christ compels us to be forgiving. From now on, therefore, let us regard no one from a human point of view, because God has reconciled himself to us in Christ. We have been reconciled to God, and through him find reconciliation with one another. (Cf. 2 Corinthians 5:16-21.)

May we daily look to the Savior and his cross for the forgiveness that we need so very much. May we keep on hearing his word and partaking of his sacrament—through which our faith is strengthened, our love grows, and we are enabled to forgive one another, just as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven us.

“Father, forgive them.” Thank God, for this word from the cross—a word that is a continuing comfort and a powerful motivation for us, the forgiven, to forgive. 

Prayer:

  • Heavenly Father, you have forgiven me all that I have done. Every sinful word, thought, and action is cleansed by the blood of Jesus. So often I pray, as Jesus taught me, “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us”—but forgiving others is not easy. Work within my heart that I may willingly and joyfully forgive others. Forgive my spirit of revenge and help me overcome it. Draw my attention back to the cross of Jesus, that I may learn to forgive as he did. Amen.

  *From the hymn Jesu, deine Passion, by Sigismund von Birken (17th century), translated by August Crull.
**From the hymn Jesu, meines Lebens Lebe by Ernst Homburg (17th century), translated by Catherine Winkworth.

Scripture quotations, except where otherwise indicated, are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Posted by David Sellnow, 0 comments
30
Oct
2023

A Reformation message: We cling to the gospel

The law condemns. The gospel saves.

by David Sellnow

  • “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ” (Galatians 1:6,7).

  • “To be convinced in our hearts that we have forgiveness of sins and peace with God by grace alone is the hardest thing.” – Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians (1535), translated by Erasmus Middleton (1833).

One day I was driving down the street and did a double take on a church sign. The sign said, “The death of Christ will not be your pardon.” As I drove by, it was like a slap in the face. I stopped; I turned around. Then I realized it was a two-part sign. I had read the back of the sign first. From front to back, the sign said this: “If the life of Christ is not your pattern … the death of Christ will not be your pardon.”

That wasn’t really much better than seeing the back of the sign all by itself. What was that sign telling people? “If you don’t do what Jesus would do, then what Jesus did on the cross doesn’t count for you.” In other words, you’d better straighten up and live right or God won’t love you and Jesus won’t forgive you. That sort of message puts your works first and God’s forgiveness second. The Bible teaches it the other way around: God’s forgiveness comes first, atones for all your sins. By this grace, your heart then becomes motivated to live according to a godly pattern.

It’s easy for us to get that message turned around. It’s not uncommon for individuals to put the burden on themselves to make their salvation happen. I have known persons who made multiple altar calls. They’d go up and devote themselves to Jesus, then when they failed to live perfectly, the onus was on them to start all over again, as if it all depended on them. I know people who have been baptized multiple times. They saw baptism as their own pledge or promise to God. Each time they’d slip in their commitment or break a commandment, they felt they needed to get baptized again, commit themselves again.

Those are law-oriented views. Law condemns. When you read the Ten Commandments, you don’t come away thinking, “Oh, what a good person I am!”  The commandments show you multiple ways you have failed to obey God—how you have failed to love God and love your neighbor as you should. If you make keeping commandments your way to gaining heaven, you are doomed to failure.

This is true no matter what the commandments. Look at the religions of the world. Do Muslims perfectly obey the Five Pillars of Islam? Do Buddhists adhere perfectly to Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path? Do Mormons follow to perfection the teachings of Joseph Smith? We ultimately fail under any system of commandments.

You could write your own commandments. Make them things you think you could do. Let’s say you were to start the First Church of Healthy Living, and you had just three laws:

  1. Do not eat sweets or desserts.
  2. Exercise 40 minutes a day.
  3. Eat a bran muffin for breakfast every morning.

Even if you believed your eternal salvation depended on keeping those commands, there would come a day you didn’t feel like exercising. There would be a morning you didn’t care for a bran muffin. You’d have moments of intense temptation when you just had to have chocolate. You would fail at your own religion. You would fall into sins against your own commands.

Scripture makes it clear:  “All who rely on the works of the law are under a curse. … No one is justified before God by the law” (Galatians 3:10,11). Law can’t save us. Commandments are not stepping-stones into heaven. The law leaves us condemned.

When a religious approach (like the church sign I mentioned) speaks of Jesus but then adds conditions you must fulfill, that isn’t really gospel. Gospel means good news. As soon as you add some obligation of law keeping to the gospel of Christ, you have perverted it. The gospel is pure good news, full forgiveness in Jesus with no strings attached. Other gospels are throwbacks to law-oriented thinking, which is humans’ instinctive approach to religion.  

Daniel Csörföly (Budapest, Hungary), via Wikimedia Commons

There is only one message that saves. It is the message of “grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to set us free” (Galatians 1:3,4).  Grace is unearned, undeserved, unconditional love. God gives grace. He gave his one and only Son, Jesus. Jesus, the Christ, gave himself over to death for us. He rose from death to give us life. Grace is a gift.

That message is the only spiritual message that brings us peace. Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid” (John 14:27). You need not be afraid about your salvation; Jesus guarantees it for you. You need not trouble your heart about which commands you have kept and which you have broken; Jesus forgives every sin. Jesus gives you true inner peace by cleansing away the condemnation in your conscience. He takes away all the guilt of your sin. That is the message of the gospel. It is not the world’s most popular religious message.  As the apostle Paul pointed out, this message does not typically win the approval of men or please people, who are looking for some sort of self-help plan to save themselves. But we are servants of Christ. We are believers in Christ. We will go forward in Christ, continuing to proclaim the one true gospel message.  All other messages condemn because they have their basis in human works, in keeping laws.  The gospel of Jesus is the only message that saves. 

October 31, All Hallows’ Eve, is remembered as Reformation Day, from actions take by monk and priest Martin Luther in 1517.  November 1st is All Saints Day.  For thoughts regarding your place as one of God’s saints, see a previous article here on The Electric Gospel:  “Me, a saint?”

Scripture quotations, except where otherwise indicated, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Posted by David Sellnow
20
Mar
2023

Jesus overcame temptation for us

During the season of Lent and in Holy Week, we ponder all that Jesus suffered in carrying out our salvation. There’s another emphasis to remember too. Not only was Jesus taking our curse away by his sufferings and death for us. He also had supplied a life of righteousness for us, as part of his role as our Redeemer.

This devotion focuses on Jesus’ active obedience to all that God has commanded of us.

The Lord is our Righteousness

“Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1).

See full account:  Matthew 4:1-11

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COL; (c) City of London Corporation; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

I remember a teachers’ guide that our congregation’s Sunday School teachers had in the 1990s. This was around the same time that WWJD—”What would Jesus do?”—was becoming a popular phrase.  For the lesson on Jesus dealing with the devil in the wilderness, the guidebook focused entirely on how Jesus taught us to say no to temptations. Is that really the main lesson of what Jesus was doing when he was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil?  If the main thing about Jesus is what example he set for us, would he have needed to come into our world? 

Certainly, our struggles with temptation are a concern. We regularly pray, “Lead us not into temptation,” asking God to show us pathways away from sin. At the same time, though, we also pray, “Deliver us from evil.” You may have memorized an explanation of what that means: “We pray in this petition, in summary, that our Father in heaven would rescue us from every evil of body and soul, possessions and reputation, and finally, when our last hour comes, give us a blessed end, and graciously take us from this valley of sorrow to himself in heaven” (Martin Luther, Small Catechism). It’s not just this temptation today and that temptation tomorrow that concern us. Most of all, we pray for deliverance from temptations’ result—from evil, from the Evil One, and from the death and despair the devil wants to pull us down into. When Jesus went into the desert to meet the devil head-on, he wasn’t merely teaching us strategies to stay safe against temptation. Christ’s ultimate purpose was to rescue us from sin and the devil by overcoming those deadly forces for us, on our behalf. Jesus is not just our help in temptation, he is our salvation. Jesus battled the devil and his temptations as part of his work of redemption. He was doing for us what we could not do on our own. He was our substitute, carrying out atonement for us vicariously.  

Jesus overcame every temptation—those he endured in the wilderness after he’d fasted for forty days and all other temptations while he walked on this earth. Jesus did all that the law of God expects of us, and he did it for us. By the one man’s obedience [the obedience of Christ], the many of us are made righteous (Romans 5:19). Jesus’ holy life is given to us as our own.  As the prophet Jeremiah had foretold, “This is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness’” (Jeremiah 33:16).

At the outset of Jesus’ messianic work, after Satan’s multiple temptations, we’re told that the devil departed from Jesus “until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). The wilderness temptations weren’t the only challenges Jesus would face. The devil would keep coming back, again and again. Jesus is not someone “who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,” but rather, he is “one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

Allow me to call to mind a few other examples of ways Jesus continued to be pressured and tested, and responded rightly to each test.

  • After Jesus spoke in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth and revealed himself as the one who came in fulfillment of the prophecies about Messiah, the people reacted with hostility and were ready to throw him off a cliff. Jesus had the power to strike them all dead for their unbelief, to rain down fire and brimstone on them. Instead, he simply “passed through the midst of them and went on his way” (Luke 4:30). 
  • During the second year of Jesus’ ministry, he began teaching quite openly to his disciples that “the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31). Jesus’ disciples didn’t want to hear such things. Peter took Jesus aside and began to contradict him, saying, “This must never happen to you” (Matthew 16:22). But Jesus rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things” (Mark 8:31-33). Jesus was resolute in carrying out his divinely-ordained mission.
  • In the hours leading up to his crucifixion, Jesus was dragged before the high priest in Jerusalem. During the interrogation, one of the temple guards struck Jesus on the face, saying, “Is that how you answer the high priest?” Jesus answered calmly, “If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong. But if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me” (John 18:23)?

Throughout his whole life, Jesus acted with integrity. He did not retaliate against his enemies, and he would not shrink back from the work he came to do on our behalf. As Isaiah had prophesied about the Messiah, he gave his back to those who struck him. He did not hide his face from insult and spitting (Isaiah 50:6-7). He set his face like flint and carried on in the face of every temptation, in the face of agony and suffering and death.

All through his life, living in our place, Jesus lived a life of love in fulfillment of the law (cf. Romans 13:8-10). He showed compassion to the poor. He healed the sick. He strengthened the suffering. He comforted the bereaved. He did all that for us, as our rescuer, as our Redeemer. His saving work replaced anything lacking in our lives with the goodness he carried out in our place. That’s the most important thing as we think about how Jesus lived his life, how he took on every challenge and temptation, how he defeated the devil and sin.  He did all of that for us, as our Savior. 

That said, we certainly also can learn from Jesus’ life as an example for how to live our lives. We are urged in Scripture to “be imitators of God … and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:1-2). We will strive to follow Jesus’ example of loving each and every person—something we’re now able to do because of the love Jesus has given us. And we will follow Jesus’ example in facing temptation.

  • The devil approached Jesus when he was desperately hungry and urged him toward a path of instant gratification. We have learned from Jesus to be better than that, to look for more than that. We want—we need—something that lasts. We need not just a quick fix, a boost of something to make us feel better for the moment. We rely on spiritual sustenance, on “every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). 
  • The devil approached Jesus with the suggestion to throw himself off a roof, to risk life and limb and count on God to keep him safe, to send angels to keep him from harm. We have learned from Jesus not to twist God’s promises into permission slips. We don’t jump in front of a bus to test if God’s angels are with us. We don’t dive into sins saying, “It’s okay, God will forgive me anyway.” 
  • The devil approached Jesus with a temptation to power and ego. Sure, God in heaven says he is Lord over all things. But anybody observing the way things work down here can see that the devil dominates the way things go on earth. Even Jesus acknowledged the devil as “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31). “The whole world lies under the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19).  So, the devil in fact had something to offer when he “showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor” (Matthew 4:8), saying Jesus could have it all if he came over to the dark side and gave his allegiance to Satan as “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4). Jesus has shown us that apparent shortcuts to success that compromise godly, higher standards are paths that lead to destruction.  With Jesus, we will say,  “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him’” (Matthew 4:10).

As we live our lives day by day, certainly, let’s remember Jesus’ example. We can think, “What would Jesus do?” and strive to respond to challenging situations with resoluteness of character as Jesus has taught us. But most important of all, we will keep our eyes on Jesus as our Savior, our strength, our hope in all things. “Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from beginning to end. Think of what he went through; how he put up with so much hatred from sinners. So do not let yourselves become discouraged and give up.” (Hebrews 12:2,3 Good News Translation).

Temptations will keep coming at us day after day. Our Savior encourages us to walk in his ways and say no to sin. We can overcome temptations when we are connected by grace to Jesus.  But whenever we do sin, we also remember: We have Jesus as an advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ, the righteous one, is the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 2:1-2). 

Jesus is our constant hope and strength, our salvation from temptation and sin.

Scripture quotations, except where otherwise indicated, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Posted by David Sellnow