Where Did Jesus Die? — Page 123
Chapter Ten—Redemption or Atonement 123 this addition as an explanatory gloss by the author of the Gospel, 1 and the meaning of the other words may well have been simply that he was about to lay down his life for his friends and to die for the cause. ’ 2 St. Paul and his collaborators, granting the assertion of the Jews that Jesus died on the cross, presented to the Gentiles the crucified Jesus as an atonement and ransom for the sins of the world, a belief similar to what they already believed concerning their own gods. St. Paul says: ‘In [ Jesus] whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins’. 3 He also called his blood ‘the blood of his cross’; 4 in Hebrews, ‘the blood of sprinkling’. 5 John says: ‘He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world’. 6 The various authors commenting on this in their commentary say: ‘There was wrath in the bosom of God at sin: but, through the sacrifice of Christ for sin offered once for all, He has “turned away all His wrath,” and can be just’. The prevalent belief among Christians is that Adam sinned by eating of the forbidden fruit, and in his fall all mankind, his descendants, fell and inherited sin from him. There was no other way for redemption from the sin except that God out of His mercy should send His only begotten Son, blameless, sinless, and 1. H. Rashdall, The idea of Atonement 2. Weigall. Paganism in our Christianity, p. 160 3. Colossians 1:14 4. Colossians 1:20 5. Hebrews 12:24 6. 1 John 2:2