Atonement and the Calvinist pronoun and typology problem

[Ladodgers6]

Leviticus 17:11
For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.

God is not the one making a sacrifice for Himself. It is the sinner who makes the sacrifice for his own sins in the atonement.

Calvinists have their types wrong as it was the" PAGAN " practice of the false gods who sacrificed their own children to baal.

Wow! And the strange gets stranger, how can we offer anything to God, if God did not instruct the OT believers on how to present the Sin-Offering to God? God gave specific instruction on how a chosen Priest (typological-of the High Priest-Christ Himself), would enter the inner most holies of holies to intercede for the people sins; Christ intercedes for His people at the right hand of God! Once the Priest lays His hands of the sacrificial offering, The sins of the people would be transferred or imputed to this sacrifice, and slaughter, blood must be spilled on the altar. Christ being slaughtered, spilled his blood for his people, and hung on the tree, removing the curse by becoming a curse for us!

When those who were translating the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek looked for a word to describe God’s forgiveness, in reference to his anger, they choose the term hilsokomai in a number of instances. The idea in view by using that specific term is certainly a turning aside of anger through the offering of a sacrifice (cf. Ex 32:14, Ps 78:38, and Lam 3:42).3 But the term’s full meaning is seen most clearly in the New Testament when it is applied to the cross of Christ. When John speaks of the death of Christ as a “propitiation [hilasmos] for our sins” (1 Jn 2:2; 4:10), the meaning is clear. Christ’s death on the cross turns aside God’s wrath that otherwise would be directed toward us in the judgment because of our sins. Christ accomplishes this for us through his offering up of himself as the sacrifice on whom God has poured out his anger. Christ shed his blood then, in part, to appease the Holy God's anger toward our sins.4 The same idea is in view in Romans 3:25. Paul says that “God presented his Son as a propitiation [hilasterion],” to demonstrate his justice–he will indeed forgive sin only because he punishes it in Christ–and so that he can justify those who have faith in his Son. Since God cannot simply overlook sin but must punish it, Christ must stand in the sinner’s stead. The guilt of the sinner’s sin has been dealt with in that Christ’s shed blood turns aside the wrath of God toward the sinner, thereby removing that guilt from him or her. In this sense, the concept of propitiation is foundational to understanding not only the substitutionary aspect of the atonement, but also forensic justification as well. The reason that sinners can be justified at all is that the guilt for their own sins has been imputed to Christ, so that Christ in turn can turn aside God’s wrath toward sinners by being punished for the sinner in the sinner’s place (Phil 3:9). Perhaps James Denny put it best when he said, “the simplest word of faith is the deepest word of theology: Christ died for our sins.”

These OT sacrifices were typological and shadows of the ultimate sacrifice the OT sacrifices were pointing to, Christ Himself! If God doesn't punish sin, or has fury and wrath against then why are we in this predicament, needing a Savior? If God is nothing but Love as these deniers say. Then why do people go to hell? Bigger question why does Christ have to be Crucified at all? If God let's sin go unpunished, then he's not a Holy a Just God. This then would change his attributes. God will not allow sin to go unpunished. It's ridiculous to say otherwise. Those who deny Christ being a type or shadow have a misunderstanding that Christ is revealed in all Scripture, from Genesis to Revelations. And it all points to Christ as the unfolding redemption plan through time and history from the OT to the fulfillment in the NT.​

For [Christ] himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.
—Ephesians 2:14-16

God, in order to remove any obstacle to his love towards us, appointed the method of reconciliation in Christ. There is great force in this word propitiation; for in a manner which cannot be expressed, God, at the very time when he loved us, was hostile to us until reconciled in Christ... The nature of this mystery is to be learned from the first chapter to the Ephesians, where Paul, teaching that we were chosen in Christ, at the same time adds, that we obtained grace in him. How did God begin to embrace with his favour those whom he had loved before the foundation of the world, unless in displaying his love when he was reconciled by the blood of Christ?
- John Calvin (1509-1564), The Institutes of the Christian Religion, v. I [1559]

The second requirement of our reconciliation with God was this: that man, who by his disobedience had become lost, should by way of remedy counter it with obedience, satisfy God’s judgment, and pay the penalties for sin. Accordingly, our Lord came forth as true man and took the person and the name of Adam in order to take Adam’s place in obeying the Father, to present our flesh as the price of satisfaction to God’s righteous judgment, and, in the same flesh, to pay the penalty that we had deserved. (Institutes, II.xvi.3)

But that these things may take root firmly and deeply in our hearts, let us keep sacrifice and cleansing constantly in mind. For we could not believe with assurance that Christ is our redemption, ransom, and propitiation unless he had been a sacrificial victim. Blood is accordingly mentioned wherever Scripture discusses the mode of redemption. Yet Christ’s shed blood served, not only as a satisfaction, but also as a laver [cf. Eph. 5:26; Titus 3:5; Rev. 1:5] to wash away our corruption. (Inst., II.xvi.6)​

Know what you believe and why you believe!

 

[fltom]

When those who were translating the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek looked for a word to describe God’s forgiveness, in reference to his anger, they choose the term hilsokomai in a number of instances. The idea in view by using that specific term is certainly a turning aside of anger through the offering of a sacrifice (cf. Ex 32:14, Ps 78:38, and Lam 3:42).3 But the term’s full meaning is seen most clearly in the New Testament when it is applied to the cross of Christ. When John speaks of the death of Christ as a “propitiation [hilasmos] for our sins” (1 Jn 2:2; 4:10), the meaning is clear. Christ’s death on the cross turns aside God’s wrath that otherwise would be directed toward us in the judgment because of our sins.​

In Jesus’ parable we hear the tax collector in the Temple praying, “God, be merciful to me (hilasthēti moi), a sinner” (Luke 18:13). The tax collector petitions God with the second person passive imperative, implying that God, not the tax collector, is the intended initiator (subject) of the action of the verb hilaskomai; and the tax collector identifies himself, not God, as the intended recipient (object) of the action—“to me” (moi). The object of the action here is thus this human being, not God. The petition assumes, not that God must be rendered merciful by a propitiating human action, but that God is ready to show mercy to the contrite sinner. Because the atoning action is directed from God (initiator) to the tax collector (recipient), we might as well render this petition in the active voice, “God, make atonement for me, the sinner.”
The usage of hilaskomai in Luke 18:13 is analogous to that in LXX Ps 78:9, “Help us, O God our Savior … forgive (hilasthēti) our sins (hamartiais hymōn) because of your name.” Like the tax collector’s prayer in the parable, this psalm petitions God to act with forgiveness of sins. As in Luke 18:13, the second person passive imperative implies that the addressee—God—is the intended initiator of the action of the verb hilaskomai and the petitioner—“us”—is the expected recipient. Thus, the subject of the atoning action is God, and the object is sins and sinners—thus, atoning action concerns expiation, not propitiation.
In Hebrews, we read that Jesus came “to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins (hilaskesthai tas harmatias) of the people” (Heb 2:17), where the verb appears in the infinitive form. Here the direct object of the verb hilaskomai is “the sins” (tas harmatias), which appears in the accusative case. The atoning action that Jesus performs thus concerns “the sins,” not wrath, and the stated recipient of the atoning action is “the people,” not God. Again, we find that the atoning action is initiated by God-in-Christ and directed toward the sins of humanity—and thus concerns expiation, not propitiation.
The usage of hilaskomai in Heb 2:17 is analogous to that in LXX Ps 64:4, “… lawless deeds (anomiōn) overpower us, but you make atonement for (hilasē) our impieties (asebeias).” Hilasē is the second person future middle of hilaskomai, the subject of which is implicitly God, to whom the psalm is clearly addressed. The object of the verb is asebeias (“impieties”), which appears in the accusative case and is parallel with anomiōn (“lawless deeds”). Thus, God is the subject of the atoning action and sins are the object of that action—hence, atonement-making here concerns God’s action to expiate sin, not human action to propitiate God.
In John’s first epistle, we read that Jesus “is the atoning sacrifice (hilasmos) for our sins” (1 John 2:2; cf. 4:10). As to John’s understanding of how Jesus’ death atones for our sins, he writes that Jesus’ blood “cleanses us from all sins,” that “If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1:7, 9). Elsewhere, John writes that Jesus “was revealed to take away sins” (3:5). The effect of Jesus’ death concerning humanity’s sins is to “cleanse” (katharizō) or “remove” (airō) sin—thus, Jesus’ death as an “atoning sacrifice” (hilasmos) functions as an expiation of sin, not a propitiation of God.

Darrin W. Snyder Belousek, Atonement, Justice, and Peace: The Message of the Cross and the Mission of the Church (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012), 247–248.