Where's the atonement in the New Testament?

The ESV’s Old Testament has 103 mentions of ‘atone’ or ‘atonement.’ But the ESV’s New Testament doesn’t contain any mention of ‘atone’ or ‘atonement.’

Is that because the Hebrew word ‘kaphar’ means ‘to cover’ and Christ’s death and resurrection actually erases or forgives our sins rather than merely covering our sins?”

The English word atonement originally meant at-one-ment (spelled the same) and referred to any reconciliation of estranged parties. It wasn’t originally just a theological or biblical word. For example, when Thomas More said in 1535 (Oxford English Dictionary),

“having more regard to their old variance than their new at-one-ment,” or atonement — that is unity, reconciliation, oneness.

But as time passed, the English word atonement became almost entirely a theological word, referring very generally to the way the broken relationship between God and man could be made right. So, the Oxford English Dictionary says,

“As applied to the redemptive work of Christ, atonement is variously used by theologians in the sense of reconciliation, propitiation, expiation.”

In Leon Morris’s book titled The Atonement, he has a chapter on redemption, reconciliation, propitiation, justification, because all these are different ways of describing how God in Christ overcame the broken relationship between God and man.

The words atonement or atone occur in the ESV Old Testament 103 times. In every one of those cases, it is translating some form of the Hebrew word 'kaphar.' Now, that word originally meant “cover,” but just like the English word atonement, it seems to have become almost a technical word, not for covering anything in general, but for covering sin in particular — that is, removing it and restoring the broken relationship between God and man.

This peculiar theological orientation for the word 'kaphar' by noticing that in the Greek Old Testament, the word 'kaphar' in Hebrew is virtually always translated, not by any ordinary Greek word for cover, like 'kalupto', but almost always — over a hundred times — translated with 'exhilaskomai', which doesn’t mean “cover” at all.

It means “appease” or “to reconcile.” So, it’s pretty clear that 'kaphar' was not a word used in biblical times for just any old covering, but for the covering of sin — precisely in the sense of doing away with it or removing it, so that the relationship between God and man could be made right.




‘Atonement’ Is Limited
Since the word atonement is used over one hundred times in the English Old Testament, why is it never used in the English New Testament? It’s not just the ESV — this is true right across the board in English translations, including the King James Version. The ESV never uses atonement in the New Testament, and the others, maybe one or two times.)

It’s not just an interesting question about the English word for atonement and why it doesn’t occur in the New Testament; it’s also a question of why the Greek translation of 'kaphar' — namely, 'exhilaskomai' — never occurs in the New Testament.

That’s even more provocative. It’s as though the New Testament writers steered clear of all the 'kaphar' associations, both Hebrew and Greek. And so, the English translators are perfectly justified in not using the English word atonement at all in the New Testament.

So there’s no Greek word for 'kaphar' in the Greek New Testament, and there’s no English word for 'kaphar' in the English New Testament. Why is that? Is it because the Hebrew word 'kaphar' means ‘to cover’ and Christ’s death and resurrection actually erases or forgives our sins rather than merely covering our sins?

Maybe more generally, we should say this: the achievement of Christ in his death so utterly outstripped anything referred to by the 'kaphar' word group in the Old Testament that the New Testament writers didn’t want to use words with that kind of association or limitation.




The Worth of Christ’s Work
But here’s another way to say it, maybe: it’s not just that the New Testament writers wanted to avoid the inadequate connotations of 'kaphar' in the Old Testament.

They wanted to celebrate with greater specificity and fullness what actually happened in the death of Jesus in dealing with sin, rather than just over and over again using a word like “he covered it,” “he covered it,” “he covered it.” Let me just give you some examples so you can see what I mean by this amazing variety of specificity they wanted to celebrate.

• They used the word lytraoō to draw out the ransom (Mark 10:45).
• They used the word 'apolutrōsis' to get at the meaning of redemption (Ephesians 1:7).
• They used the word 'hilastērion' to draw out propitiation (Romans 3:25).
• They used the word 'katallassō' to draw out the meaning of reconciliation (Romans 5:10).
• They used the word 'katharismos' to draw out the meaning of purification for sins (Hebrews 1:3).
• They used pherō and 'thusias' to show Christ’s offering of himself as a sacrifice (Hebrews 7:27).
• They used aphaireō and periaireō to refer to 'taking away sins' (Hebrews 10:4, 11).
• They used dikaioō to get at justification (Romans 5:9).
• They used sōzō to get at simply saving us from our sins (Matthew 1:21).

Sometimes they simply stated the fact Jesus died and then made the connection with the removal of God’s wrath, like in 1 Thessalonians 5:9–10:

“God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.” 

So the point here is not to give it any particular name at all — just to say he died, and that’s why there’s no wrath against us anymore.

The atonement idea of the Old Testament, is inadequate to describe what Christ accomplished when he shed his blood.

Author: John Piper