We are redeemed to eternal life by a first century Jewish rabbi named Jesus of Nazareth. Precisely how Jesus redeems us is not clear, and it has been the subject of much deliberation. The early church mostly believed that Jesus somehow defeated evil, a means of atonement called Christus Victor.

For over a thousand years after Christ, the Ransom Theory was the dominant atonement theory as it explained or attempted to explain Christus Victor. Jesus paid a ransom to the devil, or Jesus descended unto death to retrieve the keys of death, or some other such notion, which always seemed to entail the devil having some kind of leverage over God.

Without a better explanation for Christus Victor, attention would eventually turn to other means of atonement.

Vicarious Atonement

Whether it be Satisfaction Atonement, Penal Substitutionary Atonement, or some other theory, most Christians today believe in some type of vicarious atonement. Christ restores honor, or Christ restores justice, but in any case, God requires the suffering of Christ for our redemption.

There are differences between the various theories, but vicarious atonement always means that Jesus is punished for our sins. The Bible does not communicate this means of atonement to the degree that most Christian assume. If the Messiah is said to pay for our sins, that does not tell us how the price was paid. Based on the text in the Bible, it could have been a ransom paid to the devil.

There is also clear text in the Bible stating that everyone will be punished for their own sins (Exodus 32:31-33, Ezekiel 18:20). The word of God should not contradict itself. If the word of God seems to contradict itself, then perhaps we are reading it wrong. We should at least consider the possibility that there may be some other means for our redemption which does not contradict the Bible.

If God redeems people by vicarious atonement, there should be significant Biblical support. Among all the stories of the Old Testament there should be stories where someone is punished for the sins of someone else, but such stories are difficult to find in the Bible.

There are no parables of Christ where one person pays for the sins of someone else. With all their respect for the Bible, a foundational belief for most Christians has very little Biblical support, and it contradicts clear Biblical text.

Separation in the Bible

A better explanation for atonement is called Separation Theory. Jesus simply gives up His body like He said He would. The battle between good and evil is a struggle within us between the spirit and the flesh. The flesh is not evil as claimed by the Gnostics. The flesh is weak as stated by Christ (Matthew 26:41). Evil spirits influence our mind and body, causing us to sin. Christ justifies the discarding of our flesh on the Day of Judgment and our spirit which does not commit any sins is given a new glorified body. This redeems all good people even those who never heard of Jesus.

Here are some examples in the Bible of redemption, deliverance or creation being a result of separation:

• On the first day of creation, after saying the light was good, God divided the light from the darkness (Genesis 1:4).
• On the second day of creation God divided waters from waters (Genesis 1:7).
• On the third day God gathered the water together separating it from the land (Genesis 1:9).
• On the fourth day God divided the day from the night (Genesis 1:18).
• In the Passover the Hebrews were separated from the Egyptians (Exodus).
• God divided water from water when He delivered the Hebrews across the Red Sea (Exodus 14:16).
• When the Hebrews were delivered into the Promised Land, the waters of the Jordan River were divided (Joshua 3:16).
• Circumcision is when part of a person is removed (Genesis 17:10-14).
• When gold is refined, the gold is separated (Zechariah 13:9).
• When Elijah went up by a whirlwind to heaven, Elisha tore his clothes in half (2 Kings 2:12).
• When Christ was crucified, the veil was torn in two (Matthew 27:51).
• Lambs and goats are separated (Matthew 25:33).
• Wheat and tares are separated (Matthew 13:30).
• If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out (remove the part of you that sins) (Matthew 5:29).

Animal Sacrifice

A common ritual in ancient Israel was animal sacrifice. It points to the crucifixion of the Messiah, but it does not point to vicarious atonement. The only time sin was on the animal being sacrificed was during the sacrifice of the scapegoat. There were two goats in that particular ceremony. The sin was not on the goat that was killed, but on the goat that was released (Leviticus 16:21-22).

In animal sacrifice, one clue to show how we are redeemed is what happens to the animal after it is killed. Often the animal’s flesh is burned. Sometimes it is eaten, but either way, the animal’s flesh is destroyed.

Just as Christ said that He would give up His body for us (Luke 22:19). There is the death of the animal, and then there is the destruction of the animal’s flesh. There was the crucifixion, and later there will come the removal of the body of Christ. The Eucharist points to Jesus giving up His body for us.

Sprinkling

Sprinkling is another major ritual in the Old Testament. Blood, water or oil is often sprinkled to clean or purify. Individuals are purified by sprinkling.

In Judaism, anyone who touches a dead body is considered unclean and they cannot enter the tabernacle unless they are sprinkled with the ashes of the red heifer (Numbers 19:13). This means we must separate ourselves from dead flesh or we cannot enter the tabernacle (Heaven). If we fail to separate ourselves from dead flesh, if we touch a dead body, we must be sprinkled to enter the tabernacle (Heaven).

Isaiah said the nations will be sprinkled (Isaiah 52:15). In the gospel of Matthew, we see that this sprinkling will occur at the time of the end (Matthew 25:32-34). Matthew uses the word separate instead of sprinkle. To sprinkle is to separate. According to Matthew, the nations are separated into two categories, sheep and goats. The sheep go into Heaven, but the goats do not. Sprinkling represents the time when the nations are separated into those who make it to Heaven, and those who do not make it to Heaven.

It seems unlikely that there would be such a holy and frequent ritual like sprinkling, if all it symbolizes is separating those who make it to Heaven from those who do not make it to Heaven. Unless everyone goes to Heaven, the necessity of such a separation seems obvious. Sprinkling must have greater significance.

The person who touched a dead body is cleansed by sprinkling on the third day (Numbers 19:12). This points to the resurrection of Christ which occurred on the third day, so that sprinkling (to occur in the end) is provided by the death and resurrection of Christ.

In the Old Testament individuals are purified by sprinkling, so we should be purified by the act of sprinkling. If good people are separated from bad people, the act of separation is not what makes the good people good. If flesh is separated from the spirit, the very act of separating or sprinkling makes the child of God clean, and it was provided by Christ on the third day.

In the end, God sprinkles the nations, and this is how God destroys evil, and this is how God makes pure all His children. There is a lot of animal sacrifice in the Scriptures pointing to Christ, and there is a lot of sprinkling in the Scriptures pointing to how Christ redeems us.

The Biblical support for Separation Theory is abundant, but Christians have come to accept other views which have been developed over many centuries by many intelligent theologians. Some issues are believed to be settled and closed. Separation Atonement requires a reexamination of many aspects of Christian theology. There are several questions that Christians have answered, but with Separation Theory, some of those answers must be questioned.

Questioning Answer Number 1 – Gnosticism

Gnosticism is history’s greatest distraction. It has prevented Christians from seeing the great abundance of separation in the Bible. Even if they see the abundant evidence, they will disregard it because of hostility towards Gnosticism.

Hostility by Christians towards Gnosticism is understandable.

In the early centuries of Christianity, the Gnostics deceptively presented themselves as a version of Christianity, but their beliefs were often arrogant or blasphemous. The Gnostics believed that the spirit is good while the flesh is evil, but this feature of Gnosticism is not blasphemous even if it is wrong. Jesus said the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak (Matthew 26:41). The flesh is not evil, but it is weak and manipulated by evil spirits.

Satan is not able to influence our spirit. The spirit within us is perfect.

Questioning Answer Number 2 – Fear of the Unknown

People are usually repulsed by the idea that we will be disembodied spirits, but we cannot possibly know what Heaven will be like. Being a disembodied spirit may be a far greater existence than we can imagine. Since we seem to be given a new glorified body, we may not be disembodied spirits (1 Corinthians 15:42-44).

We will be changed by discarding our flesh, and we may fear that we will be so different from what we are now that it may not be us who are in Heaven.

In Heaven we will be who we are, but we will be perfect and without sin. We must have faith that God will take care of us, God will preserve us as we truly are, and we must realize that only those who are completely perfect can enter the perfect kingdom of God. Only Separation Theory explains our transformation into perfect angels, and there are many clues in the Bible to indicate perfection is necessary to enter the kingdom of God (Matthew 7:18; Matthew 5:48).

Questioning Answer Number 3 – The Big Picture

It is taken for granted that the world is a test. There is a Day of Judgment, so God must have created the world to see who could meet a predetermined standard. Christians commonly believe that God created the world so that He could have people who made a free choice to be with Him.

If we view the world as a test, we should try to explain why the world is such an extremely unleveled playing field, but Separation Theory does not have that problem. With Separation Theory, an unleveled playing field was not a requirement, but it is an unavoidable result considering the real purpose of creation.

With Separation Theory, the world is not a test. God intentionally created a world of good and evil so that He could go with us on our journey of life. When we are selfish or angry God will watch us from a distance.

When we are righteous, contrite, or sorrowful, God is within our mind and soul. In our most difficult times, God feels precisely what we feel. God has felt all the sorrow, loneliness, and anxiety of all His children. This is how creation provides God with a full understanding of what love is. This is why God created the world.

God created angels, demons and humans outside of Himself allowing them to cause suffering. God does not cause suffering, but God does respond to suffering. Humans are the victims of suffering, but they are also products of evil, and humans are the cause of most suffering.

This understanding of the purpose of creation results in more damage to vicarious atonement. In Isaiah 53 we are told that He (the Messiah) carried our sorrows, but this could be referring, not to the cross, but to all the sorrow Jesus has felt over the last two thousand years as He has been with us, and He has experienced all our sorrow. This same passage says, “With His stripes we are healed”. This is referring to the cross, but it does not say how we are healed.

Regardless of the purpose of creation, God could have had real people passing through a simulation.

Instead of a simulation, God created a world where evil is real, death is real, and there is a Day of Judgment. In all these things God acknowledges our existence. This is a commitment to us. We exist because God says we exist. This is significant since God is really all that exists. By acknowledging our existence and by suffering to redeem us, God acknowledges that we are His children.

God acknowledges and respects our existence. God will not change us, rebuild us, or manipulate us like toys. For this reason, God must justify the discarding of our flesh. By becoming human, and discarding His flesh, it is completely fair and reasonable that our flesh is discarded.

Questioning Answer Number 4 – Judgment

The purpose of creation required suffering, but God does not cause suffering and God responds to suffering. God responds to suffering with two different applications of justice.

The time is coming when God will destroy all evil, and that is the Day of Judgment. There will be no sin or imperfection entering the kingdom of God. Since we are part evil, we must be destroyed on the Day of Judgment. Fortunately, Christ redeems us by justifying the discarding of our flesh. This leaves us worthy to enter the kingdom of God.

God also responds to suffering with punishment for those who cause suffering, and reward for those who do righteousness. Temporal judgment or judgment in time is a measured judgment that takes place before the Day of Judgment.

Understanding these two different objectives of judgment reconciles conflicting Biblical passages.

Belief in resurrection started to emerge in Judaism only a few centuries before Christ. The Law and judgment in the Jewish Scriptures were believed to be in this life.

With Christianity the focus shifted entirely to eternal judgment. Christians tend to believe that our actions in this life must have eternal consequences on the Day of Judgment, otherwise we have no incentive to lead a righteous life. Temporal justice can be severe even if it is not eternal. The reward for righteousness before the Day of Judgment can be immense.

In the New Testament we read that if we hate someone, we are already guilty of murder (1 John 3:15).

Judaism rejects the idea that we are punished even if we overcome such thoughts, but in Judaism judgment is focused on the here and now. Judaism is correct; we are not punished in temporal judgment for any hatred we are able to overcome. Christianity focuses entirely on the world to come. Christianity is also correct; we are not worthy to enter the perfect kingdom of God if we hate other people, even if we do not act upon that hatred.

Questioning Answer Number 5 – Predestination

As you would expect, this view of atonement means that angels are righteous because God gave them righteousness. Demons are evil because God did not give them righteousness. Humans are small angels, and perhaps some humans are small demons. Unlike the larger angels and demons in Heaven, human spirits are attached to fleshly bodies.

We have “free will”, and temporal judgment was not predetermined. Even demons can refrain from committing violence, so they face judgment for their actions. If demons were allowed to kill people, humans would have all been killed a long time ago.

Spirit or human, the good are good because God made them that way, and the evil are evil because God did not give them any righteousness. On the Day of Judgment, we will be judged for our thoughts and actions, and yet the results were predetermined since God gave us our nature. Thanks to Christ, it will be demonstrated on the Day of Judgment that all the children of God are perfect.

Satan tried to show that power overcomes loves, but God demonstrates that love overcomes power.

It is said that God would not create Satan as a loveless spirit and then punish Satan eternally for being evil. God had reasons to create the conditions where evil would form, but God will not eternally punish anyone. In the book of Revelation, the devil is said to be tormented forever and ever (Revelation 20:10). The same book says that time comes to an end (Revelation 10:6). If time comes to an end, then forever and ever comes to an end.

The timeline we are on had a beginning, and it has an ending. Christ goes to prepare a place for us (John 14:2-3), so God will take us somewhere else, perhaps another timeline or another universe. Perhaps God has created an entirely different big bang. There is a new heaven and a new Earth (Isaiah 65:17, Revelation 21:1). It is not clear what God will do with Satan at the end of the current timeline. God will deal with Satan and all evil spirits with perfect righteousness. Jesus said that God is kind to the unthankful and the evil (Luke 6:35).

Questioning Answer Number 6 – The Suffering of Christ

There must be a reason for Christ to have suffered on the cross. This mystery is the reason for all the different atonement theories. If Jesus redeems us by separating our spirit from our flesh, that still does not explain why Jesus had to suffer.

The truth had to be kept secret, and to keep it secret God also had to keep secret the explanation for the Trinity.

We know from the Bible that God is outside of time (Isaiah 46:10), but we also know from the Bible that God moves in time since God responds to people (Genesis 6:6). God is both outside of time and moving in time.

God the Father transcends time, while God the Son moves in time. This explains the Trinity, but for two thousand years God has kept this explanation mostly secret, often by causing the thought to vanish from the mind of any Christian who considers it. God could not allow us to have this conversation. If we explore the idea that the Trinity is explained by God outside-of-time and God inside-of-time, our discussion would have turned to God the Holy Spirit.

There must be a second consciousness of God moving in time. The Holy Spirit would be a consciousness of God at a different level of reality than the Son of God. The Holy Spirit may be at a level of reality that transcends the Son, or the Son may be at a level that transcends the Holy Spirit. God could not allow this conversation to take place.

God not only created time in a way that allowed Him to send part of Himself into time, but God also created time in a way that allowed Him to look away from an area of time and space. When Jesus was on the cross and He cried out, “My God, why have you abandoned me?”, this was because God had literally looked away from the crucifixion (Matthew 27:46). When God looked away, the devil and all the evil spirits openly cursed God. This hatred caused the suffering of the Son of God as He could easily endure the physical pain, but He is repulsed by evil. We cannot comprehend the supernatural hatred that Jesus was forced to confront.

God the Father transcends everything and is the foundation for all that exists. The Holy Spirit is in Heaven. God is in Heaven because the Holy Spirit is God. Satan is in Heaven, but Jesus is at the “Right Hand of God” which transcends Heaven. The inhabitants of Heaven do not necessarily know about the “Right Hand of God”. To this day Satan does not know that Jesus is Lord and a witness against the devil and all the evil spirits. Jesus had looked like a human responding to the pain of the crucifixion. The idea that Jesus transcends Heaven had to be kept secret.

With Separation Theory, Jesus redeems us by giving up His body like He said He would. Jesus also redeems us by destroying evil. Separation Theory explains Christus Victor which was the view of atonement that dominated the early church.

Jesus is a witness against the devil.