Atonement

RECOVERING BIBLICAL AT-ONE-MENT : M.
M. M. NINAN
CHAPTER TWO
ATONEMENT METAPHORS
All the theories of Atonement are an attempt to understand what Jesus did in the incarnation - which
includes his life, death, resurrection and on going ministry through His Spirit among the mankind -
towards the redemption of mankind. In this process we use several metaphors which gives us insight.
But we should be careful to understand that these metaphorical understanding are based on our own
experiential models from our life, and does not necessarily constitute the complete picture. Thus
each metaphor gives us partial insight in to the process and its meaning. But since it is only a
metaphor each metaphor is only a partial understanding and has their own problems. What we are
trying to do here is to look into these theories and see how far they represent the process in terms of
the character of God, incarnation, character and nature of Mankind and cosmos as a whole. We will
find that every model has its own merits and disadvantage. We can see justification for each model
from the scripture and also scriptures which opposes the model. Theology is like every other science
where we are trying to make models that could explain the observed reality.
Scientific modelling is a scientific activity, the aim of which is to make a particular part or feature of
the world easier to understand, define, quantify, visualize, or simulate by referencing it to existing and
usually commonly accepted knowledge. It requires selecting and identifying relevant aspects of a
situation in the real world and then using different types of models for different aims, such as
conceptual models to better understand, operational models to operationalize, mathematical models to
quantify, and graphical models to visualize the subject. Modelling is an essential and inseparable part
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