Today, we have a Bible translation question from a listener named Brian. "Hello, Pastor John. I am grateful to God for your ministry and for this podcast, and I'm grateful for your commitment to accurate Bible translations. Speaking of translations, I have noticed that 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 kephar means "to cover," and Christ's death and resurrection actually erases or forgives our sins rather than merely covering our sins? Pastor John, what am I missing here?" Well, this is fascinating. I at first thought, "Oh my goodness, I don't know what to say about this," and the more I got into it, the more interesting it became.

So, it's a little bit of heavy sledding, but hang on, I think you'll find it interesting. The English word atonement originally meant "at onement"—spell the same, "at hyphen onement"—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—I got this from the Oxford English Dictionary—"Having more regard to their old variance than their new atonement," 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 fact, this is very significant.

In Leon Morris's book titled The Atonement, which I recommend, 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 word atonement occurs in the ESV Old Testament 102 times, or 103, I guess, depending on how you count it.

In every one of those cases, it is translating some form of the Hebrew word kephar. 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.

And we can see this, this peculiar theological orientation for the word kephar. We can see this by noticing that in the Greek Old Testament, the word kephar in Hebrew is virtually always translated not by any ordinary Greek word for cover like kalupto, but almost always, like over 100 times, translated with exhilaskamai, which doesn't mean cover at all.

It means appease or to reconcile. So it's pretty clear that kephar 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.

Which brings us now to Brian's question. Since the word atonement is used over 100 times in the English Old Testament—and by the way, it's not just the ESV. This is true right across the board in English translations, that the ESV, King James Version, why is it never used in the English New Testament?

Virtually never. ESV, never. And the others, maybe one or two times. It's still the same question. 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 why the Greek translation of kephar, namely exhilaskamai, never occurs in the New Testament.

That's even more provocative. It's as though the New Testament writers steered clear of all the kephar 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 kephar in the Greek New Testament, and there's no English word for kephar in the English New Testament.

Amazing. Why is that? That's Brian's question. Why is that? And I think Brian's suggestion is on the right track. He asks, "Is it because the Hebrew word kephar means 'to cover,' and Christ's death and resurrection actually erases or forgives our sins rather than merely covering our sins?" Now, I wouldn't want to say that kephar in the Old Testament only meant cover and not put away.

I don't think that's the case, but I think you're on the right track. Maybe more generally, we should say this. The achievement of Christ in his death so utterly outstripped anything referred to by the kephar word group in the Old Testament that the New Testament writers didn't want to use words with that kind of association or limitation.

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 kephar in the Old Testament. I think, and this is more important, 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." I'll give you an example so you can see what I mean by this amazing variety of specificity they wanted to celebrate.

They used the word "lutrao" to draw out the ransom, Mark 10, 41. They used the word "apolytrosis" to get at the meaning of redemption, Ephesians 1, 7. They used the word "hilasterion" to draw out propitiation, Romans 3, 25. They used the word "katalaso" 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 "pharaoh" and "thusios" to show Christ's offering of himself as a sacrifice, Hebrews 7, 27. They used "aphireo" and "peri-ireo" to refer to taking away sins, Hebrews 10, 4. They used "dikaiao" to get at justification, Romans 5, 9.

They used "sozo" to get at simply saving us from our sins, Matthew 1, 21. And sometimes they simply stated the fact Jesus died and then made the connection with the removal of God's wrath, like 1 Thessalonians 5, 9. God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus, who died for us, so that whether we wake or sleep, we might live with him.

So the point there 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. So yes, Brian, I think you're right that the kaphar idea, the atonement idea of the Old Testament, is inadequate to describe what Christ accomplished when he shed his blood.

And I only want to add to your explanation that the New Testament writers were eager to tell us more about how God saved us through the death of Jesus than any one word could ever have told us. And I would encourage every Christian to study and meditate on the wonder and the variety of the words that the New Testament uses to describe the greatest of all events in history, the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

You won't regret it. No, you sure won't. That is glorious. And a very interesting investigation indeed. Thank you, Pastor John, for chasing all of this down for us. And thank you for listening. If you want new episodes of this podcast delivered to you, subscribe to Ask Pastor John in Favorite Podcast app in Spotify, or by subscribing to DG's YouTube channel.

And to find other episodes in our archive or to submit a question to us of your own, do that online at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. While on this podcast, we frequently return to fundamental realities, essential truths, the things that are most precious to us, things like the glory of God and the cross of Jesus Christ.

We return to them because if you get the fundamentals right, everything else eventually falls into place. But if you get the fundamentals wrong, nothing will fall exactly into place and something will always be off. So next time, we return to the fundamentals and ask, "Why in the first place do I need to be saved?

What is my problem? And how do God, and specifically Christ, fit into the equation of how I am delivered?" It's really important. I hope you join us. I'm Tony Renke. We'll see you back here on Wednesday. 1 1 you you you