The doctrine of the atonement is foundational to Christian theology, and is a doctrine that

stands at the center of the gospel.

And yet it's also a doctrine that's often misunderstood, debated, and even disparaged.

What does it really mean to say that Jesus atoned for our sins on the cross? What are the different ways that Christians have understood the atonement throughout the centuries?

And how could a just God allow an innocent man to pay for the sins of the guilty?

Today I'm sitting down with Jeremy Treat to talk about why this doctrine is so important for all Christians, how it's often misunderstood

by believers and unbelievers alike, and the impact that it should make on our day-to-day

lives as followers of Christ. Jeremy Treat is a pastor for preaching and vision at Reality

L.A., a church in Los Angeles, California. He's also an adjunct professor of theology at Biola

University, and it's the author of The Atonement and Introduction, which is part of Crossway's short

studies in systematic theology series. Let's get started.

Well, Jeremy, thank you so much for joining me today on the Crossby podcast.

So good to be here.

Thanks for having me.

So for the Christian, the atonement, the message of what Jesus accomplished on the cross for our salvation,

that stands at the heart of our faith, of what we believe.

And we're going to dig into that a little bit today in our conversation, what the Atonement is, why it matters for us as Christians. But for

many unbelievers, the doctrine of the Atonement is probably viewed as bizarre at best and perhaps

even immoral at worst. And yet you argue in this new book that you've written for Crossway that our secular culture actually evidences a certain longing for atonement in maybe ways that us Christians would find surprising or counterintuitive.

So I wonder if you could unpack. What do you mean by that? What is that longing that you see among non-Christians?

Yeah, I think everyone acknowledges that something is wrong with the world. Everyone feels guilt for things that

they've done. People feel shame for things that have been done to them. And then we long to be

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