Atonement

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

 ATONEMENT

Gen 32:13-21

13 He spent the night there, and from what he had with him he selected a gift for his brother Esau: 14 two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, 15 thirty female camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. 16 He put them in the care of his servants, each herd by itself, and said to his servants, "Go ahead of me, and keep some space between the herds." 17 He instructed the one in the lead: "When my brother Esau meets you and asks, 'To whom do you belong, and where are you going, and who owns all these animals in front of you?' 18 then you are to say, 'They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau, and he is coming behind us.'" 19 He also instructed the second, the third and all the others who followed the herds: "You are to say the same thing to Esau when you meet him. 20 And be sure to say, 'Your servant Jacob is coming behind us.'" For he thought, "I will pacify him with these gifts I am sending on ahead; later, when I see him, perhaps he will receive me." 21 So Jacob's gifts went on ahead of him, but he himself spent the night in the camp.

NIV

Jacob is doing all he knows to make peace with his brother. Sending so many from each of his herds and flocks as gifts to show Esau that he wants his forgiveness or is trying to offset or deter Esau’s wrath because he knows Esau is coming with four hundred men.  Jacob thought that by sending these gifts he would pacify Esau. The Hebrew word translated as pacify is also used to make atonement, as sacrifices were used in seeking forgiveness for sin. This gives us one more example of being that peacemaker. Jacob is giving many gifts, of course, it is from his great wealth. Perhaps it was a tenth of his herds and flocks, we do not know the extent of his total wealth, yet he is giving these almost as a sacrifice for the atonement of his sin against his brother. Certainly, we are not required to give God any gifts for the atonement of our sins, but instead, he gave us a gift, His Son Jesus, for the atonement for our sins. However, what can we give or do to seek the forgiveness of our transgression against someone in the assembly of the righteous, the church? Giving them gifts is not something we would do in our situation, however, if we have offended someone it is completely in our hands, our responsibility to seek them out asking them to forgive us. We cannot simply ignore them and hope for the best. At the same time if someone has offended us, and again we come to this concept or thinking we have been offended could be due to our thinking more highly of ourselves than we should, we have the responsibility of forgiving them. We will see that Esau does forgive his brother Jacob, and that again gives us this idea of brothers and sisters in Christ. Living in harmony because of a mutual bond of love. As believers who love our Lord, we know we are to love each other as he loves us or love each other as we love ourselves. By loving each other we would therefore never do or cause any harm to one another, i.e. transgress against one another, which in turn would mean we always automatically forgive if someone makes a mistake. Atonement or not, love covers a multitude of sins. Yet, atonement is necessary as God demonstrated through Jesus. God loved the world, which means us, even in our sins, and our disobedience, and he made the atonement for us in Christ Jesus. This gives us the example that we should always love each other even in our imperfections, even if we make mistakes and offend each other in some way. Because we love each other we can never have unforgiveness in our hearts, but always forgive. Because we love each other we never delight in evil but we will rejoice with the truth and we will always protect, always trust, always hope, because love always perseveres.