This is the work Christ did in his life and death to earn our salvation. The nature of atonement was Christ’s obedience for us in which He obeyed the requirements of the law in our place. First, Christ was perfectly obedient to the will of God the Father as our representative. Secondly, Christ demonstrated obedience through his suffering for us, in which He took the penalty due for our sins by dying and paying for our sins on the cross (Phil 3:9).
To accomplish the tasks of representative obedience. He obeyed for us where Adam had failed. He is our substitute sacrifice (Lk. 4:1-13). To fulfill God’s original purpose for man to rule over creation (Dan 7). To be our example and pattern in life (1 John 2:6;2Cor 3:18). His mission is to bear the full penalty for all the sin of all those would believe him. Only truly the god-man can be the mediator between God and man (John 14:9).
Two Natures: Jesus who came as a man (Jn. 1:30) was thoroughly known in His human origin (Jn. 7:27), confessed Himself man (Jn. 8:40), and died as a man dies (Jn. 19:5). Nevertheless, He was not only the Messiah, the fulfiller of all the divine promises of redemption, but also the very Son of God.
But He was not by nature merely a man, nor was He in His own nature subject to the fortunes of human life (2:6). By nature He was God, and He would have naturally lived ‘on an equality with God’ but He became man by a voluntary act, ‘taking no account of Himself,’ and, having become man, He voluntarily lived out His human life under the conditions, which the fulfillment of His unselfish purpose imposed on Him.