1.
If the atonement was made on Calvary, by whom was it made?
The making of the atonement is the work of a Priest? but who officiated on Calvary? - Roman soldiers and wicked Jews. 2.
The slaying of the victim was not making the atonement: the sinner slew the victim, Leviticus 4:1-4, 13-15, etc., after that the Priest took the blood and made the atonement.
Leviticus 4:5-12, 16-21. 3.
Christ was the appointed High Priest to make the atonement, and He certainly could not have acted in that capacity till after His resurrection, and we have no record of His doing any thing on earth after His resurrection, which could be called the atonement. 4.
The atonement was made in the Sanctuary, but Calvary was not such a place. 5.
He could not, according to Hebrews 8:4, make the atonement while on earth. "If He were on earth, He should not be a Priest." The Levitical was the earthly priesthood, the Divine, the heavenly. 6.
Therefore, He did not begin the work of making the atonement, whatever the nature of that work may be, till after His ascension, when by His own blood He entered His heavenly Sanctuary for us.
Let us now examine a few texts that appear to speak of the atonement as passed.
Romans 5:11; "By whom we have now received the atonement," ( margin , reconciliation).
This passage clearly shows a present possession of the atonement at that time the apostle wrote; but it by no means proves that the entire atonement was then in the past.
When the Saviour was about to be taken up from His apostles, He "commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father," which came on the day of Pentecost when they were all "baptized with the Holy Ghost." Christ had entered His Father's house, the Sanctuary, as High Priest, and began His intercession for His people by "praying the Father" for "another Comforter", John 14:15, "and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost," Acts 2:33, He shed it down upon His waiting apostles.
Then, in compliance with their commission, Peter, at the third hour of the day began to preach,