The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus's Crucifixion

by N.T. Wright

The hilastērion would therefore be the place of cleansing. When mortal humans come into the Presence of the living God, they bring with them pollution, particularly the ultimate pollution of death and anything to do with it. Sin matters because it is the telltale symptom of idolatry. (How can you come into God’s Temple if you have been surreptitiously worshipping other gods?) Idolatry, turning away from the source of life, results in sin, which already breathes the musty air of death. And death is the ultimate denial of the goodness of God’s creation—the very thing that the Temple, holding together heaven and earth, was supposed to affirm. How, then, can the Temple be cleansed so that humans, with the polluting smell of death upon them, can nevertheless come into God’s Presence? The answer supplied by the levitical rituals is that the sacrificial blood is the sign of God-given life, a life more powerful than death, a life therefore that purifies both sanctuary and worshipper. Cleansing thus enables meeting. The hilastērion points to both. That is why Paul can sum up the effect of Romans 1–4 by saying at the start of chapter 5 that we have “peace with God” and “access” by faith to his Presence. This is Temple language. Paul believes that it results directly from what he has said in chapter 3.

Wow. That is amazing. Jesus makes it possible not jisst to be saved some day but to cleans us wiith his life blood to restore relaationshp with the diviinee