Christ’s death is sufficiently able to atone for the sins of the whole world (or, the whole Church, if you prefer). How is it that one man’s death can do that? The classic answer is, "because He was and is God," but there is a deeper answer. I submit that even if Christ only wanted to save one man who only sinned one "tiny" sin, it would still require that He give His life in the same way. It is not as if only 1/1000000000^th of His suffering and death was for my personal sin. All of His suffering and death was for my personal sin. All of His suffering and death was required as "payment" for what I personally owed. So how is that there is enough left over to pay for the rest of the believers, especially when all of His suffering and death is required as payment for what each individual man owes? As an illustration, if each of us owed $5, and a kind billionaire (worth $900b) offers to pay for all of us, we can easily understand how that works. And this is the common way of understanding the Atonement—but it is not accurate. In our case, each one of us individually owes $900 billion, and the man who has $900 billion pays for us all. Each of us individually owes the entirety of what our Savior paid. Each one of us owes our life, and Christ gave His life.

The theory of the Atonement as a value-based transaction rests on the presupposition that sin and atonement are both quantifiable: To say that sin and atonement are quantifiable is to believe that different sins result in different sin-debts. Such a belief presupposes that some sinners need more of Christ’s blood than others, and further, that no one individual needed all of His blood. "One drop of blood" paid all my debt (as the gospel song goes). But sin and atonement are not quantifiable. We can see how some sins appear to be worse than others. Murder is obviously worse than speaking idle words. However, to break the Law in one point is to be guilty of it all. Even the "tiniest" sin is an infinite debt. So if idle words are an infinite debt, than what of murder? As humans, we think that because one sin is worse than the other, then somehow the less serious offense is "not all that bad". That’s not how God views sin. Sin is sin to an infinitely holy God. We are unable to understand how bad our sin really is. Sins are like icebergs, and we can only see the tip. Yet the vast enormity of the thing lies beneath the surface, beyond our perception. Just as we cannot look at the surface of the ocean and see the bottom, we also cannot comprehend the depth of the holiness of God; so our ability to measure sin is severely limited. Can a man measure God? Neither can he measure the depth of a single transgression against such an immeasurable God. Every sin is far worse than we can imagine. Every sin requires our death. Blood is just a metaphor for the sacrificing of a life, so "more blood" is not how Atonement works.

Consider an illustration: Two murderers are on death row. One killed a single man. The other killed a thousand men. Obviously, the latter is far worse, yet the penalty for both is the same: death. The latter, it could be said, deserves to die a thousand times over, but he has only one life to give for his crime. When a man sins even the "tiniest" sin, he is like the man who killed one person: he deserves the ultimate punishment. So while the different sins have different degrees of "badness", the sin-debt incurred and atonement needed are identical: infinite and ultimate. Any transgression against an infinitely holy God is an infinitely "bad" transgression, and each and every sin, by itself, puts us in need of Christ’s complete sacrifice. If there are degrees to sin, then the tiniest sin starts with an infinite debt, and the degrees go up from there. Those who die in their sins will be judged according to their sins, and the differing aggravations to men's sin may earn differing degrees of suffering in hell; however, this "quantifying" of the degrees of aggravation is above and beyond the infinite debt that all sins incur.

Since all sins incur an infinite debt, then the required atonement is always the same. If one sin is an infinite debt, then what about two sins? Infinity multiplied by two is still infinity, so it is still an infinite debt. Whether one sin or many, whether one sinner or many, it is still an infinite debt. One tiny sin of one man is an infinite debt, and all the sins of all the believers together are an infinite debt. Christ paid an infinite price. The infinite holiness of His deity was manifested in a human life lived in infinite righteousness, so His Sacrifice is of infinite value! (A simpler way to look at it is to say that since all sins incur the death penalty, then the required atonement is always the same. Whether one sin or many, whether one sinner or all sinners, the penalty is the same: death.)

The factor that enables Christ’s Atonement to save multitudes is the ability of His Spirit, through the Holy Spirit, to indwell all those who believe, immersing them into spiritual union with Him. Those who are immersed into Christ are immersed into His atoning death. His righteous death becomes our righteous death, and His living Spirit becomes our life.

The Atonement is like multiplication by zero. My infinite debt multiplied by His righteous death equals zero. And no matter how many infinities that you multiply by zero, it still results in zero. Even if every person in the world who ever was or ever will be multiplied their infinite debts by His righteous death, they would all be washed clean by His precious blood. That Fountain can never run dry! Not only is it sufficient for the whole world, but there would be just as much available after atoning for the whole world, as there was at the beginning. The "amount" of atonement available never depletes. Yet each man needs His entire sacrifice to atone for his individual sins. God is amazing!

The question is occasionally asked, "How can Christ’s death pay the penalty for our sin, if our penalty is eternity in hell, and Christ did not go to hell to suffer for eternity? How can His physical death alone be enough to pay for our infinite debt?" I do not believe that Christ’s suffering could have been infinite, since His suffering ended. To be infinite, would He not need to suffer without end? We are looking at this the wrong way when we think that His suffering must equal an eternity in hell. We do all deserve an eternity of suffering because we all have an infinite sin-debt. On the "scale of atonement", one side is weighed down with an infinite sin-debt, but the other side is weighed down with an infinite righteousness of a life given in sacrifice. What gives an infinite quality to the effectiveness of Christ’s death is not infinite suffering, but infinite righteousness. Our infinite sin-debts are not "counteracted" by infinite suffering, but by the infinite righteousness of a life terminated by a finite, human death. According to the Law, our penalty in this life is physical death, and Christ has paid that penalty.

How, then, did He suffer what we deserved? He died in our place. He did suffer a horrible, painful death; and, as One who never sinned, death was completely against His Spiritual nature. As someone else has said, He may have suffered beyond our understanding when the Father "forsook" Him. Yet, even that had limits, as it came to an end—and ended in victory. I do not believe for a moment that He could suffer in hell, for only sinners can be burned by the flames of God’s holiness. He went to hell as Conqueror, and not as a victim. Christ did not need to suffer what sinners deserve to suffer in the next life. Christ suffered the death that we deserve in this life, so that He could save us from death in the next "life". He took what we deserve in this life, and then He gave us His righteousness to prepare us for the next life.

Looking at the OT sacrifices, it was not the suffering of the sacrifice that was valued by God, but the innocence and spotlessness that gave it its value. Otherwise, the priests would have been instructed to torture them, rather than killing them quickly. This is not to say that Christ’s suffering was without value, for "by His stripes we are healed;" but such suffering needed not to be infinite, for it is His infinite righteousness (and His physical death) which wipes out our sin.

The common view of the Atonement is transactional. It is viewed as a transaction that occurred at the time of Christ’s death. This is not correct, and obscures the real meaning. Lev. 1:4 shows how atonement depends upon the faith of the sinner as the connection between the sacrifice and the sin.

4 Then he shall put his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him.

If the sinner did not put his hand on the head of the burnt offering, then no atonement would be made, even if the animal was sacrificed, and even if the priest and sinner both intended for that sacrifice to provide atonement for the sinner. Placing his hand on the head of the burnt offering was an act of faith on the part of the sinner, and directly correlates to the response of faith on the part of the sinner who believes in Christ and is saved. The repentant sinner is figuratively reaching out and touching the Cross, and is healed, just as the woman who touched the hem of His garment. Without this connection of faith between the sinner and the sacrifice, there is no resultant connection of atonement between the sin and the sacrifice, even though the sacrifice has already been made. Christ died as a sacrifice for the sin of the world, with the purpose of atoning for those who would believe. But His sacrifice was not a completed transaction of atonement for those who did not yet have faith. We are all the children of wrath until the point of repentance and belief. Atonement is not a transaction—it is a substitution.

Sacrifice only requires the death of the one sacrificed. Atonement requires faith on the part of the atoned. Before the Cross, during the Old Testament times, the order of atonement was reversed: those to whom God gave faith had faith before Christ’s sacrifice. Atonement was symbolically represented by the death of animals, but true, complete atonement that only Christ could provide had not yet happened. The Word tells us that they were justified by faith, just as we are justified by faith. We are justified through union in Christ. They were justified without that immediate union, based on God’s faithfulness to His Word that He would send a Savior, His Son, who would save His people from their sins. Faith, though the gift of God, is what is done on our parts. The sacrifice of Christ was what would be done on God’s part. The OT saints did their part, and God knew that He would do His. Now, God has already done His part, and all that remains is for us to do our part. (Of course, only the elect will be given faith). So, whether before the Cross or after, it is man who must have faith and believe in order to be justified.

Why is it that the OT saints were not born again, like we are? Why did they not have the regenerating spiritual union that we have? It is because their sins still separated them, to a degree, from God. Even though the Messiah was promised, and nothing could prevent His coming atonement, it still needed to be accomplished before God could have real union with men. Nothing short of the blood of Christ could wash away sin—not even God’s ability to see that future event. Only the actual death of Christ itself could atone. I believe that this is why these OT saints, after death, went to a place of "paradise", "in the bosom of Abraham", instead of heaven: they were waiting there until Christ would come and unite with them and take them to heaven. Before the Cross, men were saved solely by forensic imputation, based on their God-given faith and God’s promised Messiah. Forensic imputation alone, however, is not enough for Spiritual union with God. Christ would have to die as a man, so that He could bring that righteous, human death to each one of His believers through the Spirit.

Col. 1:19-22

19For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
21And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, (ESV)

v.20 - How does He reconcile and how does He make peace by the blood of His cross? Rom. 5:1 tells us that faith justifies and gives us peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It is through faith that Christ reconciles and makes peace by the blood of the cross.
v.21 - "And you were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds" ("while we were enemies"), "He has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless..." Paul is speaking to believers—believers who once were enemies, though Christ had already died, and only after hearing the gospel and believing did Christ reconcile them in His body of flesh by His death, making peace by the blood of His cross. This is a crucial point, clearly made by Paul in this passage. CHRIST’S DEATH, THE BLOOD OF THE CROSS, RECONCILES EACH BELIEVER AT THE POINT OF FAITH!