The people don’t have to provide their own sacrifice for the atonement. There are offerings the people make, but the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the people is provided for by the Prince.

Atonement is the payment to make amends for a wrong done. The wages of sin is death. That’s what was owed for our wrong done against a holy God.

We couldn’t make that payment except with our lives. God saves our lives by making the payment for us.

He didn’t just pay the fine. He didn’t just take some other people and have them die on our behalf.

He took our sin on Himself and became the sin offering. He is the atoning sacrifice. The sacrifice not only paid our sin debt, but it gave us peace with God. With our debt paid, we are now in right standing with God. We can stand before Him.

We are at peace with God. We are described as His enemies before we become partakers of the atoning sacrifice.

Jesus died for His enemies. He gave the example.

We’re to love our enemies. We’re to lay down our lives.

His body was broken and His blood poured out. We become the bread broken and the wine poured out for others.

We stop living for ourselves. We live for others. We need to get our lives turned over to the Lord, and then trust Him with them. Then we can stop thinking about ourselves and become the sacrifice for others.

We give ourselves, our time, our money, our energy. We share the gospel. We pray for people. We live not to build up ourselves, but to build up the Temple, the whole Body of Christ.