The word written without separating the three separate parts of which it is composed—or as "atonement instead of "at-one-ment"— has come to mean definitely expiation. This has to come to pass because of the ideas of the Plan of Salvation worked into it so as to fix its original meaning as "expiation."
In Hebrew the word is from a primitive root "to cover." Its meaning is to "cover" either by "expiation" or by "appeasement" but also and chiefly "to forgive," "pardon," "disannul," "be merciful," "reconcile." Its usage as either "expiation or "to be merciful," depends upon one's ideas of God as Vengeance or Love. In Greek the word is Katallage, occurring in Romans 5:11 as "atonement," meaning from the lexicon "adjustment," "restoration to Divine favor."
The word is from Katallazo, meaning "to change mutually," "compound a difference," "reconcile." This shows that the correct word in English is "at-one-ment" and not "atonement."
People have come to think of the animal sacrifices mentioned in the Old Testament as means of expiating sins, just as the heathen thought of them, but actually they symbolize the offering up to the Lord by means of the innocent animals of sincere love and by the meal offerings of true thoughts. This symbolization represented true worship. The Lord permitted them only to save the Israelites from idolatry. His true attitude toward animal sacrifice is shown by such statements as this in Isaiah: "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord, I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? . . . Your hands are full of blood. Wash you; make you clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well." And He tells them that if they will put away the evil of their doings from before the Lord, "though their sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." This result comes, not from expiation, or an atonement, but by at-one-ment arrived at by a changed life where evil is forever put away. To use the word "atone-
