On 27 October 1340, a monk in the city of Canterbury called Michael finished translating a devotional book about Christian living. He called his translation The Ayenbite of Inwit, and wanted it to be read by "lewd men."
Words change over time. Michael's intended readers were people without a religious education - soon after his book was finished, "lewd" lost its meaning of "uneducated" (or "lay"), and in recent times, "men" has been losing its original meaning of "people". And "ayenbite" and "inwit" have dropped out of the language altogether, pushed out by the "educated" words which correspond to them: "remorse" and "conscience."
In Michael's time, just as one person could be "alone" - unaccompanied, so two people could be "atone" - in agreement. In modern English, we have separated the two words, and we would say they were "at one" with each other. The word "atone" would have disappeared, just as "inwit" has disappeared. But nearly two hundred years later, William Tyndale translated the Bible into English, and created a new word, atonement, to describe the process by which God's people could become "at one" with their Maker.
People who are at one are in harmony: they agree with each other and get pleasure from being with their partner. It is important to remember that the root meaning in English implies good feelings - the sort of feelings that led the Psalmist to sing of our delight for God and God's ways, and of God's delight in us.
When we think of atonement, we think first and foremost about the way we and God become "at one". This is something where God has taken the first step, breaking down the barriers separating us, breaking them down through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is possible to spend a long time discussing just how a painful death, a judicial execution, can make us at one with God. This was one of the things scholars debated in the Middle Ages, and argued about keenly in western Europe after the Reformation.
But it is far more useful to look at the effects of Jesus' death and resurrection - to see that through Christ's work, we are reconciled, made one with him, and united in the Godhead, sharing in God's glory - in Jesus' words, "I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." (John 17:21-23)
For atonement is a relationship, not a process. The verb "to atone" came into the English language later, and does not appear in the King James Bible. When we talk of atoning for sin, we move beyond the idea of making things good again to the idea of paying a penalty, undergoing a punishment. The Latin version of the word which Tyndale was translating was expiatio, and expiation again carries the idea of paying a price, although the original meaning was simply making something holy (interestingly, John Wycliffe, who had translated the Latin Bible into English around the time of Michael's Ayenbite, used the word "cleansing"). The original Hebrew word was kippur, which means covering up - another thread of meaning, which contains the idea that it is God who covers over our own failings, calls us, makes us acceptable and draws us closer.
However Christ effected our atonement with God, our response can only be wonder and thanksgiving (at God's "amazing grace") and a desire to be closer, to be more at one, sharing in Christ's risen life. And if we are at one with God, we should also be at one with each other, bearing each other's burdens, grieving and rejoicing together. For atonement is not just for each of us to be reconciled to God, it is for us all "to be one", joined in our life together as God's redeemed people.
HD