A Most Memorable Change

"It deserves notice that the views of the apostles, after the atonement had become an accomplished fact, underwent the most memorable change. Long had they repelled the thought of Christ's death, which they clearly enough perceived must be the death-blow of all their Jewish dreams and theories. But when it actually arrived, and they looked back on the completed fact, approved and accepted at His resurrection, they were ushered into a new world of thought and feeling. Theirs was a transition from a Jewish to a Christian experience; that is, to one where the atonement was a completed transaction with saving efficacy. They passed over from prophecy to fulfillment, from promise to fact, from anticipation to reality, from the Old Testament Church into that of the New Testament, from the knowledge of Christ after the flesh to a new mode of knowledge (2 Cor. v. 16)."

(Smeaton, George. The Apostles' Doctrine of the Atonement. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1991. Print. 2)