Author Archives: JoshWay

24 Responses to Charisma News On Hell (Part 2)

I am responding to a Charisma News article titled “24 Reasons To Believe Hell Is a Reality.” Continued from Part 1

13. The early preachers of the church clearly preached that Jesus is the only way to salvation. “There is no salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12; see also 1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 2:3-4; 1 Pet. 1:3-5).

More bad soteriology. See also Part 1, #11. If “salvation” is a legal soul status that keeps one out of hell, then this can be read as an exclusivist statement about the only way to get to heaven. But the true context of a saying like this is the first century Roman Empire, wherein Caesar was the only name by which one could be saved. When the emperor took control of your city, he became its “savior,” and the program of goods and services afforded by collusion with (or surrender to) the empire was described as “salvation.” Statements like this one in the Bible are a rejection of corrupt empire and that empty and false kind of salvation, and a countercultural declaration that true rescue and liberation were to be found in the way of Jesus. This isn’t about one’s fate in the afterlife, but about one’s allegiances in this life.

14. According to Scripture, only those who receive Jesus Christ and believe in Him are children of God. “Yet to all who received Him, He gave the power to become sons of God, to those who believed in His name” (John 1:12).

I was talking to a friend recently about faith and hope, and he made a great point. He said that, for instance, when Paul writes (quoting Joel) that “everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be rescued,” the church’s impulse has been to immediately affirm the negative inverse, that those who do not call on His name will not be saved, even though that’s not what the text says. That spirit pervades this list.

15. The gospel is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. For it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:16; see also 10:9).

Likewise, here is another overwhelmingly positive statement that is being offered as proof of its grim antithesis.

16. Rather than teaching that those without faith in Christ are already saved, the Bible teaches that they are already under judgment. Faith in Christ brings us out of condemnation and into right relationship with God. “He who believes in Him is not condemned. But he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18).

The basic assumption of this article, stated plainly in the introduction, is that rejecting or even questioning the traditional doctrine of hell means that one has “rejected the notion of judgment altogether.” In that “our way or the highway” kind of framework, a text like this one seems like a slam dunk for Charisma News. But that is not a fair representation of the text itself or those who would interpret it any other way. Speaking for myself, while I have come to question and reject elements of the traditional doctrine of hell and eternal conscious torment, I would never suggest that judgment is not a key theme in scripture. Indeed, it is the heart of Jesus’ prophetic message and the eschatology of Paul, for two major examples. But that moves us toward the real question: what is the nature and basis of judgment? Is it about loyalty to a religion, or character and integrity? What does it mean to stand “condemned”? Does it mean that God cannot accept or embrace us unless we profess certain creeds? Or does it mean, as Jesus taught, that violence and retribution will keep us on a path of self-destruction unless we repent and embrace the kingdom of peace?

17. Only those whose names are in the Lamb’s Book of Life are granted access into the eternal city of God. “Anyone whose name was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire” (Rev. 20:15; see also 21:27).

Another flat and literal appeal to a dramatic apocalyptic metaphor. And, according to the text, whose names are in that book? Was it those who belonged to the correct religion or believed in the correct doctrines? No, it was those who did what was right and good.

18. People are not automatically righteous. Only when we declare faith in Jesus Christ does God declare us righteous in His sight. “But to him who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness” (Rom. 4:5).

The context of Romans is not soul salvation or afterlife, but a conversation about who truly belongs in the Christian community. Do Gentiles need to become Jews before they can follow Jesus? Paul says “absolutely not,” and that is what “works” and “justification” are about. You are “justified” and “in the right” because of what Jesus did, not because you got circumcised or went kosher. This is an argument about culture and freedom, not heaven and hell.

19. Eternal life comes only through a relationship with God. We cannot know the Father unless we know the Son. “This is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent” (John 17:3).

Again, John says, “if you want to know what God is really like, look at Jesus.” “The life of the coming age” is John’s code word for “the kingdom,” not necessarily heaven or afterlife.

20. The cross of Christ is where payment for our sins was made. Only when we believe this are we saved. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up [on a cross], that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15).

Here the article’s author has inserted his own interpretive expansion into the text, so that it is explicitly talking about the cross and atonement. But in John’s text Jesus is talking about the “son of man” as a beacon of God’s goodness to a lost world. This most certainly includes his death on the cross, but also his life and teaching and resurrection. Charisma News wants to read this as a warning to believe in substitutionary atonement or go to hell, but in context it is about getting a transformative glimpse of God’s love and mercy. This verse precedes the famous John 3:16, which is immediately followed by 3:17: “After all, God didn’t send the son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world could be saved by him.”

21. Only those who have the Son of God have eternal life. “And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Whoever has the Son has life, and whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:11-12).

See #19 and #12 in Part 1.

In addition to these verses, the story of Cornelius in Acts 10 and 11 provides hard evidence against Universalism. Cornelius was devout, prayed often, gave generously to the poor and even received an angelic visitation. Yet God went to great lengths to get the gospel to him so he could come to know Jesus and be saved.

I do not see how an ancient story about a Greek man converting to Christianity is “hard evidence” for anything in particular. In the context of Acts, this account is actually part of a larger story about Peter’s journey to a more open-minded and inclusive faith.

22. Added to the avalanche of scriptural evidence, there are also practical reasons for rejecting Universalism. History teaches that acceding to Universalism sets the church on a slippery slide toward theological liberalism. Soon all confidence in Scripture is lost and the uniqueness of the Christian gospel evaporates.

First let me just say how relieved I am to finally have respite from the “avalanche” of prooftexts. It feels good to breathe again! However, I cannot begin to fathom what the author is talking about here. Have they confused the fact of diversity among Christian traditions for a “slippery slope”? Yes, there are people who do not read the Bible like you do, and who frame their doctrine according to an altogether different set of assumptions. To you this looks like compromise and failure, but it is actually just a reflection of reality, of the diversity of human thought and perspective. Can we be so certain that our own camp has followed Jesus with impunity while others have gone “wishy washy”? Or is it possible that we have much to learn from one another? If history teaches us something, it’s that the terms “conservative” and “liberal” are unhelpful at best, divisive and damaging at worst.

23. If we embrace Universalism, there is no urgency to evangelize or imperative to do missions. In fact, evangelism and missions would have to be redefined. We need look no further than most of the mainline denominations to see what happens to evangelism when Universalism is prevalent.

Here is a spot where we do agree: evangelism and missions DO have to be redefined! Not because of universalism or compromise or any slippery slope, but because it is the responsibility of every generation to revisit and rediscover what these Christian praxes look like. When tradition and reason and scholarship and experience come together to create a new dawn of interpretation and clarification of mission, it only stands to reason that we will rethink what it means to “spread the gospel” in our own day and in our own world. And speaking as a believer who transitioned from the Evangelical world to a “mainline” tradition, I want to tell you that you are wrong. Mission and evangelism are alive and well in our churches, they just look and feel and taste very different.

24. If Universalism is finally proved right, nothing will have been lost by our continued urgency in winning people to faith in Christ. But if it is false and we embrace it, then everything will be forever lost—including people who do not know Christ.

Such a strange and desperate kind of argument to make. So, because there is more (hypothetically) at stake in our traditional, conservative perspective, it must be legitimate? That is weird logic, and it puts an inordinate amount of pressure on Christians. If we don’t mobilize and warn people about hell, God’s rescue plan will fail and “everything will be forever lost”? Do we trust in Jesus or not? Is the good news good or not? If we truly believed in Jesus, wouldn’t our faith look more like joyful, confident living than moralizing or doomsaying? Did the early evangelists preach hell and conformity, or was it love and unity? As with “inerrancy,” we should be wary of doctrines that come with warning labels about what will be “lost” if we ever dare to question them.

24 Responses To Charisma News On Hell (Part 1)

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If you’ve seen an outrageous or mind-numbingly divisive “news” story from a scary sort of “Christian” perspective, there’s a good chance it was posted on Charisma News. This ultra-conservative website and its parent magazine Charisma have been predicting the “end times” and wagging their fingers at American sinners for forty years now. They even hosted a disgusting post by a pastor calling himself a proud “islamophobe” before taking it down in response to social media outrage.

This week an older article from Charisma News has been making the rounds on Christian social media. It is called “24 Reasons to Believe Hell is a Reality,” and it seeks to debunk what the author calls “universalism,” basically anything other than a traditional “eternal conscious torment” view of hell. And look, it’s their prerogative to defend any position they want on their own website. But certainly they will be careful and balanced, considering all factors of context and interpretation, right? Let’s take a look. Here are their “24 Reasons to Believe Hell is a Reality,” in bold, accompanied by my brief responses.

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1. Jesus made both repentance and faith prerequisites for forgiveness. “But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15).

Oof, really? It’s our first “reason,” and we’ve already got problems. Nothing in either of these verses says anything about hell or, for that matter, about any “prerequisites for forgiveness.” The “perishing” in the Luke passage refers to some Jews who were publicly executed by Pilate, most likely because they were suspected of insurgency. Jesus is saying, “if you don’t repent of your violence, you’ll meet the same end.” And in Mark 1, Jesus is announcing the good news that all Jews were waiting for, the coming of God’s reign on earth. Nothing there about brokering forgiveness or going to hell.

2. The “water of life” is offered to all, but not all receive it or even desire it. “Let him who is thirsty come. Let him who desires take the water of life freely” (Rev. 22:17).

Um, OK… Very strange that we would pick this, of all verses in Revelation, as “proof” of hell, seeing as just two chapters earlier there was a whole bit about a lake of fire and dragons and stuff. This verse just sounds like Jesus inviting people to come to him and be refreshed. Am I missing some implicit threat?

3. Scripture teaches that there will be a judgment after death. “As it is appointed for men to die once, but after this comes the judgment” (Heb. 9:27).

OK, yes! The author of Hebrews did write that. After death comes judgment. And then… hell? Well, that’s not exactly what Hebrews 9 is about. The immediate context is a discussion of Jesus’ death and atonement, and here’s the rest of the thought: “…so, the messiah, having been offered once and for all to take away the sins of many, will appear a second time. This will no longer have anything to do with sin, it will be in order to save those who are eagerly awaiting him.” Another kinda weird choice for a prooftext, unless we want to rename the article “24 Reasons To Believe That The Second Coming Will Have Nothing To Do With Sin”?

4. Those who have not had a true conversion will experience a judgment for sin that the Bible describes as “the second death.” “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the abominable, the murderers, the sexually immoral, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars shall have their portion in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone. This is the second death” (Rev. 21:8).

All of these “reasons” are gonna be out-of-context Bible verses, aren’t they? Well, alright. Hey, this one is probably your best bet, since it actually talks about sinners being thrown into a burning lake of brimstone. Though, I would point to just three minor nitpicks: 1) this is a passage from Revelation, a text that is wall-to-wall visual symbolism and simply begs to be read in its first century historical context. 2) I hate to split hairs, but the whole “second death” thing actually contradicts the conservative doctrine of “eternal conscious torment.” If we’re gonna take this literally, we should at least get the details right. The sinners in this scene die in the fire, only the “dragon” and his two “beasts” are actually tortured forever (20:10). And 3), not sure where this “true conversion experience” stuff comes from. The basis for judgment in this scenario – just as in Jesus’ similar parable about sheep and goats – is behavior and character, not religious affiliation or “conversion.”

5. Contrary to Universalist beliefs, Jesus’ teaching indicates that most of humanity is on a broad path that leads to destruction. “Strive to enter through the narrow gate. For many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able. Once the Master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open for us,’ He will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ But He will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know you, or where you come from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity” (Luke 13:24-27).

Kudos for providing more than a single verse on this one, really! I actually wrote a post about this, and while it’s hard to deny that Jesus here is teaching that “few will enter,” the real question is what it is that they will or won’t be entering. The answer, in context, is the “kingdom of God,” which for the publishers and readers of Charisma News most likely means “heaven when you die,” but which for Jesus means “the reign of God realized on the earth.” Look, there’s no doubt that Jesus is offering a bleak assessment of humanity in this teaching. But despite our history of self-serving interpretation of texts like this, being “in” or “out” of the kingdom is not about being Christian or non-Christian, or going to heaven or hell. This is an ethical teaching. Jesus taught a lifestyle of nonviolence and selfless empathy, and he knew that very few would authentically follow that path. Very few Christians actually follow it, and plenty of non-Christians have followed it. To reduce this teaching to a heaven/hell, believer/nonbeliever duality is to miss its real point.

6. Jesus spoke often of a terrible place of judgment for those outside His kingdom rule. “The Son of Man shall send out His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who do evil, 42 and will throw them into a fiery furnace. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 13:41-42).

It’s very telling that a few verses before this one Jesus said, “I will open my mouth in parables,” and in the verse that follows says, “if you have ears, then hear!” This imagery is framed as an apocalyptic parable. Yes, it is a harsh word: in the reign of God, things that are not useful will be pruned and burned away, so be sure to do what is right. Like the passage in #5 this is a cryptic, parabolic way of talking about ethics.

7. The Bible teaches both the love of God and His sure judgment of sin. Trusting in Christ’s payment for our sins saves us from this coming judgment. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. How much more then, being now justified by His blood, shall we be saved from wrath through Him” (Rom. 5:8-9).

I tackled this one recently in my series on atonement. Paul’s teaching is too complex to be reduced to soundbytes and prooftexts. The big question here is what exactly Paul thinks this “wrath” is, when it is coming, and who has been saved from it. In 1 Corinthians 3, for example, he says that the “coming fire” of judgment will only refine, not destroy. And right here in Romans 5 he says that Christ’s death has won “life for all people.” Paul definitely has an apocalyptic understanding of judgment and history, though he doesn’t talk about “hell” and places major emphasis on God’s love and Jesus’ victory. That traditional view of a “two-faced” God whose love is primarily manifested as wrath and destruction has come under fire of late, often because of what the scriptures actually say rather than in spite of it.

8. In one of the most loving verses in the Bible, Jesus issues eternal options. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

So, we’re sticking with the whole “perish = hell” thing? (Here’s a little thought experiment I did on John 3:16.)

9. Scripture teaches that there is unending, eternal judgment for those who do not know God and who do not respond in faith to the gospel. “… And to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. They shall be punished with eternal destruction, isolated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power” (2 Thess. 1:7-9).

Here’s another passage I’ve written about before on the blog, in fact I wrestled with it pretty intensely and ultimately concluded that I simply disagree with the author of 2 Thessalonians. I do not disagree that God has the hypothetical right and power to send fiery judgment against the enemies of the church, I simply question how a bloodthirsty text like this holds up next to Jesus’ insistence that we love our enemies and pray for our persecutors. But maybe all of that is just my own personal issue. The question here is whether or not this text proves hell to be a “reality,” and I’d say that’s not really the point, however you slice it. I realize the phrase “eternal destruction” has been co-opted by proponents of eternal conscious torment and hell, but really it just means “permanent destruction.” Like, they’re gonna die. This reads like a revenge fantasy, an angry response to opposition or persecution.

10. Jesus emphatically taught that a spiritual birth is essential to entering the kingdom of heaven. “Truly, truly I say to you, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

Golly, I forgot how tedious and depressing it is to list endless Bible verses under specious categorical headings without actually engaging with them on the level of language or context! Here is John’s version of the ethical teachings in the synoptic gospels. Only people who are “born from above” (who get it, who “have ears to hear,” who learn to love peace and their enemies) will be able to see the kingdom. It’s hidden from everyone else. Nothing here about hell.

11. In answer to a very clear question about what is necessary for salvation, Paul gave a very clear answer: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you and your household will be saved” (Acts 16:31).

A very clear answer that has nothing explicitly to do with afterlife destiny. This “reason” reflects conservative Christianity’s unfortunate conflation of bad soteriology and bad eschatology; being “saved” means being saved from hell. But the evangelists in the book of Acts say nothing about hell or afterlife, and citizens of the first century talking about “salvation” would not have had heaven or hell on their minds. For them, salvation is about being rescued from oppression and the temporal (here and now) effects of sin. The apostle’s answer? Trust in the way of Jesus, that’s the way to peace!

12. Jesus gave no indication that many roads lead to God. He forcefully stated that He was the only way. “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me'” (John 14:6).

Ugh. This one again. John 14:6 is the favorite verse of fearmongering, exclusivist Christians who want to draw the thickest possible line between “us” and “them.” All other religions are wrong, Jesus said so! But that is a poor reading of what John 14 (and the Bible) is all about. The question is not which religion is true or leads to heaven, the question is how to know “the Father,” how Jewish Jesus and his Jewish followers can know what the Jewish God is really like. One of the major points of John is that God is like Jesus. If you want to know the Father, look at the son. In this verse, Jesus is assuring one of his followers that walking the gospel path – of peace, repentance, and empathy – is the way to know what God is really like. Nothing about pluralism or hell.

Continued in Part 2 (in which they eventually stop prooftexting and actually try to make a few arguments)!

Atone Deaf Part Five: Hebrews and Sacrifice in the New Testament

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Latest in a series exploring atonement, the question of meaning and accomplishment in the death of Jesus.

This is the fifth post in our series on atonement, and the last surveying biblical material. We are researching the Bible’s various perspectives on the meaning of Jesus’ death, with special attention to sacrificial understandings. Ultimately, we are questioning the pervasive modern doctrine of Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA), which states that Jesus was punished in the place of condemned sinners to satisfy God’s wrath. So far we have explored the various offerings of the Torah and the “suffering servant” of Isaiah, which are typically considered “prefigurations” of PSA, but in which we did not find a consistent thread of legal substitution or divine wrath. In the Gospels, which narrate and comment on the death of Jesus, we observed a consistent appeal to the “ransom” theory of atonement, which understands Jesus’ death as a self-given sacrifice which rescued his people from the oppression of sin. Meanwhile, in the writings of Paul, we discovered a view of atonement in which the cross represents God’s decisive victory over the forces of sin and death. Paul does speak of condemnation and wrath, but their object is not human sinners or Jesus their substitute, it is the very powers and principles of law and accusation. Today we will conclude our look at the New Testament with brief looks at the book of Hebrews, the General Epistles, and Revelation.

Hebrews and a Superior Sacrifice

Hebrews was canonized under the premise that it was another letter of Paul’s, though it does not claim to be written by Paul and most scholars and interpreters believe it to be an anonymous work by another author. In fact, scholars doubt that it is even a letter, as it bears the form and tone of a sermon or tractate. Hebrews is a borderline polemical series of arguments for the superiority of Christianity over anything in the Hebrew Bible or Judaism. It doesn’t attain the anti-Jewish fervor of a work like the Letter of Barnabas (which shared space with Hebrews in some early versions of the canon), but it does go to great lengths to portray Jesus as the great Jewish trump card. He is better than angels, he is better than Moses, and in his death he is better than all of Israel’s priests and temple sacrifices. Where other texts like Matthew seek to harmonize Jesus with Jewish tradition, emphasizing the “fulfillment” of ancient texts, the writer of Hebrews seems much more defensive and sometimes even a bit harsh. We wonder if we are not reading one side of a rather heated debate. For the purposes of our discussion, it is important to note that Hebrews has been used to demonstrate and “prove” PSA theology more than any other text in the New Testament. For many Reformed and Evangelical Christians, this is the “Substitutionary Atonement Handbook.” Let’s judge for ourselves:

In Chapter 2 the author of Hebrews explains that all humans are God’s children, and thus the “brothers and sisters” of Jesus. Then he or she says this:

14 Since the children share in blood and flesh, he too shared in them, in just the same way, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death – that is, the devil – 15 and set free the people who all their lives long were under the power of slavery because of the fear of death. (Hebrews 2:14-15, KNT)

Jesus’ death, according to this writer, had the effect of liberating his fellow humans from the “power” of the “fear of death.” This is not so different from Paul’s view, but instead of the “principalities” of sin and empire, this author simply calls the enemy “the devil.” This is pure cut ransom theology, but later in Chapters 9 and 10 the author begins to talk about Jesus’ death as a blood sacrifice. In 9:12 it is said that Jesus “entered the holy place, accomplishing a redemption that lasts forever,” but how was it accomplished? Through bloodshed that appeased the wrath of God? 9:22 is one of the “smoking gun” verses for PSA, so let’s read it very carefully:

In fact, more or less everything is purified with blood according to the law – there’s no pardon without bloodshed! (Hebrews 9:22, KNT)

Aha! Hebrews says that sin cannot be forgiven without the shedding of blood! Gotcha! Except, what the author has actually said is that “ACCORDING TO THE LAW” there was no pardon without bloodshed. The point of this whole section (context!) is that blood sacrifice was a messy, neverending, human business, but that “the heavenly things require a better sacrifice” (9:23), and this is what Jesus represents. Through SELF-sacrifice, by willingly offering himself and NOT a substitute, Jesus dealt with sin “once and for all” (9:25-26). This is yet another text that emphasizes Jesus’ self-offering, not divine wrath or punishment!

And this anti-sacrificial thread becomes more explicit in Chapter 10, where the author imagines Messiah saying (quoting Psalm 40), “You never wanted sacrifices and offerings – so I’ve come to do your will!” (10:5) The author comments on this, saying:

8 When he says, earlier, “You didn’t want and you didn’t like sacrifices, offerings, burnt offerings, and sin-offerings,” all of which are offered in accordance with the law, 9 then he says, “Look! I’ve come to do your will!” He takes away the first so that he can establish the second. (Hebrews 10:8-9, KNT)

As in Paul, Jesus unmakes the burden and condemnation of law so that God’s true will for humanity can be done. And God’s “will” is not more or bloodier sacrifices, but the very end of sacrifice itself. The “once-for-all,” self-given sacrifice of Jesus is that end. It stops the pointless madness of ritual bloodshed by exposing it as such.

The Cross in the General Epistles

The New Testament’s non-Pauline epistles are brief and sharply focused on church issues like unity and the threat of “false teachers” and “antimessiahs,” so references to Jesus’ death are few, scattered, and always contextual. Really, only 1 Peter and 1 John have anything substantial to say about atonement. 1 Peter declares that Jesus’ death effectively “ransomed” his followers from the “futile practices” of their ancestors by way of a sacrifice “without spot or blemish” (1 Peter 1:18-19). The author sums up the Easter story by saying that “humans rejected [Jesus], but God chose him” (1 Peter 2:4), placing a major emphasis on the human injustice of the cross. Then, in 1 Peter 2:21-25, the author writes an extended paraphrase of Isaiah 53, celebrating messiah’s liberating example of willful suffering on behalf of his people. Finally, 1 Peter asserts that, on the cross, “the just suffered for the unjust,” to reconcile them to God (1 Peter 3:17-18). Meanwhile, the first epistle of John declares that Jesus is the “sacrifice that atones” for the sin of “the whole world” (1 John 2:2; No limited atonement here!)

Revelation

The Revelation of John is a book about which I’ve written a great deal. It’s a text that has been butchered in its interpretation thanks to bad history, bad theology, and ideology. What so many Christian readers have embraced as a blueprint for a grim and calamitous future is actually an ancient political cartoon about the fall of an oppressive empire and the vindication of its martyred victims. Revelation presents a pageant of symbolic images that narrate the decisive victory of heaven over Rome and the evil powers that animated it. At the center of the drama is the crucified and resurrected Jesus. The opening words of the book announce that Jesus has “freed us from sin by his blood” (1:5), and the messiah himself is then depicted as saying, “I was dead, and look! I am alive forever! I have the keys of death and hades” (1:18). This is yet another appeal to ransom theology, and specifically to the “christus victor” scenario in which Jesus descended into the grave and freed its captives. Later, in one of the book’s heavily symbolic tableaus, Jesus is depicted as both a lion (a king from Judah, the messiah), and a slain lamb (a sin/ransom sacrifice). The heavenly chorus then sings the lamb’s praise, saying: “You were slaughtered, and with your own blood you purchased a people for God!” (5:9) In a sense, the entirety of Revelation can be understood as a massive poetic dramatization of ransom theology. God’s “wrath” is poured out upon all sorts of creepy crawlies that represent what Paul called the “principalities and powers,” the forces of sin and death that plague and oppress the people of God. Jesus’ self-sacrificial death is (once again) declared to be the ultimate victory over these evil forces.

Conclusions: Ransom, Ransom, and Ransom

This ends our blog-friendly survey of the Bible’s various perspectives on atonement. Despite many nuances of language and detail, we discovered an overwhelming witness to a view of Jesus’ death as a ransom sacrifice; that is, a willingly offered tribute which secured the release of a captive people. This makes a great deal of sense, given that the Bible’s authors are Jewish, and the controlling narrative of Jewish “theology” is the Exodus, a story of victory, ransom, and liberation. As to the question of Penal Substitution and divine wrath, while various atonement texts invoke the idea of Jesus’ willingly facing a sort of “punishment” or “correction” in the form of human injustice, and while God’s wrath is said to burn against the powers of sin which had enslaved His people, not once did we encounter a text that explicitly claimed that Jesus’ death constituted a divine punishment that assuaged God’s wrath against individual sinners. Jesus gave himself as a representative of his own people, and his death was simultaneously a heinous injustice wrought by corrupt empire and an act of divine love and deliverance. Sin, empire, and the spirit of condemnation itself were condemned and disarmed on the cross. This was not a theological necessity nor a legal transaction to mollify a raging deity, it was a decisive act by an inspired human being that interrupted and sabotaged the machinations of human violence, unmasking and unmaking them forever. This is good news for everyone.

In the next post we’ll follow the development of atonement theology after the New Testament up to the present day, after which I will wrap up with a more personal and positive discussion of atonement and its meaning for Christians in the twenty-first century.

Jesus Helped the Wrong People and So Should We

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This post is adapted from a sermon I gave at Nauraushaun Presbyterian Church on September 6, 2015. The lectionary text which accompanies this message is Mark 7:24-37, in which Jesus travels to Tyre and Sidon, heals the daughter of a Syrophoenician woman, and heals a deaf man.

In a typical healing story in the gospels, Jesus touches the life of a fellow Jew, restoring them to fellowship, covenant, and commerce. Practically, he is putting them back into society and workforce. Symbolically, he is rescuing Israel, one person and a time, as a sign of the arrival of the Kingdom of God.

All of that might help us understand the odd tension in the accounts of Mark 7:24-37. Jesus is not in Israel, he is in Tyre and Sidon, Gentile cities far to the north. So how does that work? What happens when Jesus the Jewish prophet and healer crosses into non-Jewish territory? Perhaps to our surprise, he seems utterly disinterested in giving his blessing to the Gentiles he meets. This is not what we expect from the Savior and Lord; indeed, he even appears to reference the bigotry between Jews and Gentiles in that time and place, calling the locals “dogs.” What is going on?

There is an answer, for what it’s worth. In light of what we already observed about Jesus’ healings, it seems that he considered his life and ministry to be a project for Israel alone, first and foremost. After all, only at his ascension does he tell his Jewish followers to spread the gospel of the kingdom to the whole world. It might seem odd to us on this side of history, but this was clearly a part of Jesus’ self-understanding. We need not conclude that Jesus didn’t care for these Gentiles (in fact he does heal and bless them), but he was clearly biding his time until his mission to his own people was complete.

Whether or not this is a satisfying explanation of Jesus’ behavior in these stories, what I’m far more interested in is the reaction of the Gentiles. The first story gets truly outrageous when the Syrophoenician woman refuses to take Jesus’ “no” for an answer. She argues with him! And the in the second story, the healed man and his neighbors are so excited and rambunctious they cannot honor Jesus’ request to keep it secret. These are stories about people disobeying Jesus and stepping on his toes! The tenacity and impropriety of these Gentiles in the presence of the son of man is remarkable.

The insistence of these two that the healing and power of the kingdom not be constrained by boundaries of geography or religion is, frankly, inspiring. In their respective moments, these two don’t give a rip about Judaism or paganism or borders or timelines or being polite or sticking to their own kind. The woman only wants her daughter to live, and the man is just ecstatic to be able to hear.

This is the kind of culture-transcending power which ought to characterize the gospel, not exclusion, moralizing, or tribalism. For his part, Jesus is so moved by them that he drops his own immediate agenda and offers them a full blessing. In the face of need and want and hurt, may we be the kind of people who forsake decorum and transgress the tribal borders that might otherwise keep us from experiencing or unleashing the kingdom of God on our human brothers and sisters, wherever they or we might be found.

And that’s where I was going to wrap this up, content to have taken a difficult and odd text to a constructive and even an instructive place.

But then I saw the photos.

I was captivated and devastated by the same photos that no doubt captivated and devastated you when you saw them on the news or online last week. These were images of a tiny, drowned refugee child who washed up on the shores of Turkey. Images that have become the horrific face of a growing global refugee crisis.

I couldn’t get the images out of my head, especially as I was putting this post together. In the midst of it all, it struck me that this child was from Syria, a nation that shares at least a name with the ancient home of the Syro-phoenician woman in Mark 7. How different, I wondered, was the desperation of this woman to see her daughter healed than that of Aylan Kurdi’s mother to see him living safe and free? Someone said powerfully on social media last week that parents would not set their child afloat in the sea unless those waters offered more safety and opportunity than the land behind them. Like the Syrophoenician woman, Aylan’s mother took the risk – a much bigger risk, in fact – but without the same happy resolution. In fact, it cost her her own life and those of her children.

How do we respond to issues like refugeeism and immigration in a way that honors the humanity and tenacity and frailty of those caught up in unspeakable calamity? In these short, problematic Bible stories we catch a glimpse of that same spirit of need, resolve, and blessed impropriety and risk.

The power of the kingdom is not restricted by geography, or cultural boundaries, or even religion. BUT, it also requires that we who call ourselves kingdom people must be people who are likewise unrestricted by those man-made boundaries. Perhaps for us, in America, the biggest obstacle to an open-hearted response to the desperate needs of other humans is not religion, creed, or ideology, but comfort, security, and lazy self-interest.

Are we prepared, equipped, determined to smuggle kingdom love across these borders, to invoke God’s mercies in inappropriate places, to welcome inconvenience and even burden in order to bless and rescue the lives of our hurting neighbors, here and everywhere? Are we ready to proclaim this gospel, and in doing so share risk and even suffering with God’s less fortunate children?

May we find solidarity with those who break the rules in pursuit of justice, and may we follow Jesus who listened and loved, and opened the Divine Heart to those in need in all places.

Is Biblicism Gnostic?

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Modern Christians know that there were “false” versions of the faith from its earliest days. In reality, there were multiple Christian streams and traditions before an orthodoxy began to emerge. Some of the earliest believers designated as “heretics” were groups of Gnostic Christians. Unfortunately, most of what we know of these groups has to be reconstructed from what their orthodox critics wrote about them, so we can’t be certain that their beliefs have been properly represented. Gnostics apparently believed in a dual reality, a sharp separation between the world of matter and the world of spirit, which certain people could upwardly traverse if they possessed the proper knowledge (Greek gnosis). Special sorts of humans (not just anyone) could learn secret truths and by knowing them transcend their fleshly bodies.

Christian apologists today are well rehearsed in criticism of Gnosticism. It is not focused on sin or atonement, it diverges from the apostolic tradition, and it attempts to reconfigure the story and message of Jesus according to its own agenda. When Gnostic Gospel texts were discovered and published in the twentieth century, conservative Christianity quickly mobilized to “debunk” and dismiss them. But when I step back and look at modern conservative Christianity, particularly the fundamentalist and biblicist streams, I see a faith that frankly shares a great deal in common with that old Gnosticism.

I recently read an intensely biblicist article on Facebook. It celebrated the Bible as “revealing special knowledge” not available anywhere else, without which one cannot hope to “see heaven” when they die. God “sent us” this book, and if we want to know the saving truth, all we have to do is read and believe it. Now, as a Christian myself and a student of scripture, I fully recognize the unique value of the Bible to those who wish to follow Jesus. But the biblicist approach seems to me to be deeply Gnostic, for a few obvious reasons: 1) It assumes a dualistic universe; we live in doomed flesh and the point of religion and salvation is to transcend our fate and attain a higher plane of spiritual existence. 2) Information that was once secret has been made known in the Bible and is the key to unlocking salvation and transcendence. And 3) only certain (elect) people are even eligible to receive this special knowledge; many will never know or believe because that’s just how the universe is set up.

Again, I do not deny that the Bible is especially valuable for the way it puts the church in touch with the earliest traditions about Jesus and the ancient context from which he emerged. But celebrating a book as the key which unlocks enlightenment and heaven seems like a huge mistake – and a new sort of Christian Gnosticism. Instead of appreciating the scriptures as a witness to Jesus whom we may choose to follow on a path of thoughtful spirituality, the Bible itself becomes the magical gnosis which affords its true believers salvation and escape.

What is the antidote to gnostic faith? Isn’t all religion “gnostic” to some degree? Doesn’t every faith offer “special knowledge” that gets the believer on the inside? The answer is often yes, though it really boils down to the way we choose to understand and embrace our faith. Here are a few suggestions for keeping our Christian faith from going gnostic:

Remember that “the way” of Jesus is a lifelong journey of humility, learning, and repentance, not a magic transaction that places us on a superior plane of existence.
Remember that our tradition has traversed many borders of culture, language, race, and class. We are not an exclusive or privileged group.
Remember that many in our tribe can profess belief and understanding without ever demonstrating empathy or mercy, while many outside of our tribe have discovered the path of peace and forgiveness without our same knowledge or resources. Belief does not automatically translate into enlightenment.
Remember that the Bible is a partner and helper, a story told by our forebearers, and not a magic fount of secret knowledge.

There is no shortcut to wisdom or character, no fastpass to peace and salvation. There is only a life to be lived in either relationship and discovery, or alienation and fear. Knowledge is only a first step.

Atone Deaf Part Four: Paul and Atonement

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Latest in a series of posts examining atonement, the question of meaning and accomplishment in the death of Jesus.

For many Christian theologians and most modern believers, Paul is the primary (and effectively the only) teacher of atonement in the New Testament. I believe this to be unfortunate for two reasons: 1) Despite how we have been trained to read his writing, Paul’s first concern is not atonement theory in particular or even theology in general. The death of Jesus is central to his writing, to be sure, but the apostle’s letters are impassioned pleas addressing specific contexts of crisis, not fully developed systematic theologies. To read them as such is to misread them. And 2), while we have been busy dissecting and synthesizing Paul’s writings to produce our various atonement theories, we have all but ignored the gospels and how Jesus understood his own death according to those traditions. That surely ought to be the loudest voice in this conversation. (Our series has already attempted to remedy this inequity, of course.)

Yet the significance of Jesus’ death (and resurrection) to Paul cannot be overstated. If we want to get a complete picture of what the earliest Christians thought about atonement, this is a major piece of the puzzle. Paul has a lot to say about why Jesus died, and I don’t mind admitting that my own presuppositions were challenged in this exercise. Let it be said that wrath and substitution are undeniably present in Paul’s complex understanding of atonement, though I would maintain that they have too often been overemphasized and defined according to a context other than Paul’s. It doesn’t help that Paul’s letters are so urgent and specific to their historical circumstances. We are at a major disadvantage as we try to reconstruct both his frantic train of thought AND his context. But when we are careful and patient with Paul, the rewards are many. Here is a too-brief overview of what Paul has to say about the death of Jesus in his letters, with special attention to Romans.

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A Song About Limited Atonement That Is Almost As Horrible As the Doctrine

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OK, apologies for making you watch this, but it’s related to the current series and we could maybe use a diversion. So this song is awful, obviously, but in addition to sounding like a Green Day tribute band made up of toilet bowls, it’s also an egregious presentation of atonement theology. Not only are they celebrating a truly problematic and ugly doctrine, they misrepresent its content and then throw endless Bible verses at us hoping we won’t notice. The makers of this video try their darnedest to come across like open-minded theology nerds who are picking on both Arminians and Calvinists, but they are clearly defenders of Calvin’s work. A major clue is the way they try to relabel his “Limited Atonement” with the more palatable moniker “Definite Atonement.” That’s pure R.C. Sproul right there.

We probably won’t get this specific when we talk about Calvin’s atonement theology in an upcoming post, so if you’re not familiar with Limited Atonement here’s the rundown: This doctrine asserts that the “atonement” achieved by Jesus’ death on the cross was “limited” and effective only for those whom God preordained (or elected) before time to eventually believe in it. That is, it is for true Christians only and not for “the world” or for “all” as the Bible seems to state. Hardcore Calvinists will not tell people “Jesus died for you,” because they cannot be sure that it is true. Why would anyone believe in such a nightmare? For defenders of Reformed Theology, it is all about preserving God’s honor and “sovereignty.” It is all about God’s “design” for atonement and its perfect fulfillment, and it boils down to this: because Calvinists view sin and salvation in strictly legal terms, and because they see such immovable obstacles between humans and God, even on this side of Easter, they cannot abide the thought that an ounce of Jesus’ blood might have been spilled for anyone who doesn’t deserve it. Of course, they’ll insist, none of us deserves it, but the elect receive it because they have been chosen to receive it. Everyone else is out of luck.

Again, all of this can only possibly make any sense within the harsh and abstract dimension of theological theory. This is the magical realm where sin is a legal problem to be managed, not a fundamental problem of human relationship. Where repentance is a ritual one must perform in pursuit of forgiveness, not a lifelong journey of discovery and enlightenment. Where Jesus’ death is a puppet show to accomplish “God’s will,” not the tragic murder of the son of man. Where salvation affords passage into a happy afterlife for those fortunate enough to broker a deal, not the rescue and redemption of every molecule in all creation. And where only a special group get to call themselves “God’s children,” not everyone and everything in existence.

The video goes on to invoke the “ransom” theology we observed in the gospels, because this is what the Bible actually says instead of touting Penal Substitution or Limited Atonement. But the picture of Jesus giving his life to free his captive people is far more beautiful and meaningful than anything in TULIP or PSA, and it seems like an odd fit here. Are we all imprisoned, and yet God has only seen fit to rescue some of us? Substitutionary punishment is a horrific notion, but at least it lends itself to an individualistic theology like Calvinism. Ultimately, the biggest problem with election theology, as far as I can see, is that the person teaching you about it always assumes they have been elected. Beware of “insider” religion. If it’s not good news for everyone, it’s not good news.

And yes, this was going to be a fun post when I started writing it. Sorry. 🙂

Atone Deaf Part Three: The Gospels and Why Jesus Died

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Latest in a series of posts exploring the Christian understanding of atonement and the question of meaning and accomplishment in the death of Jesus.

In our last two posts we surveyed key sacrificial traditions of the Torah and the famous “servant song” of Isaiah 53, to see if they in any way predicted or anticipated the death of Jesus as a substitutionary punishment for sin. I concluded that, while there are elements of payment and vicarious suffering in those Hebrew Bible traditions, none of them constitutes the kind of wrath-satisfying punishment made necessary by Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) theology. Instead of an angry God looking to spill the blood of an innocent surrogate, we found a God who ultimately rejects blood sacrifice in favor of mercy and love, and who turns the earthly suffering of his “servant” into hope and new life. If you want to “prove” PSA from the “Old Testament,” you’ll find a few scattered elements, but you’ll have to ignore everything else that’s really going on.

Of course, it’s in the New Testament that the events central to a Christian understanding of atonement are portrayed, and regardless of what the Hebrew Scriptures say, this is where we’d expect to find an explicit message about the meaning of Jesus’ death. If Jesus died as a substitutionary sacrifice to appease the wrath of God, the gospels will surely tell us so. Let’s see what they have to say, taking them in (roughly) chronological rather than canonical order.

Mark

The first thing we notice, reading the gospel texts on a mission like this, is that they very seldom spell out theological meaning with explicit commentary. They are rife with such meaning, to be sure, but it must be discovered by interpreting the dialogue and the style and drama of the narrative. Most Christians would prefer to read the gospels as simple, factual reports of eyewitness experiences, but comparing one gospel to another illuminates just how much personal creativity and agenda have figured into the shape of these presentations. This is not necessarily to question their reliability, but to simply acknowledge their diversity in detail, theme, and emphasis.

Mark’s gospel is the shortest and the most “action oriented.” Jesus casts out his first demon before the end of Chapter 1. There is no “narrator’s commentary” on the death of Jesus, and so our only references to the subject come in the form of words on the prophet’s own lips. Twice in Mark Jesus predicts his own death privately to his followers (8:31-33; 9:30-32). In both instances he emphasizes his inevitable rejection by the human authorities in Jerusalem, his eventual execution, and his ultimate vindication in resurrection. Other than the political machinations implied in these predictions, Jesus does not mention any cause or ramification for this death until we get to Chapter 10, when he says this:

“Don’t you see? The son of man didn’t come to be waited on. He came to be the servant, to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45, KNT)

Mark’s Jesus gives us an explicit statement on the meaning of his impending death, and I have heard this verse cited innumerable times as if it were a definitive biblical reference to PSA theology. Two considerations: 1) The immediate context is not a question about sacrifice or the theological necessity of Jesus’ death, it is an argument among Jesus’ followers about who will hold the most power when he becomes king. Jesus rebukes them and explains that his vocation is not to seek and wield power like a typical earthly king, but to lay down his life for the sake of his people. 2) More significant to our discussion, a “ransom” is not at all the same thing as a “substitute.” A ransom is a payment for the liberation of captives, not the transfer of a punishment from a guilty party to a proxy.

The obvious referent here is the Passover sacrifice we discussed in an earlier post, an allusion that is even more pronounced in the “last supper” account in Mark 14. Jesus shares a Passover meal with his followers on the eve of his death, reappropriating the unleavened bread and the cup of blessing as signs of a “new covenant” in his blood for the arrival of God’s kingdom. Later in the place (not a garden) called Gethsemane, Jesus prays fervently to his “Father” that he might be spared the burden of betrayal and execution, but ultimately concedes to the divine will (the first and only explicit reference to God’s will in relation to Jesus’ death). At the moment of his death in the next chapter, Jesus quotes the refrain of Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” After Jesus dies, Mark says the temple veil is torn in two, suggesting that Jesus’ death has fundamentally broken the old sacrificial system. The final chapter of the gospel emphasizes the Sabbath setting of Jesus’ resurrection, indicating that his death marked the end of one era, and his rising the dawn of a new one.

Matthew

Matthew’s gospel spends a lot more time describing Jesus’ origin and demonstrating his credentials as a Jew and as the anointed one (messiah). The author presents Jesus’ life as a series of “fulfillments” of Hebrew Bible texts. More than half of the book goes by before the spectre of Jesus’ death is raised. We get two predictions from Jesus himself echoing those in Mark (Matthew 16:21; 17:22-23) and an additional one on his fateful trip toward Jerusalem with an added reference to being “handed over to the pagans” and “crucified” (20:17-19). Later in the same passage, Matthew presents the saying about “a ransom for many” (20:28), and in Chapter 26 Jesus emphasizes that his death will coincide with Passover. At the last supper, Jesus’ words are very similar to those in Mark, with an added reference to his blood being “poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (26:28), connecting his death to the Torah sacrifices as well.

Matthew’s presentation of the death of Jesus in Chapter 27 adds some curious details not found elsewhere. There is an earthquake at the moment of Jesus’ death, and “many bodies of sleeping ones” climb out of their tombs and shuffle off to Jerusalem. This bizarre episode is possibly a rare biblical reference to the “harrowing of Sheol,” an early Christian tradition in which Jesus descends into the underworld, binds the satan, and rescues the martyrs held captive there. This is the backstory to the brief line in the Apostle’s Creed that says “he descended into hell,” and it quite starkly dramatizes the “ransom” model of atonement theology. We’ll discuss this tradition a little more in an upcoming post.

Luke

Scholars suggest that the authors of Matthew and Luke had access to Mark’s gospel as one of their sources. Many of the sayings and traditions they share are found in simpler forms in Mark, and each contains their own unique material as well (there is also another hypothetical shared source called Q). Luke 9:22 records Jesus predicting his own death as he did in Mark and Matthew, but here it is followed by a warning that anyone who would follow Jesus must “deny yourself, and pick up your cross every day.” (That doesn’t sound very much like substitution!) In Chapter 13 Jesus responds to threats from King Herod by saying, “Only in Jerusalem could a prophet perish!” (13:33). Later, in Chapter 22, Luke emphasizes the Passover setting of the last supper, just as Mark and Matthew had done, but throughout Luke’s narration of the passion there is a special emphasis on both the suffering and innocence of Jesus. In Gethsemane, Jesus is in “agony” until an angel is sent to “strengthen” him (22:43), a detail found only in Luke. As he dies, Luke’s Jesus pronounces forgiveness upon his enemies and murderers (and presumably everyone; 23:34), and the soldier who proclaimed in Mark and Matthew that “this man is truly the son of God,” here proclaims that “this man truly was innocent!” (23:47)

John

John’s gospel is the “most different” of the canonical gospels. It was written as much as a generation later than the synoptics, and it presents a radically different take on the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This Jesus does not cast out demons, does not tell parables, doesn’t proclaim the “kingdom of God”, never shares a last supper with his followers, and spends most of his time performing miracles so that people will “believe” in him. On the subject of Jesus’ death, John’s gospel is telling the same story, but in a different language.

The first reference to Jesus’ death in John actually comes in the form of a prophecy from Caiaphas, the High Priest, who says “let one man die for the people, rather than the whole nation being wiped out” (11:50). This becomes the religious establishment’s justification for assassinating the prophet. Jesus doesn’t explicitly predict his death in John as he did in the earlier gospels, but he does cryptically prepare his followers for life in his absence. When the passion week arrives, John describes the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus in a profoundly symbolic pageant. John moves the day and time of Jesus’ death to coincide with the slaughter of the Passover lambs, and as he dies Jesus exclaims “It is finished!” (19:30). This is an artistic collision of two major Hebrew Bible themes: Jesus is killed as a ransom sacrifice like a Passover lamb, and his death marks the end of a work of “new creation.” This is emphasized further as Jesus resurrects on the first day of a new week and encounters Mary, who mistakes him for the “gardener” (20:15).

Analysis: Why Did Jesus Die?

The first thing to note about this brief tour of the gospels is that, despite the diversity of perspectives and agendas in the various tellings of this story, one thing is extremely clear in each of these texts: the primary cause of Jesus’ death was the treachery of corrupt religion in collusion with empire. He was killed by the machinations of human “justice,” and anything else is theological speculation after the fact. This is not to say that such speculation has no value, but some formulations of atonement put such emphasis on the theological necessity of Jesus’ death or on “God’s will” that the clear, historical circumstances of the passion – outlined explicitly in every gospel – become bothersome or irrelevant. This is the same mistake we make when we focus so obtusely on abstract legal ramifications of human sin that we forget about the toll it takes on real people here and now. Jesus died as an innocent victim of human oppression. That is not the cover story for some cosmic transaction, it is the bitter truth of what occurred. And it implicates us, not God.

On that note, returning to the question of atonement, we observed another surprising continuity across all four gospels: an understanding of Jesus’ death as a “ransom” sacrifice for the liberation of his people. Neither penal substitution nor the wrath of God seems to be a factor for any of these authors/communities, though arguments have been made. It has been suggested, for example, that the “cup” Jesus must drink is the wrath of God against human sin, but this is not what the text says at all. Jesus identifies his fate as the inevitable result of human betrayal and politics, and tells his power-hungry disciples that they will drink from the same cup if they choose to follow him. Like the “take up your cross” language in John, this sounds more like solidarity and shared suffering than substitution or punishment. It should also be noted that each of the gospels connects the death of Jesus indivisibly to the resurrection, so that it would not be sufficient to consider one apart from the other. This is another major error of many atonement theologies.

According to the gospel texts and the early communities of Christians that produced and read them, Jesus died to liberate his people from bondage to sin and death, to set them free to embrace and inhabit God’s kingdom of peace and reconciliation. These texts are not theological textbooks or doctrinal statements, they are artful responses to the Jesus event, told and retold by his followers and their descendants. These are not legal or technical explanations of why Jesus “had to die,” they are literary celebrations of an event so simultaneously shocking and beautiful that it changed everything, forever. Jesus died for us, and with us, and yet it was we who killed him. God didn’t “pour his wrath” on an innocent victim, we did. And yet the innocent one willingly suffered this fate for the sake of those who perpetrated it, and he did not curse them or retaliate, he only forgave. That is where we find God in atonement: not behind a curtain pulling the strings, but on the cross loving and forgiving His killers.

Atone Deaf Part Two: Isaiah’s Suffering Servant

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Second in a series of posts exploring theology of atonement, the question of meaning and accomplishment in the death of Jesus.

In the previous post I suggested that Israel’s sacrificial traditions constituted human tributes to God for the confession and relinquishing of sin guilt, not blood payments to a wrathful deity. We then explored the Hebrew Bible’s pervasive prophetic witness to God’s ultimate rejection of blood sacrifice in favor of love, mercy, and relationship. All of this calls into question the premise of Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA), which assumes that God requires death and blood sacrifice as punishment for sin. Before we move on to a survey of the New Testament, however, no study of atonement and the Hebrew Bible would be complete without a discussion of Isaiah 53.

Isaiah 53: The Jesus Prophecy?

Isaiah 53 (technically Isaiah 52:13-53:12) is referred to as the “servant song,” or the “suffering servant.” It is actually the fourth such song in Deutero-Isaiah, the second division of the scroll named after the prophet. The immediate context is a rapturous declaration in chapter 52 of Israel’s “redemption” and the end of exile, where the song bursts forth as a poetic exploration of both suffering and joy on the eve of release and return to the homeland. The subject of the poem is the pain and triumph of a lowly and mysterious “servant” who is “stricken by God” and bears Israel’s “iniquities” so that “by his wounds [they] are healed.” This language appears to plainly describe the substitutionary punishment of an innocent victim by God for the salvation of others, exactly the sort of vicarious harm suffered by Jesus on the cross according to PSA. The result has been that, despite its explicit context of Judaism and exile, Isaiah 53 has been read by Christians as a clear and obvious prediction of Christ’s death on the cross.

Before returning to the question of Christ and atonement, however, our first task is to appreciate the text in its original setting. This will not be easy. As Christians we have only ever read Isaiah 53 as if it was an “Old Testament” cameo by Jesus. I might come across as contrary or obtuse in this exercise, but that only demonstrates how locked-in we are to our particular perspective. Please stick with me for this valuable thought experiment. It is time to listen to the servant song with fresh ears.

A Fresh Reading of the Fourth Servant Song

Awake, awake, O Zion! Clothe yourself in splendor; Put on your robes of majesty, Jerusalem, holy city! For the uncircumcised and the unclean shall never enter you again.
Arise, shake off the dust, sit on your throne, Jerusalem! Loose the bonds from your neck, O captive one, fair Zion! For thus said the LORD: You were sold for no price, and shall be redeemed without money.
(Isaiah 52:1-3, JPS)

This is the true context of the servant song, lest we forget. Israel/Zion/Jerusalem (interchangeable poetic references to the exiled people of Judah) has been held captive, but will soon be set free and return to her home, which will be purified at long last after being the plunder of other nations. The text goes on to describe the people’s journey back to the land before the stunned eyes of the nations, at which point our song begins:

For you will not depart in haste, nor will you leave in flight; For the LORD is marching before you, the God of Israel is your rear guard.
“Indeed, My servant shall prosper, be exalted, and raised to great heights.”
(Isaiah 52:12-13, JPS)

The song begins with the first reference to the “servant,” which at this point appears to be a direct reference to the exiled people of Judah. They were low, and now they are being lifted up and rescued. But in chapter 53 things start to get a little more dark:

“For [the servant] has grown, by [God’s] favor, like a tree’s crown, like a tree trunk out of arid ground. He had no form or beauty that we should look at him; No charm that we should find him pleasing. he was despised, shunned by men. A man of suffering, familiar with disease. As one who hid his face from us, he was despised, we held him of no account.”
(Isaiah 53:2-3, JPS)

The servant (or Israel) is a figure (or people) of great sorrow and misfortune, hated and spurned by the world (by men, not by God). A rumination on the torments of captivity and exile.

“Yet it was our sickness that he was bearing, our suffering that he endured. We accounted him plagued, stricken by God; But he was wounded because of our sins, crushed because of our iniquities. He bore the punishment [or correction] that made us whole, and by his bruises we were healed.”
(Isaiah 53:4-5, JPS)

Here are the first notes of vicarious suffering. The servant, who somehow represents Israel and yet somehow transcends it, endures great pain and “sickness.” But this sickness is not, as the people might have thought, the result of a punitive attack by a wrathful God, it is the result of Israel’s own failure and sin (note the logic: “we ACCOUNTED him stricken by God, BUT he was wounded because of OUR sins”). Some looked at misfortune and said, “why is God angry with us?” The prophet responds, “we brought this upon ourselves!” The servant, like Israel (as Israel?), is hated and tormented by men, but somehow this will all lead to healing. The word translated “punishment” here also means “teaching” or “correction,” indicating that this calamity is ultimately constructive, not destructive.

“We all went astray like sheep, each going his own way; And the LORD visited upon him the guilt of all of us. He was maltreated, yet he was submissive, he did not open his mouth; Like a sheep being led to slaughter, like a ewe, dumb before those who shear her, he did not open his mouth. By oppressive judgment he was taken away, Who could describe his abode? For he was cut off from the land of the living through the sin of my people, who deserved the punishment [or correction]. And his grave was set among the wicked, and with the rich, in his death – though he had done no injustice, and spoken no falsehood.”
(Isaiah 53:6-9, JPS)

Israel was led into exile like a lamb to slaughter, a poetic image evoked elsewhere in Hebrew Scripture (eg. Psalm 44). Just as the servant is somehow both Israel and its savior, this “oppressive judgment” was somehow both an injustice and a fitting correction. And the servant faced this dark ordeal without retaliating or cursing Israel’s enemies.

“But the LORD chose to crush him by disease, that, if he made himself an offering for guilt, he might see offspring and have long life, and that through him the LORD’s purpose might prosper. Out of his anguish he shall see it; He shall enjoy it to the full through his devotion. ‘My righteous servant makes the many righteous, it is their punishment that he bears; Assuredly, I will give him the many as his portion, He shall receive the multitude as his spoil. For he exposed himself to death And was numbered among the sinners, Whereas he bore the guilt of the many and made intercession for sinners.’”
(Isaiah 53:10-12, JPS)

By enduring the suffering and terror of exile, the servant/Israel has himself/itself been “offered up” as a sin offering, a relinquishing of guilt and a plea for forgiveness. The result, to the people’s amazement, is renewal and prosperity (“offspring and long life”), and a restored and grateful nation for his spoil. By dying on the altar of exile, Israel was not destroyed but through suffering and by God’s goodness was made whole.

Debates and Considerations

That is our intentionally pre-Christian reading of Isaiah 53. Before we return to the question of Jesus and atonement, a couple of concerns should be briefly addressed. First is the question of whether or not the servant of Second Isaiah can be considered a “messianic” figure. Isaiah is more keen on a king (messiah) as the answer to Israel’s woes than most other prophets, but the servant is a decidedly lowly and common character. Christians will often point to an Aramaic Talmud (rabbinic commentary) of Isaiah from the second century that explicitly identifies the servant as “messiah.” However, that same text fundamentally changes the meaning of the whole passage, turning it into a revenge fantasy with the worst of the “suffering” deflected onto Israel’s enemies. That represents a sharp departure from the original poem and undermines the intentions of those who appeal to the Targum as a Christian prooftext. At the same time, of course, the nonviolent and non-triumphal character of the servant may lend itself even more to Christian appropriation than an explicitly messianic one.

Another consideration, given the theological rigor that has been applied to this text, is the format and intent of the prophet’s words. This text is not a forensic or technical or doctrinal statement about the legal/sacrificial transaction that ended the Jewish exile. It’s a sacred song about the surprise of redemption and an attempt to understand an unspeakable ordeal that somehow gave way to hope and new life. Like Ezekiel lying on his side for a year, Isaiah is using art, spirituality, and imagination to dramatize divine “correction” in a framework his hearers will recognize and understand. Forgetting that this is a work of art is the first step to interpreting it poorly.

The Servant and Jesus

Arriving at last to the matter of Jesus and the suffering servant, I would summarize my feelings like this: Isaiah 53 is not about Jesus, but Jesus is all about Isaiah 53. To explain this more fully, I present my analysis in the form of two short lists.

Five Reasons Isaiah 53 is Not About the Jesus of Penal Substitution

1. The setting is too specific. The occasion of this song is not vague and open to interpretation. This is a song from the sixth century BCE about the exile and return of Judah, not a prediction of a future event or an atonement formula waiting to be played out.

2. The servant’s identity is too vague. In the framework of PSA, the distinction between the sacrificial victim and his beneficiaries is stark and absolute. He is the only sacrifice acceptable to God, and they are unworthy sinners. But from the start Isaiah blurs the lines between the servant and his people. They are the same, and yet he represents them in a uniquely efficacious way.

3. The servant’s reward is too contextually specific and too “worldly.” “Offspring,” “long life,” and an earthly homeland are the types of things exiled humans long for, not cosmic saviors. PSA is concerned with legal fallout in the afterlife, but Isaiah’s song is about getting home safe and raising a family.

4. The servant’s suffering is vicarious, but not substitutionary. He suffers with Israel and on her behalf, not in her place. Everything described here as “punishment” or “correction” WAS ACTUALLY EXPERIENCED BY ISRAEL IN EXILE! It is not a fate they dodged because the servant took the brunt, it is their very real suffering that he took upon himself in solidarity. It is his unique ability to transcend that common suffering that rescues his people.

5. God’s wrath is not a factor. Israel’s dilemma is not that God is angry and needs to be appeased. Their “iniquity,” not least their violence and corruption (according to prophets like Isaiah), left them vulnerable to the “oppressive judgment” of enemy nations. Israel needed to be redeemed from a predicament of their own making, not to mollify God but to repent of the sin that (they came to understand) had put them in captivity in the first place.

Once we move away from the world of PSA and Christian prooftexting, however, it is not difficult to see how the themes of Isaiah’s servant song might resonate in major ways with the Jesus of the gospels.

Five Ways the Jesus of the New Testament Reflects and Manifests Isaiah 53

1. Jesus announced the end of exile and the coming of God’s kingdom. This is the true context of both “the gospel” and the servant song. Jesus and Isaiah are singing the same tune.

2. Jesus lived and died as a true Israelite and a true human, not as an alien god in a human suit. He identified fully with his human family to the last (and still does!).

3. Jesus’ legacy points to peace and renewed life on earth, not detached spirituality and afterlife.

4. Jesus suffered in solidarity with humanity, not in its place as a substitute. His cause of death was the “oppressive judgment” of human empire, not theological necessity. He died for us and with us, that we might transcend our station with him.

5. Jesus absorbed the wrath of sinful humanity, not of an angry God. Like Isaiah, Jesus understood sin not as a legal offense to an outraged deity, but as the temporal consequences of our failure to love. Jesus does not “save” us from God, but from ourselves.

This has been a long post. If there’s just one takeaway, let it be this: Whatever you make of Isaiah 53 and its relationship to Jesus, it is not a testimony or proof to the wrath-addled God of Penal Substitutionary Atonement. Like the Easter texts of the New Testament, the song of the suffering servant is a composed response to a tragedy in which shared suffering and non-retaliation became a liberating and transcendent jubilee. These are not stories about God murdering a scapegoat because He knows no other way to forgive sin. These are about a servant’s choice to suffer for and with his own people for their deliverance. It is tragic and beautiful, not sick and superstitious.

Two Big Mistakes of Early Christianity From Which We Haven’t Fully Recovered

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One of the strange assumptions religious believers make is that the human forerunners who formed and curated our traditions operated under some kind of spiritual protection that kept them from veering off course or making errors. “God wouldn’t let us be wrong about something so important!” Sure, there’s a basic level of faith we must have that we are following something good and true, and that all of it points back to an authentic revelation of God in Jesus. But the sheer multiplicity of Christian streams and convictions is enough to challenge the notion of divinely guaranteed consistency or theological purity. This shouldn’t plunge us into suspicion or despair, but it should pique our interest in the history and evolution of our own religion. It should also dispel the notion that our ancestors couldn’t make mistakes, or that those mistakes cannot affect us today. (It should also keep us humble in regard to our own ability to err and learn.) Very briefly, here are two examples of dramatic transformations from the early centuries of Christianity that are still causing trouble today.

1. Greek Philosophy Hijacks Bible Interpretation

If you told American Evangelicals today that Christianity had been co-opted by new agers or astrologers or dualists who were rewriting our traditions to conform to their own beliefs and selling them back as orthodoxy, there would be panic in the streets (and probably some kind of boycott or hashtag). Yet this is the very sort of thing that happened to Christianity in its early centuries. The thinkers, authors, and apologists we call “church fathers” were a collection of non-Jewish Christian men who defined the doctrines and canons which still define Christianity many centuries later. Some of the most influential church fathers (most notably Origen) were deeply influenced by Greek philosophy, a connection which had inevitable ramifications in the way they synthesized and described their theology. To be sure, many church fathers (like Tertullian) took a strong rhetorical stance against Greek philosophy as inferior to Christianity. But even these thinkers were indelibly locked into the categories and assumptions of Greek scholarship. When they defended the Bible against Greek ideas, they often did so on Greek terms. And when they interpreted the Bible, they did so within that same framework.

I’m not saying the church fathers as a group constitute a “mistake,” or that they did nothing good to benefit or enrich the faith. But their frequent disregard for the fundamental Jewishness of the scriptures and the categorical assumptions they injected into Bible reading and theology set Christianity on a very rocky path. If you believe in humanity’s “fall from perfection” or the “immortality of the soul” or a “spiritual afterlife,” your faith may have been influenced more by these writers (and thus by Plato and Aristotle) than by the actual texts of the Bible. In a few extreme cases, the efforts of the church fathers actually fueled and codified anti-semitic sentiment in the church. That is a path that takes us as far from the heart of scripture and of Jesus as we can get. Modern Christians should learn about the church fathers and read their work critically.

2. Constantine Imperializes and Militarizes Christianity

The legend is well known: In 312 CE at the Battle of Milvian Bridge, military leader Flavius Constantine I looked up and saw a cross in the sky emblazoned with the command, “By this sign, conquer!” He went on to become Caesar Constantine the Great, and to lead armies into war under the banner of the cross of Christ. It is often said that he made Christianity the “official religion” of the Roman Empire, but it is more appropriate to say that he favored it. Roman pagan practices continued, but those wanting to please and impress the emperor would undergo an expedient conversion to Christianity. Constantine reformed Roman imperialism based on “Christian” principles, if that makes any kind of sense. For example, he outlawed crucifixion to honor the death of Jesus and made hanging the new official mode of execution. The empire could still dominate and victimize and terrorize, but it would do so in a way that “honored” Jesus. Christianity had a king on earth, and that king had bloody hands.

Of course, many thoughtful Christians today would cringe at the idea of a “Christian” army or a weapon emblazoned with a cross. At the same time, how many American Christians claim that they live in a Christian empire? How many connect God’s will and blessing with the power and success of that empire? And it is not uncommon in conservative Christian circles to justify the Roman expansion of Christianity as God’s undercover plan to disseminate the religion around the globe. But how can a machine built on death and domination deliver a gospel about peace and reconciliation? The spirit and legacy of Jesus cannot be managed or defended by an empire. Constantinian Christianity represents an abject failure to realize the gospel of God’s kingdom. It should be a byword for us, and we should strive to define ourselves against it in belief and practice.

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