About Atonement
I have a number of diaries that I read for fun, and though for the most part I haven’t been responding lately, there is an entry I’d like to dialogue with. For those of you who don’t know A Thinking Bum, you should check out his diary. I’d highly recommend it. I’ve found him to be intellectually consistent and not as overly rabid as some of the atheists I’ve found on OD. His critiques of religion are generally very insightful, and well worth the time it would take to check them out, if you’re so inclined. Today, I read one of his entries, which I’d like to take some time and address. I’ve got some studying for finals to do today, so this will probably be brief.
ATB poses a number of questions or assertions about the nature and scope of the atonement for sin as it is suggested in the Bible. I’ll include his 4 statements, and then dialogue with each of them.
ATB posits:
1. I don’t think there was a problem of “What happened to a person if he died with un-atoned for sins” until Jesus/NT writers invented the problem.
2. Even if atoning for sins was important, there were valid ways to do that before and without Jesus.
3. If Jesus is God – then he didn’t have much of a sacrifice. Spends 30 years walking around, has a painful death, and poof is in eternal bliss for eternity. Some sacrifice!
4. It must have been the pain that Jesus felt when he was “dying” (he never went out of existence – he’s God, remember?) that “atoned” for sins. It must be that “undeserved pain” of any amount would atone for humanity’s sins. God could have stubbed his toe (or had others stub his toe for him, unjustly) – and that would have worked just as well.
Alright. Let’s start at the top.
In regards to assertion number one, I don’t really have much to say. If you’re convinced that the NT writers invented the problem, there are logical questions about using the Bible at all in response as a valid text to argue from, and without that, I’m not sure how I would formulate a response. (Though I will interact in a moment with the assumption I think ATB’s statement makes.)
In regards to assertion number two, I wholeheartedly agree. There were valid ways of atoning for sin before the coming of Jesus. However, the validity of the sacrifice isn’t really the issue. There are many valid ways to do any number of things, but there are any number of valid ways that may not necessarily be the most effective or substantive ways.
In regards to assertion number three, I disagree as strongly as I could have, and I think the statement belies a misunderstanding contemporary thought has in regards to the sacrifice of Jesus in general. Jesus death, while certainly painful and shameful was not the part of the sacrifice that made it painful. While the blood Jesus shed and the life he laid down did fulfill the requirements of the Mosaic Law, there are a variety of other factors we must contend with before we can decide rightly the ramifications of Jesus death. Again, I will interact with that in a moment. For now, let me say in plainly: the painful part of Jesus’ death on the cross had nothing to do with the physical agony of the crucifixion, at least in the sense that ATB is talking about it. The pain was the separation of Jesus from the presence of God. After thousands of years of being one with the Father and the Spirit, literally one being part of the other, with a relationship so profound that the relationship itself is a person (the Holy Spirit is literally that, if we can trust C.S. Lewis’ reflections on the subject), the Father withdrew from Jesus, and that is the pain to which Jesus refers when he says, “Eloi, Eloi lama sabachthani,” literally, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” That separation from the Father of whom He was a part is the sacrifice of pain that Jesus made for us. That separation has it’s various symbolic functions, but the pertinent one for our purposes of atonement is that a part of God himself separated himself out and was offered, without sin, for the sacrifice of the sins of humanity, but in order to be that sacrifice, the offering also had to experience the same separation from God that people have since the Fall. That is the nature of the sacrifice of Jesus. The physical portion of the sacrifice, though considerable (Readings on the nature of the death of a crucified person would turn even a masochist away), is not the substantive portion of the sacrifice.
In regards to the fourth assumption, no other sacrifice would have been sufficient. Again, we have to understand the Mosaic Law in context to read the nature of Jesus sacrifice correctly.
About the OT Sacrificial process:
The fundamental portion of understanding the OT sacrifice in the discussion here, as I see it, is on the nature of the sacrifice and how the atonement works. In the Mosaic Law as it is set forth from the end of the book of Exodus through Deuteronomy, what is set forth is a system by which sinful people make a series of sacrifices to atone for sin. The need for these sacrifices are many, but the most pertinent points are as follows.
1.) God is holy and perfect.
2.) People are sinful in and of themselves, this sin brings separation from God as God must preserve his holiness, and any imperfection He allows makes him imperfect.
3.) In order for God to relate to people in any fashion, some kind of atonement must be made by the people.
4.) There is no atonement for sin without the shedding of blood. In the most profound sense, the punishment for sin is always death of some kind.
That is the entire purpose of the Law, to specify what kind of offerings are required for various types of sins. The Law is powerless to justify people before God because the minute after the sacrifice has been given and the next sin is committed, the offerer is still in a position to receive judgement for their sin. In the Law, you will find a variety of laws, but you will note three very important groupings for sin, each with their respective set of offerings and sacrifices to make the necessary atonement. There are personal sins, which require a personal sacrifice of a type. There are group sins, which require another kind of sacrifice, and there are national sins, which require the most elaborate kind of sacrifice. In each of these types, there are a variety of propitiations and sacrifices necessary. In the realm of each, there are also offerings made for unknown sins. The necessity of these offerings is based on the proposition that death with unatoned for sin leads to separation from God.
I want to go back to the first assumption then for a second. In a system where one is constantly offering sacrifices to get back to even with God, there is then no comfort for the dead, without some kind of grace from God, because the possible way for a person to die without some sin they have not atone