Sacrifices in the Old Testament

I recently began another excursion through the Bible, with an eye toward a deeper look at the soteriological topics that piqued my interest beginning in Winter '01 (I think), and upon reaching Leviticus I spent a good deal of effort trying to work the various sacrifices into a single, cohesive structure; a goal I had sought off-and-on for quite some time. This was very important to me because it was my hope that a genuine, self-consistent understanding of these sacrifices would shed light on Christ's work. Too often the reverse occurs, someone has a certain view on Christ's work and goes back to find some isolated bits that match it when taken out of context.

I was unable to get the various sacrifices and their meanings to fit together. The fact that the ritual conducted after someone was found to be healed of skin disease included a "sin" and "guilt" sacrifice was particularly hard to fit into frameworks that otherwise looked to make some sense. This ritual may be quite important to fully understand because it is the only one that abstractly matches the key "Day of Atonement" ritual. (Two birds, one dies, the other flies free.)

I decided to break off reading and investigate what others had written on the topic. Two books I found particularly helpful were Milgrom's commentary on Leviticus (Continental Commentary Series) and Purification Offerings in the Priestly Literature: Its meaning and function by Kiuchi. Interestingly, Milgrom also could not make any sense of the bird rite and chalked it up to a Pagan holdover that the priests felt compelled to keep. That's "higher criticism" for you.

Anyways, I certainly did not go into this study seeking information about animal cruelty, but the books made some key observations that had flown under my radar. I'm relaying them here in case they have also alluded y'all.

A. The sacrificial system was intimately woven into a larger cultic law (more on this in "C" below), and should be considered in context.Abstractly, the set of large land animals the tribes of Jacob could eat was determined by two questions: Does it chew the cud? Is it's hoof split? However, for all practical purposes, the requirements meant that the tribes could only ranch 3 types of animals. Everything but goat, sheet, and ox was more or less off limits. (There were a very restricted set of wild animals, like the gazelle, that were also allowed.) Thus, the food laws (and the general value of these animals) greatly limited ranching. Also, the relative value of these animals meant that the typical person ate almost no ranched quadrupeds, eating red meat only a few times a year. [They did have domesticated birds and fish.]

B. It must be recognized that the "sacrifices" of these animals do not match what we might think of sacrifice. In fact, "sacrifice" is perhaps not even the best word to capture what is going on here. It focuses on the notion of "loss" or "payment." Contrary to what many might make of these texts, that is not where the value of these animals lay. The focus of these sacrifices (to the extent that we can speak in general terms) was in the cleansing power of the blood.  The connotation of "sacrifice" might lead us to believe that the animals were simply destroyed or wasted without any practical value being gained (much as some might consider recreational hunting today). However, this is not the case. For the vast majority of sacrifices, only the fat was burned up. The rest of the meat was eaten, either by the priests or the person who brought the sacrifice.

[I reiterate here a point I have made before: outside the Day of Atonement (and perhaps the bird-rite) scape-goat, there is no transfer of sin going on in these sacrifices. If the animals received the sin of those who brought them, they would have defiled the temple and altar on which they were sacrificed. The scape-goat, of course, was not brought into the temple, nor killed as part of the rite. Jewish theologians note a key difference in the "laying of hands" ceremony done by the priest for the scape-goat offering as compared to others. One theory claims that the two-hand version done on the scape-goat represents transfer of sin/guilt/iniquity but that the one-hand version done in other sacrifices (including those that have nothing to do with sin) are a marking of sorts, so that the good done by the animal, or the favor it found in God's eyes, was credited to the one who marked it by the laying of a hand. So Ibn Ezra.]

C. The idea in point B actually works in reverse as well. Not only were (most) sacrifices eaten, but all of these ranched animals had to be "sacrificed" before they could be legally eaten! This is a key and amazing point that is easy to miss. It might be better to term these sacrifices as "consecrations," because they represented the only way any of the animals could be eaten. If an Israelite killed a sheep for food, but did not bring the sheep to the temple to be "sacrificed," then he was liable for murder. [See Leviticus 17:3 ff].

This redoubled the effect mentioned in A. It reduced the actual amount of ranching and killing that occurred by adding to the expense involved in raising animals for food. In some sense you could consider the temple sacrifice as a type of tax on eating meat, because anytime someone slaughtered an animal for food, they had to give some of it to the priests.

D. Finally, once again in the vein of thinking of these rites as not being "sacrifices" in the typical use of the term, one should consider the Israelite mind when contemplating the meaning of these rites. As mentioned above, much of the point of the sacrifices lie in the cleansing effect of the blood on the sanctuary (and, perhaps, on the people who brought the sacrifice). The life of the animal was "in the blood" and by bringing the animal to the tabernacle, sacrificing it, and spilling its blood on the altar, the owner and priest were bringing the animal into communion with God. Recall that the Israelites did not have our understanding of the afterlife. At this point in time, there were two competing frameworks for thinking about the "soul." In the older of these frameworks, which may have been predominant at the time, there was no such thing as an individualized "soul." Living men were animated by the "breath of life" received from God (c.f., Adam becoming a living being when God breathed into him). Upon death, that life went back to join God.

For animals, the "life was in the blood," which is why the Israelites were not allowed to eat any blood, and the "sacrifice" rite can be viewed as returning the essence of the animal being killed to join in communion with God when its blood was dashed upon the altar to cleanse it. Thus, attempting to put these things into a modern context, one could conceive of the cultic law as essentially demanding that every rancher perform an individual funeral of sorts for every animal they killed.

A New Model for Levitical Propitiation [Comments Wanted!]

I hit upon an interesting model for how God's wrath was addressed in Mosaic covenant. I wanted to put it out there for comments. I think this model matches scripture better than the most commonly rendered ones.

Good scholarship on the cultic sacrifices is hard to find due to how long ago they were instituted and the intra-church politics involved. If someone knows of solid scholarship on the matter, please let me know.

Note: This model is strictly one dealing with propitiation, not the much more important notion of protecting the Temple from defilement. That is to say, this model looks at how danger to the individual sinner is addressed, not the effect the sin has on the sanctuary. The purification and protection of the sanctuary is an altogether different matter. Indeed, if one looks through all the references to sin offerings, it should become clear that this was their intended purpose: to purge the Temple and make ritually clean those who would enter there. This understanding harmonizes Hebrews 9:22 with the rest of scripture. (Since, as I point out below, there were any number of ways to attain forgiveness in general without resorting to blood sacrifices.)

Quick Critique of Common Models
Before moving forward, I wanted to give some indication as to why a better model is even needed. To do this, I'll just fire off some problems with the two most common ones. (If you are only interested in the model I'm kicking around, skip down to the "New Model" heading.)

Model 1: Propitiation through Payment
One model of propitiation is that someone "pays back" God or appeases God through the "soothing aroma" of the sacrifices.

Overall, this is not such an untenable view. The sacrifices were seen originally as a type of "food and drink" for God, and there are many discussions of a "soothing aroma." Furthermore, this model at least explains all the instances where someone could gain forgiveness without sacrificing a living creature (unlike Model 2, below). However, it does have some problems:

The first problem for this viewpoint is that the details of the various sacrifices suggest the opposite. If the goal of the sacrifices were to appease God, we would expect the "sin offering" and "guilt offerings" to be the ones where the entire creature is burned up to provide a "soothing aroma" to God. In fact, it is exactly the opposite. The regulations are very strict and clear that the sin offerings and guilt offerings (as opposed to the "burnt offerings") had only a very small amount burned up to God. These offerings look to be instead payments to the priests, who were allowed to eat the meat. The offerings that were given wholly to God on the altar were the "burnt offerings" instead, which had different regulations.

Similarly, the phrase "soothing aroma" shows up time and time again with regard to the offerings of the Levites, but only 1 of the 13 examples of offering for particular sins use this phrase. This phrase was much more associated with the burnt offerings (which makes sense, for that was the offering where the animal was fully given to God.)

The second problem with this model is that it does not adequately explain why the sacrificial aspect of the ritual is the same for sin offerings made for individual sins as it is for purification offerings where there was no sin in sight...or even offerings meant to consecrate the Temple. [This gets back to the sin offerings being designed to purge the Temple, not by themselves address the guilt for specific sins.]

The third problem with this model is that the wording in Leviticus 19:20-22 [sacrifice for quasi-adultery], presents the offering as a type of fine or punishment itself. Rather than seeing the sacrifices as an effort at "paying God back," it is perhaps more reasonable to see it as a deterrent introduced by God for the good of the society.

The fourth problem with this model is that it is clear from scripture that righteous people can intercede for pardon without any sacrifice at all. As James says, the prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much [James 5:16]. Since righteous people could interceded for sinners without any sacrifice present, it is hard to understand why a sacrifice was needed by statute for forgiveness or pardon. [Once again, this is no longer a problem if we see the sacrifices as primarily intended to cleanse the Temple.]

In addition to these, there are a few passages that would look odd were this the proper model for atonement [see the "My Model" section for examples.]

Model 2: Vicarious Punishment
The second model commonly given is that the animal being sacrificed received the guilt/sin of the person who gives it. Then the animal receives the punishment for the sins it has been made forensiccally guilty of.

The biblical problems with this model are so obvious and easy to articulate that a simple bullet list suffices.

• If the animal received the guilt/sin of the person, its very presence would defile the Temple and the Altar.
• The treatment of the animal's remains shows the animal maintained its innocence throughout [sin offerings for sins made by the whole congregation had to be discarded to a clean place, the other sin offerings had to be eaten in a clean place and actually made the eaters clean...hardly possible if the animal had become guilty.]
• There is no indication whatsoever that the sins were laid on the animal. The exception to this, of course, was the scapegoat which was not sacrificed in the Temple. In the case of the scapegoat, the scriptures make clear the iniquity is put on the animal...and yet such verbiage is unseen anywhere else for those sacrifices killed in the Temple.
• The Bible specifies the priests, not the animal, bore the guilt of the people.
• Obviously, if this was the way that guilt was defused, it would not explain how grain, silver, incense, etc. could procure propitiation.
• Other examples where God's wrath is clearly in view show that this wrath is not turned away by its execution. For example, God's wrath was upon all of Israel in Numbers 25:7-8, and is turned away by Phinehas by killing the guilty party. This is clearly not Phinehas being the agent of God's wrath, for God's wrath was "turned away" and had been upon all of Israel, not just one person. Phinehas turned away God's wrath through showing the same jealousy for righteousness that God has [see Numbers 25:11], not by simply being the hatchet-man for God.
  
• An extention of the last: God does not need a priest to execute God's wrath. God has shown God is perfectly capable of executing wrath Godself. Hence, when a priest does a sacrifice, he is not executing God's wrath.
  
• Once again Leviticus 19:20-22 provides a problem. The text goes out of its way to specify that some punishment is required, but not the full punishment of adultery [which would be death]. However, the "propitiation by vicarious punishment" view would suggest that death was, in fact, the fitting punishment for the sin involved. This is not an isolated incident, for there were other sins where the punishment was specified as something less than death [for example, barrenness of womb in Leviticus 20:20], yet those who claim the creature recieves the punishment for someone's sin have to say that all sins have death as the only punishment. Indeed, the penal substitution interpretation gets everything backwards because the sins requiring a sacrifice were less offensive than those that were punished by barrenness of womb, yet the vicarious punishment interpretation would indicate the opposite. [Of course, if we see the sacrifices as a fine, this all makes sense...for losing a lamb is less a punishment than dying childless, and the offences specified for loss of a lamb are less than the offense specified for dying without children.]

My Model [Provisional, of course]
In my model, all propitiation is through intercession by a righteous party. Sometimes that intercession includes components that speak to the righteousness involved [for example, Phineas' killing of the rebel (Numbers 25:11) or Moses' command to light the censers in Numbers 16:46.]

This is the model:
The priests are chosen by God to be linked to Israel as a whole [just as the Temple is linked to the nation as a whole, so that sins by the people can bring impurity to the Temple]. This means that the priests share the burden of iniquity [Leviticus 10:17] when the people sin. But this link goes both ways, so that the sin of the high priest brings guilt upon the entire nation [Leviticus 4:3]. (Compare that to the sin by the political leader which does not bring guilt upon the entire nation: Leviticus 4:22-26.)

This notion of sharing the burden of guilt (without actually the sin itself) in an effort to turn away wrath is seen in Moses' own intercession (which required no sacrifice) before God. "But now, if You will, forive their sin - and if not, please blot me out from Your book which You have written" (Exodus 32:32).

The priests are charged with continually offering up prayers for the community and "making intercessions" (as Jesus is said to do as the High Priest of the new covenant in Hebrews 7:25). Paul's wording in 1st Timothy 2:5 probably gets at this as well... indicating that the earthly priests are no longer the mediator between God and man. Samuel's remarks in 1st Samuel 12:23 suggest something similar.

So, the priests share in the burden of iniquity, and by their righteousness and purity turn the wrath of God away [as Moses did]. This situation creates two problems:
i) Obviously, if the priests are intercessing before God, they are not earning their own bread...which means both they and their families are without food.
ii) While the priests are sharing in the guilt, they are also tending to the Temple, which requires cleanliness and purity from sin.

The Sin, Guilt and Grain offerings appear to serve both these goals!

The sin, guilt, and grain offering regulations specify:
i) The meat could be eaten by any priest. This provides a payment "in return for bearing the iniquity of Israel" (Leviticus 10:17)
ii) Eating the meat and the grain actually cleanses the priests who eat it. (Leviticus 6:18, 27) We see an interesting demarcation here. The grain, sin, and guilt offerings in Leviticus 6:14-7:7 (and reiterated in Numbers 18:9-10) can only be eaten by male descendants of Aaron and they make pure those who eat them, whereas the other offerings [peace, votive, etc.] can be eaten by anyone in the priest's family who is clean.

This idea that the eating of the sacrifice contributes to the priest's cleanliness might seem bizarre to us, but there are other places where holiness or cleanliness is conferred in such a way [obviously it goes the other way...no one has a problem with the notion of uncleanliness being communicative]. Isaiah 6:7 shows such an example, Matthew 9:21 is a NT example. Indeed, the consecration of the Temple itself shows this, the blood of clean animals confers holiness to the Temple.

The Lynchpin

There is one event in the Old Testament that, I believe, gives very strong credibility to this setup. After Phinehas' righteous deeds in Numbers 25:7-8, God makes a covenant with him that his descendants would serve him forever. We see a declaration that this covenant has become nullified by Eli's sin in the prophecy recounted in 1st Samuel 2:28-36.
This is shown again in God's words to Samuel in 1st Samuel 3:12-14, where God tells Samuel to tell Eli "On that day I will carry out against Eli everything that I spoke about his house --- from start to finish" and this is summaried in a single phrase "Therefore I swore an oath on the house of Eli, 'The sin of the house of Eli can never be forgiven by sacrifice or grain offerings.'"

Later this prophecy is fulfilled in 1st Kings 2:27 when Solomon dismisses Abiathar as priest.

Now, the odd thing here is if the punishment upon Eli is the loss of the priesthood from his house, why is the version Samuel given simply "the sin of the house of Eli can never be forgiven by sacrifice of grain offerings"?

If we think of the sacrifices and offerings as designed to forgive the sin of everyday people in Israel, this makes little sense. However, if the forgiveness of sin through offering and sacrifices is synonymous with being a priest, it makes perfect sense. Note how the curse given in the 2nd chapter dwells so much on the house of Eli losing the position and allottment of the priests while still remaining in the temple itself. It ends with a description of how they must beg for work in the temple to receive a scrap of bread. This all makes more sense if we see the grain, sin, and guilt offerings as the payments to the priests, where the eating of the sacrifices cleansed them from the iniquity they bore for the entire society.

If we read what caused this curse in the first place, we also see why this bit about "sins will not be taken away by sacrifices or grain offerings" refers to the eating of those offerings --- that was the thing that caused the curse in the first place! Eli's sons were eating part of the offering that they were not supposed to be eating. It thus makes sense for the punishment to be that they were no longer given the privilege of doing so.

Relation to Eucharist
Seeing these sacrifices as cleansing by eating allows the eucharist to make sense in an entirely new way. A major problem with understanding the Eucharist is that it appears to create a situation where we drink the blood of a sacrifice. That was a major no-no in ancient Judaism, and it is hard to understand how anything that is remotely related to the drinking of blood could have become a ceremony in early Christianity [which was entirely Jewish]. Indeed, the proscription against drinking blood is one of the regulations agreed to in Acts 15 as being relevant to Gentiles as well as Jews.

However, if we understand the eating of the sin offering as part of the cleansing of the Temple, things become clearer.

In the Sin Offering, the blood of sacrifice was put on the horns of the altar to cleanse it and the rest was poured out at the side of the altar. The meat of the offering was given to the priests to cleanse them. Hence we see the flesh and blood as the ways in which the Temple and its denizens were cleansed. The Eucharist, then, becomes a perfect parallel to these sin offerings. The temple "drank the blood" and the priests "ate the flesh" in the old covenant, and each of these actions sanctified the item. Now we are the temple and we are the priests, and the sanctifying sacrifice is Christ.

Summary and Bigger Picture
The above model would work well in the following general understanding of what each of the sacrificial elements meant:

i) The sinner brings the sacrifice to the Temple: This represents a confession of guilt [e.g. Leviticus 5:5--keep in mind that most of these offerings were for unintentional sins or sins done unwittingly.] It also represents a loss to the person, for he will receive nothing from the offering (the priest will end up being the one who eats his ram/goat/lamb). This loss is a deterrent and memorial that sin is a serious issue with serious consequences. It is also an easement of sorts --- the priests are bearing the guilt of the community that he has contributed to. They are praying on the behalf of the community. Thus his sacrifice both subsidizes their work and is meant to undo some of the damage (for the priests that eat of the sacrifice will be sanctified.)

ii) The animal is killed and the blood is applied to the altar: This cleanses the altar (and by extension the temple) from the taint of the individuals sin. This makes the temple a more fit house for God's spirit to rest in.

iii) A very small amount of the animal is burned up (the fat, kidneys, and appendices): This represents "God's share" of the payment to the priests. The sinner has given the animal to the priests as a payment for bearing their sin. The blood and fat are God's portion. This goes back all the way to Abel [Genesis 4:4] and is part of the submission lifestyle priests had to live. It was the breaking of this regulation that caused the curse on Eli (1st Samuel 2:16 and later). Eli's sons were eating the meat before the fat had been boiled off. Note that by now the original sinner is out of the picture. The fat is given to God because the priest gives some part of everything to God, regardless of what kind of sacrifice it is [c.f. Leviticus 2:2 5:12, 6:15].

iv) The priest makes atonement for him, and he is forgiven. The priest intercedes on his behalf, praying for the wrath to be turned away. Moses said "perhaps I can make atonement for your sin" in Exodus 32:30 before going to pray for his people, when the Levitical accounts say "The priest will make atonement for him" it refers to the same.
Note that in the case where the High Priest himself sins, no such intercession is possible and there is no atonement. (Compare Leviticus 4:3-12 with the other 12 descriptions of offering in response to a particular sin.)

v) The priests eat the sacrifice. It is not only a form of sustenance, but an act of sanctification to balance the sin whose guilt they have born.

A Very Interesting Omission

I was struck by a very profound nothing last night.

No, I was not in the midst of existential despondency. I noticed a very interesting "which one of these things is not like the other" situation.

Taking a look again at those Levitical sacrifices, we see many of them were in response to specific sins people did. There is a standard progression:
1) Someone realizes a sin (one way or the other)
2) Someone brings a sacrifice to the temple
3) The sacrifice is made
4) The priest "makes atonement" for the person
5) The person "is forgiven."

This plays out over and over again in Leviticus 4 and 5:

Sin by the entire community: Leviticus 4:13-20
Sin by the leader: Leviticus 4:22-26
Sin by the common person (Goat) : Leviticus 4:27-31
Sin by the common person (Lamb): Leviticus 4:32-35
Slate of specific sins: Leviticus 5:1-6
Slate of specific sins (poorer): Leviticus 5:7-10
Slate of specific sins (poorest): Leviticus 5:11-13
Sin against holy things: Leviticus 5:15-16
Guilt offering regulations: Leviticus 5:17-18
Fraud: Leviticus 6:2-7
pseudo-adultery offering: Leviticus 19:20-22
Offerings for sin in Canaan (Community): Numbers 15:22-26
Offering for sin in Canaan (Individual): Numbers 15:27-28

In every one of these examples, the text specifically says the priest will "make atonement" and it also specifically says (with one exception) that the person will be "forgiven." [Though our understanding of what "forgiven" means is actually probably rather off-base.]

But there is one example of sin where an offering is made, but neither of these is claimed. In the very first sin offering regulation, the one for the high priest, there is no such text. There is still an offering commanded, but there is nothing about "the priest will make atonement for him and he will be forgiven."

I think this bolsters my view of propitiation-through-merit. I would claim that the "forgiveness" described in all these rituals have more to do with the intercession of the high priest than they do with the sacrifice. That the merit and purity of the priest is leaned on to gain forgiveness [just how prophets and righteous men pray for pardon and forgiveness throughout the Bible...without any sacrifice around]. So, in the case of the high priest, there is no such righteous person around to lean on.

The sacrifices (among other things) would mark the confession and contrition of the parties rather than be primary instruments of propitiation. At least in the case of the High Priest, that seems to be the case. For it appears there was no forgiveness or atonement to be had, but yet a sacrifice was called for to mark his recognition of sin.

I also find Leviticus 4:3 particularly interesting, for it shows that the Priest's sin can bring guilt upon the people. As I pointed out in my last post, the priests generally "bear" or "bear away" the sins of the people.

This suggests that, rather than transfer, there is more of an association going on here. The priests are willing to be associated with the rest of Israel in their guilt, allowing them to shoulder the load by virtue of their greater righteousness and purity. However, in the odd case where the High Priest sins, it ends up somewhat backfiring.

Note that this "association" is already present in Moses' intercession with God and in Daniel's intercession as well. In Moses' case, he does not take on the sin or guilt, but is willing to be associated in their punishment. [Exodus 32:32 --- But now, if You will, forgive their sin--and if not, please blot me out from Your book which You have written!]

I think this notion of association is highly prevalent in the cultic rituals, with perhaps the Temple being in association with the land and the priests being in association with the people...
Another possible link-up is that the altar itself is a representation of the Temple, while the area around the altar is a representative of the nation. [one major set of sacrifices cleansed the altar itself while another set cleansed the area around it.]

In any event, extrapolating to Christ would give tangential support to what was the dominant view prior to Augustine (but after Origen), where Christ shared in human suffering so that humans could share in His glorification. In particular, Athanasius claimed atonement occurred via Christ suffering the same death humans do so that humans could enjoy the exaltation that rightfully only belongs to Him. [This was before people started thinking of atonement in terms of deliverance from God's eternal wrath. Back in the early church, the question was how can there be bodily life after death at all? not How can God allow someone imperfect into heaven?]

6 Quick Levitical Points against Penal Substitution

I've been doing a bunch of reading as I revise the "Atonement" chapter of my book, and recently this has focused on the Levitical sacrifices.

These sacrifices are often cited as a defense of Penal Substitution. The claim is that a perfect animal has the sins transferred to it and is then killed, bearing the punishment of the sinner.

I already knew of a few problems with this effort at defending PSA, but closer reading opened up some issues quite new to me that I thought I would share. I'll start with the ones that I had already pointed out and move to the new ones.

1) The idea of sins being moved to the animal would upset the entire sacrificial system, as then the animal would no longer be blemishless and would be an unworthy sacrifice.

2) An animal that had sins transferred to it would contaminate the temple and its altar. The sanctity of the temple was so important that someone who was ritually unclean (say, from menstruation or touching of a corpse) would be killed if they even stepped foot inside. (Several examples of this, Numbers 19:13 is one).

3) Sometimes atonement was made with grain or simply money, where it is harder to understand how there was any transfer of sin. In the case of Leviticus 5:11, this is clearly a sin offering. In other cases the word 'atonement' is used even if it is not called an offering. (Exodus 30:15, Numbers 31:50)

4) The Bible clearly states that the PRIEST, not the animal, bears the iniquity of Israel. [For example, Leviticus 10:17 and Numbers 18, both of which speak about very general affairs.]

5) That the animals used in the sin offerings retained their perfection is made clear in what happened to their remains. Their blood was often taken into the more holy places of the temple, even the holiest of holies. Their flesh was EITHER burned outside in a ceremonially clean place OR actually had the affect of purifying those that ate it! (Leviticus 6:18, 27) This is the only case of a sacrifice making an unclean person clean by eating and is a presaging of the Eucharist. In other sacrifices [sacrifices that were not for sin], it was the opposite: you had to already be clean to eat it, and if you weren't, you were killed. Another example of this is the red heifer, whose ashes would consecrate someone well after it had been sacrificed.

6) This last remark actually shows again that the priests bore the iniquity, because the eating of the flesh occurred only after a sin offering was made. The priests in question were not unclean for anything they had done, but yet eating the sin offerings made them clean.

The Old Testament Passover cannot be Vicarious Atonement: A Logician's Proof

I'm back, and I'm devoting a big chunk of today to catching up on blog stuff.

The authors of Pierced for Our Transgressions enthusiastically attempt to make a case for the Old Testament passover to be an instance of vicarious atonement. Their entire efforts lean on a snippet cut from a single verse, Exodus 12:12.

For those who have not read Pierced for Our Transgressions, the authors' handling of this is sadly representative of how they handle the entire topic (Penal Substitution) throughout their book. I hope to publish some sort of summary review of that soon.

Exodus 12:12 reads "For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments--I am the LORD."

Put the authors do not provide this entire verse (which is understandable given how long it is). What is much less acceptable is what they do say. They tell their reader: "...the plague on the firstborn is described specifically as 'judgment on all the gods of Egypt.'"

???

That's not what Exodus 12:12 says at all. It might be a reasonable conclusion to draw if we already believe in Penal Substitution AND we ignore that the Exodus story described an event from 3500 years ago within the context of world-wide idolatry.

When God says "I will strike down the firstborn... AND on the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment," it means exactly what it says. God will do two things. The firstborn will be struck down and the idols of the Egyptians will be toppled/destroyed, etc. Had the authors quoted the entire verse, it would be more obvious (I hope) that this is what was meant... it's hard to understand how the destruction of donkeys, goats, etc. could be construed as "judgment upon Egypt's gods."

Moses did not crater to idolatry, yet his household would have been vulnerable to the plague on the firstborn...so the death of the firstborn could not be merely the way God was executing judgment on the "gods of Egypt." No. When God says judgment on the "gods of Egypt" would ensue, it means precisely that: the gods of Egypt (the idols) would be destroyed. To someone in 1500 BC, that would make perfect sense. Indeed, the Old Testament has a long history of discussing this judgment on other gods in terms of destruction of the idols to which people bowed
(e.g., Jeremiah 50:2, 51:47, Ezekiel 6:6, 30:13, and of course the story of Dagon in 1st Samuel 5:4)

However, it would still be possible for the Old Testament passover to be a vicarious atonement, even if there is absolutely no evidence of it in the actual account. It would be, as Dan Martin put it, extrascriptural conjecture. I made that exactly conjecture in The Gospel You've Never Heard.

But recently I realized there is a simple proof that the Old Testament passover could not be a case of vicarious atonement. It is based primarily on the idea that you cannot pay for something with money you don't have. Or, to put the matter in the language of Calvinist, wrath can only be redirected to an object that would not have otherwise felt it.

This is one of the reasons given for Jesus having to be super-human and sinless. Jesus was taking upon Himself a punishment that He would otherwise not have had to bear. You cannot sacrifice something that is already marked for death. If the idea is that Person(s) A are being delivered from wrath because Person(s) B receive that wrath in their place, then none of the members of B can be members of A or else the situation is not vicarious and would not make much sense as an atonement either.

To use a courtroom analogy, we often think of all of humanity as guilty and subject to punishmen for it (of course, this courtroom drama is never portrayed in the Bible anywhere, but that's another story). Then an innocent person takes the blame instead. In the case of Jesus the idea is that Jesus was so awesome that He could adequately receive the punishment of millions or billions, etc.

Now, imagine a different courtroom drama where instead some of the guilty stand up and offer to take the punishment for the rest. Well, that makes no sense because they are already slated for punishment. If 20 people are slated for death, one of them cannot stand up and say "Hey, just take me and leave the others alone" because we only see the innocent as being able to take the debt from another. [And, of course, it is not really vicarious to receive the punishment that was due to you.]

So, what does any of this have to do with the Passover? Well, the simple truth is that some of the lambs that were sacrificed were the ones that were slated for death. As I've mentioned already (though the authors of PFoT do not give it much ink), not just humans but animals as well were slated for death. It was not merely the firstborn of each Israel household, but also the firstborn donkey, lamb, goat, etc. That means that many of the lambs slaughtered in the passover were themselves going to die anyway. If the firstborn plague were actual wrath that had to be averted, then many of the lambs slaughtered in that massive first passover were themselves already the bearers of judgment.

But we've already established that someone who is already bearing judgment cannot atone for others. So, if the passover lambs were meant as vicarious atonement for judgment on Israel, we would reach a contradiction because we would find that someone already bearing judgment (statutorily guilty) was somehow able to atone for others.

Of course, if we allow Exodus 12:12 to mean what is says (in the context of 1500 BC culture), we would not see the passover as a case of vicarious atonement at all, and all the above problems are vanquished.

When Propitiation isn't Propitiation

Nick has brought up an interesting point on his blog. In the context of a debate about Psub, he has essentially pointed out that those who favor Penal Substitution are rather misusing a term. If one follows the rabbit trail logically, it's hard to see how propitiation and Penal substitution can go together.

When we think of the word propitiation, most people think of God's wrath being vented upon Christ rather than on those who have sinned (i.e. everyone else). God's wrath is turned away from us and delivered to Christ instead. This upholds God's sense of Justice (so the theory goes) because the punishment for sin has been meted out.

But, as Nick points out, that is not what propitiation even means. Propitiation means "to (re)gain another's favor." Etymologically it refers to making another gracious toward you. In the 1st century it referred to appeasing pagan gods through sacrifice. These sacrifices neutralised these pagan gods.

The thing is, nowhere do we find the actual wrath of these pagan gods actually being vented. The idea was not that someone else received the wrath. The wrath was not "turned away (to someone else)." Rather the gods repented of the wrath due to sacrifice.

And so, it seems you cannot really have both propittiation and Psub. You can say God vented wrath upon Christ, but in that case the wrath was not turned away, it actually occurred (just not on us). Or, you can say that propitiation occurred because of any number of reasons ("Jesus, the new Adam, was faithful unto death and hence caused God to repent of the wrath humanity deserved" is but one of many, many options).

If you say "God sacrificed Jesus as a sacrifice to Godself, and that appeased God." then we have lost the substitution aspect because now Jesus is not being punished due to our sins but rather as a blemishless sacrifice. Jesus can either be a sinless sacrifice to appease (propitiate) God, Jesus can "absorb" or have "transferred to Him" the sin of mankind and suffer in mankind's place, but you cannot have it both ways. In the first case we have propitiation. In the second we have substitution.

And this really gets back to another observation: the only sacrifice in the OT that involved transfer of sin was the scapegoat sacrifice (and the "live bird" sacrifice for lepers, perhaps), and that is the one sacrifice that was not killed. And for very good reason: had the sacrifice died in the camp, it would have defiled the camp. The scapegoat was meant to "take away" the sin, not merely suffer for them. The lamb that was sacrificed would have defiled the temple (rather than cleansing it) if it had sins transferred to it. [See Leviticus 16:21-22]

Jesus is not mentioned once as a scapegoat offering, which is odd, as He is mentioned as almost every other type [passover, sin offering, guilt offering, burnt offering come to my mind without looking].

So, those who adhere to Penal Substitution need to come up with a different term because what they claim is happening does not fit the meaning of "propitiation."

If you absolutely want to make Jesus a scapegoat and want to adhere to penal substitution, then you should no longer consider Jesus' death as a sacrifice. The "sacrifice" would then be God's releasing Jesus into the hands of men (Luke 22:53 and note Jesus words to Pilate in John 19:11).

There is actually some support for this notion, as it makes more sense of the "three days and three nights in the belly of the earth" prophecy. The idea is that Jesus time in "the belly of the earth" was the time He was within the power of humanity to do what they pleased.

Thus we have an odd role-reversal here. In cultic Judaism, the sins are placed on the goat and let loose for God to punish. Now God (in Jesus) is given the sins of humanity and let loose for humanity to punish. In this sense, God was not sacrificing Jesus to Godself but rather was sacrificing Jesus to mankind to do with what they desire.

NOTE: I'm not supporting the above theology...just presenting the sort of atonement theology you have to accept if you really want a "substitution" atonement where sins are transferred to Jesus. Now, if you do not want the actual sin transferred to Jesus. Most Penal Substitution types adhere to this type [where both sin and punishment are commuted to Jesus], but one could allow for a type of Penal Substitution wherein the sins were not transferred to Christ while God's wrath was. I know this sounds like God is then being unjust, for Christ is now being punished for sins Jesus never did...even statutorily. But I think a case could be made for it. There are other examples where someone bore the burden/consequences/punishment of a sin without bearing the guilt. Indeed, that is how Athanasius saw original sin. We all bore the consequence of Adam's rebellion but not Adam's guilt.

Matthew 8:16-17 and Substitution atonement

I'm currently doing a Bible study where all the discussions of Christ's work [and all the discussions of the Final Judgment] are collected together. I find these aggregations useful because they often reveal patterns not obvious from casual reading. Indeed, my very first blog was on how the evangelism shown in Acts is really not what we would expect given what most people are taught as "the gospel." [that post is here.]

While doing this I ran across Matthew 8:16-17. The interesting thing about this passage is that it puts a completely different frame on the "Suffering servant" prophecy of Isaiah 53.

The standard explanation of the prophesy in Isaiah 53:4-5 is that Christ took our sins upon Himself. Now, there is an immediate problem with this in that Isaiah describes the sacrifice of the suffering servant as a "reparation/guilt sacrifice"in Isaiah 53:10. This sacrifice was not one where the offenses were placed upon the sacrifice (indeed, often the "sacrifice" was not even a living creature.) It was a "paying back" not a "transfer of sin."

Indeed, if you read Isaiah 53 you'll see that Christ appears to be offered up as a "guilt offering" for sickness. The wording closely matches the discussion of how one was supposed to deal with lepers who had been healed in Leviticus 13 and 14. The word used in Isaiah 53:10 is the same as the word in Leviticus 14:13 to describe the offering. This was one of the three offerings made to cleanse a leper, allowing him back into the temple.

But Matthew 8:16-17 gives another reason not to see this prophecy as a defense of Penal substitution because Matthew claims Jesus was fulfilling it prior to His death when He healed those around Him. Hence, the focus is not on the infirmity being "placed on" Jesus statutorily, but rather that Jesus was "taking the sin away."

Now, the point here is not that Isaiah 53 was not also pertinent to Jesus' crucifixion. After all, the quotation in Acts 8:32-33 of verses 7 and 8 appear to refer to his death, and 1st Peter 2:24 could hardly be more clear that Christ's death is in mind.

However, Matthew's version proves that there is no requirement for the healing to be through transfer, and 1st Peter concurs that it is healing that is in mind here, not transfer of wrath. [In other words, the state of sickness people were in rather than future divine punishment.]

Neither does 1st Peter's version suggest transfer of guilt. Rather that passage puts Christ forth as an example [1st Peter 2:21] of enduring the persecution that people of God endure and leaving justice up to God [2:23]. The purpose suggested is not "to save us from God's wrath" but "that we may cease from sinning and live for righteousness."
1st peter 3:18 gives a similar reason for Christ's suffering.

Indeed, if one takes 1st Peter 3:1-2 seriously, we have to accept that Peter was very much putting forward a "salvation by Christ's example turning us back to God." 1st Peter 4:1-2 hits this topic again.

Now, I don't want to indicate that I'm supporting a "Christ as good example" salvation here. Indeed, 1st Peter 3:21 shows that Peter is not going for this interpretation either. Christ as a mere "good example" could not have accomplished the sending of the Spirit. I'm merely pointing out that the passages that quote Isaiah 53 (as well as the typology of Isaiah 53:10 and Leviticus 14) do not suggest Christ's sacrifice as substitutionary.

Finally, it should be noted that Isaiah 53:10 is never quoted by an NT writer, and the Hebrew is rather hard to understand, so the application of that verse [both in ways for and against PSA] have to be taken as circumstantial at best.

The Nature of Atonement [Book Recommendation]

I recently read Four Views: The Nature of Atonement, which describe four rather farflung theories of the Atonement.



I thought the responses of each author to the others' views were generally helpful in showing how unclear the Bible is regarding how atonement works. On the other hand, I would have liked to see more than just "objective" version of the atonement.