Bahnsen or Spicy?: Essays on Penal Substitutionary Atonement, Ancapistan Press

Note: This article is not for the faint of heart. It is highly technical and will be lengthy. It involves a discussion between a proponent of Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) and someone who denies it in favor of some form of universalism.

The Dialogue

Spicy

Out of curiosity, putting aside whether or not it is true, why would belief in PSA be an essential part of Christianity such that rejection of PSA entails rejection of the gospel? Why isn’t it enough to simply acknowledge that Christ is my savior? I know you don’t care much about early church fathers, but don’t you find it odd that so many rejected PSA (and I’m being generous here by not simply stating all of them did) and atonement theories are never the subject of early councils or dogmas?

TheSire (aka Darth Bahnsen)

I think it’s probably too strong to suppose that they rejected it outright. We can see Jesus dying for sins and this being the punishment we deserve argued from the fathers’ language in certain cases. Why this never bore out as central for the atonement is beyond me.

Because the Pelagian gospel doesn’t save. A Christ saving sinners from their wicked deeds does save. On your view, you’re still in your sins except that God arbitrarily forgives, which just lowers the judge of the earth to a respecter of persons. It sacrifices God’s holy character for human sentimentality.

Spicy

I’ve seen proponents of PSA attempt to argue for it in the fathers, but the overwhelming majority of the so-called patristic evidence often includes a quote or two that doesn’t distinguish PSA from many other atonement models and contains no real assessment of the writer’s theology as a whole, which often implicitly or explicitly contradicts PSA. Even if I granted one or two examples, it would still be a minority, forcing you to condemn many saintly men and women who were pillars of the early church, responsible for Trinitarian theological victories, the Nicene Creed, and who were persecuted and martyred for their faith.

You say that except for God arbitrarily forgiving, we are still in our sins. But I would prefer the phrase “God loves sinners despite their sin.” On the contrary, PSA reduces God to a Roman executioner who just loves to swing his axe, not caring if it hits an innocent person or a guilty person, but you can rest assured it will hit someone.

TheSire

God punishes the guilty. Everyone is guilty. How shall we distinguish between a judge who arbitrarily forgives and a judge who freely forgives? Your view is no different than a judge who releases his friends. Hence, my point is that you make God a respecter of persons. So, the Roman executor represents God’s judgment on the world (Romans 13). He’s the judge, jury, and executioner. The fact we treat the ultimate judge and God of law.

Regarding church fathers, we must disagree. Scholars have shown how the language of condemnation has been taken away by the cross, but it sometimes gets tricky in figuring out how they use the scriptures they are quoting.

Spicy

But you don’t even accept that God punishes the guilty consistently. God doesn’t punish every sinner, and he does punish an innocent person. So it seems as if your view is more like the judge who releases his friend with the slight difference that he is a corrupt judge who abuses the system. Who creates a legal fiction to skirt his own law which he pretends to respect. My view would be comparable if I agreed that everyone was capitally guilty, and I was suggesting the judge should just let the criminals go free and do nothing. Rather, I am suggesting that the judge recognize that the guilty men are impaired. The solution is not to retributively and irrevocably punish them, not to let them go, but to cure them.

Sure, we can disagree about particular fathers, but are you really suggesting that the Cappadocians held to PSA? Gregory of Nyssa? Origen? Irenaeus? Athanasius? Okay, so apparently some people (I think very wrongly) think Athanasius held to PSA, but the others make it extremely difficult to read PSA into their theology.

TheSire

It’s precisely the opposite in the Bible. Man isn’t a victim of a sickness. He’s a criminal that’s become sick because of his wicked life. That’s why God judges him according to his deeds. I think it’s the imputation that undermines your complaint of hypocrisy. Christ takes the place of sinners, taking their guilt upon himself. So, every sin is punished. Think of David, not only did Christ die for his sins, he received a temporal judgment for his actions against Uriah, pointing out his sin was against God. Which is a far cry from the sickness that made me do it. God takes that picture of a wicked sinner like David to show that God does impute our sins to Christ. It was set up this way so we could know (1 Cor. 10:1-12, Rom. 4).

Either they are impaired in such a way they are morally responsible or they aren’t. If they are, then God ought to punish them for their crimes or find a substitute. In your view, he does neither, so he doesn’t deal with sin. He arbitrarily forgives it. He might as well be a wizard with a spell, and now you’re magically innocent.

To phrase it another way, on what basis does God get rid of our guilt (I don’t mean guilty conscience)? How does he remove our crimes from us? If you answer he doesn’t, then you are saying he arbitrarily forgives us.

Spicy

So a two-month-old child, not even aware of their own self, is a criminal? Interesting take.

I think a lot needs to be said about the developments within the Old Testament and its eventual culmination in the New Testament, and since I am already discussing this at length in another channel here, I don’t want to do so again separately. However, I think it is a darkened force that resembles corruption, infecting the first naive humans. From there on, humans inherit this corruption. So yes, it is primarily that corruption and sickness that need to be solved.

The imputation doesn’t undermine my complaint. It just restates the view I was objecting to. The fact that you can call it imputation does not make it make sense. Somebody innocent taking the punishment for someone guilty (who undeservedly gets off scot-free) is no more just than the judge who lets his friends off the hook. Again, it conceives of justice as the notion that this abstract “guilt” isolated from its parent needs to be punished.

This only follows if one assumes the very notion of justice you are currently defending. If it’s true that justice demands the execution of all sinners, then I’m sorry, either we all die, or God infringes on justice. However, if justice is restorative primarily, then it is perfectly just for God, out of a desire for fellowship and reconciliation, to not count our sins against us while he acts to reconcile us to himself. The fact that God freely forgives people without mention of a future payment is extremely prevalent.

If you present to me a drug addict, how should Christian love fashioned after Christ respond? “Well, off to jail, you broke the law, so…” Clearly not. “Someone else will pay your sentence; you’re free now.” Really? We’ve left them in a state of addiction. The response should be a gracious 12-step program. We desire more than anything out of love and compassion for the transformation of a fundamentally broken human into a healed human made whole. Getting rid of our sentence does not do that. Demanding that sinners pay does not do that. Making someone else pay does not do that.

A more fundamental disagreement we are going to have is God’s ultimate motivations for his act of creation in general. I’m not sure in which way the influence goes though. Is it belief in PSA that informs a certain belief of God’s motivations in creating or the other way around? I’ve heard Calvinists talk a lot about self-glorification. Something would just be missing from reality if God was not able to demonstrate his amazing justness in punishing sinners, but also his amazing graciousness in forgiving sinners. So he creates people, predestines them to fall, so that he can then unfold his sovereign plan of displaying his grace and justice, his mercy and his wrath. This means that God’s plan for reconciliation is not actually fundamentally rooted in a desire for fellowship with sinners whom he loves, but primarily in a desire to glorify himself by acting graciously. There is a certain logical priority given to his self-glorification that makes any love he has for humans seem ingenuine. If you’ve started there, it isn’t hard to see how you can allow yourself to bridge any logical leap to make divine justice make sense when someone innocent being punished instead of someone guilty is just.

Dissy

Some thoughts on the objection that an innocent person taking a guilty person’s punishment is unjust: I don’t think that the transfer of places between Christ and those in Christ is a void switch-a-roo. There’s a certain sense in which he became sin, a certain sense in which believers became righteousness, and in which we really were punished with capital punishment – this being our old selves crucified with him because he embodied our sin. The union and representation involved in the atonement is deeper than an analogy like paying off someone else’s debt.

@Spicy in other words, the substitution involved is not just a virtual swap.

All sinners deserve to die as Romans 1:32 says, and the Christians did, in their Representative.

Although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them.

TheSire

I think people are morally evil from conception. Apparently, so does God in Romans 1-5.

Development does occur across the testaments. However, often the developments build upon the past.

Your complaint doesn’t undermine my reconciliation. If guilt can be transferred, and it can, then I have a solution to human sinfulness rather than your case that makes man merely a victim of a disease. In fact, the image we get of the cross is perfect. God sacrifices himself as the only one not subject to sin in order that we don’t bear our punishment. I also agree with the example of corporate guilt in the Old and New Testaments.

Even if you reject headship, you have this issue where Christ’s death is pointless since a substitute isn’t necessary. Christ doesn’t need to die to heal us. He healed plenty via miracles. So, once again, your theology reduces to magic. He needs to heal us so he gets himself killed because of a condition, not our fault. Christ dies a pointless death. It wasn’t necessary and it doesn’t help him heal us.

Yes, the Bible is about setting this right but through retribution. God punishes lawbreakers. Hence the entire Old Testament history with cursing falling upon Israel for their disobedience. Your view doesn’t build on the past, it contorts it for reasons…

Justice demands the execution of every sinner. Hence why sin can only be forgiven by blood. The entire law has as a principle that the punishment should fit the crime and the wages of sin is death.

God healing people without randomly killing someone is more common than anyone being forgiven without atonement and not mentioning future atonement doesn’t make it not true. That’s a common mistake.

Well, depending on your view, you will handle addicts differently. Say you think you are obligated to the state to report such, then you probably wouldn’t be the simple 12 steps. Drugs shouldn’t be a crime, but we should help drug addicts. But Paul welcomed just punishment if he did anything wrong (he just maintained his innocence). Suppose the man prefers drugs to Christ in some idolatrous manner, then I cannot see why the person shouldn’t be judged for their sins. If they repent, then their sins are imputed to Christ. So, I fail to see the reason here to prefer your view over mine. In fact, idolaters don’t have a good run from what I hear.

God created the world not because he lacked anything.

Spicy

I don’t think that the transfer of places between Christ and those in Christ is a void switch-a-roo. There’s a certain sense in which he became sin, a certain sense in which believers became righteousness.

Well, I’m glad you don’t think it was just a switch-a-roo, but I don’t think you can totally avoid that. What is sin on your view? What does it mean to become sin? Sin is often equated with guilt for Calvinists. Did Christ become guilty? No, right? What does it mean to “take on guilt”? If we take an Old Testament view of guilt, then it is just the consequences, then Christ taking on our guilt means taking on our consequences. However, this no longer solves your switch-a-roo problem. What does it mean for a sinner to become righteous? On double imputation, do sinners really become righteous when Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us? Not really, we remain just as corrupted as before, and sure it may be the case that now God will sanctify us, but the righteousness “credited” to us is yet another legal fiction.

If we take an Old Testament definition of sin, especially informed by the New Testament language on sin, then it is corruption, corruptibility. Then it makes a lot more sense for Christ to take on sin. In the incarnation itself, the union of corrupted human nature and divine life inaugurates a healing and reconciliatory journey, culminating in the passion, where Christ enters the full depths of the human condition right to its core, and creates a path out. You need participatory categories to make sense of this. That way you can totally affirm that this is all Christ’s doing, and yet it really does affect you in an ontologically meaningful way. It is not a transaction done above our heads.

Whether or not Romans really affirms that is a long debate that I don’t want to get into. But if you need to think fetuses are committing morally evil acts that they are morally responsible for… then that is a massive cost of your view. If you don’t, then Christ’s atoning work is of little use to them (on PSA). It is far easier to affirm that from conception all humans are corrupted. Regardless of whether you have done anything wrong in a culpable way, you are still a part of a fractured Adamic reality that needs to be rescued.

While I’m skeptical that “guilt” can be transferred (unless we are just talking about consequences and not real guilt), the actual dilemma is not that, but if it would be just to do so. Would it be just if a murderer was found guilty, and someone else took their lethal injection for them? Would we think that the one-to-one correspondence between evil action and proportional punishment administered constituted justice? Or is it absolutely vital that the proportional punishment administered falls on the agent who committed the action? (This is assuming we take a retributive model.) What if we not only let the murderer go unpunished, but we also considered him innocent? The cross needs to be a place where you can look to and see God most clearly revealed in history. What does this show on my view? Absolute, self-sacrificial love. There are no hoops to jump through to show how this is really loving, it is exceptionally clear. You need retributive justice to be just as clearly revealed here, and yet PSA seems like a paradigm case of injustice. It displays worldly justice. The crime of punishing a righteous man, tolerated and abused by worldly rulers for their personal, socio-political, and imperial gain, not divine justice. It displays the heart of the Son, asking the Father to forgive even this of them while it is happening. It displays the heart of the Father, who despite the Son’s feeling of abandonment, is really right there with him. Never turning his back on him.

Firstly, let me point out the irony in criticizing me for pointing out that God freely forgives many times, and then turning around and pointing out that Christ healed many via miracles. But you are right, the orthodox are no more fans of separating the passion from the incarnation and Christ’s earthly ministry than they are fans of separating the death and resurrection of Christ. The whole thing is one fluid narrative. I also want to point out that you have completely forgotten a major Easter tradition. I can’t blame you for this, it is something Western Christians as a whole have just forgotten. What about the ransoming of Sheol? What about being the bite of Hades? The death of death? What about descending into Sheol and ascending with a host of captives? What about filling all things, including death? What about preaching to the previously disobedient dead in Sheol? Is it not through death that Christ renders powerless the one who has the power of death? “That is the devil”? I understand you think you have ways of making sense of all this on PSA, but the point is that independent of PSA, these ideas give a litany of purposes for Christ’s death. So you cannot say that without PSA his death was pointless.

The New Testament authors themselves “contort” things for “reasons”. Intentionally altering Old Testament quotes, choosing between the LXX and the MT depending on the point they want to make. Abundant composite allusions, frequent typologizing, allegorizing, speaking of Christ as fulfilling Old Testament scripture that isn’t prophetic and is clearly speaking about an already past event. That being said, the Old Testament itself doesn’t base its model of atonement on PSA. The day of atonement involves the goat for YHWH who is slaughtered and its blood used for purification and sanctification, and the goat for Azazel (scapegoat) whose purpose is expiation.

I’m assuming you are referring to Hebrews 9:22, so I should point out that the word for forgiveness is one of four different Greek words translated as “forgiveness”. It is the chosen word of forgiveness associated with salvation and properly means “release”, “release from imprisonment or bondage”. It is not considering Western legal guilt and the correlating notion of forgiveness. If anything, Hebrews is clearly focused on comparing Christ to a sin-offering, and compares his blood’s superior purifying purpose with animals’ inferior purifying purpose.

I think you missed the point behind the drug analogy. It isn’t a question about whether society should punish drug usage. We should all recognize that drugs can be abused, and it is morally wrong to do so. The point is that the Christian solution to someone doing something morally wrong who is also trapped in their sin is to heal them.

I never said God created the world because he lacked anything. I just pointed out that the reasons God has for loving or hating the elect/reprobate are all prior to those people and their actions. They are to glorify himself. He does not love people simply for the sake of loving people. He loves them because it glorifies himself.

Dissy

I don’t think we remain as corrupted as before. I added the fact that our old selves are crucified with him.

I also don’t really see how your view solves any problems. What does it mean to take someone else’s corruption?

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all mankind, because all sinned— 13. for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not counted against anyone when there is no law. 14. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the violation committed by Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. 15. But the gracious gift is not like the offense. For if by the offense of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many. 16. The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one offense, resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the gracious gift arose from many offenses, resulting in justification. 17. For if by the offense of the one, death reigned through the one, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7. For one will hardly die for a righteous person; though perhaps for the good person someone would even dare to die. 8. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 10. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11. And not only this, but we also celebrate in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

Where do you see corruption being the principal issue here? Believers were enemies of God (v.10). Judgment, resulting in condemnation, was assigned to them (v.16). The wrath of God awaited them (v.9). All of these seem to be guilt issues, principally.

TheSire

What is sin on your view? What does it mean to become sin? Sin is often equated with guilt for Calvinists. Did Christ become guilty? No, right? What does it mean to “take on guilt”?

It is to accept the penalty for their sins. So, yes, it means taking on the consequences. Christ was guilty because he became liable for our sins and rightfully took the punishment. This doesn’t mean Christ committed sins but took our obligation for them upon himself.

Someone else pointed out this just isn’t taking regeneration into account (Ezekiel 36, Jer 31).

Christ doesn’t have a corrupted human nature. So, given your own view, Christ needs someone to redeem his corruption, or anyone can redeem everyone else from the “sin sickness”. Furthermore, there is no connection between Christ not getting corrupted and us being freed from our corruption. I also find this argument is more etymological than substantial. It is no doubt that breaking commandments would be identified as sin. So, I explained this in the case of David and Israel receiving the curses of the Law.

Being sinful doesn’t require the agent to go out and personally sin. I was referring to Original Sin. This is grounded in representation. I maintain they were liable for the Adamic sin.

Guilt can be transferred. We see that the sins of children become obligated to the parents or deeds of a bad employee to a corporation. Furthermore, we see even God holding people responsible for the acts of their leaders. Joshua 7 has Israel being guilty of the sin of Achan.

The reason we don’t accept someone presenting themselves as a ransom for another is that we have no reason to accept their atonement. Why suppose anyone can be a representative in such a case?

I still find no reason your atonement theory makes sense of the cross. In fact, the cross isn’t significant to atonement because the goal of healing humanity can be done in other ways.

The day of atonement involves the goat for YHWH who is slaughtered and its blood used for purification and sanctification, and the goat for Azazel (scapegoat) whose purpose is expiation.

The goat given to Yahweh for atonement is also a sin offering with corresponding traditions showing the transfer of guilt.

In terms, I think the New Testament authors are contorting anything. I just don’t find that claim appealing.

In terms of Hebrews 9:22, you are correct, but you are unnecessarily limiting the scope of the term:

① the act of freeing and liberating from something that confines, release from captivity (Polyb. 1, 79, 12; SIG 374, 21; PGrenf I, 64, 5; 1 Esdr 4, 62; Philo, Mut. Nom. 228 [after Lev 25:10]; Jos., Ant. 12, 40; 17, 185) Luke 4:18ab (Is 61:1; 58:6); B 3:3 (Is 58:6); 14:9 (Is 61:1). ② the act of freeing from an obligation, guilt, or punishment, pardon, cancellation (Pla., Leg. 9, 869d φόνου; Diod S 20, 44, 6 ἐγκλημάτων; 32, 2, 6 τῆς τιμωρίας; Dionys. Hal. 8, 50 al.; En 13:4 and 6; Philo, Mos. 2, 147 ἀ. ἁμαρτημάτων, Spec. Leg. 1, 215; 237; Jos., Bell. 1, 481; examples from inscriptions and papyri in Nägeli 56. Cp. also Dt 15:3; Jdth 11:14; 1 Macc 10:34; 13:34. For history of the word Dssm., B 94–97 [BS 98–101]) ἁμαρτιῶν forgiveness of sins i.e. cancellation of the guilt of sin (Iren. 1, 21, 2 [Harv. I 182, 4]; Theoph. Ant. 2, 16 [p. 140, 9]) Mt 26:28; Mk 1:4; Lk 1:77; 3:3; 24:47; Ac 2:38; 5:31 (δοῦναι ἄφεσιν as Diod S 20, 54, 2); 10:43 (λαβεῖν; likewise, TestSol 6:10 A; Just., D. 141, 2 al.); 13:38; 26:18; Col 1:14; B 5:1; 6:11; 8:3; 11:1; 16:8; Hm 4, 3, 1ff; AcPl Ha 2, 30. For this ἄ. τ. παραπτωμάτων Eph 1:7; τοῖς παραπτώμασιν ἄ. Hm 4, 4, 4 (cp. ἄφεσις ἁμαρτημάτων Orig., C. Cels. 1, 47, 4); ἄ. abs. in same sense (Hippol., Ref. 6, 41, 2) Mk 3:29; Hb 9:22; 10:18. τὸ τῆς ἀφέσεως what is offered for forgiveness of sins GJs 1:1; αἰτεῖσθαι ἄφεσίν τινι ask forgiveness for someone 1 Cl 53:5 (εὔχεσθαί τε καὶ αἰτεῖν … παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ Just., A I, 61, 2).—ERedlich, The Forgiveness of Sins ’37; VTaylor, Forgiveness and Reconciliation (in the NT) ’41; HThyen, Studien z. Sündenvergebung im NT ’70.—DELG s.v. ἵημι. EDNT. M-M. TW. Spicq.

Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., Bauer, W., & Gingrich, F. W. (2000). In A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., p. 155). University of Chicago Press.

Spicy

Christ was guilty.

Wrong.

Christ was guilty because he became liable for our sins and rightfully took the punishment. This doesn’t mean Christ committed sins, but took our obligation for them upon himself.

Okay more seriously though, I’ve discussed the concept of vicarious liability and how feasible it can be in a defense of PSA: https://discord.com/channels/294987080482816000/641351065354371072/914635510138437693

Christ doesn’t have a corrupted human nature. So, given your own view Christ needs someone to redeem his corruption or anyone can redeem everyone else from the “sin sickness”.

Correct! The point is that the process of healing humanity begins with assuming the flesh and blood of humans in its corrupted form, and healing it in the incarnation itself. This is meant to be an inversion of the old perspective at the time that the presence of God would burn away sin if it came near. In the incarnation the presence of God unites with humanity, and rather than burn it away, it heals it.

Furthermore, there is no connection between Christ not getting corrupted and us being freed from our corruption.

Sure there is. When we participate in Christ, we enjoy the fruits of a recapitulated humanity. Perhaps you prefer the language of Hebrews. The sin offering was an animal sacrifice whose purpose was to sanctify and purify different locations, objects, and people. The yom kippur ritual then sanctifies the participating community. Christ is the same (but also far superior) in that the participating community also enjoys the sanctification and purification brought about by the blood from his undefiled/uncorrupted body.

Being sinful doesn’t require the agent to go out and personally sin. I was referring to Original Sin. This is grounded in representation. I maintain they were liable for the Adamic sin.

I don’t see how this is an improvement. Okay so a fetus is liable for the Adamic sin… ?

For sure, because in the Old Testament guilt is largely treated as the consequences, and trivially the consequences can be transferred. However, the western legal categories used in PSA presume a moral paradigm surrounding the concept of “guilt”. That paradigm is not transferable, at least I don’t see how. Now in the Old Testament, it seems like the motivation for a lot of what seems to us like more arbitrary laws, is the belief that such things were “unclean”. The “dirtiness” of sin was a real pollution that infected objects, homes, land, people, etc. Unfortunately, this becomes the impetus for justifying infanticide. But in the case of Joshua, it is pretty clear this is also what is going on. We need to ask ourselves, why would it be wrong to take the objects and resources of a conquered land and use them for good? Well, because the objects of a godless nation like Jericho were polluted. Joshua 7:12 (6:18 as well) tells us that they have mixed the items devoted for destruction with themselves and have themselves become devoted for destruction. Since Israel is a collective nation, this pollution affects all of them. So what is the solution? Destroy the items devoted for destruction (7:12, 7:13), sanctify the people (7:13). So once the pollution is dealt with, where is the collective liability you speak of? Is all of Israel still collectively guilty for the transgression of the few (and I use guilt in that western moral sense)? No, only the one who took the devoted items in the first place is punished (7:15, 7:25-26).

So rather than helping your view, I think this completely proves mine. Only the person who committed the crime is ultimately punished for it, but notice how the consequences of the sin acted like a disease and spread to collective Israel anyway. So collective Israel still needed to be sanctified and cleaned, and the one responsible still bore his punishment alone.

The reason we don’t accept someone presenting themselves as a ransom for another is that we have no reason to accept their atonement. Why suppose anyone can be a representative in such a case?

It seems like you are alluding to the inferiority of earthly substitutes? But I don’t think that is why we find the case to be unjust. We find it unjust because of the notion of substitution itself. The guilty person getting off scot-free (again, all assuming a retributive model). It’s because we don’t think justice is about the judge or the people getting payment for the wrongdoings of the guilty, where inflicting pain and suffering is a payment. Rather, (unfortunately) we often think that the pain and suffering is something intrinsically attached to the person who committed the crime. The goal of justice then is not to have just anyone (no matter how righteous) pay, but for the guilty agent to pay.

The goat given to Yahweh for atonement is also a sin offering with corresponding traditions showing the transfer of guilt.

I’m not sure why you said “also”. Yes, the sin offering was for countering the polluting effects of sin, hence its main purpose as purifying. What you are looking for in the transfer of guilt is the scapegoat, which is the goat that is contrasted with the goat offered to YHWH. Rather it is the goat given to Azazel, although it is not known if the demonology of Judaism was developed enough for the Azazel reference in Leviticus to be the demon chief Azazel. Regardless, the purpose of the scapegoat tradition is expiation. Again, combating the polluting effects of sin by sending the sin away. Most of the evidence of maltreatment of the goat and the need for the goat to die seems to come after the scapegoat has evolved into a personification of Azazel anyway. (See The Impact of Yom Kippur on Early Christianity by Daniel Stokl Ben Ezra)

In terms, I think the New Testament authors are contorting anything. I just don’t find that claim appealing.

Well…. I don’t mind it lol, and I wouldn’t use the word contorting to be fair. I just did because you did. In fact, all they were doing was following the hermeneutical norm of the time, with the insistence on a Christocentric interpretation of the Old Testament, even when the Old Testament on the literal level clearly does not have Christ in mind.

TheSire

Okay more seriously though, I’ve discussed the concept of vicarious liability and how feasible it can be in a defense of PSA:

@Christodestinist. I took a brief look and think @Saint Justin of Bestchamp is sufficient to deal with the issue. From what I got from your argument is that significant differences exist between these examples of vicarious guilt that might not correspond to what we think of in the case of Christ. The issue with this response is that the examples are merely to point out examples of some form of vicarious guilt. It was never the notion that they are identical. I think what I’ve said and Bestchamp fulfills our purpose.

Correct! The point is that the process of healing humanity begins with assuming the flesh and blood of humans in its corrupted form, and healing it in the incarnation itself.

I think two things follow from an apparent EO-looking theology:

I find this as proving my point that Christ’s death is a silly endeavor on your view because the incarnation has rendered the cross to no effect. If sin is dealt with merely because Christ became a human, then Christ foolishly got himself killed for no purpose.
This is all based on a mistaken view of sin and a mistaken view of the incarnation. Christ doesn’t assume the “corrupted form” we have. He doesn’t possess a sin nature. If your view was correct, it seems we need an infinite amount of saviors. Who will redeem Christ given your view? If he needs to assume our form, then he will also need a savior. Thus the cycle continues.

Why would we enjoy the fruits of Christ’s works? It almost seems like he is a representative, but I don’t see how one can object to vicarious liability that doesn’t just undermine any point of representation.

It seems like you don’t fully grasp the idea standing behind sacred spaces, holy objects, etc. These things are themselves symbolic of actual holiness. Steve Hays once wrote:

I can grant the distinction between moral and ritual purity/impurity. I can grant the sacred spatial framework.

Problem though, is that his dichotomy only pushes the question back a step. So what does sacred space signify? What does ritual defilement signify? Cultic holiness represents actual holiness. Cultic unholiness represents actual unholiness. These are emblematic pictures or enacted parables. You don’t literally enter God’s presence by entering the tabernacle or the inner sanctum. Rather, that’s a pictorial representation. Concrete spatial metaphors or figurative tokens that stand for real good and evil.

It’s entirely consistent with the symbolic nature of the Levitical cultus that these gestures and actions symbolize vicarious atonement, penal substitution, thereby prefiguring the redemptive death of Christ on behalf of and in place of (elect) sinners.

Continuing on:

Now in the Old Testament, it seems like the motivation for a lot of what seems to us like more arbitrary laws, is the belief that such things were “unclean”. The “dirtiness” of sin was a real pollution that infected objects, homes, land, people, etc. Unfortunately, this becomes the impetus for justifying infanticide. But in the case of Joshua, it is pretty clear this is also what is going on. We need to ask ourselves, why would it be wrong to take the objects and resources of a conquered land and use them for good? Well, because the objects of a godless nation like Jericho were polluted. Joshua 7:12 (6:18 as well) tells us that they have mixed the items devoted for destruction with themselves and have themselves become devoted for destruction. Since Israel is a collective nation, this pollution affects all of them. So what is the solution? Destroy the items devoted for destruction (7:12, 7:13), sanctify the people (7:13). So once the pollution is dealt with, where is the collective liability you speak of? Is all of Israel still collectively guilty for the transgression of the few (and I use guilt in that western moral sense)? No, only the one who took the devoted items in the first place is punished (7:15, 7:25-26).

No offense, but you’re twisting the scriptures to your destruction. This is the serpent in the garden method of interpretation. God isn’t angry with Israel because they took magically polluted items. It was that they took what was set aside for God. They stole and tried to lie to God himself and Israel was held accountable and was commanded to find them.

Sukka

It looks like it’s always been part of the Reformed tradition to emphasize the salvific significance of the resurrection, except until recently.

Both the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Heidelberg Catechism, for example, citing Romans 4:25, drew a connection between Christ’s resurrection and believers’ justification. Jonathan Edwards made the same connection: “the justification believers have at their conversion is as partaking of the justification that Christ had in his resurrection.” John Calvin also emphasized that the cross and resurrection stood together as saving deeds, carefully delineating their distinct soteriological contributions.

While they can be distinguished (for they each play distinct roles), they cannot be finally separated (for neither has any saving power or intelligibility apart from the other). Our salvation consists of both a bloody cross and an empty tomb, both a Friday afternoon’s agony and a Sunday morning’s vindication—and the latter is not merely proof of the gospel but part of the gospel.

Spicy

The issue with this response is that the examples are merely to point out examples of some form of vicarious guilt. It was never the notion that they are identical. I think what I’ve said and Bestchamp fulfills our purpose.

But Bestchamp sort of ended up agreeing that he would have to defend the permissibility of PSA from scripture, not from vicarious liability or respondeat superior in law. Yes, I get that it is an analogy, but as I pointed out to him, if all the reasons that VL/RS make sense over paradigmatic unjust substitutions are ones that seem to separate it from PSA, then this is a bad analogy. It’s not doing any work in solving the dilemma that objectors to PSA bring up.

I find this as proving my point that Christ’s death is a silly endeavor on your view because the incarnation has rendered the cross to no effect. If sin is dealt with merely because Christ became a human, then Christ foolishly got himself killed for no purpose.

Just because the incarnation plays a real role in the total atoning narrative doesn’t mean it does everything. So while the incarnation plays a massive role, we also want to include the important traditions of the descent into Sheol followed by the ascent, leading out a host of captives (Ephesians 4), and the preaching to the previously disobedient who are dead (1 Peter 3/4). Because scripture provides things for Christ to do while dead, seemingly independent of any PSA motif, there will always be a reason why Christ had to die. Similar to sin offerings which had to die, and yet they are not in the slightest about penal substitution.

Different theologians and early church fathers have different models, for some of the more Platonic ones, it’s the dissolving of death by the presence of divine life. In entering death, the source of life dispels it. This can be really abstract and weird though. This lecture might help:

https://web.archive.org/web/20220224000553if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/DzdgDdZkSOY?feature=oembed

the logic is probably best represented in Hebrews 2:14-15:
Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.
Why did the Son need to become human? Because only as a human could he die.
Why did the Son need to die? Because only by dying could he enter death, destroy death and set us free.
For others who perhaps are more Barthian and in line with Douglas Campbell and other apocalyptic readers of paul, they might say that in Christ we have the necessary termination of adamic reality, followed by the fruitful recreation of a glorified humanity in the resurrection. This creates a path so that mankind destined to death (a real death), now only goes through death as a precursor for resurrection (or at least those who participate in Christ).

oh also I forgot smt, there is a line in gregory somewhere where he says smt along the lines of the “unassumed, is the unhealed”. So really for Christ to heal all of humanity right to it’s depths, he needs to experience the feeling of estrangement, the injustice of the world, suffering at the hands of evil men, and eventually death as well.

2. This is all based on a mistaken view of sin and a mistaken view of the incarnation. Christ doesn’t assume the “corrupted form” we have. He doesn’t possess a sinful nature. If your view was correct, it seems we need an infinite amount of saviors. Who will redeem Christ given your view? If he needs to assume our form, then he will also need a savior. Thus the cycle continues.

I’m sorry but how is that not just repeating what I have already answered? The point is that he heals it in the incarnation itself. Why would anyone need to redeem Christ on my view? That would follow if I thought Christ’s human nature was corrupted, and he didn’t heal it in the incarnation itself. Which would be exactly what I didn’t say.

Why would we enjoy the fruits of Christ’s works? It almost seems like he is a representative but I don’t see how one can object to vicarious liability that doesn’t just undermine any point of representation.

So representation implies to me some sort of purely external work. You identify with Christ as your legal representative, and he then fulfills some task for you kinda thing. On a participatory view, I think there is something far more intrinsic and ontologically meaningful going. Let me quote campbell:

The very being of the sinful believer is taken up into Christ’s on the Cross, crucified, buried, then resurrected in a transformed state, and here free from sin, according to Paul. In a sense, then, a person is absorbed into the Easter events, and transformed through them and by them. Hence Paul can speak of a new creation, or of a new Adam, that is a new humanity, refashioned and remade “in Christ” as anyone experiences his resurrection—and here the connection with broader eschatological categories becomes apparent. And this is not just an idea, or a mental identification. Paul clearly believes that something quite real has happened; it is irreducibly concrete. The process also takes place in some relation to the Spirit. Indeed, for Paul the presence of the Spirit in the lives of Christians is the main testimony to the reality of the event. When the transformation is complete the Christian exists in a radically new way, in a relationship of filial intimacy with God through the Spirit (cp. Rom. 8.14-17; Gal. 4.1-7).

I would suggest that Paul’s locative or spatial imagery about the Christian in relation to Christ (“into” and “in” Christ) is a metaphor for being or ontology, and its radical transformation. Hence the important thing for Paul is the new set of relationships created in Christ, as well as the new relational capacity humans possess “in” him. Through Christians’ relationships with the Spirit, they now relate, in Christ, to the Father. In short, Christ makes Christians into fully relational beings, that is, into real full persons. “In him” they can relate to God and to each other as they ought to. Outside of him, humanity is enslaved to hostile and evil forces that curve people in on themselves, away from God and from others, corrupting and distorting all their relationships.

…

Again apparently drawing on the first chapters of Genesis, Paul seems to view the present activity of the Holy Spirit as a repetition of his initial activity in the creation of humanity. Where the breath of God brought the figure of dust to life in Genesis 2, creating a “living being” (Gen. 2.7; cp. 1 Cor. 15.45), so too Paul seems to view the present activity of the Spirit in fundamentally creative terms. But whereas the template of the original humanity was a creature modelled from the earth, the template of the new humanity is the second Adam, Christ, a figure who has undergone a starling termination and reconstitution. Hence as the Spirit “maps” or “moulds” people onto Christ’s prototypical trajectory, salvation is realized as the old state of bondage to Sin and Death in the Flesh is terminated, and a new resurrected eschatological state is effected (so also 1 Cor. 15.22, 42-49)

Continuing on:

It seems like you don’t fully grasp the idea standing behind sacred spaces, holy objects, etc. These things are themselves symbolic of actual holiness. Steve Hays once wrote:

The problem is that hays appears to have adopted the doomed position that not only is it okay to impose anachronistic interpretations on the text, but that these anachronisms are actually reflections of what the author all those thousands of years ago meant. But you don’t get to have it both ways. It’s fine to re-interpret the old in light of the new, but you can’t also then claim that this is evident in the text of the old itself. Without a doubt this reduction gets laughed out of contemporary scholarly circles on what the people writing the text in that time and place believed.
The desire to maintain literal and inerrant consistency across the pages of the entire Bible will force you to make moves like hays. Atonement was absolutely a real spatial event, it is not just a metaphor. The ritual application of the blood and elimination rites provides a real kind of cleansing. If they were trying to prefigure the legal redemptive work of Christ, then the authors of Leviticus were horrible writers.

Secondly, it is merely a linguistic shell game to suppose that a consequence is always different from a punishment.

for the sake of the point I made here that doesn’t matter. The point was that “guilt” was not referring to all the same things it refers to now. The debate was can guilt be transferred, and if when we speak of guilt we can just speak of the tangible punishment or consequence then trivially it is. If fred is guilty and thus incurs 3 lashings, trivially someone can else can be hit 3 times instead. The question is, would that be just, and does this change any real moral properties.

God isn’t angry with Israel because they took magically polluted items. It was that they took what was set aside for God. They stole and tried to lie to God himself and Israel was held accountable and were commanded to find them.

I don’t think you are engaging with my exegesis at all here. You don’t want it to be the case that the authors has a more mystical/mythological understanding of sin. But the text says what the text says. There absolutely no reason for God to punish collective Israel, and then only the individual transgressors once the pollution issue is sorted on your view. On your view he should have consistently punished collective Israel.

I don’t think you’re fulfilling what Jesus would consider a Christ-centric approach. The Christians never meant to hold the Bible need be interpreted in such a way that we can’t decide whether the apostolic interpretation is arbitrarily interpreting it. God set it up from the beginning to be interpreted these ways.

It can be true that God set it up from the beginning to be interpreted in these ways, even though the authors had no idea. Probably because the hermeneutical method used is frequently not literal but spiritual. The scholarly agreement on this is again quite high. It is hard to deny that the NT authors aren’t using the hermeneutical method that was common at the time. In fact, in some cases to a radical extent given the radical new foundation they had. I mean doesn’t Matthew claim that Jesus coming out of Egypt (and the conundrum that forced that situation) was all to fulfill a scripture that is clearly speaking about God delivering the Israelites from Egypt? Hosea certainly has no clue that he is writing prophetically about a future God calling a future son out of future Egypt. He is speaking about the past! Matthew knows this, but he calls this “scriptural fulfillment” anyways.

See punt?:

Whilst 1st century hermeneutics cannot be discussed here in detail, it should be mentioned that Paul used the scriptures according to conventional 1st century hermeneutical practices which in short entailed that (cf. Punt 1996):
the scriptures are holy and therefore should be interpreted
are the living word of God and therefore remains actual for the lives of other generations as well
that the scriptures can be interpreted by inspired, spirit-filled interpreters.

Regarding the notion of inspired interpreters, it needs to be noted that Paul’s radical hermeneutical shift was dependent on a disposition of trust towards the interpreter and his expectation that the Galatian churches would accept him as faithful interpreter of the scriptures (cf. Fowl 1994:77–95; cf. Stanley 2004:130–135). Paul is confident that his tailor-made, allegorical interpretation can persuade his audience (Stanley 2004:130–135), that the narrative on the wives of Abraham in Genesis requires a counter-conventional reading, to say the least,5 which deconstructs and reconstructs Israel’s history (cf. Janzen 1991:17).6 In essence, Paul’s retelling of the origin of Abraham’s children rests on a comparison of his two wives,7 Sarah and Hagar.8 Paul’s sublime appeal to his readers is through his hermeneutical procedure in which Abraham and Sarah are treated as typical and normative examples, concentrating on scriptural texts which emphasised that Israel’s special place with God is relativised (Dunn 1990:203). His reliance upon a scriptural argument constituted a very important element in Paul’s efforts to establish a particular identity in Galatians.

Sukka:

Does the death of Christ only serve as a means to His resurrection according to your view?

Spicy:

no, but the two aren’t separable.

thats good, and I am glad that the resurrection isn’t as diminished in the reformed tradition as I once thought (though I still think it is a little). but it is still a little unclear to me what role the resurrection plays in saving sinners on PSA. The paper gives roles to christ after resurrection, and sure that is great. But what about the resurrection itself? and again im talking about this happening independent of introducing recreative/participatory categories. I do see some talk of that in the paper which is good, and I grant there isn’t an immediate problem with holding to both PSA and recreative/participatory events

Sukka:

What does His death accomplish that His resurrection doesn’t?

Spicy:

hehe, it gets him into death

Sukka:

The way I understand it is that we share in Christ’s resurrection life and all the benefits that flow out of it via union in Christ, including the benefit of Christ’s righteousness that justifies us before God.

Spurgeon: “As the rising of the sun removes the darkness, so the rising of Christ has removed our sin. The power of the resurrection of Christ is seen in the justifying of every believer; for the justification of the Representative is the virtual justification of all whom he represents.”

Edwards: “The justification of a believer is no other than his being admitted to communion in, or participation of the justification of [Christ].”

John Piper: “In historic Reformed exegesis, (1) a person is in union with Christ by faith alone. In this union, (2) the believer is identified with Christ in his (a) wrath absorbing death, (b) his perfect obedience to the Father, and (c) his vindication-securing resurrection. All of these are reckoned—that is, imputed—to the believer in Christ. On this basis, (3) the “dead,” “righteous,” “raised” believer is accepted and assured of final vindication and eternal fellowship with God.”

Bestchamp:

I think what Vincent is trying to say is that I (or more properly Winger) brought up examples of cases of VL not to prove that PSA is sufficiently analogous to those human cases of VL as an argument for PSA being morally permissible. But to show that there are examples of one being held guilty for crimes he or she did not commit in response to arguments against PSA. I take it that Vincent is only trying to do the latter rn. Otherwise, I agree that if he makes an argument for the permissibility of PSA he must do so from scripture. But to defend against attacks to PSA, he might not need to do this.

Spicy:

I guess I would agree that it is a good response if someone claimed that “there are absolutely zero cases of just legal substitution!”. Pointing to VL/RS would indeed refute them. That being said, it would be very natural for them to look at why VL/RS is just and other cases of legal substitution isn’t and appropriately decide that PSA does not fall into the category of VL/RS, but rather those unjust cases. The question would then be, is the fact that PSAs closest earthly analogy is unjust mean that it itself is unjust for God? Im not sure how one could prove that, but I do think one has to admit the concept doesn’t feel like justice. Therein lies a problem in and of itself. In my opinion, the Cross needs to be a clear revelation of the nature of God. One should be able to look at the cross, and while they may not understand the metaphysical underpinnings of exactly how this does xyz, they need to be able to see that as a display of God’s essence. It’s quite easy to see how this is a display of love. We may not fully understand what it means to participate, or to descend into sheol etc, but we can understand that this is an act of divine love. But for PSA, it equally needs to be a clear demonstration of the justness of God. But when you explain to someone the logic of psa and tell them “this is a clear example of justice” while on the other hand it naturally falls into that unjust category of legal substitution, I think you have a problem.

TheSire:

Firstly, I know that this ‘mythological’ view of sin is just a myth. Why is shellfish evil? Mixed fabrics? and what changed in the time of Christ that the magical ‘evils’ have faded from these things? The reason why Israelites did these acts were to distinguish themselves from the other nations.

Secondly, the passage says these things:

6:24 They burned the city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the Lord’s house.

10 The Lord then said to Joshua, “Stand up! Why have you fallen facedown? 11 Israel has sinned. They have violated my covenant that I appointed for them. They have taken some of what was set apart. They have stolen, deceived, and put those things with their own belongings.

Notice their is nothing here about special properties in these items. It was that they transgressed the covenant. Notice also that Israel was going to be punished because a small number of them had stolen what was rightfully God’s stuff.

The argument that God must continue to punish all the Israelites corporately (which is just what he did and you can’t deny it). God gave a means by which they can rectify the issue. Find the perpetrators and the missing items.

You cited (and is most likely the most convincing) v 13 in defense of your interpretation. The problem is that it is pure conjecture that the reason they are consecrated is because mystical sinful properties. It hardly is sufficient for that reason and remains unconvincing.

Lastly, if God is so uncaring about the legal ramifications of his covenant and so uninterested in legal punishment’s. It seems weird that God would punish them when he could easily remove their sin.

So while the incarnation plays a massive role, we also want to include the important traditions of the descent into sheol followed by the ascent- leading out a host of captives (eph 4), and the preaching to the previously disobedient who are dead (1 peter 3/4). Because scripture provides things for Christ to do while dead, seemingly independent of any PSA motif, there will always be a reason why Christ had to die. Similar to sin offerings which had to die, and yet they are not in the slightest about penal substitution.

It seems evident that the objection isn’t addressed. The point is that Jesus being in human form is sufficient to change human nature. This is what ‘saves’ people. The problem arises that Christ need not have died, nor died the way he did. For he need not be an adulterer in order to purify human nature of adultery on your scheme. So, Jesus need not die in order to redeem people from death. So, you have no atonement because you traded it for this platonic Christ. Even if you could show that he needed to die, you can’t show why him dying of old age wouldn’t satisfy purification rather than the cross. The cross was an unnecessary brutal act for no purpose on your scheme.

Furthermore, if Christ act can purify human nature then why can’t human sin corrupt human nature? Without a theory of substitution and representation you can’t adequately exclaim why Christ actions are relevant for us.

Maybe we should rephrase it because I don’t see you addressing it. Jesus was born mortal, Christ came to redeem men from mortality, Christ himself was mortal, therefore Christ mortality needs to be redeemed. Either anyone can redeem people from morality or only someone specific. This is where it gets tricky. If anyone can do it, then it seems like any death can suffice for God to give immortality. This renders Christ unnecessary. If it has to be specific person, then why? I think from what I read is that Christ is immortal but he also is mortal. So, Christ would also need another incarnation to atone for his mortality because a mortal can’t atone for their mortality. So, you present a communication of divine life to the incarnation (I hinted at weird Christology before). The issue with this is that it violates the notion that Christ doesn’t possess a mixed nature. Which I’m assuming you hold to Chalcedon. So, it seems we have your Trilemma:

1. Either Christ’s needs a savior for his immortality.
2. His atonement is unnecessary. Any death will do.
3. Christological heresy.

I’m glad you concede that the NT authors held my view and that I’m merely reading their views back into the OT. Of course I agree with @Christodestinist that we can infer that the Bible is inerrant and the NT authors aren’t misrepresenting what the OT taught. The idea that they were engaged in eisegesis would’ve been great news to their Jewish opponents and is somewhat what they are still arguing. Jesus upholds the OT and engaged in serious interpretation of it.

Furthermore, it seems your entire atonement theory requires later various ECF’s theories on the atonement to be read back onto the Bible where it seems they simply aren’t being derived from and merely read back onto the Biblical text. The notions of privation, realism, etc. are just not what you find in atonement passages.

I’ve never argued that they don’t use these various methods. My contention is that they are using them because God set it up that way. It is like 1 Cor 10:

11 These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come.

If God structures history, then it is obvious that God can set up these patterns, events, etc. in the biblical narrative for our benefit. The Jews developed these methods not because they were all wicked unbelievers but because they noticed something in the text. This isn’t to say they all used these things appropriately.

In fact, in some cases to a radical extent given the radical new foundation they had. I mean doesn’t Matthew claim that Jesus coming out of Egypt (and the conundrum that forced that situation) was all to fulfill a scripture that is clearly speaking about God delivering the Israelites from Egypt? Hosea certainly has no clue that he is writing prophetically about a future God calling a future son out of future Egypt. He is speaking about the past! Matthew knows this, but he calls this “scriptural fulfillment” anyways.

Matthew isn’t contradicting Hosea and not all fulfillment is like prophetic fulfillment. In fact Matthew uses the same hermeneutic that Hosea is using for the Exodus. Showing how it was all set up for the coming of Christ.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220224000553if_/http://spirited-tech.com/2018/06/21/robert-rowe-on-sensus-plenior/embed/#?secret=MWqIKlnzRU

I don’t think you have shown that it can’t work this way. Suppose we sin against God, God comes down and takes our punishment on himself, and then changes us in such a way we can now obey him. It isn’t merely some unrelated party takes the punishment’s. In fact, the offended party is the one that takes the penalty to truly save humans. This is probably why the atonement has value whatsoever.

This also fits ancient Jewish traditions about the righteous paying for the sins of the world. This is documented by Messianic Jews like Dr. Michael Brown and others.

Lastly, we should also notice that we have still this issue that sin is arbitrarily forgiven by God. While you have attack mine and the Bible’s answer to sin. You have no serious solution other than divine magic. As 1 Cor. 15 states “are still in your sins.”. It seems obvious that either God cares about sin or he doesn’t. So, arbitrarily forgiving people isn’t going to cut it as divine justice. Notice when Paul is asked on whether we should continue sinning in Romans 6 he explains that we have been baptized (which is to say we have been washed spiritually because we were morally evil and now can walk in line with the spirit). On your view, Paul should’ve simply said God made you the way you are and be true to yourself because sinning doesn’t make a difference. Your view is only left with futility and unrighteousness.

Spicy:

I agree that the point was to distinguish themselves from other nations, but you haven’t given any account of why. Now I get that you probably aren’t a fan of good anthropology here, but the reason is that God’s people needed to be set apart as the “clean” people, not that they just chose some random customs of ancient culture and chose to not do them. More importantly is the necessity for the people to be clean to sustain the continual presence of God in Israel. This is a fundamental aspect of how sin separates and creates an opposition between God and man in ancient Judaism, and how atonement solutions can be spatial and propitiatory, with expiation (purification, removal, purgation etc) as the modus operandi.

So when you bring up a passage about Israel transgressing the covenant, it isn’t clear why you think this point is in any way shape or form in conflict with what I have been saying about this passage. I’m also not sure why you quote 6:24. The only thing I can think of is to try and argue that the real problem is that they stole from God, and that because these are put in the treasury they weren’t devoted for destruction. But v18 calls the things the ought not covet the things devoted for destruction, taking the things devoted for destruction is explicitly said to make the camp of israel itself an object devoted for destruction, the solution is to eventually destroy these things. So in case that was your point, it doesn’t work.

Additionally, it is quite silly to imply that just because this text doesn’t explicitly talk about “special properties” that the text doesn’t imply it. Indeed, it is in fact a part of the logic of the story, here and elsewhere. Earlier I alluded to this ancient jewish understanding being the impetus for infanticide and genocide. Unfortunately the logic of the story is far more tolerable if we take my view. On this view, the infants, the men, the women, the animals, the objects, the land etc, can all be destroyed for a good reason (hinging on the belief that uncleanliness of the people has spread to everything else). Your view however takes the infants, the animals, and the objects (question mark) to be morally culpable for the actions of the sinners. You have to fight in the face of the common sense intuition that babies are not morally culpable. Now, being a good calvinist, perhaps you have gotten used to rejecting your common moral intelligence, but let me remind you that this is far from a virtue.
This text however does make it hard to avoid the idea that the problem is the polluting effects of the items devoted for destruction. Let’s lay out the facts.

– The city and all that is in it is devoted for destruction(6:17)
– Taking the items devoted to destruction makes the camp of israel itself devoted for destruction(6:18)
– The israelites proceed to devote to destruction, men, women, children, and animals alike(6:21)
– However, Achan took some of the devoted items (7:1)
– Immediately, Israel’s next military engagement fails (7:2-5)
– This is because of the transgression (7:11)
– Because of this, they are unable to stand before their enemies (7:12)
– They have become an object devoted for destruction (7:12)
– God can no longer be with them (7:12) (this will be important later)
– Unless those devoted things are destroyed (7:12-13)
– and the people are cleansed (sanctified) (7:13)
– Achan reveals he has stolen the devoted items and hid them in his tent (7:20-21)
– Joshua takes the devoted items, achan, achan’s children, achan’s cattle, his tent, and all his possessions to the valley (7:22-24)
– They are destroyed (7:25-26)

So to me it is crystal clear, such items devoted to destruction polluted the israelite camp, and that pollution is what caused problems for collective Israel. The precise way that pollution in the OT causes problems for the Israelites varies. Sometimes it is passive wrath by the presence of God, sometimes it is the active wrath of God, sometimes it is the withdrawal of God. The Joshua narrative seems to be thinking of the withdrawal of God. It was his divine presence that was supporting them and causing their military success, having polluted their camp, God would no longer stay with them, and his withdrawal removes any success their military has, making them an object devoted to destruction at the hands of their enemies. This is similar to the departure of the shekinah glory in ezekiel. An issue that serves as an enduring head scratcher for jews throughout the second temple period, and serves as a catalyst for much of the developed theological environment in which the NT arises.
Anyways,the solution involves the removal of the polluting items, and the cleansing of the people, ultimately the original transgressors and everything related to him remains polluted and is destroyed. Otherwise.. Why destroy animals? Kids? Tents? Silver? Gold? Random objects?

I suspect the confusion you are having is mistaking categories of opposition, with categories of legal guilt. It is true that legal guilt and opposition work fine together, but it is also true that the text can evidence one and not the other. In this case, the problem is fundamentally the incompatibility of the holiness of God, and the uncleanliness of sin and what is associated with it. This is why, both actions that have an obvious moral dimension to it, and actions that don’t are equally problematic for the relationship between God and man. Things like childbirth or leprosy are problematic, the touching of a corpse causes one to be unclean such that if they don’t purify themselves they “defile the tabernacle” and are subsequently “cut off”. Murder is more explicitly said to cause pollution: “33 You shall not pollute the land in which you live; for blood pollutes the land, and no expiation can be made for the land, for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it. 34 You shall not defile the land in which you live, in which I also dwell; for I the Lord dwell among the Israelites.” (Num 35:33-34)
Such uncleanliness can easily spread for “Whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean, and anyone who touches it shall be unclean until evening.” (Num 19:22).
This is also the motivation for the so-called “karet penalty”. This penalty is rather serious, but notice the wide array of things that qualify:
Failure to be circumcised (Gen 17:14)
Eating leaven of leavened material during the feast of Unleavened Bread (Ex 12:15,19)
Making or using imitation holy anointing oil or incense (Ex 30:33,38)
Working on the Sabbath (Ex 31:14)
Eating meat from sacrifices of well-being when in a state of uncleanness (Lev 7:20,21)
Eating of the suet of animals that are sacrificable (Lev 7:25)
Eating Blood (Lev 7:27; 17:10, 14)
Profane slaughter of a sacrificable animal (Lev 17:4)
Making burnt offerings elsewhere apart from at the tabernacle (Lev 17:4)
Committing incest, bestiality, adultery, male-male intercourse (Lev 18:29)
Eating meat from sacrifices of well-being on the third day after the sacrifice (Lev 19:8)
Sacrificing to Molech (Lev 20:3-5)
Following wizards or mediums (Lev 20:6)
Sleeping with one’s sister (Lev 20:17)
Sleeping with a menstruating woman (Lev 20:18)
Failing to afflict oneself on Yom Kippur (Lev 23:30)
Neglecting without cause to observe Passover (Num 9:13)
Priest approaching holy donations while unclean (Lev 23:29)
Any Deliberate sins (Num 15:30-31)
Failure to cleanse oneself of corpse impurity (Num 19:13, 20)

It would be quite silly to assume that the wide array of sins described here were all punished irrevocably with an abrupt “cutting off” (basically an immediate extermination or excommunication), just because of some legal transgression. No, each one of these sins has a reason grounded in the incompatibility of God’s holiness, and the extreme level of uncleanliness associated with the act. This shows just how intrinsic the pollution view is to the ancient israelites. It is what drives the law itself.
Second, by contrast with other instances of the karet penalty formula, the term “people” here is singular, which gives the sense of a unitary people or nation. In other words, the body from which the offender is being removed is not just his or her own family, but the nation to which he or she belongs, that is, the nation of Israel. These offenses are of national significance, they are so elemental that they threaten to destabilize the nation and the self-understanding on which it is built, and so the offenders are removed actively and directly by God from the nation, from the body against which they have offended. This is radical surgery indeed.
– Atonement: Jewish and Christian origins

Interestingly enough, in the levitical system, when people bring forward animals for the purification offering for their specific sins, it is the altar and sanctuary that is purified, not necessarily the person directly. This shows that the worry was how the person’s individual sins contaminated the sacred spaces and objects. This is because the sanctuary was the earthly dwelling place for God, and he would not tolerate a defiled and polluted sanctum. It is quite interesting additionally to note the developments even between leviticus and numbers here. The priestly legislation originally only thinks of the israelite people themselves, and only for positive actions. Committing transgressions by doing something they should not have. The holiness school however expands this by including transgressions by failing to do something they should have, as well as noting the need to sanctify the community for non-israelite land dwellers. Noticing that they, although not a part of the covenant community, still caused pollution. These developments can be seen by contrasting the Holiness school’s law in numbers with the Priestly legislation in leviticus.

Thus, David Wright who writes the chapter on the priestly and holiness schools differences in the aforementioned book concludes with:

Thus H’s extension of atonement beyond Israel to include the immigrant is not a means of enlarging the religious community by conversion or adoption, but of ensuring the vitality of Israel in its land. A stranger who comes to live in the land must abide by the moral and ritual requirements that preserve its sanctity.

That should be sufficient for now in this section. I am sorry for writing so much here, but I think you are avoiding what can be an uncomfortable conclusion to western christians not out of good exegesis, but based on your prior theological convictions. What has been shown here is a view of sin and holiness that can seem so pagan, and alien to what we as christians think of as God. If you force yourself into believing in the perfect consistency between not only judaism and christianity, but judaism at one time and judaism at another (within the Old testaments own pages) you will inevitably force yourself into concocting ad hoc solutions to what is very evident in the text. Let me remind you, that my goal is not necessarily to defend the logical consistency of this view, but just to point out that this was indeed the belief of the ancient israelites. This is one of the many reasons that the incarnation is an extremely important starting point when talking about christian atonement and salvation, and how christianity inverts what I have just discussed. Rather than the old view where man needs to clean the sanctuary to maintain the presence of God who cannot tolerate sin and uncleanliness, God becomes man, enters into an unclean world, and as he interacts with it he heals it himself.

Unclean lepers whose uncleanliness forced them outside of the israelite camp, and kept them distant from God, are major subjects of Christ’s earthly work. He goes right up to them and dwells among them. This is very significant stuff I think.

I don’t see how I didn’t address the objection. First of all, I gave several reasons for Christ to die independent of the incarnation and any PSA motif, that alone is sufficient as a response to your objection, and none of that was responded to. I also think you missed the point about Christ healing human nature in the incarnation, I am speaking of his humanity. I am not suggesting that this instantly changes everyone else. Then a good question would be, why does anyone else sin? You need to participate in Christ, you need the work of the spirit to transform and recreate you, to perfect you in Christ the second Adam.

Now, you ask why did Christ have to die a painful death, I should point out that if you think sacrificial animals were prefiguring christ, none of them died brutal deaths either. So if in any of those cases you think that the animals take the punishment for the human, a similar question arises for you. Now plenty of people have written on why Christ died a painful death, but I don’t really want to get too deep into that. I think it is an answer to the problem of evil in a way. But also, I would repeat a sentiment that I mentioned earlier from Gregory Nazianzen, that the unassumed is the unhealed. Christ enters the human condition right to its core, and that includes experiencing the worst it has to offer, and coming out on the other side. Christ’s conquering of death and suffering, things we were enslaved to is ultimately the sign and cause of our liberation.

This is getting repetitive
What I am saying is that human nature is corrupt, and Christ incarnated. It just follows that in the incarnation he takes on corrupted human nature. The question then is, does Christ’s divine nature automatically heal this? Or is he walking around just as prone to sin as the rest of us. Obviously the latter is false, so the former must be true. Seems simple enough. Your objection only works if the latter is what I was saying, but I have been consistently saying the former. Nevertheless, there is still an adamic reality present here, and that is something he takes to the grave for its termination, when he rises he rises with a glorified body, that is the new humanity reconstituted wholly in christ. Here I would again point to campbell:

But whereas the template of the original humanity was a creature modelled from the earth, the template of the new humanity is the second Adam, Christ, a figure who has undergone a starling termination and reconstitution. Hence as the Spirit “maps” or “moulds” people onto Christ’s prototypical trajectory, salvation is realized as the old state of bondage to Sin and Death in the Flesh is terminated, and a new resurrected eschatological state is effected (so also 1 Cor. 15.22, 42-49)

Continuing on:

I’m glad you concede that the NT authors held my view and that I’m merely reading their views back into the OT.

I never conceded that. I was making a more general point about systematic theology in which it is okay to adopt new interpretations of old texts in light of the radical new foundation you have. But to do this is not to also be a literalist, which you are. Hence my point that it is okay to re-interpret, but not to claim that this is what the authors intended. So when we speak of hays take on the old testament view of holiness and whatnot, if he wants to “spiritualize” the passages so he can read them that way, that is okay, but he should still acknowledge what the authors likely thought which is not the reduction he argued for.

The idea that they were engaged in eisegesis would’ve been great news to their Jewish opponents and is somewhat what they are still arguing. Jesus upholds the OT and engaged in serious interpretation of it.

No it would not have been good news to them because the jews themselves had the same hermeneutical approach to their scriptures. In fact, the creative ways in which the OT is used by NT authors (see paul in galatians for example) would have been seen as impressive if anything. Jews may do this now out of a new found desire (probably based on protestant influence) to retreat to the literal meanings when helpful to distance themselves from christianity.

I can partially agree with this, but let’s note some differences. Firstly, those are models of how we can understand the metaphysical nature of how exactly Christ conquers death for example. There is no need to find the language of the ECFs when trying to work on the metaphysics of the incarnation and the atonement, in scripture. That is akin to not finding the word trinity in the Bible. What we do need to find is theological concepts that support the project, and that we do find. Additionally, I am not claiming that understanding this is necessary for salvation. I don’t think rejecting this means you aren’t saved. You are.

Matthew isn’t contradicting Hosea and not all fulfillment is like prophetic fulfillment. In fact, Matthew uses the same hermeneutic that Hosea is using for the Exodus. Showing how it was all set up for the coming of Christ.

So I read the post on your website and firstly, I think the link to the original engagement is really to a youtube video of bowen critiquing ross. Secondly, I don’t find the arguments there compelling. The fact that Matthew is clearly trying to show a typological similarity between Israel and Christ is obvious. But Hosea is not speaking of the exodus in the same way that Matthew is, even if that is something hosea does more generally, it clearly isn’t what he is doing in that very verse. Hosea shows God speaking literally about calling Israel out and how they nevertheless turned their backs on him. This is simply a literal reading that hosea uses. Matthew doesn’t do this at all. True, he wants to create an allusion that compares Christ to Israel, but there are many ways to do this, that indeed the authors of the NT do use when they want to create comparisons, allusions, typologies etc. It does not require the claim to scriptural fulfillment. Besides, there is a perfectly common jewish interpretative category in which Matthew’s quotation falls into and that is drash. True, drash is not a completely contrary method from peshat (the literal method) but the point is that Matthew feels comfortable using it, despite the havoc that would cause in evangelical circles now.

I think you may have forgotten the context of this thread of the discussion. You were defending the idea of moral guilt transfer through the achan story, and through the concepts of vicarious liability in law. I have objected to both. I argued that the notion of justice that comes to mind when we decide to think solely retributively is one in which there is something essential to the guilty agent. Though we might not always phrase it this way, it is not “bad actions require punishment”, but rather “bad people require punishment”. This is exactly why Mens rea is extremely relevant in law. Mens rea testifies to what I am saying, that punishment zeroes in on a person who did something wrong, and not on the action in isolation. The fact that criminal intent is important shows that the idea of punishment is attached to moral properties in the human being punished, not moral properties in the action they committed. So it wouldn’t matter if it was the offended party themselves who took the punishment, your view is still mistakenly considering punishment a response to negative actions, and not negative behaviour. This led to my little analogy in which I said that justice on PSA is more interested in making sure the executioner gets to swing his axe, than making sure the executioner swings his axe at the guilty party. Then we talked about guilt transfers, and I noted that there is a difference between guilt as the consequences, and guilt as a moral claim.

I object that guilt as a moral property can be transferred as that violates its whole point. However, for PSA to work you need it to be about guilt transfer as a moral claim. Or else who are violating justice and your atonement model fails on its own terms.

You and proponents of PSA will like using words like “arbitrary” but there is no basis for this. Sin can be freely forgiven by God. The rest of your argument here rests on the claim that “I have no serious solution other than divine magic” but this is merely an assertion, and it is the sole pillar for the following comments. I agree that God cares about sin, if he didn’t, he would not have sent christ. You’ve also created this false entailment in which if God cares about sin he cannot forgive without punishing. But this whole time I have been describing sin as fundamentally a sickness, and God’s redemptive work as a cure. Which easily shows how God both cares about sin, must deal with it, and does not need to punish it. So apart from begging the question, this comment is just empty rhetoric.

Notice when Paul is asked on whether we should continue sinning in Romans 6 he explains that we have been baptized (which is to say we have been washed spiritually because we were morally evil and now can walk in line with the spirit). On your view, Paul should’ve simply said God made you the way you are and be true to yourself because sinning doesn’t make a difference. Your view is only left with futility and unrighteousness.

I can just repeat what I said above really, but notice how you claim that on my view “sinning doesn’t make a difference”. This is just a blatant misrepresentation..

Christodestinist:

What I am saying is that human nature is corrupt, and Christ incarnated. It just follows that in the incarnation he takes on corrupted human nature.

This logic is hilariously bad.
One could stake the claim with the same basis that “it just follows” that Jesus sinned, and in fact there are theologians who suggested as much.

The ad hoc Nestorian-level-nonsense that the Son of God overcomes His human nature with the divine renders irrelevant the works of Christ, including and especially His death and resurrection, as @Darth Bahnsen already pointed out.

Nevertheless, there is still an adamic reality present here, and that is something he takes to the grave for its termination, when he rises he rises with a glorified body, that is the new humanity reconstituted wholly in christ.
What trite word salad. You just got done saying the divine consumes the corruption in the human nature. That’s it. Nothing else is needed by definition.

As we saw before, consistency really isn’t one of the strength of the Spicy atonement model.

Actually, I ended too early. This view is even more incoherent – because why would people still need to die and be resurrected if the incarnation were about the divine overshadowing human nature. God could just snap his fingers, sprinkle some divine rays of light, and that’d be that.

So not only is there no reason for Christ to die and raise again, but it’s absurd for anyone to die and expect resurrection.

Spicy:

One could stake the claim with the same basis that “it just follows” that Jesus sinned, and in fact there are theologians who suggested as much.

It would only follow if he wasn’t also divine, which is something I stated. So in other words, it doesn’t follow.

I don’t like the language of “overcomes his human nature”/”overshadowing”. He overcame the depravity of man, true. But man isn’t supposed to be depraved. I should also point out that platonism is not the driving force here, but the Christ-Adam typology. Treating humanity as a unity in a sense whose depravity follows from being a product of adam’s initial fall. So when Christ enters humanity, he doesn’t magically descend, already fully grown, independent of any Adamic lineage. Yet he does not succumb to adamic depravity, even though he initially has flesh and blood (which cannot enter the kingdom of God). If it is really true that there is something real about adamic lineage that causes mans depraved state, then everything I’ve said about Christ’s incarnation really does just follow.

As for why Christ needs to die, asked and answered. I have no desire for repeating my self, you and bahnsen are just repeating each other in response to long answers I have given already answering this. I should add though, that what I have said about the incarnation is not something typically thought to be essential to CV. It is rather a unique contribution of mine (well idk how unique, im sure others have said this), and as I have thought about the incarnation and the inversion of holiness and sin’s antagonism as destructive in the OT, what I have said hear about the incarnation seems to fit well into the general picture. Perhaps it needs more nuance, but for now I don’t think it should be a focus. More than I am arguing for my own atonement theory, I am arguing against yours. So the logical problems it faces with justice, and the lack of scriptural warrant should be the focuses.

As for why do people still need to die and rise. This is a tricky question in general, and I don’t see an obvious answer from PSA either. Also, if you believe that during Christ’s second coming there will be righteous people alive who merely join the resurrected without dying, it makes the question trickier. There are rather simple answers like “well because Christ did”, but they probably don’t get to the heart of the matter.

This is a good video which discusses some of the patristic ideas I am working with:

Christodestinist:

[earlier:]
What I am saying is that human nature is corrupt, and Christ incarnated. It just follows that in the incarnation he takes on corrupted human nature.

[now:]
It would only follow if he wasn’t also divine, which is something I stated. So in other words, it doesn’t follow.
You refute yourself. ; )

Treating humanity as a unity. . .
This is unhelpful. Jesus doesn’t take on the blobject “humanity” as a nature. He exhibits an individual example of humanity, like any other human.

Notwithstanding, you failed to address the objection. The objection is that if sin is analogous to a sickness Christ can heal by just touching it to His divine self, then that same overshadowing soteriology explains away the works of the incarnate Christ.

Saying “Christ-Adam typology” with hand-waving gestures isn’t a counter.

I know you believe you answered the objections before, but it just tends to be word salad that tangents into comments like how you think some of your view is unique. (Why you think some of them haven’t been addressed; you say in ten paragraphs what can be summarized in two sentences and amounts to name drops like, “Christ-Adam typology.”)

Also, I’m glad you’re uncomfortable with the Nestorian vibes of your own soteriology. It’s bad juju.

Spicy:

Your comments here Jimmy display some of the reasons I have lost patience with discussing pretty much anything with you. I thought about saying something snarky earlier when the topic was hermeneutics, about the waste of time it would be to talk about hermeneutics with someone who cannot even charitably interpret his interlocutors..

Take the two quotes of mine you think are somehow contradictory. Anyone reading what I said in context would know that what I am talking about that doesn’t follow is that Christ sinned. Hence “it would only follow if Christ wasn’t divine”, but since Christ is divine “in other words it doesn’t follow”. With that in mind, it is crystal clear that there is no contradiction.

You also latch on to fragments here and there and miss the larger point being made which makes the whole discussion exceptionally tedious. You just blow past the answers to your questions in previous comments and then pretend like I am obfuscating..
I pointed it out in the past, you are more concerned with winning then with a legitimate discussion. It isn’t surprising at all given the whole “shut up your opponents” idea.

Christodestinist:

Spicy, I love you, but you have to appreciate the irony.

Your original claim was:
What I am saying is that human nature is corrupt, and Christ incarnated. It just follows that in the incarnation he takes on corrupted human nature.

Now, it does not “just follow.” It’s non-sequitar. But the same proponents of “it just follows” were theologians who said “it just follows” that the divine God takes on sinning.

So when you go on to say:
It would only follow if he wasn’t also divine, which is something I stated. So in other words, it doesn’t follow.
It’s tremendously ironic because there was nothing present in the original logical consequence to rule out this scenario and there’s nothing present in this update to treat it as avoiding the logical consequence of contradicting your original assertion.

I’m sorry you feel treated uncharitably. I don’t think you’re unintelligent or dishonest – hopefully that is clear.

Spicy:

But that isn’t all that was said on my original claim, nor is it clear to me that this doesn’t actually follow. Human nature is corrupted, Christ takes on human nature, the humanity that Christ takes on is corrupted. You mentioned that Christ doesn’t take on a “blobject”, but rather an individual example of humanity, thats completely fine on my view. I don’t buy this weird group culpability thing you guys have going on where babies or really anyone else is culpable for adam’s sin and whatnot, but either way, you have consequences of the fall that effect the very being of individual humans born in this adamic reality.

Additionally bahnsen raised the objection that this would mean Christ would himself need a redeemer. However this is false since my point was that in the incarnation itself the depravity of any “humanity” that is to be Christs is overcome. So christ is never actually depraved, this already rules out Christ possibly sinning. I don’t even understand what the motivation is for such a hostile reaction to this is.

TheSire:

It seems that God took customs from the ANE and gave them cultic significance. There is symbolism involved and it was no way to deny sin was a legal and moral problem. God gave the Law containing his moral will in covenant (and therefore legal terms) form. There was never anything metaphysically wrong with mixed fabrics, certain foods, etc. Take circumcision, God takes this ANE practice to by a symbol. It isn’t that the tip of human penises has more corruption than that of your nose. The NT writers understood this and explained that it was a sign of the faith Abraham had. Were the NT apostles just unaware of your view of sin? I would say they were unaware and so were most people because you are reading a particular patristic theory back into the OT.

My view is basic and found in notions we see throughout the OT. We see God coming down making covenants with human beings and punishing them when they break the terms of it. Furthermore, this judicial language is developed into the language used for human beings justification before God. This is being an eschatological pardon for their sins is also tied with the atonement (Rom 3:21-25). These are interrelated theological teachings that especially permeate the Pauline corpus.

More importantly is the necessity for the people to be clean to sustain the continual presence of God in Israel. This is a fundamental aspect of how sin separates and creates an opposition between God and man in ancient Judaism, and how atonement solutions can be spatial and propitiatory, with expiation (purification, removal, purgation etc) as the modus operandi.

I doubt we agree on the nature of cultic holiness. I don’t maintain this metaphysic of sin. It assumes a weird platonic view of the world that isn’t true. I don’t think evil is privation, it’s a theory of universals, etc. The Adamic parallels don’t warrant these notions and you can’t show that it does without some mystical interpretation.

Even worse and more fatal, all these people are clean because the presence of God is already with everyone on your scheme because human nature was repaired and the benefits of Christ atonement applies to the past as well as the future. So, all this nonsensical metaphysics was never the case. It was all made up because your view renders a myth by entailing nothing was ever unclean. So, once again the supposedly ‘anachronistic interpretation’ is your only refuge. Unless you wish to say these things were really how corruption was removed and Christ only applies for the first-century saints and future ones.

That is because you prance through these texts with your eyes closed to the forensic nature of sin. So, when it appears in a passage I will hold it up till you refute or recant my usage of it. This is why the covenant curses play such an important role in Jewish history. These fit with my notion of justification, Gal 3, David’s sin, and the forensic nature of sin in general. God is angered because they violated the terms of the covenant with him. This is a forensic agreement between the two parties. They acted in a way they said they wouldn’t and received just deserts.

I’m also not sure why you quote 6:24. The only thing I can think of is to try and argue that the real problem is that they stole from God, and that because these are put in the treasury they weren’t devoted for destruction. But v18 calls the things the ought not covet the things devoted for destruction, taking the things devoted for destruction is explicitly said to make the camp of israel itself an object devoted for destruction, the solution is to eventually destroy these things. So in case that was your point, it doesn’t work.

This verges on the almost deceptive handling of the passage that ignores what God states and what I cited was the rationale for judging the Israelites. The notion here is simple and I will state it simpler than before because that may have confused you. Devoted things are things. Things are owned by Yahweh. Yahweh decides what is to be done with these things. When someone disobeys God and takes the item that God said to leave they are stealing and lying when they try to hide it. Saul is punished for this same reason generations later in 1 Sam 15). Lastly, instead of making an entire theory about unclean (sinful?) items what does the Bible state:

They broke my covenant that I commanded them by taking some of the things that had been turned over to destruction. They have stolen, have been deceitful, and have stored what they stole among their own belongings.

As one scholar put it:

Two phrases frame the catalogue of Israel’s sins. The first, the transgression of the covenant, denies any guilt on the part of God. The verb violated has the same root as that for cross (ʿbr) in Joshua 6:7 and thus magnifies the significance of the sin. Israel could not cross against any more enemies (Josh. 6:7) because they had crossed against God’s covenant. The next statement, they have taken some of the devoted things, specifies the covenant violation. God owned the devoted things (ḥērem) in the capture of Jericho (Josh. 6:18–19, 24). To take God’s property is theft. The denial of the theft is deceit. Having detailed Israel’s sins as the reason for their defeat, the text now explains a chilling fact: as long as Israel possesses the devoted things, God will consider them as devoted things. He will not win victories for them. Instead, he will guarantee their defeat and destruction. Either Israel must destroy the devoted things that it possesses or it will be destroyed as devoted things.

Hess, R. S. (1996). Joshua: An Introduction and Commentary (Vol. 6, p. 165). InterVarsity Press.

Continuing on:

I think it is silly to posit the magical qualities when we have good reason to doubt anyone held your mystical view (based that it relies on patristics more than the OT), that we know that it was covenantal/moral reasons that stand behind the action, and this is filled with other examples where Rahab was spared because she was practicing the any rituals and would be unclean but was spared because her faith and deeds.

Your intuition doesn’t challenge my worldview. It may disagree, but a flimsy intuition will not suffice to show infants can’t be responsible of Original Sin. My Biblical arguments will suffice as reason to doubt your intuitions which have only ever been shown to be fallible.

The Joshua narrative seems to be thinking of the withdrawal of God. It was his divine presence that was supporting them and causing their military success, having polluted their camp, God would no longer stay with them, and his withdrawal removes any success their military has, making them an object devoted to destruction at the hands of their enemies.

This is correct and here I find the most agreement so far.

Anyways,the solution involves the removal of the polluting items, and the cleansing of the people, ultimately the original transgressors and everything related to him remains polluted and is destroyed. Otherwise.. Why destroy animals? Kids? Tents? Silver? Gold? Random objects?

Why destroy them if they are already clean given backwards application of Christ? Furthermore, if deeds can be cleansed with simple rituals them why kill them instead of allowing them to simply atone for their deeds? It seems once you remove the legal/moral categories God should’ve just allowed them to remove their corruption.

I don’t comprehend the cogency of this theology. What is responsibility when you are punished for a disease? Or isn’t the punishment’s just self-induced? I choose to go further into non-being? There are too many possible conversations that can spawn and I assume you’ll only have answers I’ll disagree with.

I think legal guilt obvious from the chapter. A covenant is a legal agreement. I think ‘opposition’ is too ambiguous of a term to see what is meant.

It seems like if these things (some of them at least) were so morally good, then we would still be practicing them. The obviously we would still be doing them today because they would be instricially good, but it seems either we say Christ has not only ‘cleaned’ human nature but also all nature. So, sin is now an illusion because adultery, homosexuality, etc. have been redeemed by Christ. They no longer can pollute us. So, as long as sin is sin, you view is wrong. Which is not surprising from my perspective.

First of all, I gave several reasons for Christ to die independent of the incarnation and any PSA motif, that alone is sufficient as a response to your objection, and none of that was responded to. I also think you missed the point about Christ healing human nature in the incarnation, I am speaking of his humanity. I am not suggesting that this instantly changes everyone else. Then a good question would be, why does anyone else sin? You need to participate in Christ, you need the work of the spirit to transform and recreate you, to perfect you in Christ the second Adam.

While you mentioned that Jesus died in order to go to the land of the dead, it hardly is necessary. God could’ve just given Jesus a portal or something. Not everyone has died and God has the ability to take people to do such. It happened to Enoch and Elijah. I just didn’t address your reasons because I just didn’t think they really mattered.

I think your position renders sin illusory empty category. I argued that above where Christ either did just human nature or he cleaned creation (Col 1:20).

Lastly, it was Christ redeeming humanity that got you into this mess and it won’t get you out of it. @Christodestinist has argued this point.

-Christ died to communicate that he went through the worst the world can offer. He died a symbol for us. This is entirely wrong and we find this in Peter but this is so reductive of the view of Christ that only those that state such in any seriousness utter these comments in the corridors of hell. The NT teaches it was by the cross, his blood, etc. that redemption is accomplished.

– My point is that this doesn’t satisfy your demands that he would rid us of uncleanness because he wasn’t a ritual sacrifice. No Levitical priest and not done on an alter.

-Since it plays no redemptive role it is rendered as a mere symbol of endurance of a death that didn’t need to occur.

What I am saying is that human nature is corrupt, and Christ incarnated. It just follows that in the incarnation he takes on corrupted human nature. The question then is, does Christ’s divine nature automatically heal this?

At best it should, but you may wish to invoke inaugurated eschatology but @Christodestinist and my objection still goes through. So, I’m not sure what you think you are proving.

I don’t think I am a literalist, but if I am so be it. It just seems that we can cite OT in any way we wish pretend that it meant something it didn’t and remain faithful to what is written. I would just say that my objections still remain and being fine with it is okay but it means we should just doubt the Apostles witness and claim to be inspired by the God of the OT. Furthermore, if you maintain that Matthew can use eisegesis for his belief then why can’t myself, Hays or anyone else do so? Seems like you method just undermined your objection against my position.

While you are correct, you are yet closer to Jews because you hold to the same methods of interpretation as the jews. They allegorize and read into the OT many things but the most common objection from Jews is the NT is making up things. It may be from a wooden literal interpretation but it is precisely that they don’t grant literary genre of the OT nor the NT. But I noticed that the Jew could still object to NT writers (namely Matthew) as producing eisegesis. Even if other Jews did it, doesn’t entail they weren’t guilty as well. I think NT writers are very precise and intelligent in the way they use the OT and we can determine their intentions weren’t to misread or claim things that aren’t true.

But Hosea is not speaking of the exodus in the same way that Matthew is, even if that is something hosea does more generally, it clearly isn’t what he is doing in that very verse. Hosea shows God speaking literally about calling Israel out and how they nevertheless turned their backs on him. This is simply a literal reading that hosea uses. Matthew doesn’t do this at all.

I disagree, he is casting his events through the lens of the Exodus and Matthew does the same thing with Christ. It seems what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

We should recognize bad people don’t act as bad as they could and while some may try, we have to punish people for actions they did or possibly tried to do.

The fact that criminal intent is important shows that the idea of punishment is attached to moral properties in the human being punished, not moral properties in the action they committed. So it wouldn’t matter if it was the offended party themselves who took the punishment, your view is still mistakenly considering punishment a response to negative actions, and not negative behaviour.

I don’t think we punish properties. We punish agents that possess certain qualities. But certainly actions are often things we find agents blameworthy/praiseworthy for. I just think this is a false dichotomy that you imposed on me. The guilt for these moral issues whether deeds, qualities, etc. is related but not identical with those things.
[3:11 AM]
I object that guilt as a moral property can be transferred as that violates its whole point. However, for PSA to work you need it to be about guilt transfer as a moral claim. Or else who are violating justice and your atonement model fails on its own terms.

I think the notion it can’t was challenged by the examples mentioned whether biblically or extra biblical.

– A judge/jury can forgive Epstein/Hitler/ etc. of their guilt for their deeds. We just call this injustice. What happened to moral intuitions? Even worse, on your view we might have to suppose that they were the actual victims. They suffer a disease forced on them.

– I cited God as stating that he won’t acquit the guilty. You literally have God doing it freely. Let’s be very specific God forgives the guilt for conscious moral agents that satisfy the requirements for moral culpability with a flick of the proverbial divine wrist. That is what is by definition acquitting the guilty as hell! On top of it, the emasculated Randal Rauser god rubs Hitler’s head telling him that it wasn’t his fault. I’m sorry, but by either deduction and my intuition I just call that pathetic.

Proverbs 17:15

He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous,
Both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord.

Proverbs 24:24

He who says to the wicked, “You are righteous,”
Peoples will curse him, nations will abhor him;

Exodus 23:7

Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent or the righteous, for I will not acquit the guilty.

– I also argued this might entail God is a respecter of persons. The Bible states that he isn’t.

I fail to see where I have begged the question. You may wish to say that sins don’t deserve a punishment’s (which ample biblical evidence shows you’re out of your mind on this) but antinomianism follows as I’ve argued from other issues with your view anyways.

Lastly, I’m not sure why Jesus giving divine life to humans because a fact of human nature and not the average human sin isn’t true of human nature. Why should Christ change human nature and not other humans?

Christodestinist:

I didn’t see this part come up again, but it’s one of the achilles heals of Spicy’s position.

A view where God can forgive/cleanse by fiat but gets billions of people killed over the course of millennia, only to then whoopsy His Son to torturous death on the cross, and sit around picking His nose still afterwords, is not good, not sane, and not Yahweh.

To hell with the being of that theology.

Bestchamp:

This seems wild to me. I’m not sure how you and Bahnsen are able to type so much in so little time. But to respond to your comment. I’m not sure that substitution occurs on non-PSA models here. It seems to me that in order that a substitution for the punishment of the Israelites to be made, the substitution must thereafter be related to punishment in some way. As I see it, God’s wrath is not poured out on the Israelites. Rather, it is poured out Christ by way of the animal’s sacrifice. In such a manner, the animal’s substitution for the punishment of the Israelites is (through Christ) related to the Israelites’ punishment. However, I assume that this isn’t the case on non-PSA models because then no one is punished for Israel’s sin of idolatry.

TheSire:

It seems we actually agree, the cross is unnecessary. Jesus didn’t have to die given his worldview. He wished to say that either it is a means for Jesus to enter the afterlife (but alternatives already exists) or he did it to be a symbol for our moral example (this is actually true but is it necessary for Christ to do such? No). So, it seems we agree that Christ death plays no significant role for us. But I think he is challenging me in saying why must it play any further role?

Well, I just think the Bible gives us more. If the OT sacrifices are pictorial of Christ (assuming that he holds this) then even his view needs to maintain that Christ’s atonement was for purification. But his position denies that it does that but rather his incarnation does. This is an internal issue of his position. Christ atonement makes it unnecessary to continue these purification rituals but no reason why. Even though we know that in hebrews it plays a function of being a type/antitype function. The inferiority of the Old and the superiority of Christ. So, his theology lack systematic which is why his answers to certain questions undermine his interpretations to other passages.

We also have statements where Christ death does function as doing something regarding salvation:

“14 having erased the charges that were brought against us, along with their obligations that were hostile to us. He took those charges away when he nailed them to the cross.”

The death note for this blasphemous theology comes from John in Revelation 5. The entire chapter has the Lamb of God purchasing a people for his blood. Even worse, it is the fact that he is slain that he is so great as to open the scroll representing the very purposes of God:

Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!”

Spicy, hopefully out of ignorance is teaching a gospel of blasphemy.

Christodestinist:

Argument via Atonement
P1. If Christ’s death is salvific, the incarnation cannot be sufficient (in itself) for salvation.

P2. If Spicy’s view, the incarnation is sufficient (in itself) for salvation.

P3. If Spicy’s view, Christ’s death is not salvific.

P4. Christ’s death is salvific.

C: Not Spicy’s view

Argument via Incarnation
P1. If God can forgive/cleanse by fiat sin, no morally sufficient reason exists for post-Adamic sin.

P2. If no morally sufficient reason exists for post-Adamic sin, no morally sufficient reason exists for the Incarnation.

P3. God can forgive/cleanse by fiat sin. (Spicy’s view)

C: No morally sufficient reason exists for the Incarnation.

Argument via Justice
P1. No sinner has their sins unpunished.

P2. If not PSA, some sinners have their sins unpunished.

C: PSA

Argument via Fatalism
P1. The effects of sin are a divine punishment or sin is not a category of human moral concern.

P2. The effects of sin are not a divine punishment. (Spicy’s view)

P3. Sin is a category of human moral concern. (Spicy’s view)

C: Not Spicy’s view

Argument via Spicy-neutics
P1. All OT passages presuppose new theological projections. (Spicy’s view)

P2. No theological projections possess epistemological preferability.

P3. Spicy’s interpretations of the OT are new theological projections. (Spicy’s view)

P4. There is no reason to prefer Spicy’s interpretations of the OT over any other.

C: There is no reason to take Spicy’s interpretations of OT texts.

Summary. When you try to do without PSA, your worldview starts to make not a lick of sense.

Argument via False Gospel

P1. If Spicy’s view, sinners are saved randomly or by their own works.

P2. No sinners are saved by their own works.

P3. All sinners are saved by works. (not randomly)

C: Not Spicy’s view.

Spicy:

So before I respond a few things: Firstly, this is going to be my last response. The new semester is starting up, and my isolation period is over so I wont be stuck in my room and I can go to work (hooray). Let’s face it, neither of us are going to be convinced by each other and we can probably repeat this debate for weeks on end. I also happen to think that your most recent replies on what I take to be the most interesting aspect of this conversation display a trend of moving further from the point. Thankfully, my salvation is not in the hands of calvinists, or my ability to convince them. I will let you get the last word.
Secondly, I think we need to remind ourselves of the goal of this discussion on the nature of sin as pollution etc. You were originally defending the notion that babies and fetuses could be held accountable and guilty for Adam’s sin, despite not having any relevant cognitive faculties. This is supposedly evidenced (among other things) by punishment falling on collective Israel when an individual israelite (achan) transgressed the covenant. Now my point is that here and elsewhere it is clear that the “punishment” that falls on collective israel is not a case of all of israel inheriting some moral guilt property, but from a view of sin as pollution, whose negative consequences affect all in the vicinity.

With that in mind, it should be noted that talking about transgressing a covenantal law code does not contradict this fact. The covenant is a mutual relationship where Israel will be God’s holy people and be the home for God’s earthly dwelling place, ensuring the vitality of collective Israel and its perpetual blessedness. Sins of individuals are thought to cause communal damage due to its pollutive nature. Certain sins are thought to be so grave that they warrant the immediate expulsion from God’s people, others just require cleansing and perhaps distance. But the cleansing isn’t just about the person who sins or who is unclean, it is about the dwelling place of the lord, which needs to be cleansed after anyone in the community sins (even non-israelites living among them who aren’t necessarily part of the covenant). It is because of this unique relationship that major covenantal infractions will obviously affect all of israel. It is not because anyone believed babies were morally culpable.

There was never anything metaphysically wrong with mixed fabrics, certain foods, etc.

I never said there was.
I have noticed that you have come back to these examples and I can only speculate as to why these are your examples. They seem arbitrary and don’t seem to have much to do with pollution, but then why not discuss the problems with menstruation? Corpse impurity? Leprosy? What about when numbers talks about the literal pollution of the land? What about when numbers talks about how when someone unclean touches anything it too becomes unclean? And if anyone else touches that thing they too become unclean? You’re selectively focusing on certain covenantal rules that seem to you like they can’t have anything to do with pollution, while avoiding the ones that seem like they do.

Take circumcision, God takes this ANE practice to by a symbol. It isn’t that the tip of human penises have more corruption than that of your nose.

It is true that circumcision is a covenant marker, but how does that affect my view exactly? Plenty of the sins that are described in that list of karet penalties are religious observances that don’t at first glance seem to be obviously pollutive (keeping the sabbath for example), but the text nevertheless thinks that people who commit these transgressions need to be cut off, or in other non karet cases, purified/cleansed. I think you have mistakenly inferred from the evidence I have been using to show how the ancient viewed sin as pollutive, to the fact that every case of sin needs to seem like something tangibly unclean. Rather, I have shown that because things that are more obviously tangibly unclean and things that aren’t are comparable shows that it was unholiness in general that warranted this uncleanliness that could spread.
At-one-ment is therefore spatial in a literal sense, and expiatory because in being expiatory it cleanses and sanctifies and allows for a real spatial reconciliation. God decides as part of his covenant that you must put a dot on your nose? Well if you don’t you are deciding to oppose the holiness of God, this makes you definitionally unclean, and so something as arbitrary as failing to dot your nose can still have real effects in virtue of the opposition you have put yourself in with the holy God. So what might be the solution if God was merciful and wanted to reconcile with his people who failed to put the dot on their nose? Well firstly he might need them to put the dot on their nose, and perhaps he would require cleansing and purification. The most common and significant solution to sin in the OT is not redirecting the wrath of God. It is changing, and cleansing.

Were the NT apostles just unaware of your view of sin? I would say they were unaware and so were most people because you are reading a particular patristic theory back into the OT

Well no, this isn’t a patristic theory, nor is it a christian one technically speaking. It is an ancient jewish one.

I don’t maintain this metaphysic of sin. It assumes a weird platonic view of the world that isn’t true. I don’t think evil is privation, it’s theory of universals, etc. The Adamic parallels doesn’t warrant these notions and you can’t show that it does without some mystical interpretation.

This view isn’t platonic at all, it’s just an ANE view in general actually. I don’t need any mystical interpretation, just good scholarship. I am actually a bit surprised that you aren’t familiar with this given this is a fairly common understanding of how the ANE viewed purity, pollution, contagion, transgression. It isn’t necessarily unique to Israel either. You can find numerous books, papers etc documenting and analyzing the Hebrew view of pollution and its effect of divine alienation, as well as documenting the similarities and agreements with surrounding cultures (or yenno.. Just read the bible ). I am a little stuck here because there is a lot of material I want to go through and sharing all of it is what would really show you the force of what you are hand waving away. I will instead lightly trot through one paper by Yitzhaq Feder called The Semantics of Purity in the Ancient Near East: Lexical Meaning as a Projection of Embodied Experience. He also has a recent book that is far more comprehensive titled: Purity and Pollution in the Hebrew Bible From Embodied Experience to Moral Metaphor.

A crucial element to understanding this project is understanding how we understand what terms, phrases, word groups etc mean in the ANE. Unfortunately we don’t have a corresponding “meanings” code, that allows us to perfectly translate ANE languages into English, rather we need to look into the source of various words, what they were describing in non-theological contexts, and then look at how they are used in religious and theological contexts. The kohler lexicon for example includes this sentiment in its preface:
[I]t may be readily understood that the theological rendering of Hebrew words and phrases received the greatest amount of attention, and were given pride of place…But the theological, and also the more far reaching religious, world of ideas grew out of the nontheological, the common, world of ideas; whatever one wished to say theologically was expressed in language drawn from the common world of ideas.

Feder notes that the primary term used for purity in Biblical Hebrew, Akkadian, Hittite, Sumerian and Ugaritic languages is etymologically related to “radiance”. The primary term for purity in Biblical Hebrew is טהר and is an antonym for the hebrew word “defiled”. In cultic contexts it appears to mean something simplistic like “lack of impurity”. However the word is also comparable with ugaritic cognate “thr” which is exclusively used to describe the lustrousness of lapis lazuli, and is semantically equivalent to ỉb, cognate to Akkadian ebbu. It is used in the baal epic for example to describe a house built of silver gold, and “lustrous lapis lazuli”. That phrase is paralleled in akkadian usages of the word “ellu” which describes divine thrones and royal buildings (symbols of divinity, holiness, radiance). Its Hebrew cognate is similarly used in exodus: “They saw the God of Israel and beneath his feet was like a brick-work of lapis lazuli and like the very heavens in its brilliance.” Here the word is used to characterize both the lapis lazuli but also the “brilliance” of the sky.
Furthermore, it seems clear that BH (Biblical Hebrew) ר”טה is etymologically related to ר”זה .For example, the divine throne in Ezek 8:2 is described as החשמלה כעין רַ הֹז כמראה”) with a radiant appearance, like amber”).12 The term רַ הֹז appears also in Dan 12:3: הרקיע כזהר יזהרו והמשכלים” :and the knowledgeable will glow like the radiance of the sky,” in which the expression הרקיע זהר parallels לטהר השמים כעצם in Ex 24:10. These roots are also related to ר”צה ,whose most unambiguous use is the term for mid-day צהרים, 13 which parallels טיהרא in Jewish Aramaic.14 Though the phonetic interchange between ṭ, z, and ṣ is relatively rare, it finds corroboration both intra-linguistically and inter-linguistically,15 and the fact that the derivatives of each root refer to the radiance of the sky leaves little doubt that they are cognates.

The association between these radiant earthly objects and eventually the divine demonstrates the development from a more concrete (embodied experience) notion, to a more abstract and metaphysical idea of divinity. Psalm 19 partially captures this connection:
“9The precepts of the LORD are just, rejoicing the heart; The instruction of the LORD is lucid, making the eyes light up. 10The fear of the LORD is pure, abiding forever… The judgments of the LORD are true, righteous altogether, 11more desirable than gold, than much fine gold…”
This overlap between purity and radiance is also attested to in sumerian and Akkadian:
The widely-attested term kug/kù, generally glossed pure” or “holy” in cultic contexts, originally designated the quality of shininess, serving also as a substantive designating “(the) shiny”> “metal.”21 Indeed, it serves as the etymological basis for the logogram for gold (kug-sig17 = “yellow metal”) and silver (kug-babbar= “white metal”).22 The expression “bright lapis lazuli” cited above in Ugaritic and BH appears already as a common formula in Sumerian literature (kug-za-gìn).23 A similar account can be made for another common term for “pure,” dadag. This term is written by doubling the UD sign (“day”/ “sun”), which can also be read as the verb zalag (“to shine”). Once again, it is the concrete phenomenon of radiance which lies at the roots of the Sumerian terms for “purity” and “holiness.”

For the hittite, parkui and some variations is used for purity, we see a very close connection with radiance here as it is often also just translated “bright” or “shiny”
When applied to other concrete referents, the usage of parkui- is more closely related to the semantic field of purity. For example, it is employed in reference to silver, gold, wool and even porridge to express that these substances are unadulterated, that is, free of extraneous elements. It is also used to designate cleanness, usually with the causative verbal form parkunu- “to make clean,” which is employed to describe laundering of clothing and persons. 47 Nevertheless, even some ritual and cultic references to parkui- attest to its concrete usage. For example, Ammiḫatna’s Ritual concludes with the following declaration: “Just like silver, may you be pure (parkuiš) before he deities, male and female!”48 Similarly, the Antaḫšum Festival includes the following simile: “The chief cook speaks the words of consecration: ‘Just as the sky is clear (parkui), may the sacrifice, [bread, and li]bation vessels also be pure (parkuiš)!” 49 Though the usage of parkui- in ritual contexts should be distinguished from its concrete sense (see further below), it is noteworthy that these sources refer to concrete referents as prototypical images of this quality. In sum, the stem parkui- and its derivatives can refer to brightness as well as various states related to purity, such as freedom from adulterated substances and cleanness.

There is ofc a lot more in the paper and in other work, but the point I am trying to make is establishing a concept of the divine that serves as a foundation for understanding what might be considered antithetical to the divine. The divine is thought of in terms of perfection, holiness, without impurities, without blemishes. Radiant, shiny, valuable etc. Metallurgical references are abundant here. You may think it is irrelevant in looking at surrounding cultures, but it is not. At the moment, we are strictly looking at linguistic ties which cannot be denied. For the time being you can assume that Israel was theologically unique in a significant way in its construal of divinity and sin. However, the language ties and its usage in the Hebrew bible itself point towards an agreement with these surrounding cultures. Thus feder concludes this section:
Having surveyed the primary terms for “purity” in BH(biblical hebrew), Ugaritic, Sumerian, Akkadian and Hittite, we are now in a position to draw some general conclusions. In all of the languages surveyed, we have observed that the primary terms for cultic purity can be traced back to an original concrete sense related to the experiential domain of radiance.

Feder notes three contexts of purity language: legal (free of guilt), ritual (free of pollution and similar metaphysical threats), cultic/sacrificial (free of pollution, holy, eligible for participation in the divine sphere).
In the first category, purity and pollution language appears in a divine test of guilt. For example, in the hittite instructions for temple officials: ”Then you (pl.) shall drink from the rhyton of the will of god. If you are pure, it is your protective deity. But if you are defiled, you shall perish together with your wives and children (IV, 52–5)”
In these contexts, the terminology of purity and impurity designates the innocence or guilt of the accused party.53 Although from an analytical perspective we may be tempted to view this usage as ‘metaphorical,’ it is clear that these sources – no less than the cultic and ritual ones cited below – conceptualize this guilt as a metaphysical force, an unseen reality that will surface by means of the ordeal.

Similarly in the Laws of Hammurabi regarding a man accused of witchcraft:
”If the River clears that man and he survives, the man who accused him of witchcraft shall be killed.”

In the Hebrew (numbers):
”The priest shall make her swear, saying to the woman: ‘If a man did not lie with you and you did not stray impurely from your husband, you shall be absolved by these cursing waters. (But) if you did stray from your husband and have been polluted, and a man aside from your husband put his laying inside you, 58 these cursing waters will enter your abdomen, causing your belly to swell and your hip to fall.’ And the woman shall answer, ‘Amen, amen.’”

Here pollution isn’t referring to simply ritual impurity, but a deeper more intrinsic kind of impurity associated with culpability. A “cognitive impurity” perhaps. To me, this partially explains the problems with intentional and unintentional sins. Many unintentional sins bear the same sorts of consequences, but many of them do not. But such unintentional sins seem to result in a more external kind of impurity which is nevertheless problematic, but intentional sins are always characterized as karet penalties. This sort of impurity to me seems like an internal kind, it is deeper, and more significant in a sense. Think of a “polluted mind”. Perhaps this is reflected in Psalm 51 when the psalmist speaks of God’s desire for “inward truth”, he asks for a clean heart, and a new and “right” spirit. Where the sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit and a contrite heart.

Next we have the ritual usage of pollution/impurity
The depiction of pollution as it is found in the Hebrew Bible lacks the threatening quality of Hittite papratar. Indeed, the priestly instructions seem to relegate all forms of pollution to the status of cultic impurity, innocuous as long as it is distanced from the sacred precinct. However, I have shown elsewhere that several types of severe impurity– specifically leprosy, gonorrhea and corpses – seem to have been originally the source of intense fear of contagion. This view can account for: 1) David’s curse in 2 Sam 2:29 which explicitly portrays leprosy and gonorrhea as divine punishments (cf. Lev 13–15); 2) the requirement to banish these forms of defilement from the camp/ city; and 3) the more elaborate ritual process – involving expiatory offerings – needed to remove the pollution.63 These types of pollution which were originally associated with the perceived danger of infectious disease can be compared to the role of papratar in ritual contexts, since they involve a threatening force which must be removed by the requisite ritual.

Additionally, here ritual pollution presents a real “metaphysical danger” in which being impure is the impetus for divine punishments.

In the cultic/sacrificial contexts, the focus is on unblemished sacrifices that are to be offered to God only if free of pollution. For example in the hittite instructions:

”If a pig or a dog ever touches the wood or clay utensils that you (pl.) have, but the ‘pot-bearer’ does not throw them away, and he gives to the gods to eat from defiled (vessels), the gods will give that one excrement and urine to eat and drink.”
The priestly instructions of the Hebrew Bible also employ aesthetic criteria to restrict potential officiants and offerings. Bodily perfection is required of both, and a nearly identical list of disqualifying blemishes is presented in Lev 21 and 22. Since both offerings and cult personnel are dedicated to God, these blemishes are viewed as desecrating (ל”חל (them.70 Regarding pollution, Lev 22 makes brief allusion to sources of bodily pollution and unclean animals (vv. 4– 5). These references should be taken as inclusive of all of the sources of bodily impurity listed in Lev 12–15 and Num 19, as well as the various types of unclean creatures listed in Lev 11. Only after purifying from these impurities may the priest partake in the offerings. Like the Hittite instructions, these rules governing the necessary purity for the cult are based on an intuitive sense of cleanness which serves as the required etiquette for persons and offerings before they can approach the divine precinct.71 In these contexts, parkui- and טהר refer to freedom from defilement and eligibility to participate in the divine sphere, mediated by the cult.

Feder also notes that in all three of the above mentioned domains (legal, ritual, cultic) purity language is used to describe an entity that is free of any “pollution”. So as we can see, contrary from being a weird platonic view, or an ECF view, this notion of pollution is simply what the text itself provides us with. (again, this isn’t even a patristic view)

Feder also notes the how the concepts of radiance and its associates such as brightness, shine, lustre, connect this easily to metallurgic analogies. In this domain, quality is often determined by shine, and the degree of purity of the metal was the determining factor in measuring its value. This analogy with metal is attested to in this sumerian hymn:

”When [the prison? ] 78 has appeased the heart of his god for him; when it has polished him clean like silver of good quality, when it has made him shine forth through the dust; when it has cleansed him of dirt, like silver of best quality ……, he will be entrusted again into the propitious hands of his god.7”

This conclusion finds further support in the lexical evidence for BH ברר .As noted above, the concrete sense for this root is “bright” or “clear.” The relationship between this sense and purity is readily apparent in the Book of Daniel’s use of metallurgical terminology to describe the fate of the wicked (12:10): “Many will be purified, purged and refined” (רבים ויצרפו ויתלבנו יתבררו .(This verse employs three distinct roots ר”בר ,ן”לב and ף”צר which designate the process of separating the dross from refined metals. On this background, it is not surprising to find ר”בר in the sense “to separate,” as in Ezek 20:38: “I will remove from you (יִ ותֹרָ וב (ּthose who rebel and transgress against me.” In this light, we can also explain derivatives related to purity, such as the nominal form רֹב in Ps 18:25 “May the LORD repay according to my righteousness, like the cleanness of my hands (ידי כבר (before his eyes” and the adjectival form רַ ב in expressions like “pure of heart”(לבב בר ;Ps 24:4).80 The metallurgic context is supported also by the widespread use of purity terms in designations for metals (Ug. brr; Sum. kug; Hittite parkui-)

The cross-cultural similarities here are again quite clear. In both mesopotamian and vedic cultures, Radiant light was “one of the primary means in which the sacred was made manifest”. In vedic sources Gold serves as a form or manifestation of the gods whose possessions are also gold. In Egypt gold was used in cultic statues and called “the flesh of the gods”, In mesopotamia descriptions of heavenly dwellings make a big deal out of gold and precious metals, occasionally even explicitly deifying these metals. Oil is a substance that is commonly used as a glowing substance that aids in purification and sanctification.

I can sense I am rambling on here so I am going to wrap this up now. The point is that here you have been objecting that this is just some “mystical interpretation” that I am reading into the text on the basis of platonism or the ECFs. However none of that is true, this isn’t a platonic of patristic view of sin, it is simply an ancient near eastern view of sin. Really it is everywhere, simply in the english translations, though some try and mask this. Again numbers speaks of polluting the land, it speaks of uncleanliness transferring to objects and people, the sacrificial system seems particularly interested in cleansing the people and the dwelling place of the Lord. 2 Chronicles notes the down fall of Judah because they contaminated the house of the Lord which had been sanctified in Jerusalem. In fact, the story of Korah almost anticipates your very view and explicitly rejects it:

”19 Then Korah assembled the whole congregation against them at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And the glory of the Lord appeared to the whole congregation.
20 Then the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying: 21 Separate yourselves from this congregation, so that I may consume them in a moment. 22 They fell on their faces, and said, “O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one person sin and you become angry with the whole congregation?”
23 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 24 Say to the congregation: Get away from the dwellings of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. 25 So Moses got up and went to Dathan and Abiram; the elders of Israel followed him. 26 He said to the congregation, “Turn away from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, or you will be swept away for all their sins.”

Here Moses rightly questions God’s justice if he were to punish all of israel for the transgression of a few.
In deuteronomy we find ” Parents shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their parents; only for their own crimes may persons be put to death.”
So in light of the overwhelming evidence of the pollution view, and the evidence that even the OT authors considered notions of substitution or unqualified corporate guilt to be unjust gives me good grounds for rejecting your view.

This is not my view. If that was the case, humans just wouldn’t sin anymore. Consistently you have misunderstood this point. I am saying that the incarnation itself marks the beginning of the total atoning narrative. It displays a dramatic inversion of the old system in which the holiness of God would not dwell amongst unclean men and women, and would need a sanctuary that would be continually cleansed to keep the divine presence. The incarnation inverts this by having the holy God become human itself, entering the infected lineage and yet remaining holy, dwelling with the sinful and unclean, the outcasts. Noting this inversion is crucial to understanding how we need to understand the Ot and the NT. Unfortunately I think you jumped the gun a bit and started attacking things I don’t believe.

That is because you prance through these text with your eyes closes to the forensic nature of sin.

On the contrary, you have closed your eyes to what is clearly motivating the theology in those passages. That sin is “law-breaking” is true, but also not sufficient, there is more to talk about when it comes to understanding the ancient jewish view of sin. The problem with your view is that you need the problem to be law-breaking, and nothing else. It needs to fundamentally rest there, and then the solution can equally be dealt with in purely legal terms. However the text clearly has a lot more to say than mere law-breaking.

This verges on the almost deceptive handling of the passage that ignores what God states and what I cited was the rationale for judging the Israelites.

I mean I am just going to have to sound like a broken record at this point. None of what you responded with really addresses my exegesis. Yes they transgressed the covenant, yes they received a punishment, yes there was disobedience.. But what was the reason for the collective negative consequence? You will reduce it to only covenant transgression (where covenant transgression does not signal any additional problem), but this avoids the clear logic of the text which I expressed several times already.

I think it is silly to posit the magical qualities when we have good reason to doubt anyone held your mystical view (based that it relies on patristics more than the OT),

Not a patristic view or “my view”. This view of sin in general is just a common one that scholars will generally agree is behind plenty of ANE discussion on sin/transgression. Except perhaps scholars who have a particular motivation of avoiding such conclusions.

Your exegesis is fallible too sir, and the intuition that infants can’t be responsible for original sin is incredibly strong. Notice also how hard you have been milking your intuition in your rejection of what I have said about an alternative atonement model (granted there was plenty of misunderstanding going on). You’ve taken on an incoherent notion of morality and human responsibility/culpability. Human responsibility is not essentially tied to your actions, your intentions, or really you at all.

This is correct and here I find the most agreement so far.

Not sure how you can agree with this since I use pollution language here, which you have been objecting to.

Why destroy them if they are already clean given backwards application of Christ?

What on earth..?

It seems once you remove the legal/moral categories God should’ve just allowed them to remove their corruption.

I haven’t removed legal or moral categories, I have just embraced the other categories present in the text. Additionally, all intentional sins are almost unforgivable. Numbers gives the karet penalty for intentional sins.

I think legal guilt obvious from the chapter. A covenant is a legal agreement. I think ‘opposition’ is too ambiguous of a term to see what is meant.

When I speak of opposition, I am speaking of the natural opposition between holiness and unholiness, divinity and sin etc. The covenantal laws carve out what God takes to be holy and what he takes to be unholy, transgressions effect you, but also the entire community, objects, animals, children, land (these are just unavoidable conclusions really), expiation rites cleanse etc.

Once again you mistake me describing the ancient jewish view, for me believing the ancient jewish view. It is important to understand to follow the progression of theology that leads to how the NT understands things, how it inverts or radicalizes things, how through allusions or direct references it makes points of consistency etc. But I don’t commit myself to the view that someone who sins becomes unclean such that objects they touch become unclean etc. More radically, I don’t think God killed infants or commanded anyone to do so. That statement is probably going to be quite inflammatory to you but oh well.

Also, you keep talking about how Christ cleaned human nature and all of nature, but this is not my view at all… sure I believe in the restoration of all things, meaning the eventual cleansing and healing of all creation, but I have never believed or stated that Christ just instantly did this in the incarnation. I was speaking of his individual humanity.

The point was not that these things were metaphysically necessary, but that scripture gives reasons for Christ to die and enter the grave independently of PSA. As long as such reasons exist, your objection isn’t going to be fruitful, nevertheless I have given other reasons.

The NT teaches it was by the cross, his blood, etc. that redemption is accomplished.

You start by noting how I have gotten it entirely wrong, but everything stated actually goes quite well with the paragraph you are responding too.. In essence, I said that he suffered in order to heal us. Perhaps in more familiar words, by his wounds we are healed. Ofc, I never said he was merely a symbol, hopefully when you read “sign” you didn’t freak out and skip over the word “cause”?

My point is that this doesn’t satisfy your demands that he would rid us of uncleanness because he wasn’t a ritual sacrifice. No Levitical priest and not done on an alter

Well he is actually compared to one, additionally he is thought of both as a high priest (hebrews) and as the kapporet (romans) which was where the blood was sprinkled.

Since it plays no redemptive role it is rendered as a mere symbol of endurance of a death that didn’t need to occur.

I don’t agree it played no redemptive role?

It just seems that we can cite OT in any way we wish pretend that it meant something it didn’t and remain faithful to what is written.

No we cannot. First of all because of this ancient hermeneutic view, the interpreter only carries credibility if he/she has divine inspiriation. We can’t use the OT any which way we want, but only in a christo-centric way.

Furthermore, if you maintain that Matthew can use eisegesis for his belief then why can’t myself, Hays or anyone else do so? Seems like you method just undermined your objection against my position.

Depending on how you do it, you absolutely can. You can certainly read into the text christian ideas, just not your own ideas (remember we are talking OT not NT here). What you try and do with that interpretation is also important. You can’t use this to claim the ancient jews shared your beliefs. Remember I told you it was okay to spiritualize OT passages the way hays was doing it, but he needed to be up front that this is what he was doing. He can’t both spiritualize the passage, and then use this to protect this idea that the original authors shared his opinion.

I think NT writers are very precise and intelligent in the way they use the OT and we can determine their intentions weren’t to misread or claim things that aren’t true.

I definitely agree, their usage of OT scripture is quite precise and intelligent, it is also admittedly crafty. Sometimes quotations are slightly altered, sometimes the LXX is strategically preferred, sometimes multiple texts are woven together, or allegorized all together. This is only deceptive if your starting point is something like the plain literal meaning is all there is and reject the common practice at the time which used such methods and didn’t see this as heavily compromising the text. Some jews today who are trying to retreat back into some kind of “orthodoxy”, and avoid the diverse spiritualizations of the texts in their own traditions are the ones objecting to Christian interpretations of the OT.

I disagree, he is casting his events through the lens of the Exodus and Matthew does the same thing with Christ. It seems what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Yes he is casting his events through the lens of the exodus, but the specific quote “out of egypt I called my son” isn’t casting a new event through passover language I don’t think (although I may have just missed it). It is speaking quite literally about the past and very real calling of israel out of egypt.

We should recognize bad people don’t act as bad as they could and while some may try, we have to punish people for actions they did or possibly tried to do.

Yes, but this is a limitation on our knowledge, this doesnt contradict my point.

I don’t think we punish properties either, but the moral properties that agents possess is the impetus for their punishment. In other words, punishment follows from someone having some negative moral property, not from there being some negative moral action. This ties punishment to the agent responsible and nobody else. This is an essential part of our justice system, and our common sense intuitions about justice.

I think the notion it can’t was challenged by the examples mentioned whether biblically or extra-biblical.

Right, and those examples have been challenged. Vicarious liability in law is not an instance of moral-property guilt transfer. The other example we are still discussing, but there doesn’t appear in the text to be any moral-property guilt transfer either.

A judge/jury can forgive Epstein/Hitler/ etc. of their guilt for their deeds. We just call this injustice. What happened to moral intuitions? Even worse, on your view we might have to suppose that they were the actual victims. They suffer a disease forced on them.

I was extremely careful when I talked about justice and our intuitions. I almost always qualified this with “on a retributive model”. I don’t hold a retributive model, but a restorative one. It would be unjust if we simply let them go and did nothing about it. Rather, a system based on restorative justice would not just let them go, but it wouldn’t make rotting in a jail cell or execution the outcome either. Rather it would set up a system that was indeed punitive, but ultimately the goal is correction. People might think this is unjust in the case of hitler because they assume from the outset that he is a perfectly libertarian like agent who therefore has absolute culpability. If we instead introduce an assumption of depravity, I think most people’s intuitions would change.

I cited God as stating that he won’t acquit the guilty

(Note that the language of the exodus passage might be better understood under the translation that God will not declare the unrighteous righteous. The theme of this collection of verses in general is about not declaring unrighteous people to be righteous, and not declaring righteous people to be unrighteous.)
This is the same argument Jimmy made way back. I think PSA doesn’t actually fare any better, in fact I think it actually comes out looking worse in light of these passages. Firstly, all three passages use agent-specific language, not action-specific language. Okay I lowkey just made up this terminology, but I think it’s accurate here. Terms like guilty or wicked refer to the moral status of the agent. (note: while guilt does have other meanings as well, in the context here it probably is speaking of moral properties residing in agents). Agents can be “guilty”, agents can be “wicked”. These are not transferable concepts. The passages do not read “God must always at least punish sin in the abstract independently of the one who committed it”. Rather it speaks of agents who respectively are “guilty” or “innocent”, and how God as a just judge will not find people who are actually innocent guilty, nor will he find people who are actually guilty, innocent. He is not a corrupt judge who takes bribes, or contorts his verdict fictiously.

Do you notice the problem? PSA rests on the idea that God will actually do this! On your view, people who are guilty are found innocent! An innocent man is found guilty on our behalf! Lo and behold, the OT rules your model of the atonement out as unjust! On your view unrighteous people are not made to be righteous so that they can legitimately be found to be righteous people, rather while they are still unrighteous, God concocts a legal fiction that allows him to “find guilty people innocent”, which is completely antithetical to common sense notions of justice, and what the text here is saying. Let’s compare that with my view, which doesn’t fall prey to that. God absolutely finds unrighteous people to be unrighteous, but he doesn’t plan on leaving them that way. He intends to sanctify them of dead works, to truly recreate them, perfect them in Christ so that they are really righteous people. So on my view, there are zero times when God finds righteous people to be unrighteous, and unrighteous people to be righteous. He accurately assesses each individual.

TheSire:

Secondly, I think we need to remind ourselves of the goal of this discussion on the nature of sin as pollution etc. You were originally defending the notion that babies and fetuses could be held accountable and guilty for Adam’s sin, despite not having any relevant cognitive faculties.

It seems to me that this is a continuing trend in this conversation to have a revisionist approach to this conversation. The conversation was originally about the issue of injustice in your scheme. That without PSA how can you explain how God just lets people off the hook? This is how I would later show your view entails antinomianism. You in Tu quoque style challenged that my view is no solution. I presented Romans 1-5 and you wished not to discuss it. So, it seems a problem with the position you have is twofold:

1. The relevance of Paul blaming Adam for our sin and therefore death.
2. Explaining why Infants die.

It also seems clear to me that a myriad of biblical incoherencies arises from your worldview. The Bible presents humans in their natural state as sinful (Col. 2, 1 Cor. 2, Eph 2, Gal. 3, Rom 8, etc). Why suppose that what is true of human beings isn’t true of infants in the womb? Given this overwhelming Biblical evidence, your position is merely your private fallible and completely false intuition.

This is supposedly evidenced (among other things) by punishment falling on collective Israel when an individual Israelite (Achan) transgressed the covenant.

I don’t remember using this in defense of Romans 5 rather than the contention that someone can receive the punishment of another without knowledge and moral fault (in this particular case lacking these for Israel’s punishment). This fits well with vicarious liability(VL) that was being discussed in reference to PSA.

Now my point is that here and elsewhere it is clear that the “punishment” that falls on collective israel is not a case of all of israel inheriting some moral guilt property, but from a view of sin as pollution, whose negative consequences affect all in the vicinity.

My position was and still is that cultic holiness is pictorial of actual holiness. So, “pollution” is metaphorical for something not being morally right or to God’s original design plan. I never denied that the language of corruption/pollution language exists. I denied your ontology for explaining their view of such notions.

I find it interesting that you have to put a punishment in quotation marks as if this is something to be doubted. The punishment is that God won’t be with them and their enemies will have victory over them. This punishment is tied to them breaking the covenant (namely Achan). So, they are being punished for theft and lying. Furthermore, it is tied to the Covenant. So, in simple ANE terms, it is a Covenantal curse (which is explicitly stated in the passage). Ironically, all these shows is that your position implies vicarious liability for those in a certain vicinity. Why? Because your corruption thesis isn’t sufficient to contradict anything I’ve said about them being punished for wrongdoings of another. It just means that those that are relevantly close will be punished.

You are strategically committing the word/concept fallacy. You are employing the term consequence to suppose these issues are not punitive but that isn’t warranted from what is being said.

I never said there was.
I have noticed that you have come back to these examples and I can only speculate as to why these are your examples.

I used examples that were obvious to make a point about the set. The OT is filled with these sorts of things. I’ve merely challenged you as to why it is hermeneutically fine to recognize the symbolic nature of these things and not think it could be applied to these apparent examples of ‘metaphysical corruption’. You certainly are saying that these things are evil without stating it. You are stating these unclean things have the power to keep God away from us. Do the unclean qualities have this property or is it simply God not wanting to be around us? And why wouldn’t he want to be around the unclean?

They seem arbitrary and don’t seem to have much to do with pollution, but then why not discuss the problems with menstruation? Corpse impurity? Leprosy? What about when numbers talks about the literal pollution of the land? What about when numbers talks about how when someone unclean touches anything it too becomes unclean? And if anyone else touches that thing they too become unclean? You’re selectively focusing on certain covenantal rules that seem to you like they can’t have anything to do with pollution, while avoiding the ones that seem like they do.

Unlike you, in my scheme, these passages are about the reality in which we live. You will later go on to deny that the OT picture of sin is true of the world in which we live. Jesus, Paul, etc. didn’t hold that position. By divine warrant, we know that you are wrong or God be a liar.

Furthermore, when we look at these matters we find them interesting. We have on your side a seeming attempt to create categories where defiling the land is separate from punishment, guilt, and these types of concepts. When we look at Numbers we see the exact opposite. We see that the notion of pollution is very closely tied to personal guilt and immorality.

Numbers 35:33 I think is a good example to try to see what is happening here. In Numbers 35 we have a discussion surrounding manslaughter and murder. So, to quote it:

‘So you shall not pollute the land in which you are; for blood pollutes the land and no expiation can be made for the land for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who shed it.

Firstly, we should notice that blood pollutes the land, which is reminiscent of when Abel is murdered and his blood cries out. If this is truly about some mystical qualities in the ground, then how would they know whose blood is being shed on it? Are we to suspect that Jews thought the land of Israel or their immediate location would know such things? It seems to me hardly that that is the case, nor am I saying you believe that nor am I implying it follows from your view. My problem it that your view seems to maintain that there exists some quality in objects that makes them clean/unclean or unpolluted/polluted. It seems to be the reason the land isn’t actually possessing some quality here. It is rather symbolically polluted because a murder had taken place that is only satisfied by just punishment falling on one that committed the crime. In fact, this is the same when it discussing sexual sins.
Secondly, the language also just fits this conceptual comparison. Often it has conceptual parallels with these moral categories:

I חנף: ? Ug. ḫnp (UTGl. 981, Aistleitner 1053); MHb. (pi. hif.) JArm.gb (pe. pa. af.) to flatter, to feign; Can. EA 288:8 ḫanpa ša iḫnupu (the baseness which they committed) and ḫannipu EA 162:74; Arb. ḥanafa to turn sideways; Lib. ZA 50:131.
qal: pf. חָֽנְפָה, חָנֵֽפוּ; impf. תֶּחֱנַף; inf. חָנוֹף: (priest and prophet) be godless Jr 23:11; —2. to be defiled (אֶרֶץ) Is 24:5 Jr 3:1 Ps 106:38; —Jr 3:9 rd. hif.; Mi 4:11 rd. תֵּחָשֵׂף. †
hif: impf. יַחֲנִיף, תַּחֲנִיפוּ: —1. to defile (אֶרֶץ) Nu 35:33 Jr 3:2, cj. 3:9 (rd. תַּחֲנֵף); —2. Da 11:32 ? to ruin (Syr.), alt. to flatter, alt. cj. יַחֲנִיפוּ to feign (Vulg.); → Comm. †
Der. חָנֵף, חֹנֵף, חֲנֻפָּה.
חָנֵף: I חנף; MHb. חניף hypocrite, JArm.t חָֽנְפָא godless, Syr. ḥanpā peasant, Mnd. (MdD 125a, 136a) hanifa idol, humpana hypocrite, Arb. ḥanafiø pagan and ḥanīf true believer (HdwbIsl. 165ff): חֲנֵפִים, חַנְפֵי: alienated from God, godless חָ׳ וּמֵרֵעַ Is 9:16, חַטָּאִים 33:14, רְשָׁעִים Jb 20:5, || שֹׁכְחֵי אֵל 8:13; גּוֹי חָנֵף Is 10:6 פֶּה חָ׳ Pr 11:9, חַנְפֵי לֵב Jb 36:12, coll. עֲדַת חָנֵף 15:34; Jb 13:16 17:8 27:8 34:30, cj. Ps 53:6 (for חֹנָךְ); —Ps 35:16 rd. בְּחַנְפִי (II חנף). †

Koehler, L., Baumgartner, W., Richardson, M. E. J., & Stamm, J. J. (1994–2000). In The Hebrew and Aramaic lexicon of the Old Testament (electronic ed., pp. 335–336). E.J. Brill.

I think we see the close association with moral qualities because defilement is reflective or metaphorical of moral holiness. This is better than saying the land is immoral or objects can possess moral qualities. It is also better than supposing that defilement, pollution is completely just naturalized qualities that occur as if they were the result of natural forces.

There is a long discussion of language that stands behind the Cultic holiness language or pollution language. My goal was to show occasions where the language in the Bible were interconnected with actual holiness. Such as being clean in Jr 13:27 and Job 4:17. These examples seem sufficient that these ideas are built up into one another.

You have gone to great lengths to argue that the background to the categories is in discussion of impurity, pollution, etc. find themselves being the antonyms of ANE notions dealing with the Divine. This is perfectly consistent with everything I’ve said and hardly seems a challenge to my thesis. Maybe it is the reasons behind this that are the problem.

Firstly, I’m not against paralleling concepts in ANE literature. The idea that these Cultic notions would be considered wrong across the ANE isn’t surprising.

Secondly, we can also see why ANE people would make these sorts of associations. The more precious or more valuable the object the more likely it would be associated to the Divine. That being said we must not go too far to transfer over every notion or explanation for these categories with that of the Jews via etymology of words. It is too common in these areas to make etymological fallacies. I would find this language to fit well with the notion of the Shekinah glory rather than some primitive notion of some metaphysical force causing things to be unclean or something.

Furthermore, the entire goal wasn’t to question whether these cultic categories are related to the Divine or that light isn’t associated with Divinity. The contention is that we can’t read these ANE categories as being identical with being, non-being, universals, and participation. We should rework these cultic categories as being identical to these Greek categories. It seems like you went to war with an argument I never intended in giving.

I still don’t see any reason to suppose from these etymological arguments we must conclude that these ‘evils’ were thought to be the by-product of evil forces in objects nor those things lacking in being. In fact, they aren’t completely wrong, but most of these forces that caused these ritual needs were demonic possession:

Leviticus 16 offers a comparative window into this world with an annual rite in which the sanctity of the sanctuary is ritually returned to equilibrium to preserve the presence of deity and order in the cosmos. In the Babylonian New Year ritual the priest slaughters a ram to be used in purging the sanctuary. This is accomplished by incantations to exorcise demons. The king declares himself free of a number of crimes concerning his office, and the body of the ram is thrown into the river. The difference in Israel is that the sins of all the people are addressed by the ritual rather than the offenses of the king or the threat of demonic presence. Still, the idea is that whatever constitutes the most significant threat to the sanctity of the temple is purged. It is done ritually with the same ultimate goal in mind—that the deity will be pleased to remain in his temple and that cosmic stability will be thereby retained.

John H. Walton. Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament (Kindle Locations 2806-2813). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Continuing on:

In fact, the story of Korah almost anticipates your very view and explicitly rejects it:

Firstly, given your scheme, it may be you take this as a contradiction between Joshua 7 and Numbers 16. That is one choice, but it seems you wish to maintain both as your strategy. I think this is possibly self-serving because your apparent view of inspiration seems to be compromised. But if you are trying to preserve both, then you have an issue where you still need to explain the original passage where God punishes them for their deeds.

Secondly, if Korah’s sin is that of the same corrupting’s force as that of Achan, then God should’ve punished them the same way. So, is God going to punish people for being in the vicinity of ‘corruption’ or not? Do the rules of this mystical force only apply for Spicy’s convenience?

I will give a reconciliation that makes sense of why God’s punishment was corporate and the other was not in Numbers. The significance is that Korah is rebelling against Moses. One was a covenant violation that warranted corporate punishment and the other was not. So, I don’t find this as undermining my position and it seems a useful reconciliation for the two passages.

I don’t think capital punishment should be transferred to an individual’s parents or vice versa. So, I fail to see how this entails no situations where corporate guilt occurs.

1. The entire challenge was whether humans can sin given your view. Your personal beliefs are different than the implications of your beliefs. If Christ has redeemed human nature, then how can humans still sin? In most traditions, these metaphysical changes do occur at the end of time (at least to this extent, regeneration occurs). This was why I mentioned inaugurated eschatology.

2. You argued that human nature (the universal) is redeemed. That it even moves humans higher on the chain of being because humans have realized a greater potential from their Edenic days. That is at least the patristic model that you were seeming to defend as your model. I think Jimmy stated my argument earlier:

Argument via Incarnation
P1. If God can forgive/cleanse by fiat sin, no morally sufficient reason exists for post-Adamic sin.

P2. If no morally sufficient reason exists for post-Adamic sin, no morally sufficient reason exists for the Incarnation.

P3. God can forgive/cleanse by fiat sin. (Spicy’s view)

C: No morally sufficient reason exists for the Incarnation.

3. If the Divine presence in Christ is sufficient to ‘redeem’ the entirety of human nature, then why wasn’t God’s presence in Israel sufficient to clean it without ceremony?

I didn’t forget Justin’s unfinished argument:

1. (Assume) All human nature is healed in the incarnation.
2->C-1. (Middle Premises)
C. Christ’s death was unnecessary.

The idea is that if Christ’s incarnation was sufficient, then his death or atonement isn’t necessary given the incarnation. You need to show that the taking on of human nature and the passing of Divine Life isn’t sufficient for the restoration of human nature or this simply follows. As of yet, you have failed to show how both (the incarnation and the atonement) are necessary yet not sufficient for the task.

Furthermore, whatever God has done for us given your view has the issue that you don’t think that what God came to recover human beings from the corruption of strange metaphysical forces never really occurred. As you said, I’ve imputed to you the views of ANE Jews that you don’t seem to affirm, but the NT writers do affirm them. In fact, rather than rendering these categories of some archaic time, they apply to us now typologically as the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Cor. 6:

16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:

“I will live with them
and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they will be my people.”

17 Therefore,

“Come out from them
and be separate,
says the Lord.
Touch no unclean thing,
and I will receive you.”

18 And,

“I will be a Father to you,
and you will be my sons and daughters,
says the Lord Almighty.”

The background is passages like Isa 52:11

Depart, depart, go out from there,
Do not touch what is unclean;
Go out of the midst of her, purify yourselves,
You who carry the vessels of the Lord.

The point is that we have been made Holy because of what Christ has done. Rather, if your view is correct, these moral forces still exist in the world, but God has told us to ignore them.

I think this is an obvious case where your view become Biblically strange, Acts 10:

10 He became hungry and wanted to eat, but while they were preparing something, he fell into a trance. 11 He saw heaven opened and an object that resembled a large sheet coming down, being lowered by its four corners to the earth. 12 In it were all the four-footed animals and reptiles of the earth, and the birds of the sky. 13 A voice said to him, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.”

14 “No, Lord!” Peter said. “For I have never eaten anything impure and ritually unclean.”

15 Again, a second time, the voice said to him, “What God has made clean, do not call impure.” 16 This happened three times, and suddenly the object was taken up into heaven.

I wish for you to notice that certain foods that were prohibited by the OT dietary code were lifted. You maintain these rules were in place because they were believed to possess some metaphysical corruption that can’t be removed without a blood sacrifice. So, did Christ take on the nature of all these animals that they would be clean for us to eat? Did God remove sinful corruption from these things via divine fiat? Seems like either way you will have issues depending on what route you wish to take.

If cleansed by fiat, then why couldn’t God just have done that all along? If not, then you maintain Christ took on the nature of every unclean thing that can be eaten? So, where did the corruption go, if it was ever there at all?

The simpler way is to recognize that the Apostles learned that the Mosaic prescriptions were unnecessary because God wasn’t keeping an ethnically separate people anymore and these commands were not for some inherent metaphysical corruption in objects.

Another option is just to maintain the Apostles were unaware of these qualities, but that is hard to believe that all these Old Covenant Jews would be unfamiliar with the central problem in the OT.

On the contrary, you have closed your eyes to what is clearly motivating the theology in those passages. That sin is “law-breaking” is true, but also not sufficient, there is more to talk about when it comes to understanding the ancient Jewish view of sin. The problem with your view is that you need the problem to be law-breaking, and nothing else. It needs to fundamentally rest there, and then the solution can equally be dealt with in purely legal terms. However, the text clearly has a lot more to say than mere law-breaking.

Contrary to this statement, all I need is that some of the problems are law-breaking, Covenant curse, etc. Once you grant some of the issues is forensic, then the solution must also have a solution to the forensic problem. These issues literally bring about the 2nd most important event after the Exodus. The exile and eventual return to the promised land. Furthermore, you have not touched the evidence that the NT makes these to be forensic (which I would expect you to only botch those scriptures as you’ve done through this conversation with rendering justification as covenant faithfulness). But this scripture twisting is all motivated for the cause of universalism.

The problem with my view is that it makes sense of the entire Bible instead of having the Biblical writers having divergent theological traditions in the Biblical witness. We see that my view best explains why the Apostles thought the way they did and how they did not consider themselves as creating an utterly different worldview from their OT counterparts, but rather were a continuation of it.

Right before the exile, when God unleashed the covenant curses on Israel and let the Assyrians and Babylonians pretty much end the Davidic dynasty, was every Jew guilty? God always had a remnant (Rom 9). So, I would say not every Jew was unfaithful. The reason I don’t need a further explanation for corporate punishment is because the one I gave was sufficient.

Do you mean I didn’t accept your artificial view of sin as some pulsating beacon of wrath? Yeah, I’ve expressly challenged that and have not seen a good argument to change my beliefs. Especially, when I’ve shown how you can’t explain various things, such as how qualities in the ground know who’s blood is being poured on it and that it requires the blood of the murderer to be cleansed or various covenantal requirements that are clearly symbolic that don’t fit your rules. Furthermore, you brought up mensuration as if I was afraid to bring up these examples. What strange properties does period blood have that make women unclean? What strange forces do you think are causing it? Do you think demons or gravity? Did the Jews see these qualities jump onto them when they touched dead things? What did the Jews see and understand to occur? How does washing remove such things and yet you can’t simply wash other things? Notice how the NT does pick up on washings and they represent spiritual cleansings.

Not a patristic view or “my view”. This view of sin in general is just a common one that scholars will generally agree is behind plenty of ANE discussions on sin/transgression. Except perhaps scholars who have a particular motivation of avoiding such conclusions.

I think the discussion is much more complicated than you present it. Often ANE views have humans interacting with deities in a completely different fashion. It is often that political figures are either these deities in human form or something like such that the will of the state is the will of the gods. Sometimes human agents are the heroes for taking from the gods and then they aren’t the absolute standard of morality. Or idols are made to manipulate the gods to serve one’s needs. These theological differences imply different things about the standard of morality, nature of sin, and beliefs in a mystical world of magic.

You are far from showing that either the exegesis for original sin is false and furthermore even further from showing it is incoherent. I haven’t argued that your position is false because some basic intuitions about justice, but rather things clearly revealed about justice. I never said responsibility isn’t tied to your actions and who you essentially are. In fact, that is more a problem for you as a libertarian than for me. It is precisely you are a son or daughter of Adam that plays a role in who we are.

Not sure how you can agree with this since I use pollution language here, which you have been objecting to.

I’ve explained that it isn’t corruption language that is our disagreement, but the metaphysic attached to sin you have imposed on the OT.

What on earth..?

This may seem confusing, but in some sense, you have granted that Christ has come to make humanity clean, restored, greater than Eden-like, etc. I maintain that Christ’s atonement or the salvific events of his life/earthly ministry in your case were what saves human beings throughout time. The author of Hebrews recognized that Christ was what the OT was pointing to and that these lesser offices that were temporary stand-ins were inferior to the greater reality. We often note this as shadows and once the light reveals the awaiting reality we no longer need the shadow.

What the author reveals is that OT sacrifices did not take away sins (in your case metaphysical mystical stuff wasn’t taken away by animal sacrifices). We no longer need sacrifices and Priests to atone for sins because Christ is superior to all of them. But the thing about Christ’s death is that it is the death that makes them clean.

Think of the image presented in Isaiah when God touched his lips with coal making him clean, taking away his guilt, etc. Isa 6 would later be pointed in John that this was of Christ (John 12). The symbolism stands like this:

Then one of the seraphs flew, i.e. by the command of God (cf. verse 2). The initiative has been heaven’s all along; revealing (2– 3), excluding and condemning (4– 5) and now sending the seraph to the one he has chosen to save. In the Old Testament fire is not a cleansing agent11 but is symbolic of the wrath of God (Gn. 3: 24; Nu. 11: 1– 3), his unapproachable holiness (Ex. 3: 2– 6; 19: 18– 25) and the context of his holy law (Dt. 4: 12, 33, 36). The live coal which was brought to Isaiah was fire from the altar. The perpetual fire (Lv. 6: 12– 13) on the altar went beyond symbolizing divine wrath, for the altar was the place where the holy God accepted and was satisfied by blood sacrifice (Lv. 17: 11). It holds together the ideas of the atonement, propitiation and satisfaction required by God and of the forgiveness, cleansing and reconciliation needed by his people. All this is achieved through substitutionary sacrifice and brought to Isaiah, encapsulated in the single symbol of the live coal. 7 The Bible does not deal in dumb signs; application leads to explanation (he touched my mouth and said . . .). (i) The touching of the lips with the live coal shows how God ministers to the sinner at the point of confessed need (cf. verse 5). (ii) The effect is instantaneous. The two verbs, has touched and is taken away, are co-ordinate perfects, stressing that as soon as the one happened the other happened also. Isaiah contributes nothing; all is of God – ‘ This touched your lips and your iniquity went’. (iii) A comprehensive work of dealing with sin takes place. Isaiah confessed what he knows (lips) but God deals also with his guilt/‘ iniquity’ (̔āôn), the inner reality of the deviant nature, and with his sin (ḥaṭṭā’a), the specific instances of shortcoming. (iv) All of this arises from the payment of the price.

The verb atoned for (kippēr) means ‘to effect a kōˈer’ or ‘ransom price’, 12 the price which justice requires. KB remarks, ‘The Hebrew, considered for itself, leads to “cover” as the original meaning . . . God covers guilt out of free grace, but his acting thus is less the pardon of a father than the releasing by a judge.’ 13 As we speak of a sum of money as sufficient to ‘cover’ a debt, so kippēr/ kōˈer is the payment of whatever divine justice sees as sufficient to cover the sinner’s debt, the death of the substitute sacrifice on the altar.

Motyer, J. Alec. The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction & Commentary (Kindle Locations 2365-2366). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.

With that imagery set, Christ basically does what this coal in the vision (notice this is a symbolic vision). So, we have Christ at least granting human beings to become clean. Something that can touch the unclean and render them clean. This imagery I am implying is of Christ. So, this was what Christ’s atonement has done for all times. That Christ is what clean/unclean language was always about (or things regarding heavenly manners).

If you maintain that Christ’s atonement was to eliminate some substance in objects and people, then you need to explain why Christ didn’t die for OT saints. Because their corruption was supposedly dealt with by animals satisfying properties in objects, animals, and people. Which contradicts your interpretation of Hebrews 7-10. If they didn’t really get rid of corruption, then they and the NT authors are wrong. That is because the OT sacrifices were never meant for atonement (contrary your beliefs) but pointed to Christ that did what they represented, but if they represented only fictions (not even actual issues in the world) then Christ only solved fictional issues. With one hand you give but the other takes away.

You may wish to suppose that OT saints were not saved the same way as NT saints in order to avoid this objection but that position only continues to stray from the beliefs of Biblical writers:

https://web.archive.org/web/20220224000553if_/http://spirited-tech.com/2021/01/05/the-abrahamic-dilemma-father-of-the-faithful/embed/#?secret=cusn9bpFId

I think this is the case of self-deception. You have constantly in nearly shameful fashion tried to render these legal/moral issues to the periphery as if they are merely unwanted factoids.

There were atonements for various reasons in the Pentateuch. You are reading the ones regarding sins. You read that as merely riding corruption out of the land, but truly that is at best reductionist because the purpose God gave these rules was always that he called Israel to be a Holy people. That includes for them to lack wrong-doings. Take Jesus parable about the tax collector that couldn’t raise his eyes to heaven. It wasn’t merely because of body fluids he couldn’t do so it was because he recognized that he was a sinner in need of God’s mercy. The central issue with Israel isn’t merely a high amount of some substance that causes uncleanness but moral impurity. To make it not the central focus is to have merely majored in the minors and minor in the majors.

Firstly, the NT doesn’t have a radically different understanding of human sin. In fact, the entire point is that sin is the constant except in Christ. So, on radical differences, you are starting with a significant one. There may be an extending the extent of how humans have failed but that was also always true but merely articulated with the highest precision of the NT writers.

Secondly, the OT still was focused on the heart (Jer. 17:9, Rom. 2). So, the OT shares many of the same moral quandaries that the NT has.

The problem is that I’ve already refuted your alternative reasons. So, you don’t have much reason because they were undermined by the sufficiency of Christ’s incarnation or ability to heal via miracles. If you wish to enter the afterlife, then Enoch and Elijah were counterexamples. So, this was dealt with already, and paying attention is difficult when conversations are this long, but still important.

This is why I already supposed some sort of inaugurated eschatology. The problem is you hold that in principle human nature is recovered and that is a metaphysical doctrine because of the naturalizing of sin. This is unlike Reformed or Protestant theology where Christ accomplished this on the cross but in principle to wait for later fulfillment. Since you lack such, it seems to me you have to suppose we are dealing with pure human nature now. So, did Christ make humanity clean or not? If yes, then it is the case. If not, then your theory of incarnation hasn’t explained anything which is seemingly more than your theory of atonement.

But I don’t commit myself to the view that someone who sins becomes unclean such that objects they touch become unclean etc. More radically, I don’t think God killed infants or commanded anyone to do so. That statement is probably going to be quite inflammatory to you but oh well.

This is theological suicide, I showed where the NT borrows from those categories above. So, not only the OT saints and the God of the OT were mistaken about them, further the NT writers appropriation of them and their continual significance. So, you have a lot more work if you wish to resurrect Marcion.

You may get to pick and choose what parts of God’s word are true because your universalist intuitions, but not all of us get the service of crafting gods in our own images.

How do his wounds heal us and why didn’t he just do so like he did others with just miracles? So, once again, the atonement is not explained in any serious way. There are comments that I’ll briefly respond to. I know that Christ is compared to the Priesthood. I think your theology implies that the atonement doesn’t deal with our sin because the incarnation did. Why do it twice?

Many 2nd Temple Jews exercised these methods. So, no one ever thought you needed divine inspiration in order to make them authoritative. Furthermore, how are we to know inspiration if the apparent fudging of scripture is occurring? We need some criterion to distinguish valid interpretation from invalid or we merely are treating the Apostles as mini popes that convey the true meaning. This leads us to have no ability to rationally evaluate Christ’s claim that the Law and the Prophets spoke of him. In short, you are reduced to fideism and thus subjectivism, as Jimmy pointed out. Yes, he is casting his events through the lens of the exodus, but the specific quote “out of Egypt I called my son” isn’t casting a new event through Passover language I don’t think (although I may have just missed it). It is speaking quite literally about the past and very real calling of Israel out of Egypt.

There are several issues to keep in mind:

1. The Old and New Testaments were written by people that exercised a more corporate/federal headship view than modern people. It was often the case that Davidic Monarchs stood in the place of Israel. As when I cited Carson:

The letter to the Hebrews argues that the laws regarding the tabernacle and the sacrificial system were from the beginning designed to point toward the only Sacrifice that could really remove sin and the only Priest who could serve once and for all as the effective Mediator between God and man. Likewise, Paul insists that the Messiah sums up his people in himself. When David was anointed king, the tribes acknowledged him as their bone and flesh (2Sa 5: 1); i.e., David as anointed king summed up Israel, with the result that his sin brought disaster on the people (2Sa 12, 24). Just as Israel is God’s son, so the promised Davidic son is also Son of God (2Sa 7: 13– 14; cf. N. T. Wright, “The Paul of History,” TynBul 29 [1978]: esp. 66– 67).

I also cited Hays to the same effect:

That doesn’t contradict Hosea’s meaning. **Hosea himself has a typological understanding of redemptive history. He recast the threatened Assyrian deportation in terms of second Egyptian bondage followed by a second Exodus. **That’s in play in the very chapter Matthew quotes (Hos 11:5,11), as well as other passages in Hosea (cf. 2:14-15; 7:16; 8:13; 9:3,6).

Therefore, Hosea already understood that the same past event can foreshadow an analogous future event(s).

**Likewise, “divine sonship” in OT usage can have both a collective referent (Israel) and an individual referent (David or David’s heir).** Furthermore, in covenant theology, an individual can represent others. So the individual and collective aspects can (and often do) merge. Matthew is operating with the same typological principle as Hosea.** A past event (the Exodus) foreshadowed an analogous future event (the childhood of Christ). Likewise, Christ is the Davidic son who embodies Israel**.

With that in mind, I wish to cite Beale’s summary of the chapter:

In Hosea 11, after alluding to Israel’s exodus out of Egypt (Hos 11:1), the history of the nation in her land is narrated briefly. They did not respond faithfully to God’s deliverance of them from Egypt and to his prophetic messengers exhorting them to be loyal to God, but they worshipped idols, despite the grace that God had shown to themn(11:2–5). Consequently, God will judge them for their lack of repentance (11:6–7).
Nevertheless, the judgment will not be absolute because of God’s compassion on the nation (11:8–9). God’s compassion is said to express itself through **future restoration of his people**, who “will walk after the Lord” and “come trembling from the west. And they will come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria,” so that God “will settle them in their houses” in their land (11:10–
11).

So, this is quite a large amount of summary. I think we have to realize that this has an eschatological function. For example, when we see the statement in the OT “In the last days…” we immediately become aware that the writer is speaking of issue regarding the Eschaton. I maintain that Christ is typological fulfillment of this being that he embodies what Israel ought to have been. This is also connected that Israel in Hosea time is like a Second Exodus, thus Hosea treats it as a typological fulfillment following the redemptive-historical pattern of the first Exodus and looking forwards towards someone to embody Israel’s purpose.

This is seen by the intertextual connection between Hosea 11 and Numbers 23-24. As pointed out by Beale:

Though there are some difficult interpretative issues in the Numbers 23 and 24 references and their use in Hos 11:10–11, in the latter passage it would appear likely that Hosea sees that these **Numbers allusions about the past coming “out of Egypt” together with the “lion” image will be recapitulated again in the eschatological future. Accordingly, the past exodus is seen to foreshadow a later end-time exodus, which is a typological understanding. **And, if Num 24:8–9 is not a narration of the first Exodus but a prediction of an end-time exodus, then Hos 11:10–11 may even be the reiteration of that prophecy, though Numbers 23 would still be included likely in a typological sense.
Thus, the main point or goal of Hos 11:1–11 is the accomplishment of Israel’s future restoration from the nations, including “Egypt.”20 **The overall meaning of chapter 11 is to indicate that God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt, which led to their ungrateful unbelief, is not the final word about God’s deliverance of them; though they will be judged, God will deliver them again, even from “Egypt.” The chapter begins with the exodus out of Egypt and ends with the same exodus out of Egypt, the former referring to the past event and the latter to a yet future event.**
The pattern of the first exodus at the beginning of Israel’s history (Hos 11:1) **will be repeated again at the end of Israel’s history in the end time. It is unlikely that Hosea saw these two exoduses to be accidental or coincidental or unconnected similar events. Hosea appears to understand that Israel’s first exodus (Hos 11:1) was to be recapitulated at the time of the nation’s latter-day exodus. This understanding of 11:1 in its context is fueled further by recalling that Hosea has already seen the first exodus in Numbers 23 and 24 to be recapitulated in a latter-day exodus**.

Even more interesting to tie into Beale’s connection is that the prophesies have intertextual parallels throughout the OT (Isa 11:11, 15–16; 27:13; Zech 10:10). An observation that Beale doesn’t seem to make is that with Genesis 48-49 but this observation needs to take a look at Num 24:7

Water will flow from his buckets,
and his seed will be by abundant water.
**His king will be greater than Agag**,
and his kingdom will be exalted.

In the LXX:
He makes water flow from his buckets, || And his seed [is] in many waters; And his King [is] higher than Gog [[or Agag]], || And his kingdom is exalted.

This confusion may be that Agag and Gog look similar in Hebrew, but the various Greek translations have it as Gog (like in Ezekiel 38). [אֲגַג and גּוֹג] Furthermore, the Bible states that prophets talked about Gog, but Gog only appears in Ezekiel in the MT. Here is Ezekiel 38:17

“Thus says the Lord God: **Are you he of whom I spoke in former days by my servants the prophets of Israel**, who in those days prophesied for years that I would bring you against them? 18 But on that day, the day that **Gog shall come against the land of Israel, declares the Lord God, my wrath will be roused in my anger. **19 For in my jealousy and in my blazing wrath I declare, On that day there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel.

So, where else do the prophets speak of Gog in the OT? If we go by the MT then it doesn’t but the LXX has multiple references to him.

I take this to be something that will be fulfilled by a future Israelite king. I don’t take this to be about Saul. This is Balaam’s prophesy that actually is Messianic. This prophecy is pointing towards the future and I think Agag isn’t actually Agag but rather the underlying text fits with it being Gog which is Israel’s end-time enemy. Furthermore, Balaam states that this has application in the “last days” in vs 17:

14 Meanwhile, since I have to return to my people, come and listen while I tell you what this people will be doing to your people **in the last days.**”

This is to say that the OT is looking forward to a King that embodies the mission of Israel and ushers in God’s eschatological vision. So, Matthew 2:15 isn’t some mystical reading, misquote, etc. It is Matthew knowing the scriptures better than us 21st-century hacks. He saw and learned these things from Christ himself that Christ was the Messiah that ushers in the 2nd Exodus.

Yes, but this is a limitation on our knowledge, this doesn’t contradict my point.

I don’t see this as interacting with my point. People are punished for certain things, but often it is their actions. Take for example, if someone murders someone God demands that person be executed. If the person doesn’t murder someone, but merely hates in their heart, they still don’t require the death penalty. So, often punishment and guilt is tied to actually doing the act. It seems that God will judge the thoughts and intentions of the human heart but that isn’t really relevant here. There is also nothing incoherent about stating that Christ takes the punishment for our wrong-doings (whether acts of the mind or our external deeds). I don’t think what you’re saying is intuitive, if it were then it wouldn’t argue this point.

Why aren’t they? It seems that you are just begging the question here. It seems the state things that they are morally obligated because of the deeds of a representative (in the cases we discussed it was employees, family members, Achan, etc.).

Well, while libertarianism is incoherent babble from men afraid of God, I hardly care to debate another issue after all the topics we brought up. I hold to true restoration. That is restoration through justice.

I take it this isn’t the first conversation you were wrong about this topic and after looking at your retorts I’m not surprised. It is all for the universalist cause, but an unworthy cause indeed.

Firstly, all three passages use agent specific language, not action specific language. Okay I lowkey just made up this terminology, but I think it’s accurate here. Terms like guilty or wicked refer to the moral status of the agent. (note: while guilt does have other meanings as well, in the context here it probably is speaking of moral properties residing in agents). Agents can be “guilty”, agents can be “wicked”. These are not transferable concepts. The passages do not read “God must always at least punish sin in the abstract independently of the one who committed it”. Rather it speaks of agents who respectively are “guilty” or “innocent”, and how God as a just judge will not find people who are actually innocent guilty, nor will he find people who are actually guilty, innocent. He is not a corrupt judge who takes bribes, or contorts his verdict fictiously.

False Dichotomy- There is no reason to arbitrarily separate the idea of guilt to merely refer to merely agents with moral properties (which for no reason are separate from their actions). It is quite clear in the Bible that people sin, commit them, and they are responsible for them. There is no reason (other than trying to save guilty human beings from divine wrath). The evil moral qualities are non-transferable because they are possessed, but guilt can be and that is what is transferred to Christ. Sinful natures are dealt with by regeneration.

I think this is precisely what occurs in your position. God gives people pardons via divine fiat. “Rather it speaks of agents who respectively are “guilty” or “innocent”, and how God as a just judge will not find people who are actually innocent guilty, nor will he find people who are actually guilty, innocent.” The part in bold is no different than your position, but at the eschaton.

Furthermore, you may not like our solution, but that doesn’t entail your solution is successful. In fact, you remain unable to give a rational account of divine justice this entire conversation.

You are merely trying to gerrymander your position into the bounds to fit with this obvious judicial notion, by separating wrongful deeds from being guilty. That doesn’t work, it sure ain’t intuitive, and it just an unjustified assertion to slither a failing position past basic judicial notions.

This just highlights the fact that this only makes my position Biblically necessary. There is a theological enigma that arises because you are right God punishes an innocent man, Christ. This is clearly what the Bible writers state:

5 But to the one who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited for righteousness.

25 He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For rarely will someone die for a just person—though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die. 8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 How much more then, since we have now been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from wrath. 10 For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. 11 And not only that, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.

6 We all went astray like sheep;
we all have turned to our own way;
and the Lord has punished him
for the iniquity of us all.

12 Therefore I will give him the many as a portion,
and he will receive the mighty as spoil,
because he willingly submitted to death,
and was counted among the rebels;
yet he bore the sin of many
and interceded for the rebels.

Since on your scheme, your sinful corruption can’t be transferred. It is impossible for your sins to be expiated or to have any form of substitution. Whence goes your guilt for your evil deeds?

On your view unrighteous people are not made to be righteous so that they can legitimately be found to be righteous people, rather while they are still unrighteous, God concocts a legal fiction that allows him to “find guilty people innocent”, which is completely antithetical to common sense notions of justice, and what the text here is saying.

Firstly, God is the offended client. We often don’t have the judge of our case as the offended party. The judge doesn’t arbitrarily concoct some fiction, he takes the offense we did to him on himself and forgives us.

Secondly, the fiction disappears when his righteousness is imputed to our account. That isn’t fictional and we are justified because we bear Christ’s righteousness. So, the objection doesn’t hold much weight.

Let’s compare that with my view, which doesn’t fall prey to that. God absolutely finds unrighteous people to be unrighteous, but he doesn’t plan on leaving them that way. He intends to sanctify them of dead works, to truly recreate them, perfect them in Christ so that they are really righteous people. So on my view, there are zero times when God finds righteous people to be unrighteous, and unrighteous people to be righteous. He accurately assesses each individual.

He recreates them, but how does he deal with their past crimes:

Either they are dealt with or they are not. It seems you take the latter route and thus the question is never really answered and you are ‘recreated’ to be good but this simply is making someone just by divine fiat in other words. So, we wait for an actual solution.

what I mean by substitution is that someone or some animal dies, and somehow this prevents your death. For example, the purpose of the sin/purgation offering is completely expiatory, yet it dies and in a sense it is a substitute.

So whether the lamb serves as a legal substitute or not, it is still in some vague sense a substitute.

For the sake of this discussion, I don’t think I should be objecting to your view that the wrath of the father was poured out on the son through the lamb. Technically speaking I think it is okay for you to have that view thinking retrospectively, casting PSA back onto the passover narrative. Rather I object that the passover narrative serves as evidence of PSA on the grounds the lamb can’t be thought of as a wrath bearer.

I do want to question the mechanism though. How do you envision the lamb serving as some sort of connection to Christ? to be honest, I don’t see how you can do this without just invoking something like covenantal faithfulness, which as I understand is actually just the standard reformed view.

There are too many issues here and I’ve addressed a lot already. I think the lamb could be understood merely as Divine judgment Passover us like the Jews back then. I think it is a fine example of substitutionary atonement.

Spicy should recant and come to a full knowledge of the truth. It is better that Christ die for your sins, than you die for them.

The Council

Bahnsen or Spicy?: Essays on Penal Substitutionary Atonement, Ancapistan Press

The Dialogue

Spicy

TheSire (aka Darth Bahnsen)

Spicy

TheSire

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TheSire

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Dissy

TheSire

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Dissy

TheSire

Spicy

TheSire

Sukka

Spicy

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The Dialogue

Spicy

TheSire (aka Darth Bahnsen)

Spicy

TheSire

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TheSire

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Dissy

TheSire

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Dissy

TheSire

Spicy

TheSire

Sukka

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