Last time, I wrote about the “new exodus,” describing it as a way of speaking of the ending of the Jewish exile while investing it with the epochal significance of replacing the Exodus as the defining event in Israel’s history and their revelation of God. I then described reasons for believing that theologically, the Jewish people did not understand the exile to have ended when the exiles in Babylon physically returned to their homeland in 538 B.C. Understanding this brings a dynamic twist in understanding the NT and the person and message of Jesus. Before we look at how interpreting the New Testament is affected by these realities, it is important to add another dimension.

A significant theme which recurs throughout the later OT writings is the link between the ending of exile and the forgiveness of sins. The classic introduction of this theme is in Isaiah 40 where (if you do something funny to account for the peculiar placement of Isaiah 35) Isaiah’s in-depth exposition of New Exodus kicks off:

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her

that she has served her term,
that her iniquity has been pardoned…

Notice the two couplets that I have marked off by leaving space between them. This is to illustrate the extremely common and primary feature of Hebrew poetry called parallelism. We commonly think of poetry as rhyming the sounds of words. This however, is not at all how Hebrew poetry functions. Instead of rhyming words, they would rhyme thoughts. This came in two primary forms (although technically one could tease out various additional nuances). The first is synonymous parallelism, where the two lines of poetry express synonymous thoughts, i.e. their meaning are essentially the same. Examples of such would include:

O come, let us sing for joy to the LORD,
Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. (Psalm 95:1)

I will extol You, my God, O King,
And I will bless Your name forever and ever. (Psalm 145:1)

One generation shall praise Your works to another,
And shall declare Your mighty acts. (Psalm 145:4)

The LORD of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our stronghold (Ps. 46:11)

The wilderness and the desert will be glad,
And the Arabah will rejoice and blossom (Isaiah 35:1)

Behold, the Lord GOD will come with might,
With His arm ruling for Him (Isaiah 40:10)

The point in all these and many other verses is not that each line is communicating a new and distinct idea. Rather it is a poetic way of saying the same thing. Where this becomes critical is that seeing parallelism can often indicate to us two concepts that the author is holding closely together in a semi-synonymous (though not necessarily precise – remember this is poetry) relationship.

The other major form of parallelism is antonymous parallelism, in which the two lines of the couplet express the opposite idea. This form of parallelism is much less common than the former.

The LORD keeps all who love Him,
But all the wicked He will destroy. (Psalm 145:20)

For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
But the way of the wicked will perish. (Psalm 1:6)

They will find gladness and joy,
And sorrow and sighing will flee away. (Is. 35:10) – an interesting case, not precisely synonymous or antonymous parallelism, it is expressing the same idea in opposite ways

The purpose of this digression on Hebrew poetry is to show how meaningful it is when the Isianic text brings into parallel the notion of the ending of exile (she has served her term) and the forgiveness of sin (her iniquity has been pardoned). In other words, the author is bringing into a poetically synonymous relationship, the twin notions of the end of Israel’s exile and the forgiveness of their sins. How can these two seemingly disparate themes be related? One has to do with their historical circumstances, the other with their relationship with God. One concerns “horizontal” relationships, the other “vertical.” The one is temporary, the other eternal. Let me explain how I think this works.

The book of Deuteronomy is essentially the covenant charter of the people of Israel. It explains at length the relationship between God and Israel. In chapter 28, blessings are described, which are for Israel if they keep the covenant, while curses are described for Israel if they do not keep the covenant. Interestingly, these blessings and curses are not for individuals, but are for the nation as a whole with regards to corporate obedience or corporate disobedience (an extremely foreign concept for twenty-first century individualism-assaulted denizens). The result of obedience is that God “will establish you as a holy people” and consequently, they will be blessed and prosper, specifically with regard to the surrounding nations of political adversaries. However, if as a nation they do not follow the covenant, they are told that “the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth” and that “The LORD will bring you back to Egypt in ships.” In other words, God’s deliverance of the people from the Egyptian captivity (the exodus) will be reversed by virtue of their corporate disobedience. Chapter thirty also promises that if while in captivity in foreign nations, if they will return to the Lord, he will bring them out of captivity, restore them to the land and bless them abundantly. In summary the result of corporate disobedience is exile and the result of corporate repentance is return from exile.

What we see from Deuteronomy is that the concept of sin and exile are intricately related. Sin is understood in essentially a causal relationship with going into exile. The reason why the captives addressed in Isaiah 40 are in exile is because of their corporate sin. These sins are delineated in much of the pre-exilic prophetic literature and the historical books.

What is critical to grasp here is that sin and forgiveness are not primarily viewed from an individualistic or existentialist perspective. The concern in Isaiah 40 is not “how one feels” when relating to God (i.e., feeling forgiven or feeling shame). Neither is the concern the accumulation of merits and demerits, nor the eternal fate of individuals (i.e., heaven or hell). Rather, the concern is typically Jewish: it is historical, national, geographical, political and related to the future of life on earth. When these people were awaiting the “forgiveness of sins,” they were not anticipating a spiritual experience whereby their guilt-anxiety complex was assuaged. They were not expecting a declaration from heaven announcing their forgiveness or status of righteousness. They certainly we not even dreaming of being assured of escaping the earth for an eternal heavenly abode. They were looking forward the ending of the exile, freedom from foreign powers, the restoration of the nation and the fulfillment of God’s covenant promises in which the entire earth would be renewed. According to Deuteronomy, they would know they were forgiveness, not by the warm-fuzzies, but because they had been brought back to their land and restored as a people. In this passage the forgiveness of sins is not individualistic, internal or “spiritual.” Rather it is corporate, historical, national, geographical, ecological and political. For the exile to end means that Israel has been forgiven of their sins. If the exile has not ended, the logical interpretation is that they have not yet been forgiven and the “wrath of God” still remains over them.

This perspective helps to makes sense of some other “baffling” passages. I always used to get tripped out over verses like these:

Psalm 103:9 – He will not always accuse, nor will he keep his anger forever.

Psalm 85:4-6 – Restore us again, O God of our salvation, and put away your indignation toward us. Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations? Will you not revive us again, so that your people may rejoice in you?

Psalm 79:5 – How long, O LORD? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealous wrath burn like fire?

Micah 7.18-20 – Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of your possession? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in showing clemency. He will again have compassion upon us; he will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and unswerving loyalty to Abraham, as you have sworn to our ancestors from the days of old.

I would think, “don’t the Israelites understand that we’re saved by faith? All you have to do is ask God to forgive you and he will.” I would change the words of these Psalms around when praying and singing them. Instead of saying “you will not always accuse, nor will you keep your anger forever,” I would say something like “you do not always accuse, you do not stay angry forever.” I didn’t make any sense that one would have to plead with God for him to forgive you. That sounded like Medieval penance theology.

These verses (and MANY others) only doesn’t make sense when a modern notion of “justification by faith” and the radical individualization of sin and forgiveness is applied to these passages (See my posts on “Reading the Bible in the Right Direction” for more on this). There is certainly a personal concept of sin in the Scripture but it is not the only way sin is treated and in many passages it is not primary. The verses given above, however, are patently not about the individual assurance of forgiveness. That was not the primary concern of the Israelites in captivity. We don’t see in the Scripture a spirituality of “well, we’re in captivity and slavery, but at least we have the inner assurance of God’s forgiveness so we are content.” That kind of forgiveness was not on their radar. For them, to be forgiven meant to be restored in the full sense of the word, as we see in Ps. 85:4 (restore us again). This is not an issue of “pre-cross/post-cross” as I’ve sometimes heard it described (as if only after Jesus died on the cross can we be forgiven immediately, before then we had to beg and do penance). The context of these passages make clear to us what they are about without bringing in an artificial theological framework that is foreign to the texts. The context of Psalm 85:4-6 is immediately in relation to the notion of the captivity of Israel in exile. The context of Psalm 103 immediately preceding the quote above is all about Moses and the exodus and a quotation from Moses’ encounter with God on Mt. Sinai. Psalm 79 is about the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple as the Babylonian exile was inaugurated. The passage from Micah seven explicitly correlates forgiveness of sin to faithfulness of the covenant with Abraham (i.e., the land).

As I will develop further in my next post, the notions of the ending of exile and the forgiveness of sins are intricately linked in these and many other passages. Understanding this helps restore a more authentically Jewish (and less of a Medieval European) biblical perspective and sheds (in my opinion), radical new light on the both the OT and the NT, especially the life, message and mission of Jesus and the theology of sin, forgiveness and justification in Paul.

One way it immediately helps us, is it beckons us to break out of the morose and obsessive inwardly-bent introspective posture that we can develop when all we think about is dealing with our personal sin and the corollary confusion that the focal point of Christianity is to aid you in dealing with your guilt-anxiety complex. I hate to break it to you, but there is more to Christianity than you and your personal sin! God has a much more expansive and exciting vision for the world and the future than for you to neurotically manage your besetting sins. Of course, dealing with sin and our own insidious propensity towards hatred and violence is incredibly significant, but it can only be done when we are fully engaged with God’s bigger picture for the human race and the future of life on earth. It will necessitate getting our eyes off of ourselves, perhaps at first for only moments at a time, but more and more we will lift our gaze and begin to see the wide and open space of freedom and life God is inviting us to.

Wow. I’m kind of getting excited and am feeling this already-too-long post burgeoning into more than can fit here. More on this to come…

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In his gospel, Luke tells us that as Jesus was on the way to Golgotha, a number of women followed Jesus mourning and wailing for him. Remarkably, he turns to them, saying “do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children” (Lk. 23.28). I find it amazing that as Jesus experiences the greatest amount of pain in his life and indeed in the entire existence of the world, he turns and tells people to not focus on his pain, but rather on their own. For many of us, thinking about our own pain seems to be one of the last things we want to do. For others of us, we can’t even think about our pain because it is so far buried that it is beyond our cognizance. For others, we spend so much time giving to others, helping, serving and ministering to those whom to us seem in dire need, that we have emptied our reservoir of time or emotional energy to consider our own pain. Yet, in the moment of his anguish, at the time when he faced death and separation from his Father, he calls attention to the plight of human suffering – the universal experience of every human being. We spend so much time, energy and anxiety denying, avoiding, suppressing, overlooking and dismissing our pain, yet Jesus seems to find it important in the hour of his death.

The liturgical tradition of the church maintains this undesired nuance of the Good Friday story. It is traditional that following a reading from Isaiah 53 (the suffering servant) or Genesis 22 (Abraham offering Isaac), Psalm 22 is said or sung by the congregation. This psalm, with its opening line “My God, my God why have you forsaken me” is obviously connected to Jesus’ suffering due to his own voicing of these words while hanging on the cross. However, ironically, though alluding to the suffering of the Messiah, the psalm is said by every congregant in the first person. Each person voices to God, “why have you forsaken me.” While of course recalling Jesus’ sufferings, one personally recounts to God and is therein confronted with the anguish, god-forsakenness, confusion and despair of their own existence. This inclusion of the first-person recitation of Psalm 22 prevents us from moving through Good Friday mourning solely for the sufferings of Jesus. “Do not weep for me; weep for yourselves…” In order for Good Friday to mean anything, we must mourn our own pain, we must grieve our own god-forsakenness. We must discover how the words of Psalm 22 are not simply Jesus’ words, but are in fact our own. Indeed, in the chronology of humanity, these words of god-forsakeness were our own lips long before they were on the lips of Jesus. They were words of the universal human plight that Jesus, in his passion, identified with, entered into and experienced fully.

“Do not weep for me; weep for yourselves…” This perspective is crucial for understanding the significance of Jesus’ death. On the cross, he not only paid the penalty for sin, but “surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows...upon him was the chastisement that brought our wholeness and with his stripes we are healed” (Isa. 53:4-5). Without griefs and sorrows that are woefully significant, without brokenness that requires wholeness, without wounds that need healing, Jesus death flies high into an abstract world of economic exchanges for the price of sin, far from the aching place within us so desperately needing his presence. On the cross, Jesus drew near to us in our pain and fellowshipped with us in our suffering and continues to extend his wounded hands to embrace us in our brokenness. He knows us, in our pain. He understands us, in our brokenness. He is near us, in our sorrow. He feels together with us, in the place we feel abandoned by all, including even God. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:15-16).

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An excerpt from “Saved By His Life” - a new paper I am working on:

Since the Protestant Reformation, “justification by faith” has been the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae—the article by which the church stands or falls. Stressing the significance of this doctrine, Martin Luther once said,

“[Justification is] the chief article of Christian doctrine. To him  who understands how great its usefulness and majesty are, everything else will seem slight and turn to nothing. For what is Peter? What is Paul? What is an angel from heaven? What are all creatures in comparison with the article of justification? For if we know this article, we are in the clearest light; if we do not know it, we dwell in the densest darkness. Therefore if you see this article impugned or imperiled, do not hesitate to resist Peter or an angel from heaven; for it cannot be sufficiently extolled.”

Though a significant point of controversy between Catholic and Protestants since the 16th century, in recent years, the meaning of this “chief article” has been a matter of significant discussion even amongst Protestants. What does it mean to be justified? What is the problem that necessitates justification? How is justification achieved? How does it become effective in an individual’s life? What does it accomplish?

An oversimplified and clichéd response, but nevertheless moderately reflective of what a common evangelical believer would profess, might be as follows: The problem necessitating justification is that humans are in rebellion against God as expressed in sin. Because God is righteous, sin by nature provokes the wrath of God, before which, no human can stand. Justification is achieved by Jesus’ substitutionary death on the cross, whereby he bears the wrath of God for us and makes propitiation for us before God. This becomes effective in an individual’s life by repenting of and forsaking one’s rebellion and by believing in God. This accomplishes the forgiveness of one’s sin and acceptance before God, thus enabling one to go to heaven upon death and to spend eternity with God.

This summary, expressed in “gospel” presentations and systematic theologies, broadly and vaguely depicts what is with what is more precisely called the penal-substitutionary model of atonement. When this description of the “what” and “how” of justification is represented as the sole or primary understanding of justification, many peculiarities in Paul are “unearthed” which do not seem to correspond to this logic. Paul seems to have a broader understanding of the problem of the human condition than simply being “rebellion against the honor of God.” He talks about “futile thinking” and “foolish hearts” (Rom. 1:21), disordered passions (Rom. 1:24), lacking “knowledge of God” (Rom. 1:28), being “under a curse” (Gal. 3:10,13), being “in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world” (Gal. 4:3), being dead (Eph. 2:1), being “foreigners and strangers” (Eph. 2:19), and being under the “dominion of darkness” (Col. 1:13). He sees the work of God in the Messiah, not only in court-room images, but also in military, familial, relational, political, biological and architectural images. This work does not simply accomplish forgiveness for us, but through the cross we have been “delivered from the present evil age” (Gal. 1:4), rescued “from the dominion of darkness” and brought into “the kingdom of [God’s] beloved Son” (Col. 1:13). Furthermore, several cryptic yet explicit passages describe how Jesus was “raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25) and that we are “saved by his life” (Rom. 5:10).

In such, we are not merely forgiven, but are given participation in a cosmic redemption, which is often the climax of Paul’s discussions of “individual salvation”. In Romans, the “righteousness of God” that is revealed in the gospel ultimately builds to the time when “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21). In 2 Corinthians 5, the non-reckoning of sin is intimately linked with the arrival of the New Creation. Paul’s discussion in Ephesians about being “chosen before the foundations of the world,” and “adopted to sonship” in Jesus by whom we have “redemption through his blood” all leads to the eternal purpose of God “to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under The Messiah” (Eph. 1:10). In Colossians 1, the purpose of the Messiah’s work on the cross is to “reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

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“Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”  “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.”  John 20:11-14

This is a most curious of passages. In all the other gospel narratives of the resurrection of Jesus, the angel(s) at the tomb give dramatic revelatory statements like “Why do you look for the living among the dead;” “He is not here, He is risen.” However, in John the angel makes a seemingly obtuse and even insensitive statement. He asks a woman standing outside a tomb why she is crying? Why might a woman standing by a tomb be crying? This seems blatantly obvious to anyone, let along an angel. This hints to us that more is going on here.

Rather than a revelation coming from the words of the angels, we get a description of the location of the angels. They are were Jesus’ body was, one at the head, and one at the foot. This creates a visual image that would have been familiar for first century Jews (by story and Scripture, rather than from experience of course!), that of the Ark of the Covenant.  This sole item that occupied the central and holiest part of the tabernacle and later the temple was covered by two cherubim, which from the best that we can tell are angelic-like figures.

Between the two cherubim was the precise place where God would meet with His people (Ex. 25:22). Moses would hear the voice of God speak to him from between the two wings of the cherubim (Num. 7:89). Between the two cherubim was the place where the Lord of the hosts of heaven was considered to be actually enthroned on earth (1 Sam. 4:4. 1 Chron. 13:6). The central ritual by which the forgiveness of sins was mediated to the people was through sprinkling blood on the cover of the ark (Lev. 16:15ff). In between the two cherubim was the place where God’s glory, his manifest shekinah presence dwelt. The ark was in a sense the meeting place between heaven and earth, where God and sinful humanity met and in a remarkable way met in mercy and forgiveness.

The irony here is that the place of the ark of the covenant – lost for centuries (since the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.), and certainly not dwelling in Herod’s temple has shown up in the most unlikely of places – in the place of death – in a tomb. The glory of God – his holiness and very nature on display is manifested in the place traditionally most antithetical to holiness – death. Here the victory of God over even death itself is displayed as Jesus rises from the dead and now the glory of God dwells in that place of triumph. This is not the redemption of death, but rather its reversal. The very glory of God dwelt in a tomb and defeated death in the resurrection of Jesus. Death, far from being outside of the reach of God is what He decisively defeated in the death and resurrection of Jesus. That which seems farthest from God’s intervention, those areas of pain, weakness, depression, despair, disease and death are not simply to be reconciled with and resigned to. Rather, these are the very places where God’s glory and resurrection life will manifest and display the character and heart of the loving, compassionate, merciful God who “gives life to dead and calls into being things that do not exist.” (Rom. 4:17)

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In Romans 8:32, Paul says that “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” This phrase “gave him up” means to deliver, hand over, surrender or betray. Very strong language. I believe that this verse gets to the heart of the crucifixion event. We often think of Jesus marching, yes with anguish, but nevertheless resolutely up the hill carrying his cross. But what was going on in his heart? How did Jesus experience the cross? This verse lets us in on something we can only barely peer into. Jesus experienced the cross as being delivered up, surrendered or betrayed by the Father he called abba — The one He knew in intimate closeness forever in eternity past. The passion of Jesus was not the physical torment, but the alienation Jesus felt in his separation from the Father. It was the anguish of love beyond our comprehension. This very place is where Jesus draws near to us and meets us in the pain of alienated existence on earth. Jesus knows the plight of God-forsakeness. He is well acquainted with suffering the loss of the most profound love. Where we feel most isolated and alone, Jesus knows us well.

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