Nature of the Atonement

I am not sure about this. Look at what Paul says in Romans 7. Again, if we let the words speak to us without filtering them through a view that we bring to the text, Paul certainly seems to be absolving himself of blame:

As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

If you approach this particular text without prior commitment to already believing certain things about the nature of sin, the text clearly suggests that sin is a kind of "agent" that has invaded the human person and is responsible for the sin that is done.

This is a complex issue, but I do think the scriptures clearly teach that, at least to some degree, we are "victims" of a hostile force that we are born with.

 

This is indeed true - everyone who does not obey the law is cursed. They text clearly says this. But this does not justify the conclusion that the curse consists in specifically being punished. You have to read that in. Let me illustrate by example. Suppose that I am born programmed to pick my nose - I simply cannot help it (the implied analogy to original sin is indeed intended). And there is a law that says "thou shalt not pick thy nose".

I will pick out my brain and die. I can be described as being "cursed". Am I necessarily being punished? No. In this case the very concept of punishment has no meaning - it is simply unfaithful to the very concept of punishment to assert that one can be punished for something over which there is no power of contrary choice.

So even though there is a "law" that I break, and even though I am cursed by "disobeying" the law, my "curse" does not consist in being "punished" any more than a rock that falls of a mountainside and is dashed to pieces is being "punished".

Can you give the specific reference? I assume that there is a text in which Achan sins and his curse consists in being punished. Fine - I will take your word on it. But if you are not going to allow me to use Genesis 3 as the model for the meaning of the word "curse" as we are to interpret it in Galatians 3, why are you allowed to use the "curse as punishment" sense that is there in the text about Achan?

Perhaps the word "curse" is used in different senses. Remember that in Genesis 3, the word "curse" is used in a sense that cannot be reconciled with a "punishment" interpretation:

Cursed is the ground because of you

Clearly the "ground" is cursed, and clearly it is not a moral agent that can be punished. So we have at least this one biblical example of the word "curse" being used in a non-punishment sense. You cannot then simply assume that, in Galatians 3, the word is being used in a "punishment" sense just because of the Achan text - the obvious counter is that you are "picking and choosing" your texts.

And, of course, if you are right about the Achan account, I am in the same boat - I cannot simply invoke Genesis to prove my point.

But I will again repeat - in Romans 8:3, God condemns sin, not Jesus.

 

The conclusion that the wounding was specifically punishment is only one of a set of legitimate possible conclusions. My analogy may have been bad.

But if sin is a thing that can concentrated in one "body", and if the only way that sin can be "broken" is for God to "blast" the sin, thereby killing the body in which it is located as an unfortunate consequence - then we can indeed say that Jesus was "wounded" on our behalf. As you say, Jesus is the focus - He is the place where the sin of the world is localized and then condemned by God.

It can "please God to bruise him" without this being punishment. If the only way that sin can be defeated is to have it localized in one person and then "blasting" it - with the unavoidable death of the person - then we can indeed say of such of situation "it pleased God to bruise Him".

 

I would like to ask you some questions:

1. Do you believe that human beings are born with an innate and irresistable desire to sin? In other words that it is impossible for a person to not sin?

2. If you answered yes to question 1, how, exactly, are we accountable for a behaviour over which we have no control?

 

Part of the argument I am attempting to advance here is the notion that God uses Israel as the "place" where the sin of the world gets "accumulated" before it is passed on to her faithful Messiah Jesus to be dealt with. And I have suggested that the Romans 9 text about the potter and his pot supports this view. More specifically this material from Romans 9 is not about pre-destination of individuals but is rather about Israel - Israel is the pot and she is a vessel fitted for destruction as sin accumulates in her through the "sin-increasing" effects of Torah.

Here is this famous text from Romans 9:

One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" 20But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' "21Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
22What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— 24even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?

The argument that the pot here is Israel is supported by a long tradition of scripture that likens God's relation to Israel to that between a potter and a pot. Notice the striking parallel between the above and this text from Jeremiah 18:

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD : 2 "Go down to the potter's house, and there I will give you my message." 3 So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.
5 Then the word of the LORD came to me: 6 "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" declares the LORD. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

Coincidence?

I doubt it. Paul sees Israel as a vessel where the sin of the world is to be accumulated so that it can then be passed to Jesus where, concentrated and vulnerable at last, God condemns sin.

 

I suggest that material from Romans 11 really only makes sense if we understand that national Israel has followed the Christ-pattern in the sense that, like Christ, Israel is used by God as the "place" where the sins of the world are accumulated. On such a view, and as sparingly argued already, the potter and pot material from Romans 9 is really all about Israel and how God has the right to use her as the place for the world's sin to be accumulated.

Consider the following from Romans 11:

I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry 14in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. 15For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? 16If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.

Paul seems to be saying that Israel's being "forsaken by God" (think of Romans 9 and the potter) has salvific effect. This is the Christ-pattern. It is Jesus who bears the sin of the world and is "forsaken" so that the world can be saved. Israel is in the critical path here - Israel is not merely a "side-story", she plays a pivotal role in the atonement that Jesus ultimately effects by being the place where, through Torah, sin is brought to its full height.

And we even have the "life from the dead" - a clear allusion to the resurrection.

Together, texts like Romans 5:20, stuff from Romans 7, the potter stuff from Romans 9, and this material from Romans 11 portray a mode of atonement that "passes through Israel" - Israel is the vessel fitted for destruction - not for her own sake, but for the world's.

In other words, the atonement that Jesus alone achieved was nevertheless "set up" by Israel being used by God as the "repository"
for the sins of the world.

 

I do not think you are being true to what it means to be accountable.

To be accountable means to have had the power to act otherwise than how we acted. Yet you affirm that sin cannot be resisted. And then you say we willingly sin. Well, which is it? If we cannot resist sin, then our sin is not a wilful act since the very concept of "will" entails freedom of contrary choice.

 

There is still a huge problem here. The analogy to the speeder does not really work precisely because the speeder, were he a responsible citizen, would have known the rule about the speed limit. So there is still an intelligible sense in which he is "guilty" or "accountable".

This is not the situation if we are born with a sin nature that forces us to sin. We simply cannot make "people answer" for actions they cannot control. We can restrain them and confine them for the protection of society. But can cannot call it punishment or "holding them accountable" - that would be simply a misuse of such terms.

No reasonable person would say that a baby is accountable for crying in public. If someone suggested that the baby is "accountable" for his actions, that person would be met with replies of "he's a baby, he can't help it". I trust the analogy is clear.

Specific dictionary definitions aside, it is simply a violation of concepts of guilt, responsibility, and morality to assert that it is correct to "punish" someone for something they cannot control.

You seem be arguing that even if we are forced to sin, we still "choose" which sins to commit and are therefore morally responsible for that choice. That really does not work - imagine a person who is forced to undergo an operation where a chip is placed in his brain that forces him to commit murder but doesn't force him to murder a particular person.

Even if that person "chooses" to murder Fred, there is no sense in which a reasonable person would hold that person "accountable" - he was forced to be a murderer and therefore notions of guilt and moral responsbility are not relevant.

 

Paul, at least in this text, does not agree with your position:

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

If the reader lets go of doctrinal pre-commitments ands looks at this text as objectively as possible, it clearly assigns the responsbility to sin and absolves the "I", at least to some degree.

I am not sure how the above text can be reconciled with the position you hold. Paul says that he cannot do what he knows is right. How can a person be responsible for a behavour that s/he cannot control.

Plus, at the cross, God condemns sin, not Jesus.

For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature,[b] God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.[c] And so he condemned sin in sinful man,..

 

I am afraid that this simply does not make sense. It is the same argument that Marcia made.

Let's say that a person "Joe" is born with an irresistable inclination to sin - it is impossible for him not to sin. And let's say that there are 10 sins that Joe can "choose" from. Joe must "choose" at least one of these sins - he has no choice about picking one of them. So Joe cannot be held morally responsible, no matter what he does.

The only way that Joe can be held morally responsible is if he has the power to choose no sins. But this is not possible, since Joe has an irresistable desire to sin.

Let's say a woman has an iirresistable urge to eat candy - she is not even capable of not eating candy. She is then presented with a bowl of jelly beans, a plate of chocolates, and a bowl of ice cream.

You and Marcia seem to be arguing that since she may have a choice about which candy to eat, she is then morally responsible.

I doubt that anyone could defend such reasoning.

 

This argument does not work and my point remains. The reason: even if it is true that the ground is "cursed" to punish the man, the ground is still cursed. And since it is incoherent to say that ground is being punished, we have clear evidence that the word "cursed" can be used to describe something other than "punishment".

Is the ground the object of the verse "cursed" Obviously. Is the ground being "punished"? Obviously not. Therefore the word "curse" does not necessarily entail punishment.

It simply does not matter if the cursing of the ground is also punishment for mankind. Consider the following analogy: In order to punish her 15 year old son for sneaking liquour out of the family liqour cabinet, some mother pours sour lemonade into the scotch bottle. She is "cursing the scotch" in order to punish the son. Is she punishing the scotch? Obviously not. But she is still "cursing" the scotch, so the act of cursing the scotch does not entail punishment in respect to its true object - the scotch.

Besides. consider this other use of the word "curse" from the book of Jeremiah:

Cursed be the day I was born!
May the day my mother bore me not be blessed!
Cursed be the man who brought my father the news,
who made him very glad, saying,
"A child is born to you—a son!"

Is Jeremiah asking that the day of his birth be punished? Obviously not. Is he really asking that the man be punished? Almost certainly not.

These and other texts show that the word "cursed" does not necessarily involve punishment.