THE LORD’S PRAYER: REFLECTIONS FOR LENT (Reflection 7)

Reflection 7: 6^th Petition: And do not let us cross over to temptation, but deliver us from the evil [one]!

[See Feb. 22, 2026 for translation and Reflection 1.]

The first three petitions put us in a right relationship with God.  God’s honor and agenda is primary.  The second three petitions turn attention toward ourselves, but they still require that we put God first.  The 4^th petition is essentially a prayer to grow in faith, to grow in dependence on God and not on the material world.  Although in the 5^th petition we seek forgiveness, its focus is more about us desiring to become as merciful as God.

The purpose of the 6^th petition, the third in regard to ourselves, turns from offering ourselves in deeper submission and transformation.  Instead, here we imploring our Father for protective help from all that would disrupt our relationship with God. 

This intention of this text is difficult to translate accurately because it employs a poetic structure with which we are not familiar.  The first clause of this petition is easy to translate literally, “Do not carry/lead us into temptation.”  However, that requires clarification.  It would be wrong to think that God wants or even causes us to be tempted to sin.  [It is true that God tests people, but that is different.¹]  What we need to realize is that both the first and second clauses make the same point but dramatically through the use of what is called “antithetical parallelism.”  They state a point from the negative perspective and then states it from the positive.  For example, without knowingly being poetic, a child might say to a parent, “Don’t abandon me here, but do take me with you.”  The first clause has two negatives (“not” and “abandon” – functioning almost like a double negative) that are balanced in the second clause with two positives (“do take” and “with you”).  The child is not implying that the parent desires to abandon her, but is emphatically expressing what she desires with a negative and a positive statement.  A biblical example would be Prov 10:12:

1^st clause: “Hatred rouses up strife” (negative perspective of hate and strife)
2^nd clause: “But love covers all transgressions” (positive perspective of love and forgiveness)

Our text’s structure is:
            1^st clause: “Do not do negative X (tempt)”
            2^nd clause “But do positive Y (deliver from evil).”

If one were to rephrase the same sense in simple synonymous parallelism – both statements positive – it would be, “Take us away from temptation, and deliver us from evil!”  The translation given above attempts to keep both the positive sense and the dramatic parallel contrast.  God’s role is not to bring us across the threshold of temptation, but to deliver us from evil.  Our petition is for divine protection.

Our petition to be delivered from “the evil [one]”² means that we must take evil most seriously.  The basic Old Testament word for evil, ra, refers to that which is contrary to God’s creational order and will, which is “good” (tov).  That which is evil disrupts our relationship with God and brings chaos, sin, and suffering into our lives.  In Matthew’s Gospel, the “devil,” “the evil one,” or “Satan” (Hebrew for “adversary”) is the entity that actively seeks to draw Jesus and others into the chaos of a ruptured relationship with God and the suffering that brings.  As biblical Christians, we accept both seen and unseen dimensions of reality.  Jesus teaches us to ask to be delivered from a spiritual dimension that is adversarial to God.  At the same time, it is wise for followers of Jesus to avoid extremes of either discounting the reality of such evil or of holding an unhealthy preoccupation with it.  I like the adage, “As an infection is to a cut, so is evil to our normal weaknesses and flaws.”  Evil is to be taken seriously.
        Jesus faced temptation (Matt 4:1-10).  We face temptation.  The spiritual battle is real (Eph 6:12).  It takes place in the mind in which every thought must be taking captive to obey Christ (2Cor 10:3-5).  Otherwise, the temptation gives birth to sin and death (James 1:14-15).  For this we need God’s help.  We pray.

Journal Reflections

1. What does temptation mean to you?

2. How have you learned spiritually to confront temptation?

3. How can the church teach and help young Christians to be delivered from evil?

4. During Lent we look at how Jesus in his humanity was tempted as we are (Heb 4:14-15).  We also learn from John’s Gospel that when Jesus was “lifted up” (a pun for crucified and glorified) that he drew all people to himself and so defeated “the ruler of this world” (12:30-33).  What does this reflection mean to you?

Prayer quote:

Satan dreads nothing but prayer.  His one concern is to keep the saints from praying.  He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, prayerless religion.  He laughs at our toil, mocks our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.  (Samuel Chadwick, source: J. Oswald Sanders, Effective Prayer, p.13.).

Notes:

1. Admittedly, another translation possibility here is that the Greek word for “temptation” can be used to translate the Hebrew word for “test.”  The postive purpose of divine testing is to make known the state of one’s heart.  For example, when the Israelites were “tested” in the wilderness, the event revealed the weak state of their faith and served as a call to faithfulness (Deut 8:1-10).  However, in the context of our text, “temptation” is negative.  The noun and verb forms of this word occur eight times in Matthew.  One time the verb is used of an honest test.  All other uses are negative, such as religious leaders trying to trap Jesus (e.g. 19:3; 22:18).  Most importantly, previously in Matthew 4 it was used twice to refer to the behavior of the devil (4:1, 3).

2.  “Evil” here has the definite article, “the evil” so it is probably used as a personal noun for “the evil one” as in Matt 13:19, 38 and probably Matt. 5:37.

THE TANGIBILITY OF “SIN” (chata)

What does the word “sin” mean?  There are four main word roots in Hebrew (OT) for the basic semantic range and others in Greek (NT) that each express different nuances.  However, in English, we basically use two words, “sin” and “guilt.”  What might we be missing?

Warning: This is a technical “devotional” about the main Hebrew word root for “sin” (ḥṭʾ) and probably not for anyone feeling brain weary.  However, I have found the exploration of “sin” important for me, so I will share what I have learned.  (The brain-weary may skip to “Conclusion.”)

Technical Stuff
Problem: The main Hebrew (OT) verb translated in English as “to sin” is ḥāṭāʾ (pronounced chata).  There is a problem understanding and translating this word.  Hebrew has root words with three letters that have a basic (etymological) meaning.  For example, the letters lmd employed as a basic-stem verb has the nuance of “to come to an apprehension or become familiar.”  It is often translated, “to learn.”  When the root is modified for the “doubled stem,” it makes an intransitive verb (no object) factitive with an object.  Therefore, lmd becomes lmmd and now means “to make apprehension to someone,” or better “to teach.”

Here is the problem with ḥāṭāʾ.  Its basic-stem meaning as a verb is “to miss hitting/reaching the desired end, the goal.”  It can literally mean that someone misses one’s target.  However, it is mainly used figuratively for human personal failure in terms of some kind of life standard, whether it be legal, communal, covenantal (with God), or just according to the standard of God’s holiness.  Most contextual uses make sense in terms of a failure to meet an end goal (whether intentional or unintentional).  The problem arises when it is a doubled-stem verb ḥiṭṭēʾ (pronounced chittā).  In its figurative use, it appears to mean “to cleanse from sin” (e.g. Exod 29:36).  Moreover, the noun that is formed from the doubled-stem verb ḥaṭṭāʾt (pronounced chattat) is the main technical term for the “sin-purification offering” (Lev 4:26).  On the surface that conversion of meaning from “to miss the goal” (basic stem) to “cleanse from sin” (doubled stem) does not make sense.  One would expect a meaning like “to make missing the goal to someone.”  What is happening?
Note: Since in the NT, Paul, using a Greek equivalent term, calls Jesus the sin-purification offering (Rom 8:23; 2Cor 5:21), the concept behind the word is important to grasp.

Solution: (This is where it gets interesting!)  In its figurative use, the verb ḥāṭāʾ focuses frequently on the end failure, a negative consequence, more than on the action.  The noun that spins off this verb ḥēṭʾ (chāt) is also more about that negative result than the act itself.  Most importantly, words and concepts associated with the basic-stem verb and noun show that people envisaged sin-results as “tangibly” real.  They concretized the negative result.  For example: God sees the sin (1Sam 2:17); a person must bear one’s sin (Lev 20:20); when God forgives sin, God lifts it (Exod 32:32) or covers it (Ps 32:1) or washes it (Psa 51:7); or in the Temple symbol system, it is likened to filth polluting God’s dwelling place/altar and needing to be cleansed away (Exod 29:36).

A modern analogy would be the “sin” of running a red light.  No one was around to see.  There was no danger.  There appears to be no tangible result.  However, a camera caught you and now the consequence becomes tangible as a ticket and a fine.

With this focus on the “tangible” result in mind, the doubled-stem verb makes sense.  The verb means “to make the result (sin-weight) to someone/something.”  Used literally in Gen 31:39, Jacob says to Laban that regarding any sheep lost under Jacob’s care, Jacob will “make the ḥiṭṭēʾ (sin-result – here financial loss) to himself.”  That is, he move/removes the resultant sin-weight (financial loss) to himself.  That makes sense now in the figurative use of the tangible sin-consequence.  The consequence of sin (ḥāṭāʾ) is moved/removed, which in context basically means to “cleanse/purify from sin.”  So, too, the atonement-technical noun form from the doubled-stem (ḥaṭṭāʾt) refers to the ritual act that moves/removes the consequence (sin-weight) makes sense.  The focus is on what is happening to the “tangible” consequence.

Conclusion:
The concrete, root concept of ḥāṭāʾ is about failing to hit the end goal (e.g. Jud 20:16, stone-slingers miss their target; Prov 19:2, one misses the way).  Abstractly it is used in terms of personal behavior measured against standards (e.g. legal contract of social groups, Gen 43:9) or in terms of religious abstraction of God’s standard or spiritual wholeness (Lev 4:2).  The focus of the idioms is on the negative consequences.  Particularly in a religious context, that consequence is conceptualized as real and “tangible” like a weight (Lev 20:20) or like unclean pollution (Psa 51:2).  Sin (ḥāṭāʾ) results in real consequences for which one is accountable.  In particular, the atonement ritual system sought to concretize the nature of sin as well as God’s graceful acts of forgiveness.  Such concretizing of the intangible in rituals helped the Israelites to comprehend the utmost seriousness of sin and the amazing grace of God’s forgiveness.  I need this help as well.

Application
Every offense I commit, intentional or not, against others and against God, not only is a failure to achieve the right (righteous) end goal, but it also results in real consequences.  Whether I can see them or not, God sees them.  As one who sins, I bear the weight of those consequences whether I feel it or not.  I must accept the reality of sin.  However, when I seek God, confess and repent of my sins, my God merciful moves/removes that “tangible” consequence.  God “bears/lifts” (=forgives) my sin.

Note: this is also the meaning in 1 Peter 2:24: “For our sins he [Jesus] bore in his body on the cross….”  That verse is the same OT idiom of divine forgiveness.  It is not picturing a forensic transfer of one’s legal death-penalty onto Jesus.  It presents Jesus showing God’s mercy of lifting our burden.

Lord, please always show me the error of my ways, all of my sins (ḥāṭāʾ), unintentional as well as intentional.  Help me to see the weight, to see the filth, to see it as in Your eyes.  So that I might be ashamed and appalled.  So that I might bow before You, confess, and repent.  So that You in Your mercy might lift it away.  So that there might not be any impediment between me and You.  Amen.

MISREADINGS IN GENESIS 1-3: “ORIGINAL SIN” AND THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL(1)

Sin and Death
Death, the consequence of sin, is the encroachment of chaos in to God’s intended order.  In my last post, I noted that the “Fall” is not a biblical term; and, unless qualified (see "Moral Evil" below), it is not a biblical concept.  Rather, the so-called “Fall” story, the narrative of Genesis 3, is about the loss of the opportunity of immortality,² (although there is more to learn from this narrative).  Adam and Eve had access to immortality through the Tree of Life, but they lost that access when they ate of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. 
     The first point to observe is that death, mortality, belongs to the realm of chaos.  In the second post in this short series, I explored how the first creation story (Gen 1:1-2:3) starts with initial physical chaos, elements that are contra life.³  God’s creative activity by the Spirit is to breathe order into the midst of that chaos, bringing it under God’s reign, so that life may be produced and sustained.  Working to the opposite effect, Adam’s and Eve’s sin places them under the reign of death; that is, chaos encroached into God’s intended order.  Chaos/death is the consequence of sin.

Moral Evil
Second, it should be noted that just as the first creation account begins with unexplained surd evil (physical chaos), similarly, Genesis 3 opens with unexplained moral evil/chaos in the figure of a serpent.  The serpent is an ancient Near Eastern symbol of chaos.  Temptation is about listening to the allure of the false promises (of chaos) rather than submitting to God and the creational order.  Such temptation, then, has always been present as a part of human experience, with the result that Paul can say, "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23).  In a qualified sense, then, we can speak of Genesis 3 as a fall story; it narrates how humans fall short of God’s intended order.

Original Sin
Third, Augustine’s popularized notion of Adam’s seed becoming corrupted and “original sin” being passed down seminally misses the point of Genesis 3.⁴  As long as the man and woman walked in harmony with their Creator, order was maintained.  However, they succumbed to temptation.  The temptation of original sin is clearly stated by the chaos figure of the serpent: “You (plural) will become like God."⁵ The temptation is to usurp God’s role and to reverse the creational order by elevating oneself to divine status; that is living by self-rule rather than under the divine rule of one’s Creator.  All “sin” (singular) originates from the desire of self-rule.

The Knowledge of Good and Evil
Fourth, the phrase "the knowledge of good and evil” refers to concept that is over debated. Its meaning here should be clear enough.  The idiom “to know good and evil” (yd’ tov wr’) in used in the case of a child coming of age and being recognized as a moral agent; that is, as an adult (see Deut 1:39).  [Traditionally in Judaism this is by the age of 13 for a male.]  Therefore, some scholars have postulated – wrongly – that Adam’s and Eve’s sin was a good thing that brought them into maturity!  However, in the context of the serpent-chaos figure tempting them to “become like God," the conclusion must be drawn that Adam and Eve wanted self-accountability rather than accountability to God. The idiom may be parallel to a child moving from parent-accountability to self-accountability; but, in our text it does not signify maturity.  When Adam and Eve eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they are rebelling against God and the creational order.  Again, the narrative portrait displays that sin is about self-rule, running one’s own life.⁶

Consequences of Sin: Chaos and Death, A Reversal of Creation
The consequences of Adam’s and Eve’s rebellious disobedience (Gen 3:7-24) is that order and harmony are lost.  Chaos encroaches into their relationship with God (8-13) into their relationship with the natural world – fruit-bearing is laborious (16-19) – and into their relationship with each other (16).⁷  That is, sin results in reversing the creational order, an important motif that is found in the OT prophets.⁸ Moreover, due to their rebellious state of "becoming like God" in terms of asserting self-accountability, God bans them from the Tree of Life and they have to face their mortality (3:22-24).  Humans come under the reign of sin and death that Paul writes of in Romans 5.

Summary
Genesis 3 portrays the nature of sin and the condition of humanity. We readily succumb to temptation, to the false promises of self-rule rather than accepting the creational order of walking with God under God's rule. That is sin. Such sin yields to the encroachment of chaos and reverses the creational order. It brings discord into all of our relationships, with God, with others, and even with our natural environment. It brings us under the reign of death.

Lord, you know how often I try to rule my own life. It is folly. It has only brought me disorder, discontentment, and despair. Help me to continually seek your face, your will, you pleasure, your gracious rule in my life. Amen.
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1. This is the last of a short series of posts on Genesis 1-3.  For the introduction, see Nov. 22, 2024, “Misreadings in Genesis 1-3: Background.”
2. Dec. 10, 2024, “Misreadings in Genesis 1-3: Why Humans Die.”
3. Nov. 22, 2024, “Misreadings in Genesis 1-3: Order in the Midst of Chaos.”
4. A form of Augustine’s theology is often read into Romans 5:12-19.  I invite the reader to read that text afresh AFTER reading the following discussion.
5. The term here, elohim, can legitimately mean “gods/divine beings” or “God.”  Since the narrative starting at 2:4 has not to this point explicitly mentioned other heavenly beings, and Adam and Eve know but one God, I would translate it as “God.”
6. Perhaps for another “devotional,” one could bring in the biblical notions of discernment and the “heart.”  Separated from God, not only do humans lack sufficient knowledge to discern good from evil (2Sam 19:35) without hearts that seek God, they will not volitionally choose good over evil.  Moreover, as their hearts become hardened, they become increasingly addicted to sin.
7. See post of “Misreadings in Genesis 1-3: The Role of Woman.”
8. Recognizing this motif of the prophets is also key to understanding Paul's train of thought in Romans 1:18-32.

MISREADINGS IN GENESIS 1-3: WHY HUMANS DIE(1)

What Fall Story?
The “Fall” is not a biblical term; and, unless qualified, it is not a biblical concept.  The so-called “Fall” story, the narrative of Genesis 3, explains the loss of the opportunity to immortality.  Well before there was such people as Hebrews/Israelites, ancient myths addressed why humans are not immortal.  For example, in the ancient Mesopotamian myth, “The Epic of Gilgamesh,” probably going back to the Sumerians, a snake ate the plant of immortal life before Gilgamesh could.  In another Mesopotamian myth, “Adapa,” a god tricks him into not drinking the water of immortality.  The Bible, along with its very different worldview, presents a contrasting account:  God had given Adam and Eve access to immortality through the Tree of Life, but they lost that access when they ate of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.²  As a consequence, they/humanity face their mortality.

Created Mortal, Not Immortal
The first point to note is that in Genesis, humans are never said to have been created immortal.  That belief came into Christian thinking through the acceptance of Greek dualism.  (In Greek thought, humans were composed of a decomposable body and an eternal soul, the latter possessing the essence of life.  Since this line of Greek thought believed nothing could be lost or gained in an eternal cosmos, the soul had to be immortal; the essence of people is immortal.)  The Old Testament presents a different picture of the nature of humans, a wholistic one.  In the second narrative in Genesis, God takes soil, breathes into it – “breath” being related to “spirit,” and the man becomes a living “soul” (nephesh) (2:7).  The Hebrew concept of nephesh/soul is different from the Greek concept.  The Hebrew term is related to the bodily passages through which the breath flows.  A breathing animal, like a person, is also called a nephesh/soul.  There is no Greek dualism of an eternal soul entering a disposable body.  In the biblical anthropology, people are not alive apart from being embodied.  [For this reason, the first Christians would not have accepted a figurative resurrection.  To be resurrected, Jesus had to be embodied, even if that body was a “spiritual body,” as per Paul’s discussion in 1Cor 15:42-44.]  Moreover, there is nothing in the Gen 1-3 about humans being immortal.  With the cessation of breathing, a person expires (“breathes out”), dies.³  In this biblical revised version of ancient myth, however, the man had free access to the Tree of Life (2:9,16); that is, the man originally possessed the opportunity of immortality.

Facing Mortality
God told the man that if he ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he would die.  Although there are other key consequences to Adam’s disobedience [to be treated in the next blog post], the main one here that parallels the ancient Near Eastern myths is that now Adam and Eve face their mortality.  In the rebellious state of having chosen to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, God bans them from the Tree of Life and from the Garden of Eden in which they had closely walked and talked with God (3:22-24).  Now, apart from God, they must die.

Application
Sin results in death.  Pop-level Christianity should take a fresh look at New Testament texts regarding the consequences of sin and take them more literally than figuratively.  When Paul states that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23), he means it literally.  When John’s Gospel states that “that whoever believes in him [God’s Son] shall not perish (John 3:16), “perish” is meant literally.  Throughout the NT, the judgement on sin is death, literally.  All have sinned; all face death.  The biblical logic is crystal clear: cut off from the Source of Life (represented by walking and talking with God in the Garden) and being banned from the Tree of Life, leaves humanity facing death.  How could it not?  This is why Paul writes that because death entered the world through sin (Rom 5:12), “death has reigned from the time of Adam” (Rom 5:14).  So, too, the opposite state is clear: to be reconciled by grace back to the Source of Life results in eternal life.  How could it not?⁴  This simple truth is the heart of atonement message of the Good News.  Those who are reconciled to God now have life now.  They do not die, go to heaven, and THEN get eternal life.  They are now members of the Kingdom of God.  As Paul would say, they are now under the reign of the Spirit and life (see Romans 5-6).

Lord, apart from you, I have nothing, I am nothing, I have no hope.  I am dead.  However, I praise and worship you that solely by your grace, you have taken me back into relationship with you, into Life!  Help me to share that message of restored life with others.  Amen.
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1. For an introduction to this short series on Gen 1-3, see Nov. 22, 2024, “Misreadings in Genesis 1-3: Background.”
2. The specific temptation and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil will be explained in the next post.
3. The Gospels preserve this view of the nature of man in Greek: When Jesus’ dies on the cross, having made his last cry, he breathes out his spirit (e.g. Matt 27:50); he “expires.”
4. I recognize that it is problematic to introduce this OT concept of the nature of humanity in a “devotional” and not explore the implications further regarding judgement.  In brief, I will note that pop-level Christian readings of eschatological texts about judgement tend to face three problems: 1) not understanding what the figurative and symbolic language used meant in the first century AD, 2) foisting the Greek notion of an eternal soul into the texts, and 3) not recognizing that the Greek terms “Hades” and “Gehenna” had distinct meanings in the first century.  In regard to the last item: our earliest Anglo-Saxon translations (c. 10^th century) translated both Greek terms by the same word (“hell” in English) and, by conflating them, created a foreign construct.  I discuss these issues in a couple of academic articles:  Duke, Rodney, "Eternal Torment or Destruction? Interpreting Final Judgment Texts," Evangelical Quarterly 88.3 (2016/17) 237-58 and "The Idiom of 'Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth' in the Gospels: A Funerary Formula" Perspectives in Religious Studies 47/3 (2020) 283–98.

GOD DOES NOT OVERPOWER, BUT EMPOWERS1

The Bible portrays God as one who graciously and relationally empowers, not as one who autocratically overpowers.

Background:
From the beginning, God empowers rather than overpowers.  One should read the opening Genesis texts as ancient Near Eastern nature-of-life, explanatory texts, which are often based on common, phenomenological observations, but which have been rewritten from the Israelite, God-given worldview.  [Note: The most beneficial reading, then, is to observe what the Israelites, who were late comers to the ancient Near East, changed.]  The texts are not to be read as the literature of modern science.  Still, there are a couple of interesting texts in which an ancient concept about the natural world is significant for today:

“And God said, ‘Let the land produce [a command form] vegetation…’” (Gen 1:11).
“And God said, ‘Let the land bring out [a command form] living creatures…’” (Gen 1:27).

The notion is that the land had been equipped and empowered to be an agent in the procreation of life.  I am not interested in relating this concept to modern biological constructs of how life originated.  Also, on a phenomenological level, one can see how people observed plants sprouting from the ground.  However, I am intrigued by the theological notion of the natural world being empowered by God to cooperate in procreation rather being than overpowered.  That is because this concept is especially true of humanity created in the image of God (to represent God)² and commanded to be fruitful and to share in the ruling creation (1:27-28).

A second “creation” text, which begins at Genesis 2:4, reveals how humans – Adam himself coming from the “dust” of the ground (2:7) – were to care for the land in companionship (2:8,15,18,20b-24).  However, it also explains in narrative form how such divine empowerment became – and continues to become – corrupted when humanity no longer serves its Creator but rebels in desire to usurp God (the temptation of 3:4).  The result is that sin/chaos encroaches on both realms: not only does human procreation becomes laborious and the equal partnership between Eve and Adam broken, but also the ground becomes “cursed” so that working it become laborious; and, to it humans return as they experience their mortality (3:16-19).

Application:
To be honest, I would like for God to overpower the world of nature, as well as those with whom I live in tension, and, sometimes, even myself.  I want a smooth, non-laborious life.  I tire of the struggle.  However, the character of God’s sovereignty (kingship) is not that God overpower and control the natural world to do all that it does.  The natural world, an interplay of order and chaos without which life as we know it would not exist, generally “takes its course.”  In the same way, God does not overpower us such that we must do God’s will.  Rather, God desires that we willfully obey God as our Creator and King, something that begins to take place as we “seek God.”  It is then that God empowers us to face the labors of life and our mortality.  That is all I need.  That is the foundation of contentment.  That is the ground of hope – that which I do not see, but that of which I am certain (Heb 11:1).³

Jesus, I cannot manage in this life that you have entrusted to me without You.  I do not ask that you remove the labors of life for me.  I ask that you empower me to serve you faithfully throughout the labors of life that you might be glorified as Creator and King even to the end of my labor.  Amen.
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1. This concept ties in with the previous devotion, “God Is Not to Be Found in the 'Why? but in the 'Where?' (Oct. 14, 2024)
2. See entries on the “image of God,” Feb. 1, 2024, Oct. 3, 2024.
3. See entry on Hebrews 11:1, Sept. 13, 2023.

 

BLOOD OF CHRIST: CLEANSING FROM “SIN”

 The author of 1 John, whichever John that is, thinks Christians should sin no more: “My children, these things I write to you in order that you not sin” (2:1a).  That is a well-known thesis of the letter, but I see it now from a different perspective.

As an OT scholar, I am aware of what were and were not the symbolic functions of blood in the Israelite sacrificial system – even whether it was applied or sprinkled had different functions.  I am also fairly convinced that Paul used the sacrificial language carefully, the precision of which is sometimes overlooked in NT interpretation and theology, particularly at a popular level.  (Some favorite hymns about blood are offtrack.  That bothers me, but I still sing with the congregation.)  1John 1:7 caught my attention: “… and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin [singular].”

Technical details:
Problem: In the Israelite sacrificial system, the blood of the purification/sin offering was not applied to people to cleanse them from sins.  Rather, it was applied to the altar to symbolically cleanse God’s dwelling from the contamination of sins.  That God allowed the blood to cleanse away this impediment in relationship with repentant Israelites was symbolic of God’s willingness to forgive.  So, I wondered if John did not know this technical feature of the sacrificial system.  (And, as a good NT scholar and friend pointed out, I might be expecting too much consistency within first-century Judaism.)

Observations: John uses the word for “sin” (harmartia) in the singular and the plural.  All of the plural forms use the term as a “product” of human behavior (1:9; 2:12; 2:2; 3:5; 4:10).  Moreover, all of the atonement concepts associated with the plural are appropriate to the sacrificial system (e.g. confessing, forgiving, “atoning offering,”*  taking up).  The singular forms may refer to a product (3:4 2x’s, 8, 9; 5:16 (1^st) or to a sinful state of being (1:8; 3:5).  (Some singular uses that are not clear by context also seem to refer to a state: 5:16 2^nd, 17.)  In our text, 1:7 in conjunction with verse 8, then appears to refer to a state of being.

Solution: John is thinking of the blood of Jesus as sanctifying people.  In the OT, after blood was applied to the altar to symbolically cleanse it of contamination sins, it was sprinkled with blood to re-sanctify it, to make it holy again.  In the dedication of the Israelite priesthood (Ex 29:16, 20 - 21, Lev 8:24, 30), after blood was applied to their extremities – the only time it is applied to people for the purpose of first purifying them# – it was then sprinkled on them to sanctify them, to set them apart as holy for the service of the priesthood.  Moreover, 1:9, which uses a different word for sin, “unrighteousness” (adikia) that also can communicate a state or a product, follows the same OT sequence of purifying and then consecrating: “If we confess our sins (plural), he is faithful and righteous in order to forgive us our sins (plural), AND cleanses us from all unrighteousness (singular).”  Therefore, it seems that John has extended the OT concept of blood for sanctification of the altar and the priests to those who profess Christ.  John in this letter appears to be saying two things: that sins are forgiven by Christ AND, given John's participatory theology (e.g. walking in the Light), that the believer’s character/heart has also been cleansed/sanctified by Christ's blood.

Application:  To me the extension John has made is beautiful and profound!  Having been forgiven through the process of Jesus' blood as a purification sacrifice, believers have also been sanctified by it to be holy.  That which has been made holy is not to become contaminated by sins again.

Lord, what I am offered in Christ is beyond wonder.  Having been forgiven and sanctified by Christ’s blood, I want to walk in the Light and sin no more.  Amen

*Sometimes translated as “propitiation.”
#In the covenant ratification ceremony of Ex 24:3 – 8, blood was sprinkled on people (or perhaps on the 12 pillars representing them), but this ritual was not for sins.  (The author of Hebrews does refer to this rite in 9:19 – 20 and probably 12:24, though, as one of three symbolic uses of the blood of Jesus that he mentions.

LENT: FORGIVENESS, NOT JUSTICE, IS OUR CALLING

In response to the previous post on forgiveness, I received the following question that would not post.

Question: “Part of what makes this sort of forgiveness (lifting the other person's load of injustice) so difficult is that it seems to let the injustice and the unjust person eternally off the hook. Can you comment sometime about whether the forgiven person really does "get away with it"?”

My understanding of biblical teaching:
1) In terms of the human-divine relationship as represented in the atonement system, “Yes.”  Forgiveness is not at all just; it is mercy.  That is difficult.  It is not natural to me to be merciful; I want justice.  However, the Israelite atonement system is not about justice.  (The sacrificial animals were not put to death as a substitute penalty for the one seeking forgiveness.)  Assuming that the Israelites understood the seriousness of the symbolic ritual and their confession was sincere, God allowed the blood of the sacrificial animal to cover/remove the symbolic miasma of sin and restore unimpeded relationship with God.  That is the mercy of forgiveness that we are to show toward others.  (In a sense, asking for forgiveness is asking for justice to be set aside for mercy.  Example: Although Joseph’s brothers are duplicitous when they ask for forgiveness, he does not execute justice in Gen 50:15 – 21.) 

2) Those who remain in a state of rebellion/defiance toward God will not be forgiven – they do not really seek it.  However, their state is not for me to determine. 

3) There are occasions, for example, in which Moses intercedes for the people for breaking covenant, God accedes and maintains God’s faithfulness to the covenant in response to Moses, but there are still consequences for the rebellious people (Exod 32:31 – 38 or Num 14:17 – 25 in which the word “forgive” is salach and probably here has the nuance of “forebear”).  In cases like this “justice” serves its appropriate role for maintaining social order and discipline within the human community – here, the covenant community.

4) Related to #3): Today, within our criminal justice system, we sometimes hear of victims who have forgiven their transgressor but the person still is held societally accountable.  Judges have some, but little, latitude to forgive.  Justice is necessary to maintain social order in a world of chaos.  In that sense, God as a good King (one of many biblical metaphorical titles of attributes), does intervene as Judge for justice on earth, and in eternal matters will always divide good from evil.  However, in our descriptive metaphors of God as a good King, Judge is not the overruling attribute.  That leads to my last thought. 

5)  Well prior to the knowledge gained about the Israelite atonement system through the rediscovery of the ancient Near East in the last 100 years or so, Christians in some theological traditions developed a model of Jesus’ atonement based on a substitutionary, penal, criminal-justice model.  (This has been a successful communicative model since people understand justice so well.)  In this system, there is no mercy analogous to a subject appealing to a gracious king and receiving not justice but forgiveness.  Rather, in this system, Jesus is put to death so that God may be viewed as the just Judge.  The obvious deficit of this model is that it would like a king forgiving his repentant subject only on the grounds of then killing an innocent person (even a self-Triune representative), and all because the king is somehow bound to carry out an abstract model of “justice” and has no freedom to forgive.  More importantly, this is not the model of the Israelite atonement system that expresses God’s nature.  God is not bound by an overruling abstraction of justice.  In the New Testament, in terms of atonement language proper – and not the many metaphors for the salvific work of Christ – Jesus, the Perfect sacrifice, provides the cleansing blood of atonement, expressing once for all divine mercy and establishing “righteousness” (right-relating).  Yes, Jesus dies for all,# just as the Israelite sacrifice was killed for its blood of atonement, but not in terms of some penal, substitutionary “justice.”*

Father, once again, the bottom line is your unfathomable mercy, by which you “cleanse,” “bear,” etc. (the many other biblical expressions) my sins in Jesus in order to restore me back to Life with you.  Help me to show such mercy to others.  Amen.

#If interested, I examine the "died-for-us" texts in “Gathercole’s, Defending Substitution: Why I Am Unconvinced and Concerned,” The Expository Times 129.10 (2018) 458-465.
*Note: NT atonement models should be brought into alignment with the biblical atonement system as we now understand it better; however, this is rather like asking people to exchange their KJV Bibles for ones that communicate in contemporary English.