Too many of us lay awake at night, ruminating on things we could have done better, replaying past mistakes, awkward moments, bad decisions; fantasizing about how life would change if things had gone differently.
Every human on the planet has adopted a list of rights and wrongs, our own personal ten commanments that we do our best to follow, but can’t. No matter how we might tailor our list to suit our personal frailties, we constantly come up short.
That in turn makes us feel bad, like there’s something at our core that’s gone horribly wrong. So we punish ourselves, replaying our worst moments, thinking of all the shoul’ves and could’ves that a better person would’ve perpetrated.
What we’re seeking is a way to put our mistakes in the past, to make them go away, but we can’t do that either. We lack a system of “atonement,” something that might pay whatever bill we think we owe. Until we find that system, our “sins” stay alive, reminding us over and over again that we’re doing a sucky job at being human.
“Sin” and “atonement” are deeply religious terms, but everyone, religious or not, has a concept for them.
Maybe your list has nothing to do with the 10 commandments or any other religious expression of morality, but if you’re human, you’ve got one, and you probably don’t give yourself high marks for sticking to it. So, you put yourself in a prison of sorts, going round and round with your past mistakes, hoping for some kind of escape. Maybe you distract yourself with the sins of others. Some folks work themselves to death, hoping in vain to find rest in their accomplishments.
Either way, we’re all “sinners,” regardless of what list we hold to, and we can’t find a way out of the bondage that comes from our failure to forgive and forget.
Humanity has been playing this game for a long time. That might explain why, when people find religion, they immediately place great emphasis on who’s sinning and who’s not, what sins are the worst, and what brand of punishment lies in wait for the most greivous of sinners.
I’d like to throw the Bible into all of this, both Old and New Testaments, because it has something unique to say about the very old, very messy relationship between humanity, morality, and, most importantly, what we should do with the sins we can’t get rid of.
If you’ve read this book, you’ll quickly notice that sin and atonement are key issues throughout, leaving the reader with a sense that these might be the most important topics in the universe; one more reason why these are so important to Bible-believing Christianity
But the Bible doesn’t focus on sin and atonement because they sit atop the theological food chain. Read the scriptures throughout and you’ll find that God has much bigger fish to fry.
The Bible focuses on sin and atonement because a) humanity can’t stop defining itself by its mistakes, and b) our systems of atonement suck, magnifying our sense of wrongdoing when they should be doing the opposite.
It’s no surprise that the Bible comes to us in two parts. First is a nauseatingly repetitive story of humanity’s inability to follow God’s list, attended by equally repetitive episodes where a frustrated God makes some attempt at redirection. Interspersed throughout are everything from subtle hints to outright declarations that there’s something better on its way, a brand of atonement inconceivable to the ancient Jewish mind, much less the rest of the world.
Next comes the “New” Testament, with its advent of the Jewish Messiah and his announcement that a new way to put our sins behind us had arrived.
“…the Lord has commissioned me to proclaim good news unto the meek. He has sent me to bind up the wounds of the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and to set the prisoners free.” ~ Jesus, quoting Isiah 61:1
Before I comment on the Bible’s system of atonement, I’ll admit that It’s difficult to believe, nigh unto crazy; many believers don’t really believe it, much as we confess it. On the other hand, our non-religious attempts at atonement are pretty hocusy-pocusy too. They’re not based on much that’s real, and they as well don’t seem to be very effective.
Might as well take a few minutes and consider something off-planet:
Ancient Judaisim believed that the only thing capable of removing sin was a system that relied upon regular, consistent animal sacrifice. That was their atonement, and nearly everything revolved around it. To the modern mind, attempting to appease a deity with any kind of bloodshed is sick and twisted, so we quickly dismiss it as utter craziness and go back to something a bit normal: the sacrifice of personal time, relationships, money, emotional energy, and, worst of all, peace. These are more palatable, though their endgame is a similar kind of death.
It’s interesting to note that, in a few places, the Old Testament claims that God never wanted the ancient Jewish system, though he’s the one who prescribed it.
I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and a relationship with God rather than burnt offerings. Hosea 6:6
St. Paul, a devout Jewish thinker, would come along later and claim that the old system never worked, it was merely as an analogy for the new one.
He was referring to Jesus’ crucifixion of course, and, along with other New Testament writers, borrowed imagery from the old system, frequently so, to describe what Jesus’ death was all about. Consider a few of their thoughts:
He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. ~ 1 John 2:2
The next day John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” ~ John 1:29
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence. ~ Ephesians 1: 7-8
… to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood. ~ Rev 1:5
They killed him for our trespasses but God raised him for our justification. ~ Romans 4:25
For the Son of Man came not with entitlement, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” ~ Mark 10:45
But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. ~ Hebrews 10:12
For then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. ~ Hebrews 9:26
I lay down my life for the sheep. ~ John 10:15
What’s significant about the New Testament’s system of atonement is that, according to its authors, the new system voided the old one. Jesus was the final word on humanity’s error, obliterating all of it — past, present, and future — ultimately removing any and all barriers between humanity and God.
“…he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as all people die once, and after that face judgment, so Christ died once, by his sacrifice, to take away the sins of many.” ~ Hebrews 9:26-28
As you can imagine, all of this wasn’t very popular with Jewish folk who had lived their entire lives under the shadow of Jerusalem’s great temple, the very symbol of sacrificial atonement. It also wasn’t popular with the leaders and politicians who had found a way to make money off of the old system.
Either way, this would have sounded just as crazy to the ancient Jewish mind as it does to you.
But let’s allow it for just a moment as it has some serious implications for the emancipation we’re all looking for. The God who created everything, the one who can see your mistakes much more clearly than anyone else, has erased them. He hasn’t swept them under the rug, or declared that they don’t matter. He called them out (Old Testament), then blew them out of the water (New Testament). They are dead, buried, never to rise again.
That’s the thrust of baptism by the way, a symbol that also borrowed heavily from ancient Jewish culture and tradition, one that now serves as an illustration of humanity’s liberation from its worst mistakes.
Crazy, right?
It’s interesting to note that you won’t find this system in any other religion, though all religions place significant emphasis upon sin and atonement. When humanity talks about deities, morality, punishment, etc., we’re the ones that do all the work to make the necessary sacrifices. The idea that God paid everyone else’s bill is unheard of in any other system of religious thought.
Even crazier is that idea that you don’t have to do anything to earn this. The bill is paid for – unconditionally and universally. All you have to accept it, then live under the mountain of implications that come with the fact that your sins are gone.
I don’t know anybody who doesn’t desperately need this, to be set free from an overbearing, permanent past, released from the idea that you’re some kind of screwup who can’t do anything right.
Imagine the liberation and peace that would come to anyone who believed that their worst mistakes didn’t exist anymore.
But you can’t live under this without extending it to others. Their sins are gone, too, especially the ones they’ve committed against you. That’s the hardest part of this Christianity stuff. If I believe that God himself annihilated my darkest moments, I can’t simultaneously keep others in the prison I just walked out of.
Consider a parable that Jesus used to illustrate this:
The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold stood before him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’ But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they went and told their master everything that had happened.
Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers who tortured him until he should pay back all he owed.
Jesus didn’t share this because he loved to talk about everyone’s mistakes. He knew that sin and atonement will always be at the top of our list, religious or not, keeping us from a deeper understanding of God’s world, and a deeper experience of others.
In his economy, forgiveness is little more than our direct involvement in his new system of sin removal. It is a difficult sacrifice that we make, over and over again, so that all of us might break out of this prison.
The more I extend it to others, the easier it is to accept for myself. Wash, rinse, repeat.
“If the son of man sets you free, you are free indeed.” ~ John 8:36
I drank this Kool Aide© nearly 30 years ago. Why not? I had tried everything else to no avail, and nothing but good has come from it. Sure, Christianity as a culture has its dark, broken spots, but this isn’t one of them. I’m no longer left searching for a way to let go of my past.
This has affected/invaded too many aspects of my life: the way I view myself, the quality of relationships I enjoy, the way I think about what matters most, and many others.
I’ll also tell you that, while I’ve cognitavely assented to this, I don’t always wield it. It’s much easier to hang on to humanity’s error, to keep my sin list close at hand and judge everyone by it. It makes my world predictable, controllable. Letting everyone off the hook is like letting go of a rope that’s dangling over a cliff. It takes work to hold on, but at least I feel safe.
On the other hand, if what I’m peddling here is real, God is asking us to let go and fall into something better, albeit alien, and many times painful, like the birth of a child. At first there’s pain, fear — maybe a bit screaming — but next comes the life we were meant to occupy and the freedom that emanates from it.
You might be thinking, “what if my sins aren’t on God’s list?” Rest assured that God’s list is far more comprehensive than whatever moral manifesto any human could come up with. It’s so comprehensive that it comes off as crazy, downright mean. If God is “love,” why is his list so long?
Maybe the Old Testament gives us such a long list so that, when God declares that our sin is gone, we believe.
As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. ~ Psalm 103:12
I know, it’s all very preachy and religious, and I’m sensitive to the fact that Christianity has worn out its welcome in our culture. Few of us want to hear much beyond “Jesus was a good guy.” But as someone who believes that a functional system of atonement is one of the most important things a human can embrace, I’d like to invite you to consider this one. If you’re even marginally interested, let’s talk.
If you want to go all in, I’ll drop whatever I’m doing, drive you out to a cold Colorado river, dunk you in the water, and declare your permanent mistakes permanently washed away. And you, free.
