Atonement: Purification Offering
Stephen Terry
Commentary for the November 2, 2013
Sabbath School Lesson
“and since we have a great priest
over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with
the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us
from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.” Hebrews
10:21-22, NIV
As human
beings, we often find ourselves weighed down with burdens that we carry through
life. We may have physical disabilities. We may find that we have burdens
brought to us by unhealthy relationships. We may be burdened with poverty or
lack of education. However, all of these burdens have remedies. Disabilities
may be minimized through technology and medical intervention. Unhealthy
relationships can be avoided. Poverty can be ameliorated with adequate financial
support. Education is available through various schools. While none of these
may be easy, they are answers to some of life’s burdens.
One burden
that is not so easily resolved, though, is guilt. We incur guilt when we
believe we have failed to act in accordance with a standard that we deem
obligatory. When that happens, we do not find ready answers for our guilt. We
may lament that we cannot go back and change the past, but we know that is not
possible. Some may respond to guilt by attempting to negate or alter the
standard that they transgressed. This may work in a limited sense. For instance,
let’s assume a local law makes it illegal to ride a bicycle without a helmet.
If we ride without a helmet, we may feel guilty for doing so. If we receive a
citation for our behavior, this will no doubt add to our feelings of guilt.
However, if we campaign to overturn that law and are successful, any guilt
associated with our behavior may also be set aside as we are no longer in
conflict with the standard.
When we are
dealing with a religious standard, though, we are likely unable to simply eliminate
it by lobbying to set that rule aside. This may be true for several reasons. For
example, when we believe that a law is God ordained, then we effectively limit
our ability to control it, as rather than originating with us, it has been
imposed by a power outside our own. This also can eliminate our ability to
resolve the guilt associated with transgression. In other words, by placing the
standard outside our control, we place the resolution outside as well. When that
happens, the only apparent resolution of the guilt dilemma may be to exit the system
of control, perhaps through death.[i]
On the other
hand, some feel that the only answer for the guilt in their lives is to live a
life without conflict with the standards. While that may seem a worthy goal,
the reality is that none of us has the ability to do that perfectly.[ii]
When we fail, even only slightly, guilt has an avenue to enter our hearts and
minds. For this reason, those who follow this approach to dealing with guilt tend
to end up disconsolate and discouraged.
Other
individuals may feel that the only way to resolve the dissonance between the
rules and the realities of their own lives is to disavow any obligation to
those rules or even to deny their existence. This may be because they honestly
reason themselves into this position, or it may be because they have tried the
previous approach and as a result of their failure to live perfectly, they give
up and cease making any effort to live morally. Unfortunately, to live like
that in a society that accepts the rules as obligatory can result in one being
branded a sociopath in proportion to the degree in which the moral standards
are abrogated. This also can result in untoward consequences, as those who tend
not to feel guilt for immoral behavior may be incarcerated for aberrant
behavior or even executed. We can see this throughout history in examples such
as the Italian and Spanish Inquisitions or our more modern “War on Drugs,”
which has resulted in the United States having the highest percentage of its
population in prison than any other country in the world.[iii]
When we consider the ineffectiveness of this war in that drugs continue to
flow, we can perhaps understand that even with all of their modern science and
technology, societies as a whole are also struggling with immorality and how to
deal with it.
Perhaps one
way of understanding the Bible is to see it as an attempt to deal with the problem
of conflicted behavior and the guilt it produces. It takes a reasoned approach
to the problem; a problem the Bible often calls “sin.”[iv]
First, the Bible identifies a moral standard. We can find several examples of
behavioral expectations in the Bible. Perhaps one of the best known is the Ten
Commandments.[v] The
response of the people was to promise compliance to all of the rules that Moses
told them that God required.[vi]
Of course a God such as the one of the Bible would know that their promises
were doomed to failure. Nonetheless, God commended their good intentions.[vii]
Over the
course of many generations and the rise and fall of kingdoms, some among the
people began to realize that no one is able to attain perfect morality.[viii]
This ultimately became a founding assumption of early Christianity.[ix]
Consequently, once the universality of immorality was understood, dealing with
the ensuing guilt became a focus of the “salvation” of Christianity. Early
Christians, not distracted by esoteric theologies of prosperity or liberation as
we tend to be today, proclaimed the “good news” of deliverance from the
condemnation that their guilt placed upon them.[x]
They acknowledged that the world had a sin problem that logically seemed to
lead only to death as a resolution, but that resolution was not inevitable.[xi]
However,
many today still see their deliverance from guilt as being a problem of
obedience. But instead of seeing obedience as being necessary to obtain
deliverance from guilt like the Israelites at Mount Sinai, they see it as being
necessary to maintain their deliverance. They may feel that God is following
them around, eager to toss them out “into outer darkness” if they fail to be
perfectly obedient. This is only the flip side of the same coin our ancestors
were unable to spend to obtain their salvation.
Perhaps it
is in our nature to want to be in control. Even the Creation account
acknowledges this need when man is given dominion over everything on earth.[xii]
Because of this, the hardest thing we may ever do is to surrender that control.
Perhaps we fear this because as mentioned earlier, some who have given up on
perfect obedience have surrendered instead to immorality and licentiousness. But
perhaps this depends on whom we surrender to.
If we
surrender from obedience to a moral code to engage in our own selfish desires,
we may feel that we have accomplished some sort of deliverance from guilt and
its consequences, but in reality there has been no surrender to anything as
self is as firmly in control as ever, perhaps even more so.
Instead the
Bible asks that we recognize the basis of all moral authority exists outside
ourselves, and as such, the solution for the guilt arising from conflict with
that moral authority also comes from outside our own egos.
A fish caught
fast on an angler’s hook may struggle mightily to be free of its snare, but it
is maybe only the mercy and compassion of the fisherman that releases the
hapless piscis. Though endowed with
muscles, fins, eyes and even a brain, the fish, as we ourselves with our many
gifts, must look outside itself for salvation.
This is the
essence of the message of the Bible. That we must look outside of ourselves and
that there is a solution to be found there. The solution is Jesus. The Bible
tells us that He took all of our condemnation and therefore our guilt upon
Himself that we might be free of both.[xiii]
But how is this accomplished? According to Peter we need to repent and be
baptized.[xiv]
Repentance means we need to stop going our own way in this. Instead of walking
away from God, we need to start walking toward Him. As in the case of the fish,
our continued struggling to free ourselves only makes it more difficult for God
to remove the hook of sin and guilt from our lives. The fish needs to relax
into the hands of the Angler and trust Him to remove the hook with the least
amount of damage and the greatest efficiency.
Baptism,
rather than being a magical incantation is simply a public acknowledgment that
we have decided to change direction. Peter states that after repentance and
baptism we will receive the Holy Spirit. He does not say maybe or perhaps. To
Peter it was apparently a given. Maybe even a vital necessity that God would
not refuse to anyone who turns toward Him. The Spirit is the only Guide that we
are told will lead us into all truth.[xv]
With such a Guide, maybe we can feel comfortable to let go of directing
everything ourselves and along with it letting go of our condemnation and
guilt. The journey will certainly be less burdensome if we do.
