Atonement: 3 thoughts

[jaybee]

There are a few threads regarding atonement, but I figure I'll start a new one, so people do not feel stuck having to sift through years old posts.


My thoughts:

1. Mankind did not hide after eating the fruit because they had any sense of guilt for the commission of the sin of eating from the tree. They hid because of knowledge they got regarding their position before God, naked. This would be more related to shame than guilt.

Scripture says they hid from God because they were naked, not because they felt guilty of eating from the tree.

2. The first prophecy of Christ in Gen 3 gives no indication that Christ will atone for Adam and Eve's disobedience, but that he will overcome Satan.

3. Nothing from Gen 3 seems to show that anything inherent to man's makeup was changed. There is no indication that mankind was made depraved at a DNA level to infect all mankind.

This is further understood by Rom 5, that sin entered the world. This would be distinct from sin entering man.

[jaybee]

Related to thought #1 -

Shame is to be understood in the eastern sense, not always resulting from a feeling of legal guilt.

Example: Many in the Japanese culture can do everything right, legally and morally, yet in the event of a disaster, defeat, or other negative event, shame can be inflicted.

Stories include:

-A father who commits suicide because his son shames the family through wrongdoing. The father died nothing wrong, but is shamed.

-A military commander who does his best in battle, but is defeated by superior forces, and takes his life due to shame despite having done nothing wrong.

-A managerial level employee who takes his life when something goes wrong in his department, even if it is mechanical or not his fault in another way.

From these types of stories, we can understand that shame can be understood as separate from real guilt - according to guilt as our western minds see it in our legal environment.

[Josh]

Some responses:

Even though we are specifically told Adam and Eve felt shame, why wouldn't it be natural to assume they also felt guilty since they deliberately disobeyed God's command?

I agree with you that nothing changed in human DNA at their expulsion from Eden.    What changed was human experience and perception.

Yes, sin "entered the world" but likewise, as part of that,  it did "enter human experience".

I get the difference between shame and guilt, but are you implying that Adam and Eve weren't guilty of breaking God's command? Not sure where you're headed, but keep unpacking.

[jaybee]

I'm not saying that Adam and Eve weren't guilty, but that they did not know to feel guilt. They had no concept of justice in that way.

Bear with me as I ramble through this:

They did, however, feel shame. But even that was not related to their act of eating the fruit. They did not hide because they feared God because they had eaten the fruit.

They hid because their sin had opened their eyes to their status before God.

In our western minds, guilt is quantitative. To rectify guilt, it simply needs the appropriate punishment to rebalance the scales of justice.

The calloused criminal, when caught in the act, might say, "Whatever, sentence me, so I can get my time over with and get back out to live how I want to live." He knows he is caught red handed and is guilty, but he feels no shame for his guilt.

Justice doesn't care that he feels no shame, but simply wants to impose the deemed proportional punishment to balance the scales.

While guilt is quantitative in this manner - crime x = 10 years jail - shame cannot be as easily quantified.

To those who feel shame, no matter how proportionate the punishment to balance the scales of justice, the shamed knows he can never be "not guilty" and his status is forever changed.

For this reason, guilt can be dealt with proportional justice, but shame must be dealt with differently.

I believe this is more the central focus of Christ's work. To deal with shame rather than guilt.

That is why the first prophecy of Christ is that he will crush the one who brings mankind into shame.

Also, if the judgment of sin is death, and Christ had to pay that judgment, then he could have been judged and killed in any manner, but why the cross?

Some say the passion of Christ was to show God's hatred of sin. But God could have chosen even more painful ways of death to prove that. Instead he chose a method, not despised for the pain, but the shame it inflicts.

Roman citizens could not be crucified, not because it was such a painful death - there were more painful means - but because of the shame.

By Christ subjecting himself to the shame, he identifies with us in shame, and overcomes shame.

He may have paid for our guilt, but a true shamed person understands that shame remains. Shame is the greater enemy to restored relationship.

The criminal who feels shame for a grievous crime, even after paying the just price, may still go live as a hermit, away from society because he still feels shame and cannot find his relationship with society restorable.

This is why the easterner commits suicide due to shame, because the shame is unrecoverable from.

The only way shame can be overcome is by accepting a graceful offer of restored relationship.

I think the primary focus from the beginning is on shame of mankind, not guilt.

This goes against the idea of penal substitution atonement.

Whew! That's it for now.

[Josh]

Sorry it's taken so long to respond to this. But I really do appreciate the distinctions you're making between guilt and shame. Good stuff there, and I think way overlooked by Bible commentators.

[Josh]

Thought it might be nice to add some Scripture to this thread that stands in line with your point:

Hebrews 12:2:

fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 13:11-13

11 The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. 12 And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. 13 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.