Expedition 44

Law as Grace The Torah was Grace. God didn’t say get right and then I’ll free you from Egypt. Torah was Israel’s instructions on how to live in a wise way and how to properly represent God in the world. Not necessarily rules but a way of life. What is the Sermon on the Mount? The context is about the kingdom of God (Matt 4). So this is the kingdom ethos… the “law of the Kingdom” The Sermon on the mount is an all-out assault on the ego… a call to be crucified and live the Jesus way.  Beatitudes Makarios can mean happy or blessed. In classical Greek it meant the divine life… the life of the gods Poor in Spirit Kenosis (Phil 2/ foot washing) Poor= beggar… kingdom of the desperate This flows into all the other beatitudes Gentleness that renounces selfishness and my rights over others The capacity to mourn with the broken and not be obsessed with fixing them Mercy that puts aside dominance and coercion The hunger for justice and God to set things right as in the Amos, Micah, and Isaiah prophetic traditions. The pure heart of the peace maker who does not demand vengeance. Salt and Light Light bearers… it’s about reflecting God’s light to those we come in contact with… bearing the name, imaging God Salt is about impact. Salt was put on sacrifices (covenant), purified things, preserved and restored, was also a weapon of warfare (spiritual?), connected with friendship in the NT. Light was connected to the gentile mission and Israel’s calling to represent God and also connected to good works (1 Peter 2:11-12) Dealing with the heart issues Not legalistic but transformative Murder… Don’t hate… go even further, actively seek restoration (leave your sacrifice and go reconcile… remember communion last week) Adultery… Don’t lust Don’t make Oaths… Be a person of integrity From the heart your actions flow Enemy Love Eye for and Eye was about limiting retaliation in a violent culture. Jesus says don’t even get retribution even if you are entitled to it. This is a picture of Jesus forgiving enemies. Our love must be displayed as God did… kenosis, service, self-giving (not self-seeking) love. If this is our high calling, how do we treat those that the church has seemed to make into enemies… Muslims? Gays? Political opponents? … religious, political, and opposites in lifestyle? Jesus would eat with these people. Be perfect Telios means complete and the context of this is not moral perfection or without error, but it is about love. Luke 6 translates this same verse as be merciful as your father is merciful. The Jews concentrated on God’s mercy as his chief attribute and not his perfection, power, or sovereignty. For a Jew to be perfect was to be full of mercy. Conclusion (Matt 7:12-28) Jesus gives a few parables. Narrow and wide gates, true and false prophets (I never knew you), and wise and foolish builders We often hear these in the context of salvation… the real context is in living the way of Jesus, walking his path. The way of the sermon on the mount life is narrow (difficult) Believers can do miraculous things but might not know Jesus. Jesus is looking for the fruit of this sermon… Kenosis, Enemy love, surrender, taking up our cross, …. It’s the christoform life.

The Ekklesia is a group of Christ Followers who come together to be the living body of Christ. We image him by living in love and unity and continually being a witness to the Kingdom Rule of Christ in the world. 4 Things the church is: a Bride, a House, a Body, and a Family Bride Rev 19:7; Eph 5 House Ephesians 2:11-22; 1 Peter 2:1-10; 1 Cor 6:19 Body 1 Cor 12:12-30; Eph1:20-23; Col 1:21-29 Family The church is described as New Birth, Children of God, sons of God, brothers and sisters, fathers, an household in the New Testament: Gal 6:10; Rom 8:29, Eph 2:19, 1 Tim 5:1-2, 1 Tim 3:15, 1 John 2:12-13, 1 John 3:14 How should the church family act? The Members take care of each other. James 2:14-17, Eph 4:28, Gal 6:2, Rom 12:13 Spend time with each other. Acts 2:42,46 Show affection towards each other. Grow: internally (spiritually) and externally (in numbers) Share responsibility Reflect the triune God in their relationships 1 John 1:1-3, The Lord’s Supper In the Roman context they would have these banquets where there were 3 parts. First course was a meal together with people ranked from greatest to least (remember Jesus’ saying about not seating yourself in the pace of honor at a banquet?) Second part was when a cup was raised (drink offering) to Caesar and pledged allegiance to him Third part consisted of poems, songs, speeches and etc in honor of the emperor. The church's banquets (meetings) were subversive.  1 Cor 8-11 1 Corinthians 8 and 11:17-34: The importance unity in relationships and community when taking communion. 1 Corinthians 9 and 11:17-34: Communion represents the fellowship meal of the priesthood in the OT. The church is the priesthood and communion is our fellowship meal. 1 Corinthians 10 and 11:17-34: We connect with God and proclaim our allegiance to Him during communion. 1 Corinthians 11:1-16 and 11:17-34: the necessity for equality within the Church and the importance of meeting needs in the Body. We come to the table as equals. Gifts and Meetings Rom 12:6-6 1 Cor 12:8-10 1 Cor 12: 28-30 Ephesians 4:11 1 Peter 4:11 We need all the gifts in action because they display and model Christ. We cannot elevate one over another (such as pastor or teacher). Church Unity Rom 15:7; 1 Cor 1:11-13; John 17:20-23 In short, whenever the church gathers together, its guiding and functioning principal is simply to incarnate Christ (1 Cor 12:12)

We see that in the Biblical Narrative (and still true today) there are only 2 kingdoms: "The World" and the Kingdom of God. All the structures and systems of the world are influenced and run by Satan and the Powers. The Bible speaks of this often in the way it uses the word “kosmos” usually translated as World. It can mean a few things 1) the earth or creation, 2) The people of the earth, or 3) the systems of world (under the enemy). Examples of Kosmos: 1 John 5:19; James 4:4; Matthew 4:8; Mark 8:36; John 15:19; John 18:36; Gal 4:3; Col 2:8; 2 Pet 2:20 Baptism Baptism in the 1st Century was not only an outward sign of an inward faith or simply a religious ritual but it was a political pledge. “The early Church of the first century viewed baptism as their sacramentum to Jesus. Tertullian (160-225 AD) contrasted the Christian sacramentum with the Roman soldier’s pledge of loyalty to the emperor and the empire. He makes the case that just as a soldier, upon his oath of allegiance, was inducted into Caesar’s army, so a Christ-follower was initiated by the sacrament of baptism into God’s Kingdom. Each person vowed faithful (allegiant) service to his ruler and kingdom. Baptism into empire or baptism into Christ’s nation was the dividing line. Tertullian condemned any Christian who would be willing to swear the Roman sacramentum, since baptism was the only sacrament a Christian should observe. For the early Church, baptism was abandoning empire and claiming new citizenship in Jesus’s nation.” (RivalNations.org) 1 Peter 3:17-22 Babylon In the early church the phrase “Babylon” became the code word for the system of Satan or the kingdom of the world (kosmos). The Way of the Exile We need to view America less like a biblical Israel and more like a biblical Babylon. How do we live as exiles in the midst of empire? -Brian Zahnd Way not to live as Exiles Tribalism Political Parties Violence 7 Mountain Mandate Ways to live as Exiles Jeremiah 29:5-7 1 Peter Daniel Jesus calls us to radical allegiance to His Kingdom alone You cannot serve 2 masters (matt 6:24) Paul tells Timothy that as a soldier of God’s kingdom he should not be caught up in civilian affairs. (2 Tim 2:4) James says that friendship with the world is enmity with God (James 4:4) We are called to seek first God’s kingdom (matt 6:33) 5 differences between Kingdom and Empire 1. DIFFERENCE OF TRUSTS 2. DIFFERENCE OF AIMS 3. DIFFERENCE OF SCOPES 4. DIFFERENCE OF RESPONSES 5. DIFFERENCE OF BATTLES Honor and Pray for the leaders (Emperors) 1 Peter 2:17 1 Tim 2:1-2 We are not called to change the world’s systems but as the church to be the change and embody the kingdom here on earth Romans 12:2- Be transformed by the renewing of our minds… We don’t think in the ways of this world. We have the minds of the King and the Kingdom, with his rule in focus.

When we talk about Kingdom, we need to have 5 ideas at play. All 5 are necessary ingredients to define the Kingdom of God King Rule or a reign A People A Law Land So, it’s a king who rules by rescuing and saving people. A People who live the way of Jesus reflecting and imaging the king in sacred space… we are sacred space but our home and churches are also this space and we take this Kingdom with us and expand it as we live like the king and teach others to live under his Rule and his Law. The Gospel Both Jesus and Paul derived this important word (Gospel) from the prophetic poetry of Isaiah in the Old Testament (Isaiah 52:7-10) where the future arrival of God’s Kingdom through the Messiah is called good news. The 4 Spiritual Laws and the Romans Road all contain “truths” but look a lot different than the way the apostles presented the Gospel in the Bible. The Gospel Romans 1:1-4; 1 Corinthians 15:1-8; 2 Tim 2:8 The Gospel is about Jesus and not us. We can't let the benefits of the gospel run the conversation of the gospel.  Simple Gospel:Jesus is King We have a response to make when the gospel is presented... which kingdom will you be part of? Acts 17:5-7…no king but Christ. Are we being accused of turning the world upside-down by our gospel? And how we live it out? How do we live? Skinny Jeans All about social justice and humanitarian efforts Kingdom to them means: good deed done by good people in the public sector for the common good We often hear from these people that “I don’t want to work in the church, I want to do Kingdom Work” Pleated Pants Usually means God’s rule or reign but rarely means his realm. Concentration on souls… salvation… Savior vs. Lord….Kingdom is purely religious and about getting to heaven. Kingdom work as public activism… trying to get our states and government to be “moral” or transform the culture. 3rd Way John Nugent: “Our responsibility is not to make the world a better place, but to be the better place God has begun in this world through Christ. We are his kingdom work. We are ambassadors who proclaim what God has done, is doing, and will do. God’s strategy is for his people not to fix this world but to plant a new world in the midst of the old one and to woo the old world to Himself through it. As followers of Jesus, the body of Christ, the new humanity and new creation is us. A new creation as begun in the midst of the old world that remains. It is the new world of God’s Kingdom and its people. So God’s people are not responsible for making the world a better place, but for being the better place that Christ has already made… the early believers were vocal in proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and visible in living it out in community… the church’s calling centers on being the better place God began in Jesus.” John 13:35 By our love for one another, the world will know you are my disciples. John 17:23 By being in unity, the world will know that the Father has sent Jesus. Phil 1:27; 1 Thes 4:10-12; Eph 3:10

Matt launches a series on Expedition 44 looking at the Kingdom of God and how to live as Kingdom citizens. Christoformity To be conformed/transformed into the image of Christ (Romans 8:29- the purpose of salvation) and reflect that in our daily life. The church has gotten off track when it comes to discipleship. We think that to create a disciple is to teach someone how to make a conversion or just share their faith. True discipleship is to reflect Jesus; to become more like Jesus. The Word of God Mark 9:2-8; John 1:1-18 Image of God/Image of Christ Genesis 1:27-28; Psalm 8:4-8; Romans 1:22-23, 3:23, 8:18, 8:29-30 Glory here can mean honor, but the glory given to mankind as we’ve seen in Psalm 8 is to bear God’s image. To fall short of the glory is not moral perfection as the modern western tradition teaches. It is failure to bear God’s image. Glorification in 8:30 is in the present tense (aorist). Glorification is the result of being conformed to the image of the son who is the image of God. Christian theology teaches us that Jesus has always existed as part of the Godhead. If we are made in the image of God, we are made in the image of Christ (Col 1:15). Christ came and showed us how to be human and live out our calling as image bearers. So, when we conform to Christ, we conform to the image of God our vocation. Jesus is our example of how to be an image bearer (John 12:45). Bearing the Name Exodus 20:1-7 Faith(fulness) Gal 2:16,19-21; 3:21-29 Faith in the western Christian tradition is usually defined as agreeing with certain beliefs or propositions. Essentially a checklist of doctrine… believing Jesus died for you, saying a prayer, affirming God created, etc. … James actually condemns this as true faith; even the demons believe and tremble… faith without works is dead… we are not saved by faith (belief) alone but also works. While this has an aspect of the word pistis (translated as faith) this is not it’s primary meaning. Faith in the ancient world was a relational word and not primarily mental ascent. Allegiance to Jesus is also embodying the life and mission of Jesus ourselves. The Example /Kenosis Phil 2:1-11; John 13:1-17 Kenosis reveals the fullness of what God is like… remember John 1… “no one has ever seen God at any time”. The fullness of God dwelt in a human body (Col 2:9). Kenosis is not the surrender of attributes but the definition of God’s nature. Living Epistles 2 Cor 3:3 How might we be living epistles? How do we embody kenosis to the world around us? How does “faith” play into being a living epistle? How do you reflect the image of Christ?

Where have we been and what conclusions have we come to with atonement?   Intro  • What is Atonement? We saw that the word atonement is an etymology (At- One- Ment) but the Bible speaks more of the words (KPR and hilasterion) translated as atonement as covering or purging. Expiation of sin not propitiation of wrath. God is not acted upon, sin is.   Sacrificial system  Sacrifices:  o Burnt offering is about a gift and just wanting to spend time with God.   o Grain offering is about remembering the covenant  o The well-being (Peace) offering is simply a thank you to God  o The Purification (sin) offering is about cleansing sacred space  o The guilt or reparation offering is about repayment for an unintentional sin (humans making things right with other covenant members and recommitting to the Covenant with God)  • Blood: the blood manipulation was about cleansing sacred space. In combination with atonement language, it meant to purge or cover to decontaminate the sanctuary. The blood was never applied to people except in the ordination of the priests or when the covenant was enacted at Sinai. It was a ritual detergent… the ancient power washer. Blood represented life and not death.   • Laying on of hands: Was not transferring sin but rather setting apart the animal for a purpose  • The animals were never a substitute for the person  • We saw that blood was not requires for forgiveness (there was no sacrifice for intentional sins). There are many examples of sacrifices that were not animals and didn’t require blood for forgiveness.   Exodus is the central image of the cross in the Bible. Jesus dies during Passover so we need to make this our main motif of interpreting the cross  Day of Atonement   Isaiah 53  The Gospels and Acts  Romans   Hebrews  o By offering his own life and blood Jesus made purification (1:3) and atonement for sin (2:17- 18).   Died for us  - Huper and peri are always used in the “for us” and “for our sins” verses.   Legal Framework   Righteousness and Justification   Imputation   Atonement History and Church Fathers  Recap Framing questions  • Retribution or Restoration?  • Substitution or Representation?  • Transaction or Transformation?  • Judicial or Relational?   • Did God need his mind changed about us or our mind about God?  • Is there a debt owed? How does the cross bring about justice?  • Holiness and/or Love… are they opposed to each other?  • Who killed Jesus? God or us?  • Is our view of the cross to individualistic?   Recap Atonement theories   Moral Influence Theory  Ransom Theory    Christus Victor    Satisfaction theory    Penal Substitutionary Atonement    The Scapegoat Theory   Recapitulation   • New Covenant Theory  Do we see one theory or many in the scriptures? Do we see any non-existent theories or themes in scripture on this list? Golf club analogy… What do we think are the major themes and how do they work together?

PSA advocates claim that this theory was there from the beginning, and this is witnessed by the church fathers. Yet the Church Fathers don’t really have modern atonement theories when they speak about the cross. They use phrases like “Jesus died for us”, “Jesus shed his blood for us”, they connect the cross with forgiveness, Jesus freeing humanity from a curse, Jesus as a ransom, Jesus as the 2nd Adam, etc. Though they use this “biblical language” do they mean what PSA has defined them as.    Many pin a fully formed view of PSA on John Calvin in the 1500s. Calvin was a lawyer and interpreted the Bible through a legal lens. Though Calvin did have most of the PSA building blocks in place he never systematized it like the modern atonement theory school does. This didn’t happen until Charles Hodge wrote his systematic theology set in 1871. This was the first time PSA was but together in print as a theory.    The building blocks came into being with Augustine. Paul Vendredi notes this with his 17 historical claims of PSA. 3 were made by Augustine, 9 were Anselm, and 5 are the modern atonement schools built on and expanded upon Calvin. (Check out Idol Killer’s Youtube for more on this).    The 17 Claims:  1. Original Sin  2. Total Depravity / Inability  3. Infant Depravity  4. Sin is an Infinite Offense  5. Sin is a Debt we owe  6. Infants also owe this Debt  7. Animal Sacrifices  8. God could Cancel the sin debt by His will...  9. But, God cannot Forgive a Sin without punishing the Sinner  10. Death Must be Painful  11. "Propitiation"  12. Substitution  13. God pours out His Wrath  14. Jesus Became a Literal Curse  15. The Father turned His back on Christ  16. Old Testament Sacrificial System  17. Ransom Paid TO God   Conclusions: • The early church used biblical language to talk about the cross… retribution must be read into them  • Healing was the focus and not legal metaphors in all of these  • A major focus is on death, sin, and the devil’s defeat and these 3 concepts are connected.   • The results of their defeat are a rescue and restoration of the image of God.   • Until Augustine’s 3 foundational points (original sin, Total depravity, and infant depravity) the early church had nothing to build PSA upon, so it is a fallacy to show that they taught it.   • PSA has no historical leg to stand on. Most often they read PSA into ransom and then back into other theories like recapitulation taking them out of their context and projecting onto the language of the Church Fathers.

Major issues with the double imputation paradigm:     The assumption of perfection as the goal rather than what Genesis says: Imaging God (defined as relationship, vocation, and allegiance). If you are building on the wrong foundation, you’ll always get the wrong answers.    Punishment as a prerequisite to forgiveness. The bible states that God forgives and casts sin away. It never states that punishment is pre-requisite for forgiveness. This is payment and not forgiveness.  o The assumption of the sinner needing to have sin punished rather than sin healed. In the Bible as we have shown sin is seen more as “biological” than as a “statutory crime”. In the OT sin stains or taints or infects like a disease. You don’t punish a disease out of someone. You kill the disease to heal the person.    Righteousness is assumed to be a substance that can be passed from one person to another in the reformed outlook. This is absent in the text.    Our sins being imputed but at the same time washed away is a contradiction.    God seeing you as Jesus is problematic. God is essentially participating in a lie. A legal fiction. The Bible says that God sees all things so if he does to know we are a sinner but pretend otherwise would go against the nature of God as described in scripture.    We are called slaves to sin, but we need to pay the debt to God… is God the author of sin?   The issue of the Torah that says sons should not suffer for the sins of their fathers and each should die for their own sins. God also wouldn’t allow Moses to give up his life on behalf of Israel. Does God break Torah to make this framework work? \  The phrase “righteousness of Christ” is never mentioned in scripture. This is not to say that he is not righteous. He is called the righteous one (the faithful covenant partner). But if we are looking for Christ’s righteousness becoming ours, we never see this transaction in a single verse in scripture.   The trinitarian issues in this model are outside of orthodoxy. The father and son always act in unison and not against each other. This model has the father punishing the son. This is a split in the trinity or at the least disunity in the Godhead.        Logically the courtroom analogy makes no scene in this context… o The judge’s righteousness is in doing what is right and making a proper judgement o When either the plaintiff or the defendant is declared ‘righteous’ at the end of the case, there is no sense that in either case the judge’s own righteousness or anyone else’s has been passed on to them, by imputation, impartation, or any other process. What they have is a status of ‘righteous’ which comes from the judge. So having God’s righteousness as an alien righteousness or Christ’s righteousness makes no logical sense in the analogy.  o Even if we do take a courtroom view… God makes the judgement that we are in the right. We aren’t punished though we may deserve to be punished. We are forgiven, there’s no debt owed, its simply gone. We still aren’t receiving anyone else’ righteousness and perfection is not the foundation. The analogy fails on many levels.    It is individualistic. The Biblical framework when read in cultural context is always about the group. ANE and 1st century people didn’t identify so much as individuals as we do in the West. They thought of themselves as part of the larger group.

observed on justification. 1.The question of justification is a matter of covenant membership. The underlying question in (for instance) Gal. 3 and 4 is: Who are the true children of Abraham?  Paul’s answer is that membership belongs to all who believe in the gospel of Jesus, whatever their racial or moral background. 2.The basis of this declaration is the representative death and resurrection of Jesus himself. The resurrection is God’s declaration that Sin has been dealt with and Jesus and his people are in the right before God (Rom. 4:24-25). 3.Justification establishes the church, the renewed Israel, Jew and Greek alike, transcending racial and social barriers (Gal. 3:28). Pagan converts to Christianity did not need to become Jews in order fully to belong to God’s people, the attempt to do so was in itself a renunciation of the gospel, implying that Christ’s achievement was insufficient or even unnecessary (Gal. 2:21; 5:4—6). 4.Justification by faith’ is thus a shorthand for ‘justification by grace through faith’, and in Paul’s thought at least has nothing to do with a suspicious attitude towards good behavior. His polemic against ‘works of the law’ is not directed against those who attempted to earn covenant membership through keeping the Jewish law (such people do not seem to have existed in the 1st century) but against those who sought to demonstrate their membership in the covenant through obeying the Jewish law.  Against these people Paul argues that the law cannot in fact be kept perfectly — it merely shows sin. And that this attempt would reduce the covenant to a single race, those who possess the Jewish law, whereas God desires a world-wide family (Rom. 3:27-31; Gal. 3:15-22). Justification in short is not ‘how someone becomes a Christian’. It is God’s declaration about the person who has just become a Christian. They are a covenant member. It’s about the church more than salvation. Ecclesiology is primary, salvation is secondary (a benefit of justification, not justification itself).

Today we get to the crucial question of what does it mean that "Jesus died for us?”, The Nicaean Creed says that Jesus died “for us and for our salvation” In evangelical and western theology, we make a lot of these phrases, and they are important theologically, but we put a lot of freight into the preposition “FOR” and assume an understanding that might not even be in the text.     “For” Does this phrase, “for us” (or “for all”), mean “for our sake” (benefaction), or “on our behalf” (representation), or “in our place” (substitution)? There are 4 Greek words used as the 1 English word “for”. Greek is specific.     Anti: this for that (substitution or exchange) • Eye for (anti) an eye, tooth for (anti) a tooth (Matt 5:38)  • “Do not repay anyone evil [in exchange] for (anti) evil” (Rom 12:17)  • Ransom for (anti) many (Mark 10:45)  Dia: Because of or on account of  • We looked at this in our Isaiah 53 episode (dia and mim)  • Doesn’t ever mean “in the place of”  Peri: Concerning, about    Huper:   • in some entity’s interest: for, on behalf of, for the sake of,  • the moving cause or reason: because of, for the sake of, for, and • denoting general content: about, concerning.  • It is interesting that Paul always uses huper when talking about Christ’s death being “for us” or “for our sin”  Conclusions:   • “For us” is about   • Representation not substitution  • Rescue and healing not punishment  • benefit out of love not wrath or appeasing justice  • Huper and peri are always used in the “for us” and “for our sins” verses.  • These are about representation or simply concerning the benefit  • If they meant to communication substitution or PSA, they would have used anti, but that word for exchange or substitution is never used except in Mark 10:45 (ransom for many), which we covered in our gospel episode and showed that it is not about Penal Substitution.   • Substitution neglects the two-sidedness of Christ’s work: Christ acts both on behalf of God, representing God to humanity, and on behalf of humanity, representing humanity to God.  • Penal Substitution flies in the face of the Torah which in multiple places forbids for someone to die in the place of another for their sins.   • Representation, therefore, allows us to express the two-sidedness of the one undivided divine work of salvation.   • Substitution carries an individualistic emphasis: we think of substitution as primarily an exchange between individuals—this one in place of that one. Yet, Paul nearly always uses plural, corporate language when speaking concerning Christ’s death “for” others. Only twice does Paul use singular terms with an individual emphasis.   • In every other instance, some fifteen times, Paul uses plural language with a corporate emphasis. This corporate emphasis is reflected in the plural language used elsewhere in the New Testament concerning Christ’s death “for” others. Jesus is not the universal substitute, taking the place of each human one by one (exclusion), but rather our corporate representative, representing the place of all humanity at once (inclusion)— “once for all” (Rom 6:10).