Bearing Sin: Burden, Forgiveness, and Collapsing Frames - Episode 183

Carey Griffel: Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and I guess time flies when you're having fun. This week is the seventh episode I've done on this topic of substitution. I really would not have guessed I'd done seven whole episodes on it, but here we are. Maybe I should just conclude it now, except that I know I have at least one more that we need to touch on.

[00:00:39] But at any rate, today's topic is sin bearing. The idea of bearing sin. What is it? And what does it mean? And how does it fit into the context of substitution?

[00:00:52] This is one of those Christianese phrases, even though it really is very biblical, of course, like many Christianese phrases. But it's so familiar in Christian circles that many people already hear the full atonement theory inside the idea that Christ bore our sins.

[00:01:11] But the biblical language of bearing sin is doing more than one thing. So it's a great candidate for looking at for frame semantics. Especially when we tend to collapse the ideas. When people hear Jesus bore our sins, they often hear that Jesus took our guilt, that Jesus bore our penalty, that Jesus was punished instead of us. Therefore, bearing sin means penal substitution, obviously. Well, that is the usual evangelical or systematic frame.

[00:01:48] But before we accept that as the definition, we really need to ask whether that is how the language works across Scripture itself. So today we're gonna be looking at the idea in a very usual frame semantics kind of a way for us. But I also want to do a comparative frame using the typical systematic frame versus our exegetical frames that we're gonna be talking about. The systematic frame usually begins with the doctrine. Where sin deserves punishment, justice is usually seen to require the penalty to be paid. Jesus bears sin by bearing the punishment that is owed to sinners.

[00:02:32] So again, bearing sin is read as penalty-bearing substitution. The systematic frame is trying to preserve something that I think really is important, the seriousness of sin, and the fact that Jesus' death actually really does accomplish things. But the systematic frame is really working within the realm of theology.

[00:02:57] Now, ideally, theology does stem from the text in an exegetical way. But I don't really see the people who are talking about it in this way doing the kinds of questions that I'm going to suggest here.

[00:03:12] Now, before recording this episode, I listened through Spencer Owen's Trauma-informed Church Kid episode on bearing iniquity, and I was really struck by how much overlap there is in the data we're looking at. Spencer frames bearing iniquity as burden-bearing, especially in relation to priests and forgiveness, and he even brings up Cain and Joseph like I'm going to do today.

[00:03:39] Now I'm going to be approaching the topic a little bit differently, especially because I'm digging straight down into frame semantics. And I'm also going to be drawing some comparisons between systematic theology and the exegesis we're bringing out of the text. But I really think his episode is a great conversational partner for this episode as well. And he also highlights why this matters pastorally, because the language of bearing sin can either help us see how God deals with sin, or it can be compressed in ways that place burdens on people in ways that is really not a good thing.

[00:04:20] All right. Now, this podcast is called Genesis Marks the Spot for a reason. I really do think that most of our really big topics and themes are going to start in Genesis. And that is no different when we get to the topic of bearing sin. Genesis gives us two very important narrative frames. We have Cain, the guilty brother who bears the weight of his own sin. And we have Joseph, the righteous suffering brother who is asked to lift or forgive the sin of the guilty brothers. These are very foundational to the idea at large.

[00:05:02] I'm sure we're all familiar with Genesis chapter 4 and Cain's claim directly to God that he says, "My punishment is greater than I can bear." He says this after God gives him a consequence for the murder of Abel. The consequence is not that Cain is going to lose his life, but that the ground is cursed, and it shall no longer yield to him its strength. God also tells him that he shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.

[00:05:34] This is the moment that Cain says that his punishment is greater than he can bear. And then he repeats the things that God tells him, but also adds, "From your face I shall be hidden." That's a really interesting addition there. And he adds another point. He says, just like God told him, that he will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, but he's worried that whoever finds him is going to kill him. But God says in response to this, " Not so. If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him."

[00:06:16] Like with many things in these early chapters of Genesis, we're not given a whole lot of detail. Is this a moment of mercy? Is it actually a moment of forgiveness? It doesn't tell us directly. But there is this really interesting interchange where God gives him a consequence. Cain tells God that he's going to have an even larger consequence than God said. And that's when God gives him the mark of protection, it seems like.

[00:06:46] The important bits of language that we need to notice here are two Hebrew words. Cain uses the word avon, which is iniquity or guilt or punishment and consequence. And he also uses the word nasah, which is bear or carry or lift or take away or forgive. We'll be talking a lot more about this word today.

[00:07:11] So Cain's statement can be heard in more than one way. We can hear him saying that his punishment is too great to bear, or that his guilt is too great to carry, or that his iniquity is too great to be lifted or forgiven. Or it could be an overlapping sense where guilt and consequence are bound together. And possibly even a challenge that God cannot forgive him.

[00:07:40] It's hard to know specifically because of the range of these words. But the frame that we have here is that Cain is, of course, the bearer. He is guilty. He is bearing his own iniquity, guilt, or punishment. The overall scene is one of consequence from murdering his brother. The blood is crying out from the ground. There is a curse that is associated with the ground. He is exiled, and he's afraid of vengeance. And so the function of the frame is that Cain is carrying the weight and the consequence of what he has done.

[00:08:17] Now this is our first entrance into the idea. The guilty person is bearing his own sin. This is a category that nobody is going to deny that exists in Scripture.

[00:08:31] All right, now let's jump forward into the Joseph narrative. We're gonna look at Genesis chapter 50. Now we have a moment when Joseph's brothers see that their father has died, and they're really worried that with that it might trigger a little bit of vengeance and payback for them. They're like, "Well, maybe with our dad alive, Joseph was holding himself back, but now that he's gone, maybe Joseph will unleash his rage upon us."

[00:09:03] And so they sent a message to Joseph, and this seems to me like they're deceiving Joseph because they say that their father gave this command before he died. I mean, maybe he did, but combined with their motive in the previous verse, kind of seems really suspicious here. But this is apparently their father's command. In Genesis 50 verse 17 it says, quote, " Say to Joseph, 'Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you. And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.'" End quote.

[00:09:46] The result of this is that Joseph wept, which is interesting because he also wept when he revealed himself to his brothers. And Joseph tells them that he is not in the place of God. And this is that moment I'd mentioned before where Joseph says in verse twenty, quote, " As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. So do not fear. I will provide for you and your little ones. Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them." End quote.

[00:10:25] Okay, so how does this relate to Cain? Well, the verb translated forgive is this word nasah. So Genesis gives us the same verb field in a different frame. This is not the guilty one bearing his own guilt, but the righteous sufferer being asked to lift away or forgive the sin of those who wronged him.

[00:10:49] The bearer is Joseph. The status of the bearer is the righteous sufferer or the one who has been wronged The thing that is lifted is the transgression and the sin of the brothers. The scene here is one of betrayal, sale into slavery, false accusation, suffering, but also exaltation, preservation of life, and a refusal of vengeance. The function of the frame is that Joseph is going to lift or forgive the sin committed against him, and he's going to preserve his family. Because I do want you to notice that he's not only going to provide for his brothers, but his brothers' little ones as well.

[00:11:35] Okay, so let's just take these two stories and let's compare and contrast them. Cain is, of course, the guilty brother. He did violence against his brother. The blood is crying out from the ground. He is bearing the weight of his own sin or consequence. And he experiences exile and fear. But with Joseph, who is the righteous suffering brother, he is betrayed by his brothers. He is the one who suffers exile and slavery unjustly, but he is vindicated and exalted to a high position in society. He becomes the means of life for many people, and he lifts and forgives the sins of the guilty and preserves the family.

[00:12:22] Now let's remind ourselves of the typical systematic frame. The system often focuses on guilt, consequence, punishment, penalty bearing, and a very specific view of what justice is. The story of Cain fits that frame pretty well. But the story of Joseph, on the other hand, really does not.

[00:12:46] Okay, so I'm sure that at this point you're really familiar with my method and what we're doing with frame semantics here. We have seen here already in Genesis that the same broad verbal field can move in more than one direction. Cain bears the weight of his own sin. Joseph is asked to lift sin away. So we cannot simply take the phrase " bear sin and define it and then impose that definition everywhere, because these are basically opposite ideas here.

[00:13:20] But in English, bearing sin can sound like a single theological idea. And in many evangelical discussions, especially when the question is already framed by atonement theory, then the meaning really very quickly narrows down into bearing guilt, bearing penalty, being punished, and therefore substitutionary punishment.

[00:13:46] But every Hebrew scholar is going to admit that this word that we're really kind of needing to look at very carefully here, nasa it is very wide-ranging. And that is not in dispute in any way. Nobody's going to disagree that the same word here, this particular phrase even, can evoke different frames depending on the actor, the object, the setting, the problem being addressed, the action being performed, and the result. So the question cannot just be what does the word bear or the Hebrew word nasah mean?

[00:14:26] The better question is what frame are we in and what does bearing do in that frame? As I've done in previous episodes, I'm gonna give you a set of diagnostic questions. For every bearing sin text, I want you to ask, who is bearing? Is it the guilty person, a priest, a high priest, a Levite, a goat, the suffering servant? Is it Yahweh in the Old Testament or is it Jesus in the New Testament?

[00:14:59] Question number two is, whose thing is being borne? And kind of related to this is if it's sin, like some sort of moral sin, or is it iniquity or is it transgression? Because those also can be different things, although we're not gonna take the time to frame them out today. But if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably pretty familiar with the fact that we don't always have moral sin in mind. Sometimes it's ritual impurity or something else that's going on as well. But I'm just gonna condense it down into the word sin, even though that's not a perfect one-to-one correspondence in every one of these passages, okay?

[00:15:43] So again, question number two, whose sin is being borne? Is it the bearer's own sin? Is it the congregation's sin? Is it iniquity that's tied to holy things? Is it Israel's sins, the sins of the many, or our sins?

[00:16:03] Question number three: What kind of setting are we in? Is it narrative? Is it legal? Is it priestly? Is it ritual? Is it prophetic? Is it wisdom? Is it an ethical exhortation? Is it a Christological interpretation by the New Testament authors?

[00:16:25] Question number four: What is the problem being addressed? Is it guilt, consequence, impurity, danger near holy space, failed offering, blood guilt, exile, sickness, injustice, alienation, death, or even wandering from God?

[00:16:49] Question number five: What does the bearing accomplish? Is punishment? Accountability, mediation, acceptance, cleansing, removal, forgiveness, healing, restoration, righteous living?

[00:17:07] Question number six: Does the passage itself say anything about punishment being transferred? Or is that being imported from another passage or from a later theological system?

[00:17:20] I know that's kind of a leading question, right? But it's an important one because if you want to make this idea to hold the weight of PSA, you're gonna need to show me the ways that that is done and connected within the text itself.

[00:17:37] And really, the who question might be the most important one, not counting the really highly leading one that I just gave you at the end. Because when a guilty sinner is bearing his own sin, the frame is accountability. And so that's going to involve consequence or punishment. But when a priest is bearing iniquity, the frame changes. The priest is not simply becoming the guilty party.

[00:18:06] Now, I think there's reasons why people do conflate those things and really move from one to the other. But I want you to notice when people do that , because bearing sin in a way that a priest does in mediation is just not the same as assuming guilt or penalty. And that's a really big difference, okay? This is the same kind of move we've seen people do before, and that we're trying to not do because we're treating the text carefully.

[00:18:39] Let's take a moment and actually look at how scholars will talk about this word and use it in theological ways. I'm gonna be pulling from The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. This is talking about the word nasah and talking about its derivatives and things that are associated with it. Really interesting things I'd love to point out here about some connotations that we have, but we'll just keep it really simple today.

[00:19:08] There are three separate basic meanings for the general word nasa in its typical form. That is to lift up, to bear or carry or support, and to take away. But then it's also used in some really interesting idioms and metaphors. We have lifting up the head to restore honor, like in Genesis 40 within the story of Joseph.

[00:19:36] We have the idea of lifting up the face, which is about good conscience, confidence, favor, or acceptance. We have lifting up the eyes, which is associated, of course, with looking and seeing or loving and desiring. People can lift up their eyes to God or to an idol.

[00:19:58] We have lifting up the voice, which is about weeping and crying and rejoicing.

[00:20:04] Another idiom or phrase we have is to lift up the hand, and this has a really wide range of meaning. It can mean that somebody is taking an oath. It can be a sign of violence. It can be just a general signal, like you're signaling to someone when you lift up your hand.

[00:20:22] Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament also suggests that it is about punishment. Now, that would be a pretty important part of our view here, looking at this idea of bearing sin, right, when it comes to punishment. But what's really interesting is the passage it uses to defend the idea of punishment.

[00:20:45] That passage is Psalm 10, specifically Psalm 10, verse 12, which says, quote, " Rise up, O Yahweh. O God, lift up your hand. Do not forget the afflicted." End quote.

[00:21:01] Now, I understand how the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament is getting to the idea of punishment, because Psalm 10 is about wicked people oppressing God's people and God rescuing the people and the wicked are going to be punished, right? But the context of this verse, even if it's within the realm of punishing the wicked, the context of lifting up the hand here is one of rescue. Because the psalmist is saying, "Do not forget the afflicted." He is asking God to rise up to rescue or vindicate the ones who are being afflicted by the wicked. Even though we have a punishment context, that's not what this verse is about.

[00:21:48] So I just found that really interesting. Because if we can add in another function of the phrase lifting up the hand to mean rescue, well, that's a pretty big deal when it comes to the idea of bearing sin in general, as I think you'll be able to see.

[00:22:06] But continuing on looking into this entry on nasa when it comes to the idea of bearing sin or something that is like sin, bearing iniquity or sin or transgression. We are told that there are three ways that this is done. Men take up or incur iniquity or sin by doing several things, by profaning the tabernacle, by hating their neighbors, by touching an animal carcass, or profaning offerings of the Lord. Now, really only one of those has a real moral dimension to them, hating your neighbors.

[00:22:49] Okay, number two, men will bear or carry guilt or punishment, which is more directly what Genesis 4 is talking about. Again, this is Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, which says, quote, " This leads easily into the idea of bearing guilt of another by representation or substitution." And then they quote Leviticus 10 verse 17, or the scapegoat, Leviticus 16 verse 22. " The root sabal, to bear a burden, in Isaiah 53:11 is paralleled in the next verse by nasa. The servant bore the sins of many, as in Isaiah 53 verse 4." End quote.

[00:23:36] Now, I just want to highlight that they're saying it's really easy to get to the idea of representation or substitution. Again, substitution is about replacement, okay? So it's not the same as representation as we've seen.

[00:23:53] Leviticus 10 verse 17 is mentioned, which says, quote, " Why did you not eat the sin offering on the sanctuary site? Because it is a most holy thing, and I gave it to you to remove the community's guilt, to make atonement for them before Yahweh." End quote.

[00:24:12] Leviticus 10 is a really interesting context because here's the backstory to that. Aaron doesn't eat the flesh of the sin offering after his sons die. But after verse 17, Moses ends up okay with that, and still we have no context of the priest being punished instead of the people. So making atonement again is still not about substitution.

[00:24:42] But this made me think about the idea of vicarious penalty transfer. What would it mean for vicarious penalty transfer to actually occur? Well, that might depend on the word vicarious, for one thing. Okay, so here's a really interesting bit of English for you. The word vicarious has three different meanings when I looked it up in the dictionary.

[00:25:07] The first meaning is that something is experienced or felt by participation in the life of another person. So this is experiencing with. It's participatory. Like a parent can vicariously experience childhood again through their child. This does not provide any kind of replacement because the child is still having their childhood, right?

[00:25:33] The second definition of vicarious is that it's endured or done by one person substituting for another. This is replacement. I hope that parents are not vicariously replacing their children in their childhood, okay, that would be really creepy and bad.

[00:25:52] A third definition for the word vicarious is, committed or entrusted to another, such as powers or authority. So this is, again, representation and participation.

[00:26:06] PSA requires the second definition of vicarious, that our penalty not be experienced by us.

[00:26:15] So just because in English we have a word that encompasses multiple meaning frames, that doesn't mean we get to collapse them any more than we think that a parent vicariously experiencing childhood is removing the child from their childhood, okay? And so if one bearing one's own sin, is going to lead easily to substitution, again, I want to see it in the text.

[00:26:42] But interestingly, the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament goes on to say, quote, " Such debits could also be passed from father to son on a temporal basis affecting one's earthly existence. " The passage here is Numbers 14:31-33. And you go look at that. That is about the children enduring the wilderness too, but they are vindicated into the land. They aren't experiencing it as a vicarious partner to that.

[00:27:17] The entry on nasa goes on to admit that Deuteronomy 24 verse 16 states the opposite of children being able to be punished because of their fathers. So again, we really need to take these things very carefully and not just presume what we want it to say. If it is easy to get to substitution, we have to have that within the text and not just presumed.

[00:27:46] Before we move on from this entry of nasa, the third category that connects nasah and sin is the one of taking away or forgiveness or pardon of sin, iniquity, and transgression.

[00:28:01] In fact, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament says, quote, "So characteristic is this action of taking away sin that it is listed as one of God's attributes. Sin can be forgiven and forgotten because it is taken up and carried away." End quote.

[00:28:21] All right, so that is the word nasah. And you can see that it has a range of meaning already. And honestly, I could probably just end the episode there with showing you that we have this range of meaning. And if we just presume that it is what we say it is, then we're gonna end up misreading passages. But, you know, I wanna actually show you how that is. So I'm gonna draw out various frames in particular. We've kind of already done two of them. But let's just go down this list in order.

[00:28:54] The first one is the sinner bearing his own sin. That is pretty obvious and really all over the place. This is the frame that Cain already introduced narratively in Genesis 4. And later legal and prophetic texts are gonna formalize the same basic idea. We get this in many places in Leviticus, such as Leviticus 5, Leviticus 20. Last time I mentioned Ezekiel 18. Guilty people are gonna bear their own sin. The son does not bear the father's iniquity. The father does not bear the son's iniquity. And so it's a really strong limiting principle against careless transfer language. At least it ought to be.

[00:29:40] I've mentioned frame number two, where priests bear iniquity. This isn't about bearing punishment, okay? Because the priests are the one doing or making atonement for the people. It's very clearly about mediation, representation. The priest is supposed to handle things properly. They're supposed to guard holy space. They are carrying the responsibility for the sanctuary, certainly, because they are completing rites that remove or deal with certain things, right? We could say that they are making atonement so that the people or the gifts may be accepted. That really is not a sin-bearing frame in a way that is systematic.

[00:30:24] Really good text to look at here is Exodus 28 verse 38. This is in the context of the plate of gold that Aaron is supposed to wear that says, " Holy to the Lord." Aaron shall bear any guilt from the holy things that the people of Israel consecrate as their holy gifts. This is a little bit of a difficult verse to read. Why is Aaron bearing guilt from the holy things and their gifts, right? So important pieces to look at, obviously the high priest. What he bears is not simply Israel's sin, but iniquity guilt connected with the holy gifts. And the goal is acceptance before Yahweh. The plate is marking his priestly holiness and representative status.

[00:31:11] Now, many evangelicals, such as Douglas Stuart in the New American Commentary in Exodus says that it would be nice to retranslate this verse as, quote, "It should be on Aaron's forehead so that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things, i.e., their sacrificial gifts, that the Israelites make holy, i.e., offer as holy offerings with regard to any of their holy gifts."

[00:31:41] Stewart says, quote, "In other words, without the forehead piece on the turban, Aaron's representative role on behalf of the people in seeking forgiveness from sin through offerings might have been nullified or at least endangered." End quote.

[00:31:58] The plate that Aaron is wearing is supposed to protect him or make it work somehow or something like that.

[00:32:05] I think Word Biblical Commentary makes a little bit more sense. It says, quote, " Any guilt of iniquity associated with Israel's worship would be made more obvious by this constant reminder, which would also symbolize Yahweh's acceptance of a people forgiven by his grace." End quote.

[00:32:27] The IVP Bible Background Commentary says, quote, " As the person in charge of all religious rituals, it was important that the high priest took his office seriously. Thus an engraved plate was attached to his turban as a sign of his authority and as a signal to him that he would bear the blame and the punishment for any failure to obey the laws of ritual and sacrifice." End quote.

[00:32:54] That's a bit more of an in-between kind of an idea that I'm not sure that the priest is gonna bear the punishment. The people are still gonna bear the punishment, but the priest is gonna hold responsibility for the holy things like no other person in the congregation would have that kind of responsibility. And I think it's important to notice here as well that iniquity is probably not best explained in this verse in particular as some sort of act of sin going on, but it is more like liability, burden, danger, or responsibility attached to holy things and holy space. So iniquity means something like the burden of liability connected to holy space.

[00:33:40] Now, why can it work like that? That is a really good question. The Hebrew word avon can refer to more than the sinful act itself. This is the word iniquity. It can include the state, the burden, the guilt, the liability, or the consequence that comes from disorder or violation. The issue is not that something actually happened. But there is a responsibility here. There is a danger, and holy space needs to be managed correctly. I mean, it would be the same thing when we go back to Leviticus 10 and Aaron not eating the sin offering in the place of the sanctuary.

[00:34:20] This also fits with what we've seen already in the ransom and redemption conversation last time. There we saw that ransom language can be costly and very serious and burdensome without being about payment or punishment. So just like that, bearing iniquity is part of the picture of the priest acting for the people, mediating on behalf of the people, and bearing something that is connected to them. But there is no representative punishment or replacement.

[00:34:54] Okay, the third frame and the one that we all would love to spend all day on is the scapegoat. The clearest example of bearing sins in Leviticus for an animal is not any animal that dies, but rather the live goat that carries Israel's sins away from the camp. This is an absolutely crucial frame because it gives us another look at what bearing sin can mean. Here it is not the guilty person bearing his own consequence, it's not the priest bearing iniquity through mediation, but it is a ritual carrier bearing sins by removal.

[00:35:34] There's also other things going on here in Leviticus 16, which we really need to notice. We have a confession, we have transfer onto the goat, we have it removed from the camp, separated from the holy community. This is like a public enactment of sin being taken away, but it's also within the context of the people having a fast and exhibiting their own repentance.

[00:35:59] This is where we get the ritual with both hands being laid on the head of the goat instead of only a single hand press. And the high priest confesses over the goat all of the iniquities of the people of Israel, all of their transgressions, all of their sins. Those are placed on the head of the goat, and the goat is sent away into the wilderness, bearing the iniquities to a remote or a cut-off land.

[00:36:26] The scapegoat is not the goat that is slaughtered, whereas its blood is used in purification rites and it's connected with cleansing and purging holy space. The live goat is not doing the same thing as the slaughtered goat. The live goat is intentionally and obviously bearing sin by carrying it away from the people and from the sanctuary community. Again, this isn't about punishment, it's about removal. The scapegoat is certainly not involving any kind of substitution replacement in a way where it's killed or penalized in a way where it is getting death. The goat is not killed in the ritual. It has a representative and removal function because it's carrying what belongs to Israel. Israel's no longer carrying it, so there is this removal directly, and it's taking it away to the land that is cut off from the people.

[00:37:22] This does seem to relate very directly to priestly bearing and I think we need to see both of them together. Both of the frames show that bearing can be mediation and removal.

[00:37:36] Okay, let's move on to the fourth frame of bearing sin. And this is the one of God bearing or lifting away sin in forgiveness. This is where people are going to confuse bearing a penalty with the frame of forgiveness. And when they do that, they erase the idea of forgiveness entirely from at least God's ability. God cannot forgive if He must extract the penalty in order to forgive.

[00:38:06] And this directly displays the danger of collapsing distinct frames into one theological because when we do that, we erase the moral necessity we have in ourselves to forgive one another. If we are to mirror God as the foundation of our ethics, then how do we come to the idea of forgiveness if God Himself is unable to forgive because we have redefined the very concept for Him?

[00:38:33] It is a really big problem. People don't like it when I bring it up. I've seen people try to get around the issue by talking about necessary penalty and covenant and so on. Like a covenant is such a big deal that God cannot just forgive. But again, if we're gonna let God define justice and tell us what He wants when things go awry in the biggest possible sense, as they did prior to the exile, then we need to read more of the prophets in their context. And we need to take seriously how God is defining terms like justice, righteousness, and forgiveness in that context of people going astray.

[00:39:15] And it's a really big problem because Exodus 34, verses six and seven are one of the most condensed places where we see the character of God laid out and it involves forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. It also says that God will by no means clear the guilty. There is this really difficult phrase at the end of Exodus 34 verse 7, where it says that God will visit the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation. What does that mean when God also says in other places that he won't do that?

[00:39:54] Well, first of all, this idea does not have to mean that God assigns the father's moral guilt to innocent children. We're not making Scripture to be contradictory. It is better read as the generational fallout of iniquity, just like we have going on with the Exodus wandering. The crookedness of one generation will shape the world that is inherited by the next generation. So patterns of idolatry, violence, injustice, and covenant betrayal don't just stay with one generation, but they deform entire families and communities and generations.

[00:40:34] So this place in Exodus 34 is not saying that God forgives sin except actually he doesn't. It is saying something more like Yahweh is the God who lifts away iniquity, transgression, and sin, but he does not pretend guilt is not there. And if people are going to cling to it, it keeps deforming the covenant community even across generations.

[00:40:59] This really does need to be paired with Numbers 14, where the adults bear their own unfaithfulness and die in the wilderness. The children live with the fallout of the rebellion, but Yahweh still brings them into the land. So there is a distinguishing difference between culpability and consequence. All right, there's a whole bunch of other places where I can show you that it says that God really does forgive. He takes away or lifts up sin from the people.

[00:41:29] Okay, so we have these four different frames that we've talked about. The frame of somebody bearing his own sin because they are guilty, the frame of the priest bearing iniquity in a mediatorial role, the scapegoat, God bearing or lifting away sin in forgiveness. And now we come to frame number five with Isaiah 53 and the righteous sufferer. We already talked about this, but because we have various frames, we do need to ask how Isaiah 53 now fits into them.

[00:42:03] So far, we haven't been able to establish a single example of truly vicarious penal sin-bearing. So I'm really wondering how we suddenly decide that Isaiah 53 is the place where the rubber meets the road, and finally now we have vicarious penal substitution. Except it's problematic when we have the prophets continue to talk about forgiveness and punishment and reward reward going to those who deserve those things and not somebody else.

[00:42:33] Now interestingly, Isaiah 53 uses both bearing and carrying language. So we have the word nasa, to bear or lift or carry or take away. And then we also have the word sabal, to bear or carry as a burden. The servant is bearing what is associated with the people. In Isaiah 53, it's explicitly described as griefs, sorrows, transgressions, iniquities, and sin. But the question remains, what does bearing do here? From the surrounding context, it includes suffering under the burden, healing, peace, making many righteous, intercession, and vindication.

[00:43:20] And I'm gonna ask you, what makes it so that we're making this somehow to be different than a priestly bearing frame? What is suddenly making us take Isaiah 53 and collapse these ideas down? Because it's not real clear in the verse that suddenly we've got a whole new frame.

[00:43:41] In other words, Isaiah 53 is the place where suddenly all of these frames are collapsing for theologians. And I would like to ask, what makes them do that? Because we certainly have intercession involved here. I think that the reason we don't wanna go there is because it's not obvious that the suffering servant is directly a priest. What if he's not? If he's not a priest, then he couldn't do priestly things. At least that seems to be the logic, and it's logic I would highly disagree with because I don't think a priest is the only one who's going to be able to do things. I mean, we do have Moses in Exodus 32 who offers to intercede, who offers himself directly, in fact, and he connects that with making atonement. I think we have something really important to notice.

[00:44:37] Now, as I've talked about before, Isaiah 53 clearly says that the servant suffers for others. Again, as I've said before, the idea of doing something for other people can include several different kinds of relationships. It can be because of others, like they're the ones who caused it. It can be on behalf of others, for the benefit of others, in solidarity with others, representatively for others. It can be in a way that removes or heals what belongs to others.

[00:45:14] I mean, certainly it can also be substitution replacement. But the exact mechanism has to be read from the whole passage, not assumed from later theological shorthand. It is just not enough to say that the servant suffers for others, therefore we know the whole mechanism is going on and he's taking away their penalty instead of them.

[00:45:37] But Isaiah 53 does not only say punishment-like things. It says that the chastisement that brought us peace was upon him. By his wounds we are healed. Doesn't that healing language matter pretty strongly here?

[00:45:54] To me, it means that the servant's suffering addresses the broken condition of the people. And so if we reduce that to courtroom exchange ideas only, I feel like we're really missing the point here, because the effects include restoration, peace, healing, and righteousness. And that is what we do have brought out in the New Testament with this passage as well. Those are the things emphasized, not some sort of penal punishment here.

[00:46:22] We have direct intercession in this passage as well. At the very end in verse 12, he is making intercession. So I just find it really bizarre that with all of the frames we've talked about, we're not directly just calling to the priestly bearing. Because it really quite seems obvious to me, especially with the healing and the restoration and the intercession.

[00:46:48] The typical systematic frame of this is that our guilt is transferred to the one who's suffering. The servant is punished by God instead of us. Justice is satisfied. Therefore, forgiveness becomes possible. But a passage-level reading is gonna have to see a more layered frame. Misunderstood suffering, sin-bearing, healing, peace, guilt and offering language, intercession, the many are made righteous, and vindication. The servant's suffering is for others, but it doesn't have to be reduced to this idea of punishment. And indeed, I don't see how it can be when you're looking at it very carefully.

[00:47:30] And so let's take this into frame number six that I have. This is with Matthew eight and bearing sickness. Matthew 8:16 and 17 say, quote, " That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah. 'He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.'" End quote.

[00:48:00] Matthew is applying Isaiah 53 to Jesus's healing and exorcism ministry. This is far before the passion narrative. So here we do not have any cross as penalty transfer bit. Isaiah 53:4 says, "He bore our griefs or sicknesses. He carried our sorrows or pains." And Matthew renders this in connection with illness, disease, demonic oppression, healing, and exorcism.

[00:48:31] Matthew 8 resonates with several frames that we've already discussed. We have the Joseph frame in Genesis. Joseph suffers because of his brother's sin, but becomes the means of life. Jesus enters the suffering and affliction of his people and becomes the means of healing and restoration. We also have the forgiveness and removal frame at play. And Jesus is bearing sickness by removing it. Jesus's healing ministry here reveals the servant mission long before the cross. And the servant's work is not just about death, but restoration. We also have the ransom and redemption frame that we've talked about. Redemption is not only release from guilt, it is release from bondage, danger, sickness, demonic oppression and death-bound conditions.

[00:49:25] We have to bring up 1 Peter 2 again as well. Because Peter does say that Jesus bore our sins in his body on the tree. But just as with every other text, we have to ask what frame Peter gives us. So let's move into frame number seven. And this is the frame of 1 Peter 2. We've got unjust suffering in the passage. We have the idea of non-retaliation, entrusting oneself to the just judge, Christ as a pattern and example, the idea of death to sins and life to righteousness, as well as healing and a return to the shepherd and overseer of souls.

[00:50:09] So we really do not have the question of anyone receiving punishment here. That is just not the context of the passage, even though I know people want it to be because of the tree association and all of that. But it is really asking, how does Christ's faithful suffering heal and form a people who live righteously?

[00:50:31] Let me go ahead and read the passage. I'm actually going to start in 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 18, which says, quote, " Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it, you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in the body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed, for you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls." End quote.

[00:51:50] So you see, Peter is not calling to the people to remember all of the terrible things that they have done and how Jesus suffered instead of them. Now it is certainly calling back to the cross, with the phrase, "In his body on the tree." This is also connected to Isaiah 53, connected to sin, not only sickness. And it is for us language. And it has an effect that we die to sins and live to righteousness.

[00:52:19] So I ask you, what does the sin bearing do? There is a healing and return, just like with Isaiah 53. The effects are not part of the matrix of the first frame that we've talked about, of people bearing their sin themselves. This is people bearing sin more like what we have with Joseph.

[00:52:41] There is a standard evangelical reading that connects the tree with the curse and things like that, right? And so we have a direct path to substitutionary penal terms within evangelical theology just with this single word of the tree. But really we have to go somewhere else for looking at curse language and things like that. So even though there may be Deuteronomy in the background of this word here, Peter's own words are saturated with Isaiah fifty-three and the ethics of unjust suffering. I do think that connects directly to the curse language.

[00:53:19] I want us to note that Peter's emphasis is that context of being saved from sin and death. But the sin in the passage is not our own. It's somebody else's. And we could choose to participate in that, or we can choose to live like Jesus did and trust the one who judges justly. In this chapter Jesus is not portrayed as bearing anyone's guilt. But this passage resonates with priestly mediation. There can be a removal dimension here because sins are not simply counted differently, but their dominion over people is broken.

[00:54:00] When people suffer innocently, they do not retaliate, and they suffer under that injustice and entrust themselves to God, then that is part of this matrix of healing and restoration. And I think that's really hard for a lot of people, especially when we come at things from the context of atonement theory, right? Because we want to have a mechanism. We want to have a way that this works.

[00:54:28] Now, I don't actually think it's a mechanism, but I do think that there is a very deeply human way that this actually works.

[00:54:39] I want you to think about somebody in your life or somebody you've heard about. Surely you've heard a story of somebody who has borne something so deeply in such a way that they make it possible for you also to bear your burdens, whether that is something serious or whether it is a small thing. I want you to think about somebody you know or have heard of who has done something so deeply that it has changed your behavior simply knowing them or knowing about it.

[00:55:15] And then think of God doing that.

[00:55:18] I can think of a host of great examples in my life and examples that I've only heard of, of people who have suffered, who have endured things, and who have come out at the end in ways that have affected me so deeply that my behavior also has been affected by it.

[00:55:41] I wanna ask you if punishment is more important than righteousness. Is God getting His penalty paid truly more important than His leading a righteous people into life, showing us how to bear one another's burdens, healing us even in our afflictions and suffering? If you're a parent or you have been a child one or the other, you probably just innately know how important it is to have modeled behavior in front of you as a child. But it's not just as a child. We need that as adults as well.

[00:56:18] Another way that happens is by learning from other people and by being influenced by other people around us. If you want to change your habits, you can probably do that in a lot of different ways just by yourself. But if you want to change yourself, one of the best ways to do that is to surround yourself by the people who are going to influence you. And humans really do live in a way where we model behavior for other people and other people model behavior for us.

[00:56:51] We're probably all familiar with the psychology of it's easier to do something with a group of people than it is to do it by yourself, even if you're not a particularly extroverted person. This is just how humans work. And so when Christ came incarnate and lived as a human, He truly experienced a life of solidarity with us. And while that might not seem like it's a full mechanism for the way any of this happens, well, consider that we are also indwelt by the Spirit. That we surround ourselves with other people in the body of Christ. I honestly don't think we can say enough about how important those things are, how essential they are to our lives.

[00:57:38] All right, I'm gonna get off my soapbox here, and I'm gonna end the episode now. We have certainly not answered every question about atonement and sacrifice and Isaiah 53 or these New Testament uses of the Old Testament. But I hope we have done something very important. I hope we have seen that bearing sin should not just be collapsed into one thing.

[00:58:03] Across the biblical material, bearing sin can involve personal accountability, guilt, and consequence, but it also can involve priestly mediation, representative responsibility, including holy space management. It's also deeply connected to forgiveness, healing, intercession, and returning to God.

[00:58:27] And so it's not that sin bearing is a small thing here, but we need to ask, which frame are we in? And again, back to the idea of substitution. When substitution means one person receives the punishment owed to another so that the guilty person doesn't undergo it, then not all of these frames qualify. And in fact, I'm gonna ask you which ones do. Where do we actually see that happening? Because we have a whole bunch of more precise categories now that we can see, including accountability, intercession, removal of impurity, forgiveness, and so on.

[00:59:07] So by the time we come to Jesus, we should not ask only, was he punished instead of us? But we need to ask, is he acting as the righteous sufferer? Is he being our mediator and intercessor? Is he bearing the burden of other sin? And if so, how? Is he removing sin? What does this mean for healing? What does this mean for forgiveness? What does this mean for bringing straying sheep home?

[00:59:36] We need to see the people of God as people who truly die to sin and live to righteousness. Not by imputation because we got some legal status, but something that is really truly happening to us and in us and forming us.

[00:59:54] All right. I think I could actually probably just end the substitution series at this point, but I do think that we could add the bit about curse and Galatians 3.

[01:00:06] So our next question that we will ask is, what does it mean that Christ became a curse for us? What is the curse of the law? Is curse language about divine punishment that must be meted out? Or is it tied to covenant, exile, things that have already happened, by the way? And what do we see in Galatians 3?

[01:00:30] So I hope you guys are gonna look forward to that episode, and I'm sure we will also be getting back to the flood narrative as well. If you guys have any questions or anything that you would like me to address that I haven't yet, please feel free to reach out. You can find me through my website at genesismarksthespot.com or on Facebook or in my biblical theology community, On This Rock, which I will leave a link of in the show notes.

[01:01:01] I hope you guys have enjoyed this really deep dive into the idea of substitution. I hope it's been helpful. And I look forward to studying many more topics and many more frames with all of you. But that is it for this week. Big shout out to all of you who support me financially on Patreon or PayPal or in my Biblical Theology community, where we're gonna be doing some new ideas there with new book clubs and things like that. So please feel free to join me there as well. I really appreciate all of you for listening, and I wish you all a blessed week. And we will see you later.