A RESPONSE TO LARRY SHELTON
by
Arthur M. Climenhaga
I am grateful for this opportunity to interact publicly with Larry Shelton's paper,
because the covenant motif in God's dealing with His people has been an increasingly
important theme in my own thinking.
Allow me to recapitulate briefly the major points of the paper:
1. "The foundational understanding [of atonement] must be essentially
interpersonal."
2. "The entire canonical witness of Scripture must be considered."
3. The Old Testament sacrificial system arose out of and was part of the expression of
the covenant relationship between God and Israel.
4. Jesus Christ established a New Covenant whose "most profound expression"
is the Eucharist.
5. Propitiation and expiation are involved in atonement; atonement is relational and
results in the restoration of the covenant relationship.
6. Neither Christ nor the Old Testament sacrificial victims may be understood solely in
terms of absorption of penalty.
7. Christ in His sacrifice is both representative and example.
8. Historically/culturally framed metaphors for atonement include Anselm's satisfaction
theory, the penal substitution theory of Grotius-adapted by Wesley and many of his
followers, and the "cosmic champion" theory of Aulen.
9. The covenantal model of the atonement ought to receive the serious attention of
Wesleyan scholars because it is a truly Biblical model, it avoids the serious difficulties
of the other models, and it is susceptible of presentation in ways which are culturally
relevant, and thus of greater impact.
If I have accurately understood and summarized Dr. Shelton's paper, then I may say that
I agree with his approach and his conclusions. Allow me to raise a few points, some major
and some minor, as a means of initiating our discussion.
Our understanding of the concept of covenant itself ought to be informed by the usage
of the ancient Near East, of which Israel was a part. Meredith Kline, in his form-critical
analysis of Deuteronomy, the Decalogue, and other passages, has shown that the covenant
God made with Israel utilizes the form of the suzerainty treaty current in the 2nd
millenium B. C.1 Kline works extensively from the Hittite treaties;
Old Babylonian materials also support his thesis. We are interested here primarily in the
results of breaking covenants (treaties). One Old Babylonian king, Hammurapi, insisting on
his faithfulness to a covenant-partner, asked with some vehemence, "Do you not know
that I love life!"2 The penalties exacted for covenant-breaking
most often meant death.
This brings us to a point concerning etymology (which I agree cannot be normative). I
do not find "cut or cleave" as a root meaning of Akkadian biritu,
"clasp," "fetter," "bond," is regarded as the most likely
cognate. However, the common Hebrew idiom is "to cut a covenant." This arose
from the practice, attested in Genesis 15 and in the Mari texts,3 of
cutting sacrificial animals in two and passing between the halves, to signify the penalty
to be exacted if the covenant were broken.
Parenthetically, we should note that the pagan sacrifices mentioned were not ceremonies
for the ratifying of a covenant, as we are discussing here. I do not understand Dr.
Shelton to be saying they were, but the differences in character between most pagan animal
sacrifices and those of Israel need to be stressed.
In the suzerainty treaties, of which Israel's covenant(s) with God is/are example(s),
the initiative to renew or not to renew a broken covenant lay always with the suzerain,
and renewal was always of grace. Repentance of the vassal would be a natural precondition,
and the suzerain determined whether such repentance were genuine and whether punishment
were to be imposed. Re-establishment was really a new covenant.
Even though covenants were regularly imposed upon vassals by suzerains, they were
nevertheless the working documents of interpersonal, and not primarily legal,
relationships. The genius of the covenant was its interpersonal nature; here Mendenhall
and Kline are right in their understanding (though Mendenhall, for programmatic reasons,
minimizes the importance of the suzerainty treaty for Israel). Weinfeld, it seems to me,
obliterates the significance of the covenant by his characterization of it as an
imposition upon Israel of a set of laws.4
I believe that Dr. Shelton is right to reject the penal substitution theory of
atonement both on logical and on Biblical grounds. Our easy lump mg together of all O.T.
sacrifices as sin offerings will not stand in the face of careful exegesis. Not all
sacrifices were for the atonement of sin. At least five distinct offerings are prescribed
in Leviticus, and at most two are for the purpose of atonement for sin. There were
sacrifices for consecration, for praise, for thanksgiving, and for worship.
Further, not all attunements were made in blood, as pointed out in the case of a sin
offering of meal on the part of a pauper. Another example is the atonement money keseph
hakipurim of Exodus 30:16.
It cannot be stressed too much that repentance is absolutely prerequisite to
forgiveness and restoration to the covenant relationship. Compare Isaiah 1:10-17 with its
almost venomous tone, "Bring your worthless offerings no longer"; Micah 6:6-8
and its rhetorical hyperbole; and Malachi 1:6-14, with its sarcastic advice to "offer
it to your governor."
While the legal transactional emphasis of the penal substitutionary theory of atonement
does not do justice to the Biblical data, there is one further point to be made about
covenant and law.5 Even the apparatus of the legal system, both ancient
and modern, whether of Christ, Hillel, Hammurapi, or Locke, is intended ultimately for the
preservation or restoration of cordial, or at least correct, interpersonal relations. With
this in mind, it is interesting to note how frequently the prophets bring their complaints
against Israel's conduct in the form of the rib, or lawsuit. God brought into court His
suit against Israel for breaking the covenant because the covenant had legal force; it was
not an unenforceable private agreement. But the charges rib are never impersonal, merely
the violating of an external standard. The offense is personal, and the charges are framed
that way.
Justice in the A.N.E. and in Scripture was not always retributive in motive. Many times
the focus was on restitution. Incarceration was relatively infrequent, and the death
penalty was for serious infractions. Imposing Western ideas of proper disposition upon the
Bible or the A.N.E. results in distortion.
I would like to add a few observations which I will not have time to develop: The
Abrahamic and Davidic covenants also illuminate for us the function of covenant. I think
that it is significant that in post-2nd Temple Rabbinic Judaism, prayer is substituted for
the sacrifices. It is ironic that covenant was such a dominant theme in the (Calvinist)
Puritans' conception of themselves as the people of God. "Law" is an unfortunate
translation of Hebrew torah and perhaps of Greek nomos. The metaphor
employed in Hebrews 9 is that of a last will and testament, and does not imply a
punishment, vicarious or not; however, the author is quoting (v. 20) Exodus 24:8, where
the Hebrew word is berith. The meaning of hewed needs more work. The atoning life,
death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is more multifaceted than we are wont to
recognize. That is exciting, challenging, and humbling.
Notes
1Kline has there studies: Treaty of the Great King (1963); By
Oath Consigned (1968); and The Structure of Biblical Authority (1972). He builds on the
study of G. Mendenhall in Biblical Archaeologist 17 (1954), reprinted in 1955 as Law and
Covenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East. Mendenhall was the first to point out the
Hittite treaty/Sinai Covenant parallels.
2See Archives Royales de Mari II 72:24.
3See discussion and references in E. A. Speiser, Genesis, Vol. I,
The Anchor Bible, pp. 112-113.
4Moshe Weinfeld, "Berith, " TDOT, Vol. I, pp.
253-279.
5Dr. Shelton mentions it on p. 1 of his paper, and in a sense his
paper is a development of this point.
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