Garbage Removal (1)
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! John 1:29 ESV
Takes away– A few days ago (April 22) we examined the Greek and Hebrew roots of this idea. We noted, “Whether the sense in Jn. 1:29 is ‘to take up and carry,’ i.e., in a vicarious bearing of penalty, or ‘to carry off,’ i.e., to remove by expiation, is debatable.” But perhaps there’s another nuance that we need to consider. In popular Christian music and theology, we are often told that Jesus’ death removes our sin. Our view of personal salvation seems to depend on some form of expiation or substitution, as if God’s anger needs to be appeased or His holy code needs to be met. In other words, we associate “takes away” (Greek aírō) with “saves” (Greek sṓzō).
But there is a possibility that none of this is what John the Baptist had in mind.
In Hebrew thought, “to save” means, “to remove from imminent danger.” Like most Hebrew concepts, this is rooted in living existence here and now, that is, in the practical, every day life we live. It is not primarily a spiritual, otherworldly concept. Therefore, to remove from imminent danger would be immediately understood in the socio-political world of the First Century, in particular, in the worldview of John’s audience. But John doesn’t announce a message of salvation. He announces a message of cosmic redemption. This is not ethnically or politically specific. It is the “sin of the world” that concerns John. If John spoke about salvation, his audience would have understood this as a claim that the Messiah was going to remove Rome and establish the Kingdom of Israel. But “the sin of the world” isn’t just about Rome. Furthermore, as we noted before, establishing the kingdom doesn’t save people from sin. It rescues people, particularly Israel, from the consequences of sin but that is not the same as taking away the world’s sin.
While John does not use the Greek term sṓzō, it is worth noting that, commonly understood, sṓzō also refers to rescue from “serious peril . . . keeping alive, e.g., pardoning, protecting, keeping from want, keeping a fire going. . . keeping in good health [or] preserving the inner being or nature.”[1] All of these nuances are also present in the religious use of the term for the Greeks. Notice that they are not specifically spiritual, i.e., otherworldly. While John’s message was for the Jews, Gentiles might also have expected his warning to be about an immediate threat.
Does John the Baptist preach repentance for forgiveness, or for something else? The usual explanation of John follows this:
“He preached repentance and a baptism of repentance. The waters of the Jordan bore away people’s sins as they confessed and changed their ways.”
But only Luke seems to specify repentance for forgiveness. Consider Matthew’s account, written for a Jewish audience:
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matthew 3:2
“and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, as they confessed their sins.” Matthew 3:6
In Matthew, repentance is about the anticipation of the Kingdom. It is true that the people confessed their sins, but nowhere does Matthew say that they did this as a preliminary step for forgiveness. If we understand the First Century Jewish concept of Kingdom, we might conclude that it isn’t forgiveness that is anticipated. Repentance was necessary so that the Kingdom would be established. But this is repentance on a national scale, not an individual, personal one. John’s similarities with the Essenes points in the same direction. Believing that the contemporary Jewish authority was irretrievably corrupt, the Essenes chose to leave the larger community to establish a purified sect anticipating the coming of the Messiah. David Lambert’s work, How Repentance Became Biblical, demonstrates that repentance was an initiation rite into the Essene community and was not considered a step in personal salvation. Perhaps John advocated the same.
Clearly, we aren’t done. There is more to discover about this salvation assumption we have placed into the mouth of John. Tomorrow.
Topical Index: repentance, forgiveness, salvation, aírō,sṓzō, takes away, John 1:29
[1]Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament(1132). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.
The LXX uses airō in 1 Samuel 15:25 and 25:28, both times in the sense of pardoning or removing guilt, and both times translating nāśāʾ.
In the following I will copy and paste a portion of a comment I’d posted on the “Saving Grace” TW:
In the present example airō is likely multivalent, to include the meaning of being ‘taken up’, or ‘lifted up’ on the cross. John uses this same verb in 10:18: “no one airō it [My life (psychē)] from Me…”. In addition it is used (ironically) in the imperative by Jesus’ Jewish adversaries in 19:15: “airō, airō, crucify him!” His adversaries may have demanded that He be airō, but “no one airō it from Me”. Jesus allowed Himself to be ‘taken up’ voluntarily {taking an active role} (this is stressed in John’s Gospel, though the Synoptics are a bit ambivalent [‘if possible, take this cup from Me, yet not My will but Yours be done’ compared to John 18:11, e.g.]).
I’m not sure how advantageous this tangential enquiry of sṓzō is for the present verse, since, as stated, the term isn’t used in John’s Gospel. More important is what “the world” means, and one need look no further than John 3:16 for that.
I was much too hasty. I should have checked sṓzō in John’s Gospel, for it IS used in 3:17 and a number of other places. “For God so loved “the world” that He sent His Son…to save (sṓzō) “the world” through Him.” This, of course, is stated after Jesus states that just like Moses ‘lifted up’ the snake in the desert so must the Son of Man be ‘lifted up’.
And perhaps not. There is no evidence to suggest that the Gospel writer had the Essene initiation rite in mind here. To make that case, one would have to figure out how John 3:5 could be used to support it. But the Greek construction there is most likely one unit—water-and-spirit—as opposed to one initiatory rite following by another.
Craig you high light an interesting difference in the dialects used by the authors. Could this be because of the regions they were living in. I know that one language can have different dialects with specific different words but they are intended to mean the same thing.
Let’s assume that is the case in the different gospels. What we have discussed till now on the blog clearly shows that salvation is God’s promise for those who achieve a certain prerequisite. Repentance seems to be the major requirement here. Is it for the kingdom, forgiveness or acceptance unto God and His will does not really make a difference. The important message is repent. As
Seeker,
I’m not exactly what you’re referring to here. Could you be more specific?
Sorry distracted in searching for the correct scriptures…
As Ezekiel said in 18:31&32 and 43:7. God is manifesting His dwelling amongst the children of Israel but they need to repent and cast away their sins. Not the death of another to take away sins. Was in not Paul that said if we sin again we crucify Christ
anew…
Choices all result in actions or withholding from these. Sin is in short proclaimed as forgiveable except when we sin against the Spirit… Repentance is something we need to do daily to grow into the son or daughter of God. And that is how I understand the death on the cross. We need to do it daily to progress towards knowing God and the salvation through anointment He has provided. Could John the Baptist not be referring to obedience as the way to take away sin. As that is what Yeshua taught in His teachings document in the gospels…
What gain is it if we help and rescue others but ourselves we fail to grow through repentance… We need to die on the cross to overcome the world and sin…
You’re referring to Hebrews 6:4-6. Jacob Cerone provided excellent fodder for this verse (I comment below):
jacobcerone dot com/2015/03/11/public-shaming-of-christ/
While we need to ‘take up our cross daily’, this is only efficacious in concert with believing in the One Who allowed Himself to be crucified for ‘the sins of the world’.
Craig thank you for both responses.
On your first response. Difference in dialect for example synonyms referring to take up/-upon/ -away.
When taking away it does not require repentance but rather just forgetting the past. If that was why the redemption was initiated I would agree for all before the Son was sent and then the later crucifixion would have no Godly purpose. Your sins are forgiven and forgotten – go live a life you know is without sin… In fact this I’d implied by the adulterous woman. So may be a justified understanding.
But if repentance is required the sending of the Son may imply something different… Such as first giving the right example of a required lifestyle then upholding this as the only means to reunite with the Father. This was only established later seems like only into the late part of the second year of Yeshua ministry. At this early stage of Yeshua life the process of the taking away was not relevant to the audience or may not have made the same impact. Just think, If John proclaimed here is the lamb of God who will teach you true repentance, would anyone have thought of him different from a High Priest or Prophet? The announcement of take away seems to have been important at that period in Yeshua ministry. Just my 2 cents. If I make no sense please forgive me.
The reference to Jacob Cerome was an interesting read. Making a mockery of being anointed in Christ is how I understand the implications of Heb 6.
Paul provides two clear descriptions of the crucifixion. Maybe a third one if we read 1 Corinthians 15 as how we personally can overcome death… First in Romans 6 – towards sin. Then in Galatians 6 the revelation of the world and how we overcome its deadly impact on our faith. Both referring to something decided on and lived out. Repentance which seems how Paul also understood Yeshua had to accomplish before he could guide and intercede for others, Paul’s explanation in his letter to Timothy.
In short taking away of sins seems to be understanding daily repentance above sacrificial ceremonies that were practiced once a year… It never was intended to be pardon for all as proclaimed today by those preaching just ask in the name of Jesus… This is how I follow Skip on what it is to become sons and daughters of God.
Hi Seeker, I think this is the case when the bible is best interpreted by the bible itself: Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and mount it on a pole. When anyone who is bitten looks at it, he will live.” Numbers 21:8. Simple, – like all God’s instructions….. so it looks like the only prerequisite to being saved is to “look at it” (not to repent… Besides, if you are already sick – it’s a bit too late for repenting).
But that story is about something else. Read my book Cross Word Puzzles
Craig, my ‘personal’ sins are never just about me: they are a product of a whole lot of choices of others that I just got the bill for. Most of my ‘choices’ I thought I was making was just programming set in motion by others in my life. I am a product of the wrong choices of my community (includes my genetic, historical community – um, family of origin) just as much as I am a product of their right ones. Repentance is the only choice I have left, in fact, when it comes to sin, as sin is where my ability to choose got chosen away, either by myself OR OTHERS. Repentance, then, is never just about me, as I am not just a product of my own choices. When I get rid of sin in my life by contrition and returning, I am reversing a whole bunch of choices of others, too.
Forgiveness gets tangled up in here in the same way, I think. Yeshua made it quite clear that we got forgiven when we forgave others: specifically all the choices of others that affected my ability to choose, too. I get “forgiven” (returned back to freedom of choice again in that place) when I forgive (let them off the hook) those who put me on their hook by their choices. Sin is never a private affair, for sin is the disruption in the connection between MORE than one: more than one are affected. I carry the curses of the choices of others as well as myself: I carry the consequences of an entire community’s worth of choices, for they all affect me. Repentance of one, then, clears the POTENTIAL runway of more than one. When I forgive you, I have cleared the ability for us to relate again. When I forgave my ancestors their poor choices, I cleared epigenetic and emotional and mental pathways that got clogged for me from way back when, too. The choices of my community and family of origin got me into trouble, but my choices can change my ability to relate to them, back again. Repentance and forgiveness alike are about so much more than me!
Effectively then, is it the one choice – to obey God (not merely legally, but in faith, i.e. ‘faithful loyalty’) – that provides victory? “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” – 1 John 5.4-5
“repentance was an initiation rite into the Essene community”. What exactly is repentance? When I went to repent; specifically because I wanted to be healed, I found all sorts of crazy stuff going on in my real estate that was fouling up the works but that was not necessarily a product of my choices (even though, like a good parasite-infected host, I was ‘entertaining them’). I found generational spiritual overrides that were shoving me around: some of those were really nasty Teflon glosses over who I really was. For example, when I thought I was speaking my heart, stuff came out of my mouth (and actions!) and got heard (and experienced) by others that did NOT express what I really meant. Repentance, then, did deliver me from this corruption of me, even though I could tell that it had been passed down generationally and just happened to have been passed to me because nobody else had recognized it and taken care of it. My personal healing was almost a side effect of identifying what was fracturing relationships in my life and doing my part of deliverance from those foul motivations and curses and all that was not the mind of Christ formed in me, no matter where it may have come from originally, or whose choices set it in motion. It is a fact that we are, like Skip said yesterday, a product of a whole lot of choices made by others that they did not consult us on! But, once I am saddled with the consequences, it is up to me to do something about it.
Salvation does deliver us from sin, but what is sin? Whatever separates us from the commonwealth of all. Sin, in fact, is what makes us singular: separate, which is a death sentence. What is deliverance? Anything that returns us to community and peace with reality, heaven, and ourselves. So there is no such thing as ‘personal salvation’ for I have been saved FROM fracture (which destroys my identity as a person) back INTO communal existence (which returns me to personhood as a side effect of relationship with all again).
Life is connection with more than me, as my unique personality is a side effect of my unique mirroring of all that I am connected to. I think sin lies and tells us that fracture – separateness – is how we get to be ‘ourselves’. In fact, sin is an attempt to separate ourselves because we have lost essential trust: faith in our connections: but in the process, self is destroyed. Repentance, then, is about recognizing our fracture and is our part of reconnecting back with all, as per design. In the process, my identity – that sin erased in me when it put me on the wrong side of the looking glass of my unique mirroring of the reality that provides that identity – gets restored. Identity arises out of community: community is not ‘built’ out of discrete ‘pieces’ (individuals): that would be Greek thinking. I get to be me only I as allow (trust) you to be you as a facet of me. We all get our individuality from community. Salvation RETURNS me to being a person: returns me from no identity or false identity, to who I really am as a function of the whole.
I have a private relationship with my Redeemer: yes I do: but that is not what my salvation IS: my salvation is where He handed me my real self when He linked me back up, by means of the faith that works by love, to the trust in God, self and others and reality I lost when I lost my self. I found that I don’t get Christ without His Body because He IS that Body now. I got saved from isolation back INTO community. May I stay there this time!
What is the “world” Yeshua bore the sins of? Why, if all of us, saints and sinners alike, are still choosing death just as hard as we can go, are any of us still walking around? Grace? Just exactly what IS grace? Some pedantic bone tossed to us: some arbitrary decree from the throne? Or did in cost heaven? When Yeshua came to us “full of grace and truth” what did that mean? If the entire world is choosing death – doing the actions of separating themselves and all of reality that is affected by their choices – then why are those choices not resulting in death (annihilation) but merely curses? Grace? What does grace DO? And how does grace do it?
What if the death of Christ (“He became the curse for us”) IS the curse of God that allows us to continue to limp around instead of falling over dead: is the bridge in the gap of reality we keep choosing? What if He did not die for just those who repent, but for all the choices of all those who are not and never will repent? What if He took our death that we keep choosing on Him so that we can stay alive by means of the curses (which I believe are really blessings of grace for sinners)? Does that mean He saves everybody? Nope. They still get to choose whether or not they want to return to community, but I think grace is what holds the choice window open so as to give the world that opportunity. I suspect that grace is where Somebody is taking a death beating so that we – the entire world – can stay alive long enough to completely wear out our choice chances. I think there is a whole lot more to salvation – and our chances for salvation – that we don’t understand, than what we think we do.
Laurita, 3 P’s for your 3 Posts today. Prodigious, Profound, Profitable. Thank you.
I will answer your first question. “The world” must consist of those capable of believing in Him (3:16, 18), which means it excludes the rest of creation that lacks this capability.
Tomorrow! Can’t wait!!
Two things.
First, there’s what God does about sin.
Second, there’s what we do about sin.
God’s love and wisdom called for sin’s ultimate
consequence, death, to meet its match. The sinless
life of His Son, willing to face death–and defeat it — was
the center of the plan. Yeshua completed it in eternity “the
Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world”, and in
our world of time and space. “This is my blood of the covenant
which is poured out for many.” Mk 14:24
Next up is us. We directly participate as we identify with his death
for us by facing our own sin dead on, and turning from it, as if we too
were crucified with Christ. “God made him who had no sin to be sin
for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
He’s done the work. And He’s given us His Spirit to guide us into all truth.
Good morning. You (Skip) said “ repentance was necessary, so that the kingdom could be established”. That sentence really zinged me. Even if we are speaking about collective repentance, it has to begin somewhere, and usually that is with the individual. In the Lords prayer he says “forgive us our debts, AS we forgive our debtors “. Living a lifestyle of the spirit of forgiveness on a daily basis with all of those who don’t meet our expectations. We don’t hold them hostage, but we release them and in releasing them we ourselves are released. When I think about my earthly family, my siblings, and all of the trash of past sins that has accumulated and has not been dealt with, it is impossible for the kingdom of God to be set up in that scenario. We are all “Christians “and yet all separate from each other. Just as our sins separate us from God, so they separate us from each other. I cannot make someone else forgive me for those things that they are holding against me, whether it is things actually done or things imagined. I can do my individual part according to the prescription set up by God in regards to taking communion. I don’t sit and wait for my brother to come to me with his grievances, but I am instructed to go to him. This may result in healing and restoration or the grievance may become more concrete and continue to be a block to the kingdom. The kingdom in so many ways is fluid. It’s organic. It’s alive. My interaction with God is reflected in my relationship with people. It’s sort of like waves or ripples. I think, the problem ends up being that we don’t want to have to deal with our sins or with repentance, we just want everything and everyone else around us to adjust. We want to experience life without going through death. We don’t want to deal with issues because they’re dirty and messy and our pride gets in the way. God seeks to be involved in every relationship we have. How I interact with every person I come into contact with every day.
As the old saying goes, “if everyone lit just one little candle “. I’m not trying to be simplistic here, and yet, and so many ways it is simple and we make it so complicated. The word would be love(agape) disinterested love. The reason we get so offended by so many people and situations is because what we have is not God’s love but love with all kinds of strings and expectations and when they’re not met we harbor resentment, which separates us, which in turn creates the difficulty of living in the kingdom . Well, now I’m rattling, so I’ll stop. Feel a bit out of my depths here, especially with some of you scholars.
Biblically, repentance seems to be about returning to the way of life in all its fullness, and averting (turning from) the way of death and destruction. Repentance is being restored to personal obedient allegiance to God, and to cooperative alliance with the rest of mankind (yet discerning that adversarial spirits are present that differentiate the sons of obedience from the sons of disobedience). Repentance is a personal response to return in obedience and faithful loyalty to God, but it is done with the understanding that you are not simply seeking personal salvation; you are joining a community of allegiant and allied persons of like commitment.
Coincidentally, I am reading about this very thing in Brad Young’s Jesus the Jewish Theologian!