Atonement through Recapitulation

Atm trying to write an essay on Irenaeus' Doctrine of Recapitulation.  It's very confusing and difficult, as his doctrine is from putting together bits and pieces of his writings in his 5 books titled "Against Heresies" (plus some from another of his book) which he wrote mainly to refute Gnosticism.  Irenaeus' writings is from around 180AD.  He claimed to have heard Polycarp taught (Polycarp claimed to have direct contacts with the Apostles), and thus believed that he inherited the views and traditions from the Apostles themselves.

Its been very interesting and challenging, for his view of atonement for sin is totally not related to Jesus being the perfect sacrifice for our sins.  Our current orthodox view is that Humanity was initially good, and became corrupted with sin at the Fall of Genesis 3.  The rest of the OT was dealing with the sin of humanity, and about God's promise to restore us back to our original state.  The sacrificial laws were just a temporary measure to deal with sins, until a better way came.

This better way is of course Jesus Christ.  Jesus lived a perfect life without sin, and in the end intentionally chose to die on the Cross.  There, God the Father put all the sins of humanity onto Jesus and punished him.  Thus our term 'substitutionary atonement'.  Jesus died, that we may live.  Therefore we are now considered righteous in God's sight, for our sins are no longer held against us - Jesus has been the perfect sacrifice for the sin of humanity.  This free grace is extended to all who would acknowledge their sin, accept that Jesus has died for them, and proclaim him as their Lord and Saviour.

Irenaeus has a very different view.  While still centred around Christ, his focus is on Jesus' obedience in life, rather than our strong emphasis on his death.  Irenaeus rely heavy on Romans 5:12-21, which talks about Jesus as the new Adam.  Basically humanity fell as a result of the disobedience of Adam.  Since then humanity was stuffed.  However God came down as Jesus, and reversed this act.  Thus his life is a recount of the fall, except Jesus was obedient and passed each stage where Adam failed.  Jesus was tempted by Satan but succeeded.  Jesus lived a life of full obedience, without sin.  He was obedient even to death on the cross.  Thus as sin entered through the tree of life in the Garden of Eden, Jesus reverse it through the tree of death - ie on the cross at his crucifixion.

Therefore Jesus has reversed the state of humanity.  Furthermore, because he is also God who has entered humanity, we can, through him, go back to God.  Thus Irenaeus' idea of deification, that humanity will not only be restored to the state before the fall, but will surpass that and become like God himself.

This idea is attractive in that it does use the Bible and tries to be theological - accounting for the bigger story of the flow of the Bible.  However, a few significant things worry me.

Firstly is Irenaeus' view of the original mankind as being imperfect.  He views that God made Adam imperfect, and thus Adam fell. Irenaeus believes that God could not make humanity perfect, because they are 'created', and came 'after' God - and he views perfection as being uncreated and out of time.  Thus he claims that Adam could not receive divine status (perfection), as he was immature and not ready.  He gives analogy to giving solid food to a newborn baby.  Thus God intended Adam to grow and slowly mature.....evolve so to say, until he reaches a stage where God can give him Divinity.  The fall basically stopped our evolution, and thus Jesus was needed to restore us back to the state of Adam.  Of course this is not the end, as even now we are still in the process of becoming Divine.

This argument is weak as it has no Biblical grounding other than his speculation and thinking up new ideas.  It contradicts the start of the Bible, which attests that the creation of mankind 'was good'.  Sin is what corrupted mankind.  However Irenaeus views mankind to be flawed from the get-go, thereby implying it was God's fault.  Irenaeus also contradicts himself, for he starts his argument by strongly asserting the Sovereignty of God, and that God could have made Adam perfect if he wanted to.  Irenaeus then went on to say how God can't give Adam divine status as Adam could not receive it, and thus God has to go through this longer path of maturing Adam.  These 2 ideas are in total contradiction with each other.  Many people prefer Irenaeus' view as it seem to align more with Darwin's hypothesis on origin of mankind through evolution (going from bad to better) rather than the traditional view of the Bible (was good but became bad through sin).

Irenaeus also introduces Mary's obedience to reclaim Eve's disobedience, possibly being the source of the Roman Catholic Tradition of Mary today.  Irenaeus takes pain to explain how Jesus had to be God himself in the physical flesh to be able to redeem humanity.  A lesser god, or a pure human could not do it.  Nor could Jesus be just in spirit as the Gnostics claim, for he had to fight for humanity.  Yet Irenaeus felt nothing wrong to claim that Mary reversed Eve's disobedience in the same way Jesus reversed Adam's disobedience, even though there was nothing divine about Mary.  Indeed this confusion is most likely what has led to people thinking so highly of Mary.  If only God himself could have reversed Adam, then Mary would have to be almost that level to do the same for Eve!  Once again Irenaeus pulls out new ideas which does not have basis in the Bible.  Extrapolations taken too far.  Ideas which are illogical even based upon his own arguments.

Irenaeus' view of atonement through recapitulation (meaning is literally 'summing up' - ie Jesus summed up humanity in himself.  He basically was a champion for humanity, and beat Satan at his own game, thus winning for us the victory - thus the idea of "Christus Victor") neglects strong passages in Romans 3:21-16 and Hebrews Chp 10, which clearly describes propitiation of God's wrath through the sacrifice and blood of Jesus in his death.  Irenaeus deals with evil by saying Jesus defeated Satan by championing humanity in his own life, but neglects to account for God's wrath and judgment on sin and sinners.  This reminds me of modern views that God is all loving and wouldn't condemn anyone to eternal hell.  Thus he'll save everyone even if they don't believe in Jesus.  Such 'fluffy' theology neglects why God would give the Law and sacrificial system temporarily to Israel, while waiting for the perfect Lamb of God (referred to esp in Revelation).

Yes Jesus did encapsulate humanity (esp Israel) in himself and lived a perfect life.  However his perfect life is so that he could be a pure and spotless lamb to die as a sacrifice for the sins of humanity.  Yes Jesus' actions reversed the consequence of Adam's disobedience.  However it is through Jesus' blood poured out for many in his death.

Granted Irenaeus was an early church father (many of whom have some views which are very strange), who defended the faith from Gnosticism, which was a huge contribution in Christian History.  We usually excuse early church father, for they did not have as many resources and thinkers which we currently benefit from.  However Irenaeus had access to the full NT as we have it, but failed to exegete from it.  Rather he eisegeted, philosophically came up with new ideas, and tried to grab verses from the Bible to back him up.  Irenaeus is also basically the father of Greek orthodox, and this view of deification and atonement is what they believe even today.

Irenaeus contributed significantly to our Christian thinking.  However we must be careful, when reading writings from the early church fathers, to not easily fall under their arguments of rhetoric.

Anyone without sin..

Yesterday at COAH (City On A Hill - a church near Melbourne city), a very interesting passage was discussed, being John 8:1-11.  This passage brings forth the famous "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her" line.

With my recent studies, this passage has become a bit of an enigma to me.  I'm not sure what to do with it.

The first issue is whether it should be in the bible at all!  The earlier and more reliable manuscripts in fact do not have this passage, with its addition only incorporated into the later copies.  Last Saturday I had an interesting discussion with my brother on whether the end of Mark should be in the bible at all, for similar reasons.  His view was that no matter who wrote it, we believe that the final bible that we have is the work of God - ie it was inspired by God.  Thus whether it was there or not originally does not matter; it is here now in our bible, and thus we should accept it as the word of God.

I'm not too convinced of his argument.  For even if we trust in the end result of this bible as being from God, all bibles take pain to state that these 2 passages are missing from the earlier and more reliable sources.  Each passage starts with a little note stating so.  I feel that they have been left in more for tradition rather than anything, possibly following the King James Bible traditions.

We must acknowledge that our Reformed Christianity nowadays differ from the original pathway of Christianity (ie the Catholics).  If we just accept everything as being inspired by God, then certainly we should all be Catholics and following their teachings.

Another possibility is that we should accept whatever was accepted as the Canon when it was introduced.  This seems more valid to me, although I'm not sure if these passages were in the gospels at that time.  Anyway this area is probably way more complicated that I can reflect on here (and also I must admit that I have not done enough research into this to make a final conclusion).

My second issue is the famous phrase "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her".  The pastor at COAH explained that this passage does not mean as we normally think it mean - ie that we shouldn't judge others because we ourselves have sinned too.  He rightly explained that those kind of interpretation is wrong (although very often used by Christians and non-Christians alike: "No one's perfect" etc).  If that was so, then there will be no source of morality.  No sense of right and wrong, anyone can just do anything they want in this life without being judged (until God comes back anyway).  The Law of Moses however was a set up jurisdiction for the nation to operate.  Sure, we shouldn't judge/condemn others for their sins, for we are sinners too.  However, as the government, they are allowed to pass law and judgement upon their people.  The judges of the country judge on behalf of the nation, not by themselves.

The pastor went on to explain that what was happening here with the Pharisees and Scribes was just a trap for Jesus (as clearly stated in 8:6), and that this was not a real court case.  They're trying to pass on the Law of Moses, but not in the way that the Law itself stated for it to be done.  It should be in a private trial, giving the accused a fair chance to present their own case.  The male whom she was caught in adultery with should also be there.  This was a farce.  They were in no legitimate position to be passing on the Law of Moses. 

I agree with everything the pastor said.  He explained it very well.  However... the problem remains.  Jesus' words were not "if anyone of you is without sinful intentions, let him cast the first stone", which was what the pastor was arguing for the interpretation of this verse to be.  That Jesus was saying that their motives for such judgement were sinful, and thus they cannot pass the sentence of the Law.  But Jesus did not say that!  I feel like that was eisegesis, rather than exegesis... putting things into the Bible to make it make sense.  Jesus clearly said that if anyone is without sin, let them be the first to throw the stone.  Furthermore, after they all had left, Jesus told the woman that because none of the others had condemned her, then neither will he.  Surely Jesus' motives/intent is pure.... but he does not pass judgement either.

The question then, is the role of the Mosaic Law, and Jesus' abiding to it.  Throughout the gospels, Jesus was always a good Jew.  He fulfilled all the requirements, did everything he was supposed to.  His "breaking" of the Sabbath was in fact a breaking of the extra traditions imposed through the line of the religious leaders, and not breaking of the Law itself.  And yet in this case, we see clearly that Jesus is suggesting that it's okay to break the Law.  Now Christians will find it easy to accept.  Of course Jesus would favour love and mercy and forgiveness over the Law; and nowadays we don't follow a lot of the Law anyway.  But I'm confused to why Jesus would suggest it that clearly.  Is Jesus saying to the people of that time that they shouldn't be allowed to pass judgement (as a government) over those who do wrong?  Surely not??

It goes back to my question of whether this passage belong in the Bible in the first place....hm..

Pilot

Theological college has been a great experience and a continual blessing to me.  It has raised many questions and reflections.

Unfortunately often I'm caught up in writing essays and answering questions and doing homework... I think and reflect upon many things...but have no place to gather my thoughts.  Sometimes the thought is only very small..very fleeting.

Thus I have decided to start this blog, mainly has a place to put my questions, my reflections, my learning, and hopefully some answers as well.  I don't really mind if people read it or not... the main point is for me to be able to collage my floating thoughts.

Of course I am very much not an essay/writing person.  In fact writing is my weakest area, being heavily trained in the field of science and health.  Thus please do not expect any great crafting of the pen (or the keyboard in this case).