{"id":1076,"date":"2010-05-01T14:04:05","date_gmt":"2010-05-01T14:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2010\/05\/the-story-of-sin--a-dark-tale-part-five.html"},"modified":"2010-05-01T14:04:05","modified_gmt":"2010-05-01T14:04:05","slug":"the-story-of-sin-a-dark-tale-part-five","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/05\/the-story-of-sin-a-dark-tale-part-five.html","title":{"rendered":"The Story of Sin— A Dark Tale Part Five"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Thumbnail<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

In his fourth chapter (the first chapter in part two,
\nentitled ‘Making a Payment On one’s Debt), 
\n<\/span>Professor Anderson goes on to point that this notion of sin as a debt,
\nis clear enough even in the latter part of the OT, and he points in particular
\nto Is. 40.2.  <\/span>He also points out that
\nwhen sin is viewed as debt, then the concept of satisfaction or payment of the
\ndebt cannot be far behind.  <\/span>Thus Isaiah
\nsays ” Speak tenderly to Jerusalem
\nand declare to her that her term of service is over, the debt owed for her iniquity
\nhas been satisfied. For she has received double for all her sins.’ in that
\nverse.  <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The imgery here combines the
\nnotion of slavery, and sin as a debt, so that we have sin as both a sort of
\nbondage from which one must be redeemed like a slave, and the notion of being
\nin debt, and so needing to do debt service. “When the debt slave has worked for
\na sufficient amount of time, the debts will be considered repaid and the term
\nof slavery will end.” (p. 47).  <\/span>Israel, in other words, was sent off into exile
\nin Babylon to
\nrepay a debt…a sin debt.  <\/span>God even says
\nin Is. 50.1— ‘to which of my creditors was it to whom I sold you off? You
\nwere only sold off for your sins”.  
<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>But
\nit is not just sin language that comes into the orbit of commercial
\ndiction,  <\/span>even the language about making
\na vow to God is invaded by such vocabulary. The psalmist says “I pay my vows in
\nthe presence of his worshippers” (Ps. 22.26). 
\n<\/span>But this vow\/payment is in response to a divine deliverance as the
\nearlier part of this psalm, recited by Jesus from the cross no less,
\nshows.   <\/span>In the OT a sin offering, in fact
\ndoes not repay a debt, rather it cleanses the sanctuary from impurity.  <\/span>The language of atonement is originally not
\nintermingled with the language of commerce. (see p. 53).   <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But how did Israel pay for her sins while in
\nexile? Anderson
\ntheorizes that Isaiah conceives of suffering as a means of paying down the sin
\ndebt. It seems pretty clear from the Sifre of R. Nehemiah (3rd<\/sup> century
\nA.D.) that by Mishnaic times this was how suffering was viewed, as a payment
\nfor sins.  <\/span>The question is whether one
\nalready finds it in Isaiah or not.  <\/span>Anderson has no doubt: “for the author of Second Isaiah, Israel’s sins at the close of the First Temple
\nperiod had put her over her head in debt. Decades of penal service in Babylon would be required
\nto satisfy its terms.”  <\/span>(p. 54)  <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One may well wonder where the grace and mercy
\nof God is in all this calculation.   <\/span>God
\ncomes across as a parsiminous accountant. Anderson
\nresponds that God set up things so that sins have definite consequences, and so
\nit is word of grace, and a relief, when God says–you’ve paid for your crime,
\nnow be set free. The punishment is not infinite but rather proportionate.   <\/span>But this sort of mercy, falls far short of
\nthe sort of grace and truth seen in the atoning death of Jesus, as we shall
\nhave occasion to say later.  <\/span> <\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his fourth chapter (the first chapter in part two, entitled ‘Making a Payment On one’s Debt),  Professor Anderson goes on to point that this notion of sin as a debt, is clear enough even in the latter part of the OT, and he points in particular to Is. 40.2.  He also points out that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Story of Sin- A Dark Tale Part Five - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2010\/05\/the-story-of-sin-a-dark-tale-part-five.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Story of Sin- A Dark Tale Part Five - 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A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}