Atonement: What's Sufficient?

In yesterday's post, The Last Sin Eater, I took the evangelical, Anselmian view that only God is great enough to atone for people's sins. Today, I want to express my irritation with evangelicals on this issue.

I once attended a Messianic Jewish gathering on Yom Kippur, and the rabbi was talking about the need to witness to Jews. "Some of them seriously believe that waving a slaughtered chicken over their heads can atone for their sins," he said. He was referring to a custom that exists in certain orthodox Jewish communities.

But I wonder how he'd convince orthodox Jews that a slaughtered chicken can't atone for their sins. Would he say that only God incarnate can serve as a sufficient sacrifice for humanity? An orthodox Jew could then ask, "Says who? Why should I believe God abides by that rule?"

Those of us who are Christians have to believe in Hebrews 10:4, which says that "it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins" (NRSV). But that's not part of the Hebrew Bible. Sure, there are plenty of Old Testament passages in which God is not appeased by animal sacrifices. But their point is not that the offerings never work: they're just conveying the importance of repentance and morality as well. In many parts of the Hebrew Bible, we read that a person who offers animal sacrifices while neglecting to walk in justice, mercy, and faith is not pleasing to God.

I can understand why a Jew would read the Hebrew Bible and conclude that animal sacrifices bring about forgiveness. Throughout Leviticus 4, we read about rituals in which an Israelite brings an animal for a sin offering. The priest then makes atonement for him, and the Israelite is forgiven. II Chronicles 29:23-24 says: "Then the male goats for the sin offering were brought to the king and the assembly; they laid their hands on them, and the priests slaughtered them and made a sin offering with their blood at the altar, to make atonement for all Israel." The priests performed the sin offering in order to make atonement for all of Israel. So animals have no atoning value? And, in Ezekiel's vision of restored Israel, God commands the future prince to offer sacrifices for atonement (Ezekiel 45:15, 17). Does the blood of bulls and goats truly fail to take away sin, as far as the Hebrew Bible is concerned?

In Exodus 30, we read that money can perform an atoning function. V 12 says, "When you take a census of the sons of Israel to number them, then each one of them shall give a ransom for himself to the LORD, when you number them, that there may be no plague among them when you number them." The word translated as "ransom" is koper, or "atonement." And what atones for the necessary evil of taking a census? Half a shekel (vv 13-16). "Only God can be a sufficient ransom for sin"? How about money?

My problem with a lot of evangelicals is that they assume Christianity in their attempts to defend Christianity. "Only God can be an adequate substitute for sin" is a Christian presupposition. Non-Christian Jews don't hold it, for, when they read their Bibles, they see that animals and money can bring about atonement.

Tomorrow, I want to wrestle some with Hebrews' argument on animal sacrifices.