These guests were very insightful and articulate. Thanks for having them on! Very helpful.

This was just excellent. I think the Sin/Shame distinction they make is really good. In a very real sense, sin does not separate us from God - shame does. Because God is ready and willing to forgive the sins of those who are ready and willing to receive his mercy. It’s only our resistance of God (probably because of our shame) that keeps us from him.

Great conversation, thanks for hosting. I think they are right that one of the aspects of salvation is the removal of shame from the believer and the moral transformation through divine grace, and there are plenty of passages that could provide some support to this perspective. So I don't think that this aspect of the atonement is unexistent or unimportant at all. I glory in the fact that I can stand before God unashamed because of Christ's work. It is worth pointing out here that their presentation of two perspectives (either 1. restored relationship then cleansing of sins, or 2. Cleansing of sins then restored relationship) isn't really a fair presentation of the different theories. A constant theme, even in the so-called "transactional" atonement theories is that union with Christ is what brings the unbeliever forgiveness of sins. Relational union with God is both the goal and the means of the forgiveness of sins. They are really two sides of the same coin. You can't have forgiveness of sins without the union with Christ, and you can't have the union with Christ without the forgiveness of sins. A bigger problem is that they seem to think that the shame theory can stand alone, when there are many, many other passages that reveal other aspects of the atonement. Matt 26:26-28 explicitly states that Christ's death was for the forgiveness of sins (doesn't even mention shame or anything about their mental states). Revelation 5:9-10 states in a very transactional way that Christ's blood purchased us. Romans 3:25 talks about Christ's blood being the propitiation (appeasement of God) for sin. Mark 10:45 speaks of Christ's death being a ransom for sin (once again, that transactional language). Such passages could be multiplied greatly. The reason so many atonement theories have a transactional element to them is that the story of redemption in scripture is filled with this transactional language. In spite of their brief comments on the sacrificial system here, the sacrificial system is just rife with this sort of transactional language, and Christ and the apostles clearly saw Jesus as the fulfillment of the sacrificial system. And the idea that the removal of shame by itself explains why Christ had to die just . . . doesn't fit. To use the child example that they refer to frequently, when I comfort my children I do so by speaking softly to them, hugging them, and verbalizing to them in gentle ways how much I care regardless of their failures. I don't hire someone to come into the house and attack the family so I can get beat up defending them and say "see, now you know how much I love you!" It seems like all God would have to do is send a messenger like Jesus, confirm his identity publically through miraculous works, and give the clear message of love and grace and that they can let go of their shame. There doesn't seem to be a need for someone to be brutally tortured and murdered if all that needed to happen was for people to let go of shame. To reuse a trite analogy, we can all understand why a Father would drown in a river to save his child from death. But it wouldn't make sense for the father to drown himself in a river simply to communicate to his son that he loved him and that he need not to be ashamed.

I appreciate any new views or perspectives on the atonement. This one definitely has merit, especially within an honor-shame cultural context and from the perspective of our relational separation of God. I do worry the authors are being a little dismissive of the biblical data that could not be accounted for on their view alone. Happy though they are open to this not being an exhaustive view. I definitively favor a multi-faceted view

Is that the same as moral influence theory?

Some great points were made here. I agree that penal substitution is not at all correct. God is not subject to any legalities of having to punish Jesus instead of us. The view expressed here has similarties with the Christus Victor model in terms of seeing sin and shame as the things that we need rescuing from by considering all that Jesus taught and accomplished.

My pressing question was about the passover lamb and it seems they gave a non-answer to the question of Jesus being sacrificed as the Passover Lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7). They mentioned something about the wilderness (which I think is unrelated to the role of the lamb in Passover) and the rest of their answer was "Most of the other theories go only back to Exodus and we go back to Genesis". I don't understand why they are suddenly creating a competition between books of the Bible.

@auntieanna

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Though we could discuss some adjustments needed to PSA, this was completely inadequate to deal with so much of the text. The sentiment seemed soft enough to send someone spiraling into Adrian Ebens conclusions, or the like. Sad.

@tymmiara5967

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​@@auntieanna I am sorry, I don't understand what you mean, you have provided no context. You said "this was inadequate to deal with so much of the text". What was inadequate? What text are you referring to? The next sentence says "The sentiment seemed soft..." what sentiment? Whose sentiment? Sentiment about what? What is sad? Please elaborate

@auntieanna

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@@tymmiara5967 their (these ladies perspective) entire perspective is inadequate and their entire sentiment (feeling of how to approach Atonement) is inadequate and soft (unable to deal with reality of sin, it's effects, and the necessary solution). The wages of sin is DEATH. YaH slew the animal to cloth Adam & Eve, thrusting them out from access to (Tree of) Life. Yahweh told Abe to bring Isaac up the mountain to slay Him, prophetically teaching us the necessity of Christ to shed blood for our sin. The entire sacrificial system was His doing. Of course they were ashamed. They were guilty of disobedience. That's not a new idea. And putting them back in relationship before 'dying with Christ's, as if His death isn't necessary to atone is, quite honestly, blasphemous. He didn't die in vain. He died so that we could enter Life again. The mechanics of how that works (Atonement theory) is fine to discuss, but we can't come up with something that disregards the above facts... the entire thrust of Scripture - blood covenant!

@tymmiara5967

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@@auntieanna I see, thank you for responding. You are absolutely right that there is just a lot of the biblical text about the reality and seriousness of sin that goes unexplained or outright denied by these authors. I mean specifically the statement at 13:25 "We didn't intend to deny that disobedience was a sin, it's just not the direct reason why we can't be in communion with God. [...] The sin itself is not the reason why God cannot be in communion with us" (the "real" reason being us being ashamed). And you have observed very well that God's command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac is extremely perplexing in pretty much any system unless it's read in the context of a dying Son of God