A RESPONSE TO MICHAEL SHANBOUR=S AA GOSPEL ACCOUNT OF OUR FATHER AND THE BLOOD ATONEMENT OF JESUS@ BY DALE E

A RESPONSE TO MICHAEL SHANBOUR’S “A GOSPEL ACCOUNT OF OUR FATHER AND THE BLOOD ATONEMENT OF JESUS”

(Part VII)

QUESTION VII: “WHAT VERSES SAID BY JESUS IN THE CANONICAL GOSPELS MAY ALLUDE TO THE PREMISE THAT IT WAS GOD’S WILL THAT CHRIST BE SACRIFICED ON THE CROSS FOR THE SINS OF MAN?”

And now we finally get to the crux of the matter. In this section, Mr. Shanbour takes on passages that “atonists” would point to as clear indications by the words of Jesus himself that the atonement doctrine is a valid and true feature of biblical revelation. In the spirit of his thesis, I shall respond to each passage (and his comments thereon) individually.

“‘. . . just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’” (Matt. 20:28; cf. Mark 10:45)

As his first entry, Mr. Shanbour quotes Matthew 20:26-28 and Mark 10:43-45, for which I have only repeated Matthew 20:28 above, being the central verse. This verse ends the passage wherein Jesus was predicting his death for at least the second time. Shanbour correctly acknowledges the Christian position, that the word “ransom” here connotes sacrifice. However, he offers an alternative meaning such that Jesus had devoted his life to “uplift man’s concept and realization of the Father in heaven,” that his life was one of selfless servitude, of which death was merely ancillary. Indeed, he says, it seems “highly possible” that these passages were merely discourses on the part of Jesus to instruct his believers how to live a life of service to his fellow man. He proposes this interpretation in light of Luke 22:26-27, which according to him re-interprets Matthew 20:26-28 and Mark 10:43-45 as such. After all, many scholars consider Luke to have been written after Matthew and Mark, and the Luke passage, while discussing servitude, makes no mention of ransom.

There is just one small problem with Mr. Shanbour’s exegesis. Luke 22:26-27 is not a parallel passage of Matthew 20:26-28 and Mark 10:43-45, but instead contains words that Jesus had spoken during the Last Supper. Jesus had uttered the words in the Luke passage after a dispute had arisen among the eleven apostles as to which of them was considered to be the greatest (Luke 22:24). The passages in Matthew 20:26-28 and Mark 10:43-45 pertain to when Jesus was correcting the other ten apostles after they had cast their indignation toward James and John Zebedee, which took place prior to his triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Matt. 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-10; Luke 19:29-38) and for which no parallel passage exists in Luke. The reason why the word “ransom” does not appear in Luke 22:26-27 whereas it does in Matthew 20:26-28 and Mark 10:43-45 is that they were two different conversations, with different circumstances, in which Jesus chose to illustrate a similar theme with different emphases. Therefore, the Luke passage is not a “rewrite” of those found in Matthew and Mark.

Another problem with Mr. Shanbour’s alternative interpretation is the word “ransom” itself, which is translated from the Greek word lutron, meaning “something to loosen with, i.e., a redemption price.”[1] The only way his interpretation makes sense is if Jesus was considered a living slave to mankind, or an “indentured serf” dedicated to the service of others as he puts it. But this outcome does not make sense, because it implies that Jesus was working off a debt owed to mankind. The obvious question then becomes: what debt is owed to mankind, and who owes it? On the other hand, if Jesus is paying a debt owed by mankind, to whom is the debt being paid off? Remember, man does not owe God a sin debt in Shanbour’s world view, so the debt (of undetermined currency) must be owed somebody else. Or as Mr. Shanbour puts it: “If ransom were being used to ‘pay back’ God . . ., this would be illogical.” So to whom was the debt being paid, anyway?

As far as Judas being labeled a “hero” for propagating “God’s will” goes, by this logic we should paint Satan, Pharoah, Nebuchadnezzar, Pilate, Herod, the Sanhedrin, the Romans, Apollyon, and the Antichrist as heroes to boot. Or we can recall that God is omniscient (that is, He sees all things, including the means as well as the ends, and allows them for His ultimate purpose).

Endnote 24: Although many agree that Mark is the oldest of the four Gospels, Mr. Shanbour’s tendency to set late dates for the writing of the Gospels is by no means based on the view held by a majority of scholars. Many place the date of Mark as early as the early 50’s, while Matthew and Luke were likewise written in the late 50’s or early 60’s. See, for instance, Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, 4th Ed. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1990); Donald Guthrie, D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo, and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992); and Carsten Peter Thiede and Matthew D’Ancona, Eyewitness to Jesus: Amazing New Manuscript Evidence about the Origin of the Gospels (New York: Doubleday, 1996).

“‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.’” (Matt. 26:28)

The next set of canonical Gospel passages that Mr. Shanbour attempts to rescue from atonement dogma is Matthew 26:26-28, Mark 14:22-24, and Luke 22:19-20, which are parallels of Jesus’ observance of the Last Supper. (Again, I have only repeated the most pertinent verse from Matthew above for brevity.) Shanbour again acknowledges that the above verse speaks in favor of atonement if taken at face value. However, he prefers to interpret the body of Christ as symbolizing “truth” and his blood as “forgiveness.” These symbols are in turn to be rendered as representing the promise of the Holy Spirit (that is, the Spirit of Truth) and the promise for the forgiveness of sins (reminding us in Endnote 28 of Matt. 6:14, Mark 11:25, and Luke 6:37, which were used during his “forgive to be forgiven” session). However, I see no basis whatsoever from the canonical Gospel words of Jesus (nor from any other source within Scripture, for that matter) to make these roundabout inferences. I must therefore surmise that Shanbour is basing his interpretation on mere conjecture. And weak conjecture at that. (Not unlike the following example: Time is money, and talk is cheap; therefore, I shouldn’t give you the time of day for all the money in the world.)

To bolster his baseless interpretation, Mr. Shanbour again attempts to set a date of infamy in which the offensive doctrine of sacrifice invaded humanity. This time, the culprit is the emperor Constantine, with his “novel” approach to spread the Christian message in the 4th century by way of pedaling the cross icon to the masses. However, Shanbour will have to go much further back in time than Constantine and place the burden of responsibility for invoking the cross as the symbol of Christian sacrifice squarely on the lips of Jesus himself: “‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me’” (Matt. 16:24; cf. Matt. 10:38; Mark 8:34; 10:21; Luke 9:23; 14:27).

Endnotes 30, 31, and 32: Just as what Mr. Shanbour attempted to do with the canon of Scripture and the atonement doctrine, these endnotes attempt to “draw out” the evolution of the doctrine of original sin through various historical figures. Only this time, Shanbour attempts a coup within a coup by implying that historical theologians had inadvertently exposed biblical contradictions through their interpretations. In endnote 30, for example, Shanbour states that pre-Augustinian Christianity viewed only the effects of original sin (such as death) and not sin itself as having been inherited from Adam (citing Ezek. 18:20 and Deut. 24:16), whereas Augustine proclaimed that sin itself was inherited through the human sex act (Psalm 51:5). Shanbour is apparently not interested in pointing out to his readers that the Augustinian view is obviously flawed, because Adam and Eve did not have sex until after they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden and their curses for having sinned pronounced (Gen. 4:1). The sin that they had committed (eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) is distinguished from sex, which was a mandate given by God for the purpose of procreation (Gen. 1:28). Would God have commanded them to sin, then turn around and curse them for doing so?

But even if the early Christians did adopt the earlier doctrine as stated, they would have missed the obvious in their interpretation. Ezekiel 18:20 plainly states: “The soul who sins is the one who dies.” The central theme of the passage is distinguishing individual responsibility, and this particular verse clearly places the burden of responsibility on each and every individual person. People are not dying because of the sins that Adam and Eve had committed, but because of the sins they themselves have committed through freewill choice. Neither the consequence of sin (death) nor sin itself are “inherited” from Adam; rather, the capacity to commit sin is nonetheless innate in each and every one of us by virtue of our God-given autonomy. God did not create the evil in us, but nonetheless we choose to do evil. Even Jesus alluded to this fundamental principal quite eloquently (John 3:19).

Endnotes 31 and 32 belabor the subject, to what end I cannot distinguish. However, Mr. Shanbour’s conclusion after taking the reader through a whirlwind tour of historic Christian theology is that many early professed Christians viewed Jesus’ life much as he prefers, as a “‘blueprint’ for personal salvation.” In other words, Jesus is the “way-shower” and not the way-maker in Shanbour’s world, thanks to Pelagius who was right all along. And with all this historical genuflection, Shanbour has once again overstepped his own boundaries (isn’t that just like some people, who reserve the right to change the dimensions of the end zone at will in order to rule that their latest reception was a touchdown?).

“‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. . . . No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.’” (John 10:11,18)

John 10:11-18 is next on Mr. Shanbour’s laundry list, as he forthrightly declares that Jesus was stating these words as a metaphorical description of his devotion to mankind. He is dismayed that “atonists” have misconstrued this passage as “an order from God to Jesus to ‘sacrifice’ himself as an appeasement.” Instead, he appeases the reader to consider the more “sensible” context of the passage, which is the “courageous dedication of Christ’s service to mankind and acknowledgment of his inherent divine nature capable of resurrection through his own determination.” Shanbour’s argument is based on a false dichotomy, which basically claims that if God had “commanded” Jesus to sacrifice himself, then Jesus would not have had the authority to do so voluntarily. But the word “command” in verse 18 is translated from the Greek word entole, meaning “injunction, i.e., an authoritative prescription.” In other words, the proper context is not that of receiving marching orders from the general, but being given the authority to, say, use deadly force at one’s own discretion (to continue the militaristic metaphor). Therefore, the word “command” fits perfectly within the language (and context) of what Jesus was saying: “I have authority . . . received from the Father,” not “I have been ordered by the Father.” Shanbour even alludes to this interpretation himself when he equates the word “command” with “divine gift.” Forcing Jesus to do God’s will would not have given Jesus the room to demonstrate his love for and devotion to the Father, nor would it have allowed God to love Jesus in return. But Shanbour is right about one thing, if only inadvertently: Jesus had the authority to choose not to go through with it, just as all humans have the free will to choose a course of action. But in the end, he ultimately chose to do the will of the Father. And for that we should all be eternally grateful.

Because it is apparently Mr. Shanbours view that God did not require Jesus to die on the cross to atone for man’s sins (nor did God will it), he is left with the task of explaining exactly why Jesus voluntarily went to the cross to suffer only one of the most agonizingly slow forms of death ever concocted by man. His answer is that, since he was fully devoted to serve mankind, it was to further prove his “wholehearted dedication and willingness to submit to the will/laws of man as the ‘Son of Man.’ Thus he chose to die as he had lived, as a man.” But seriously, folks, how can this be if Jesus refused to submit to the will and/or laws of man by rebuking those that wanted to catch him in a legalistic blunder? Was he wholeheartedly submitting to the will/laws of man when he picked grain on the Sabbath? Did he uphold man’s will to obey the letter of the law when he stated that a man commits adultery in his heart if he lusts after a woman in his mind? Was he mindful of man’s will when he refused to perform a miracle for the Pharisees and Sadducees? I find Shanbour’s alternative answer to be seriously lacking in credulity.

“Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.’” (Matt. 26:39)

The next passages falling under Mr. Shanbour’s scrutiny (Matt. 26:39,42; Mark 14:35,36; Luke 22:41,42; John 18:10-12) take us to Gethsemane, where we see Jesus asking God for assurance that the task before him was truly what He willed. The question becomes, which task? For Shanbour, the terrible fate that Jesus had to face that night and into the morning was not that he be arrested, beaten, falsely accused, and crucified, but that he merely be arrested. In light of John 18:10-12, it is his heartfelt opinion that the will of God went only this far. Although it was God’s will for Jesus to not resist arrest, it is not so much that He purposed Jesus to be offered up as a sacrifice; He just did not make any attempt to save His Son from having the resultant death sentence being carried out. For the “atonists” to imply that God had pre-ordained Jesus’ sacrifice to cover the sins of others would, as Mr. Shanbour says, “again amount to adding words to the canonical Gospels.”

Now, let me see if I have this right: Mr. Shanbour is saying that the formidable thing that Jesus prayed about all night long (Matt. 26:39-47; Mark 14:35-43; Luke 22:41-47; John 17:1-18:1), was so troubled over that his very soul was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death (Matt. 26:38; Mark 14:34), was weakened by anxiety to such a degree that an angel came down from heaven to give him strength (Luke 22:43), and became so anguished that he sweated drops of blood (Luke 22:44), was that he was going to have to spend some time in the hokey???!!! If this is Mr. Shanbour’s way of saving the best for last, I am not impressed. His statements ultimately lead to this conclusion, for if it was not God’s will that Jesus be crucified, then Jesus was not praying for the strength to face crucifixion, but that he was merely going to be arrested and tried. If, on the other hand as Mr. Shanbour later implies, Jesus had freely chosen to face crucifixion in spite of the fact that it was not God’s will, then he had no reason to ask God whether it be His will, for God’s will would apparently have had no bearing on his decision. Does Mr. Shanbour not see the corner he as painted himself into?

Mr. Shanbour’s “more plausible” explanation for the Father not wanting Jesus to flee from or resist arrest is that Jesus’ mission on earth had already been completed. The arrest was not a prelude to fulfilling the role as the Lamb of God, but God’s acquiescence thereto was His way of calling Jesus to “come home.” He builds his case based on the fact that Jesus had on several occasions either fled or avoided premature capture, the reason being that he had not yet completed his mission. Indeed, it is obvious to Shanbour that Jesus had completed his life’s work by the time he was at Gethsemane because we see from John 17:4 that he had so much as stated so during his vigil. Now Shanbour is making even less sense, because in the previous paragraph, he was stating that God wanted Jesus to be arrested but not killed as a result thereof, whereas now he is implying that God did want him arrested and subsequently killed in order for him to “come home.” Which way is Mr. Shanbour headed, anyway?

Regardless of which way he prefers to go from here, I’m afraid this logic works against Shanbour, because if Jesus had already completed the work set out for him prior to his prayer at Gethsemane, there would have been no need for him to go to Gethsemane in the first place, much less linger there long enough to be arrested. If it was God’s will for Jesus to “come home” right then and now after having completed his mission, he could have just as easily slipped off under cover of night after the Last Supper (or prior to, depending on exactly what it is he did to have completed his mission) and walked off in any direction out of town alone with a coin purse and let bandits have their way with him as he resisted their pilfering advances. (Such a passive/aggressive strategy, while avoiding suicide, would not be unlike waiting to be arrested in Gethsemane and later uttering those words that infuriated the Sanhedrin to the point that they wanted him crucified.) Or, if God wanted Jesus to “come home” but the calling was not so urgent, he could have simply traveled to some remote area such as Mesopotamia and lived out a quiet life until natural causes took their course. Either of these fates would have been much easier to face than crucifixion (and much more pleasing to God than leaving the false impression to humankind that he had been offered up as a human sacrifice under the deplorable auspices of Jewish ritual, eh Mr. Shanbour?).

In support of his position, Shanbour reminds the reader that we are all endowed with the gift of freewill choice, and even point out several examples in the Bible where human decisions were allowed to take their natural course of outcome without divine intervention. And God, being no respecter of persons, held to this divine mandate in the case of Jesus by not interfering with the consequences that were thrust upon His own Son once he fell into the hands of evil men. And as Mr. Shanbour so eloquently puts it: “The Heavenly Father is truly consistent within himself and does not play favorites.” Now, I find this attribute Shanbour has concocted on behalf of the Father quite perplexing, because at the beginning of his treatise he made use of the very verse that contradicts this notion outright: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matt. 17:5; cf. Mark 9:7, Luke 9:35). Has Mr. Shanbour forgotten already? And did he not clearly state that this divine endorsement set Jesus apart as God’s exclusive spokesperson since no other person had ever been given such kudos, and that we should pay no attention to any human authors of self-ascribed divine authority? It seems that God did have a favorite after all, by Shanbour’s own admission.

As a final note on this issue, Mr. Shanbour states that the divine Jesus genuinely experienced what it was like to be a material creature “by living and dying as a man.” What exactly does this mean? Does it mean that Jesus was obligated to experience death in order to know the full spectrum of mortal existence? Where does it say that in the canonical Gospels? Does it mean that every male human that has not died by way of crucifixion did not die a real man’s death? If Jesus had died because he had minimally defended himself against robbers or as a result of old age, would this have placed his manhood in question? This statement, whatever it means, does not add any credence to Shanbour’s claim that Jesus’ mode of death was not God-ordained. It merely states the obvious: that death is a part of living the mortal life. And unless Mr. Shanbour can provide a Gospel verse in defense of this statement (or I will accept any verse from any portion of the Bible on this issue), it does not apply to the divine Jesus, who no doubt could have blinked himself out of the situation at any time without subjecting himself to the sting of death.

“‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’” (John 3:16)

Last, but not least, Shanbour dangles a favorite verse of Christianity and challenges anybody to find words such as “sacrifice” or “wrath” therein. And just as he has done in a previous section, Mr. Shanbour expresses his disdain toward those darned “atonists” for creating their own interpretation by adding words to the text that simply are not there, while at the same time granting himself license to do the very same thing: “A simple and more appropriate interpretation . . . would state that . . . whoever believes in him and his teachings shall not perish but have eternal life” (emphasis added). I have already commented on this tactic.