The Good News of The Jews: Atonement

The offering of the body of Yehoshua HaMashiach once for all was and is a corporate offering. It is a self-sacrificing offering of the death of the Righteous, the Tzaddik. As such an offering, it is made upon the behalf of Israel. It is made on behalf of Israel because Israel is the measure of God's claim upon Humanity, that is, upon Adam corporately. The offering is a confession and affirmation of the sentence of God decreed upon Adam should Adam sin, "In the day you eat thereof, you will die completely."

Insomuch that the Tzaddik, the Righteous One, should make such a confession, he does so as a prayer. His words are prayer. His action, of submitting freely to God's sentence of death upon the sinner, is no less a prayer. As this is so for every tzaddik, it is true most of all for the True Tzaddik who, by submitting freely to the sentence of death, offers, on behalf of Adam, a confession of the righteousness and justice of God's sentence of death decreed upon Adam. In this the offering is a corporate offering. How does the Tzaddik do this? It cannot be according to the mind of the sinner. That is to say, it cannot be the idea of the sinner that this confession be offered to God, so as to influence God. Any possible pardon then would be justification of the sinner as a sinner. Not only would God not justify the guilty, but then the sinner could not be justified in the righteousness of the grace and mercy of God. Rather, the Tzaddik who would justify life for the world must do so according to the mind of God. His act is in obedience to God's own thoughts concerning his justice and his mercy. These are God's thoughts that Adam should be redeemed, first as the seed of the woman, then also as the woman. This is the mind of the Creator revealed in his claim upon Israel, who is first the one who is the True Tzaddik of all generations, the seed of Abraham and then also Abraham, first the heir of Isaac and then Isaac, first the heir of Jacob and then Jacob, first the Seed of the Woman and then Israel. This is corporate redemption. This is the redemption of Israel, the mother of the seed, who when redeemed is made a new creation as a bride to the Redeemer. In this corporate redemption, and in this the first man and all the families of the earth are also to be redeemed through blessing themselves in Abraham, Isaac and Israel.

"One of the cornerstones of Christian theology is that the only way to achieve atonement for sins is through the offering of a sacrifice whose blood is shed in our place. The Greek Testament makes this very clear in Hebrews 9:22 '…without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.'” [See full article, title: Leviticus 17:11 | Jews For Judaism]

Mahx Note:

This quote does not necessarily represent a correct understanding. See note above: "Corporate Atonement Through The Tzaddik". The operative words here are "shed in our place". The intended meaning is clearly that there is a substitution in the punishment itself. One person deserves a punishment and instead of that person being punished another person is punished. This is the idea that is being disputed. The idea that there is a sharing of the punishment with the Tzaddik, the Righteous One, through corporate representation, which leads to atonement, is not considered here. Corporate atonement through The Tzaddik is the revelation of God and dismisses the former idea more surely than does the reasoning of the essayist who is writing here for Jews for Judaism. While not being identical in expression with Paul's statements about corporate atonement in Romans and other places, other statements within Judaism can be found which teach about atonement through the Tzaddikim., righteous ones. For example, in Rabbi Luzzato's Mishkney Elyon, speaking of the first, (the lower), of the two levels of the spiritual Temple Above, we read the following:

This is the Sanctuary of the 'lad', [the angel] whose name is Metatron, where he offers the souls of the Tzaddikim in order to atone for Israel during their time of exile" (Bemidbar Rabbah 12:13).

The verse quoted above from Hebrews 9:22 is simply stating that the sentence upon Adam must be carried out and that it is through its being carried out that the consequences of the sin are complete. The sentence is not some mere arbitrary decree. It is the Torah of creation that sin cuts the soul off from God, who is the source of life. That God decreed this law to Adam as a warning and as a sentence, should Adam disobey and sin, only meant that God reserved the right to interpret this rule of Torah in a personal way, should it have to be carried out, as it was there from the foundation in the Torah of creation. In both its aspect as part of the Torah of creation and in its aspect of a sentence of God, revealed as a warning to Adam, it had to be carried out completely.

In saying, "In dying death", or "In dying you shall die", God informed Adam that while he, Adam, was mortal and could die, if he should die in righteousness it would not mean that he would end in death, but if he should die in sin it would mean that he would end in death. This is the meaning of the phrase, "In dying you shall die". Thus, because Adam sinned, in dying Adam had to end in death. Had there not been the seed of the woman, a body prepared for another Adam, in which there was a potential for the redemption of Adam, only death without hope would have awaited all Adam.

When God said, "In the day you eat of it (in dying you will end in death)", He was telling Adam that this change would occur that very day. On that very day when Adam sinned his mortality no longer had within it any possibility of leading to further life. it is this truth of the finality of Adam's mortality should Adam sin, as established in the Torah of creation, that the serpent denied to Eve to be true.

It is this Torah of creation, this decree of the sentence of God for sin, which the serpent denied, that the True Tzaddik, the Seed of the Woman, Yehoshua HaMashiach, confessed to God, through word and action, to be true, on behalf of Israel, for the salvation of Adam. On account of his offering, his prayer, his confession, he is made a new head to his people Israel and, as such, for all Adam. This is corporate redemption and salvation.

“And whatever man of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn among you, who consumes any blood, I will set My face against that person who consumes blood, and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul. Therefore, I say to the children of Israel, `No one among you shall consume blood, nor shall any stranger who sojourns among you consume blood.‘”

The article on Leviticus 17:11 provides the above verses as the context for the statement that it is the blood that serves as the atoning agent, and then goes on to say:

"What should immediately be apparent is that the topic of this passage is not how to secure atonement from sins, but the prohibition against consuming blood. We are told parenthetically that the reason for this prohibition is that the blood contains the vitality of the animal (cf. Genesis 9:4, Deuteronomy 12:23) and consequently, when we bring an animal sacrifice, its blood serves as the atoning agent, and not another part of its body. Since Leviticus 17 doesn’t come to teach us about the principles of atonement, we will have to look elsewhere for the Bible’s most important teaching on how to repair our relationships with G-d."

Mahx Note:

Not just this immediate context, these few verses, but the larger context, beginning with chapter 16 and going all the way through chapter 17 can be read as the context of this statement that it is the blood that serves as the atoning agent. This whole section involves instructions in the service of acceptable sacrifices upon the altar. The final instructions at the end of chapter 17 can be read as underlining the importance of understanding and showing understanding that what is important about those sacrifices is that the blood serves as the atoning agent: therefore do not drink blood, nor shed blood willfully or perversely.

Given that the context can be read in this manner, it does not necessarily follow that we "have to look elsewhere for the Bible's most important teaching on how to repair our relationship with G-d." That is to say, we do not need to think that the only way to understand the Bible on the subject of atonement is through an either/or analysis. We do not need to think that the Bible has to teach that the essential element of atonement is either the shedding of blood or else repentance.

This Jews for Judaism essay is correct in seeing the dominant Gentile Christian theological position as being based on the assertion that a substitutionary blood atonement is primary and atonement through repentance is secondary to this. The position of the essayist is then asserted that it is just the opposite, repentance is all; or rather that there is no actual substitutionary blood atonement and in whatever sense sacrificial blood provides atonement it is not truly essential. Because neither position recognizes that there is a need for corporate atonement, both for Adam and for Israel, as well as a need for personal atonement for the individual Jew and the individual Gentile, the representatives of neither of these positions are able to understand how it is possible for there to be no conflict between blood atonement and atonement based on repentance.

The Torah prescribes sacrifices both in relation to corporate sin and individual sins. In each case the element that gives power to the sacrifice is confession. This is the confession of faith. The confession given with a sacrifice of corporate sin must be given, or led, by a corporate representative and must acknowledge the grace of God in having placed His claim upon the people corporately, and that His justice must be served if His mercy is to be known. The confession of the individual must acknowledge that their right to come before G-d depends upon his grace and mercy toward the people corporately. Any thought of repentance without acknowledgement, through the corporate representative of the people, and through personal confession, that God's justice must be served and that all rapprochement with God depends upon his grace and mercy is presumptive, and is false repentance, a hidden denial that sin actually carries the consequences that God says it carries, an insinuation that God is willing to compromise his Torah. Such presumptive repentance is no less rebellious than the offering of sacrifices without repentance.

Likewise, when the importance of both corporate and personal confession of the justice of God being met is seen, "In the day you eat thereof in dying you will end in death," in order that God might show his mercy in the resurrection of the dead, then also the way that knowing and unknowing transgressions are dealt with and atoned for becomes clearly understood. Only unknowing transgressions can be atoned for by blood because only these are categorically corporate in nature. Wilful, knowing transgressions are categorically personal transgressions and the wilfulness of such acts must be repented of through confession of both the personal and the corporate element in the sin. Through such repentance the sin can be, as it were, turned into, or brought into the category of, an unknowing transgression, wherein the corporate confession atonement through the shedding of blood can be provided.

The Bible does not teach, neither in the Tanakh nor the Apostolic Writings, that the True Tzaddik, the True Righteous One, is offered as a human sacrifice in a pagan substitutionary way. Rather, as Adam's act vainly confessed the lie of the serpent to be true, the Tzaddik's act humbly confessed the word of God to be true. There is a substitutionary element in this but it is on a corporate level. Adam as the corporate head of his family did end in death when he died, and so also all souls created in him and through him. From the day Adam sinned he would never again be the living head of a living Humanity. Yet for the sake of the seed of the woman, a body which God would not allow to be condemned with Adam, for it had no part in their sin, although it was natural that it should be condemned with them, being of them, because of the merit of the one who would come to crush the head of the serpent, God redeemed the dead Adam and made him new. For the promise of the resurrection of the dead is nothing else than a promise of a new creation. There is no pagan substitution to preserve any identity in this creation. But there is a form of substitution in that the Tzaddik who might have condemned the world in virtue of his own righteousness, had it been God's will that he should take the place of the world, instead subjected himself to the will of God to be merciful to the world and re-create it, after that in dying the world ended in death, without remedy. The Tzaddik, therefore, freely subjected himself to that death in order that for the sake of the mercy shown to him mercy might also be shown to the world, in accordance with his prayer for Jerusalem. And in this there is a substitution of the hopelessness of Jerusalem being substituted with the sufferings of her Redeemer, for the sake of the re-creation of Adam and of both the heavens and the earth.

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