Fundamental to Christian theology, particularly a theology based on the writings of the Apostle Paul, is that "salvation" from sin and, consequently, eschatological "ruin" (the middle verb apollumai [Romans 2:12; 1 Corinthians 1:18; 8:11; 15:18; 2 Corinthians 2:15; 4:3; 2 Thessalonians 2:10]) comes only by God's "grace" (charis). As John Barclay has recently demonstrated, Paul consistently uses the term "grace" to refer* to an unconditioned, indeed incongruous gift, one based on the Gift par excellence, i.e., Christ, and given without regard to the perceived or, indeed, actual worth of the recipients who, in the nature of the case, are undeserving of such divine favor.** Another helpful aspect of the "conceptual grammar" of Paul's theology of grace had previously been articulated by Anthony Thiselton, who declared "fundamental" the notion that "someone else has done something for us that we are incapable of doing for ourselves.***
Paul indeed used the term "grace" as a handy summary term to refer to the complex of ideas associated with both God's gracious act in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ and the saving effects of that act (cf. Romans 5:15-21; 2 Corinthians 8:9).**** Indeed, since the apostle himself is able to summarize what he calls the traditional "gospel" in terms of the theological significance of Christ's death and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:3-5), this gospel itself is not incorrectly described as, fundamentally, a gospel of grace.
This notion that the "good news" about Christ is, at its heart, a message about God's gracious initiative is, of course, ingrained in the consciousness and worldview of those who, like I, have been raised and trained in Protestant orthodoxy―so much so, indeed, that the unimaginable glories of this conception are too often taken for granted. This was brought home to me a couple of weekends ago as I reread Simon Gathercole's helpful little book, Defending Substitution,***** one of the chapters of which is devoted to 1 Corinthians 15:3 and its affirmation that "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures."
The importance of 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, especially verses 3-5, for an understanding of the Christian faith must not be minimized, not least because Paul explicitly claims the message summarized here is one he himself received, most likely two years after his conversion when he first made his way to Jerusalem (Galatians 1:18-19), as authoritative tradition.****** In other words, this message, which the apostle deems "of first importance" (en prōtois, v. 3), is not a peculiarity of his own teaching or creative imagination, but rather is the theological bedrock of the "Christian movement" as a whole. In short, this "gospel" consists of the historical events of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, theologically interpreted as the climax and fulfillment of God's saving designs adumbrated in the Old Testament scriptures.
For our present purposes, I will focus only on the first half of the formulation: "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures" (Gk. Christos apethanen hyper tōn hamartiōn hēmōn kata tas graphas). This summary statement of the atoning significance of Christ's death******* clearly defines the significance of Jesus' death in terms of expiation. Jesus' death dealt with our sins or "removed them" in the sense that it expunged the guilt and liability to judgment resulting from the sins we have committed.******** Most shockingly, most assuredly not least to the former Pharisee Paul, this expiatory, Messianic death is said to have taken place "according to the Scriptures." While many have surmised that the Fourth Servant Song of Isaiah 40-55 (i.e., Isa 52:13-53:12) is in view here,********* the phrase, at the very least, indicates that the Old Testament scriptures as a whole provide the lens through which we are able to understand the significance of Jesus’ death.**********
What interests me, however, is what we might term the "conceptual grammar" of the notion of expiation, particularly as it applies to the death of Christ. Gathercole (70-71) facilitates this by pointing to a number of Old Testament texts, primary among them being an instructive example found in 1 Kings 16:***********
When Zimri saw that the city was taken, he went into the citadel of the king’s house; he burned down the king’s house over himself with fire, and died―because of the sins that he committed, doing evil in the sight of the Lord … (1 Kings 16:18-19, NRSV).
Compare the LXX of the highlighted words with the confession quoted by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:3:
- [Zimri] apethanen hyper tōn hamartiōn autou hōn epoiēsen
- [Christ] apethanen hyper tōn hamartiōn hēmōn
Zimri died as a consequence of the sins he committed in the sense that death was the penalty incurred for his transgressive acts. Likewise, it is salutary to realize, as Thiselton reminds us, that the terms "cross" and "crucifixion" belong to the conceptual domain of punishment for crimes committed.************ Accordingly, Christ died as a theological consequence of our sins because, by implication―and, as was said about the Isaianic "servant" in Isaiah 53:4―he bore the sins we had committed. As Paul says elsewhere, this death was an act of God in Christ "reconciling" the world and "not counting their trespasses against them" (2 Corinthians 5:19). Christ's death "for our sins" thus spares us, who had committed them, from the theological consequences we had thereby earned. In other words, because Christ died for our sins, we will not die for them.
This, of course, speaks eloquently of God's grace. We, who are inveterate sinners, are unworthy of the favor shown us on the cross. Moreover, as people "dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1), this act of divine grace does for us what we could never do for ourselves. What we don't often remember, and which Gathercole reminds us, is that Christ's death "for our sins" runs counter to the Torah itself:
Parents shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their parents; only for their own crimes may persons be put to death (Deuteronomy 24:16, NRSV)
ouk apothanountai pateres hyper teknōn kai huioi ouk apothanountai hyper paterōn hekastos tēi heautou hamartiai apothaneitai (Deuteronomy 24:16 LXX)
"In this sense," Gathercole wryly notices, "Christ's death is not according to the Scriptures."************* Note also Jeremiah 31:29-30, which, using Deuteronomic language, speaks of the days when the people would be restored after their return from exile:
In those days they shall no longer say:
"The parents have eaten sour grapes,
and the children's teeth are set on edge."
But all shall die for their own sins (hekastos en tēi heautou hamartiai apothaneitai); the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes will be set on edge (Jeremiah 31:29-30 [38:29-30 LXX], NRSV)
Here lies one aspect of the unimaginable glory of the gospel of God's grace in Christ. The "biblical" position, as articulated in the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings, is that each person dies as a consequence of his or her own sins. In other words, we die for our sins. The "good news" of the saving righteousness and grace of God, on the other hand, adumbrated by the mysterious words about the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, is that Christ died for our sins so that we don't have to. This, as Gathercole says, is a "miracle."************** And so it is. Soli Deo Gloria!
*One must be careful, of course, to avoid the so-called word/concept fallacy that attributes such a theological conception to the use of the noun charis itself. Indeed, charis itself means simply a benevolent, non-obligatory act, favor, or gift to another person (cf. BDAG, 1079). Paul's theological usage of the term is another matter.
**John M. G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift (Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2015); idem, Paul and the Power of Grace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020). Barclay helpfully demonstrates Paul's uniqueness by showing how the term charis was normally used with reference to gifts given to recipients whose worthiness of such beneficence was assumed, with the further assumption of reciprocity in the context of the dominant Roman patronage system. Confusion has arisen in much Protestant thinking by referring to "saving" or "justifying" grace as "unconditional," with the implication that such "free" grace comes with "no strings attached" or subsequent obligations for the one so gifted. Such can hardly be said to be the view of the Apostle Paul. What "free grace" means, if the expression is to have any Pauline salience, is, as Barclay has shown, that grace is unconditioned, given without any prior contribution or worthiness of the recipient.
***Anthony C. Thiselton, The Hermeneutics of Doctrine (Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2007) 311 (italics his).
****Rudolf Bultmann's discussion of "Grace as Event" remains helpful in this regard. Cf. his Theology of the New Testament, 2 vols. (trans. Kendrick Grobel; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1951-55) 1:288-92.
*****Simon Gathercole, Defending Substitution: An Essay on Atonement in Paul (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2015).
******This is made clear by his use of the terms paredōka ("I passed on") and parelabete/parelabon ("you received"/"I received") in verse 3. For a full discussion of this paragraph with reference to its importance for defining the "gospel," see my earlier post here.
*******BDAG, 1030, renders the prepositional phrase "in order to atone for [our] sins" or "to remove them."
********Cf. Murray J. Harris, "Prepositions and the Theology of the New Testament," NIDNTT, s.v. hyper. Paul uses the same prepositional construction in Galatians 1:4, where he states that "the Lord Jesus Christ" "gave himself for our sins (tou dontos heauton hyper tōn hamartiōn hēmōn) in order to deliver us from the present evil age." Elsewhere the same thought is expressed via the use of different prepositions: peri (1 Thessalonians 5:10; Gal 1:4 v.l. [P46, Aleph, A, D]); dia (Romans 4:25).
*********So, e.g., Gathercole, 64-68, with a helpful chart on page 65. The verbal similarities are not exact, which provides a bit of plausible deniability, though it would be hard to deny conceptual similarities, despite the dearth of precise lexical parallels. To my mind, the probability of a connection is increased when one compares the similarly traditional/confessional Romans 4:25 with Isaiah 53:12 LXX:
- Isaiah 53:12 dia tas hamartias paredothē (“[who] was handed over because of our sins”)
- Romans 4:25 hos paredothē dia ta paraptōmata hēmōn ("who was handed over because of our trespasses")
**********Cf. C. K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (HNTC; New York: Harper & Row, 1968) 338-41. Thiselton adds, "The Old Testament texts and life of Israel provide the public horizons of understanding in terms of which the vocabulary and language uses of the New Testament that relate to the work of Christ can be understood" (The Hermeneutics of Doctrine, 324).
************Thiselton, The Hermeneutics of Doctrine, 309-11. On this, cf. especially Martin Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Cross, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977).
*************Gathercole, 71. The point holds whether the intended sense is of family members dying as substitutes in judgment or in solidaric consequences of others' sins.
**************Gathercole, 75.
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