Atonement: Solution to a Problem

This is commentary on this week’s Sabbath School Study, Lesson 2, Cosmic Crisis: The Disruption of God's Established Order.

The primary problem of this week’s set of lessons is the assumptions on which is based, that there are significant passages in the Bible that provide details of Satan’s fall and how sin came to exist. The two passages discussed in Sunday and Monday’s lessons are Ezekiel 28:14-17 and Isaiah 14:12-14.

For various reasons Seventh-day Adventists have historically taken these two passages as referring to Satan. Here is what the IVP Bible Background Commentary, Old Testament has to say about it:

Ezekiel 28:16-17. Satan Connection. From early on in church history there has been an interpretive tradition understanding his passage as an account of the fall of Satan. Though this same type of interpretation in Isaiah 14 was fervently denied by well-respected exegetes such as John Calvin (who bluntly ridiculed it), it has persisted into modern times. From a background standpoint, it must be noted that Satan is never portrayed as either being a cherub or being with the cherub in the garden in any passage of Scripture. Furthermore, Israel’s understanding of Satan was far more limited than that found in the New Testament. Even in Job [ed., which the lesson brings up in Wednesday’s lesson], Satan is not a personal name but a function (see comment on Job 1:6). “Satan” does not become identified as the personal name of the chief of demons until about the second century B.C., and he does not take up his position as the source and cause of all evil until the unfolding of Christian doctrine. Consequently, the Israelites could not have understood this passage in this way, and no New Testament passage offers a basis for departing from the Israelite understanding of it. In the context, it is a metaphorical description of the high stewardship entrusted to the prince of Tyre (as significant as the cherub’s role in the garden). Rather than treating this sacred trust with reverence and awe, he exploited it to his own benefit – as if the cherub of the garden had opened a roadside fruit stand. He was therefore discharged from his position, relieved of his trust and publicly humiliated.¹

In regards to Job 1:6, the same IVP BBC OT reads

Satan. It is important to note that the term here, satan (literally, “the accuser”), is preceded in Hebrew by the definite article (“the”). Thus, in the context of Job it appears to describe a function rather than serving as a proper name…²

Finally the same IVP BBC OT in the commentary on Isaiah 14 notes that the rebellion described there bears resemblance to a number of Near East stories that probably existed when Isaiah was writing.³ Isaiah, in order to convey his message, may simply have been borrowing themes and words from already existing literature of his time.

Once we get to the New Testament, Jesus’ words and the authors make clear that there is indeed an evil being that is named Satan. It is only towards the very end of the New Testament, in Revelation 12:7-9 where a clear connection is made between Satan and a brief description of how he ended up in this world.

What all this tells me is that details and the origin of the being we know today as Satan is inconclusive, when only Scripture is used. In other words, we ought to be careful that we don’t base any of our teachings and doctrine that requires the myth (I use this term in the proper, literary sense, rather than the pejorative sense) of Lucifer and Satan to be 100% accurate, true, and precise.

Regardless of the origins of Satan and how evil came to be, even if Satan is primarily a designation and representation for sin and evil in the world, the world has a problem: sin. The early church fathers saw the Atonement as the solution to the sin problem. Irenaeus responds to the question: For what purpose did Christ come down from heaven? “That He might destroy sin, overcome death, and give life to man.”⁴

Sin is not just some legal issue. In fact the breaking of any law is the natural consequence of sin that already occurred. Sin is the state of a created being who is no longer in proper relationship to the Creator. Because the Creator is Life, sin is also death. To be redeemed is to experience the at-one-ment, to return to a proper relationship, to be delivered from the state of bondage to sin and death, and back into a state of fellowship and life under love and liberty.⁵

George R. Knight writes, “The Bible pictures SIN as a relational concept. SIN is a way we relate to God. SIN at its most basic level is not some impersonal evil or residual animal behavior or bad trait built into human character. Rather, it is rebellion against the God of the universe…”⁶

I have one other quibble with the study guide. It’s found in Thursday where it begins, “There are two words used by Ezekiel…” and then continues in the next paragraph, “The word translated ‘trade’ also could be rendered ‘slander,’ suggesting that in heaven Lucifer was involved in raising false accusations against God and probably other heavenly beings.”

Now, I don’t read Hebrew, but I can look at concordances and dictionaries. According to what I’ve found, although the words “trade” and “slander” mentioned above are related in the Hebrew language, one is not a direct replacement for the other. The argument given in Thursday’s lesson seems to me to be a bit of a  stretch.

I have two recommendations for additional comments and study on this week’s lesson:

• Spectrum’s Sabbath School discussion
• Walla Walla University’s Good Word discussion

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¹The IVP Bible Background Commentary, Old Testament. InterVarsity Press, 2000. p. 715.

²ibid., p. 495.

³ibid., pp. 603-4.

⁴Quoted in Aulen, Gustaf. Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement, WIPF an STOCK Publishers, 2003 edition. p. 19.

⁵ibid., pp. 23-25.

⁶Knight, George R. I Used to be Perfect: A Study of Sin and Salvation, 2nd ed., Andrews University Press, 2001. p. 19.