Speculative Reflections on Atonement, Punishment, and Guilt: Part 4, The Suffering Servant

Okay, so I want to start making a turn toward Christology in this serial speculation. We'll start with Isaiah 53.

In the last post, I described how Israel is saved from high-handed sin, enduring a penalty and bearing her guilt after she had been cut off from the Lord. This vision is that of a punishment becoming exhausted, a term of service having been completed.

And yet, the vision of Isaiah 53 is that of a "Suffering Servant" who is the one who, as Israel's representative, endures the punishment and serves the term. This is well-trod territory. But the point I'd like to make is how the Suffering Servant is restoring Israel from high-handed sin. I think many readers of Isaiah 53 assume the framework is the Day of Atonement. The rupture, however, is more severe. The rebellion has been high-handed and, as a consequence, falls outside of the sacrificial system. The Suffering Servant isn't offering atonement for insiders but bearing the guilt and punishment for those who have been cut off because of their contemptuous, high-handed rebellion. Such a restoration isn't envisioned by the Levitical system.

Let's look at the text from this framework.

First, why consider this a case of high-handed sin? A critical line comes from verse 8:

For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.

This isn't a cultic moment, a sacrificial gathering around the tabernacle or temple. The sinner has been "cut off" from the land of the living. This is the high-handed sinner of Numbers 15. Following from Numbers 15, we don't see the mercy and forgiveness of atonement but "bearing the guilt" of divine chastisement:

Surely he has borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases,
yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.

Again, this isn't sacrificial, cultic, or atonement imagery. This is bearing one's own guilt, bearing one's own infirmities, carrying one's own diseases, wounded for one's own transgression, crushed for one's own iniquities. The vision isn't of atonement, but of a punishment that, after its term, come to an end.

This all might sound familiar, but everything is being cast in a slightly different light. 

For example, am I describing here "penal substitutionary atonement"? Well, not quite. Recall from the first post in this series, atonement doesn't restore a lost relation but maintains a relation. Atonement was a part of the Levitical system, the means that allowed the sinful community to maintain proximity to God in light of God's holiness. Atonement is not the vision of Isaiah 53. The vision is of something that Leviticus doesn't even imagine, the restoration of the high-handed sinner. In that vision, as seen in the story of David and in the prophetic vision of Israel's resurrection, the sinner bears their own guilt, serving the full term of the punishment. In the imagination of Isaiah 53, the Suffering Servant stands in as Israel's representative to bring Israel's punishment to its completion. The Suffering Servant "bears the guilt" of the high-handed sinner, restoring the sinner to the covenantal relation. In the language of Hosea, those who were Not My People are restored to My People. In the imagination of Ezekiel, the dead bones come back to life.

I've described this restoration as eucatastrophic, borrowing from Tolkien, because the restoration we're beholding comes from beyond the Levitical imagination. 

I think this clarifies some of the confusions about penal substitutionary atonement. As many have noted, Levitical atonement was never "forensic" or "penal." Nor was atonement "substitutionary." This is true! The goats and bulls were not being "punished" in the place of the Israelites. Nor were the "lost" being "saved." As I've described in this series, what was being provided on the Day of Atonement was cultic decontamination, life (blood) wiping away sin and death. There was nothing forensic or substitutionary about the ritual, only the provision of the necessary decontamination to allow a sinful community to remain in relation and proximity to God.

In contrast, the vision of restoration in Isaiah 53 isn't Levitical, cultic, or priestly. The action is not happening at the Mercy Seat. Therefore, the vision of Isaiah 53 isn't a vision of "atonement." And yet, a vicarious substitution that restores and heals is being described. This isn't penal substitutionary atonement, since it's not a cultic activity, but a wholly new and radical vision: A figure who willingly leaves the camp to suffer the curses of separation and death in order to save and restore the high-handed sinners. This trans-Levitical restoration seems to be what Hebrews is envisioning when it describes Christ as dying "outside the camp." 

So: Does this contrast between atonement and Isaiah 53 rearrange any of our debates about penal substitutionary atonement? 

Maybe? 

(Remember, I thinking out loud here over the keyboard.) 

Here's a question: Is God punishing the wasteland? Is God punishing those who choose to live in the wasteland? It would be strange to think so. The wasteland is cursed, and so are those who choose to live there. But that curse is simply the natural consequence of being found outside the cultic oasis of the camp, the safe space carved out by the sacrificial system around the presence of God. 

So, if Jesus goes outside the camp, into the demonic wasteland, which is the land of Sin and Death, we would consider him “cursed” and observe him being “cut off from the land of the living.” We would watch him suffer demonic assault outside the camp. We would watch him die. All because he had stepped away from the sustaining and protective presence of God. He would be “bearing the guilt” of those found outside the camp, as either vicarious replacement, search crew, or both. And crucially for my purposes, we don’t need to think of that guilt- and curse-bearing as being inflicted by God. It’s just the spatio-sacrificial reality of seeking and saving those found “outside the camp,” the experience of existence exposed and unprotected by the presence of God.